Eleven: 'Twixt the Arms of the Dusk and the Dawn
Kathil:
Zevran had been right. These were very close quarters.
The rooms he had found were near the market district, in a building that appeared to have once been a warehouse and now was crudely divided into apartments. Their space had a common area with a stove in one corner and three smaller rooms leading off of it. The walls were flimsy partitions, and blocked only sight, not sound. The wood of the walls was splintery and swirled with difficult knots, and every time she brushed against it, the splinters snagged and clawed at the fabric of her robes.
Had it been just her and Zevran and Cullen and Lorn, this wouldn't have been a problem. Even adding Leliana—well, she and the bard had an understanding of sorts.
But, they had Jowan.
Ignore him.
Hard to do right now, sitting in the same room with him, book propped on her crossed legs on the makeshift chaise and the other mage across the room at a desk that had seen far better days. Possibly in the last Age.
And this was familiar, seductively so, reminding her of days in the Tower when her hands had been chapped from the relentless chill and they had studied together in the library, almost unable to hear the wind whipping around the stone. I'm so cold, she had complained, and Jowan had brought her tea, heated by a newly-learned spell. (A newly-learned spell that had not been intended to be used for creature comforts. But one that had come in handy for years, for heating water for tea, for baths, for all those things for which warm water was needed.)
This was Denerim, it was summer, and they were surrounded by rickety wood rather than cold stone and lakewater, and there was a Mabari snoring under her chair. She closed her book. "Jowan. Would you mind very much spending the evening elsewhere?"
For a moment, he didn't move. Then he turned in his chair, hooking one arm over the back of it and setting his bearded chin on that scarred arm. "I thought you didn't want me out of your sight."
"You got along without me for four years," she told him. "I think I can trust you for a night."
He gave her a long look, his sharp, dark brows gathering together slightly. "And just what will you be doing tonight that requires my absence?"
"None of your business, Jowan."
"And you're blushing." He quirked the corner of his mouth. "Both of them, Kathil? Really?"
Kathil glared daggers at him. "What part of it doesn't concern you did you not understand? My personal life isn't open for discussion."
Jowan shook his head. "You're right. Maker forbid that I have some curiosity as to what an old friend is doing with her life, or after two weeks of being around her I notice a thing or three that make me wonder just what madness she's up to this time. I will absent myself tonight. Warden." He stood up all at once and walked toward the room they had given him.
She bit back a retort and let him go.
Andraste's little apples, this was harder than she had thought it would be. It had been two weeks of uncomfortable silences, Leliana's frowns, Cullen's suspicion, and she had thought that it was going to get better but instead the silence had settled over all of them like ice. She had an urge to cut him loose, send him to Amaranthine on his own, threaten him to within an inch of his life and maybe send with him a note that said keep an eye on him.
She didn't. She couldn't. He was her responsibility, now. Maybe always had been.
And there was always the uncomfortable possibility lurking that if things had just been a little different, if she'd been the one to fall in love with a Chantry sister (or a Templar) and be threatened with being made Tranquil and come up with the entirely daft idea of destroying her phylactery—
Maybe Jowan would have been the one sitting here wondering what precisely he was going to do with her and she'd be the blood mage newly turned Grey Warden.
She was going to have to find a way to live with him, because she really did not want him out there doing Maker knew what, and with the way that the Orlesian Grey Wardens had treated her there was no way that just sending Jowan to Amaranthine was going to end well.
Cullen, Zevran, and Lorn were gone—Cullen and Lorn to the palace kennels, Zevran to dance attendance on the Princess Consort with Leliana for the afternoon. None of them would be back for at least another hour. Kathil got up, setting her book down on the chair she'd just vacated.
She steeled herself, and went to knock on Jowan's splintered door.
*****
Jowan:
He had little in the way of illusions about his place in the world.
Silence had a way of miring people in place like mud freezing around the feet of a wanderer. It was like to drive him mad, that after the years filled largely with solitude he now had people and somewhere he ostensibly belonged, and it was all he could do to stay in one place.
Kathil had changed, since the Tower. He'd still recognized her, when he'd seen her in Redcliffe; there had been a familiar stubbornness in her tempered with exhaustion, and he could still almost predict the words that came out of her mouth when he saw her.
This woman, though. This pale-haired Grey Warden, he knew very little of.
