Note: This chapter is slightly steamier in some parts than previous entries.
"Are you almost done?" Anders leans his head back against the back of Wil's tenement, his eyes on the uneven roofline of the building across the alleyway as it's silhouetted against the night sky. A night of cards with Isabela meant that they'd made most of their journey to the slums with only the careful positioning of their wadded up clothes to cover themselves.
"Pants are on!" Her voice is bright, accomplished.
"Andraste's ass, you need to practice speed-dressing as much as you practice...speed-undressing." Awkward, Anders. He laughs it off. "Although I know it's not nearly as much fun."
pause
"It might be if you were helping me."
"I can only sound the warning Wil so many times before it starts to lose meaning," his eyes want to swivel left to where he knows she'll be only half in shadow, but he resists. He's only just gotten himself...comfortable...after a moment of temptation outside of the Hanged Man. No need to raise the dead. Now, if only his mouth could get the idea and keep it. "I have never enjoyed putting my clothes on. Especially in the presence of someone else."
"I bet you could figure out some way to make it exciting, Messere Brothel Orgy Electricity Thing," her voice is closer now and he drops his eyes to see her clothed, leaning against the wall with the smirkiest grin. And it does nothing to prepare him for this, "Why are you doing this to yourself? What, do you think that Justice will steal your body or something if you get off?"
It's such a bold question. Confrontational. But he sees something like concern in her eyes and he can't be offended. He's spoken of his past in vague terms, of how he'd been before and how things have to be now. He's never specifically said he couldn't get off, but he's not surprised she'd draw that conclusion.
"It's not just that...," his brow furrows and he doesn't know where to start. "Being around people is a test sometimes, always hoping that I don't see anything that angers Vengeance, or get too upset. Just...the thought of hurting anyone I'd care enough about to be with. I can't bear the thought, so I'm not going to take the risk." He moves closer, his head falling to the side as he observes the way she's blinking rapidly and shrinking in front of him. "You're doing your things are getting heavy and I want to flee thing, Wil."
"He says to the woman who has accidentally killed one, and almost another, by breathing," her smirk is gone, of course, and has been replaced with displeased scowl.
Fuck. "But that only happens when you're hurt which...if that's the case during sex, then you're doing it wrong," he tries to salvage the whole mess with a half-hearted joke.
Wil picks it up, shaking off the shadow of distress to raise her eyes up to the sky and force a chuckle. "It depends on who you ask. I bet Isabela, for one, would beg to differ." Then she reaches across the space between him to swat his shoulder with the back of her hand. "Lucky bitch."
He goes to walk past, being careful to give her a wide berth. "Who? Her or me?"
Laughing again, and meaning it this time, she shakes her head and follows him around the side of the building where she's halted by his outstretched hand within seconds.
Thirty feet ahead in the alley as if this isn't Lowtown around midnight, is a chantry priest. She's by no means an imposing figure, average height and compact build, but something about her turns Anders' stomach and breaks like cold sweat across his skin.
She's waiting, it seems, arms crossed and posture expectant. For almost a full second Anders and Wil remain motionless.
Motionless after Wil leans against Anders, that is, her arm flung around his waist and her chin resting on his shoulder. If he could imagine how he looks now, it would be tense face and two blushy warm spots where she's making contact.
From the opposite end of the alley comes a solid figure, his long copper hair twisted into tight braids, his features wide and bloated. Although he wears the colors of one of the local mercenary companies, his approach is not threatening but it's dark and Lowtown and the priest does nothing more than lower her arms to her side.
"They say there's chantry folk here what's looking to hire," he gruffs down at her. "If'ns that's you, we's got interest."
"I am looking for someone native to the dark places of Lowtown," her voice uncoils. "If you can offer as much, then yes. I will pay."
The man hooks his thumbs into his belt and chuckles. "Then why don't you's come and meet us. You kin decide that we's the ones you want, and we kin get a look at that coin."
He gestures towards a side alley that leads to the alienage bridge and nobody could possibly be foolish enough to-
"Andraste's flaming sword," Anders' chin drops in disappointment as the priest allows herself to be shepherded away by the man, her shoulders remaining proud and high.
"Why yes, I think I would like to follow you down a dark alley, Serah Shady-ass mercenary. What could possibly go wrong?" Wil breathes sarcasm into his ear, causing shivers as the hair along his jaw shifts and tickles at his cheek.
"She's in danger," said with a sigh and what he really means is we should save her, although I don't much want to.
"Can you save someone so foolish?" She's away and leaning over to check that her daggers are still sheathed in her boots.
"I guess we'll find out...we'll also find out how willing a sister is to overlook blatant displays of apostatism when the apostate has helped save her life," he groans, already dreading the inevitable disdain.
Wil watches him, but continues stalking backwards as she speaks. "Let's try to talk it out...what do you say? We're near enough to a patrol route, I bet I could convince them there are guards coming or...you could glow blue and scare them away and just tell the sister that it was something you ate?"
"I suppose the spirit casserole at the Hanged Man will do that to a man."
