Chapter Three: Meet Me At Midnight

Disclaimer: I do not own Dragon Age.

After making the date with Anders, the Hawke siblings headed home to let Leandra know that they'd be gone until an obscene hour in the morning if they made it back that night at all and so not to worry that they'd all been brutally murdered. Varric was pleased to discover how close their humble abode was from his favorite pub, the Hanged Man.

"Emma, I don't think it's good for poor Loghain to stay cooped up all day," Leandra told her. "Why don't you bring him with you on some of your errands?"

"I…don't know," Emma admitted. "That actually sounds like a great idea."

"Maybe then people will actually recognize that we're Ferelden without us having to literally spell it out for them," Bethany said hopefully.

Varric snorted. "I wouldn't hold my breath, Sunshine."

"You have some mail," Gamlen informed them. "I didn't read it or anything but you might want to know that Athenril wants you to look for some of her cargo the Coterie seem to have intercepted at the docks at midnight tonight and to meet a lyrium smuggler named Anso in Lowtown at midnight tonight. Also, that mercenary you didn't want anything to do with, Meeran, wants you to head to the docks and kill a nobleman named Lord Harriman who the letter insists was absolutely not responsible for making the viscount actually do something for once and, more specifically, to send aid to Ferelden following the end of the Blight. The nobleman will need to be killed in broad daylight at a crowded area of the docks."

"But you didn't read it," Carver said sarcastically.

"Honest truth," Gamlen lied.

"So that's three midnight meetings now? Midnight meetings are getting far more popular than I had thought," Emma mused. "I do hope this won't make my midnight meeting with Anders any less romantic…"

"You're rescuing his ex-boyfriend. In a Chantry. With your siblings," Varric told her. "I really don't think that all these other midnight meetings are really going to change the level of romanticism a great deal."

"Wait, who's this 'Anders'?" Leandra demanded.

"If Emma gets her way, he'll be her new boyfriend," Carver replied.

"Oh, Maker…" Leandra said with a heavy sigh. "What's wrong with him?"

"Not you two!" Emma said, looking betrayed.

"Emma, you know I love you dearly but we have to face the facts. Do you remember how your last relationship ended?" Leandra said gently. "Or your third-to-last relationship?"

Emma refused to look at her. "No."

"This, I gotta hear," Varric said with a smirk.

"The templar realized that half of us were apostates and so he had a tragic accident on the way to get backup to take my sister, my father, and myself to the Circle," Bethany explained.

"I don't know why that poor fool walked into my sword thirty-seven times but I feel for him," Carver said, shaking his head in commiseration.

"And the desire demon?" Varric asked, wishing he'd brought something to take notes with.

"Things seemed to be going fine until it tried to possess Bethany and my children killed it," Leandra replied.

"I can never just have a normal breakup can I?" Emma complained.

"Well if you'd start dating normal people…" Carver hinted.

"Normal people are boring," Emma declared. "Besides, I don't think they'd want to get involved in our…unique lifestyle anyway."

"So we've got some time to kill before midnight," Bethany noted. "What do you guys think we should do? Go see Aveline?"

"Who exactly is Aveline?" Varric asked them.

"She's a guard," Carver replied bitterly. "We met her when we were fleeing Lothering and she came to Kirkwall with us."

"It occurs to me that perhaps it would be wiser to hold off seeing her until tomorrow as we're going to get involved in all manner of illegal activities tonight," Varric opined.

"That's probably a good idea," Emma agreed. "I know! Let's go kill that Lord Harriman guy and then spend the rest of the time we need to wait getting drunk at the Hanged Man!"

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Bethany asked hesitantly. "Magic is notoriously harder to control when drunk."

"What's the worst that can happen," Emma asked dismissively.

Carver rolled his eyes. "Templars will come down and kill us all, possibly molesting you two before that happens. And you'll destroy the pub. And mother will die in poverty as she's left with Gamlen to support her. And you'll have managed to make life worse for every mage in Kirkwall and perhaps beyond that as you're held up as an example of the dangers that mages can pose."

"I'd take offense at that if I didn't half-agree with you," Gamlen remarked.

"Yeah, but besides that? Huh? You can't think of anything, can you?" Emma asked smugly. "Thought not."

The quartet made their way to the docks where they found a frightened-looking teenager on the ground.

"Are you one of Meeran's men or do we not have to give a damn?" Emma asked.

"Not that we're going to necessarily give a damn if you are a mercenary," Carver added.

"Carver, that's horrible!" Bethany exclaimed.

"No, what's horrible is the fact that you guys wouldn't let me be a mercenary and are now taunting me with this one side-job," Carver disagreed.

"That was a year ago!" Bethany exclaimed.

"And we stopped being smugglers all of two days ago," Carver pointed out. "And it's also unbelievable that, within forty-eight hours of leaving the smuggling world behind, we have to go bail them out again."

