Chapter 9~ Only one or two chapters left! Maybe three. But probably two. I have been awful at updating this but I'm going to work extra hard to get these last two chapters done! This story was meant to be an outlet for me and I never thought people would read it so I apologise yet again for my lateness :C Anyway, thank you to all of my watchers and thank you for favoriting and commenting! I hope you enjoy this chapter!
(ps. No illustrated sex or fighting because I can't write it and I didn't try. So enjoy implied.)
Zevran rubbed his eyes as he sat up. Had he fallen asleep? It was already dark outside. Why would he have...
Then he remembered. Thalia did the exact opposite of leave the day before. He eyes traveled across the room to rest on the figure dressed only in a shirt and underwear huddled at the small reading desk pouring over his notes. Thalia was using a light spell to illuminate the pages, the light playing across her concerned features.
"This is the worst plan I have ever read. You're just hoping that the next kind soul who tries to kill you will offer to help you?" She sighed and turned on the small stool she sat on to look at him. "Honestly. You could've just said you were cornered instead of insisting you had a plan."
He blinked at her. "I didn't write that down."
Thalia huffed a laugh. "You didn't need to." She turned back to the papers, rolling out a map that was set to the side. "I devised a better plan while you were snoring. My accompaniment is no doubt looking for me, so all we need to do is use that to our advantage. His brother is the Champion of this sorry city, so if we can get the Crows on your tail to ask him for help, you can convince him to help you. If Carver is still with his brother then all the better." She turned her head to face him.
"Why don't you be the one to ask for help?" Zevran questioned.
"Because, by "convince," I meant tell them I'm in trouble or something. It'll make them move faster. I can set up the ambush here," She pointed at a spot Zevran had marked on the map. "at the Wounded Coast where it looks like you planned to kill yourself. Fighting hordes of darkspawn in the Deep Roads on a budget helps you get creative with traps. I looked over your stash and it's lacking, but you don't have lovely dwarves to blow stuff up for you so it's understandable."
Zevran sat criss-crossed on the bed, mulling over the plan she had come up with. "And why are you so sure the Champion will help?"
"Other than I'm his brother's commanding officer and his mentally declining boyfriend's former best friend?" She sighed. "Keep up, will you? He will help. He's a kind man, despite everything. And the Crows are probably telling people you kill kids or any other terrible thing they can think of; He won't be able to resist."
Zevran contemplated what she had said. He might actually survive this. He swung his legs off the bed and walked over to her, wrapping his arms around her neck. "Thank you."
Thalia put a hand on his arm and scoffed. "The only person who gets to kill you is me." She turned her head so that her face was only inches from his own. "Got that?"
Her smirk was the cutest thing. "Understood." He knew he had a rather goofy grin on, but he didn't care.
"Good." She extricated herself from his arms, much to his dismay, and looked over her armor pieces. "I need to take care of my poor armor before we do anything. Once the sun comes up, can you find some way to get Hawke to the Crows in the city?" She laughed and mumbled to herself. "Hawkes. Crows."
"Yeah. Do you have any idea what time it is?" He rubbed the back of his neck and stretched.
She stood up and opened the door, looking up. "Probably about four, if I had to guess. Maybe later. There's a lot of smog in this air." She wrinkled her nose and shut the door. "Do you know where the Hawke Estate is? You could pay someone to tell him about how awful you are and whatnot when he leaves."
"Mmm. I don't think it should be that hard to find." He walked over to her and she looped her arms loosely around his waist.
"Then we have a plan." She pecked him lightly on the lips and released him, striding back over to her armor. She groaned. "Why did they have to ding the armor?"
Thalia was convinced she'd lost her mind, so she might as well fool around while she tried to find it. It had been too long since she plotted against anything other than darkspawn. Most of her time was spent indoors or underground, it would be nice to fight human beings in the sunlight again. As terrible as that sounded.
And as uncomfortable as it made her, she came to terms with the fact that she had missed Zevran something awful. They fell back into step the moment she threw him back onto that old and dusty bed. It felt so natural, the hours before and now, just being near one another. Thalia groaned and leaned her forehead against her hands, her elbows propped up on the table in front of her. This was going to end terribly.
She stretched her arms above her head and hummed, standing up to stretch her legs as well. She had been so absorbed in making the explosives she hadn't even noticed that Zevran was leaving. "Heading out?"
