That New Car Smell, Oasis, Off To Sleep.

It's late on Monday but it's still an update on Monday. Today kicked my ass.


Disgrace of Redcliffe

The Wheel That Keeps on Turning

It took Connor two months at Vigil's Keep to earn his first promotion.

A few days after his return from the Wending Wood he finally met Mistress Valora, the keep's midwife. She was a thin elven woman with strong hands and a critical eye, but upon realizing Connor was willing to help ease her burden of salves, tonics, potions, and elixirs if only for a bit of her guidance, she seized upon him at once. He was kept busy producing minor salves from his crop of elfroot and spindleweed and when she gave him new recipes, he tinkered with them until he could bring back what she asked for.

His daily at-leave routine was set: up reasonably early with or without breakfast, working in his room until the noon bell when he would bathe and eat. After lunch he would deliver the day's work to Valora, pick up new herbs from her and any ingredients he needed from the market, and return to the Keep where he could work until the evening bell. His door remained open and his company drifted in and out throughout the day, sometimes Hawke would read or Sigrun come and watch him work. In the evening he made a point of being more social, and then he would retire for the night and do it all again the next day.

Mistress Valora's granddaughter Vessa was highly knowledgeable of what grew where in the arling and supplied Connor with whatever neither he nor Valora could grow on their own. He collected several pots and jars to grow embrium, snow drops, and other herbs such as mint, rosemary, garlic, lemon grass, and half a dozen others. Most of the herbs were sprouting before his leave ended.

He left with Sigrun and Warden Hestel, the bright and chipper human warden with clever fingers and a sense of humour which meshed nicely with Sigrun's. Their patrol of the arling was interrupted on its fifth day by curious rumours of a haunting in one of the local Bann's woodland hunting grounds. Upon further investigation the three of them found a lot of dead things that had decided to stop being dead, even though they really were dead, and they had to be convinced of the fact that 'you are dead and need to go back in your grave now' via a lot of swearing and a significant quantity of fire.

Connor made the very poor decision to let the three of them fall asleep in those woods, leading he and Hestel to wake up two days later feeling very angry at the demon responsible for the entire horrible undead mess. Sigrun had reported the incident back to Vigil's Keep before they woke up and the three of them had to chase after the messenger before the Warden Commander could be put in a fit.

Connor had a throbbing headache for the next day and a half, the chase helping nothing. He struggled to eat anything more complicated than a boiled-down soup of his own herbs, but had the satisfaction of both Hestel's solid approval of his worth as a Warden and his own demon-free dreams. He hadn't been tempted by the demon so much as turned around and confused by it in the dreamscape to the point where it had tried to tell him he wouldn't escape without making a pact with it. Sigrun's dwarven nature had kept her safe, but Hestel had been a hostage who had realized the trickery being played on her mind as soon as she saw Connor with her in the Fade. As soon as the demon had shown itself, the two Wardens had shown the creature how badly it had misjudged them.

Connor actually let Mistress Valora know he was back at Vigil's Keep before he made it back to his own room. She had a list ready for him and after his bath and dinner Connor had half the embrium bubbling away in the distiller before going to bed.

"Warden Guerrin, if I may intrude," was Nathaniel's very formal entry the next morning, while Connor was busy trying to whip snowdrop oil with the last of his original dawn lotus powder for a sleep aid Valora needed. His arm was tired from the mixing and he set the copper bowl down with a sigh, addressing Nathaniel and thankful for the break.

"Of course, did you need something?"

"Something most certainly beneath your time and effort, ser." That was… certainly strange… "But you're the first one I thought of. Boys."

In to Connor's room and looking most unhappy, came Nathaniel's nephew Thomas and Commander Surana's son Kieran. Connor had very little contact with the Vigil's children beyond the occasional sight of them here and there outside in the fine summer weather, but these two he knew: Thomas and his sister Natalie by virtue of how often they shadowed their uncle when he was home, Kieran because he was son of the fortress's master. Both boys were black-haired and treated by the summer sun, Thomas with an explosion of freckles across his nose and cheeks, Kieran with an unsavoury red blush over most of his face. They were in simple tunics and trousers, Kieran's of notably higher quality with ribboned edges and bright stitching, but they were both filthy with grass and dirt. They looked damp. They looked miserable and both stood with their hands behind their backs.

"Show the good Warden the trouble you've made this time." Nathaniel told them firmly, but in the way enchanters often would with apprentices who were guilty of stupidity rather than harm.

