Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.
Poor bugger.
Blackwall crossed his arms and adjusted his weight, but the stiffness in his shoulders refused to abate. He knew he was getting old – time was when he could be in his armour four days straight without feeling a thing. His Orlesian troops had teased him for it – said it was his Marcher blood that made him so much tougher, harder than their soft sensibilities and pale skin.
Before him, the Inquisitor sprung backward, just dodging outside of the Avvar's massive axe. The weapon hit the ground with a thunk, vibrations Blackwall felt in his knees. The massive man – it was a man under all those furs and paint, no matter what he wanted you to think – let out a roar of frustration as the nimble elf danced in, set another long gash along his ribcage and then sallied out of reach again before he could free his blade from the ground that sundered around it.
Lavellan was toying with him. Sera hollered support from Blackwall's side but the dark-haired elf didn't appear to hear anything. She was narrow focus and silent intensity, her padded footfalls and the loud gasps of the Avvar commander the only sounds in the open courtyard.
"He can't keep up." Bull rumbled from the Warden's other side and Blackwall nodded. Lavellan spun around the commander, and the giant of a man bled from a dozen small cuts. She was trying to force a yield – didn't she know that an Avvar would rather die than accede?
"The grumpys are pissed." Sera said and she was right. The Avvar leader had expected a hulking woman, broadsword on her back and battle in her face. Instead, he got the slip of an elf, dark hair, dark eyes and dark armour. The Avvar's strength was wasted on a target he couldn't hit. He couldn't keep up. His men around him did not interfere but under their pelts, leather and fur, their eyes were angry.
"We must stay vigilant." He said, hand falling to the sword at his hip. "Their rules of combat say they will not intervene. But combat does not usually look like this for them."
Bull grunted.
Sera cackled again.
"What, you mean all knifey-knife?"
He sighed. Sera was a little unstable and a little trying on the nerves, but she'd lived through Denerim during the Fifth Blight and she fought for the people who couldn't fight for themselves. She tried to deflate the seriousness of her self-claimed mandate with ridiculous nicknames and irreverent scribbles, but Blackwall saw through that. The people Sera fought for with her Jennies and her network of cryptic clues were the same people that Blackwall had betrayed all those years ago. The ones he was trying to save now, every time he trained another of Cullen's lads to hold his sword a bit higher, bend his knees just so.
"These people are used to battleaxes and broadswords." He says, voice low as his eyes scan the stone fortress around them. The Avvar spectators were spread around the courtyard around them, as well as leering down from the levels above. They shifted nervously – surely they were realizing that this anti-climatic duel would only end one way – but so far they showed no signs of violence. "They'd never fight with knives like Lavallen. Probably use daggers like hers for toothpicks."
Their own Commander hadn't been pleased when the Inquisitor announced they were leaving to fight the Avvar. Blackwall smiled grimly at the memory.
"You can't possibly be entertaining this idea."
The Commander was someone Blackwall could respect, always in his armour, always ready with a plan. Man had a bit of a stick up his ass for order and caution, but even that the Warden could forgive. He remembered what it was like to be the one that the men looked to for guidance.
"Harding says they will kill them all." Lavellan is usually so fierce but her voice now is quiet. Still firm, but Blackwall has to step closer to hear her. She glances over her shoulder as he approaches and throws him an appreciative smile. Their Inquisitor, brash confidence and a quick grin when she's in the spotlight, is often so much smaller in the war room, defending her plans to her advisers.
"You are our leader!" The blond man rarely raised his voice, but he did now, hands up and leaning in as if the sheer force of his refusal would change the Inquisitor's mind. "We can't have you putting your life on the line every time our enemy asks nicely."
"We got her back, Cullen." Bull steps forward too. The qunari is the only one tall enough to loom over the Commander, but the human does not look daunted.
"Yeah. And I'll just shoot the bugger in the eye if he tries anything sideways." Sera's voice from behind them is cheeky, as always.
"Sera is right." Leliana, leaning against a wall at the back of the room, intercedes. "Quick reflexes can win this battle for us. Saving Harding and her team is essential for moral, especially after Haven. We have tarried on this issue too long already."
The look Cullen gives the spymaster testifies to his grief. He blames himself for Haven, Blackwall suspects.
"See." Sera props her hand on her hip. "Even the psychopants thinks we got this."
Why had Lavellan chosen the three of them for her mission? Was it their willingness to take risks? The qunari lived for a good fight, could understand her need to duel the Avvar leader, and Sera jumped at the chance to do something just because Cullen told her should couldn't. But what about him? What role could an old so-called Warden play in the Fallow Mire?
"Dirty tactics will bring the whole of the Avvar force down upon you!" Cullen threw up his hands, indignant as he turned away from them. "I can't believe your considering this." He levelled his gaze at Lavellan now, but she was looking down at the floor, fists tight at her sides.
Blackwall recognized the posture. She was angry, trying to keep it in.
Bull laughed, a bellow that echoed off the high ceiling of the war room.
"I hope they do! We'll make mincemeat of them. Tasty mountain main mincemeat."
"I have to do this, Cullen." Lavellan looked up at the tall man now, her expression set. "I can't let them die."
The Commander held her eyes for one long moment. Then he let out a sigh, ran a hand through his hair.