"Well what do you expect?" Varric asked rhetorically. "Emma here is the only reason that the Coterie haven't crushed Athenril."

Carver's eye twitched. "We were there, too, remember?"

"Oh, I do," Varric assured him. "My statement still stands."

"Um…do you guys really care about my answer?" the man on the ground asked hesitantly.

"Not really," Emma confessed.

"Neither do I," a distinguished-looking nobleman said, approaching them.

"Are you Lord Harriman?" Emma asked him.

"I probably shouldn't confess this to people I am reasonable sure are out to kill me but…yes, yes I am," Lord Harriman admitted.

"Great! I love it when other people make my life easier," Emma cheered. "Just for that, I'll grant you the chance to utter a few last words or, if you do not have any prepared, to extend your life for up to fifteen minutes while you have some composed."

"Can I tell you why people want me dead?" Harriman asked hopefully.

Emma shrugged. "I doubt it really matters, but if it makes you happy then why not?"

"I was the one to single-handedly convince the viscount to send aid to Ferelden. You are Fereldens yourselves, are you not?" Harriman asked rhetorically.

Bethany looked pleased. "It seems taking Loghain with us did the trick after all."

"I wouldn't be too sure. This man's a noble, remember? There's about a fifty-fifty chance that those are smarter than your average peasant," Varric told her.

"What about if we told everyone that his name was Loghain? Would that help?" Bethany inquired.

"I don't know," Varric answered. "He's pretty popular in Orlais, actually."

"To his undying shame, no doubt," Carver remarked.

Emma glared at Harriman and put her hands on her hips. "Nice try but Meeran's letter specifically said that you didn't do that."

Carver sighed. "One of these days I'm going to have to teach her what a suspiciously specific denial is…"

Varric snorted. "Good luck, Junior."

"B-but it's true!" Harriman clearly hadn't expected to be disbelieved. "Can you really kill me for that?"

"I don't know," Emma said with a shrug. "But since I don't believe you…" She trailed off as she zapped him with electricity.

"You know, Emma, we're no longer under Athenril's protection from the templars so maybe you should do less open displays of the fact that you're an apostate?" Carver suggested. "Might be a nice change of pace."

Emma stared at him in honest confusion. "I don't know what you mean."

Carver sighed again. "Of course you don't."

Emma decided that after a job well done, the best thing to do would be to reward themselves at the Hanged Man so they were going there now instead of actually getting anything else done. There was an extremely attractive and half-naked woman that Emma had never seen before leaning against the counter. A couple of thugs had been sitting at a table nearby and staring at the door. When they saw the group come in, they promptly stood up and headed over to the woman.

"You owe us, Isabela," one of them said, leaning on the bar.

"Well, Lucky, I'll tell you what…since your information was worth nothing, that's what I'll pay you," the woman (presumably Isabela) said lazily as she reached for her drink. "You're in luck, too. If it was bad information instead of just useless, I would have to charge you."

"Me and my boys will get our money's worth, bitch," Lucky said, gripping ahold of her wrist.

"I hate those 'this is for emphasis, bitch' people," Carver complained. "Do they really think it makes them sound tough?"

"Yes," Lucky answered without turning around. "Any time you add 'bitch' to the end of your sentence it automatically makes it twice as badass. Bitch."

"That was a new sentence, though," Emma pointed out.

"Well, I-" Lucky started to say before Isabela slammed his head onto the counter. He slumped unconscious but his men moved menacingly Isabela's way.

"Wait! Wait! Wait! Hold up!" a young woman with long red hair shouted.

"What?" Isabela asked. "Who are you?"

"I am Bella, the owner of this fine establishment. This bar only has two rules: no groping the staff no matter how drunk you get and take all fights outside," Bella said flatly. "So move on out or sit down and shut up."

Isabela sighed. "Fine…if you boys want to try and convince me to give you money or 'avenge' Lucky then come on."

Lucky's men followed her outside and ten seconds later, Isabela returned alone and unscathed.

"That was impossibly fast," Emma noted. "Clearly, this Isabela is awesome. We should go say hi."

"Are you sure?" Bethany asked hesitantly. "She's really not wearing all that much and it's making me uncomfortable."

"We've got to talk to her," Carver spoke up. "It's only being polite."

Varric chuckled. "I agree with Junior. Besides, she seems fascinating."

Though it wasn't an official vote, it was still 2-1 in favor of meeting Isabela (and Bethany wasn't even on her side this time but Carver was! How odd was that?) and that was all the encouragement Emma needed before bounding up to the woman.

"You're new around here, aren't you?" Isabela asked knowingly.

"No, actually I've been around for exactly a year and two days," Emma corrected.

