Sera took a dark brown horse. It's still too fancy for regular people, but at least it's a horse.
Blackwall had the same idea. He's riding a cream-coloured horse with a pale mane. He also seems to think he's travelling with her.
"Piss off, Beardy." Stupid inn. They obviously told him about the blonde elf that devoured sixteen tarts for breakfast.
"I told you, Sera, it's Inquisition business." He babbled on about a contract with some armourer in Redcliffe when he first approached her, even shown her a scroll with the Inquisition seal, like that mattered. "The Ambassador's orders."
Teasing him about his crush makes him huffy. If she makes him huffy enough, he'll leave. "You shagged her yet?"
"She's not that sort of girl," he answers easily. Or he was expecting it.
"Bet she would be. For you. True love and all that rot."
"Not with me off to the Wardens. There's no future there."
Sera hates thinking about that. It doesn't matter that he's told her he'll ask to be transferred back to the Inquisition once he's a Grey Warden, how sure he is Weisshaupt will listen because of what they owe the Inquisition. She's heard Wardens talking: the Joining can kill you. The thought makes her stomach feel as empty as if she hadn't eaten all those tarts.
"Fine," Sera grumbles. At least he's not wearing any Inquisition-type armour. "You can stay. She mad at me?"
"Concerned, I think. Not angry."
"Stupid of her."
"It's what any person would feel when someone they love is putting themselves at risk and all they can do is wait."
Ouch. Bastard.
She has to admit, the road is nicer with Blackwall than without. They don't talk about fights in front of entire taverns. The closest he gets is asking what job they're doing. When Sera says "Never said it was a Jenny job—you lot just assumed," all he replies is, "Well, I'm off to Weisshaupt at the end of the month, so I have to be back by the twenty-ninth."
They talk about important stuff: jobs they've done, fights they've won, places they've been and the mad things people do there. Sera steals a pack of cards and they have nightly games. He never asks where she finds the odds and ends she does, and Sera keeps any heists she pulls far away from him. Not that she steals a lot. They travel cheap. True, they stay in inns and taverns, but they sleep in the common bedrooms—stacked with straw-filled beds one on top of the other, where you have to watch your stuff or it gets stolen—and they only eat what's bubbling in the stew-pot, not off the menu. Sera has more money than she knows what to do with.
Two days out from the Hinterlands, Sera splurges on private rooms for both of them. She orders a bath only to un-order it minute later. Adder got her into the habit of long baths. They're easy to come by at Skyhold, with its fancy tubs covered in runes that can heat water up and keep it warm for hours. Warm water's a lot more work out in the real world. Sera's pretty sure she's gone years without washing more than her face, hands, bottom and bits.
She's been trying to figure out what to say to Adder. Glumly, she pulls last night's attempt from her journal: sketches of squirrels hopping through mounds of snow. Brilliant, brain. She tosses her journal aside with a huff.
But Sera didn't rent a private room so she could feel like shite. She slips out of her clothes and lies down on the bed. She teases her tits, but stops after a few moments. Adder's thing, again. She spreads her legs and gets to work.
It's brilliant, riding a wave that she controls. No words, gestures, demonstrations, hoping someone else is panting for the same trick she is. She pinches her bud hard, making her breath catch. Pain tendrils through her pleasure.
Adder would die of blushing before she ever got this rough. Sure, she'd take Sera in front of all Skyhold, but she'd take her with sweet kisses and caresses. So twee and precious. Sometimes Sera wants slaps.
Like me and Breanth after that brawl. My lip stung but, fuck, it was good…. She yanks her own hair, then starts to twist her ears. Frigging Brea. "Oh, us elves and our sensitive ears." Like no human ever got squirmy when you breathe hot or lick circles. Qunari frigging do. But no, not for Brea. Elf, elf, elf—
Sighing, Sera brings both hands between her legs. The main course. Then her mind whispers Cass would understand about a good fight, and she groans in dismay.
Ugh! She's like my sister. I mean, a hot sister. Who doesn't wear underpants. And who roars when she fights. Heh. Wonder where else she roars.
Sera hesitates. Sod it all. My brain, my rules.
Cole will probably tell her. Shite.