"You're the ones who made her the Inquisitor." Blackwall finds himself saying. He worries about Cullen's protectiveness. Wonders if it's simply regret for letting Lavellan face certain death once before, or if maybe there's something more to the Commander's reluctance.
"Have a little faith, Cullen." Blackwall isn't one for the Maker, but he knows that the Commander is. Cullen just looks at them all defeated and waves his hand.
"So be it. Just go."
He was so full of disappointment then, but if Cullen could see the Inquisitor now, he'd laugh. Well, maybe not laugh. Man didn't laugh enough to begin with. But certainly his worries would fade at the sight of Ellana ducking under again to deliver a long slice to the underside of the war chief's arm, exploiting a break in his leather armour. The hulking leader let out a frustrated roar and dropped his axe, reaching for the elf with his good arm.
A mutter ran through the Avvar ranks and Blackwall's hand fell once more to his sword hilt.
"She has to finish this soon." He muttered and Bull nodded.
And then, as if she'd heard his mumbled words, Lavellan did exactly that. The Avvar chief swung a gauntleted first and the elf, for once, didn't move. She caught the blow in her shoulder, reeled back from the force of it, but her stance was flawless and she staggered only slightly. It was the one she'd practiced with him and Cassandra for hours – he'd told her time and again, taking a blow and staying on your feet is the most important skill a soldier can learn. You won't always be faster than them.
The Avvar let out a thrilled roar at finally landing a solid blow. He interlocked his hands and raised them up to smash down on the off-kilter elf. But suddenly, Lavellan was out of the stagger and back in motion, both hands on the hilt of one blade, her other knife somehow back in its sheath on her back. The Avvar, leaning back with his arms raised, had barely a moment to register his impending death.
The Inquisitor's blade rammed up through the man's chin, a fountain of blood raining forth over her two hands as she shoved her blade further and further into the Avvar's skull.
They held the pose, locked and silent, looking then like an image ripped from an ancient myth. Lavellan's shoulders heaved with exertion but her arms held the knife in place, uncaring of the blood that cascaded over her face. The Avvar leader, massive and dying, gagged, guttural wet noises that filled the otherwise silent yard. Then, the Inquisitor released her knife and the man stumbled backward and fell.
The Inquisitor was glowing, Blackwall realized. The green of her mark hummed gently, seemed to subsume her in an eerie almost imperceptible light. She turned to the watching Avvar and Blackwall wondered again at the improbability she represented.
A small woman, but she pulsated with a fierce energy that no mortal could deny. Drops of dark red spattered across high elven cheekbones, and a few strands of dark hair hung forward, freed from their tie in by the exertion of the duel. Her armour glistened with the blood of her dead enemy and her eyes burned, an intensity brought on by bloodlust and victory.
"Your leader is dead."
Blackwall knew the Inquisitor. He remembered her laugh and her smile, the teasing tone her voice carried when pestered Solas, or the defiant set of her jaw when she argued with the First Enchanter. None of that gentleness showed now. She was fire and death, her voice made of the same steel as her blade.
"We can destroy you all." She walked over to the dead war chief and ripped her blade savagely from his jaw. "Or you can release our soldiers and swear fealty to the Inquisition."
Blackwall felt Bull and Sera tense next to him, ready to fight at the slightest provocation. Lavellan stood before them, aglow and coated in dripping scarlet.
Finally, another Avvar man stepped forward.
"It has always been our way to serve the strongest among us." He fiddled at his belt, and Sera drew and knocked an arrow, lightning fast.
But the man's hand came up with only a heavy iron key.
"Your friends are in there. We will trouble you no further."
And they didn't. The Avvar warriors stood quietly as Lavellan released the imprisoned soldiers, greeting their cries of gratitude with a grim smile. She spoke more with the Avvar, hammering out the terms of their service while Blackwall was left to attend the gaunt and weary troops.
"I knew she'd come. I knew it." One soldier repeated the words, a tired smile on his face. The small one, Harding, helped Blackwall to charge them prisoners with action, bolstering scouts to their feet. She was a good one, that Harding. Always practical and ready and it was clear that she'd gambled everything on the Inquisitor's rescue.
Her soldiers looked past Blackwall as he helped wrap clean bandages around wounds, spread disinfectant on one man's rotting leg. They watched the Inquisitor with reverent expressions, whispered that they'd watched the battle through the meager cell window. The elf parlayed with the Avvar, holding a pose of effortless confidence, strong stance and crossed arms. Their dead leader's blood was caking to her face, red rivulets turned to flaky, dark warpaint. Did she know how fierce it made her look, Blackwall wonders. Perhaps it was all part of the rampant propaganda that fueled the Inquisition.
A myth in the making, the warden thought again.
That night, they camped with Harding and her scouts, finding a small bit of peace in a quiet grove well beyond the rot and evil of the Fallow Mires. They would reach Skyhold in two days, maybe three if the Inquisitor continued to insist they stop and mine every damned piece of shiny rock or pick every odd looking plant they passed.
She was brewing some of those weeds now, and Blackwall marvelled at the incongruity. Death and destruction by day and by night a worn-out woman with a culinary bent. Tea, she called it, but Blackwall had tasted her 'tea' before and done his best to keep from vomiting.
"Why you always got to make those nasty elvish brews?" Sera asked the Inquisitor from across the fire.
