Just a note that the epilogue in Beak spoils the last chapter in Clouds. If you've been reading either primarily, I'd say just stick with it.
Hindsight with publishing companion fics concurrently is 20/20. :\
EPILOGUE
She acted only on a whispered rumor. Still, he was not hard to track down. He had made quite a reputation for himself in recent years, after all, and if he was in Kirkwall at all as the gossip suggested, then the Rose would be at the top of the list of where he might be.
He had his back planted to the corner of the brothel's common room. Nothing coming or going could escape his honeyed gaze from that vantage point. That, and his shadowed eyes, told her that the stories were true. He was an assassin again—a Crow again. Even if the Crows themselves had yet to accept him back into their ranks, the calculating glitter in his eyes said that he planned for that to change very soon. They were the eyes of a hawk, waiting to strike. It was only a matter of time.
"I heard I might find you here," Leliana said by means of a greeting. Zevran returned her gaze steadily, as unsurprised as if they had only parted ways yesterday. He had seen her come in, of course; she was as good as always at inconspicuously melting into a crowd, but it was hard for Zevran to miss her red hair, still as red as an apple and bobbed with an artful braid holding her bangs away from her face. She had worked hard to keep herself looking as much like the wide-eyed girl as she had seemed seven years ago. The creams were not cheap, but they did their job well.
Zevran, however, had not escaped time. His amber eyes might still enrapt the coldest heart at a hundred paces if he had a mind to do so, but he had no such intention now. Fine lines that would have suggested laughter in another face spoke only of years of squinting into every dark corner and cloaked figure, on the alert for another attempt on his life. His blond hair still glistened with the tones of sun-splashed wheat in the light of the single candle on the table before him, but threads of white caught the glow as effortlessly as a sword under moonlight. He wore a golden earring that Leliana did not recognize at first and had never seen on him before. But she knew what it was in the next breath, and felt her heart clench.
"Leliana," he said in greeting. He did not get up and made no motion outside of downing a glass full of some rust-colored liquid. Leliana sat down in the empty chair opposite of him anyway. She deliberately left her back exposed to the door, trusting him to remain as watchful as he had been in the past.
"And how have you been?" Zevran inquired, his voice deceptively smooth. He was on guard beneath the pretty shine. She had not seen him that way with her since his first few weeks traveling with the Wardens.
"I have...been well. I am doing some Chantry work right now." She hesitated. "And you?"
"Oh, I have been well enough. Things have been relatively quiet since the days we traveled together. But lately I have been a bit...distracted."
"An understatement. I have heard many stories of what you have been up to, Zevran. They say you are poised to take over the Crows as the first elven Guild Master in history."
"Ah, well, there is that." He shrugged nonchalantly.
"They also say you are one of the most indulgent Crows, in more ways than one. The whores, for example?"
Zevran shrugged and raised a hand for another drink. A glass filled with the same rust-colored liquid he had been putting away appeared at his elbow as though magicked there, and Leliana barely noticed their wisp of a server slipping away on unshod feet. "The stories are true. Especially the whores. They are pleasant distractions in an otherwise unpleasant life. All work and no play makes me a very trying person to be around, you see. Besides, Madame Lusine hires only the best here, and there is a most intriguing elven treasure to indulge in if one has enough coin..." He cast a searching look at Leliana as his index finger slipped its way around the rim of the fresh glass. "Temporary distractions, no more, I assure you. It passes what little time I have, outside of committing mayhem upon the next assassin sent my way. I am still in the process of convincing the Masters that I am still a member of the flock, so to speak, but it is only a matter of time. And there is little time for anything else nowadays."
"I...understand."
"Have you kept in touch with the others?"
She shook her head. "Not much. I hear things, here and there. Oghren is a Warden, if you can believe it."
"That is a little hard to believe."
"He has softened a little. Being a father has been good for him."
"That is a little harder to believe."