Sera breathes deeply then starts stroking. Just her, running a trail she knows well, pulse throbbing, heart hammering, sweat dripping—and then the leap. Like falling into a warm, bright lake that washes the real world away. She bobs to the surface, grinning, licking sweat from her upper lip.
She goes a few more rounds. Sometimes she thinks of Adder, sometimes other people. Stops when she gets achey.
Coulda used the bath. I'm all drippy now. She licks at her fingers, giggling, warm and wrung out and relaxed. Her gaze falls on her journal and the letter she's been trying to write. It doesn't seem so terrible now.
Maybe those sketches are exactly what I should be doing. She snags her underpants, then flips to a blank page in her journal and gets to work.
They go off the road when they hit the Hinterlands proper. Blackwall brought his tent, just in case, and they use it now. Sera finds a Red Jenny cache: 25 coins and two daggers. Would've been riches, once upon a time. Now she'll donate the money and sell the daggers when she hits Redcliffe—whenever that is.
The second night into their walkabout, Blackwall awakens Sera with a shout. She springs up, swinging her quiver onto her shoulder and grabbing her bow.
There's four warriors around Blackwall. "Turnip brigade!" Sera shouts, leaping backward and firing three arrows at once into the wall of armour.
The grunts and scream of pain cover up any funnier reaction they might have had. Next time, shout stupid shite when I can see my enemies' faces.
A horse whinnies. Something hard wraps around her leg. Before she can think, she's being yanked backward, toward the horses, and she falls. Moonlight gleams on the metal chain pulled by a thin human, catches on the dagger he holds in his left hand. He's near the horses, who are nickering, tossing their heads—the bandits sent someone to cut the horses loose.
She makes herself drop her bow and shout in fear even as her hand slips to her belt. She tosses the sleep-powder bomb at him, but something must have given her away—he lunges to the side before the bomb hits. Thank Andraste, he drops the chain. Sera tumbles backward, grabs her bow and nocks an arrow.
There's no one there. She spins behind her, sees only shadows, and shoots an explosive arrow. It hits a tree—but illuminates a glint of armour to her left when it lands. Got you, shit-bag. Her next shot produces a short squawk of pain, but her second nothing. Her next explosive arrows shows only trees and snow.
She's seen Adder and Cole work often enough: dagger-types strike from the side or the back. That's where her attention goes. So she's surprised when she hears snow crunch directly in front of her.
She's less surprised when the chain she never bothered to unwrap from her leg makes her tumble. She turns her fall into a roll this time, giving her enough space to nock, draw and loose even as he closes in, dagger raised. Sera had no time to aim—the arrow she meant to send through his head hits his armoured shoulder, but it's enough that his dagger stabs harmlessly into dragon-scale armour instead of any weak spots.
Another leap, three more arrows, and the fucker falls with a hoarse shout of pain. Sera takes a moment to unwrap the chain from her leg before turning back to Blackwall.
One bandit has fallen, and the other three are giving him wide berth. Sera runs toward him, shouting "HYAAAA!" and leaps onto Blackwall's shoulders.
"What—?" Blackwall shouts, freezing. It takes her no time to find her footing, not on armour she's looked at for years. Her heart is pounding—it takes four beats to nock, draw and fire at the bandits behind Blackwall.
One goes for Blackwall's front, forcing him to raise his shield. Sera compensates, rides the movement, keeps firing at the two behind him. The sword clangs against steel and she can feel the reverberation through her right foot.
Her arrow takes a bandit through the eye. He stays upright for a moment more before he collapses.
"Back! Back!" the other bandit shouts. The one engaging Blackwall falls back and the two of them are running.
Sera finds that she's giggling. "Well, that was fun, eh? Remember those days? No Red Templars, no Venatori... Just mad mages, regular templars and these puss-pricks." She leaps down off of Blackwall's shoulders.
"Sera...Maker's balls, don't do that again!"
"What?"
"What if you'd fallen off? You could've hurt yourself in a thousand ways!"
"But I didn't. So, all good, innit?"
There's a whimper from behind her, soft and wretched. Oh, yeah. Hook bloke. "Got one back there."
"I've some rope in my pack. We can turn him in to the Redcliffe guard in the morning."