Both boys presented their hands, palms up, and Connor hissed in sympathy. Spindleweed. Kieran's fingers were trembling from the tiny white needles spearing the shallow skin, Thomas' right palm blistered to an angry red from his own run-in. Both boys had scratches up their arms from further contact with the fleshy pink hazard, Connor looked at Nathaniel for an explanation.

"Fishing." The Warden answered. "Told them to keep away from the weeds when hunting minnows for the hooks, but somebody knew better about how to get around it."

"I had a glove!" The Commander's son protested. "It won't burn you through that! Thomas pushed me!"

"I did not! I slipped!"

"And here we are." Nathaniel finished, looking to Connor with a shrug. "Can I bother you to fix these two up? Doesn't need any magic, just some elfroot'll do it."

"Oh- oh-! Yes, I can do that." Connor flushed, he hadn't had anyone come to him for something like this before, not since Skyhold. "Come to the light, boys."

Thomas whined and cried at the pain of Connor plucking the first few needles from his hand with a set of tweezers. To calm the boy he took one of his smallest spatulas and dipped a small lick of honey on to it from the jar open and waiting to be added to the snowdrop mixture. Thomas was teary-eyed but quiet as he sucked on the treat and Connor finished pulling the long, vicious spines out. A smear of green elfroot jelly and a strip of gauze covered the deepest part of the wound. He rolled a piece of wet gauze in his hand and clenched his fist around it, freezing the water, and told Thomas to hold on to it tight until it thawed or the pain went away. He treated both his hands and then took to Kieran, who tried to show how tough he was by not asking for the sweet first.

"Baker's mess…" The boy hiccupped after Connor got through about half the spines in his hand. Nathaniel cuffed him. Connor was shocked he had the gall to hit the Arl's son and stood quietly, collecting the licked-clean spatula from Thomas and dipping the edge in the honey again.

"That wasn't a cuss," He said quietly as he passed Howe, who was smug and standing with his arms folded.

"We both know what he meant by it." Connor gave Kieran the honey and finished working with his hands, giving him the same instructions about the ice as Thomas.

"What do we say to the Warden?" Nathaniel asked as the boys seemed over their ordeal and were fidgeting to be gone from the boring room.

"Thank you, Ser."

"Thank you, Warden."

"Off with you- and keep out of Felsi's garden!" The boys escaped without seeming to hear Nathaniel's warning, leaving the two Wardens alone and giving Connor a chance to say something.

"You really put your hand on him though?" About the knock on the head for Kieran.

"What, didn't you ever get it at Redcliffe?" Howe asked him with both dark brows high.

"From my nurse and a tutor now and then, maybe." It had been a long time ago but nothing really stood out. The Circle had been much faster to dole out that kind of punishment but Connor had been good at keeping his head down and his hands out of trouble.

"Well when I was a boy here at Vigil's Keep I was the Arl's son, and lemme tell you I got it good whenever I had it coming." Nathaniel explained in a brisk tone. "It takes a village, Guerrin. Do you really think the Commander has the time to come down and give a shout every single time his boy starts climbing something he shouldn't or snatches an apple only an hour before dinner?"

"It wouldn't be fair to keep him locked upstairs all the time either," Connor filled in the obvious alternative. Honestly, that sounded more like his childhood than the possibility of getting smacked by Master Dennet or one of his father's knights. Nathaniel had a contemplative look to him now though, like he'd remembered something.

"To be quite honest, before he went to Orlais that was a lot more like how he lived." Wha-? The Commander's son had lived in Orlais? "It's not really our business- but you might not have heard it at all from inside the Circle, would you?"

"Heard what?"

"About two years after the Blight, Surana vanished." Nathaniel explained. "Personally, I thought it was Anders' fault- you know about Anders now, I trust?" Connor did. "Well I thought it was that Kirkwall mess, but actually he'd gone off to find where Lady Morrigan had vanished to after the Battle of Denerim. We started getting letters from him here at the Vigil with instructions on how to reach him, but no one could ever follow the bird to where it actually went when we answered him. He was gone nearly a year before he brought Morrigan and Kieran with him to the Vigil. I think they were only here a month before she left with the child, and six months later he went ahead and left to be with her again. And they just kept doing that, trading off who had him and where they were living. It wasn't until the Mage-Templar war broke out that he came back for good and brought them back for an entire summer. Kieran was… a lot different back then."

"How so? He seems normal enough, and he's thick-as-thieves with your nephew."

