Amaryllis was unsure of the time, the number of pints she'd had, the number of tunes she'd danced to, and how, exactly, she'd managed to end up in a Templar's arms.
She swayed to the left, then to the right. "Once more," she mumbled. "Just one more song, Emil, please."
Her friend groaned. "Alright, miss, just this last one. Ye've gotten me to do enough dancin' tonight to embarrass me for ten lifetimes. Yer lucky ye saved the world 'n all, otherwise I'd've abandoned ye an hour ago."
"Not the world." She sighed. "Just a mountain."
"'Just a mountain,' she says. Load of shite."
Amaryllis laughed and set her hands atop his broad shoulders, leaning into him as they swayed slowly, though the song playing likely hadn't been meant for slow. When it was over she bowed to thank him-each blink sending her spinning-but stumbled into his chest instead.
"Woah," Emil said. "Think the time for dancin' is officially over, miss. Let's sit ye down for a bit."
"Not miss…" she corrected, mumblng into his shirt. "Amaryllis… Lis, please."
Taking her by the arm, he led her back to their table. "Lis, then. I'll get ye some water."
She squinted dazedly into the crowd, caught sight of more twirling than she could handle, and set her head down upon the tabletop, refusing to close her eyes, for she knew the moment she did she'd likely be sick.
"Ye alright there, Lis?" Emil sounded warbled, far off, until she lifted her head and found him standing above her. "Ye look like ye could use a lie-down. D'ye want me to help ye home?"
Not home, she wanted to say. Too many walls, too loud, too silent. But instead, she shook her head. "No, I don't want to-just a little while longer, please."
She must have shut her eyes for a minute because one moment he was there, pushing a cup of water into her hand, and the next he was walking back toward her from the bar where Flissa filled and refilled and refilled tankards.
"Fliss said ye can use a room for the night if ye need," he said. "I can help ye up-those stairs are steep, dangerous enough when sober."
"You drank just as much as I did," Amaryllis noted.
"And yet I'm not the one stumblin' about."
She grinned and stood with a shrug, reaching for his arm to keep herself steady. Between one blink and the next, they were climbing a very narrow staircase up into a very narrow hallway that led them to two very narrow doors. Emil opened the door to the right and motioned for her to enter. The vaulted ceiling was just high enough in the middle that she could stand.
"Yer room, m'lady," he said with a wink. "Go ahead, sleep it off. I can ask Fliss to wake ye in the mornin' if ye'd like."
Amaryllis frowned. "Are you going already?"
"That was the plan." He smiled. "I don't think ye should be havin' any more drinks tonight."
"No, no, I mean," she sighed, pursing her lips. The slanted ceiling swirled around her, pressing closer, closer, until her breath hitched. "I just-I have some elfroot in my bag. I know if I don't have any now, I'll likely have a terrible headache in the morning. Would you... like to join?"
Emil cocked his head to the side, confused, but didn't say no. She fumbled for the bag at her side and pulled out a satchel, then held it out for him to take. He opened it, looked inside, and raised a brow.
"Are ye eatin' it? I've chewed it on many an occasion for a stomachache, but I can't imagine what that'd do for yer head."
She laughed. "You've never smoked it?"
"I have, but not in a long time." Emil's expression became approving. "Never really thought it would be better when smoked for more than a few laughs and a good night's rest."
"It is good for that, too, that's for sure," she said, taking the bag back from him. "Do you want some?"
"Sure." He shrugged. "What's the worst that could happen?"
It hadn't been long after they'd passed the pipe, tapping the ashes out of the cracked window, that her dizziness had dissipated. The two friends sat in companionable silence, listening to the music muted by the floorboards.
Emil, who sat on the floor to her right, leaned against the side of the bed and said, "Ye still didn't tell me how ye joined the Dalish."
"And you still haven't told me why you became a Templar," she countered, not missing a beat.
From across the shared space, he rolled his shoulders and smiled the sort of smile that had Amaryllis turning away. The sort of smile that caused a great and terrible ache to strike her chest; the sudden, torturous bite of a viper.
"It's not a good story," he began. His voice grew soft, filled with that wonder, that realization that an infinite number of days had passed since the memory. And that it still sat as fresh as a baby's first breath; as fresh as a daisy, stretching toward the sun, yet to be picked. "But it's not an original one, either. I'm not the only one who's loved and lost, and I won't be the last."
