Chapter Twenty-Four: Bartrand's Back

Disclaimer: I do not own Dragon Age2.

"It's not that I'm opposed to random midnight strolls through Hightown, even if I'm sure that half of the households have called the guard on us, but I still don't get why you want to do this, Varric," Emma told him.

"I wouldn't worry about the guard, they know that you belong here, Emma, and that I wouldn't be with you if you were up to any mischief," Aveline assured her.

"I wouldn't worry about the guard, either. And I'm pretty sure that mischief will be going on," Carver disagreed.

"There's really no reason, I was just feeling like going for a midnight walk," Varric claimed. "But since we happen to have coincidentally stopped in front of this one house, would now be a good time to mention that my traitorous brother is back from Rivain and is lodging right here?"

"That's an odd coincidence to be sure," Isabela agreed. "In fact, one might almost call it contrived."

"Almost," Varric agreed. "So does anybody else feel like paying him a visit?"

"I don't know, midnight seems a little late for visitors," Merrill said doubtfully. "Unless dwarves do it differently?"

"No dwarves, Sunshine. Family," Varric told her.

"What are the odds that we get to kill him?" Emma inquired.

Varric smirked and removed Bianca from his back. "Pretty good, I'd say."

"Then what are we waiting for?" Emma asked, grinning.

They knocked on the door, as was only polite even when showing up in the middle of the night to probably kill your host, but there was no answer.

"How long should we wait?" Anders wondered. "I mean, it's pretty late so it's possible he needs some time to get out of bed or rouse a servant or something but I don't want to waste a lot of time standing out here if he's just not going to come."

"You know, Blondie, I think you have a point," Varric remarked.

Carver groaned. "He never has a point."

"Oh, but here he does," Varric insisted. "It's late so it would be downright decent of us if we just let ourselves in, wouldn't it? Fortunately, Bartrand is nothing if not predictable and never remembers his key so he always hides one under the mat." He bent down and fished a key out from under said mat.

"If he's so predictable then why didn't you see that he was going to leave us all to die?" Fenris challenged.

"Actually, that was quite predictable," Varric admitted. "He did that kind of thing all the time. I just sort of wasn't expecting a betrayal until we had already gathered everything and hauled it to the surface for him. And if he had tried anything then then we would have been ready."

"I guess that's why he acted earlier, then," Carver concluded.

"I don't understand what the point is of even locking your door if you're going to be so stupid as to leave a key under the mat. Everyone always checks their first," Aveline pointed out.

Varric shrugged. "I guess maybe it's safer to hide a key under a mat and stymie the five percent of the population who wouldn't think to look there than to not even bother locking the door. I tried to get him to put a key around his neck so he wouldn't lose it but apparently he couldn't stand the feeling of the metal against his skin."

"I guess the real wonder is why he hasn't been killed in his sleep before this," Emma commented.

"He's always had me to arrange for suitable protection," Varric explained. "He really should have thought of that before actually successfully betraying me. But then, I guess that maybe he hadn't been expecting to succeed any more than I had actually expected him to succeed. This is really new territory for us. And for the record, Bartrand may be a lying, betraying creep but he's still my brother and so we're at least going to wake him up and maybe give him a sword before we kill him."

Varric unlocked the door and they all walked through and began to explore the house.

"This place looks abandoned," Emma remarked as she looked around.

"I don't get it," Varric said, frowning. "My sources saw people here making deliveries only a week ago and now it looks like it's been abandoned for months!"

"Not for nothing, Varric, but if they were making deliveries a week ago then why are we only getting to this now?" Carver inquired.

Varric shrugged. "I've been kind of busy."

"Too busy to get around to avenging the betrayal that nearly killed us at the hands of your own brother who could take off at any second, especially if he realizes that you're still alive?" Carver couldn't believe it.

"Careful, Junior. I detect the faint hint of judgment," Varric complained. "And I figured this was best to do at midnight and I had to make sure that Sebastian wasn't around – because who wants him around anyway? – and we've had a lot of midnight adventures lately."

"Why is that?" Aveline wondered. "It makes showing up for work at eight absolute hell when our adventures don't even start until midnight."

"Well, no one but you actually has a steady job," Emma pointed out. "I mean, I guess Varric runs his family business or whatever but when you own the business then you can set the hours."

"I'm the only man I could ever stand to work for," Varric informed them.

"Hey!" Anders protested. "I have a job, too."

Emma tilted her head. "Well…you don't actually get paid so it's more of a volunteer thing."

"The people I heal are the poorest of the poor and I couldn't possibly justify taking their money!" Anders cried out. He made a face. "Not that I haven't tried because, especially in the past, I've needed to eat, too, but…Apparently it's 'unjust.'"

"I'm not trying to trivialize the work that you do," Emma assured him. "It's just that the fact you're not getting paid and it's not like people are fighting over the chance to heal the sick and poor means that you can show up whenever you want to however often you want to and there's nothing anybody can do. They can't exactly fire you, now can they?"

"You know, Emma, I am a templar," Carver reminded her.

"For the purposes of allowing you to remain in my presence, I choose not to acknowledge this," Emma encountered. "And besides, how often are you actually there? Do the templars really have such lax schedules?"

