Author's Note: Sorry for the short chapter, but it's been a long time and I've been incredibly busy, so I decided to share what I've already written - even if it's a fraction of what this chapter should be - rather than wait until I find the time to write again.
Also, to avoid any misunderstandings, this is my canon Blackwall: . .
When she was a child, Jo was constantly pestering her father to read her stories about the Grey Wardens, the protectors and saviours of Thedas. Whenever she picked up the wooden sword he'd made for her, she'd pretend she was one of them, slaying hordes of lumbering darkspawn, played by her easily persuaded mother. Her favourite toy was a griffin she'd made herself with a sock stuffed with socks, studded with chicken feathers she'd gathered from the coop in their backyard. Without being aware as to what that actually meant, she wanted to be one of them. She wanted to train with people that thought like she did, become a powerful warrior and, when the time came, fight away the dreadful monsters that preyed on the innocent, even at the expense of her own life; the ultimate sacrifice.
'In Peace, Vigilance.
In War, Victory.
In Death, Sacrifice.'
When she grew up, she wanted to become a hero.
And then she did grow up. She started training with other people with whom, most often than not, she did not share the same motives. It wasn't that easy to become a powerful warrior, but she was competent enough, she trained long and hard and honed her body to withstand and to be capable. Subsequently, she managed to join the troop of one of the most respected men in Denerim, Teyrn Loghain, and she was taught that what she used to think about the Grey Wardens was nothing more than over-romanticized drivel. They were not the heroes the stories her father had read to her had made them out to be. They were useful, necessary even, but not heroes. The vast majority were thieves, rapists, murderers, traitors, absconders, the list went on, an order built on secrecy and people that were desperate for a second chance, a clean slate, and even a purpose in a life that they had screwed up one way or the other; things no decent person should ever need in the first place.
After the Battle of Ostagar, after the Blight, she tried to banish them from her thoughts. They had perished while she had not, all these rapists, and murderers, and thieves, even the traitors. They had fought while she was ordered to flee. They had saved the world while she was cowering away in Denerim, watching a man she had once admired, sink deeper and deeper in corruption and shame. Their name hurt her brain and burnt her tongue whenever she spoke it, so, if she happened to hear it, she let the words be just words and wash over her, and she never spoke of them by her own volition. At first, it'd been hard, but after years of practice and determination, she had managed to strip the Grey Warden name from any personal connotations, painful or otherwise. So hearing about the arrival of one at Haven, shouldn't have made her feel a thing.
But it did.
Jo, for the first time in a long while, felt the faint flutter of excitement in her stomach. It wasn't intense at first, but it was enough to surprise her. She certainly wasn't a child anymore, and she knew – Maker, she encouraged – that any sign of irrational feeling should be quenched without preamble. This time though, it was impossible for her to do that, and as her excitement grew, it turned and it soured into something akin to dread. She told herself she could avoid that person like she avoided most people, but there was no guarantee this tactic would work. Furthermore, there was that insistent jab of morbid curiosity that wouldn't let her sit this one out. The guilt that had been gradually waking inside her after the Conclave could not be stifled in the presence of someone that represented all of the things she hadn't managed to achieve and, try as she might, she couldn't help but feel compelled to let herself finally face all these failings and maybe, if she could get past blaming herself, even grieve for them.
As she was leaning on the outer wall by the entrance to Haven, hugging her arms around herself to fend off the evening chill, Jo was wondering if her sanity had finally left her. Her heart was racing more than it should, and it was growing wilder by the second. When she left her home, the sun still over the lake, she thought that it would be one of those times that some silly idea or other escaped her usually effective logical safety net she had meticulously installed around her heart and that, ultimately, she would see reason and get back before she even got to the gates. But that said heart did not obey this time, and it was making it impossibly difficult for her to think of anything else, than meeting this one person who she, logically, knew was nothing more than just another person like any other, even if he were a Grey Warden.
She tried focusing on her surroundings in an attempt to relax. The sun was setting and everything around her had taken that majestic rose-gold hue. The troops were training under the ever watchful eye of their Commander, and she admitted to herself that sometimes she missed these times of merciless training and incessant banter with her comrades. She missed the sense of purpose she had then, she missed the simplicity of following, she even missed how good and capable she felt inside her own body. Most of all, she missed the naivety she could afford then, due to her simple but happy upbringing, her young age, and her lack of experience. How fast had it all changed...
"That's a rare sight! You outside the gates!", Evelyn snorted and clapped Jo's shoulder with a strong hand.
Jo jumped and, in a vain attempt to hide the fact that she'd been caught unawares, tucked a strand that had escaped her bun, behind her ear. "It is amazing how slow my days are when you're not here to order me around like I'm your personal cook, your holiness," she recovered quickly and shook the Herald's outstretched arm in greeting.
