The chill morning air bit into Kalya's chapped hands. She perched, birdlike, on the rooftop several stories above the Spotted Pig, with a perfect, if not slightly obscured, view of her stolen apartment's front door. Her stomach lurched as she forced a bite into a hardened heel of bread nicked from a cart in the square below. The water she'd downed after lovemaking hadn't done enough to quell the hangover slowly rising from dull discomfort to throbbing torment.
She rubbed bleariness from her eyes. Sick as she felt, it would take more than a headache to quiet the warm afterglow from the events of the evening. A tickle fluttered in her stomach every time a sexy snippet drifted back into memory. It probably should have felt weirder than it did to sit crouched on the shaky tiles of the run-down building across the way, instead of tangled up in a morning-after embrace, but she had to get out of there.
Doubting Zevran was the type to make breakfast and small talk, she'd robbed him of the satisfaction of tip-toeing away in the early hours by slinking out of her own bed to avoid any post-coital awkwardness. In fact, she imagined he'd appreciate the favor, if their paths ever crossed again, which she doubted greatly. She'd never before seen him at the Pearl; he was likely just passing through Denerim. Mmm, the Pearl. Damn, she was thirsty.
Her heart leapt to her throat when her wooden apartment door opened, and she crouched tighter behind a jutting chimney. The elf casually took stock of his surroundings. When he seemed sure no nosy neighbors looked on, his hand slipped around the door to lock it from the inside before pulling it shut. That was nice of him.
Zevran twisted his neck left and right, lifting his arms over his head in a great stretch before doubling over to pop his back. His perfect butt flexed in the air a beat too long. Kalya rolled her eyes. He could have done that inside if he were so worried about anyone looking on. No matter. Any neighbors who would have a hint of caring were off to their serving duties already.
Kalya chomped on the stale bread as she looked out over the city. The familiar temptation to simply slip back into bed and sleep the day away teased through her impulses, but discipline would win out over pain as it did every day. Thankfully. She'd give the elf a quarter of an hour's leave from her apartment, just in case he realized he'd left something behind.
"Appreciating the view?" The cocky Antivan lilt behind Kalya startled her enough to drop her bread, and it skittered down the shingles and off the roof. A strong grip snapped out to steady her elbow, and she wrenched free, angry both that he'd scared her to death and that he thought she needed his help.
"The view of the city, that is – although if you enjoyed my stretchings, I can show you my favorite positions. They were meant for you, after all."
Kalya hid all expression. "You knew I was watching you," she said, voice as skeptical as her headache would allow.
"Oh, to be sure. I had hoped you were up here to ensure my safe passage from any jilted suitors I may have needed to fight off. Though… one does wonder what you'd have done at such a distance."
"Hope your ego's as good a shield as it is a crutch?"
Zevran's smile faltered only millimeters, almost unnoticeable, but the spark of good-natured jest disappeared from his eyes. Guilt wrapped her chest.
"I'm sorry. You just… caught me off guard."
Warmth instantly flooded back to his features with a wide grin. My, he was mercurial.
"The offer from last night still stands, you know."
Oh, Maker, what offer? She recalled begging, pleading, supplicating, but all had been granted. Over and over.
Zevran's grin curled into a smirk. "Training, mia cara. The Drunken Orlesian fighting style, among others. How to keep dashingly handsome rogues from scaring you on rooftops, even while hungover. Even while basking in the afterglow…"
Kalya cracked a smile despite herself.
Riordan's training had gotten her far, but she felt the gaps in life-or-death combat. And the elf had certainly proven his competence in a fight – while armed with a crossbow, at least. Still, was this just an overture to… something? She needed neither a lover nor a friend. Nor a replacement mentor, she thought with a pang of sadness. But it was true that her forms had gotten a bit stale. Her skill and competence had hit a wall that she'd been fine to live with, until last night.
"We'll see."
"That's not a no." Zevran winked, then jumped backwards off the roof, catching himself expertly on the edge before squirreling back down to ground level.
:::
Kalya's morning routine wasn't as painful as it was exhausting. The pain she was used to. Blood pumping through her limbs, reverberating through her body and flushing her cheeks invigorated her, even under the dull ache of a hangover. Fatigue was new, but surges of adrenaline accompanying memories of her brush with death and the exertions afterwards kept her wide awake.
When she finally felt sufficient penitence in her weary muscles, she shrugged into a thick hood and made her way through the streets of Denerim. Chirping voices trilling through the markets didn't help her throbbing head, but every few hours, a warm reminder of her evening leaked into her smalls, carnal and earthy and erotic all at once.
Pickpocketing was always more difficult in the wintery months. The wise kept their fat purses hidden underneath several layers, but that made for better sport. One female noble sensed Kalya lingering too long after bumping into her in a crowd and whipped around with a sneer, but it was too late. Kalya had ducked into the bustle and zigzagged through hordes of people shopping for Satinalia gifts before disappearing down a dark alley. Once she was sure no one had followed, she brandished her spoils. Nearly 50 silver. Not bad.
Try as she might to keep her self-imposed promise of visiting the Pearl only after sundown, the pull of the soothing elixirs within had her bellying up at the first hint of dusk. She knew at some point, she would need to break down and purchase a potion to properly fix her broken hand. Until then, Dwarven Ale would do the trick. The thought of Antivan Whiskey made her feel a bit green.