He was throwing a few things in a bag when the knock came, intending to go into Denerim and see if he could find a place to study uninterrupted. "Come," he called, turning towards the door.
It swung open to reveal Kathil on the other side.
Maker, what now?
It took her a moment to speak. "You have just rotten luck, don't you, Jowan?" she asked, her tone clipped.
He frowned, taken aback. "I've never had it put quite that way—"
"Anyone else would have had their best friend try to talk them out of destroying their phylactery. Or maybe escaped the basement before everyone arrived to meet us there." She shook her head. "And in another world, maybe doing what Loghain wanted would have been the right thing to do, and Connor wouldn't have gotten into your books. And maybe the one person you would have made friends with when you ran wouldn't have been the Witch of the Wilds."
"She wasn't—"
But Kathil scowled at him. "She was. And just in case you're wondering, Jowan, I sodding killed her, because her daughter was someone I liked in spite of it being an entirely stupid idea for me to trust her as far as I could spit her. Not that I think Flemeth is actually dead. It takes more than a sword through the neck to kill someone like her. The point is I am probably, at some point, going to yell at you and throw things. But right now, I am sick of…this. We're stuck with each other for the moment. I've been acting like an ass."
And this was familiar, Kathil thawing like springtime smashing into Lake Calenhad, the ice protesting with mighty shrieks and cracks before it gave up its grip. He blinked and got a hold on himself. "You—wait. You killed Flemeth?"
"Well. It was my idea. If I recall correctly, Alistair struck the death blow." She wrinkled her nose. "It's a long story. The short version is that her daughter Morrigan was a friend of mine, and found out that Mama was planning to take Morrigan's body for her own. She asked me to kill Flemeth for her. I obliged. I'd say I was sorry, but I'm not."
The old woman had been cracked as a glass, but she had been a friend. He'd mourned her death, thinking he was the only one that even knew she was gone. But that her killer had been Kathil, sent by the daughter that Flemeth had spoken so fondly of…
My perfect creature, my purest creation, the shapechanger had crooned. My flower of the Wilds, my thorns, my claws. You would like her, Jowan, were you ever to meet her.
She'd known death was coming for her.
Not that I think Flemeth is actually dead.
It was entirely possible that there was a look of horror on his face. At least, that was what he gathered from Kathil's reaction. She was stepping backward, looking concerned. "You do realize that she knew you were coming, and that if she was there to meet you, apparently meeting her end at your blades probably played into some plan she had?" he said.
"I am reasonably sure that what we killed was actually a dragon forced into Flemeth's form," Kathil said. "Or maybe that was Flemeth's body, but her soul was already…elsewhere. Hard to tell. And yes, before you ask, I am quite aware that there are going to be consequences. Possibly world-dooming ones."
The Veil was trembling. Jowan took a sharp breath. "We should continue this conversation—later." Much later. Maybe never.
He saw the hard look that closed Kathil's features as she turned and walked silently away. A few heartbeats later, he heard the door of their shared quarters open and close again. He counted to twenty to let her get out of the building, and then followed suit.
The hero of sodding Ferelden.
He'd thought, finding her, that she might give him a chance to atone for his crimes. To live in repentance, use his power to do something useful. He'd heard stories about her, how she'd stood beside the King, how she'd taken the final blow on the Archdemon herself. How she'd united the country, stood in the Landsmeet and exposed Loghain's treachery.
The truth of her was something quite different.
He could almost wish for the miring silence back. At least, ignorant of the fact that Flemeth had evidently been the infamous Witch of the Wilds and that Kathil had killed her, he could hope that the ice between him and his fellow mage would thaw one of these days.
As he walked out into the sun-drenched street, there was a strange feeling tightening his chest. It was not anger, not precisely. Something like dismay, and disappointment. He'd been so proud of her. Instead of sitting in the Tower for the rest of her days, she'd gone out and done something about the Blight.
She was a hero. Unlike him.
And in the four years since they had been apprentices in the Tower together, she had changed into someone he barely recognized—and who he did not like.
It was probably for the best. She was his commander. Eventually, they would travel to Amaranthine, and he'd be able to lose himself in turning a bunch of Tower-trained academics into battle mages. He could forget about her sleeping with the assassin and Cullen (though she'd been friends with Cullen at the Tower, and Jowan had always known that something was going to happen between them some day, a traitorous part of his mind whispered). He just had to get through the next few months.