"Rope? Whatcha got rope for?"
"It's a useful thing for a wanderer to have. I ever tell you about the time rope saved my life from a stampeding druffalo?"
"You haven't, 'cuz that story never happened."
"I swear on my mother's grave! Andraste strike me down if I lie."
"Pssh―if she struck down liars, I'da been dead the day I learned to talk."
They tie the bandit up, remove his daggers and hook, de-arrow him, and have him down a potion. The bandit gasps as his wounds begin to knit shut.
"That magic?" the bandit says, voice somewhere between awed and terrified.
Anger flares sharp and strong in her chest. "Shut it." Sera's stopped thinking of potions as magic, but of course they are. Now she remembers weeks of stress after she quaffed her first one, the persistent fear of what she'd let into her body and how it might warp her. These days, she downs them without thinking. Does her body even remember how to heal the proper, natural way anymore?
She turns to Blackwall. "Right—what about your stupid story?"
Blackwall glances between her and the bandit, then says, "It was...oh, ten years ago now? I was travelling around Honnleath..."
She has the Fade nightmare again and wakes up pissed at Adder for not being within easy shagging distance. After a moment, she transfers her pissed off-ness to herself for leaving Adder in the first place. It doesn't help that their bandit is in the tent, and the bastard snores like a dragon.
When dawn breaks, she kicks the bandit in the chest to wake him up. The clang of her armoured foot on his armoured chestplate is satisfying. "Get up."
From his looks, last night's sleep was the best he's had in a while. His acorn-brown face is striped with frown and worry lines, with darker brown circles beneath is eyes, and his hair is receding. The armour is scavenged from a few different suits: one shoulder is silver, the other bronze, and his left glove is black steel worked with spikes at the knuckles, the finest piece he has on him.
Outside, early-morning light reveals a shallow grave and the two dead men beside it. Going all out, aren't we? Shouldn't it be Redcliffe's job to bury bandit bodies? Blackwall took their helmets off. He looks at the bandit, somber as a judge.
"Did they have any family?"
The bandit blinks a few times. "Four-finger Tom has a sister in Denerim. I wouldn't know where to find her. Glass Johnny I didn't know well."
"Any words you'd like to say?"
"Only...they weren't bad men, sir. Just men in a tight spot. We lost everything when the mages and templars went mad."
Blackwall frowns. "The Inquisition is helping refugees."
"Can't build a life on rough blankets and two bowls of gruel a day." He sounds tired to his bones, poor sod.
Pathetic as he sounds, though, he's still a liar. Adder wants to turn the Hinterlands from a symbol of the mage-templar war to a symbol of hope. She's been shovelling mountains of coin into the place. She sent proper blankets to the refugees long before winter hit. She even sent fruit from Skyhold's bloody garden. Arse.
When the bandit falls silent, Blackwall rolls the bodies into the grave.
As he kicks dirt over them, the bandit glances at Sera. So only she can hear, he mutters, "Redcliffe'll see me hang by noon. My name's Ardley Hambledon. I got a lover, Walthur, an' we've got two kids. One of 'em is an elf, like you. An orphan from the war. We took him in."
Everyone knows we elves only care about other elves. "You got a sick, two-legged old dog, too? And every day you chew the toothless bugger's meat for him and shove it down his throat, and you do it because you're that bloody kind? So you got people. We all have. If you got people but treat other people who aren't your people like shit, you're shitty people. Fact."
She doesn't like his arguments, but she can't fault him for making them. If it were her in this situation...
But it's not. Coulda just nicked the horses or our stuff. Didn't. Had to go for our lives, too. Prick.
Before they mount up, Ardley looks at Blackwall. "I've a lover's knot in my purse. If you're passing by the Inquisition's Dusklight camp, I'd be grateful if you could you give it to Walthur Briggs." He shrugs, resigned. "For what a dead man's gratitude is worth."
It takes Sera a moment to remember that most of the Inquisition camps have become refugee camps. People saw the Inquisition banner and flocked to it. Blackwall nods and steps in close to Ardley. Sera tenses—now would be perfect for Ardley to twist out of his ropes, knee Blackwall in the face and try to make his escape. That doesn't happen. Blackwall removes the purse at Ardley's waist with no fuss.
