All Fall Down
By: SurreptitiousFox245

Disclaimer: I don't own Elder Scrolls or Dragon Age. All rights go to their respective peoples, of whom I do not belong. *cries*

Quick Author's Note: *Grovels* I'm sorry this is so late. I meant to update last month, but school and life just kinda decided to slap me in the face. Good news is that I finally graduated high school and am on summer break until I start college in the fall, so yay for that! I should have plenty of time to write for the next few months between helping my parents move and packing my own stuff up. Gah, it's gonna be so weird living on campus...

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this. It's honestly a bit more of a filler to try and get some relationships estabished, but I tried putting in some funny parts so no one got too bored...

"Between you and me,
it's hard to ever really know who to trust
out of pain, wondering."

-One Less Reason, "Bloodflowers"

Chapter 9

~Thedas – 9:41 Dragon~

Hearing the commotion outside of your cabin was inevitable, but you hadn't thought much of it as you had been immersed wholly in running your fingers across the pages of the book in your lap. It was a leather-bound copy of "The Pursuit of Knowledge" by Brother Genetivi you had swiped from the Chantry three days before. In fact, it had been on your way out of the meeting between Cassandra, Leliana, Solas, Varric, and the two other people you had come to understand were the leader of the Inquisition's soldiers, Commander Cullen (the former Knight-Commander of Kirkwall after the whole fiasco with his power-crazy predecessor, you had recognized afterwards), and the Orlesian-descended-Antivan-born woman serving as diplomat, Josephine Montilyet. They were…colorful people, you had decided, and would no doubt prove to be interesting to work with.

The feeling of rough vellum beneath your fingertips was calming. Reading had always been a favorite pastime of yours. Collateral from being raised by priests, you supposed, but you were thankful your ability to do so hadn't been entirely stripped from you, nonetheless. The privacy of your cabin had actually allowed you a moment of bravery, and you had removed your gloves so as to make the task easier. The holes you had cut on the pads of the leather fingers were miniscule out of necessity, a precaution to limit the amount of golden skin that was able to show. That wasn't to say they didn't get the job done, just that the difference was akin to (and you laughed at the irony) wearing a mask. You could see wearing them. You just couldn't see as well.

You frowned down at the aforementioned limbs as they paused in the middle of a page. Flipping your right hand palm-up, you compared the lighter, more ordinary tone of your fingertips to the richer shade that covered the top of your other appendage. You knew that if anyone got a close glimpse at your fingers through the gloves, the odd pigmentation would be noticeable. Frowning in concentration, you poured magika into your hands. It was useless – you already knew what the reaction would be.

Predictable, just like the last fifty-two times you had attempted it. The magic didn't turn your skin color like it did with your amaryllis plants, your hands remaining several shades across a golden gradient as if to mock you. You rolled your eyes, cursing the Godhead for what you were sure was just a very awful joke with every bad thing that had ever happened to you being the morbid punch line.

It really wasn't likely that many people would get the chance to be able to see your skin, though, so you supposed you really didn't have much to worry about. Well, so you had thought before you had gotten the hare-brained idea to join the bloody Inquisition. No one had ever said you had good spontaneous ideas…

Scoffing, you turned back to the book, suddenly glaringly disinterested in the material. You managed to skim three and a half more pages before slamming the tome shut with a grimace. Tossing it to your left, you watched it bounce on the (very uncomfortable) quilt-covered mattress with a noncommittal grunt before flopping back on the cot, one of many that lined the back wall of your hut, yourself. Since you couldn't see it, you stared pensively up at where the ceiling should have been. You still hadn't quite figured out what part of you had thought staying was a good idea. An itch in the back of your mind also reminded you of the stupidity that had possessed you to tell the assembled group that you were the bloody Shadow Broker. It had been spur-of-the-moment, and gods only knew those never ended well.

"As if Dand and Kinloch didn't set me straight on that," you grumbled to yourself. A hand twitched, desperately wanting to pinch the bridge of your nose to ward off the oncoming headache. No, you reminded, gloves were risky enough. The mask stays on.

Like Fate was trying to prove your point, a loud series of smacks vibrated through the air from your cabin's front door, "Hey, Prowler! Cassandra wants to see you."

Snatching up your gloves, you pulled them on fluidly out of adrenaline-fueled habit as your face contorted into a scowl. Varric was about the last person you wanted to deal with. You lazily rolled to your feet, thankful that you had opted not to remove your boots, and silently walked around the partition to the door. Varric looked a bit shocked as said door was wrenched open, his hand left raised as if to knock again. He predictably ignored the potential for awkwardness and slapped on a mischievous grin.

"Don't," you growled, "call me 'Prowler'." For emphasis, you slammed the door behind you so hard it jarred snow and several icicles from the roof. The dwarf, however, appeared entirely nonplussed and kept giving you that stupid grin. You pulled your hand away from the cabin as if you had been burned just to make the blurry image go away.

