A/N: Blackwall's POV now! We've got an interrogation scene, then the visitors. Don't worry, no torture took place, nor did anyone actually sneak down to his cell in the middle of the night to hurt him. The reverse in fact.
Summary: Time to question Thom Rainier and get his statement, and while he's ready to face justice, the justice in store isn't what he'd expected. In fact, it's almost as if the Inquisitor is looking for a way not to execute him. Because him being Warden Blackwall saved the life of Princess Maia, and the Reach pays its debts.
Their Worships had clearly wanted to take their time over Blackwall's questioning. He'd been given breakfast at dawn and a fresh slops bucket, but then left for several more hours before anyone had bothered to come check on him. He'd been given soap and water a little before noon and told to clean himself, then given some clean clothes to get changed into, and only then had he been hauled out of his cell, wrists shackled and a bag being shoved over his head before leaving the prison entirely.
If it had been to hide his identity, they needn't have bothered. He could tell from the booing that people knew who he was. Liar, traitor, murderer, he'd heard it all before, and Cullen's voice ordering people to stay back, their Worships would decide his fate soon enough, was not a comfort. Cullen might be a professional but Blackwall was under no illusions Cullen actually cared.
Doors were unlocked, stairs were climbed and finally they sat him in a chair and pulled off the hood, and Blackwall squinted in the brilliance of a magelight glimmering above him, the sole source of light in an otherwise darkened room.
"Is this how it starts then?" Blackwall said bitterly, knowing at least one of them was watching him, Madanach if not Elisif. "Me barely even able to see while someone I once called friend interrogates me?"
"I was friends with Warden Blackwall," he heard Madanach growling. "You're someone else entirely."
"Madanach," he heard Elisif say tersely, before the Inquisitor turned her attention to him.
"We'll ask the questions, Rainier," Elisif said, voice soft but firm, and his real name slipping effortlessly from her tongue. While she'd always been friendly to him, she'd never been quite as close as her husbands had. She'd not been there to see him save her child from certain death, nor did she have a Warden's oath binding her. No real surprise to see her coping just fine with things now.
"I already confessed," Blackwall said, lowering his eyes, vision adjusting just enough to see Inquisition dossiers on a table in front of him. "What more can you possibly want to know."
"Oh, I know the facts, I've been reading up on you all morning," Elisif said, still eerily calm. "Winner of the Grand Tourney at a shockingly young age, distinguished career in the Orlesian Army, rose to Captain, fanatically loyal following of younger soldiers who you'd personally mentored… I can see you doing all of this, you know. And then you took coin from a noble looking for a leg-up in the Game and killed an entire family. I…"
Elisif's voice faltered for the first time and Blackwall realised perhaps she'd been harder hit by it all than he'd assumed.
"If you hadn't confessed, if it hadn't been the sheerest of chances, we'd never have realised you were even capable of this. You… you just don't seem the type to have it in you."
"Well then, Herald, perhaps I got so good at pretending to be a better man, even you were fooled," Blackwall snapped, wondering what the hell she was playing at. Couldn't she just order an execution or hand him over to Orlais and get it over with?
"He once told me he saved Maia because he'd seen enough dead kids for one lifetime," Madanach said, sounding unusually emotional, and Blackwall hated that here he was, feeling guilty about upsetting a man not known to be the squeamish type. "I thought he'd just seen things in the Blight that he claimed to have fucking fought in. Now it turns out you ordered the killings yourself? I felt sorry for you, you son of a bitch!"
Sound of a chair being shoved backwards and Elisif hissing his name again, and it was a few moments before Madanach spoke again.
"And you lied to my husband about being a fellow Warden," Madanach added viciously. "And my child cried when we told her. You've directly hurt my fucking family, and Elisif is the only thing stopping me from kicking this table over and coming after you myself. You bastard."
"I know," Blackwall said, not looking up and feeling oddly grateful for the anger, because he had it coming. He definitely did, and if he deserved anything, it was the wrath of the man Borkul had referred to as the Ragged King immolating him on the spot.
Sadly, it seemed that wasn't happening, not today anyway.
"So why did you do it," Elisif said softly. "Why did you take the job?"
Hard to think back so long ago, especially when things had changed so much. But some of the emotions hadn't gone away.
