Thank you all for reading! No update next week, but we'll be back the week after. Many thanks to suilven for her lightning-fast and thorough betaing!
It was raining in Crestwood. Raining hard, so that Blackwall could hardly see. He nearly ran over the Inquisitor when Thule stopped sharply in front of him.
"You know, they say it never rains in Orzammar," Thule said wistfully. "Where in the name of the Maker's left armpit is this town anyway?"
"Left," Blackwall said. He'd been to Crestwood before; it had rained then, too. "Have you ever been there?"
"Where? Orzammar? Never. My mother hadn't been there, either. My granddad used to tell me stories about it, but I didn't believe half of them. To hear Dagna tell it, I didn't give the old man enough credit. Apparently most of what I thought he made up was absolutely true."
Blackwall grunted. There was something to be said for not knowing where you came from, starting fresh in a new world. "Ever tempted to go see for yourself?"
Thule shook his head, his ready grin flashing. "The surface has everything I need and then some. Why go where they'd look down on me just because I wasn't born there? Bunch of stuck-in-their-ways old fogies." He frowned up at Blackwall, then shook his head violently when the rain got in his eyes. "Something to be said for not having to crane your neck to talk to people, though."
"I wouldn't have expected that remark coming from you," Blackwall said, nodding in the direction of the tall woman in armor walking in front of them.
Thule chuckled. "Good point." His eyes were on Cassandra, too, but Blackwall noticed they lingered on a slightly lower portion of her anatomy than his own gaze had followed. "Not that I seem to be making any progress there."
"Don't you think so? Hm."
"'Hm'?" Thule echoed. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Generally it means I'm thinking things I don't want to tell you about."
The dwarf glared at him, and Blackwall laughed. He had never expected to find himself so comfortable amongst his fellow men again, but something about the Inquisition felt like home, and it trickled down from the top, from this cheerful, determined man at his side.
Blackwall wondered how much of that was a dwarven thing. He'd never spent time amongst dwarves before the Inquisition—those he had met were usually fairly clannish and standoffish. But Thule, Varric, Dagna … Scout Harding … all of them shared a certain practicality of mindset, a certain lightness of heart, a certain indomitable spirit. Blackwall envied them all three.
They were approaching the camp now, set up with Harding's usual efficiency. She even had canvas erected between the tents to catch the rain and create a somewhat drier area.
The lady herself stepped forward as the Inquisitor's party arrived, greeting Cassandra and Solas in the lead and then moving past them. She bowed to the Inquisitor, who grunted impatiently as he often did when confronted with the trappings of his position by people he considered colleagues.
"How many times do I have to ask you to stop doing that, Harding?" Thule grumbled.
"At least once more, Your Worship." She smiled, knowing that he hated being called that as much as he hated being bowed to. Then she directed the smile upward, and Blackwall could not help the answering smile that tugged the corners of his mouth upward. Even dripping wet, she was a lovely girl.
"Lady Harding."
"Warden Blackwall. Welcome to Crestwood. Have you been here before?"
"Once or twice."
"Is the weather always like this?"
He looked up at the sky. "More or less."
"There are worse things here than the rain," she said.
"I'm sure it's nothing the Inquisition can't handle," Thule assured her.
"Careful," Harding told him. "You might want to save your optimism."
"That bad?" Blackwall asked.
She walked with them to the edge of the lake and showed them a massive rift in the middle of it. "Unless you can walk on water, you'll have to find a way out there."
"I heard there used to be tunnels," Blackwall offered. "Maybe someone in town will know more about that."
"I hope so. We haven't been able to get to the town, though," Harding said. "When the rift appeared, corpses started walking out of the lake. With our help, the townspeople are holding them off, but they're tiring … and the corpses aren't."
"Let me get settled, and then we'll see what we can do about that." Thule hurried off, deeper into the tents, after Cassandra, leaving Harding and Blackwall standing there and looking at each other.
"I should go see if I can help."
"Just—Just a moment, Lady Harding." He fumbled in his pack. "I remember—when we camped in the Hinterlands, you told me about your family, and about your previous life as a sheep-herder." He found the item he was looking for. "I thought—this might remind you of your former life, and your family."
She took the small carved sheep, turning it over in her hands. Her capable fingers, deft and firm on a bowstring, gently touched the curl of the wool and the small cloven hooves. "Warden Blackwall."
For the first time in more years than he could count, he was tempted to tell someone his name, wishing to hear her say his name, his real name, just once. "It's nothing," he said.
"This must have taken you hours."
It had; he had been meticulous in the details. "No, not really. Just a habit I developed alone in the woods for so many years … recruiting. I thought you might like it."
"I do. It's beautiful." She smiled at him. "Thank you."
"My very great pleasure, my lady."
She hesitated, as if she meant to say something else, then, almost apologetically, she said, "I really should go help the Inquisitor."
"Of course. It's a wonder he gets anything done without you."
Harding grinned, taking it as a witticism, but he had meant it. He watched her go, her small quick steps, the intricate loops of her braids, and wished with all his heart he was who he said he was.