Lavellan laughed and it transformed her face, dancing and lively. She was clean now from bathing, her brown hair made darker from the damp of the water.
"I like the Inquisitor's tea." Harding muttered.
"Gunning for a promotion, Harding?" Bull rumbled from Lavellan's other side.
"Honestly, I do." The little woman with her orange hair was honest to a fault. Maker knew how she stomached the brew. "She made it for me once when I was awful sick. Worked wonders."
The Inquisitor herself just smiled and pulled her battered tea pot off the fire, pouring scalding liquid into two cups. One for herself and one for Harding, the only willing victim around the fire.
"There are dozens of teas that are possible with just a few basic herbs." She said, resting back on one hand and rolling her shoulders. "A good friend taught how to make each one."
"Is there a tea that gets rid of the aftertaste of the nasty first tea?" Sera said with a cackle.
Laughter and the quiet conversation moved on. Maybe the words were deliberately light, but maybe that was just what they needed. Soldiers imprisoned for weeks and a leader who'd fought for their lives. They'd earned their moment of respite, a calm before the bigger things that loomed in their future. Orlais and the missing wardens. Blackwall prayed the Inquisitor wouldn't ask him to accompany her to Crestwood. He'd have to come up with some reason. Maybe some of her tea could put him out for a few days.
One by one, the others drifted off to guard duty or their bedrolls. But the Inquisitor stayed up, looking into the fire and Blackwall would stay as long as she remained. He'd told Cullen as they left that he'd do whatever was in his power to keep Lavellan safe.
The darkness crept in close around them. The pop and crackle of the fire was loud and overhead a panoply of stars swept out encircling them all.
Does the Chantry have an answer for what makes the stars?
She'd asked that on a night before the Breach, before Haven fell. Sera, Bull and Blackwall. She was avoiding the Breach then – she'd recruited the mages but wasn't ready to act. Were the three of them her partners in procrastination, then?
He almost jumps as she rests her head on his shoulder. He hadn't registered how close she was. Then, she answers his mind's question.
"You never judge me, Blackwall."
He snorts. What right would one such as he have to judge a woman like her? Lavellan was selflessness incarnate, fighting impossible odds for a chance that they might survive. A playing piece in a game whose board she could not perceive – he knew the political waters of Orlais and the simpering nobles who travelled to Skyhold put her ill at ease. Maker's balls, the woman even made tea for her troops.
"I thought you'd be more like the rest of them." She is warm and small at his side and he adjusts, wraps an arm around her shoulders. She tenses for a moment but then settles, curls in close and he can feel that she is shivering.
The night is cold, but the cold never bothered Blackwall. Freemarcher blood, and all that he supposed.
"When we first met all you did was judge." The elf continues, laughing softly.
He laughs then too, and his chest rumbles against her head. He is surprised at how comfortable the feeling is, the fire on their faces and a brief moment of closeness in the night.
"Any fool could see you'd the worst seat in all of Thedas."
"Not my skills on a horse!" She says with a chuckle.
"Well, and your fighting style was all show and no sustain. Pathetic, really."
"Blackwall."
"Though I have to admit that green glow is something else."
"I mean when we first met!" No patience for the teasing in his tone, she has to interject. Blackwall laughs, and in the distance, he sees the whites of a guardswoman's eyes as she peers over to them. An odd sight they must make, grizzled old man and a young elf, their leader, side-by-side.
"You were a creepy odd fellow in the woods." Her tone was explanatory now. "I was an elf with the most ragtag crew of misfits behind me. Creators know what you must've thought of us."
"You fought well."
She snorts. "Of course that would be your first assessment."
He was being coy, true, but he really doesn't know what she means. It was a fateful day, Blackwall knows. The day that his whole life spun upon. But she couldn't know how his need for redemption had fueled his actions. A chance to be something good. How could someone who'd done what he'd done walk away form that?
"I guess I just can't fathom why you decided to join us." She says after a moment of silence.
He needed to tell her. He tightened his arm and breathed in. Opened his mouth.
But then she glanced up, big, elvish eyes glassy and green and full of trust. He swallowed and the truth sunk back within him, fading beneath scar tissue and forged letters. Hers was the face of his men as he sent them to their deaths in the name of "duty".
Because he'd run, he was less familiar with the expression of betrayal. Because he was a coward, he did not want to see that emotion now. Not on the Inquisitor's face.
"But now, when everyone else judges," she continued, voice so soft in the night. So blissfully oblivious to the conflict in his chest. "you support me. You call me out to spar just as Josie's got another pompous ass lined up for pandering. You make up some crises of training that needs my attention when a war room meeting just won't end."
She'd noticed all those things then. He swallows, wondering if he can even explain it himself. She needed those everyday mercies. When so many people were taking so much from her, over and over again, he needed to be the one to give her those breaks.
Hadn't they seen how beautiful her face was when she laughed? Upside, with one foot stuck in her horse's stirrup, the Inquisitor was more at peace than ever. How could anyone deny her those inconsequential moments in between the incredible things she did?
"I knew that you could convince Cullen. With the Avvar."
"They are foolish to not have faith in your leadership."
She twists again but he doesn't meet her gaze this time.
"Why do you have so much faith in me?"
