Off to Sleep, My Boy Builds Coffins, Cosmic Love, Say Something, Victory.
been trying to upload this for DAYS but FFN's document manager wasn't working. Couldn't upload, couldn't paste the text into an existing document either. Sorry for the long wait!
Disgrace of Redcliffe
A Taste of Normal
Connor became aware of the arraying light of companionship. It interlocked with a hexagon of local energies and bound together its six points in a lattice of safekeeping. The glyph formed, shimmered brightly, and then he found himself in the Fade.
The dream realm took a few moments to form. There was another will nearby that was acting on it and gently correcting the assumptions Connor's mind made. The windows and stone floor of the rotunda didn't get a chance to form completely before being set aside. The structure Connor was familiar with was not cast down or abandoned, but literally taken up and moved into the distance, a landmark in a dim blue world that formed and pulled itself together. The central focus of the dream was a fire.
A fire burning in a pit, and moving quite naturally for the Fade. It flung no heat but plenty of light, cracking and sparking with glowing red embers and threads of grey ash clinging to the wood as it burned. It had been going for some time and the ground was black from it, at least a day's worth of ash strewn about. The ground was either pebbled or down-trodden or bare, the other dreamer wouldn't make up their mind about it. The dream darkened and dimmed until it felt like night-time, cool and crisp and quiet under stars and the looming stretch of the Black City.
"Good of you to join me, Warden." Commander Surana was seated on the ground, comfortably robed in Warden armour that didn't seem as ornate or finely decorated as his usual suit. It was more like the tunic and pauldron Connor wore, much simpler and lacking the splash of colour from the Commander's missing robes. It was curious to see him dressed down, helmet and sword and shield absent, his staff resting on the ground next to him. His airy blonde hair was bright around his head, scarred ear visible in the light. He seemed at ease with an open look in his wide blue eyes. "I'm very real, Connor. Come and have a seat."
"You might be certain," Connor allowed, hesitant and unsure what to dress himself in as he hovered there like a formless thought, a voice without a source. "But I'm a bit less-"
My friend!
Kindness' warmth collided with him and Connor felt himself stumble. A plain grey tunic and black britches formed, soft leather boots on his feet and the warm sleeves of a black shirt pulling around him. He felt clean-shaven and well, surprisingly so considering his last fragmented… memories…
He is real. The Consort is no demon.
Loyalty spun and swung itself down his arm, nearly forming Connor's staff before he felt the spirit correct itself and slip back up his right arm to form a weaving pattern of stitched threads around the cuff and shoulder of the grey tunic, the same place where the pauldron on his armour belonged. Kindness was content to remain nuzzled around his chin and throat and Connor approached the reclining mage, taking a hesitant seat next to him on the imaginary ground.
"You have my apologies for unbarring the way to the Fade for you," Surana said, sitting with one arm slung around his knee, his other leg kicked out towards the flames. "But your spirits were becoming unbearable. If it had gone on any longer they would have convinced Duty to join them in pestering to see you again."
"Oh- I… I'm sorry about them, it-" Surana didn't interrupt him, merely smiled. It seemed warmer than his usual cryptic side-look, like he actually meant it.
"It's all part of being a Spirit Healer, something I've just assumed you're interested in doing now, yes? You certainly seemed well on your way with it during the battle against the Nightmare."
"I really didn't know what I was doing," Connor hurried to say, embarrassed and suddenly forgetting everything he'd learned about the Fade- how to keep that embarrassment to himself. He tried to remember the battle, to remember it clearly, but to his mind it was just a chaotic mash of shouting, fire, and fear. "It was just… I know there were things I needed done but I couldn't do myself. It was like having two extra pairs of hands." Surana shrugged at his explanation.
"That's the basis of spirit healing," he said. "The Maker only gave us two hands and two eyes so it's hard to take care of more than what those parts of us can handle. Benevolent spirits can choose to help us when we ask, but only if they want to."
"Make a friend and then just ask them to do things?" Connor repeated back at him, but he knew he was frowning as they sat by the fire. "It's supposed to take years to master, I can't have got it all done in a few weeks."
"Trust me: you haven't," the Commander was quick to shoot that idea down. "Your technique, for example, is non-existent because no one's ever shown any of it to you. I've been preoccupied since your Joining and left most of your combat training to Lavellan after you arrived at the Vigil, but I'll make it up to you when this is over. Not tonight though."
Tonight. Wait-
"Hang on, how are we-?" Connor didn't know how to say it, he gestured between the two of them, to the Black City, to the fire that wasn't a fire. "Did you summon me? How did we cross paths?"
"It's not crossing paths if we started at the same place," the Archmage said and he made the words roll easily off his tongue. "I cast a companion glyph under your bed before I went to sleep: when I entered the Fade, you followed." Never Connor mind that that was an Enchanter's spell that had certainly never been taught to either of them- the Commander heard his doubts and it was terrible:
"I know it's been a while, Connor, but the Circle had these marvelous things called books that many mages used to write their spells down in for other mages to learn from."
"I- yes, sir." Connor made himself vanish. Plain and simple, he was not there anymore.
"Warden." Surana was not impressed with him, the flat tone of his voice and soft hum in the air said it all.
"I don't think you understand how often I've wished I could really do this." Connor admitted, source-less and formless again.
"Are you intimidated by me?" Surana asked as if that question even bore being spoken aloud.
"Of course I am?"
"Connor, come back here."
"I'm still listening, honest." He pleaded. "Do go on, you were saying something about technique?"
"Not tonight I said, now sit down." Surana told him firmly.
"I could be sitting; you just can't see me."
Surana took a breath to argue with him again, caught it, held it, and then huffed at him before looking back at the fire.
"Have it your way." He allowed. "At least we know your sense of humour hasn't been effected by all of this. Once the rest of you starts doing as well, you'll finally be able to get Ansera and Hawke to stop fighting with each other."
