#Wilfred Free | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

charrfie · 3 months ago

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i need to so badly know your opinions/thoughts on wilfre and sock

Unsure if this is the same dtl anon as before, but either way HELLO AND THANK YOU FOR BEING CURIOUS!!!!! I would be more than happy to share! Because the phrasing of this ask was pretty vague, I winded up writing a multiple page essay in an attempt to cover everything wilfre/sock related. So it's all under a read more. That being said, if I've not covered something you were specifically curious about, let me know. I have a million more thoughts on the two (or the whole game!) I'd be happy to share. Here's an additional drawing I made to accompany everything :^]

For those unfamiliar with the drawn to life series, please be warned MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW!!!!

So, to get into it! I figured I would start with the very basics: wilfre, sock, and the rest of his forms. A lot of folks have different interpretations on the intricacies between wilfre and his disguises! I'm a believer in the fact that they *are* all the same person (in contrast to how some people believe them to be disguises created from stolen appearances/stolen bodies)... but different facets of this same person. Essentially, normal raposa wilfre was a wholly fleshed out being, and every other form he takes exaggerates various traits of his. Flanderization, I guess, but only to a certain degree. Shadow wilfre is an elevation of his more sadistic tendencies, sock is an elevation of his cowardice, and salem is an elevation of his mystery/flair for the dramatic. Granted this is a fairly barebones description of the way his forms worm since I do believe there to be more to these characters and their behaviors, but what I've said already gets my point across well enough for a generalized "what are your thoughts" type of question. Though I will say, sock's spotlight on cowardice is especially interesting to me considering- at least from what I've seen- wilfre's character being largely dictated by his own fear is not something focused on often by fans; it's much more common for you to see him just being cool and evil. We'll come back to this.

Another thing that comes from my belief of them all being the same person is that wilfre absolutely *did* design his separate forms with conscious intent (with an exception of shadow wilfre, which was likely only natural corruption of his form following his exposure to shadow). It speaks so heavily for who he is as a creative!! He likes being a little edgy and snobby- hence salem's design- and he also doesn't think too far ahead sometimes- hence sock's name, which absolutely had to be something he thought of on the spot! So many hints at who he is as an individual outside of "the antagonist" are hidden away in small details like that.

Now, with that out of the way, back to the topic of wilfre's fear!

In the first game, his sights are not set nearly as high as they are in the sequel. He chooses to spread shadow over the whole world as an effort to fix what the creator ruined; he WILL take matters into his own hands and bend the world how he pleases if it means a reality "done better." While there may have originally been truth in such a goal, his reasoning is slightly disingenuous considering it's more of a rebellion than an instance of wanting to actually better the world (due to his inability to ACTUALLY fix things how he wishes he could). Wilfre has a habit of convincing himself he's correct though, so it makes sense why it pans out this way. The writing of the first game makes it out to be a lot more malicious and pointlessly evil than dtl:tnc. Sort of always seemed flat and boring to me in how it's presented so I tend to have to embellish it a bit in my fanworks lol. It's also at this point that the fear which drives him isn't as obvious... while there are suggestions of it in dtl, it's ramped up a whole new degree in dtl:tnc. For now, most of what the player sees sets the stage for this development with wilfre's struggle against power imbalance.

At the very beginning of dtl:tnc, this framework of a power imbalance comes into play almost immediately when wilfre is spoken to directly by the creator. It's almost insulting to him considering he prayed and begged for some kind of answer for so many years, and yet only when he is far past his worst- when he is no longer devoted- now he hears them. He's livid and extremely reactionary about it! In part, this is due to justifiable anger, but I've always been lead to believe fear plays a large part here as well. His manner of speaking shifts, he hesitates; he's unsure, only for a moment before breaking out into an extravagant display of his power. Almost as if to reaffirm his control of the situation. As the game progresses, these sorts of actions increase in frequency.

Alongside these sorts of direct fear reactions popping up much more often, wilfre's shifted goal also reflects the terror which motivates him. His sights have been set on bigger things by this point: saving the world by freezing it in time and space. It's destruction is imminent if he doesnt stop those who try to return color to it. It's an action SOLELY motivated by fear of death, something he develops an almost obsessive fixation with.

Wilfre's thought process during the execution of his plan tends to follow the idea of "you can't bake a cake without breaking a few eggs," which is essentially the equivalent to "you can't save the whole world without killing or harming a couple people along the way." Even if it requires him to create a sterile, barren, unmoving world, he will do anything to prevent the physical destruction of the world... to prevent death. This is something he considers noble and just; something which makes him a savior. Realistically, freezing everything EXACTLY how it is is not much better than the world and it's inhabitants fading out of existence; it's basically the same thing! But when fear dictates logic, it doesn't need to make any sort of sense. Self preservation is the most and ONLY important thing one accounts for.