He shrugged, "Would you prefer I call you Shadow Broker?" He began leading you towards the Chantry, and you followed grudgingly. It had been decided that you were not to roam Haven without an escort, and it appeared Varric had been the one sent on "Broker Watch". You cursed your luck.

"I'd prefer you call me by my name, not my title."

"Amaryllis is a bit of a mouthful, y'know," he snickered, shuffling to the side to avoid a gaggle of children who had barreled their way past the two of you.

Sighing, you decided not to correct him on the fact that Amaryllis was just another title. It was still infinitely better than Shadow Broker or Prowler. "Then use the shortened version. I do believe I introduced myself with it, didn't I?" Let them believe it was a shortening of Amaryllis. It was better for everyone that way.

He grinned up at you again – you didn't have to see it, you could feel it, "Lys? Nah. You haven't seen yourself fight. You prowl. Prowler fits you."

"So does my name," you muttered, not lacking in scorn. Suddenly, Varric stopped walking. You did, too, and turned to face him more with irritation than confusion.

"Look, I apologize for whatever I did to piss you off," said the dwarf after a tense moment. You were taken aback, but composed yourself quickly.

"You didn't do anything, Tethras."

"Then why are you giving me the third degree?"

You huffed a breath through your nose, "I just said that I don't like the nickname, and I'm giving you the third degree?"

He nodded, "This is more than a nickname, Prowler. You're acting like I just told the whole of Thedas who you are."

"Quiet, dwarf!" you hissed, taking a step towards him so that you were a hair's breath away from the rogue. "Do you want someone to hear you?" Incredulously, he lifted his arms. The gesture was confused and lacking emphasis.

"Andraste's ass, I didn't say anything!"

You hoped the glower you were sending him could be felt through the mask, "Maybe so, but the last thing I need is people overhearing something benign and being curious about it."

"I think you got enough people curious as it is," you imagined him raising an eyebrow as you heard the shuffling signifying he was jerking a thumb over his shoulder at something back the way you had come. "I doubt a little more will hurt anything."

Whirling on your heel and continuing your stalk (definitely not a prowl) towards the Chantry, you waved a hand over your head sardonically, "Questions can hurt a lot more than you know. Still, I'm not going to argue with you, Tethras. One word and your crossbow gets intimate with my daggers…and not in a good way." You had learned via an accidentally (you swore) overheard conversation around a day and a half ago that Varric had two overt weaknesses: his overlarge crossbow, and his oddly copious amount of chest hair. The latter, you would admit, was infinitely more disturbing than the former. A ghost of a shudder rippled down your spine.

A gloved hand was pressed to the aforementioned chest hair in horror that you were eighty percent sure was fake, "That's low, Prowler, threatening Bianca like that. I suppose I'll just have to be contented with the fact that you don't even have your daggers." You frowned at the reminder. Cassandra and Leliana had decreed it a bad idea for you to go around the village armed and had confiscated your weapons immediately after returning from the fiasco at the Temple of Sacred Ashes. A hand ghosted to your right hip where the sheath of one of your blades should have resided, dismayed to find it as empty as it had been for the last sixty-three hours and forty-five minutes. The hand clenched into a fist before it dropped.

It wasn't that not having your daggers made you defenseless – far from it. You had two back up stilettos stored safely away in your knee-high boots and a half dozen throwing knives secreted in several hollowed-out areas of your ever-so-slightly too-thick belt. Haven was by far not the first time you had had to sneak weapons on your person covertly. No, those daggers were sentimental relics of your past. The one you kept on your left side had been the one that had made the transfer to Thedas with you. The one on your right was a slightly crude replica you had managed to create shortly before leaving the Sabrae clan, much to Ilen's glee. You never had liked being unbalanced.

The one represented Nirn, your home. The other represented your future. It was slightly sappy, but it was one of the rare times you didn't much care.

"I have my ways, dwarf. I have my ways." No more words were spoken as you slid through the tall oak doors and strode purposefully towards the back chamber that had been dubbed the war room. Your sensitive ears could hear Cassandra's voice emitting from there.

Before you could pass the door that led to the dungeons, Varric halted, "This is as far as I go. I was given…express orders to just escort you here."

You raised an eyebrow upwards, "Cassandra?" He shook his head.

"No," cringing, he made a sound in the back of his throat of discomfort. "Leliana. Try as she might, I don't really think the Seeker could be quite as terrifying as Lady Nightingale."

You chuckled, "One of the rare times I imagine we will be in agreement." Without waiting for him to reply, you strode the few paces to the war room door and wrenched it open smoothly.

Before even taking a step over the threshold, you could make out the sounds of five people breathing. The muddled conglomeration of scents that followed was deciphered into five distinctly different presences shortly after. Though all conversation had ceased upon your entrance, it didn't take a genius to determine that every pair of eyes were focused on you, the newcomer.

