I'm so sorry it took this long; let's just say I hate the internet or more specifically the ones who are supposed to provide it. But on the other hand I love you all and that's a great compensation.
Speaking about compensations: to make it up to you I've posted two chapters at the same time. And again I humbly apologise for all the delay.
Enjoy!
Part 8: the consequences of much revenge, considerations about more revenge and a lull before the next storm.
The mood in Varric´s suite was close to exploding. Four enraged people, very enraged people, were trying all at the same time to be heard and added, beside their indignant voices, their very indignant voices, a feeling of sheer detestation to the atmosphere. In other words, the air was crackling if not on fire.
´They locked me up!´ screamed Isabela, ´I mean, what kind of sick mind would lock up a pirate!´ Despite her quick run to and from the Alienage she still hadn't calmed down; her eyes were ablaze with absolute fury. Merrill, who to her own rather befuddled surprise just had been dragged through Lowtown and ushered into the dwarf's suite to be unceremoniously planted into a chair, sat next to her but she didn't pay attention to the pirate's outburst whatsoever. She didn't pay attention to anything at all, so it seemed. She just stared into sweet nothing with a faraway look on her face. She hadn't taken any offence to Isabela's crude treatment of taking hold of her arm without the least explanation and hauling her to the Hanged Mad and even wasn't aware the other woman wasn't aware she had been rude. There was a whole new universe to explore and she was all too eager to do the investigation herself. As a matter of fact, she was wandering in that very universe right now and wasn't willing to leave it, despite all the wound up people around her. She just ignored them.
To be fair, Isabela only had wanted Merrill's experience added to the general indignation, and especially that of her own, but to her dismay the small Dalish elf stayed quiet. She squinted at her with more than plain distrust, suddenly secretly wondering if she was some kind of accomplice. Her nasty thoughts got interrupted by Captain Man Hands.
'They made me wear the parade armour!' Aveline yelled at the top of her voice in an attempt to outmatch the pirate, 'and forced me to attend a night filled with insufferable snobby nobles!' She would never forget the way Lord Armanti had walked around her to admire the material her armour was made from – forged in a faraway place she had never heard of but apparently was known for its outstanding steel –; he ogled her like she was some kind of mannequin showing the miracles of modern impenetrable armour. Although his hungry eyes had far too long lingered on her breastplate as far as she was concerned. Or had been willing to put up with. Only a small warning cough from Seneschal Bran who surveyed the scene tensely as an anxious cat had withheld her already clenched fist in an attempt to deal the unendurable squirt a clout that would have sent him flying to other end of the room. She still felt the urge to strangle him – to strangle anybody.
A log in the hearth broke into a fountain of sparkles, underlining the fiery mood in the room. That also failed to catch Merrill's interest. But then again, besides Isabela nobody paid her dreamily behaviour any notice; they were simply too wrapped up in their overstrained consternation. And even the pirate's attention waned after a short while, to be precise at the moment it got absorbed once more in the resentful reactions of the people surrounding her.
´I had to handle a bunch of children,´ groused Sebastian with a voice chockfull of righteous anger; he was still living the nightmare. 'I never knew they could be such little monsters.' It wasn't exactly clear whom he referred to, the gang of uncontrollable orphans or the two insubordinate adults who had made him go through this hell. Remainders of glue and sugary lemonade were still sticking in his normally impeccable hair, giving him a slight look of an annoyed hedgehog. He had not been able to wash out all of the collateral damage. 'And I'm still not entirely certain they involved the Grand Cleric,' he added resentfully. He was as yet unwilling to believe it but somewhere he simply knew Elthina had played her part. It would be just like her to think this would be a good penalty. And her eyes had looked too innocent and at the same time too smug. He felt betrayed which fuelled his anger even more.
´You think that´s bad?!' Anders put in his incensed word on a high pitched tone, 'they drugged Justice! Do you have any idea what a horror it is to have a stoned spirit giggling and sputtering his twisted mind out in your own head? For hours?!' He ignored the feeble protest of that same twisted spirit who only now came more or less to his senses. Whatever those senses might be. Shut up! the mage growled inwardly, you have pestered me enough. Just leave me in peace and don't raise your irritable voice for at least a week. Roses! he added snorting with sarcastic revulsion. Justice sank shamefully back in a distant crevice of his mind.
The other three almost fell over each other to ensure him as loud as they could their ordeals had been of a whole different order, i.e. much worse. The noise level became almost unbearable.
Varric banged the tabletop with his fist. 'Would you all calm down for just a moment?! Yes? Thank you.' He took a breath before he continued, 'I told – them (for a moment it seemed he considered a whole different expression to describe the two miscreants but at the last moment changed his mind, instead he breathed anew, deeply). 'I told them I took a bow after the Ostwick-affair,' he grimaced with difficulty, 'this time I think I must erect a monument.'