Another one he couldn't answer. How could he tell her that some part of him thought that she was the one? The person who could listen and forgive, absolve him of it all or tell him if he was truly beyond redemption. That inexplicably, the idea had arrived in his mind and he hadn't been able to let it go. Some part of him knew that one day he would be spilling his secrets for her.
"Why do you have faith in any of us?" He counters because he does not have the words for anything more than that.
Her laugh was sudden and loud compared to their hushed voices.
"What do you mean?"
"You know what I mean. We're proper fucked up, the lot of us. Last time we dined in Skyhold, Sera put away twelve potatoes, an entire roast duck, and four different tarts. I'm not sure where any of it goes."
"Eating habits are hardly evidence of a failing in human nature." She replies diplomatically.
"Bull has a No Pants Fridays policy. Solas had sex with fade spirits. Cole can't tell the difference between a beard and a mask."
She pulls out of his arm to stare at him, incredulous.
"What? You think we don't talk to each other when we're not tramping around the ass end of nowhere with our beloved leader?" He tries to keep his face serious, but can't. Her expression is just too priceless.
Blackwall starts to laugh, really laugh and then she's laughing too, proper cackles that have more than one scout glancing back at them.
This is the Lavellan that few others get to see. Eyes tearing with mirth and hair loose, wet from a recent river bathing and haphazard around her shoulders. Hands loose, no fists of rage, no knives or tripwires or smoke grenades. Blackwall hopes she will remember this version of herself when he tells her everything. He wants her to remember that he was the one who let her be herself in the middle of the night, no expectations and no demands.
He reaches out, needs her to know. One hand clasps her wrist. And she stills at the contact, lets those dark eyes focus on his face.
"We will stand with you, Lavellan." His voice rumbles, unused to the unchecked honesty he's exhibiting. "No matter what comes."
The smile the Inquisitor gives him is small and sad, her eyes deep with an emotion he cannot place. She holds his gaze for a long time, but Blackwall does not let himself look away.
"Thank you, Warden Blackwall."
The word on her tongue is like a hot brand against his ribcage and he barely contains the flinch as it drops from her lips. A title built on deceit to a woman who has shown him nothing but the truth.
He cannot speak as she nudges his arm and curls in against his chest again. She falls asleep, there, in the circle of his embrace and he holds her close and wishes the morning would never come.
He rests a chin in her soft brown hair and feels the firelight dance across his cheekbones. His eyes see nothing, and he thinks only of regret.
"Gemstone." Varric loaded another bolt and sent it flying, a grimace on his face as it lodged itself firmly in a bandit's neck.
But Ellana wasn't listening. Instead, she dropped a smoke grenade and launched herself upward, impossibly high, so that she could land on the stone railing of the wide staircase that led up to the second level of the keep.
"She's not listening to you." That greasy haired Tevinter and his damned half smile – Varric had little patience for those who thought themselves more clever than himself. The tall man sent a fireball smack in the middle of the confusion the Inquisitor's grenade had left. Gemstone, meanwhile, had hurled herself up a flight of stairs and into the ribcage of some poor bandit bugger who just couldn't keep up with her speed.
At the top of the stairs, Bull roared, a wide swing of his axe sending the men flying.
"I don't see what we're doing here." Varric said, annoyed. Load, launch, repeat. A flurry of bolts as the wannabe magister and Varric mopped up whatever fools those other two nimrods left kicking.
"What do you mean, my grumpy and diminutive friend?" Sparkler's staff arched over Varric's head – the damned man loved to poke fun at Varric's stature in just about any way possible. The dwarf had to give him credit – the man persevered in the art of being irritating.
"We found the damned warden and his glorious mustache." Another load and launch – a bolt sent blood gushing from an unsuspecting man's throat, freezing him in his attempts to sneak up on the Inquisitor. "Pretty sure he told us that shit was going down at the Western Approach. You know. To the west."
Another bandit in leather armours launched himself over the railing, past the Inquisitor and Bull, but Dorian had the woman zapped and burning before her feet even hit the ground.
"I thought you were one of those do-gooders." The mage sashayed by him, a swirl of rich red robes and fizzling energy. Fenris would positively loathe this man, Varric reflected.
He suspected the gloomy elf had been lurking somewhere outside the cave where they met Stroud. If Hawke was there, Fenris was sure to be nearby. In fact, he was a little hurt the elf didn't pop out of his shadows to say hi. Keeping Hawke save was the number one priority, sure, but didn't over a decade of nearly-friendship warrant something?
"Stop the creepy undead." Sparkler was still talking. "Close the gigantic rift that spews forth demons from the Fade." He swung his staff and a jet of purple lightning sundered forth, frying a man who'd launched himself at Ellana's back. "Sounds like the kind of thing you do, no?"
Varric grunted and hurried up the stairs after the taller man. Bull had fought his way halfway across the upper level, and the Inquisitor was nowhere to be seen. Varric knew that was a bad sign for the bandits of Caer Bronach. An invisible Inquisitor usually meant dead ruffians and blood on everything.
"Hawke's headed for the Western Approach. The wardens are heading for the Western Approach. Minions of the nugshit crazy reborn and generally undying darkspawn ex-magister that's threatening the world as we know it are heading for the Western Approach." Varric grunted again as Bianca loosed another bolt. "So why are we in Crestwood?"
