Laica was alone in the mausoleum. The chill from the cold stone walls and the bench was matched only by the cold numbness that had been sitting in her belly for the last few weeks. She sat on the bench facing the internment niche that held her mother's bones. The unending waves of guilt and self-recrimination beating inside her like a raging sea.
"Laica," someone said softly, and she started at the sound of Sebastian's voice.
"Oh, excuse me," she said, self-consciously wiping her tears. "I didn't know anyone... I'm sorry, I'll be going."
"What are you apologizing for?" he asked taking her hand to prevent her leaving as he sat next to her on the bench. "This is your family's mausoleum. I should be apologizing to you for intruding. In fact, if you'd like me to leave I will. I just wanted to..." and he fell quiet.
She sat, her hand in his, wondering what he was going to say. To find her? To save her from herself? No. To help his friend recover from her grief. Because she was his friend, and he was hers, and it was part of his duties as an ordained priest. It was as simple as that. That's all it would ever be.
He was still holding her hand. She liked the feel of his skin against hers, the heat that passed between them. She tried to memorize the feel of his callouses, gently ran her thumb over his carefully-trimmed fingernails, felt the strength of his fingers. It was all she could expect to know of his body and she was unwilling to let the moment pass without taking everything she could from it.
She began to shiver. "Laica," he said, concern clear in his voice. "Your hands are ice, how long have you been down here?"
"I don't know," she admitted. "I was hoping to find, I don't know. Some peace maybe? But..." she shook her head.
He gripped her hand tighter, placing the other on top and Laica was embarrassed to feel the heat of a blush rise to her face. Over handholding, of all things. "Laica," he said. "This isn't you. You are not one who finds peace in a sepulcher contemplating dusty remains."
She thought on this a while. "You're right," she said finally. "Would you..." She bit her lip, suddenly afraid of his refusal. Afraid of his being forced to limit their interaction. "I have a garden just outside the city limits. I think it might help to go there. Would you mind coming with me? It's ok if you don't, I can ask-"
"I'd be honored," he interrupted, helping her to her feet.
She felt a sense of relief as they left the mausoleum, as if her burden was suddenly halved.
It was cold for a spring day, but the exertion of climbing up the hill behind the city soon got the blood flowing. The closer they got to the summit, the more alive Laica appeared. Her head rose, her eyes started to sparkle and her gait began to recover its customary lightness.
Sometimes he wished, for his own sake, that she didn't wear mage robes. While perfectly modest, they seemed to hug her body in a way that made him keenly aware of all he had foresworn. And the robes she happened to be wearing today were a lovely shade of lavender, with gold piping that seemed to be designed to highlight everywhere a person might want to touch a woman.
He knew he should have put an end to this a long time ago, especially now that he had decided to remain a priest. Laica clearly had feelings for him that he could not return. Try though she may, she never was able to completely explain away her flimsy reasons to spend time with him, or hide the lingering glances when she thought he wasn't paying attention, or hide the blushes when he caught her.
But, if he were to be perfectly honest with himself, he didn't stop her because he didn't want to. He enjoyed just being near her. He told himself that was all he wanted, that he was content with an especially close friendship. He had to be.
But he still held the feeling of her hand in his. He had memorized every detail like it was a newly-discovered stanza of the Chant and only he had the text.
They had reached the top of the hill and he paused a moment, stunned. "You did all this?" he asked.
"Yes. My father taught us how to farm back in Lothering. Proper arable land is very dear out here. I never had enough to spare for more than a half-acre, and even then I had to import topsoil from Highever. The soil here is barely more than sand. But, well, here is the result." She shrugged.
It was neatly penned with a hand-built stone wall that rose to about his hip. Two apple trees stood at the far end of the garden, with a winding gravel path leading from the gate to the bench between them. Carefully trimmed hedges covered in pink buds ringed the inside of the wall, with flower beds nestled between them, crocuses opening to the sun that had broken through the clouds, daffodils bobbing their heads in the cool breeze. "It's astonishing," was all he could say.
She flushed with pride and looked down sheepishly. "Father would say it was silly of me to plant just flowers and no practical things like cabbages or turnips." She sighed. "But Kirkwall is so... grey and stony. I wanted somewhere more, oh I don't know, somewhere that felt real to me."
"This feels real to you?" he asked, still not quite believing it as they started down the path. The heady scent of daffodils enveloped him. "If you weren't here with me, I'd think this was made by the faeries."
"You're always so kind," she smiled. "I suppose all I see are the flaws."
"Surely there are none," he insisted. "This is a jewel of horticulture."
"Listen to you," she giggled. "Oh wait!" She pressed a hand to his chest to halt him and he had to stop himself from grabbing her wrist and kissing her, so complete was his intoxication. But she moved away too quickly, and he thought to add an extra prayer of gratitude to Andraste for saving him from himself.
"The Andraste's Grace," she breathed, unconsciously echoing his thoughts. "It bloomed! Come, look." She motioned to him as she crouched behind a boulder on the northern side of the path.
