Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“We’ll be back,” Variel said, looking to the small crowd of sallow, strained faces that surrounded her group of fighters. The dead had fallen, the castle was silent, and for the time being, Redcliffe was safe.

“Please hurry, Warden. I cannot wait long before I try to enter the castle, or I risk my people.”

She nodded woodenly. “Of course, Bann Teagan. But we need supplies, the kind Redcliffe doesn’t have at its disposal.”

The closest town was unlikely to have many health potions, or lyrium, but any would be better than what they had now. Variel had expended all her reserves keeping people alive the night before. Not just her companions, but everyone who fought beside them. And while some of the men and women had died, most hadn’t.

I’m not a healer.

But until they managed to find someone who was, her simple healing spell was all they had. It was really more of a hail Andraste than anything else. Her skills in battle were better suited toward lightning, and internally motivated explosions.

So the party walked the steep and winding path out of the village.

“You did very well, Variel.”

She jumped when Leliana came up behind her and set a hand on her shoulder. The smile sent her way was… very pretty. Warm, even. She blinked at the human woman, brows knit together. “I was passable. Another mage from Kinloch could have done better.”

Leliana laughed her strange and secretive laugh, and shook her head. Like she knew something Variel didn’t.

They walked some time longer, making good time toward Haresbrooke. She could hear Alistair pestering Sten, and Leliana teasing her mabari, Kibeth. And beyond that, birdsong. Something she now knew was usually absent when there was danger.

Kinloch Hold was in the middle of a lake. And windows were few, and narrow, and birds uncommon. Before leaving, she couldn’t recall having ever heard a chorus of them.

Hells, she didn’t think she’d even been in a storm before.

An older mage, then. Someone like Wynne. She was at Ostagar anyway. She could have done this far better. People listen to old human women.

Though the blue and silver armor tended to make people listen to young elven women as well. And not only to call her ‘murderer’ and ‘traitor’.

“Oh, thank the maker!”

Variel was wrenched out of her contemplations by a high, frightened voice. Her hand went for her staff and rested there as a lone woman came shambling out of the trees. There was the faintest hum of magic around her.

“They’ve attacked the wagon, Please help us!”

Mismatched eyes narrowed.

“Follow me, I’ll take you to them!”

And the strange woman vanished the way she came, barely pausing to be certain they followed.

“This reeks of an ambush,” Sten rumbled from beside her.

“What? But she needs help!” Said Alistair. “Come on, we can’t just ignore her!”

Leliana said nothing, though from the glance she shared with Sten, she agreed with his assessment.

“On your guard. We follow. If nothing else, we may not need to range any further for supplies.”

They stepped onto a narrower path, under the dappled green shade of the trees. The young woman had only just turned out of sight around the edge of a rocky outcrop still weeping red clay from some recent disturbance.

Oh this is certainly a trap.

A laugh, masculine and velvety sounded a split second before they rounded the bed. Variel watched the young woman amble to a stop before the laughing stranger. Not even pretending to hurry any longer. Only smiling.

The man -- an elf with pretty copper-brown skin -- grinned at her. It seemed to be a wide and genuine one. And in that flash of eye contact, she was struck with a sudden knowing. His eyes, which seemed to smile were only cold. And empty.

Like he isn’t even here.

“Duck!”

Alistair’s shout broke the connection before the massive tree could. Variel threw herself forward, losing her staff in the process.

When she looked up, there were many more people than the elf and the mage woman.

“The Grey Warden dies here!”

Not such a pretty voice when it was talking of ending her life. Variel rolled to her feet and struck out with one hand quick as a cobra, sending a crazily yawning bolt of lighting directly at the elf. He threw himself to the side, and it struck an archer instead.

“Not if you die first,” she growled. But under her breath.

A dagger from her boot (wood wrapped handle, a crystal in the pommel for focus) would have to do for directing her magic. By now there was only chaos around her. She could sense rather than see Sten split open someone’s head.

“Hold!” She shouted. And threw herself forward, planting to the seed of (death, I bring you death) an explosion in a stranger with the end of her dagger. “Target!”

“Sighted!” Leliana loosed three arrows in rapid succession, each thudding into the man with a bone rattling thock!

He had a moment to cry out and then became so much whizzing bone fragments, and flame, and gore. But by then Variel had thrown herself out of the blast radius and started throwing lightning again. Trading bolt for bolt with the mage woman --

And where is the assassin?

A shadow behind her. The air seemed to sharpen, almost -- Variel lurched to the side and cried out as a dagger sliced through her cheek.

Better that than your throat.

She spun, thrusting her arm before her face just a moment before the next blow came. The vambrace caught the worst of it, but the impact rattled her teeth and sent her planted feet skidding through the dirt.

The assassin bared his teeth at her in another empty grin -- or not so empty. Because there was a spark in his eyes now. “Oh, very good! Many a mage does not bother with real armor -- ack!”

She cut him off with a kick to the ankle. Sending him off balance but only for a second. Something that weirdly only made him smile wider. With excitement? Why was he happy to have her fight back?

“You’re pretty bad at this!” She snarled. Part of her face was numb and throbbing all at once. Blood slicked the side of her neck and was pouring down her collar.

“You’re pretty!”

That stopped her for all of a second. Shock -- then a deepening rage. Variel went at him with her dagger. He blocked. But only the dagger. Her other hand, curled around a ball of pure force, slammed into his temple and knocked him flat.

“Stay!” She growled.

Then leaped over the unconscious man and put her dagger into the eye of another.

Back into the tide of blood and death. Bodies tumbled in pieces or were reduced to red mist. And before too long, there was silence in the little clearing, save for everyone’s harsh breathing.

“Sound off,” she gasped.

“Alive.”

“I’m alright!”

“Maker, that went poorly.”

A bark from Kibeth.

Variel sighed but didn’t relax. “Leliana, would you check for traps? Sten, please help Alistair look through the corpses and collect any supplies they had on them. I’m going to check the wagon.”

Affirmative all around.

She still wasn’t sure why they listened. But then, someone had to take control. It might as well be her.

Variel stepped over dead bodies, and chunks of bone, tentatively exploring the wound on the side of her face with her fingertips as she headed for the wagon. She winced and shivered when she touched one of her own teeth.

Oh boy, that’s going to scar something fierce.

She took her canteen, flushed the cut with water. And was proud of herself for not screaming as all the nerves in her face woke up and lit themselves on fire. Using the remnants of her mana, she cast the only healing spell she knew and felt her skin zip itself back together from the inside out.

But even though it no longer bled, she could feel the fragility of the mending. Knew too sudden a movement, or perhaps a blow to the face would split the skin all over again.

She knew people were fragile. But the reality of it never failed to make her feel ill.

Variel crouched next to the overturned wagon, and discovered neatly arranged crates in its dubious shelter. Clearly they’d emptied it, tipped it, and hid what it carried in its shadow. She smiled crookedly. Supplies.

“There’s no need to go all the way to Haresbrooke!” She called out cheerfully.

“Variel?”

“I found --”

But Leliana wasn’t saying her name for clarification. She was trying to get her attention. And standing over the assassin. Who was groaning and beginning to stir.

In truth she hadn’t thought she’d killed him. But what a pain. It was different outside of battle. More like an execution than self-defense. And perhaps it made her silly, and young, but… she hated killing people like that.

“Oh.”

The group converged on the man. And, rather than simply wait for him to wake on his own, Variel crouched beside him and emptied her canteen over his face.

He jerked upright, then moaned and clapped a hand to his head. “Nnn, oh, I, augh, what?” Blearily, he looked up at her, hazel eyes slowly clearing. “I rather thought I would wake up dead… or not at all as the case may be. But I see you haven’t killed me yet.”

Variel rocked back on her heels and crossed her arms, glaring at him. “You’ll speak when spoken to.”

“Oh!” A little life came back to his face. And she just knew he was going to say something tawdry. “Rather an aggressive little minx aren’t you? Lovely too --”

“The last time you commented on my appearance, I knocked you unconscious. Try again.”

A softer laugh than the one from before. “I see. Well, if it is questions you have for me allow me to save us all some time, yes?”

Variel sighed, and nodded.

“My name is Zevran -- Zev to my friends -- I am a member of the Antivan Crows. Brought here for the sole purpose of slaying any surviving Grey Warden’s. Which I have… failed at, sadly.”

He said sadly, but seemed rather flippant on that note.

“What’s a Crow, Leliana? Sten?”

“An irritating bird.”

Was Sten joking? Was that a thing that was happening?

“You have not heard of us?” Zevran said, expression comical with -- she was sure it was affected -- disbelief.

“If you are captured so easily --”

“Ah, see, that is rather a damper on ones budding assassin career, being captured by the target. Allow me to inform you that the Crow’s will not pay for my safe return. They are likely to kill me should you decline, in fact.”

Variel blinked.

“I can tell you about them,” Leliana said. And there was almost a laugh in her voice. Given the absurdity of the situation, Variel could hardly blame her. “They are an order of assassins, out of Antiva, as he said. Very powerful. And renowned for always getting the job done, so to speak. Someone went to great expense to hire this man.”

“Quite right. You see my surprise that you haven’t heard of us is justified. Back where I come from, we’re rather… infamous.”

Zevran managed to make ‘infamous’ sound like a dirty word.

“Not for being good assassins.”

“Oh, fine. Is that what you Ferelden’s do? Mock your prisoners, hah! Such cruelty.”

Variel shook her canteen at him. Alas, there was no water left to drown him with.

“You, uh, came all the way here? From Antiva?”

Bless Alistair for reading her mood and continuing the questioning.

Zevran looked over her shoulder, meeting his gaze with a loose shrug. “Not precisely. I was in the neighborhood when the offer came. The Crows get around you see.”

“Oh we’ve all heard about that,” said Leliana.

Variel shot her a betrayed look. Do not feed the man material!

“I suppose you’ve been paid well to murder us all then?”

“Murder is such a word! It implies a relationship. Before this morning I am quite sure I’d never met you. I would remember a face so --” He caught sight of her expression.

“Ah, well, never mind. But no… in fact I have been paid not at all. The money has gone to the Crows. Should I have succeeded a small portion would have been mine, yes. But as it were I am poor as a chantry mouse, if that is how your saying goes. The Crows are not for those with ambitions.”

Her brows lifted. “Oh? If there’s no money in it for you, why bother?”

This was questioning that was beginning to veer dangerously off-topic. The last thing she needed was to know this man. To feel -- anything other than contempt.

“Well aside from a distinct lack of ambition I suppose it’s because I wasn’t given much of a choice. The Crows bought me young. I was a bargain too -- or so I’m led to believe.”

Bought -- oh.

A tower, an alienage, or slavery. There were perhaps more options for Elves -- the mythical Dalish, for one. But those first three were the most common. Her hands curled into fists.

Feel nothing. He tried to kill you.

“Ah, but don’t let my sad story influence you. The Crows aren’t so bad. They keep one well supplied. Wine, women, men -- whatever you happen to fancy.”

Some animation returned to his face, but to her it seemed to be an affectation again. The weariness was lurking just behind the humor.

“Though the whole severance package is garbage, let me tell you. If you were considering joining I’d really think twice about it.”

Almost against her will she could feel her lips twitching toward a smile. “I’ll take that under advisement.”

“You seem like a bright girl… I’m sure you’ve other options.”

“You’re very talkative.”

“Why not?” he laughed. “I wasn’t paid for silence. Not that I offered it for sale, precisely.”

“I can see why,” she bit out dryly. “Are you even the least bit loyal to your... employers? If they keep you so well provided for as all that.”

“Loyalty is an interesting concept… if you wish, and you’re done interrogating me, we can discuss it further.”

“That’s it, then. I don’t need to ask who hired you. I know.”

“Loghain,” said Alistair. In a tone that actually made him seem frightening.

“Ah, yes, that was his name, I believe.”

Variel got to her feet, looking down at Zevran. Heart beating in her throat, and the barely healed wound across her cheek. The questioning was over. Which left…

Which left killing him. Or letting him go.

She could feel the party’s eyes on her back. Kibeth wormed close to her and put her head under Variel’s hand. A warm and comforting sentinel.

“You mention discussing your loyalties. Make it quick.”

“Well, here’s the thing. I failed to kill you, so my life is forfeit. That’s how it works. If you don’t kill me, the Crows will. Thing is -- I like living.”

A bell rang in her head. Something about that was off. But why would it be?

“You are obviously the type to give the Crow’s pause. So… let me serve you instead.”

“Oh, that’s rich,” Alistair muttered.

He wasn’t wrong. “Ah, and I imagine I can expect just as much loyalty?”

Zevran gasped, seemingly offended. “I happen to be a very loyal person! Up until someone expects me to die for failing. That’s not a fault, really, is it? I mean, unless you’re the type to do the same --”

“I’m not.”

“Well, in that case I come with good recommendations!”

Variel’s eyes narrowed. This… it shouldn’t be convincing, should it? Was it just because she wanted to like him? Saw some few parallels in their upbringing?

“What’s stopping you from killing me later? You did say your Crows are infamous.”

“I was never given much choice. Joining the crows I mean. They bought me on the slave market when I was a child. I think I paid my worth to them plus tenfold. The only way out, however, is to sign on with someone they can’t touch. Even if I did kill you now --”

“From the ground. Surrounded. And, may I add, still wet. Lightning and water mix poorly.”

He continued slightly faster. “Even if I did kill you, they might just kill me on principal for failing the first time. Honestly, I’d rather take my chances with you.”

“You must think I’m royally stupid.”

“I think you’re royally tough to kill. And utterly gorgeous.”

She almost kicked him for that. Because that stupid line made all the blood rush to her face.

“Not that I think you’ll respond to simple flattery!” He must have seen her foot twitch. “But there are worse things in life than serving the whims of a deadly sex goddess.”

Variel heard Alistair choke. And somehow that was what broke the barrier. She slapped a hand over her mouth to muffle them, but anyone could tell she’d giggled. Giggled!

Shit!

Zevran winked at her.

She kicked him. But lightly.

“What do you want?”

“Well. Being allowed to live would be nice. And make me marginally more useful to you. And somewhere down the line if you should decide you no longer need my services, I go on my way. Until then… I am yours. Is that fair?”

Silence. Once again she could feel everyone staring at her. Why had she decided to take the lead in the questioning again?

Ah, well.

Fuck it.

“Very well. I accept your offer.”

Chapter Text

Alstair had refused to stay behind with Morrigan -- and not just because she was Morrigan either.

“That man in there is the closest thing I have to family!”

Well. How could she say no to that anyway?

So instead it was Sten and Morrigan keeping watch. Even if logically, leaving one of the two surviving Grey Warden’s behind made sense. And it couldn’t be her. He’d given her the reigns, so to speak, as they walked to Lothering. And -- maker, why did Lothering already feel years behind her?

Variel kneaded at her head as if she could mash all the stress into a compact ball she might store on a high shelf for another day.

Her cheek still throbbed.

They’d taken three hours to rest, then returned to Redcliffe. It was barely enough time to recover. But Bann Teagan’s words wouldn’t leave her alone. I cannot wait long before I enter the castle, or I risk my people.

One desperate final stand against walking corpses was enough, thank you.

Leliana fell back, leaving Zevran and Alistair to walk ahead of them. “You should take one of the potions we found at the ambush.”

Variel’s shoulder’s hunched. “It’s fine.”

“No it isn't. You’ve been staggering.”

Shit, had she? She felt -- well, not fine -- but at least serviceable.

“There were only seven of them.”

Leliana shrugged. “What are they for, if not to be used, mm? We can’t have you falling on us. Alistair may cry.”

“I would not!” he called over his shoulder. There was a pause, then -- “Well. Maybe a little.”

“Oh I would definitely cry,” Zevran piped up. “I was hired once to stand at a funeral and throw myself on the body sobbing before they burned it.”

“Ought to have been for the whole bonfire if you ask me.”

“Ah, Alistair, you wound me so…”

Leliana produced one of the potions and held it out to her. Smiling. Variel was beginning to realize her smile was truly kind. No matter the shadows behind it. Nothing like the sister’s, and the initiates back at the tower.

Aside from Lily.

She took the potion and downed it like a shot. Shivering when a wave of healing heat rolled over her and went to work on her cheek. Only now did she recognize how feverish she’d felt. How her head had seemed stuffed with sand and like it was floating on a string miles above her all at the same time.

Probably didn’t clean that cut well enough.

“Thank you.”

"Mmhm!" Leliana giggled, and nodded, and walked ahead of them again. Alistair and Zevran were too busy trading words (and she’d seen Alistair blush plenty but my that was an entirely new shade!) to notice the little recess Leliana pointed out.

