I do not own Dragon Age Inquisition BioWare does. Unbeta'd so all mistakes are my own (sorry!)

Content Warning: swearing, fighting, non-human animal peril, gore, blood, injury, slavery (i.e. Maraas and a varghest team up to slaughter Venatori)

The Varghest

Sneaking out of the Keep was a lot easier than Maraas expected. She wore her armor and carried only a pack with what she deemed essential. She had sent her book to Skyhold with instructions for publication and left a note for her equipment to be returned. Dagna would take care of it, and Tabby would be able to use it. The thought of her team made her pause, but they were part of the Inquisition first. They would be fine. The loss of one apothecary would not set anyone back. With that thought, she stopped thinking about the Inquisition. She had a mission they were not helping with.

Now she had to get to the Hissing Wastes. She hadn't really thought that far ahead, so she just started off in that direction. More desert. Eventually, she met up with a band of merchants headed north. They would be the perfect cover. One woman by herself in the area would be easily spotted, but just another person in a merchant band was nearly invisible.

The merchants were happy to have her with them. She told them she was a traveling mercenary for hire, and they were more than happy to have her along. She traded her services for information on the area. They knew a merchant in the Hissing Wastes that she could meet up with. They considered him eccentric, but it gave her a starting point in the region.

It only took a few days journey for them to part ways. She set off following the hand-drawn map. She camped the rest of the day shortly before entering the desert proper. The merchants warned her not to move about in the day. The sandstorms, heat, and sun would turn you into a raisin and leave you to be eaten by animals.

When night fell, she entered the desert proper being careful to avoid the rifts and other predators that lay on her path to the merchant's canyon. The travelers were insistent that there were only two ways into the canyon, which seemed like a rip in the earth, so she walked around until she found the entrance to the shorter path marked on her map.

The path was eerie. Narrow and dark, she was acutely aware that anything could jump out and attack her. Though her companions hadn't mentioned anything about threats, she wasn't taking any chances. Her caution paid off when the first of the spiders attacked her.

"Fuck!" She hated spiders. Though they were not difficult opponents, she was fighting by herself for the first time. The farther she made it down the path and the more spiders she encountered the more tired she became.

She noticed the canyon opening ahead was lit by torchlight. She called ahead to the merchant but received no reply. Three spiders scuttled out to face off with her. She sighed tiredly and raised her daggers. Barking from the lit canyon took her and the spiders by surprise. A huge dog ran from the torchlight and pounced on a spider, sinking its teeth into the head and shaking. "Yeah!" Maraas cheered and joined the fight. With two, they were much more quickly taking down the spiders.

The dog approached her after the fight, barked, and turned to walk toward the canyon. She followed. This must be a Mabari that they are always talking about. The highly intelligent dog led her right to the merchant's camp. The merchant wasn't there, but there was a note explaining his absence that left the dog in charge. She snorted.

"Okay, well," she addressed the dog. "I was hoping to get some basic supplies and then spend the night somewhere safe."

The dog barked at her and led her to the wares. She looked through the selection and picked a cowl and a few other necessities. She paid and then went to make camp nearby. The dog stretched out next to her bedroll but remained alert.

xxxxx

The next night— day? switching time was going to take getting used to—she broke her camp, said bye to the dog, and went back up the path that was for the moment spider-free.

Up on the plains, she sat on a nearby ruin. What now? She hadn't really thought any farther than this point. Fuck. She was only thinking one step ahead, and while that felt like the best she could do at the moment, it wasn't going to work if she wanted to pull this off. She needed a plan.

I can use the merchant's camp as a base for now. I need to scout the area and figure out where the Venatori are, how many, and what else is out there that I need to avoid. She was only one person. The only way this was going to work was like the fight in the Oasis with surprise and terrain advantage.

Plan set, she started scouting. She decided to circle the canyon that way she couldn't get lost yet still get a feel for the area. She could mark things she saw in the distance to check on consecutive trips. She marked down all the rifts she could see, and the ones she bumped into the night before. There was a sizable mountain ridge in the distance that would need exploring.