Sock, specifically, embodies wilfre's myriad of fears to a whole new level. Rather than fear being combated with a reactionary display, he cowers, hides, and acts dismissively towards a various amount of situations. I'll delve into this a bit more later in a separate point, but while some of this may be to manipulate others in the situation, it's not uncommon for wilfre to do/say something that puts on a front while masking other meaning. It's just that his typically inward thoughts tend to project themselves outwardly in this form of his!

Keep in mind that while I do believe there to be reason behind wilfre's logic and actions, that does not necessarily excuse all or even most of them. Do not misconstrue me!!! He's killed people, he's trapped people both in physical cages and in time and space, he's psychologically tortured others, the list goes on. And that's what makes him so fascinating! He's not a good guy! If you erase or excuse all of his terrible actions he becomes so much less interesting as a character and antagonist. But its undeniably interesting to look into the psychology and motivations behind his actions.

Moving on from this, it is also worth noting that I am a HUGE proponent of jowfre and it's very much so interlaced with my reading of the story/characters. Let me explain:

Sock, as a character, stands out to me a lot in how he is a major turning point for wilfre. According to his plan, the "sock" disguise SHOULD be another approach to the same issue at hand: preventing any raposa from impeding on his end goal. Disguising himself as salem was his first attempt at this... but holes were quickly poked in it's execution, and he found that prevention by force would not be successful. Instead, he then goes the opposite route; by disguising himself as sock, he can befriend jowee (who at this point has assumed the role of leader), gain the trust of others, and destroy their group from the inside. Which works! ...A little too well, he finds, as he too starts to believe his own lie of being someone who cares about jowee and his fellow raposa. And in return, he is gifted something he thought impossible in his current state: jowee's genuine friendship.

Now obviously this is a BIG DEAL. For a lot of reasons. For one, it's a hell of a lot harder to endanger the life of someone you care about than it is a random stranger who hates you (worth noting that every time this happens in the game, it becomes increasingly passive to the point that any danger isn't even coming from wilfre himself, sock just suggests that everyone leave/give up). But even less than endangering someone's life is breaking someone's spirit. If he can break jowee's determination and make the village give up on their mission, he'll succeed. And yet this is STILL something wilfre can't find it in himself to do.

I have two personal favorite examples of this that stick out to me. The first is the infamous treehouse balcony conversation... where jowee is heartbroken about the disappearance of mari. Discouraged and lost, jowee confides in sock, airing out his grievances. It's an ideal moment for sock to reaffirm jowee's broken view of himself; jowee wouldn't argue with the state he's currently in. Instead though, sock listens to him, encourages him, and comforts him. One can argue that it's a simple manipulation tactic since it's the perfect moment for wilfre to gain jowee's trust, but it's always stood out to me as something very... vulnerable. Jowee *is* the first raposa wilfre has had casual conversation with in ages anyway...... it's as if he's relishing the feeling of being able to relate and be on equal ground. The shadow has influenced his entire being, yes, but there's an undeniable glimmer of humanity in him still that yearns to escape. It's also here that we get critical insight to wilfre's inner principles when he tells a (likely fictionalized) tale and ends it with "I made a decision that- regardless of consequence- I would succeed." It speaks so much for who he is at his core and how right he believes himself to be. He's sharing BIG things with jowee rather than breaking his spirit.

The second example of this is following the first hint of mari's betrayal: when she steals the book of life from jowee. Accusations are being thrown around, faith is dwindling, and the entire village is on the brink of collapse... but when jowee comes forward with the notion of wanting to try again, to not give up... out of everyone else there, sock is the first and only to speak up. Cheering for him and encouraging him forward. Without him doing so, the mission would have failed. WHICH IS CRAZY BECAUSE THIS IS LITERALLY WHAT HE'S BEEN ASKING FOR!!!!!! The entire time he's been accompanying the village he has again and again (and will continue to) try to get everyone to back out of what they're doing, to split apart. But when it's served to him on a silver platter, he can't. IT'S FASCINATING!!!!!!!!

As I said though, jowee's friendship doesn't just come with one issue for wilfre, but multiple. Arguably the most egregious is the fact that it makes wilfre question if his grand plan of draining the world of all color is really right. If it's something he should even bother to do. Which must be a realization so chilling considering *he is doing so to save the whole world.* How can such a pest of a single raposa make him- the great and infallible wilfre- waiver in his confidence? This particular issue is all implication rather than direct statement; I've mentioned previously how sock gets less and less pushy as time goes on, instead vouching for generally avoidant approaches, and this is what I'm referencing here. It's downright procrastination rather than prevention!

Wilfre drags the execution of his "destroy jowee's village from the inside out" plan out for so long that he only acts when he's desperate. When there's nothing else he can do, no further thing that might delay them. He's been backed into a corner and knows jowee is far too determined to quit. And so, he drops the act. He steals heather's pendant, reveals himself as wilfre, and escapes.

