The post-holiday slump is real. I hate writing right now and wonder why I do it. Nothing to panic over - I'm well aware writing sucks and yet I keep coming back for more.

L'Accueil

"Skinner?" I echoed, trying to peer at Sera through the evening gloom. "What would Skinner be doing here?" Last I had known, the taciturn elf had been safely ensconced back at Skyhold - though it was true that I didn't make a habit of regularly reviewing the locations of the various Chargers.

"We're taking the piss out of rich tits, all of 'em human, and you don't think Skinner wants in?" Sera asked, giving the arm she was holding a shake. Thankfully Loranil was on my other side, so there wasn't much chance of stumbling. "Besides, you think I'm letting you wander 'round the city with one elfy tree-humper as a guard? I'm crazy not friggin' stupid."

"Well, I thought you would be with us," I pointed out mildly.

"Most of the time, sure. Might hafta go in first sometimes, make sure it's safe, right?"

"That would definitely be my preference," Loranil put in dryly. I could almost hear him consciously holding back the automatic use of lethallan - Sera had already snarled at him about it once.

"Yeah, yeah - shut it, Elfy," she shot back. "Can't leave you out with just him - need someone else. Skinner knows what trouble looks like, yeah?"

She should. By all accounts she was most often the one making it - generally to good effect. "I'm not upset, just surprised," I told Sera. Loranil and Dalish had quickly become friends, and I had joined them for meals sometimes while we all remained at Skyhold, but Dalish had never been able to coax Skinner into joining us. She said Skinner didn't care much for groups of people she didn't know, but had admitted that my position probably had something to do with it. People in power had abused her, and I thought my attention made her nervous even though I wasn't human.

Sera seemed placated by my statement, and let go of her automatic defensiveness. "So," I asked a few paces on, "how are we getting into the city? I'm assuming you aren't taking me through the gate. Is there a sewer entrance or something?"

She grinned. "Or something. Heard elfy-elves climb trees a lot, yeah? That true?"

"For those whose ranges cover forests, it is," Loranil said. "If you're asking about Clans Avisenuralas and Lavellan specifically - yes for mine. I'm quite adept at climbing trees."

"I'm not," I told her flatly. "Lavellan hunters are, no doubt, but I'm not a hunter and never left camp without several other people to keep an eye on me."

"Well, good thing I brought Skinner and some ropes then, innit?"

"What are we climbing, exactly?" I asked.

"The wall, you daft arse. What do you think?" Sera laughed.

I stopped walking. "No. Absolutely not."

"What? What's wrong with climbing the wall?" Sera stopped and turned to look at me, and I had expected more defensiveness, maybe even anger, but she just seemed confused. "You have a glowing hand that you…wave around at holes in the air that shit demons, and you're afraid of climbing a frigging wall?"

I bit my lip and looked away, struggling not to picture myself suspended in a dark, featureless void with arrows flying at me from places I couldn't see and the rope creaking above me as I desperately prayed that it wasn't fraying and about to snap. "Maybe I can use Fade step and take myself to the top of the wall," I suggested.

"You can try," she said doubtfully, "but it's pretty frigging high up. Not sure I've seen you move anyone that far."

Loranil put his hand on my shoulder. "You can see our auras, lethallan. Sera and I will go up first so we can keep watch and help if anything happens - but once you're close enough for a Fade step, you can use our auras to guide you - at least that's what the stories say. Vin?"

I didn't know exactly how it would work if the rope were tied around me - but, no, that wouldn't be a problem. I could take it with me, of course. I nodded slowly. "All right. All right, yes, that's - I can do that."

Sera came back and draped her arm over my shoulders. "We're not gonna let you fall, idiot. Don't know if you noticed, but you're, like, important and shite?"

I didn't point out that lots of important people died all the time - that, in fact, sometimes being important was exactly the thing that killed someone. Sera would have rolled her eyes and said something impatient, and her arm was a comfortable warmth across my shoulders that I didn't really want to lose - especially just before I took a deep breath and let them hoist me into the air.

