By Gods Forsaken

by inwardtransience

One day, the shadows will part, and the skies will open wide. When he rises, everyone will see.

19. Unrest in Denerim — Restitution

9:30 Nubulis 23

Elven Quarter, Denerim, Kingdom of Ferelden

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His cloak fluttering in the cool morning breeze off the sea, Aedan glared across the bridge leading to the northern city. At the checkpoint there, the mix of city guardsmen and soldiers from the garrison, his hood hiding his hateful scowl.

It was the first time he'd felt safe wandering around outside the rebellion's tunnels and safehouses since he'd arrived in Denerim a week ago. In the aftermath of the sack of the elven quarter, the "Regent" had loosened the noose from around their necks — presumably, he was under the impression the violence done to their people and the damage done to their homes had cowed the peasants, as usually happened in these situations.

Aedan was starting to have the feeling that, if that had been Loghain's intention, he'd drastically miscalculated.

Or, perhaps, he simply didn't feel he could commit the men anymore: the intermittent fighting in the slums to the northeast had only intensified as the days dragged on, the other major rebel group assisted, or so the rumor went, by enforcers from the Carta. Aedan wasn't sure whether to believe that, but it wasn't impossible, that area of the city did have a large dwarven population. The death toll had become such that Loghain's men didn't patrol the northeastern slums at all, instead blockading the area with the same men he had posted around the elven quarter.

Now that the "Regent's" grip around the quarter had loosened a bit, Aedan and his comrades were free to move around more, even cross into the northern city. But, due to Loghain's attempts to contain the other rebels, they hadn't made contact with them yet. They fully intended to in time, few believed Loghain would have any more luck beating them down than they had the elves, but for now they had to wait.

Also, Aedan suspected there were fewer soldiers in the city then there'd been even a couple days ago, and not by some small number either. There were rumors trickling into the city of various lords gathering arms to resist the new rulers in Denerim. This was a particularly serious problem in the Arling of Denerim itself — from what Aedan had heard, many of the various banns refused to recognize Howe's (however temporary) investment as the Arl. And Aedan wasn't surprised, there was precedent about what to do if an arling was suddenly vacant, and the "Regent" had ignored the accepted process and just handed the Arling over to Howe, the banns were completely in the right to reject an illegitimate overlord.

It was still early for them to get news from further-flung regions of the Kingdom, but Aedan fully expected lords all over to reject Loghain's authority as well — Anora was Queen until at least the Landsmeet met to select a new king, but she was a grown woman, Loghain had absolutely no right to declare himself her regent. Aedan wouldn't be surprised if some lords ignored that little inconvenience, if only because it was Loghain fucking Mac Tir, but many wouldn't.

The point being, the soldiers were needed elsewhere. Loghain was gambling a little, pulling some of his forces away from the elven quarter after the sack was over, but he still had men enough to prevent an attack on the Hill. It was a risk, but not a fatal one.

And even if the streets were still packed with soldiers, Aedan might be okay anyway. His clothes had been comprehensively ruined by now — the fire really hadn't helped — replaced with peasant dress of rough wool and linen, and it'd suddenly occurred to him that he was much less identifiable now. If he got close enough to the city guards for them to see his face someone might recognize him, but dressed like this he was inconspicuous enough he hardly merited a second glance. His mother's sword was fine enough to attract attention, but he'd solved that problem by swapping out the scabbard for a cheap leather sheath, the silver of the crossguard and pommel smeared with mud — unlike elves, human peasants were permitted to carry long blades, he looked like he could be a down-on-his-luck freeholder or sailor.

So, when he'd woken up in a cold sweat — his heart pounding in his ears and his blood simmering with tension, threatening shadows shifting in the dark of the room — he'd decided to get up for the day instead of trying to get back to sleep. He'd dressed quietly, so as to not accidentally wake Seda, and sauntered out onto the pre-dawn streets.

By the time his random wanderings had brought him to the eastern bridge, the sun had started to rise, the bay to the east shimmering with reflected sunlight red and white, flickering in and out as the constant stream of ships drifted across the water. It hadn't taken him long, pausing to look around, to spot the figure laid out on the bank of the river — though he might have noticed even in the dead of night if he'd looked closely enough, pale skin sharp against black mud.

He stared at the guards across the river, hesitating. It was possible they would think his going down to the riverbank suspicious, send a few over to investigate what he was up to. But he honestly doubted it. It should become clear pretty quickly that he was making for whoever that was down there. Not something worth worrying about.

His mind made up, Aedan turned toward the stairs right where the street met the bridge, lightly bouncing down the steps — his bruises protested with a dull, thudding ache, but he ignored it. Carefully picking his way through the mud — avoiding the shoots of herbs and grasses poking out here and there, his boots sliding and squelching a little now and then — he walked toward the unmoving figure, glancing between them and his feet.

He was halfway there when he finally spotted the blood.

In but moments, he was standing over the figure. Short hair a dark brown, the back and one side smeared with mud, an elven woman, maybe somewhere between fifteen and twenty, maybe — it was even harder to tell than usual with her eyes closed and her hair covering half her face. She was pale, far too pale. Sitting right on the riverbank, the simple sleeveless tan smock — meant to be worn under a proper gown, Aedan was all but certain — was filthy with black-brown mud and streaks and blotches of blood, dried to a rusty brownish-red.

Both of her wrists had been cut deep, her forearms covered in dark puddles of blood, already congealed solid. This woman had killed herself — hours ago, by the look of her.

Aedan crouched down, pulled a dagger out of the muck not far from where she lay. This wasn't a work knife, that any elf might be carrying, but a proper dagger meant for military use — the finely-wrought blade narrow and sharply pointed, all the better to slip through gaps between plates or splints. She must have some connection to the rebellion to have gotten her hands on something like this.

He stared down at the dead woman, shadowy thoughts turning in his head sluggish and directionless.

Letting out a sigh, he quickly washed the blood and muck off in the river, stuck the blade of the dagger through his belt. He rearranged the woman's limbs a little — which was harder to accomplish than he'd expected, her body stiff with death — looped one arm under her legs and behind her shoulders, and lifted her out of the mud.

He paused for a moment at the top of the stairs, glaring down at the checkpoint across the river. From that angle, the men there must have been able to see the woman. She would have died in the middle of the night, so they might not have been able to see what she was doing very well, but they couldn't possibly have not realized something was wrong when she stopped moving, laid there still for hours. And they'd done nothing.

Granted, he wouldn't honestly expect them to, but rage clawed at his ribs all the same.

From there, it was very short walk to the eastern gate of the elven quarter — probably the same path the woman had taken down to the riverbank, in fact. Aedan walked the whole way tense and rigid, fighting against his own anger and mostly failing.

The damage to the elven quarter done in the sack was relatively minimal, so far as such things were concerned. The orphanage was practically a total loss — some sections toward the back still stood, but they were weakened and exposed to the elements, the remains would have to be torn down and a new structure built on the site. The fire had spread to the Chantry itself, but not very far through it, the corner near the front of the orphanage seared black, weakened badly enough the roof there had collapsed — it wasn't as a bad as it looked, could be repaired in a couple weeks, the worship space and the rooms at the opposite end useable in the meantime. A number of other edifices had gotten fire damage, particularly residential buildings — Aedan assumed whoever had commanded the "Regent's" men had intended to smoke the rebels out, and ambush them while they fled in disorder — but none were as bad as the orphanage, all reparable and some only cosmetic.

All considered, the damage to the quarter's people was worse than the damage to their homes.

There was a great bloody tree in a square in the middle of the quarter, ancient and craggy, towering up much higher than any of the buildings around it, the thick branches sinuously contorting around each other far overhead. When Aedan had first seen it, there had been what looked a whole lot like little shrines gathered around the trunk, boxes and figures painted in bright colors, embroidered ribbons fluttering in the breeze — those were all gone now, though, removed ahead of the sack.

He didn't know what the purpose of the tree was, but he knew every elven community in major cities had them. The one in Highever was even larger and prouder than Denerim's, clearly visible all the way from the castle walls, the branches colorful from ribbons tied here and there, seemingly at random all along the branches. He'd never gotten a straight answer about the tree from the elves back home, and he didn't expect any of his new comrades to tell him either.

Honestly, Aedan suspected the elves didn't know what it was about either. Just one of those things people did, tradition stripped of any meaning it might once have had.

There were people gathered in the square — mourners and volunteers, preparing for the funeral. They hadn't been able to arrange a service yesterday, everyone busy recovering and resting from the sack, desperately trying to save the injured. (Several more had died that day, injuries becoming deaths.) But they couldn't leave the bodies sit for very long, so now that things had settled at least a little bit they were getting to it right away.

Aedan noticed the team of volunteers preparing the pyre — a large platform of coal and wood, a square taking up a considerable portion of the square, necessary to burn all their dead — didn't include any of the Sisters. Normally, this was the sort of thing the Sisters of a parish were expected to do, but he suspected they wouldn't be up to performing their duties for some time.

There were five Sisters connected to the quarter's Chantry: elves Lana, Trissel, and Brona, and humans Ada and Gwenys — by the time Gaenor's team had gotten to the Chantry, Lana, Brona, and Gwenys were already being raped, Trissel beaten rather badly, with several broken bones (multiple ribs and one in a leg) and at least one nasty hit to the head. They were shut up in one of the safehouses, near the relocated orphans, from what Aedan had heard gathered around Trissel's sickbed, never leaving each other's sight. Boann had said they probably wouldn't be leaving until Trissel was healed enough to walk again and Lana started talking — supposedly she hadn't spoken a word since the assault.

The rebels had perhaps rushed a little too much in their attempt to rescue the Sisters — several of them had died, including Gaenor himself. Not that Aedan could blame them, he doubted he would have been able to keep his head walking into that scene either.

Walking toward the rows of bodies waiting for the pyre, the dead woman cradled in his arms, it didn't take very long for someone to spot him. A few people bounded over to him, in the lead a pale honey-blonde elf woman Aedan vaguely recognized, but he couldn't remember her name off hand. They were still several steps away when the woman came up short, eyes going wide and one hand covering her mouth. Her face paling even further, she mumbled, "Nola, no..."