I highly doubt it's intentional (and I'll get into the details on why I find this legitimate reasoning regardless of intention later), but I do find it interesting that he waits until the moment in the map room to ask for the pendant because it directly follows jowee having an outburst about wilfre and how terrible he is. Realistically, it would have been even more in sock's favor to have stolen the pendant while jowee was alone with him on one of the islands they visited. At that point, the other villagers may even have turned on jowee- their leader- out of suspicion. Better yet, sock could have stolen the pendant away while jowee slept, eliminating the need to get caught entirely. But he doesn't. It's not until he's desperate AND is directly getting reminded that the person he most cares about hates him that he acts. It's a nice callback to the aforementioned treehouse conversation the two have: regardless of consequence, regardless of losing someone he had come to care about, he would succeed in carrying out what he meant to do. And so he does. He tries to, at least.

A brief interruption from this point to speak on the writing quality of the games themselves. The drawn to life series contains two separate writing approaches: multidimensional storytelling and face value storytelling. "Multidimensional" in the sense that the writing itself mirrors a character/dictates their identity (e.g. jowee's writing reaffirming his position as someone thought of as unworthy) and "face value" in the sense that the writing tells the story in a straightforward sense with no hidden meanings (e.g. most large plot developments). It's pretty fascinating! Now, do I think this approach of dual writing systems was intentional? Well... no. Truthfully it's my opinion that the writing in the game is fairly underwhelming and not very well thought out. It's not a masterpiece by any means. But despite intent, the dual writing system is very much so at play, and one needs to approach the game being ready to actively parse through which is which.

I bring all this up to say that occasionally, the blatant multidimensional storytelling embedded in the games' writing is really just meant to be normal, face-value storytelling. Certain interactions or events seem deeper than they really are, implications come to the surface due to it, etc. And because of this, the growth of certain characters is entirely stunted. Namely due to the fact that while the player expects said character(s) to act in a certain manner due to implications previously made, this character will instead act in a wildly unexpected way because it was what the writer initially intended. And as we've established, intent does not equal correct execution. By far the worst example of this is the latter half of dtl:tnc, where wilfre tears the appearance of "sock" away with no remorse and escapes to his wasteland. After all the build-up of his blossoming relationship with jowee, his dynamic character development, and overall stakes rising, the player is suddenly brought back to a very static, unsatisfying square one... a completely out of left field 180° with character direction. I've always suspected the reason for this was that midway through the project, the script writers realized the villian had become more sympathetic of a character than one of the main protagonists (mari) and out of nowhere switched it up, cut off character arcs, etc just to ensure their original intent was preserved.. even if that ultimately led to something that felt clunky and odd.

A bit of a longwinded side tangent, but it all prefaces my next point: if the games were written with more care and without the literary biases present, wilfre would have had a redemption arc. Or at least an arc where he sees his redemption as a choice, but turns against it.

I know, I know. You can't simply see a villian character you enjoy and go "well I think they should've had a happy ending so I'm going to let AU reflect my analysis of the canon media." That's not what I'm saying here! It's not just a simple wish for better circumstances influencing my thoughts. I would have been 100% okay with an unhappy ending for him either way, if only the writing didn't handle it in a way so jarring. Because it *is* jarring though, I try to work with it by incorporating it into my analysis rather than just discarding it as unusable, disingenuous storytelling. Case in point: what I did with my jowee pmv... you GOTTA boost the drama and stretch the truth a little bit...

To wrap this very long response up, I wanted to briefly mention very minor miscellaneous thoughts I have about wilfre that didn't fit in with any other main topic I touched on:

Based on my interactions with the fandom, I've come to notice there are a LOT of people who seem to think wilfre doesn't believe in the creator. In reality, he very much so does, he just thinks they suck lol.

I think it's very cute seeing how wildly out of practice wilfre is living as a normal raposa. He's spent so long as a shadow that things which used to come so easy to him are such a chore now (e.g. in lavasteam where he breathlessly chases after jowee trying to keep up with him.. he's so used to floating he's out of practice actually carrying his bodyweight around).

I have always read drawn to life as being a story relating heavily to forced role fulfillment; a character must fill the role they are given, or the world/their own self will fall apart. Assuming you're the same anonymous asker from before, you've seen my pmv, so you know how evident jowee's forced role fulfillment (or lack thereof) is throughout the games. But wilfre is also a shining example of this narrative theme! Many of the issues that the raposa world suffers from (be it relationship disputes, societal structures, general unhappiness, etc) are oftentimes tacked on as something wilfre is somehow at fault for, however loosely. The shadow's influence leads him to lose a lot of his humanity (raposity?) on its own, but his role as the scapegoat does as well, since it warps him into more of a concept than person. This is another reason his paralyzing fear of death is so critical to get across; it returns some of the humanity and dimension to him which make him more well-rounded.