"We were young, just about fourteen. Florian and I." This time when he smiled it was bright, spreading across his cheeks. "Felt we were men, then. Florian-he'd always had it in his mind that he'd be joinin' the Order. To protect his family, you know, the usual things that drive men. He was a proper Chantry boy, in front of everyone else, but a secretive little fox behind their backs. He'd always be pullin' pranks, doin' stupid shite, only to blame it on me. 'Course he would, the bugger. Meek, scrawny thing I was had been too afraid to argue it. Never got in much real trouble though, no thanks to that idiot."
"He'd had a sister named Viola. Just two years younger, but not long after he'd turned fourteen, she was taken. Got mad at him one night for teasin' her too much. It was such a small thing to be mad for, but it doesn't matter when it comes to magic. She'd struck him with static. Not too strong, but enough that it'd knocked him back. He'd come to me the next day lookin' like he'd watched his dog die. He told me what'd happened, told me to keep it a secret from his parents. It didn't stay secret for long, anyway. In her terror, she'd dropped her coin before a Templar, and when he'd picked it up to hand it back, her hands were covered in ice."
Amaryllis couldn't help it. Her chin quivered, her eyes filling with tears she refused to shed for a story that wasn't hers. Emil saw her struggle and moved a bit closer, bumping his shoulder against hers, still smiling.
"So he got it in his mind to join the Order. Convinced himself that was the only way to protect Viola. He'd planned to run off one night to another city, join the Order there, all because he got it in his mind that he'd somehow end up with her again. I'd followed because, well, he was my best friend, and I figured I had nothin' better to do, anyway. Didn't want to take over the tannin' business."
"Long story short, we'd found her, eventually. Spent two years in Markham with her, somehow kept it a secret long enough for her Harrowin'. She, uh," he said, swallowing thickly. "Wasn't strong enough. Florian'd gotten the order to be there, just in case. I'd been ordered to stand watch outside the door. Had to listen to the whole thing. Had to help carry 'em out when it was over. They'd questioned me after, knowin' we'd been close, asked if I'd known they were related. Got punished for it; lost rank." He shrugged again as if to break himself of the memory.
"I was mad, for a while. I knew it wasn't any mage's fault, but still, I was angry. Afraid of the fact that there're people out there with a power that can ruin lives so quickly. So when we met I, uh," he chuckled. "Well, I'm sorry about that. I can tell ye I was never a part of the war, though. When it'd started, I'd hightailed it outta there. Cowardly, I know, but I couldn't see myself killin' needlessly like that. Not after everything that'd happened. I'd known good mages, and I'd known bad, anyway. Can't lump 'em all together."
They were both quiet for a moment until Emil nudged her with his arm. "A secret for a secret. Now it's yer turn."
For a moment, Amaryllis sat in silence, running her hand over her braid. In all the years since her death, not once had she uttered more than the word "accident." Not once had she thought of telling the truth-or even a semblance of it-to anyone, not even Ellana. She had kept it bottled up inside her, had refused to unleash it, to give it more than a swift, passing thought. But what was she to do? What was she to say, now? How could she ignore this?
His presence at her side, the reassuring heat of his arm against hers, loosened that tightly sealed lid. It was in the baring of his sorrow, of his heart, and the obvious trust he had found in her, that she found the motivation to speak.
"My family," she said. "was normal. We were normal. My parents worked, long and hard, to provide for my sister and I. We had a good life. And it-we were-" Amaryllis took a moment to breathe. Her heart thrashed, a rabbit caught in a vice, terrified and alone. Alone, just as she'd been that day in the woods. "We had taken the carriage to meet my father in the neighboring town. While we were crossing over a bridge, we... the carriage tumbled over, fell into the water." She swallowed thickly. Panic shot through her. Her hands shook where they now sat in her lap. "I... came to on the river bank. There was no one to help. I looked but I couldn't see them and so I walked away. I ended up lost in the woods. I was too young. I didn't know how to fend for myself."
"I was dehydrated and delirious by the time she found me: the Keeper. She took me back to their camp, and nursed me back to health. I met Ellana there, on my first night. Her father too. They became my family; the clan became my family. They never once questioned it. Never made me feel as if I didn't belong with them." She laughed faintly. "I must've looked horrible enough when the Keeper brought me there for them to accept it as they had."
