Author's Note: This is just a little holiday cheer drabble that turned into a bit more. Happy Holidays everyone. May next year be a blessing for you, as you all are blessings to me.
Blessed Satinalia
Sebastian held the door as a trio of drunken revelers stumbled through, the last giving him a broad grin and a wobbly sign of the Maker's Blessing as he tripped over his own feet. "Blessed Sa…sadi…tin…g'd night, Brother Vael."
"And to you, serah." Sebastian returned the sentiment, not bothering to correct him. He glanced back out into the night…the Chantry was outlined by the brilliant light of the two moons over the city's jagged skyline.
With a sigh, he turned into the Hanged Man, letting raucous noise and the ripe odor of secular celebration sweep over him. He'd spent the better part of the week in service, the last two days of solemn celebration of Andraste's birthday, in prayer. In meditation. In song.
He missed Aer…his friends. He wanted to spend the last few hours of the holy day with them.
He stood blinking a minute as his eyes adjusted from the dusk to the torch and candle light. Corff seemed to have gone to some lengths to decorate, there were ribbons woven around the support posts around the bar. There were even a few glass balls and some greenery tacked to the black ceiling beams. And from the upper rooms, cutting through the din was a familiar voice singing a definitely bawdierversion of the carol he'd heard a small choir of well-dressed noble children lisping in Hightown a few minutes ago.
Isabela, in rare form.
Hovering at the door for a minute-a habit Sebastian rather despised in himself, but seemed unable to discard even after two years of following Hawke on her adventures- he waited until he caught Varric's eye and received the dwarf's silent, entirely exasperated, permission to enter the suite.
"Oh, Sebastian! There you are!" Merrill's cheeks were pink and she smelled of a delightful mix of spice and the twined juniper wreath she was wearing, slightly askew on her dark braids, when she caught his elbow. "See, Varric! He does have a festive bone in his body."
Isabela chortled from her perch on the back of one of Varric's broad stone chairs. "Not that Hawke's found."
"Maybe she hasn't searched him properly!" Merrill turned her brilliant eyes on him. "Though, that's not at all like her. She's always very thorough on corpses."
"Blessed Satinalia, Merrill," he smiled down at the elf who was adjusting her crown in the reflection from his plate. It listed over the tip of her ear and he adjusted it quickly, careful not to brush what he remembered as sensitive skin.
She thanked him as Fenris moved over on the bench, allowing Sebastian to step over and take a seat.
With a welcoming incline of his head, Fenris added, "It is a surprise that you've joined us this year."
"What, has the eternal Chant made an exception for a prince and ceased its prattle for one night?" Anders asked from the darker corner of the room, the lute in his hands twinging a countermelody to the song Isabela had just finished and a full pint by his elbow.
"The Chant goes on as always, Anders. And has no need for my small contribution to continue." He bit off the sharpest edge of humor that the mage seemed to bring out in him and automatically looked around for Aeryn, sheepishly to apologize. And realized…"Ah…is Hawke gone for drinks?"
Pointing out the basket of cakes and biscuits in the center of the table, Varric said, "Hawke's been with her goodies and gone, Choir Boy."
"Gone?"
Fenris explained in his low rumble, "Hawke doesn't care for Satinalia, Sebastian. She's always made other plans."
"Well, she used to take her mother to the parties. " Merrill told him as Isabela slid down fluidly besides her to occupy the chair properly and set her feet in Fenris' lap. "Fancy things that she'd tell silly stories about. Last year, she told us about that human who pinned the hostess' drapes around his ears and recited The Twelve Gifts of Andraste…how did it go?"
Sebastian prompted, "seven candles blazing, six blessings offered…"
Merrill shook her head slowly, "Noooo, that doesn't sound…"
Isabela interrupted her with a brassy, "fiiiiive gold-en cock rings ba-dum-dum-dum…."
