Varric couldn't say why he slid down into the crater after her. It was a stupid thing to do, after all. He had no information, no idea if the less-threatening but still pants-shittingly terrifying vortex would take the skin from his bones. Even if it didn't, they were still in serious trouble. Even if the thing above them wasn't spitting out demons, it certainly couldn't stay like this without consequences. But hell if Maria Cadash hadn't accomplished the fucking impossible with her heroic act of reckless bravery. Maybe all she bought them was a reprieve, but Varric knew the value of time, and he'd take a reprieve over imminent death any day.
Varric also strongly suspected he'd just watched a damn miracle occur and he couldn't just let the woman slip out of their fingers. There was a story here, one for the ages, and Varric knew the value of that too.
If he was honest with himself, he was also thinking about the way her dry, soft lips felt pressed to his cheek and the sweet cinnamon smell of her underneath everything else.
He stumbled to the bottom, rocks falling in his path like a small avalanche. Maria didn't stir, didn't make any sign of having heard his approach. From up above him, he heard the Seeker call his name.
"Down here!" He shouted back, crouching down beside the small form. Dust streaked her apple red hair, blood was smeared on her face, all over Solas's coat. She no longer flickered, her form solid beneath him while he brushed gloved fingers over her neck. At first, he felt nothing. A void where a pulse should be. His heart dropped.
But after a second of searching, it was there. Weak, too rapid, but present. Damnit, he'd take the win where he could get it. "Is she..?" Solas called down into the chasm.
"Alive." He confirmed, throwing the rifle over his shoulder and bending over her, one arm circling her lower back while the other curled around her thighs. Alive. Miraculously alive in spite of everything. She was dead weight in his arms, but dead weight with a pulse, with breath on his shoulder.
He wouldn't have to call that number back and tell the sister that they'd be shipping Maria Cadash back to Ostwick in a coffin or an urn. Thank fucking Andraste for that.
"The vortex is still present." Cassandra turned her accusing voice to the elf while Varric began to pick his way up the slope of the crater.
"Yes, but calm. For the moment." Solas slipped down the edge himself, planting one foot firmly on the steep slope and reaching out one long, skinny arm for Varric. "Mister Tethras, be careful with her. I fear she is not out of the woods yet, and if we are to have any further hope of ending this catastrophe, she will be needed."
"And how do you propose to do that?" Cassandra asked harshly, stepping into the crater herself. She stalked carefully past Solas, taking his extended hand and leaning further down, outstretching her fingers. Varric shifted Maria's weight carefully, wincing as his finger brushed her delectable rear before he settled her over his shoulder as cautiously as he could.
It was innocent, he defended himself immediately inside his head. He couldn't very well carry her out of this hole in the ground without touching her. If his traitorous mind happened to appreciate the very fine curves pressed against the hard planes of his chest and arms… well, he was only a man. A dirty, perverse man who would be going straight to the void.
He just wished Cassandra wasn't looking at him as if she knew exactly where in the gutter his brain had landed. She scowled while she helped pull him up, both her and Solas conspiring to drag him the rest of the way to the edge. He gently laid down his burden on the cracked stone foundation, allowed himself another lingering glance at her pale, unconscious face while Solas leaned over her. He nodded, face grave. "I believe she will recover, but she is still hexed. The magic that caused the vortex lingers in her."
"And yet she could not shut it." Cassandra glared behind them.
"Andraste's ass, Seeker. Cut her a break, she stumbled up here half dead to fix that piece of shit." Varric crossed his arms over his chest and glared pointedly up at the Seeker.
"I know." Cassandra snapped, running one gloved hand through her short hair and twisting the blood stained scarf thoughtfully in her other fingers. Cassandra's eyes softened and she let her gaze settle on the dwarf at her feet. "I know. She was… she was brave and selfless, and placed exactly where she needed to be. As if sent by Andraste herself."
"She is a victim of fate, Seeker. No holy martyr for your cause." Solas rested the back of his hand against her forehead and hunched his shoulders over the small form below him protectively.
"You saw." Cassandra turned to Varric, her eyes burning with righteous fervor. "She could not have survived without the Maker's blessing."
