Hello and welcome, dear reader, to Nature of a Hero. This is my first time writing anything of substantial length, so hold onto your hats, kick back and relax, and feel free to join me on this descent into madness.
Nature of a Hero, takes place directly after the events of Origins and will span the timelines of DA:2 and (eventually) Inquisition. Whilst this story will attempt to remain in faith with the lore of Dragon Age, significant canon-divergent events and timeline warps will take place.
This story is designed to be dark (with any luck). Very little is off limits here. For the sake of brevity and potential spoilers, I have chosen not to tag for many warnings - However I may edit these as the story progresses. If something is triggering for you, and you'd like to know if you are likely to encounter it over the span of this work, please feel free to contact me and I can clarify.
This story is a work of fiction. Any and all views expressed by the story and/or characters is not necessarily condoned in any way or shared by the author.
Also, a huge shout-out to my editing team, SarcasticCookies and EloquentMuse. Without their tireless efforts, this chapter would never have seen the light of day.
Okay, now that the ball is rolling and due to the lack of a coherent tagging system I'm gonna throw some general warnings here:
Bisexual main character. Hence this work will contain both homosexual and heterosexual relationships. Including but not limited to M!Amell/Niall, M!Amell/Morrigan, M!Amell/Merrill, M!Hawke/Morrigan, F!Hawke/Fenris.
This story will include sexual content, including underage content (depending on which part of the world you're from) and prostitution, including references to child prostitution. As such, I am also tagging non-consensual/dubious consensual sex.
This story includes both drug use and drug abuse, including intravenous drug use and addiction.
Those are the big ones I want to warn for currently. If any of the above is not your jam, please stop reading now. As always, please feel free to ask if you want something clarified, I am happy to do this.
That aside, all feedback/support/critique is readily welcomed. Thanks for reading everybody. x
Justinian, 9.30 Dragon
Soren
No one would ever liken Kirkwall, City of Chains, to the once radiant Golden Citadel. The so-called glorious Seat of the Maker which was exalted by those who payed homage to the Chant of Light.
In fact, even Kirkwall's locals would have laughingly portrayed it—far more aptly—as something akin to the much more conspicuous Black City. Which as any mage knew from direct experience, loomed stark and ever-present over every foray into the Fade. As the Chantry would have it, the Black City was the culmination of Man's pride and excess. The tangible representation of greed, loathing, and despair.
Certainly Kirkwall would fit the bill.
But as the little trading cog upon which he was currently thumbing a ride wound its way circumspect through the treacherous waters of the Wounded Coast, the overwhelming emotion simmering under Soren Amell's somewhat queasy exterior was one of exhilaration. An unexpected hope for the future that was swelling inside him even as his more logical side attempted futilely to bat it back down, as the cog made its careful approach towards the city. Even as the vessel passed under the great shadow of the colossal weeping slave effigies that bordered the mouth of the enormous harbour, to Soren, it all just felt like being welcomed home.
It had been nearly two years since Soren, all of fourteen years and cocksure as any young man of that age, had last laid eyes upon the city. Spirited away all those years ago in the dark and lashing rain, wrists bound with magic dampening shackles, and shipped south. The memory was twisted in his mind, perverted by the effects of the stupefying narcotics they had plied his body with.
His stomach lurched unpleasantly with the taste of it, and he gripped the deck railing with a white-knuckled hand, reining the reaction in. He closed his eyes and tried to concentrate simply on the slow roll of the ocean beneath him. It didn't help. Particularly now, as he breathed in deeply, that he was beginning to catch a whiff of the ripe stench which emanated from the city with the onset of the morning sun.
It hung drowsily in the air around them as he opened his eyes to the sight of the few other passengers, who had been able to scrape together enough coin to bribe the captain into taking them onboard, beginning to mill onto the deck. Their hardened faces taking in the sight of Kirkwall rising above them.
Refugees.
Whilst the Fifth Blight was over, the Archdemon defeated at Soren's hands, pockets of darkspawn still roamed the countryside leaving the land poisoned and blackened in their wake. Denerim itself was facing an altogether new sort of threat. Lack of food and the addition of many refugees fleeing from the surrounding lands had resulted in widespread disorder. In the days before he had left the city, cordons and curfews had been put into place to little avail. With the destruction wrought upon the city by the Archdemon and the darkspawn horde, Queen Anora had been hardpressed to keep the violence from spilling out onto the streets.