A few bleary voices in the tavern below took up the rest of the lyrics, in varying keys as Sebastian protested, "That is NOT how that song goes!" Though he did recall learning that version.
"No, I think Isabela's right." Merrill nodded and sent her wreath sliding sideways again to dangle from her ear. "See, those humans know it, too." She patted Sebastian on his arm, as if consoling him for his poor memory.
He gave up on the blush creeping up his neck. Without Aeryn, they always managed to make him feel out at edges. He wouldn't have come if he'd thought... Her first holy day without her mother. Her sister out of reach, though he'd passed on the small card Aeryn had handed to him to see if Mother Esme could take it during her Gallows visitation.
He felt eyes on him and glanced up into Fenris' pointed gaze. "She is not at the estate," the elf said bluntly before sipping the wine he held with a slight sneer as if the vintage had managed to annoy him.
"Then where?"
"If you find out, Choir Boy, you'll beat us all. I've had runners out looking since she left."
"What if she's in trouble?"
Isabela scoffed at him, "If Hawke was in trouble, half the city would be on fire."
Sebastian pushed himself away from the stone table. "There are subtler traps than muggers can lay."
"Not in Kirkwall," the pirate said sourly.
"Sebastian," Fenris clicked a taloned finger on the edge of his glass to attract the archer's attention and warned, "She doesn't want to be found, tonight."
"That may be so. I…am just going back to the Chantry. I may be needed at the late service." It wasn't entirely a lie. He would go back to the Chantry, past Hawke's villa in the square off the Keep. And he might be needed later.
"Do you want company?" The offer was made reluctantly. Isabela had leaned against the elf's side, much like Aeryn might and was readjusting the lacing on one of her long boots. It was a casual move, but Sebastian didn't miss the way Fenris' eyes slid up the dark leather to the freckled thigh on display. Ah.
"No. Thank you." He was halfway out the door and only glanced back on chance. The little band was already regrouped around the table, Merrill was rebalancing her crown with Varric's aid and Isabela's interference, Anders was lost in thought again, plucking at some loose thread on his ratty robe and Fenris was watching the pirate's arse under the brief tunic. His brief presence had already been forgotten.
Stepping away, he completely missed Fenris' low, triumphant. "Pay up, Varric."
And the grumbled answer, "I'll put in on your tab, elf."
He stopped by the bar, clear of drunken revelers for the moment, and wished the harried barmaid a good night. She was a good woman, when sober, offering handouts to the children who occasionally hung by the backdoor and scrounged in the trash when they could beat the rats to the scraps. Norah clearly saw something in his face when he hesitated and asked, "Brother Vael, d'ya need anythin'?"
"Ah…no. No." He started to leave only to stop again. "Well, you don't by any chance have anything better than the...drink you usually serve?" He had enough pride in the product of his former home not to call the stuff they sold here"whiskey."
"Corff don't shell out for much nicer than what gets sold. Sometimes for Messere Tethras." She shrugged. "You want somethin' better than this lot? Got to get that in Hightown, I'd guess. And a pretty copper it'll cost ya, too."
"Of course, you're right." He bowed to the over-worked waitress enjoying the tiny smile that she couldn't quite keep from her thin lips at the courtesy, and left. It had only been a whim and a foolish one at that.
The night was mild for early winter and Sebastian didn't bother to pull up his hood against the breeze that flushed the dank smell of the tavern away. He crossed the bridge up to Hightown, alert but relatively unworried even with the occasional horde of carousers. He'd never yet been attacked on his own. Only Hawke's reputation seemed to draw the worst of the thieves plaguing Kirkwall and even that had lessened since she'd become the Champion.
The paving under his feet grew more solid, the thicker paving stones and their cleaner surface a sign of taxes being paid and services expected. The crowds thinned, too as Hightown's residents generally kept their parties behind the doors of their expansive homes. And over it all, loomed the hulk of the Keep and the sharp outline of the Chantry, glowing red at this angle with smoke from the bonfires that had blown in from Lowtown and the light thrown by hundreds of candles he had helped place. It was eerie, less than reassuring than the usual sight of his home and he shivered.