Connor re-appeared, and he wasn't sitting, he was crouching. He needed his face for this because he needed Surana to see how bizarre that comment was.
"What?" He asked. The senior mage looked at him straight, then reached around his far-side and- was that a bowl of fruit? No, focus! "Commander, Ansera and Hawke are what?"
"Fighting." Surana repeated, setting the roughly carved wooden bowl down and helping himself to a handful of choice blueberries. "Bickering. Getting in each other's way. Driving one another insane. Driving me insane with their nonsense."
"But Jylan's tranquil," Connor emphasized. He was split between the ridiculous idea of Jylan getting into a fight with someone, or Carver finding anything so petty and miniscule to get under a Formari's skin with- and now the fact that the Warden Commander was eating blueberries in the Fade.
"I know that." Surana commented. "That's why it's so irritating." He then regarded one of his berries with disdain because it had begun to mold, so he flicked it into the fire at his feet. "Nathaniel and Velanna find it quite entertaining but I've about had it with them. I would like a message from you telling them to both smarten up."
"Okay, I understand," He said. This was all a bit too much for him. "This is really very important, sir, but I can't focus with you- that's not real fruit!"
"So?" The Hero of Ferelden asked him and then popped another fake blue pod into his mouth. "Blueberries are out of season until next year, and I quite miss them."
"But they're not real." Connor argued.
"They taste real."
"But they're not."
"Boo-hoo, Warden, I don't care." Surana then snapped his gloved fingers and the bowl of berries suddenly filled with small round orange fruits. Connor stared at them shrewdly as the Commander picked one up and began peeling it, throwing the skin in the fire and pulling apart the sweet segments. Then he started taunting him. "Go ahead: tell me these don't grow in Ferelden, see if that changes anything."
He was right, they didn't grow in Ferelden. Connor hadn't tasted them since passing through Val Royeaux and although the flavour had been very strong- there was nothing quite like sweet citrus in the heat. Against his better judgement and despite the vivid memory of what had happened to him the last time Connor tried consuming anything in the Fade, he took one of the oranges and broke the skin with his thumb.
"They don't have to be real for us to enjoy them," Surana announced in a smug voice, tossing the rest of his peel and rind into the fire before taking up another one. The fruits were small and sat plump and succulent in the palms of their hands, peels opening thin and easy.
"As long as they don't taste like fish or embrium…" They most certainly did not. They turned into this citrus and honey flavour that washed over his tongue and brightened his mind a little, a sweet taste that made it far too easy to devour a second one after the first. "These make cherries seem tart."
"Mm, a fine idea." Rich black cherries plopped into the bowl and Connor really should not have been so ready to try one. This was the Fade, none of this was- "Warden! It's a simple indulgence. Duty will let us know if anything comes wandering about near us, and I'm happy to wake up and tell your friend Ansera that you had a healthy appetite in the Fade."
Oh right: Jylan. Jylan and Carver were fighting?
"Have a few more cherries and I'll explain things properly."
Connor did as he was told, enjoying the rich juice of the black fruits as he chewed through them and spat the pits out into the fire. It was a summer night, comfortable and quiet, and Connor felt the dream tug at him and then at the Archmage next to him, decisions passing silently between them. The ground should be grassy, the hills sweeping off. They were on a familiar stretch of pasture and looping farm-road a day's ride from the Vigil in Amaranthine.
Surana told him of the battle. Of the politics. Of how Arl Eamon and Talon Valisti and Ser Perth had all died in the battle to take Redcliffe Castle. Of how King Alistair had ridden with Arl Teagan to Redcliffe Village three days later and drawn up the treaties to end the war. Connor's mother and sister were safe and as well as could be expected, Surana had taken to looking after Rowan personally.
"Thank you, Commander." The relief that brought him was a deep comfort.
"Truth be told I've never had an apprentice before," Surana allowed in a quiet voice. "So she may still have to make the journey to Cumberland to find a proper teacher. We'll see how the dust settles in Denerim first." Connor didn't mean to, but he felt his relief quietly sour by the quiet fade-fire.
"Cumberland was what I suggested my parents do in the first place and look where it got me." He couldn't keep the bitterness out of his voice when he spoke, the taste of the cherries fading from his mouth. "Nevara is a fine decision. If I never have to see her again it will still be too soon." He felt Surana's quiet surprise brush up against his shoulder.
"That's not the reaction I expected from you."
"Consider what I've had to go through because of her, sir." Connor whispered back. "I cannot blame her personally, I refuse to lay that on a child, but it's hard." It was hard. It was a heavy, knotted weight burrowing in his chest, crawling up from around his waist like gnarled roots and piercing up through his ribs. He wanted so badly to be angry, but knew he had to master it and direct it to the parties responsible, not the other victim. "The only two things I ever asked of her, she threw away. I think if it had just been the one promise I could move on from it- but to make a deal with a demon…"
"You once made the same dreadful mistake, Warden."
"I had no teacher!" Connor flung the words back, ignoring Surana's surprise. "I didn't know what to watch out for, what the temptation would even sound like! I had a blood mage assassin trying to get me to light candles and summon smoke from my fingertips! The bastard probably wanted me to become an abomination."
"Jowan never meant to-" It was equal parts how fast the name came to the Commander and how he cut himself off that made Connor put aside his nervous ravings and look at the Archmage directly. Surana had his eyes closed, lips pursed, and he turned his face back towards the fire before opening his eyes again. He remained silent.
"You knew him, didn't you?" Connor was forced to ask, but Surana did not answer. The regret demon, the room full of imprisoning light in the nightmare. Connor had to swallow hard and speak further. "They told stories about it at the Circle, you know. After you left. Everyone from the Templars trying to keep control or the older apprentices just looking to give the younger ones a scare. They always used to talk about how the Hero of Ferelden prized Chantry law and Andraste's teachings so highly that even when his own best friend turned to blood magic, you had your fellow apprentice handed over to the Templars and Tranquiled that same day. But they never talked about the third cohort."