"You know Orlais," Blackwall said, still feeling the resentment burning. "If you're not noble, you're no one. Everyone wants to be noble, or in the good graces of one. I'd worked my backside off in the Imperial Army, but without a title, I could only go so far. The noble who approached me offered coin, enough to make me and my men rich… but he had something else too. He said he had a cousin about my age who'd run away and been disowned, and no one had seen him for years. He said he'd found out the cousin was dead in a bar fight in Tantervale these last few years… but he'd had to work to get that information and he doubted anyone else knew. With a few favours and forgeries, he could get me a paper trail proving I was that cousin, and with his word as a noble backing me up and welcoming me back into the family, no one would question it. I'd be an Orlesian noble with all that implied, and he had some land going spare I could have, and I could have my existing soldiers as my noble retinue. I'd be a bloody Name. All sorts of doors would open. I could have my pick of Orlesian nobility to marry. Maybe my kids would go on to marry into or found a great family of Orlais. Can you blame a man for seeing all that and letting it go to his head? Of course, what I didn't count on was the bloody Game eating me alive in the first fucking move. I'd promised my men knighthoods… and they ended up getting hung. And what did I do? I left them to their fate and ran off, hiding in Ferelden and pretending to be a better man. Well, the game's up, isn't it? You caught me, didn't you? Just get this over with, Lady Herald. You know what I am."
"Do I," Elisif said thoughtfully. "The dossier I have on the real Blackwall has his last officially documented move being visiting the then Warden-Commander in Montsimmard, and sending a letter to his garrison in Val Chevin announcing his intention to return. That was in 9:36 Dragon. But he never arrived and Leliana's Warden sources assumed he was dead. But then we have this."
She indicated one of the dossiers in front of her, a plain folder, a little thinner than the others but still substantial for all that.
"It starts with eyewitness testimonies and a ferry captain's passenger roster noting that one Warden-Constable Gordon Blackwall and an unnamed recruit were travelling from Val Chevin to Highever. Return passage was booked but neither ever turned up. Then there's other stories. Lots of them. All over Ferelden. Some just rumours, others better documented. Nothing ever confirmed by the Fereldan Wardens. But tales of a heroic Warden dealing with bandits. Rescuing lost children and livestock. Organising communities after flooding. Sorting out highwaymen. Inspiring an awful lot of people to pitch up at Amaranthine or Vigil's Keep wanting to join up. Some said they'd even been conscripted by a Warden Blackwall. There's a personal letter from the Hero of Ferelden herself to Leliana that she's not sure what the Orlesian Wardens were playing at, sending Warden-Commander Fontaine's chosen successor out to Ferelden like that when he should have been back in Orlais running things over there, but as he seemed adept at evading them and was helping people out, she wasn't going to waste resources looking for him further. Leliana admits that letter was what blinded her to looking into it. Anyone other than Lyra and she'd have questioned it… but it turns out Leliana has a griffin-shaped blind spot."
"So do a lot of people," Blackwall said gruffly, wishing he could wipe his eyes. "Especially in Ferelden. They'd suffered so much during the Blight. Soon as they saw a Warden pitch up to help… the look in their eyes. The hope, the adoration, the near reverence. They did whatever I told them. Followed where I led. At first I was just establishing an identity, laying a trail so there'd be people who'd stand before the authorities and swear I was Warden Blackwall who'd saved their village. I swore I'd stop after a while, retire to a little log cabin in the woods somewhere, live out my years in peace and quiet. But… there was always something else. Stolen goods to retrieve. Disputes to arbitrate. Another set of bandits to sort out. Everywhere I went, there was something needing dealing with. I couldn't just leave people to suffer, not if I could help. I was almost close to settling down in the Hinterlands, found this abandoned cabin by Lake Luthien. And then I was out hunting and saw this oddly dressed family of refugees being attacked by Templars and a little girl in trouble. I couldn't just leave them. So I helped once again and found out the world was in danger from more than just bandits… and that Warden Blackwall would have wanted to help with this. So Warden Blackwall did. You know the rest."
The table had been roughly shoved forward, someone abruptly getting up and striding away and from the half-choked masculine cursing, it was probably Madanach. Then the other chair shifted and soft footsteps running after him, and then Blackwall was witness to a conversation in a language he'd heard now and then but didn't remotely know.
Madanach sounding angry and upset. Elisif soft and gentle, sad and pleading, sounding like she was coaxing him back somehow. The conversation went on for a few minutes, and then to Blackwall's surprise, they seemed to agree on something, and then the door opened… and closed again, and it was only Elisif's footsteps he heard returning. Then the light blinked out entirely… and to his surprise, Elisif was the one to recast it. Not right in his eyes this time, and Blackwall looked to see just Elisif across from him, sadness in her eyes but also a good deal of sympathy.
