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It was an ordinary day in the chantry.
Nobles came and prayed, left with false smiles and lighter pockets.
Poor came and stayed, lingered in the upper levels and slept in the safety of daytime, in the safety of sanctified ground. They kept to themselves, stayed only so long before they bundled themselves back into their worn clothing and left, eyes never meeting anyone else’s.
Pride kept them from accepting food or water, the promise of a bed for the night.
It was the Kirkwall way, apparently, and a way Sebastian was still not used to.
He watched one such man limp his way towards the grand doors, ignoring the smile offered to him by one of the newer sisters. The blanket she held out was ignored too, as was the small bag of provisions.
Sebastian couldn’t fathom why anyone with nothing would turn away something.
He turned back to his reading as the doors closed behind the man, as the sister wilted under the weight of misplaced guilt.
She would learn eventually that aid couldn’t be forced, it had to be wanted in order to be accepted.
He shook the thought from his mind, reread the same paragraph for the tenth time and sighed when Elthina tittered softly as she took her place beside him.
“You are distracted, child,” she muttered, serene smile in place despite the cold that sent her lips dark and left her aged hands shaking.
Sebastian shrugged out of his coat, shifted in his seat enough to wrap the warmth around her shoulders. It swamped the grand-cleric, the fur at its collar all but smothering her head entirely.
It only made her laugh.
“Sister Abigail is having difficulties accepting that the majority of people in Kirkwall don’t want our help, even when they truly need it.”
Elthina sighed, pulled the coat around herself and settled in. When she spoke, her voice was soft so as not to carry, “she is young, and the young are very often stubborn.”
“As set in their ways as the old, some might say.”
“Some might say, yes,” her smile widened, her grey eyes glittering with amusement.
A silence lulled between them, filled the space as he skipped over the paragraph he was stuck on and she closed her eyes to rest.
Time slipped by, pages turned until his book was finished and the cold had settled into his limbs. He set his book aside, pushed to his feet and held back a groan as the blood flowed south, forged its path through his legs and back up and left tingles in its wake.
Elthina chuckled, spied him through the wall of dark fur pulled close to her face, “winter wears on the body, it is good to know it is not solely focused on we of older age.”
“A pity,” Sebastian muttered, and laughed when she narrowed her eyes at him playfully.
He paced, then, back and forth a few times to gain feeling back in his limbs. He flexed his fingers, winced at the audible crack of his knuckles through his gloves.
He wondered if it wasn’t warmer outside.
He turned at the rustle of fabric, watched as Elthina burrowed deeper into his cloak and shivered from her head to her toes.
She smiled when he settled beside her, sat as close as was proper and prayed his body heat would span the remaining distance.
“Don’t mind me, Sebastian, I’ve many winters under my belt and know how best to survive them. A little cold never hurt anyone.”
“A lot could kill you, though,” he muttered, and shook his head when she laughed behind her bundled hands. “Why do you stay up here? Would you not be more comfortable by the fires?”
The look she gave him made him feel like a small child, one that asked simple questions with obvious answers. That he didn’t know the answer already made him feel foolish, as if it were some widely known fact as to why she settled at the highest row of pews on the same day every week without fail.
“Close your mind, Sebastian, and open your ears. Listen, and you will learn why.”
He stared at her a moment, sighed and settled in, settled with his back to the cold wood and his arms crossed over his chest for warmth rather than stance.
Long moments passed, the silence deafening. He slid his eyes to Elthina, and looked away again when the corners of her lips lifted knowingly.
It took long enough that he grew agitated, and then felt shamed by his lack of patience.
When it came, finally, it started as naught but a whisper on the wind.
Elthina closed her eyes, relaxed into the warmth of his cloak and let the gentle melody carry her cares away.
It was slow to gain volume, a soft and shy voice that started with apprehension in its tone and slowly slipped its shell and grew. He listened, let it consume him, and felt his chest constrict when the words seeped in, became more than just pleasant tune but the tale of love lost and the ache it left behind.
It enthralled him, pulled at his mind until everything else slipped away, until nothing beyond that voice, that song, mattered.
One song slipped into another, grew to more until the passing of time meant nothing.
It told tales of battles waged, of secrets kept and secrets sold, it told of fear and heartache, of a love unrequited and lost before it was found. Words and melody painted pictures in his mind and pulled emotions to the surface, emotions he’d long since pushed as deep as he could, emotions he had hoped never to feel again.
When it finally ended, the shroud of sadness slipping away and lifting its woven spell from his mind, he straightened, looked to Elthina and found her smiling softly at him.
“You ask why I come here, and now I think you know. Maybe you even understand. It is an old soul that sings of such sorrow, but a voice such as that could only ever belong to one with youth. Or, at least, I hope so. The thought of someone my age scaling the tower to sit atop its roof to sing is rather distressing.”
She shifted then, made to stand, and smiled more when Sebastian moved to help her up. When she was straightened, she looked up to him, met his eyes with her own and held his gaze, “I’d ask you not to scare away my songbird, Sebastian, she rather makes my days enjoyable and I fear she knows not that her song travels down from her perch in the skies.”
He nodded, helped her to the stairs, down them, and to her new seat by the fires, and when she offered him his coat back, he left it with her and turned for the shadows.
Elthina smiled into the fur lining, eyes trained on the simmering fire, and laughed to herself.
Sebastian was nothing if not predictable.
It was cold outside, the wind low but cutting when it picked up. He nodded to those milling about outside the chantry doors, kept as close to the shadows as he could, and as out of the way as possible.
No one payed him any attention.
He looked about him all the same, and when he found no eyes on him, he turned his gaze skyward, leaned away from the wall and watched, waited.
It was barely a flit of fabric that caught his attention, a shadow on the sleek tiles. He looked again to make sure he was unobserved, and then allowed his curiosity to control him once more.
Learned in the art of stealth and the detection of others who used the craft, he heard the slight fall of cautious steps, a barely there press of leather soles on slick roofing.
He turned to the sound, watched, waited, and smiled softly when he saw the flit of a shadow disappearing around the towers wall.
Sebastian made for the chantry again, wandered its halls with a fond expression on his face. He passed by Elthina, pressed a hand to her shoulder and continued on his path back to the higher pews, cold as they were.
She watched him go, knew the look on his face to be recognition, to be something he would never willingly admit.
Elthina wasn’t so old or pious that she didn’t know the look of love on a man.
And if she smiled at the thought, if she hoped perhaps something would come of it, no one was the wiser.
And Sebastian, with his forgotten book in his lap and his eyes seeing none of the words, thought of the songs he’d heard, the feelings he’d felt, and the long wave of silky black hair he’d seen trailing in the wake of their mysterious songbird’s escape.
Sebastian would keep Elthina’s songbird secret, if only so he could hear Morrigan Hawke sing once more.