Sparkler was saved from answering when two men in heavy armour appeared behind them. Instead, Varric and the mage pivoted, halfway up the wide stone staircase, and made short work of the bandits.
If he had to admit it to himself, he missed fighting with Hawke. He'd hoped that after their little rendezvous in the cave, she'd fall in line next to him, and they could lay into each other like they used to. In some ways, the Inquisitor was very much like Hawke. Hardened by Kirkwall's walls and darkness, ready banter and an easy smile. But the hope that shone so patently out of the little elf's eyes sometimes was smothering for Varric – Hawke had long ago lost that sense of optimism.
People thought they knew the Champion of Kirkwall. Okay, so that was mostly Varric's fault. Tales of the Champion was a bestseller in every corner of Thedas. But his pen on a page led to a hero worship he'd never intended, had even worldly men like Dorian expecting something from Hawke that she simply was not.
What was happening here –Ellana killing left right and center to save a village from relentless banditry and a plague of undead – that wasn't Hawke at all. It wasn't any of them – not himself, out for the biggest profit, or Merrill aiming to understand and learn at any cost. Not Isabella, eager for a lark and a bag of ill-gotten coins, not Fenris who had once lived only for revenge and now lived in perpetual service of that debt, bound to the women he loved. And certainly not Anders. Stupid, stupid Anders.
Aveline had been the only good one at the end of the day. Even Bethany had lashed out, was one with the rebellion that Anders had begun. Hawke had tried. To be good. Tried over and over. But when she was doing what the rest of the world saw as the right thing, Varric understood that she was actually making the selfish choice. Fight the Arishok because Isabella, lying rat that she was, managed to make Hawke smile every day. Side with Orsino because her sister was one of the lives on the line. Let Anders go because if there was one thing Hawke simply couldn't do, no matter how justified, it was killing a friend.
He knew that Hawke couldn't have joined them. There was simply too much – Hawke and Ellana shared one trait above all others. Their magnetic personalities exerted a palpable will, a sheer force that drew others in and kept them spellbound. Hawke could never be a follower and Ellana would not settle for anything less. Each day, she was more and more the Inquisitor. He'd watched Cassandra and Leliana, Josephine and Cullen, take the street-smart, defiant elf and bend her to their will, making a polished leader where once there had been only single-minded purpose and the will to survive.
He wondered if he'd see Ellana's hope fade, the way Hawke's had faded when her mother died. He expected to watch the optimism dim, maybe all at once or maybe one day at a time. Really, how long could someone do what the Inquisitor did and stay unchanged? Varric didn't know if he could watch that happen, not again.
So here he was, bolt in, bolt out, and poor men who were simply trying to get by were falling dead upon the steps. Ahead, he could hear Bull roaring and he knew the qunari was in combat with some worthy foe. A man just a little bigger than the rest, dying to hold onto a scrap of turf he'd claimed as his own. What was the point?
Dammit. He was getting old, lost in his thoughts in the middle of a battle. Even Sparkler was further in than him, standing tall at the top of the stairs and building a tower of ice below Ellana's feet to launch her easily up to the next level. Just like they'd practiced.
The practice was something he wasn't keen on – something Hawke had damn well never done, never needed. In the long hours of their trek to whatever Maker-forsaken hole in the wall Lelianna lined up for them, the Inquisitor would make them break and run combat drills. He was too old for this shit – the elf worked them bone-tired in pursuit of her newest obsession. Leveraging each other's' strengths, she'd called it. Ellana had even made him line a wall with crossbow bolts to see if she could use them as steps to climb up.
That gimmick still needed work, but Dorian's ice tower was a sight to behold. Glistening in the dull light, he watched Ellana rise into the air on a frozen pedestal and flip over the edge of the third-level battlement. She found her feet on the stone and threw herself into the air, coming down on the shoulders of the giant man Bull grabbled with. The effect was pretty impressive.
Their Gemstone, fearless leader, blood and death. But a hero at heart, that honest do-the-right thing attitude that everyone thought Hawke and her team lived by.
It was nauseating. He followed Dorian up the steps. The bandits were wisely falling back – if their leader fell to Bull and the Inquisitor, they were smart enough to see that further fighting was a bad idea.
Why did she choose to make them fight here when there were bigger things on the line? Hawke could die at the Western Approach before they'd even arrived – Wardens half mad with the Calling and the threat of Corypheus' ambiguous plans. None of that boded well for the Champion or Stroud.
Dorian and Varric made their way up the last flight of stairs, just in time to catch Ellana as she was thrown off the giant leader's shoulders. She stumbled for a second, and Varric was startled by the sudden nearness of her. Her tanned skin was flushed with exertion, a few strands of brown hair pulled out of their tie and loose around her face. Blood on her arms, her blades, her face. She radiated an intense energy, focus and power, and he swore she was glowing green.
And then she was gone, out of Dorian's stabilizing arm and back in the fight as Bull danced out of the man's range and cackled as the bandit's sword connected solidly with a supporting pillar.
The bandit leader bellowed and let the sword go, twisting in a last desperate punch at Ellana. The elf raised her knives but in that second, Varric saw his chance.
Like rapid water down a hill, Bianca was loaded, braced on his shoulder and firing.
The bolt took the man right through the left eye. His battle cry died in his throat and he hit the ground with a resounding thud.
Ellana and Bull looked over, jaws slack.
