Lady luck watches, she gives little help,
She does deals whilst we get dealt,

-Tick Tock, Molotov Jukebox


"No...argh! Don't pull it!"

"My dear, I have to pull it, it's lodged rather firmly."

"Just...be gentle..."

"I'm being as delicate as I can, now please...lie still."

"I'm trying!"

His warden was ever one for having the last word and so he relented, fixing her with a look as stern as he could muster over his creeping smile. She relented, lying flat against the pallet and staring at the ceiling, resignation the grim line of her mouth.

"You should not be so hard on her, Zevran," Elissa watched the entire proceedings intently, crunching her perfect white teeth into the flesh of an apple. "Feet are the worst."

Zevran felt a flicker of pride when Elaria did not rise to the bait. He stroked the heel of her injured foot before bracing it, once again, on his lap.

It was a grim afternoon. Pulling out slim daggers of glass to Elaria's yelps and cries, in Elissa's lingering presence. It took hours to make sure the wound was clean. Every noise from outside made him hesitate, wondering how long they had left before running was the only course of action.

Guido's fault. All of it. Incompetent fool, acting so rashly. It had always been his flaw. Arrogance backed up with hot air. How could Elaria think they were at all alike? Zevran's pride had been built from a series of successes, of substance...not of half-baked, unthought-out ambushes...well there was that once...but it didn't count...not really.

He tied the knot of the bandage at her ankle and she thanked him with a small smile.

"We better get to leaving," Elissa said, a silhouette in the half light. "Things are bound to turn ugly now you've helped them along."

Elaria sighed tugging on her sock with too much force and wincing. "Have you been waiting there just to provoke me? The guards are bound to close off the city; we'll have to find another way out."

"We could just kill the guards at the gate?"

"With a Templar and a child? I don't know if you've met Ichiro but he's prone to screaming fits?"

"Leave the child. It was stupid of you to say you'd grant him passage..."

"Oh, it was stupid of me? To save a child?"

"Ladies," Zevran cut across Elissa, thrusting his palm in the air between them. "We will get nowhere by assigning blame, yes? Let us just work with what we have."

Elissa shrugged nonchalantly, re-arranging her legs so she sat cross legged on the stool, her bruised and blackened feet resting easily on her thighs. Elaria sprung up from the pallet, still favouring her right foot, tugging off the blood stiff shirt and letting it splat to the floor. She'd never been modest. Growing up being constantly watched will do that to a person. She knelt by the bucket, every notch in her spine stark against the skin. Zevran stared, unabashed, as the water mingled with the blood, sending pink streaks in rivulets down her porcelain torso.

"In any case," she said as she snatched up a cloth, "It would be better to leave undetected, I'd rather not have a contingency of Guards on my tail." She dunked the cloth, craning her neck to scrub around the collar.

"You should give them this crow of yours." Elissa unravelled her feet, eyes sparkling with the idea. "It's him they want, yes?"

The cloth spattered in the water, sending droplets high into air. Elaria stared over her shoulder as though Elissa was a particularly blood bloated flea. "Are you aware of the concept of friendship or shall I explain it to you?"

Elissa tutted, sapphire blues rolling to face the ceiling and then fix the angry elf before her with a sneer. "Friends should be disposable, Hero. How did you ever manage to end the blight with such feelings?"

"One can be ruthless and still form attachments..."

"No...that makes you a hypocrite..." Elissa sang the words in a sing song voice of a tutor educating a particular stupid pupil. "To value strangers lives less than those of your so-called friends. Why? Because you happened to come in closer contact with one party..."

"Is this where we are shocked to discover you've never had a friend in your life?" Elaria stood, still not allowing herself to be goaded, a half-smile on her lips as though her words held a joke that only she understood. "Look, Elissa. It's all very sweet of you to be so interested in my moral philosophy but really, I can think of better times to have this argument."

"So you wish to continue being a hypocrite? Or do you wish to learn?"

Elaria shook her head, rifling through her pack to find a clean shirt, laughing through gritted teeth. "I'd just be happy with continuing at all, even in my dire state of hypocrisy."