"The circle liked to twist its stories." Surana told him in a short, hard voice. He was staring at the fire without blinking. "And the third cohort was an elf named Eadric who died during Uldred's Rebellion."
"Then the blood mage wasn't tranquiled, he escaped." Connor pushed forward again, curious and encouraged when he felt the Archmage recoil from the question but not push back and shut him up. "You helped him escape."
"I did no such thing," Surana snapped back at him with sudden venom. But it was too defensive for anger. Any moment now he was going to order Connor to shut up, but the command didn't come. "I tried to help my friend, and I received lies in exchange."
"So you never went to the First Enchanter?"
"I-" the words got lost in a quake of nerves that threatened the fire and the lush hillside. For a moment, Connor thought he could smell the rank stones of Kinloch Hold. "I was trying to help my friend."
"How do you help a blood mage?"
"By believing him when he told me he was afraid of being denied his Harrowing on account of his weak magic!" Surana told him harshly, voice defensive and his thin shoulders tight with apprehension. Connor had never heard him explain himself to someone before, least of all to Connor himself. "And by trusting him when he told me he'd never touched blood magic; that he'd only raised suspicions like that by sneaking around to meet the Chantry sister who'd caught his eye. We were young and they were fools who wanted to run away from the circle together to keep him from the Tranquil brand. Connor, I went to the First Enchanter to see my friend Harrowed." To give him a chance to die like a mage or succeed and stay safe, to keep his life and live it respectfully. Connor could feel the old hurt and sting of guilt, the justifications that piled up like the cherry pits and fruit peels still resting under the false flames in front of them.
Better to die in the Harrowing Chamber than live his life a ragged apostate criss-crossing the countryside with a wife who'd never lived a day outside the Chantry.
"How did the story get changed?" Connor asked him, because he recognized now that if he didn't ask these questions now, then like Anders before him any mention of Jowan would be forbidden after this night was done. "How did it go from helping to betrayal?" Surana curled his lips bitterly for a few moments, but then surrendered his answer.
"It changed when Irving reminded me who was the student and who was the master," he softly uttered, going back to staring at the flames. "I went to him a newly Harrowed mage, still dizzy from the lyrium, and I honestly thought my tin words could clash against his steel. I went into his office simply to argue for Jowan's Harrowing or death, I walked out having confessed everything I knew about his escape plans and the flat refusal from Irving to spare him from either the brand or the sword." There was… pain in those words.
Connor knew his Commander as someone who could slight the Dalish and then immediately turn around and make nice with the Clan Keeper. He was an Archmage who could walk into Skyhold, yell and beat his staff at the Grand Enchanter, and change the College's laws around Harrowings. He'd taken the Arling of Amaranthine to war against Redcliffe without the slightest censure from Denerim.
It was… humbling, to hear him describe time when words had not been the same weapon they were to him now.
"Jowan was lost either way." Surana admitted quietly, he seemed calmer now that he was in the thick of his explanation. "Either I followed the First Enchanter's orders to incriminate the sister in the escape and help Irving keep balance against Knight Commander Greagoir, or I'd have thrown away the rest of my life and career as a mage for refusing to play the game. I've always been very proud, Connor. I was his apprentice, his protégé, and I'd known for years that he would continue to guide me and aim to place me as his successor. I couldn't throw an ambition like that away or hope to hang on to it if I lost his favour. If I'd known that the next day I would be recruited to the Grey Wardens then maybe I would have done something differently, but I don't for the life of me know what."
They sat quietly like that for a time. Connor was thankful that they were in the Fade together because a silence like this would have been unbearable if they were awake with nothing but physical cues to follow. In the dream realm there were many more layers to the archmage's usually reserved countenance, or at least more of them that Connor could feel without intruding on the other mage or straying into awkward territory with his commander. It wasn't just silence and stoicism, Surana was grumbling and annoyed with the topic of Jowan, but there was an underlying layer of personal spite that justified the uncomfortable feeling, validated it, told the older man that he was meant to feel this way so he might as well get the worst of it over with now.
Unlike in their talk about Anders the Apostate of Kirkwall, Connor didn't have to outright ask why he was worthy of this explanation because it was written through Surana as clearly as his pale skin and scarred hands. Soren had been responsible for Jowan's flight from the Circle, for his damning foray into Blood Magic, and Connor had been the primary victim of that failure.
"Loghain could have found anyone to poison Arl Eamon," Connor quietly stated after several minutes of the calm. In a way, Surana had stopped talking but kept communicating. "But the fact that he had a Blood Mage available to him as a teacher for me…"
"Jowan never meant for you to become an Abomination, Connor." The confidence in those words was not great, but it was strong: a bar of steel hidden under the wet rot of abuse. "I won't deny that he failed you, but I'm no more willing to accept that he wanted it that way than I am to hear the same of you and Rowan."
Connor wanted to ask how the Commander knew that so certainly, and in a way he did. It was the wind that blew cold against the fire and the answering rumble of the flames. Surana had not seen Jowan since the Blight: had warned his former friend from ever daring to cross paths with him again. He might have died during the war, he could have expired from a fever or a highwayman or the elements, or perhaps he'd gotten himself married and had nine children on a homestead somewhere. The Hero of Ferelden didn't know and didn't care to know. But Jowan had once been his closest friend, and even if he had proven himself capable of blood magic, Surana plainly refused to believe that murder and corruption had somehow woven into the other mage's fabric.
The next questions was less intentional on Connor's part, a whimsical thing he didn't particularly care about and that he would never have spoken aloud. Was this the reason the Commander had taken him into the Grey Wardens? To apologize for the devastation and trauma Jowan had allowed to consume Connor's fledgling magic? Surana's answer was a wry smile and a hand extended down into the fruit bowl to pluck a rich red strawberry out to enjoy.