“For the ring!”

Variel pushed through them and set the ring into the depression made for it. A moment of silence -- then the stone began to grind, and a narrow archway opened into light. Torchlight, but enough for her to let the mage fire hovering above their heads die.

“Get away from me!”

They barely had time to register they were in the dungeons before Variel heard him. Saw more of the dead clustered around a cell at the end of the hall. Jowan. Crying out in fear and anger.

For one second she was seven, hearing him shout the same thing at a Templar who had him by the ear. And she was charging into them with a war cry that was startling even in a tiny, high pitched child’s voice.

Bowling into hard, spiked armor hard enough to cut open her lips.

“Run, Shem, run!”

But in the tower, there wasn’t really anywhere you could outrun the templar’s.

They stuffed me into a closet with no light, and no food for two days after nearly tearing my ear off, she remembered. I’d just gotten to the tower. But Jowan stood at the door and read me stupid stories the whole time so I wouldn’t be afraid.

But that had been her childhood. And it was dead.

Variel twisted her fist and caught the dead closest to the cell in a crushing prison of force. Watching its head bend back and it’s arms and legs crack as they were pulled toward the small of it’s back. Marched forward with the inevitability of death.

She didn’t know what feeling felt like acid in her throat. A burning vice around her skull. Like the bones in her hands were too fragile, and might shatter if she clenched her fists any harder.

There weren’t many corpses. The four of them made quick work of them.

“Hello? Is -- oh. By all that’s holy! Variel? I -- Variel!” He surged forward, hitting the bars and staring at her like he was seeing a ghost.

And why not? He’d left her for dead.

Variel lunged, pointed teeth bared. “Jowan!”

Everything seemed to slow. She watched her friend’s eyes go wide with shock and fear. Watched him draw back from the bars. Heard the rest of the party begin to speak. But he wasn’t fast enough.

Never was.

She snatched the front of his robes with both hands and dragged him back with a clang as his head met the bars.

“What the fuck were you thinking?!” she roared, her voice shattering.

Rage. Betrayal. She could hardly breathe through the suffocating force of it.

“I -- Variel, please, I’m so sorry I --”

“You just left me there to die! What the fuck did you think was going to happen? After I helped you! Did you think they would let me live? Did you think they wouldn’t scoop out my soul and make me into what fucking terrified the good sense out of you? Don’t you remember what happens to pretty tranquil elves, Jowan?”

She shook him. And he was trying to pull away but her grip was tight. Electricity crackled over her armor. The fire in the sconces burned brighter, higher. Licked the stone ceilings.

“Variel, please, I --”

“Did you even think you selfish, shemlen bastard?! For one fucking second?!”

She tasted blood in her throat. And reached for his.

This was apparently enough for the party. The shocked silence behind her died and a set of arms wrapped around her and yanked her back from the bars.

“Let me go!” She screamed. “I’m gonna kill him!”

Alistair bent, holding her back and suspended in the air denying her any leverage. She fought him, legs kicking, arms out-stretched into claws as she reached for her first and closest friend.

Tears were rolling down her cheeks, and it was hard to breathe. But she fucking refused to sob. Not now. Because she was going to kill him --

Jowan had fallen. Was pressed against the back wall of his cell with his hands on the floor and his eyes wide and shiny with unshed tears of his own.

And it was like looking at a little boy. The little boy he had been, who’d helped her evade templars and taught her how to read, and snuck her sweet buns from the kitchens on her name day.

All at once the rage drained out of her and she went limp in Alistair’s arms. Pressed her hands to her face to cover it. Like she might erase the fact that she was crying.

Wary, Alistair carefully set her on her feet and let her go. “Um. I take it the two of you know each other then?”

“No.” Her voice was hoarse and wrecked, but firm. She looked up and stared at Jowan coldly. “I never did. And I certainly don’t now.”

She made to turn and leave him behind this time. Even in a cell, it was better than he’d left her. But Jowan couldn’t make anything easy, could he?

“Wait! Variel. Please, wait --”

She turned and marched back to his cell. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see her companions all lurch as if to grab her. But her hands remained firmly at her sides, balled into fists.

“What.”

He swallowed. She noticed he was pale, and there were dark circles under his eyes. That since she’d seen him he’d lost weight -- and he’d never had much to begin with. Where the collar of his robe had bit into him the skin was already starting to bruise.

“I, I know I don’t have any right to ask you anything but… but please. What became of Lily? The… the thought that she might have paid for my crimes… they didn’t hurt her did they?”

Variel closed her eyes and counted to ten.

“What do you think happened to her, Jowan?”

He let out a low moan and fell into the bars like a puppet with his strings cut.

“All of this is very informative,” Zevran said. “But as I recall, you are from a circle, yes? What is someone you know doing in the Arl’s dungeon?”

She remembered the elfin man in the tavern. They just wanted me to watch and report what happened. A horrible suspicion began to take root.

“Jowan. What have you done?”

He looked away from her, throat bobbing. And Variel was aware of Alistair stepping closer. Standing beside her. Countenance grim.

She hoped no one needed to pull him back from Jowan. It would probably take all three of them.

“He… he said that if I did what he wanted he’d talk to the circle. That -- that Arl Eamon was, was treasonous -- and that I’d be serving my country. I didn’t know it would end like this!”

“You poisoned him. You’re the mage Lady Isolde spoke of.”

It wasn’t a question.

“Yes.”

“Hm,” was all the Leliana said.

Variel tilted her head and raised her brows, inviting the former sister to continue.

“It is only -- well, how does poisoning the Arl lead to you raising a plague of the undead?”

That was... a good point, actually.

“I know how it looks but… but that isn’t me. It’s Connor,” Jowan said. His head was down, he stared at his boots with an air of misery she was only too familiar with.

“Connor? The Arl’s son, a mage? Nonsense.”

Jowan looked at someone other than Variel for the first time, looking to Alistair with an intensity that she couldn’t remember having seen before. Perhaps he was trying to convey honesty.

“Conner had begun showing… signs. Lady Isolde was terrified that the circle would come to take him away. So she… went looking for a mage outside of the circle to help her train her son. Just enough to keep him safe.”

Amazing how the circles are only a thing to be feared when it’s a noble’s child threatened by them, she thought but didn’t say.

“And let me guess. She conveniently found you. Before or after Ostagar?”

“Ostagar?”

“Before, then,” she muttered. “Does that mean this was premeditated?”

“The plot thickens,” said Zevran.

“Did the Arl know, Jowan? About Connor?”

He shook his head. “No. It was… it was a secret. Lady Isolde knew, of course. But other than her and me, and Connor himself… I don’t know who else did.”

How then, had Loghain found out a mage would be the best thing to infiltrate the castle? Servants talked, of course they did. Had one of them gone to the Teryn? Or had Connor told someone he shouldn't? He was only a child after all.

But even that young he would know mages were feared, wouldn't he?

“So… Connor rose an army of the dead? What would be the point, though?” Alistair asked.

“You were training to be a templar,” said Leliana. “Surely you realize demons are called to need?”

“And a little boy terrified of losing his father, a little mage boy with no real idea of how to control himself would be like a lighthouse to every demon in the fade,” said Variel.

Silence in the dungeon.

Each of them was beginning to realize the path forward was twisting its way toward the death of a child.

What’s one more dead mage? She thought wearily. No one will remember he was a scared little boy. No one will have any sympathy for him. Perhaps death would be better than living with blood up to your neck.

But...

I don’t want to be the kind of woman who murders children.

She stood taller. Putting all her worries away. “We need to go. Bann Teagan is alone with… with whatever Connor is now. And we don’t know how long we’ve staved off the dead.”

“Variel?”

Jowan was watching her, his sunken eyes little pricks of light under the curtain of dirty brown hair.

“I don’t want to die in this cell. Please. I… I want to set things right. My whole life I’ve done nothing but, but hurt people. You. Lily. Connor. But. But I want to do something, anything to atone, please --”

“Atone?!” Alistair’s voice was sharp. “Atone for all those dead people down in Redcliffe you --”

“Shut up Alistair, and let me hear this.”

Jowan looked between her and Alistair, and the others gathered behind them.

“Let me go. I swear, I’ll -- I’ll do right by you this time. Please. Please, don’t leave me here --”

“The way you left me at Kinloch?” Her voice was flat.

To her surprise, Zevran appeared at her elbow. “Dear Warden, think carefully. You spared me, did you not? This man did not hold a knife to your throat all by himself.”

“What?! He poisoned the Arl! He’s the reason Redcliffe is on fire! Am I the only one here with sense?”

“Mercy matters most when you hate them, Alistair,” said Leliana. “Even the imperium knew that once.”

Alistair and Leliana stared at each other in silence. Her with a serenity, him with his face flushed and screwed up against a tide of anger.

“Fine!” He threw up his hands and stalked out of the hall into the next room.

It seemed once again, that this was her choice to make.

Variel took a breath.

He was… there for me. Once.

She opened his cell door and directed him to the secret tunnel they’d used to enter the castle.

“Jowan?”

He paused on the threshold of freedom and looked down at her. Pleading with his eyes, but mercifully silent otherwise.

“I never want to see you again. But if you hurt anyone else, I’ll find you, and I’ll kill you myself.”

“I… thank you, Variel. For giving me a chance.”

“You live because you were my friend once. Go. And... be careful.”

He went.

Chapter Text

The sun was starting to sink below the horizon again, painting the castle as red as its namesake.

“That was a revenant.”

Variel was perched on the castle steps, still spitting blood between her knees while Alistair and Leliana worked to get the gate open and let the waiting knight and the rest of their party inside. At some point in the battle, a stray arrow had lodged itself in the gears so it seemed like they had a bit of a wait.

Normally she’d offer to help, but yet again she’d used every drop of mana at her disposal keeping everyone alive.

“Revenants, ha, those are a new one I will admit,” Said Zevran. He was spread-eagled beside her on the stairs, apparently exhausted. And fair enough, he’d been fighting all day just like the rest of them. Even if part of that fight had been against them.

“Do you know how often I’ve seen revenants, Zevran? Do you?”

“Ah, something tells me not at all?”

“Never!” she exploded, throwing her hands in the air. “They’re a bloody tale! Academic! A poorly done illustration in a yellowed book!”

“Hm,” he said. “It did not feel so much like a tale when it tried to tear my head off.”

Variel laughed without humor. “I imagine it didn’t. Oh for the days of nice quiet anxiety where I only had to worry about people trying to kill me.”

“Ah, now don’t make me nostalgic, Warden.”

She peered sideways at him through a hank of iron-gray hair that had come loose from her braided bun. He’d tucked his hands behind his head and looked more like a cat sunning itself than a man who had recently been in danger of being torn in two.

This was the first moment of real quiet they’d had together since she’d recruited him.

“If you keep staring you’re going to make me blush,” he teased.

Her eyes narrowed when she noted his were still closed. How had he known she was looking? “Do you even know how to blush?”

Zevran laughed and rolled to his side, resting his face in one hand. “What do you think?”

“That you’re awfully blase for someone on such thin ice.”

He shrugged. “Either you shall kill me, or you shall not. I see no reason to be anything other than myself in the interim.”

A guilty sigh. She had to be better than the templars of her upbringing. She owed the people fighting by her side at least that.

I refuse to be a tyrant.

“I’m not… I’m sorry. I’m not going to kill you because I’m annoyed. I shouldn’t have implied it.” She scrubbed at her face, felt the blood rushing into her ears and her cheeks with embarrassment. “I don’t know how to deal with people flirting with me. If that’s what you’re doing.”

Silence.

Variel glanced at him and saw him looking at her with -- what? Surprise? Suspicion? His smile had gone in any case. And his eyes were sharp, scanning her face like she’d hidden something under her skin.

Her shoulders hunched and she went even redder. “What?”

He shook his head. “Ah, nothing. We’ll see, hm?”

See what?

She folded her arms and watched as Leliana produced a set of tools and began working at the chains with them.

“So -- you’re from Antiva. I never read much about it?” An invitation.

“Aha, yes, I gathered. You didn’t know about the Crows.”

“Are they really so inextricable?”

“The Crows are why Antiva has no standing army! So -- yes.”

She hummed. That was an interesting idea. Assassins in the stead of soldiers. And hadn’t there been a queen some generations back? Who had married her children to nobility across the world?

“Other than that, then. What’s Antiva like?”

“Ooh, so you do want to know of my homeland?” The sparkle in his eye seemed entirely unfeigned. “The only way to truly appreciate it would be to go there, you realize.”

“I feel close enough when I’m sitting next to you,” she shot back, trying for (and probably failing at) sultry.

Zevran’s laugh made her smile. He was easy to like.

“I can say already it is a much warmer place. Not at all like here, with its frozen mud and snow -- tell me, how do you freeze mud?”

She muffled a laugh in her arm. “Don’t ask me. I’ve lived my life in a tower with no windows. Mud is a brand new acquaintance.”

Well. Not really. But her memories of the Alienage from before were… rather more focused on other things.

“Hm, well. Fair enough. In Antiva it rains often -- but the flowers, ah, they are always in bloom. It’s a saying we have. And it isn’t just about the flowers, you see.”

“No,” she said. Playing dumb.

Zevran didn’t take the bait, merely gave her an expression that was all heat and smirked. “I see. Perhaps I shall enlighten you?”

Well, he won that round because once more all the blood was rushing to her face.

“I --”

A hideous screech echoed across the courtyard. Variel was on her feet with a dagger in hand before she had a chance to think. But then she heard Kibeth’s bark as she came charging across the grass.

“Ack!”

The dog hit her knees and she went right back down on the stairs. Now at the perfect level to be licked to death.

“Augh, Kibeth! No!” But she was laughing which clearly meant ‘never stop’ so her entreaties were ignored. Which left her the perfect image of command for the approaching knights.

She decided she didn’t care because fuck it, her dog made things feel a little less horrible and it had been a very, very long day. And a longer night before. Both far too full of dead things for her comfort.

“Ugh, tis better you than I under that tongue. Have you any idea what that mongrel has been licking?”

Variel lifted her hand like a flag, and a single finger furthermore.

Morrigan let out a startled noise that might have been a laugh. She was as ever, hard to read. Moreso when a mabari was obscuring her face.

“Heeey,” said Alistair. “Where are my mabari kisses?”

The ploy worked.

She gave Variel one last parting lick (causing her bangs to stand straight up in some nightmare cowlick) then went over to Alistair and went to work.

Variel wiped her face clean with the least bloody kerchief in her possession, swiping as her hair until it cooperated. Then turned to look at the templars. More than a few were smothering smiles. Which was… good. What Ferelden could ignore the good graces of a Mabari?

“We’ve cleared all the dead we faced,” she said. “I think by now the demon responsible must be running short on supplies.”

Though Leliana had commented that with the age of the castle, it was entirely possible that there were more corpses interred in the walls, the very foundations. But if she started thinking of that she would probably start screaming in frustration, and they just didn’t have time for it.

“Be careful, all of you. And keep your swords close at hand.”

It wasn’t much of a rallying cry, but she was tired and ready for the coming confrontation to be over so she could sleep. And if Zevran decided to slit her throat so much the better because this damn mess would then be firmly in the territory of ‘someone else’s problem’.

They ascended the stairs and opened the doors to madness.

Bann Teagan laughed, and clapped and stood on his head. Heedless of the bruises on his face, and the blood seeping out of his hair. Ignoring his crooked fingers and the way his eyes streamed with tears.

And a little boy, sallow of face and fair of hair sat slumped in a throne with his mother by his side, watching.

Variel took one step into that room and felt her skin try to crawl off her bones. From the corner of her eye, she noticed Morrigan shudder and lift her lip in a sneer.

The boy on the throne watched them. Glittering, sunken eyes the only thing that moved in his face. Following them as they moved into the room, all armor, and swords, and grim determination.

Not a little boy, it’s not a little boy, he’s not a little boy, she chanted to herself, hands tightening around her staff until the wood creaked.

“Oh.”

Connor swept his hand out in a movement like it was on strings, and Teagan’s laughter cut off. The Bann was swept into the corner, standing at attention but unmoving. Like a toy soldier. The boy sat up in his throne and looked at the lot of them.

“You’ve all come to kill me, haven’t you?”

Variel straightened and looked him in the eye. He deserved that. “Yes.”

“No!” Lady Isolde threw herself before her child with a cry like she’d been wounded. “No! You won’t kill my son! I won’t let you! I will tear all of you to pieces before you touch a hair on his head!”

Connor gestured again, and Lady Isolde folded abruptly to her knees with her arms pinned to her sides.

“Connor?”

“It’s alright, mother.”