Elissa made a disguised sound and turned to Zevran, clearly thinking to find an ally for her absolutions. He found he was shrugging all too much today. "We all draw our own line in the sand, yes? I agree that this is hardly the time..."

"This is the perfect time," Elissa got to her feet, the first instance of her face showing the difficulty of the simple movement. "It's not going to be easy to do what you intend. There will be...complications."

"There are always complications," Elaria's hands were busy, tucking the shirt into her breeches. "Unless you intend to be more specific."

"You're both blind," Elissa said, taking two determined but still swaying steps towards Elaria. "Do you think it'll be easy going there with compassion in your heart? You think you won't be swayed by Turiin's arguments?"

Elaria circled the woman, eyeing her cautiously. "Turiin is a maniac..."

"A charismatic maniac," Elissa twirled around, finger pointed at Elaria. "What of the Lady of Cats? Do you not think she'll probe the connection between you?" She gestured to Zevran.

"I'm able to keep business and pleasure quite separate," Elaria crossed her arms, face set in defence as stone cold as a wall.

"Then you should see the sense in giving up the crow," Elissa smiled triumphantly, like a spider who'd woven a particularly complex web.

Elaria waved her off, a harbour wall rebounding the ocean. "Enough chat, I have work to do."

Zevran followed in her wake, leaving Elissa standing in the middle of the room, mouth opening and closing, blinking in disbelief.

He caught up with his warden on the deserted stairwell, threading his arms around her, gently coaxing her up against the wall. She relented, allowing him to explore her neck with his mouth as she glanced over his shoulder.

"Did our battle of wits excite you?" She laughed and he felt it, rising in her chest against his lips.

"She does have a point does she not," he muttered into her ear, before stopping her reply entirely.

Her mouth encouraged him for half a heartbeat, tongue beckoning quickly before she broke off, biting her moistened bottom lip. "You are not coming with me."

He bowed his head to kiss her again but she pressed her finger up against his lips. "Time for that later."

She ducked under his grasp and flew down the stairs, glancing cheekily over her shoulder. Zevran, ever patient and always willing to play the hunter, followed.


Elaria had been right. Parchments were nailed to every door, written in a stiff, no-nonsense hand demanding a curfew installed with immediate effect upon the streets of Mezzano. Signed by the Captain of the Guard and stamped with the seal of the local baron.

"Anyone found on the streets after this proclamation has been issued will be considered an abetter to unrest," Elaria read, screwing the paper into a ball and chucking it, without ceremony, into the maw of the waiting fire.

"So...er...we're leaving then?" Quentin looked between Elaria, sat before the hearth and Elissa carefully examining her borrowed daggers with a whetstone in hand.

"We don't have much choice," Guido entered the room, pack slung over his shoulder, hair braided back, sober as a priest for the first time in months. "We should have left weeks ago," he glared at Elissa.

"I am agree," Elissa shrugged, running the whetstone along the metal with a satisfied smile.

Guido let his pack fall to the ground with a thud, arms crossed in a sullen silence as he leaned against the red-brick chimney breast.

Oblivious to the subtle shifts in social structures Quentin ploughed ahead. "How are we going to leave? The guards have patrols every half hour...what about Ichiro?" He planted a shaking hand on the boys head, but Ichiro shrugged him off.

"What about me? I'm better at sneaking than you, big face," he elbowed the templar as high as he could which did more to bruise his elbow against plate than it did to knock sense into Quentin.

"Peace," Elaria raised a hand up to silence Ichiro's protests. "I have a suggestion though it's not going to be easy."

"Oh, the Hero has a plan," Elissa glanced up, leaned back on her chair, leaving her work on her lap and crossing her arms. "This should be entertaining."

Elaria ignored the staring noblewoman, glancing instead to Zevran. "We could take the sewers. The entrance is only three streets away."

He nodded, as she knew he would. "If we can navigate correctly they should lead us underneath the city wall."

This garnered him an approving smile from his warden. "It exits in the grasslands, several leagues from the road but if we're not pursed we can make camp for the night and keep going at dawn."

A silent pause, Zevran barely noticed, he was watching his warden, her eyes downturned in a mimic of coyness betrayed by her wanton smile. The flame danced over her as she rose. Not for the first time today he wished they were alone.