She had to veer wide away from the canyon because there was a rift and that brought her within sight of the first Venatori camp she'd seen. The camp was next to ruins. It had a pretty basic setup with tents, tables, a fire pit, and those same cages on wheels that held slaves. There were three Venatori that she could see, so she would need to think up an approach to make it work. She wrote down the information for later and reluctantly continued around the canyon.

There was a rift to the right between the two canyon paths. She marked in on the map and continued. Closer to the path, she spotted another Venatori camp and went to observe.

There was more spread out than the first one she saw. There was someone by the tables looking over an animal carcass, and a large, shielded warrior stood guard over the camp. A commotion from the ruins signaled that the slaves were probably there because the cage sat empty. Were there other Venatori with the slaves? Most likely, but how many?

She decided to wait and see. A few hours later, the slaves left the ruin, and behind them came a Venatori mage. Her eyes narrowed. He looked just like the ones who held her captive. In fact, the whole setup was the same, so familiar. The slaves looked weak and uncared for. She slipped a bit on her perch and noticed that she was shaking. These are the people who had hurt her. Who caused Adamant. Caused Bull's death. Caused my scars. She paused to take a calming breath but was interrupted by a scream from the slaves. One of them had fallen, and the mage stood over her gathering magic in his hand.

She snapped. She launched herself from her spot and ran toward the mage. It happened so fast. Maraas had sunk her daggers in before he even knew what happened. His blood splattered her and the slaves. She blinked.

An arrow landed next to her almost hitting one of the slaves. Shit! The other Venatori!

"Go! Run!" she yelled at the slaves and turned back to the other two Venatori.

She dodged another arrow. She needed to kill the archer and then maybe she could flank the warrior or get away. Her mind scrambled as she worked to stay ahead of the archer's fire. The warrior stood between her and the archer, and she faced off with the sword and shield. Like Krem. Like Krem. How do we spar with Krem? She tried to remember the patterns she had learned.

She ducked an arrow and increased her efforts to get to the archer. She was ducking and jabbing at the warrior to get them to turn. As soon as she was within range, she leaped and slashed at the archer damaging their bow and hands. The archer screamed and dropped their bow. Maraas turned away to reengage the warrior only to find them right upon her. She leaped away from their swing but the blade grazed her thigh splitting through her leather pants and leaving a long gash.

"Ahhhrgh!" Maraas screamed at the burning sensation and stumbled back onto her butt. I'm fucked, she registered as the warrior shifted their stance to swing again. Maraas lifted her daggers and her eyes went wide. Behind the warrior on top of the rocks was a varghest. It launched itself crumpling the warrior underneath it. The varghest shrieked and mauled with claws and teeth. The armor slowed the assault, but there was no chance the warrior was getting free.

Maraas stood and stumbled toward the other Venatori who had recovered enough to draw daggers. Maraas took a breath and ran the last few steps to side tackle the rogue while they were focused on the varghest. They fell in an ugly pile of blades, but Maraas won the tussle. She collapsed back and gripped her thigh. It was bleeding profusely, and Maraas tore material from the archer's tunic to stop the bleeding. The warrior's screams faded as the varghest finished its kill. Then it turned toward her. "Oh, shit. Oh, shit."

The creature had more teeth than could fit in its mouth, and they all dripped blood. On her butt, the creature was taller than she was. The clawed feet shifted in the soft sand, but the odd spindly legs were suited to balancing on the fluid terrain. The dark, scaled creature approached her, and she tried to slowly scoot away but gasped at the pain in her leg. "Alright, alright, can you not eat me?" she spoke softly to the creature. Wow, great move Maraas. The creature shuffled forward and took deep hissing breathes. It turned its head to the carcass on the table and cried? Then it lunged over Maraas knocking her flat.

She expected to be mauled like a bear attack, so she held still. Instead, the creature sniffed her, her weapons, and the dead Venatori. Maraas closed her eyes, but nothing happened. Then the creature grabbed Maraas and began dragging her away.