I mentioned that sock becomes more avoidant as the story progresses, but what I've neglected to mention is the fact that wilfre is generally very avoidant by nature. Despite having more power than any other thing he commands, throughout both games he incessantly tries to have the hero and others dealt with through indirect means (other bosses/shadow creatures, influencing potential allies, robbing raposa of resources, etc). It's a pretty obvious behavior that dictates his character, but is further enabled in the circumstances I elaborated on outside of these notes.

Not very wilfre-specific but moreso just general info: I do not consider the newest entry in the series of drawn to life: two realms canon in the slightest so none of my interpretations of stories or characters will ever stem from two realms events. Sorry!

Wtf is up with him being weirdly flirty with mari at the end of tnc btw. I usually just excuse it as bad writing and that sudden shift in character I talked about. Which is funny because if that character shift is indeed the writers overcompensating then that means they were worried about too much gay tension between wilfre and jowee I guess LMAO there's literally zero reason for it otherwise.. it's so ooc and out of left field. Can I just write this dude myself please.

Thank you so much for asking in the first place... I love talking about these guys!!!!! <3 If you can't tell, lol. Hope you found it interesting, I'd be happy to elaborate further if anyone's curious. Just know it might take me a little while since it took me about a week to get to this ask haha

#drawn to life #dtl #wilfre dtl #sock dtl #i think this is my longest response to an ask ever made wow #i can be trusted to be normal about drawn to life (<- LYING)#laika answers #my art #first time i ever tried making dividers bc i wanted something thematic lol feel free to use it #wilfre drawn to life #sock drawn to life

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nerdanel01 · 6 months ago

Text

All Things Grow, All Things Go

Emmrich Volkarin/F!Rook 4k+ wc | SFW EXCEPRT: “...you do know how deeply, how profoundly I care for you, don’t you?”

Did she? Agnes had thought she knew, but the fact that Emmrich saw fit in this particular moment to remind her had her calling that knowledge into question. A mild terror seized her of what could possibly follow, if it had to be qualified by that preamble. Given the choice, she would have gladly faced any of the uncatalogued horrors of the Necropolis in place of whatever it was Emmrich was going to say next.

“Emmrich, you’re frightening me,” Agnes said, flashing him a nervous smile. Trying to work a teasing lilt into her voice, as though it were all in good fun. “Just tell me. It can’t be that bad, can it?”

9:50 Dragon

Three days had passed since Emmrich had visited the Dietrich estate to make the arrangements for Lord Dietrich’s imminent passing. Agnes hadn’t the faintest idea what could have transpired on that visit to disturb him so, but this much was clear: he had been behaving strangely towards her ever since his return to the Necropolis.

It was not that Emmrich was rude with her, exactly; Agnes was not sure he had the capacity within him for rudeness, so genteel was his manner. But he had been clipped and short with her, almost formal, and their friendship—otherwise warm, familiar, cherished—had become inexplicably strained. Yesterday, they had planned to make a trip into the Necropolis, an excursion they had been planning for weeks; only a few hours before scheduled their descent Emmrich had postponed it, without offering any satisfactory explanation as to why he had done so. When Agnes had asked how else she might be of assistance to him if they were not descending as planned, Emmrich had waved her offer away, encouraging her instead to take some free time and enjoy the summer weather in Nevarra City above.

Impossible to enjoy anything, though, with the paranoia and anxiety his behavior had inspired in her. Agnes was trying her very best not to jump to conclusions, but it felt awfully like Emmrich had been purposely avoiding her.

And so, that night at dinner, when Emmrich had asked Agnes to join him afterwards for tea in their shared study (Emmrich’s, really; though he had long ago ceded the second table to Agnes for her own experiments) the relief Agnes felt was indescribable. Emmrich could not really be avoiding her, could he, if he was asking for her company? Or at least, that was what she told herself as she made her through the corridors of the Mourn Watch residence to his door.

Agnes rapped her knuckles on the door, prepared to wait patiently for Emmrich’s thrall to answer. But most unusually, the door swung open almost as soon as she had knocked. Emmrich stood in the doorway, dark circles beneath his eyes.

“Agnes,” he greeted her, lacking his usual enthusiasm. There was something oddly harried and distracted about the way he carried himself. He offered her a smile, but it was as cold as the dead; his eyes avoided hers. ‘Is he nervous?’ Emmrich gestured to the pair of chairs in front of the hearth. “Thank you for coming. Have a seat, the tea is steeping now.”

Emmrich shut the door behind her as Agnes entered, then crossed the room towards the tall wooden cabinet beside the water spigot. With his back to Agnes, he began to pull the tea set off the shelf, setting out teacups, spoons, saucers on a serving tray. The crackle of the fire, the clink of the fine porcelain in the study were both unusually loud. Taking in the uncomfortable silence, Agnes finally realized what was missing.

“Where’s Wilfred?” she asked. The thrall had not answered the door, and she saw no sign of him in the study.

“I sent him on an errand,” Emmrich replied, offhandedly, without turning to face her. As though he was talking to the teacups, he managed, “I wanted it to be just the two of us.”