The boy stood and staggered around his mother. No -- shambled. Had she looked to the corpses and back she would have seen no difference. Connor was skin and bones, and each step, each breath was a struggle.

His face was expressionless. Slack. Like he was sleeping.

Or dead already.

It took him more than a minute to cross the room to her. And when he stopped only feet away, he swayed like a corpse in some invisible current. “Kill me.”

Her heart started to hammer in her throat. And she was abruptly aware of how small the boy was. How old was he? Seven? Eight? A tremble began in her bones. And she knew her mismatched eyes, black and gray, were wide as dinner plates.

Kill him.

“The boy is correct,” said Sten. And -- was that a note of respect? Softness? If she looked she knew she would see only stoicism. “If you cannot take care of him, I will.”

“But -- we can’t. He’s -- he’s a child…” Leliana seemed stricken. But surely she’d known where their fight through the castle had been going?

She doesn’t want to believe it.

“Tis no strange thing, really. Children die all the time. At least this one has the sense to ask for it when there is no choice left to him.”

“But --”

“Connor…”

Alistair’s whisper hurt the most, somehow.

He’d been the first friend she made outside the tower. Would he ever look at her the same way again after she slaughtered the child of a man who’d been family to him? Would any of them?

I can spare a man who tried to kill me, and a man who left me for dead, but not a little boy? Just one little mage boy?

Variel lifted her hand and focused. Pulling all her magic into her fingertips until a blue haze surrounded them. With her other, she dropped her staff and took one of their very few vials of lyrium. Uncorking it with her teeth and slamming it back. The world went a strange, hazy electric blue as she called yet more magic into her fingertips. Every nerve in her felt submerged in ice. Or stretched taut over an endless field of lightning.

Gentle, she threaded the crackling hand through the boy's hair, pressing each fingertip to his skull. Connor closed his eyes and let out a tiny, heart-wrenching sigh.

“Come here,” she called in a voice that couldn’t have been hers -- it was too powerful. It crackled like a storm. “Now. I know you’re in there.”

First, there was only Lady Isolde’s desperate sobbing. Then, under her hand, the boy began to shudder. To convulse. Yet his feet remained on the stone flagons, and her hand remained on his head. Even when his back bowed so sharply it looked like it had snapped. Connor opened his mouth and let out an inhuman wail. It was a young boy’s scream, all high and frightened. But then it doubled. Became two. And the voice that screamed with Connor was so deep it made her teeth rattle.

Dimly, she registered the sounds of battle as all the knights in the room went to battle, puppets, and empty, and the few who’d come in at her back blurred.

The world beyond the veil came into focus. Just one small piece of it. A spotlight of white and pocked earth like petrified fungi. Standing behind Connor in that small sliver of the Fade was a massive being of gray armor plates, burning violet eyes, and horns as tall as a man. It towered. And its hands were on either side of the boy’s head. Long, wickedly curved claws vanishing into his skull. Whereas from her hand there trailed the slimmest gossamer thread of blue lightning.

“Mouse,” she greeted.

Pride bared its teeth in a wicked grin.

“Apprentice no longer I see,” it rumbled. “The boy is mine, now.”

“The boy belongs to himself and no one else. He’s a child. Let him go.”

“Is that the best you can do?” Came a second voice. A woman’s voice. Soft and dripping with allure. From behind Mouse came another shape.

For a moment, something like a shapely woman made of cold flame, horned and aching for just one touch -- but then she resolved. Into the shape of a girl. Just past childhood herself, with bright eyes and the beginning nubs of horns. Slight, but appealing in fine but scuffed clothing, as if she were more inclined to climb trees than to sit and play with a tea set.

A playmate.

Was he alone in the castle then, for another child to seem so appealing?

“Try this on for size. Leave Connor, or die.”

Pride and Desire roared with laughter.

“Die?” And Desire’s voice was more woman than girl for a moment in her amusement.

“The body may die,” said Pride. “But we shall not. We go on while you strange fragile things rot.”

Her mind was clicking away, picking up speed as she felt the Lyrium burning through her. “Exactly.”

The demons watched her and said nothing.

“Exactly,” she repeated. “We strange, fragile things rot. That body you’ve wormed your way inside is rotting already. Don’t you see how it’s falling to pieces around you?”

While they watched her, she split her focus. Imagining those arcs of electricity was gentle, clever fingers of her own. And that they rode along the lines of light and energy spawning from the demons and tangling inside Connor’s brain.

Connor, she thought to him. Connor, you have magic. Help me.

The sense of sleep within him stirred. A tiny voice on the verge of giving up rang in her own head. I hurt so many people already…

Don’t hurt your mother too, damn it. Fight fucking back!

The curse sent a ripple of shock through the little boy. You said a bad word!

I’ll say plenty more before the day is out. Help me, Connor.

And as she spoke to Conner within, she continued to speak to the demons without.

“You’ve ridden this boy too hard already,” she went on. “Have you seen horses, ridden too hard? Their teeth all bloody foam, and eyes rolling? That’s this boy. Only instead of a heart attack, he’ll find some way to die all by himself. You don’t have a strong enough foothold in his head yet, do you? You couldn’t stop him from jumping from the highest turret. Not quickly enough. A physical body is so much harder than magic, to manage.”

Connor’s presence joined her own. Peeling the sticky threads of influence away, bit by bit. All while avoiding the spider, fat and sated in the center.

“And so what if this steed dies?” said Desire. Unreadable.

“Where will you be except for in the fade, but with more enemies?”

Pride’s turn to laugh. “You think your kind knows us well enough to destroy us?”

Variel looked Pride in its many eyes. And yes, perhaps it was ego that prompted her to say it but -- well, it was the perfect distraction wasn’t it?

“I’ll always know you, Mouse. And if I can find you, I can find her. And I will kill you both.”

“Mouse,” Pride repeated. “A name. Like Pride is a name. Do you know what Pride is untouched, little bare-faced slave?”

“Soon to die,” she snapped. “Let him go, damn it! Find another idiot to ride, and let the child go!”

Desire slithered closer, shedding the form of a child and leaning into Variel. And she was beautiful in a way she’d never seen before. But unformed. As if she didn’t quite know what to look like for her. “Come now, my darling… what is it you desire? Not just this boy’s life… there must be something more we can give you. Some deal we can make…”

Conner was more awake now. Working frantically with her lightning.

“I can claim what I want without your help.”

Desire flickered out of existence like a snuffed candle as the last of her influence was severed. But Pride made a noise low in his throat. A laugh? A snarl? Interest?

“Let him go, Mouse. You’ve seen the world. And holding to this body will only end badly for you.”

A sword flashed, and she heard it clang against something. Heard Zevran’s voice raise in a challenge. Could feel the warmth of her friends standing close.

Friends who, even in the depths of this strangeness, weren’t abandoning her.

“You know he won’t survive this encounter if you stay inside him.”

The fragile arc of lighting became a solid band of light, seemed as hard as crystal. Surging into Connor with renewed energy. Though by now the tips of her fingers had gone numb, and her whole body was beginning to throb like a rotten tooth.

And Pride… carefully withdrew its claws from Connor’s head.

“Until we meet again, mage.”

The lights flickered, and then went out.

The last thing Variel felt was two sets of arms as they caught her. Then, there was nothing.

Chapter Text

Something poked her cheek -- or more specifically the new scar going across it. Variel shuddered at the weird sensation and opened her eyes. They burned, and everything was a touch blurry, all orange light and humanoid shapes shifting through it.

“Ugh,” she said. And pressed her hands to her face, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

“Oh, good. You are awake.”

Morrigan.

For a moment she was waking in Flemeth’s hut all over again. And then she’d be told about Ostagar, and have to listen to Alistair’s harsh breaths on the road to Lothering. Crys he wouldn’t let go of.

“Wha -- oh, ouch, that smarts…”

She sat up fully and realized no, she wasn’t in the wilds. But Castle Redcliffe. Still in the throne room in fact. And she’d been laying against Morrigan’s shoulder. Who, seeing her awake and aware lifted her brows and scowled faintly.

“Tis becoming a habit, my tending to you when you are unconscious.”

“It’s probably because you’re the only other mage,” Variel said, fighting back a smile. “Who else knows how to deal with my weirdness?”

Morrigan scoffed. “Your strangeness is entirely beyond my ken.”

She brushed off her bare shoulder, as if there were something to be brushed, and stood up in a clatter of skirts. “Come, then. The others have gone to hear what drivel that woman has come up with to save her husband.”

That woman? Lady Isolde…. “Connor!”

Morrigan looked at her strangely. “Yes, the boy. He is… fine.”

“Oh. Well. That’s good.”

The two stared at one another. Morrigan looking like she very much wanted to say something. Probably something like ‘you didn’t know that was going to work?’ or ‘what did you do?’

Instead, they moved on, and Morrigan led her to the Arl’s bedchamber where he lay in something that was neither sleep nor death.

She had a moment to spy her friends as they turned to look at her -- then Lady Isolde blocked them and scooped her up into a crushing hug. One that made her twitch and reach for something pointy before she realized she wasn’t being attacked.

The noblewoman really hadn’t seemed like the bear hug type. Maybe it was exposure to Ferelden.

“Thank you, oh, thank you!” Was -- was she sobbing? Oh maker, she was, wasn’t she? “You saved my son, thank you!”

And so on and so forth.

Variel discovered that worshipful ‘thank yous’ were nearly as bad as flirtation. And she had just as little idea on how to react to it. Yet again her face filled with blood, and when Isolde let her go her shoulders hunched and she had to resist the urge to go and stand behind Alistair.

Who was also beaming at her!

Augh!

Variel forced her back to straighten and folded her arms, giving Lady Isolde what she hoped was a regal nod. Then forced the conversation onto a different track.

“What was your idea to help the Arl?”

----

Neither of the Wardens were what he had expected. Younger, for one. Not that he was all that old! No, he’d seen Variel and Alistair step out of the trees and laughed because of course, the one suicide mission he’d taken with no intent of survival was to kill green wardens, rather than grey.

Or so he’d imagined, right up until Variel knocked him silly.

And she is a beauty on a fight, isn’t she?

Young, yes. And fierce.

And to his eternal surprise -- merciful.

He chewed on that thought as he went to work on his poisons some distance from the fire. They’d left Redcliffe a solid week ago after three days spent regrouping. It had been very nice to sleep in a real bed after murdering half a cemetary worth of the already dead.

And now they were on the road. Traveling toward Kinloch Hold because Variel though the best place to look for evidence of Andraste’s ashes was within the circle’s library, and the circle was closer than Denerim.

‘There are books there that even the first enchanter doesn’t know about. And it is part of the Chantry,’ she’d said.

It helped that they needed to approach the tower anyway, to collect on the promises of the treaties she and Alistair had reclaimed.

That said, with each mile, he’d watched Variel fold in on herself a little more. Speak less. Frown more. And turn darkspawn and bandits alike into a fine red mist.

They were due to reach the tower by the next evening. He wondered how much smaller she would make herself before then. And he wondered if this was a weak point he could press her on in the future if things went sour.

To his surprise she sought him out, dropping onto the other end of the felled tree he’d claimed as his seat. A moment later her hound settled beside her, putting her heavy head in the Warden’s lap, tongue lolling.

“Warden,” he greeted, inclining his head.

She grunted and fiddled with an amulet around her neck that glimmered blood red where it caught the light.

Well, if she did not want to talk, he could take a hint. Zevran watched her from the corner of his eye and set aside the various bits of plant he’d been experimenting with. A distracted poison maker was often a very sick one. Or dead, but he liked to think he was too skilled to die from mere inattention.

Which is another strange thing, Zevran.

He still wasn’t sure why he’d talked his way into his own survival. The goal had been death, after all. He was no stranger to it. So why then the change of heart? Fear? Some further sort of self-flagellation for ignoring (her tearful begging, her declaration of love, the way his blade only perforated her lung and the way she’d died so slow and the way he and Taliesin had laughed about it) someone he ought to have trusted?

“Here.”

Startled from his musing, Zevran jumped when Variel shoved a rather heavy block wrapped in cheesecloth into his lap.

He blinked at it, nonplussed. Surely even Ferelden did not have cheese so heavy it could kill a man? Then again, he’d seen Alistair’s cooking.

“Ah, a brick, thank you,” he said mildly.

Variel snorted and did that thing where she forced herself to sit up straight rather than try to imitate a turtle. “Open it.”

“I shall treasure your fossilized cheese forever, Ward-- hm.” he cut himself off to stare. Surprised at the gleam hiding just under the cloth. It mirrored the stars above for brilliance.

It was a small bar of silver.

He looked askance at her, one brow raising, grin starting to surface that he couldn’t quite control. “Oh, and where did you get this?”

She scratched absently at the sunken scar across her cheek, blushing prettily. “It was in the castle. I thought of what you said.”

“I say many things, cara, do be specific.”

Variel tilted her head to meet his gaze, expression serious. “That you didn’t see any of the commission for your last job.”

He mirrored her, tilting his head right back. “And so you decided to pay me yourself? That’s a first!”

Considering that ‘job’ involved a lot less of her being alive. Was she truly not taking it personally?

She sighed and looked away, crossing her arms. “Consider it a bribe then. I’ve seen the way you stare in horror when I pull a dagger.”

“Your form is horrible,” he agreed.

Though this was a distraction from her intentions. She’d found the silver more than a week ago. So she must have kept it and watched and decided that now was the best time to give it to him. He’d felt her eyes on him many times since joining their unlikely band of saviors. Particularly after that afternoon.

They’d encountered the remnants of a wagon on the road, the dead fallen from it not yet picked clean by scavengers. Variel had decided to stop and check for supplies -- and to burn the bodies when a Darkspawn with a knife still jutting from its knee had exploded from the brush and gone for her throat.

Naturally, a dead Warden was a poor shield. So he’d slid between them and slammed a dagger through its eye. It had not been a particularly deadly encounter, he thought, even if he hadn’t decided to step in.

And yet the staring had only increased.

She is testing you, even as you test her, he thought.

But a bar of silver -- so easy to convert to different currencies! -- that was not a test. It was… a gift more thoughtful than it first appeared.

“So,” she said, breaking through his musings. “Teach me. You’re an assassin. Knives and poisons are sort of your thing.”

“I can wield a bow as well. Needs must.”

“Don’t let Leliana know, or the two of you will be competing to see who shoots the better apple of Alistair’s head.”

She wasn’t wrong, though he doubted Alistair could keep an apple on his head. He fidgeted.

“Pff, he is far too tall. But if you were to volunteer…”

“Ha! No.” She smiled at him. And it was the most relaxed expression he’d seen her make in the last week. He wondered why it was him she sent it toward. “So. Will you?”

“Will I… what?”

At some point, they’d both begun to lean toward one another. He only noticed when she did, and he felt her shocked exhale blow across his face.

“Teach me?”

There were plenty of things he could teach her if she were so inclined. He wasn’t blind. She was truly a sight, even if mentioning it drew her ire. She knows she is lovely but hates to hear it. Why?

Though some of what she’d said -- well, shouted really -- at the mage in Redcliffe offered answers.

He smiled and jumped to his feet, clapping his hands. Kibeth looked up with a faint ‘wuff?’ then put her head back down in the warden’s lap.

“When I am paid so handsomely, how can I say no? Produce your blade, and let us begin.”

She stared up at him for a moment before extracting herself from the dog and standing. “It’s… in my pack.”

Ah, no. But you don’t want me to know where all the other sharp and pointy things on your person are hiding.

“I’m going nowhere fast, Warden.”

So she went to get her weapon and approached him. He could see an awkwardness to her gait that would probably make this difficult. This Warden was the sort to be self-conscious when she realized she was being watched.

“Go on,” he encouraged. “Imagine a dastardly assassin has just deprived you of your staff and dared call you beautiful.”

Variel bit her lip and fought to keep a straight face. But she also took her stance and held out her dagger the way she typically did. Which was to say like an angry noblewoman with a letter opener.

“Hm…”

He paced around her with his chin in his hand. Watching a little shiver go down her spine, and her ears twitch as she resisted the urge to follow him with her eyes.

Her feet were planted, but too wide. Mages tended to find their spot and stick to it -- and though she moved often in battle (it had been a surprise to see her tumbling into the fray with his men, for one!) the bad habit was still there. And her arm was at an awkward, too stiff angle. Not to mention that grip! Creatore, aiutalo!

“Ah, this may take some time…”

“Thank you for your astounding vote of confidence,” she said.

“You’re welcome.”

He stepped just behind her, tapping her left foot with his. “Point that like so, and bend your knees.”

“Like this?” She rearranged herself into an approximation of his own stance, surprising him.

Well, she has been watching.