He turned to her. "I am. I didn't think you would notice." He laughed and slung a small bag over his shoulder. "Are you about finished with those?" He pointed to the small bags she had lining the table.
"Yeah, I was going to take them out to the coast in a few minutes." She walked up to him and absently smoothed the wrinkles on his shirt. "Don't do anything stupid."
He smiled and took her hand in his. "Me? Never."
"Pfft. Sure. Whatever you say.." Thalia kissed his hand then pulled her own out of his and strided over to her slightly restored armor pieces. "Meet me where we decided to set camp once you're sure you've got the Hawkes. With any luck we can finish all this by tomorrow evening." She smiled to herself and began arranging her armor out on the bed, checking all of it again before she started to put it on.
"With any luck." Zevran smiled and turned to open the door. "I'll see you tonight."
She watched him until he shut the door, that feeling of unease setting over her again. "What on earth do you think you're doing?" She mumbled to herself, buckling the straps in her armor. "And thinking? I'm too old for this."
She ginned. "He hasn't lost his touch, though." When she was fully armored, she looking the pieces over to check if she missed any spots. Other than few dents and scratches, it was mostly fixed up. But those nobles would pay for damaging her prized armor.
"Maybe I'll run into them later." She sighed, carefully placing the explosives into a sack. Thalia hadn't learned about explosives and traps and the like until she became the Warden- Commander. Her magic was explosive enough for her, but some of the things the dwarves came up with piqued her interest. And hey, it's not like it was a useless skill to have.
She snatched up the map of Kirkwall she had rolled earlier and stuffed a few more supplies into her pack before heading out by way of the convenient tunnel access hatch in the back room. If she didn't get lost, she should get to the coast pretty fast.
"She's gone?" Flynn eyed his brother suspiciously. "How does a Warden-Commander and Hero of Ferelden just go missing?"
Carver rolled his eyes. He really had no time for this. "If I knew do you think I'd be here? I looked everywhere I think she would've gone, I even asked Isabela. So if you're done mocking me would you like to help me find her?"
The elder Hawke laughed. "I'm not mocking you. I'd be happy to help you, but there's something I need to take care of first. There's a murderer outside the city that I was asked to help find, if you want to tag along you can look for her in the process."
"What, in case she decided to go strolling along the coast?" Carver let out a frustrated sigh. "Sorry, it's just I've never had to go searching for my commanding officer. I'll join you. Maybe the guy you're looking for has something to do with this."
Carver was angry, and upset, and maybe a little frightened by Thalia's disappearance. He saw his commander as larger than life, and the idea that someone was able to take her hostage, or even worse kill her, made him feel uneasy. And despite living in Kirkwall before, and having his brother here, he felt lost. Like he had been dumped somewhere strange all by himself.
The search for this murderer had been torture. His brother hadn't brought Anders, but he had brought Varric. And that could sometimes be even worse.
"Come on, junior. You had to have heard something, even here there are rumors about that commander of yours. Rumors that would make excellent content for my books."
"Varric, what on earth makes you think I'm privy to what she does behind closed doors? Or that I even care? She's a private person and it's none of my business."
Varric stuck a lip out. "Oh, come on. You have to know something. Is she loud? Kinky? Does she enjoy more than a few partners?"
Carver felt a chill run up his spine and saw Aveline roll her eyes. "Ugh, that's disgusting, dwarf. Tell you what, when we find her, she can fill you in. I'm sure she would be happy to be the subject of one of your… novels." Truth be told, he did know a thing or two about what the Commander did, but only from word of mouth and seeing some rather embarrassed people get lost and ask how to get out of the keep. But he wasn't about to tell Varric about it.
The ground trembled and the party all took out their weapons. "What was that?"
Carver heard his brother groan. "Ugh, not another one..."
A huge, five-legged creature sprung out at them, almost knocking them down. It reared up and let out a terrifying howl before attacking them in earnest. ""Another one?" You've fought one of these before?" Carver dodged an attack from the monster. "What in Maker's name is it!?"
"It's called a varterral! Now kill it!" Flynn summoned a fire storm and everyone found themselves surrounded by raining fireballs. This varterral was scary to say the least, nearly stepping on everyone in the party.
When the beast finally went down everyone was exhausted. "Hawke, we just put down a horde of spiders and a varterral, I don't think this murderer-"
Aveline was cut off by an elf who came walking up to them. "Now you, I was not expecting." He had an air of arrogance about him. "But I'm glad you're here."
