In which Margo learns something new about her body's past, the team splinters, and we return to Haven.
"Walk me through this shite again, Spindly." Sera doodles with the tip of her arrow in the powdery red dirt.
Margo sighs quietly. Ever since she shared the basics of her new intel about the state of things in Haven, they've been dawdling, taking every opportunity to slow their progression through the Frostbacks. Sometimes, the pauses are pleasant. Taking an extra half an hour to warm their lunch rations as opposed to wolfing them down on the go is pleasant. Boiling tea from the more innocuous local flora that Margo now easily identifies and collects, almost on autopilot, is pleasant.
Picking a fight with every hostile-minded critter is less so, but it gives her the opportunity to test Molly in the field. De Chevin sticks to her like toilet paper to a shoe, watching her every move in battle with hawking attention, and — she'll give him this — providing a kind of safety buffer against her steadily decreasing blunders. Working with Molly has made things infinitely easier, especially when Margo manages to ignore the bloodthirsty head-chatter. The fact that the dagger might be semi-sentient is something Margo is not at all ready to examine.
She watches Ser Lancelot the Hygienically Minded clean the blood off his armor in a nearby stream, vapor billowing away from him in the brisk mountain air. He is far enough down the small south-facing ravine they have chosen as their resting spot that he would not overhear a quiet conversation. Margo has been circumspect with how much she reveals about the mess that awaits them. And she has been completely tight-lipped about Evie's exact status, or what she is beginning to suspect might be the nature of the young woman's magic. What de Chevin knows, Ishmael can find out. So her truncated story sounded rather unconvincing, but Ser Lancelot the Surprisingly Perceptive just gave her a long, heavy look, then let out an almost imperceptible sigh accompanied by a small nod. And didn't push the matter further or ask questions.
Margo looks at Sera — and at the two little vertical wrinkles that have set up camp between the archer's eyebrows. They're a new, unsettling development.
"All right. There's more to it." After she is done with the more expanded version of the story — the one that includes the inconvenient fact that Evie appears to be an untrained mage without much control over her abilities or state of mind — Sera stabs her arrow into the center of her abstract yet vaguely obscene sketch and lets out an exasperated growl.
"Shity shite. All right. Gotta ask. You know this because you talked to Elfy? In a dream ? You're sure it's true, then?"
Margo nods once and does not elaborate.
"Uh-huh." Sera's tone takes on a teasing edge, the more familiar affect a relief as far as Margo is concerned. A worried Sera makes her anxious. "I mean, you wanna let Old, Long, Bald, and Ugly poke around in... places — grand, have fun. No accounting for taste, yeah? But couldn't you just do it regular-like? Letting him into your head too, well, that's a bit too close, innit? Just sayin'."
Margo redirects the impulse to embark on the path of flustered denial and settles for a noncommittal shrug instead. "Sera, why do you dislike Solas so much?"
Sera retrieves the arrow and begins to smooth out her doodle with the tip of her boot. "Other than he's an arse, you mean? Guess... just the type he is."
"What type is that?"
Sera mulls over her answer. "The type that'd sell you out for some stupid cause. Feed you a fancypants apology for your trouble while he guts you, too."
Margo opens her mouth to protest. And then closes it. It's not that she thinks that Sera's right , per se. But... There is something there. The indefinable revolutionary edge, the iconoclasm. Hard to articulate what it is, exactly. She stares into the flames of their small campfire, thinking. It is strange to hear Sera indirectly confirm her own impression — and Margo would be a poor historian indeed if she didn't pay attention to the implications. It is a general affliction of the revolutionary type, this blindness to collateral damage that Sera describes. Can't have the charisma without the ruthlessness.
She changes the subject. "What do you want to do about Evie?" Margo uses the sleeve of her coat to grab the simmering travel pot off the fire and pours its contents into three tin mugs. She hands one to Sera. "We're going to stumble back into a political meat grinder, by the looks of it."