Aedan awkwardly glanced away, his neck tingling. He felt like he should say something — this woman obviously knew Nola — but he had no fucking clue what that could possibly be. "I was taking a walk when I found her down by the river, thought I should take her back home."

"What happened?" Aedan's breath froze in his chest. He was struck with the wild urge to lie, but that was pointless, she'd certainly find out before too long...

One of the people with her, an elf man Aedan didn't know, took Nola's wrist, gradually turned her arm, revealing the horrible mess made out of her forearm. His voice low, hard, "Nes."

The woman — maybe Neslara, Aedan had heard that name a few times but never met the owner — took one glance at the telling wounds, and abruptly turned away, choking out a harsh sob.

The men took Nola, carried her toward a nearby shop, which Aedan knew had been commandeered to wash and prepare the dead. Neslara had made as though to follow them for a few steps before veering off, leaning on one hand against the tree, her shoulders shaking.

Aedan lingered for a moment, uncertain, warring with the impulse to try to comfort her — which would be pointless, because he had no fucking clue what he would say or do, and also possibly counterproductive, since he was a complete stranger — before turning away and making for the nearest entrance to the tunnels. He could do more good telling Shianni and Boann they had another body for the pyres.

Before long he was stepping into one of their safehouse common rooms — the same one the room he was sleeping in now was connected to, in fact. He suspected Shianni was staying here somewhere, but he didn't actually know for certain. He gazed around the dimly-lit room for a moment, scanning over the dozen or so people inside, but Shianni's hair kind of stuck out, she couldn't possibly be in here. He did spot Ferdi, though, he probably knew where to find her.

Instead of making straight for the rebel mage, Aedan turned into the kitchen. There was a pot of lowly-bubbling cider next to the usual things, the air soft with steam and fragrant with cinnamon and clove and nutmeg. Spiced cider was a luxury for the people here, but they'd inherited some from a merchant who'd abandoned a storeroom some days ago — they were having a funeral today, so apparently they'd decided to indulge. Aedan scooped up a mug for himself, glanced over the stew and porridge but he didn't feel like it — something about discovering a young woman who'd just killed herself wasn't good for his appetite — then swept back into the common room.

"Hello, Ferdi," Aedan said, sinking into the open seat across the table from him. "You look like shit."

Ferdi let out a little, exhausted hum. He was leaning on one elbow, his other hand listlessly stirring at his bowl of porridge, staring down at the colorless slop. His face was drawn, dark bags under his eyes — he'd been helping try to keep the injured alive practically since the sack ended, and he claimed not to know much healing magic, so it hadn't been easy on him. (Aedan thought he'd been trying to explain that he'd just thrown power at people praying they be healed, which kind of worked but wasn't nearly as good as real healing magic, but Ferdi had been half-conscious at the time and he might have misunderstood.) It took a couple seconds, blankly blinking, before Ferdi seemed to recognize him. "Oh, good morning, Aedan. It is morning now?"

Aedan snorted. "You, my friend, need a nap. The funeral isn't for another few hours, if you wanted to go pass out for a bit."

"I was going to eat first." Glaring down at the bowl, Ferdi jabbed his spoon deep into the slop, scowling. "I seem to be having difficulty."

"Tell me about it." Aedan took a gulp of the cider, the pleasant warmth shooting through him in a burst — he hadn't realized he was cold, but it was windy, he guessed. It was relatively cheap cider, only slightly fermented (strong enough to stop it from going bad, weak enough for children to be able to drink it safely), but the spices were balanced well, it was quite good. Or as good as he could expect here, the rebels didn't exactly have the resources to get their hands on the cider he'd had back home. "You wouldn't happen to know where Shianni is right now?"

"No, but I could find her. Why?"

Aedan glanced around quick — there weren't that many people in, and nobody was sitting particularly close to them. He didn't think it was likely anyone would overhear. Dropping his voice a little, he said, "I found a girl down by the riverside this morning, with her wrists slit. I was thinking...if she has family or something..."

Ferdi paled a little further, which couldn't possibly be healthy, and slowly nodded. "They should be told before they see her on the pyre, yes. What's her name?"

"Nola," he said, suddenly uncertain whether that was enough to identify her. Peasants didn't tend to have surnames, but it could be short for something.

Apparently it wasn't a problem, because Ferdi froze, his eyes widening a little. His voice when it came was hardly a croak, low and rasping. "Nola. Dark hair, about seventeen?" When Aedan nodded, Ferdi let out a heavy sigh, both hands coming up to rub at his face, muttering something Aedan didn't quite catch. It wasn't Alamarri, but he didn't think it was Antivan either — Rivaini, maybe? "Yes, Shianni should know. They... Well, they knew each other. She isn't going to take it well."

In Aedan's experience, nobody ever took the suicide of someone they were close to well. He almost suggested Ferdi not tell her that detail — it was expected to hide the wounds of people who'd died violent deaths at their funeral, since there was no reason mourners had to see that — but enough people had seen her already, Shianni would certainly find out. "I can talk to her, if you'd rather get that nap."

Ferdi wearily shook his head. "No offence, Aedan, but I think it should come from a friend."

"None taken." Shianni might not be waiting for him to stab them in the back anymore, but he could hardly say they were friends at this point. "You should move your ass, then. Seriously, Ferdi, you need to get some shut-eye or you're going to end up falling asleep on your feet. Don't worry about the Mother, I'll talk to her."

"Mm." Gingerly, Ferdi took a bite of his porridge — scowling, clearly hating absolutely everything about it. Then he sighed, dropped his food and pushed himself to his feet. "You're right. See you later, Aedan."

And so Aedan was left alone with his cider, staring blankly at the back wall of the common room, dark thoughts listlessly turning at the back of his head. But he wasn't left simmering for long — Ferdi had been gone for hardly a couple minutes before someone was slipping onto the bench next to him, a mug of cider and a bowl of porridge clunking down onto the table. He recognized her at a glance, of course, but he probably should have guessed she'd find him before too long anyway. "Morning, Seda."

She nodded, watching him out of the corner of her eye, muttered, "Aedan," and turned to her porridge.

Because Aedan's true identity wasn't really a secret anymore, the news must have spread to most of the rebellion by now. He'd thought it was inevitable it would happen eventually — Shianni, Lark, and their people knew, and Gaenor and his people knew he was nobility but not his real name, and he'd expected someone to talk before too long — but Boann out and greeting him by his full name had shattered the façade instantly. The people in the know had switched to using his real name immediately, apparently having decided the jig was up, and it'd spread around to the rebels he regularly spoke to within a day.

There had been a reaction, though not really much of one. He'd gotten a number of peculiar looks, he'd noticed random people watched him more than before — probably wondering to themselves what the fuck Bryce and Eleanor Cousland's son was doing here. Hardly anybody had actually commented about it to him though, which was somewhat peculiar, he had expected at least a few people to say something. Aedan had been somewhat accustomed to his presence not truly being acknowledged among commoners — mostly only in Highever, which was itself peculiar, but he'd been running around making a nuisance of himself since he'd been a child, he spent enough time down in the city they were used to him — but the people here didn't have the same familiarity with him. Or, they hadn't — he guessed he had been living and fighting alongside them for a week now, so they might have assumed he didn't expect them to treat him like they should a son of a teyrn.

(Or maybe an actual teyrn — if Fergus had died at Ostagar Aedan was the only remaining member of the main family — but he didn't like thinking about that.)

The closest anyone had come to "properly" acknowledging him had been yesterday, late in the afternoon. Aedan had been helping some of the larger men clear the debris from the quarter, sitting on yet another crate of apple vinegar taking a breather, when an elf girl had appeared out of nowhere and dropped to her knees thanking Your Grace for rescuing her, and she didn't know what she could do to repay him, but she would do anything. When he'd told her she could start by cutting that shit out, she'd looked up, confused, and Aedan had finally recognized her — the blonde girl from the orphanage, the one who'd been stripped and shoved against a wall by the time they'd gotten up there, just barely in time (like heroic chevaliers swooping in to save the day at the last moment in some terrible Orlesian romance). Hylwen, her name was, and Maker, she'd seemed even younger than he'd remembered somehow, shy and stuttering and uncertain. Feeling rather uncertain himself under the eyes of the other men, he'd assured her he absolutely did not need any kind of repayment, he was just glad he'd gotten there in time, really, don't worry about it.

In retrospect, Aedan suspected Hylwen had been hoping he would take her into the household back at Highever — a servant at the home of a high lord (one who wasn't a complete monster to the help, which Aedan certainly wasn't) was a relatively cushy job for a peasant, all things considered. They got regular meals, which he was aware wasn't at all guaranteed for most, and of higher quality too, and tended to live in much better environs and with a greater guarantee of safety than most commoners could ever secure on their own. But that possibility hadn't occurred to him at the time, he'd mostly just been very uncomfortable.

Also, it wasn't an offer he could make right now anyway — Highever was occupied by enemies at the moment, Aedan didn't have a household to be taking people into.

His true identity getting out had definitely been a good thing, though. His family had a pretty good reputation among the commons — especially, he'd learned recently, among elves, the elven quarter in Highever widely-regarded as the richest and safest in the country, it was thought the Couslands were at least in part to thank for that — and he suspected stories of his more...well, ignoble behavior had been whispered around in the last couple days. Any healthy skepticism he might have been met with at first had been slowly draining away as the days passed, but most of the rebels were suddenly much warmer to him now, which he attributed to a combination of his name (and the fact that a Cousland was with them) and also his contribution to the evacuation of the orphanage.

Which made it a whole hell of a lot easier to get laid. Before, he'd held off on making any sort of advances at all, or even really flirting, the vague suspicion he'd been treated with as a not-yet-fully-trusted new addition to their ranks making him feel uneasy about it — he'd had serious doubts it'd be received well, and he generally didn't like making women uncomfortable. But, well, he had slept with Seda here last night, and nobody had given them funny looks when they'd been dancing around it in the common room or when they'd slipped away into a bedroom, so, he figured that probably wouldn't be a problem anymore.