Maybe, but he wasn't about to sacrifice another person to this crazy holy war when he'd spent so much damn time trying to keep Hawke and their friends out of it. "Seeker, she's just a dwarf." She was Carta for fuck's sake. "The Maker had his pick of Chantry folk and templars here in Haven. Why would he pick a dwarf?"
"I do not know." Cassandra confessed, looking a bit stricken while crouched down next to Solas and Maria. While she pondered morosely, Varric's hand dived back into his pocket and he fished his earbud back out, fitting it into the usual place.
"Bianca, you with us?" He asked into the heavy silence.
"Yes." The AI chirped, sounding pleased. "I am resetting communication networks, I can estimate the outage will be resolved in no more than an hour with the resources I have devoted to the project."
"Have I told you lately what a beauty you are?" Varric grinned, then grinned even harder when Cassandra scoffed.
"Beauty is subjective, but I will take the compliment as intended." Bianca paused, then continued. "You have messages. One thousand and two emails…"
Varric winced, Bianca continued, nonplussed. "Most related to the Dwarven Financiers Union. Forty-two text messages, thirty-three missed calls, fifteen voicemails, and twenty secure messages from Bianca Davri and Hawke. You also have one-hundred and fifty direct messages to your personal Twitter account."
Great. "Did that message go? The one we sent getting up here to the Ostwick number?"
"Number is registered to a prepaid cell phone account, but the number is associated in several online databases with a woman named Beatrix Cadash. The message was sent, she replied with eight messages of her own. Shall I display them on the tablet or read them?"
"I'll look at the tablet. Start running the filter on those emails to weed out the most useless ones." One thousand emails, Varric could shoot himself. He was sure ninety percent of them consisted of useless hand wringing about the sky falling open. He pulled his tablet from the inside pocket of his coat and unlocked it easily. The messages were already displayed next to the number Varric sent the first message to.
Maria? Fuck it i've been trying to call
where are u? Where's Cole?
what do u mean if u don't come back
U need to come back
I can't do this without u plz come home
Fuck Dwyka and his fucking lyrium just come home
I won't leave here without u
I love u damnit
Fuck. Varric swiped to bring up the keyboard and typed his own message in response.
Your sister was hurt, but she's going to be alright. My name is Varric Tethras.
The response he got back within seconds made him snort in amusement.
Sure it is and i'm the bleeding divine
I want to talk to my sister now
"Seeker, do you have someone down in Haven capable of soothing a frightened sibling?" Varric asked, tucking the tablet away. He'd send pictures, maybe, after they got their savior all cleaned up. Possibly a selfie of himself, just to prove the point.
"Yes. Josephine would handle that, I imagine. Is that… is that who she wanted to speak to? A sibling?" Cassandra looked up from Maria's form and met his eyes, holding them as she rested one set of her fingertips against Maria's shoulder almost gently. He hadn't realized the Seeker was capable of gentle.
Varric nodded. "Yeah. I'd guess a younger sister, judging by the marching orders. Older siblings have that natural bossy tendency."
"I had an older brother." Cassandra said simply, tearing her eyes from Varric's. He pretended not to notice the shining gloss of tears in them.
He had an older brother too, once.
Solas slept in the low armchair next to the bed they deposited Maria Cadash in. Although her name was a tightly held secret, so far, the news that a sole survivor, rumored to be a dwarven woman, had single-handedly saved Haven spread like wildfire.
It was trending on Twitter, for fucks sake. #HeraldofHaven, #ApocolypseMiracle, #WhoIsShe He'd read them off to a skeptical Solas before falling asleep himself on the spare couch downstairs. When he woke up, there was little change in her condition, but the legend seemed to be gathering steam of its own volition judging by the continued avalanche on social media.
"Bianca Davri on the line." The AI chimed while Varric scrolled. "She's insistent that if you don't take her call this time she's pulling my plug."
Bianca's ultimate bargaining chip. He sighed in defeat and pushed the tablet away from him, resting his elbows on the coffee table. "Put her through."
The earpiece beeped. "Bianca." He greeted roguishly, leaning forward on his elbows and rubbing his forehead. "How's Orlais?"
