The Inquisitor and the Zero

Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I own neither the worlds of Dragon Age or Familiar of Zero, I would be rich otherwise and not working a dead end job.

The coolness of the air, a slight breeze that tickled at the former Inquisitor's face. The night had fallen, had he been out for that long? Ameridan registered something else as he lay. It was soft, softer than the sleeping mats he had become accustomed to. Had he been given a bed? Though it seemed as though they had left him in his armor, he'd likely need to stretch to get rid of any kicks that would later develop. Still, it was an overly luxurious bed to say the least but Ameridan couldn't laze about. Sitting up and opening his rebellious eyes, he took in the surroundings of the dimly candlelit room.

He scanned his surroundings, he could make out a rather small looking room without much furnishing with the exception of a table, a dresser and a few curtains. Though they were simple furnishings, upon closer inspections one could see that the pieces were of fine make. It screamed "nobility." After all, only a noble could afford such finely crafted pieces of furnishing without braking their life savings.

Movement caught his gaze, his head snapped to the source to find the same young girl from before. Now that he thought of it, it seemed a bit on the unnatural side for a young girl to have pink hair. He would have to remember to ask if it was a condition or some sort of ailment. As soon as he had shifted, the noble born girl turned to him with a visible scowl on her face. "You're finally awake." Her voice made it clear she was likely in a mood.

He groaned, his muscles giving more protest to moving about. "Indeed da'lin. I am sorry to have inconvenienced you for this long." While his tone was sincere, he was quickly becoming agitated to this human's attitude. That was odd, he hadn't remembered being this eager to anger since he was younger.

Louise on the other hand tapped her foot on the stone floor, it was late and sleeping on her bed for the longest time was this stranger. For all intents and purposes he was a vagrant or mercenary from another nation. Still, he was at least making an effort to be polite. "I suppose it couldn't be helped," she stated.

She stood from her table and made her way over to the sitting man on her bed. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry this is happening to you. However, as much as I hate to admit it I need you. You're the only thing that shows I'm a true Mage." It almost surprised her how she was treating this man. He was still a commoner, a plebeian who was going to serve the nobility. Foreigner or not, he would take his place as her servant. "You were summoned as my familiar. As the contract was sealed you will become my servant. As such, you will not be needing that armor or your weapon."

Aremidan had started to find a bit of sympathy for the pink haired girl. That was until she had to absolute gaul to even suggest he didn't have a choice. He grit his teeth and clenched his fists with with several loud popping sounds as his knuckles popped from the strain. She was effectively forcing him into slave labor. Something his own people fought fiercely against since the time of Andraste. He would not be a slave, he was a Dalish elf! None of them would ever submit again!

"Your next words had best be chosen carefully da'lin." His voice was calm, even and cold. It brokered no arguement and promised swift retribution should she continue her line of conversation.

Louise had always prided herself on being intelligent, so in the moment she had heard his statement she knew she had crossed a line. Pride, however, spurred her to continue but at a more subdued pace. "Please understand," she continued, "I don't want to do this as much as you. I had wanted to summon something like a griffon or a dragon. Instead you appeared and I've become a laughing stock."

Ameridan took a moment to ponder her words, becoming less agitated and more annoyed at Louise. "How is this my fault da'lin? I did not ask you to summon me. It was my understanding of the arcane arts that living flesh and blood things could not be summoned. Spirits and beasts of the Beyond perhaps but not the living." If the living could be summoned, this could be problematic. What sort of profane magic could these foreign mages be using to summon creatures and men to themselves? Could it be Blood Magic? There had been no sign of blood at the site he had been pulled to this country. Perhaps he was jumping to conclusions but he would need to do more research on the magics of this land.

Louise for her part, was taken aback by the man's statement. He studied magic? Could have been a foreign noble? The implications were not good. A foreign nation could use a noble's abduction as a means to start a war with Tristain, which could end badly for the small country if she was understanding the current state of the nation correctly. This situation needed to be rectified quickly. "You know magic? This changes everything." Her posture and demeanor changed, adopting a thoughtful and contemplative pose.

This threw Ameridan for a loop. Simple magical knowledge was enough to change a situation? Lightly shaking his head, he would need to know more before making random suppositions about this situation. Tilting his head to the right and raising a brow he asked, "How?" It was a simple question, but it carried a lot of weight to it.

This brought Louise from her thoughts, she blinked at the man's words. "Well from the sound of it, you're a foreign noble that I summoned. If that's the case, your armor and weapon make sense in that light. I can't in good conscious make a fellow noble a familiar in the traditional sense."

She continued to muse and mumble to herself afterwards. It would've been comical if he wasn't still a bit agitated. "Da'lin," he said, gaining her attention. "I appreciate that you are willing to work with me. These events have been trying, I feel the night air may be the only thing that can calm my nerves." He moved to the door, noticing the girl's worry. "I won't leave the grounds. Come find me in the morning."

"Wait!" Louise exclaimed. "What is you name?"

"My name is Ameridan." She actually asked his name. In the entire time he knew her, she never once asked it from him. It was a start he supposed but he gave a slight smile at this knowledge. "I shall see you in the morning. We shall talk more on this arrangement then." Opening and closing the door, he made his way into the Academy proper.

Ameridan made his way through the corridors of the school. From his time as Inquisitor, he had seen the insides of many a castle. It was a fairly standard castle design. Opulent decorations, vaulted ceilings and winding staircases were the common staple of a noble's castle. Taking in the detail of the corridor he was currently walking down, he did the one thing that he had trained many hours to break himself of. He lost focus and stumbled into one of the academy staff.