'Oh really,' Isabela sneered, 'it's very well for you to talk; I suppose they went easy on you. After all Hawke has always been your best friend. I bet you didn't have to suffer like we did.' She underlined her words with a dark scowl.
Aveline, Sebastian and Anders also turned their undivided angry attention to Varric, in complete agreement with Isabela's statement, waiting expectantly for his humble apologies with piercing demanding glares.
They almost withered under the unfathomable hurt gaze the dwarf gave them in return.
'They had the nerve to sic the Merchants Guild on me.' Varric was nearly inaudible in his distress. As a matter of fact he was at the very moment still busy trying to recover from the confrontation, or rather clash, and his mind wandered around in a state of disbelief. He still could hardly grasp the fact it really had happened, that Hawke – and Fenris for that matter – had been able to come up with such an immoral torment. 'The Merchants Guild,' he repeated with emphasis to make certain everyone present understood the gravity of the drama, (he mused, not for the first time this day, that in Orzammar the incident would have been turned into some kind of heroic saga. Then again, there was no such thing as a Merchants Guild in the Dwarven Kingdom, not in the way it existed on Topside. The only silver lining to the rotten place as far as he was concerned.) 'The Merchants Guild,' he said again in case his audience still didn't get it, 'in the person of Guild Master Harvid himself.' His expression became even more wounded. He scratched the stubbles on his chin and only now the others realized he hadn't bothered with shaving this day. A bad sign. 'They made me undergo an audit.'
An intense silence fell after his words. No-one dared to even let out a breath. They did understand the gravity of the drama. All too well. They saw the saga develop before their very eyes so to say.
'Ouch,' Aveline finally volunteered empathetically.
'So much for friendship,' Isabela murmured.
The dwarf suppressed an upcoming shiver. With herculean effort he tried to approach something similar to a smile but despite his brave attempt managed only a rather maniacal grimace. ´You all have to agree with me they came up with the perfect payback.' He frowned pensively. 'For all of us,' he continued, with all the strength he could muster forcing down the urge to break something. Preferably something valuable.
Grudgingly they did agree, for the moment willing to put their suffering in his shadow, still overwhelmed with what he had had to endure. No tot mention they got nervous from his eerily flaming eyes, the only indication of his seething rage in his otherwise straight and deceivingly calm though stubbly face.
All except for one. ´Hmm,´ Merrill murmured, her soft voice sounding like a piercing high note of a brass trumpet in the silence; she was still glowing. Actually she was even now drifting in complete other realms. The collected looks turned at her as one, and not only Isabela looked suspiciously at this time.
'And what did they have in store for you?' Anders demanded to know, 'we never heard you complain.'
Disturbed from her reverie Merrill looked up in confusion to sink back into happiness the moment after. 'In store? Oh, I suppose they had a book in store.' She smiled vaguely. 'Yes. A book. A very nice book.'
The others stared at her in bewilderment and as one (wo)man decided to let her be. There was no way they would be able to understand her, let alone figure out the floating enigmatic smile she offered them. Or rather the world in general.
'Right,' Varric said with a last puzzled glance at the Dalish elf, 'I don't know about you lot but I don't want this – exceedingly payback let go unpunished.'
'I thought you wanted to erect a monument,' Aveline said sourly. She didn't like this at all; yes, she was angry to the bone but before you knew it they got ensnared in a vicious circle of never-ending revenge and she feared not only they themselves would undergo the consequences.
'That was figuratively speaking,´ Varric grumbled determinedly, ´right now I want to kick them in the fork. Hard. And not figuratively.'
´What did you have in mind?' Isabela informed eagerly, 'because I have a few jolly good ideas.'
'I don't doubt you have,' Varric replied with a very unpleasant grin, 'but I think I have the perfect payback.'
Aveline glared suspiciously at the dwarf. In the back of her mind she already saw Kirkwall go up in flames. She was torn apart between wanting a punishment for what she had gone through and a fierce urge to keep the peace in her city. No, she didn't like it. She didn't like it at all.
In contradiction to the near igniting mood in Varric's suite, for the first time in – a fortnight or three weeks or maybe it was better to say for long years considering the strange history of the place, there hung an atmosphere of serene calm in the mansion. Fenris's mansion. More or less their mansion by now. Or perhaps peace and quiet hovered over it, or better even had seeped into it. And peace and quiet was something completely different from stale silence and decayed stillness accentuated by dust, cobwebs and mouldy skeletons. The astonishment of finding delighting, near overwhelming love could only take that much of one's energy as could said energy only come up for a limited time with clever ideas of all sorts of creative revenge. Indeed Hawke and Fenris after all the uproar simply craved for calm. Making love, taking revenge and not to mention turning Fenris's place upside down had taken its toll. The place had never looked more tidy or peaceful. Even the bed had been made, and more astounding, had been left alone for a few hours at least. Wow. A few hours. It must be a record. The walls had been redecorated with paint instead of wine and shards of glass and the floor had been swept; the leftovers had been thrown away and the cushions been placed back where they belonged. The kitchen, probably to its own astonishment, was clean and with every surviving plate in place.