He was short, about the same height as his boss, with contrasting light blonde hair and dark skin. "And you are?" Hawke inquired, keeping his staff drawn.
"My name is Zevran Arainai, adventurer and occasional assassin."
"I've heard of you." Carver remarked. "The older Wardens talk about you. You were there when the Commander ended the Blight." 'and you probably know where she is.'
"That I was. I must say, it was quite lucky of me to find both the Champion and a Warden."
"How do you know I'm the champion?" Flynn asked suspiciously. He still had his weapon out.
"Who doesn't? Word gets around when a man as handsome as yourself saves an entire city." Zevran winked and Carver scoffed.
"So what are you doing here? Are you the murderer those men asked us to find?" Flynn asked, finally putting his staff back in it's holster.
The elf rolled his eyes. "That I am. Though you should know they themselves are murderers and part of the same assassin's guild I have been at war with for years. I've been waiting here for them to catch up to me, but you are much better."
"Assassin's guild?" Aveline chimed in, still looking very on-edge.
"Si. The Crows. My comrades-turned-enemies."
"Crows? I assume we aren't talking about the bird?" Flynn questioned.
Zevran looked honestly shocked. "Are you telling me you do not know the Antivan Crows? The best assassins in all of Thedas? They may want my head but I'm still proud of them. Anyway, this is not what I wanted to talk about. I find myself in need of some help. As I've said, those men who asked you to find me were Crows. They have been tracking me for quite some time, and have effectively cornered me here. And… they have someone I believe your brother here is trying to find."
Carver's ears perked up at that, and he stepped up to the short former assassin. "You know where the Warden-Commander is?"
Zevran nodded solemnly. "I do. It took some tracking, but she is at the Wounded Coast. I believe the Crows discovered I planned to ambush them there."
Carver let out a frustrated groan then seemed to realise something. "Wait. Why would they go after her?"
"Perhaps because lovely Thalia has killed quite a few Crows herself? And she is one of my few weaknesses." Zevran said wistfully. "They must have seen her with me here in Kirkwall and decided to use her to their advantage."
"But why was she with you in-"
Zevran held up a hand. "You can ask her yourself when we go to her rescue, yes? Assuming you do plan to help me?"
Carver just stared at the man in front of him. "One of his weaknesses?" And how did he know he was Flynn's brother? Had she been with this guy while Carver nearly pulled his hair out with worry the past day? He was scared she was dead and she was fooling around with a snarky assassin? What kind of commander leaves her men alone and without direction-
"Of course we'll help, a friend of the Wardens is a friend of ours." Carver heard his brother say. He was having a hard time believing Thalia couldn't handle herself, but at least he could finally track her down.
Zevran grinned widely. "Many thanks, my friends. Now, let us go save ourselves a Hero."
Thalia grumbled as she tried to remember how to wire the style of trap she planned to set up. She didn't remember it being so hard and considered just unloading magic on the fools, it didn't require strings and mechanisms and all this nonsense.
She finally had it mostly figured out when she heard the sound of gear hitting armor and whipped her head around to see a group of assassins in Crow gear headed straight for her.
"Ah, is that Thalia Surana I see?" Thalia cursed under her breath and stood to greet the people she was supposed to be ambushing.
"Hello… you." She smiled and gauged the strength of the group and assessed that she was in quite a bind. "Long time no see?"
The assassin looked put-off. "Oh, bonita, do you not remember me?"
Thalia wish she could conjure magic with her mind and set them on fire. "Should I? All you Crow washouts look the same to me." She sing-songed.
"Oh, you'll remember me soon enough." Thalia suddenly found her arms bound behind her and turned to see a rather hulking human being holding said arms together. "Now, where is Arainai?" She felt fingernails dig into her arm and winced.
'Two sneak attacks? You are really losing your touch.' Well. With any hope help would be arriving relatively soon. Might as well have some fun. "How should I know? I haven't seen that bastard in years."
"Oh, why do you lie to me, Surana? My men saw you with him only a day ago." The Crow came face to face with her, and Thalia found her opening.
"Is that so?" She drew her head back and headbutted the Crow she didn't remember with all the force she could muster. She then kicked the brute behind her off their feet, and rolled a few feet away to pull out her daggers. She channeled a flame spell into one and a lightning spell into the other. "Then let's see if we can jog my memory."