"Wouldn't have taken you for being afraid of heights," she commented a few minutes later as she guided me across a little brook. "Can you even see heights?"

"It's not the height," I told her. "It's helplessness in a situation I have no control over, and can't even really make out because I can't see."

Her mouth formed an "O" of understanding. "Then Elfy can go first, and I'll stand beneath you. That way you can cut the rope and land on me if things go balls-up," Sera suggested cheerfully.

"I'm not going to do that," I replied. "But having your aura to give me a sense of where the ground is would be appreciated." It would be a bigger problem to Fade step down while attached the rope - but cutting it was still a valid strategy. I just wouldn't be landing on Sera if I could help it.

As it happened, none of the precautions were necessary. We arrived at the wall without trouble and Sera signaled Skinner, who waited above, with a dark lantern hidden nearby for just that purpose. Loranil tied the rope she let down around himself for safety and climbed up the rough exterior quickly enough that Sera sounded - grudgingly - impressed. Then Loranil tossed the end of the rope back down, she helped me create a makeshift harness around myself, and he and Skinner began pulling me up. I spent the journey clutching the rope in white-knuckled fear, and the first half of it trying to judge the moment when it would be better to Fade step up rather than down, but whatever Skinner had done to rid the area of guards, it had been effective, and nothing disturbed my ascent. I might have been shaking a little as they helped me over the wall, but Loranil held onto me until I got my balance, and then we both turned to help Skinner with the rope so that Sera could climb up.

"Your Worship," Skinner greeted me shortly as I stepped up beside her, taciturn as ever.

"Savhalla, Skinner. Thank you for coming to help."

Her only response was a grunt, but I really hadn't expected anything else.

Once we were all gathered together again, Skinner led us to a ladder placed against the inside of the wall, and we descended slowly. I was last since I was "important and shite." On the ground, Sera took charge. "Safe house tonight - Briala's," she told me in a low voice. "Might have someone waiting for us. Thought you might want to talk before all the - you know - 'blah, blah, look at my cod, no look at mine, help me or I'll crush you' shite."

In point of fact, I had asked Leliana to get me an interview with Briala before the ball, and she had vetoed the idea as too risky to arrange. It seemed Sera's little contacts had come through for me. I flashed her a grin, and then tried to school my face into an expression of horror. "Sera, I think you're losing your touch - that's sensible."

She snorted and then made a rude gesture with two fingers. "Pala dahn'in, Your Worshipful Elf-tits. They approached me - but don't worry, I checked 'em out and everyone says they're the real thing, my friends and Skinner's old contacts. She used to run with that crowd, a bit. Leliana's people didn't find nothing outta place, either."

"I believe you," I assured her, "and I'm grateful. Leliana didn't think she could make the arrangements discreetly enough - though I hope this doesn't mean my visit is becoming too well known."

Behind us, Skinner snorted. "You think the elves in the alienage speak to shems of such things?"

"Briala heard because she knows how to listen to the little people, or has people who know how to listen for her, anyhow," Sera agreed. "Don't think they expect you to actually show, but they like the weapons and the soldiers standing up for them instead of…all the shite soldiers usually do. You're in good anyhow - the ones who see you will come hard on any of their own who talk, at least for a while. Rumor will get 'round…but, like, eventually, right?"

"Good enough," I allowed. "I want it to get around eventually - just not until it's impossible to prove one way or the other."

We wound through a maze of streets that I couldn't even begin to understand for a quarter hour or so, until Sera stopped abruptly to knock at an unassuming door with nothing I could see to differentiate it from any other doors we had passed. It opened after a moment - much wider than I had been expecting - and light spilled over us. "My dear cousin," a voice with a thick Orlesian accent said brightly. "Are these - ?" She stopped and cleared her throat. "An'daran atish'an, lethallenen," she said carefully, the vowels coming out nearly correct in her liquid accent, even though she stressed all the wrong syllables.

I smiled and inclined my head. "En'an'sal'en, lethallan," I replied. "Thank you for your hospitality."

"Come in," she urged, standing aside so we could enter, chattering to Sera about imagined relatives as we did - at least until the door was closed.

