Chapter 14: Introspection

Three days after they'd returned Varric finally came out of hiding.

It had become a comedy of errors as the many strands of his far flung web of connivery had stumbled over themselves trying to figure out where to report when they couldn't find him in the main hall.

The small arms dealer from Denerim had accidentally wandered into an exchange between two very nervous lyrium smugglers. That hadn't gone well.

Worse had been the redirected (pilfered) acquisition documents that had been left where Josephine could find them. He was pretty sure she had some nicely scented Antivan poison waiting to go into his drink later. Or perhaps it had been his deep cover spy who he'd finally found hours late engaged in a heated political debate in the tavern with The Iron Bull. He was fairly certain that he was now paying a double agent. He'd have to talk to Bull about subsidizing those funds.

The worst had been the newly acquired brothel madam (he'd bought it so he could stop the abuses that had been happening under the previous management) who had found her way into Cullen's office where he'd been debriefing the Commander on the events in the tunnel.

Okay, maybe that had been the best. The color of Curly's face when he'd realized what the woman was asking him had rivaled the Kirkwall sunset for brilliance.

The final straw had been Cole at the tavern last night. Varric had been numerous pints into a good bender when the blue eyed boy had drifted into the seat next to him.

"You think you will hurt her, but you're really afraid you'll hurt you." He'd mumbled as he peered curiously into the frothy mug that Varric had pushed into his hands.

"Well kid, I think that's a surprise to no one. Cheers." He'd clinked mugs with the confused boy and then drained his drink in one long, desperate swallow.

Cole had just continued looking into his own tankard as if wondering if it did, indeed, feel cheerful. It had made Varric laugh in his inebriated state. The laugh had died pretty quickly, though, when Cold spoke again.

"Darkness looming over her. Forcing, grasping...tainted tastes. If she closes her eyes, the dark will hurt her again. She knows it's not true, but her mind tells her it is. You helped her in the darkness. Why did you stop?"

"Kid, it's a lot more complicated than that."

"It doesn't have to be."

And there it was. A truth that Varric had really not wanted to hear.

"Aren't you the spirit of compassion? Why don't you go help her?"

"He won't let me."

Wait. "He won't let you? Alright kid, I'll bite. Who is he?"

"She's out of the healers now. She's afraid. You should go to her or she'll find someone else to help."

The thought had bothered him. The ability to feel jealous had been burned out of him years ago, so what was this thought? Worry? Concern someone else would harm rather than help? He'd stood at that point, ready to go play knight in shining armor… and had had to sit abruptly back down as the room had spun into a disorienting, drunken whirl.

Ah well, he'd never really looked good in shining armor anyway, he'd thought fuzzily.

That had been last night.

This morning, though, he took his usual place in the main hall. He heard the commotion and witnessed the confrontation in the courtyard from the safety of the stairs. He watched with clenched fists as they'd dragged Angelica off to the war room with a very angry grey warden. Her eyes met his for a brief moment as they hustled her past him.

There was no blame in them, which had unclenched a part of his heart he hadn't realized was afraid.

Hawke peeled off from the group gathered around the erstwhile combatants to join him at his table and together they watched the others march through the further door.

"So...from the look on your face, I'm assuming this is the 'special woman'?" Hawke's aptly hawk like gaze moved to Varric's face. Varric sighed.

"You don't know the half of it."

"Well, looks like they'll be in there for a while. You're a storyteller. Tell me a story." Then the frustrating man folded his arms and leaned back in his chair. Clearly, he wasn't going anywhere until he had the whole thing. Varric sighed again. Something he seemed to be doing a lot these days he reflected.

"Well, no shit, there I was, minding my own business back in Haven..."

Angelica stood awkwardly in the center of the large room, shivering a little in a breeze from the open balcony. She had never been in such an ornate bedchamber before. It made her feel rather small and unimportant the way the high ceiling loomed above her and the mountain vista spread before her.

The fact that it was Maxwell's room also made the intimidation quotient increase dramatically. He'd brought her up here and told her he'd have the baby, her baby, sent for. The infant had been staying in the nurses chambers while he'd been gone.

She glanced around, almost afraid to move from where he'd left her for fear of encroaching. Until she saw the cradle tucked in the corner by the wardrobe. Seeing it made her feel angry, which broke the spell of intimidation holding her in place.

She was her baby, not Maxwell's. She hadn't lied to him, really. He just hadn't given her any chance to explain. In fact, he hadn't given her any chance to explain anything whatsoever. Instead he'd issued edicts and given orders. He'd even listened to other people about her, but had not yet given her a chance to speak for herself.

Anger granted her a certain bravery that was unnatural to her gentle and timid heart. She moved around the room, challenging her new found courage to run a tentative finger over the fine wood of the desk. It felt smooth and cool to her touch. She wondered how much it had cost… who had paid for it? The Inquisition? Maxwell himself? If she were to gouge her growing ire into it's fine surface, who would she be offending?

She was tired of being afraid. She was tired of being pushed from here to there. Maker but she was TIRED of other people deciding whether she got to live or die or be happy or sad or... Even those who called her the Voice of the Maker seemed more intent on her function than her self. Was she even a human being to any of them? Was anyone? Or were they all just tools? Numbers on some sheet somewhere in someone's bid for power.