"Like I said, Kieran was different." Nathaniel leaned hard on the word. "Sweet boy, well-mannered, yes. But different. You couldn't have a conversation with him, not really, he'd be everything you'd expect from a well-mannered nobleman's son and then out of nowhere tell you your blood felt too fresh, or your spirit was too bright for him to see clearly. He could tell Wardens apart from anyone else with a glance, and would get so excited if he saw someone he claimed had elven blood like he does. I don't think I ever saw him out of his mother's shadow that entire summer, and whenever Thomas or Sorran and the other children tried to play he'd insist on staying in the Commander's apartments and refuse to go out with them."

"Nathaniel," Connor interrupted, because this didn't sound like the child he'd seen around Vigil's Keep. "This is the boy who runs across rooftops and shouts out what people are holding during card games."

"I tell you, Orlais changed him." Nathaniel insisted. "His mother went there to serve Empress Celene when the war broke out and Kieran naturally went with her. I know she wound up serving the Inquisition at some point and Kieran was with her then as well, but by the time the dust began to settle and the Magister was dead, they returned to the Vigil and he was completely different."

"It must have been a change at Skyhold then, not Orlais, because I never saw him running around while I was there." Kieran, pass up the chance to climb the courtyard steps in new and ever-more-dangerous ways? Kieran, not hold his arms out and walk the battlements over the gully on his toes? Kieran, leave the Inquisitor's strange, strange mounts unmolested in the stables? Impossible, the boy Connor knew from Vigil's Keep would have either been the bane of every person working at Skyhold or otherwise his mother had found a way to chain him up and keep him civil. "From what you describe he seems happier now though, doesn't he?"

"He told me this is the longest he's ever lived in one place before." Nathaniel's eyes and voice mirrored a softer sentiment when he said that. "Almost two years now. Maker willing, they're finally done moving him around."

"Maker willing." Connor agreed, and when Nathaniel left he was able to ponder a bit more on the strange black-haired boy who ran the Vigil ragged in his wake.

A few days later, Connor was called on again in another unexpected way. The Keep's stablemaster knocked very hesitantly at his open doorway and stood there fumbling his hat between his hands, trying to work up the nerve to disturb a Grey Warden from a simmering bowl of poached arbour blessing. When Connor finally got a reason out of the man for what in the Maker's Sight had him so nervous, the man produced a rumpled recipe from his vest pocket and shyly explained his willingness to pay for the brew.

"That is a lot of deathroot," Connor marvelled, and on that point alone was ready to refuse! "Give a man this and he'll drop!"

"Not for a man, Grey Warden!" The horsemaster gasped, "For a horse- One of the Arl's good mares, she's getting too rattled for my liking and needs a calming draught, a heavy bit of sleep with the rest of those things in there to cleanse her blood. I was to put in an order to Amaranthine but that's a day's journey there and back, nevermind the time it may take for the Formari to prepare it. I don't need gallons of the stuff, and you're right here."

"It's only for a horse?" Connor clarified.

"On my honour, Serrah. I'll gladly pay you for your time and the ingredients." Which was interesting to Connor because he already received a stipend and Valora paid him in the herbs he used from Vessa.

"The Vigil already pays me, Horsemaster. I can have it for you by tomorrow morning if that's alright?"

"Maker's Blessing, Grey Warden."

More requests filtered their way to him in that manner. A specific soap recipe from the laundry, cured powders for the kitchen, several noxious brews for the Silver Order's archers. Connor's floor became an as-orderly-as-it-could-be arrangement of bottles, growing pots, filled jars and reagents. The first time Velanna came into his room through the open door the former Keeper let her jaw go slack and stared.

"Um… Mistress Howe?" Connor finally said, carefully pruning only as much arbour blessing as he felt safe to take from the very small, very delicate plant resting in a box of soil by his open door. Maker help him he didn't know what he'd do with all these things when winter settled in.

Velanna dropped an elven oath, and then finally noticed Connor. The Keep's archivist was holding a book in her thin, blight-veined hands.

"Nathaniel was right, you do need this." She said, marvelling at the bits of paper stacked and tied together on Connor's desk, the rest stuck to his work wall with bits of glue. "I thought he meant you needed a spell book, a crutch for you circle mages who don't have an oral tradition like the Dalish to remember things." She looked up and her shoulder seized when she realized the few hanging clay jars Hawke had already yelled at Connor for but Connor had ignored him and kept them up there. "You absolutely need this."

