"So, where are you from?" Varric's voice cut through the morning silence, pulling The Inner Circle's attentions from their breakfast. Rhawlin Lavellan looked up from her tea to meet the dwarf's amber gaze, a confused frown curving her lips.
"I traveled with clan Lavellan, of course." Instinctively, she brushed her fingertips down her chin as she answered. Before, she would trace the single line of her vallaslin that ran down her bottom lip to branch into her throat, as she had done for years. Now, they were gone. Her large, molten gold eyes flickered to where Solas sat. He drank tea as well, which surprised her, with a solemn downward gaze that ever avoided meeting hers. Quickly withdrawing her hand and her gaze, she returned both to a cooling bowl of porridge in front of her.
Among her companions was an uneasy shifting, awkward tension among those who knew her enough to understand. Everyone present fell neatly into that category; she had noted earlier that Vivienne, Cole, and Blackwall were not present. Much to her relief, for their varying reasons. Varric, kind as he was, never moved from looking at her or acted as if he noticed the rising discomfort.
"Well you see, Scarlet-" Rhawlin smirked slightly as she stirred her cementing breakfast, unable to hide the good humor that Varric's nickname inspired. "-and no offense. You just don't seem very... Dalish." The dwarf made vague motions as he fought to find the correct word, gave up, and settled for blunt honesty.
"S'not very elfy, is she?" Sera spoke with obvious satisfaction that Rhawlin simply ignored, having found agreeing to disagree the best strategy when it came to Sera and elves. A nervous flitter of laughter passed the Inquisitor's lips, tinged with her sour mood and heartache.
"I assure you, I am definitely an elf." She smiled to her rogue companions. "The other youths in my clan made me question that often enough until I received my.." Her pupils dilated and then quickly shrunk, pausing her for only a moment. "Until I became an adult."
"Issit 'cause you're ears are all floppy?" Sera yelped her laughter before taking a too-big bite of banana.
"No," Rhawlin began, quirking a brow at Sera's very unsubtle observation. Her face twisted some as she felt down the length of her exceptionally drawn out ears, that eventually twisted down to overlap a bit at the tips. They weren't really floppy, but she knew they would bend back to point if she pulled them. "Although that wasn't ignored. They told me I looked like a human's mabari mutt." Sera gasped and made a disgusted face, forcing banana mush out of the corner of her mouth, and Rhawlin chuckled.
"Well, that was pretty mean of your clan." Varric let a smudge of laughter into his voice, as if to soften the obvious news.
"Oh, it was mostly the children. And I actually always liked that one. I rather enjoyed the idea of being a great beast like a mabari."
"That's a great way to look at it, Boss." Iron Bull spoke, leaning back in his chair against the wall with his hand resting on his full belly. He gave a proud smirk when she looked at him and Rhawlin smiled, nodding in respect.
"So, what did they do that you needed to question your worth?" This from Cassandra, who leaned forward with her elbows on the table, peering down the length of the table at their leader.
The Inquisitor was an expert at keeping a blank face, and used her expertise well as she mentally flinched at the sudden dredging into her past. Up until now she had done so well at keeping questions at a minimum. But this day, like the couple weeks before it, she started her days too early and fell into her bed too late, and constantly heavy with heartache and dread. Morrigan had said Corypheus would not wait to fall on us after returning from the Well of Sorrows. And yet, here it had been a month and they had still had not even a word or whisper of his movements.
"Well.." Rhawlin allowed herself a small sigh. "I was always just too odd. I didn't look the same and I was just too.. fanciful as a child. A weird looking dreamer who stayed in the trees too long." She had hoped that would have been enough to satisfy, but scrunched her nose as Varric, Sera and Cassandra looked at her with interested and questioning faces.
Lavellan recalled a few stories about her clan's mild cruelties regarding her freckled, red-tanned skin, only shades lighter than her burgundy hair. Many elves had yellow tinted eyes, but the gold of hers was too bright, she'd been told. Of course her ears had received special attention, and insults came from nearly all of her clan in various forms. Rhawlin told these stories quickly and with little detail for only about ten minutes, looking between the rest of her companions as they one-by-one devoted their attention to her. She started her last little memory with hopes that it would be enough to allow her to retreat without revealing too much.
"Clan Lavellan has a custom where the Keeper pairs up the youth who are becoming adults. We're free to deny the Keeper's choice but, ah, its almost like a passed-down superstition. Its romantic to the children who hear stories about it, little girls fawning over their fated love and little boys fantasizing about the hunt to prove their adulthood, and thus able to marry. Ethon, this smaller lad, he was my match. He was heartbroken. He cried that he could not love Andruil's mistake.. I stayed in the trees for weeks, until we moved on." By the end of her short recollection, her bored tone had become wistful and almost amused.
Regardless of their varying knowledge of elvhen lore, the table of her friends grimaced and muttered angrily, along with a couple soldiers a table over who had started listening halfway through the stories. 'Heartbroken?' she heard, 'couldn't love!?' someone gasped, 'a fuckin' mistake!' someone repeated, taken aback. Rhawlin felt more then she saw Solas shift awkwardly in his seat on the far caddy-cornered end, his gaze averted upwards. She didn't completely understand why, but her broken heart surged with wicked glee at his discomfort.
Suddenly, Dorian quipped above the murmuring group, "I think your eyes are absolutely stunning. Don't they glow in the dark? Very useful while traveling." Loud, the mage suddenly the center of attention, and a smattering of laughter and concurring whispers followed, along with a grateful smile from the Inquisitor.
Solas huffed softly, looking at Dorian midway up the table and speaking only loud enough to be heard. "They are indeed very reflective. They catch light so easily."