Gathering her growing frustration to her, she took a breath and did something she would never have dared before this moment. A small victory, but a victory none the less.

She sat in the big chair behind the big desk.

It was so odd...it made her feel like a queen. Books, artifacts, an inkwell and parchment that would have cost her a life's savings back in the chantry. It made her feel uncomfortable. False.

She'd seen the new Arl of Edgehall and his family pass once. Everyone had lined the streets in a parade as the noble family had moved by, waving grandly from their open carriage. She'd practiced that wave as a child, imagining herself an arlessa. A princess set to save the people with her grace.

She practiced it again now, sitting at the over large desk, waving regally at the past and her memories. The arl and his family she'd so admired that day had not been good people. Forcing service to rebuild the destroyed keep. Starving their servants so that the funds for their care could be turned to the opulence their Orlesian trained hearts felt so important. Her hand dropped to the desk as the fortifying anger began to fade.

So here she was. Sitting, for all intents and purposes, captive in a glorious room atop a tower waiting for her ex lover/captor to return with what he thought was their child. Even Varric wouldn't write that for being too ridiculously dramatic.

She was tired. She'd been tired for so long. In that exhaustion of spirit she'd been passive to the blows fate had been bringing her. The only thing feeling truly real had been holding that tiny body, that baby. That bit of redemption the Maker had given her.

And now Maxwell had taken even that from her.

No. If she were being honest, it wasn't just Maxwell. It was these situations that kept striking at her, darkspawn, chantry, wardens, the press of a needy humanity. All making her life a whirl of pain and threat that had been unsafe for an infant. She grimaced to herself. It made it unsafe for heras well.

The Voice of the Maker they called her. It terrified her. That someone as irrelevant as she could have such a breathtaking responsibility to everyone.

Everyone… why should she be responsible for all those who seemed to so desperately need her? She froze there behind the desk as a new thought reared up to overwhelm her.

She loved them.

She loved them deeply and desperately. All of them. Good, evil, it didn't matter. She may not like them all, but she loved them.

They may not matter to those in power, all this press of humanity. They may not matter to each other, even. They may not matter in the scope of history, or the balance of good and evil that the mighty fought for.

They mattered to her. Every. Single. One. The emotion was overwhelming. It rose up in a flood. A tidal wave of love.

She wept there, alone in the afternoon light at that desk that wasn't hers.

Huge racking sobs, for the pain and fear and loneliness and loss and joy and elation and desire and love and hate and everything that was this glorious, messy mass of living beings. Humans, dwarves, elves, spirits...darkspawn...everything that lived, lived in her heart in that moment.

"What's wrong?" Maxwell's concerned voice interrupted the thoughts flowing through her mind. She looked up to see him as he stood at the top of the stairs holding the baby. It was too much, she needed to share this understanding with someone.

"I love them." Her voice was quiet and rough from weeping. He moved forward, confusion and concern vying in his expression.

"You love who?"

Her fists clenched on the desk in front of her with the power of her emotion. Her voice vehement and fierce with it.

"Everyone. I love everyone so...MUCH."

She woman she hadn't noticed behind him, apron and cap declaring her Salvisa's nursemaid, fell to her knees and covered her face in fear. Maxwell just watched her in silence for a measure of heartbeats.

"Do you love me? Even after what I've done to you?"

"I do love you." And she did love him, so much. But that hurt human being nearly buried under the overwhelming love spoke too. "But I also hate you."

He nodded nearly imperceptibly at her words. Hands gripping the blanketed infant a bit more tightly.

"Well, I love you. For what that is worth."

Then he stepped forward to offer her what was, according to the tenderness of his expression, the largest gift he could give. He placed the baby she needed so very much into her arms.

Alistair paced the battlements in an unseeing circuit, his mind churning with dire thoughts.

Regardless of what they'd said, he knew in a way they clearly didn't the danger they were in. Whether she bore an old god's soul or not, was irrelevant. She sang, and they would answer. Hordes and hordes of the vicious, tainted monsters. And they wouldn't stop until she was dead.

In every functional way, they were bringing another blight upon themselves. She may not direct them, may not purposefully call them, but they would come for her. The darkspawn would cover and taint all of Thedas in their quest to find that song. Turning their world into a blighted desert, devoid of life.

And this just as every grey warden in Ferelden and Orlais had disappeared under some false calling sent by Corypheus.

The timing was too convenient. Too, dangerous to be accidental.

And yet, when he'd held her arms and looked into her eyes, she'd wept for him. There had been no air of falsehood to her tears or her whispered words. "The Maker loves you."

Those eyes. Her eyes had bored right into his soul for that moment, and had loved him. He'd almost fallen into them and that precious emotion that had died for him at the top of Fort Drakon all those years ago.

He rubbed a weary hand over his face.

Andraste help him, she had loved him with the Maker's love and he would have to kill her.

Not yet, he had told the Inquisitor he wouldn't. But eventually they'd see the cost of keeping her alive.

He just hoped that by that time, it wouldn't be too late.

And that he could bring himself to do it.