"You'll have to excuse the Deputy Inquisitor, he needs a little time to himself," Elisif said gently. "I have one question. The reports from Orlais weren't clear on it. Did you know Callier would be travelling with his family when you planned that ambush?"
That one was easy enough to answer.
"No. I thought it'd be just him and his guards. Most nobles don't even bring their kids to the capital, a lot of them just leave them at the country estate all the time. Even the ones that do… look, Herald. You don't know Val Royeaux during the summer but it's a hot, stinking, disease-ridden pustule. All the nobles leave – the war this year was the only thing stopping them. But they don't all leave at the same time, sometimes business keeps them later than they'd like. Sometimes it's not business, just a man wanting to indulge himself without his wife around. But the ones who did bring their kids with them don't want disease claiming those kids once it starts warming up, so sending them on ahead to their villa in the Heartlands and travelling to join them later is perfectly normal. I thought he'd do the same! I didn't know… please, Your Worship. Please believe me, I didn't know he'd have the kids with him, not until it was too late."
He remembered all too clearly, expecting Callier to be some debauched prick like the rest of them, sending his wife and kids ahead while he enjoyed himself in the Belle Marche for a few weeks before finally remembering he was a family man and riding out to join them. It wasn't until he'd heard high-pitched laughter from the carriage and a female voice leading a few younger ones in a popular Orlesian nursery rhyme that he'd realised his mistake. It had been too late by then. His men were already moving.
"Mockingbird, mockingbird. Too many voices in the carriage. Maker, they're young. If I tell my men to stop, they'll know it was all a lie. Cold, trapped, heart hammering like axes on a carriage door."
It sounded like Cole, but it was Elisif saying the words, softly, deliberately. Blackwall yelped and tried to stand but the chair wouldn't move, secured to the floor, and guards were stepping from the door, moving towards him. He sank back into the chair, shaking.
"What are you… why are you doing this?" Blackwall whispered. "That sounded like… Cole?"
"It was," Elisif said, face lowered, eyes closed. "I asked him before coming in here. He talks in riddles but he doesn't lie. I wanted to know if compassion was worth it or not. Cole told me compassion was always worth it… but that you were genuinely trying to be better and you wanted to fix things. That you'd killed Rainier and were Blackwall now."
She wiped a tear away and looked up, clearly a bit affected herself by all this. Maker's balls, he really wasn't worth this. Killing Rainier… he wished he could.
"Inquisitor, don't tear yourself up over me, I'm not worth it," Blackwall said roughly. "Just do what you need to. And I'm not sure testimony from a spirit of compassion is admissible in a court of law."
Might as well try and lighten the proceedings, eh? Although for all he knew, Tamrielic law might just allow it. He was willing to bet Reach law did.
"I don't think it is either, but I needed confirmation," Elisif said, forcing a smile. "And your story also matches what Josephine and Leliana have told me about travelling arrangements of the Orlesian nobility. Many don't bring their children to the city at all, and many of those that do send them back as soon as the spring thaws have happened, only travelling themselves later. Callier himself had done that in previous years, although usually due to business or political concerns rather than the Belle Marche's delights. All right, I think I've seen what I need to. In particular, I have noticed one thing throughout all the stories we've gathered in Ferelden. And that's that you took very little in the way of payment beyond food and general hospitality. You'd take some coin from people who could afford it, and presumably some of what the bandits you killed stole. But it seemed you turned down a lot of financial rewards offered. And a lot of other rewards too. Seems there were a lot of women who would have offered you a more physical reward but you turned down all of them. Some were relieved. Some were rather disappointed. I can believe you needed to establish an identity, but in five years, you were working for free? The man who took coin and status to kill a family takes nothing for saving hundreds?"
"Wardens don't work for coin, we- they – do it because it's right," Blackwall said roughly, realising a tear was rolling down his cheek. He looked away, not willing to meet the Herald's eyes. "Needed to keep up appearances, right? Tales of a corrupt Warden reach Vigil's Keep, Lyra Surana would have found me eventually."
"I don't doubt it, but five years is a long time for the infamous Thom Rainier to live a life of poverty and virtue," Elisif said, still sounding like she actually still believed in him, somehow. "I think Cole's right. Somewhere along the line, you stopped pretending and started believing in it yourself. Not that you started thinking you were Blackwall of course. But you started seeing being a man like him as something to aspire to. I don't think the Thom Rainier who won a fortune in the Grand Tourney and lost it all in two years would have."