“Ah, I see you cannot take your eyes off me! So much the better. Yes, but now you are bent too far forward…”

He continued to tweak, to push, and pull until she stood more or less as he did. Though that did nothing for the way she held her dagger. He huffed and stood closer still, reaching around her and taking her hand.

“Like this. Loosen your wrist.”

Her back tensed where it touched his chest, traveled up her neck and into her jaw. But she did as he asked, letting out a harsh sigh a moment later.

“Like this?”

Almost.

“Bend your elbows, Cara. Yes, just like that.”

And then he was away, before her rather than behind. Noticing a vaguely disappointed expression flash across her face after he did so.

“Now your job is to hit me, naturally.”

She startled, breaking the stance and giving him a look. “I’m not jumping at you with live steel, Zevran.”

“You must learn somehow, no?”

She put away her dagger and surged forward. Surprised, he ducked under her in a fluid motion and watched as she settled into something very like the position he’d shown her a moment before.

“That does not help your grip, cara.”

“Unfortunate,” she said. Surly. “I’m still not going at you with something I can cut you with.”

Zevran huffed. “So touchy! I suppose then we must keep an eye out for blunted weapons.”

She shrugged, standing some feet away in the near dark so far from the fire. Her eyes shone, though the rest of her face was in shadow. She would take a breath as if she wanted to say something to him, but pause, and swallow it.

He waited. Contrary to what others may have believed, he could be patient. Much of killing well came from silence, and stillness, and waiting for the right moment. Well, the part that had nothing to do with seduction.

“Are we done, then?”

“Hm?” That hadn’t been what she wanted to say.

“Practicing, I suppose.”

“For now.” In truth, there should have been more. But it was late and they were both tired. Or he was, anyhow.

Zevran dropped back to his perch, fully expecting her and the Mabari to retreat toward the rest of the camp. Instead, she held out her hand to him.

He stared at it for a moment, then lifted his eyebrows at her.

She wasn’t looking at him (unless it was from the corner of her eye). “Come closer?”

“Pardon?”

“To camp, I mean. You don’t have to put yourself so far away. Unless you want to, the way Morrigan does.”

And more often than not Alistair ended up baiting Morrigan into camp anyhow.

He was… oddly touched by the gesture. Placed his hand lightly in hers and allowed her to pull him to his feet. They were of a height, he noticed. Though he was slightly taller. And she still wouldn’t quite meet his gaze.

“You would want me so close?”

She slapped a hand to the back of her neck and all but squirmed. “Perhaps I am royally stupid, but I want to trust you, and I want you to feel like you belong with the rest of our motley crew. So. Yes.”

He laughed, but softly, almost under his breath.

“And so I shall.” He scooped up his bedroll and gestured extravagantly at the center of camp. “Lead on, oh fearless Warden.”

Her smile was oddly rewarding.

There are worse people to sign on with, he decided.

Chapter Text

Variel talked circles around the templar standing guard. Carroll was an easy mark, really, he’d never been the same after the Lyrium sunk its claws in him. But that didn’t mean he had no spine at all.

He was always the sort who liked to have power over us, she thought.

“Fine, but I’m not ferrying all of you across! There’s only room for four in the boat. So pick who you want, oh grand Warden.”

So saying he turned his back and went to untie the ropes.

Variel thought fast.

Sten -- no. Qunari and the chantry don’t mix and I want them to listen to me. Alistair would be a better choice, he was once on the road to being a templar himself, and Greigor will listen to him before he listens to me. Especially considering how I left…

Morrigan also wasn’t an option. Taking an apostate into the tower? It wouldn’t end well. Particularly with Morrigan’s sharp tongue. Though in truth, she was more worried the woman might say something that would destroy the tenuous bond they’d forged since leaving the wilds.

Leliana would also be a good choice, and yet…

She was still irritated with her over a conversation they’d had on the road. About the perceived usefulness and beauty of elves. She’d meant well, but that didn’t make it less revolting.

So, Zevran.

He was fairly good at talking in a way Alsitair wasn’t. He’d talked his way into the party, for one. And she didn’t think he’d judge when her actions in helping Jowan inevitably came to light.

“Morrigan, Sten, Leliana, you stay back along with Kibeth. See if you can’t find some kind of information at the Inn. Lady Isolde mentioned there were knights here that have yet to return. Alistair, Zevran, come with me.”

The boat ride over was just a little like pulling her nails off. She sat ramrod straight behind the Templar, eyes locked on the tower.

Relax, they aren’t going to lock you up again, you’re a warden, they can’t, they --

“I wonder if these Templars know what that looks like,” said Zevran.

Alistair turned and gave Zevran a suspicious look. “What looks like what?”

An expansive gesture at the tower. “Do not tell me you don’t see it!”

A pause as Alistair stared -- by now both Variel and Carroll were watching curiously. And saw when Alistair’s face went pink and he choked on a laugh. “It does not!”

Zevran’s laugh was impossible not to smile along with, Variel discovered.

“Ha! But I did not say what it looked like! If It weren’t true, how would you know?”

“If you’re implying the circle tower is a dick,” said Variel, fighting to keep a straight face, “You’re absolutely right.”

Carroll’s soft ‘hey’ was ignored.

“You can’t just say everything that’s, uh, that’s…”

“Take your time, Alistair,” Zevran encouraged, grin catlike.

“Long and hard?” Variel suggested.

Zevran winked at her. Had he done this on purpose?

“Well if you go by the metric, the Blight is a dick too!”

She cackled -- louder than she wanted to, because of how nervous she’d been. But the ridiculous conversation had served its purpose. It was hard not to be amused thinking about all the little templars buzzing around a giant --

“Alright. Everyone off my boat,” Carroll grunted.

“It’s not your boat,” Variel said.

But she exited nonetheless, stepping easily onto the other dock, and helping Alistair and Zevran even though they probably didn’t need it.

The stone arches over the doors to the tower looked just a little like the mouth of some beast. One that had stood and been cursed for ages to devour that which was unwanted by the rest of Thedas. She heard Carroll grumbling, the lap of waves on the harsh rocky shore. Distant birds.

The sun was gone. Somehow it seemed fitting she return to her home under cover of darkness. Like a fugitive.

Oh, fuck off, she thought.

And stepped in through the doors. There was a short, winding stair, and another set of doors. Even closed, she could hear some kind of commotion going on beyond it.

They all chanced a look at each other, thinking the same thing. Carroll was one thing, but this… What else had gone wrong? There was a sinking sensation in her stomach. Redcliffe, and now the circle tower… were all the stops on their journey going to be -- for lack of a better term -- harrowing?

“Well. Come on then.”

They stepped into an entry hall in chaos. Templars, wounded and crying and covered in burns. Or hastily erecting a barricade before the doors leading to the apprentice quarters. Men and women with blank stares. Greigor shouting commands in a voice on the edge of cracking.

And the realization that the oppressive energy she’d been feeling all day had almost nothing to do with coming home, and everything to do with what felt like a veil in tatters.

She was still staring in shock when Greigor noticed her.

“You! What are you doing back here?” he snarled.

Variel stood tall, wished to be taller, even, so she might stare down her nose at the human man who’d made her life hell.

You are a Warden, and you can do this, she told herself.

So Variel told him about the treaties and demanded the help they were owed. And Greigor laughed in her face.

“The tower has fallen to abominations! Even now we’ve sent a runner to seek permission for the Rite of Annulment. Any help you might have found here is long gone, warden.”

“The Rite -- no! They can’t all be abominations! There -- there are children in there, Knight-Captain!”

She saw in his face that children were only ‘smaller abominations’. That any veneer of civility had been stripped cleaning back in the face of terror.

So she made her choice and got to talking.

They were going to climb the tower and save it.

Or die trying.

Permission granted she turned to Alistair, ready to tell him to stay behind. But he must have guessed where her thoughts were because he shook his head. “Uh-uh, nope, not happening.”

“Alistair… we’re the only Warden’s in Ferelden.”

“And I’m not letting you walk in there with an Assassin and nothing else. Your assassin, too by the way --"

“I was meant to kill the both of you, actually,” Zevran corrected, tone helpful.

Alistair ignored him. “I trained for this, remember?”

She scowled. “We’re here to save --”

“You helped me save my home,” he interrupted. “Let me help save yours.”

“He does have a point, Warden,” said Zevran. “My skills are quite good, but a mage and a rogue is a very bad bunch to send in alone. We’ll need something a bit bigger to draw the attention while we two go for the soft bits, no?”

“Are you calling me fat?” said Alistair, all mock indignation.

Variel choked on another laugh and had to shove down a sudden rush of affection for the both of them. It wasn’t logical, but -- she wanted them with her. A little humor might make the horror more bearable.

“Okay,” she said softly. “We all go.”

And so they did.

But humor was in short supply once those heavy doors were barred behind them.

---

Home.

She exhaled, and sat up from her bed, smiling. Kibeth yawned and rolled onto her back, easily taking up the other half of the bed where (who do you want? They’ve been sleeping beside you, yes, they love you so much) slept. Variel reached over to give the dog a vigorous belly rub before finally deciding to get up.

Home was a nice, warm cabin -- bordering on a lodge, really. Tapestries of the sea, and of elven history lined the walls. What parts of the wall that weren’t covered in shelves full to bursting with (books burning, the circle library went up like so much tinder at the hands of a laughing skeleton of flame and magma) that is.

Variel selected one at random and wandered into another room. There was a roaring (Anders would be the one to spring out at you from a wardrobe and try to set you on fire before recognizing you), and comfortable seating strewn about it. Here and there lay scattered papers and drawings.

“Good morning!” Called a familiar voice from the kitchens.

“Morning, love!” she called back. “I’m going outside to see if any of my students have shown up after all. You know how they are.”

She opened the door and peered out into the snowy wood. All was silent, and in the early blue light of dawn, she could see few things had disturbed last night’s snowfall. She leaned against the door frame, humming softly, wondering how (the tiniest of bodies, a little mage girl with her braids burned off, curled around a lopsided sewn mabari toy, as if it might protect her. “Wynne? Can you --” “I am sorry, this is beyond my ability.”) long it would be before the mage children were sent back to learn their next lesson.

There was a warm presence behind her, hands on her shoulders and a kiss to the back of her neck that made her sigh.

“You did so well,” they said. And the voice was familiar, yes, but… in too many ways. For a long dizzying moment, she wasn’t sure if a man or a woman stood behind her.

“Did I?”

Gleaming eyes opened in a hollow near a tree. A very large mouse observed her with twitching ears. And she couldn’t articulate why the sight seemed so… important.

“Mmhm,” said the voice, lips traveling to the side of her neck.

Her heart began to pound unevenly. Stuttering in her throat like it was trying to choke her. Goosebumps rippled across her skin.

Who was behind her? If she turned to look, whose face would she see?

“Your parents are supposed to come today. And the others, from that mad quest you went on to stop the Blight.”

For a moment all she could focus on was the word ‘parents’. Dairon and Fen’an were dead. Long dead. Moldering in small, paupers graves in the Denerim alienage. Or at least she hoped someone had buried them after (the templar all shadow and bright shining light where the sun hit his plate mail, reaching, her mother’s staunch refusal, the sword going through her like she was a piece of thawed meat --) they died.

Died. Such a kind word. It was murder--

The Blight. They’d stopped the Blight? Why couldn’t she remember how?

You ended that. It’s over and done with, just relax and drink your tea, and luxuriate in having enough food, respect, and in knowing you’ve saved so many unwanted children from the circle. They’re all here. They’re waiting for their teacher --

She’d make a terrible teacher.

And she wasn’t done exploring the world. There were so many more things she wanted to see. She wanted to be more than just -- just the person who held back the tide of blood. She wanted home, but home was on the road, with people she could count on at her back.

There was a horrid guttural whisper in her ears, now. And something that couldn’t quite arrange itself into music. A voice, deep and wounded and pounding in her temples. The voice of the ArchDemon.

Variel stepped away from the stranger behind her and turned to face them. They seemed pleasant enough. With pretty, but indistinct features. Genderless, but smiling. Every now and again something would become clear -- pointed ears, or golden bangles, or a flash of red hair -- but for the most part, the stranger was unformed.

“What’s wrong my love?”

Squeaking, the mouse she’d spotted from before ran across her feet and vanished into the cabin, which was all harsh angles and shadows now that she looked again.

Variel reached behind her and found her staff. The nightdress was abruptly heavy, abruptly blue and silver scale. “Everything.”

And before the demon could show itself, she threw her lightning down its throat. Purple flame, a high offended screech. Then the world around her wobbled and began to run like melting candle wax.

Bit by bit, reality returned to her and --

“This is the fade.”

The remnants of her dream popped like a soap bubble.

Or at least hers did.

Now she stood at a verdant crossroads with a brilliant white monolith in its center. Where it caught the sun it gleamed like opal. And the lush landscape surrounding her seemed almost normal -- so long as she didn’t look up.

Because where there ought to have been blue skies, there was a yawning green void through which ancient structures floated, and hunks of raw crystal gleamed like the eyes of something that spent its life in the dark. And beyond that, clearly visible even in the distance sprawled the Black City.

A cough drew her attention.

Variel’s staff was in her hand with a thought. But when she spun to face the demon, she saw only a familiar man, slumped at the base of the monolith. Niall. And he looked poorly.

“Niall?”

“I see you got out. Irving was right to call you talented.”

Her cheeks flamed. “It was the taint, I think. Not me. If I weren’t a Warden, I’d still be there.”

“And quick to sell yourself short as he said as well.”

Variel growled, still blushing. She was being realistic and only wanted to be praised for things she’d actually done, thank you very much.

“Don’t forget I helped a maleficar escape,” she bit out.

He shrugged, nonplussed. “The tower did far worse all by itself. Your friend isn’t much compared to Uldred, he just wanted out.”

She couldn’t claim to have thought any differently.

“Do you know where my friends are?”

Niall glanced skyward. “Dreaming. The way I was dreaming. I don’t know how long it’s been.”

That sent a thrill of terror down her spine. Because in truth -- neither did she. And she’d taken Alistair with her, despite her reservations! Stupid! She told herself. So stupid! If you’re both trapped, who’ll stop the blight?

“I’m gonna go and get them, then.”

She looked up to find Niall watching her. Expressionless. If it was Niall at all and not another spirit of the fade… Variel shook herself and looked around.

Grassy fields. Well trod paths in the dirt. And then the other world in the sky…

She noticed the monolith was three-sided.

“I have to go up there, don’t I?”

His nod didn’t make her groan. It just made her want to push up her sleeves and dig her heels in harder. She was good at puzzles. She liked them. And she knew the fade better than any of those trapped except perhaps Wynne. So she pulled off her belt, slung it around the monolith, and began to climb.

The sky reached out green fingers, and soon enough swallowed her whole. Dropping her into a maze built from fragments of history, and flame. Swarming with darkspawn, and cackling demons and doors meant to be impassable.

You’ll have to do better than that.

---

It was a natural part of becoming a Crow. The torture. He’d been expecting it for years now already. Dreading and anticipating in equal measure. Because it was also the final step. And he’d done so well thus far!

He hadn’t expected to see others on the rack first, though. Hadn’t expected that they’d require him to do the torturing.

Taliesin screamed the loudest. But Rinna… she was quiet until cartilage and bone began to pop. And then she was begging and when had Taliesin joined him on the other end of the rack? And why could he not take his hands away and --

And then, naturally, it was his turn.

It was almost a relief.

Even with Rinna below him, stretching his legs too far.

They will not break your body, he reassured himself. An assassin who cannot move is a poor assassin.

But then there were two pops around his hips and he couldn’t keep back a keening scream. Like a dying animal.

This wasn’t how it had gone. Was it?

And -- no. There was the door again. Now he knew it would be Taliesin and Rinna on the racks. That he would pull them to pieces this time --

His turn. His shoulders popping. His neck. His spine. Round and round the nightmare went. Spinning faster and faster.

It is only what you deserve, Zevran.

True. Why pretend otherwise? Perhaps it would even begin to feel good. Sometimes pain did that. And so long as he was the one on the rack, Rinna and Taliesin would not be. If he could just stay there…

Oh but you can. Just relax. You’ll never have to hurt them if you stay here. Stay, Zevran.

Such a tantalizing whisper.

St -

“Stay away from him!”

He turned his head and observed as the door burst open in a blast of lightning, and an elven woman crashed into the torture chamber. She was flushed with sunburn and had dark, iron-gray hair that fell around her face in bloody hanks from a bun just about to give up. Her eyes -- one blue-gray, the other blue-black -- were sharp and presently narrowed with a catlike rage. More blood splattered her armor, though it was black and greasy. She was a… a Grey Warden.