Varric cocked a grin and turned to Dorian. The mage's staff was on his back and his arms crossed, weight in one hip.
"That's ten royals, I believe." The dwarf said with a smirk.
Dorian laughed. Varric remembered that he did like the man. Generally good-natured. Usually paid his debts. More fun with a few pints in him. The human fished in his pocket and deposited the coins in Varric's outstretched palm.
"I was damn sure your sad little legs wouldn't get you here in time."
Varric's hand fisted over the coins and he turned his satisfied smirk on the Inquisitor and the qunari, slinging Bianca easily onto his back.
Ellana continued to stare, green eyes wide, and then laughed.
"Come on," she said, voice low and melodious in a way that made Varric's fingers itch to start writing. She turned and started walking towards a small door in the side of the massive keep's walls. "Anyone got one of those blasted flags? Cullen is going to love this place."
Curly did love the place. The next morning, they'd received word that he was sending a contingent of troops to make a permanent base in the fortress. He'd accompany them himself, but the Inquisitor didn't want to wait. She had them down in the depths of Old Crestwood, the dam released and the water sent cascading away.
Bull tried not to get too excited about the dragon they sent skittering when they'd done that.
"A northern hunter!" The massive qunari had whooped. You'd think him a kid at his first tourney. "Lightning dragon. Fierce thing."
The qunari cocked his head at Ellana.
"Can we boss?"
The elf's face was pensive, blank as she held Iron Bull's gaze and considered his words. Then, her face split into a grin and Varric felt another groan bubble up.
"When we're done here." They were in some Maker forsaken tunnels now, slime and ooze that had Dorian squealing like a noblewoman in her best dress.
Seriously? Varric opened his mouth to argue. They did not have time to be dancing with dragons when their allies could be facing certain death, disfigurement, maiming or Andraste knows what.
But the words never came out – instead there were more demons, more crossbow bolts and more sub-human wails as demons spawned and died around them. The Crestwood rift was the biggest they'd faced, save the Breach. It took everything they had – by the time there were done, Dorian's hair was a mess and he was ringed by dozens of empty potion vials.
Gemstone, of course, was still on her feet, bouncing out of the caverns and back to town to report her findings to the disconsolate grump of a mayor.
What they'd found instead had her gasping in horror. A part of Varric, however, was not surprised. The Mayor's note, his choices, the decision to let all the men and women of Old Crestwood die so that the Blight would not claim them all – that was the kind of choice he'd made with Hawke a dozen times.
Mages or Templars? Isabella or the Arishok? Anders or Sebastien?
Let the Blight take them all, or consign an unlucky few to death along with the darkspawn?
Ellana was shaken by the note and the implication of the Mayor's desperate decision. But then the clouds broke overhead and the sun shone down full and hot. Crestwood's curse was lifting and the rift was gone. Villagers with scared eyes peeked outside of their homes and Inquisitor was in motion again, reassuring them, smiles and propaganda so that each of them would know it was the Inquisition that gave them their lives back.
She did not tell them about the Mayor. He watched as she slipped the odious man's note in her pocket and smiled on.
They left Crestwood quickly, their only remains an Inquisition flag and the promise of order and supplies.
That night, they are at Caer Bronach and he finds the Inquisitor on an upper balcony, elbows resting on the railing. He needs to talk to her. She needs to understand the urgency of the timelines at work here.
She turns to glance at him as he walks up beside her. Varric has always been able to read people, and he sees the subtle sigh that leaves her nose as her face folds into a ready small smile. She wanted to be alone, the dwarf knows, but her sense of duty means that she will always make time for them. Her companions and her soldiers.
But she does not say anything. It has been a long day, and the Inquisitor will leave it to him to declare his purpose. He studies her, sidelong, for a moment and wonders not for the first time just how old she is. A jagged cut, shallow enough to not need stitches, adds a ferocity to her face, curves under her left eye and across her high cheekbone. Her hair is pushed behind a pointed ear and he notices for the first time that her ears are pierced, two small wooden studs where a lobe would be on a human.
The little details that make up a person. Overlooked until the quiet in between the everyday crazy that was their lives. Her hands, in leather bracers and dark fingerless gloves, are clasped in front of her. Her hair, chestnut brown and a little matted, tumbles over her shoulder on the other side of her face. She's not a hero in this moment.
Instead, the light of the moon makes her look fragile. Wide eyes and for once she is not wearing her mask of absolute control, of confidence. Is it a sign her trust in him, Varric wonders, that she does not don that façade?
"We can't fight the dragon tomorrow, Gemstone." He says finally. His voice is scratchy, loud in the stillness of the air around them. Here, up so high and separated by thick wooden doors and long stone staircases, they cannot hear the hustle and bustle of Inquisition soldiers setting up camp.
"We disturbed it." She replies evenly, looking not at him but instead at her clasped hands. The gemstone eyes for which he named her are glassy, their green still vibrant in the silver light. "Its usual feeding grounds are disrupted."
"We have bigger problems." He puts one hand on the railing and faces her straight on. Waits for the eye-contact she refuses to make. The Inquisitor is only a little taller than him, he realizes. Smaller than Hawke, maybe more worn down by the responsibility. "Who knows what blood magic voodoo shit Corypheus is dreaming up for the Western Approach."