"Did you two...rehearse this?" Elissa coughed, shaking her head.

"What was that Elissa?" Elaria grinned. "You find no problem with my plan so you're picking apart the method of delivery?"

"Let us attempt not to bicker, yes?" Zevran looked between the two woman, if Elaria was a rock then Elissa was a hard place. Having spent the day in between them he was starting to feel a little pulverised. "If you can't be friends can you at least pretend?"

Elaria's comeback died on her lips and she huffed out a sigh instead. "Any other complaints?"

"Don't sewers smell bad?" Ichiro screwed up his nose. "Isn't that where the soil men take our shit?"

"You shouldn't speak like that," Quentin chided him.

"What? Say shit? Why the shit not shit-head?"

"It's bad manners..." circles of red appeared on high on Quentin's cheek, all the starker for his pale face.

"Shit on your bad manners," Ichiro raised his chin in defiance, fingers looped through his belt like a hustler in miniature. "You're not my father. I'll say shit whenever I please."

Quentin puffed himself up, mustering the indignation of a flea, red with embarrassment as he was. "The Revered Mother would've had my hide for speaking like that!"

"Yeah? Well shit on..."

"Really Ichiro," Elaria cut across him, eyebrows raised. "I'm not going to talk down to you, treat you like a child. What we do tonight is dangerous work. I need to know you can be serious."

"I am serious," he protested, squaring his small frame defensively. "I could kill a man easy as that." He clicked his fingers in Elaria's face, plump mouth tight as a miser's purse.

Elissa's cackle started as an evil thing, dripping with wickedness, until she tumbled off her stool in a clatter of whetstone and daggers, then it became delicious whoops of laughter as though she found her pain just as funny as the little man's assertions. "Little...killer...priceless," she gasped out, kneeling until the laughter took her again.

"Riiiiggghht," Elaria cocked her head. "You are insane. Good, glad that's settled." She clapped her hands together as though to ward off the madness. "Ichiro, you will not be required to do any killing, if there's a fight you will keep out of the way. It's going to be hard enough without you having to worry about that."

"I can fight," Ichiro stamped his foot, not sure whether he should be glaring at Elissa or Elaria so giving them both a good serving of his anger. "I'm nearly twelve...I'm nearly a man grown."

"It is not your age," Zevran patted the boy on his shoulder. "It is your lack of training. When we get back to the city, I'll teach you. But you must promise to stay out of the way this time, yes?"

For a second Zevran had him, his mouth unpursed to an 'o' and his eyes glimmered slightly and he was about to nod his ascent...

"Why not give the boy a dagger?" There was a shrug in Guido's voice. "He will sink or swim. It's how we all learnt."

Elaria stared at the crow, her face dropped in horror.

"Yeah," Ichiro shrugged off Zevran's hand, taking two steps back towards Guido with a child's loyalty. "I want to be like you."

"We are not having this discussion," Elaria crossed her arm through the air, stern as a judge.

Ichiro swivelled to face Guido, looking for an ally but the crow was not stupid enough to overplay his hand. "Sorry boy, she's the boss."

"But...but..."

"Quentin, if Ichiro tries to fight you have my permission to restrain him," Elaria sigh was heavy with regret.

"Err...yes..."

"Are there any more questions?" Elaria glared at Guido, who tsked his agreement, to Quentin who shook his head solemnly, to Elissa, hands wrapped round her ankles watching with the intent of a theatre goer. Finally she turned those oh-so-green eyes on Zevran and his insides squirmed with desire.

"Good."


"You mean you planned a way out of the city but not out of the pub?" Elissa hissed, pressed tight to the banisters.

"I didn't count on Elsa opening for business let alone hosting a fucking name day party," Elaria spat to the sound of chinks and holler's downstairs.

It seemed a curfew was the perfect time for drink. Zevran didn't blame them, after all, if you had to spend the night indoors for fear of your life best to do it with women and wine.

Wine was not on his night's menu and pleasures of the flesh seemed a remote possibility, despite being sandwiched between the two Ferelden beauties. He'd decided it was better to be between them than putting either one in range of the others fists. Under other circumstances it would have been his delight. As it was, the beginning of a headache was itching behind the eyes and he'd had his fill of the bickering pair.