There were garlands of greenery trailing between the torches that lit the street, all leading to the home of Kirkwall's own Champion, one of the city's decorative touches to hide the lingering scars of the siege. His….his friend might not care for the title, but she'd done her best to live up to it in her own way. Perhaps she'd gone to one of the many festivities, in the name of being a good ambassador.
Her home was dark, in the midst of all the well-lit facades. Only the sconces above her crest…the Amell crest she'd corrected him quickly more than once… flickered with any life. But he knew that Orana would be in the back of the house and Bodahn would answer when he knocked.
His hand raised, Sebastian was about to try his luck, when he heard a familiar low voice and the higher pitch of an elf maid answering, just beyond the wall.
"This is the last batch, Mistress."
"Just as well, pup. I've stretched my luck wandering into the warrens on my own."
"Maybe you should call for Messere Fenris?" It was a mouse-ish sort of murmur, he could barely hear it even pressed to the ivy covered stone as he found himself but Sebastian gave the girl credit for trying to talk sense to her lady. Surely she hadn't been prowling Darktown alone all evening?
Sebastian heard a familiar faint pop, Aer…Hawke's neck cracking as she realigned her spine and was too distracted by his worry to blush over his familiarity with her habits. "One more trip is all. I'm not going to bother him on a holiday. I appreciate your help, you know. Couldn't have gotten the lot baked on my own and you have a lighter hand, anyway."
He could practically hear the elf's ears turn pink with Aeryn's distracting compliment. "Oh, I'm happy to help, Mistress. Be careful."
"Always."
There was only a slight rustle to indicate Aeryn's movement and Sebastian pressed back into the shadows, wishing he'd left off his armor. It would be difficult to follow her and not draw attention to himself. But a twinge of old pride rose up under his skin. Wouldn't it be a fine test of his progress, though?
Aeryn moved like a ghost through the street, in full dark gear and hooded, but Sebastian knew the way of her now and found it easy to keep up with the general knowledge of her direction. When she didn't take the usual shortcut she favored for Lowtown, he almost lost her; barely keeping his step soft as he caught up and held his breath when Aeryn glanced around, pale eyes catching the light of the two full moons. Eyes like moonstones and sharp as her namesake, but she missed him somehow and turned her attention to a door, hidden in the dry vines trailing down the seemingly solid wall.
A flash of lockpicks and quiet concentration and she had it open, catching it before it could spring too wide. Was it a short cut or was he about to follow her on some thievery? Sebastian hesitated as she tossed the sack into the dark space and pulled the door shut behind her and glanced up to the façade of the manse above them. He hadn't yet followed on just a thief's run, before. He been with her when her light fingers had gone to work, but it was always incidental…but why would she take a baking with her to lighten some noble of their treasures?
No, something else was going on. He needed to see.
He *had* lockpicks, thank the Maker…well, no better not. And it was a door, not a trunk, so he had some good chance of actually opening it.
"Brother Vael, is that you?" A creaky, authoritative voice called out behind him and he dropped the picks into to the vines puddling at his feet as he turned around and bowed to the dowager he found before him, her guard in glittering array just behind.
"Lady Annika, I hope you're having a blessed Satinalia."
"Well enough, boy. Well enough. On my way home for a stomach settler and a long winter's nap to find a brother of the Chantry scrappling around my bushes is a bit odd of a way to end it, though."
"I was…attending a matter for a friend, she's lost…" her mind traipsing around in the dark and clearly I've lost my own trailing after her.
"Not a cat is it? I had some old tom prowling around last night looking for a way into my precious Perriwinkle."
"No, not a cat."
"Good. Bloody things. I don't think you're going to find what you're looking for down there. Just an old passage under the house to the Docks, from when the Chaussens were smugglers."