"Oh, he's still the same Oghren beneath that, but otherwise, it is an improvement. I have not heard word from Sten, but I can only hope he is still in Par Vollen and was not involved in that Kirkwall business a few years ago. Wynne is still with the Circle. She mentioned having traveled with Shale when I last saw her—but I believe Shale may have returned to Orzammar now." Leliana cocked her head at him. "Morrigan, no one has heard from."
"As it should be." Zevran looked as if he wanted to spit on the ground. "Putta traiciona."
"There were rumors of a dark-haired witch in the empress' court in Orlais a few years ago, but I have not seen her myself."
"And Alistair? King Alistair, I suppose. I had heard he was in Kirkwall not too long ago."
"He was, actually, although I did not catch him while he was here. He is doing well. He seems to be getting along with Anora, and he is a much-loved king. I think without him, Ferelden would be much longer in recovery from the Blight."
"Hmm." Zevran seemed to be very preoccupied with his empty glass. "Well, it is good to hear that at least one of our Grey Wardens is making good for himself."
The second was no slouch himself, and hard at work in Amaranthine—but she knew what he intended behind those words. Leliana bit the inside of her lip, unsure if she should be asking the question that lingered on her tongue. There was so much pain in the lines of his jaw. She had to know. "Zevran...are you all right? I have heard many rumors..."
"You have mentioned that." Zevran lifted the corner of his mouth. "Well, I am doing as well as one could, all things considered. It has merely been a challenge, and I do love a challenge. I am just doubtful as to what all of it has meant. He spoke so often of changing so many things. The Blight is over, true, and some things have changed, but everything that should have did not. Orzammar refuses the surface. Mages are as feared as always, perhaps more so. The Dalish wander without a home. The Denerim alienage is still filled with miserable elves—although they now have weapons, so there is that." The caustic edge that had simply lurked beneath his voice overtook it completely. "And still I am tortured with endless feca about a selfless Grey Warden no one can even name correctly. Hero, they call him. I swear I shall strangle the next minstrel I hear that from with their own lute strings."
"Zevran, they are all such lovely songs. They lift the spirit."
"And they are often very wrong. I notice you have not been doing much to correct them."
"All good songs bend the truth a little. That is part of the art of storytelling. A little drama captures the attention, makes sure the entire story is heard. There is no harm in it, and much joy to be had for the listeners. It is a shame so many insist on misspelling his name, but that is only so for those who can read. For those who listen to the songs, the way they are intended to be received, the parallels they draw between our elven Warden and the hero Dane are inspired." Leliana leaned back in her chair.
"Inspired, and causes most to immediately believe it was a human who killed the Archdemon."
"That is unfortunate. But I remember and honor him for what he was. And I made my contribution many years ago. I am simply not doing so much minstreling nowadays." She pitched her voice to a lighter tone. "I would have thought you would like the ballads; they all make you sound so gallant! The handsome blond Crow, fighting at his beloved's side from the Deep Roads to even the Fade itself..."
"Indeed. It is the least they could do," he replied dryly. "I note that they all keep in the part where I am not by his side when he faced the Archdemon. And such interesting interpretations as to why that was so! I spurned him, he spurned me, Morrigan seduced me, I was afraid—the list goes on." The side of his mouth twisted into a disfiguring smirk, as though he was about to share a terrible joke. "But I suppose it is far too common to simply say that one's lover was left behind because he decided to go on a suicide mission. There is not enough drama, yes?"
She sat up, feeling her heart crumble in her chest. None of them had known what killing the Archdemon would mean until Loghain told them afterwards. He made them all swear not to speak of it to anyone else, and they all did, and stood together in stunned silence while Loghain confessed. It was supposed to be me, he had said. She glanced at Zevran then and would never forget the chill that had settled over his eyes. She thought it would have left him by now, but now she could see that it had only burrowed deeper inside. "Oh, no, Zevran. He didn't know it would end just like that. I am sure that if he did—"
Zevran cut her off. He had no more patience for her wide-eyed romanticism. "Do you recall, Leliana, the night in Redcliffe before we went after the Archdemon, how Daen and Loghain went to speak with that Orlesian Warden in private? It was a very long talk. He said it was just strategizing, of course, but I should have known, even before Loghain confessed it all to us afterward. I convinced myself to think nothing of it when he came to me that night, that he knew no more than what he told me. And I believed it like a fool until I saw his body."