Worse still, without the proper organisation to deal with the problem, scores of dead still lined the streets. The gutters still ran red with blood. And an alarmingly virulent pox had taken to the city's populace. When Soren had left the capital a month ago it had seemed to have been mainly confined to the city's most impoverished neighbourhoods. But even in the days before he'd taken ship further north in Amaranthine, cases had been reported in the portside town. Carried no doubt by people desperate to return home now that the Blight was over, or even simply fleeing the chaos that was Denerim.
The ship's captain had been extremely reluctant to take anyone on board, but a criminally high sum of coin had won him over and they'd wasted no time, sailing out that same evening on the tide. Soren had rigorously checked his body all over daily, gripped with an ironic terror that after all he had been through the past year, a stupid pox would be the death of him. The spots had never shown though and apart from the nausea and the nightmares which plagued him, he felt fit as a fennec.
As they approached the Gallows, a shout went up from a nearby patrol vessel, calling them to a halt for docking inspection. As the sails were being taken down and the ship anchored, Soren observed the island prison curiously. He had never had the opportunity to see it up close before; the enclave on which it sat was situated just beyond the gaping maw of Kirkwall's harbour and accessible only by boat. Once used as an offshore holding pen for slaves, it now served as the home of Kirkwall's Circle of Magi. The rocky promenade which jutted out of the churning sea was smaller than Kinloch Hold in land area, but the buildings which covered most of the island were much larger in scale. He wondered, a stale distaste swilling about his mouth, just how many mages were stuffed in there. Here and there, dotted about the walls, he could spot the distant forms of patrolling templars, their silver filigree armour gleaming in the early morning sunlight.
He kept his expression carefully neutral on the off chance that anyone was paying attention to him, but he needn't have worried. For now, he was simply another wretched soul bound for a city that was notorious for squeezing the lifeblood from those who could not play by its rules. But this was Soren's home, and if there was one game he knew how to play—it was Kirkwall.
He had to suppress a sigh when the boarding party finally got around to getting onto their ship. Two of the interlopers had clambered up the side before the rest of the party, and were gesturing for everyone on board to line up, crew and passengers alike. Soren was unable to even guess at their sex, given the cloth masks wrapped securely around their faces and the ample clothing which covered all of what would normally be exposed skin.
Maker, how bad had the pox gotten that they had already heard wind of it across the Waking Sea? Certainly there were faster ships than the one he was currently occupying, but the news had to be dire if these sorts of precautions were in place already.
He lined up against the railing along with the rest of them and dutifully began to strip, almost enjoying the feeling of peeling off the layers of clothing that had begun to mature into what could almost be a second layer of skin. Putting the stinking things back on was going to be far worse, he could tell.
He was examined head to toe by the plague seekers; his hair combed through, even the inside of his mouth peered into, and deemed to be pox free. His breath hitched as his arms were examined, the plague seeker's brusque grip running over the long scars decorating the soft underside of his wrists. But if they had noticed the aberration, apparently they didn't think much of it, or simply didn't care, as no comment was made. Well, perhaps he wasn't the only one fleeing Ferelden with such marks. After all, it had been a bad year.
But as one of his examiners paused before moving onto their next victim, staring at him as he struggled back into his pants, Soren felt alarm creeping through him again.
They gestured towards Soren's shoulder, "You some kind of slave or something?"
Soren paused while buckling his belt, let out a little inward sigh of relief, and then glared at them; made no move to reply. The plague seeker shrugged and turned away.
Fuck. He'd forgotten about the goddamn brand. He pulled his black, woollen jumper over his head, thinking. Although it was unlikely that anyone would recognise or even take much notice of the design burned onto his left scapula, the risk was too great. He'd have to seek out a tattooist as a matter of urgency once he got himself into the city.