"I see Varric fetched you without incident," Leliana's voice intoned dryly from off to your left. The phrase meant nothing, merely a conversational placeholder.

"Of course he did," you said just as matter-of-factly, stepping up beside an armored person on your left that could only have been Alan. "You took my weapons. Any other method of ridding the world of his presence weren't subtle enough to be carried out in broad daylight, in the middle of a village square." You thought you heard Cassandra snort, but the sound was so low even your ears were hard-pressed to decipher the sound.

Alan, however, was not so reserved, and his laugh echoed off of the stone walls, "Varric is quite charming, isn't he?" You inclined your head towards the human.

"About as charming as a blight-infected pit of giant spiders," sneering, you crossed your arms and shifted your weight on your hips. "They tell you all my dirty little secrets yet, sera?"

He blinked a few times, mouth floundering for a moment as if he was taken aback by the swift subject change, "Um…I do not believe so, no…"

"Hm…figures. Very well, then – I'm the Shadow Broker. That fact does not leave this room. To others, I am merely a mercenary offering my services to the Inquisition. Clear? Yes? Good." You stared forward and continued smoothly without giving him a chance to acknowledge. "I believe I've introduced myself already, but in case you've forgotten, you may call me Lys. This lot doesn't trust me as far as they can throw me, not that I blame them, which could only mean that the rumors about a sympathetic Chantry priestess in the Hinterlands checked out one of two ways: either flawlessly or not at all. And that, in turn begs my next questions – which is it, and why in Oblivion am I here?"

A beat of silence followed. "I was just about to say before you arrived that we contacted Mother Giselle, and she has asked to speak with the Herald," Leliana finally said with what you wondered whether or not was a tone of distaste in her voice

"I thought the Chantry denounced me. Y'know, heretical Herald of Andraste and all that," Alan said bemusedly.

You shrugged, reaching out to pat him on the shoulder in a way that was only slightly sarcastic, "She's a bit of a…hmm…an open thinker, or so I've heard."

"How exactly did you hear of this?" asked Cassandra. "Mother Giselle has always been considered one of the most loyal clerics in the Chantry. One would think her to stand by it during these times, not back those considered blasphemers and heretics."

Removing your hand from Alan's shoulder, you uncrossed your arms and clasped them instead behind your back, "Tongues have a habit of wagging when they think no ears are listening, Seeker."

She eyed you warily, arms crossed in a clearly defensive move, "Obviously you're rather skilled at that."

"Arguably one of the best, I'd say," you grinned wolfishly. "I'm afraid I digress, however. You wouldn't bring me all the way here just to tell me what I already knew. You've all more purpose than that."

Leliana hummed in the back of her throat, "It has been decided that you will accompany Cassandra and the Herald to the Hinterlands, as a sort of probation. If you really wish to help, we'd have you prove it first." You thought it over a moment, but it wasn't as if you couldn't see their point. The Temple of Sacred Ashes hadn't showcased you at the top of your game, and considering they knew who you were… Well, trust was a scarce commodity in your line of work.

You nodded finally, "Okay. That sounds fair."

The Commander turned his gaze towards Alan as his hands rested almost nonchalantly (read: unnervingly)on the pommel of his sword, "Look for opportunities to expand the Inquisition's influence while you're there. Maker knows we need it…" You quirked a brow at the sour tone in comparison to the nearly chipper one Alan responded with, but didn't comment.

Instead, you shrugged, "Do I get my daggers back, at least?" To your shock, it was Cassandra who broke away from her spot near the table burdened with maps and gestured for you to follow her.

"This way," she muttered. "We'll gather your weapons and then Solas and Varric. We depart directly after." Pinching your brow together, you gave a sarcastic wave to the other occupants of the war room as you followed the Nevarran out into the main vestibule of the Chantry. Somehow, you had a feeling that things in the Hinterlands were going to be worse than anyone anticipated.

You hated being right.

It was a five-day journey from Haven to the area near Redcliffe that was your destination. Well, correction, it should have been a five-day journey, but numerous Fade Rifts, pockets of rebel Mages and Templars, and the occasional bandit raid had stretched the meager traipse to being almost a week in length. It had been only by sheer luck that Solas and Cassandra had possessed the foresight to ensure your group had extra provisions in case of a hold up, or you were sure that someone would have had to try their hand at hunting for your supper.

The thought admittedly made you cringe. Solas was a skilled mage, yes, but magic and traps wouldn't cut it if one was attempting to catch enough game to feed the five of you. Varric was quick with his crossbow and rather silent, but he had mentioned more than once that he abhorred hunting and was apparently (and rather oddly considering his profession as a rogue) horrible at it. Cassandra and Alan were good with blades, but their armors were louder than a herd of mammoths stomping around – they would have scared off anything worth eating. Your own blindness made a bow firmly scratched off the list of weaponry you could use, daggers were tricky what with requiring such a close proximity to the target, and snares would only catch prey so large.