She scrambled to assess the situation as her body flopped around. The varghest wasn't hurting her but gripped gear almost gently causing her body to drag neatly between its legs. A sharp pain shot up her leg and reminded her she was still bleeding from the gash on her thigh. Okay. Okay. Injury first and then whatever is happening second. She pressed the material more fully to the wound. It wasn't deep, but it was long and needed to be wrapped. She awkwardly unwound the wrap around her middle and used it to bind the wound. There is sand everywhere. I need to clean this and salve it soon, or it's going to get infected.

Tending to her wound had taken more time than she expected and she looked up to see that the varghest was dragging her into a canyon. It must have been an oasis because down in the basin there was grass and trees. And other varghest milling about. She had been dragged back to the nest. Oh fuck, it brought me back to eat.

Sure enough, the varghest dumped her in the middle of the nest, and the others approached. The varghest that brought her hissed and bared fangs at the other varghest who backed off to wait their turn. Fight or flight kicked in. Maraas reached for her daggers, but they weren't there. She had lost them at the camp. She threw her arms over her head and braced herself for the attack, but the varghest licked her instead.

It was the most disgusting thing she had ever smelled and felt. She dropped her hands in shock, and the varghest licked across her head coating her hair in saliva. It then walked away. She glanced around, but the others were milling away paying her no attention. What just happened?

xxxxx

Upon further reflection, it appeared that she had been adopted by the varghest. The group of varghest was social, and there was a dominant varghest that led the group—the one that brought her back, probably the matriarch. It appeared she occupied the position as one of the matriarch's babies now. The dead varghest at the Venatori camp must have been one of her babies.

She would think on that further, but she needed to clean her wound and bandage it better. She used the watering hole and the morning light to clean her wound, apply a salve, and then bandage it. Then she curled up under a tree and fell into an exhausted sleep.

The next night, she took stock of her supplies and repaired her gear. She crudely stitched up her pants in preparation for going back to the camp. She needed her daggers and wanted to strip the camp of supplies and information.

The varghest had hunted and brought back game. She was given a portion, but she wasn't willing to eat it uncooked. She spoke to the mama varghest, "So you have reason to hate the Venatori, too huh?"

It felt weird speaking to an animal, but it hissed back. They seemed to communicate in their own language. A combination of body language and sounds, much like any pack of animals she was familiar with.

When she set out for the camp, the varghest came with her. Once they were out of the canyon, it gripped her by her pack straps and guided her to its back. Confused, Maraas gripped onto her, and the varghest set out across the sand in the direction Maraas thought the camp was. The large female seemed to know where she wanted to go. Unwilling to alter the situation, Maraas lay close to its scaled back and held on.

They made shorter time to the camp than Maraas's limping walk would have, and no one had come to reclaim the camp yet.

Her daggers were on the ground next to the dead rogue. She sheathed them and turned to the tables with papers and information. She took anything that looked important. She dug through the supply caches and pulled out potions and foodstuffs that she would need. She had made many similar field potions, so she knew what they were. She hadn't actually used any of them before. She opened and sniffed a regeneration potion and finding nothing suspicious drank it down.

Immediately she felt better. The stiffness in her muscles faded and the dull ache in her leg faded. She took anything else she felt would be of use and left the camp clinging to the varghest the same way she came.

With the potions, her healing process accelerated, and she was able to put together a makeshift camp for herself in the varghest nest. She stored her things by the ruins towards the back of the canyon.

As she lay under cover, she thought of the other Venatori camp she saw. She needed to get back out there, but she did not want a repeat of the previous fight. She needed to be better prepared to employ stealth attacks that didn't tangle her up in close combat. She also wanted to make sure the slaves were safe, and that she was able to free them afterward. She didn't know what had become of the slaves from the first camp.

Where could they go to be safe from the Venatori? She supposed she could send them to the Inquisition camp that she knew was on the far side of the region, but she didn't want the Inquisition knowing she was here. She wanted to disappear. She was "Maraas" and wanted to stay that way.

If anonymity was a goal, she needed a disguise. It would work for the slaves to carry her description back to the Inquisition. She thought of Bull. How had he done disguises? By hiding in plain sight, by changing his attitude so people thought he was someone else. Like Superman. He never really changed how he looked; he changed his attitude and who he presented himself as.