Until then—
He would endure. And survive.
*****
Lorn:
It is strange, that his human is not here.
He and his human's dust-knight have been spending a pleasant afternoon teaching the pup about things, when to growl and when to bow. They are no longer denning in the great stone place; when they returned from their darkspawn hunt, they moved dens to a smaller wooden place, except for the singer.
They appear to have added a new pack member, the mage who smells of copper and mouse and now a bit like darkspawn blood, like what the two-legs term sin. Like hunger. Like his human, her dust-knight, the other knight.
Nobody likes the mouse-mage, and his human has not been able to adequately explain why he has joined their pack. When his human looks at the mouse-mage, she smells like steel. Now he and the dust-knight have returned from their afternoon spent with the pup, and neither his human nor the mouse-mage are here, though they were both here recently and the sour smell of unhappiness permeates their den.
He snuffles around, and the dust-knight is frowning. "Maybe they went to get something to eat?"
Lorn growls. They left separately. He catches his human's trail by the door, and puts his nose to the ground. The dust-knight follows, and Lorn allows him.
It is hard to track people, in this warren of human dens. There are all sorts of scents that overwhelm and distract the nose—hot-fired metal, offal, baking bread, rot, sweat. But Lorn knows his human and knows her habits. She brushes her hand against the corners of buildings right at his nose-height, intentionally leaving a trail for him to follow. He trained her for a long time on that.
He loses her trail and finds it again. They are going away from the place where humans from different packs meet and touch hands and give each other things, and towards places he is less familiar with, but that he still remembers.
They cross many tiny territories; smaller dogs come out to challenge him but flatten their ears when they see him, mostly. Then the air starts to smell familiar. Perfume and smoke, and he remembers! He breaks into a trot, and the dust-knight jogs to keep up. It is that place, the place with all of the ladies, and the cakes!
The door is propped open, and he lopes inside. He pauses—ah there, in the corner! His human!
She is sitting at a table, her chin propped in her hands. Lorn goes to her and puts his head in her lap. Is he not a good dog? He found her!
"You are, and clever," she says in a low voice, and drops a hand down to stroke his head.
Lorn wags enthusiastically. Why is she sad? He has found her, there is no reason to be sad!
His human looks down at Lorn, and abruptly seems to see him, as if he had been covered in a shroud of unseeing before. Then she looks up and sees the dust-knight. "Maker's Breath, what time is it?" she asks. "I hadn't intended to be gone long. I'm sorry, you two."
The dust-knight sits down across from Lorn's human. Lorn licks his human's hand, and tastes salt. "And just what led you here?" the dust-knight asks. A lady walks by the table, trailing perfume. Lorn perks up, but there are no cakes forthcoming.
"The food is good, and they get in Antivan wine," his human says. "And I figured that there was no way Jowan would know to look for me here, even if he wanted to." Her fingers curl and trace the side of his muzzle, and he allows this because she is his human and there is nothing he does not allow her.
"It's—"
"I know what it is, Cullen. Before you ask, yes I have taken advantage of all the Pearl has to offer before, and no, I had no designs upon doing so today. Just finding a place where I could have a glass of wine and where nobody would bother me."
Footsteps approach, and Lorn lifts his head. It is the alpha of the territory they are on, a woman with swishy skirts and beneath them, bare feet. She smells of musk and rain-wet leaves. "Can I get you anything?"
"Another glass of wine, watered as usual, and some of the almond cakes for the warhound, if there are any," his human says. "Cullen, do you want anything? The wine really is very good, and you don't have to water yours."
The dust-knight makes a murmur and all is arranged, and a few minutes later his human is giving him little cakes, one at a time. They are sweet and wonderful, a bit different than he remembers, but still good. The alpha has brought him a big bowl of water, which he appreciates as well. His human and her dust-knight are talking. There was a tussle with the mouse-mage, he understands. Not a contest for dominance, but a surfacing of the silent snarls in them both. It would be foolish for the mouse-mage to challenge his human; she is fiercer by far than he is. Still, they circle each other, hackles raised.
Lorn understands this. What he does not understand is why she has not yet torn out the mouse-mage's throat.