Sera shrugs. "Gotta pick your battles, yeah? Untrained mages — bad for morale, sure. Weird luck suck — really bad for morale. But I mean, magic — creepy shite by the by, right? See, that's why I like arrows. But it's Evie we're talking about. She glows . That's the main of it. None of the others glow, 's'far as I noticed. And she maybe cares a little — like cares cares, doesn't just give you that oily, squinty arse-purse face that all the hoity-toity nobs like to do when they want you to think they give a flying shite about the little people."
Margo huddles around her cup. Her eyes drift to the jagged dip of the mountain pass on the other side of the valley. One more range — a day-and-a-half journey if they really drag their feet — and they'll be able to see Haven.
"I guess she's safer in the dungeon than out in the town. Especially with all those Chantry folk and the templars running around," Margo muses. The silver lining feels thin indeed.
"Pillocks, the bunch," Sera summarizes. "See, this how it is, yeah? I didn't join the 'Quisition for the fancy title. Joined for the Herald. Rest can hold on to their arses and jump off a cliff for all I care. I'm not leaving her in there to get turned into one of those Tranquil. Ugh."
"We'd do well to have some kind of contingency plan. And we shouldn't drag de Chevin into it, either. It's not his mess." What Margo really wants to say is that if she traipses back into Haven, Torquemada will very likely kill her — and make the life of whoever is associated with her miserable. Whatever Margo might think of Ser Lancelot the Sometimes Irritatingly Pompous, she's not about to drag him into the classic power vacuum of the interregnum that seems to be gripping the Inquisition.
"We could bust Evie out! And sneak her away!" Sera's expression clears, and she bursts into one of her contagious belly laughs. "Can you imagine the look on Leli's face? Or Cullen and Josie for that matter"
Margo chuckles, but shakes her head. "Evie won't make it on her own. She needs the Inquisition, and the Inquisition needs her. She'll need the training, the resources, and someone to do the political maneuvering. And they need the Herald of Andraste. At least for now."
"You think like a politician, Spindly. Or a bard. Too friggin' serious for your own breeches, you lot." Sera looks up, and Margo is relieved to see her slightly wicked grin. "All right. Way I see it, we just need to get Evie back to normal, yeah? Then everything can go back to how it was, Evie can close the Breach, everyone calms down. Sitting in a dungeon — that won't make you feel normal, will it? So, first things. Let's send Knighty on his way — if we can unglue him from your heels, yeah? Gonna make sure we have a cache waiting for us outside of Haven, if we need to scarper. Then we go in, get Evie out, and get everything back to how it was."
Margo cocks an eyebrow. "I think your plan is maybe skipping a couple of steps."
"That's because plans never work out how they're supposed to," Sera shrugs. "What's the point of all that planning if it's all gonna go tits-up anyway? Not that I mind tits up. Just not for plans. Do plans have tits? They really should."
"That is a question best discussed with Warden Blackwall," Margo responds, a little distractedly. From where they sit, the Breach is plainly visible. It feels... restless, somehow, its swirling depths pulling her gaze. She forces herself to look away.
They set up their evening camp in a small cave near the mountain pass, after dispatching a few prowling necroslugs — or shades, as they are rather blandly labeled in the local parlance. By this point in their journey, they've fallen into a comfortable fighting rhythm. The sensation is unfamiliar, but not unpleasant. Ser Lancelot the Efficiently Murderous serves as their vanguard, Sera works from a distance, and Margo occupies the ecological niche of picking off the weakest links. By the second day, Sera managed to drag de Chevin into a competition over how many enemies each has killed, and she goads him until he bristles indignantly over the archer's rather liberal arithmetic. Margo tries to stay out of it but is called upon on occasion to be an impartial arbiter.
After they finish their simple dinner of goat meat charred over embers, Sera climbs into her bedroll, and it is not long before Margo can hear quiet snoring. De Chevin drew second shift for the second night in a row, so she expects him to go off to sleep as well — or rather, to stare at the cave ceiling in avoidance of the things that stalk him when he closes his eyes — but he lingers by the fire, sword and whetstone in hand. He seems to be approaching the task of sharpening his blade with none of his usual meticulousness. Margo casts him a puzzled look over her own routine chore of pulverizing elfroot for a fresh batch of healing potions.