"Huh," Isabela said, sounding puzzled. "I've been around for a few months, too. You must never be at the docks and be new to this bar though, right?"

"Actually, I practically lived at the docks when I was a smuggler for the past year-" Emma began.

"Don't admit things like that!" Carver practically shrieked.

"And I go this bar at least nine times a week," Emma continued. "Usually more."

"You're really making it seem like you have an alcohol problem," Bethany told her.

Emma waved the concern of. "Please. My magic really does wonders for my alcohol tolerance."

"Emma!" Carver protested.

"Keeping your sister from getting set upon by templars is really going to cost me, isn't it?" Varric asked rhetorically. "I wonder if it's too late to back out of this whole partnership thing…"

Carver glared at him. "It is. Absolutely."

"But those two places are where I spend all of my time as well!" Isabela exclaimed. "And yet I know that I've never seen you before because you are, quite frankly, gorgeous and I always remember the pretty people. And the dangerous ones and given that you're pretty open about being a mage in Kirkwall and have been here for awhile, you must be both."

"That is certainly strange," Emma agreed. "Which is a shame because you are totally gorgeous as well!"

"You know what we should do later?" Isabela asked. "Have sex."

"We totally should!" Emma agreed, her eyes lighting up.

"I do not need to hear this…" Bethany said, looking a little sick.

"Neither do I," Carver agreed. "Varric, are you taking notes?"

"No…" Varric lied innocently.

"But in the meantime, I've got a bit of a problem I was hoping you could help me out with," Isabela announced.

"Really?" Emma looked surprised. "I'm happy to help, of course, but you seem pretty capable."

"Thanks," Isabela said with a pleased grin.

"One of these days, can't you please wait to find out what kind of help people need before agreeing to do it?" Carver implored. "Especially since once you find out that it's a bad idea you insist you have to do it anyway because you gave your word?"

"She does have a point about how if she doesn't tell the truth then she can't really expect people to trust her," Bethany pointed out.

"And with some of the things she agrees to do, she kind of has bigger problems," Carver said through gritted teeth.

"She doesn't think so," Bethany replied.

Carver glared at her.

"What? It's true!" Bethany insisted.

"So I hired Lucky to find some information for me and it was utterly useless. I kind of needed that to pan out but, well, what can you do?" Isabela said with a shrug. "I'm having a duel tonight with an…old friend, I guess you can say. I actually kind of hate him and suspect that he will cheat, though."

Emma nodded sagely. "I guess this is what happens when you're all careless and don't make your word your bond."

"You can not trust someone regardless of how trustworthy they were in the past," Carver told her.

"Yes, but then you don't deserve the mistrust and get to feel better about yourself," Emma claimed. "Do go on, Isabela."

"Our duel is supposed to take place at midnight at Hightown. If you could show up just in case and help me kill any assassins he might send after me then that would be utterly amazing," Isabela told her.

"We hardly know you," Carver pointed out. "And you've certainly never seen us fight. Why do you want us?"

"Well…I don't necessarily want you," Isabela admitted. "But I've heard all about Varric and Bianca, of course."

"My name's Bethany, actually," Bethany corrected.

"No, no," Varric told her, laughing. "Bianca's my crossbow. Have we seriously known each other for two hours and I didn't tell you that? My bad."

"I should probably mention that I'm Carver and my other sister's Emma," Carver said. "I tend to think that you should at least know someone's name before you sleep with them."

"Spoken like a virgin," Isabela said indulgently.

"I'm actually not…" Carver replied.

Bethany started coughing.

"Anyway, having mages is always good, as well," Isabela continued. "Even the most incompetent of mages can start a zombie apocalypse after all. I've seen it done."

"That sounds like templar propaganda," Bethany said suspiciously.

"I'm actually pro-freedom in every form," Isabela admitted. "Just please don't drag me into this silly little debate raging in Kirkwall. I don't care and the minute I get a new ship, I am sailing far far away to a more sensible place. Maybe Antiva."

"So we're going to have yet another midnight meeting?" Varric asked, amused. "That makes, what, four? Blondie, the smuggler, the lyrium smuggler, and now Rivaini here."

"Rivaini?" Isabela repeated.

"I'm not a big fan of names," Varric explained. "In fact, they're usually reserved for family."

"And Emma," Carver muttered.

"So Rivaini is my nickname? Well, why not? I am Rivaini, after all," Isabela disclosed. "And don't look at me. I wanted to have the duel at a nice normal hour when I'm not supposed to be enjoying the wonders of the night but I didn't set the time and it's important that I show up. If I win, he stops harassing me. If he wins…well, I have to go back with him to his boss so needless to say I plan on winning."

"Planning to win is generally a good first step," Emma declared. "And this sounds like a worthy cause. Midnight it is."

"We might be a bit late," Bethany warned. "Tonight's just one of those nights, it seems."

Review Please!