"You don't remember that night in the mountains very well, do you, Warden?" The Commander asked.
"Which one, sir?"
"The first one." Surana probed, and the landscape twisted just so in order to cut and rise like mountains. Their hill was still lush, but it was much higher than Amaranthine. They were in a green glade in the mountains between Ferelden and Orlais. "You were down in the burning caravan, and I triggered a spell that caused a landslide across the mountain face to drown the darkspawn."
"I… remember being very afraid, very tired, and very convinced that I was about to die." Connor explained.
"You helped my Wardens despite that. You helped me."
"I'm a walking reminder of Jowan," Connor stated, legs crossed and hands on his ankles, stretching his back a little from all this time spent sitting on the ground. "I expect you needed more than 'helpful' next to my name to go dragging me from Skyhold." Surana chuckled again, then lifted one hand in front of him. A soft white light gathered in his palm and then grew, tendrils of silky smooth power flowing up and growing from his fingers like the stems of lush plants.
The lines coiled, spread, linked, and chained about until they formed a glyph Connor had studied and cast before: the interlocking circles of a restorative mark, one meant to channel a bit of the mage's energy into the bodies of friendly allies and help keep them going in battle.
"That's what I had down on the field below where I was fighting the Emissary," Surana explained. "Do you remember what you did?"
"I… jammed my staff right about there…" Connor threw a small, harmless dart of red-light into the casting, striking the glyph at the eight-pointed star in the middle. "And because you are much, much stronger than I am, sir, I immediately passed out from the way your mark sucked me dry."
"Why do you always blame me for these things?" Surana teased. "That is absolutely not what happened."
"You're right: I vomited first."
"Connor." Ah, but there was no heat in his voice. Connor leaned back on his hands and admired the glyph hovering over them. Surana brought his hands together and was rubbing his palms in a circle, gathering red light that matched the colour of Connor's dart. "Book-learning will only carry a mage so far, Warden, but I found myself at a loss to explain what was going on when I looked down at my feet and found my own glyph reflected back at me."
"What?" That sounded odd to him.
"You," Surana indicated with a nod, "followed the line of my magic from the glyph back to where I was standing and cast the spell under me."
"I did not." It was… possible, but certainly not within the realm of Connor's abilities. Maybe now after almost a year in the Grey Wardens and with some practice he could try it, but certainly not while he'd been a nothing medic at Skyhold.
"I get enough petty arguments when awake, thank you. I order you not to bicker with me about this." Connor couldn't help but frown at the order, but he nodded. Yes, sir. "Excellent. Now for the reason why the other four wouldn't hear of you being left behind. You refreshed my glyph, copied and cast it under me- thank you, by the way. But then you also went ahead and…"
Surana tossed both hands up with the red light. The restoration glyph remained white, but the red quickly ran about the perimeter and… split off? It grew? Three marks split off from the outer-ring of the primary spell, and they drew a triangular wall around the entire spell all together? But that was-
"I did not." Connor complained.
"Not very well, no." Surana allowed. "You mis-aligned the radial marks on the upper right corner, and I think you'd put the wrong element table on the bottom one. You also, as you said, vomited and passed out before the outer triangle was complete. But still, for an apprentice…"
"I did not do that!" Connor shrieked. "Those four don't even go together! That barrier mark at the southern point would have blocked the way back to the wagons!"
"Protecting the caravan from-"
"Mages don't just cast magic we don't know!"
"Read those glyphs for me, go on." Stop smiling at him! "Barrier in the south, yes. And the other two?"
"Repulsion-" To keep anything else from spilling down the slope of the mountain- "No! Sir I wasn't even able to see that much of the battle!"
"Next one, go on." Surana pressed again and would not smack that twist off his face.
"It- healing, but-"
"You can read them, which means you know them, which means yes you can cast them." Don't be so cavalier about it! "I'll be as smug as I like, Corporal. You're still right: you didn't do it properly and you didn't do it well, you also didn't stay on your feet or even awake after making the attempt. But you made the attempt."
"I should have died for being so stupid." Surana threw a cherry at him.
"You almost did." Oh. Well that… sadly that was not as comforting as Connor had hoped. "The decision was made to recruit you before I even figured out who you were, Connor. It was only after I recognized you and you clearly knew who I was that I gathered my doubts. It's your own fault for doing everything right from that point on. If I hadn't given you the joining after the Storm Coast then Morrigan had promised to make me sleep in the Vigil's stables."
"She can't do that," Connor stated petulantly, "Not to you at least." He let the grass rustle with the ridiculous echo of that statement. Surana's answer was in both his eyebrows rising very high.
"She can. She has. And I carry no doubts that she will again someday." He wanted to accuse the Commander of joking or exaggerating, but the ashes in the fire quietly told him no, don't do that. He was serious? "I'll not pry into your personal business, Warden, but if you're interested in taking a lover who's your equal or better in power and status then you'd best learn to watch yourself a little more."
Connor didn't see how that would be an issue.
Surana regarded him with a mixture of pity and amusement.
"I think…" The Commander looked to the fire again for a slow moment, then pushed himself smoothly to his feet. Something seemed different now. "-that I am being woken up. Which means I only have one more question for you, Warden, and regrettably it's a serious one." Woken up? He could tell? He could resist? "Focus, Connor."
"Um- yes, sir. What is it?" Connor rose as well, it seemed proper. Surana was holding his staff and leaning on it casually, both hands wrapped around it and holding tight. He did seem a little less present now however, and the fruit bowl was gone, the glyph fading out in the darkness.
"Your uncle and mother have both repeatedly demanded to sit by your bedside, or to visit with you during your waking moments. Do you consent to that?" Connor thought he'd been slapped.