Dorian ignored him with a wave of his hand, never looking from Iron Bull who was spinning some story about the Inquisitor making spiders scatter with her torchlight eyes when they first met at the Wounded Coast to the eavesdropping soldiers. More had started flocking over with interest, asking hurried questions to catch up.
Rhawlin watched them all for a few moments, smiling softly to herself while the topics dwindled away from her past and onto stories of travels and battles and taverns. Varric and Sera argued over something about some Dalish clans not appreciating or using gold. Iron Bull struggled to tell his inspiring stories passed Cassandra's persistent correction of his skewed details while Dorian watched in amusement. Solas was quickly drinking his tea, rushing to finish it.
Iron Bull stood suddenly, slamming his large hands into the table with enthusiasm and causing a wave of tipping glasses. Water spilled across the table and into Cassandra's lap, who jumped to her feet and knocked over her chair, the bang echoing throughout the mostly empty dining hall. The conversations ceased, the soldiers disbanded and returned to their waiting duties, and several of Skyhold's cleaning staff rushed in to take their place.
Cassandra excused herself quickly, leaving in a rush while muttering about the 'blasted Qunari'. Iron Bull was shooed by the bustling staff and he left, apologizing to the Inquisitor through his laughter. Sera followed him, laughing in unison and jabbering about how the pranks she was inspired to pull. This left Rhawlin in the company of Varric, Dorian, and Solas as the four of them quietly helped collect the unbroken dishes. After a moment, the elf resigned to her duty and asked what was needed.
"Has anyone seen Blackwall, Vivienne or Cole?" Rhawlin announced her question to no one in particular, getting used to her demands being easily fulfilled, sparse as they were. Vivienne rarely ate with the rest of them and Blackwall had been reclusive since his return, but it was worth asking.
"The Iron Lady is actually in the garden today." Varric responded, looking up from the table. "Apparently Morrigan is spending time in the library. She said, 'Better enjoy it before the witch glooms it up again'. And Blackwall, he was helping with the horses earlier."
"I shall find Cole, Inquisitor." Solas said, handing his small pile of dishes to a waiting maid and excusing himself. The title had never felt so harsh to the lady elf. Rhawlin flinched when she heard it in place of da'len and stifled a sigh. Not only that, but Cole was the last person she wanted to see. She abandoned the cleaning to the staff and settled back in her chair, taking a large sip of her cold tea with a grimace.
"So, Scarlet, you never answered my question." Varric took his own chair across from her and kicked his feet onto the now-cleared table. Dorian remained standing, although moved to settle to the dwarf's right.
"Did I not answer your question? Hmm. That's odd." She took another gulp.
"I know you came from that clan, but Leliana's report said that the Keeper and hunters her scouts talked to had the same accent as the other clans in the Free Marches. Where's your accent, or lackthereof, from?"
Rhawlin fidgeted, her eyes widening oh-so-slightly as her usually skilled hands allowed the cup to tip. Most people had been to polite to ask, or didn't bother to notice that she had a rather flat weight to her words. Grumbling, she grabbed a nearby cloth and cleaned the small spill she had made. "Not all Dalish have accents."
"Usually when they start out as city elves, though." Varric retorted, bringing his hands together in front of his face while his elbows rested on the arms of the chair. Rhawlin tossed the dirtied cloth onto the table and slumped back against her own chair, head rolling back while her hand idly traced her throat where her scarred vallaslin once was.
"Does it really matter?" She spoke after a moment, voice strained into a graveling tone by the arch of her throat.
Varric blinked, not bothering to hide his mild amazement at her avoidance. He took a long breath as he turned his gaze up to Dorian, who shrugged and stifled a small chuckle. Varric breathed out a sigh while turning his attention back to their leader, leaning forward.
"Not really," Varric shrugged, "But now you've got me curious. Look, Scarlet, if its too big of a deal then don't worry. But don't you think after as far as we've come and everything we've done that I, we-" her jerked his thumb towards Dorian, who dipped his head in acknowledgment. "-deserve to know? The Temple of Mythal was crazy. But then Solas takes you; Smiling, confident rogue-leader of the Inquisition, takes some colored lines from your face and..." He was shaking his head, searching. The Storyteller was at a loss for words. Dorian sighed and sunk into the closest chair.
Rhawlin straightened and looked between the two of them. Two of the very best friends she had ever had, with whom she could entrust her life. Yet they all had their secrets that would never be told, and Varric's persistent pushing on the subject bothered her. She hadn't noticed that she had begun to grind her teeth.
"It feels like you're not all there anymore. Without those marks, you're like some dwarven machine. No more feeling than Bianca." Varric finished his thought, finally settling on the right words. He muttered an apology to his beloved crossbow that occupied its own chair beside him, and rubbed the back of his neck. "Those tattoos, they must have meant a lot. What did you give up for Chuckles?" His voice had dwindled to a near-whisper, tinged with bitter wonder.
Rhawlin suddenly rose to her feet, pushing her chair back with an unsettling screech against the stone floor. She took a moment to push her frazzled bangs from her eyes and breathe, nose crinkled into a distressed snarl.
"Okay I want you two to meet me in my quarters after training today. Drop it until then and I'll.. I'll tell you what I can. As for training itself, I believe you have already received your orders." After giving the finishing staff quick thank-yous, she left the mess. The suddenness of it left the two men flabbergasted. After a small discussion, they agreed it was a better answer than nothing and left for their duties.
"Regretful. Humbled by juvenile obstinacy. Abolished beliefs, betrayed by familial bonds." Cole sighed from his position in the rafters above the mess where he had watched over the morning's scene.