"Are you expecting watchers?" I asked, raising my brows at her as her chatter ended abruptly and her warm smile relaxed into a neutral mask.

"I always expect watchers," she replied, "and that is how I remain alive. Show me your marked hand, if you truly are the Inquisitor," she demanded calmly.

I held up my left hand and removed the carefully layered gloves that shrouded it. She could no doubt see the glow as soon as I took off the outer layer, but I continued until she could see my skin clearly, with the traceries of foreign magic running through it like fault lines.

She let out a long breath. "It's really you. I apologize, Your Worship - we had to be certain. You may call me L'Accueil - not my name, but a title I often make use of, as your own agent does that of Red Jenny."

"Inquisitor is fine, L'Accueil - if we are making use of titles," I told her, pulling my gloves back on.

"I apologize for the accommodations, Inquisitor," she said. "There are only three beds, I fear."

"No trouble," Loranil spoke up "I'll sleep on the floor. I have slept many worse places, in much worse conditions - in swamps and trees, beside middens, in rainstorms and snowstorms. Your floor will be a comparative delight, I promise you."

I nodded in Loranil's direction, briefly signing my thanks, and then returned my attention to Briala's agent. "Can your mistress meet with me before the ball?" I asked.

"I fear not," the woman answered. "She is already housed in the Winter Palace, and slipping out would be…perhaps not impossible, but of a certainty dangerous. Even so, she is anxious for word of you, and there are a handful of subjects on which she wishes me to learn your thoughts, and I may be able to answer some of your questions in turn."

"Very well, then, let's sit and talk," I replied.

"First the rest of my duties, Inquisitor," she admonished me. "There is grilled fish and asperges , along with fresh bread and butter, and a bottle of wine," she said, gesturing toward what was probably a table on the other side of the room, though it was so near in color to the faded wooden walls that I had trouble picking it out even though it wasn't that far away from me. "It is only peasant food, but - " She caught herself and laughed a little. "But my apologies are unnecessary, because none of you are anything like the nobles we, for some reason, supposed we would be met with. A failure of imagination on our part." She returned her attention to me. "I have made up a similar table for the two of us, Inquisitor, in the bedchamber that will be yours for the night." She gestured. "It's just through there."

I felt rather than saw my companions stiffen, and Sera laughed. "You think we're going to leave you alone? With the frigging Inquisitor?"

Her outraged tone made me chuckle, too. "You make it sound like I'm easy prey," I said dryly. "But Red Jenny, here, is one of my most trusted agents with considerable insight into what the poor of this city face. The other two can stay out here, but I think she should sit in on our conversation anyway."

"As you will," L'Accueil said with a shrug. "But if you are so concerned, how do you know the food hasn't been tampered with?"

I called up a spark of magic and walked to the table, using it to evaluate the food there almost as though it were one of my patients. "If it has been, the materials used are extremely exotic," I said with a shrug. "Can't non-Dalish mages evaluate food and other resources for unsafe substances?"

"I…don't believe so," L'Accueil said, sounding honestly surprised, "though mages are hardly my area of expertise."

"Oh, well, that's how the Dalish avoid poisoning ourselves when we're out of our traditional ranges," I told her. "All Keepers learn the most common substances used by plants to defend themselves, and any Keeper with any skill at healing learns how to…" I trailed off and shook my head. "I don't know if I can explain it. Once you know living bodies, it becomes clear that certain substances are antithetical to the processes necessary to sustain…" I felt myself blush as I realized I was about to start lecturing in earnest. I had been spending too much time with Solas, apparently. "And…I'm rambling. Ir abelas."

"You are certainly a woman of many layers," the agent said, sounding amused. "It is all safe, of course - the food, the house, and me - but it is good to know you take precautions for your safety. None of us would like to see Tevinter triumph on any front, but most particularly in the matter of assassinating you." She gestured and Sera nudged me forward, toward what I presumed was a door. "Come, let us speak."

Vin?: True?

Savhalla: Greetings

Pala dahn'in: Go fuck a beehive