"No!" He recoiled in body and mind, taking a proper step back from the suggestion. "Keep them away from me- Maker, especially when I'm asleep! Do you have any idea what the Crows did to me? Who ordered it done? No- no, Commander, please." Surana raised a hand.
"That was all I needed to know, Connor. They won't come near you."
"Thank you, sir."
"Any other messages I should ca…" His eyes went out of focus, the Commander didn't have feet anymore and the hillside had vanished. With a snap he came back a little. "Quickly, Warden."
"Tell Carver and Evie I'm coming back, I'm alright. Tell Jylan thank you and that I'm sorry I don't know the name of the Antivan herb the Crows were using with the embrium, but it looked like bundles of threads and Master Arainai might-" Surana vanished. He was simply there and then he was not.
Connor remained there for a few moments longer than he knew what to do with, feeling strangely alone with the sudden absence.
The fire was gone. It was dark. The grass was gone, another conjuring of Surana's. The rotunda was far away, because Connor understood that he was not in Redcliffe Castle anymore. He was alone. It was dark.
It was quiet. Quiet in a way he should have been used to: there was no ambient noise in the Fade and he'd been here in for weeks in his rotunda and the libraries from his memories. But now he really felt it: the quiet. It had been intolerably nice to sit and have a conversation with someone who meant him no harm. Just… to sit and eat and talk and yes some of it had been heavy and much of it important, but not all. Talking to another person wasn't like talking to a spirit, you could be more forward with someone like you. Speak frankly, take random topics and examine them carelessly.
Maker, Connor had never once joked with the Warden Commander before. They'd never had a conversation like that before. He just…
"I want to wake up." He wanted to wake up and not feel like he was trapped in a living hell. He wanted to wake up and be able to see and to breathe and to know where he was and recognize who he was with. Connor wanted to wake up, get out of bed, dress and shave himself and then go down into his workshop and work at his business helping the Vigil.
He'd been missing for six weeks, laid up in Redcliffe village for a seventh, would doubtless have to stay in South Reach for the eighth, nineth, and tenth. Self-sufficiency in a year would be hard when three months of the year had been spent without an apothecary or his assistant. They would have to aim for next year instead.
Blast it, all of his plants in Vigil's Keep had probably withered away to nothing in his room without he or Jylan there to tend them. Oh no- oh no the servants were always told to throw away whatever looked like- his snowdrops! No! He'd only just gotten them to- fuck!
"I want to wake up!"
If he found one more hammer-mark on his damned table Connor was going to-
He woke up.
Soren grunted at Morrigan to stop shaking him before he even cracked his eyes open, his hands warm and clumsy and looking for hers so he could pry them off his shirt. Stop.
"You will warn Duty to mind its tone with me in the future, Soren."
"Off." He grunted again.
"Father-" Look what she'd done? Now Kieran was grabbing his arm and rattling him just as hard. "Father, you must get up."
"I am…" He pushed himself up slowly to sit in the warm bed, eyes still shut, words cracked by a yawn he covered with the back of his wri- ow… wrong arm…
"You have overslept," Morrigan scolded.
"Oh, bite me, love." She tweaked his ear and he hated that he hated that. "What?" He grunted again, fighting to get free of them both and pull the blankets off his legs. Curse Redcliffe for being so damn cold.
"Rowan's uncle is being awful again," Kieran pleaded, and Soren was patient enough to find his son's head and brush his hand down from Kieran's thick black hair and over his cheek. It hurt a little when the boy shook his touch off. "Not now, you have to get up."
"Let me get dressed…" Kieran took him by the hand and Morrigan from his wounded shoulder and they both pulled- "Stop! Enough!"
"Kieran, your father's staff."
"At least let me get my boots on first-"
"You act as if you have time for such comforts!" He had time for boots, damn it!
It was a mess, getting out of bed with the two of them screeching at him. It was not like them to act foolishly, and expecting him to just waltz out of the room with his staff in hand and his nightclothes wrinkled down his body counted as outright stupid. But that was exactly what happened, because aside from his staff and his boots the only other thing Soren was permitted to take was his gold dagger.
"You will need this," Morrigan said before swinging the door open and silencing his complaints with the threat of this squabble being overheard. The most he could afford for his hair was her hands brushing through it briskly, as if that helped at all!
"What I need are patience," he hissed back at her, shaking free from her hands. He then allowed his mistress and his son to drag him out into the hallway, directly into the path of Arl Teagan, Arlessa Isolde, and Alistair. This was not how he had wanted to begin his day.
"What in the Maker's Name is this?" He demanded crudely, embarrassed and too damn proud to let it show. Soren felt like an idiot in his nightclothes, standing in this stupid hallway.
"You!" Yes, him, hello. Soren had no patience for Teagan's grandstanding as the other Arl flung a hand at him, then through the ajar door of Connor's room. "Your defective slave needs its ears clipped!"
"Oh yes, start the morning with remarks about punishing slaves, Teagan." Soren spoke over Alistair's own shocked admonishment. "Improve my already wonderful mood. Get away from that door, both of you."
"I will see my child." Isolde gasped at him, woeful pleading eyes staring at him big and tearful and Soren grumbled openly in the back of his throat. He'd been woken up for this? "This thing will not stop me!"
"Oh, but I will." Soren remarked, approaching the door until he could see Compounder Ansera tucked into the slight space between the edge of the door and its frame. One green eye and the tangled black of his bangs. "Compounder, you may return to your duties. Lock the door."
The door smacked shut and the lock rattled loudly. Soren tuned out the roaring protest from the three humans like white noise.
"You two, fuck off." He told the Guerrins simply.
"Soren!"
He had no patience for this, not anymore. Teagan took a threatening step towards him and Soren clubbed the older man's knee sharply with the base end of his staff. It didn't wound him, but it smarted sharply and dropped the other Arl with a howl.