"So," Amaryllis finished, turning to Emil. She was surprised to find that she felt... okay. Good, even. As if a weight, however small, had been lifted from her shoulders. "There's my secret."
He watched her for a moment, his eyes flitting across her face from her eyes to her nose, her lips, her chin, her ears, and then, ever so slowly, leaned until his head rested against her shoulder. She smiled.
"Tell me," he began. "Is it true that if ye drink a gold'n halla's piss, ye can talk to animals?"
She blinked at him in confusion. "What?"
"The Knight-Captain at the Markham Circle told us that that's how the Dalish 're able to train the Harts as well as they are. He said there's a ritual," he kept going, his expression neutral, his tone one of utter innocence. "On the night of the full moon, the Dalish ride the gold'n halla to the top of a mount'n, stark naked, and paint their bodies with-"
She scoffed once, twice, then at the sight of his roguish grin, began to laugh. "What is it with you and piss?"
"Try spendin' a day in a suit of armor and see how often it's on yer mind."
Everything was dark when she felt the pressure against her ease, its heat leaving with it. Amaryllis opened her eyes to see Emil rising, quietly, to slip on his coat. When he saw that she had woken, he paused.
"Leaving?" she asked.
"Yer tired," he explained. "And it wouldn't be right for me to stay longer than this. The music's quieted-it's time for me to go. Wouldn't want anyone gettin' the wrong idea."
Without hesitation, she pushed to her knees, laying her arms across the bed they had been sitting against. "That doesn't matter to me," she said. "We're friends, aren't we?"
"'Course."
Amaryllis gazed across the empty bed, up to the sloped ceiling above, over to the small, solitary window, and bit her lip. It had been too long since she had slept alone. Even with Ellana asleep at her side, Amaryllis had found herself able to close her eyes for at least a little while-long enough to ease the ache in her teeth, but not long enough to ease the ache in her head. After spending so many years sleeping beneath the stars, the walls of the cabin surrounding her on all sides terrified her. Every attempt at sleep ended in a nightmare so severe she had taken to pacing the floor, walking in circles hour after hour to keep herself awake.
He needed to stay. She needed him to stay. Just for the night.
"I-I don't want to be alone," she admitted in a whisper. "I can't sleep without-" the familiar heat of a body next to mine. "If you're leaving, then I will, too. I can't stay here alone."
Emil watched her for a moment, then said, "If it keeps the nightmares away, I'll stay."
Amaryllis smiled softly. "Thank you," she said, no longer whispering. "Just for that, you can choose your spot on the bed."
He raised a brow. "I was plannin' to sleep on the floor, but I'm not goin' to say no to comfort." He motioned toward the pillows while he removed his coat, placing it on a hook on the back of the door. "Get yerself comfortable first then tell me where ye want me."
She pulled herself up from the floor, stretching out her legs for a moment before allowing herself to fall back on the bed. It thudded against the wall, none too gently, and a great roar sounded from the tavern below.
Glancing up at her friend, she saw that his lips were pursed, his cheeks sucked in as if he were fighting a laugh. Her mouth spread in a fierce, mischievous smile, and she shrugged.
"There goes my reputation."
Emil cackled; a sound she had never imagined he could make wheezing in his chest. She rolled to the side of the bed against the wall, slid beneath the duvet, and patted the empty space next to her. He sat down, then sagged into the bed as if his body no longer had the bones to hold it up.
When they had both finished wiggling into their desired positions, Amaryllis turned to gaze at him in the dark. The curve of his closed eyes, his nose, his lips, and his chin, were silhouetted by the moonlight spilling in through the window. She waited for him to look at her, but he stayed still and silent, his breathing even, to the point where she thought he had fallen asleep.
Quietly, she said, "thank you for staying," and slid her hand across the space between them to touch his.
Amaryllis closed her eyes. Just as she was about to doze off, her eyes dancing behind her eyelids in anticipation, his palm slid softly against her, entwining their fingers together. And for what felt like the millionth time that night, she smiled.
A/N: Hope you're liking where this is going! The next chapter is actually meant to be explicit, but I can't post it here, so that section will be left blank. If you would like to read it in its entirety, you're more than welcome to find me on AO3!