Familiar. Hm. That expression is rarely good news, I think.

Taliesin shouted and fell, spasming on the ground as an arc of lightning spat from the warden’s staff and hit him in the fingers.

“Don’t!”

The woman stopped feet away from him, expression softening from killer to… to what? But she’d stopped and that was all that mattered. Was this part of his test?

“It is… part of becoming a Crow,” he panted. “Do not… interrupt. Or they will… start again.”

“Oh, that ship has sailed, Zevran,” said Rinna. She leaned forward, resting her cheek on his ankle. One hand wrapped loosely around his leg. And tugged, making him groan and try to turn away from the pain.

He was vaguely aware of movement, unable to look away from his torturer. Her eyes… had not always been that color, had they? And her fingers were… so long…

The other woman slapped a hand to his forehead. “You’re already a Crow, Zevran. This isn’t how it happened.”

He was about to ask how she could possibly know, then -- a wave of cooling energy pulsed through him, starting at his head and sparking all the way to his toes. Realigning bones, tightening muscles, revealing that the only thing before him was a flaming, purple woman. Who smiled and beckoned.

It shouldn’t have been tempting.

“That’s enough of that!” And here were his daggers.

Another demon rose. But he and Variel fought back to back.

It had been a good long while since he took someone apart so neatly in a fight. Blood spattered and breathing hard, he turned to his rescuer to say… he didn’t know what he wanted to say. But she was smiling and -- and then there was nothing.

Variel snatched for his hand, growling in her throat and then --

There was Alistair, that woman Wynne. And a rather large unhappy fellow in the middle of swampy hell under a sky like a green void.

They were both looking at him.

“What happened to all those luscious wood nymphs?”

“Is sex all you think about?” Wynne grumbled, glaring at him with more weariness than before.

He winked at her and bared his teeth in a grin with no humor, but plenty of affected charm. “Perhaps a night with you might cure me?”

And then it was another fight. He and Variel were side by side several times. But there was no time to speak. No time to tell her to keep what she’d seen to herself. No time to say thank you. To recognize if he even wanted to thank her.

Because it disturbed him that the desire the demon had found most tempting in him had been the one full of suffering.

---

Cullen had lost his mind. Or had his hold on it always been so tenuous? He was practically foaming at the mouth, eyes rolling like a wild horse. Shouting vitriol and preaching utter destruction with every breath.

She’d be lying if she said she wasn’t startled.

Variel had never returned the man’s affections. And he’d never pressed -- had seemed to think he was being secretive about them. But she had enjoyed the fact that his crush kept her from the attentions of crueler folk, and found him - tolerable. Not quite a friend, but not an enemy either.

And now…

Once more she wanted to shout about the children or shout about Niall’s efforts. Maybe she just wanted to shout in general. Scream her throat bloody if that might make him see. See that they were people.

But what would be the point?

The others must have thought she was actually entertaining letting the tower fall. Because all at once their voices rose in a clamor. And she was most surprised when Zevran spoke the fastest and the harshest -- in favor of the mages. Even after the fade.

“I’m not letting Greigor and his men slaughter the people who survived this mess --”

Cullen slammed himself against the barrier with a howling cry. “No! Don’t you get it? If there’s any chance they’ve been possessed like the rest of them we must act now! Kill them before they’re let loose!”

It was a good thing he was caged because that was the only reason it didn’t turn into an all out brawl right then.

“Come on. We have the Litany. Now we take Uldred down a peg.”

“Or kick him right off the top of the tower,” Alistair muttered.

“Or that.”

“I trusted you…” Cullen said. Sliding down the barrier and watching her with bloodshot eyes. Dazed and confused and full of hatred. “I wanted…”

“I never trusted you,” she bit back. “And now I see I was right not to.”

Variel climbed into the chamber where she’d had her Harrowing and didn’t look back. Didn’t think about might have beens, or mercy. Seeing all the dead, the tortured, the way the fade had attacked her friends, and yes, even Cullen…

It made her want to toss her staff aside and tear Uldred apart with her bare hands.

She could only laugh when he tried to talk her over to his side.

“Choke on this,” she snarled. And flung first lightning, then herself into the fray, trusting Wynne with the Litany because she was too full of violence to run about pulling the mages back to themselves.

It was fitting that Uldred’s skin split and Pride come roaring out of him. Shouting orders in the man’s voice. Taunting. Even though she would have preferred to smash his human face in.

Take what you can’t get.

So she took as many of his eyes as she could. Wanting to be closer, damn it. Wanting a knife, or a sword over a staff. Because the impact of spells just wasn’t fucking brutal enough.

Time must have passed. Because her limbs were heavy, her friends were bleeding and panting. Uldred had gone to one knee, massive plates of armor peeled away and seeping some sort of violent green liquid.

Variel stormed to his head and shoved her staff down his throat. A moment later, all that remained of Uldred was a thick layer of pulsing goo. And even that was beginning to desintigrate in almost lovely whorls of green light.

And it felt fucking good to strike that killing blow.

Everything after passed in a red haze.

And by the time she and the others brought Irving to Greigor, her hands were shaking. Any minute she expected her teeth to chatter.

Because the anger was draining away from her. And now she only felt sick. Like she might actually cry.

She’d gotten what she wanted.

So why did it feel like she was about to vibrate apart into a million tiny pieces?

Chapter Text

They’d entered the tower just as dusk was falling. Now as they left it was falling again. Giving the queer sensation that no time had passed at all. That everything in the tower had been some kind of nightmare.

If only.

Adding to the sense of surreality was what they returned to.

Had anyone been expecting to come across the lake and see Sten staking bodies on a fire?

No.

Another adventure appeared to have taken place while they were dealing with demons, and abominations. One that Variel honestly might have preferred. It certainly seemed to have taken less time, and less of a toll.

“They attacked us as soon as I left the Inn after asking the owner about the knights, and the scholar,” Leliana said. “Morrigan found a map on one of their bodies. They’re from a place called ‘Haven’ in the mountains.”

“Well. I guess we’ve ticked all the things on our list quite nicely with this trip,” she laughed. A strained, unhappy sound that seemed like it had been torn out of her with a meat hook. “Is there a reason there are still corpses?”

“Many hid themselves in the ruins. They attempted to set fire to the inn,” said Sten, poking their own fire so it roared higher. “They did not succeed.”

Her smile was vicious, and brief. “Good.”

Kibeth came charging out of the ruins a moment later, barking. Naturally the dog plowed her over and started to try and drown her. But Variel couldn’t say she cared. She wrapped her arms around the dog’s deep chest and hugged her tightly.

Dogs were uncomplicated. Kibeth wouldn’t watch her with anything but adoration.

“Any objections to staying at the Spoilt Princess another night?”

Sten grunted, but everyone else, particularly those who had been in the tower seemed all for it.

Eventually, she pushed Kibeth off of her and got back up. Feeling a little less like she was going to shake apart at the seams. But it was a tenuous calm.

She buried the nerves with something more fun. Startling her most taciturn companions with gifts. It was so much easier to give people things than stumble through words. Or touch, much as she craved it.

Besides, neither Morrigan nor Sten seemed the type to welcome hugs.

Sten’s expression when she produced the small, colorful painting was enough to warm her heart a little. On anyone else it would have been unnoticeable. A very, very slight warmth in his tone as he thanked her. The way he carefully stowed it with his things.

She knew he’d been looking at the artwork in Redcliffe!

And when Morrigan revealed the book she’d squirreled away from Irving’s study was one she’d actively wanted to read… well, that was even better.

So it was in slightly better spirits that she took at seat at the bar in the inn and ordered a drink. Her enthusiasm died a quick death when the tankard of ale was set before her. Was it supposed to foam like that? And while it smelled rather nice, she couldn’t help but feel it also smelled like it had gone off.

“I do believe you are meant to drink it, not stare it to death, as it were.”

Variel jerked and shot Zevran a sour look when he settled beside her. He only grinned cheekily in response as if to say ‘assassin’. If he’d said so aloud she might have asked him why his actual assassination attempt had been so unsubtle.

“I drank once, and it didn’t end well,” she admitted.

Zevran’s eyes lit up. “Oh-ho! I sense a tale. Do tell.”

She sighed, lifted the tankard, and took a swig. It was -- sweet. But it tasted wrong. Her grimace made Zevran laugh at her.

“Jowan and I pestered Anders until he let us into the kitchens after midnight. We were twelve or so at the time and put away an entire bottle of cooking sherry. I think I vomited so much the next morning that I must have sounded like Sten for a week after.”

He tsked. “Unfortunate. How is that treating you then?”

She shrugged, staring into the tankard. “I’ll let you know tomorrow.”

Out of the corner of her eye she noticed him watching her. He usually seemed to be, in fact. But this watchfulness had a different quality. As if he were actually imagining something tawdry instead of just saying it.

Variel huffed and took another drink. Her ears were going to be turning pink any second now.

“Something you’d like to say, Vigilessa?”

I need to learn Antivan.

“Do you stare at everyone like that?”

“Not everyone,” he said, uncharacteristically serious. “But a beautiful woman such as yourself--” Was he calling her that to make some sort of point? “Why not? Surely you draw the stares of men and other women alike. Does this bother you?”

He’d titled his head and was watching with genuine curiosity.

“Sometimes,” she admitted. “It has before. In the… the circle particularly. But not when you do it.”

A pleased hum. His eyes half-closed in a smile. “I see. But perhaps you would prefer I desist? It would be difficult, naturally, but I am nothing if not a gentleman.”

Variel spat out her drink to keep from snorting it out her nose. Once she was done laughing, she couldn’t help but say (and she would blame the ale if pressed), “A gentleman? Oh, but that’s just too bad for my daydreaming.”

“Now this is intriguing! I shall have to redouble my efforts immediately.” He leaned in close, as if imparting a secret. “There was a dancer in Antiva city, a lovely elven woman like yourself. I believe I managed to stare off all seven of her skirts. It’s a trick worth retrying.”

“If you manage to stare the armor off of me, more power to you, Zevran, darling.”

He reached over and stole a drink from her mug, wrinkling his nose a moment later. “Ah, I will have to find you much better drinks first, I think.”

“Doesn’t all of it taste like…” she struggled to find a word. “Something that’s gone off?”

“Ah ha, no, the very good kind tastes like drinking a fire.”

She wasn’t sure that was much of an improvement actually but she’d take his word for it. And take back her tankard as well. It might not have been very good, but it was dulling the edges of her anxiety wonderfully.

“Did I not know better,” Zevran began, watching Sten enter the Inn and just as quickly start up the stairs to the rooms. “I would say you were building quite the harem.”

Her giggle had a slightly manic edge to it, but was genuine nonetheless. “Oh?”

“Oh yes. Myself, of course --”

“Of course,” she agreed.

“Alistair, in a rather boyish way. Sten is self-explanatory, naturally. And Morrigan and our lovely songbird of a Sister? Your taste cover a wide spectrum.”

“Mm,” she nodded. “Well then, where does Wynne fit in with all this?”

“Ah, Wynne. She is a complex and lovely woman meant for more mature discerning tastes. As I said, a wide spectrum.”

Her mirth was reaching terminal levels. And -- was her tankard nearly empty already? Strange how quickly it went. Well, the headache was a problem for future her. She ordered another drink, and by the time she finished, mirth had given way to contemplation and a return of that horrid shaky feeling in her arms, and legs. That jagged beat of her heart.

Note to self; only one drink per a pity party.

“Zevran?”

“Yes?”

“You’ve killed people before.”

“Really? I have?”

“Oh, you haven’t? Well that does explain why the assassin… ing… worked so… well?” Was the room spinning? Or just her? And -- oh no, there was the anxiety again. She leaned forward, pressing her head to the cool wood of the table. Her eyes burned and her throat had gone tight.

“I haven’t killed very many people,” she admitted. “And I’ve never… wanted to tear someone apart with my… with my teeth like that… and I still want to… to hurt him, but I already killed him and I’m sort of… scared by that.”

A hand on the back of her neck. Warmth contrasting with the cold.

“It wasn’t… I heard you and, and Lelianna talking on the road here. It wasn’t even a clean death. But, oh, fuck, I shouldn’t be trying to explain this drunk.”

She sat up a little, pressing her hands to her face and gritting her teeth around a cry. Because it was over and she should feel fine! She was a goddamn adult, and she had a blight to stop and --

“Ah, cara, breathe for me now. Relax a bit, yes?”

Without thinking she turned and threw her arms around Zevran’s shoulders and clung. Had she been sober she would have felt him go stiff as a board -- and just as quickly melt.

“The clean death is something that worthy, or ah che due palle -- he deserved no better. I am hardly going to judge you!”

She wasn’t crying. Just shaking. And she didn’t know how to make it stop. Her hands flexed against his back, and with great reluctance, she forced herself to move away and sit tall. Place her (trembling) hands on the table.

“I apologize.” Force that sobriety! Oh maker, she just knew she’d be mortified in the morning.

Zevran’s expression was slightly bewildered. “What for?”

“Throwing myself at you?”

“You can throw yourself at me any time.”

“Oh don’t make me laugh! I might start crying and I need to keep at least some small shred of my dignity!” While she said it like a joke, she was being serious.

“You have not been out of that tower long, have you?”

She shook her head. “Maybe two months now? I lost track.”

“I see. And I imagine there was not much killing, or lovemaking, or drinking involved in said tower?”

“Oh people found ways for all three,” she muttered darkly.

“People always do. But my meaning is -- this is still new to you, yes? I did not thrust myself into my first kill and come out of it with a smile, hard as it is to believe! It is normal to be like this afterward. Especially when it’s personal.”

“That probably shouldn’t be so comforting,” she admitted. But a little of the shake had left her hands as she stared at them and listened to him speak. “How do you sleep at night?”

A second later she realized how that sounded.

“Wait! I don’t mean -- I mean -- when, oh, shit, I’m sorry --”

Zevran coughed. And -- it had to just be a cough, because when had he ever held back a laugh before? “Quite well, now. But it was not always so.”

“Any tips on sleeping tonight?”

He smiled crookedly. “I will be very surprised if you have any dreams after drinking two tankards. Considering the last time you did, you were twelve, vigilessa.”

Well, okay, that was fair.

Variel got to her feet. She was proud to report she only wobbled a little. “I’m going to. Sleep this off then.”

She paused before navigating around the tables to the stairs. “Thank you, Zevran.”

“Any time.”

Chapter Text

They were en route to the mountains after having stopped to resupply, and trade some wolf pelts to a tanner for some warm winter cloaks. The wind was bitter, and if it wasn’t pushing them forward, the chill of it was stopping their breaths in their throats and trying to suffocate them into turning back. Variel couldn't help but compare the cold to their chances of survival. It had been a while since it felt like her lungs were tethered to stones that had been thrown into the loch. Maybe it was seeing what had happened to her home.

Or maybe it's everything catching up to you again.

She was vaguely aware of Sten turning into a thundercloud behind her, but the cold served as an excellent distraction. Ferelden or not, there had been some few comforts in the Circle. Namely, heating, and not having to weather everything nature decided to throw at her. It didn't make up for being a prisoner, or the myriad of other ways the Templars made her feel on the knife's edge between safety and vulnerability, but a nice heated tower sounded worthy of a chant all its own right then.

“Variel? Could I talk to you about something?”

She was not so subtly walking close to Alistair, because he was tall and cut the wind. That was probably the only reason she heard him when he spoke up. Not because of the wind, though. But because she was slowly sinking deeper into her own head. Maybe he'd seen her frowning like the expression had been carved into her.

“I’m not doing anything else right now,” she joked.

“Oh, I thought you might be busy trying to climb under my cloak.”

The faintest bubble of warmth grew in her chest. “Not yet, but soon. You’re entirely too warm, I demand you share with us tiny small-boned folk.”

He snickered. “I don’t know… you put away an awful lot of last night’s stew for someone so tiny. You’ve got to be hiding all of it somewhere.”

Variel choked on a laugh. “Maybe I only ate so much because Leliana made it.”

“Ohhh, ouch! Oh, that smarts! I did warn you, though. Charred rabbit and badly made stew. It’s practically a Ferelden national dish you know. You’re a traitor if you prefer that frilly Orleasion food.”

“Leliana’s mother was Ferelden, so it doesn’t count. And I think you’re avoiding whatever it is you want to talk about. Out with it Alistair.”

“Well, that’s one way to win an argument.”

She snorted. “I’d apologize but I’m not sorry.”

“You are feisty today! ...Please don’t hit me.”

“Too late.” She cuffed his shoulder. “What’s bothering you?”

“About you and Zevran…”

Blood rushed to her face. Oh of course he'd picked up on that! “Nevermind. Let’s go back to talking about your cooking.”