"A bedsheets and window operation, I believe," he stood, proffering a hand to both of them. Elaria scowled as he helped Elissa to her feet. The noblewoman took her time, enjoying, as always, rattling his dear warden. When she lost her footing and threw her arm around Zevran's shoulder, Elaria rolled her eyes and stormed back to their rooms.

"She's quite the jealous one isn't she?"

"That depends on the context," Zevran muttered, half heartedly craning his head away as she made kissing noises at his neck. She gripped him tightly as they walked and though he tried to disentangle himself she held him firm. He was surprised to find she smelt of lavender, such an odd scent on her, soft and sweet where she was anything but.

Elaria had flung open the bay window, the night air rustling errant locks of hair. She spoke in whispers with Guido, not even glancing back as he entered the room. Ichiro sulked since the argument, cross-armed, bottom-lip protruding as though by doing so he'd prove himself the adult. Quentin had one arm wrapped around his helm, the other clutching his pack to his shoulder, awkward over his pauldrons, beads of sweat were forming on his brow and trickling down his collar. He looked like a man in the grip of a fever.

"You're not serious?" the Templar looked about to wet himself. "I'm really not so good with heights."

"Believe me if I thought there was a better way we'd be doing it," Elaria said still fixed on the courtyard below. "It would be easier if people would stop going out there to piss."

Ichiro crossed his arms with a huff. "Why's it fine for you to swear?"

Elaria turned to face him. "If you wish to swear, go ahead."

This Ichiro clearly hadn't planned for, he whipped around, confused, as every set of eyes watched him. Embarrassment crept up his cheeks.

"Go on," she continued when he said nothing. "Now's the time Ichiro, in a minute I will require silence."

Shame-faced and red as fire Ichiro's twilight eyes glimmered at his booted feet.

Elissa's nails dug into Zevran's arm as she snorted. "Call her bluff, boy, I'll teach you some words."

"You will not," Quentin said, his usually warm eyes sudden slits.

"What will you do about it?" Elissa let him go to stumble towards Quentin. "Tell your Mother on me?" She punctuated her words with a flick to his steel breastplate.

"Children should not swear, it's...it's..."

"Really? Quentin, is it?" Elissa cocked her head to one side, stepping close enough to kiss the man as she examined him. "The boy saw his parents hacked apart and you chide him for a little cussing."

There is a certain type of silence when someone makes a hideous faux-pax. It rings through the room like a death knell, leaving a violent wound on the conversation. Even the burst of laughter from downstairs didn't break the bitter silence. Zevran cleared his throat.

And the room exploded.

"You fucking bitch."

"Ichiro..."

"...entirely inappropriate..."

"Get your hands off me..."

"...you little fucking animal..."

"Ichrio...stop!"

Elissa's nose was dripping blood and she scowled as she swore, elbows swinging uselessly as Quentin hooked her arms with a steel grip. Ichiro squirmed with all the ferocity of his youth but Zevran clutched at one arm, Guido the other, and between them they dragged the volatile child as far from his prey as possible.

"I should gut you!" Elissa screamed, blood dribbling as she struggled.

Zevran was too busy keeping the ball of fury that was Ichiro at bay to be watching Elaria. He heard the sound of steel being drawn behind him and groaned as he did.

The sudden silence told him all he needed to know.

"Listen carefully, Elissa," Elaria's voice, like the hiss of fire meeting water. "Hold your fucking tongue or I'll make you a mute. Are we entirely clear?"

There was no reply, but Elaria must've been satisfied for he heard her sheath her weapon.

Some of the fight went out of Ichiro and he stood, panting and snarling like a wounded beast. "I hate her."

"You have made that quite clear," Zevran muttered back. "But you're going to have to stand her for a little longer, can you do that?"

Ichiro fixed Zevran with a stare, one so devoid of his anger before that it sent an unchecked shiver up his spine.

"I want to kill her."

Zevran was still absorbing those words when the boy pushed past him. Elaria had clearly chosen to ignore the still throbbing tension and was beginning to tie the ends of a hempen rope around the sturdiest looking object in the room, Elissa's pine wood sickbed. Ichiro stood next to her, not taking his eyes from where the noblewoman was wiping the blood from her face.