The night passed as any other, she noted, as mugs accumulated at the edge of her booth. If patrons noticed her scowls were softened, less intimidating than usual, they blessedly didn't take advantage of her good spirits. The barkeep couldn't hide a knowing smirk when serving her the ales, which she met with rolled eyes and a nicer tip than usual, care of both her mood and the sneering noble in the markets.
The quiet was a relief. She had half expected the Pearl to be crawling with guards from the Arl's estate, or, at the very least, to find the savvier Johns a bit jumpy. But either word hadn't gotten out, or what trouble soldiers got into on their own time was theirs to expend.
Finally, when the pain in Kalya's head and hand had quieted sufficiently and she could no longer pry her eyes open, she nodded to the bartender and stumbled out the front door, headed for home.
The night seemed too still, too quiet. She attributed the weirdness to never having left the tavern this early in the night – just hours after midnight – but something in the air gave her pause. She stood, swaying slightly in the moonlight, ears pricked for any hint of movement, hearing none.
It must have rained after nightfall, because the street was slick with shining wetness. A soft, foreign plink echoed from a dead end ahead to Kalya's right. As she squinted around the corner, she found no ominous shapes hidden in the shadows, no cat making its rounds at night. A dripping roof, perhaps? Now she was just being paranoid.
When she turned to make her way towards her apartment, a heavy forearm crashed into her chest, knocking her backward into the building. A thick sack crashed around her head, and a pair of heavy hands jerked her forward by the shoulders. Stumbling on the slick ground, Kalya threw out her arms reflexively to steady herself rather than fight back, and her attacker clapped them together, binding them quickly together with a length of rope. Her shouts muffled even within the heavy sack. No one would hear.
The heavy hands spun her around and dragged her backwards, kicking and struggling, until a heavy pommel crashed down on her head. In the suffocating blackness, her last conscious sensation was crumpling weightlessly onto the slick cobblestones.
:::
Alistair could sense his surroundings even before his eyes opened. Cold and dank and… echo-y. Cloudy guesses as to where he was ghosted through his mind, but none took hold. A dungeon? A mountain cave? No…
Then came the wash of pain. Clamping his eyes tighter with a moan, every inch of his body pulsed with agony. Individual vertebrae stung under his weight, hard balls that tensed every limb. Fresh trickles of blood warmed over his forehead and arms in rivulets when he attempted to writhe to a more comfortable position that didn't exist.
"Maker, he's actually alive," Elissa's hard voice echoed through the cavernous Deep Roads. She rushed to Alistair's side as his eyes fluttered open. "Morrigan, can you help?"
He flopped his head to the left to take stock of his surroundings. That was generally a poor decision, and he hissed with the sting of pain.
"As I said, it's him or the dog." The witch didn't even turn around, but Alistair saw her arms circling weakly over a dark mass, crumpled but breathing between some boulders. Flickering blue light emanated from her fingertips, making her skin look paler than usual.
The walls of the cavernous alcove were littered with cobwebs and slicked with something sickly pink that turned his stomach. Something familiar and terrible.
Before memory could come crashing back, clacking footsteps echoed from the corridor, frantic in their approach. Alistair tensed and then groaned in agony as Leliana appeared in the opening, breathless.
"I've found some," she said, holding up a dreary tangle of plant life. "It's not much, but…"
"It'll do," Elissa said. "It's… for him now."
The bard rushed to the slab where Alistair lay broken and procured a small ceramic mortar and pestle from her leather pouch. With a flourish, she crushed the dripping elfroot into a weak paste.
Alistair gulped and croaked, "Where…?" before a hitch in his lungs stole the breath from his speech, and he writhed in the crushing pain. Leliana nearly jumped out of her skin, eyes wide and wild. Apparently, she hadn't noticed he'd awoken.
"Don't try to move," said Elissa, fumbling in her own pouch for a distillation agent. "Now that you're up, we can… Just don't try to move."
The poultice was ready minutes later. Elissa dipped two fingers into the mortar and rubbed the mixture across his slick forehead.
"Get his pauldrons," she ordered, and Leliana began frantically unlacing the armor from his shoulders with wet eyes.
With easier access to his aching chest, Elissa slipped her fingers under his breastplate and applied the potion to where he was currently aching the most. Well, the most, tied with about thirty other places on his body.
It did its job well. Sinewy warmth worked its way through his torso. Herbal poultices like this one always brought the sensation of tendrils hardening around his bones, setting them slowly into place while oozing a pollen cloud of numbness to his aching and torn muscles.
Alistair heard before he saw Morrigan crumple on the floor in front of them. Leliana rushed to her side and gently worked a flask of Lyrium potion between her chapped lips until she roused.
Just then, the horrible song rose in his ears – tantalizing and abhorrent. Elissa sensed it too. She bolted upright, curling fingers around her broadsword. The women whipped around to see what brought her to her feet a moment before they too heard the approaching darkspawn horde.
Elissa turned to Alistair, forehead creased with something that could have been pity.
"If anything makes its way in here, just… look dead."
He blinked twice in response, prostrate on the cold slab.
"Um, yeah, that's good," she said.
Spinning on her heel, Elissa advanced out of the alcove, followed by the two limping women, toward the slavering horde getting ever closer. Alistair squeezed his eyes closed and gulped hard as the potion coiled blessedly tighter around his limbs.