He opened his eyes and saw the top of Fort Drakon struck through with a spear of light, and felt relief spread through him. The nightmare was over. He limped off towards the old Tevinter tower before anyone could stop him, although Daen's father and cousins caught up to him eventually, chattering excitedly at him. He nodded and heard nothing that they said. Daen's mabari seemed tense and dashed ahead, but he thought nothing of it.
He waited breathless with the others for them to arrive at the mouth of Fort Drakon. First Enchanter Irving, Arl Eamon, and Kardol emerged first, leading the contingent that had joined the Wardens on the rooftop. A throng of ground forces awaited their arrival, elves and dwarves shoulder to shoulder with mages and humans, and he and his friends at their head. Bann Teagan thrust his sword into the air. "Hail, Grey Wardens!" he shouted, and a roar of cheers and rattling weapons overtook his cry.
But the stillness in what should have been faces vibrant with victory filled Zevran's chest with dread.
Wynne and Loghain seemed to be registering nothing except the first three feet of empty air in front of them. Leliana, however, saw him almost immediately. Her eyes widened, her head shook slightly, and she stepped in front of Loghain to shield what the human held from view, perhaps attempting to soften the blow of what was to come.
Still he saw the body cradled in Loghain's arms, armorless, skin bruised and torn and even paler than the hair on its head. The face was hidden, turned into Loghain's chest, and he was glad of that small mercy. Starfang rested across the narrow chest, its blade still stained with the ichor of the Archdemon's life. The cornsilk hair that he had easily brushed out of eyes as black as ink just days before was clotted with dried patches of rust brown. Between the stiffened locks, a golden earring glittered in the space of a breath before it disappeared from view.
Below, a broken hand dangled negligently in thin air, barely clinging to a recognizable form within the remaining shreds of a leather glove. Tendons were snapped and fine bones rearranged, as if hammered repeatedly with a mallet. The palm was ripped into ribbons of bright red, practically stripped of both glove and skin. But the unprotected tapered fingers, now crooked and bent at unfamiliar angles, still bore the distinctive imprint of the wrappings on Starfang's hilt. The dark blue patterns were stamped deep into what flesh remained, and would never leave.
Over the sounds of the army Daen had gathered against the Blight, the dog began to howl as he had never heard the mabari cry before. The anguished wail filled his ears until it was all that he could hear.
And it was all he heard for many days afterward.
Zevran's voice was as cold as steel.
"There were...things that I would have said, had I but known. Had he but told me. Even a whisper would have been enough. But he did not. Why? Do not patronize me with sugared words, Leliana. He knew. And he chose not to tell me."
"And so? You are angry that he decided not to take you, to witness his final moments? Is that what it is?" Leliana shook her head. "Of course he wouldn't have wanted you to see that. And we both know you would have tried to stop him if you knew. He couldn't risk that. He couldn't tell you, and he couldn't take you with him. It couldn't end any other way. Why do you still let this torture you?"
"Then why did he not make Loghain take the final blow?" Zevran's eyes chilled Leliana to the bone. "The way he and Alistair parted, I can understand why he could not have asked him to die that way. And Alistair was—is—king. The king that Ferelden both wanted and needed." He scratched at his temple impatiently. "Maker help me, I will never forgive that boy for abandoning Daen, but I can understand why he could not be the one. What I do not understand is Loghain. Loghain had much to make up for. To die taking down the Archdemon—it would have made him a hero, with justice poetic enough to destroy a minstrel with joy. Daen was a clod of feca caught in the deepest treads of Ferelden's boots. What did he owe its people, to make him die instead? Was his life as a Grey Warden so much more important than anything else? Or did he just want the glory?" His voice rose with each question. He blinked and caught himself just before his voice overtook the mingled laughter of lovers and poured drinks surrounding them, and settled back into the arms of his chair, his face made of stone.