In the shadow cast by the stone was a sudden proliferation of flowers, a cloud of tiny white blossoms tinged with the lightest shade of pink that gradually deepened into a rosy blush at the base. "Lean closer," she urged him. "The best thing about Andraste's Grace is the scent."
He knelt on the gravel and bent his head over the flowers, and was rewarded with a scent so light and sweet as he had never before known. "What is this?" he marvelled, stroking the soft petals. "Where did you find them?"
She sat back on her heels, laughter pealing like a bell. "These are common as fleas back in Lothering. Or they were, before the Blight," she said more soberly. "Oh, but how Bethany loved them. Come spring, she'd always make crowns of them and make me wear one with her." Her smile turned sad. "It was so hard to find a way to grow these up here. It's too warm and sunny. Andraste's Grace thrives in the places where it's needed."
Sebastian felt a rush of affection at her words, feelings he had long denied himself. His thoughts jumped wildly from the perfectly innocent companionship they were experiencing in reality, to a fantasy of making love to this remarkable woman on a bed of flowers just like these.
He had to focus. "Who's Bethany? Was she a friend of yours in Ferelden?"
Laica's smiled disappeared completely, and the hollow sorrow returned. "I've never mentioned her to you?" she asked, and stood without waiting for an answer.
"No," he answered as he got up to follow her, reluctantly leaving the flowers. "Why? Should you have?"
"Bethany was my sister," she said as she sat on the bench, shoulders slumped. "Carver's twin. She was killed when we fled Lothering. An ogre," she turned ashen at the memory.
He sat down next to her. "I am sorry I never got the chance to meet her," he said, at a loss.
"She would have adored you," Laica said simply. "She was a gentle girl, and happy. And beautiful. And so young. I couldn't save her, just like I couldn't save my mother." She pulled a handkerchief out of a pocket to wipe away her tears. "At least I could give mother a proper funeral. We couldn't carry Bethany with us, so we just left her there." The tears began to flow in earnest. "That's why I planted her flowers. It was the best I could do."
He paused a moment, wrestling with his conscience. In the end, he decided the Maker would not want him to let his friend suffer, and so he held her in his arms as she wept. His heart broke for her, knowing all too well what she had lost.
"What's the point of being a Champion of anything, anyway," she sobbed. "I can't even protect my own kin."
He leaned away and held her face in his hands, brushing her tears away with his thumbs. "What's the point of being a priest or a prince," he said simply. "I could not protect mine, either."
"Yes," she said, "you do understand."
He was possessed by a wild urge to kiss her, but her mouth twisted in anger and she pushed away from him. "My mother is dead because nobody is paying attention to what is going on in Kirkwall outside the Gallows. This city needs a leader," she said firmly, as she got to her feet and stared down at Kirkwall. "A real one. Dumar was a fool who nearly led us to war. Knight-Commander Meredith has no business filling the role of viscount, and is leading us to an even bigger disaster, I can feel it. It is wrong for the Chantry to be embroiled in politics."
"You are right," Sebastian agreed with equal conviction. "To meddle in the political realm poisons us."
She clenched her fists. "I could do it, if they'd only let me. I'm not native-born, but my family has been nobility here for generations." She kicked a stone in frustration. "All they see is magic. If there was only some way to get around that. To get them to see past it." She growled in frustration. "But not even preventing a war with the Qunari was enough. So long as I can do this," she twirled a fireball in her fingers before tossing it over the garden wall at a pile of stone. "That's all I'll ever be."
He was quiet a moment, trying to calm his inner turmoil as she paced, fists opening and closing, magic sparking at her fingertips. "What if you were to marry," he suggested.
"Argh!" She cried, throwing her hands up. "Don't even start. You sound like my mother!"
"I assure you, I am quite serious," he insisted, standing up and going to her. "If you could find a match with somebody influential enough, it might be just what you need to put yourself in a position where you can make that leap."
She whipped around and stared at him, "Leap?" was all she said.
"Yes," he answered, a little confused. "Why, what does that mean?"
"Nothing," she answered, turning away. "It's just that... somebody else said that to me a long time ago. It's nothing. Anyway. Who among the nobility in this city is influential enough to overrule Meredith? And why isn't he ruling now anyway?"
"What about the royalty of another city?" he said, thinking aloud. "Ansburg has an unmarried prince. As does Markham."
She pressed her hands to her temples. "I don't even know their names," she said, sounding overwhelmed. "And besides, why would they want me? They'll just see me as damaged goods, like everybody else. The best my mother was ever able to dredge up was the son of the former viscount's seneschal."
He grabbed her shoulders and turned her to face him. "What about Starkhaven."
"Don't be absurd," she scoffed. "I'm not marrying your cousin."
Of course, that was the furthest thing from his mind at that moment. But she was right. He had even less clout to offer her than the son of a headless viscount's seneschal. And he realized that what he wanted to say, to propose such a marriage to him, was woefully rash. He was still unsure as to whether or not he actually wanted to retake the city or remain an ordained priest.
She looked at him, brow furrowed in confusion at his silence, eyes searching his face for an explanation.