They waited in a dismal silence, Elaria standing sentry at the window, focussed on her work. Guido stood next to her like a faithful lap dog, occasionally shooting Zevran looks as though the crow had somehow gained the upper hand in a war that only he was fighting. Zevran rolled his eyes and went back to inspecting Stormcaller, carefully honing the dragonbone until it was sharp as it had ever been.

Volunteering to go down first earned him a grateful grin from his warden. She hated heights. How it had made him chuckle the first time he'd realised. She'd been so wickedly cross with him. He longed to remind her of it, as he clambered onto the window pane, but they had little time and silence was very much part of the task. He gave her a dashing smile at least, before he had to set to work.

If Zevran were to write a guidebook assassination, climbing would find its way into the first chapter. It was where his training had started. Ropes, walls, bare feet slipping against red brick or rock face or simply thin air. If Zevran had ever feared heights then the crows had crushed it from him so long ago that he didn't recall. He found the floor in no time, even with his pack tipping him backwards and the audience above.

Guido's backside appeared next, and Zevran huddled himself in the shadows of the wall, listening intently for any sounds from within. The crow descended nearly as well as Zevran, without such skill he could not have survived the crows various and deadly tests.

Ichiro scrambled down in a flash. Elissa took her time, her feet clearly paining her as she slid with slow deliberate movements.

Elaria had forced Quentin to take off his armour and the Templar's hunched form appeared at the window in his gambeson. And he stayed there.

Zevran couldn't hear the words but he assumed Elaria was encouraging him. He tried, one leg dangled for a second before he snatched it back up with a whimper. His eyes swivelled wildly as he looked down, his face pale in the moonlight.

Zevran counted the seconds and then the minutes and then Quentin disappeared altogether. The open window was dark for a long time and the wind picked only whispers from the room above.

"Bloody templar," Guido muttered next to him.

Zevran bit his tongue. Finding it a little rich than the person who started this riot could be chiding a man for his phobias.

"Psst," Elaria appeared above them, clutching at the rope. "Take our packs, we need to find another way down."

"You can't be serious," Guido hissed up. "Tell him to grow some balls."

Elaria made a rude gesture before shrugging off her pack. Guido pushed Zevran aside to reach for it and his teeth could no longer bite down.

"If you wish to be her pack mule..." he muttered as Guido staggered under its weight.

"Oh?" Guido muttered, grimacing as he shouldered the extra weight. "She told me you're not the jealous type."

"Oi," Elaria hissed before Zevran could respond. She dropped Quentin's pack without ceremony, it hit the floor with a clunk that had dented armour written all over it.

"Meet us at the sewers," Elaria whispered, tugging the rope upwards and shutting the window with a slam.

Zevran herded Ichiro in front of him, keeping a grip on the boys shoulder so he could stop him in the darkness. He could hear Elissa's laboured breath and Guido's heavy footfalls but he could see neither of them, even when his eyes adjusted to the darkness.

From shuttered windows seeped the sounds of revelry. Shouted arguments, glasses breaking, men and women going about the business of drowning out their sorrows. Zevran didn't doubt that they were the only ones breaking curfew, he just hoped they could leave before malcontent reared its ugly head again. There was certainly something unsettling about festivities after a horrific event. Alcohol did little to calm anyone's tempers.

It made him take precautions. When a distant doorway opened he shoved Ichiro into the shadows, shielding him from the light with his body. Two lovers kissed ardently in the rectangle of torchlight before one darted down a side alley and the door creaked closed. He let the boy go, patting him on the head in an attempt to reassure him.

After that Ichiro took his hand.

They had lost the others in the darkness but Zevran was too busy keeping alert to pay much heed. Frightened into silence Ichiro did everything required of him, running beside Zevran, crouched under his own pack as they ducked into an alcove.

Voices. Distant, but speaking into the silence with the authority of one unbound by curfew. Ichiro whimpered next to him, boldness vanished in the face of violence. Zevran reached into the darkness, pulling the boy closer as the sound of armoured boots rounded the corner.