Seda was acting a little strange, though. Last night he'd confirmed that she and Shianni were cousins — second cousins, technically, but they'd been raised together so they felt like they were closer than that made it sound — and while Seda wasn't nearly the hardass firebrand Shianni was, her being this quiet was still weird. Focusing on her porridge, watching him out of the corner of her eye, her hair half-covering her face, she seemed...oddly wary. Like she were considering something, but wasn't certain whether she wanted to say it out loud.

The silence was starting to wear on him, so Aedan asked, "Is something wrong, Seda?"

She glanced up at him, her jaw slowly shifting as she chewed. "I was going to ask you that."

He blinked. "What?"

"You weren't in bed when I woke up."

Oohhh, right, he knew what this was now. "No, that wasn't anything..." He hesitated a moment, wondering what he could say to make absolutely certain she didn't come away with the wrong impression. Fuck it, honesty would work, and had the advantage of him not needing to remember his story to keep it straight later. Of course, that meant he had to admit, "I had a nightmare, I didn't want to bother you with it." After a second of thought, he decided, double fuck it, might as well add this detail too, if only to drive in the message that it wasn't in any way something she'd done. "The last time I shared a bed with a woman we were woken up by traitors in the middle of the night, and she was cut down in front of me."

Seda twitched, rearing back a little, blinked up at him wide-eyed for a second. "Oh, I'm sorry, I had no idea."

"It's alright." In the sense that she wasn't responsible for not knowing about it, he meant, obviously it wasn't alright.

Somewhat reluctantly, the words coming slow and cautious, Seda asked, "This was at Highever? I know the castle was taken..."

He nodded. "They weren't bandits, but knights and men-at-arms, of Amaranthine — Howe's men." Seda's lip curled a little at the name, unsurprisingly: Howe's brief rule over Denerim had not endeared the residents to him even slightly. "They were the ones attacking the orphanage too, actually, which is curious." He suspected Howe had given them orders to go into the Chantry and the orphanage to collect hostages to hold over the rebels, it hadn't appeared the garrison troops or the Gwaren men had been in on it. And they did have hostages — Boann and Ferdi had done a head-count, and they were short two boys and a girl, ages between five and nine. They hadn't gotten an ultimatum from Howe yet, but they certainly would before too long.

If Aedan read the rebels correctly, that would only enrage them further.

Seda was quiet a moment, steadily chipping away at her porridge — rather quickly, actually, but he wasn't surprised she was hungry, they had kind of worn each other out last night. Aedan somewhat less, with his bruises Seda was more mobile than him at the moment, but then, he had been getting hungry himself...until he'd found Nola. Yeah. Finally she asked, a clear note of sympathy on her voice, "You and this woman, you were close?"

Aedan forced out a sharp sigh, his cheeks puffing a little. "Yes and no, I suppose. She's been around for ages, nearly as long as I can remember — she's a lady-in-waiting of Landra, an old friend of my mother's and the wife of one of our vassals."

Which was peculiar, because ladies-in-waiting were almost always nobility themselves — it was in the name — for a bann usually far-flung cousins or members of cadet houses, on the rare occasion the daughters of favored knights or especially wealthy freeholders. Iona's family was loyal, but unremarkable, and she was an elf, that never happened. But then, Landra was almost as atypical of a noblewoman as Mother, so.

"She's some years older than me, of course, I think by over a decade, and she might have been the first woman I was ever really attracted to — I remember I had an intrusive fascination with her when I was younger, it's actually a little embarrassing." Seda just smiled crookedly at him, which was fair, his mother had thought it was adorable too. "Iona — that's her name, Iona — wasn't quite the very first woman I laid with, but not far from the first either. And that wasn't the only time either, whenever Landra came to visit, for years...

"But it was never going to be anything serious, in the long term — she's an elf, you see, so that complicated matters." Obviously, elves and humans couldn't marry, and even were she a human commoner, well, a Cousland marrying a commoner simply wasn't acceptable. If she were human, his parents might still have considered a marriage anyway, since the noble girls Aedan got on with that well that consistently were few and far between...if she weren't a decade older than him, he guessed that also would have been an issue... And, Aedan expected most noblewomen would object to their husbands screwing elves on the side, so... "Which, we both knew that, of course, so neither of us let ourselves get...too involved. And she never could quite forget who I am — every time she arrived in Highever she always went back to being shy and uncertain about it, at least at first.

"So, not as close as we could be, but close enough I absolutely hate that she died because of me — hence, the nightmare. I don't know if that answered your question."

Frowning a little, Seda said, low and gentle, "It's not your fault she died, Aedan."

"No, I know that, I meant—" He cut himself off, shaking his head. "Never mind. I was only saying."

Seda gave him a skeptical sort of look, clearly not believing he didn't blame himself — which was fair, because he kind of did sometimes, though he'd already put together that was irrational on his own, he didn't need her to point it out for him. And she didn't argue the point, just moving on. "I know an Iona — or, know of her, she is rather older than me. I don't know if she's the same one, though."

"Blonde, blue-green eyes, wears a leather choker with a ring of little square citrines? Yellow gemstones," he added, realizing Seda probably didn't know what a citrine was.

Her lips twitched a little. "Yes, that's her. How long have you been sleeping with her?"

"Well, the first time I would have been fourteen, so seven or eight years, I think. Why?"

This time, her lips pulled all the way into a crooked, reluctantly amused sort of smile. "You know she's married, right? Or she was — her husband died a couple years ago now."

"Yeah, I know." Aedan had always assumed her husband was either okay with it or she just hadn't told him. "She has a daughter too, she's...maybe nine or ten, I don't know exactly." Iona had brought her with her to Highever a few times when she'd been very little, but Aedan didn't think he'd seen the girl since before she'd started speaking — he didn't even know her name, Iona always referred to her with various terms of endearment instead.

"She actually told you about them?" Seda seemed rather surprised, even a little scandalized, but still very much amused, her voice shaking with mostly-suppressed laughter. "That seems like a...weird thing to do, talking about your husband and child with a man you're..."

Aedan shrugged. "Never seemed that especially odd to me, but then I am especially odd, so perhaps I simply didn't notice."

Seda actually laughed out loud that time.

There was quiet again for a short while — between the two of them, anyway, more people had trickled into the common room in the meanwhile, the twittering of conversation in the background louder than before — Seda focusing again on her food. Talking about Iona hadn't done Aedan's mood any favors, to the point he was doing his best not to brood. Seda had sidled along the bench a bit closer to him, her hand gently slipping its way into his at some point, so smooth and subtle he almost hadn't noticed. (Not literally, but it was still very sneakily done.) She was making him feel a little better, but he wouldn't ever admit that aloud — he had a reputation to maintain, after all.

(Truly, he was nearly as much of a softy as Ferdi, he was just better at hiding it.)

After some moments, Seda finally spoke. Her voice had gone quiet, that wavering edge of uncertainty to it again, instantly catching Aedan's attention. "There's...something I wanted to ask you."

She paused there, staring down at the table, her fingers idly playing with her spoon. "What is it?"

"I wonder if..." She trailed off, a sigh escaping through her nose. The silence lingering for a moment, she tensed a little, nervous — not much, if her hand weren't still in his he might not have noticed. "I never fought before, you know, not really."

He felt his eyebrows twitch — what the hell was this about? "For your first time you did damn well." Aedan recalled she'd somehow fought two soldiers at once, on her own, and killed both of them. She hadn't gotten out of it entirely unscathed, taking one scrape over her shoulder and a hard punch to the face — the cut was shallow enough she hadn't even bothered having it bandaged, but there was an awful bruise across her face, a deep purple blotch along the top of her cheek and curving around the corner of her eye socket, surrounded with a rim of sickly yellow and green (it was very tender, enough her cheek bone might have been chipped a little, Aedan had taken special care to avoid it last night) — but that was still very good for an unarmored peasant woman with a knife against two fully- armed and armored men-at-arms. If she'd never even been in a fight before, that was just incredible. Seda either had great natural talent, or had gotten unbelievably lucky.

Shrugging a little, Seda shrugged. "I got lessons from my Aunt Adaia, practiced with my cousins a little." Ah yes, the famous Aunt Adaia — the name had only been mentioned a few times here and there, but he'd heard it was Adaia who'd taught Shianni and a number of other elves in the quarter to defend themselves. (A thief, Aedan suspected, though he didn't really know for sure.) She'd died some years ago, or she would undoubtedly be one of the rebellion's best fighters. "I never killed a man before. I was so sure I was gonna die, at the orphanage, I'm still...surprised I lived. That's the wrong word. It feels unreal, sometimes, like a dream."

"That isn't an unusual feeling." In fact, he suspected it might be quite common — there'd been a lot of screwing around the past two nights, an impulse Aedan thought might be related. After all, few things made one appreciate being alive more acutely than having just fought to stay that way.

"Yeah. And I just... Could you...teach me? I mean, this isn't over, and I think I'll have to fight again, and I don't want to... I got lucky this time, I want to not need to be lucky next time. So, I wanted to ask you, will you teach me?"

...Oh. He should have expected something like this. Poor woman was probably fucking terrified, and she had every reason to be. And here he waltzed in, a young lord with years of training at the hands of the best tutors money could buy, yeah, this made perfect sense. He wasn't opposed to helping either, of course not. He should probably teach as many of the rebels as he had time for.

Although, the more he thought about it, there was a...complication. The possibility hadn't occurred to him before, but then he hadn't known to expect anything of the like...and it was possible he would have trouble recognizing what was going on for what it was, given his experience in that sort of thing. (He meant, it wasn't unusual to him, necessarily, so he might not think any signs as worthy of notice.) And that possibility was making him seriously uncomfortable because, while he wasn't opposed to that kind of trade in principle, it definitely hadn't been his intent going in. And also he'd feel like an ass.

He truly felt he needed to ask but, unfortunately, there wasn't any delicate way of saying it. So, he just had to...do that. "Seda, you're not... I will teach you, but, this isn't why you slept with me in the first place, is it?"