"Because I will need him," she says, and feeds Lorn another cake. She is speaking both to Lorn and to the dust-knight. "We'll need him at the Tower, and the Grey Wardens should have access to all kinds of magic, not just the ones the Chantry approves of. And I know you don't believe me, Cullen, but his heart...well, it's at least in the vicinity of the right place. The general neighborhood, at least."
"Were you ever...involved?" the dust-knight asks. "Back in the Tower?"
His human gives a surprised bark of a laugh. "Oh sweet Andraste, no. I've never had any desire to see him naked, and the feeling is mutual. We were best friends, and I had Sati and he had a series of crushes on the older mages. And then Lily, but he didn't tell me about her until he was more or less forced into it. He was the closest thing I had to a brother. To a family."
Her hand is on Lorn's head again, and he puts his head on her lap. She strokes his ears. She has always longed for a pack, his human; when their excellent pack broke apart after the day of shattered stone, something in his human broke too. It has been healing, slow, like cracked ribs. More quickly now that she has been gathering a pack around her again, with her elf and her dust-knight and the singer and always, always Lorn.
Pack and territory are not always simple, among the two-legged. Sometimes they are a tangled thing, like the human word complicated. He will have to explain that to Fiann, soon. But now, he can feel his human relaxing, and her voice is losing the edge of sadness and the smell of her is beginning to go a little warmer.
She feeds him the last of the cakes and then they are leaving, and walking, back to their wooden den. The shadows are getting long, and the crows are flying, returning to their roosts. The smells of cooking food mix with the other smells of this human place.
Soon there will be dinner, and then there will be sleeping and the guarding of it, and all is well.
*****
Cullen:
Antivan wine was delicious, but it went to the head very quickly.
Cullen rather suspected that was one thing that the people of Antiva had in common with the intoxicants that they exported. Finishing his cup at the Pearl (rather too quickly, especially after Kathil mentioned that they had an whole evening ahead of them without Jowan's ears to offend) left him a bit on the head-buzzing side. He was better once they got back to the rooms, if they could be termed such.
Zevran was there already, and he'd brought supper with him. They made a picnic of it, passing around a dark crumbling bread, cheese for the bread, and slices of barely-warm roasted beef on the floor of the central room. When Cullen mentioned that Lorn had tracked Kathil to the Pearl earlier that day, Zevran raised an eyebrow and made a remark about the sorts of things Kathil liked at the Pearl, to which Kathil retorted, "I only told her to surprise me the once—"
And they were all laughing, and Zevran was teasing the mage fondly, and fortunately it seemed that Kathil's mood from earlier had entirely dissipated. After they had mostly finished eating, with Lorn guarding the door, the mage grabbed Cullen's hand and pulled him over to where she was sitting, and kissed him soundly, And then she kissed Zevran.
Things rather devolved from there, delightfully so, and Cullen felt the light-headed feeling of too much wine coming over him again, because he hadn't forgotten that afternoon several weeks ago when he'd ended up in bed with both of them, or dancing with Zevran at the masque, or the glances he and the elf have been giving each other ever since.
There just hadn't been time or privacy to do anything about it.
Now, there was.
They began as before with Kathil between them, only this time all of them gradually shed their clothes, and though Cullen had seen the patterns in scar on Zevran's back and chest before, the extent of the scarring always surprised him. Just like the terrible scarring that pitted the flesh on Kathil's shoulder was a part of her, the scars were a part of Zevran. And--a surprise--he had tattoos in places that made Cullen wince to think about the process of getting them, though they did show off certain lines very well.
Both of their hands played over Kathil's skin, and she stretched, arching her back in appreciation. "I think," she murmured, "that it is Cullen's turn to be in the middle."
And just like that—
There are things he thought of many times, in the darkness of the Chantry orphanage and then in the Templar barracks in the Tower, things he never quite got up the nerve to do anything about. (And Templars were supposed to reserve that sort of expression of love for the Maker himself, though Cullen had always heard rumors about what happened on the road, when the Templars were sent to hunt down mages. The stories never ended well.) And had he summoned the courage, the last man he'd have expected to end up in bed with would be an Antivan assassin.
But once he'd gotten over that (and it did not take so very long at all), he found himself more than enthusiastic about the whole thing. There was Kathil on one side, familiar cool skin warming where it touched his, and on the other side Zevran, who burned against him as if with fever.