There's indeed a lover's knot inside. Wool, pumpkin orange. Ardley's story becomes a bit truer. A lover's knot made of silk fetches coin, but wool is for little people, and orange dye comes from onion skins, which anyone can get.
Sera feels like shite, which is stupid. If he'd come at her with his daggers, he'd be dead, like any other sod who tried. It's just weird stringing the death out for so long.
Blackwall looks at the lover's knot all Thom Rainier–face: broody and frowny and hurty.
Oh no. "Beardy…."
With a loud sigh, Blackwall turns Ardley around and starts untying the knots binding his hands.
Ardley's mouth opens and closes a few times. Then he chokes out, "Thank you! Maker bless you—"
"Beardy!"
Once Ardley's arms are free, Blackwall starts removing Ardley's back-plate.
Licking his lips, Ardley says, "There's—there's bears in these woods, sir…." His voice fades with every word.
Blackwall claps him on the shoulder. "Best run fast if you see any, then. Not being weighed down should help."
"'Course, sir," Ardley mumbles and begins undoing his gauntlets.
Sera searches his belt and purse for anything else. She comes up with a smoke bomb with a cracked casing leaking grey powder and tosses it into the snow, making it useless.
"He'll be back with his mates by sundown," Sera notes.
"I won't," Ardley says—too quick, too light. Sera's no Iron Bull, but she knows he's lying. "I'm a changed man, on the straight on narrow road to the Maker's side, good sir."
"We already know he's a liar. All that rot about blankets and gruel."
"I am not," the bandit grumbles, and Sera has to admit he's good. Unlike his quick turn to the Maker's light, this she almost believes. "Stop by Dusklight and you'll see the truth."
It's harder to see the lying bandit once Ardley removes the last of his armour. He stares down at it, not with the longing Sera expects, but like it's unfamiliar, like he doesn't know how it got on him in the first place. The wind blows harsh, and he shivers, shaking himself out of his thoughts. Blackwall hands him some hardtack along with the lover's knot.
The bandit stares at the knot, bright like a sunrise in his weathered hand, and smiles. Bastard looks just like a regular person when he does it, too. He tucks it into his purse. "Our Lady watch over you, sir." Sincere, this time.
"And you."
Ardley isn't one for long goodbyes. Within a heartbeat, he's off, ripping into the hardtack like a hungry wolf (and thanks to all the sodding nature over the past two years, Sera unfortunately knows what that looks like).
Sera says, "Probably collects lover's knots from all the people he's killed. Like trophies."
"If you think he's so dangerous, he's still in arrow-range."
"Eh, not worth it. You're soft, Beardy. Soft and stupid."
"Probably."
They move on to Redcliffe. Blackwall goes to the armourer to work out some deal for the Inquisition. Sera wanders, looks and listens.
Picks up a book for Adder at a dwarven bookseller. Overhears two fishermen complaining the fish have gotten smaller and thinner since the Blight. Listens to the storyteller tell some brats about the Hero of Ferelden—some rubbish about her finding Andraste's ashes. Almost calls the storyteller out on making shit up. Nicks the coin-purse off one of the merchants; drops most of it in the Chantry poor-box. Stares up at Redcliffe castle, remembers Alexius, wishes she'd shot an arrow in his eye when she had the chance, wonders what sort of evil plot he's plotting because what else do evil gits do all day? Wonders if the woman with two babies strapped to her back noticed that her husband's gaze lingered on the baker's apprentice. Watches two human girls race each other from the Gull and Lantern to the armour shop, back and forth, back and forth; the brunette keeps winning. Buys her a bun and tosses it at her. Smiles at how well she catches it, even surprised; nods as the girl stares at her, mutters thank you and runs off. Sees that bun in the slush on the side of the road later that day. Watches the clouds, small blotches like whiteheads on the sky's pale-blue face.
Nothing for a Red Jenny to do, but now that she's here Sera realizes she doesn't care about that. It's good to just breathe non-Skyhold air and see a non-Skyhold place.