Old women with sharp eyes. Maker bless them, he sighed internally. "No, my lady."
"Hear things, playing Grace with the other old ladies. You're considering retaking Starkhaven.
"Yes."
"You'll do well to mind your back better, then, boy. When you aren't scrambling around with that creepy eyed Amell brat."
It got away from him before he could think, "Hawke has beautiful eyes."
"And I mind Vael's back just fine, Lady Chaussen." Aeryn's voice was unamused and sharp, coming from just beyond him, down the wall. She'd doubled back somehow. There was the cold shush of metal against leather as she resheathed her blades and sauntered forward all loose grace and letting shadows fall from her.
"So I see." The old lady had drawn herself up and Sebastian frowned to see the fear that crossed the wrinkled fine boned face as she stepped back, closer to her Guard.
"We were checking out some disturbances for the Guard Captain. You should have a smith put a better lock on that sidedoor, my lady. Anyone with a mind to could wander in those four hatches into your basement. It makes you an easy pick and the Chaussen Collection is…well known among certain folk." The lie slipped easier than truth from her lips.
"You're so kind to take a concern, Lady Amell."
She flicked the woman a smile. "My mother would take it amiss if I allowed harm to come to my neighbors." Aeryn's eyes were level and cool, but not unkind.
After a moment, Lady Annika nodded graciously. "Leandra was almost always a good girl. I am sorry for her loss. She showed great promise as a leader of Kirkwall society."
"Thank you for your kindness." Aeryn curtseyed, just a dip between equals and turned her eye on Sebastian. "We should move on, if we want to look out those other weak points."
"Yes, of course. Happy Satinalia, my lady." Sebastian bowed, low and fully. He didn't have his rank back, yet.
"And you, Vael." And now even his honorific was gone and he felt the twinge of it more than he should as the old woman swept up her Guard with the train of her sequin-spangled skirt and clicked away on enameled heels up to her door.
Aeryn was quiet and when Sebastian finally, sheepishly, looked back to her he was glad to see the wry smile on her lips. "I am sorry, Aeryn…for following you, unasked."
"It's all right, Sebastian. Good practice. You were doing pretty well, actually, until you caught that patch of light just before the Guase place. Then your foot got heavy a few steps back. I was waiting for you to pick the lock, when I heard Chaussen henning you."
"I thought I'd lost you." He said, confessionally.
"Nope. Not yet." She nodded to his feet. "Get your picks, don't want to leave them behind." As he bent to retrieve them, she added while hefting the small sack back up to her shoulder. "Come on, I'll walk you back to the Chantry."
"Can I not come with you?"
"I…I'm just running an errand, Sebastian. I'll head in for the night, after."
"I'd like to run it with you." He stepped up and held his hand out for the sack. "Please. I'll just be your pack mule, for the evening."
"Gracious, I have moved up in the world when my mule is higher bred than I am." She winked at him, though and he chuckled. "All right. C'mon, then. We'll go a different route with two of us."
"I didn't realize there was a passage to Darktown that way." He nodded behind them as he walked at her hip through the square to a descending stair.
"Eavesdropping, too? Very nice."
"Well, it would be a shame if I could not pick up a bad habit or two." She shot him a wan smile as she pointed out a dark alcove and he stepped into it first. He could just make out a narrow flight of stairs, spiraling into blackness.
"There are also six passages into the Chaussen basement, but about two thirds of the Collection is glass, anyway. No one's going to bother her for the rest of it."
"And you know that because…" His fingers dug into a rough section of wall, hoping for enough of a grip if his footing failed him and ignored the beetle I'm sure it was a beetle that crushed beneath his fingertips.
He could hear sigh in the dark. "I can tell glass at a glance, Sebastian. Annika wears enough of it that almost everyone knows, honestly. That collar she had on was the last nice piece she has." It was a clean duck, he had to hand it to her. "Here, hand me the sack while you take that jump."