"I do not understand. And I never will."
Leliana was silent. His questions were masks. This part of him, she was sure, would never change, and that made her want to cry for him even more.
The leather-clad hand that did not encircle his shotglass tucked itself under his chin, elbow alight on the tabletop. The gloves were worn with years of use, but bore the signs of careful maintenance in the embroidery flowing intact over its surface. Zevran had always been a sensuous man, whether it was because he had grown up in a brothel or because, among the Crows, bodily pleasures were the only bits of selfishness they could indulge in for themselves. She could not help but wonder if he unconsciously touched his fist at that spot to remind himself of the days when flaxen hair and warm skin had rested there instead.
"I am sorry, Zevran," she finally said. It seemed appropriate, if wholly inadequate.
Zevran eyed her. "You should be. Not a day goes by when I wish you had not given me that lecture after the poisoning. Life would be much simpler for me now, without the weight of the memories."
Would it? Leliana wondered. She had no more patience for his condemnations, and although her heart continued to ache, it did so now for her memories of the moon-haired elf with the shy smile, whose eyes were always turning towards Zevran. She had found Zevran difficult to deal with until she made herself try, and she only tried because Daen was so clearly infatuated. This venomous creature sitting before her was not what Daen deserved. He did not deserve Daen.
Leliana reached into the back of her belt and slammed a carved length of dragonbone on the table. She had been carrying the old Dalish dagger for the past seven years. Her greatest regret was not finding a way to give it to Zevran earlier. She could bear its weight no longer.
"Zevran, you were everything to him. Go on, tell me that that is but a sugarcoat. He loved you. There was nothing stopping you from replying except yourself. Do not blame me for your cowardice."
He stared down at the dragonbone blade between them before raising his eyes to look at her in surprise. Heat rose in her cheeks as she herself rose from her seat, and the warmth goaded her to continue, while her voice remained cold with the surety that she knew Zevran needed to hear. "And do not ever, ever dare to blame him for being so brave. You were not there. I was. He met death with courage, and...and at least the minstrel songs you despise so much honor what he did, while you, of all people, sit sodden and spit upon his memory."
She closed her eyes, remembering his little face melting away in a flash of light that threw them all to the ground. For the briefest of moments, she had deliriously believed that the entire world was on fire.
When her vision cleared, Wynne knelt beside a tangled heap of limbs, her hands limp at her sides. She could not heal the dead.
They had done their best to hide the wounds for the funeral. The Arl of Redcliffe kept Alistair busy preparing for his coronation, and although Alistair protested, the Queen took charge of Daen. It would take blood magic to make him look whole again, so the Queen simply had her maid Erlina paint his pallid face to make him look as though he merely slept, and dressed him from head to toe in silver-plated armor and a finely wrought helmet even though he had never worn either. She had said that there was no time to commission work that would fit an elf, and that they had to make do with the smallest of the ceremonial armors her own knights wore on parade. What the powders and armor could not conceal—the side of his face where he had slid against stone, eyes so badly burned that they were just holes filled with raw flesh—was shrouded behind lengths of pristine white cloth.
Before the service began, Leliana saw a shadow bend over the bier and its silver-clad passenger, a curtain of wheat separating him and his Warden from the world. He turned as the first attendee entered, and smiled when he saw her standing there. But his amber eyes were empty and dead.
Under the sun, Daen shone like a mirror, impossible to ignore. Leliana sang for him, and would later sing a different song for him that ended with how he burned, guiding the lost even while he slept in peaceful death. But when she saw him that day, she could only think of how small he looked, himself lost within armor that had simply devoured him whole.
And Daen faded into light again as Andraste led him home.
"Of all of the things you have done in your life," she whispered, "there can be nothing lower than this. How could you do that to him? How could you do that to Daen?"
He would not look at her. His hand had reached out to take the dagger, and it rested beneath his fingers as if he touched a shard of glass. Standing over him, Leliana saw a muscle in Zevran's cheek twitch at her mention of the Warden's name, the spasm betraying what lay buried below the assassin's bitterness.