"You don't know a damn thing, Lady Herald!" Blackwall snapped, head jerking up to glare at her. "I'm not Warden Blackwall! I'm a fucking monster who lived for pleasure and when it finally caught up with me, I fled and spent years escaping justice and pretending to be a hero! All that gratitude, all those things I did. They mean nothing, Inquisitor. It was just me, lying to everyone all along. End it all, Herald. You're the real thing, they tell me. Me, I'm just a pretender who deserves to die in a ditch somewhere with an unmarked grave."
"And Madanach was once the leader of a terrorist movement ordering far worse things than you did, and Cicero was once an assassin for Tamriel's most feared group of them. Eola was once a Daedra-worshipping rogue mage, and Borkul was once a bandit chief, and Liriel once worked as a medic for an army of elven supremacists," Elisif said, voice sounding increasingly firm and commanding as she recounted her compatriots' pasts. "People change. Circumstances change. I gave Madanach a chance, and he repaid me by helping overthrow the Jarl who killed my husband, ruling his city justly in my absence and in turning the Reach from a dangerous frontier into a well-run and wealthy Imperial province. I was kind to Cicero, and he repaid me by telling me how to wipe out his former order and save myself from the contract they had on me, and now he helps me. I made Eola's father happy, and introduced her to her husband, and now she runs her father-in-law's old mercenary company, doing the same sort of thing for Skyrim that you were doing for Ferelden. She doesn't work for free, but she's got a very flexible set of payment plans. Borkul doesn't have to kill innocent people any more, and now he's taken up metalworking artistry and Josephine's teaching him how to dance. Liriel didn't need any convincing from me to change sides during the war, it was another who helped her do that… but change sides she did, and now her magic can help people instead of hurt them."
Elisif leaned forward, hands entwined, and when Blackwall looked up, he saw she was actually smiling.
"If I find a way for you to survive this and live as a free man under your own name, not Blackwall's, what will you do with that, I wonder," Elisif said, unnervingly knowing look in her eyes. And for the first time, Blackwall had no answer, because what would he do with that? He honestly had no idea, because he never thought it would happen.
Frankly, he still didn't think it would, but if he'd come to learn anything about the Inquisition, it was that Lady Elisif had a habit of pulling off the impossible all the time, and was a lot cleverer than anyone gave her credit for.
"It's got to happen first, and the Orlesians will not like it, I'm telling you," Blackwall said, guarded and wary and not trusting that freedom might be possible. It surely wouldn't be easy.
"I know that, my advisors all said as much," Elisif laughed. "But Josephine thinks she can negotiate your release with the Orlesian court if she holds Halamshiral over them, Leliana's identified another wanted criminal who we could hand over in your stead, and while Cullen would prefer you stand trial, he also thinks we've got enough power at our hands to just stand our ground and tell the Orlesians we're conscripting you and they'll just have to live with it."
"And you're willing to follow one of those options?" Blackwall said, disbelieving this. None of them sounded like her… but then again, nor had letting Celene perish from the very threat they'd been intending to save her from. Blackwall knew Cicero was better at his job than that… and that you did not send someone who'd failed in his duty on an expensive Orlesian spa weekend.
"Of course not, being owed a favour in Halamshiral is far too valuable to waste on this, letting the lie continue is good for neither me nor you, and while Cullen's likely right in that we could get away with just overruling Orlais, that has consequences politically," Elisif sighed. "Thankfully, I don't need to do any of that. Madanach came up with an idea. Josephine negotiates with Orlais, but not to get you released. She's going to ask for them to transfer the carrying out of your punishment to us instead. Rather than them going to the trouble of trying and executing you, seeing as you've confessed to everything and we conveniently have you in custody already, we're going to ask if they'll let us deal with the situation for them. We think they'll agree, once we tell them what we have planned."
"And what do you have planned?" Blackwall asked, certain it couldn't be that easy. It would have to be a genuine punishment after all. He'd upset too many people in Skyhold for Elisif to just release him.
Elisif's smile faded as she sat back, folding her hands in her lap.
"You lived as a Warden for years," Elisif said, turning solemn, and Blackwall could almost see the invisible mask of Inquisitor-Queen coming down on her face. "Are you prepared to risk dying as one?"
"What…" Fear gripped Blackwall then as he recalled the mission she'd spoken of sending him on before all this happened. The darkspawn-hunting mission, which she'd intended to send him on as one of the Blight-immune members of the Inquisition. Except he wasn't one of them, and now everyone knew it… and while he thought that meant she'd send someone else, now he realised a certain someone in the Inquisition High Command who was too clever for his own good and known to be a ruthless pragmatist had had the bright idea that maybe they could kill two birds with one stone. Except he was one of the birds.