An extremely bizarre sentiment, coming from Emmrich. Wilfred was a fixture of the study, as Alfred had been before him. More out of nerves than amusement, Agnes laughed. “What could you possibly have to say to me that you could not say in front of Wilfred?”

Was it her imagination, or did the muscles of Emmrich’s back tighten reflexively at her question? “It isn’t that I couldn’t, it’s just….” Failing to find the right words, Emmrich sighed, then turned at last, carrying the serving tray laden with the kettle and cups, and set it down upon the table between the armchairs. “It is important, and I did not want there to be any distractions.”

The tea smelled incredible, but Agnes’ stomach suddenly felt very tight. She steeled herself; commanded of him, “So tell me.”

Emmrich hesitated. Even now, sitting beside her, he could barely meet her eyes. When he did, Agnes was alarmed at the sober, melancholy look he gave her.

“Nessa…”

And Agnes stopped breathing. Cold all over, everywhere at once, like a bucket of ice water had been splashed over her head. No one called her Nessa—only Emmrich, and only when he was very, very tipsy, and feeling especially tender towards her. But his voice did not sound tender, now. It sounded guarded, and anxious.

“...you do know how deeply, how profoundly I care for you, don’t you?”

“It’s not bad at all,” Emmrich said, returning her smile with a feeble one of his own—but the look in his eyes said otherwise. He dropped his gaze, took his steaming cup and saucer in hand; staring into his tea, stirring it. “It is only that there are going to be some… changes, in the guard. I wanted you to hear about them from me, first, before Johanna told you.”

“Johanna?” While Commander Hezenkoss was technically their superior, Agnes could count on one hand the amount of times she’d been called to speak to Johanna in any official capacity. For the most part, her and Emmrich were allowed total autonomy to conduct their studies as they wished, provided they did not neglect their other Watcher responsibilities. “What does this have to do with Johanna?”

“Well…” Emmrich began, and heaved a mighty exhale, deflating with it, “it has been over twenty years, you know, since you joined the Mourn Watch.” Twenty years—more than half of her life spent at Emmrich’s side, in the company of the dead. “Twenty years of you… going above and beyond, in your responsibility towards me, and in your role. Twenty years of excellence.”

Why all this flattery? Why the sudden lavish praise? It did nothing to warm her, only doubled the fear in her heart.

“Certainly it has taken long enough, but that is finally being recognized,” Emmrich said at last, and met her eyes again, forcing a smile. “You’re getting a promotion, dear.”

That couldn’t be right. The Mourn Watch was a fairly flat organization, not hierarchical. “People don’t get promotions here,” Agnes said, stating the obvious; not unless they were being moved up to the position of Commander or Captain, or and that could not possibly be what was happening. Agnes had many admirable qualities; a facility for leadership was not one of them. ‘Do not jump to conclusions.’ She reached for her tea, longing for the reassuring warmth of the cup, for the sake of having something to do with her hands. She counted out the number of skulls on the rim cup and the saucer in time with her breath: one, two, three. Trying to keep her voice even, to keep the panic out of it, Agnes asked, “What does that mean?”

“You’ll be working directly under Johanna,” Emmrich told her. “She has something particular in mind for you, a special project. It is a wonderful opportunity for you.”

Agnes’ grip on the teacup tightened involuntarily; nothing Emmrich was saying made any sense. She felt her heart racing, the dizzy rush of her pulse. “Johanna brought me here from the Circle to work with you,” she said, unable to keep the emphatic edge from her voice. “We work well together. Why would she—”

But no, that wasn’t it; Johanna’s intentions hardly mattered. That was not the urgent question burning on her tongue:

“Are you pleased with this?” she managed, at last. “This… ‘promotion’?”

Emmrich’s gaze fell back into his teacup, to the slinking curl of steam rising from it. His upper lip gave a faint, uncomfortable twitch, the line of his mustache dancing. Silently, Agnes begged him to look at her. Prayed he would look her in the face and smile and take it all back, tell her it was a joke, or a terrible mistake. And when he did not—when he could not look at her—Agnes felt like her stomach had fallen out of her. Like she had been eviscerated, like her entrails had spilled from her abdomen and were lying, steaming like the tea, on the unswept study floor.

Quietly, as though he was ashamed of his answer, Emmrich told her:

“In fact, I recommended you for it.”

A terrible, treacherous clatter arose as the base of Agnes’ teacup struck against the saucer beneath it, shaking in Agnes’ hands. Before it could get worse, Agnes set both cup and saucer back down, the spoons on the serving tray jumping with the force of the impact, tea sloshing out of the cup and pooling like an amber moat in the saucer below.

Agnes bit the corner her lip, grounding herself with the sharp pain of it, fighting for control of her voice. She cleared her throat, then managed a bitter laugh. “You didn’t—you did not think to ask me, first?” But obviously he has not, as they were having this conversation after the fact. For whatever reason Emmrich had done this, he had concealed it from her until the decision had already been made. “And—this cannot be right. Who will protect you if I’m busy working with Johanna?”