She and Blackwall have dinner and order a room at the Gull and Lantern. Sera keeps her hood up, just in case anyone recognizes her from when she was here ages ago. They're lucky to get a small table to themselves. Some things are the same everywhere, and taverns are always busy in winter. A dwarf minstrel plucks the strings on a lute almost as big as she is.
"We should head out to Dusklight," Blackwall says.
"Ugh. Depressing. Why?"
"That bandit seemed pretty sure of himself when he spoke about gruel."
"Why don't you just marry Ardley, you love him so much? Man's a frigging liar. Anybody'll say anything to keep their neck nooseless."
"And now," says the dwarf minstrel, "for a song about our beloved Inquisitor."
No! Not fair! "Bugger it all," Sera hisses, pulling her hood even further over her face. Did someone recognize Sera or Blackwall and tell the minstrel about them?
The dwarf starts playing a quick, jaunty tune.
"With a hole in the sky, the ox did cry,
'I think I'll see a ball,
She scrubbed each horn both night and morn,
For to go to Halamshiral."
The minstrel's not looking at her and Blackwall more than she's looking at anyone else. She smiles her words, bright and bouncy and eager for coin. Breath wooshes from Sera's lungs.
"She was very rude and ate all the food
Then bowed to the hostess
What was in came out in a great big spout,
They're still cleaning the mess."
Sera's giggle catches herself off guard. She leans back in her chair to watch the minstrel better. That's actually sorta how it went. And Adder still pukes on Florianne every day in court. Andraste's ass, those shite jester outfits!
"She saw a lion and started trying
To comb his bloody mane,
She said 'Your fleas will breed disease,
But a noose can keep them tame.'"
Deserved worse. Frigging Gaspard. Sera taps her foot to the beat. It's catchy.
"She said, 'My dear by your pointed ear,
Why you look so fine to me.'
She began to dance, to hop and prance
With the new rabbit marquis."
Marquis? Sera blinks. Why would I be... Wait, no, marquise. Briala! She thinks Inky danced with Briala! Oh, brilliant!
"With a hole in the sky, the ox did sigh,
'Well now I've seen a ball.'"
The dwarf speaks in a deep, dopey voice: "'Nice folks...
but they didn't get my jokes!'"
Back to singing, she belts out: "She said of Halamshiral!
The ox at Halamshiral!"
She finishes the song with long, loud moos. There's scattered applause from the tavern. Sera applauds the loudest.
Blackwall watches her warily. "You...liked the song, did you?"
"Well, sure, why not?" At his surprise, she explains. "What? I'm supposed to be angry because somebody wrote a stupid song about Inky? So what? Worse shit's been said about her. Done, too." She frowns, remembering some mad shits who killed Qunari because they thought Adder becoming Inquisitor was a Qun plot. "Everyone thinks the ox is serious when she was just having a laugh! Heh. Bet Inky'd like it."
Sera goes up to the singer and drops some silver in her hat. Blackwall follows.
"Thank you kindly," the minstrel says. "Lilting Leanne, at your service." She glances between her and Blackwall. "Is there any other song you'd prefer? A love ballad, perhaps?"
"What? Me and...oh!" Sera pretends to vomit.
"We're not together, is what my friend means," Blackwall says. "If I might offer a suggestion?"
"Of course."
"It's the Marquise of the Dales, not the Marquis. Marquis turns her into a he."
"Does it? I had no idea." It doesn't sound like Leanne cares particularly much, and why should she? It's Blackwall and Sera that are the weirdies who've been travelling all around Thedas and know that kind of rubbish. Leanne probably hasn't been farther than two towns away.
"It'd get you no coin if you played that song in any tavern in Orlais. Never know where you'll end up, right?"
Leanne's forehead scrunches up as she thinks. "I'll have to—"
"Weak in the knees," Sera says.
Startled, the minstrel mouths the words a few times, then breaks into a grin. "That works! Do you study a musician's trade, perchance?" She takes a journal, reed quill and ink from a pouch at her waist and scribbles that down.
"What, me? Pffbbt. It just fit, y'know? You got any other songs about the ox?"
Leanne hesitates, glancing around, before saying, "I've the start of one, actually." She plucks out a simple tune.
"Where has Haven gone?
I swear I left it here.
Perhaps to keep it safe,
I should not have drunk that beer.