"What?" Seda turned to look up at him, her frowning face only inches away. So it was very obvious when her eyes widened, her mouth dropping open a sliver, apparently putting together what he'd meant. "No! No, no, no, I didn't— No. Maker save me, Aedan," she groaned, leaning forward a little to lean her elbows on the table, her hands rubbing at her face (gingerly, on the left side, avoiding her cheek), "why'd you ask something like that? Really..." Her hands were covering most of her face, but not her neck and her ears, so he knew she was quickly reddening.

...It seemed like a perfectly reasonable thing to wonder to him. A woman having sex with a higher-class (or simply stronger) man in exchange for protection was not only rational, it was commonplace — that's what most mistresses of the nobility or the otherwise wealthy were doing, at the core of it, and it was arguably even the logic behind many arranged marriages underneath the pretty language, or at least part of it. And, of course, it was perfectly ordinary among the commons as well, though in...rougher circumstances. He was pretty sure this wasn't just his upbringing prejudicing his thinking, Seda would probably realize the same thing if she weren't so very embarrassed right now. "Right, I just wanted to make sure."

"Ugh..." Pushing her bowl out of the way, Seda slumped forward onto the table, her burning face hidden on folded arms. "You're terrible sometimes, Aedan."

Only sometimes? "Believe it or not, I was trying to avoid being terrible. If you were trading your body for lessons, I would feel like a complete ass, because I would teach you if you asked regardless. I only meant to say, if that was your intent — and I wouldn't think any less of you if it were, everybody does what they feel they must to survive — you needn't feel obligated to do anything to...repay me for lessons. If I'm making any sense at all right now."

Seda's head turned to the side, so she could stare up at Aedan through his hair. "You... How in the world can you be so noble and so lecherous at the same time?"

"Now that's a funny thing to say. In my experience most noblemen are lechers to one degree or another."

Seda groaned.

It took a little bit for Seda to cool off, so Aedan just waited, finishing off the dregs of his cider. He couldn't guess exactly what was going on in her head at the moment, but he didn't need to to realize she was completely humiliated, and there was no use in making it any worse by making her talk when she wasn't up to it. She did get back to normal before too long though...or mostly, at least. They were talking again — about reconstruction from the fires in the quarter, which would be slightly complicated since the elves didn't really have the materials or coin to buy any, and how they thought the rebellion would move from here — but she was still a little off, shooting Aedan these little sheepish looks he couldn't quite read. It was slightly confusing, but Aedan didn't think he could ask without embarrassing her again, and it really wasn't that important for him to know.

The rebellion's lack of coin was probably going to start being a problem before too long. There'd been large caches of supplies associated with the criminal elements holding the tunnels, but the "Regent" had locked down the port pretty good, putting much more effort into customs enforcement, smuggling into the city had dropped off sharply. They could keep raiding shops to steal what they needed, but Loghain and Howe wouldn't put up with that forever, it would bring the hammer down on them again eventually — and if they hadn't recovered enough by the time that happened, they'd be in serious trouble. If they had gold, they could use legitimate purchases to supplement their thieving, which might keep their more violent activities intermittent enough to avoid drawing too much ire, but the rebels were all peasants, they didn't exactly have piles of currency lying around...

Anyway, he couldn't have annoyed Seda too badly, because she suggested spending the couple hours remaining before the funeral in bed. Aedan had to refuse, unfortunately. He'd wanted to talk to Boann this morning, he should get to that before he forgot. And he'd been sitting here talking longer than he'd realized, Seda practically shoved him off the bench to get him going — after all, it was impolite to leave a Mother waiting.

Boann wasn't actually expecting him, but he guessed that was sort of beside the point.

The orphans and the Sisters had been relocated to another one of the warehouse-turned-residential-blocks, one inside the walls of the elven quarter. There were enough of them that they were spread across multiple sections, taking up most of an entire floor — they'd had to relocate the people already living there to make room, but this particular floor had already been depopulated by people killed this month in the fighting or who'd left their homes to live with the rebels. The place wasn't actually on the courtyard around the big-ass tree, but it had easy access to it through an alley, this particular building likely picked to be close to somewhere the children could go play.

They were all inside at the moment, though, the air ringing a little with dozens of young voices chattering and yelling and giggling and crying. The courtyard had corpses in it, including those of children — the orphans' caretakers, quite reasonably, didn't want them wandering around out there at the moment.

Walking around the place, poking his head into one common room after another looking for Boann, Aedan was shouted at by children now and again, on one occasion slammed in the hip by a running-leaping hug from a little elf boy. The boy, who seemed quite reluctant to let go, clinging at his trousers and babbling up at him, was only vaguely familiar, Aedan thought he might have been one of the ones tied up in the room by the fires. The people looking after the kids while the Sisters were out of commission — a mix of younger, unmarried girls and older, grandmotherly types — seemed kind of tolerantly amused with his predicament, one of the girls giggling and muttering something to the kids she was sitting with, who then giggled themselves, shooting him sheepish, guilty smirks. Some kind of joke at his expense, he assumed.

Aedan let out a huff and gave up, asked the boy if he knew where the Mother was. He finally let go, bouncing on his toes, snagged Aedan by the hand, and started dragging him off down the hall.

Boann was sitting on the floor in one of the common rooms — her robes missing, clothed instead in simple linen trousers and chemise, her poitraile visible glittering around her neck — surrounded by mostly younger children, only a couple older than ten. Aedan thanked the boy and sent him off, stepped into the room to lean against the wall by the door. It sounded like he'd come in near the end, but he was pretty sure Boann was talking about mourning — these kids must have been friends with the dead.

If Aedan was being honest, he hadn't been entirely certain Boann was equipped to be a Mother, especially of a Chantry with an orphanage attached. Doubly so a Chantry in a poor elven district — Boann had had much less contact with common people growing up than he had. She was devout, yes, undoubtedly genuine, but he simply hadn't thought she had the temperament to guide a parish. He'd thought, a Sister of a monastic order, or maybe a position as a Cleric somewhere. It was commendable that she'd forsaken comfortable roles for a much more challenging one, but...

He was starting to think he'd judged her terribly wrong. The people of the quarter loved Boann, which was always a good sign — the popularity of a Mother in her parish varied wildly — and watching her here was reassuring. The party line in this sort of situation had always bothered him. It was based in Trials 1, he knew, all about trusting in the will of the Maker, that no matter how much it hurt, no matter how much they suffered, they were to find solace in the Light of the Maker — that their pain was irrelevant, they were called to carry on regardless. (When I have lost all else, when my eyes fail me / And the taste of blood fills my mouth, then / In the pounding of my heart / I hear the glory of creation. Ugh, he hated that shit.) It had always struck him as terribly callous, a horrible thing to say to people in mourning, children especially so.

It sounded like Boann had instead taken an angle inspired by the Maker's first words to Andraste. You know, blah blah, an ocean of sorrow does nobody drown, blah blah, within My creation, none are alone — but her point wasn't that the Maker was always with them, which did these dirt-poor elven orphans exactly zero practical good, but that what the Maker had really meant was that they weren't alone because they had each other. They might feel lost and hurt and alone, but they weren't, they had the other children and Boann and the Sisters and all the people in the quarter. And no matter how much darkness people like those bad men put into the world, so long as they loved and took care of each other they could always bring the Light back — after all, what the Maker has created none can tear asunder.

Toward the end, once Boann had gotten through that stuff — most of the children tearfully clinging to each other, Boann idly wiping the cheeks of the tiny girl she'd gathered into her lap with her sleeve — she then ended with a promise. Because they were bad men, and they might seem too strong, invincible, but they wouldn't win out in the end. Because Those who bring harm / Without provocation to the least of His children / Are hated and accursed by the Maker — even if they couldn't beat the bad men here, their punishment would come in time. So long as they held onto each other, held onto the Light inside each of them, they had nothing to fear in the end — The Veil holds no uncertainty for her, / And she will know no fear of death, for the Maker / Shall be her beacon and her shield, her foundation and her sword — but the bad men would wander the Void for all eternity, lost and alone.

It was some surprisingly good shit, loving and hopeful yet vicious and vengeful at the same time. Watered down a bit for childish ears, sure, but still, this was the kind of preaching Aedan actually liked. He thought it was technically blasphemy — the idea that the Light of the Maker was something expressed in earthly community and people's care for each other, and not something gifted by the grace of the Maker alone, was a very common heresy, so common some people didn't even realize it was heretical at all — but he honestly didn't give a damn what the Grand Clerics in Orlais said. Aedan wouldn't say he was particularly pious to begin with, but if this was how the Chantry talked all the time maybe he would have paid more attention growing up.

Boann wrapped up before too long, leading the children in a song — not one Aedan knew, and not part of the Chant itself, one of those simple things that were taught to children to get important ideas across without having to deal with the challenging, archaic language of the Chant (this one clipped from the Sermon on the Pillars) — a last round of hugs going around, and then Boann was standing up, the children scattering across the room to play, a couple going to a table to practice their letters. A few adults swept in from where they'd been waiting in the wings, and the room was suddenly very noisy with chattering, chairs scraping against the floor.

Aedan hardly had time to move before Boann was walking toward him, apparently having decided he must need to talk to her about something. Obviously, what else would he be here for? "Good morning, Aedan," she said, giving him a weary smile. "I see you had fun last night."

"What are you— Oh, right." His hand unconsciously came up to the left side of his neck — there weren't exactly any mirrors hanging around, but by the low, dull ache Aedan suspected he should have a bruise there right now. (He thought Seda had bitten down when she peaked in an effort to muffle herself, but as thin as the walls were Aedan doubted it'd made any difference.) He'd sort of forgotten about that, but Aedan was hardly the only person walking around marked up right now, night after a battle and all that. "Well, you know me."

Smirking a little, Boann muttered, "Yes, I suppose I do." Her voice rising back up to a normal conversational volume, "Did you need to talk about something? Or maybe we should catch up, I haven't seen you in years..."

"Hey, I'm not the one who ran away to seminary." And Aedan hadn't really been welcome in the elven quarter before he'd bumbled his way into this little rebellion. He'd only known Boann was the Mother here from gossip. "I've got to admit, though, I was a little offended — was the thought of marrying me really so terrible you had to—"

"Oh hush, you," Boann said, smacking him in the chest with the back of her hand, a little curl of a smirk to her lips. "Don't tell me you only came to tease me."