It stops her with a wide smile on her face that melts into open adoration the closer he gets. And it's enough to make him almost forget all the reasons why he can't be with her, and why he shouldn't be with her now, alone. But it's been so long, too long, and without Justice making much noise this evening it would be easy to fall-
It would be like a second first kiss, his first first kiss by the village well and she'd been a blonde slip of a girl with mischievous eyes and pink bow lips. He'd been eight or nine and not interested until she was on her tip-toes, one palm pressed against the back of his shoulder for balance and the other trailing down his chest. The warmth of her mouth on his was a surprise, as was the sketching of heat across his skin, the way his stomach turned liquid and colors he'd never seen before streaked across his vision.
Sigrun had told him once that the first time she'd seen the sky on a clear night, with the stars shimmering against a sky of improbably deep sapphire, that it wasn't seeing something for new, but a sense of having entirely new eyes...the old ones not able to grasp such miraculous beauty or such vast perfection.
That's what Anders imagines it would feel like to kiss someone now. If not because of his new perspective on what kissing could mean, now that he's not of a mind to kiss everybody, but because of Justice. In Kristoff's body, he'd felt the man's memories as his own, had relived tender moments shared between the Warden and the woman he'd loved. Before, such relations had intrigued him. Anders fears that his own memories, which are laced with far less emotional poignancy, have soured Justice on the idea of love, of acts of love.
Would this be an act of love? Wil's watching him with soft, serious eyes and her mouth is wavering between a smile and something far more cautious and he thinks, not for the first time, that she knows she's taking a risk. The biggest risk. She doesn't grasp the magnitude. Nothing has changed. He's still...with spirit, dangerous and unpredictable. A couple of good days doesn't change that, a couple of good days hasn't freed the mages or lessened the need for a person like him to exist. It hasn't changed the past or wiped clean the Wardens and templars he'd killed to escape...if he touches her now, if he says anything or does anything on behalf of how he feels at this moment, it will be an act of selfishness.
"Do you want to stay here and let me talk to him?" Her voice has a slight tremor, but she's clearly not put out. One day he'll ask why she endures it...why she endures him. But tonight has been a good night, and he should cling and not taint.
His head shakes. "I go with you," he forces a smile. "I rather like the spirit casserole line."
Wil hates her.
Even as she's trying to protect her, coaxing the mercenaries into better targets, exaggerating the scope of the templars' authority to include hunting them down for being idiots enough to shake down a chantry priest, for the love of Andraste, she hates her.
It's almost instinctive. There's so many ways about her, like her eyes narrowed in disdain, and her appearance of someone perpetually contending with the stench of filth.
Once the men have gotten the point and left with no bloodshed, the sister is thankful at least, although her tone is not sincere and her eyes dart to the shadows around them.
"I am...out of my element," she manages to focus on Wil for that glorious understatement.
"Oh, no worries. I love risking my neck for randoms," Wil rolls her eyes, making it clear that she does not love risking her neck for randoms.
The priests' shoulders roll back in a shrug, "I had to come here to get the type of person I need. Someone of bloody skill, but also integrity. I'm assuming that it's not false bravado you showed those men, and it says something about you that you would risk your life to aid a stranger." The words are kind on the surface, but Wil catches patronization in the undertone. "I have a charge who needs passage from the city...if you are willing, meet me at my safehouse just after dusk tomorrow."
The sister has a tidily folded scrap of parchment that she shoves into Wil's hand as if she's just now aware of how crooked this seems and she wants to get it done.
Wil toys with the paper before tucking it into her pocket. "You're awfully quick to trust me...and to assume I'm willing to help. Never mind that you almost got in it already."
The woman's blue eyes are clear of emotion, although a twitching at the corner of her mouth betrays frustration she's hoping to mask with an urgent tone and practical argument, "All the more reason I cannot trust just anyone...you have proven yourself already. And you live in Lowtown, so you must need coin." She looks Wil over, from her tragically mussed hair to her scuffed leather boots. Anders doesn't even warrant a second glance. "Varnell!"
She's shouting into shadows, and Wil's not certain why she's surprised in the least when an unfamiliar templar emerges.
"Perfect," Anders mutters as he and Wil share a relieved glance. It's a minor miracle that they were able to handle the mercenaries without violence or betraying their identities, now even more so. Although she knows that some templars can sense mages, Wil doubts that one with such abilities would be serving as a private guard dog for a sister.
"It seems like our help was superfluous," she grinds out. The sister, if she senses Wil's anger, cares little.
"I hope you will come," it's arch. Then, to avoid further argument, she strides forward, cutting a path that forces Wil and Anders apart. "This matter grows only more urgent as the weeks go by."
They watch her go, Varnell giving them one last glare for good measure.
"Well that was hardly worthwhile," she heads back towards the slums, her eyes still on the retreating figures. "Unfortunately, I want to know what she's up to...and more coin wouldn't hurt."
"You have enough money for the expedition...how much more do you need?"
She winces at the implications of greed in his question. He doesn't mean it, she wants to believe, but it's close enough to her own concerns about her motivantion that there's the smallest sting left behind by his words.
"I have enough for Mother to live on while we're gone," she keeps her focus straight ahead. She sounds defensive. "But between Thrask and this...well, we have no idea how long we'll be gone and something tells me the survival rate of these sorts of adventures isn't the best. It can't hurt to scrape together as much as I can...in case I don't come back."
"Oh," he responds in lieu of an apology, but she knows what he means. Then, as they enter the square, "Oh."
This Oh could be interpreted several ways, but it's more than likely just his displeasure at seeing Sorrell waiting by the steps of her building.