All in all, had the mage and female warrior not thought ahead about the chance of a hold up occurring, your group would have been, to put it bluntly, screwed. It was embarrassing to admit.

As for your companions themselves, the lengthened journey gave you time to observe them in earnest without seeming suspicious. It wasn't until after the second Fade Rift that Cassandra had decided, thanks in part to some persuasion courtesy of Alan, to allow you to scout the path ahead for any dangers as you had initially been assigned to do. You could tell clearly by the look in the woman's dark eyes that she didn't trust you whatsoever, but you had earned at least a modicum of respect with how you had held yourself during the fights with the demons. It was admittedly much better than how you had fared at the Temple, but even so, you couldn't help but notice how a pair of eyes was always on you during combat, watching, observing. Cautious didn't even begin to describe Cassandra Pentaghast.

Alan was more interesting than you had initially realized, not that your last meeting with the Trevelyan had really been anything to write home about. The man was admirably lighthearted about his situation, bordering on foolishness. Even so, he had an endearing way about him despite the fact that his naïveté frequently had you wanting to smack him. You had to keep reminding yourself that he was still young. Twenty-three summers was too few for someone being thrown into a role as weighty as "Herald of Andraste". It was only a year older than you had been when you wound up in Skyrim, so you supposed you could sympathize in a manner. An eye (metaphorically speaking) would be firmly kept on the warrior, you had decided.

The elf of the group proved to be as you had initially figured: frighteningly intelligent, quiet, observational, pondering – the list went on. But the mage had a wicked sense of dry sarcasm when he wanted to. The respect you had formed for him from your first conversation back in Haven only deepened during your travels to the Hinterlands. You admitted that his rather impressive ability with magic may have played a small part in that development – Solas was a genius with wards in such a way that it made you almost jealous, and his extensive knowledge on the Fade had proven invaluable during your encounters with Fade Rifts.

Varric…now Varric you weren't quite sure about. You hated the dwarf (or, severely disliked, at the very least) mostly on principle. He was a friend of Garrett Hawke, from what you had been made to understand, and Garrett Hawke was not one of your favorite people for obvious reasons. Granted, you didn't know the extent of Varric's involvement in the murder of the Sabrae clan. You hadn't asked, and you didn't quite know how you would take either possible answer. The one thing you were sure of about the archer, however, was that it was rather difficult to feel distaste for him. His sense of humor was agonizingly similar to your own and had you grinning more often than not, and his protectiveness of his crossbow reminded you of Dand's obsession with his armor. Against your better judgment, you found yourself grudgingly liking the dwarf more and more as the days wore on.

Personalities aside, you all worked well enough as a team. Solas allowed himself more of a support role, making sure barriers were erected and fortified consistently and shooting off a bolt of lightning here, or encasing a demon in ice there where he could wedge it in. Varric was an amazing sniper with his crossbow and usually hung back with the mage to pick enemies off one bolt in an eye socket at a time, while Cassandra and Alan tended to charge right into the fray, shields and swords swinging and bashing and hacking. That wasn't to say anything negative about the two's affinity for strategy. Where one lacked a particular strength, the other had it in abundance, and the plans they concocted were feats of mental prowess that had probably done more to keep the members of your party in one piece than the potions you had brought along. You yourself danced across the battlefield and stabbed where you could, disoriented where you couldn't strike, and distracted where you were needed. It was a small part you played, but you were just as valued a cog in the machine that was the rest.

A simple system, but after shaking off the rust of inexperience that came from working with new people, the five of you found it suited your needs just fine.

"Please tell me we're almost there? If I see another terror demon, I think I'm gonna' hurl," you grumbled miserably as you stalked your way along a dirt path alongside Alan. You had dropped back from your scouting about fifteen minutes beforehand to walk with the group as you were nearing the Inquisition camp that was your destination. The sentiment was true, though – you were getting beyond sick of the demons that had been peppering the road from Haven. Screeching Falmer had been a sound you had thought to have put behind you.

Apparently not, your mind decided to grumble sourly.

From the middle of the party, Varric gave a snort, "Maybe that wouldn't be too bad. Then you'd have to take off the mask."

"Nice try, Tethras," rolling your eyes, you reached back and tried swatting futilely at the stout rogue. "I'll spare the world the horror of my face, thanks." He'd been trying the entire trip to catch you without the mask on, but he hadn't been successful and you could tell the blond was becoming rather irritated. It was beyond amusing, it was hilarious.