"You want me to kill darkspawn. Knowing I'm not immune to the Blight."
Elisif's expression subtly tightened, anger seeping into her eyes.
"You guilt-tripped my husband into helping you fight them the first day he was even here, knowing no one in that party was Blight-immune, and you used the lie that you were a Warden to do it," Elisif hissed at him. "We do nothing, innocent Inquisition soldiers die from the Blight. You want death for your crimes so badly? Die doing something useful. Die saving someone else. Die in battle and… Andrastian soldiers don't have Sovngarde like Nords do, but I can have you remembered as someone who died honourably rather than on the gallows."
Elisif sat back, cheeks flushed, clearly a little shaken herself by her words… but something in them rang true. Blackwall didn't really believe the Sovngarde part of Rise of the Dragonborn, that there was a realm of the Fade crafted from the dreams of Nord warriors into their ideal afterlife and that their dead heroes went there. But he could buy into the idea of letting his death have meaning.
"And if by some miracle of the Maker I don't die?" Blackwall asked, needing to know what the answer to this one would be.
"I'll need to get agreement from the Orlesians first, but trial by combat's an ancient tradition in their legal system," Elisif said, not meeting his eyes. "And fighting a duel for one's honour is still very much alive as a custom. I think they'll say yes. If they do… then if you take up this task, lead a party to cleanse the Western Approach of darkspawn, and survive both the fighting and exposure to the Blight… you'll be deemed to have served your sentence. You'll be free to go. So long as you steer clear of Corypheus's forces and agents, and agree to live a just and honest life hereafter."
That sounded a little too good to be true… but there were also a number of obstacles in front of it happening. Still, if he had to die, a warrior's death was better than a criminal's. He didn't deserve it… but wouldn't the real Blackwall volunteer to help with the darkspawn?
Of course he would.
"Your terms are acceptable," he told her. "I'll do as you ask. If the Orlesians agree to it."
Elisif's smile could have lit a room up on its own, never mind the magelight.
"I hoped you'd say that," she breathed. "All right, Rainier, I'll tell Josephine to send the letters and make the announcement. Then it's back to your cell, I'm afraid. I'm sorry. Guards! We're done here. Please take him away. And get these back to Sister Leliana, thank you."
Footsteps behind him, and then the bag was over his head again, and Blackwall saw nothing more.
They'd left him back in his cell, given him lunch, and then, to his surprise, the visitors came. Alistair, with young Maia in his arms, and surprisingly, Cicero scampering along behind, although Cicero stayed back and mostly seemed engaged in doing a little dance and gazing at everything but Blackwall, apparently heedless anyone else was even there.
Alistair on the other hand was glaring at Blackwall with barely disguised hatred.
"I'm not here for you," Alistair said firmly. "Maia wanted to come, so I brought her. You upset her, and we're leaving on the spot. She's upset enough as it is."
He'd put her down, and she ran up to the bars, sad eyes staring at him, and Blackwall couldn't even look at her. She did not deserve this in the slightest.
"Mama and Daddy say you're not really Blackwall or a Warden, and you did bad things, but it's not true, it's not!" Maia cried. "You helped us! You saved me! You do nice things and you help the Inquisition! You said you're sorry! They should let you go!"
"It doesn't work like that, little 'un," Blackwall said roughly. "The things I did deserve punishing."
"Can't they make you clean privies or scrub floors or peel potatoes," Maia whispered. "That's what Daddy used to do with the Rhan-Gardai soldiers who'd done something bad or annoyed him."
"I was in the army, lass, I know what they give that sort of detail as a punishment for," Blackwall told her. "What I did was worse than that."
From what Borkul had let slip about Madanach's former army, the sort of thing he'd did sounded like it would fall under following orders rather than earning a punishment detail, but he wasn't going to tell Maia that. The Inquisition under Madanach as second in command didn't do anything like that, and it seemed like he'd turned into a reformed character now the politics favoured him. Maybe that might change with circumstances, but Blackwall wasn't going to judge a man based on his past. Not like he had the right to, did he… even if it did gall a little bit, seeing Madanach's crimes end up translating into a kingdom and a pretty wife. Bloody nobles.
Same nobles who are giving you a chance to atone?
He didn't deserve or want atonement. But none of this was Maia's fault.
"Did they tell you what my punishment's going to be?" he asked, because they must have told Maia something. Maia nodded, still sad.