She shoved a heavy, blank-page tome at him and left in a rush saying something about Garevel, and Connor stood there like a fool for several seconds before he heard his distiller start to make it's 'I'm done boiling and now I'm just burning things' sound. Once he'd dealt with that, he went back to the book.

It was a heavy leather-and-wood bound book, thick with wide white pages of smooth parchment. The wood was sturdy and darkly stained, the leather protecting its spine and the glued and tightly strung paper. The inside cover had words carved on it that simply read: Property of Warden Guerrin, Mage of Amaranthine.

By the time Connor went on his next assignment, he'd cleared all the stray, loose, easily-misplaced slips of paper out of his room and transcribed every recipe, reagent, thing-to-buy and thing-not-to-lose into the notebook. It made his life far, far easier. He was too worried about getting the book rained on or torn apart to let it leave the Keep with him when his two weeks ended.

Connor's assignment was not written and handed to him, but verbally told to him by Commander Surana who was in a foul mood. Summer's end was approaching. The Warden Commander seemed visibly incensed by Connor's well-meant 'request' from several weeks prior, and he claimed he could not perform the Joining without an important but hard-to-obtain ingredient: Lyrium Sand.

The sure-fire bet was Orzammar, but Orzammar was incredibly far from Amaranthine. Connor was told to bring back half a kilogram of the sand, and it was the first mission he was on point for. Surana gave him a gold sovereign to cover meals, overland costs, and any nights spent at an inn while travelling. For the sand itself, he was given ten sovereigns. Surana then told him to select two people to go with him.

Connor asked Evie if she was alright coming with him but regrettably found out Surana needed her to help him break the silent stalemate between Vigil's Keep and Soldier's Peak in Highever. He asked Hawke and the Warden immediately said yes. The third person he asked was Hunter An'eth.

"I- of course! Yes, Warden!" An'eth had been serving in the Silver Order since arriving at the Vigil. Connor took her despite knowing it might possibly annoy the Commander. He'd promised Keeper Lanaya he'd give the Dalish her joining, and he'd let Connor get him with a second promise to do the same thing. Connor chose An'eth.

The three of them searched Amaranthine's market first. Lyrium dust was uncommon but not terribly difficult to find. Lyrium sand was far more dangerous because that was when it began being potent enough for people to sicken from direct contact, or in Connor and any other mage's case: start bleeding from their eyes and gums and have their blood turn thick and congealed so they died horribly.

Connor finally visited the Formari Guildsmen in Amaranthine. Theirs was a square, squat building that bore pennants for the College of Enchanters, the old Formari hand and pestle, and the Arling of Amaranthine's gold bear. It was guarded by the city's watchmen but its doors were wide open in the fading summer sun, welcoming the Wardens inside for their search.

The only room they could enter was a wide hall where the business was done. Connor had the strangest sense that they should stick around, that there was something about the robes and soft, level voices of the Formari that could entrance him to linger, but he refused to do so. This was his mission. He was in charge and for once in his life Connor would not mess it up. Connor had a month to reach Orzammar and return to Vigil's Keep with the sand, he would not let it take longer.

"Maker, he did this to punish me." He was, however, ready to throw up.

"Calm down, Guerrin." Hawke told him as they left the guildsmen with no sand but news of when the next shipment would arrive: next month. "He sent a mage to find magical ingredients, you're over-thinking this."

"Didn't you hear what they said inside? Next month. Not this month, next month."

"That's not so bad."

"This month just started!" It was incredibly bad!

"Then we- oh wait." Hawke interrupted himself with a smile. "I'm not in charge, right. What do you think we should do, oh fearless leader?"

"Don't make me cry in public, Hawke, I can't take it." He pleaded, his tunic and gauntlets making him feel heavy and afraid in the talkative market.

"You know you say that pretty often but I've never actually seen you cry."

"If you don't stop, I'm going to start." This was not a good day for him.

"Um…" An'eth, Connor would later discover, could be a stubborn spitfire when she wanted to be, but in the company of two human men in a human city the hunter was unwilling to share her voice. "But… how fast does a dwarven caravan move? They… might already be on the Highway."

Connor needed a bit more prodding to understand that she was suggesting that-

"We head them off on the highway before they reach Amaranthine! Right! Yes! That is a very good idea!" Connor was quite certain they were all going to get lost, very lost, and that he would end up without pants at some point. Thankfully it was hard to get lost on a suspended stone road that only went in two directions, and after a hard ride through spitting rain and the cool wind of dying summer, they found the dwarven merchant who did not haggle Connor out of his own shirt. It didn't cost the full ten sovereigns either, because Connor was thankfully used to haggling with merchants at the Vigil.

