Doom Upon All The World

Chapter 19: Claude

She could hear them from the great hall and it broke her heart.

But almost everything that has transpired since Anthony's rejection breaks her heart.  She had been passing through the hall, on her way to check on Pierre when she passed Nicolynn's quarters.  She heard the pleasured moans, the lengthy, heavy breaths, the blissfilled grunts of surprise and pure euphoria.  But when she heard Nicolynn's voice call out to him in that heated, lusty way, so filled with love and pleading, begging him to give her more of himself, Claude broke, snapped, shattered.  "Anthony,"  Nicolynn's drawn voice, the sound of his naked name on her tongue rang in Claude's ears for hours. 

All she could do was sit there and listen. 

She didn't know how to move her legs, to turn her head, to sob in ruin at what defiled her inner ear. 

And it was then, as she sat at the table across from Nicolynn's quarters, that Keiran passed by.  He had been there for her the night that she told Anthony.  She'd run into him and they'd just sat up talking all night. 

When he saw her sitting, leaning in a pool of her own tears and self pity, his face turned to quiet panic and worry.  "Claude?"  He called out to her as he approached.  "What's wrong?"  Then he heard it too.  The noise lingering in the hallway, the creaking of the floor boards, the shuddering of the bed, the exertion of the bodies with in, the sounds they made as they pleasured each other into the night.  "Lynn,"  They heard Anthony call particularly loudly, followed by a hefty moan from the woman he loves.  "Oh, Claude.  No.  Don't listen to that."  He was quickly by her side, his hands over her ears then her cheeks, forcing her to focus on him. 

She saw him clearly for the first time then.  His dark hair had always been exactly as it is now, nearly black and always slicked down, pushed back from his face.  His golden brown eyes reflect his mother's but also those of King Alistair Theirin, his father.  They're softer than his mother's, not near as menacing.  "Come with me."  He grips her wrist and pulls her along with him down and out of the hall through the garden to the second floor of the South East tower of Skyhold. 

Immediately her breath is taken from her lungs.  The view is magnificent.  She guessed that you could see all of the Frostbacks from there.  Her hand went to her mouth even as more tears came.  "This is where I come to think."  He told her, standing back from her, watching her carefully.

Her eyes moved from the beautiful seen out the window, back to Kieran as she absorbed what he said.  "The goal is to not think, Kieran.  It only hurts to think about it."  She wraps her arms around herself, squeezing, trying to make herself smaller.  He takes a step in her direction.  "Then don't."  He shrugs and Claude observes him briefly. 

He looked regal, standing there, cascaded in raw sunlight.  In that moment, her perspective of him changed.  She saw the man that stood up to his own blood, that raised a group of children that had all been orphaned, that loved them unconditionally over the years.  She saw the courage, the nobility, the bravery in his heart.  She saw him, for the first time, as he's meant to be seen. 

His battle-hardened figure was doused in the forest light.  His muscles were defined beautifully by the shadow of the room.  His eyes bore into her and she could feel the power, the mana and stamina radiating off of his mage's body.  She yearned very suddenly to know what it felt like to be wrapped up in it. 

She strided to him slowly, her hips swaying as she took in his features.  She'd always wondered why he was so closed off, so wise looking and different from them.  Though Kieran is only a few years older than her, he was much better at hiding his feelings.  It made him seem less human. 

"Did you know that my father was more than decade older than my mother?"  She asked, her fingers brushing the fabric of her dresses collar, making him look down lower only briefly.  His expression stayed the same.  "Twelve years and three months, to be exact."  Claude smiled barely and looked up at him.  "They had this banter between themselves.  He'd call himself an old man and tell her she could do better, younger, than him.  She'd come back with something like,  "Yes, Love. But I could never sacrifice experience for age and beauty."  She'd pull him close and I'm sure that's how I ended up with twin sisters."  Her smile was wide and purposeful.