"They're going to make you fight darkspawn and if you don't die, you're being let go," Maia whispered. "Some people don't like it and think you should be ecksi-cuted, and Lucy's sad and frightened, and Suzette's angry all the time and… and I don't know what to do! But… but you're still my friend, and I don't like you being locked up, and why can't it be like it was? You weren't hurting anyone!"
"Lying to someone who loves you about who you really are is hurting them, Maia," Alistair said quietly. "But it's not your job to make Suzette and Lucy feel better. And it's not like he's their real dad."
"Nor are you," Maia whispered. "But I still love you!"
"I love you too," Alistair said, slightly awkwardly because it had probably occurred to him a tiny bit too late that Maia wasn't his by blood either, and they all knew that. "But I properly adopted you, he never made it official. And… if he had signed an adoption certificate with Warden Blackwall's name, it wouldn't count. Because he's not really him. But you know Alistair's my real name. Because half of Skyhold remembers me from the Blight, or remembers what King Cailan and King Maric looked like."
Maia did giggle a bit at that.
"Morrigan was telling stories that made you look silly," she said, grinning. "And… and Cullen told me about that time you sneaked frogspawn into the Chantry brother's slippers, and he put them on without realising!"
Blackwall sniggered a bit at that, and Alistair admitted it, face only a bit red.
"I was the worst novice ever," Alistair laughed. "It's much better with me in the Inquisition, isn't it?"
Maia nodded, cheering up at that… until she remembered why she'd come and turned back to Blackwall.
"It's just fighting things, Blackwall!" Maia cried. "You can fight things! You and Daddy fought darkspawn before, when we first got here. You can fight them and kill them, and then they'll let you go and we can be friends again!"
"I don't deserve that, little Maia," Blackwall said gruffly. "But if it happens, I'd be grateful. You've got a good heart. World's a better place with you in it."
"Maia is still in it thanks to Blackwall who is not Blackwall!" he heard Cicero cooing from down the walkway. "Cicero has not forgotten! Nor Eola! Nor Madanach either. The Reach pays its debts."
Blackwall said nothing, not sure he wanted anyone calling in favours on his behalf, even if Cicero's cheeriness did mean he at least wasn't going to be coming back in the middle of the night to stab him.
Alistair, he wasn't anything like as sure about, but he did know he had a sense of honour and followed Elisif's orders even if he didn't like it.
"All right, Maia, you've seen him, now you need to head off with Cicero while I talk to Blackwall in private. Got a few things I need to tell him and… well, you probably don't need to hear them."
Ah. Here it was. Alistair letting his real feelings show. If he'd got a key off the guards, and he could easily have talked them into giving him one… well, he probably wouldn't kill him, but a beating was not remotely off the cards.
Maia obediently left, taking Cicero by the hand, the two of them talking in Tamrielic, Maia sounding hopeful and keen, and Cicero laughing and encouraging her.
Alistair glanced after her too, smiling wistfully… and then he turned his attention back to Blackwall, all affection gone in an instant.
"She's more forgiving than I am," Alistair snapped. "You, Thom Rainier, are a complete fucking arsehole, and just be grateful I'm not the type to start beating prisoners up, because if anyone deserves it, it's you."
Hard to disagree there.
"I know," Blackwall said softly. "I disgraced the Wardens and myself, and strung you along for months. I'm sorry. You're a true hero and me… I'm just scum."
"Yes you are," Alistair said bitterly. "I even thought my Blight-sense was being muted by Mum's amulet. Turns out no, it wasn't, not the real Blight. But I never went near Eola's lab, and I don't go near Loghain either if I can avoid it. So I didn't know. Didn't know I wasn't actually broken at all, it was just you being a lying, fucking arsehole!"
He hit the bars, sniffing back tears, and Blackwall said nothing, knowing that this was how a friendship ended. A bond of brotherhood, built on a lie, dying the death it deserved to. And it was only made worse by the fact that he genuinely liked and respected Alistair.
Alistair composed himself, and then continued, and his next words, while not a shock, stung more than Blackwall had thought.
"Bethany isn't taking you back," Alistair said viciously. "Yeah, she should probably tell you this herself, but you know what, she's my friend, and that poor woman does not deserve the emotional upset of having to dump you in person. So I'm doing it for her. She loved Warden Blackwall, who it turns out is dead. Thom Rainier, she has no interest in whatsoever. So she's in mourning, and I'm informing you on her behalf that if you so much as attempt to try and win her back, I am breaking fingers. And Cullen's quite happy to tell his guards to look the other way under the circumstances, in fact they probably won't need telling. Also, Suzette hates you too. She might calm down, she might not. Wouldn't count on it, that kid's smart. Lucy, maybe… but you know what? Varric's talking to his contacts, trying to see if her real parents are out there. Eola's running the kinfinder and has a lead too. We're going to find her real family, reunite her, help set them up with a living and a magic tutor if they don't have that already, and then Lucy's off and will probably forget all about you. So… live or die, your family's over. Done. And it's all your fucking fault."