Her heart cried. Oh, Daen, I know you only chose what seemed right. But this could not have been what you intended.
She made her voice soften. "We can spend the rest of our lives guessing, and never know what he was thinking. But I know in my heart that he thought of you. There was little else he could be willing to throw his life away for."
A snort was her only reply, but the way he refused to meet her eyes suggested that he wanted to believe her. And maybe subconsciously he already knew. He simply had been unable to accept it.
She moved as if to leave the table, and a hand suddenly covered hers. She looked at its owner in surprise. "Stay, Leliana. I have been unfair. I apologize. And it has been a long time."
She sank back into her seat, now more perched than relaxed between the chair's arms.
Zevran turned the dagger in his hands before silently putting it away at his own belt. "You...are right. I should not remember him for the choices he had no choice but to make."
"I am sorry, Zevran," she said again. "I wish—"
"But he was mine, Leliana," he interrupted.
His eyes glowed, holding within them the light of the candles before him.
"I know," she replied.
Leliana leaned back into her chair.
Finally, she nodded at his filled glass. "What are you drinking?"
"Ah, this?" He raised the glass to the light. "A few sighs and a whisper of how much I miss home do wonders for opening hearts. I have been steadily depleting Madame Lusine's private supply of Antivan brandy. It is sacrilege to serve it in a shotglass such as this, but beggars cannot be choosers. Perhaps it is time I ended the charade and simply purchased the whole bottle, yes?"
"I believe it is. I could use a glass myself." She raised her hand to catch their ghostly server's attention.
The bottle arrived, already half-empty and with a clean shotglass capping its mouth. She shook her head upon seeing it; it was the kind of carved glass carafe that collectors treasured, as much for the art of the container as the liquid treasure within. How had Zevran managed to wheedle it from Madame Lusine? Zevran was still Zevran, after all. That was some comfort.
She watched him pour her a glass, which she emptied; then she poured him a glass, which he emptied as well. Their talk began with the catch-ups and how-have-you-beens former comrades such as they should have had, without the rancor and the guarded replies. She could not tell him what she was doing now, and he accepted her apology with an understanding nod. When she asked why he had returned to the Crows, he answered simply: It was time for an elf to change things. She remembered the blue-eyed Shadow with her children by her side, disappearing into an impossibly bright night. They had never met again. She agreed.
In an hour, they turned to memories and stories, trading favorites back and forth with a sip each in between. Leliana waited until the liquid had diminished to half again and then, perhaps emboldened by her warmed throat and fuzzy thoughts, told the tale of how she first met Daen, well before Zevran had joined. Zevran reciprocated with his own story—Leliana had not been in the scouting party during the ambush, and she giggled at Zevran's description of the attack.
"I awoke tied tighter than an Orlesian noblelady in her finest corset, and just about as able to breathe. I do not know who was responsible for the trussing, but I suspect it was Daen himself. Knots bigger than Sten's fists, and more numerous than Daen's hair after he wakes up! I looked like a chew toy for the dog!"
They pounded the table, tears in their eyes as they howled and drew looks from the Rose's patrons. It felt good to hear him laugh, and to watch the age melt away from his face.
"Almost as good as 'Princess Stabbity,'" she managed to choke out. "They made me so mad sometimes, but Maker, I miss our Wardens..."
Zevran made one last chuckle, and then coughed as though he was clearing his throat. "Leliana...how did he die? I have never had the courage to ask. His wounds were..." He coughed again. "Was it...fast?"
She laughed nervously, to buy herself some time. "Do you want the minstrel version? Or...?"
He slowly lifted a sodden eyebrow. "I have made it clear how I feel about minstrel songs, yes?"
"Then if you are sure, I cannot rightly deny you." She poured him another glass and told him what she saw—the truth, without any embellishments. She had excised the harsher details from her own ballad, but it was true that Daen had faced death bravely. There was no higher mark of courage in her eyes than the unhesitant way he took command after Loghain fell, despite how pale with fear he had been only moments before.