“Look at those tables turn!” He shook his head. “I noticed you talk to him a lot --”

“I talk to Sten and Morrigan a lot too, Alistair.” And everyone else, naturally, but they made for a better example.

“Ah, but they haven’t tried to kill us.” A brief pause. “Yet. Jury’s still out on who snaps first between the two of them. The point is… be careful, would you?”

“I am being careful!” She said, guiltily remembering how she’d let him handle her drink back at the Inn the week before.

“Riiiight, of course you are.”

If not for the shelter he was providing she would have walked off. Alas, the warmth of embarrassment was better than facing the wind. She side-eyed him and huffed. But figured she could still bail out this particular sinking ship. And easier than the rest of the country, too. “I have a lot in common with him.”

“With the assassin?”

“You don’t see me making comments about your love affair with cheese.”

“Is that what it is?”

Her distraction tactic had failed apparently.

“What?”

“With Zevran. A love affair?” What was that expression on his face? Alistair was normally pretty easy to get a read on.

“More like a friend I flirt with.” She doubted love would ever be on the table for her. And even if it were - Zevran didn’t seem the type.

“Do you befriend everyone?” he asked with a smile in his voice.

“So long as they aren’t Darkspawn, Loghain, or Greigor -- yes, probably.” She kindly left Templar's as a whole out of her assessment. Because that might lead to a whole other conversation and she didn't want to start in on it when she already felt so damn tired.

“Well, at least Wynne can heal you if he poisons your drink.”

Aw, hell he'd noticed her drunken episode too! Why? Wasn't he supposed to be oblivious. Judging by the knowing gleam in his eye, that wasn't the case. Variel stuck her tongue out at him and forged on ahead, taking point.

Instant regret.

It was so fucking cold!

She pressed on, pulling the scarf Leliana had given her up over her face and hunching her shoulders. It wasn’t snowing… yet. But the heavy gray clouds pressing down on them didn’t bode well.

The chill was insidious. But it was hard to feel overwhelmed when you had to think about breathing and pray the front of your face didn't turn into a hunk of ice. Maybe she needed to learn a few fire spells....

She began to walk faster instead, putting more space between her and the rest of the party. Up ahead there looked to be a promising rock formation that might work for that evening's camp. It would be nice to have some additional shelter. Especially if the threatening snowfall came during the night.

“Interesting strategy.”

Variel didn’t startle. She’d been aware of Sten’s approach. And she'd been waiting for him to decide to speak for almost as long as they'd been walking into the mountains. It was just bad luck that he'd decided now to do it. But that was her life, wasn't it? Poor timing. So she sighed, and planted her feet, looking up at the Qunari with her brows lifted, waiting for him to continue.

He frowned and went on. “Tell me, do you intend to keep going north until it becomes south and attack the Archdemon from the rear?”

She bit back her first sarcastic impulses. Just because she didn't want to do this right now didn't mean she could take that negativity out on him. She wasn't entirely successful though. Her tone was withering. “You do remember we need to gather an army, Sten? We can’t take on the Archdemon as we are now.”

“Oh? Is that what we are doing? It seemed to me as if we were aimlessly climbing a mountain in the middle of nowhere.”

The least she could do was listen, she reminded herself. “What exactly do you want from me?”

“Reason," he growled, eyes flashing. "The Archdemon is the goal. And we are heading away from it to find the charred remnants of a dead woman.”

She was aware of the rest of the party slowing to a halt behind them and could feel them staring. For a moment there was only the sound of the wind howling past them, tearing at their cloaks, their hair. And the accusatory burn of Sten’s glare.

“I will not simply follow in your shadow as you run from battle.”

Ha! Was that what he thought she was doing? Her hands curled into fists. “Unfortunately for your scruples, I’m in command. Get back in line, Sten.”

Sten’s stance shifted -- and she’d been fighting long enough by his side, now to recognize that he was prepared to battle her. Literally. With weapons rather than words. “Not anymore. I’m taking command.”

For a moment she could just stand there and stare at him. She should be thrilled. But instead, she was just angry. Sparks spat off her fingertips, and maker, how long had it been since she'd been angry enough to pull the fade around her like a cloak? "No, you're not."

Sten took his sword. “We’ll find out, won't we? Defend yourself, Warden.”

Was this really happening right now? Eyes wide in surprise, she slid under his first swing and slithered around behind him. The sparking electricity in her hands petered out. He wasn't serious. Was he?

Kibeth started barking. And she could hear the others reacting, but she and Sten were too far ahead. Close to a blind cliff edge and the rocks she'd wanted to look at. And chances were, he could turn her into paste before anyone got close enough to damage him.

“Do not run from me. Fight!” Sten growled. "Or are you a coward even here, Warden?

Well, if you insist.

Variel thrust her palm out and sent a crack of lightning at his head. Carefully measured. Because damn it, she didn’t want to pop his skull like a grape. She refused to kill him just because anger crackled through her bones like a thunderstorm.

But she needn’t have bothered with care because he lifted his sword and the lightning zigged off to her left and vanished into the wind.

He'd been fighting beside her just as long as she'd been fighting with her. And that meant he knew her strategies. Knew what spells she used to end fights quickly, where she would go for the best vantage point.

Her heart started hammering in her throat. Shit. Sten's sword caught her in the side, denting the chain, slicing through fabric. Hitting hard enough that something popped. She went skidding across the grass, half throwing herself away from the attack. Thanking the maker for her armor. Because that hadn’t been an attack made with the flat of his sword.

He actually means to kill me.

Panic.

There was no time to draw her staff -- he was too close, his reach too long. But the dagger… she slid it out of her belt and charged him. Stabbing wildly, aiming up under the arm. It was only when the blood sprayed across her face and blinded her that she realized she’d actually hit.

Sten staggered backward. But only for a moment. His fist slammed into the side of her head and she went flying, landing hard on her back, far too close to the cliff's edge. Variel rolled away from his foot and snatched the crushing pressure from her throat, the suffocation in her lungs, and made it real. When he made to attack her again, she didn't try to stand. Instead, she thrust both palms at his face and sent a wave of distortion at him. Giving him just enough time to look surprised before the spell caught him.

His back bowed. The sword fell with a thud. And a moment later, so did Sten. Forced to the ground, limbs being slowly pulled in all the wrong directions. Variel got to her feet, wiping the blood from her mouth, and gestured. Tightening the field until he let out a little grunt that made her feel sick to her stomach.

“I’ll kill you if I have to, Sten. Don’t make me have to.” Her voice was unfamiliar. Cold. Unyielding.

“I was wrong,” he said, the faintest hint of strain in his voice. He could barely lift his face high enough from the hard-packed dirt to speak.“You are strong enough.”

Variel watched for a moment more. Then let the spell go, and offered him her hand. It was comical, the tiny elf helping the giant stand -- but it was something of a peace offering as well. It took far too much effort to stay angry. And now she just felt drained. Like someone had taken a knife and carved her person down to the bone.

“What now?” he asked. Stiff, formal. And perhaps... was that new respect in his gaze? He was looking to her with open calculation. Variel had the sense that she'd surprised him.

“That’s up to you, Sten,” she said tiredly.

“Lead. I will follow.”

If only the rest of the Thedas was so inclined.

---

Zevran dropped beside Variel as she prodded at the fire. “So. Today went well, didn’t it?”

The look she gave him was one of exhausted irritation. “Oh, did it? I do so love being gutted by my companions.”

“Unless I am quite mistaken, Sten did not manage to open you up in such a way.”

She grumbled and lifted the lid of the cooking pot. It was Morrigan’s turn. Which meant she’d put all the ingredients in the pot, added water, and wandered away. Leaving the food to cook or burn at the discretion of the rest of the party. Just lately she’d been setting up her tent closer -- because of the cold he assumed -- and spent every spare moment pouring over the book the warden had given her.

“I really wish sometimes that Alistair was more inclined to lead this mess,” Variel muttered.

“Ah, but command suits you so, cara.”

“What does that mean?”

“What does what mean?”

“Cara,” she said. Carefully mimicking not only the sound but also his inflection. Her gaze was intent and curious and pinned to his face rather than the pot.

“It is a term of affection. Such as ‘dear’.”

“Huh,” was all she said, looking back to the fire.

Interesting. From what he’d observed she quite liked talking. It appeared he’d caught her in a contemplative mood. But then, Sten really had almost run her through. And before that, he'd noticed Alistair speaking with her about something that had made her go all stiff and hunched. “Something wrong, Warden?”

Silence, but a thinking silence greeted his question. She prodded at the fire and fiddled with her hair. It was down tonight, tumbling over her shoulders, and casting her face in shadow. “I’m tired.”

“Ah, well, in that case, let us run away together this very evening. I am certain there is a tavern on this icicle of a mountain if only we look hard enough.”

“Ha!” She clapped a hand over her mouth and shook her head. “Zevran, I didn’t let Sten punch me in the face for the right of leading our merry band of miscreants so I could run off a few hours later.”

“You wound me, Warden. Is my company not good enough for you?” He pressed a dramatic wrist to his brow. Made a show of wilting. Just to make her smile. “I fear there is no saving me after such a rejection!”

A softening in her expression as she watched him. Lips twitching. The side of her face was still a little swollen and purple, the cut to her lip was scabbed over but looked fit to split. But the warmth in her eyes more than made up for her battered appearance. “You’re a tempting prospect, but the Blight won't stop itself.”

“Too bad. I could use a good drink. It is too cold in this country.” Though who knew where he could find a decent brandy in Ferelden. It was all Ale and unfortunate wines. Well, the ones he'd sampled, anyhow.

“You could wear pants,” she teased.

“And hide these legs?”

“We could compromise with thigh-high boots perhaps?”

He preened at the look she sent him. “Perhaps those boots I mentioned come in such a variety. I shall happily model them for you if that is the case!”

She bumped shoulders with him playfully and shook her head. Smiling. A little of the tension had leaked out of her shoulders.

“Well. While I have your attention, I have a more serious question for you, Warden.”

And there she went, coiling up all over again, her neck a rigid line under her hair, the skin around her eyes tight.

“Would it help if I promise not to draw a sword on you?”

She sighed, muttered something under her breath that sounded like ‘everyone today’ then nodded at him to ask. Unfortunate, really, to undo his earlier work, but it was an important question.

“Here is the thing. I swore an oath to serve you, yes? And I understand the quest you are on and this is all very fine and well. My question pertains to what you intend to do with me once this business is over with. As a point of curiosity.”

In her face was a longing he didn’t understand until she spoke. “After… I hadn’t given that much thought. After the Blight, that is.”

Fair enough. Thought it wouldn’t do to distract her from the point. He did want his answer. “One simply assumes that once this Grey Warden business is over you would have no need of an assassin following you about.”

Probably not. One always had good uses for assassins. But then she had not conscripted him. It had happened once. Even the Crows did not resist when a Warden came to recruit. Though in Antiva there was typically coin changing hands to soften the loss. Perhaps joining her order would fully protect him. The mission hadn't been a popular one after all.

But no... he did not want to spend his life bound to the blight. How utterly boring and grim that would be.

“Zevran..." He realized now that she'd been quiet for several moments. Thinking. And turned his attention back to her. She was watching him with an odd expression. "I hold you to no oath you made. Aside from the not killing me part, of course. If you want to leave… you can.” And here she visibly bit her lip to stop herself from talking more. He sensed there was a ‘but’ in there, somewhere. But she hadn’t spoken it. Curious.

“I made the oath willingly --”

“Yes, promises made when you fear for your life are always to be taken as law,” she remarked dryly.

"You are far too soft." His smile felt easier, somehow. He couldn’t recall a moment in his life without some kind of bondage. And oh, that look of offended dignity she was giving him! He wanted to laugh. “In any case -- if that is how you see it, so much the better. For the moment it’s still best I stay. Considering my standing with the Crows. But let’s assume that I didn’t desire to leave when the time came. What then?”

That seemed to catch her off guard. She made a face and quickly turned back to the fire, poking at it in a manner that was distinctly twitchy. He rather had the urge to poke her. But resisted. For the time being.

“I… could always use a friend.”

His heart made a funny little leap at that. It was merely a confirmation by now. He’d know she liked him from the start. But then he was good at getting people to like him. The thing was, he hadn’t realized he enjoyed her company himself until that moment.

“Oh? And not… more than friends?”

Now that was squirming. The tips of her ears were going pink. Ah, but it was such fun flustering her! She blushed so clearly. And he couldn’t help the stray thought -- how far did that blush of hers go?

“I think I’d like that.” She still wasn't looking at him, but he thought she might have been smiling all the same.

“So would I," he said, leaning in closer to see her face.

Variel tried to hide her smile in her hand when she realized he wasn't going to stop. “Oh… go away, you. I need to finish dinner.”

“As you command!” He blew an exaggerated kiss and sauntered away, feeling positively sunny.

Strange, how his poorly made choices were treating him so well.

Chapter Text

She closed her eyes and saw the sun gleaming off plate armor. A shadow in the doorway, too huge to be a person in memory. But then that shadow resolved itself into a figure of blue and silver and steel gray hair. With a staff rather than a sword. A cry, a peasant woman with a knife.

Her eyes sprang open and took in the flat gray skies above.

Variel lay spread out on the stone. It was warped and cracked from the intense heat and destructive power of dragon flame. From the dragon.

Which you would think would occupy her mind far longer, but apparently exhaustion left you with only the really terrible thoughts to entertain.

Yes, they’d slain much younger dragons. Enough that she could probably make a few sets of armor from the scale, and bone. But she hadn’t expected a high dragon.

Maker, the Archdemon was supposed to be the only one she had to deal with! And what did it say about her that she preferred thinking of the blight to the start of her waking nightmares?

“Wynne, you are a goddess among women,” she said, voice graveled from all the shouting. .

From somewhere over to her left, where Alistair was making unhappy groaning noises, she heard the elder mage laugh. “Thank you.”

Morrigan scoffed, disgusted.. “Tis a shame we must always come a hair’s breadth from being eaten.”

“Don’t worry Morrigan, I’m sure some unsuspecting traveler will wander into your lair soon -- Yowch! Wynne!”

Well, Alistair was clearly feeling better.

Variel forced herself to sit up and observe the party. The only person who looked pleased was Sten. Almost smiling as he cleaned his sword and looked upon the dragon.

Most things seemed smaller in death. But not this. The beast lay in lazy loops and whorls, serpentine, nearly a monument all its own. Anywhere else, anywhere but amongst the bony ridges of the mountains, it would have dwarfed the landscape.

She was still stunned they’d managed to kill it. Sheer dumb luck was the only reason she, Alistair, Leliana, and Zevran hadn’t ended up fighting it alone.

Sten had broken through a door in the lower temple that spilled out where the Dragon waited. Bypassing the infested caverns entirely. Only Kibeth had stayed behind, presumably to guard the scholar.

Knowing she could have skipped all the fighting from before made her want to tear her hair out and start shrieking obscenities. But she didn’t. Because at least now a mass of murdering cultists were gone.

That’s what she was going to tell herself anyway.

“Ironic, no?”

She tilted her head to look at Zevran. Wincing as her neck protested. Towards the end there she’d been thrown around rather a lot. “What is?”

He crouched beside her, gingerly wiping blood from his nose and lower face. “These so-called Andrastians ended up worshiping a dragon. Very Tevene, yes? Their old gods were drakes.”

She’d be lying if she claimed not to have had the same thought over the past several hours. “Don’t let the others hear you say that. It’s probably a sensitive issue.”

“What, Morrigan and Sten?”

“A-ha,” Variel said sarcastically. “Are you okay?”

He shrugged gallantly. “I’m certainly here.”

Variel poked his arm -- and was surprised to see him flinch. Now that she was paying attention she noticed how stiffly he held himself, and the faintest tremble in his shoulders. There were lines of strain around his eyes, and he wasn’t looking at her.

She frowned, and slowly put the flat of her hand against his skin. Willing the dregs of her magic to seep up from the deepest, hidden places inside her and into him. Searching out and soothing whatever was hurt, or broken.

Zevran shivered and let out a little sigh. Visibly relaxing. “Ahhh… thank you.”

“Let me know when you’re hurt, arse,” she said. But without venom. “I’m happy to help.”

“You seemed ah, the word… tapped out?”

“Wynne’s the one who kept us all standing. I just hurled lighting and ice at it until the scale started to crack.” It had been a nightmare hitting the same spot each time. Her legs burned from all the running back and forth.

“And…?”