It cost him nine sovereigns, which really wasn't any better. Dwarven respect for the Grey Wardens only carried them so far when it came to money and Connor didn't have much ground to argue from what with riding so hard to find them and then only wanting one thing from the assortment of magical, mystical, and alchemical wares. He was also paralyzed by nerves.

They'd been given a month. Connor returned in a week. He watched Hawke hand the dangerous parcel to Garevel and wanted to weep from relief, but the Seneschal just went ahead and made his day even more stressful.

"Recruit An'eth, I understand you may be exhausted but there's a very important event being held this week amongst the Silver Order. It's lucky that you returned as quickly as you did or else you may have missed your chance to qualify!" There was. A competition. Surana had ordered a tournament amongst the Silver Order for six prized spots in the Joining. Connor had almost foiled his own request by taking An'eth away from the keep.

An'eth was spirited away by the excitement of having a chance to fulfill her obligation to her clan and the Grey Wardens. Hawke vanished from Connor's side saying something about a bath and belly full of food. Connor himself was grabbed by the Seneschal's eyes and could not move from his spot until the man put on a wide, excited, frightening grin and beckoned the mage to follow him.

"I finally spoke to the Arl!" He announced as they walked through the Vigil, turning familiar corners and passing halls Connor had learned well over the last two and a half months. "His Grace has agreed, and everything will be taken care of."

"Uh-"

"Mistress Valora is ecstatic as you may well expect, but of course we will have to make preparations to have an apprentice or at least a helper assigned to your service."

"What?" Appren-!?

"Oh yes, Mistress Felsi was rather pleased as well."

"Seneschal- what are you talking about?"

"Why, what we discussed of course!"

"We-? What! Seneschal I don't think we've spoken in over a month!"

"No no, we met right before…" Garevel slowed and then he stopped, holding the package of Lyrium sand in one hand and gesturing absently with the other, like he was connecting dots in the air. "When I went to go- and you were… oh but wait. Oh my, yes it seems you're right. We did not discuss this."

"What is going on?" Connor pleaded, and Garevel merely chewed on his bottom lip and then stroked one hand across his blonde moustache and beard.

"Why, you've been granted additional privileges, of course." Nothing about that statement warranted an 'of course' at the end!

Rather than stand there and stomp his feet shouting for an explanation, which he would not get from a man like Garevel, Connor gave a confused indication that the Seneschal should just lead him on. He did so in a chipper way, bringing Connor down a drafty corridor with an exterior door at the end of it. They turned at an open door and Connor ignored the way his boots crunched on grit and dirt from an unswept floor, because this felt unreal to him.

It was a workshop. Dark, dingy, dirty. There was a wide stone counter with a wooden top to it across the entire wall from the door to the end of the room, where a water pump and sink were set against the wall with a large, cracked, grimy window. The next corner was a large stone hearth, cold and dusty with a rusted grate over the front, a very sad looking and possibly broken cauldron resting limp and forgotten in the old ashes. The rest of that wall was taken over with floor-to-ceiling shelves, empty but for broken bits of glassware and forgotten paper slips. On the wall next to the door was an old blackboard, chalk missing. There was a wide wooden table that took up most of the available space in the room. It needed to be sanded and stained, but it was built of heavy, hardy Fereldan oak.

"You've taken your hobbyist enthusiasm much further than I initially expected," Garevel was droning on in the background. Connor couldn't really hear him, he was too busy running his hand over the rough, gouged surface of that table. "But his Lordship seemed more amused than concerned by it. Mistress Valora has complained at length about your working conditions however and Horsemaster Dareth has made several requests for this workshop's reopening since you began supplying he and several local herdsmen with draughts for their animals. As long as you don't accidentally poison anyone at some point, which I sincerely doubt given Valora's confident summary of your skills, the workshop is yours."

"Just like that?" Connor asked, breathless.

"I believe the Arl wishes to confer a promotion to you along with the workshop when he returns from Soldier's Peak, but I doubt he expected you to return home so quickly." Home. The Vigil was Connor's home. "As the matter is based on merit versus a field promotion he's the only one qualified to say for certain. He should be back by the end of this week unless negotiations with Soldier's Peak require an extension."