"...ain't so bad for double the pay..."

"Pfft, you weren't there at the square. Bloody massacre...the baron's sent to the city for reinforcements."

"The city's got their own problems; that's where half these bleeding elves came from. Assassin's angry at poor treatment...what a bunch of cobblers."

"Here, what was that?"

Ichiro stiffened, whistled a sharp in breath, fists tensed together. Zevran signalled for him to stay still and the boy nodded.

"I could've swore I heard...argh!"

"What the...!"

And an all too familiar choking sound. Armour hitting the floor. Zevran sighed as he saw, much too late to save the guards lives.

A guttering torch had fallen. Its orange hues cast the blood black as oil. Elissa stood, a shadow above the fallen men. Zevran didn't need to see her face to know it was a mask of glee, he could hear it in her breathy laughter.

"Maker, that felt good!" She shouted, loud enough to set a dog barking down the street. Loud enough to alert anyone with ears of her presence. Loud enough for Zevran to mutter a curse as he strode towards her, very much in the mind of knocking her unconscious and carrying her to the sewers.

She knelt, with all the compassion of a butcher, grunting as she worked the dagger free. "This is what it's like to be alive," she patted a corpse on the head. Even if the man had not been dead he wouldn't have understood, she'd reverted to the common tongue in her excitement. "Andraste's burning tits, I'm still good!"

Zevran reached her as the manic laughter set in. She almost swiped for him, stopping as his shadow was illuminated in the torch.

"What a sight you are," she grinned up at him, sheathing her dagger at her hip without losing his gaze. "There's nothing like a fuck after a kill, wouldn't you agree?"

"We are going to have to leave right now," Zevran tried to tug her to her feet but she hooked her hands around his breastplate dragging him down, the weight of his and Quentin's back pack only helping her intentions.

He tumbled over like a turtle forced on its back, her gleeful giggles ringing in his ears, feet sliding on the slick cobblestones, throwing his hand out in a bone jarring break fall. His pack slammed against the floor, rattling his spine, knocking the breath from his lungs.

Elissa crawled up him, a spider intent on her prey, eyes gleaming in the torchlight. He tried to scramble to his feet but she was much stronger than she had any right to be, painful fingers pinching through his leathers. He managed to lock his arms on her shoulders, keeping her face a foot away but her pelvis pierced into his, the leather of both their breastplates finding bruising homes in flesh.

Her breath came in hot, sour pants as she crashed their hips together. Zevran desperately fumbled for a way out, trapped under her thrashing body. His thumb found a gap in her neckline and with all his might he dug underneath her collarbone.

She grunted, and Zevran took the second he had to flip her over, sending her skidding on her side. He got to his feet warily, head feeling full of water, limbs uncertain of their grip.

He was still struggling to his feet when he heard someone swear behind him. He half-turned in time to see the shadow descend. And then a blinding whiteness of pain.

He lost his footing with the impact. A swelling fire rising from his jaw. He fell to one knee, hand covering his face, his pack thudding into his neck, jolting his head forward.

"She leaves you alone for a second and you're already screwing around." A heaving sound, retching and coughing and something slapped, wet and thick, against his scalp. "You piece of shit..."

Through the haze of the punch it took Zevran too long to realise what was happening, who was speaking let alone make sense of the words. When he heard the air being hewn apart by a speeding boot he managed to flail out of the way.

Instinct shrugged off his burdens. He rolled, standing with his hand on his hilt, adrenaline thudding into pain and coming up trumps. A fist came careening for his unprotected skull and Zevran struck like a snake, grabbing his attacker round the wrist and using his own force to topple him.

Guido's face flashed for a second in the torchlight as he fell. Zevran's stalked towards him as anger began its pounding journey in his core. The crow leapt to his feet in time for Zevran's fist to crunch into his nose. Instinct again drew the dirk at his thigh. The palm of his boot slammed into Guido's ribs as the blade came down in an arch...

"Stop where you are!"

It echoed off the high brick walls, stern and used to command. A second of obedience stayed Zevran's hand. He risked a glance.

