I was given 3 tropes and told to turn them into a story. The tropes were:

- tattooed crook

- love bubbles

- evil slinks


"I must say," Thom started, casting his eyes around the courtyard, "as much as Varric talked about Kirkwall, he didn't really do it justice."

Herah perked at his opener, tongue halfway to her dessert; a Kirkwall specialty confection made of cream and sugar and ice, served in a cone of hard pastry. The last bit of Thom's own cone vanished under his moustache as Herah turned to him. How did he eat it so fast? The cold hurt her teeth. "What do you mean?"

Thom gestured to the courtyard with his chin, pulling his gloves back on now that he was finished eating. "He made it out to be such a hellhole, but from what I've seen it's been downright pleasant." He shifted to face her on the bench, leaning his elbows on his knees. "What do you think?"

Herah took a tiny lick of her dessert, letting it rest on her togue until it melted. "I think Varric might be a little jaded, seeing as how much happened in Kirkwall under his eye."

Thom hummed thoughtfully. "Still, you'd think he'd change his tune now that the entire city is under his thumb."

Herah smiled. "If you think being in a position of power would change anything about Varric, we don't know the same dwarf."

Thom laughed, tossing his head back, and Herah seized the moment to admire the way he looked so much younger when he laughed. The setting sun cast his face in a soft golden light, and for a moment the wrinkles around his mouth and forehead smoothed out, offering a glimpse of the Thom Rainier she was falling in love with all over again. One without thirty years of guilt weighing on his shoulders like a heavy fur. Then the wrinkles reappeared, and once again he was her Thom, the one she knew in dim firelight and the streams of moonshine peeking through barn roofs.

He caught her staring, tilting his head incredulously. "What?"

"Maker, I love you," she murmured back.

Once upon a time he would have reacted immediately, breaking eye contact and shifting away in what could have been interpreted as discomfort if one didn't catch the red hue colouring his cheeks. Blackwall reacted to compliments like someone had just handed him an unidentified snake and he couldn't tell if it was venomous or not. The flush never went away, not truly, but Thom held her gaze, moustache quirking up with his warm smile.

His eyes darted back and forth, something shifty working its way into his smile. "I've never wanted to kiss you so badly, love."

Oh, he was going there, was he? "Oh, look at the time. It seems we should head back to the Viscount's mansion."

The mischief in Thom's eyes faded. "You're not done eating."

Herah stood, leaning in slightly to tower over him. "I'll finish on the way." Her tongue flicked out, swiping at her upper lip, and she saw Thom's adam's apple bob.

"…very well," he said, voice amusingly small.

Reaching up to hook his hand around the stump of her left arm, the two started towards Varric's new home. Or, at least, towards where they thought Varric's new home was located. After nearly an hour of wandering and several insistences from Thom that no, they did not need directions, the two found themselves in a dark alley nowhere near where they needed to be.

"Love?"

"Yes, Thom?"

"I think… we may be lost."

Herah choked back a snort. "Oh, do you now? Directions probably would've come in handy."

"Yes, yes, you can tease me about it when we're back behind safe walls. I don't like the looks of this alley."

Herah started to tease again, but paused at Thom's expression. The two of them were formidable people, so for him to look so disturbed something must truly feel wrong. Her smile softened, and she leaned down to dotingly bump his forehead with hers. "Don't worry, there must be someone around to give us directions."

No sooner had she said that when her nostrils flared, something sour prickling at their edges, and Herah snapped to attention. Thom noticed immediately, voice dipping low. "What's wrong?"

The watery lantern light barely illuminated three feet in either direction, but Herah scanned the alley nonetheless. "We're not alone."

"Give the cow a prize."

A ways down the alley, the presumed owner of the voice slid like a snake from darkness to dimness. Human, greasier than a pig, and covered in enough ink to fill a book. Definitely unfriendly, if they way he held his knife was any indicator. Herah tilted her head, listening for breathing or other footsteps. As far as she could tell he was alone, but he held himself like a practiced criminal. Still dangerous, then.

