Note: Flashback over and back to the main story! This is a nice Bron-centric chapter - hopefully giving you a good feel for her character. Alistair and Bron ponder the next leg of their journey when Bron receives some life-shattering news.
Bron places a short dagger on the high, wooden counter. It's a simple weapon, devoid of ornamentation, but soundly made and nicely balanced, and the shopkeeper nods thoughtfully as he lifts it and holds it close to his dark, deep-set eyes. He pivots the dagger in his hands then places it back on the counter.
"I'll give you 20 silver," he says, stroking idly at his stubbled chin with his thumbnail.
"Fine," Bron replies simply, pushing the dagger forward to make space on the counter for the rest of her offerings.
The bandits she and Alistair had encountered in the forest had been simply equipped, holding only a few worn weapons and small personal trinkets between them. Nevertheless, Bron is confident that she might still fetch a decent sum of money from the items she'd managed to scavenge to support their onward journey.
She pulls another dagger from her pack, smaller but with an elegantly curved handle suggesting Antivan craftsmanship (or at least a decent imitation), followed by a braided leather band which hums with the distinctive aura of an enchantment. The shopkeeper offers her 50 silver for the pair and she accepts with a sharp nod and another curt, "fine."
From the corner of her eyes she can see Alistair frowning at her, a subtle tug at the inner curve of his brows to convey his disapproval at her blunt tone. There is a warmth to Alistair that Bron has always lacked, an easy friendliness that draws people to him. Every innkeeper they'd encountered during their week of travel, every barmaid and stable boy, had been met by Alistair with a smile and idle, friendly chatter. He was still somewhat guarded, Bron had noted approvingly, never really revealing much about himself or the reason for their journey, but he talked aimlessly and told bad jokes, and, as a result, he and Bron had been welcomed wherever they went.
Bron admits that it's an admirable quality, though it's not one that she particularly desires to emulate. Bron had always been direct and matter-of-fact, and she sees no particular reason to change now. She may not be the most popular person wherever she goes but she gets shit done and that is enough for her.
Finally she pulls a locket from her pack, dangling it pendulously in front of the shopkeeper from its long chain. It's unexpectedly fine considering the dishevelled bearing of its former owner. Both the chain and locket are gold; the front of the locket bearing a delicately engraved border of inter-locking scrolls.
Though the shopkeeper tries to remain impassive, Bron does not miss the slight widening of his eyes nor the subtle twitch of a smile; clearly he hopes to fetch a good price for such a superb example of craftsmanship. Even Alistair appears somewhat intrigued by her find and he leans forward slightly to admire the locket as it turns slowly in the sputtering lamplight of the shop.
With a flick of her fingers she opens the locket to show the inside to the shopkeeper. On one side is a quote from the Chant written in elegantly curled script, on the other side is a wrinkled piece of parchment bearing a rough sketch of a smiling woman and child. It's a good sketch, the woman's homely features and the child's mischievous smile rendered in thoughtful strokes of charcoal.
"He had a family," Alistair murmurs quietly, barely loud enough for her to hear, and Bron can't quite decipher the tone of his voice. Is it sadness he feels for the bandit that they killed? Sadness that he will never again be reunited with this gently smiling pair? Or perhaps it's pity? Pity for a father drawn to banditry out of desperation? Pity for the family now left to fend for itself?
Bron feels a dull pang of sympathy somewhere at the back of her mind but it's not enough to make her regret their small victory on the forest road. The man had threatened them, would gladly have killed them if his skill had allowed it. Whether or not he had a family was surely irrelevant. If his family had truly meant that much to him, he would have pursued a safer career-path than petty banditry.
"Evidently," she says flatly before reaching out with her spare hand and plucking the picture from the locket. She pointedly ignores Alistair's aghast expression as she crumples the small scrap of paper in her fist then pushes it unceremoniously into her jacket pocket.
"How much?" she asks the shopkeeper.
"I'll give you five gold," he replies.
"15," Bron counters without pause and she feels a sharp twinge of irritation when the shopkeeper responds to her perfectly reasonable offer with a shake of his head and a gentle chuckle.
Dissatisfied with his response, she narrows her eyes in warning and raises one brow sharply. It's a cold look, hard and slightly threatening, developed over years of practice, and the shopkeeper's laughter is cut short as he shifts uncomfortably under her glare.
