Some vocab for this chapter:

"Sono qui, ciao, chancellor." = "I am here, hello, chancellor."

"Che cavolo, Vaffanculo." = "What the hell, fuck you." ("Che cavolo" also translates to "what the cabbage")

Chapter Three- Little Toy soldiers

"I'm fine."

"We're not having this discussion again." Cassandra sat her down on a wooden barrel, eyes steely as she checked the elf for any signs of passing out again.

They had stopped by a broken down cabin, the inside still smouldering with the remains of a lesser rage demon. The dwarf, Varric, had scavenged a blanket and held it out towards the seeker, who wrapped it around Velasco's shoulders and scowled.

"I just slipped, you have no way to prove otherwise."

"Actually," said the tall elf, who Velasco came to know as Solas. He held his staff by his side and stared down at her with his lavender tinted eyes. Velasco had never seen such a color on another living thing before. "The mark may have overwhelmed you. I would be quite careful from now on—we're still not quite sure how it works just yet."

He seemed quite bothered by the fact, and watched Velasco as she leaned back on her barrel with a calculating stare. She stared right back at him, because one of the first things she had learned as an Antivan crow was to never back down in a fight you could win—and Velasco was very good at picking her battles. "You seem to know a whole lot more about how it works than anyone else."

"Yes, well…" Solas broke eye contact and Velasco allowed herself a triumphant little smirk. "I should hope so. Studying the fade and all its wonders is everything to me."

"Uh-huh." She kicked her leg out and let it fall with a thump against her barrel. "Why didn't they tie you up and hit you with a broom for answers about the hole in the sky? Seems like you'd have a lot more answers than me."

Solas stared at her for a moment."I...they hit you with a broom?"

Cassandra straightened and looked at Velasco. "That never happened."

"But what if it did, and you had no idea? I was in that room for a long, long time." Her guards looked amongst themselves and glanced back at Cassandra. Velasco ignored them. "Any one of them could have done it."

"We did not," one argued. "You're lying."

Velasco looked at Solas with a weary expression on her face. "I was tortured."

"That makes two of us," sighed Varric, ignoring the disgusted grunt from their lady seeker. "Awful, aren't they? The way they treat their prisoners..."

"We are not having this conversation," Cassandra hissed. She motioned towards the hole in the sky. "If you forget, allow me to remind you-"

"Yes, yes, we get it, seeker. Rift in the veil, lots of demons to deal with, such little time." The dwarf sighed, shrugging to himself. "Sorry for trying to lighten the mood."

Velasco hopped up her barrel and folded up her blanket. "I can keep going now, I'm not tired at all."

Solas caught her by the elbow as she stumbled on the flat ground. He raised an eyebrow at her. "Is that so?"

She wrenched her elbow away. "I'm fine."

"We would appreciate it… if you would not lie to us," said the elf, watching her expression carefully, along with the rest of the group. "If the mark is draining your life force, if it even begins to bother you at all—"

"This way to the hole in the sky, right?" Velasco made a swift turn on her heel and started marching away from Solas, who followed after her.

It didn't take much until he was matching her strides effortlessly with the long legs of his. Velasco silently cursed his ancestors in Antivan. "There is nothing to be gained here by putting on a brace face-"

She shot him a blank look, and then glanced back at the rest of their company trailing behind, their faces a mix of concern and apprehension. "Dal grembo alla tomba, focus on the mission."

Solas blinked and watched her walk past, trekking up the mountain with a single minded determination.

Cassandra fell in line with him and sighed, watching her soldiers speed up to at least offer some level of protection to the young crow as they climbed. "She is quite stubborn."

Solas purses his lips and glanced at the seeker. "Do you know of her parents?"

"I'm afraid not—she hasn't asked about anyone surviving the conclave either, I've been working under the assumption that she came alone." She sighed.

Whether or not she was guilty of destroying the conclave went unsaid; an answer to a question nobody in their company quite wanted to hear.

As they made their way up higher and another breach came within sight, Solas muttered something under his breath and shook his head. "What a mess this is."

Cassandra nodded. "I couldn't agree more."

x

Chancellor Roderick refused to make eye contact with her and he and Leliana argued over who was at fault for the divine's death. As they heard the oncoming approach of Cassandra and her party, Leliana seemed to relax a tad, but that was before the chancellor rounded on the seeker and started making demands.