"Faring better than Ferelden, I hear." Bianca snapped out immediately. "Do I even want to know how you get into these messes? Between you and Hawke it's like a disaster movie in slow motion."
"Hey, Hawke isn't trending anymore." Varric pointed out. "Hashtag find Hawke dropped out of the top twenty for the first time in weeks. Do you think she'll be thrilled?"
"Hardly." Bianca muttered. "Ancestors, Varric, what happened there? Telecommunications were out in a fifty mile radius and they're reporting casualties in the hundreds. Stock plummeted because people thought you were dead."
"Bit insulting to you and Hawke, isn't it?" Varric joked weakly. "You two are the brains. I'm just the chest hair."
"Hawke is on the run, Varric! You were presumed dead, I was alone and…"
"What about what's-his-name? Where's he?" Varric asked suspiciously, rubbing his temple to ease the sudden pressure. "Don't tell me he left you hanging in this shitstorm."
"Bogdan is in Nevarra scoping out new locations for a factory. If you read your emails, you'd know this." Bianca claimed, exasperated. "You're lucky I don't fly right to Haven now and kick your ass, you know. You had me worried sick, your last message…"
Bianca trailed off, the rest of her sentence unsaid and weighing heavy on the line. Varric swallowed the lump in his throat. There was too much history there to unpack in this one phone call. Too many bitter truths and unhappy lies. "I miss you." Bianca said instead. "Come to Orlais and ride this out somewhere safe."
Tempting offer, even when he tried to keep a continent between him and Bianca at all times to keep them from repeating the same stupid mistakes. Varric frowned. "There was red lyrium at the temple, Bianca. I've got to… it's my mess. I let it out into the world."
"You didn't know. Bartrand…" Bianca's immediate answer. But Varric did know Bartrand was a greedy son of a bitch. He couldn't have anticipated what they found, but he knew Bartrand would try to make a profit off it because that's what his elder brother did. No matter how you cut it, Varric was responsible, the demon wearing Hawke's face hadn't been wrong about that.
"Do me a favor and see if you can put feelers out? Try to figure out how it got here." Varric wouldn't leave until he knew. "Until then… you can at least tell the investors I'm still kicking."
"I'll do some research." Bianca promised. "But don't think you're getting off this call without giving me something else. The rumors flying around… they say a dwarf stopped the world from ending."
"Her name's Maria." Varric supplied with a shit eating grin. "Maria Cadash. Carta, from Ostwick."
Bianca whistled low. "Well, I'm sure the humans are loving that."
Varric chuckled and leaned back, shaking his head. He told her everything, his voice spinning the tale from beginning to end while Bianca listened, enraptured.
"Hey, before you go…" The thought dawned on him immediately. "Can you overnight me one of our new phones ready to use?"
"If I can find a courier crazy enough to try and get to Haven, sure." Bianca promised. "Stay safe Varric. Don't make me worry over you again."
xx
Maria Cadash woke up with a splitting headache and a parched throat. She opened her eyes blearily, staring at the stucco ceiling up above her. Sunlight streamed through the windows across the room, illuminating it. Clean, she thought groggily, but sparse and impersonal like an airbnb. An airbnb that happened to have an IV in it, one that was hooked into her arm.
She lifted herself up and let the comforter fall down her chest, revealing a loose blue tank top that definitely didn't belong to her. It was a hundred times nicer than anything she ever owned, both soft and luxurious, smelling of lavender. She was also wearing unfamiliar, but comfortable, black leggings.
She raised her eyes suspiciously back to the room, zeroing in on small details. A blanket discarded over an armchair, a book on the floor nearby. She peered into the stillness, trying to hear something. Anything.
It was a dream, it must have been. There was no way anything she remembered actually happened. Obviously, she'd been in some kind of accident, or she'd gotten sick, and this was all some weird narcotic inspired trip. She turned her attention to the IV on her arm, briskly ripping the tape from her arm before slowly withdrawing the needle and leaving it hanging from the machine. It beeped as if she'd irritated it, so she reached behind it and quickly unplugged it, scowling.
The fast motion made her head swim and she had to stop, cradling her face in on hand, putting pressure on the needle mark with her other hand, elbows on her knees. "Damnit." She swore softly.