"The men and women of Crestwood finally have their homes back." She gives in, meets his eyes and he is saddened to see that mask of control, of leadership, falling back into place. He is forcing it on her the way they all do – forcing her to be the one who makes the decisions. It's rare that the decision is not one he supports. "You can't expect me to leave them to become dragon food?"
He barks a laugh.
"Listen to yourself, Gemstone. You kill one dragon in the Hinterlands and close a bunch of rifts and now you think you're their only hope in all of Thedas. These people have been fending for themselves for years before you turned up."
Is that hurt that flashed across her face? Whatever, it's his job to tell it like it is. It's for the best. Really.
"We aren't just here when it's convenient for us, Varric." She takes a step towards him now and he refuses to be intimidated. The gash under along her cheekbone and the threatening narrowing of the eyes would work on lesser men, but he'd gone toe to toe with far too many people in power to pay her tactics any mind. "The Inquisition is a stabilizing force. Order and safety. That's what we do."
His hands come up to gesture, his frustration taking physical form.
"That's why we need to get going. If Corypheus is using the Wardens for something, it can'tbe good. We have to stop himbefore it's too late."
"Hawke will be fine, Varric." She puts a hand on his shoulder and he looks up into her face, shocked. Swats her hand away and takes a step back.
"Shut up." He can't help the words. He's never had cause to be angry with her but suddenly he feels the rage mounting up. "Don't pretend like you know me."
If she is offended at his sudden defensiveness, her face doesn't show it. Her eyes are still damanbly elf wide but they tell him nothing. Her face is calm and he is more enraged to see a softening of her expression, a look of compassion. What does she know?
"I understand what it's like to care for someone enough to risk everything to save them." She steps closer and reaches out, takes her one of his hands in hers. Her fingers are long, delicate, so feminine against his thick and calloused worker's palms.
He wants to pull his hand away but something stops him. He is annoyed at these attempts at empathy. He doesn't need empathy – he needs action. But suddenly she is letting emotions through that mask of hers and he knows that she's telling the truth. She's made this kind of sacrifice before.
"I'd be dead if it wasn't for Hawke." He said, finally. "Over and over again. In the Deep Roads when my nugshit brother left us to die. In the streets with a Carta knife in my back because I got too greedy in a deal. A million ways, I'd be a dead man."
"I know." She lets his hand slip out of hers and turns back to the railing, looking out over the rolling hills and the distant village she'd saved just earlier that day. "I wish I could be more like her."
Varric's sound laugh was loud in the night, and the Inquisitor glanced over, surprised.
"If you were more like Hawke you'd already be at the Western Approach. You'd have said 'fuck y'all' to the poor sods in Crestwood and tried to beat the Wardens to the desert. You'd have trip wires set and an ambush ready."
Ellana smiles then, a crooked mirthless grin.
"Kirkwall bred."
"Damn right." He forgets so easily. The Inquisitor had lived in his city. Had come out of it, hope intact. How had she done that?
Kirkwall took and took until you were nothing but cynicism and dirty tricks. He'd seen Kirkwall in the way Ellana fought, elbows and knees and hair-grabbing when it served her. He'd seen Kirkwall in the way she walked silently on cobblestone streets, disappearing in shadows and reappearing with knives. Kirkwall was in the way she bargained, fast and furious, with merchants, nobles, and just about anyone who wanted to scrap with the Inquisition.
He'd seen Kirkwall in the sadness of her eyes when she'd taken his hand. Told him she understood.
"What happened?" He said suddenly. He wasn't used to sudden words – he was planned witticisms and ready negotiation tactics. A merchant's skill, its own language of give and take that had a lot in common with Ruffles and her social graces. But at the end of the day, the Inquisitor disarmed him like she did for just about everyone.
She cocked her head, hair falling over her brow.
"What do you mean?"
"You said you knew what it was like. To give up everything for someone. What happened when you did it?"
She looks down now and he can see her fists tighten. For a long moment, she doesn't speak. Around them, the wind begins to whip and Varric remembers suddenly that they are quite high up. Then:
"I was betrayed."
Oh. He wanted to ask. If it was Hawke he would've. Ellana Lavellan was a friend, and he wanted to be able to say something helpful.
But he'd come up her ready for a fight and he'd given one, in his own way. It wasn't his place to be the friend now. He couldn't tell what she wanted from him then, downcast eyes that wouldn't meet his own. She was fragile in the moonlight again. Small and hurt. How, he wondered again, did she hold onto her hope? Kirkwall bred like Hawke and him, but somehow so much better.
But Hawke and Stroud were out there, still needed them.
"Do we have to fight the dragon?"
He would accept whatever she said, of course. She was the leader and he was, as always, the follower.
"Yes." The Inquisitor didn't hesitate. Didn't look at him.
"And then will we go to the Western Approach?"
She sighed.
"You know, I heard your voice."
"What?"
"When I was out there. In the snow. Half dead." She lifts off her elbows, puts her hands on the railing in front of her and grips it tightly. Her arms are long, willowy. Elven like the rest of her, he supposes. "I almost didn't get up."
Varric's throat is suddenly dry. Ellana is always bouncing back, energy and motion. In the swell and growth and safety of Skyhold, it's easy to forget that moment after Haven when they nearly lost her.
"I wanted to be dead. Give it all up." She laughs but it's empty and dark. "Corypheus scared the shit out of me Varric."