And both of them were doing things that made Cullen press himself against their hands and mouths, uttering things that might have been some utterly blasphemous prayers. "Hold still a moment," Zevran said into his ear, and the elf's warm hands were sliding down Cullen's sweat-slick skin, down to his thighs, and then Zevran was kissing him as his hand started doing something quite amazing—
Cullen completely stopped thinking.
Somehow, they managed to get themselves into Kathil and Zevran's bedroom and piled into a bed that would hold all three of them, barely. The sun was down at last, the brief summer night beginning, and they were playful as puppies together, twisting around each other, kissing here, licking there, Kathil pressed against his back as Cullen discovered that there were some very good things about bedding men that he'd never thought of, especially a man as flexible as Zevran.
They eventually collapsed into a panting, quivering pile, limbs intertwined. "Zev, you're on my hair," he heard Kathil say, and they shifted a bit to free the mage from her accidental entrapment. "I think we need a bigger bed. Damn Jowan, anyway."
Zevran moved a little, and his hand on Cullen's shoulder tightened. "The night is far too pleasant to admit any such thoughts, my Grey Warden," he said, his voice low.
"Mmm. True." The mage stretched; she had ended up with one leg draped over Cullen's hip and the other hooked around Zevran's knee. "You going to distract me from them?"
Cullen lifted his head and kissed the sensitive skin just below the mage's ear. He breathed in, and she smelled of starlight and salt. "Feeling neglected, dear?"
"Never," she said, and there was a purring tremble in her voice. "But I would not refuse distraction if it were offered—ah!" She broke off with a gasp as Zevran moved a little and freed a hand which immediately went to work on her.
There was hunger in all of them, even in Zevran who was not a Warden but seemed to know how that hunger could tear, how need could be a shattered glass in the chest and gut. The mage surfaced and submerged under that need, the fingers of one hand digging into Cullen's skin, and Zevran was within her, Cullen beside them, and one day there was an idea that they would try but right now it was more than enough to simply be there, to feel what passed between the two of them.
She cried out, full-throated, and the Veil began to tatter.
Gently, swiftly, Cullen gathered his will and strengthened the Veil, the static sparks on her skin dimming and extinguishing. He had been practicing using his Templar training
in ways that he'd never been taught, and he was gratified to see that though Kathil's breath hitched a little--she'd felt what he'd done--it didn't seem to be upsetting or distracting to her.
Not that much was going to distract her, just now.
He stopped thinking, and just enjoyed the moment. The morning would come soon enough, and there was time enough to borrow trouble then.
*****
Leliana:
A man who was not precisely a man once asked her, do you believe yourself an equal to Andraste?
Of course not.
Yet--
She had dreamed of a knight made of dust, and a mouse with fur the color of blood, and sometimes she doubted and other times she believed.
This was one of the former times.
She sat in the outer chamber of the Denerim rectory, watching Chantry priests and Templars come and go, and idly thought about telling them about the maleficar who had just joined the Grey Wardens. If they acted decisively, they might be able to take Jowan down before Kathil discovered what was happening and came roaring to his rescue. A priest, the hem of her robe dragging the ground, came past with a censer that was trickling fragrant smoke.
Blood mages were one thing. Blood mages who poisoned a man and gave his son the means to call a petty demon with large ambitions to this world, a demon who had turned a good man into a jesting puppet, who had killed so very many people. Who had given a family the means to prolong the suffering involved with sending a beloved child away to the Tower for years. Who had, if the story Kathil told was correct, gotten a priest-candidate whose only sin was falling in love with a mage sent to one of the most terrible places the Maker's good earth owned.
She had certain opinions about those who used love--real love--as a weapon, and Jowan was one of those.
There were only two weeks until she would depart for Orlais once more, to try to hunt down the one who had commissioned the jeu that had gone so very badly this summer. She would likely be in Tevinter by the time the snow flew in Denerim. Though she hated to abandon Kathil at a time when the mage was likely going to need her, she thought Kathil could probably handle the Circle on her own. Leliana would be back in Ferelden by the spring, hopefully early enough to meet her in Redcliffe before they went to Amaranthine.
If all went well, that was. She was a sundowner; one could spend years chasing rumors spread by one of her own.