"15," the shopkeeper repeats, "of course."
The shopkeeper fumbles slightly as he counts out the coin, stubby fingers made clumsy under Bron's scrutiny. When the small pile of gold and silver has been assembled on the countertop, Bron gives a modest smile and thanks the man cordially before sweeping the coins into her wallet.
Alistair reaches to open the door as they make to leave the shop but Bron beats him to it, pushing the door open and waving him through with a small nod of her head.
"You have a real way with people," Alistair drawls sarcastically as he steps through the doorway and into the cold, rain-soaked streets of Dulwich Village, "would it really kill you to smile?"
"I did smile," she replies as she pulls the hood of her cloak up and tucks her long braid inside.
"Really? That was a smile," he says with exaggerated surprise, playfully nudging her shoulder with his own, "you need more practice."
She rubs at her shoulder where he'd made contact, glowering at him from the sides of her eyes in quiet warning. It was only a gentle nudge - certainly too light a knock to hurt - but Bron has never been fond of unsolicited physical contact and she cannot help but express her disapproval. From the wicked curl of his smile, Bron can tell that he did it on purpose just to irritate her, taking a perverse sort of pleasure in watching her scowl. He is apparently more observant of her foibles than she had given him credit.
"The man was trying to cheat us," she says, "I will save my smiles for someone more deserving."
Alistair laughs. And even though she knows he's laughing at her, it doesn't seem to bother her. "Fair enough, my friend," he says with a nod, "fair enough."
They plan the next leg of their journey as they wind through the village streets toward the tavern where they'd rented rooms the night before. Bron favours turning west as soon as possible, taking the most direct route back to Haven near Gherlen's Pass, while Alistair prefers staying close to Lake Calenhad and travelling south for at least another day before heading into the Frostbacks. Bron can't help but scoff at such an overly cautious route – they have proven themselves perfectly capable of protecting themselves thus far – and she's pleased when Alistair begrudgingly relents.
Bron has always found that things are easier when people just do as she says.
When the rain intensifies, the pair dart under the nearby awnings of the market stalls, and for a while they simply stand in silence and watch the rain as it patters onto the cobblestones. There's something oddly soothing about the methodical drumbeat of the rain across the rooftops, something entrancing about the overlapping patterns of ripples that play atop the widening puddles, but after a while, Bron feels herself growing increasingly restless; she is not used to idleness.
With the rain seeming reluctant to stop, Bron starts to aimlessly weave through the stalls, inspecting the wares on offer as Alistair trails behind her. The market is quiet, the heavy deluge discouraging all but the most determined of shoppers, and Bron is content to lose herself in her directionless wanderings. Occasionally she'll walk past a pair of gossiping shopkeeps, or skirt round a gaggle of villagers as they discuss some local drama in hushed tones, and Bron simply lets the murmured conversations wash over her, too preoccupied with making plans for the onward journey to pay them any mind.
Suddenly a snippet of conversation intrudes on her thoughts, something about a tragedy and then the word 'Haven', and Bron finds herself stopping abruptly to listen.
"Nothing remains of the village," says a short, portly woman, arms laden with groceries and a fidgeting child tugging insistently at the corner of her apron.
"Nothing at all?" asks her taller friend, shock evident in her tone.
"An avalanche buried the whole village under snow," says the woman with a sorrowful shake of her head, "surely no one has survived."
For a moment everything seems to just stop.
She tells herself not to panic unnecessarily, to keep her emotions in check until she has all the available facts. Maybe she misheard them. Maybe it's some other village in the Frostbacks that has met an unfortunate fate. And even if catastrophe has befallen Haven, maybe the Inquisition was able to save itself in time.
But no matter how hard she tries, Bron can't overcome her fear through reason alone and she can feel the colour draining from her face at the growing realisation that something truly terrible may have happened.
She hurries over to the women and she must look a little wild because they look at her with alarm (and maybe a little concern) as she pushes into their conversation.
"Are you talking about Haven? Has something happened to Haven?!" Bron asks, and her voice sounds alien to her ears, shrill and hurried.
"It's gone, dear," says the taller woman, voice soothing as if talking to a frightened child, "the village was destroyed by an avalanche. Some say that an archdemon was there." She shakes her head to show her displeasure, "first this terrible war with the mages and now maybe a blight… when will these terrible punishments cease?"