"Well, not only. I do need to tell you something, but not here," his eyes flicking to the children.

She let out a light sigh. "Okay, let's go out into the hall."

They stepped outside, started walking down the hall — slowly, not really going anywhere, just idly wandering. They were quiet a long moment, Aedan stalling. It was a...delicate topic. The Chantry had a rather dim view of suicide — it was considered sinful, like all murder, and a sin the person couldn't even beg forgiveness for, being dead. Mothers (and Sisters) could intercede with Andraste on their behalf, of course, but it was pretty rare for that to actually happen. For one thing, relatives of the deceased would have to tell someone about it, and suicide was almost always considered shameful, so they often didn't want to do that. Also, well, it was considered a sin, so many Mothers and Sisters refused to intercede on the logic that the deceased didn't deserve it — some would even refuse to conduct funerals in cases of suicide. Which was nugshit, obviously, but people had their own opinions about the Chant, there wasn't anything that could be done about that.

Aedan didn't honestly think Boann would refuse to intercede for the girl. But it was still an uncomfortable topic, he didn't want to talk about it.

So, he stalled with another uncomfortable topic, but at least it was a distraction for a moment. "How are the Sisters doing?"

Boann forced a hissing sigh through her teeth. "How do you think they're doing, Aedan?" Not sure what that tone was, Aedan glanced at Boann, and then gave her a double-take. Her brow furrowed, her shoulders rigid, her fists clenched at her sides, her jaw set — Boann was furious.

Which was perfectly understandable, Aedan just... Boann had always been a gentle soul, sweet and sunny — he didn't think he'd ever seen her legitimately angry. She had every right, of course, he was just saying, it was almost surreal.

Boann leaned around the door into another common room as they passed, glancing in on the children for a second, before moving on. Seemingly forcing the furious tension to loosen with some effort, she took a slow breath. "Trissel will live — we set her leg as best we could, and her breathing has started to clear up already, but it will be a long recovery. Ada is inconsolable, she blames herself, I think." If Aedan remembered correctly, Ada was the oldest of the five — by a significant margin too, old enough to be Lana and Trissel and Gwenys's grandmother (if the former two were human, that is). "She was certain they'd be safe in the Chantry, and... Who does something like that?!"

"Howe's men-at-arms, apparently."

"I just don't..." Trailing off, Boann took a few seconds in another attempt to collect herself. "Brona and Gwenys are...volatile — I've been keeping the children out of their room, worried they'll frighten them. It's still early, but I don't know how... And Gwenys worries— On top of everything, needing to take on the— No, I'm sorry, that isn't your business, I shouldn't have said even that much."

Just that much was enough to suggest to Aedan what she meant: it must have been a risky time for Gwenys, she was worried she might conceive. (Of the three Sisters who'd been raped, the other two were elves, Gwenys was the only one in any danger of that.) It sounded like she intended to take a potion to prevent that from happening, and was already feeling preemptively guilty over it. The Chantry took a dim view of abortion too, though with some reasonable caveats. It was only forbidden after a certain point along, when the child was thought to have developed enough for killing it to be considered murder — ending a pregnancy very early in the process, as Gwenys intended to do, was perfectly fine. But for the especially pious, as Sisters would obviously be, it might not make that much of a difference. It sounded like she was going to do it anyway, but, yeah, Aedan could understand how she might be miserable just now.

Well, no, he couldn't really, but even if he couldn't empathize he could sympathize, at least.

"And poor Lana..."

"She still hasn't spoken?"

"Not a word. She had bruises around her throat, but Ferdi brought them down, and Alarith says nothing is damaged — she's able to speak, she just...doesn't. She hears us, clearly, but..." Boann trailed off, her voice cracking thick and broken, wiping under her eyes with her sleeve.

Maybe this hadn't been such a convenient distraction. That should have been obvious, fucking idiot, he didn't know what he'd been thinking...

"How could anyone do something like this, Aedan? Murdering children, raping— Sisters, in the Chantry, no less! I don't understand..."

"I don't know what to tell you, Boann." He suspected that if he could understand that sort of thing he'd be a very different man. "I always... You know, I've read about the sort of thing that happens in war, and I... I always wondered, these men, who've done these things, how do they go back home? I can't imagine, if they've given into that sort of violence so thoroughly...that they can just leave it behind. The war ends, and they go home, to their wives and their children, and...

"They must be changed, having done these things, and I've always wondered, if their loved ones are safe with them anymore. I don't think they are, I can't imagine how you can do this sort of thing and just...go back to normal afterward. Personally, I'm of the opinion that people who've committed these sort of monstrous acts should be put to death, without exception — they have made monsters of themselves, and they need to be killed before they can harm anyone else."

Boann shuddered, but didn't say anything. They continued walking for a moment, both quietly simmering, Boann's eyes downcast. They she suddenly stopped, Aedan drifting on for a couple steps before he noticed. "I have a confession, Aedan, if you would hear it."

Forcing a note of humor he didn't feel into his voice, he said, "A confession? You realize I'm not the Mother here."

Looking up at him without lifting her head, Boann's eyebrows took an unamused tilt, just for a second before her eyes dropped again. She was silent a moment before, barely a mutter, "I hate them. All of them. The men who did this are dead, and I'm glad they're dead, and I hate them, I hate them so much. I know I shouldn't give in to feeling like this, the Clerics— But I can't help it, I just..."

Out of a lack of any better ideas about what the hell he should be doing right now, Aedan drew her into his arms, gently — mostly just because of his sore ribs and shoulder, stressing them was still uncomfortable. Boann's head pressed against his chest, just under his chin, her hands fisting in his shirt. Her shoulders shook with a sob, once, the sound harshly choked off in her throat.

"Everyone who participated, whoever gave the orders, I want them all to be found, they should suffer, I want them to burn, and..."

Boann didn't get out any more coherent words after that. Aedan silently held her as she cried, rubbing a small circle over her back, blankly staring at the wall over her head.

He had absolutely no idea what to do.

After some minutes, Boann's tears gradually eased, though even once she'd quieted she didn't move, still gripping his shirt (if more gently than before), thin, strangled breaths broken with the occasional sniffle. Finally she pulled way, wiping at her face with a sleeve, her eyes slightlessly directed down to the side, not meeting his. "I'm sorry, I didn't..."

"It's alright, Boann. I— Shit," he muttered, internally cringing a little. "I was stalling because I didn't want to talk about what I came here for, I didn't... I'm sorry, that was thoughtless of me."

Boann's lips twitched a little. "Don't trouble yourself over it, I... That was going to come out one way or the other anyway. I've been working on my homily, for the funeral today."

...There was something strangely ominous-sounding about that, but he didn't ask — he guessed he'd find out soon. "You know, if I can do anything to help, for you or with the Sisters..."

"You can convince the Clerics to press my demand for restitution from the Kingdom."

Yeah, that wasn't happening, not so long as Loghain and Howe were in charge. "How about I track down and murder the people responsible instead?"

Her brow stitched a little, but she said, with an odd tone he couldn't quite read, "I suppose that will have to do, on that front." Then she took a breath, cleared her throat, and turned to start pacing down the hall again. "What was it you wanted to speak with me of, Aedan?"

Right, let's just get this over with, then. "I was taking a walk this morning when I found a girl on the riverbank." Aedan glanced around quick, checking if there was anyone close enough to overhear. "She'd slashed her wrists."

Boann's step hitched, just for a second, her head tilting up to the ceiling, eyes closed. She took in a long breath through her nose, let it out in a sigh. "The Sisters and I already planned on holding a vigil for the dead tonight, I'll remember to include her in the intercessional. Thank you for telling me."

He didn't really think this was worth thanking him over. "Of course. I figured, if she ended up where I found her she'd already suffered enough."

"Yes. Who was it? Do you know her name?"

"Nola."

"Oh..." Boann suddenly jerked to a stop, drawing a hissing breath through her teeth. "Oh, she... Somebody should have been watching that poor girl. Andraste save her..."

"I get the feeling you're not...entirely surprised. You knew this might happen?"

"Well, I didn't know, but..." Boann let out another sigh, her head slowly shaking. "Nola was one of the girls who was taken."

"Taken?"

Boann twitched in surprised, turned a raised eyebrow on him. "You haven't heard?"

"Heard about what?"

She let out a little breath, more exasperated than amused. "We were having a wedding in the quarter. Our own Darrian and Seda were marrying a pair of siblings come in from Highever, Neslara and Nelaros." It was kind of funny that Boann seemed to include herself in the elves of the quarter — our own — Aedan didn't think she'd been here longer than a few years...

But he also caught on something else. "Wait, Seda? Shianni's cousin Seda? I didn't realize she was betrothed."

"Betrothed, well." Boann shrugged. "Marriages in the quarter are often arranged, especially the ones between communities of elves in different cities. I don't think Seda had ever even met Nelaros until a few days before the wedding." And he'd gotten the impression the wedding hadn't actually happened, so, that would explain why no one had thought to mention it, then. Boann started moving again, dipping her head around another doorframe and continuing on before speaking. "We'd already gathered, only a few minutes before we were to start the ceremony, when Vaughan and his goons showed up — I suppose you know all about Vaughan."

Aedan grimaced. "I did kick the sick shit-stain's teeth in — you know how I feel about the sort of men who do what he did."

"Yes, I thought that was likely why." By that point Boann had already left for the Chantry some years previously, she wouldn't have heard what had happened directly from their peers. "Well, he was being his usual charming self when Shianni picked up a wine bottle and clonked him over the head with it, knocked him right out."

A shocked guffaw forced its way out of his throat. "Fuck, I would have paid to see that."