Perhaps she had misunderstood. Perhaps this promotion, this project with Johanna was simply a special assignment; that must be it. She would split her time between Emmrich and Johanna for awhile, but ultimately, surely—

“Myrna will begin working with me in a few days, when the promotion becomes effective.”

“Myrna?” Agnes laughed in disbelief. Myrna was talented, certainly—a better necromancer than Agnes would ever be—but she was far less experienced. Her mind hissed at her, insidiously: ‘Younger.’

But then the second shock hit, and it was impossible to keep the anger (and deeper hurt it failed to wholly conceal) out of her voice.

“In a few days?” Agnes repeated, incredulously, quietly, almost unable to believe it. If she spoke much louder than a whisper, she knew her voice would break; she would not give Emmrich the satisfaction “You are that eager to be rid of me?”

He did look at her then, his brows drawn together, expression wracked with pain and guilt. “Agnes, the last thing I want is to be rid of you,” he began, though the fact that this change had come so quickly, so secretively, said otherwise to her. Out of the corner of her eye, Agnes saw Emmrich extending his arm towards her, reaching for her.

She snatched her hand away before he could take it, refusing to look at him, staring instead at her lap as she twisted her hands tightly together.

The silence that followed was terrible.

“We will still see each other often,” Emmrich told her, at last. But whether it was because he was so shaken by her rejection of the comfort he had tried to offer her, or because he did not fully believe it, his voice sounded anything but confident. “At meals. In the halls.”

Not in the city. Not in the evenings, over tea, in the study that they would no longer share. To him, she would become like anyone else. A coworker. Nothing special.

“I know it is rather abrupt… that is part of why I wanted you to hear it from me, first. Instead of Johanna.”

Agnes could hardly believe that he was still speaking, making excuses, trying to convince her. “Did you really think that would make it better?” she asked, glowering at him from beneath her knit brows. “More palatable, to hear it from you?”

Agnes shook her head, sniffed, focusing on her hands in her lap. Wringing them together, desperate to control the stinging in her eyes and the lump in her throat. She hated how much she sounded like a child when she asked him, “What did I do wrong to deserve this?”

“Nothing!” Emmrich cried. “By the Maker, Agnes, why are you so determined to see this as a reprimand?” He kept talking, talking. Agnes barely heard a word he said, her own thoughts racing as fast as her heartbeat. ‘Did he find out? Does he know, at last, that I…? Could that be why…?’ “This position will afford you greater power, greater comfort.” ‘Two things I have never wanted, never asked for.’ “The opportunity to work on projects that interest you instead of following me down into the Necropolis every time I have a theory to test, or a restless spirit to soothe. There is even a very generous pay raise associated with the new position. Of all the things you could be doing in the Mourn Watch, I really do think it will be for the best for you, Agnes.”

At that, Agnes could not help but laugh. Long and low, and building to something slightly hysteric. A pay raise? Did he think she could be bought? The compensation for a Watcher was already more than generous, and other than the splurge she’d made on Emmrich’s ring ten years ago, Agnes had hardly spent her earnings. Nearly twenty years of wages were sitting, barely touched, in a small trunk beneath her bed.

How could more cold, heartless gold possibly compensate for the richness she was about to lose? It was ludicrous to think the two could compare.

And then Agnes was no longer laughing. Her mouth was a razor thin line, full of daggers.

“Who are you,” she asked him, low and seething, “to decide what is best for me? You are not my father.” ‘By this recent betrayal, I am left to wonder if you were ever really my friend. Better for me?’ “It would have been better for me never to have come here, and the only reason I did was because of you.”

Agnes kept her gaze fixed on Emmrich’s face, waiting for a reaction. His jaw was working, chewing at the inside of his cheek. If her words had wounded him, he was doing a very good job of hiding it.

“You’re right,” he said at last, softly, staring fixedly into his teacup, a defeated note in his words. “Perhaps it would have been better for you, if you had never come here to begin with.”

He might as well have struck her. Agnes had thrown the first stone, but she had been entirely unprepared for how deeply it would pain her, to hear Emmrich agree with her. ‘He cannot believe that.’ But Emmrich was not a man to lie, to say something he did not wholeheartedly believe to be true.

“Agnes, don’t you…” Emmrich sounded so tired. Exhausted. Of her, she supposed. “Do you ever think perhaps we are too close?”

Too close? For twenty years, they had not been nearly close enough for her liking. “What are you trying to say?”

“I am saying,” Emmrich said, emphatically, “that you should want more for yourself and your life than to spend the rest of it serving a weary, eccentric old man. And I am trying to give that to you.”

Agnes breathed out, her exhale shaking fitfully out of her. Chest heaving with it.

She was glad that Wilfred was gone, otherwise she would be fighting the juvenile urge to smash him to pieces—just to cause Emmrich even an ounce of the pain that she was feeling in that moment.