Thinking of Bull opened up feelings she wanted to avoid. She took a deep breath and slammed her feelings down. She had a job to do that no one else was doing. There was nothing she could do about Bull. She gripped the dragon tooth necklace. Stop it, she told herself. Thinking of Bull did remind her of the Vitaar recipe she made that was nontoxic. She had come up with it screwing around with rashvine and meant to surprise Bull one day, but it would work perfectly now. Not only was it disconcerting and would hide her features but also no one wore Vitaar except Qunari so it would be confusing as well.

She mixed up the Vitaar using water and varghest saliva, why not at this point? The thick red paste and white accents went on in a pattern she had memorized. The red covered most of her face. It looked a bit like scales when she thought about it. The white smudges accented non-specific parts of her face; they were a distraction like eyes on butterfly wings. Combined with her coat and hood, she felt hidden enough.

Confident in her disguise, she began thinking about strategy. The camp she had seen was the typical set-up with only a few rocks for tactical advantage. There were three Venatori, a mage, warrior, and rogue, as well as the slaves. She would need to see placement to know who she could sneak attack first. Like the fight in the Oasis, she planned one strike kills, and then whoever came to investigate would get the same. That left the third member to finagle. It might come to a fight, but one-on-one she felt like she had better odds.

xxxxx

She set out the next night and the varghest came as her guide and convenient cover. There would be no human footprints to and from the camps this way. At the camp, she dropped off the varghest's back behind cover, and the varghest kept walking as if to say this fight was hers and she would be back when it was over.

Maraas watched the camp. The slaves were still in the cage, and the mage guarded it. A warrior paced the camp, and his path crossed Maraas's hiding place. That left the rogue by the campfire. Change of plans. Given the setup, she should take out the warrior first to draw away someone to investigate, and then she could flank the Venatori left behind.

She waited for the warrior to turn his back, jumped from the rock, and sank her daggers into the junction between his helmet and shoulder guards. He made a lot of noise going down, but she didn't need him quiet. The rogue came running leaving the mage in camp. She sneaked around the outskirts of the camp and approached the back of the slave cage. The slaves were mainly facing away, but she had to shush the one who spotted her. His eyes widened at her painted face, but his gasp was lost in the clamor. He didn't make another sound as she climbed up the cage and crept along the top. The rogue and mage were shouting to each other in Tevene as the warrior bled to death. By the time the rest of the slaves noticed her atop the cage, she was flipping off to land face to face with the mage. Feeling very much like a varghest, she hissed and slashed his throat.

The slaves' shocked screams drew the attention of the rogue. The man raced back toward her. Dammit, I have the least experience fighting rogues. She worked to keep her advantages and disappeared behind the cage. When the rogue rounded the corner, she leaped toward him. She kept up the animalistic vibe and hiss growled. One of her swings sliced his arm, but he stepped back from her next and went on the offensive. She switched to a defensive pose and, snarling, circled the man. Her act was disconcerting enough and combined with his two dead companions, the man was off-kilter. His lunge was sloppy, and she hit his exposed side. The wound was fatal, and she left him to die in the sand.

She took the keys off the table, unlocked the cage, and then tossed them to the man who first spotted her. The slaves shrank back from her appearance. "Inquisition camp," she stated and pointed toward the other end of the Wastes. The man nodded, and she disappeared to wait for them to unshackle themselves and flee.

Once they were well out of sight, she stripped the camp of anything useful. She found more notes and maps that could lead to other camps. On the trip back to the nest with while the varghest beneath her dragging an animal carcass, she thought back over the battle. Her spur-of-the-moment theatrics turned out to be one of her better tactics.

Maybe if she wanted to stay hidden she needed to become even less like herself. If she adopted a varghest disguise and behaviors, she would be even more mysterious and eerie and then more effective. Like Batman. She snorted, but the idea had merit.

Back at the nest, she watched the varghest interact and paid more attention to the noises and movements they used. She wandered around among them and noticed all the scales and spikes that had accumulated from shedding. She could make a varghest cape. She got out her coat and the crafting materials she had collected and began attaching the scales to the coat. She ended up using a method a bit like making chainmail, but she was instead using scales linked to the coat. She attached the spikes to the hood. While her crafting skills left something to be desired, she achieved the effect she was going for. It was well into the daytime that she finished, and she fell asleep under her makeshift cover.