The only sign of agreement from Boann was the slightest twitch of her lips. She would have known Vaughan just as well as Aedan growing up — though he guessed not the same side of him, since Aedan obviously hadn't been a target of his attentions — and she'd never liked him any more than Aedan had. "Yes, well, Vaughan's friends and the guardsmen he'd brought with didn't find it nearly so amusing. There was a bit of a scrum, a few people got nasty blows to arms or heads, but nobody was killed, Maker be praised. When everything calmed down and Vaughan was carried off by his people, we quickly realized something was wrong: Shianni, Seda, Valora, Nola, and Neslara were missing."

"Oh, no..." He didn't need to be told, he could guess what they'd been taken for well enough on his own.

Boann gave a slow, solemn nod, ducked her head into another common room. This time she lingered at the threshold for a moment, as though contemplating whether she needed to intervene — there was a bit of a scene going on inside. An elf girl — long honey-blonde hair, maybe ten, dressed in rather nicer clothes than the rest of the orphans (not fine clothing, by any means, but not peasant dress either) — was insisting to one of the helpers that she was not an orphan, that she didn't belong here, shoving off a woman trying to comfort her. Insisting her mother was alive, she'd gone to Highever with the nice lady she served, she'd be back, she didn't belong here, let her go back to her uncle's place...

If Aedan hadn't just been thinking about Iona earlier today the possibility might not have occurred to him. That couldn't be...

As the girl broke into frustrated tears, half-heartedly struggling against the arms gently wrapping around her, Boann let out a sad sigh, turned to move on. Aedan stared at the girl — if that was Iona's daughter... — for a second before following. "There was a lot of shouting and arguing, everyone trying to decide what they should do about it. Some of the young people were talking about breaking into the Kendells' estate and rescuing them, Valendrian and some of the elders about going to the guard or the Grand Cleric or the magistrate."

Aedan scoffed. That would be fucking pointless — of the three, only the guard would even speak to them, and none of them would be willing to confront the Arl's son on behalf of a bunch of elves. Even if they'd been able to agree on who to go to, nothing would have been accomplished.

Grimacing a little, Boann nodded, probably thinking the same thing. "While everyone else was arguing, six men slipped off on their own. As I understand it, it was Darrian's idea. He'd always been a willful young man — a bit of a scoundrel, really, but of the dashing sort, you know."

"You mean he was like me."

Surprisingly, she let out a short laugh. "Not nearly so refined as you, and angry with the elves' lot in life, but I suppose. The story going around now was that he fought for his betrothed, but I think it was actually Shianni he was most concerned for. They were cousins, practically siblings — Shianni's parents died when she was young, she was taken in by Darrian's parents, Cyrion and Adaia." Ah yes, the famous Aunt Adaia. "Nelaros, of course, came with him to help rescue his sister; Soris, another cousin of Darrian, Shianni, and Seda was also with them — not solely for his cousins, his wife, Valora, was also taken. From what I heard later, Cyrion, Darrian's father, stumbled upon the boys plotting and decided to join them, along with Gethon, a cousin of his. A young man named Taeodor was also with them, though I'm not sure how he got caught up in all that.

"The six of them went up to the Hill, slipped into the Kendells' home by a servants' entrance, and managed to sneak undetected all the way to where Vaughan was keeping the women. But as quick as they acted, they didn't get there soon enough."

Aedan cringed — Maker, he'd had no idea about any of this...

"Or, not entirely soon enough, anyway — I'm told they'd been split up, some of them locked in a room to wait their turn. No, I won't tell you who was raped and who wasn't, it's not your business." That was fair. Aedan thought it was obvious Nola must have been, and he was going to guess Seda hadn't — if she had, she probably wouldn't have jumped into bed with him last night so easily. He got the impression all this hadn't happened very long ago, so. "The men killed Vaughan and his friends, and also a few of the family's men-at-arms who got in the way. They returned to the quarter that evening, surprising all of us, we hadn't even realized they'd gone.

"A couple days later, men from the garrison turned up to arrest them. Somehow, they knew just who to look for, all six of them — I'm not sure how they knew, perhaps servants had identified them? They were charged with not only killing Vaughan, but all of Urien's children. The Kendells must all be dead, if Howe could be made regent of the Arling, but I'm...not really sure what happened. Soris swore to me that they didn't, and I believe him — Darrian and Soris may have been tempestuous, angry young men, but I didn't and don't think they're murderers. Besides, all six didn't deny that they killed Vaughan and their friends, but they were horrified by the accusation of the murder of the children, their reaction was real, I think."

Aedan wasn't sure he could trust Boann's judgement in this area. They were people of her impoverished, embattled parish, it wasn't unreasonable to expect she might be defensive on their behalf. Personally, as horrible as it would be, that young men stumbling upon their cousins and wives being raped might, after killing the ones responsible, extend that violence to anyone even loosely associated with the perpetrators in a rage... That didn't seem so unlikely to him. But, that couldn't have happened until after they'd found the women, and maybe they would have been more concerned with getting them the hell out of there. It could go either way, he thought.

"The riot started at their execution, didn't it." He had wondered about that. He hadn't wanted to ask, concerned revealing his ignorance of recent events might make the rebels suspect his motives here — by that point, he'd figured out it had something to do with the Kendells, but he hadn't known much more than that. As far as sparks for peasant rebellions went, that wasn't an entirely unreasonable one.

At the thought of the riot that had started all this — or more pressingly the rebellion itself, Aedan figured — a solemn, wary sort of look crossed Boann's face. She was a sweet, sunny person after all, Aedan expected she was extremely unhappy with all of this. "Yes, that is what started all of it. Though I fear something might have happened in time regardless."

Yes, well, Aedan didn't think Boann was wrong about that. He didn't even necessarily blame them.

That it'd blown up into something so large, organized, and persistent was peculiar, however. Peasant revolts of this scale were an occasional occurrence in Orlais and Nevarra — frequent enough there was almost always one going on somewhere in the west, though rebellions in the same location could be separated by decades — but they were much rarer in Alamarri lands. The major difference, Aedan suspected, was the practice of vilainage — the peasants of Orlais and Nevarra were largely serfs, little better than slaves at the mercy of the local lord, while such arrangements were practically unheard of in Alamarri lands, on either side of the Waking Sea. It only made sense that Orlesian and Nevarran peasants, subjected to even more serious deprivation and abuse, rose in revolt more often.

Though, if Aedan was being honest, the difference between the circumstances of Orlesian and Fereldan peasants was largely aesthetic, in many cases. Like in Orlais, the Kingdom was divided into a number of fiefs held by a lord, but how the basis of that lord's power was (theoretically) different between the two countries — in Orlais, the lord was invested into their position by the authority of the Emperor, while in Fereldan the lord's authority derives (theoretically) from the consensus of freeholders and vassals. Aedan said theoretically, because while that was how it worked on paper things didn't really operate that way in practice. Theoretically, the freeholders of a bannir gathered to select from among their number their bann, or confirm the heir of the previous — the banns of an arling doing the same with an arl, the arls (and banns) of a teyrnir their teyrn — but that practically never happened these days, the title instead passing parent to child uncontested. The exception was when the ruling family went extinct, in which case a replacement was usually selected from among the freeholders (or the banns for a higher lord). Every noble was supposed to be selected in this manner, but these days that almost never happened — the king was still selected by the gathered banns and arls and teyrns, but that was it.

Even if it was only a theoretical process, this was one of the major problems the Orlesians had during the Occupation: they'd attempted to invest their own people as banns and arls (and the king himself, obviously), but many Fereldans had considered these lords illegitimate, and refused to recognize their authority.

And it didn't help that the Orlesians seemed to misunderstand what authority Fereldan lords had in the first place. Due to that theoretical basis of their power, the relationship between a bann and the people of his bannir was very different from the system in Orlais. Most of the land in a bannir was owned by freeholders, who were not bonded laborers like Orlesian vilains, but freemen, with all the rights and privileges that came with that under Fereldan law — and freemen even had greater rights in Ferelden than in Orlais. These imported Orlesian nobles sometimes drastically overestimated what their rights were within their fiefs, inviting reprisals from the residents when they crossed lines they seemingly hadn't even been aware of.

But things weren't quite that simple, unfortunately for the peasants. The laws concerning the ownership of land in Ferelden were such that any freeman could claim an unoccupied plot as their own, so long as it wasn't contested by local authorities, but that was more difficult than it sounded. There was still unclaimed land in Ferelden, but it was mostly far removed from the trade necessary to sustain a family for long, not suitable for farming, or simply unsafe — too high up the foothills of the Frostbacks, for example, or along the Storm Coast of Amaranthine.

Many peasants were forced to work as tenant laborers on 'freeholds' owned by others. These contracts were worked out on a case-by-case basis, so the particulars varied, but it was typical for the tenant to owe the freeholder a portion of their harvest, often on top of rent for the use of the land. Sometimes, instead of demanding rent (or rarely in addition to), the freeholder will demand a buy-in for a place to live and work; since peasants didn't carry around the coin necessary to pay, they were brought into the freeholder's debt. And people in debt bondage could often be coerced into performing all kinds of other labors for whoever held their debt — when it came down to it, these tenants were basically serfs by another name, their condition was practically indistinguishable.

There were no hard numbers on what proportion of the farming in Ferelden was actually done by the freeholders themselves and what proportion was done by their tenants, but it was generally assumed that tenants did the lion's share of the work. Neither were there numbers on how common debt bondage was — the practice was actually illegal in all of the Teyrnir of Highever, but Aedan knew for a fact it happened anyway.

And, well, it did peasants no good that they theoretically had freedoms if those freedoms were never respected. For a topical example, if an Orlesian lord were going around raping his vilains, Aedan wasn't even certain that would be illegal (and if it was, nobody would do anything about it anyway, so it hardly mattered); technically, Vaughan hadn't the legal right to do what he'd done, but he'd gotten away with it anyway. By the letter of the law, Vaughan should have been obligated to pay blood money for every woman he harmed. It wasn't very much, honestly, due to the difference in their social rank — if Aedan recalled correctly, it should be 20 sovereigns for an unmarried woman, 50 if she was married and/or had children, and 200 if she was younger than fifteen (for humans, the values were all halved for elves, of course) — but Aedan was certain the Kendells had never had to pay out anything. The magistrate would actually have to bind the Kendells to make restitution, and that was simply never going to happen. After all, the magistrate was nobility too, and served at the pleasure of the Arl — he wasn't likely to give a damn about a bunch of peasants anyway, and wasn't going to risk his position on their behalf.