"You are forbidden from entering Warden Connor's room." He stated over Teagan's yelling. "He is not a Guerrin. He was disowned by the late Eamon Guerrin who did not recant the vow before I killed him, personally, with magic, in front of many, many witnesses. Go away."
"Soren, you need to just calm down." Alistair came down on him firmly and Soren looked at him with his calmest face. "Don't give me that masked bullshit."
"Do you know what I was doing before this bullshit woke me up, Alistair?" Soren asked him, and he dropped any inclination to use titles right now. "I was in the Fade speaking with the mage beyond this door. We had a very nice conversation, and it ended with him saying that the idea of having Arlessa Isolde or Arl Teagan looming over his sleeping body upset and revolted him the same as if they were more of the Crows who tortured him."
"Why… Why would that even come up?" Alistair asked, but with a bit more humility this time.
"Because this bastard struck my apothecary across the mouth for refusing him access to Connor, and this whore is universally hated in Redcliffe and will keep her wailing mouth shut in my presence." That flared his temper back up again and Soren did not care. "I don't want to be here any longer than they do, Alistair. We leave tomorrow for South Reach: don't squander the chance to let Redcliffe Village stay in one piece."
"Is that a threat?" Alistair growled at him, thoroughly prepared to throw a punch at him and Soren was a little unclear on how justified that would be.
"It's certainly not a bluff." But he goaded the ex-templar ex-warden anyways, because when else was this going to get hashed out? "For the record though, he said nothing about barring the King from his bedside. But these two snakes? Off with them." He waved the top of his staff at them, flaring the crystal just to get a rise out of Teagan and a shriek from the Arlessa.
"Connor's a Guerrin whether he likes it or not, Soren," Alistair warned him, placing a daring hand on his staff and shoving the crystal away. "They have a right to see him."
"He is not a Guerrin unless he calls himself one, and they forfeited whatever familial rights they had when they traded gold for the scars on his body." Soren indicated the door with his free hand. "Come, my friend. Let me show you House Guerrin's handiwork. They burned him, peeled his skin off, slashed his flesh, poisoned his gut, and left him to fester in his own waste for days at a time. Come inside, Alistair, let me enlighten you."
Alistair stared at him good and hard for several seconds, his jaw flexed a few times and it was clear he struggled not to look back at the two people with him as Soren laid his accusations. Truly, Soren knew his friend had little love for the Arlessa who had seen him turned out of Castle Redcliffe has a child, but Teagan was where the tender feelings lay and that was simply unfortunate. Teagan had been arrested in Denerim and remained in custody when Soren left the capital, how he'd been released to go running about like a loyal dog at the King's ankles was an annoying gap in Soren's understanding. However, freedom did not imply power, and Teagan walked about like a man whose only power was to bark at anything which displeased him, not actually bite at it. He was no threat, not after what his brother had allowed himself to get involved with.
Alistair nodded, accepting the brutally-worded offer to come inside. The King took a small step towards the door and Soren knocked his staff on the floor to cut a white line behind His Majesty and between the last two Guerrins. He kept his eyes on Isolde and her simpering face and knocked his free hand on the door, calling on Ansera to open it again.
The Tranquil opened the door and Soren beat another spell into the floor. Teagan had no power except whatever shreds Alistair chose to throw him like a starving dog, so there was something very important Soren wanted to impress upon him first. His spell sprouted like thorns of crippling pain through Teagan's feet, up his knees, around his groin, and held him there in a burning white halo of magic. His sudden yelling was reigned in by the fact that Soren was not trying to maim him, and the man had enough pride not to howl and scream like a beast as he was addressed.
"Arl Teagan, this is your final warning." Soren told him, well aware of the burning stink of Templar magics hissing around Alistair's clenched hands. A punch Soren could accept with only minor indignity, but a smiting blow would be considerably harder for him to accept. He focused on Teagan. "Harass, belittle, insult, assault, or in any way harm a denizen of Vigil's Keep ever again, be they Dwarf, Elf, Tranquil, or Warden, and I will clip away every part of you until the Maker Himself would struggle to put you back together. You are dismissed."
Alistair entered the room first, and Soren followed with only a quick look back at Morrigan and Kieran. They were satisfied with his intervention and retreated back to the room he'd left behind. Harpies, mother and son, but at least they would be safe if they stayed in the tavern, and comfortable if they remained in the room next to Connor's on this floor.
"Commander Surana, you are not dressed." Ugh, Tranquil… Soren wasn't terribly sure of how he was supposed to answer that comment, but he almost thought he heard Morrigan laughing at him through the wall.
"No, Ansera, I am not." He made himself- why was the Tranquil looking at Alistair instead of him? "Ansera?"
"Pardon me, your grace: I must ensure my patient's safety." Soren was shocked by the gall Ansera had by speaking the words so boldly and facing Alistair square as he did so. Alistair may have been amused by the Tranquil's forward style a few days ago, but was not in the mood for it this morning and was barely keeping his face from twisting at the insult behind Ansera's suspicions.
"Maker's Breath, Jylan, he's the King." Warden Hawke was present at the fireside, standing now but with his black hair swept out in all directions where he had been toweling it off by the warmth and was now on his feet to properly acknowledge his king. Alistair didn't look at Hawke, but he did raise a hand telling him he could reclaim his seat.
"Compounder, I'm his cousin." Alistair explained as bluntly as he could. Ansera was not persuaded. In fact:
"That is precisely the cause of my attention." Soren tried to think of a gesture for 'shut up before someone has you pilloried' that a Tranquil would not only understand, but also respond to, and found himself with nothing. Jylan Ansera had proved again and again over the weeks that he could not be intimidated, or simply would not be. It was a very important trait for someone who had been at risk of possession by demons, but frustrating to work with otherwise.
"I'm not going to hurt him." Alistair argued, voice tight and quiet.