He finished pulling his boots back on and scouted out somewhere to seat himself, eventually deciding on a pile of spare rigging at the back of the vessel. The bloody inspection would drag on no doubt, even once the ship was declared healthy. The economic turbulence in the wake of the blight had apparently resulted in a surge of illegal trading, or so he had been informed by the captain when he had embarked at Amaranthine, and the cog's cargo would need to be thoroughly scrutinised.
So too had the man told him that Kirkwall had barred its gates to refugees, the city apparently bursting at the seams for the past six months, and that Soren was better off continuing north. Of course the captain would be more than happy to take Soren along with them onwards to Rialto Bay once their business in Kirkwall was done. For an extra fee.
Soren had politely turned the offer down, explaining that he was a Kirkwall native, and the man had simply eyed him disdainfully before shrugging. Accent or no, he didn't think much of Soren's chances of entering the city. But that wasn't his problem. The captain had stressed this rather pointedly as he took Soren's coin.
Well, Soren mused tiredly, running an irritable hand through the inch or so of downy hair that topped his head, if for whatever reason he couldn't enter by official channels, there were always less conventional ways of going about it. Just, unfortunately, far less desirable ones. He relaxed back onto his impromptu and somewhat scratchy makeshift chair and closed his eyes, weary. He might as well get comfy. He was going to be here a while.
It was well into mid-morning, nearing lunchtime if Soren's growling stomach had anything to say about it, by the time the ship had been allowed to berth. Finding himself on solid ground for the first time in a fortnight was a simple bliss, and as he wandered along the docks, he could finally throw off the last vestiges of the seasickness which had plagued his journey across the water.
Around him the harbour was a hive of activity. The street was flooded with labourers moving goods to and from the many warehouses littering the district as gaggles of street traders and fishwives hawked their wares to passersby. He paused briefly to purchase food, his empty stomach churning. Three steamed clams rolled in garlic and butter later, he began to feel slightly more like a functioning human being and strolled onwards, weaving his way in and out of the traffic. An explosion of transactions were taking place in a dozen different languages and coin changed hands rapidly. Always the city towered above him. Kirkwall was a city of verticals more so than the horizontal. Built in a horseshoe around an enormous rocky bay, its tiered districts rose steeply along with the landscape.
Nobody owned slaves in Kirkwall anymore, but hundreds of years ago scores of the wretches would have broken their backs pushing all manner of trade goods, bundled precariously in handheld wagons, up and down the steep streets leading to the city proper above. Now more modern technology took care of most of it. Huge winches and chains hung within a sophisticated pulley system to haul up heavy goods to the higher streets. But for smaller loads and poorer merchants, the grueling labour fell to whichever unfortunates were desperate enough for coin. And there were plenty of them.
He shrugged out of his heavy, leather and fur outer jacket as he walked. Now that the sun had burned away the chill morning mist that had blanketed the coastal waters, he was sweltering in it. He'd need to sort out different clothes. Quite aside from his garments being ripped, threadbare, and stinking from constant use, Kirkwall basically had just two climate variables. Either it was oppressively hot with harsh, glaring sunlight bearing down onto the dark stone streets, or it was bitter, howling wind and sleet straight off the Waking Sea. As such Kirkwall had developed its own unique flavour of fashion to cope with this demand. Hooded scarves were a popular accessory among the wealthy and the working class alike. Not the colourful, floaty silks found in more exotic, warmer climes like Antiva, but hard wearing, stiff cloth which kept the sun off the scalp during the hot days, and the wind and rain off the face during the cold.
He was headed for the large stairwell that acted as the main thoroughfare between the docks and Lowtown, the biggest and most populous district in Kirkwall, barring the underground warren that constituted the Darktown slum. Lowtown was mainly a residential district, and was where Soren had spent most of his younger days. It was where he was headed now, his uncle's house situated in an old housing estate on the eastern side of town. Lowtown also contained its fair share of domestic facilities, and Soren found himself almost salivating at the thought of a cold pint, a set of clean clothes, and a bath. Kirkwall boasted several public bathhouses, a remnant from a time when the city was a stronghold of Imperial rule. Ferelden had never cottoned on to such luxuries, and Soren couldn't remember the last time he'd felt truly clean.