The ledge across from them was barely visible in the lightening gloom. "Why are we going this way, now?" Sebastian whispered a prayer under his breath and, backing up slightly, jumped and landed with reasonable grace.
"So many questions." She sighed but explained anyway after a rush and her own leap. "Because I've made six runs tonight and I don't want to take the same route twice." Her face, mischievous and smirking showed in the flare of torch light that she'd lit. "Down that way."
"Where are we going?"
"Most talkative mule I ever met." Aeryn groused and pointed. "Over there, shh." Sebastian had enough light now, that he could just make out a small encampment of…it was wrong to call them refugees nearly six years past the Blight.
But it was clearly a group just barely hanging on to their lives, here in the damprot filled tunnels. Two old women and a decrepit old man, thin legs useless under a worn, woolen robe and two young children, so frail. Eyes dull and skin too pale, even for Fereldens.
His sense of propriety made him whisper, "Aeryn…shouldn't we…"
She shook her hair, dark and recently clipped even shorter than usual. "They won't take charity. They can't go home and there isn't any thing for them here."
"But the children…"
"Are already in the Carta, earning as much as they can. That's how I came across them." She pulled open the mouth of the sack and slipped in a couple of things from her belt pouch before she wrinkled her nose. "Sod. Have a bit of twine and a lead weight on you?"
He nodded, handing over the making of a snare for her to tuck in before he tried again. "The orphanage…"
Her head came around at that, tilted eyes narrow. "They aren't orphans, Sebastian. They have a family."
"But…"
She held a hand out to stop his frustrated protest. "And who are you to tell them different? They know…they know it could be better and they also know they might never see each other again. This is what they want. Do you have the right to take it away?"
He glanced at the little girl, her curly hair scraped back and a healing knife scar visible on the back of her neck. She was handing the oldest woman a cup of something steaming, a merry smile on her cracked lips at whatever she was told and a bounce in her curtsey. Looking back at Aeryn, Sebastian had to swallow at the intensity with which she was watching the little scene. "No…I don't suppose I do."
"Alright, then. Be right back." Aeryn hefted the sack and let the shadow swallow her. She was back in the span of three breaths and tugging his hand to follow her on.
They were in one of the main warrens of the sewer village before he spoke again. "Don't you want to make sure they'll find it?"
"Couple of scroungers like that? They've got it out and priced by now." Aeryn shrugged at his raised eyebrows. "No illusions, Sebastian. I think they'll keep what they need, what they can use. And if the rest of it goes to someone else, that's alright. Sort of an awkward distribution system, but it works."
"Why not just take it to them openly, then?" He offered his hand, with careful casualness, across a cracked bit of brick flooring and after a slight hesitation she set her gloved hand into his to make the small step. Her fingers were warm and Sebastian had to force himself to release them smoothly.
She dropped her accent into a low Fereldan drawl after a few steps. "Oh, thanks, messere. So kind. We can't acourse, but it's good of ya to think o' us. Per'aps that family down th'block, they seem to be having a run o' bad luck." Folk are proud. I'm well known enough that," Aeryn shrugged a leather covered shoulder, "I'm not one of them anymore. A copper for the kids running an errand is one thing. A whole load of goods? No. If I can't get it to them through the clinic, it has to go this way. On Satinalia, it's just "A Gift from Andraste.""
"Right." Silently, he followed her out of the warren and back up into the relatively clean air of the Docks, a storm earlier in the week having pushed some of the fetid water out to the harbor.
"Thank you for coming with me, Sebastian." Aeryn bumped her shoulder against his arm and smiled up at him, allowing that illusive dimple of hers to pop up and he grinned at her before bowing.
"It was my privilege, m'lady."
"You should go home now." It was said gently, enough but her eyes were searching the dock. Fog was starting to roll in over the water.
