Summary: In which Margo gets a new job.
Margo walks down the hill in a daze, heart beating painfully in her chest. Her new body – and she's a bit unsettled by the fact the she's beginning to think of it in proprietary terms - is much better at processing adrenaline than her original would have been, but the sense of primordial dread hasn't just set up camp. At this point it's roasting marshmallows and telling dirty jokes.
What is the next step? There seem to be several power brokers here – Leliana and her network of spies is one, perhaps Seeker Pentaghast, and this Cullen fellow are the others. Solas and Varric appear to be lower on the food chain. She tries to make sense of it all, when a commotion starts around her. An elf runs by, screaming something about someone being awake. People are rushing back and forth in chaotic agitation, like a bunch of ants whose anthill got knocked over. She's jostled to the front of a quickly forming crowd.
Margo watches with the others, as a woman emerges from one of the log houses, and scurries up the hill. There are whispers all around her – something about an Andraste, and the fade, and something or other having to do with the breach, which she at least knows is the big nasty hellmouth in the sky. Also, some dude named Harold, whoever he is.
The woman walks by them, and Margo has a chance to get a look at her. Well, she wasn't expecting this. She's human and young – 18 or 19 maybe. Pretty, in a soft sort of way, without the compact lean hardness of many of the other soldiers she's seen here. She's wearing some kind of light armor, but it's out of place, like something more decorative than functional. No one needs a bustier like that if they're trying to slice someone's head off. Unless it's meant as a distraction tactic. And she looks…mortified doesn't even begin to cut it. Margo feels a sudden twang of sympathy. Every incoming freshman class has these girls, with their soft outer shell still so fragile, embarrassed at the slightest sign of attention. It sometimes takes a semester to coax them out, managing class dynamics so that they don't get trampled over by the louder kids in the group. Kids – and at this age, they are still barely out of childhood, really – can be the cruelest little shits when they sense weakness.
This isn't much different, she realizes. And the crowd, for all its awe struck whispers, is heterogeneous. There are many who stare with open speculation, and a few with downright hostility.
Then the woman is met by Seeker Pentaghast and a tall blond fellow with a strange sort of fur collar that looks like the beast it came from isn't fully convinced that it should be dead yet, and then the girl is ushered out of sight.
The crowd mills about for a bit, then begins to disperse.
Margo decides that her best option is to look for her body's belongings. Maybe there is a convenient and wonderfully detailed diary to be found, one that will expound in details on her host's biography.
Except, of course, she might as well get a divining rod, and go a-looking. She walks around the town, then around the camps a couple of times, hoping that someone would simply recognize her, but no one does. She asks about Charter, but no one seems to know where she is for sure. She makes eye contact with a few elves, but they just nod and go about their business. The sky is getting darker, and the camp seems to be settling in for the night. She watches small groups of soldiers walk over to the tavern. Even Varric is nowhere to be seen. Finally, an elf who looks like a kitchen worker, hauling a box of carrot-shaped vegetables that's almost as big as her tells Margo that Charter and her scouts are on patrol for a fortnight, based on the ration schedule.
"Two weeks?" Margo squeaks out, horrified.
"Apologies!" the elf mumbles, and flees.
She sort of stumbles upon the alchemist's hut, more by smell than anything else. The small courtyard is secluded and quiet, but the door remains ajar, letting out light and a steam of mixed odors – bitter and astringent, spicy and acrid, musky and sweet waft through the evening air. She hurries in.
There is a man leaning over an alembic, and even if she doesn't understand half of it, it's pretty clear he's swearing a blue streak.
"Master Adan?" she tries, hopeful.
"What?" He straightens and looks at her. Tall, dark, and grumpy, that one. And bearded. She wonders what's going on with the shaved head- full beard combo so many of the local men seem to be sporting. This doesn't seem to be a functional decision – if you can get a close shave on your head, why not just go to town and shave the whole thing off?
"Well, don't just stand there. Pass me the reagent – no, not that one, the blue one off the shelf. Yes, yes, the one with the white sediment at the bottom."