Aedan's family had had to pay the Kendells five thousand sovereigns over that time he'd kicked Vaughan's teeth in, which kind of disgusted him when he thought about it.

And things were worse in the cities in general, due to the fact that they were forced to pay rent to live and the different quality of the work available. Agricultural land required a regular supply of a relatively large number of laborers, but in the cities? Yeah, not so reliable. There was dockwork, which was fine (if hard), and various trades and crafts, which was also good if they could get an in (the guilds could be quite protective of their trades), and the various domestic labors that went into the function of a household could be fine, depending on particulars — and the problem was in the particulars, it wasn't unusual for servants to be held in debt bondage. Prostitution and wet nursing were always options. But beyond that, there wasn't much, unless one wanted to sell oneself into bondage or join one criminal organization or another, which many vagabonds did out of desperation. If the death rates in cities weren't so distressingly high, it would be a much bigger problem, but as it was it still wasn't great.

The conditions in the major cities — Highever, Amaranthine, Denerim, Gwaren — weren't all the same, some worse than others. Disease was less of a problem in Highever and Gwaren, for whatever reason, which was good because less people were dying horribly, but bad due to the associated rashes of idleness and accompanying spikes in crime. Highever and Amaranthine both had a lot of dockwork available, the guilds were relatively liberal about accepting new partners, and the syndicates organizing domestic workers and brothels undermined the attractiveness of debt bondage significantly. The rents in Amaranthine were low, but much of the modern city had been built by occupying Orlesians, so the peasants lived in miserable conditions.

Denerim had the most domestic work available, but a high proportion of men-at-arms for the population, resulting in intermittent altercations or rapes, and then there were the relatively powerful criminal groups (which Aedan had learned most peasants considered no better or worse than the city guard), and debt bondage was worryingly common. The elves had it an odd mix of better and worse — the quarter was surprisingly cleanly, disease a much lesser problem than it was in the northern city; the elves owned the land the quarter was on in common (save parts held by the Chantry), so they needn't pay rent; but the local authorities would rarely press their claims against even other dirt-poor commoners, so they mostly had to get by protecting their own; and a shockingly large proportion of the residents were in debt bondage to various noble families on the Hill, or even the wealthier merchants and tradesmen. The women of the quarter had it slightly easier than the men, due to the ever-productive occupations of prostitution and wet nursing — elves had long been sought as wet nurses due to old superstitions dating to the Imperium involving the child being provided with some kind of magical protection somehow, which was very silly (though most people didn't even realize where the perception had come from these days, just one of those things) — but the margins they lived on were still razor thin, and precarious, constantly under threat of violence from other residents of the city or the institutions of the Kingdom itself.

And it was even worse in the northern slums, Aedan knew. Regardless of how inflammatory the specific situation must have seemed at the time — six men executed for the murder of the Arl's son, who himself had terrorized the city with random rape and murder for years, the 'crime' done to rescue their cousins and sisters and wives — Aedan suspected this rebellion was less about that incident, and more about the lot of the poor of the city in general. They'd been worked too hard, squeezed too long, too many of them starved and exploited and beaten and raped and murdered too many times, and they'd finally had enough.

After all, kick a dog too many times and it will eventually stop obeying commands. The sack of the elven quarter had likely been intended to force the peasants back into their place, but Aedan seriously doubted it was going to work. Like the Emerald Knights fording the Celestine, it was too late to go back to the way things had been.

Which was slightly terrifying, just on principle, but Aedan was sympathetic to their grievances, and so long as it helped him get to Howe he didn't honestly care that much.

"Well," Aedan said, his breath escaping with a heavy sigh. "Thanks for informing me, I guess. By the time I got back to the city the riot had already happened, and I was worried asking what had happened what attract unwanted suspicion."

Boann's lips quirked a little. "And...walking around wearing fine clothing and carrying an enchanted blade of silverite was perfectly inconspicuous, was it?"

"Don't give me that, it's not like I had time to prepare — I didn't even realize there was a peasant revolt going on until they appeared out of the shadows to rescue me from Howe's men."

"It's always excuses with you."

He scoffed, amused despite himself.

Slowly drifting to a stop, Boann was silent for a moment, staring off at nothing. Then she turned to look up at him, one corner of her lips curling in a sad sort of smile. "It is good to see you, Aedan, we should find some time to talk later...on less weighty matters, please. But there isn't much time before the funeral, and I wanted to speak with the Sisters first."

It took Aedan a second to come up with a guess as to why. "Oh, are they coming? I figured they...weren't really mobile at the moment." Trissel wouldn't be walking for weeks, at least, and he'd heard they never left each others' sight, which would complicated matters.

"Yesterday, Gwenys and Trissel expressed interest in trying to attend, at least. I'm not certain Trissel is well enough to be moved yet, or whether the rest will agree, but I will still ask. I'm not certain how we're going to move Trissel, though..."

"We could probably improvise a lectica without too much trouble." They'd want to make sure the posts were stable — dropping her in her condition would probably be very bad — but with all the scrap they had around from the sack, they should be able to manage it.

She blinked. "A lecti— Oh, a litière?" That was literally just the Orlesian word for the same thing, keep up, Boann. "Hmm, I suppose. I'll have to ask some of the women what they think, we'll see. I'll see you later, Aedan."

"Wait, hold up a second." Boann had already started moving, pausing to look at him over her shoulder. "That girl before, who was saying her mother's in Highever."

"Oh, that," she said, letting out a little sigh. Turning back toward him, "Her mother is in the service of Landra — you know, Bann Loren's wife. When Landra travels, Iona is often brought with her, so Iona will leave Amethyne here with Gensey, her brother-in-law. Gensey died in the riot. We don't mean for her to stay with the orphans permanently, just until her mother returns, but... Well, Amethyne didn't take the death of her uncle well, she's been having a hard time adjusting."

Gritting his teeth, Aedan forced a his breath out in a hiss. "Well, I have some bad news: her mother isn't coming back."

Boann frowned, her head tilting slightly — the expression actually looked a little elven, but Aedan guessed she'd been spending a lot of time around elves these days. "I don't know how we can know that for certain yet, Iona plans to be away for a couple months. After stopping by Highever, they were going to..." She trailed off, her mouth left hanging open, face paling. "Oh, no, Highever. Aedan..."

He nodded. "She bled out in my arms. She's dead."

"Oh..." Her eyes drifting closed, Boann's hand came up to cover her mouth. For a couple seconds she was still, breathing slow and long, half-strangled. Finally her eyes opened again, she cleared her throat before trying to speak. "She should be... Would you be willing to talk to her? Nobody here really knew her mother well, and..."

Aedan was reluctantly amused that Boann had seemingly assumed they'd been sleeping together — they had of course, for much longer than Boann could guess, but it was still a little funny. He did have a reputation, he guessed. But any amusement he did feel was immediately suffocated by the idea of... "Damn it, Boann, I..." Avoiding her eyes, he let out a heavy sigh. "What the fuck am I supposed to say to her? Hey, I'm the guy who's been fucking your mom, and some traitorous bastard sent men to kill me, and she was just in the way. Sorry about that! I don't know how to— I'm not cut out for this shit, Boann, you know that..."

Her brows lowered in a hard disapproving line, Boann said, "To start off with, if you do intend to mention your relationship with her mother, don't put it quite like that." Her face softening a little, "You should tell her something, Aedan. It doesn't matter if you don't know how to tell her — nobody knows how to do this sort of thing. So long as you're gentle about her, it shouldn't make a difference."

Unpleasant tingles crawling up his neck, his fingers twitching just a little — he did not want to do this, this was going to be awful — he harshly forced out another sigh, hard enough his ribs twinged. "Fine, fine! I'm going to hate this, and she's going to hate me, but fine. Please, let's just get this over with..."

፠

It was the largest funeral Aedan had ever been to, by several times.

The dead were many, dozens, men and women, children. It was the largest pyre Aedan had ever seen, two rows of bodies with their heads in the middle and feet at the sides, shoulder to shoulder, another and another and another.

Those in attendance were many, all the residents of the quarter alongside human rebels, hundreds and hundreds. There wasn't really room for them in the courtyard around the tree, packed into alleys, standing on crates and sacks and debris, leaning out of windows, even sitting on the roofs or on branches up the tree.

The Sisters were even here. They'd altered a chair for Trissel, though even with it she'd been flushed and sweating by the time she'd arrived, the jostling of her broken leg, even with it properly splinted, clearly causing her no small amount of pain. And it didn't really get better, either — she had broken ribs too, perhaps sitting upright in the chair wasn't a wise idea — her hair wet and neck streaked from sweat, knuckles white on the arms of the chair, but she didn't protest, stubbornly sitting there, staring at the pyre. The others were gathered close to her, all bruised and battered, but just as resolutely present.

Aedan noticed Lana — the youngest of the Sisters, maybe only fifteen or sixteen — was surrounded by the others, boxing her off from the nearby crowd. In the minutes before the start of the ceremony, the other Sisters muttered with each other a little, but Lana's lips didn't twitch once.

The crowd was still, and mostly quiet, only a low sussuring of whispers, like the forested hills outside Highever tossed by autumn winds — heavy, solemn, waiting. The sky was overcast, clouds thick from the spring storms raging to the north — Aedan thought it would rain later today — the wan, gray day colored here and there by streaks of curtains in windows and doorways, the curling lines painted on the sides of buildings, colorful elven hair, the candles some in the crowd carried, little spots of light moodily flickering against their chests.

Until the Mother spoke. Aedan heard her clear, perfectly, despite being some yards away. ("Guide them through emerald waters, O Maker, and grant them eternal rest; welcome them to your side, O Creator, and make eternal Light to shine upon them.") Boann's voice didn't seem particularly loud, not uncomfortably so, as though she were speaking at an ordinary conversational volume only a few small steps away — Ferdi must have done some magic, he assumed. The crowd instantly fell silent, broken only with the occasional shuffling as people shifted their weight, sniffling and choked sobs.