Carver shrugged. "Pretty much, yeah. Unless a mage escapes or uses blood magic or consorts with demons there's not a lot to do. Most of them are a lot more zealous than I am and have nothing better to do with their time, having forsaken all earthly attachments or something, and so are eager to take my shifts guarding the Circle."

"If you're not going to do anything templar-like then why did you even join the templars?" Isabela demanded.

"I didn't want to be dependent on my sister forever and it pays well," Carver explained.

Isabela laughed. "They could pay you a pittance and it would still be paying well for all they seem to expect out of you."

"When you're right, you're right," Carver agreed.

"I wonder if I could be a templar…" Isabela mused. "I bet that they're just a hot mess of weird sexual kinks."

"They're supposed to be celibate," Carver told her.

Isabela raised an eyebrow. "Oh, are they? And how is he doing with that one, Merrill?"

Merrill just blushed.

"No, nuh-uh, not going to happen!" Emma exclaimed. "My brother is one thing but no one else is allowed to join the templars or I shall simply have to scream and probably start stabbing things."

"Hey, how about you guys sit this one out?" Varric suggested. "I mean, I know you've come all this way with me but I'm awesome and I've got Bianca, who is awesome, and this is my brother we need to kill. You all could help and maybe speed things up but, seriously, it would be much more epic if I did it all by myself."

"Then why did we even come?" Carver demanded. "Just to be your cheerleading squad and watch you be awesome?"

Varric raised an eyebrow. "Think about it."

Carver grinned suddenly. "Yeah, you're right, that would be pretty great and totally worth it."

What proceeded was the most epic ten minutes any of them had ever seen as Varric was mobbed again and again by his brother's guards and, not losing his cool for an instant, he dispatched them each with one well-aimed blow from Bianca.

"Wow," Emma marveled. "Varric's almost as good as a mage."

"I know," Anders agreed, just as awed. "And if we were capable of being even remotely objective, we'd be forced to admit that he is, in fact, better than a mage."

At last he burst into his brother's chambers, the others trailing along behind him at a far enough distance that they would not get in the way but close enough so that they could still appreciate his majesty.

He shot a single bolt through three guards and, as they fell, they revealed a cowering Bartrand with his hands up as if to protect his face.

"Hello, dear brother," Varric said, smirking.

"Oh, Varric! Please forgive me, my brother. I was just jealous of you," Bartrand begged, falling to his knees.

"I know," Varric said simply.

"How could I ever compete with you for Mother's love?" Bartrand wailed.

"You can't," Varric said coolly. "In fact, you could never compete with me at all for anything."

" 'You're strong and handsome and so very smart,' Bartrand gushed. It was getting a little embarrassing," Varric said, really getting into his story.

"Okay, enough!" Cassandra snapped. "It's hard enough to believe that Aveline is such a terrible guard captain, and no one notices Emma Hawke's blatant magic, or that Carver can still spend all his time chasing after his sister when he's supposed to be a templar but this…This is too much."

"I assure you that all the rest of that is true," Varric swore. "I think the problem is that the people of Kirkwall are just really not at all observant. Carver and maybe a few silent supporters were really the only ones who seemed to see how terrible Aveline was at her job. She's a good soldier but she's just too pedantic and by the books to be really good at being a captain. And she hung around with us and never reported all our rule-breaking endeavors, of course."

"I have heard only good things about her tenure as guard captain," Cassandra said, confused. "They say that she really turned the guards around."

Varric rolled her eyes. "I know. It used to drive Carver crazy. I still don't understand why everyone thought that. Maybe they just couldn't wrap their minds around how someone that dedicated could be bad at their job and they really didn't want to have to train another replacement. The usual bureaucratic BS, you know how it is. So instead they laid the blame at the feet of the city itself and how inevitable everything was. Aveline was perfect and couldn't have done anything differently because it was all inevitable. Yes, even the part about Anders and the-"

"We'll get to that in good time," Cassandra cut him off. "What about the Hawke siblings?"

"Bethany really wasn't up to anything just then, she was off being the good little Circle mage and wondering why Emma had never stopped by to see her," Varric answered.

Cassandra's eyes widened. "Wait, what? You mean never? Not in three years?"

"I mean never," Varric confirmed. "And she never actually did, either. Sure, Bethany comforted herself that Emma just couldn't take the risk of walking into the gallows as an apostate mage but she did that all the time later. No, I think she just couldn't stand to see Bethany as a Circle mage and since that was sort of something Bethany had inexplicably wanted it made things…awkward."

"I see," Cassandra said, clearly not seeing at all. But there was really no way to make her understand because she'd never known Emma.

"Maybe Emma's magic subconsciously prevented her from being noticed or maybe no one wanted to mess with the girl who was surrounded by a small army at all times. And dealing with apostate nobles was just a headache, I assure you," Varric continued. "They probably thought it wasn't worth it, especially since she showed no signs of being possessed or supporting blood magic."

"Unlike Merrill and Anders," Cassandra pointed out.

Varric groaned. "They cost me a fortune. And then Anders went and…I still can't believe it."

