Still making no profit out of this, and owning only the waitress.

Chapter 2: in which Krem gets to save the day!

So yes, Krem did really like the waitress. Her name was Beth, but he didn't know that yet. To him, she was known only as the waitress, and that title did not do her justice in his heart. She was more than the waitress he fancied.

It was true that he lacked basic information about her, such as her name, but he did in fact know quite a lot, bits that he'd either figured out for himself or that the Chief had shared with him.

She was from the Fallow Mire, a fact which truly surprised him. He knew that because on a particularly windy day (these were common up in Skyhold), he'd seen her come in from outside with an empty bucket in her hand, her hair all tangled up around her face and mouth. She'd grumbled something about the unbelievable wind, and the other waitress, the one with the annoying voice, had joked:" It's still better than the Mire, innit? At least here you can get some fresh, non-boggy air".

An elf from the Fallow Mire, obviously used to physical work, he guessed farmer. She was young, in her early twenties probably and had no family that he could see,apart maybe from the pet mabari, Fen, that sometimes wandered around the tavern before being shooed off by the bartender, or sat just outside the door. The hound looked scrawny and tired, and she shared with his mistress a haunted look typically found on the faces of refugees arriving at Skyhold.

So, his waitress was an elven refugee from the Fallow Mire, where she most likely had been from a farming family, and had been in Skyhold long enough to know the tavern like the back of her hand but still clearly suffered from the journey from the Mire up to Skyhold. It was the Chief who had pointed out to him the purple circles which marked her face, Krem had just been blinded by the loveliness of her bright blue eyes. He'd noticed the wrist by himself, of course, and noticed how well she moved. Maybe she had some sort of training in fighting? How else could she have such a great sense of balance, and such strenght in her arms?

She had not lover, that much he was sure of. No lover worthy of the title would let her sleep so little, and go back to her quarters alone at night.

The truth was, Krem was desperate for a chance to speak to her, he was desperate for an excuse to ask for her name and introduce himself, desperate for her to drop something, or do something which would make it acceptable for him to come to her rescue. Maybe if she dropped that tray of hers...?

He knew that if he shared his hopes with the rest of the Chargers they would simply call her over and ask her name for him, but Krem feared that his waitress would be dazzled by Grim, or even Stitches, or maybe even the Chief and Rocky, as they were a lot more charming and sociable than he was and would not turn into right idiots if she spoke to them. And, there was the unforgettable fact that the Chief, Grim, Stitches and Rocky had certain... Advantages, that Krem simply did not possess. No, Krem reasoned, the last thing he wanted was to be the weird guy who stared at her without a word and couldn't drink properly, while watching her fall for another man. A man, man.

So instead, Krem waited, and waited, and watched her in silence, spilling his wine, waiting for his opportunity, his chance to shine in her eyes just long enough to introduce himself and ask for her name and maybe invite her for a drink or a walk... Perhaps he should have been more careful what he wished for.

Beth swayed past the patrons, and passed effortlessly between the tables, her tray held up high above her head. It was getting heavy. She reached the washing bucket and immediately started scrubbing the tankards and soaking the bottles, lining them up ready for drying. It was hard work, waitressing, as hard as farming had been but in a different way, working different muscles of her body and confining her to an enclosed space. But as much as she used to wish for freedom and a chance to daydream when she was working on her parents' farm, she now welcomed the relentlessness of the work at the tavern, and how it did not leave any room for thinking. Not even in the evenings, when she was so tired she would just collapse on her bed. There were the nightmares, of course, but without them Beth was pretty sure this life was as close to bliss as she would ever get. No chance of being alone with your thoughts, and no one close enough to her that she would actually have to worry for them. She knew the other waitress, Dalia, sometimes despised her a bit for being so efficient at work, but Beth did not care. She needed to keep going, if she stopped moving she would look back and if she looked back she would break. The thing with losing people you were close to, starving nearly to death, walking miles and miles until your shoes disintegrated and escaping hordes of undead, gurguts and bandits, was that you tended to not give as much importance to small things such as what people thought of you.

So Beth went about her business, keeping to herself and working efficiently, and that efficiency made the Dwarven bartender forgive her for her lack of interaction with the customers - That was Dalia's field.

Beth dried the tankards and passed them to the bartender then put away the empty bottles. She looked up and saw a few hands up, so she picked up her tray and set off again. As she passed by the third table from the bar, the one where Jora and his friends pretty much spent all their off-mission time at, Beth distinctively felt a hand brush against her backside. She whirled around, glaring at them, but was met with only snickering and Jora's idiotic face, all raised up, surprised eyebrows and smirks of contempt.

"Problem?" He asked her.

"Problem, yes. In fact, there are five, ugly problems at this table."