She set out the next day to scout and find more camps. The varghest had no interest in accompanying her on her scout and instead dumped her by the mountain and went off to hunt. She made a plaintive growl at it like the younglings did in the nest, and it turned back to her. It nudged her up to her feet and pushed her off toward the mountain huffing and hissing directively. "Alright, alright. I'm going," she whispered, and it continued on its way.

xxxxx

I took her about a week to scout the Wastes to her satisfaction; she wanted to know the whole layout before she started taking out camps again. The thought had dawned on her that the Venatori would come back to old locations if they could. According to the notes she had collected, the Venatori were excavating Dwarven ruins. I didn't know there were Dwarven ruins so close to the surface. There was something valuable they were after.

She mapped out all the camps and locations she had spotted Venatori. She had taken out two of the four main camps on the plains, so that left two main camps and the smaller groupings scattered throughout. They had a large base camp in the mountains, but it was far too big for her to fight alone. She planned to start at the outskirts and reduce their territory by slowly hemming them in, pruning so to speak.

Once she had her plan in place, she began to execute the attacks on the camps farthest away from the mountains. She left no Venatori alive and directed the slaves to the Inquisition camp. She fell into a sort of routine. When the Venatori lost contact with a camp, they would send a party to explore. She made sure the parties never made it back either. She had gotten the hang of riding on the varghest, and with her coat, she was next to invisible on its back. She could roll off and surprise the small groups of Venatori without them even knowing she had been there.

After she had reduced their presence on the plains considerably, the Venatori grew warier, and a rogue was able to escape from her. Whispers began to spread of the Varghest that was destroying the camps. Her glittering coat of scales, spiked headdress, and fierce face paint were having the desired effect. Her ambush attacks were deadly, and her ability to disappear seemed otherworldly. Some people thought she was literally the animal; some Venatori thought she was a vengeful spirit of the Wastes they had angered with their excavation. The Venatori became less willing to send out reinforcements and their grip in the region slowly shrank back to the mountains. Maraas scouted them often but knew they were currently out of her reach.

There was only one camp left on the plains, and she intended to hit it tomorrow. It was near the mountains. Standard set up. While the Venatori were warier, they were still being pushed to excavate, and that left them vulnerable to her ambush. She had ridden in on the varghest, and it waited for her. As she tightened the noose on the Venatori, she grew more concerned about them setting a trap, so the varghest had started waiting for her.

She set her ambush as usual. She sprang from the rocks and killed the mage. She disappeared from view and ambushed the archer and warrior before they knew what was happening. She turned toward the cage at the slaves' shouts. Did I miscount? A group of people was running toward the camp. They finally decided to try a trap. She sprinted behind the cage and leaped onto the varghest who set off into the darkness at speed.

Back at the nest, she collapsed over her notes. Dammit, a trap disrupts all my plans at this point. She would need to scout the area again to see if they returned to the camp, moved it, or what happened. She briefly worried for the slaves, but even though they were treated poorly, the Venatori needed them alive.

She paused in her notes when there was noise on the ridge. Did they follow her back? How on earth would they have? It was most likely hunters. There were always a few that came sniffing around, but they never were very successful. It was a big nest. Maraas hissed to the closest varghest, and they lumbered off the find the matriarch.

She relaxed back into her perch and watched where she heard the noise. Her hands went to rest on her daggers when one large form made its way down into the canyon. She watched them carefully avoid the varghest. Huh, so not a hunter or a better hunter. She would need to be careful, and maybe this would be a hunter that she fought. The varghest had taken out the others. It had not been fun to watch someone get ripped to pieces, but they were asking for it wandering into a varghest nest looking to do harm. This was the safest place on the Wastes. She watched the figure scan their surroundings. When they passed over her location, they walked toward her. Looking for me then. Fuck. She relaxed further and pretended to be asleep.

When the figure was within striking distance, he stopped, "Kadan?"

She leaped up but paused in her lunge when the word and the shape registered, "Bull?"