Running On Empty: In The Face Of Fear, Courage


It took the better part of three days to gather us all up to leave. The Chargers were efficient with packing up and moving at a moment's notice, but setting up the remaining Inquisition soldiers around key points of the Hinterlands to hold it while we were gone was another matter. It was made easier by the fact that a few choke points had been liberated, and with a volatile rift finally sealed, attention could be diverted elsewhere. The Redcliff Farms were defended and pleased with the progress, Elaine convinced her husband to allow us a handful or two of horses for the trip.

That made things infinitely better. The herd of horses were loaded up with a majority of our supplies (Master Dennett grumbled about how war-horses were being used for a cattle's job) but a few were relieved of that duty to be steeds. My company were offered their pick of animals, but I had stayed back by the fence, listening to the chatter and discussion of which horse was better suited to whom. Dennett approached me not too long after, a sour look on his face.

"Is there an issue with the horses, Inquisition?" He asked with a stern glance. Surprised, I straightened from my lean against the fence and shook my head, unsure of what he was getting at. The old master huffed, "Then why haven't you picked one?" Oh, well. That makes sense. A flush of embarrassment heated my cheeks and I cleared my throat, swaying against the fence.

"Well. I... don't actually know how to ride a horse." My shoulders shrugged lightly. "I mean, with who I am? Why would I need to?"

The horse master gave me a long look. "... fair. No sense in teaching an orphan to ride when there's no need, but you're a leader. It's a skill you're going to require. No one is going to follow you from the back, Inquisition."

I laughed, rubbing at my nose. "Point taken, but I just don't have time to learn. That's an animal that is four or five times my weight. I don't... know if I want to chance fate like that."

"These are good horses, Inquisition." He snorted, arms crossed tightly. "If you take care of them, they'll take care of you. Come on, over the fence. We'll find you one." A sputter escaped me, but the horse master ignored it. Nervously, my feet popped me over the fence and I skittered up behind him, glancing at the horses with darting eyes. These creatures were different than a bike. A bike I could control nearly one-hundred-percent. An animal had a mind of its own and a will to do what it wanted.

"This here," the horse master pulled a horse's reins from a stall and brought the animal forward, "is a Ferelden Forder. He's sturdy, stable, and doesn't spook easily. Good horse for a beginner, and a dream for anyone with experience." Not like I could dispute any of what he said, I didn't know horses from cats as far as my knowledge was concerned.

"His name is Avonal." Seanna called from within the row of stalls. Her head appeared soon after, covered in a layer of dust. "He's patient, too, and usually will stop you from doing anything stupid."

"A-ah, right." My nerves were already fried from the idea of sitting on the animal, lest of all actually getting him to walk. "Um, I dunno..."

"Perhaps if it is too uncomfortable for you, you may ride with me." Solas stepped up beside me and easily reached out to pet Avonal's nose. The horse's ears swiveled on his head and he graced Solas with a sharp stare before snorting lightly and relenting to the touch. I snickered behind a hand as Solas nodded in thanks to the great beast.

"Well..." It was tempting, but it would also cause more problems than solve. I would still need to learn to ride, and just because Solas was willing to bear the burden that was me didn't mean that his horse would be willing to do so for long. Deep from my stomach I sighed and gave a half-hearted shrug with one shoulder. "I guess I can try. How do I do this?"

"Let's get you started with the basics first." Dennett grumbled. "I won't have a horse improperly cared for in my absence. Here, we'll start with the grooming..." Hence the reason it had taken us three days to set out. I wasn't the fastest study when it came to learning a new set of skills (Cullen could attest to that, I'm sure), but by the time we were finally out on the road, I had the general idea of "pet care" for a creature that could kill me if he kicked.

Joy of joys.

It was a thrill, though, to sit atop the beast and have it move under me like a powerhouse. Dennett had been right for the most part; Avonal wasn't cantankerous enough to fight me every step of the way back toward Haven, and despite most of my nerves making me jump whenever he took a hard step, he was calm and patient. If the animal was capable of expression, I was almost certain Avonal found me a hilarious riot now and again.

What would have taken us weeks or more with the trail of people that were with us only took one and a half. We were home and dispersed into the snow of Haven like fireflies in the twilight sky. Blackwall I left with Harritt to fix and improve his armor. Solas bid me farewell at the gate with his eyes promising we would talk again once everyone was settled. Bull had wandered over the hill past the lake where the Chargers were to set up with the rest of the Inquisition forces that stayed in Haven. Abandoned by my company, my heels turned toward the Chantry.

The settlement was mostly dormant. People around me were in no rush as the day was dying down. Leliana's tent stood silent with a few candles lit inside. Exhausted but willing to wait, I trudged toward her and planted myself on a barrel, my head bowed between my hands and knees. There was a discussion between her and another agent, but all I had managed to hear was make it clean, painless if you can. Alarmed, my head snapped up.