He should have seen this coming, and he wanted to run after Bethany, scream at her he was sorry, beg her forgiveness… but Maker help him, he was too much of a coward to see the revulsion in her eyes, and Warden Blackwall was better than that. Warden Blackwall would respect the decision and leave her be.
"I understand, lad," Blackwall said quietly. "Tell her I'm sorry."
Silence from Alistair, and when he spoke again, he just sounded sad, and that was worse than the anger.
"Fuck's sake, Rainier, do you have to be so damn noble about it," Alistair sighed. "We know who you really are now, you can drop the act. You don't have to pretend you've got a sense of honour or shame any more."
"He'd want me to at least live up to the Warden name, even if I'm not fit to bear it," Blackwall said, not meeting Alistair's eyes. "I'm the worst fucking reprobate to walk Thedas, I know, but Warden Blackwall was a good man, and I can at least try not to let him down."
"Bloody hell," Alistair sighed. "He's not even… did you really live the lie so long even you were starting to believe it? I don't even… you're making this worse, not better, you know. Fight back a bit! If you're such fucking scum, act like it! Be the bastard everyone thinks you are, it makes it easier if you die. And you can't even do that. I don't… I really want to hate you, you know, but seeing you like this just makes me feel sorry for you, and you really don't deserve..."
Alistair fell silent again, thinking things over, and then he spoke again, louder this time and sounding rather like the king's son he pretended not to be.
"Perhaps it's not down to me to decide what you deserve. Judgement's for the gods, so the Aurielic Andrastian priests tell me. And Liriel told me Mara represents the force of unconditional love even for those that don't deserve it. Of course she also told me Kynareth says not to put up with crap either so… ugh. You're getting a trial by combat and I'll be in your party. I promise not to stab you in the back, and I will try and stop the darkspawn killing you if I can. Loghain's going too, so's Cole, and Mum, and we might be getting Eola on top of that. Madanach's not keen, but if she says she wants to go, he can't really stop her. Either way, you won't be alone. There's too many for one man, and Elisif wants you to have a chance at survival. If you make it, and if you can keep working on this sense of honour and nobility thing… you might get my forgiveness. Eventually."
"Thanks, lad," Blackwall said, feeling a lump in his throat. "You're another one who's too good for this world."
"Yeah, so they tell me," Alistair said, getting to his feet. "I'm not so sure, but on the other hand, I didn't murder a load of innocent people and lie about who I was for five years, so perhaps I'm not so bad. Anyway. I need to go. Got an unhappy child to comfort and a depressed husband to fuss over, and Elisif probably needs a hug after all this."
Alistair turned to go and then paused, glancing over his shoulder.
"Mara's peace be upon you, Thom Rainier," Alistair said softly, and then he was gone, and while a good Andrastian should not feel at ease accepting a blessing from a foreign god, Blackwall surprisingly felt it working.
"And you, Warden Alistair," Blackwall said, sitting back in his cell and feeling the self-loathing abate just a little. Alistair had a point. Perhaps he should just let go and leave this one up to the gods – Maker rather. Or whoever was up there. When he had a sword in his hand, he'd be ready to fight, he was sure. Until then, all he could do was leave everything to fate.
It was a lot later that night when he heard. A sound in the darkness outside his cell, and then he heard it. A singsong voice calling his name.
"Blackwall who is not Blackwall! Wake up. Wake up! Cicero is here!"
That was seriously all he needed, being woken up in the middle of the night by a demented grinning jester. Still, at least the fact he was calling to him meant he wasn't here on a murder mission. Probably.
Blackwall moved away from the cell door anyway, into the shadows at the back.
"I'm awake. What did you want to say to me you couldn't say in front of Alistair earlier?"
"Hee! An observant one. Not say, brother. Rather… do. Sera is distracting the guards. We do not have long."
"Are you… is this a jailbreak? Bloody hell, Cicero, you work for Their Worships, do you know how bad it'll look if I disappear? They'll all think Elisif's either corrupt or incompetent."
Cicero sighed, settling down outside the cell and to Blackwall's surprise, opening a case of some sort.