Alan laughed, "Oh come on, Lys. With a voice like yours, I doubt you're even half as ugly as you're trying to claim." That was another thing about the Herald – he was charming. Too charming, if you were honest; it seemed engrained, the comments habitual, so you let it slide with minor difficulty. Trevelyan was a fine example of the courteous noble upbringing you loathed, except he hadn't turned out nearly as bad as most. Probably the touch of good humor, you suspected. Humor tended to make everything a little better-rounded, and he had just enough of a touch of it.

"Worse," you deadpanned. "And you haven't heard me sing. Be thankful you haven't heard me sing. Last time I tried, an old lady picked up a lute and tried to beat me over the head with it."

Varric's incredulous stare bored into the back of your head, "Really?"

"Really, really – she thought I was possessed."

"I can't…," the dwarf pondered a moment, voice wavering and becoming almost small before he shook his head. "I actually can't tell if you're shitting me, Prowler." Cassandra scoffed from her place just ahead of you and Alan, but otherwise didn't comment. Solas remained silent as well, but you could just imagine his eyebrow piquing in curiosity. It wasn't every day that Varric Tethras couldn't sniff out whether or not someone was lying to him. The beardless dwarf was a master of wild tales, if nothing else.

Wincing at the ghost of a memory, your hand reached up to rub the back of your head where a goose egg had actually once been, "No that really happened. It wasn't fun. I don't know what kind of wood that lute was made out of, but I actually had a concussion. It wasn't a mild one, either." You conveniently failed to mention that it had been your third year among the denizens of Thedas and you had slipped with noticeable magic. Nothing fancy, you remembered, just a spell for vocal projection as you joined in on one of the bawdy tavern songs, but the old wife of the building's owner had noticed the small increase in volume. Oh boy, had she noticed.

You cringed again. That hadn't been one of your best ideas, but in your defense, you'd been drunk. Which…also was probably not one of your best ideas…

Gods, you were a moron.

"What happened to the woman?" Solas asked. Though his voice was otherwise calm and, dare you say, disinterested, there was an underlying tone of amusement that you were able to pick up on.

"Forget about the woman!" exclaimed Alan. If you could have seen him at that moment, you were sure his eyebrows would have been at his hairline. "What happened to the lute?"

Shrugging, you waved your wrist. "The woman was the wife of the owner of the tavern, so I got kicked out…well, more I ran away after trying to convince her that, no, I was not possessed failed miserably, and she was in the process of calling the local Templars. I don't know the exact whereabouts of the lute at present. This was about eight years ago now. But when I left, there was a rather sizeable crack along the underside of it. I don't know if that means the hit was strong, or if I just have a really hard head."

Your hand tapped the chin of your mask for a few beats. "Probably both…"

Varric chuckled, "Damn. I'm sure you've got some more interesting stories to tell?" You laughed, too, at the not-so-subtle request, but for a different reason than the members of the party probably thought.

Oh, Tethras, you smirked, you have no idea.

"There," Cassandra's voice cut through the conversation like a knife through butter. Her armor clicked together as she lifted a hand to point towards where smoke from a campfire was emitting. It was from atop a hill not five hundred yards away. "We're nearly to the camp."

"Finally!" cheered Alan. You nodded in acquiescence to the sentiment, and before you knew it, the five of you were trudging up the side of the hill towards the camp.

A feminine voice accented as dwarven was what greeted you as you crested the grassy encampment, "Herald of Andraste! I've heard the stories. Everyone has. We know what you did at the Breach." Well, you certainly hoped she knew. The damned thing was visible from the bloody Free Marches – it was more than visible in the Hinterlands. If she wasn't able to spot the difference, then she was probably the worst scout leader in the history of scout leaders…

"It's an honor to meet you, my Lord," she gave a small little bow of respect. "Inquisition Scout Harding, at your service. I…well…all of us here will do whatever we can to help."

You scoffed a little, but it lacked scorn. "Let's hope it's enough."

"Harding, huh?" Varric chuckled from next to you, and you resisted the urge to roll your eyes – you knew exactly where it was going. "Ever been to Kirkwall's Hightown?" You had known it was coming, but still couldn't help it. You actually slapped your hand over your mask. Auri-El have mercy, he did not…

The scout appeared a little bemused, "No. I can't say that I have. Why?" You could hear the grin. You could hear the bloody grin. Gods, you understood then exactly why Cassandra constantly wanted to stab the dwarf.

"You'd be Harding in - …" Varric trailed off, as he seemed to just then be able to hear the nonexistent crickets chirping. Upon realizing his joke hadn't gone where he wanted it to, he shook his head. "Oh, never mind…" You and Cassandra groaned practically in unison.

"Er…that aside," interrupted Alan almost warily, "I'd love to hear about these 'stories' everyone's heard."

"They're nothing bad. They only say that you're the last great hope for Thedas."

He blanched, "Oh…wonderful."