Sorrell, for his part, is polite to Anders. He offers a nod, wishes him good evening and stands by patiently as Wil sends the mage up without her, telling him to let Bethany and Mother know who she's with. He's not thrilled at his task, that much is evident, but he offers his aid for the following evening nonetheless.
"I share your curiosity," he explains, deliberately cryptic. "If there's earth shattering business that involves the chantry...I feel like I should probably know about it."
He leaves them with that, not even bothering to acknowledge Sorrell as he goes, and Wil waits until he's in the building before she speaks.
"He doesn't get out much," she grins crookedly. "Not that I'm under any impression that he'd be any more polite if he did."
Nonchalant as ever, Sorrell shrugs. "It's a good thing I didn't come here to see him then, isn't it?" His own mouth twists to match hers. "I was worried that you might have already left...although the Sapt- Aveline assured me that you hadn't."
Meddling Aveline. "Still here!" Wil enthuses, and she can't keep her eyes from searching his face. Damn him and his handsomeness.
As if sensing her weakness in the face of his face, Sorrell abandons any pretense of conversation. Instead, his fingers push through her hair, careful yet insistent, and his lips are close behind to settle against hers.
She's never had any complaints about Sorrell's kissing, and tonight is no exception. As a matter of fact, Wil's skin breathes relief at contact after being primed by another's intense gaze. That the contact is coming from Sorrell and not Anders dims the fire, or doesn't get it quite as hot, but her standards for such are weakened from hours of walking and pints of ale and a pressure alleviated by success.
Once again he reads her, his warm lips breaking with hers and his hand curling into the front of her shirt to tug her along. "I have something I want to show you."
"I bet you do," she responds with a lasciviousness that makes him chuckle and drop his grasp to the waistband of her trousers. The sensation of his fingers that low unspools heat from her stomach to spill down and she's so intent on enjoying the anticipation of what more he has to show that she almost doesn't realize he's leading her into the building across the square from Gamlen's. "Are you so crazy with lust that you've forgotten where you live?"
He smiles, then turns to guide her up the stairs. "I've been saving my money for almost three years to get something outside of the alienage," his voice falters. "I've never had a real home before, and this is the perfect place. There are elves around, so I won't stand out too much, and it's not as bad as some of the other squares in Lowtown. Just...just don't freak out, Hawke," a line appears between his luminous eyes. "You're...freaking out."
Wil shakes her head, her mouth pulled shut with a sound like a hollow wooden block being struck. She's not freaking out...not really. This is just...unexpected, is all. He has an apartment, close to where she lives but not for long, if this expedition goes according to plan.
"I'm not," she asserts, her voice not quite supportive of the statement. "But you know that I...this is a little weird. A little."
"It is. Listen," he pulls her up the last few steps and presses his hand against the side of her neck in reassurance. "This has nothing to do with you. I swear. It was just the right place for the right price...I almost didn't go for it because I knew how it would look and you've made it clear that it's not like that between us...but I figured you would at least want me out of that sleazebag hotel."
"Of course," and it's the truth, even though it doesn't sound much like it. He's relieved enough to continue leading her up a single flight of stairs and into his new home.
The space is sparse, smaller than Gamlen's own quarters. It's on a corner, though, and has windows along the long main wall, which might be a great thing. Or a terrible thing, depending on what's going on in the alley below on any given day.
Besides the basic furnishings, there's a small bookshelf that has found an alternative purpose as a weapon rack. Several daggers line the shelves, a proud little display of Sorrell's capabilities. One stands out, a qunari dagger they'd found on the coast. It's far larger than the ones around it, impractical for someone of Sorrell's size, but he'd been fascinated by the nocks along the blue steel blade and the finger bones embedded in the grip.
"I met the Arishok," Wil glances over her shoulder. "He's…kind of a jerk."
Sorrell's lips twitch in a smile, although his eyes indicate that he has un-Arishok related pursuits on his mind.
"Does qunari talk turn you on now?" She turns back to the daggers and it's only seconds before he's responding to that question, a silent answer in the form of his teeth pressing gently where her neck meets her shoulder and his hand finding its way down the front of her breeches. "Oh," she murmurs and this Oh is unambiguously pleased because she's been holding back in the face of temptation all night and, if nothing else, he knows what he's doing. "Yes, then."
"Hawke," he whispers raw and needfully, as if he's given up on the idea of being anything more to her than the best damned lover she's ever had. Groaning softly as she presses her back against him, his arousal echoes and ignites inside her, forcing her to turn so that their lips can meet imperfectly, his tongue alight against her own, and there's so much to focus on, so much to feel his fingers part her and hear his breath catches as he slips in and she tightens instinctively in welcome and taste like sweet cider and honeyed bread, and none of it will be yanked away at the last second...nothing ambiguous or unseen will force its way between them. "Just so you know," he murmurs against her throat, "I intend on keeping you for the night."
And she lets him.
She stays longer than just the night, morning passing them by and neither one in a particular hurry to join it.
Instead they tangle and untangle between naps, laugh over their deplorable breath and how Sorrell can be taller than her when they sit side by side because she's, by his estimate, 99% leg. Eventually, he stumbles into the main room and comes back with burnt pastries and honey. The pastries are a housewarming offering from Aveline, the honey to make them edible.