"Wait, what?" My eyes blinked hard, my vision spinning. "Who? Who are we killing?"

Leliana scowled. "A traitor. Butler killed one of my best men and has fled." The agent that stood next to her glanced between my face and Leliana's, the tiniest bit skittish at the current situation. With a heave I stood from the barrel, shaking my head and coming within arm's reach of my spymaster.

"And you'd kill him, just like that?" I may not have been a grand spy at the game of intrigue and espionage, but I assumed there had to be some loyalty among shadows. If we started killing one, then no one else would stand loyal among the Inquisition, people would spend too much time looking over their shoulders, awaiting a dagger. My lips tugged into a frown as Leliana's hard eyes met mine.

"You find fault with my decision?" Leliana's frustration and anger was unlike that of Cassandra's. Hers was a river that ran deep and swept the feet of all that crossed her, drowning them without a sound. The agent next to us took a step back, his arms behind his hips and his head tipped down, patient.

"Killing isn't the answer, Leliana." I blurted. It never was the answer, even now as the months ticked on, my stomach would never feel at peace again, knowing how many lives I had taken, how many liters of blood doused my maul. Leliana's face turned feral and my spine went ice cold as she took two snapping steps and was in my face. I held my breath, praying and trembling in my armor: what am I doing?!

"Butler's betrayal put our agents in danger!" She snarled at me, low and quiet and venomous. "I condemnn one man to save dozens! I may not like what I do, but it must be done." Her eyes glittered at me, asking me to rise to the challenge in a field of shadows I did not know. My throat forced a swallow as she glared, "I cannot afford ideals at a time like this."

My heart quivered behind my ribs, my voice small. "Ideals a-are exactly what we need at a time like this, Leliana." Something flashed behind her eyes and all the swelling flame that had sparked behind them faded to a dull roar. My bones steeled under my skin and I cleared my throat, my voice stronger. "If we give up on the things we believe in, then at the e-end of it, all we have left are empty h-husks of people we wish we weren't."

She stared at me. She stared at me and I felt judgment come upon my head with the weigh of their Maker. I don't know what she was looking for and certainly she wouldn't find it in my fragile expression or my trembling bones. Her gaze relented and she turned from me. All the world's oxygen rushed into my lungs and I felt dizzy from the overdose.

"You feel very strongly about this." She murmured. Her hands fell to her table and she closed her eyes. A shake of her head and she glanced at me for a brief moment. "Very well. I'll find another way to deal with this man. Now, if there isn't anything else?" Oh man, my knees were rattling under my leathers and my throat choked for half of a second.

"U-um." Shit, I hadn't thought that through at all, my timing was atrocious. "A-actually, yeah."

She sighed and turned to me fully. My back shot ram-rod straight, my words flashing out of my mouth. "We found Warden Blackwall at Lake Luthias training conscripts, h-he - you probably g-got the letter from Lieutenant Aclassi, but he came with us. He's going to set up camp with the Chargers."

She nodded, expression steady. "Alright. Thank you." The dismissal was all I needed and I dodged out of that tent like it was on fire. The agent that had remained smirked at me as I left and if I had just an ounce of bravery left, I would have met the smirk with a few choice words. As it was, my soul was shaking in the shell of my body, so I vacated to the Chantry.

Lady Montilyet and Commander Cullen were seated in the ambassador's office-and-room with her servants and the studious mages gone. They waved me in after I poked my head inside. The commander stood to his feet and walked over to me as the door shut behind me, concern warred on his face with alarm.

"Maker, you look deathly pale, what happened?" He asked, leading me to the seat in front of Lady Montilyet's desk. My sweet ambassador had a goblet of something strong-smelling in my hands soon, but I didn't drink it. I couldn't trust my throat to work at the moment.

"I, u-uh." The goblet was heavy in my numb hands. I set it down on the desk, careful of the parchments. "I overheard Leliana give an agent an o-order I disagreed with, so... I contradicted her." The other two heads of The Hydra blinked at me, astonished. Lady Montilyet chuckled quietly behind a hand and sat. Cullen came around my right side, his hand on the back of the chair where I sat.

"You did?" He was serious at first, and then huffed, amused. "It was bound to happen. I suppose that explains while you look like death warmed over."

"Leliana is a thing to behold on her best days." Lady Montilyet replied neutrally and fought a smile. "But, she did not kill you. Did she take what you had to say into consideration?"

"Y-yeah?" I hiccupped with a sip of the darkened liquid. My nose scrunched, it was deep and bitter and violent. "She said she'd find another way to deal with the issue."

"Well now." Cullen chuckled openly, sitting on the edge of Josephine's desk. "We can take Leliana for her word. She usually isn't so keen to bend her back for anyone that isn't the late Divine."