"It's not my fault you bake like a Free Marcher, and not like a Fereldan."
"Yet it's not her job, Herald, to provide you with pies," Lady Pentaghast admonished her, coming right behind her and giving Jo an acknowledging nod. "It's a trivial matter, to be sure, but-"
"Leave the woman alone, Seeker!" Master Tethras interrupted her while passing her to reach the gate. "She deserves pies, all the pies!" he winked at Evelyn. "Don't you think so Curly?" he asked the Commander who was coming towards them with a wide smile in his handsome, but usually solemn, face.
"Most definitely," replied the Commander instantly. His smile immediately faltered and his eyes, which were previously fixed on Evelyn, dropped to his gloved wrung hands in front of him. "I-I mean that you have proven your worth time and again, Herald. These small indulgences is the least we can do to afford you even the slightest amount of comfort until our mission is complete," he added in one breath.
"Thank you, Commander," Evelyn said with a warm smile gracing her chapped lips.
The Commander looked at her once more, his smile returning along with a blush deeper than the cold could explain. "Welcome back, Herald," he said, his voice softer and lower than before.
It was Evelyn's turn to avert her eyes with a slight frown, a blush of her own finding its way over her battle-scarred face, looking on her at the same time foreign and endearing. "Glad to be back," she said and without another word she walked through the gates.
"Very smooth, Curly," drawled Master Tethras, which made Commander Rutherford retreat back to his troops without a word, and earned him a glare by Lady Cassandra.
At that time, Lady Montilyet came running, writing desk and pen in hand. "I am terribly sorry! I did not expect such swift an arrival!" she said huffing elegantly and smoothing out her golden sash with the back of her pen. She looked at the few soldiers that had accompanied the party and then at the Seeker. "I was informed that Sir Blackwall was to accompany you at Haven, is he not here?"
"He wished to speak with the stable boy...", the Seeker trailed off. "Ah, there he is!"
And then Jo, still at her post by the gate, saw him. The first thing she noticed was that he was a stout man, not excessively tall, but his build was impressive nonetheless. The second was that even under his gambeson and breastplate, even with his sword hanging by his hip and his shield strapped to his back, he had the air of a labourer more than that of a warrior. She could more easily envision him working on a field or cutting down trees, than in the battlefield. The third was his eyes. Which was odd since, surely, his most striking feature should have been his bushy forked beard, most of it a deep warm brown - to match the unshaved thick ribbon of shiny hair that flowed neatly from the top of his forehead, over the crown of his head and caressed the nape of his neck – adorned with a few silver strands. But his eyes drew her in, they were deep-set and downturned, under stark eyebrows and even though she couldn't tell the colour from that far, they made her heart that had calmed considerably by now, race again.
"Oh..." Lady Montilyet exhaled, a small sound that sounded suspiciously like a sigh.
"Blackwall!" Lady Cassandra called him over. "Let me introduce you to our Ambassador, Lady Josephine Montilyet."
"My lady," he said – his voice deep and gravely, exuding humility and kindness – and took a bow.
Lady Montilyet's olive cheeks took a bit more colour, as she batted her eyelashes, equally unexpectedly flattered and appropriately demure. "Sir Blackwall," she curtsied politely, "I am here to welcome you on behalf of the Inquisition. I am sure I speak for all of us when I say that it is an immense honour to have a revered Grey Warden amidst our ranks."
"I am hardly revered, my lady. I am just fulfilling my duty," he said in his thick Free Marcher brogue.
Following his example, the Ambassador's face sobered. "Duty or not, I would like to thank you for accepting to join our cause, and to reassure you that it is a worthy one. Now, please let me take you to your new home," she said moving forward, past the Grey Warden and towards the stables.
Sir Blackwall turned to the Seeker and took another bow. "My lady."
"Blackwall," she said with a tight incline of her head.
He then faced Jo, and seeing as they had not been properly introduced but she had been there for the duration of the exchange, he nodded to her in aknowledgement and turned to follow Lady Josephine.
Jo was once again alone by the gate, as Lady Cassandra had left soon after the Grey Warden and the Lady Ambassador to talk to the Commander who was presently wrapping up the training session for the day, the sun having just set. She listened to the commotion made by the recruits, but her eyes were still trained at the small house next to the smithy, the one Sir Blackwall and Lady Montilyet had entered a while ago. A warm glow shone through the solitary window and somehow, unbidden, an equally warm feeling spread over Jo's heart along with scattered and unclear scenes of two people resembling her parents embracing and then, all of a sudden, she hoped...
"Imposing, isn't he?" came a voice beside her, interrupting her unbidden thoughts.
Jo looked a few inches below her eye level and saw Master Tethras eying her. She knew it wasn't possible, but she felt like he could see things, even she herself couldn't. "Aren't they all? That's how Grey Wardens are supposed to be," she replied neutrally.