"You're awake!"
She looked over at the stairs, the elf wearing scrubs stood on the steps, mouth hanging open agog before her eyes flicked to the unplugged IV. "You… you can't just unhook your IV, ma'am!"
Maria begged to differ, because she definitely had. Still, she shrugged weakly. "Sorry."
The nurse, or at least Maria assumed she was a nurse, continued to stare until Maria frankly began to feel uncomfortable. She fidgeted at the edge of the bed. "Can… can I go?"
"No!" The woman blurted out, looking absolutely stricken. "No! Please don't… I'm sorry ma'am. I didn't mean to offend you. Please, stay here. I'll go get Seeker Pentaghast and we'll get some food sent for you. Please don't strain yourself!"
Maria couldn't help but blink in shocked silence, staring as the woman ran back down the steps. She thought she heard a door slam shut downstairs. What in the void…
Still holding pressure on her puncture mark, she slipped from the bed onto the solid hardwood floor, feeling them creak beneath her feet. She stepped forward to the stairs slowly, cautiously…
She still wasn't prepared for the blonde head that appeared at the foot of the steps with amber eyes that swung immediately in her direction.
Holy fuck, that was Varric Tethras, and he was grinning at her rougishly as if he'd never been happier to see anyone. "Princess! You're awake!"
She died, that was the only explanation. Anything else would be too fucking weird. As if reading her thoughts, Varric opened his arms wide as he climbed the steps. "Better than the last place you woke up, right? Look, nobody even thought to handcuff you this…" He stopped, tipped his head to the side as he looked at her arm. "Did she take your IV out and forget to get you a bandage?"
"I took it out." She may as well confess. "And the nurse ran away."
Varric chuckled warmly, his voice as rich as expensive coffee laced with caramel. "Right, why would you do anything normal like wait for a medical professional to take out your IV? Hold on a second."
He veered off to the side, opening up a drawer. Someone had dumped a mish-mash of medical supplies into it, syringes, pill bottles, rolls of gauze… "Is there advil in there?" She asked hopefully.
Within seconds, Varric turned back to her with a familiar bottle in one hand and a bright red bandage in the other that matched her hair near perfectly. "Allow me. I may not look it, but I'm a dwarf of many talents and I've helped clean up after many a brawl."
She didn't particularly want to smile, but she did anyway. Still, she watched seriously as he applied the band-aid to her skin before placing the advil in her hand. "If you're ready to venture downstairs, I'll even get you a glass of water."
She suspected she needed something far stronger than water, but she didn't want to say so. Instead, she swallowed the nervous, sick feeling in her stomach and schooled her expression into something neutral. "What happened? Can I go?"
She wanted to go home, that was all. Just find Cole, go home, go to bed, and not leave it for a month at least. Varric's smile dropped and he looked sympathetic. "Right." He began. "So, easy question first I guess. Yes, I think you could leave if you wanted to, I don't think anyone's gonna stop you. I'm not sure you're medically sound or, you know, safe if you leave but… yeah, I guess you could."
"That was your answer to the easy question?" She asked, raising her fingertips to her lips anxiously.
"Well, Princess…" Varric began smoothly. "I'm not entirely sure anyone knows what the fuck is going on anymore. It looks like you nearly died twice, saved the damn world, and accidentally became the figure head for a religious movement, but that sounds crazy even to me so I can't imagine how it sounds to you."
Her eyes must've been the size of dinner plates. She waited for him to laugh, to give away the joke, but he seemed utterly sincere. "What?" She asked, the word coming out strangled.
"C'mon, beautiful." Varric said gently, and Maker, she wasn't sure if that was better or worse than him calling her princess but she suspected protesting would only encourage him. "Come downstairs, I'll make you a cup of coffee, and I'll try to help you sort this out before the Seeker barges in."
The words tumbled out of her mouth before she could reign them in, a panicked plea. "I want to talk to my sister."
"Alright." He said softly, soothingly. He reached slowly into his jacket pocket, swiped to unlock the screen of his phone and handed it to her. "Here, just… if you decide to bail out the window, leave it on the bed. I'll wait downstairs."
