Solas

Servants had been set to packing supplies, rations were being gathered, and all in all, preparations were underway for Sylvanni's imminent departure from Skyhold. The only thing left for her to gather personally then, was the group she wished to take with her on this trip.

Solas looked up from the notes he was reading as she walked into his rotunda. "Inquisitor?"

"Solas, are you busy?"

He set his notes aside, giving her his full attention. "Nothing that cannot wait a while. How may I help?"

"An... urgent matter has come up and I would have you with me, of you're available." Too stiff, too formal. She could hear it in her own voice, and she knew why it was there. She was too emotional, too many feelings boiling beneath the surface. She was shutting down to try to keep in control, but she wasn't conveying normalcy as she did so.

Solas, perceptive as always, could tell. His eyebrows drew together in concern. "Lethallan, is everything alright?"

She took a deep breath. "It will be." She turned to go. "We leave at midday."

Iron Bull

"You look like a woman with a job," Iron Bull said as she approached, the Qunari's face splitting in a wide grin. "What's the plan, boss?"

He lounged in his chair on his side of the tavern, but Sylvanni didn't bother to sit. She was planning on making this quick. "I've gotten word of a nobleman who seems to be fond of committing atrocities and slaughtering innocents. Elves especially. Leliana believes he might be affiliated with Corypheus and the Red Templars, but his crimes warrant he be stopped and brought to justice, regardless of his reasoning or affiliation. I intend to see to him personally, and I don't have any plans on making it a pleasant experience for him."

Bull started stretching, as though he needed to prepare himself to stand. "Sounds like an asshole, boss. You want me to bring some 'unpleasantness' to this mission, I assume?"

Her lips pulled into a hard smile. The mercenary always did seem to provoke a rougher side from her. "I'm rather hoping you'll be able to terrify him into a faint, to tell the truth."

He laughed. "For you, boss? I'll make sure to scare him shitless."

Sera

Sylvanni didn't manage to finish walking up the stairs before Sera stopped her. "Hold it there," the archer said, raising a warding hand. "You got a face. Yeah, that one you're making at me right now. Something's wrong, and not just regular wrong, but like really wrong, innit? You look like someone who found their boots fulla mud this morning."

"Sera, I don't-"

"Yeah, you do. I'd know. I've filled someone's boots with mud before and they looked right like that when they found out. Besides, you been talkin' to Bull down there, and one of the serving girls said you were talking to Solas 'bout an hour ago, so I know you've got some kind of plan. And it's got something to do with you having mud-boot face, so I already don't like it."

Sylvanni could see that Sera had no intention of stopping anytime soon, so she simply folded her arms and waited for her friend to be done.

"That cute blonde in the kitchens with the nice backside said you're practically cleaning out the pantries with the amount of rations you're asking for, so this is gonna be a long journey, which normally I ain't got a problem with, but you're in this weird muddy-boots funk and I'm not feeling getting trapped in dumb boring conversations for weeks on the road with the egghead and the gray cow while you're being all broody, ya feel?"

Sylvanni gave a small sigh. For someone who spent about half of her conversations being nigh unintelligible, the archer was surprisingly perceptive. Perhaps that's just how friends were, though. "Sera, yes, something is wrong. But I'd like you to be one of the ones to help me come and fix it. I wouldn't ask you to join us if I didn't feel like it was important."

"Yeah," Sera said, pulling the word out into a long drawl, "but I'm just saying, if there were anyone else to do it, maybe you could go ask them first? It's not my fault you're acting all weird right now, and I don't really want to be around for weeks with you being weird. Sorry luv, but that's just-"

"It's about my clan," Sylvanni snapped, cutting her off mid-sentence.

Sera paused for a moment, then her face slowly pulled into a grimace, as though she'd smelled one of Varric's socks. "Eugh, you know if you were tryin' to convince me, that's a pretty rubbish way to do it. Not really a fan of elfy elves you know, and well, you're not bad, but Dalish are like the elfiest of elfy elves and I don't think-"

"They were murdered," Sylvanni said, voice flat.

Sera's mouth closed with a snap, and she blinked a few times. In the sudden silence, Sylvanni decided to continue. She hadn't been planning on telling her companions what this was really about until they were on the road, but conversations with Sera tended to take unexpected turns, she'd learned. Besides, she thought if Sera had found out on the road that this was about Sylvanni's clan, she might have felt as though she'd been tricked into coming or something.

"A nobleman near where they were camped," Sylvanni went on. "Slaughtered the whole clan. Everyone I knew before coming here is dead because of him. And the worst part?" Sylvanni shook her head slowly. "We asked him to help them. The Inquisition sent him a request for aid, and he had the gall to murder them all and then write back and tell us that there was nothing he could have done.

"So I'm going after him myself," she said, feeling her nails biting into her hands as she clenched her fists. "He won't get away with this. I know you don't like Dalish, but honestly, I just want to see the look on his face when Inquisitor Lavellan shows up at his doorstep with two other 'knife-ears' at her side and a giant Qunari mercenary at their back. Let that be the sight of justice he sees coming to make him pay for his crimes."

Sera was quiet for a while, thinking it over as her face cycled through various expressions of consideration. "Well… alright when you put it that way, not much choice, is there? Does sound like a bit of fun, huh. You know what this noble prick's problem is? Probably can't see how much of an arse he is. Lotsa dumb nobles in their fancy pants got the same problem, makes them kick down the real people. Couple 'a arrows through his eyes oughta help clear that vision right up, ya think?"

Sylvanni gave her a grim smile. "Sounds like a plan."