She walks over and lifts the bottle gingerly. The liquid inside is viscous, a deep cobalt blue. She doesn't dare uncork it before she passes it to him, but the alchemist – because that's what he is, a bonafide fucking alchemist in the flesh – doesn't seem to mind. He unstoppers it with his teeth, spits out the cork, and pours a healthy swig of the stuff. Straight down his gullet.
Margo stares.
"Should you be drinking the…um…ingredients?" she asks before she can think of a more diplomatic way of phrasing the question.
"No. But they don't pay me enough for this idiocy. Do I look like a healer to you? No. Does this place look like it sources enough elfroot for the amount of soldiers they're getting butchered every day? No. Give me something to blow up, and I'll brew you a mean grenade and you can go blow it up to your heart's content. I didn't sign up to play nurse maid."
Margo looks around. Dry herbs are stacked in large sacks along the wall. There are other things – minerals, animal parts, metal ores, and things that she can't even begin to identify lining all available shelf space. A work station of sorts with an alembic, a mortar and pestle, and a calcinator occupy a good part of the single room. She notices a rudimentary mill in the corner.
"You need a hand?"
She's not sure if this is the right move, but she doesn't quite feel like she has anywhere else to go. And at least, this space is familiar. Not the specific ingredients, maybe, but there are books on the shelves – quite a few by Auntie Ines, by the looks of it – and she has a photographic memory. Well, she had a photographic memory. She used to be able to learn this stuff fast. She's not sure about this body, but something must have carried over.
"I need twenty hands, but I'll settle for two. You're a herbalist?"
She frowns, wondering how not to oversell her knowledge without being told to scat.
"I dabble."
That seems to satisfy the guy.
"I'll take a dabbler any day over the cretins Cullen sends my way. I'm not always sure they can tell a plant from their own ass. Forget trying to send them for anything specific – they'll just bring back whatever they stumbled on first. Sometimes they bring me hay."
"Can I use your library to get myself up to speed? I…have some memory loss."
Adan's eyebrows shoot up in surprise.
"You're the contused one? The mage mentioned you, but by the way he described you, I thought you'd be…"
"What?"
He seems embarrassed for a second.
"Nothing, don't mind me. No offense, but you people have some strange metaphors."
Well, now she's annoyed. Because what she really needs on top of this otherwise phenomenal day is a bald-pated elf talking trash behind her back.
"Did he leave something for me? A tonic?"
"Nope. I usually have standard issue elfroot potion, but you can learn to brew that yourself in two hours if you don't already know how. You'll need to go gather the plants yourself, because I'm almost out. He told me to make a restorative draught – for your memory – but I'm too swamped. We can maybe tackle this tomorrow. If you help. I'll pay you, but not much. And you can sleep in the attic if you don't mind the bats."
She is so relieved and happy, she could kiss him.
"Are you kidding? I love bats. They are just the cutest. And if you wait for a long time, they'll make shilajit for you."
Adan gives her an incredulous look.
"You really are a strange lass, aren't you. They make what, now?"
Margo realizes this is probably not the right time to launch into an exegesis on Himalayan rock oil. But in for a penny, and all that.
"Do you have this stuff? It's very potent – it's this soft dark material that you sometimes find on cave walls. Looks like a mineral, but too soft?"
He gives her a suspicious look, but then his expression clears into something more enthusiastic.
"Wait, I knew a trader from Seheron once. He stocked something he called "Dwarven Oil." Fantastic stuff. Looks a bit like what you're describing, once you pry it out of the little jars they stuff it into – you say it's made by bats?"
He probably isn't interested in the biochemistry debates over shilajit, so Margo bites her tongue, and makes a non-committal affirmative noise.
"Huh. Well then, you interested? You'll need to get a go ahead from Cullen, though, and tell him not to send me more of his knuckleheads."
"Yes! I'll work hard, and won't bring you any hay unless you specifically request it."
"Best thing I've heard all day" he grumbles. "Which should tell you how my day's been."
She nods. "You and me both, buddy" she thinks to herself.
This chapter was brought to you by "shilajit" or mineral wax, which is an actually existing really weird thing. And by Dwarven Oil, which I stole (borrowed?) from Skyrim.