"Cicero knows that, brother, Cicero is not an idiot. Cicero isn't here to stab you either. No, brother, Cicero is offering you a choice. The Reach pays its debts, Blackwall who is really Rainier. You saved the life of the Deputy Inquisitor's beloved daughter. Of precious little Maia of whom we are all very fond. You saved the life of the Blight Witch's little sister. We owe a life-debt to you, brother. Eola and Madanach wish to repay it."
He indicated the case, which contained needles and vials of a glowing, golden liquid.
"It is a… there is no word for it in your language. In ours, it is called a vaccinarium. It means… well, literally translated, it is something to do with cattle, but that is not important. What is important is that each vaccina trains your body's defences to fight a given disease. You are given it, or maybe several, and you will not fall sick with the disease it is for! Of course, there are also other options back home for disease cures, as well as talismans for general protection, but these are thought useful too, especially for travellers. Also no Tamrielic disease cure yet has been tested against the Blight. None but this."
Blackwall felt his spine chill as he realised what Cicero was offering. An easy way to become Blight-immune and thus pass the trial. An ingenious, if twisted, idea… and Blackwall could already feel his anger rising at the mere thought.
"You crept all the way down here to offer me a chance to cheat the trial by combat."
"Yes. Yes! Of course!" Cicero cooed, looking extremely pleased with himself. "Madanach approached Eola in great distress and asked if she could do anything, and she said yes, the vaccina for the Blight had passed initial testing and appears to work, and has turned out not to be poisonous! We tested it on nugs first, and they don't die horribly any more! It is actually based on the same principles as the Joining, except Eola changed the proportions of dragon blood relative to darkspawn blood and also found a way to neutralise the Blight cells – it involves cutting them open, removing the contents and then just using the outer casing. It is only the outside your body needs to recognise, you see. Oh, but Cicero is rambling. Rainier is not interested in the theory, Cicero is sure. Rainier is likely more interested in not dying of the Blight. Come, come, brother. Give me your arm and Cicero can have this done with in seconds and be on his way before the guards come."
"No," Blackwall growled, seething at the little jester and the Blight Witch both for thinking he'd say yes to this. "What do you take me for, Cicero? I cheated justice once, I'm not doing it again. I will face that trial like a man, like Warden Blackwall would. I'm not cheating my way out of it!"
"Warden Blackwall would have gone through the Joining, he already had this in his blood!" Cicero snapped. "Except this will not start turning you into a darkspawn yourself a few decades later!"
"I don't have or deserve decades!" Blackwall shouted back at him. "I'm a murderer and a liar, and I deserve the gallows!"
"So do I, most likely, but you do not see me volunteering for them!" Cicero hissed. "Look, brother, we have all been there. We have all taken jobs or gone on assignments where we did not know certain important details beforehand, and in our line of work, there is always the possibility of things going wrong. Cicero's had plenty of contracts where things have not gone according to plan, or witnesses had to be silenced, or a hasty retreat was required along with a period of lying low for a time. It is part of the job! Rainier should not blame himself if one went… awry."
"I am NOT a fucking assassin!" Blackwall roared, cheeks flushed and his own sense of shame fuelling the anger. "I was supposed to be a soldier! Let me die like one, Cicero. It's all the honour I've got left."
Cicero had gone quiet, shoulders lowered and the emotion fading from his face, and the man who'd cheerfully murdered hundreds and felt no shame just shook his head in disbelief at the man who'd only killed a few and would carry the weight forever.
"Brother, this… please don't do this. You are a better person than me, and you deserve to live. You are starting to remind me of my own papa. He was a good man. You would have liked him. He would have told you a Nord is not judged by the mistakes he made in life, but in how he died. I..."
Cicero sighed, lowering his head and closing the case.
"Eola will not be pleased, but Cicero will bear it. Cicero understands. You want Sovngarde. Or whatever Andrastians have instead. So be it. Cicero will leave you be."
That was far too easy. But Cicero didn't seem angry, just sad as he took his leave and vanished into the shadows.
Blackwall closed his eyes and lay down to sleep. Chances are he wouldn't be bothered again, not tonight anyway. But he somehow knew this wouldn't be the end of it. Cicero wasn't the type to just give up on a mission, and Blackwall had a feeling he wouldn't see the next attempt coming at all.
A/N: Did you honestly think they wouldn't bend a few rules or exploit a loophole or two? And yes, of course Elisif's aware. She's just keeping her distance.
Anyway, next chapter switches away from Skyhold as we catch up with the Orlesians, specifically the new Marquise of the Dales looking into something. Also, have you read the Dragon Age novel Asunder? You should! Characters from it make an appearance.