But Agnes was better than that. She was more in control of herself than that. She bared her teeth in something akin to a snarl.

“That’s lovely of you,” she told Emmrich, though her tone said it was anything but, her words laced with venom. “My deepest thanks. Really.”

And then, without further comment, she stood to make her way towards the exit. She would not stay here in this study, with Emmrich trying to convince her he’d done her a favor. She would not linger in this space—this space which had for twenty years been her space as much as his, but would soon no longer be.

She heard the clatter of Emmrich’s cup on the tray as he leapt up to follow her, calling after her. “Agnes, don’t go. Please, can’t we talk about this? It was not my intention to—”

Agnes called upon all the spitfire and rage she had within her. Feeling as hideous and fierce as a cornered beast when she turned her face just enough to throw the words over her shoulder:

“It is my intention to smoke my pipe,” she said, casting the words like stones in his direction. “Which you disdain, and prefer for me not to do in your study, so I will go.” She delivered her farewell as firmly as a slap to the face: “Good night, Volkarin.”

Upon her exit, she slammed the door of the study closed behind her with such force that the sound of it carried and echoed through the halls.

‘Don’t run,’ Agnes told herself as she hastened down the corridor. ‘Don’t weep. Not yet.’ Not in the hallways, where anyone could stumble upon her, witness her in a state of such deep distress. She just needed to hold herself together until she made it to the safety and privacy of her own room. Breathing shallowly, unevenly, she counted down the dormitory doors to her own, feeling her control over herself crumble with every step she took. By the time she reached her own door, her hands were shaking so badly she might as well have been Alfred, for all the difficulty she had with her own doorknob.

When at last the door yielded, she slipped inside and shut it firmly behind her. Cast a hasty barrier over it to make sure that any sounds she produced within were not audible without. Then she let her body fall back, the door supporting her weight, and finally released the sob that had been building in her chest, aching in her lungs.

A second sob chased the first, then a third, and she was sinking to her knees, holding her head in her hands, her whole body shaking with adrenaline and rage and—worst of all—grief.

Emmrich was right—she was pathetic. She had no plans for herself, no lofty personal goals or higher accomplishments she was working towards achieving in her life. All she had had was this: the pleasure of working with him, and that had been more than enough. Had she—at times—wanted, wondered if the relationship between them could become more? She had; but that did not change the fact that working alongside Emmrich, for the last twenty years, had been all the purpose she needed.

And now that, too, was gone. And she was close to forty years old, and she was utterly lost.

What would become of her now? What would her life be? How could she possibly endure the Necropolis—for which she bore no special love; the Necropolis which, she had quite possibly all of this time, secretly hated—without the light Emmrich’s brilliance and warmth guiding her through it?

Agnes wept until she exhausted herself, until her stomach and her lungs ached from it and she could weep no more. When at last she was finished, she took two deep breaths, then pulled herself to her feet. Walking straight to the hearth, she plucked the box from the mantle that contained her smoking pipe. She was nothing if not a woman of her word. Letting her body drop limp into her armchair, she began, with automatic movements, to pack the bowl of the pipe with dried royal elfroot, not wholly present in her body, glad for the mechanical distraction it afforded her from her thoughts.

It was petty of her. She did not blame Emmrich in the least for forbidding her from smoking in his study; she would have agreed with him that it was a rather filthy habit, but over the last few years she’d developed a penchant for it, particularly in the rare moments when she was feeling vindictive and spiteful towards him. She lit the pipe, coughed deeply at her first inhale, but then the smoke sedated her, lifted her above and away from all the pain and the anger so that she could dissociate from it, hover in the skies above it and see it for what it really was.

Agnes stared into the cold, ash-laden hearth in front of her, puffing, sending smoke circles spinning around the room, thinking. ‘Why has Emmrich done this?’ Because she did not believe, even for a second, that it was simply in recognition of her merit as a Watcher. Not after twenty years. But all of the answers she could come up with were too painful; and it was not productive, Agnes realized, to sit here trying to guess at Emmrich’s motives. They did not matter. She had no power over Emmrich‘s decisions, only the ability to decide what she was going to do about them. And no matter how many times she turned it over in her head, no matter how many different ways she imagined what her life could be like in the Mourn Watch without him, there seemed to be only one viable course of action available to her.

For twenty years, Agnes had devoted herself to protecting Emmrich. Perhaps, at last, the time had come for her to protect herself.

And if she were going to do that, she could not stay.

Decided, Agnes practically leapt to her feet, walking to her wardrobe and throwing wide the doors. From the bottom of the wardrobe she withdrew the only present Lord Halkias had ever given her: a carpet bag, gifted to her after her magic was discovered and she was bound for the Circle at Perendale. The bag was bigger on the inside, enchanted to carry much more than its exterior volume suggested. The message, at the time, had been quite clear: pack everything that is dear to you when you leave for the Circle, because we are glad to be rid of you, and you will not be welcome back here again.