Wynne had told her a little of what happened afterwards—how Daen would not let her heal him. The elderly mage did not know why, but said that she thought it was because he knew that it was hopeless for him, and that Wynne herself was too weak to try without killing herself in the process. She had used most of her lyrium in the battles towards and ascending the tower, and tapped her spirit's reserves in the first surge against the Archdemon. She barely had the strength to descend the tower again.
Wynne had also told Leliana the few words Daen had managed to say before he died. Leliana told Zevran those words now, too. She knew that they were not what he hoped to hear. They were words for the country, and held little comfort for a lover. But Leliana's ears were trained to catch and hold a person's voice just as well as a tune, and she could not forget how Daen laughed just before he drove his starmetal sword through the Archdemon's eye. She had heard him laugh before, of course, but never like that; it spilled from him, uncontrolled and unstoppable until the light came and took him far away, like a madman on the verge of losing everything. She could imagine who he thought of in those last few moments of his short life. She told Zevran this.
"Your Chantry says we go to the Fade when we die, does it not?" Zevran asked after the words left her tongue.
"That is one of the teachings, yes," she said cautiously.
"I see him sometimes, when I am asleep," he said absently, his fingertip balanced on the rim of his glass. "I know I do not remember everything, but I remember enough. Most times he is in the alienage, other times elsewhere, and always with his back to me. He does not turn, not until I have come closer. When he does, it is like he has never left. And that is always the moment when I realize that I am in the Fade. Dreaming of demons, perhaps. Or perhaps..."
Zevran did not seem to intend on finishing his sentence.
"How long have you had these dreams?"
"Since he left." Zevran faded into contemplation, his eyes closing, his head nodding like a sleepy child's.
Leliana decided it was time to change the topic. Zevran was slipping away again. And she had come to Kirkwall for a reason, after all, and he may have learned something that would give her more to take back to the Divine.
"I happened to meet the Champion the other day. Have you seen him? He is hard to miss; he is so tall, and very handsome in a dark Fereldan way. I am sure he has broken many hearts with those gray eyes of his."
Amber eyes locked onto her, clear of all signs of alcohol. "Ah, yes. You speak of the apostate who killed the Arishok. Sten will be ecstatic when he hears the news, I am sure, wherever he is now," Zevran said dryly. "I did meet the man myself only a few days ago, as well as his sister. They were...misinformed about a bounty on my head. But he is good friends with an old friend of mine, so our encounter was bound to happen sooner or later. He is a hard man to avoid. Nevertheless, he was...very helpful."
Zevran planned to be in Kirkwall for the time being, and had been observing the Champion on and off since their encounter, curious as to why Isabela had not struck out for the open sea years ago. As far as he could tell, all the Champion and the beardless dwarf did was indulge her love of cards and drinking. As much as she adored those pastimes, the Isabela he knew would not have stayed so long in one place just for them. Something else must have happened in the past to keep Isabela grounded in the Free Marches.
It was still strange to see the pirate queen without a ship, but she seemed content for the time being. And a sailor, after all, knew that a ship needed all of its hands to weather a storm. Kirkwall was no glass-calm lake, after all; Zevran could taste the heavy tang of fear in the air. Something was brewing. No doubt Isabela would find her way back to the ocean once it was over.
The Champion himself was indeed strikingly handsome in the exact way Leliana described—tall, with an open face capped with careless black hair and penetrating gray eyes. Zevran, however, doubted that the Champion was fully Fereldan by blood; there was an olive cast to his skin that spoke of a lineage from somewhere well outside of Ferelden, and perhaps even further than the northern reaches of the Free Marches. But he was clearly Fereldan in other ways, and Zevran did not doubt that he at least considered himself Fereldan to the bone. He wandered as all Fereldans in Kirkwall did, in any case, like a lost wolf pup chased from his mother's den.
He also seemed to be notorious for not turning down a single request for his assistance. Zevran observed them pouring in to his estate by the bagful, and they were no doubt in part responsible for the early signs of age around the Champion's eyes. Bodahn sorted through the requests every night and left only the most important-sounding ones on the Champion's desk, with the mage none the wiser. His sister took care of the rest.