"Then I do not understand your frustration with my presence." Ansera he could not gesture to, Hawke he could and Soren cut the air with a sharp sign for Hawke to just leave the Tranquil alone. Velanna and An'eth had both given up on trying to dissuade the Tranquil from his stubborn path for more than a few hours, Hawke was by far the least qualified Warden to try shepherding Ansera anywhere. Alistair may not have been well versed in how to handle protective servants, but he deflected from the immediate topic by pointing at the bed.
"Is she supposed to be there?" The King asked.
"Yes." There was no doubt in the Tranquil's answer. She was Captain Bouclier, who was quiet obviously asleep and curled up along Connor's side in the blanket-laden bed. For the Captain's head to be so close to Connor's, they had to be touching or otherwise embraced, and Soren mastered his curiosity before he could cast a wondering look at Hawke. Hadn't he been sharing the bed with Connor a few days ago? It was none of his business, and come to think of it: Connor's message about being alright had been for both Wardens. Soren didn't have to understand it, he just had to stay out of it unless someone stopped doing their jobs properly.
Bouclier was roused, not willingly, and once she realized the company in the room she was none too pleased with having been asleep for their entrance. She sat up in Connor's bed with visible reluctance, moving to sit amongst the pillows and keep his blankets closed, and Soren had to try and convince the three of them- Hawke, Bouclier, and Ansera, to let the blankets and tunic be pulled aside so Alistair could see his cousin's scars.
"No." The Wardens were easy to master and make silent, the Tranquil was not.
"Ansera-"
"No." Why was it always over the smallest things.
"He is leaving for South Reach tomorrow morning," Soren pressed upon him. "If he cannot have his skin barred in a warm room then he won't be able to leave Redcliffe until spring."
"It is not a matter of his health, Warden Commander." Then what in Andraste's name was it about? "We have Warden Connor's permission to dress and bathe him, His Majesty does not."
"He does not need permission, Ansera." Soren was losing his patience. "He is the king."
"He does not have consent." Why, oh why, had Soren allowed Connor to keep a Tranquil at Vigil's Keep?
"Perhaps he can ask," Captain Bouclier interrupted Soren's steady descent into madness by speaking up from the bed where she was still seated. She was looking down at Connor and stroking his scarred face with her fingertips, focused on him in a way which quickly brought Hawke over to the other side of the bed. "Connor?" She murmured a few words in Orlesian to him, and sure enough Connor's eyes fluttered open briefly, his head turning a little towards her before it looked like he tried to stretch under the heavy blankets.
"He must eat." Ansera dismissed the previous conversation and immediately went to the table set up opposite the bed and boasting a wide array of tools and reagents for his work. He ladled something thick and grey into a bowl and then went to the fire where a pot of water was steaming, pouring a ladle of that into the bowl to heat up and thin the thick soup.
"Didn't think you'd come back for a few hours," Hawke told him gently, as if Soren and Alistair had simply vanished from the room and weren't important anymore. "Show us your hands. Can you see any better today?" Connor's eyes struggled to stay open, and the only sound he could make was confined to thick, weak grunts in the deepest part of his throat. The three of them fussed over him like a newborn and Soren was content to stand out of the way and just observe, not step forward to join them as a healer.
"Is it always like this?" Alistair asked him in a quiet voice.
"When he's awake, yes," Soren answered just as quietly. "But they keep him calm. I'm surprised to see him awake though, he must not have been in the Fade very long after I left."
"You were really with him?" His friend asked. "What did he say?"
"Oh, plenty of things." He explained. "He's going to carry the scars from this for a while, but in the Fade it's easier to push trauma like that away and ignore it. When he does that, he seems perfectly normal, maybe even more confident." Soren had certainly never known Connor to make jokes and act foolishly in his presence, so the younger mage must have been coming into his own, he certainly hadn't been so glib during the battle. "I told him what's been happening since the battle, he knows where he is and who has been taking care of him."
"And he- um…" Alistair interrupted himself when there was a clear upset by the bed.
"You must eat," Ansera repeated, Connor turning his face away with a grimace that reminded Soren terribly of a fussy child. The difference between Connor and Kieran was the rude gesture the mage made with one hand when the Tranquil insisted with the bowl. "You must eat."
"I don't think he's hungry," Hawke attempted.
"That is irrelevant, he must eat."
"I gather he says that a lot," Alistair whispered. Soren drew a long breath and nodded without speaking.
'I can't breathe.' That set of signs brought the fussing and chatter to a stand-still. 'No. Move. Don't touch.' Quickly and a little broken, but the meaning was clear. Bouclier left the bed and Hawke took two steps back. Ansera seemed frozen by the change, awaiting more information before acting. 'Not my lungs. My throat. My mouth. They feel forgot sign.'
"Huh?" Alistair commented, probably because he'd fallen out of practice with the language.
"He's forgotten the sign for the word he wants," Soren explained gently, and got a dirty look for it. "What? I'm helping you, majesty."
"Spell it then?" Hawke was saying to Connor, who pulled a face and grunted again, but his hand was moving.
'T-h-i-c-k.' Was the first word. 'C-l-o-g-g-e-d. Can't breathe, can't speak, can't swallow. No food.'
"Okay, but are you in pain?"
'Need a-c-i-d.'
"We're not pouring rashvine extract down your throat you get that thought out of your-" Connor shuddered a little too hard for Carver's joke to follow-through, and the Warden looked shamefaced for it before finally apologizing.
"Let him gargle salt," Soren finally had to say. "When was the last time anyone bothered looking in his mouth? It could be embrium residue." The worst part about embrium was the film left in the mouth the next morning. Connor had been under a much higher dosage for weeks without a break. "If we can't find lemon or another sharp fruit in the village's stocks, vinegar might help."
Connor's hands were moving, but they broke into a sharp, frustrated fit of just shaking hard until Bouclier grabbed one of them and tried to sooth him.