The dwarf chuckled. "I suppose. Have you seen many?"
"A few. But I've never really met one."
"I still haven't," she thought.
"They're just people, you know," he teased her.
"I am aware, Master Tethras," she deadpanned, perfectly aware that she was getting too defensive for such a light exchange.
The dwarf's chest shook with soft laughter and suddenly he looked rather pensive. "You remind me of someone, Freckles, a friend, if I have any say in the matter – though I am certain he would vehemently disagree. You think too much, you brood too much." Jo was ready to object, but his warm eyes pierced her and she felt like a child chastised. "There is no point in living if we're not at least trying to be happy."
His words impacted her like a fist to her stomach. If she weren't so engrossed by the knowing look he was giving her while he delivered them, she might have doubled over. She honestly couldn't even remember the last time she wished for happiness, let alone her own happiness. She couldn't remember when was the last time she wished for anything, other than peace and quiet and being alone. Yet here she was, right under the Rift, in the heart of a raging war, where 'peace and quiet' were nothing but forlorn hopes. 'Alone'? People were all around her, people talked to her, she was not a random nobody here, they all knew her by name, and she knew them as well even while trying to avoid them. The daily repartees, the laughter that came more and more freely, the lessening of the once constant apprehension when exiting her house. She might not have friends, but she had more people than she had realized that came very close to being ones. However, this was not what she had chosen for her life, this was not what she had planned. She felt an abrupt pain in the middle of her chest, her breath came up short and ragged and her sight blurred a little.
"What the fuck am I still doing here?!"
"Freckles..." Master Tethras brought her back with a huge palm lightly touching her elbow and worry evident in his voice.
Jo was determined not to have a breakdown in front of anyone, and, however difficult the dwarf's concern was making it, she could and would divert the subject – and her thoughts – away from a conversation she was not willing to have any time soon. "Freckles?" she asked, grasping at the first thing she was presented with, and that was the use of a nickname he had never used before today.
"Yeeeah, well..." he smiled knowingly, not even pretending not to understand the motive behind her question. He made a vague gesture towards her face and then continued, making it clear that he was not going to press her further. "I'm not good with names."
"Isn't your crossbow named Bianca?" the corner of her lip twitched with humour – and relief.
"No offense, but she's special!"
"I'm not sure I want to know."
His palm spread to the middle of his chest. "You wound me, Freckles! I'm a perfect gentleman!"
"I believe the Seeker would disagree..."
"Andraste's ass," he muttered as his eyes roamed to where said Seeker was delivering blow after devastating blow to an already destroyed training dummy. "I think she might actually be contractually obligated to oppose me at every turn."
"Are you?"
"Ha! Good one! You know I'm always affable as shit." He could effortlessly pull off the injured innocent, Jo would give him that. "Anyway, gotta go, Freckles, I have a pint with my name on it waiting for me at the tavern. Care to join me?"
Sir Blackwall's cabin door opened and a tittering Lady Ambassador stepped out, luscious olive skin and chocolate curls glimmering in the candlelight. Jo couldn't hear what was being said between the newcomer and Lady Montilyet, but she felt a small weight settle on her belly at the bashful curtsy of the Antivan as she bid the Grey Warden goodnight and turned towards them in a swirl of gold and dark blue.
"Huh, this is going to be interesting..." Master Tethras sounded amused. Jo couldn't find it in herself to reciprocate. "Hey, Ruffles!" he yelled, "did you tuck our Warden in?"
The ambassador looked equally amused and embarassed. "Varric... I'm only being civil. You know perfectly well that I have to show the appropriate amount of hospitality and engage in polite conversation to make any newcomer feel welcome. Especially one that is willing to not only support us, but also fight for our cause!"
"And I'm sure this is exactly what you were doing! But I don't remember you following the same procedure with me even if I am twice as ruggedly handsome."
"Oh, Master Tethras, wasn't Lady Pentaghast's welcoming enough for you?" she asked sweetly.
"Got me there, Ruffles. Besides, I don't think you could be as good with handcuffs."
"You'd be surprised," she replied innocently and bid them both goodnight.
"The claws on that one are something else," he chuckled to himself and once again turned to Jo. "So, will you join me then?"
"Thank you, Master Tethras, but now that our Herald is back, I shall have to return to a rather relentless schedule," she said with a forced smile. "Maybe another time."
"Never mind, it's an ongoing offer. Plus, you can make it up to me with one of those pies of yours. I'm in dire need of some spoiling," he said with a grin. "Oh, and, Freckles? Lose the formalities."
Jo's smile became a bit more genuine at his words. "Certainly, Master Varric," she said with an over-exaggerated bow. Varric left, shaking his head, his laughter mingling with the bustle inside the walls.