And when it becomes clear that nothing can save the Captain of the Guard's cooking, the honey is put to other uses that carry them well into the early afternoon, when the sunlight slanting through the windows splashes across their bared skin and the world outside intrudes with it in a cacophony of shouting children, creaking wagons and the usual din of city life.
It also brings to Wil a sense of unease as she realizes Sorrell's watching her come around to the idea of finally starting the day, his eyes drawn to her face and blazing with the sort of intensity that she's not comfortable inspiring in him.
Why? Why is it weird anymore? He's about half as intense as Anders is over everything...and how many times have we been together? Her thoughts are becoming frantic, as if she's realizing that there might be a serious problem with her if the idea of letting this become meaningful is so off-putting to her.
"You're freaking out again," his eyes fall closed as he rolls onto his back, one hand pulling the coverlet over his groin.
"I am," she sits up. "And I wish I knew why."
It comes out so plainly sincere that it washes over him like a wave of embarrassment, his brow wrinkling and the nibble-abused tips of his ears reddening.
"Maker's breath, Sorrell." She crawls across the bed towards him, trying to explain because he deserves something, doesn't he? But she has nothing to follow up with besides, "I could fuck you again...that might make things marginally less awful."
He allows a sharp laugh, his eyes opening but rolled back to avoid her. "Maybe I should have bought you flowers first...or got to know you better," his gaze turns to her at this, knowing. "Or maybe I should have openly pined for you...pretending to be interested in your sister optional."
Wil grimaces. Until just now, she'd forgotten that she'd once suggested that Bethany and Anders were...a thing.
"There was never any pretending...except on my part," this is a carefully constructed misdirection, and not necessarily an outright lie. The Varric influence, she supposes. "I'd hoped? He's an apostate, so..." she stares at her hands, aware of how unconvincing she is. Losing him, she turns to the one sentiment she can sell, "He'd do anything to keep her safe from the templars...perhaps even more than I would."
A small sigh escapes his lips and Wil takes it as a signal to continue on her way out, redressing going far quicker now than it had the evening before, even with her clothes strewn through three rooms, one boot somehow in the washbasin and her smalls completely missing. After a few minutes of half-naked scurrying, she decides to relinquish them to the void of sexual misadventures and tugs on her breeches. From the main room, she can hear Sorrell getting himself decent.
I don't really need to have my boots on, do I? It's not like I'm walking back to Ferelden or anything. Although... And she knows just how weird she is for being so panicked after a half day of nothing that wasn't more than pleasant, but there's a building pressure within her that won't be alleviated until she's back home with Bethany and in a place where she knows what she is and why.
"When are you leaving?" He's lounging in his bedroom doorway, hair adorably mussed and cheeks pink. The plate of pastries is pressed against his bare stomach and just above is a livid mark that looks suspiciously like the press of her teeth. "I suppose a less...fraught good-bye is out of the question."
"In a few days, I think. Listen..." she pulls awkwardly at her shirt, an apology dancing across her tongue that he preemptively rejects with a quick shake of his head. "Then at least let me relieve you of the burden of finishing Aveline's tarts...just tell her that they were very much enjoyed. She never needs to know it was Bello who enjoyed them."
Sorrell's eyes hold hers as he offers her the plate and she accepts it, careful to not brush his fingers as she does.
"Be careful, Wil," he's never called her anything but Hawke and Wil buzzes across her skin in a not unpleasant way that she'll convince herself later hurt to the core. His sentiment is quite nice, if undeserved at this moment, and...
"We can't do this again," she's not able to look anywhere but at the plate in her hand, and the topography of cracked dough oozing red with congealed strawberry jam is seared into her memory, forever associated with a knot in the center of her chest and the notion that what she's doing is a profound and confusing mixture of awful, right and regrettable. "It's not...I feel like I should want what you want, and I don't, and I am nowhere near a place where I can sort out why it is or make myself even try to."
Please don't hate me...one of the pastries has what looks like a fly baked into its crust.
Sorrell shifts in the doorway, his shadow narrowing on the floor in front of her.
"That doesn't change the fact that I want you to come home safely," he speaks with a controlled stillness that betrays several things, but most of all his heart. "Hawke."
"Isn't it strange that her secret hideout is so close to your apartment, Hawke?" When Merrill's popped up on her toes, she's nearly as tall as Wil and gives the impression of a farmer's scarecrow, all awkward approximation of body and limbs. "Do you think she meant for you to find her?"
Wil frowns. It's been her default state all afternoon.
"I don't recall anyone who fits the description at services," tapping her staff thoughtfully against the ground, Bethany offers a silvery giggle. Her mood is uncommonly up this evening. "Although, you haven't given me much to work with."
"Blonde and bitch-faced is surprisingly accurate," Anders stands several feet away from the three women in order to avoid Merrill, as if he can catch a case of the blood mage from proximity alone.
"So how smart is it to take three mages with me to meet a priest who has her own pet templar?" Wil examines the door in front of her, which offers direct access to a subterranean apartment in the building across from her own. Without Varric, whose evening is being consumed by last-minute plans for their trip, or Isabela to spot traps, she's being cautious. She sees no wires or triggers from here, and Anders detects no wards. "All right...let's go in. Now remember," she speaks to her sister and Merrill. "This woman is kind of awful...so if she casually insults you, don't take it too personally. When this is over, we can imitate her over ale at the Hanged Man."