Half lost in such pleasant thoughts, he was hardly paying attention to his surroundings as his feet navigated the familiar streets with an ease learned through a lifetime of running amok around the city. But if the location wasn't noteworthy, the sudden throng of people he'd inadvertently stumbled into certainly was.
Every spare inch of space in the square was jammed with people. Ferelden refugees mostly, by the look of them. Some had strung up makeshift camps with whatever materials they could find, while many others simply sat with their meagre belongings, all that they'd been able to carry when their homes and villages had been overrun by the darkspawn.
The atmosphere back here at the rear of the crowd was bleak. Whilst the general hubbub of human life continued even in this wretched state, many of the refugees sat sombre and listless, their oppressive silence broken only here and there by a round of hacking coughs or the piercing whine of a crying baby.
Soren stood on his tiptoes, straining to see over the mass of people to the front of the crowd where some form of commotion seemed to be taking place. At least a dozen uniformed guardsmen stood, nervously he thought, in front of a huge iron gate which barricaded the corridor completely. Through the sturdy metal bars he could see the stairwell beyond; only a hundred yards or so away, for all its accessibility it might have well have been the Maker's paradise. Between him and the gate must have been at least three hundred people, the front half of which were restless. Several cocksure younger people were trying to rouse the crowd, hurling insults at the guards and posturing.
One of the braver souls decided to push forward, stepping up shoulder to shoulder with the guards and was pushed back roughly.
"Enough!" Snapped one of the guards, an officer with greying hair and a set of wobbly jowls. "You've been told, there's no more room-"
"You've got an entire bloody city up there!" A burly redheaded man with a bushy beard, who seemed to be the most outspoken of them.
"Yes," the guard replied, seething, "an entire city with no more housing for the homeless! What difference does it make for you lot if you're living on the streets down here or up there?"
A young woman stood up in the crowd. "At least we'd have a chance! How are we supposed to find work when you won't even let us into the city to try?" This was met with murmurs of agreement.
"I've been over this a hundred Maker damned times! We already have more refugees than we can employ!" The officer was becoming red in the face. "There is no work! No housing! Do you think the citizens of Kirkwall whose livelihoods you are threatening will thank us if we decide to let in a bunch of hungry barbarians!?"
The redheaded man puffed up in indignation. "Are you inferring that we're criminals, Ser!" The murmuring in the crowd became louder.
"And when your children are starving on the streets?" pressed the guard. "Of course you bloody will be!"
"You bastards!"
Soren didn't see who threw it, but from somewhere in the agitated mass of people, a fist-sized rock had been launched, finding its target squarely on the officers slathering red face. The man staggered backwards, one hand slapping to his face where a slither of blood was beginning to ooze through his fingers. His other hand lifted shakily and pointed blindly into the crowd.
"Arrest that man!" He yammered, spittle flying from his mouth. His underlings noticeably hesitated. The last thing they wanted to do was wade into the midst of an angry mob, but the officer shoved the guard nearest to him. The man staggered forward and raised his truncheon in front of him, more to regain his balance than any intention to actually use the thing. But it was enough. With tensions running as high as they were, and the satisfaction of drawing blood on their aggressor, the mob's confidence was bolstered.
Soren couldn't help but wince as the guard was piled onto by all sides, his orange armour disappearing quickly from view as the crowd seethed forwards. By now any sense of control was lost and the rest of the guards began to lay about with their batons as screams and an awful clamour filled the air.
Soren leapt to the side, narrowly avoiding being caught up in the rioting horde as the refugees pressed up around him. He scanned the square, trying to spot if there was anyone official nearby that hadn't been dragged into the mess in front of him. The situation was worse than he had anticipated. At this rate it'd be a goddamn miracle if the let him through. He'd been banking on the fact that his accent at least was still recognisable as Kirkwallian, but with the fighting on the streets he wasn't sure anyone was going to care. Still… he spotted a guardhouse near the gate on the other side of the courtyard. Most of the brawling was over this side and a pocket of calm had surrounded the little postern.