All was fine and well until he noticed Velasco slung over Cassandra's shoulders, half delirious and red-eyed, and then he went quiet.

"This is Lady Justinia's murderer?"

"Allegedly," Cassandra grunted, shifting Velasco's weight on her shoulders so she was more comfortable. The elf in question only rolled her head to the side and blinked at him, exhausted.

"Sono qui, ciao, chancellor." She let one of her arms fall from around Cassandra's neck, and made a half hearted attempt at offering him a handshake. He swiftly looked away. "Che cavolo, Vaffanculo."

Leliana and Cassandra raised their eyebrows at the heavily implied Antivan insult, but thankfully didn't translate for the chancellor. He turned and went on to argue with the spymaster about abandoning their attempts at sealing the veil before more lives could be lost.

"Leliana," Cassandra began, glancing down at Velasco as the elf closed her eyes and struggled to steady her breathing as the mark on her hand crackled. "Perhaps there are alternative ways to go about this."

"Are you serious?" She said, ignoring the pleased comments coming from the chancellor, who still wouldn't look in Cassandra or Velasco's direction. "You know as well as I do that this may be our only chance at sealing the breach. Why are you hesitating now?"

"I am not hesitating," Cassandra shot back, her mouth set in a grim line as she stared Leliana down. "I simply suggested-"

"We cannot simply sit on our laurels and wait for other options!" Leliana pointed a finger at Velasco's hand, weakly gripping Cassandra's armor. "The mark can close the rifts—that we know for certain. There is no other way to seal the breach Cassandra—perhaps later, but not now. Are you saying you're willing to let more lives be lost?"

"Absolutely not,' the seeker snarled, taking an accustotory step forward. "But leading a child to her death is not something I can do in good conscience-"

They were really going at it, Velasco thought, listening to the collection of voices all jumping in to argue whether or not it was right to trade her life for the rest of the people living in the area. When Solas and Varric chimed in and the elf reinforced the idea that closing the breach, without a doubt, could have far reaching consequences on her health, Velasco groaned and slipped from Cassandra's back.

Cassandra stared at her. "Velasco, what are you-"

"Where do you keep your health tonics? Or pass me an elfroot to chew on or something-" she fumbled with the potion after Solas passed one to her, uncorking the top and chugging down the rest of the elixir as the adults stood and stared at her. She wiped her mouth on her sleeve and looked around. "Now, if anyone has a bow and arrow I could borrow, since apparently I'm going alone to seal the breach, I'd really appreciate it."

"You aren't going up there," Cassandra warned, her arms crossed over her chest as she looked down at the elf. All in all, quite threatening. Velasco gave her points for looking like she wanted to tie her up and throw her in a cell again.

"We don't know if closing the breach will kill you or not," said Solas, gently if not equally as commanding as the seeker. It seemed he didn't want her to march off to her death either.

Varric was in agreement. "You don't wanna do that, kid."

Velasco looked back to Leliana, watching her with the same calculating look on her face as she did in that cell.

She looked down at her hand, at the mark sewn into her palm. For now, it lay silent, a gentle burning as opposed to the thunderous, bone-splintering crackle that it did whenever the breach grew stronger. They were linked, inexplicably, Velasco knew for certain; as one expanded and swallowed the world, the other would follow. She couldn't run away even if she tried.

"You said yourself that I'm going to die anyway. It's going to kill me." She looked back up at Cassandra, who flinched. Velasco squared her shoulders and stepped towards Leliana. She eyed the pretty bow and quiver strapped to her back, and the spymaster raised an eyebrow at her. "Perhaps we got off on the wrong foot. I like your bow."

The spymaster purses her lips and slipped it off her back without a word. She ignored the sound of the others protesting. "You are an interesting one."

Neither of them apologized for what they said or did in the cell, only a few hours ago. There was no trace of a palm print on the spymaster's face, nor did she attempt at acting kind or motherly towards the girl in order to garner favor.

Velasco plucked the resin string of her new bow and slung it over her shoulder, satisfied.

As they plotted out the next line of their approach, neither Velasco nor Leliana mentioned the fact that she was very much heading off on a mission that spelt certain death. The only thing that Velasco thought, as her companions looked to her for any signs of weakness, for any reason to head back, was that this was a mission she could not back down from. A mission she could not fail.

Dal grembo alla tomba.

From the womb to the grave.