I should not have danced near the fire,
'Til my tail caught alight.
And when I noticed,
I should not have farted in my fright!
Oh, a dwarf burnt up and a house burnt down,
But that's not enough to destroy a town.
A town, town, oh Haven's down,
Why is Haven down?"
Sera snickers. "Farts fire! Brilliant!" Reaction in the pub is more mixed; an old man snorts and shakes his head, while the bar-man chuckles.
Blackwall's no fan. "What happened at Haven was a tragedy."
Leanne's braced herself for his reaction. She fires back immediately with, "Of course it was. And the Inquisitor was responsible."
"The Inquisitor couldn't have known that a dragon was going to attack Haven."
"Were you there? All I know is the Inquisitor was, and now Haven's gone. The ox thinks she can just do whatever she likes, but she can't. That's not how things work. She let the mages that threw our own arl out of his home take over Skyhold!" Glancing at the sword at Blackwall's waist, she says, "Not everyone can fight with swords. Some fight with notes and chords—" she interrupts herself, then scribbles swords—chords? into her open notebook. "And people remember what makes them laugh. If I can show the Inquisitor's feet of clay, I'll do it. She thinks she rules the world, but she doesn't rule our hearts."
Adder doesn't give a toss about ruling anyone's heart. She's the first to say people should believe what they want. Instead of saying any of that, Sera giggles. "She should try to piss on the fire next!"
"Oh, that is good." Leanne scribbles piss—wish? hiss? priss? in her notebook.
Blackwall nods. "Well, can't say I care much for that last song, but that's one man's opinion, and I'm no artist. Might I buy you a drink? Singing's thirsty work."
"Thank you," Leanne says absentmindedly, humming the Haven song's tune.
As Blackwall stands, he whispers, "Distraction once I get her drink," into Sera's ear.
Sera doesn't know why, but she doesn't care. Blackwall asked and that's what he'll get.
After he grabs a mug of beer, she begins tossing her fire-flask back and forth in her hand, pretending to think up more song lyrics.
"Ooo, how about—" she begins, then makes the flask slip out of her hand.
Fire erupts on the floor below Sera's chair.
"Shite!" Sera blurts out, leaping to her feet. Leanne is stunned; Sera has to drag her up and away from the flames, thrusting her behind Sera. "Hold on, I got this!"
She throws a flask of lightning next as the screams start. People start running for the door, the sober winning the race while the drunks stumble.
She finally snatches up a flask of ice and smashes it. The flames frost over, creating nothing more dangerous than a puddle.
There's a moment of silence, a few confused murmurs, and then the shouting starts.
"You bloody knife-ear!" snaps the bar-tender. "Get out!"
"Move it, bitch!" says one of the bar-girls, a rolling pin in hand.
Sera is startled, which startles her. This is how she should be treated when she messes up. This is how any other person would be treated. An elf, especially. This is what she wanted all along. Just to be Sera.
She bolts outside, slamming the door behind her, and laughs. She can't even feel the cold.
"Sera?" It's Blackwall, around the side of the tavern, holding Leanne's frothy mug of ale. "What happened?"
"I got kicked out." She can't stop grinning.
"What? Why?"
"Dropped my fire flask as your distraction." She bounces on her heels, wanting to dance.
"Maker's arse, Sera! I meant start singing a song yourself or a belching contest or something!"
"Pity I couldn't read your mind, innit?"
With a sigh, Blackwall pours the ale out of the cup.
"What were you up to, anyway?" Sera asks.
"Well...let's just say her ale would've been a bit warmer than usual…."
Sera stares at him, then howls in laughter. She hugs him, quick and tight, to bleed off some of the energy whipping through her. "Makes up for Ardley by a mile! Frig! All right—we're still friends."
"Not one of my finest moments," Blackwall says, eyeing the cup guiltily. "I'll go in and smooth this—"
"No!" She grabs him by the shoulders. "No. Things are brilliant. This is...this is…." She tosses her head with a huff. Stupid words. "Argh, it's good, all right?"
Blackwalls looks down at her thoughtfully. "So...all you needed was to be thrown out of a tavern?"
"I guess." She holds up a hand to stop the 'Sera, you're mad,' or the 'Sera, explain,' that always follow. "Sometimes I need to do things to know what I'm doing, all right?"