Fenris lounged in his favourite chair; his long legs, crossed at the ankles, stretched towards the cold hearth (it was still summer and he was no dwarf after all). He was reading a book, keenly making use of his recently acquired capability. Surprisingly it was a history about the Tevinter Imperium. He had decided he wanted to know every detail about the place he hated to the core simply to understand what had cost its depravity. And to find out why elves were treated as second-hand citizens and slaves to boot. He knew a lot, of course; he probably knew most of the unsettling dark facts, but it wouldn't hurt to learn more. It was an important piece of his past and who knows it would help to regain more of his lost memory.
Hawke had nestled in the other chair, her legs tucked under her, with a collection of Ferelden fairytales in her lap. Her father had read so many of those intriguing stories to her when she was little and she still savoured the precious evenings spent together. She never grew tired of the legends about stout knights fighting all kinds of wrongs and fables about witty animals; reading them made her feel close to her father, gave her the feeling she travelled back into the time she and her family lived their relatively unworried life in Lothering. Now and again she looked up to gaze at Fenris who seemed to be lost in the text he was reading. He radiated a kind of content peacefulness that was infectious. It seemed he was the centre of the blissful serenity that in concentric circles rippled away to occupy the whole place. Marian thought it rather amazing to see him like this and to realize he had been as taut as a bowstring such a short time ago. It was extraordinary what finding love, and making it as much as possible, could do for a person. She could simply sense his mind being at ease, undoubtedly for the first time in his life. Smiling inwardly Hawke contemplated they, after all the turbulence, this afternoon looked like an old married couple, just happy with sharing in mutual silence the ultimate intimacy of reading a book without the need of even conversation to underline the warm loving feelings they harboured for each other.
She had only turned back to her own book for a few moments when an indistinct rumour caught her attention. She stood up and walked to the window, trying to find the source of the noise. 'From the sound of it there's quite a crowd gathered at the Chantry square,' she guessed out loud, craning her neck.
Without looking up Fenris turned a page. 'Probably someone posted a very interesting message on the Chantry board,' he commented nonchalantly. He also had heard the commotion, his sensitive elven ears had most likely detected the sound sooner than she, but he had paid it no heed whatsoever. This was Kirkwall after all, commotion was the city's middle name. From the corner of his eye he saw his lover wriggle at the windowsill, trying to twist her neck into an impossible angle to catch a glimpse of what was going on and he smiled silently. He was familiar with her notorious tendency for snooping (though she blamed Isabela for doing the same; speaking about pots and kettles – ha!) and knew for sure she didn't intend to let this go just like that. She definitively wouldn't be able to sleep unless she'd find out what it was all about. So he wasn't surprised when he heard her say, 'I'm going to take a look.'
The elf smiled crookedly. 'Of course you are. But remember, Marian, curiosity killed the cat.'
'A good thing then I'm not a cat,' she smiled warmly back while she walked passed him to reach the door.
With force he smothered a sudden mischievous impulse to stick out his foot to let her stumble. He remembered how she had looked a few weeks – a month – er, alright, a time ago, snuggled close to him in his arms; how she had reminded him of a very contented cat lying in the warm sunlight. It was no coincidence the remark sprung up in his mind. 'Are you certain? According to the scratches on my back you have definitively something feline in you,' he reacted straight-faced to her words. Through his lashes he noticed her satisfactory reaction.
Marian stopped in mid-pace and twirled sharply. She tried to look offended but couldn't hide the expression that lingered between pride and mirth. The last sentiment took the lead. 'Really? Next time we make love I can try to purr,' she chuckled, and added in a more dangerous tone, 'or shred you apart.'
Without lifting his head Fenris raised his brow in amusement. 'Yes, you can always try and who knows I will like it too. Now, please go down there and satisfy your infamous curiosity before it shreds you apart.'
He enjoyed her merry laugh that together with her irresistible shining personality flowed down the stairs and through the hall until it abruptly got cut off when she closed the door behind her. With a little chortle he returned to the grave though intriguing history of the Tevinter Imperium.
His peace wouldn't last long. Neither would his cheery mood.
Thank you so much for your patience. I hope you liked this one.
On to the next!