Merrill's brows draw in disappointment, "But I don't drink ale. And she can't be that bad...the priest in the alienage is always so nice to me!"
"That's because she knows you're Dalish," Anders speaks as if Merrill might not know it. "She wants you to become a good little Andrastian that can then be ignored like the others."
Wil has the overwhelming urge to hit his shoulder in solidarity...but she fights it for Bethany's sake.
"Follow me," she commands instead and pushes at the door.
The quarters beyond a set of stairs that Wil isn't certain will bear out their purpose for much longer are squalid even for Lowtown; the warped wooden walls are mildewed and a mixture of dust and rat droppings darken the floor. A stench of the undercity wafts between cracks in the floorboards, and Wil can see an entire section is missing on the far back corner.
At the center of the main room is Varnell, his sword drawn and his face twisted in what's supposed to be a fearsome glare. Despite Bethany and Anders tensing behind her, Wil can't take the man seriously.
"Are you from Lowtown yourself?" She waves threat aside. "You've certainly got the hospitality down."
He sneers, but is gestured to stand down by the priest who emerges from the back with precise steps and the expression of one who is offended by the very air.
"It's you," she speaks urgently. "I'm glad you could make it...it's a matter of delicacy and I need someone of limited notoriety who will not link this back to me." Pausing for a moment, the priest is carefully considering how to best phrase the offer. "It is an escort, but you should agree that the nature of the party makes this situation unique."
Should I? Wil frowns...or frowns harder, rather. "Just tell me who and where and let me decide from there, all right?"
"All right," the priest squares her shoulders. "I am Sister Petrice...and this is my burden of charity."
Wil's eyes cut to the back room, expecting...well anything but what presents itself.
"She'va dal," Merrill whispers and despite not knowing what it means, Wil's inclined to agree.
It's a qunari that stands before them, a collared qunari that has been relieved of the inconvenience of its horns, it seems, by having them unevenly sawn away. From the remaining nubs is secured a carved golden mask that is more a cage for its face than anything else. Below that...Wil's skin shrinks at the sight of the thick threads that are woven into its lips, the uneven stitches zagging haphazardly and wearing permanent grooves into the raw flesh around its mouth.
Chains are draped from the high collar to constrict the creature's arms and chafe at the smooth planes of its chest. Even its wrists have been bound, although not shackled, and the cuffs are the same dull gold as the mask, lending the great, grey figure the appearance of a macabre work of statuary...the stillness with which it holds itself only strengthening the impression.
"Would even a cruel templar bind a mage like this?" Petrice gazes up at her prize. "He's survived brutal infighting with their outcasts. I call him Ketojan...it means a bridge between worlds."
What worlds is he supposed to bridge? Wil has so many questions that she grasps onto the one thing she knows for certain...this Ketojan can't be much of a threat if he hasn't thought or attempted to get away from Petrice.
"The Viscount and others would appease the Arishok and give this mage back to its brutal kin, in the name of peace," the sister's selling her position, and fervantly. "He could serve a better purpose...so I want him free. He must be taken out of the city without alerting his people, or being seen with- in my care."
"Mina," Bethany leans forward to whisper in her ear, not giving Wil a chance to refuse or press for more information. "This mage has endured far worse than any fate I've outrun. We must help him."
"I've spoken with the Arishok," Wil's frown deepens as she imagines what cryptic lecture he'd give were he here. "He'll want to-"
"You've had...dealings with their leader?" Petrice's eyes register surprise and Wil can see the scrambling of her thoughts as she weighs this new information. Perhaps she'll excuse Wil due to the fact that her notoriety isn't quite as limited as the average Lowtown thug. "Well...then you know how they see their outcasts, and treat those who step outside of roles. And if he were to harm a known associate, then it would prove that familiarity does not mean safety."
What?
"You know what? Just tell me where I'm taking him and we'll go," Wil speaks before she loses nerve. She's starting to feel distinctly unsafe in this place and fears more what Petrice and her templar can do to her than the qunari. Any of the qunari. This woman and her machinations aside, Wil feels for the bound mage in front of her, although she wonders what sort of life awaits him outside of Kirkwall. She doubts he's received any training outside of blind obedience and unhesitating submission...
"...I bet the chantry hates that they can't handle us the way the qunari handle their mages," Anders had started ranting the moment they'd made it out of Petrice's safehouse and into the tunnel that ran beneath the tenements. They've been picking their way along the sewers for almost an hour, guided by Bethany, her staff used for illumination. Anders holds the rear with Ketojan, both men close behind Wil. Merrill, having turned as green as her favored tunic at the idea of stepping barefoot through the accumulated filth that lined most of their passage, is situated rather comfortably on Wil's back and has spent most of the time tutting away Anders' bitter tirade.
"The Circles serve the purpose they want them to serve," Bethany counters. "What good would it do to...sew our lips closed and turn us into mindless husks?"
Wil shivers at the thought of her sister, of any of the three mages she's with, in such a state and is comforted by the barest hint of a sympathetic tightening of Merrill's thin arms around her shoulders.
"Control...absolute control," Anders spits. "We could be used as weapons without the concern that we'll turn on our captors once the battle is done."