They all exploded in "ooh" and "oho"s at her words. Ignore them, she thought to herself. She needed this job and the Dwarf was quick to dismiss temperamental waitresses. She walked off, holding in the tears of anger that were threatening to fall and went about her business as professionally as she could.

"Are you ok?" Whispered Dalia as she passed her.

"Fine. Just those idiots again."

"Jora? Don't worry about him, he just likes you and doesn't know what to do with it."

Beth chose not to answer. That was not what you did when you liked somebody. This was contempt, mockery and disrespect. She knew all about human men like Jora, who had won a few victories in battle and could not get enough of themselves, expecting poor, elvish girls to fall on their knees for them. She'd seen plenty of those on the way to Skyhold.

A few minutes later though, Beth heard a shriek, and when she turned around she saw a human woman, a customer, glaring daggers at Jora's gang who were just laughing their heads off.

This was enough.

That they mistreated her, she could take, but if they started harassing the customers then surely even her boss would agree they needed removing. She went to see him, but he waved her off. "You deal with them," he said, "if they're being moronic. I need to see to the bar."

Beth could understand that he would not want to single-handedly go against the group, but that was a bit cheeky of him. Regardless, she went for it. Surely if things went really wrong another patron would step in, right?

"Boys"

"Babe"

Jora, again.

"That you disrespect me is one thing, but we won't tolerate you spoiling the evening for other people."

They just looked at her in mock misunderstanding. How she managed to not physically abuse them, she had no idea.

"Keep your hands to yourselves" she clarified.

"Ah, but my lovely, my hands are just drawn to you, I can't help it! Must be your lovely smile..." Jora, sassing her again.

"If your hands are that desperate, just send them over to your friends' arses, not mine, and not the customers' "

His friends whistled, and Rufford,the biggest one and also the shortest tempered, started going red.

"What did you say?" He asked her, harshly.

"I said, if your hands, any of your hands, are that desperate to touch something that does not belong to you, then send them over to each other's arses. Not mine, no that lady's."

"Apologise"

Beth could see he was not laughing. She also believed him to be capable of hitting her. However, she also saw him as sort of a human hound, to whom you had better not show fear else it would actually bite you. Moreover, if he did hit her she would have an excellent excuse to get them banned from the tavern. Jora could see that too, and he put his hand on Rufford's arm. Unfortunately, that seemed to be all that Rufford had been waiting for and he stood up, towering above short, tiny Beth. Jora stood as well, stretching his arm accross his friend's torso, and thus probably making the situation even worse.

"You apologise, you filthy little rabbit, or I swear I'll tear those knife ears off your head"

He let his hand touch her left ear, threatening to pull it, so Beth instinctively snapped his hand away. She was scared, for sure, but a part of her really, really hoped the big idiot would snap in public and thus get thrown out once and for all. She'd barely slapped the hand away that it came back with full force and speed and hit her accross the face with a noise so loud it must have been heard all over Skyhold. Stars danced in front of her eyes as she stumbled backwards, and she could see Rufford raising his hand again. A woman, the bard Maryden, screamed. However, before he could launch his next strike, a flurry of grey and brown stormed past her and she heard Rufford's face being hit even louder and harder than he had hit her, knocking him to the ground. Rufford was punched. And again. And again. The big lad could do nothing more than try to push his attacker away, unsuccessfully. Jora attempted to pull the man off of his friend, but then the Iron Bull himself - the big Qunari warrior who lead the Chargers, a group of mercenaries favourites to the Inquisitor - pulled Jora off the other man and threw, threw, him away. The Qunari then got his friend off Rufford, and the big idiot was left on the floor, his face all covered in blood, feeling his eyes and nose to try and assess how much damage had been done to his face.

"You" growled the Iron Bull, pointing his enormous hand at Rufford. "Out. Now. And you" this time, pointing at Jora and the rest of his friends. "Get that piece of shit out of my sight."

Jora and the other soldiers pulled Rufford to his feet, there were more of them but none was enough of a fool to pick up a fight with the one-eyed Qunari, moreover the other Chargers weren't far. The men quickly picked up their things and left. The whole tavern was silent then, Maryden left speechless, for once, and Beth felt her cheeks burn in embarrassment. Oh well, at least this meant Rufford would be banished now, for sure. The table and chairs had been knocked off where her saviour had jumped in. She looked around for him then,and found him looking at her. Tall, well-built. Tanned skin, a man from Tervinter. A strong, square jaw. Brown eyes, his gaze direct and intimidating. His hair brown and shaved at the sides, longer on top. Young, his chin smooth. She knew him...but how?

"Are you ok?" He asked her, and suddenly it clicked.

It was him.