"Neither can half of Thedas," Cassandra said dryly.

"As for Carver, well, Meredith was too busy being a fanatic and slowly unraveling to run a very tight ship. Cullen had his hands full fighting blatant abuses of templar power with regards to mages to care what Carver got up to since he wasn't engaging in any of that and had something rare known as 'morals'," Varric continued. "This made him kind of boring at times but it did mean that he could pretty much do what he wanted."

Cassandra nodded. "Alright, then. Now continue with the story. The real story. Or at least make up a more convincing lie."

Varric shrugged. "You've got it."

The group killed their way to Bartrand, stopping briefly to find out what was going on from the only semi-sane person in that house. Bartrand's steward revealed that he had been slowly going crazy and obsessing over the lyrium idol he had betrayed them over and had come back to Kirkwall to find it. Not that the presence of the idol let Bartrand off the hook or anything.

The steward did not know who the idol had been sold to, just that it was 'some Meredith woman.'

Unfortunately, there was to be no epic battle as when they finally found Bartrand he was clearly out of his head and talking to the ceiling.

"I just need to hold it again….just for a minute…" he was muttering. "Stop saying that! I know I shouldn't have sold the idol to that woman! Well, I can't change history and if you can then why can't you just do it and leave me out of it? No, I'm sorry! I didn't mean that!"

"Um…what's going on?" Emma asked, confused.

"My brother's lost it," Varric said with a heavy heart. "I guess this means I can't kill him."

"Unless, of course, he's only pretending to be crazy so that you won't be able to kill him," Isabela theorized.

Varric brightened as he considered the idea but then reluctantly shook his head. "Nah, this would have taken days or weeks to organize and Bartrand's just not a forward planner. Maybe if he hadn't done whatever he did to his household I could believe that but this is a bit much."

"It was a mistake!" Bartrand shouted.

Everyone looked pointedly at Varric.

Varric sighed. "Oh, fine. My brother, my responsibility, huh?" He marched towards Bartrand and grabbed a hold of his shirt. "Do you have any idea where you are or what you've done?"

"Varric! Excellent timing!" Bartrand exclaimed. "Help me find the idol, will you? I could always count on you."

"Bartrand, you left me to die over that damn idol, remember?" Varric growled.

"Yeah, but you're fine," Bartrand said dismissively. "You're always fine. Now help me find the idol!"

Varric rolled his eyes. "I'm not making any progress. Can't any of you mages do something?"

Anders stepped forward. "Maybe I can, for a little while. This isn't natural, though. If he weren't a dwarf I'd suspect demon possession."

"Just try it," Varric snapped.

Anders nodded and waved his hands. A blue light emitted from them and settled on Bartrand.

"What the…Damn, I've really jumped off that slippery slope of sanity, haven't I?" Bartrand asked horrified. "First thing's first, Varric, don't let House Tethras fall like this, okay?"

"Way ahead of you, Brother. I've been working on that for the last three years and we're doing better than ever," Varric assured him.

"Well, that's good," Bartrand said, looking a little put-out. "I suppose I should probably apologize for trying to kill you again."

Varric waved it off. "Don't strain yourself."

"And…" Bartrand looked more solemn than they had ever seen him. "I know I really don't deserve this because I'm kind of a terrible person but don't just leave me like this. Help me, somehow, please."

Varric nodded. "I'll get you to a healer or two or a dozen or however many it takes. I'll get you to them and you'll be fine. Whatever it takes."

"Varric, is he really going to be fine?" Emma asked hesitantly. Already the madness was creeping back into his eyes. "I mean, how can you undo something like this?"

"I don't know," Varric admitted. "But could you really just kill your own brother?"

Carver started looking nervous.

To his great surprise, Emma shook her head. "Oh, trust me. If I could he'd be long dead by now. But family is family."

"Thanks…I think," Carver said, scratching the back of his head.

"Maybe if we can find this idol and destroy it we can do something," Anders suggested.

Varric nodded. "Now that's an idea."

"Varric, you saw what it did to Bartrand. You're seeing it right now!" Aveline cried out. "It's just not safe and you want to actively seek it out?"

"Do you have a better idea?" Varric demanded.

"Well, yes, actually, I do," Aveline told him.

Varric tapped his foot impatiently. "I'm waiting."

"I know but you already shot down the 'kill Bartrand' idea," Aveline explained.

"If only we had something more to go on than 'some Meredith woman'," Emma said mournfully.

"The only Meredith that I know is the knight-commander but she's always been unstable so who can even tell if she's been affected?" Carver asked rhetorically.

Varric sighed. "So it's settled, then. And will probably take years. Come on, Bartrand, I'm going to get you to a healer."

"Do you think they'll know about the idol?" Bartrand asked hopefully.

Varric closed his eyes. "We can certainly ask."

"So I see I was right about the idol being evil," Fenris noted, pleased, as they headed for the door.

Varric glared at him. "Now is really not the time, Fenris."

Fenris shrugged. "That's fine. I'll keep bringing it up until it is."

"On second thought," Varric said hastily. "Maybe now's the time after all."

Fenris shook his head. "It's too late. I'll have to try again later."

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