"But the qunari see themselves differently...right?" It's difficult to speak with Merrill on her, but Wil manages. "It's why forced tranquility is supposed to be a last resort, and why mages are given a closed society in which they have some choices-"
"Choices?" He doesn't let her get any further. "I suppose chicken or beef is a choice, or face or stomach. I wasn't even allowed to choose what school I studied...as soon as the First Enchanter found out I had a gift for healing, he 'encouraged' me away from my entropy courses."
"You didn't want to be a healer?" She recalls the night she'd cared for him in his delirium, how disdainfully he spoke of his clinic and patients and the disappointment she'd felt upon realizing that the man she called Anders might not be entirely Anders.
He snorts. "Tell me what would seem more interesting to a teenage boy, studying herbology and poking at dead rats for anatomy lessons or summoning deadly mists and learning how to give people nightmares?"
Point made. "I'd go with destructo magic, myself," Wil nods towards her sword, which is sheathed on Bethany's back. "Clearly more my speed."
"Oh, once Senior Enchanter Wynne told me that healers are more in demand outside of the Circle, I wanted nothing more than to be the best damned healer in Thedas," his tone is bemused. "I can't say that it's not paying off now...as long as I pretend that healing and a few minor spells of convenience are all I can do, the refugees feel safe enough around me."
There's something in the way he says pretend that triggers an alarm, but Wil's unable to act on it before Bethany is halting them.
"Voices," she points to an opening at her right. Beyond is a cavernous room spotted with small tent clusters, all centered around smoldering fires that have turned the walls and ceiling sooty.
"This is where we're headed," Wil finds a clear spot to set Merrill down and accepts her sword back. They've encountered only a few large spiders on their way through, easily handled by Beth and Anders, but there's likely a thief or two ahead. "Let's keep to the center of the room...away from the camps. I'd rather avoid engaging anyone if we can help it."
Fortunately it's late enough that most are asleep, bags of bones curled up on their beds of dirty straw that are only half covered in mildewed scraps salvaged from the world above. Those that remain awake watch wearily as Wil and her companions pass, exhaustion or delirium or drunkenness making them disinterested in the shuffling qunari that they escort.
But it's too much to hope that they get out without incident, a band of shabbily armored men are clustered near the entrance to the tunnel that should take them out to the coast. They watch Wil's approach with idol curiosity until they notice Ketojan. It's a subtle show of panic, their hands inching towards iron daggers and their heads raising in re-assessment.
Their leader greets Wil with a leer, his approach clear.
"So predictable...the undercity has no shortage of fools with coin wandering around," his eyes wonder down her armor. His intent is not lascivious, but practical. "Are you lost, love, or are you looking for trouble?"
Wil's hard-eyed silence is answer enough. His attention moves to Ketojan.
"What's this thing? Collared like a dog lord's bitch," he glances at Wil. "Are you a qunari lover, sweetheart? Maybe I should get rid of you, see how much coin I can get for your pet."
He takes a casual step forward and is greeted by Ketojan's chest and a remarkably threatening gurgle that issues from the qunari's sewn lips.
"Uh," another bandit speaks up, hesitant. "I don't think he likes you threatening his master...maybe we should let this one pass."
Wil casts him a tight smile. "You're smart...what exactly are you doing with this guy?"
The first man has had enough, his hand going for a dagger at his belt, "You think you can come into my city and buy up everything from beneath us, running decent Kirkwallers like me into the sewers." The blade gleams at Wil's throat, "Well I've got something to tell you, princess, if you-"
Ketojan interrupts the bandit, permanently, via a blast of energy that explodes from his hands and results in a flailing body impacting the far wall of the sewer before it crumples into the muck on the cavern floor.
His remaining men are momentarily rooted, staring between their fallen leader and Wil's crew. Ketojan remains bathed in something like white fire that dances and coils over his skin. Behind them she can smell the magic of her companions being primed. Warm grass, ozone and freshly crushed mint.
It's too much for the bandits, the smart one raising his hands in defeat and they flee before any more of them can be flung or struck down by lightning or set on fire.
"That went better than I expected," Wil swoops down to pick up the dagger dropped when Ketojan had struck the leader. Shoving the prize into her belt, she eyes her parcel, who has stopped flaming and remains stoic beneath her gaze. "Did you attack that man because he threatened your lead?"
garrgheble
"I'm assuming that means yes," she presses her fingers against her forehead when he responds with more phlegmy noises. "I wonder how much of this is instinct...a willingness to follow and protect whoever is in charge of him."
grruggleblrgh
She beats down laughter, the madness of her situation and the horribleness of his catching at her. Of all the things she'd been expecting this afternoon, when she'd been eating her mother's cookies with Merrill and Beth and debating whether or not she should even help Petrice, aiding a qunari mage to freedom had definitely not crossed her mind. Even after her numerous dealings with them in recent days, and having seen their compound and spoken with their Arishok, they are a mystery to her. What she does know is that everything she says is turned against her as proof that she is floundering, desperate for a role and salvation from the uncertainty and stinking Void that is life in Kirkwall. But if this is what they're offering?
"All right, we're getting out of here before anyone else tries to steal you," she turns to go just as Ketojan garbles a response and this time it's tears she fights as they burn her eyes with the unfairness of it all.