Three torches, breastplates flashing, silhouette's at the end of the alley. Zevran watched for a heartbeat, deciding none of their stances spoke of bows. He was the first of their tableaux to move. Darting towards his abandoned pack, grasping the straps.

"Oi! I said stop!"

The strange spell of obedience ended. In a fluid motion he heaved his pack onto his back, his old knee wound complaining as he went from statue still to sprinting in a second.

"RUN!" He screamed, remembering the cowering Ichiro with a curse. As he whizzed past Elissa she lowered herself into a battle stance. He swung to catch her dagger holding hand and pulled her protesting behind him.

Zevran only had a second to see Ichiro rushing out of his hiding place, before he heard the guards taking off after them. Elissa ran beside him, a wild smile on her lips. When he glanced behind another shadow lurched along, still faster than the guards weighed down by their armour. Zevran tried hard not to feel disappointed. Giving them Guido would provide a mighty distraction indeed.

His old wound was screaming and his lungs were heaving as he followed Ichiro, skidding round a corner. In windows above people watched, black figures against torchlight, brought their by the pounding of feet and the cries of the guards.

They took corners, winding well away from the sewers. Flew across the main square, where Zevran reached deep and sped past Ichiro to take the lead, feet skidding in grit, the on grass. Market stalls billowed like ghosts in the night. Deserted street after deserted street, all mingled together by darkness and speed. When he chanced a glance behind he could see nothing but the glow of torches, winking in the distance.

He swerved round a corner and into a rundown back street, surrounded by silent shacks. Sweating and twitching like a strung out horse he slowed. Pain hitting him all at once, a breaking wave. He doubled over, gripping his knees with shaking hands, desperate to hear anything over his violently pounding heart.

"I...think...we...lost them," Elissa pulled up next him, leaning back into the night air, hands on the small of her back, chest heaving. "That was..."

"Stupid?" Zevran suggested. "You could have gotten us killed."

"Oh, please," she waved a pale hand at him. "Like they'd be any match for us."

Ichiro rounded the corner and Zevran had to grab him by the doublet to stop the little arrow. He struggled for a moment, stitches ripping, before his glistening eyes found Zevran in the dark.

"Settle down," he whispered, letting go. The boy obeyed, scuttling behind him and clinging to his pack.

Zevran signalled for silence and for once his companions obeyed. A hush settled over the spring night, tinged with the scent of smoke and the distant tannery. The huts and lean-tos that tumbled around the dirt streets slept, still and calm as the taverns and merchant houses were not. Too poor to sicken to the pox of refuges, too poor to risk arrest or worse.

Slowly and calmly, with every one of his senses alight, he led his strange companions around the outskirts of the town. Careful to creep a street away from the walls where guards patrolled. Cautious of diving into the town centre, where he was sure the chaos of the night had only just begun.

Every faint sound shivered up Zevran's spine, the squeaks of alley rats became guard whistles, the rustle of Ichiro's doublet a dagger being slid from a hiding place. The darkness always kindled the imagination and, knowing far too much brutal reality, Zevran's imagination was vast.

As the noises of the night filtered back Zevran quickened their pace, grabbing Ichiro's hand so the boy jounced behind, checking far too often that Elissa had not slunk off into the night to satiate her madness. They bundled into cover to avoid passing platoons, tripped and righted themselves, went careening around corners, pressed their backs against walls, hearts thudding in throats, terrified, focused and wild respectively.

It seemed an age before they finally found themselves a street away from the sewer house. The soil men started work long before dawn, as the night owl denizens of Mezzano finally retired. Even with their unplanned detour the moon was still high in the sky and the revelries were far from burnt out.

As he rounded the corner relief flooded through him. Three figures clustered around the sewer-house door, shadowy in the half light. He sprinted, careless in his closeness, about to hail his warden with some witty excuse for his lateness...when one of the shadows moved and moonlight glinted off armour.

Not his friends. Not his friends at all.


AN: Thank you all so much for your support, new and continued, you guys rock! Don't hesitate to let me know what you think. On a side note I have started writing what was supposed to be a one-shot but which has (as most of my plot bunnies do) evolved into something much longer. Will be posting it in the next couple of days, so if you like bittersweet Antiva based fics, keep your eyes peeled. Best wishes to you all!