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Breaking Tides
Elesee's fingers trembled as she held the paper as delicately as if it were a newborn placed into her unsuspecting hands. The paper held no trace of Bethany beyond her scribbled words hastily written across the page except the light aroma of sweat and beer, undoubtedly from the bartend. Satisfied there was nothing hidden away in the sealed letter save the message within, the rogue made herself read the note at last.
The message itself was not lengthy, only a paragraph in length, but the impact of the words struck Elesee as true as the arrow aimed for her heart.
Unthinking, Elesee grasped the note so hard the edges crumpled as easily as bones in an ogre's grip. She re-read once more, just to be sure.
Satisfied that she was not delirious and had read and understood each word, she tilted her head back against the gritty wood, felt a few loose strands catch in the splinters, and closed her eyes. Her whole body gripped in a state of shock that she did not even notice as the paper fluttered, danced to the floor as would a taunting desire demon's hips luring prey.
Flashes of her sister flashed through Elesee's mind as if they were dust motes floating to the surface through a beam of light. Images of their childhood. Moving from place to place. Bethany's confusions over becoming a mage. Carver and Elesee's pact to always protect their sister. Taking her into bed at nights when the nightmares were too much, when the killing became too much for her sweet, innocent sister.
And what had happened to that girl? Now she was a cold woman unperturbed by vengeance, even if it meant against her own sister.
This is your fault! How could you? Leandra's clear blue eyes were as betraying and heartbroken as her words. The memory was as sharp and defined as the blades Elesee used to slice down her enemies.
Elesee had always been calloused, had never known how to comfort. She could only be the support and backbone her family had needed her to be.
It was Bethany that had comforted their mother after Carver's death. Bethany that had insisted Elesee seek out Fenris, despite his hatred of mages, and had even schooled her on the appropriate flirting techniques.
Her father, her mother, Carver… She could feel each of their spirits around her like metal armor, a testament to her weakness and inability to defend. They watched with judging eyes as Elesee failed time and time again. And she had failed, hadn't she? In the worst of ways.
Their spirits and memory could not be carried away by medicines. This was an injury that no amount of potion or magic could salvage.
It was with a quiet, inner despair that Elesee regained her senses and donned her thick leathers. The missing chest piece was of no avail; she merely replaced it with a tunic and stuffed the excess into the belt around her ribs.
On the back of the parchment, Elesee wrote to the others all of her remaining thoughts and feelings she had not been able to express out loud.
Taking a pause to stare her daggers she'd discarded on the simple table, Elesee took several stabilizing breaths and went into the blank meditative state used while killing. A sliver of lingering despair slid into the weak spot of her armors and pierced as her fingers wound around the blade hilts. Screaming Wind's blade gleamed a sickly green and emanated a lilac light while Wicked Fang's blues and oranges reminded her somehow of the caves their troupe had abandoned. The enchantments had risen to the surface at the whisper of an oncoming battle.
x
Wart laughed drunkenly as his wooden leg gave out and he fell against a sleeping cow. The cow stirred from its sleep and screeched out a long, scared moo!
The other teenagers pealed into another chorus of laughter at Wart's clumsiness.
"I heard that it's the Champion of Kirkwall!" Keira giggled and thrust her breasts out and stood with her hands on either hips, mimicking the posters pasted all over Ferelden.
Wart brushed his good leg off but didn't bother to move from against the side of the cow. The wooden plank of a leg made a witch out of trying to get from the ground.
Garrett wiped a line of drool—or was it whiskey?—from his chin. "I hear they got a Dalish with 'em and she's bea-u-tif-ul…" He grinned lazily before adding, "For a knife-ear."
"Maker shit on the knife ears!" Percy spat angrily and his sister, Mercy, nodded in agreeance before taking a long draught out of the bottle of homemade whiskey.
Trying to impress Mercy, Wart leaned towards the glossy-eyed girl and drawled, "What do you say we show 'em how we like knife ears around here?"
Keira sputtered over her swig and interrupted any response Mercy may have made. "No way! I hared… heared they put spells cast on people!"
Wart spat a wad into the hay to show just what he thought of that.
Mercy and Percy both shared a long, dark look before they both grinned impishly at the same moment. Sometimes, being twins, they were eerily alike in movements, thought, and speech. Fade, sometimes they even looked alike.
Percy rumbled in gruff voice, "What are we waiting for?"
Wart looped an arm around Percy's thick neck as the stronger, older boy helped haul him to his feet. The others muttered assent but Keira pouted.
"I'm staying here," she whined and stamped her foot. "You all go off and enchant yourselves…. Andraste damn it all! I meant: curse."
The female half of the twins sniffed at the complaint. "Fine, Keira. Nobody likes the daughter of an apostate and a whore around anyway."
Unsteadily and cackling the whole way, the small ensemble made their way to the east side of the village.
The tavern's lights were out for the night but Grom's masonry puffed big plumes of smoke from the chimney. The new guests in town must have been well off to have Grom working so late into the night.
"Shh!"Wart hissed at the others, an index finger to his lopsided grin."Grom's still at it. He'll tan all of our hides if he sees us bothering the guests."
Garrett slurred, "But 's just a knife ear."
"You know how he is. Sympathetic." Wart spat the last word as if it were sour milk.
Percy pointed to one of the guest room windows on the second floor. "Look! Someone's in there."
Strange lights within skewed shadows across the windows. Blue, orange, purple, green…
"Magic?" Wart asked the others breathlessly. Now he was spooked and confusion mixed with the haze of booze.
Keira could have been right if this was a Dalish mage on the loose. They'd all end up cursed and he'd never get a chance to see Mercy's mercy…
Having already distributed the stones, Mercy had hers in hand. Her arm cocked to launch the rocks at the window. She ground out an angry, "Who cares?"