Once again she's surrounded by dead qunari, only these were not Tal'vashoth. These were followers of the Qun, and a trap that must have been carefully laid by Petrice and her ilk.
"Something for me to remember...the qunari take mages seriously," Wil glances over to where Merrill and Bethany are picking over the fallen Arvaraad. Anders is holding the strange golden rod that had been used to disable Ketojan when the qunari had attacked them, and he hands it to Wil as if it's fashioned from glass and not solid metal.
"Who knows what'll happen if it breaks," his eyes dart to the qunari mage...saarebas in their tongue. "What do you plan on doing with him now? He can't be returned to the Arishok...if they were willing to attack us just for being unbound mages, I can't imagine what they'd do to him if they knew he'd been in our company."
She sighs, her grip tightening on the rod and it's enough to break the bonds that have kept Ketojan on his hands and knees. Carefully he lumbers up, stretching while he does as if he's been held far longer than the fight had lasted.
"I am...unbound," his voice is dry and every syllable uttered is a fight won. But he pushes on, much to her shock. "Odd...wrong. But you deserve honor. You are now basvaarad, worthy of following." He gazes down at Wil, his eyes gleaming beyond the warped holes carved into his mask. "I thank your intent, even if it was...wrong. I know...you know. I must return as demanded. It is the wisdom...," he stares at the coast ahead. "It is the wisdom of the Qun."
Of course it is. She wishes she could fling the damn rod into the sea, then grab Ketojan by the shoulders and shake him, as much like trying to shake down an actual stone wall as it would be. Instead she frowns up at him. "Well, that's gratitude. I fought so you could go die anyway?" She sighs, dramatic and put upon.
"No. I commit to the most difficult choice: the truth of the Qun," he insists, managing to say it without faltering even though Wil can practically hear the blood on the words, from his parched, underused throat and his lips as they pull against their stitches.
"But what if it's wrong? What if you're just...punishing yourself for nothing?" She attempts to follow him as he strides toward the shore, his movements full of new purpose. The difference in their size makes her feel as if she's a child again, skipping after her father.
"You're walking too fast for me, Mal," she chirps his grown up name and grabs for the hand that swings freely at his side, the other clinging to the golden staff he carries propped against his shoulder.
He smiles down at her and allows himself to be caught. "Only because I know this road so well, Mina. But I should be more cautious...no path is without its dangers, even those as familiar as our own names."
"Many say that, before they know certainty," he stops and looks back, his expression sympathetic for her, even though it's his end they discuss.
"Could you have returned if, I'd let those others live? If I'd...surrendered or not pushed on the mage thing?"
"No."
She stops, the reality of his situation hitting with sudden and heartbreaking clarity. "You mean that you were doomed from the start?"
"I was outside my karataam, my role," he explains, patient. "I may be corrupted...I cannot know for certain, I cannot trust myself to know." His gaze returns to the dark water; it seems he finds peace in how it glimmers in the harsh moonlight. "There is one thing I do know...how I return is my choice."
Anders has been trailing them, probably out of curiosity. This is, after all, a glimpse into a fate that could have been his own. Apparently he is less moved by Ketojan's plight than she. "Of all the ridiculous, spineless, mind-controlled, senseless piece of shit arguments I've ever heard!" He grabs her shoulder. "Are you going to let it go at that?"
His eyes search hers, looking perhaps into another time or place when he might be uncertain or corrupted beyond his ability to reason. He's an abomination, after all, one that can't even trust himself with intimacy for fear of losing control.
What would she do for him? Would I become your certainty? Her heart twists painfully beneath her breast, a far more visceral reaction than she should be having and unshed tears make her brow ache. Or would I let you choose your own way, as painful as it might be for the both of us?
Without looking, Ketojan senses the struggle within Anders. "What comfort has freedom brought you, mage? You would have more if you submitted to the Qun."
Amber eyes darken to black and then dart away from Wil's. She wants to grab his chin, to force him to take back the dire thoughts he's given her, and to explain how something so unlikely and abstract can break her like a bone.
Instead, she goes cold. She cannot control the saarebas any more than she could control Anders and she wants them unlinked in her mind. "My job ended when we exited the city," job stings her throat on its way out, as if it's barbed in her feigned apathy. "The rest is up to you."
The ghost of a smile etches lines along the edges of Ketojan's mouth as he speaks the words she should have realized were coming. "You know of certainty and borders. You are closer to the qunari than you admit. Your role would change little under the Qun." One hand reaches awkwardly into his collar and emerges with an amulet, a jagged thing of stark beauty that is solid, disconcerting and spans the width of Wil's palm when she accepts it. "Take this secret thing, basvaarad, and remember this."
And, as if to ensure that she can never forget, he takes three large strides forward before consuming himself in flames, a pillar of magic against the night sky that smells of...
death. Simple, pointless, inevitable death.
Behind her, Merrill lets out a startled cry and Bethany's there to comfort her. Anders is already cursing Petrice, urging Wil to confront her for so obviously setting them up.
And she will...although her anger at the sister is so diluted now by a grief she barely understands, and her grief tainted by anger, that nothing seems real except the secret thing in her hand and the smoldering corpse of Ketojan, a bridge between worlds.
"Leave nothing," Petrice speaks urgently to Varnell as he gathers the few comforts they must have extended to the qunari during his stay with them. "It must be clean with no ties. And hurry, we have to be out of here before..."