She nodded, fighting the urge to clutch the phone to her chest as he turned his back to her and vanished down into the lower level. Maria turned quickly away, jabbing at the phone screen with fingers that wouldn't stop trembling. Varric Tethras's phone, obviously, was much nicer than hers, but a phone was a phone and it only took her a couple seconds to punch in the number.
It rang once, twice. She began to pray fervently that Bea wasn't sleeping, Maria didn't even know what time it was, what day it was, when the phone clicked and her sister's voice answered, quick and fierce. "Hello? Tethras?"
Her knees went almost weak with relief, even if she had to suppress the hysterical surge of laughter because Bea knew Varric Tethras's phone number now. Everything was so surreal she had to sit down heavily on the bed. "Bea." She sighed. "Bea, it's me."
"Maria!" Bea exclaimed, voice raw with emotion. "Oh thank fucking Andraste. I've been talking to that woman, the Antivan, and Tethras sent me pictures, and I did get a hold of Cole but he's fucking crazy as ever and I've no clue what he's doing…"
Maria heard familiar commotion in the background. Traffic outside the apartment they shared, the yowl of a stray cat. She choked on her tears. "I don't know if I've met an Antivan." She confessed. "I'm so glad Cole's okay, Bea, I…"
"They told me what happened. It's all over the damn news." Bea's breath was harsh, her words sharp. "Maria what the hell… how the fuck did you…"
"I don't know." She couldn't remember. She couldn't… "I'm coming home, okay? I'll find Cole and be back in a couple days and…"
"Maria." Bea interrupted, her voice flinty and cold. "I don't think it's going to be that easy, everyone says… and even if it is… Dwyka's pissed. I'm not sure if he thinks you ran off with his lyrium or if he thinks you're dead and is just mad that he wasn't the one to do it…"
"How do you know?" Maria asked quickly. Bea's silence was telling. "He came around." Maria guessed shrewdly.
"Yesterday, but I let him scream outside the door, I didn't open it." Bea admitted. "I'm fine, I can handle Dwyka.
No she couldn't, and Maria knew it. "Listen, just stay the fuck out of his way, okay? I'll handle it."
"You have enough problems." Bea muttered. "Please, Maria just listen to me…"
"Stay out of it, Bea." Maria warned. "I'll be home soon. I promise."
"Maria!" Bea protested, but Maria had already pulled the phone from her ear, blood thrumming in her head viciously, aggravating the headache. She dialed the next number, pressed send and popped the phone back to her ear as she ripped the cap from the bottle of advil and popped two in her mouth, swallowing without water as the phone went to voicemail.
Anger had replaced fear, fury taking over homesickness. "Listen here, Dwyka." She whispered harshly into the phone. "My phone is fucking shot, so don't you dare call this number back and get me fucking arrested. I didn't fucking steal your lyrium and you know it. I fucking told you this was a mistake, and you didn't listen, so you leave my sister alone, Dwyka. We have a deal and I swear if you touch my family, I'll end you."
With that, she pulled the phone away and pressed the red button to end the call, swiping quickly to the call history and deleting the number. She had the fight the urge to toss it at the nearest wall. Her fingers were still shaking, but she clutched the anger tightly as if it were a lifevest and she was sinking. Hell, anger could keep her alive and she needed to stay alive, needed to get back home. She knew that better than she knew anything else. She took a deep breath, focused herself on the present. One mess at a time, she thought. First, she needed to figure out what had happened and how to extract herself.
By the time the Seeker arrived, Varric already patiently explained everything they knew. It wasn't much, but it was something. They had put together a rough timeline of the night the temple exploded based on security footage of her movements. She'd passed through the security checkpoint, a few other cameras, the last one capturing her had been outside a cheap pizza place. Varric showed her the stills, and yes, it was her. She recognized the jacket, Cole's hat pulled over her hair even in grainy black and white, but she didn't remember it. She didn't remember any of it.
Any footage from the temple had been destroyed. Whatever happened up there was a mystery. All anyone knew was that they'd pulled her out of the spiraling column of magic and smoke, near dead. Then she'd walked back into it, preventing it from growing larger and continuing to spit out the things of nightmares. People called her a hero. People were calling her a damn miracle, a Herald of the Maker himself. When Varric told her that, she'd laughed until her head hurt again and tears leaked from her eyes.