Chuckling heartily, you slapped a hand on the human's armored shoulder, "Don't worry. You're just the last great hope. That means there are lesser hopes to come swoop in and save the day if you fail…somewhere…probably" Alan glowered at you, but the look was halfhearted and only served to make you laugh harder.

"Swooping is bad," the warrior muttered. He sobered up from his moping rather quickly and flashed a million-Septim smile the scout's way, "It's a pleasure to meet you, Scout Harding, circumstances notwithstanding."

The dwarf gave a rueful little grin that seemed strained, "Likewise, but we should get down to business. The situation is…pretty dire."

"Of course it is. Breach in the sky, demons everywhere – I thought it'd be nothing but butterflies and rainbows!" you droned sarcastically. No one answered, but Solas did chuckle a bit, so you supposed the quip wasn't all lost.

"We came to secure horses from Redcliffe's old horsemaster," Harding continued. As she continued to speak, her voice cracked with emotion in a way that almost had you pitying her. "I grew up here, and people always said Dennett's herds were the strongest and the fastest this side of the Frostbacks. But with the mage-templar fighting getting worse, we couldn't get to Dennett. Maker only knows if he's even still alive."

Frowning, you shook your head distastefully. An exasperated sigh left your lips before you could stop it, but you didn't really care. Mage-templar war this, and mage-templar war that – it wasn't just your information trading that the conflict was disrupting, it was peoples' lives. Two sides, scrabbling for power in a war half of them were too zealous over to care about who they trampled in their path, and the other half didn't even want a part of in the first place. Damned if they did, damned if they didn't.It reminded you so much of the war between the Empire and the Stormcloaks all those years ago that all you wanted to do was scream. The war was the same conflict, just with different players. And much like before, it only exacerbated everyone's problems.

"Corporal Vale and our men are doing what they can to help protect the people, but they won't be able to hold out for very long," said Harding, jarring you from your thoughts and making you realize your monologue had distracted you from a chunk of the conversation. Sloppy, you reprimanded yourself with a grimace. Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy.

She took a shaky breath, "You'd best get going – no time to lose."

You took out a dagger and started twirling it as your group began walking. If the sounds of fighting were any indication, you were going to more than need the weapons.

Again, you hated being right.

Grunting with the exertion, you dodged a blow from a Templar's broadsword practically by the skin of your teeth and only barely managed to lodge one of your daggers in a weak spot in his armor. He gurgled on an exquisite combination of shock and blood before he crumpled like a puppet with its strings cut. It was a dance, but a dance with morbid results if you chose the wrong step, much like the poor fool you had just felled.

You'd always liked a good challenge.

"Hold!" cried Cassandra as she landed a rather impressive blow on a Templar shield. "We are not apostates!"

"I do not think they care, Seeker!" Solas grit through his teeth as he reinforced the degenerating barrier around Alan. The Herald shot him a grateful look as he habitually lifted his shield to block a rain of several arrows from a nearby archer. Your look soured.

Bloody gods damned archers.

The barrier that you were encased in wavered as an arrow bounced harmlessly off of it, but the fact didn't take away from how the feathered projectile had sounded like it had been straight in line with your heart. A bead of sweat dripped down the length of your nose, causing it to twitch. If you got injured, your charade was over. Healing a wound was out of the question, and the plausibility of waiting to tend to a wound on your own depended entirely on how severe it was. Then you would have torn clothing to deal with, which showed skin if you weren't in a position to stitch that right away. In short, combat was a bit more dangerous for you in several aspects. Your secrets were threatened with every swing of a blade, every twang of an arrow being released from a bow, every sparking waver Solas' barrier gave.

Another arrow whizzed past you, and you focused your attention firmly back on the battle. There was no time to worry about what ifs. The only thing you could do – nay, the only thing you were going to do was make damned sure not to let yourself get injured in the first place. If you did, well…you'd improvise, cross that bridge if things came to it.

Finding the archer proved to be a tad less challenging than you had anticipated, and you were able to smoothly approach from behind and slit his throat without so much as batting an eyelash. If your companions noticed the cleanliness of the kill, they didn't comment, but you suspected they were all too busy dealing with their own specific foes and watching their backs against the others to really care much for what you were off doing. Your role was mainly support, after all.

"Prowler, your seven o'clock!" Varric called from…somewhere. The twang of his crossbow was evident, as was the thud of the bolt hitting the mark, but you still swirled around and stabbed behind you to your left for good measure. The wet groan of another archer met your ears not a split second later, and you let the body drop without a care as to the blood that coated your arms and was splattered along your front. Blood didn't really show up on black, so you at least didn't look too much like you had been part of a massacre.

Wait…you had been part of a massacre…sort of.

"Thanks!" you shouted back towards the dwarf. He laughed in acknowledgement before continuing to fire bolts at an impressively fast rate for a crossbow.