Varric opens his mouth, knows he needs to say something but he can't find the words. Corypheus had that affect – talking darkspawn, death and blood and gore. Was scarier than Meredith had ever been, even deep in throes of red lyrium.
"But then I heard your voice. And a half dozen others." She pulls her hands from the railing and tucks her arms in around herself. "You called me Gemstone. I heard all the different names I have."
She looks at him and there is no hesitation in her emerald eyes.
"I had to come back. To kill the dragons, fight the wardens, close the rifts. To get to the damn Western Approach."
"Why?" He finally finds words. He needs to understand this difference between her and Hawke and the rest of them.
She shrugs. Pulls her left hand away from her torso and curls the fingers. The eerie glow of the mark sparks into existence and he can feel the warmth of its light on his face. The sun has set long since set and the green casts unnatural lines of light along her cheekbones.
"Don't get mad." She tells him with a half-smile. "But I'm the only hope in all of Thedas."
His words parroted back at him and incongruously free of arrogance.
The sigh that left Varric was a heavy one. She was right, of course. They all knew it. There was something special about her – the mark made her a better fighter, better leader than Hawke ever was. Hawke was amazing, but Ellana was legendary. Had a power unlike anyone else.
Her companions, Ellana's closest allies, all knew this. Acknowledged it silently because it was downright terrifying to admit that she could destroy them all with a flick of her wrist. Killing a dragon would be easier for her than for anyone else.
"I'll do my best to save your friend too, Varric. We'll head for the Western Approach tomorrow night."
His hazel eyes meet hers and he knows she is telling the truth. She adds:
"You can leave right now. You know that." She doesn't want him to go. He can see that on her face. But she will let him, because that's how damnably fair she is.
That hope. He'd given up on that hope a long time ago. Some of that giving up happened before he'd even met Hawke. But he hadn't thoroughly abandoned all pretenses of belief in a better future until his own brother left them for dead in favour of a sure profit.
Doing the right thing. Was it worth another shot? What was the point when the wiser part of him knew it was only a matter of time? Despair came for all of them, but especially for people like Ellana. Do-the-right-thingers. Make-the-hard-choicers. Naïve, foolhardy. Just too damn young.
But the Inquisitor was Kirkwall bred and once betrayed with an inconceivable hope in her eyes. A paradox he couldn't puzzle out.
So instead, he sighed and reached up to rest a hand on the elf's shoulder. Ended up wrapping it around her and guiding her inside.
"Of course I know." She wasn't Cassandra in a fit of rage. Their Inquisitor never stopped any of them from being their own person. Walking their own path.
"And of course, I'll stay."
As they started down the steps back to the main body of the keep, he felt her sigh in relief.
"Thank you, Varric."
"Just be sure to kill the damned dragon pronto, okay?"
"Of course."
"And no dallying for minerals or more blasted elfroot."
"I promise. No dallying."
"And you'll ride a proper horse. Damned if I'm putting up with more of that squealing horned mongrel of yours."
"A proper horse. Definitely."
"Then I suppose we're square."
She laughed, finally, a true and genuine sound, and he felt himself smile too. It wasn't hope – Varric had seen too much for that. But Ellana needed someone to tell it like it was, and if he left, who would do that for?
It wasn't hope he stayed for. Not that and not even redemption for the red lyrium. It was like he'd told the Inquisitor all those months ago when he'd watched her take on the Breach for the first time. He was a merchant through and through and she was just downright good for business.
No dragons on main roads meant more caravans. No bandits in big fortresses meant real camps and real supply routes in need of real merchants. And when they left for the Approach tomorrow, she'd get to Hawke and the others, she'd save them with her glowy thing like she always did, a walking miracle that defied death at every turn. And then she'd make all of Thedas a safer, richer place with more coin to go around for everyone. A solid business plan, if ever there was was one.
So it wasn't hope he stayed for. It was just business. That's what he told himself anyway.
Inquisitor,
I understand you're on your way back to us, having no doubt smothered another dastardly darkspawn scheme in its infancy. Congratulations on your success at the Western Approach, although I am grieved to hear of your injury.
I confess that while I was surprised to receive a missive from you, its contents were not altogether unexpected. I'm sorry for not telling you about the Calling earlier. I suppose a part of me was never sure of its origin – I simply believed that I was dying in the way that all wardens die. I had no notion that the voices and nightmares were tied to Corypheus and the evil he wreaks.
Knowing that, I won't let the sick bastard get to me. I promise you my judgement will not be clouded.
Stroud sounds a good man. I do not know him personally but any knight who takes a stand against bad orders is a man I can respect. He and the Champion have sent reports on Adamant as well. Know that preparations for siege have begun here.
I ask that you bring me to Adamant with you. In fact, all of us wish to accompany you. We were recruited for the Inquisition to be a strength in dire times, and I can't think of anything more dire that laying siege to an ancient impenetrable fortress that's probably bursting at the seams with demons and blood magic. Maker help us all.
You'll get us through it though. You always do. Like Bull says, that's why you're the boss right?
Safe travels Inquisitor.
Blackwall
PS: The dragon head you sent back is now mounted on the Wall in your throne room. Sera has made some interesting… alternations and is eagerly anticipating your reaction. The lady Montilyet does not approve.