Ser Lancelot the Burdened by Heavy Thoughts sighs and lifts his gaze from the long-suffering blade. "The offer remains, my lady. Come with me." When Margo doesn't respond, he chews on his lower lip in apparent indecision and, to give himself something to do, pokes the fire with a stick to vent the embers. The acrid smoke, equal measures craggy wood and dry goat dung, is sucked up a narrow chute in the ceiling — an unexpected convenience that makes Margo conclude that the cave is at least partially man-made. She waits for the knight to complete his utterance. "You are prudent to be sparing with your explanations. But I have played The Game for long enough to understand the political riptides that are threatening to tear your organization apart. I... Ah. Worry that such currents are not merciful to those caught in them."
Margo cocks her head, trying to untangle the complicated emotional response that Lancelot the Conflicted seems to have to her. Well. She might as well just cut to the chase and ask him directly. There might not be future occasions to do so, and maybe she will learn something relevant about Maile in the process. Something that might help her understand the other woman better.
"I have some questions, Ser Knight."
"Please. Just... Michel."
Margo nods, a bit reluctantly. "Michel." She sighs. Well, no time like the present. "I told you that I have lost my memory. If you want me to consider going with you, I need to know more. What's your relation to Imshael? And how do I fit into the story? If he uses me to torment you, then there must be a reason, and it would help me if I could understand what it is."
He says nothing for a long time. When he finally begins to talk, his words are hesitant. And then, at length, the story tumbles out of him, initially with audible omissions that Margo could easily identify even without the historian's habit of reading between the lines: the periodic light blush on his cheeks gives them away. As the narrative progresses, he gradually forgets to edit out the less flattering parts. Or perhaps decides not to.
She listens, fascinated. The tale of the knight's fall from grace is eye-opening on a number of subjects: Orlais and its politics; the status of the elves, both Dalish and those confined to alienages; the rigid hierarchies of her new world. And, incidentally, on bards. She learns of Empress Celene and Briala; of Gaspard de Chalons and his ambitions to gain the throne; of the Dalish clans and of the bloody massacres of city elves at the hands of the chevaliers. The story of the strange elven mage called Felassan catches her ear, sinking like an irritating little splinter into the back of her mind. The scholar in her shifts in giddy restlessness at the thought of learning more about the ancient elves and their culture, and of the historical and archaeological record they left behind.
As de Chevin stumbles down his narrative path, his face takes on a grim cast, and, with a jolt of sudden understanding, Margo finally identifies the defining tonality of the knight's affect. The central emotion that seems to power him is profound and utter self-loathing.
"It wasn't your fault, you know," Margo says once silence falls over them. "Imshael tricked you."
"That my releasing the demon was not intentional does not make me any less responsible."
When he finally arrives to the portion of his story that intersects with Maile's — delivered through clenched teeth and a painful blush — Margo feels neither surprise nor unease, just a kind of abstract, resigned understanding. By this point, de Chevin has reached the emotional nadir of his confession, the moment where the pretenses of making oneself look better are finally stripped away.
It is, in many ways, a familiar story — a man stumbling after his goal in blind self-recrimination, recklessly testing the limits of his exile and disgrace. He had, de Chevin explains, no business going to that part of Orlais, let alone into an alienage tavern. A woman caught his eye — or, rather, as Margo infers from his downcast, miserable expression, caught the edge of that irritable, angry lust that comes from a mixture of too much alcohol and too much self-hatred. The woman was in her element — laughing and joking, singing vaguely lewd and politically inappropriate chanties with a few of the other patrons. But there was a desperate note to her that, Margo guesses, must have snagged on the disgraced knight's own chaotic mood like a fishhook. Margo is inclined to take de Chevin's characterization of Maile at face value: she remembers the abrasive scrape of her host's jagged edges against her own consciousness from the reconstructed memories.
De Chevin, shamefaced and brutally candid, summarizes tersely how he propositioned her. And how, when she refused him with a laugh, he shoved money at her, in an effort to salvage his wounded pride and recast her rejection as pecuniary bargaining.
The denouement of the story is not quite what Margo expects. That evening, the tavern was raided by chevaliers, who, it turned out, were de Chevin's former order. In an odd twist of fate he found himself on the wrong end of his erstwhile colleagues' swords, and he fought them alongside the elven rogue he had insulted earlier. The two of them rescued the patrons caught in the crossfire, and, before reinforcements came, the elven woman helped him escape.