He took a breath and began to weave his way through the jostling crowd, swearing loudly when he nearly trod on a small child underfoot. He stepped over the child, then with a flash of afterthought, swiftly bent down and scooped her up out of harm's way, thinking to deposit her on the safer side of the square. He had barely taken two paces before what must have been the hysterical mother flung herself towards him, her nails clawing at his face and the child ripped from his arms before he could even register what was happening.
Seething, he shook himself free of the throng, having to shove aside two refugees who'd fucking turned on each other, and stamped, mood black, towards the guardhouse. A quick swipe of a hand across his cheek told him that the woman's nails hadn't drawn blood, but Andraste's tits it fucking stung.
He rapped smartly on the wooden shutters of the guardhouse. "Oi!" He called. "Anyone in there?"
For a moment there seemed to be no answer, but then the shutters slid back barely an inch and a pimply face peered cautiously through the gap.
"City's closed. Piss off!" The shutters slid back with a snap. Soren scowled. Knocked again more insistently.
"I'm not a refugee! Kirkwall, born and bred. I'm just trying to get home man!"
The shutters slid open a crack once more.
"Name?"
For a split second Soren floundered in indecision. He had decided earlier on the voyage over that it would probably be simpler just to go by his real name. He would no doubt be recognised around Lowtown, and he was inclined to think that raising suspicions by attempting to assume a different identity would lead to more trouble than simply shouldering the baggage that came with the name Soren Amell.
After all, the Circle shouldn't be actively looking for him. Not yet anyway. Unless… he was assuming that Alistair hadn't reported him. Soren didn't think that he would but… well. There was nothing to be done about it either way. The Grey Wardens were his bigger problem. The Circle could be dealt with. Layers of bureaucracy would slow them down, and without his phylactery they would have a hard time keeping up with him.
But the wardens were an unknown. Beholden to no one but themselves and surely actively hunting him, no doubt with dark magics of their own; they were the real threat if Soren's whereabouts were to reach them. After the stunt he and Morrigan had pulled with the Archdemon, he had no doubt that they would have questions. Questions he had no intention of answering. He had a life to be getting on with, and being a Grey Warden was not going to be a part of it. They had taken enough from him already.
Like it or not though, he was a target. Caution needed to be a priority. For now though…
"Amell," he said smoothly, hoping the guard hadn't noticed the brief hitch in his reply. The boy was probably too young to make much of the once noble moniker, unfortunately. The name Amell no longer meant much in Kirkwall.
The shutters slid shut again. On the other side of them, he could hear a muffled shuffling of papers. He waited. A few seconds later the shutters opened a fraction of an inch.
"You're not on the list. Official business only. Piss off!"
Before the stupid bloody things could slide closed again, Soren grabbed the edge of the shutters and pulled them open, revealing the alarmed face of the young guardsman.
"Look," he said firmly. "Like I said, I need to get home. Now, I understand you don't want to let me through here with this ruckus going on," he gestured behind him, "but one of the other entrances to Lowtown, surely. I can make it worth your while." He fished in his pockets with his free hand and pulled out his coin purse—considerably lighter after the exorbitant fare he had paid for passage over—and dangled it in front of the guardsman.
The boy swallowed, eyeing the purse with longing in his eyes. For a moment Soren felt a satisfied smirk coming over his lips, but then the boy shook his head.
"Man, I can't help you. Haven't you seen? They're all like this. Every avenue to Lowtown is barricaded. There's refugees crawling all over the place. A thousand at least. Maybe more. If your name isn't on the lists, and it won't be if you've not come from the city, they won't let you through. Viscount's orders."
Fuck off. "Are you fucking kidding me?" Soren stared at him, aghast. Maker's balls, how much had changed in two years? What had happened to the good old days when one could always rely on a corrupt guard?
"Look," the kid said, prising Soren's fingers off the shutter, "go and get yourself a room at an inn. There's a ship due to leave and take most of these vermin with it in three days, assuming the weather holds." Oh yeah, like that wasn't much of a fucking ask. "They'll reopen the gates once order's been established. Now would you please leave?"