She had not touched the thing since she had first unpacked into this room. Now she beat two decades worth of dust off of it, and stood it open at the foot of her bed. One by one, she folded up each of her skirts and blouses, then emptied the underwear and stockings from her drawers into the bag as well. Withdrawing the small chest from beneath her bed, she glanced at the gold within, making a hasty approximation of her total earnings, then added that to the bag as well. There was a neat stack of books on her desk, half read, but only a handful of the volumes were her own; these she packed, leaving the borrowed books in place. She threw her pipe and the rest of her elfroot in the rubbish bin. Without the satisfaction of irritating Emmrich, she would no longer have a use for either.

It did not take her long to gather her things. Though she had spent half her life in the Mourn Watch, now she left it with only a handful more possessions than she had when she arrived. At last she scanned the room one final time, checking under and within all the furniture. All was clear, except—Agnes discovered—for the topmost drawer of her desk.

The sight of the wrinkled programs inspired another swell of grief within her, and set her lower lip trembling all over again, but ‘No,’ she scolded herself, blinking past the tears, ‘you have already cried enough.’ Still she held the stack of paper programs reverently as she withdrew it from the desk, shuffling through the pages. Don Pasquale; The Barber of Treviso; The Marriage of Figaro. Agnes has cherished these mementos like sacred relics, each of them a reminder of a much-beloved, oft-revisited memory of Emmrich. Of time they had spent together. Of moments—however brief and delusional and champagne-induced they may have been—when she had imagined he might one day love her in return, as deeply and as hopelessly as she loved him.

Those, too, she consigned to the rubbish bin, along with her pipe.

One program alone she kept separate from the rest. Agnes set it down on the surface of the desk, before proceeding to clean the room. She beat the dirt from the small woven rug at the side of the bed; she swept the ashes from the hearth and scoured it clean. With a bucket water and lye she scrubbed determinedly at the floor of the bedroom until the tiles shone—as if, by removing all biological evidence that she had once lived in this space (filled it with impossible dreams) she could similarly wash away the indelible marks it had made upon her soul.

And when she was finished—when the room was clean, the bed made, the whole place looking sterile as an infirmary—she set the program for The Elixir of Love, the first opera they had seen together, square in the center of the mattress, the creamy parchment standing out in sharp contrast against the crimson bed linens. In the tempest of her emotions, Agnes did not trust herself to leave Emmrich a goodbye note. It was too likely that she would say something she would ultimately come to regret. The program would have to speak volumes for her: the full weight of both her gratitude and her grief.

One day, perhaps, when all of this was far behind her, she could look back on that night and be happy, instead of feeling so utterly heartbroken and bitter.

It was a cowardly act, to creep out of the Necropolis in the small hours of the night as she was doing. Perhaps she owed it to herself and the other Watchers to formally put in her resignation, but Agnes was certain she could not endure it. She would not endure it. Johanna would ask too many questions Agnes could not answer, not without risk of revealing exactly why it was she needed to leave. And before she knew it all of her secrets would be out, and she would not only be grieved then but ashamed and humiliated, too, for everyone to know how much and how long she had loved Emmrich, and how easy it had been for him to cast her aside.

And it did not matter, really. She would never see any of them again. She did not intend to ever return to Nevarra.

Where would she go? Agnes wasn't sure. It was said the south was kinder to mages since Divine Victoria had assumed the Sunburst Throne, but all that evidence was anecdotal at best. Tevinter seemed the safer bet. What would she do there? Agnes wasn't sure, but she was a mage, and Tevinter ran on magic; she would figure out something. Surely with the Qunari invasion, she could find work as a mercenary, or a bodyguard. And in the short term, she had no need for money. If she was thrifty, she could stretch her twenty years' wages to keep her sheltered and fed for at least a few months, perhaps almost a year. What mattered most was that there was no joy left for her here in the Necropolis, no life left for her here. Anything else would be preferable to staying.

When she emerged into Nevarra City, the night was cool, blossom-perfumed. A clear sky full of stars stretched above her. And although she carried a terrible pain within her, the future seemed pregnant with possibility, if not promise. That, at least, was something.

Agnes breathed the cool air deeply, unpinned her hair from her head and let it cascade down her back. A gentle riverbreeze tossed her dark curls around her face, and as the wind blew past her, Agnes imagined that it carried Watcher Gallatus away with it. Whoever she became next, it would not be the lovesick, heartbroken woman she was leaving behind.

One foot in front of the other, she descended the grand staircase that led from the mouth of the Necropolis and into the city. She did not once turn back.

--- This piece is Part IX in a series of XI. [ Start from beginning ] [ Read Part X ] [ Nerdanel's Fic Masterpost ]

#emmrich volkarin #emmrook #Emmrich Volkahrin #dragon age emmrich #emmrich the necromancer #dragon age: the veil guard #dragon age fanfic #fanfiction #angst

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