I squawked quietly. "N-no, she snapped at me, I j-just... my flight or fight instinct broke. So I panicked." Cullen's drew a hand to his eyes and pinched the corners of them at the bridge of his nose, chuckling faintly into his palm. Josephine smiled at me warmly with a shrug and the commander's hand ran down his face.

"You survived, and that's what matters." Cullen soothed, pleasantly amused. "Did you come in here to escape her, then?" I shook my head and pawed at my knapsack for my map that I had taken back from Solas. I spread it out on the table for both Hydra heads to see and pointed to the circled marks I had made along the farm.

"We got some work to do for these people."

- 0 -

The evening had been productive. Cullen and Josephine had been enthused to have valuable information at their disposal and though no one directly patted my head for a Job Well Done, it was good enough for me. Especially after the whole debacle I had with Leliana. When the sun had completely disappeared, Josephine sent me on my way to my cabin for the night. Bathed in frigid water and hair brushed out of all the bushes it had collected over my last week's travel, I went to bed and passed out like a dead light. Emotional trauma could do that to a person.

My body had grown accustomed to an early rise, so just before the crack of dawn my legs were swung over the side of the bed and my torso followed them. This was well before I had any cognitive thought, my limbs set into routine and the sounds of Haven triggered long dormant responses from my days training with the commander. Up and dressed in my other set of armor left behind and an extra fur-coat, I bundled up my tattered pieces from the first set and blearily made my way out toward Harritt's forge.

Sleepily, I grunted passable 'good morning's to soldiers or civilians that were also awake (and coherent) at this ungodly hour. The mountain range was always icy and the wind hugged my body close, making my arms and knees buckle from the force of my shivers. I had gotten too accustomed to the temperate weather of the Hinterlands. At Harritt's forge, I stumbled in and smiled weakly at the blacksmith and handed over my armor.

"What did you do, run through a wheat mill?" Harritt grumbled as he took the leather to inspect. With another stumble I waddled my way over to a crate by the half-formed stone fence and huddled up in the corner, drawing my coat close and exhaling hard into the collar, trying to keep my nose warm. Harritt raised his eyebrow and handed the leather off to an apprentice, a hand on his hip as he stared at me. "You're not actually going to stay there all morning, are you?"

"I sat down." I murmured, my eyelids heavy. "Now 's too late."

Harritt shook his head and waved me off. "Go back to bed, Herald. Come back out when the rest of the troops are out." Harritt left me with a chuckle and set to work on repairing my armor. The clinking of metal and the drum of hammerheads were a strangely soothing and comforting noise, my body relaxing as the stone behind me warmed with my body and despite the heat, my eyelids were growing stronger as the forge came to life.

"Herald?" Blackwall's face appeared over my head from where I was crouched. Reflexively, I grinned up at him as Harritt huffed and shot me a nasty look. I suppose I didn't need to stay in the forge today to wait for the Commander to get the troops limbered up for training. Did I even need to attend training anymore? I would have to ask the Commander when I spotted him.

"Take her back to the cabin, would you?" Harritt harassed us from his workbench. "She's being stubborn again and I would rather not have the Commander down on my ass because she got sick again."

"I didn't get sick last time." I grunted and stood, brushing the snow from my ass and legs. "Commander Cullen was exaggerating for the troops." Either way, I left the harried blacksmith master to his work and popped around the fence toward a bemused Blackwall. The Warden left his sword and helmet for Harritt to fix and followed me at a comfortable pace, his stride soon stepping ahead of me.

Blackwall's eyes caught sight of the Breach overhead and he paused. I did, too, just behind him. With a glance between him and the hell-mouth that howled above us, I waited. It was strange how accustomed I had gotten to the terror that was the Breach as it glared from the heavens. Lifetimes ago it had scared me to the point of tears. Now? It was just a painful constant, like an ache. I clenched my left hand and shoved my fists into my coat pockets.

"Maker." He breathed, faintly incredulous. "Look at it. So much easier to ignore when it's far away." An amused snort shot through my nose, my gaze caught him move and my head inclined to find his eyes searching me. A flush warmed my face to my ears and I scowled lightly, surprised by the sudden attention. "And to actually walk out of it, to be that close..."

"We can take a field trip if you'd like, and get closer." I groused with a jut of my chin toward the Breach. "Mighty warm up there, I bet."

He snorted and his gaze softened as he chuckled. "No, I'm quite all right down here. I must admit, I thought..." He hesitated and my ears warmed again, embarrassed. He, like most of the others who had come to hear the stories, must've thought me something different. My lungs expanded and I held my breath to keep my patience. We had started on the wrong foot, after all.

"I know. Everyone is expecting a savior and then they get this." My hand came out of my pocket to gesture toward the rest of me. I shrugged a shoulder and shuffled my heels in the snow. Blackwall frowned at me, his mouth set in a firm line and stern wrinkles collected around his eyes.