“Healing magic takes more of a -- a toll, so to speak. It can kill you if you aren’t very, very familiar with what you’re trying to fix. You need to know how the body works, and have a good idea on how much power is required for every spell. Because once you begin one of the larger healing spells, it doesn’t end until it’s intent has been carried out. I’ve seen illustrations on what that can do to a body… and not just the caster.”

Zevran was staring at her with alarm. “And what you just did?”

She waved her hand. “Basic, first level. Nearly any mage can manage it. It’s… more of a hail Andraste. I just made the wounds older? It's hard to explain but it’s a different branch of magic entirely. I know you feel fine now, but be careful or whatever was bothering you will start acting up again.”

She pointed to the scar he’d given her. “If I’d used something beyond a basic healing spell, this wouldn’t have scarred.”

“Ah.” He looked as if he wanted to say something, eyes tracing the dark red mark crossing her the side of her face.

“I think I look rather dashing,” she said, just to poke him. “And I didn’t even need to sit down and be inked for it.”

He snorted. “Oh? Was that your master plan?”

“I saw you,” she said, clutching her hands between her breasts. “And I was just -- overcome by a fierce and immediate jealousy of your tattoos!”

“I have more you know,” he said, grinning and wiggling his eyebrows at her.

“Mmhm, but where are they? So mysterious.”

Zevran was just opening his mouth to respond when Wynne’s voice cut him off.

“I think everyone is back up to par, Warden,” she called. Sounding heavily strained.

Variel was on her feet in an instant, concerned. She might not have particularly liked Wynne -- but she appreciated her help. And she was much older and had basically kept every one of them alive and in one piece. “Are you alright?”

The old woman smiled faintly and waved her hand. “Yes, yes. But I think I’ll stay down here for the next leg. I don’t have the energy for another fight.”

Variel nodded. And looked to the others. “Morrigan? Do you want to come?”

“Ha!” was all the other mage said.

Right, fair enough. Andraste wasn’t exactly her cup of tea. “Sten, you keep watch and get the others to somewhere defensible if you have to. Alistair, Leliana, Zevran, the three of us will keep on and find the ashes.”

“Yes,” said Sten. And there was definitely a note of warmth in his tone again. Strange company.

Leliana’s eyes gleamed like polished silver. And Alistair perked right up. It wasn’t hard to see their enthusiasm… or Wynne’s regret. Variel frowned slightly, then shook her head and gestured to the narrow winding track that lead to a ruin near the peak.

“Let’s get moving then.”

Thankfully the trek up the mountain was uneventful. Maybe because anything else after the dragon would be anticlimactic. Either way she certainly wasn’t going to complain. Even if the thinner air and the near-vertical climb were making her start to feel as if someone was stabbing under her ribs.

“Oooh, mountains are not for me,” Alistair commented.

“It is because you are already too tall, naturally,” said Leliana.

“Ah, and then why do I feel poorly?” asked Zevran.

Leliana shrugged elegantly. And minced her way across rocks as if she were a mountain goat. Variel found herself wondering if she’d be just as capable in the shoes she’d been talking about the night before.

Which made her think of the boots she’d found in a chest in the town proper. The scrollwork had looked very much the same as the kind on Zevran’s armor.

Like a hooked fish, her mind was dragged to everything that had happened outside the general store. The low fog filled with screams and charging townsfolk. Alistair’s startled expression as he blocked an actual pitchfork with his shield.

She hadn’t been able to talk a one of them down. Truthfully, she hadn’t tried very hard. Which was why, that last strike, with her dagger… the woman charging her with an angry shout from the door she’d been forced up against… felt so cruel…

But we aren’t thinking about that. We are NEVER thinking about that.

Ahead of her, Zevran’s foot slipped on a loose rock. He staggered, and began to fall. Variel lurched forward, catching him with both hands, and pushed until he found a stable place to put his feet.

“Are you sure you're up for this?”

“For you, vigilessa? Always.”

She rolled her eyes at him. “Be careful, Zevran. I just told you that spell won't hold up against serious strain.”

“Ah, your mother henning… it is so cute.”

“I’ll show you cute,” she grumbled, ears burning.

The archway above them looked as if it might have once had a stoop below. But now it was merely an opening on the side of the mountain, remnants of crumbling steps long since fallen and joined the rocks below.

Alistair, being the tallest, caught the ledge and swung himself up through the opening before anyone could shout otherwise. But as he popped back out a moment later to give the others an arm up, all was well.

Variel was the last one inside.

The second her feet touched the stone tile, she knew something had changed. A shiver of magic slid down her spine. And the air inside… it smelled different. Old -- but not of rot. But as if the scents within were echoing down a vast collection of years.

Pine, and woodsmoke, and blood. Sandalwood, and cinnamon.

And the entryway was warmer than it had any right to be. Especially exposed to the chilly mountain air as it was with its missing door.

Variel had the strangest sensation of eyes on her. Many eyes. It made the hair on the back of her neck stand up.

Around her she was vaguely aware of the others shifting and looking around warily. Which was good because it meant she wasn’t just paranoid.

“Everyone up for a fight?” she asked, voice low.

“Makers mercy,” Alistair sighed. “If we must.”

“There is something very odd about this part of the ruins,” Leliana said. “I wish I had stories of this place… there must be a reason for it.”

“It’s… holy?” Variel suggested. Her belief hadn’t wavered, exactly. She merely had a deep loathing for the chantry itself.

“It is certainly setting my teeth on edge,” muttered Zevran.

For the first time since they’d met she realized he actually seemed uncomfortable. Fidgetty, even. His ears kept twitching, and his lip was lifting off his teeth. His left hand kept checking to be certain of his daggers.

But now wasn’t the time to bring it up. She just had to trust he knew his limits better than she did, and move onward.

Even if I am bloody tired of this sodding mountain.

“Come on. We can’t wait for the ashes to come to us.”

She slipped between Alistair and Leliana, through another archway and into the main room.

Which was also odd. Because the narrow, arched windows set high along the edge of the ceiling were spilling warm golden light utterly unlike the gray haze they’d just left on the mountain.

Power rippled around her. She kept thinking she was seeing water around her ankles, but whenever she looked she saw only dry stone. Cracked tile that was far too colorful to be as old as it was.

And standing before a door shaped like a spearhead was a figure. Glittering like light catching on bones polished by the sea. Flashes of blue, and glints of silver on a skeleton. But as she got closer, the details filled in and an armored man with a winged helm stood before her.

Nothing about him seems insubstantial now, she thought to herself.

“I bid you welcome, pilgrim,” he said. His voice formed itself from an echo, as if it was coming from a distant time and place. But it rang clearly in her head for all that. Even deaf and blind she would be able to hear that voice.

“Who… who are you?” Her face felt numb, and her eyes were too wide.

The man smiled, faintly. His voice when he spoke again had resolved itself into something slightly more human. And, oddly enough, almost kind. “I am the Guardian, the protector of the Urn of Sacred Ashes. I have waited… years for this.”

Variel shuddered. He absolutely hadn’t been waiting for her. For them. There was no way this being could have known about her personally.

Even if just standing here listening had her body feeling like it had been struck by one of her own bolts of lightning. Painfully on edge surrounded by the ancient magic all around her. Though it didn’t feel wrong. Merely… powerful. In a way that would send nearly any templar she’d ever met running for the hills.

“Why…” said Leliana, struggling to speak against the weight of time that pressed down around them. “Why have you been here so long? It must have been so lonely…”

“It has been my duty, my life, to protect the Urn and prepare the way for the faithful who have come to revere Andraste. For years beyond counting have I been here, and shall I remain until my task is done, and the Imperium has crumbled into the sea. With my Lady sleeping here with me, I could never be lonely. ”

“Will your task ever be done?” Variel asked. Curious even despite the strange pressure. Like…. Like gentle fingers in her head.

The Guardian looked back to her. “I do not know, and I do not question.”

And therein lie the core of her resistance to the faith so many in Thedas followed. Not questioning. Beyond her loathing of the way the Chantry had nearly destroyed her people, the way it abused the mages, the way it turned up its nose when faced with so many people who could have survived if they truly practiced the kindness they spoke of…

It was that blind obedience that made her teeth feel like they’d been filled with burning coals.

“Who are those men who have taken over the rest of the ruins?” Because she would question. And would not be fooled.

The being’s gaze seemed too knowing as it scanned her face. As if he sensed her resistance.

“When my brethren and I carried Andraste from Tevinter to this sanctuary, we vowed to forever revere Her memory, and guard Her.”

His gaze drifted beyond them to the marble statue of Andraste at the other end of the hall. A place, she realized, where he could always see Her.

“I have watched generations of my brethren take up the mantle of their fathers. For centuries they did this. Unwavering, joyful in their appointed task.”

“I’m sensing a ‘but’, here,” said Alistair.

Variel loved him just a little bit for that comment.

“But --” and did the guardian put just a little more emphasis on that word now that Alistair had spoken up? She couldn’t help but smile in response. “-- Now they have lost their way. They have forgotten Andraste and their promise.”

“And what about you?” Variel pressed. “What are you?”

“You seek answers, child, that may no longer exist. I… am all that remains of the first disciples. I swore I would protect the Urn as long as I lived, and I have lived a very long time.”

Variel felt heat across her face and realized she was blushing. She couldn’t quite pinpoint why she felt so… shamed, almost. And for asking questions! His tone had never changed, and there was no judgment in his gaze. But all the same, she felt very small and very young.

And I don’t like it.

She took a deep breath, trying to find her equilibrium.

“May I see the Urn?”

“You have come to honor Andraste, and you shall… if you prove yourself worthy.”

She balked. Because no, she’d come because of the Blight. To help Arl Eamon so he might stand against Loghain, and the Darkspawn with them. Andraste had very little to do with it. But she thought better of saying so.

“And? How do I prove such a thing?”

There was a creeping suspicion that she was not worthy, and she hated it. The feeling of smallness. Maker, she’d felt it all her life in the Circle. Never enough. Never able to make up for her magic. Never, ever worthy.

Fuck. Off.

“It is not my place to decide your worthiness,” the Guardian went on. “The Gauntlet does that. If you are found worthy, you will see the Urn and be allowed to take a small pinch of the Ashes for yourself. If not... “

Yeah, she didn’t need him to be more explicit on that front.

“I understand.” She took another breath. “Please, stand aside, then. And let me try.”

“Before you go,” he began, and she just knew he was going to say something that would cut her to the bone. She tensed, as if ready for a battle. But these would only be words, wouldn’t they? “There is something I must ask you. I can see the path that led you here was not easy. There is suffering in your past. Your suffering. And… the suffering of others.”

Variel could have been carved out of ice and it would have made no difference. That creeping sensation, like cobwebs being pulled through her head, like her insides were on display and being picked over by a stranger’s eyes… it hadn’t just been a feeling.

With creeping horror, she knew what he was going to ask her about. How could it be anything else after the visceral reminder of her childhood down in Haven?

“Don’t,” she gasped. “Don’t, please don’t.”

“If you wish to move forward, child, you must answer.” His expression was not unsympathetic… but it was implacable.

A flash of sun glaring off silverite armor. A smile beneath a helm. Blood, almost black, dripping from the sword to the worn and creaking floor.

A cultist woman falling through fog with a spray of blood and bone, and a young boy watching in horror from beneath a hedge, tears streaming down his face, hands fisted against his mouth to hold back a scream.

“When the templars came for you, your mother bid you to hide. And when they slew her and your father both, you did nothing. You could have spared their lives if you had come forward from the beginning.”

A chill, like -- like flames licking over the sides of her face. Her hands clenched and unclenched at her sides. Her voice felt stoppered, stuck somewhere in her throat.

“Tell me. Are you responsible for their deaths?”

“Are… are you kidding me?” She stared, throat working as she tried to keep a wave of vitriol to herself. The Guardian merely watched. Waiting for her response.

All too aware of the others and their eyes on her, she fought herself in silence. Wanting to find a better answer. But… she couldn’t lie to this.

If she closed her eyes she could see her mother's face go slack and pale under Dirthamin’s vallaslin. She could see her father topple in two different directions. All while she cowered in a chest with its lid open barely a crack.

Denerim’s alienage had always been meant to be a temporary home for them. For her parents, it had been their grave. All because their child had been too stupid to keep her magic a secret. And too cowardly to present herself to human men.

“Yes.”

This broke the spell of silence over her friends. They all started talking at once. And she let their voices wash over her without even trying to pick out individual words. She didn’t want this admission acknowledged. Bad enough to speak it before a stranger she’d never see again.

“The maker is not meant to harm his children --!” That was Leliana, abruptly beside her with her hand on Variel’s shoulder. Practically bristling with unspoken protectiveness.

Her voice turned the Guardian’s too knowing gaze toward her.

Numbly, Variel listened to the man flay her friends with a single question. Then in the silence, after Zevran snapped out the last answer, he vanished. Wisely going somewhere they couldn’t follow before the encounter became violent.

No one spoke. No one moved.

“That was… that was cruel,” said Leliana. Softly. Frowning in a way Variel hadn’t seen before.

“Isn’t the chantry always?” she said wearily. “Let’s just… just get this over with.”

Her sense of curiosity was remarkably dimmed after all that.

The spearhead door swung slowly open, and Zevran muttered something that sounded foul in his mother tongue. “May we simply stab what comes next?”

“Pretty sure stabbing isn’t a very test of faith kind of solution,” said Alistair, amazingly still capable of humor.

“Unless the test is how one should stab something,” Zevran shot back. Sounding sharp and snappish under a thin veneer of laughter.

Variel decided to ignore them and stepped through the door.

A high room of pillars and misty blue light greeted her. Again, very unlike the mountain. The air in here felt cooler than the last, but not frigid. Votive candles lit themselves in every alcove. And to either side of her, more ghostly people resolved themselves out of motes of dust and candlelight.

“Oh, how nice,” Zevran bit out. “More of them.”

But these ghosts asked only riddles. And she was good at riddles. She’d answered Sloth’s in her Harrowing. And solved many more besides over her years in the tower. This was easy. And somehow also… sad.

For all that the Guardian made Andraste seem unreachable, these people from her life, and her death made her seem achingly human.

By the time they’d reached the next doorway, Variel was feeling almost herself again. Even getting used to the weird ancient pressure of magic humming around her.

Right until she crossed into the next room and saw the group of people waiting for them.

A pretty brown-skinned woman in leathers who was strangely familiar. A taller woman in Orleasian frippery who was not. Duncan. And… her mother. Looking much the same as she had the last time she’d seen her. Barefoot, and smiling, and as unapologetically Dalish as one could be in Denerim.

Or some horrible mountain ruin.

She staggered backward and heard each of her friends react. A horrified gurgle from Zevran, a whispered name from Leliana, Alistair’s aborted shout.

No. No. They’d saved Redcliffe, and Connor. They’d saved the tower and passed through the fires of the fade. Killed or driven away the cultists. Slain a high dragon. They’d done enough, damn it --

No, I, I can’t.

But somehow it was this one small room and these familiar faces that would be too much.

“Variel,” her mother said.

And all the other people living and dead faded away as if they’d never been there to begin with.

“You aren’t real,” she said, heart in her throat.

Dairon Surana tilted her head at her daughter and smiled with her eyes. “Oh? And why do you think that?”

Variel moved forward as if magnetized. This… this was more dangerous than any desire demon could ever hope to be. Harder to run from than anything she’d ever experienced. Even if her legs trembled with the need to retreat.

“If you’re anywhere, it’s not where Andraste was laid to rest. You… you barely recognized her name, mother. When… when we came to Denerim.”

“Da’len, oh, Variel…”

Closer now. Close enough to touch. Her eyes burned.

“So. So you aren’t real. And. I’m not going to… to pretend like --”

But then the very much not real elf leaned forward and took Variel into her arms. A scent Variel didn’t even remember forgetting hit her. The smell of green, growing things, the animal musk of halla, an oil used for cleaning leather armor. Some kind of floral she knew she’d never be able to place.

She threw her arms around Dairon and shivered.

Later, she would never be able to say what her mother had spoken to her about. But there was a wedding ring she’d last seen on her mother’s finger in her hand, and an overwhelming sense of forgiveness, and peace.

It left her feeling as if she’d awoken from a long, terrible nightmare in a place… safe. With a cool hand to her fevered brow.

Compared to seeing the dead? The rest of the Gauntlet was easy.

Chapter Text

It was a bedraggled and strangely silent group that left Haven. Even Zevran couldn’t keep up his cheerful needling after the untold horrors of a test of faith. A faith he’d never carried to begin with and was finding fewer reasons to like by the moment.

His hands spasmed and flexed by his side. His ears burned with chill. And for the first time in a long while he wanted to hurt someone. Wanted to. Not in a fight, not on a mission. Just because.