Aedan had been to funerals before, and Boann followed the usual script, at least at first. A passage at the beginning, stating their purpose, begging Andraste to carry their words to the Maker, to plead mercy for the dead on their behalf. Then a passage from Benedictions, and then one from Exaltations, both of which Boann had of course memorized. (It was possible she'd gotten a word switched around here and there, Aedan didn't know the Chant well enough to tell.) Each one was followed by repeats of the couplet she'd started with, recited by the entire crowd — not quite overlapping perfectly, words smeared together, but the weight of a thousand voices overwhelming, crushing Aedan over the head and shivering in his chest.

That then went right into the litany the same as always...or mostly the same. It was a recitation of Trials 1, mostly, broken each verse with a brief response from the crowd — Holy Andraste, beg them His mercy; O Maker, grant them peace, the same every time. This was familiar, this same sequence was recited at every funeral, and also on certain holidays. But Boann was skipping half of the verses, a few times replacing them. Not that Aedan disagreed with that decision, he didn't really like Trials 1. At one point, Boann went so far as to edit out multiple verses in a row and replace them wholecloth with the entirety of Transfigurations 12, which was also a good choice, in Aedan's opinion.

After that there was the typical recitation from Benedictions, followed by a song from Exaltations — the parting of the Veil, the Maker's descent to earth, Andraste's proclamation ("All sins are forgiven! All crimes pardoned! / Let no soul harbor guilt! / Let none hunger for justice!") — sung by a group of children, their voices also carried by Ferdi's magic. Peeking around the people standing around him, Aedan recognized a few faces, must be kids from the orphanage — they were being raised by Sisters, so he guessed they would know all the songs.

And then, again, the courtyard fell silent. Still, anticipatory, as though holding their breath. Every eye on Boann where she stood at the edge of the pyre, staring down at the arrayed bodies, her hands folded under her stomach.

"There are no words," Boann started, her voice slow, quiet — yet still carried out to all of them, a gentle presence in their ears. "For something like this, there are no words. What can be said, against this? I know the Chant, backwards and forwards, I have studied the writings of the greatest Clerics all the way back to Justinia the First, I have read more sermons than I can count, on every topic you can imagine. And there are no words, for this. Knowing I was to speak to you all today, I struggled to imagine what I could say. What can be said, against this?

"The Clerics say, find solace in the Chant, but they do not see what you see. When your children waste away for want of food, what words are there for this? When your homes are swept with fever and plague like waves upon the shore, taking from you more each time they recede, others left permanently crippled by their weight, what words are there for this? When you have worked yourself to ruin year after year, your body frayed and your mind dulled, every day all the harder and all the more just to scrape together that one last copper in hope you want fall asleep hungry tonight, what words are there for this? When you must sell yourself into bondage, surrender yourself to the mercy of a lord's careless whims just for the chance to survive, what words are there for this?

"When your men are taken," she continued, her voice starting to rise a little, shaking with restrained emotion, "tortured and murdered, what words are there for this? When your women are taken, beaten and violated, what words are there for this? When your neighbors fall to callous blade and arrow and bolt, what words are there for this? When invaders force their way into your homes, steal what little you have and burn the rest, desecrate your only sanctuary, beat you and rape you and murder you, slaughter children in their beds, what words are there for this?!"

Boann broke off for a moment, seemingly to collect herself, Aedan thought she could see her shoulders shivering from here. People in the crowd were shifting, some wiping at eyes, others glancing at each other and whispering, the air tense, electric — this was certainly not an ordinary funereal homily, no. Aedan had a weird feeling he knew where this was going, but, that couldn't be, this was Boann...

"No, there are no words for this," Boann said, her voice cracked, simmering. "We are told our ancestors invited sin into this world by turning away from the Maker, the only way to escape our suffering that the Maker have mercy and grace us with his Light, but I don't accept that. These men and women before us, what sin have they committed that invited their fate upon them? What have the children done? All of you, what grievous wrong have you done against the Maker to earn your lot?

"No, I don't accept that. The suffering in our world is not some divine punishment for the sins of our ancestors, no, suffering is wrought by the hands of mortal men. This," she snarled, jabbing a hand at the pyre, "this is not fate, this is not the will of the Maker. This is the product of evil acts, committed by evil men — not part of some grand design, but by their own will to abuse and violate and kill those who should be, by all rights, their brothers and sisters in the eyes of the Maker. This is not the world as it should be, none of this, this was done to us.

"And I am angry."

The crackling fire on her voice seemed to spread through the crowd, echoing in hissed mutters, the tension on the air only growing, hard and hot and heavy around Aedan's head, like a wave about to fall, lightning about to strike.

"As I sat in the night, contemplating what I was to say, the anger came upon me, like smoke seeping through the window until the air is so thick I can hardly breathe. Anger so hot and so thick I'm strangled with it," one hand clutching at her chest under her throat, "like burning irons clenched tight about my throat, and I cannot move, cannot think, can only fight the need to scream. And there are no words for this, for the men who should be our champions turning on us in this way, our homes burned and our people murdered, no, there are no words for this.

"As there should be no words for this. When a man beats you, who returns to him with words? Should someone try to kill you, do you fight him off with words? No. There is only one response for this, for what has been done here, two days ago."

She was doing it. She was actually doing it. Aedan felt the breath catch in his throat, unthinkingly, hardly noticing how everyone around him seemed to be holding their breath as well, caught between anticipation and disbelief.

"As the magisters of old brought Sin into heaven and forever are condemned by their transgression, so too did the men who did this bring sin into your homes, and as are they — and those who command them, those who give them succor, those who defend them — as are they all forever condemned! And as every vestige of the Second Sin is fought by all peoples of Thedas, to be purged from existence whenever it shows itself, so too should all responsible for this sin be purged!

"This truth our prophet, Holy Andraste, has revealed to us: 'All men are the work of our Maker's hands. Those who bring harm to the least of his children are hated and accursed by the Maker.' So let these monsters know the wrath of heaven! Let field and city burn, let peasant and bondsmen rise and devour them, let elf and human strip apart manor and palace brick by brick, let their name and their legacy be torn from the face of the earth! Let steel fall on their necks, and let their pet Clerics beg to the Maker for mercy, and let them — have — none!

"And when it is done, let our hymn rise from every throat, from the Frozen Seas to the gates of Minrathous — those who were slaves, are now free!"

There wasn't shouting or cheering or anything of the like, no, nothing quite so undignified as that. Tears sparked in eyes and fists shook against hips, but yet there was hardly a sound. Instead, there was only a vicious, purposeful silence. An understanding on the air, a compact so visceral as to not need to be spoken. Resolve, already tempered by a week of violence and fear and hatred, hardening and sharpening to a deadly calm.

Aedan, even while feeling the steel trickling through his own limbs, could only stare down at Boann, astounded. He couldn't believe she'd actually gone there.

And as Boann, after a moment to let the crowd cool off from the flames she'd just stoked to furious life in their hearts, continued on to the lighting of the pyre — mourners casting their candles into tinder and oil as the names of the dead were called, each accompanied with prayer after prayer and the increasing crackling and roaring of the fires — Aedan was hardly listening. He'd been to funerals before, and this part was largely unchanged, if extending on much longer to get to every name. Instead, he contemplated the events of the last week, the resolute anger that had come over the crowd, and what was to come.

If Loghain and Howe had meant to cow the rebellion with their display of overwhelming force, Aedan had the feeling it'd backfired horrendously. After all, kick a dog enough times and it will eventually stop obeying commands. And further kicks from then on only make it bite back all the harder.

'Let them know the wrath of heaven,' indeed...

This was going to end in disaster, he knew it. But despite himself, Aedan felt his face twist into a vicious, ecstatic smirk.

---

Neslara — I just realized her name is actually Nesiara. Oh well, not that important.

Orlesian romance — Aedan means in the sense of the medieval genre, which is very much a different thing than the modern one.

[Which was peculiar, because ladies-in-waiting were almost always nobility themselves] — My assumption is that Bioware weren't actually aware of this, they get various details about how this sort of society worked wrong, but the other interpretation is more fun.

[When I have lost all else...] — Trials 1:7

[what the Maker has created none can tear asunder] — Paraphrased from Trials 1:10

[The Veil holds no uncertainty for her] — Transfigurations 10:1

Vilainage — The English term "villeinage", referring to a particular form of serfdom, was taken from a divergent medieval spelling of the original French word. The same word in modern French is "vilain", so I slapped the "-age" at the end of it and called it good. In most definitions, villeins are actually of slightly lesser status than serfs, and have fewer freedoms and protections, but they occupy a very similar position in the feudal social system, though in Thedas the terms are used mostly interchangeably.

The funeral service is loosely based on the Catholic requiem mass, Christian language replaced with more Andrastian, but it's been altered enough it's pretty hard to tell. That and I skipped most of it because coming up with ecclesiastical language for a religion that doesn't even exist sounds like way too much work, I just wanted to get this chapter out...

Oh, and Boann's fire-and-brimstone rant dramatically paraphrases bits from the Canticles of Andraste and Shartan. She's basically saying the nobles responsible for what's happened in Denerim lately are morally equivalent to the magisters of old Tevinter, and just as Andraste and her people rose up against them the people of the city should do much the same to free themselves from tyranny. Which is some seriously inflammatory shit for someone to be saying, but Boann is very angry.

---

Holy shit. So, I started working on this chapter on the first, and it ballooned to a ridiculous 35k words (I clearly have issues), and it's only the seventh now? (Well, early in the morning of the eighth, whatever.) That's an average of, what, five thousand words a day? How, though? Christ...

Let these two chapters stand as a reminder that living in medieval times was actually extremely terrible for the vast majority of people. Though...how many people really need to be reminded of that? It is late and I am sleepy. Bluh.

Countdown to Kirkwall: two chapters.
Countdown to there actually being anything recognizable as romance content in this fic: four chapters? I'm not sure how long it'll take to get the Hawkes settled in Kirkwall, it'll be immediately after that. Talk about slow burn lol

—Lysandra