Soren stepped back, somewhat dazed, and turned to stare at the chaos surrounding him. It seemed that the guards, at least a score of them now that backup had arrived, had regained a semblance of control over the situation. Most of the Fereldens had slunk back to their camps. At his feet, a man was keening lowly, cradling a broken wrist. And by the gate, surrounded by guards, he could make out a shock of red hair on a body which lay still on the ground. A dark trickle of blood was slowly seeping past one of the guard's boots.
—Blood, black in the flickering blue light, seeping onto cold flagstones through matted, dark hair. Bile rising in his throat, and his whole world ringing, ringing—
He shook his head wildly and lifted trembling hands to bang against his ringing ears. Shut it the fuck down, Soren. The tinnitus subsided a little and he stumbled forward, suddenly wanting, needing to be away from the gruesome scene, if only to get the goddamn scent of blood out of his nostrils.
Fuck the official channels then. It was going to have to be Darktown.
Fishgut Lane seemed to be trapped in its own little bubble of time for all that had changed in the last two years.
In fact, the only major point of difference was that the boy working the corner wasn't Soren himself. The kid had glanced at him with sullen eyes, lazily angling his body for Soren's inspection. He was struck by a rather unpleasant lurch of anamnesis. Gotta get used to that feeling if you're gonna be living here, boy. That particular voice in his head was the one that sounded like his uncle.
He jerked his head, a short 'not interested', and the boy simply shrugged at him, turning his attention back to the street. Soren stared after him a moment—Andraste's tits, had he really been that small?—before continuing on his way down the ever narrowing alley. He was searching for the shaft on the street that lead to the sewers. Unpleasant as it was going to no doubt be, he knew from prior experience that it was a sure way into Darktown—one that was far less likely to be frequented by thugs and other lowlifes that could make his life a misery.
All that being said, he still found himself standing unwilling before the entrance, nose screwed up in the face of the ripe scent that was emanating from the shaft. C'mon, this is hardly the worst place you've ever been in. Deep Roads ringing a bell? He sighed. Well, hanging around wasn't going to make the experience go any faster. He gritted his teeth and lowered himself, gagging, into the dark.
He could honestly say that this was probably the worst place he'd even been in. At least the Deep Roads had been vast enough that you could comfortably avoid standing in bronto shit. The slosh that spattered up his legs as he hit the ground into ankle deep sludge was enough to get him to void the contents of his stomach all over his boots. He crouched over retching for a good minute, the hunched posture bringing him only closer to the foul muck he was standing in. Finally the spasms subsided as his senses were overwhelmed to the point of numbness, and he staggered against the slime-coated walls, eyes watering.
The tunnel was pitch black. Further up, he knew, some of the sewer walls were coated with a phosphorescent lichen that you could almost see by, but down here, this close to the ocean, salt lined the tunnels and nothing grew. With no other option he summoned a little ball of light into his palm to illuminate the way, and peered carefully ahead to check that he wasn't sharing the dark with anyone. Not that anyone in their right mind is going to be down here… yeah, I'm talking to you Amell.
"'Fuck up," Soren muttered to himself. Maker, a dingy dockside inn was sounding real good right about now. He waded forward into the tunnel, grimacing as the sewerage seemed only to deepen. If only his noble ancestors could seem him now. The thought brought a crazed little laugh to his lips. And they thought Gamlen's generation were the fuckups. He trudged onwards.
What had to have been hours later, and a dizzying amount of turns and carefully picked passageways that left him feeling more and more panicked that perhaps after all he hadn't remembered this route quite so well as he seemed to recall, he found himself finally on dry ground. Never before had he been quite so pleased to be in Darktown. He would have fallen to his knees and kissed the ground, had he not been worried that in doing so he would likely be compromising his good health.
Darktown itself was a network of old mining tunnels that had been burrowing their way beneath Kirkwall since the city had been founded, bringing up the valuable jet stone that the Imperium had so favoured in their architecture. When the mines had eventually been exhausted, Darktown had become the home for the dregs of society; the diseased, the insane, criminals, and all those who had no other option but to be there. Soren, despite the occasional foray into the upper levels of Darktown, had spent little time here in his youth. Gamlen had forbidden it. The first time he had dared set foot in the place, his uncle had tanned his hide raw.