Merrill waited just inside the cave, giving Hawke and Bethany and King Alistair privacy. His retinue was crowded around the entrance of the cave as well, out of the rain, and she huddled in as small a ball as she could to avoid being noticed. Despite the decade she had spent living in Kirkwall, surrounded by humans, and with Hawke and her companions, Merrill remained one of the People in her heart, and was still distrustful of groups of humans, even those firmly under the control of someone who looked at her as an equal.
A rival, even. King Alistair seemed to think there was something more between Merrill and Hawke than mere friendship. Perhaps their ease with one another, the affection they showed each other, led him to that conclusion. Certainly neither of them had gone out of their way to disabuse him of the notion.
But much as she loved Hawke, Merrill didn't think of her in that way. Those feelings had been dead inside her since she had left her clan. She had never looked on any of her companions in the misery of the alienage in that way, and certainly Fenris had never drawn her eye. Striking he might have been, but the anger practically rolled off him, the hatred. Even laying aside the fact that much of his anger had been directed at her, Merrill could never have trusted her heart to someone who had rejected the light and embraced darkness in that way.
Even as the thought came to her, the skies outside the cave gave a last crack of thunder and the clouds rolled back. Sunlight illuminated the fields, the air clearing and warming.
She got to her feet and left the cave, throwing back her head to breathe in the air. What a relief it was to get out of that stuffy cave and away from those loud humans. Without thinking, she began walking, her feet tracing patterns in the wet grass.
At first she made a pretense of looking for herbs, but she couldn't lie to herself for long; she had to admit that what she was really searching for was the Inquisitor's party. No one else could have closed the rift over the lake and sent the clouds away.
She found them just exiting the town of Crestwood, the Inquisitor looking to the Seeker to help disentangle him from the effusive gratitude of the people. It was almost comical to see the dwarf hide behind the armored woman, to see Cassandra draw herself up and fold her arms and make his apologies for him.
And then Merrill's heart gave the leap that she was coming to crave when behind the Seeker she saw the person she had truly been searching for.
Solas lifted his head and found her eyes across the space between them, and Merrill felt that connection between them reform, her mind and heart drawn to him as they had not been drawn to anyone in a very long time. She smiled, and he gave a grave nod, coming toward her.
"I knew you were here when the rain went away," she said.
"Yes. The sky is mended, here at least, and for a time." He studied the sky with a troubled look. "I wish I could stop this."
"But you are. You're helping the Inquisitor! What more could you do?"
He shrugged. "There is always more someone can do if they put their minds to it. But come, will you show us the way to the cave where we are to meet your friend?"
"Of course. That's why I came to find you," she lied unblushingly.
"Thank you. That's very kind."
The king's retinue had spread out from the mouth of the cave and was setting up a proper, if messy, camp. One of them, a former Rivaini mercenary named Panos, came toward them. "We wondered where you had gone off to, Lady Merrill. Thank you for guiding the Inquisition to us."
Much like King Alistair, Panos looked at her as though he saw no difference between them, and Merrill appreciated that. "My pleasure. Panos, this is Solas."
Solas nodded gravely, and Panos returned the gesture, and then Merrill and Solas followed the Inquisitor and Cassandra into the cave.
"Where did Blackwall go?" the Inquisitor asked.
"I believe he said he would help Scout Harding clear the bandits out of the keep," Cassandra replied.
The Inquisitor chuckled. "Generous of him."
Cassandra smiled. "I thought so."
"I wonder what King Alistair will think of the Inquisition claiming a keep in the middle of his territory," Solas said softly.
Flashing a glance at him over her shoulder, Cassandra said, "Perhaps it is best we do not ask him. At least, not until we are back in Skyhold."
Where what he hadn't known couldn't be undone, was the unspoken ending to her sentence.
Hawke had her arms around a thin woman that Merrill recognized with a start as Bethany. How changed she was by her time with the Wardens! King Alistair hovered near both of them looking helpless.
The Inquisitor kept Cassandra back, approaching Bethany himself, speaking softly and gently to her, drawing her out of herself slowly.
Solas and Merrill waited farther down the passage. "I am glad you arrived here safely," he told her. "I had … wondered what you might find here, and if it would be too much."
"We did have the king's retinue," she reminded him. "And Hawke and I have fought all kinds of things before, and here we are still."
"Most impressive." He smiled, teasing her just a little, and Merrill's heartbeat quickened. Then the smile faded, his eyes on her intensely. "Do you never wish to rejoin your people? You have been away from them for a long time."
Merrill couldn't look away. She shook her head slowly. "No. I love them, but … I don't belong with them. Not any longer. My clan …" Tears filled her eyes, thinking of that horrible, nightmarish day. "My clan is gone, and … they sent me away. I—I am of the People, but I am not one of them. Not any longer."
This time his smile was gentle, understanding, and Merrill felt a part of her that had been long closed off opening under it. "Then we have something in common, you and I."
"Yes," she said breathlessly. "Yes, we do."