Rinna. Rinna, how could --

How dare they try to --

It’s never so simple as --

His mind kept stuttering. Skidding off into anger before any single thought could finish. Anger and pain, and denial, and regret. A tangled mess of horror.

The dragon was preferable.

By night, when they were camping beyond Haven -- by unspoken agreement, no one wanted to remain in that ghost town -- he felt no less raw.

So he took himself away from the main bonfire with his collection of sharp and pointy things. And began throwing them at a dead pine. Over and over again. The harsh knock of blades biting into the wood soothed some ragged piece of his soul.

He did this until throwing, collecting, and throwing again was all there was. The sound, the shift of his muscles under his skin. The cold faded away. And his frown felt less like it had been carved into bone.

For the second time on this horrible quest, she had come back to him.

Only this was no masquerading demon.

But it wasn’t real, either. He refused to believe some ruin could call her spirit. If only because he could think of no reason for her to be so forgiving.

It was a trap.

Magic in his mind. Sifting through thought and memory until it found something to cut with. Nothing more. Nothing that should give him any peace.

I should have been difficult, when they woke me, he thought. Listening to the sound of the knives. I should have tried to attack again. Should have let them kill me. Then at least there would be silence.

Knock, thrum, a frayed rope.

Knock, thrum, Rinna’s ragged, wet breathing.

Knock, thrum, blood turning her teeth pink.

Knock thrum, a small stone room in a ruin.

He threw, and heard her speak --

“Smetti di tormentarti, Zev.”

And quiet. The last knife went whistling off into the dark. He’d missed.

Zevran stared blankly at the snowy trees, arm still extended. Aware of the sweat cooling on his skin. Of the sound of the fire crackling somewhere behind him, out of sight.

And the sound of footsteps.

I could avoid them. It would be easy to vanish into this kind of darkness. But he had this sense that if he did that now, he wouldn’t come back. And the thought of being alone on this mountain made his skin crawl. Imagining anything after… he couldn’t. There would only be snow.

“If you are here to be cheered I find myself not in the mood,” he bit out.

A pause. Then footsteps again. He didn’t realize they were still coming toward him until a hand landed on his shoulder. Zevran startled badly, whirling and going for his belt. It was a good thing all his knives were presently sticking out of a tree.

Variel’s eyes went wide for a moment, but that was all. “You know, I never would have guessed you were in a poor mood.”

Zevran laughed bitterly. “Perhaps you should return to kinder company.”

She didn’t rise to the bait. Rather, she reached up and brushed snow from his shoulders. When had it started snowing again? How had he failed to notice?

“If you really need to be alone, Zevran ask me to go. Otherwise, I’m here.”

There was a problem with that. Namely, he didn’t know if he wanted her around or not. It would certainly make more sense to tell her to go away. He was hardly presenting the image he wanted at the moment.

Not that his reputation as a ‘laughing lover’ was entirely wrong, or affected, really. Just that things were easier when people didn’t look any deeper than that. It was so much easier to hide in plain sight when people thought they already knew all they needed to know.

Perhaps I want someone to see something else, he thought.

Variel watched him, mismatched eyes moving over his face, perceiving maker knew what while he was off balance. Then she sighed softly and made to step away from him. He caught her arm when she moved away. And if that didn’t show which way the wind was blowing… well.

“I wasn’t going far. Come on. You’ll catch your death sweating like that in the cold.”

“I would prefer not to be in camp at the moment,” he said dryly.

“I was just going to see if your target made a good bench, actually.” She slipped out of his grip and plopped down on the pine. Curiously examining its new collection of knives. Most had sunk into the wood to the hilt.

After a moment she made a gesture -- like she was pulling something slithery and hot out of the air, and tossed it to the ground between them. A fire sprung to life. And it was only when the heat rolled over him that he realized how chilled he’d become.

Zevran frowned. Finding only silence in his throat. So he went to sit near her without a word and stared at the almost-normal looking fire. That it had no fuel and the color was wrong -- almost pink -- was beside the point. It was warm, and he’d needed the heat.

“So,” said Variel after a long moment. “I wanted to apologize.”

He tilted his head to show he was listening.

“I noticed once we stepped into the ruin that you were uncomfortable. I should have… I don’t know. Asked you if you wanted to keep going, at least. Um, I mean… I suppose you would have probably said yes, still. But. I know that… that what happened hurt everyone. Alistair and Leliana are taking it pretty well because they’re… true believers, or something. I think… it’s more like salt in a wound when you don’t have that background.”

“Ha, yes,” he said softly. “Perhaps you should have asked instead of telling me to come along.” A flare of heat in his throat. Anger. Mixed with confusion and exhaustion and who knew what else. “But I know you wouldn’t have forced the issue if I’d told you I wished to remain below.”

Variel sighed again and began to try and pull a dagger loose from the tree. She didn’t get very far.

“Creators! Were you trying to cut this thing in half?” She shifted onto the ground and braced her feet, yanking at the blade with enough force that she fell flat on her back in the snow. Thankfully his knife didn’t go flying. He’d already lost one so far.

“Hm, that is new.”

He peered down at her with a frown. Eyes gleaming in the firelight. He could feel his face still caught in serious lines. Felt too heavy to move. Only wanted to sleep. And he knew this was the start of another depressive episode. The kind that Taliesin had often covered him for when he was too listless to fulfill any of his duties assigned by the grandmasters of the guild.

“What is?” Variel sat up on her elbows. Curious. Concerned too, possibly.

“’Creators’,” he repeated, lifting two fingers in quotation. “You didn’t use that before.”

She scrubbed at her face. “Perhaps I’ve been reminded of my heritage.”

He said nothing, only raised a brow at her.

“Well. And I’m… I don’t want to invoke the Maker. It was… I don’t…” she moved her hands in a quick, chopping motion as if she could shake off her frustration. “I don’t want to have any part of it. Of, of the chant, of their Maker, or their sainted sacrifice. It’s… it’s real, sure. But it’s also just. Like Sten punching me in the side of the head. I don’t like it. I don’t want it.”

“Few would want a Qunari’s fist in their skull,” he deadpanned.

She sighed. “Yes, well. I’m not coming up with the right words tonight. It’s all muddled.”

They both stared into the fire. And after a time, Variel joined him on the log again. Sitting no closer than before. He had the sense that she didn’t want to crowd him. But he was also aware of the way she would almost start to move toward him every few minutes.

He wasn’t sure whose misery he was ending when he reached out and took her hand. And later would never be able to say why the way she squeezed it made his heart hurt just a little less.

“My mother was Dalish,” he said. “I had a pair of gloves that were hers, growing up. They were beautiful. Strange. Unlike anything, the leatherworkers created in Antiva. I used to sleep with them under my pillow every night. Until the Crows took them away. It was frowned upon, you see. Sentiment.”

She squeezed his hand again. “Did she die when you were very young?”

“The youngest. My first victim, as it were. She died birthing me. You might say the women in my life suffer for my presence,” he said bitterly. “And the men as well, I’m certain. After all, my father did not even make it to the birth before ending up dead to some cutthroat.”

Why was he telling her this? She didn’t need to know. And he didn’t want any damn pity.

“Perhaps, warden, I shall kill every one of you some night while you sleep. Collect a full set of regrets and take them with me.”

To his dull surprise, she slid closer to him. Lifting her free hand and touching the side of his cheek. Gently asking without words for him to look at her. Her eyes were bright in the firelight. Serious. And looking only at him.

“I don’t know what she said to you --”

His skin felt like it rippled, like it was trying to crawl away from her, off his bone. But then he realized she would have seen Rinna, perhaps even recognized her from the Fade before being consumed with her own conversation with a dead woman.

“But it’s going to be okay.”

He laughed, and in it heard the harsh caw of a crow. “No, warden, it will not be.”

Now would be the time to pull from her touch and walk away. But he could make himself do it. Couldn’t ignore the way his skin burned at her fingertips. With need. The want to be closer, to be touched as he hadn’t been in a long while.

“Fine, everything is terrible, and it will only get more terrible as time goes on,” she said dryly. “But in the middle of all that there are still going to be things worth living for. Like -- like --”

She was struggling and red in the face, and he wasn’t going to help her pull reasons out of her ass.

“Like?” he mocked.

“Like the sky at night. Like being able to go wherever you want without having to tell anyone, or ask permission first,” she said seriously.

“Like seeing what spring is like in other countries, and eating terrible Ferelden stew for the sole purpose of giving Alistair shit for it. And watching Sten play with a kitten. Or learning something new from someone who really knows what they’re doing. Like…”

And she dropped both hands to her pack and took it off. Pulling, to his surprise a pair of shoes from it. “Like Antivan leather boots.”

He stared at them unseeing where they sat in his lap.

She’d been listening to him.

“I was going to wait to give these to you because it seemed sort of like a bribe, or… something. But I did want to give them to you.

He looked at her and didn’t know what he was feeling. Knew he wanted her hand on his cheek again. Or maybe he wanted her to go away. He couldn’t decide.

Ah, the horror of being known, he thought.

He hadn’t expected any of this. A superficial, transactional relationship would have been so much easier. But Variel had made it clear to him not so long ago that she accepted him as she accepted the others. As a companion, not a bonded servant.

Free to choose whatever path he wanted.

He let out a sigh that seemed to come from the bottom of his feet. Ragged along the edges.

“You are too soft,” he said again.

“How many darkspawn and bandits do I need to blow up before you stop saying that?” she grumbled, disgusted.

He smiled. It felt like his face was starting to thaw. “At least a few more, Vigilessa. I am not yet convinced.”

“Well,” she huffed. “So long as you’re there to witness.”

On a whim, before he could think about it, he slung an arm over her shoulder and pulled her close. “You could not keep me away from a fight at your side, amor.”

----

As they walked down the mountain, Variel continued to poke at him. Kindly, but it was absolutely poking. And Zevran couldn’t decide if he was irritated, or thankful for it.

Both, he thought. I can be both.

Not only did Variel poke, but she dragged Alistair into it.

Alistair who abruptly began to voice an interest in his tattoos and ask him questions about how they were done. He would admit he’d been a little mean in his responses at first. Intentionally trying to fluster him.

But then the way he stuttered and blushed made him want to laugh and Alistair seemed to genuinely want to know about them, so he had to properly explain, and somehow the whole thing ended with him feeling better.

He felt almost cheated out of his bad mood.

And the harder he tried to hold on to his private miseries, the more she poked, and poked, and poked.

Until, a week after the gauntlet, just as he was feeling almost normal, she presented him with blunted daggers while he was out gathering firewood.

“Are you up for a little sparring?”

He blinked.

They’d worked on stances several times. But had never quite gotten to the part where they fought because of her insistence on practicing safe sparring.

“Oh? And this is not live steel?”

She shrugged carelessly. The undyed tunic she wore under her leather slid down one shoulder. She had freckles, now, he noticed. “Bohdan had some junk steel he was going to sell to be melted down.”

They’d crossed paths with him again a day ago. Which had been a great help. Variel had immediately saddled the dwarf with Genetivi and paid him a fair bit of gold and interesting items to see him safely to Denerim.

“Hmm… well, if you insist.” He plucked one of the daggers from her hands and took a few paces away from her.

Variel bounced on the balls of her feet -- then settled into the stance he’d helped her with so often now. It was nearly perfect. Zevran smiled to himself.

Nearly.

One foot was overextended.

“So when do we -- fuck, Zevran!”

He darted at her before she could finish speaking, and went right for the ankle with his boot. Knocking her off balance. When she wobbled, staggered, he pressed the advantage, blunt weapon going for the throat.

Variel danced away, barely keeping her feet under her. She shot him an adorable look of frustration that filled his chest with laughter again.

“Do not ask for things you are unprepared to face, Vigilessa,” he grinned.

Variel eyed him suspiciously and kept her distance. Which was unlike her. She was very much about throwing herself into the thick of things in a fight.

Ah, but she knows I know her. What will she do?

Fighting wasn’t simple, but all about reaction.

He went for the throat. She blocked him with forearm and dagger.

She ducked under his follow through and went for his ribs. He danced backward and kicked dirt into her face.

“Zevran!”

And so on. She was far from perfect. But she wasn’t bad either. He felt absurdly proud each time she scored a hit on him. He’d make a rogue out of her yet.

“Are you ready to end this?” he asked after ten minutes, laughing lightly. Barely breathing harder whereas she was gasping and narrow-eyed.

He really should have known better than to ask.

Variel lunged. But she wasn’t used to fighting from proper stances. He saw immediately that her grip on the dagger was too loose. And caught her by the wrist, twisting until the blade fell and bounced off the rocky low mountain ground.

But then Variel twisted herself and ducked, plowing headlong into his stomach. Giving him just enough time to squawk indignantly before he hit the ground and she pinned his arms slightly above and to either side of his head.>

“Are you?” she gasped.

He wiggled his fingers, testing her grip. It was quite solid.

“It appears you have me at your mercy,” he said, lowering his voice and changing his grin to something less battle hungry and more… hungry.

Variel made a distressed noise low in her throat and went even pinker than she had been from exertion. Just the way he expected.

He pressed the advantage. Literally. In one fell swoop, he hooked a leg over her hip and rolled them, breaking her hold on him and reclaiming his dropped dagger. She gasped lightly as he pressed the blunt edge to her throat when she tried to struggle.

“If you rely on strength alone to hold your enemies down, you are going to lose every time Variel.” He smiled with an edge of mockery, and a playful quirk of his brows. “You need a threat. No one wants to struggle when they risk losing their head.”

Her eyes narrowed at him. “In a real fight, I wouldn’t have tried to pin them. I would have cast walking bomb in their stomach and rolled out of the way.”

“Oooh! So violent. I think I like it,” he purred. Leaning close enough to feel her breath on his face. “So you are saying you just wanted me beneath you?”

She groaned and curled her hands into fists. “Zevran, I know you’re just doing this to fluster me!”

“Perhaps. It is incredibly amusing to watch you squirm.”

He watched her wet her lips with her tongue, interested. Found himself leaning just a little closer. Heard her make a muted sound of frustration as she tried to meet him halfway and was thwarted by the blunted weapon.

“Zevran…” and the way she said his name! All soft and full of warmth… He liked that very much. “You should follow your own advice.”

Mirroring his exact tactic, she rolled them. Ignoring the blade in a way she wouldn’t have for a real weapon.

He let loose a startled, joyful laugh. “And what threat will you use to keep me at bay, Vigilessa?”

“I --”

“Of for -- are the two of you going to keep rolling about in the dirt or are you going to kiss?”

“Leliana!”

They froze and turned their heads almost in unison to see a bush rattle. Within said bush was a flash of red hair. And poking out of the top of it was Alistair’s distinctive sword pommel.

“Do the two of you have nothing better to do?” Variel groaned, looking and sounding for all the world like a deeply offended cat.

Leliana gave up her hiding place with a sigh. “I only wanted to be certain the fighting was not going too far.”

Meaning, he was fairly certain that Alistair had dragged her with him to be certain he wasn’t killing her. Which annoyed him more than it should have. He’d had many chances for that already.

Variel trusts you.

Alistair was frowning, arms crossed, looking to the knife he’d held to Variel’s throat a moment ago.

“It’s blunt, Alistair,” said Variel.

He blushed abruptly, eyes going wide with something a little like guilt. “I, uh… I wasn’t… Leliana, wait for me --”

And they were gone.

He watched for a long, irritated moment. Then sighed and looked up at Variel. Who was in fact still glaring into the trees after them with her lips pressed into a thin white line.

“I think we may have to retire for the evening, amor.”

She sighed. “Possibly proposing a spar where the others couldn’t watch was one of my worse ideas.”

“Possibly,” he agreed.

She climbed off of him, and pulled him to his feet, absently, brushing dirt off the back of his tunic.

“Well. How did I do anyway?”

“You are getting the hang of it. I’ve never met a mage so... stabby, you know. But then, I’ve never been to Tevinter either.”

Variel rolled her eyes at him. “Always with the jokes about blood magic from you people.”

“Always? I believe this is my first time, thank you.”

She laughed and shook her head. And it was a nice laugh. It made him feel like his feet were truly on the ground, and there was something ahead of him worth walking towards.

Rinna, he thought, is dead. Taliesin is beyond my reach. But I can make new friends. And do more than kill for coin, though I would not give it up.

And he could make a mark on this world that had someone other than aspiring young Crows whispering to one another about him. Help people. Like the mages in their tower. Like… perhaps those very same aspiring young Crows…

“This thing we are doing,” he said, walking alongside her back to camp. “Stopping the blight. I can not think of anything I have ever done which is so worthy.”

She smiled crookedly. “I can think of a few things for you if you like.”