"I'm sorry, that was thoughtless of me. I did it at the lake, as well, thinking - well." He sighed and a laugh escaped me. He was just digging a hole to China but managed to bring it to a halt. A huff popped from his lungs and he straightened his shoulders. "In the end, it's what you do, and how you do it. That's important." I nodded, I couldn't disagree with that, not after what I had shoved into Leliana's face about ideals and being a better person.

There was a beat of silence before he continued. "Just one question, then. How do you think you fit in with all this?" With a blink, I refocused on him, alarmed by the question before realization hit that he had no clue about my actual past. Oh, thank god. I don't need a heart attack at five in the morning. To recover from my spook, my lips pressed tight together and I pondered the question.

"I don't." The honesty won out. A swallow twitched down my throat when I looked up at him. "I just... want to stop this war and put everything back in order. I want peace." There was another stretch of silence between us and he assessed me with quick flicks of his eyes over my face. One day I would work the courage up to ask these people what they thought of me.

One day.

"It's a worthy goal." He nodded in firm agreement. "One I'm happy to support. For me, I'll be satisfied so long as we find the bastards that killed the Divine. They owe us some answers." Now was not the time to bring up suspicions again about the Wardens and their part in the Divine's death. Instead, I chuckled and tossed a thumb over my shoulder to where Cassandra normally trained.

"Get in line. If you can beat out Cassandra and Leliana, have at it, my friend." We shared a chuckle over it, despite his miniscule amount of time in the presence of Cassandra, I think a warrior's heart could know one another without much effort. I wasn't terribly trained in small talk, but it was hard for me to keep it going without some push or assistance. My eyes closed for a beat.

"So, do you have anything large and heavy that you need moved?" Blackwall cracked the ice. Another laugh was startled out of me and my shoulders relaxed. Well, it was a horrible attempt, but it was something better than what I could do.

"I feel like that would be a waste." I joked back.

A smirk flirted under his beard, his arms crossed over his chest. "Oh, really?"

"You don't know? Main reason I need you here is to stand in front of dragons and let them eat you." His face paled for a moment and I lost it, a barking laugh running up my throat and I smothered it behind a hand, cheeks red. "Sorry! I wouldn't do that, honestly. I've never seen a dragon, I don't think I would have the nerve."

Blackwall snorted and his gaze flashed over my face. "I have to say, my lady, are unlike any other woman I've ever met." A hard snort escaped me and I coughed into my fist with a shake of my head. The sun was finally cresting over the horizon and smothered us in the faint glow of morning light. The smirk was back on his face, easier to see by the sunlight.

"You know, I'm going to take that as a compliment." Impossibly, I stuck my tongue out at him. For once, an actual laugh came up instead of a smirk or an amused scoff. A small victory in terms of bonding with my companions.

"It is true, though." He said after he regained his composure. The good humor remained laced through his tone, his body relaxed and his arms hanging loosely by his sides. Relief seem to swell with his breaths and it tickled me to think that somehow I had managed to ease whatever worries that had been plaguing him. My head tilted, waiting for him to continue.

He sighed heavily. "I merely mean to say, what you did, facing the rift even... after what it had done to you. That takes courage." For the briefest of seconds, his tone of voice and his words harkened back to a memory with my dad, listening to him through my tears after I had been beaten for standing up for myself. It ended disastrously with both knees skinned and my palms shredded to hell.

"Someone once told me," I started as I lost control of the memory, "That courage and bravery were better than fearlessness." My dad had placed his hands on my shoulders and then held my cheeks. To avoid tears, my gaze dragged up to the Breach and I stared at it, willing the tears to stay back. "To be courageous meant to understand how badly things could go, and still face it. I'm terrified, but I don't want someone... to hurt when I could have helped them. You know? I dunno. Sounds dumb when I say it out loud." I laughed, mortified that I had allowed my mouth to vent my thoughts.

Blackwall watched me with a keen gaze and I knew for sure I had sounded utterly idiotic. Hastily, I shrugged hard under my coat. "Y-yeah. The orphanage teaches us weird things. Welp. I'm... gonna go. I need to check in with Commander Cullen and the troops." The rambling was nearly uncontrollable. A nervous chuckle wiggled free, "If you need anything, let me know, or have a note sent up to the Chantry. Okay?"

"Of course." Blackwall bowed his head, but his eyes never left me. A hard grip of my teeth behind my lips and I nodded, then turned on my heel and booked it out toward the troop tents just outside of Haven's watchful eye. It was my imagination that had the heat of Blackwall's gaze bore into my back. I winced, I'll have to watch what I say. Trying to be empathetic and I come across sounding like a moron. Christ.

I sighed and soldiered on, next on the list. The Iron fucking Bull.


Note: My friend accidentally flirted with Blackwall. This is going to be hilarious.