'Forgot, forgot, forgot, forgot. Bring paper.'
"For what?"
'Write. Forgot sign. Bring me paper.'
"You're just going to write blind?"
'Fuck off, Hawke.'
Paper and ink were brought, and although it was difficult for him Connor did manage to scrawl several words onto the parchment. He was justified in wanting to write because most of the herbs he named didn't have signs. Lemon balm, ginger, mint, distilled water, fennel, and so on.
"A wash and purge," Ansera stated after only three ingredients were written, and Connor dropped the quill so he could raise both hands towards the Tranqui's voice: yes. Something he could gargle and spit, the other that would make him throw up if the wash didn't work. Ansera set himself to his task and as soon as he was out of the room, Soren finally saw the place to act on Alistair's original purpose for being in the room.
"Warden," his voice drew Connor's attention, the young man clearly exhausted from all the excitement and resting heavily in his bed, arms still out over the covers and foggy grey eyes focusing in Soren's general direction, not on him specifically. "His Majesty is here to speak with you. It's important that he see what signs remain from your capture. Will you allow it?"
Connor looked in his direction for several seconds, then his hands moved.
'Is me laying like a corpse not enough?' Soren took that question and looked directly at Alistair, who recoiled gently before stepping to the beside and drawing the available chair over to help him sit down. The noise and his presence made him easier for Connor to try and focus on.
"Your mother is beside herself with worry about…" Connor's hands were already speaking, it didn't quite count as an interruption because the signs were quiet and Alistair chose to stop speaking.
'My mother is a liar and a deceptive snake. She feigned concern for me many times before ordering my torture.'
"Connor, she's your mother. I know your father was angry with you, but he…"
'They forced the e-m-b-r-i-u-m petals down my throat, with r-a-s-h-v-i-n-e rolled inside of them.'
"That… I hadn't known that, I-" Neither had Soren. Neither had Hawke or Bouclier who were staring at his hands.
'Knives. Blood. Ice. Left to freeze. To the tower if I fought. To the tower if I resisted. To the tower if I saw the girl. To the tower if I was in the Fade. T-o-t-u-r-e.'
"Connor…"
'I-s-o-l-d-e is not my mother. R-o-w-a-n is not my sister. T-e-a-g-a-n is not my father. I am not a G-u-e-r-r-i-n. Go away.'
"I- you're tired, the sign for uncle is-"
'Father.' Connor repeated. And then: 'F-a-t-h-e-r. I am no man's bastard. Go away.'
"Connor, you can't-"
'I can. I will. Go away.'
"But that-" Connor opened one hand with a simple mark etched in his palm, a web of crackling violet sparking between his tense fingers. His other hand repeated the sign a forth time:
'Go away.'
Soren put a hand on his friend and King's shoulder. Alistair would be within his rights to do anything but listen. He could have Connor flogged for threatening him with magic, thunder and rage at him for accusing Isolde of infidelity, or done whatever else even occurred to him in the wake of being told four times to leave by a bedridden mage, but that would not have been Alistair. What was him was the way he sat silently in that chair for a handful of painful seconds, let Soren stand there touching him, and then slowly stood up. He ushered Soren out of the room with him with a gentle hand, letting Bouclier and Hawke fall on their wounded companion and try to sooth him again, and the two old friends stepped out into the hall.
The door closed behind them and Alistair didn't look at him. He stood there in his kingly leathers and white furs, shoulders hunched, back tense, and then slowly reached out behind him to grab Soren's arm. It was his good arm and didn't hurt, wasn't meant to cause him pain. It was a touch that helped his friend anchor and support himself, just for a few moments, the way he had after meeting his sister Goldanna for the first time, the way he had when they'd learned the price to be paid to end an Archdemon's life.
Alistair didn't look at him until he could look at him, and did so with painful tears welling in his eyes, his face twisted between pain and grief.
"Thank you for killing Eamon," his friend whispered in a husky voice, shaking his head. "I couldn't have done it. It needed to happen but Soren I couldn't have done it."
"I know. It's over now, Alistair."
"No." His king hushed, cheeks flushed and lips trembling. "No it's not. I wanted to believe them, Soren."
"Of course you did. No one wanted this to be real."
"Why did he call Teagan his father? You saw it clear as I did, didn't you?"
"I…" Soren didn't know what to say. "He's never mentioned anything like that to me. I've always known him to call Eamon his father and I wasn't there when they had their falling out in Denerim."
"Neither was I, but- Maker, no…"
"Come have a word with me in my room this way, don't walk through the village looking like this."
"No." He shook his head, letting tears streak his skin. "Let them see. In fact- I want to announce it. I want everyone to know how their King feels towards House Guerrin now."
"Is that wise?" Soren asked because he had to. A few weeks ago this reaction would have overjoyed him, but standing here now with the battle a week behind them and the long recovery still stretched out in the distance, it didn't feel like a victory: just another casualty.
"I don't give a fuck about wise right now, Soren." Alistair bit back. "You've had your vengeance for your Warden. I haven't. I got to be part of the damned problem in the first place- well no more!"
"I stand with you, my king." Because Alistair didn't need nay-saying and criticism right now. It wouldn't change anything he did at this point and Soren wanted to be on his side, for Alistair's own sake if nothing else. "Just let me get properly dressed first."
"Oh no," Alistair forced a biting smile, "You're going to watch me address the whole village dressed just like that, silver boots, mage staff, and woolen smallclothes. I'll have it made into a tapestry when I get home."
"You are ever charming and thoughtful, your majesty."
"Get dressed and come outside, I- I'm done with being political. I'm taking Rowan to the Royal pavilion." Good.
"I stand with you, my friend." The most important thing he could have said. Alistair clapped Soren's hand with both of his, and with a painful smile he left the tavern behind with his tears still falling fast and free.