The Revered Mother walked by, and nodded to Leliana. She nodded back, and did not speak.
She knew the moment that the King arrived in the small courtyard outside the rectory. Alistair was not a subtle man. He had once arrived into every room with a crash of armor and a rattle of swords; now everywhere he went there was a certain murmur following him, deference and attempted helpfulness and perhaps a little avarice. It was the song of a court, a song of royalty, and what in Thedas was Alistair doing here?
That question was answered a moment later, when the King dropped down on the bench next to Leliana. "It's like having a flock of birds twittering everywhere I go," he said. He raised his voice. "Out. All of you. Now."
The cloud of sisters both lay and sworn paused, and then scurried away. The Templars followed, and Alistair finally waved his guards away as well. Emris was the last to leave, shutting the door of the rectory behind him.
"You do make a fuss, Alistair," Leliana observed. "You couldn't have spoken to me in the palace?"
"Privileges of the crown," he said, and shrugged. "I have to make a fuss every once in a while. Makes people think I'm doing my job. Besides. There are only a couple of places in this damned city where I know there aren't any ears to overhear. My study, and here, in the rectory. There aren't even any mice in the walls here. So. I need to know, Leliana. What do the Orlesians have planned?"
"It is not Orlais you should be worried about, Alistair," she said, her voice quiet and absolute. She had known this conversation was coming. "Orlais is an eagle. She screams and flaps and stoops on her prey, but Ferelden has proven to be a bit too much for her to take down. But Tevinter, now, Tevinter is a fox, a hare, a coiled snake in the long grass. Tevinter is patient, waiting in his rotted shell, peeking out every once in a while to see if things have changed enough for him to begin to slip out and begin to arrange things to his liking. He stirs now."
"Tevinter is too worried about the qunari to think about the rest of the world. You know, come join us in our fanatical devotion to exterminating the heretics, we have cookies. So it's said. "
"Conventional wisdom is so…conventional." She quirked her mouth at him. "Quiet foxes make for bad enemies, Alistair. I am going to Orlais, and from there to Tevinter to find the one who commissioned the jeu. I will find out where the fox's eyes are falling."
Alistair's eyes narrowed. "What aren't you telling me, Leliana?"
"Little me?" she asked, all innocence. "I am honesty itself."
He snorted. "And I am Andraste's pretty panties."
"And you have such lovely frills, no?" She tilted her head and patted his shoulder. "I am not your spy, Alistair. Our interests usually coincide, but you know better than to push me."
He let out an explosive breath. "I hate it when you pull that on me, you know. All mysterious and bard-y."
"I do what I must," Leliana told him. "I'll drop by next summer, yes? And we will chat then." She rose. Alistair stayed seated.
"One more question," he said. "You went with Kathil out to do the Joining with Jowan. What do you think of him?"
She breathed out. "I think he is a manipulative, cowardly man who cannot see beyond the end of his own nose, who thinks that he can somehow be saved. Maybe being a Grey Warden will be good for him, but maybe not."
"Kathil loves him." It was not in any way a question.
"And hates him just as much as she loves him. She is going to need him." Leliana shook her head. "I don't like him, Alistair. But I dreamed about a mouse with blooded fur, and a knight made out of dust. They're both a part of her. Jowan and Cullen."
"Maleficar and Templar." Alistair shook his head. "Well, I wish her luck. Away from Denerim."
"And possibly where a few less people are in the line of fire." She smiled. "I should go. Go appease your guards, who are probably imagining terrible things."
"Maker's Balls, do I have to?" But the plaintive tone in his voice was undercut but a bit of slyness. "I'll see you before you leave."
"Always, Alistair." She slipped out of the side door as her old friend the King rose and turned toward the rectory doors.
There were times she doubted and times she believed, and this was one of the latter.
For in Your infinite love
and your unending wisdom, o Maker,
you have given unto us a woman like no other,
Your Andraste, Your mortal wife.
Andraste in your compassion, defend us.
We take up arms in your name,
and your divine words caress our lips,
the first sunrise of a world new-born.
Author's Note:
I apologize for the long delay between the last chapter and this one—I'm alternating writing this and another project, so it'll continue to be about a week or so between chapters, likely. For those who like visual references, check my profile for a picture of a (younger!) Kathil.
Thank you to all for reading!