She stops when she sees Wil lounging in the doorway between the main room and the sleeping quarters. Wil cocks one eyebrow, a cheeky gesture at odds with the cold rage in her eyes.
"Hawke?" Petrice smiles, and her face looks as if it might break. "It was Hawke, right? From the streets?"
"From the streets?" Anders echoes in disbelief, promptly ignored.
"You...took the qunari from the city?" Her forehead crumples in confusion, a split second where the mask almost slips. "Without...incident?"
Bethany steps forward, her staff striking the floor next to Wil's feet. "Don't pretend, sister," she loads the title with betrayed accusation. "You know what we faced."
"Mind your tongue, Fereldan," eyes narrowed, Varnell tries to intimidate the younger woman until Wil takes a threatening step forward, all pretense of amusement gone and nothing left but the rage and the you will not treat my sister the way that you treat me.
"We'll do whatever we damn well please with our tongues," Wil is cool despite. "I just want to know what you hoped to accomplish, exactly. Your Ketojan is dead...he killed himself rather than be free."
A scowl contorts Petrice's lips for the briefest of moments then dies so that she can respond with fake sincerity, "I had assumed he wanted to escape, just as I would." She frowns, and this is real...she doesn't understand why it matters. "My pity is genuine, but they are not like us."
"There is no us," Wil asserts. "There's me, my sister and our friends...and there's you, who would not hesitate to sacrifice us for your...whatever it is you think you're doing." She can't control the jagged edge of disgust in her voice, "What you probably think you're justified in doing."
"Whether you believe it or not, I wished you no harm," Petrice uncoils, her tone patronizing and her shoulders lowering. "That might have been useful for someone, but still regrettable. A massacre of citizens protecting a slave might have forced the Chantry to doubt appeasement, to see the Qunari for the monsters they are-"
"They're not the only monsters in Kirkwall," Anders rushes in to fill the pause in Petrice's careful reconstruction of the trap she'd set, his voice aching to make his point. "And yet you do nothing about their abuses."
The sister continues nonplussed, her explanation weaving itself around a casually poisonous core and she just does not get it. "Perhaps finding the mage was a...rushed opportunity. If such a plot existed, I see how it might be...disagreeable to you."
Disagreeable?
"Quite the contrary," Wil's arms go out as if to embrace Petrice's mad logic. "I'd find dying for a woman I loathe, on behalf of a cause I don't agree with that's to preserve an institution that I care tits all for fantastically agreeable. Only a crazy person would not want to give their life in pursuit of such glory."
Petrice's eyes are midnight slits, empty of anything but her own dogged obsession. "If a member of the Chantry admitted instigation, I have no doubt it would result in more appeasement." As if appeasement is the worst thing in the world. "But an accusation from a Lowtown thug? You are hardly that important." She shrugs it off.
Wil's arms cross her chest and makes a very Aveline face, her spine seeming to expand by three inches and become something like steel.
The eyes unarrow; they widen, in fact. Panicked. She's trying to backtrack and only makes it worse..."That's not an insult- it's why I chose you. Rest assured that excuses, real or imagined, are not for your benefit."
You bitch. The urge to laugh seizes at Wil, all fight gone in the face of such...is there even a word for this? I'd label it crazy, but if I keep doing that, crazy will start to lose all meaning.
"You used us...preyed on my willingness to help someone who might need it," Wil won't stoop to Petrice's level any longer, she won't mock or accuse, but... "I won't forget this."
This is what angers the sister the most, the idea that the messy hoodrat in front of her will ever be in a place to hold her accountable. Her lips fall into a sneer as she pulls out a burlap pouch and flings it at Wil's chest. "Take your coin. Disappear back into Lowtown. Go ahead and pretend that you did this for the right reasons, but I know what you are, Hawke. I know what you really want." Her eyes drop to where Wil is clutching the coinpurse to her heart, which is all the confirmation she needs. "Rest assured I will not make the mistake of looking for help outside the faithful again. The stakes, eternity, are just too high."
She and Varnell leave, unconcerned with the state of the safehouse because who the fuck cares, anyway? This is Lowtown, after all, and the four filthy people they leave behind are heretics, low-lifes and nobody who can stand against them.
Speechlessly, Wil hands Anders the bag and he accepts it as a donation to his clinic. She has no plans of disappearing, into Lowtown or even Kirkwall itself. The Hawke women will reclaim their birthright in Hightown, and Bethany will be protected by more than just her sister's blade.
But they'll do it without Petrice's tainted coin. It can find redemption in healing the poor, and Wil can cleanse herself of this association for as long as the sister keeps to herself. Which, admittedly, doesn't seem like a peace that can last.
"She's going to be trouble," Merrill muses.
It's truth, but next time Wil won't be so easily played.
Note from SF: Ugh, long chapter is looooooong but I had a few awkward scenes that couldn't really go anywhere else, and Shepherding Wolves is my favorite non-companion quest in the game. And Petrice is well-written enough that I didn't want to omit a single, horrible detail!
Another note- this takes place immediately after the events of Cheeky, which is a short written and included in my one-shot collection As Is. If you want cute, conflicted and naked Anders, and haven't checked it out already, then you should. Not that I'm biased or anything...
Also, a quick thanks! to everyone for reading and reviewing!