Varric had aerial pictures of the mountain, the giant crater, the swirling vortex. Despite the fact that he kept saying she'd been there when it exploded, she couldn't believe it. She'd have died.
"Do you feel differently?" Cassandra asked, almost politely. The woman put Maria's jacket and Cole's hat down on the table, but no boots, not her jeans or her shirt. They must have been unsalvageable.
Truthfully, she did feel… odd. The headache seemed to have abated, but there was a pressure against her forehead that wouldn't ease. She also felt a… tingling in her fingertips between her bare skin and the surfaces she touched, particularly the phone and the tablet. Like two electric forces trying to overpower each other.
When she looked at that vortex, she thought she could feel it in her teeth.
"Maybe." She shrugged, refusing to unwrap her hands from the mug of coffee in front of her to allow the warmth to bleed into her fingers. In the kitchen, she heard Varric talking as if to himself, engaged in some sort of conversation with the computer in his ear about emails.
She slouched further down into the comfortable, faded couch and swung her feet up, covered in thick woolen socks, onto the coffee table while maintaining steady eye contact with the Seeker. "I'd like to go home."
"I cannot advise you do so, although it is your choice." The Seeker perched precariously on the edge of the opposing couch. "The people say you are chosen by the Maker and Andraste, but the Seekers and the Templars say you are responsible for the murder of the Divine and that you should be executed via court marshal for war crimes."
No trial, then, and a very quaint firing squad. Maria ignored the chill down her spine. "I didn't do it."
"I believe you." Cassandra stated seriously, leaning forward. There was a folder clutched in her hands tightly. "But others… your identity is starting to leak, and your criminal background is available."
Maria didn't say anything, but she didn't need to, apparently. Cass opened the folder and looked down awkwardly. "You have been convicted of several misdemeanors. Shoplifting, vandalism, illegal possession of lyrium, disturbing the peace…"
"That disturbing the peace one is bullshit." That one still rankled. "I was minding my own business…"
"You were involved in a bar brawl." Cassandra scowled over the folder in disapproval.
"Everyone was involved in the brawl, Seeker. That's why they call it a brawl and not a fight."
From the kitchen, she heard Varric chuckle. She wasn't sure whether he'd heard her or if his computer was reading off funny memes to him.
"All in all, you have not been convicted of anything violent or extremely serious." The Seeker mused quietly. "Unusual for a flagged gang member. You are a known associate of the leader of the Ostwick Carta."
At least she didn't say girlfriend. She'd heard that a couple times too many and it never failed to absolutely ruin her day. She raised her eyebrow as if asking Cassandra for her point. When she didn't say anything, Cassandra looked down at the file awkwardly.
She knew it was coming, but that didn't make it any easier when the words came out of the Seeker's mouth. "You were arrested for murder eight years ago in Hercinia and put on trial."
She placed the coffee mug heavily down on the table by her feet, the fingers of her right hand reaching to stroke the tattoo on her left wrist.
"I was found not guilty." She knew the words by rote. "By a jury of my peers."
"Yes." Cassandra agreed, looking back up at her with blazing eyes. "And the records of the trial were sealed, which is unusual."
"I had a very good lawyer." She answered immediately. She could feel her pulse under the tattoo, felt the headache returning with a vengeance. "And I was cleared."
"Were you innocent?"
She couldn't remember the last time she'd been innocent, but that wasn't the answer the Seeker wanted. Her throat tightened and she couldn't… she couldn't talk about this. Not here, not with this fucking stranger and her pointed face and her hole in the universe. "I'm not supposed to answer questions about this. My lawyer doesn't like it."
She stood in one fluid, quick movement, grabbing her coffee mug rather than see the surge of disappointment in the other woman's face. "I'm sure a quick google search would get you all the seedy details, Seeker. Have at it because I need some more advil."
With that, she stomped back up the stairs, the silence heavy in the small house. She didn't like to admit it, but maybe Bea was right. Maybe this would be a whole hell of a lot harder to wiggle out of that she anticipated.