"Is Captain Bouclier with him?"

"Yes, as is Warden Constable Oghren, and Warden Sergeant Hestel." Garevel reported smartly. He seemed excited, like he could barely hold his smile together.

Connor was dumbfounded. He was awestruck. Until Surana returned he wasn't promoted and didn't have a workshop, but as soon as the Commander did…

The shelves needed dusting. The table and countertops needed sanding and varnishing. The window was cracked and the mortar looked weak and crumbling. The fireplace needed to be scraped and cleaned and the floo might need to be checked. The glass windows on the cabinets were murky. The chalk-shelf on the blackboard was broken off. The cauldron had a massive hole rusted through the bottom. There were spider webs everywhere.

But it was a workshop.

"One last thing before I leave you to soak up the moment, Warden." The Seneschal gave Connor a sealed envelope, a thick pad of red wax keeping the document tightly closed. "Good day, ser. And congratulations!"

"Thank you, Seneschal." Connor's voice was thick, his eyes were heavy and stinging. He saw the address 'Ser Connor Guerrin of House Guerrin, Resident of Vigil's Keep' on the front of the envelope, flipping it and waiting until his blurry eyes made out the seal of Redcliffe pressed into the crimson wax.

He gave a weak, wet laugh and tossed the letter down, unopened.

"Hawke." A few minutes later Connor had not calmed down at all, but Nathaniel's door was closed. Sigrun's room was empty, and Hawke's was wide open. "Um- do you have a moment?"

"Maker's Breath, Connor!" The senior warden scolded, animated as he rushed past Connor and shut the door quickly, rounding on him with a stern, forceful look and a shove at his shoulder that almost made him stumble. "I didn't make that comment about you crying just so you could go and wander the Vigil weeping. What in Andraste's Light happened after I left? I thought you'd be right behind me!"

"I had to talk to Garevel," Connor managed through the thick heat of tears he kept catching before they could fall, brushing them off with his fingertips, his wrists, the backs of his hands.

"What is it with you having talks that leave you looking like this?" Hawke railed, grabbing Connor by the strap that held his staff and giving him a solid shake. "This time you'd better tell me! First Surana, now Garevel: spit it out!"

"I- nothing's wrong!" Connor said in a rush, left shaking after the rude tug and shove. "I'm trying to calm down, I am, but it's good news this time."

"Spit it out!" Hawke growled again, still holding Connor by that leather belt across his chest.

"They gave me a workshop." He stuttered. "It's filthy. I need help fixing it- can you-?"

"Yes."

"Thank you."

"You stupid, short-sighted Mage!" Hawke laughed, shoving Connor again harder this time, but he meant it playfully and his hand was ready to clap and catch Connor's in a tight grip to make sure he didn't go flying back. "Didn't I tell you not to over-think things?"

"You did." Connor felt shaky and weak, clutching Hawke's warm hand tightly and trying to ground himself with it. He didn't want to wander around weeping as Hawke had said, but he wasn't good with things like this, his body didn't know any other way to handle it. He hung on tight to Hawke's hand, and when the other Warden put his second hand over the back of Connor's, it felt safe.

"Say it." Hawke complained. "Say whatever that is you've got bubbling in your brain, Guerrin." Connor nodded. He'd do it. He took a shaking breath and looked at his friend properly.

"You know how you said you spent your whole life moving from place to place because of your family?" He asked, waiting for Hawke to take the words in and nod. "I never did that. I didn't move around. Redcliffe, the Circle, and Skyhold. I called Redcliffe home because I was born there and my family's hailed from it since before Calenhad's time. But the Vigil…" He didn't know how to explain it. He didn't think he had to. "The Vigil is my home. I belong here."

"Good." Hawke told him, returning the tight grip and clapping their hands hard with his free palm. "I'm glad, because Andraste Guide me I know exactly what you mean and remember how horrible it was not having a real place to be."

"I think we should go get drunk." Connor suggested. It was out of place but it made Hawke laugh and pull him around until he had his arm around the back of Connor's neck, shoving his head down hard.

"I think that's a smashing idea!" Hawke grinned. "We should celebrate!"

"With fifty silvers worth of Fereldan wine-" Connor grunted, hands fumbling trying to get Hawke to ease up a little. "Let me up!"

"No, I think I'll just drag you around like this."

"Hawke-!"

"Onward!"

Connor did manage to get free before leaving their hall together.

And he and Hawke did manage to get very, very drunk before nightfall too.