A high pitched squeal and a loud crash sounded through the hall, the two individuals sprawled across the center of the hallway. Anyone coming across the two people entangled together would've been treated to a most scandalous sight. Ameridan lay atop a fail busty young maid with his face planted firmly in her chest. With a groan, the armored elf pushed himself up which elicited steal from the girl below him. When his vision returned, he saw the beet red face of the human under him.

It took all of three seconds for Ameridan to realize his predicament. In a blur of motion that he hadn't had for years of his reckoning, he disentangled himself from the young maiden. "I'm terribly sorry miss!" He sheepishly rubbed the back of his head with his right hand while offering the left hand to help her up. "Are you hurt at all?"

Hesitantly, the maid took his hand. Still flushed from their ordeal she pulled herself up with this stranger's help and began to dust herself off. After a moment of observing this stranger's demeanor before settling on armored cloak the man had on. It's golden color said only one thing to her and it chilled her to the bone. He was a noble. That chill down her spine was only intensified the longer she remained quiet. In a panic, she quickly curtsied as low as she could dare in her outfit and began her own apology. "Please forgive, my lord. I wasn't aware of anyone was still up or that we had visiting dignitaries at this time."

Amneridan looked at her unsure what to say. She had addressed him as "my lord" to which he hadn't been addressed in what felt like a long time. Still, he was no lord, nor was a leader in this strange land. He waved off the apology good with small smile. It seemed like it was the first time he had smiled in a while, well not counting his encounter with his successor of course. Though that was a ghost of a smile to be honest. "You're apology is unnecessary miss. I was too distracted by this place and how well kept it was that I wasn't paying attention to where I was going. I'm normally more observant, please accept my most humble apologies."

He gave the maid an apologetic bow, completely throwing the poor maid for a loop. She quickly glanced about, wondering if someone had put him up to being nice to the commoner staff member. Blushing profusely, she nodded her acceptance. "Please my lord. I'm a commoner, you shouldn't be bowing to me."

He rose from his bowing with a slightly wider smile on his face. "If the standard of nobility is what I've seen so far," he countered. "Then I am very glad to be called a common man." With a more subdued nod, he extended his arm and offered it in a greeting. "My name is Ameridan. I'm new to your lands and a stranger to your ways." Now that Ameridan could get a good look at this woman, he was amazed that she was only a bit older than the young girl that had summoned him. At least that's what he thought. Humans were always difficult to tell their age when they were young. She was at least an inch taller than himself with black hair and blue-gray eyes. Her hair was cropped into a bob cut that framed her face like a picture. He had to admit she was pretty cute, for a shem'len.

He was a commoner like herself. Yet he wore such armor that most noble's or Knights would kill for. Reluctantly, she took the hand in greeting and clasped it lightly. "I'm Siesta. I work here in the Academy as part of the cleaning and wait staff."

"A pleasure Siesta." His smile looked more genuine now. A somewhat normal meeting if he could be honest. "It's actually a chance meeting I suppose. I was looking for one of the staff to see if I could borrow some clothing. Though I'll admit I was hoping to run into the male staff instead... For obvious reasons of course."

He needed clothing. He didn't come to a foreign land with traveling clothes? For a moment she thought he was an imbecile despite his manners and demeanor. Then it hit her; there were rumors from earlier that there was an odd occurrence at the second year students' summoning ritual where a commoner was summoned instead of an animal. "By any chance Ameridan, were you the one that was summon by Miss Vallière?" At the mention of that name, his mood shifted. Thankfully, it wasn't drastic but Siesta could tell he was at most annoyed at hearing it. A nod from him told her everything. "Then I suppose I might be able to help. The servants always have extra clothes in stock. If you follow me I'll help you out."

With a smile, he stepped out of her way and gave a slight bow. "Please lead the way my lady." Siesta giggled at that and led him through the the halls to the store rooms.

Siesta made good on her promise. Not only had she given Ameridan a few changes of clothes, she even gave him a sack to keep things like his armor in until he fLund better accommodations for himself. He thanked he repeatedly, drawing several blushes from her as she was not used to being treated as though she were an important figure or even a noble woman.

Before taking his leave, Siesta stopped him. "Sir Ameridan. If you're going to be staying on Academy grounds, you can come by the kitchen for meals if you need them."

With a gracious smile, he nodded and made his way out of the Academy building and into the night air as he had originally intended. The air was cool and calming on his already healing nerves. He got only a few steps onto the lawn before he cast his glance up into the sky. The pack he carried over his shoulder falling to the ground as he followed suit to his knees, eyes transfixed on the site before him.

The stars stranger's to him, they were not the same stars he had remembered from deep into his childhood until the day he died. No, these were all new stars. However, the site before him was far more disturbing than the stars. Stars can be explained by being in a different land, but what his gazed locked onto was far more disturbing. "Spirits! Why are their two moons?"

Author's Note:

And that's where I leave off for this time. I hope you all enjoy it. Getting back into the art of writing is not easy. I've pretty much gotten so rusty I've allowed my chapters to get shorter and shorter. I appreciate everyone that's left a comment or reviewed the story so far. It really helps motivate me to keep writing. Working in a call center does not keep your motivation very high. So yeah, keep telling me the things, things are good.

I don't know why, all my current reviewers have wanted me to make Ameridan go on a rampage and massacre the school... I don't see it from him. However, I may try something with The Spirit of Justice which likely will be much more violent. Granted, I'm not sure if that'll be a one shot story or not. Should it be Anders and Justice or just Justice? The plan is in the works. When it'll come about, we'll see.

As a key note, Weird Al Yankovik makes good writing music. XD

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Until next time!