But Wart wasn't so sure, despite Mercy's surety.
Percy raised his arm and decided for them. The rock sailed straight towards the window.
Wart's peg wobbled against the ground as he waited in confused terror for the glass to rain after shattering. It never connected and instead hit something metallic.
Before he had any time to realize what exactly had happened, a terrifying shadow was upon him and he hit the ground with the creature trying to eat him!
A shade? They must have been working blood magic!
Piss ran down the length of his wooden leg and he had almost let out a shriek before a leather-gloved hand clamped over his mouth. The blade was a cold bite at his throat, just the light touch already drawing a trickle of blood that he dare not even swallow lest it cut open his thread-thin vein.
All he could see in his field of view was sunlight—no, a halo—no, that was her hair—and her eyes that reminded him of a midnight sky with twinkling stars. The sharp curve of her eyebrows smoothed out into two unamused slopes as the intent to kill seeped out of her harsh stare.
"By the Maker's balls," Wart could hear Percy's voice spoken in stricken awe, "it is the Champion of Kirkwall!"
The woman rocked back on her heels. Wart sat up and scrambled out of her reach.
The champion's eyes darted to the others and the blade whoo -ed as it slid through the air. She brandished the fiery orange metal at Percy. Mercy's eyes were wide as sovereigns. Garrett was in the bushes vomiting.
"What are you children doing?" she hissed in a sultry, velvety voice. Wart imagined her voice was one that could lure many a-fellow to her bed, or death. Whatever the case may have been.
Garrett, idiot he was, mumbled from the bushes, "Sorry, messere, we was only playin' a joke. We heard there was a knife-ear. Thought we might show 'er some hospitality."
Wart thought the champion might turn to a dragon any moment as she almost-visibly steamed. She returned her hungry-looking blade to the sheath strapped on her back. He regretted every last choice of the night as he heard the leathers of her gloves rub together when she clenched her fists.
As she pulled the cowl bunched around her neck up over her moonlight-reflecting hair, the assassin informed them all, "I do not wish to see you lot grow up to be the vermin—" She made a show of readjusting her belts around her middle, littered with poisons and throwing knives. "—like so many I have killed with just the twitch of my wrist. The only prejudice you must harbor against are those that prey on other, less fortunate souls." The champion turned her shadowed gaze on each of them. "The elf could be someone's father, brother… husband. And they might just have a relative, a friend that will think little of killing you for harming them. Think about that each time you wish to terrorize an innocent."
Mercy grumbled something about Dalish being anything but innocent but Percy laid a hand on her shoulder and shook his head.
The champion, having wasted her patience, commanded them in a hollow tone, "Get back to your mothers now, Children."
Wart's stump groaned in protest as the four ran faster than if the darkspawn themselves were on their heels. Before he had a chance to return to his hut, he saw Mercy shoot an ominous look to her twin that made Wart worry just what the two planned on bringing to Niemeier.
x
Fenris was in a dark state of mind, his thoughts clouded in guilt, as he returned to the room. He stood outside their door and waited to swallow his dour mood. But it lingered.
Guilt for Aveline and his plea that had ultimately led to her child's death. A divide in himself on whether or not he should even tell Hawke about these things. His resolve had already been on unshaky ground and had all but diminished during the long and heated debate with Sebastian.
He closed his green orbs, mashed his snowy hair against the door, and let a long breath out of his full lips before he had steeled himself enough to face the questions he knew she would undoubtedly ask. He twisted the doorknob and had already parted his lips to speak her name before he immediately stopped.
The room felt wrong.
The light in the room had been snuffed but there was something missing. The sound of her breath.
Each detail stood out sharply to his probing stare. The open window. The paper placed against his bag. It was the sight of her daggers having disappeared that finally convinced him she was truly gone.
Confusion, hurt, doubt all crept up and down his spine before he snatched the letter from the floor. The side he read first was in strange writing he did not recognize as Hawke's.
He read the first word aloud, confused, "Sister…"
x
Sister,
It has been far too long since the arrival of your last letter. No couriers in caves, are there? Yes, you are correct in asssuming that I know exactly where you have been. Since your dissemination of the Circles, I have made some interesting contacts. Did you know that there is a… Well, rather costly in terms of blood and coin, but very worth it, spell that can track down whereabouts of an individual. We share the same blood. It proved to be little challenge. Nevertheless, dearest Sister—or can you even consider a lowly mage your sister?—I await you to the south, outside Halamshiral. Bring every weapon in your inventory. You will need them all.
-Bethany
x
Broiling anger seared his nerves. He nearly lost control of the lyrium as he turned the note over.
x
Aveline, Donnic, I cannot even fathom the loss of a child. Thank you is not enough That you would give a life for my own Even now I cannot find words to describe how terribly sorry I am. I only wish… I can only imagine this was Flemeth's doing. The next time I see her I will kill her upon sight. No questions asked. I hope that old bitch is destroyed. Soon.
Sebastian, I wish you well in all your travels. I know the Maker has a plan for your kingdom and I have no doubt you are a part of His plan. Makerspeed.
Isabela, just because I'm dead gone doesn't mean Fenris is willing to bed you. I WILL come back as a spirit and haunt your ass if you so much as think of
Fenris. I'm sorry. Please know I had to do this. I can only imagine that Bethany wishes me dead. I can't kill her. I will try to make her see reason. Bethany has never been one to use her mind, only her heart. It's why I have always tried to protect her. She will not be reasoned with. But I will try. I promise you that.
I am yours. I love you. Always.
x
Over his body would he let her die. Fenris shouldered the Blade of Mercy before telling the others they were leaving for Halamshiral. Now.
Author's Note II: ff does not allow strike-through text, so the bolded text in the letter is supposed to be struck through. just a note.