Varric yelled, "What? No protests about the nickname?"

You parried a blow meant for your neck and lodged a dagger in a poorly armored shoulder, "This is hardly the time, Tethras!" There was that damned grin again, boring into the back of your skull like a Nord's warhammer. Bloody dwarf…come to think of it, he was an archer…

Then again, so were you. Or, you had been, anyway. Saying you hated archers was practically the same as saying you hated yourself…

About the last thing you had been expecting after stabbing a final Templar was a fireball landing not two yards from your face on a tree, but in hindsight, you supposed it should have been obvious that mages would follow after their enemies. It was their battle your entourage had been interrupting, after all. The smell of burnt wood wafted through the air on the cold breeze along with the sound of the struck tree crashing into the blood-soaked ground.

"Mages!" Cassandra cried the obvious out from somewhere to your right.

Varric, of course, had to add his two Septims worth, "No, really? I thought they were Darkspawn!"

"Not all that funny," you grumbled as you got close to one of the apostates, a young elven woman, and unsympathetically slit her throat. "You ever fought an Emissary? Nasty buggers!"

Alan's war-cry was abrupt, and for a fleeting moment you wondered if he somehow had Nordic blood in him it was so ferocious, "You've fought Darkspawn?" Shit, you thought as slashed at another mage. The robed bastard managed to leap out of the way just in time, so you only succeeded in giving him a nasty gash on his arm. You had to bend backwards to avoid the sharp, jeweled blade that was fixed to the end of his staff.

"Several years ago!" You lied through your teeth. "I was apparently closer to a Deep Roads entrance than I thought I was and ran into a scouting party."

"I told you – you've got some wicked stories, Prowler!" shouted Varric from directly behind you. Jumping a little and wondering just when the dwarf had managed to place the both of you back-to-back, you decided finally to just toss the wonderment of the situation in favor of parrying another attack from a mage's staff. Blighted mages, you thought sourly. They're almost as bad as archers…and I'm a mage, too – damn!

"We are not Templars!" you heard Solas' tenor ring out above the general din of battle, and you couldn't help but send a hidden, incredulous look in his direction. Hadn't he just criticized Cassandra for saying almost the exact same thing to the Templars…?

Alan bashed his shield into some poor bloke's face unflinchingly, "No, but we do have a Seeker, so it's essentially the same thing!" The aforementioned Seeker's grumble of how she was right there was amusingly overlooked.

"Regardless, as Solas stated so aptly before, I don't think they care."

Varric snickered at your pointed words, Bianca letting another musical twang shoot a bolt into yet another fleshy target. Had it been from anyone other than the beardless rogue, the gleeful little giggle he gave at wherever the projectile struck would have worried you. Knowing him for even as little time as you had, though, made you realize it had probably just struck somewhere highly inappropriate, completely on purpose. You rolled your sightless eyes as you stabbed at another mage.

The battle was over almost as quickly as it started – much as they prostrated, Circle mages were by the majority scholars, not fighters. Their magic certainly could pack a punch, but you could tell a good portion of the mages you had fought hadn't wanted any part of the battle. It was sad. You peered down at where a body had fallen with a wince. Sure, you weren't the most morally centered person in Thedas – many, including yourself, considered you amoral – but the war…the war was horrible.

How can somebody look at these battles and see good being done? The question rolled around absently in your head, and you pursed your lips. There is no good in this for anyone.

"Are you going to go and speak to the Mother now, Alan?" you called over to where the warrior was discussing cleanup with a few Inquisition soldiers. The flow of conversation paused.

"Now's as good a time as any, I suppose," shrugged the Trevelyan in response, but there was a dreading tone in his voice that you could almost sympathize with. Chantry clergy tended to be difficult to speak to – the majority you'd had the unfortunate pleasure of running into either spoke in riddles or tried to preach with every second word. And boy was there ever a lot of "second words" when dealing with Chantry priestesses.

Cassandra said, "You go, then. We can help the soldiers clean up this mess." Your nose wrinkled at being volunteered so airily for the task, but you didn't complain. To complain would get you nowhere with Cassandra.

Varric didn't share your reservations, and clapped his hands once ostentatiously, "Maybe we should leave the short and stocky dwarf out of moving the heavy Templar bodies?"

"More like 'Let's leave the squeamish dwarf out of moving the messy, bloody Templar corpses,' you mean?" you snorted. A glare was your response from both the dwarf and the warrior. Considering Cassandra's was a bit more threatening to the future wholeness of your vital organs, you decided to follow her silent wishes and keep yourself from antagonizing the rogue any further. Solas' amused chuckle made that rather difficult, but you figured you'd manage as you hefted a blue-robed mage's corpse over your shoulder.