"I need, "he said, more to himself than to her, "to be somewhere I can think clearly," Which was not here, not in this garden. This oasis she had willed into existence on the bare rock, this thing of beauty that existed because she existed, and there she was, right in front of him, staring at him with eyes so blue he could get lost in them forever.
"Then go," she said, pulling out of his grasp. "What are you waiting for?"
And before he had a chance to think about it, before he had a chance to talk himself out of it, before he had a chance to remember his vows and who he was disappointing and what he was abandoning, he took her in his arms once more and kissed her.
Her lips were soft and her hair silk as he ran his fingers through it. He wrapped an arm around her waist and pressed her body to his, feeling the warmth of her skin and the swell of her breasts pressing against him. At first, her body went rigid with surprise, but then she moaned softly and melted against him. She wound her arms around his neck and pulled him even closer, and he could feel in her kiss the years of denied desire, pent up and yearning for release.
He broke away from her. He had to, or he would have fulfilled the earlier fantasy right then and there.
"What was that for," she asked, clearly even more confused then before.
"I have to make some decisions," he replied. "And I dislike making them on incorrect assumptions. If you'll excuse me," he nodded a goodbye before turning and heading back to the city to go to the Chantry.
Once way or another, he was going to make his own fate.
Laica sat cross-legged on an empty cot in the clinic, tuning her lute, fiddling with the frets and leaning close to listen as she strummed softly. Anders was washing out potion bottles and carefully sorting them by the labels on the stoppers.
The lute tuned to her satisfaction, Laica began strumming a song. "Step ye gaily on we go, heel for heel and toe for toe..." she sang brightly.
"You shouldn't be here," Anders interrupted her sullenly.
"People say that to me a lot," she answered cheekily. "Makes me feel unwelcome." She strummed for emphasis and then continued. "Arm in arm and row and row, All for Mhairi's wedding..."
"No, it's not like that," he frowned. "It's just not safe here. The templars have raided me the last two times I've been out with you. Next time they might not wait until I'm gone."
"What do you think they're going to do? Drag the Champion into the Gallows? Have her brother guard her cell? Not even Meredith is so foolish. Face it, you're safer when I'm here," she winked before continuing her song. "Over hill-way up and down, murtle green and bracken brown... Besides. I like it here."
"I can't imagine why," Anders laughed with genuine mirth. "Surely it smells better upstairs."
"Maybe. But it's... too quiet," she said, her eyes darkening in a way that twisted in his chest. "Past the shieling through the town, all for Mhairi's wedding..."
"Fine," he muttered and turned back to his work. "You know what's always bustling this time of night? The Chantry."
A pillow thunked him on the side of the head and he nearly knocked over his bottles. "Hey!"
"That was mean and you know it," she pouted. "Plenty herring plenty meal, plenty peat tae fill her creel..."
"Why are you singing in that ridiculous accent," he demanded, pounding his fist on table.
"Because the song doesn't sound right without it," she replied haughtily. "Plenty bonny bairns as weel..."
"The people of Kirkwall should be made aware of what an abominably cruel tease their Champion is," he glowered. "Does this bring you some kind of pleasure? The kind you can't get from your precious Sebastian?"
She narrowed her eyes at him. "Why are you being so disagreeable?"
"You come here, knowing how I feel about you, and about him, and about your inexplicable fascination with the man, and then you proceed to sing songs about all the 'plenty bonny bairns' you want him to 'feel yer creel' with," he ranted, temper rising.
"You don't put bairns in a creel, Anders! What kind of a monster does that?" she exclaimed, eyes wide. "Are you sure your spirit friend is really Justice, and not the Spirit of Baby Burning?"
He crossed his arms. "You're my friend, and I'm fine with that being all there is between us." And that was a lie, and he could feel Justice pounding inside his skull, punishing him for this transgression. But telling the truth would mean an end to her visits, and that wasn't something he was willing to face. "I just have one request: no acting like a lovesick girl and mooning about. I don't think that's too much to ask."
"Fine," she said. And proceeded to strum a minor key. "Shall I sing a different song?"
"Please," he replied, getting up to find a crate to store the bottles in. "And nothing else about weddings."
"Come all ye young rebels, and list while I sing..." she intoned, a devilish twinkle in her eye. "For the love of one's country is a terrible thing..."
"Dalish songs?" He shook his head. "It's an improvement, at least. Hey, what are you doing tomorrow?"
She paused in her singing. "I have no plans. Why do you ask?"
"Oh, nothing important." Another lie, but since Justice approved of the goals, he was not punished for it. "I was just going to make a potion and I could use some help getting the ingredients..."
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Ok so what is going on with this: I have at least 3 more scenes I want to write. One is... um... pretty smutty so that might end up being it's own thing so I can keep the rating at T on this. Also, I'm involved in a pretty big fic project on lj called the Bioware Bang and I needed to come up with a story I could write that would be at least 10k. So, I'm going to be writing a post-game fic about these two. However, according to the big bang rules I can't post it until I get my assigned posting date in July. So look for it then! I'm glad you guys are enjoying it :D