Leliana clasped her hands together on the table. "Tell me, what is your impression of this Hawke? He is very charismatic, but a little strange, no? The Maker's Sun branded on his forehead, even when he is clearly not a Tranquil..." She shook her head. "He told me it sounded like a good idea at the time, whenever 'that time' was. It makes him seem so very...unpredictable."
Then, because she couldn't help it: "He...reminds me a little of somebody," she ventured. "Headstrong, and passionate, and a little sad and angry, hidden beneath a mask of cheer. Yet people look to him, even though he is an...apostate. It seems that people like that are always at the center of the storm. Perhaps he will do much for the plight of those like him in Kirkwall, no?"
The elf cocked a blond eyebrow. He knew who she was trying to describe, however awkward her roundabout method was. Daen was not the one Zevran would have drawn a comparison with, truth be told. Of course, the similarities were few, but they were there if one looked for them—the gilded tongue, the guarded eyes, the cocksure personality in a fight. The fire within.
But Daen had been a glowing ember, a beacon for those who needed help seeing. He had not asked to be so, but could not say no when the torch fell into his hands. The Champion was an inferno, ablaze with his own hunger. Daen had known where his home was; the Champion was still searching. And with his position now, the influence he enjoyed, with nothing holding him back except for a few friends, he was the most dangerous man in the entire city.
Zevran knew where the storm would gather and where the fist would close. The whole of Kirkwall would change before its Champion and the choices he made, and there would be none of the old left in his wake.
He felt his throat begin to clench as it always did when memories got the better of him, and he willed his muscles to relax. "The Champion is a well-meaning lad," he said casually, finally foregoing the glass to raise the heavy bottle and its last finger of liquid to his lips. "He is very ambitious, and bound to achieve even more greatness than he has already. But that apostate Grey Warden of his is going to bring the Champion a great deal of heartbreak some day, assuming the Champion does not break his heart first."
"How can you say that?" Leliana protested, ever the romantic. "They seem to care about each other a great deal. It is obvious to anyone who sees them together."
How can I say it? Is it the tension, the jealousy? The way the Warden's heart is so clearly split between the Champion and something else entirely? The Champion's desperation, his willingness to blind himself to the signs, all for the sake of keeping the Warden by his side in that empty mansion of his?
There were many differences. But there were also many similarities.
Zevran smiled at Leliana through the bottom of the decanter. The beveled designs swirled across the thick glass distorted his mouth, stretching it into a clown's painted grin.
"I can tell, my lovely bard. Never doubt it."
Note: Thank you for reading Beak of the Crow. It means a lot to me that you've read it to the end. Beak was sort of my "icebreaker" fanfic after a decade of no creative writing whatsoever, and while I think it definitely shows signs of lack of practice, I'm glad that I actually finished something! And Zevran is fun to write.
I am so grateful for feedback and reviews, but please be careful with spoilers if you are kind enough to leave any!
Daen and Zevran's stories encompass a lot of firsts for me (first NaNoWriMo, Romance, fanfics in a decade...completed multi-chapter fanfics ever? Whoa). I think the next step is cleaning them up to go on AO3. As far as NaNoWriMo goes, I'm happy to report that although both Clouds and Beak were not at 100% completion by the end of November 2012, I did have at least 70K words written between the two—which is success in my book! I'm trying to work on a DA:2 fanfic now, although I've spent so much time in Daen's head that it's hard to shift gears to Hawke's. And work is definitely more important at the moment. Who knows, maybe it just means I'll be back again in another ten years.
Special thanks and lots of love to Bioware and the Dragon Age writers, animators, programmers, and staff; EA; and the DA Wiki contributors.
Super special thanks to everyone who favorited, followed, and/or reviewed while I was writing and publishing chapters. Every single one was so encouraging! Reviewers in particular—Tatianafan1, CielShadow17, fanficfan, and Tobyk947—thank you especially, so, so much. Your kind words really did go a long way.
See you around!
-K