"I don't want to leave you here, though." He glanced around at the groups of sailors huddling around fire barrels and a sparse sprinkling of prostitutes that usually populated the area, calling out their services. They'd pushed off a band of slavers earlier in the week, but no one had managed to track down the den they'd hidden themselves in.
"Really? You think someone's going to bother the Champion, over much?" She shook her head. "And right here next to my statue, too?"
"You're only one person, Aeryn, and no' nearly as invulnerable as Varric's tales make you out to be. You take too many chances." Worry slipped into his voice and he was grateful that it didn't set her on defense.
"Don't you have other duties on a night like this? You did last year." For the first time that night she'd dropped her guard and he caught a glimpse of the softer side he saw so rarely. She'd kept it bottled up close since he'd taken her back to the estate after Leandra's death. In the last months even when they had quieter moments, it was only Hawke he'd seen, not Aeryn.
Taking a chance, he caught her fingers and bowed again and only barely restraining from kissing the leather covered palm. "I've nowhere to…no, that's not it. I've nowhere I'd prefer to be. Tonight." He lifted his eyes to hers and found himself caught in them, silver and smoke.
She seemed just as trapped, unblinking eyes wide and her lush lower lip dropping for just a moment before she caught it and plucked her hand free.
"Not a word from you, then, if I misbehave."
In startled silence, he learned why the statue had been replaced twice since its placement last Guardian.
Sebastian watched her place small incendiary charges (the ones he'd never figured out where she'd learned to make and the ones that Isabela was forever trying to puzzle out) around the base of the grotesque Champion's statue, tucking several into the Arishok's "skull," kicking aside several tributary candles that were guttering on the platform.
Leaping down, she grabbed his hand again. "Run!" Leading him behind one of the sturdy brick pillars, they were mostly protected from the blast, though he had to beat out a few sparks caught on his sleeve.
"Only have a few ticks. Watch for Guards, hmm." While he made sure he wasn't ablaze, Aeryn started to push the remaining chunks of granite into the harbor. Between two larger blocks, she stuffed an oar that had been leaning behind their hiding place.
From the larger pouch she had strapped to her thigh, Aeryn pulled a bulky folded pad of wool. It was wrapped around a long string of the cloudy golden glass baubles that adorned most of the Hightown mansions and the Chantry in celebration. She strung the baubles around the oar and knelt down, pulling slender celebratory tapers in rich beeswax from the sack she'd left tucked in her belt.
She was patting her pockets, looking for flint when Sebastian handed her a lit spill with a sardonic eyebrow. "I won't find candles missing in the sacristy when I look tomorrow morning, will I?" he asked as he helped her light the wicks. Not exactly sacred duty.
Raising her chin haughtily, Aeryn sniffed. "I'm a rich woman, you know. I don't have to lift candles."
"Yes, but I imagine it's more fun." And he laughed when she grinned at him, all mischief.
She dragged him away from the scene of their little crime, just far enough to make excuses for the Guards they could hear start to tramp up to investigate. Her face was smooth in the torchlight and candlelight glimmered in her eyes when she asked him in a small voice he'd never heard from her. "D'you think they can see it from the Gallows?"
"Well I imagine they certainly heard it!" He started to jibe her and then realized…she'd lit the candles for her sister.
"Bethany was awfully fond of Satinalia. Once upon a time." There was something of excuse in her tone. "Do they let them celebrate, do you think?"
"They do. I've been once or twice." It was mostly just a confession hour and a solemn dinner. But the mages were given candles and greenery to decorate the stark halls. "Are you not allowed to visit?"
"Don't know. Haven't asked. She hasn't…written, since." With a full body shake, like a delicate mabari, she redirected herself. "C'mon. Let's go find ourselves an alibi."
They were almost up the bridge to Lowtown when she whispered, "Thank you. For coming to find me, Sebastian."
Her hand was warm in his, again, and this time she made no effort to free it. He squeezed her fingers. "Always, leannan. You never need to ask."