"And what of the Inquisition?" Bron hears Alistair ask from over her shoulder; she hadn't even noticed him approach.
"Gone," was the simple response, "there are none who survived."
And just like that Bron feels the ground lurch beneath her feet and there's something bubbling at the back of her throat that might be an anguished cry but she pushes it down with all her might because she can't, can't let it be heard - not now, not here. Instead she steps back from the women with their concerned faces and their outraged voices, and walks determinedly into the rain.
She doesn't know where she's going, just knows she has to go, has to move, because the ground keeps shifting below her boots and if she doesn't keep walking, she fears she'll fall.
Haven is gone.
It had only been her home for a few months but she'd walked those winding, frost-bitten streets with a purpose, with the powerful, comforting feeling that she was working toward some crucial goal.
The Inquisition is gone.
And Bron daredn't think of how many people have gone with it, how many small, broken bodies lie buried now beneath a snowy shroud.
She had friends among the Inquisition - good friends - friends she loved almost as family.
There's a sharp pang in her chest as she imagines Leliana's face among the dead, blue and bruised and eerily devoid of the expressions that gave her delicate features such beauty. Her dear, dear Leliana - who'd taken a sheltered, provincial girl from Highever, and given her the world; who'd taught a scrawny, quiet girl how to carry herself with grace and strength, how to both command the attention of a room and disappear among a crowd.
Her Leliana is dead, and it is only now Bron realises that she had never told Leliana just how much she'd meant to her. The words had always seemed so unseemly, so grotesquely sincere, and Bron's mother had always warned her against sentiment; an indulgence for the dim-witted, she'd been told.
Her head is swimming, the cold rain stinging her skin as it spatters on her face, and when she feels a hand grab her by her elbow to pull her to a halt she lashes out blindly to be set free because, more than anything, she just wants to be alone with her grief.
But the hand stays put, Alistair's grip too strong to be dislodged by Bron's aimless thrashing, and there's nothing Bron can do to resist when Alistair turns her to face him.
"Bron, stop – you've got to… stop," he says, and there's such softness in his eyes that Bron feels an unexpected flare of anger because she can't bear to be looked at with such… such kindness.
She yanks her arm free from his grip with an almost petulant scowl and gives his chest a sharp jab with her finger.
"Don't!" she cries, "just… don't."
He looks at her with confusion, raising his palms in a pacifying gesture.
"Don't… what?"
"Don't… look at me with that face!" she snaps, finger still hovering warningly between them, "I don't want your sympathy and I don't want your pity,"
His brows twist together in thought, lips pulled thin, and it's clear that he's trying to choose his next words carefully.
"All right," he finally manages, "what do you want?"
She tries to say that she just wants to be left alone. But when she opens her mouth to answer she suddenly feels her throat tighten and the words won't come. Instead her lips are quivering and there's an uncomfortable stinging in her eyes that has nothing to do with the rain, and she's suddenly hit with the terrible, terrible realization that she's about to cry.
As the first few tears course hot tracks down her cheeks she can see Alistair's hands reach involuntarily up to comfort her. But before he can touch her, he clearly thinks better of it and instead his hands hover awkwardly in the space between them.
A strangled sob escapes her, quiet but painfully raw, and before she really realises what she's doing, she steps forward into the semi-circle of his arms until she stands only a hair's breadth away from him. They don't touch, the small space between them studiously maintained, but she's close enough that she can feel the warm puffs of his breath against the crown of her head and she's dimly aware of how peculiarly intimate it feels to stand so close to him.
After a moment of stunned stillness, Alistair finally brings his hands to rest on her shoulders, gently, tentatively, in case she decides to brush him off. But instead she surprises him again when she bends her head to rest her forehead on his chest.
They stand for a long time, still as statues in the rain, and as the cold starts to settle into Bron's limbs, she finds the encroaching discomfort a welcome distraction from her grief. And she's dimly aware that Alistair is talking, something about getting warm and not wanting to catch a cold, but she's not really listening because the Inquisition is dead and there's no space in her head for any other thoughts.
The Inquisition is dead and, with it, the only purpose she knows.
Oh Maker, what is she going to do?