If looks could have killed, you had a sneaking suspicion (hope) that Varric would have bitten the proverbial dust hours before. As it was, the dwarf cockily crouched next to you in some brambly bushes somewhere near Calenhad's Foothold, Bianca trained on a ram off in the distance that you couldn't see. For supposedly being horrible at hunting, the dwarf had already single-handedly brought down six of the beasts in less than fifteen minutes.

"'Horrible hunter' my ass," you grumbled, crossing your arms. You were clearly pouting, not that you would have ever admitted it. When Corporal Vale had told Alan that the refugees were starving and needed food, you had almost laughed at the fact that he was asking your group for help. Two warriors, a mage, a dagger-wielding rogue, and a dwarf who was a self-proclaimed horrible hunter weren't the most promising people to ask for aid in that particular area, and the fact that the Inquisition agent had thought to was laughable at best. Or, well, it had been at the time. Varric was quickly proving his own statements about his ability on their heads.

In response to your muttering, Varric shrugged, "I never outright said I'm a bad hunter. I implied. Really, I just hate hunting." Your eyebrow twitched. He just hated it? That was like…like…you didn't even know! It was such a cop-out!

"I'm not even dignifying that with a response. Just hurry up. We promised Alan and Solas we'd meet up with them and Cassandra when they were done with the bandits and apostate caches." The five of you had decided to split up to make the tasks the refugees had doled out easier and quicker to take care of. Honestly, they weren't that difficult – mark some apostate caches, take care of some possible highwaymen, do some hunting. You had even helped an elderly farmer who had lost his grandson to the war hook his oxen up to the yoke and plow, a task the deceased young man had originally taken care of before his death. The refugees, innocent bystanders, were suffering more from the war than the people fighting in it claimed to be. Demons certainly weren't helping matters, either.

"Relax, Prowler," murmured Varric as he lined up another shot. Sure enough, the twang of the mechanism releasing the bolt was closely followed by the tell-tale squeal of a dying animal. "That's seven. Only three more left. I don't think Green and Chuckles are going to be anywhere near finished with those bandits yet, and I doubt the Seeker's found all the supply caches, either." You rolled your eyes only partially at his logic that your decision to split up the group would increase the time it took to finish the tasks provided and mostly at his incessant use of nicknames. He reminded you more and more of Dand as the days wore on.

It had taken a good week, but the dwarf had finally settled on a nickname for Alan – "Green", both in reference to the green color of the mark on his hand and the apparently vibrant verdant shade of his eyes. The fact that the coat he had been wearing when the two had first met had been green in color supposedly only had slight bearing.

"I just want to get this over with so we can get Val Royeaux over with," you griped as Varric's much beloved crossbow gave another twang! Mother Giselle had provided Alan with a list of names, Clerics who supposedly would be willing to meet and parlay with the heretical Inquisition. You could tell none in your group were entirely enthused about the impending trip to the Orlesian capital, but then again, who was ever? Orlesian society still managed to make your skin crawl in a very unpleasant way even after eleven years. Their politics almost made you miss the deceit of the Aldmeri Dominion.

Almost. At least with the Thalmor, stabbing someone in the back and screwing over all of your constituents was rather straightforward. Orlesians somehow managed to make it pretty and complicated. How that was possible, you didn't right know, but the Orlesians had made it an art. It was mind-boggling and sickening at the same time. It was something you marveled at with a sense of disgust, but try as you might, you couldn't look away from the gilded wreckage it seemed to twist into right before your eyes.

"Huh," Varric mused as he shot another ram, ticking your tally up to nine. "I never would have taken you for one to shun the delicacies of the Orlesian Empire."

Your nose wrinkled under your mask, "Uh-huh. I just love the cheeses and fine wines! Oh, and don't forget the side of despair seasoned with a healthy dose of political bullshit. Summer favorite, you see."

In a way, his raucous laughter was worth it considering his last shot went wide and missed the startled ram by several feet. The poor thing bolted from its grazing like a…well, like a startled deer, and you smirked in satisfaction when the dwarf realized his shot had failed. The rant you received on the way back to the Crossroads was worth the priceless look you had managed to glimpse on his face, and you realized in that moment that maybe, just maybe, Varric Tethras wasn't as bad as you had originally thought him to be.

Final Words: Whew. Done. Next chapter's going to be Val Royeaux, Sera, and Vivienne. Hopefully I'll get Vivienne's character right without her coming off as being too bitchy. Personally, I don't care for her, but I'm going to try my damnedest not to let that reflect on how I write her. Anyway, Lys is (somewhat) grudgingly starting to warm up to Varric. Cassandra and Solas didn't play a horrifically large role in this chapter, but like I said, this was more for establishing relationships, and I think the animosity Lys feels for Varric was something that really needed to be addressed, so I focused mainly on them. Eh. It works.

My birthday's on the 29th this month and I graduated high school...reviews make excellent presents *wink wink nudge nudge*! R&R!
~SurreptitiousFox