"Did we... What happened next?" Margo asks, on the edge of her metaphorical seat by then, because once de Chevin stops bothering with feeling mortified, he turns out to be an engaging if wryly self-deprecating narrator.
"I was wounded. You could have simply abandoned me to my fate — but you did not. We spent the next day hiding out in a larder — a fishmonger acquaintance of yours agreed to conceal us. To this day I feel rather conflicted over the smell of pickled fish. To pass the time, you told me about pursuing bardic training. And I, still set on my appallingly rude trajectory, told you that you would not survive it." He stares at his hands. "For what it is worth, I meant it as a warning, not as an insult. But no, we never... Ahem. As I said, you had sent me to the Void on that particular subject. Which was quite a bit more gracious of you than what I deserved. And by the time the drink wore off..."
"You thought better than to proposition again," Margo finishes for him with a sly grin.
He chuckles. "My lady, I am without a doubt a bastard, though I strive not to be that kind." His expression turns contrite. "This is how I knew your story of memory loss was true. You baited me then, about... Well, never mind. An ironically prescient quip, in retrospect. I wanted to see whether you would recall it if I gave you the occasion for it."
"I can only guess," Margo chuckles. "But you've come this far. Now I'm dying of curiosity."
A smile touches his lips. "If you must know, you told me that — I paraphrase — the sky would sooner open and rain down demons than I would find myself between your legs." He clears his throat, blushes to the roots of his hair, and focuses his attention on his boots.
A surprised laugh escapes her and bounces off the walls of the small cave in a cascade of echoes. Sera stirs and grumbles something unprintable. Margo quickly slams her hand over her mouth in an ineffectual attempt to stifle the peals of giggles.
"Well, then," she finally manages, wiping tears from the corners of her eyes and still shaking from suppressed laughter. "Accomplished on both fronts, if not quite in the expected manner."
Lancelot the Crimson looks like he is about to contribute something, but he just shakes his head, pinches the bridge of his nose, and shuts his eyes.
"Get some rest if you can," Margo finally suggests in an effort to help him out of his predicament. "You've got the worst shift."
"Will you think on my proposal? Returning to the Inquisition at this time would be unwise."
Margo shakes her head sadly. "I know. But I don't have much of a choice. I suspect you'd do the same if you were in my shoes."
"Why?" he frowns. "Is there... Is someone... ah... waiting for you?"
Margo frowns. "It's not that simple." Because, of course, it isn't. Solas's injunctions to steer clear of Haven notwithstanding, she is fairly certain that the elf knows perfectly well that she can't. Not after that little revelation with the scar and what that means. If she is one of the only people who might testify about Evie's state... Well. There isn't much of an alternative option. The only thing Margo would like to know is whether Solas showing off his own markings was a coincidence, a not-especially-subtle form of manipulation, or an intentional message of the doublespeak variety. Whichever way the chips fall, it changes nothing in the long run. She sighs, resigned. "If you thought there was something you could do to help — even if that something was really tiny — would you try? Despite the risks?"
The former knight stares at her for a long time, and says nothing. Eventually, he nods, seemingly to himself. "You have not changed, you know. Despite the memory loss. You are still the woman I remember. I am... glad of it."
And, with that disturbing announcement delivered, Ser Asshat gives Margo a formal bow and retires to his bedroll. She wiles away the rest of her watch finishing the potions and wakes him from his fretful sleep once the stick they use to keep time burns down to cinders.
Her dream takes her back to the embankment, but once there Margo keeps to herself.
"This is a good spot," Sera declares. Below them the cupola of Haven's chantry shines a soft pink in the oblique rays of the sun.
Margo hesitates, wondering what to take and what to leave behind. Molly, she decides, is coming with. In fact, the thought of abandoning the dagger fills her with an eerie, itchy sort of dread. And, besides, walking in unarmed would only raise suspicions. Upon reflection, she stashes some elfroot potions and two of her three alchemy formularies. She keeps Auntie's Compendium as a talisman in her coat pocket and Genitivi's magnum opus in her pack. After a brief moment of deliberation, she deposits her journal alongside their other belongings in the little crevice between the rocks, right behind the enormous sequoia look-alike that towers over the rest of the forest.