The undercity was certainly no destination in and of itself. Even the air was foul. Smoke from dung fires hung ever present in the air, and swelling up out of every corner of the place was the poisonous mist known to the locals as chokedamp. Soren could already feel his throat constricting further as he lingered by the sewer exit. He had already spent too long in the miasma as he climbed up through the tunnels. Coughing, he pulled his now filthy shirt up over his nose and mouth as he passed through it. At least the worst part of his journey was over. As long as he could avoid being mugged, he was fairly confident that he could find his way to Lowtown from here with relative ease.
By the time he staggered out onto the streets of Lowtown, the sun had begun to cast the hazy, golden light of the early evening. Soren closed his eyes and basked in it. His hair and right side of his face was covered in matted blood—not his own. The scratch marks from earlier that day on the left, puffy and red. And he suspected he'd have a black eye by tomorrow morning.
"Oh yeah," he muttered mockingly at himself. "Just avoid being mugged. In Darktown. Fucking idiot."
He was caked in shit, half-digested clam, and Maker knows what else from thigh down, and with a pang of loss he concluded that this time, his boots were not going to come back from it. Still coughing a little, he began to pick his way through Lowtown's streets. If he was going to make it home in time for dinner, he'd need to get a move on.
The neighbourhood still looked exactly the same. Gamlen Amell's apartment—hovel, the more sardonic part of his mind supplied—was situated in a dilapidated block of housing which nestled around a cramped courtyard. In the centre of the narrow space was a small raised garden bed which may have once housed some form of decorative shrubbery. However, after years of neglect and lack of sunlight, it had long since transitioned into a dumping ground for a wide variety of unwanted objects and trash. Here and there, perhaps fuelled by the organic slop which was so frequently emptied onto them, vivacious weeds swayed with every breath of wind that was sucked into the courtyard, and a colourful scattering of wildflowers winked out at him from amongst the greenery.
Soren couldn't help the little half-grin that crept onto his face at the sight of a haggard, white cat lounging on the wall of the bed in a small sliver of sun. Old One-Eye Sam had been a permanent fixture for as long as he could remember. Some things never changed.
The same could be said for the walkway to his uncle's front door. Here was the collection of herbs and potted plants that belonged to the toothless old woman two doors down. One of the clay pots—currently sporting a lush elfroot—had once been brightly painted by Soren himself, some ten years or so ago. An apology, if he remembered correctly, for once calling the batty old coot a witch. The irony of this was not lost on him, and for a moment, a shadow of a smirk flitted across his lips. He wondered idly if old Ava had suspected, somehow known that he was a mage, but he dismissed the thought. The old lady had been convinced of all sorts of nonsense.
The house next door to his uncle's seemed to have changed ownership. A young girl around his age was seated outside on a bench, nursing an infant.
For a moment his heartbeat was too loud in his ears. Shut it down, Soren. He attempted half-heartedly to look non-threatening, remembering too late to fix his hollow, dead-eyed resting face into something resembling a friendly smile. Her eyes widened, and without a word she stood and slipped inside her house, letting the door slam shut behind her. He rolled his eyes skyward. Sighed inwardly. Pressed on.
His feet seemed almost to drag as he walked the last few paces to Gamlen's door, the last apartment on the row. There was nothing to suggest that over two years had passed. Maker, even the little pot that Gamlen used to discard his tobacco butts was still wedged into the corner of the doorway; looking for all the world as if it hadn't been touched since Soren shoved it there after kicking it over accidentally on his way out the door the last time he'd left. He stared at it for a long moment, feeling the cold weight of the past settle over his shoulders. He swallowed back a sudden surge of nostalgia, leadenly tinged with a very real apprehension of what awaited him beyond that door.
Was he even going to be welcome here? He had been but a child when the templars had dragged him south to Ferelden. And now… well. He wasn't sure what he was, but the child was gone. Lost somewhere between the Deep Roads and Morrigan's thighs. Bleeding out with the piled up, silent dead in the gutters of Denerim.
If not here though… then what? The thought broiled inside him. His raised hand stalled, its momentum leeched away by the terrible emptiness settling deep in the pit of his stomach.
Oh come on. Get it together.
He swallowed. Pushed the feeling back. Knocked.