Thom's hand twitched towards his sword side, but Herah stilled the movement with a gentle hand. He didn't meet her eyes, but stood down. Good, best to approach this diplomatically. "Can we help you, serah?"

The man bristled. Diplomacy failed, apparently. Was she using the term correctly, or did some kind of subtext get lost in regional dialects? She'd have to ask Varric later. "Don't address me, Qunari, I can smell your breath from here. You. Bushy. Open your coat."

Thom met her eyes, searching for direction. Herah nodded. The rustle of his coat opening only barely masked the dark grumbles grinding somewhere in the back of his throat. "There. I'm unarmed. Now what do you want with us?"

The man slunk another step into the light, grinning wickedly. Light glinted off the flecks of gray at his temples, the brutal scar running from cheek to chin. "I want your money, you sod. And then I want you both out of my city."

The first request was pretty standard for this type of situation, but the second gave Herah pause. "What do you mean?"

Another step. This man practically oozed. "What do you think? Your people ruined Kirkwall with your invasion, things haven't been the same since. Your kind aren't welcome here." That much had been true enough. Herah frequently caught dirty looks sent her way since she arrived to Kirkwall, but much of that was old hat for a Qunari. The glares had lessened some in the time of the Inquisition. Occasionally even after, as her story and visage were difficult to misplace. Varric often said the horns and the hand were the cause of her widespread recognition. Alliteration sold the story, said he. "My city has had enough of Ox-Men, even the crips." The man nodded towards Thom. "We don't want your brainwashed, man-whore sympathizers, either."

Thom didn't rise to the bait, trusting her to handle things, and Herah loved him for it. Her voice lightened, not to humour, but to the tone she often used when dealing with dignitaries. "I'm sorry, we won't be leaving." Josephine would be so proud.

Thom shifted in the way of a trained soldier. "We have just as much right to be here as anyone, human or no."

The man's face darkened. It was not a good expression for him. "Then you'll die like the dogs you are."

He rushed, knife outstretched and aiming for Thom's heart. As experienced a thug he might have been, his informal training betrayed his movement and Herah blurred forward to intercept. In a gasp and a blink, she had the man against the alley wall. One leg pinned his hard enough to bruise, halting whatever movement wasn't hindered by the glimmering dagger blade pressed between her forearm and his jugular.

She heard Thom chuckle quietly behind her, at the man's hubris no doubt. "Didn't ask the 'crip' to disarm, eh? Your mistake."

The man, who had gone quite pale at this sudden turn of events, looked frantically between Herah, her blade, and Thom. Then up to her horns.

His face drained paler still. "Maker…Y-you're the Inquisitor."

Herah dipped her head. "Former."

"At least we know he's not stupid," Thom commented. "Stupid can be dangerous."

Any pretense of anger dissipated in light of this new revelation, and the man's hand sprang open to let his knife clatter on the ground. "Please, I swear I didn't know, if I did I never would've—"

"Been a racist arsehole?"

"Thom," Herah admonished gently.

"No one speaks to my wife like that." Maker, could she adore him more?

Meanwhile the man was still begging for his life, as one did. "Please, I'll do anything. I'll give you anything you want, please, just let me go!"

Herah held his gaze a moment longer than necessary, acutely aware both of how intimidating she looked in this light and of the spreading wet spot between the man's legs. The thought to actually kill him occurred to her, but it passed fleetingly. No need to enforce negative Qunari stereotypes.

Instead, she smiled, tight-lipped. "Well, we could definitely use some directions."


When Herah and Thom entered the Viscount's mansion at just after half past twelve bells, they ran smack into the Viscount himself. Varric startled at their entrance, looking very much like he'd just been pacing, and put a hand over his heart. "Maker's ass, Violet, I was just about to send out a search party! Where were you?"

"We got lost," Said Herah, at the same time Thom said, "We met some of the locals."

Varric looked back and forth between them. "You got mugged, didn't you?"

END