De Chevin left them that morning, after a long and frustrating argument. Sera had stalked off mid-sentence, abruptly out of patience, with a "gonna hunt" thrown over her shoulder. Margo gave her retreating back the evil eye. Eventually, after much circuitous debating, she succeeded in convincing Ser Lancelot the Uncooperative to return to his task of tracking down Mihris — the woman whom Imshael had possessed — but not before he extracted a promise from her to keep in contact through an acquaintance at the Crossroads. And then he gave Margo a long, unhappy look, grabbed her hand, slanted a rough, stubbly kiss across her knuckles, turned on his heels, and stomped off, bristling like a particularly ill-tempered porcupine. Even the creaking of his leathers sounded disapproving.
"Are we ready for this?" Margo asks Sera bleakly.
"What's the worst that can happen?" the archer quips with inappropriate cheerfulness.
"Leliana is probably going to arrest me on sight. Just so you know." Margo huddles into her coat. "You know the thing about dungeons? They really don't grow on you."
Sera sniggers, but then her face turns serious. "Got your back, don't worry. We'll find a way. I just gotta talk to Beardy. Others, too. See, the 'Quisition — it's like a layered cake, yeah? Anyway. Lets go fix this sorry mess."
Oh, hell on a stick, Margo thinks. How, precisely, are they going to do that?
They set off down the path side by side.
They are stopped at the gate by a familiar duo: Tweedledee and Tweedledum are clearly taking their duties as sentries with utmost seriousness, which is to say they are lounging on a set of crates and playing cards. At the sight of them, Margo groans under her breath, not least because she is almost glad to see them. Whatever else might be said about the two idiots, they have the merit of being known quantities.
"Oh, you!" One of the Tweedles — the marginally more intelligent one, who doesn't go by Merek — turns the full force of him smarmy grin in Margo's direction. "We got orders about you , don't we?"
"We sure do!" Tweedledum confirms. He pulls himself up to attention — or to an approximation of attention considering his perpetual slouch and prominent beer gut. "Proceed with us, please. And... uh, yeah! Surrender your weapons."
"I am not proceeding anywhere, and I am certainly not surrendering my weapons to either of you nugheads," Margo declares.
Sera nods. "Not leaving weapons without someone signing for them. Gonna do this procedure-like. You can take us to Quartermaster Thren's tent."
Tweedledee looks like he is about to protest, but Tweedledum interrupts him with an impatient wave of his hand.
"Don't matter. Quicker we're done with this, quicker we get back. Think we're gonna get a little extra for it? For capturing dangerous prisoners?"
"They can't very well be prisoners, you tit, they're not in prison. You mean fugitives."
"Don't they need to be 'fugiting' in order to be fugitives? Running away, that is?" Tweedledum frowns at the challenge presented by this taxonomic subtlety. "Way I see it, direction's all wrong," he adds philosophically.
"Oh, shut it, you gits," Sera snaps. "Just... Where are we supposed to go anyway?"
Tweedledee scratches the back of his head, examines the result of this procedure wriggling on the tip of his nail, and flicks the small black speck into the snow. "You're to go report to the spymaster first. Guess she's gonna decide what to do with you." He turns to Margo. "And you, it's off to the dungeon."
"What d'you think she did?" Tweedledum asks. "Probably stole something. You city elves are all thieves. 'S'well known."
Sera groans. "Better thieves than gormless prats like you two. Are we going, or what?"
The Tweedles inflate like a tandem of angry turkeys.
"Enough!" Margo barks. At this point, she just wants to get through this as fast as she possibly can, so there is no point wasting energy on these two. "Let's just go to the damn dungeon."
And be done with it, she doesn't add.
This chapter was brought to you by burning goat dung. Because you gotta burn something.
Next up (and for a couple of chapters at least): The Inquisition is a mess.
As always, thank you all for your follows, favs, reviews, DMs etc. You are the wind under this story's wings.
