“Always,” Stephen says, and it’s the truth. There are unexpected echoes of their encounter after Granitefell in the gesture, as he picks his way across broken timber (once shattered glass in a Hightown parlour) and finds his way to Gwenaëlle’s side and settles on the floor.
(For him, Granitefell had been worse. Even in the cold hard numbers for Riftwatch itself, Granitefell had been worse. And they recovered from Granitefell. Which also begs the question, if they could deploy the time machine once more— but Wysteria’s in Orzammar and Tony’s gone and they’re out of dragon blood and it’s too many variables besides, too many butterflies furiously flapping their wings and setting this inexorable trainwreck on this path. How do they stop the coup all the way over in Minrathous? How do they stop all those outposts being hit at once? They can’t.)
So. In this particular miserable timeline, Stephen sits down beside her again, comfortably cross-legged as if he’s about to meditate, and picks up the one thread she’d dangled for him.
“Who was Anders?”
He remembers hearing the name in the announcement.
no subject
(For him, Granitefell had been worse. Even in the cold hard numbers for Riftwatch itself, Granitefell had been worse. And they recovered from Granitefell. Which also begs the question, if they could deploy the time machine once more— but Wysteria’s in Orzammar and Tony’s gone and they’re out of dragon blood and it’s too many variables besides, too many butterflies furiously flapping their wings and setting this inexorable trainwreck on this path. How do they stop the coup all the way over in Minrathous? How do they stop all those outposts being hit at once? They can’t.)
So. In this particular miserable timeline, Stephen sits down beside her again, comfortably cross-legged as if he’s about to meditate, and picks up the one thread she’d dangled for him.
“Who was Anders?”
He remembers hearing the name in the announcement.