She's surprised when she gets just a nod in return. "Then...I'm glad." There's gotta be 'Still dunno what you're on about,' flashing about his brain, but it's not in his voice, and right now that means everything.
"I can at least pay for damages," Blackwall says.
Oh, right. That's a thing people do. "I'll set up the tent." Even a night on cold, hard ground doesn't bother her.
She runs to the Gull and Lantern's stables, cold air burning in her lungs, the stars winking overhead. She thinks of those little girls from earlier that day, running just for a laugh, and thinks how she was like them once and she still can be and how amazing that is.
At Blackwall's insistence, they stop by the Dusklight camp, though it takes them out of their way. She's sorry for Blackwall, who's gonna realize he got conned, but she's happy that she bet him ten sovereigns that Ardley's shanking passersby for coin by now.
They smell the latrines first, then the cooking fires. Four large tents are set up. Sera figures they can hold twenty refugees if they're crammed in tight enough. A smaller Inquisition tent rests in the centre, the hairy eyeball flying proud. Two soldiers stand at attention by the entrance, fully armoured, and many others are patrolling the outskirts. Seeing her and Blackwall, two soldiers walk over to investigate.
Blackwall pulls another letter with the official Inquisition seal out of his pack. "I'm making a tour of the camps for the Inquisition."
The soldier doesn't read the letter, or he'd find it full of greetings to an armourer in Redcliffe. "Sister Kennedy would be happy to speak with you at your convenience, sir."
"Could one of you take our horses?" Blackwall asks.
The soldiers glance at Sera, surprised, before one moves to take the reins. It takes Sera a second to figure out why. They're wondering why the elf servant isn't taking care of the horses. Nobody sees an elf and automatically thinks "servant" at Skyhold. One good thing about it.
The guard takes their horses and they walk about the camp. Raucous, hacking coughs come from the tent farthest on the left. In another tent, two babies are having a contest to see who can cry louder. A harried man leaves that tent, jiggling a shrieking bundle in his arms. The bastard just keeps wailing. Frigging kids.
Ardley Hambledon follows the harried man out, as does a little human girl with a ratty blanket draped about her like wings.
"Ball-shite!" Sera curses.
"I forget...how many sovereigns did we bet, again?" asks Blackwall, all innocence.
"Mother-punching cock-twat!"
Seems she was louder than the sprog; Ardley and the man glance at them. Ardley blinks, mutters something to the man and bows low. Walter or Walden or whatever bows as well. The little girl doesn't give a squirt, just flaps her blanket wings and roars.
"Good day, Ardley, Walthur," Blackwall says cheerfully. "Just stopped by to see how you were doing."
"Grateful every day for your mercy, good sir," says Ardley.
"Even now?" Walthur jokes before cooing at the wriggling brat.
Ardley even laughs rough and haggard. Walthur's like a stallion next to a nag—dark, unlined skin, trimmed beard, hair in long locks going past his shoulders. Doesn't look like a man used to hard living and cold winters. A merchant before the war, maybe? Sera thinks about Dorian and Bull and how different they are. Love's weird, innit?
Now that she's looking more closely at them, Sera feels like she's seen them before, but she can't place where.
Walthur turns from the brat to Blackwall, smile dropping. "I can't think of how to thank you. Words don't seem enough, but they're all we have."
Suddenly, there's a little girl breathing heavily on Blackwall's leg. "Fire!" she says. "Woosh! Fire! Raaaargh!"
"They're enough," Blackwall says, but his gaze is on the girl. "Beg pardon, but are those your only blankets?"
"Yes," Ardley says, confused.
Sera catches on: those blankets are too thin and ragged to be anything the Inquisition sent. And why would refugees expect anything better? To them, a patch of shelter and gruel is the best they can hope for. Now she figures out where she's seen them, or people like them—during the Blight.
Not right, that. Her gaze goes to the Inquisition tent. Someone's in charge who shouldn't be.
Blackwall exchanges a few more pleasantries and they're off to the Inquisition tent.
"'Course—send a river of coin anyplace, someone's gonna dip their cups in," Sera grumbles. "We should stay the night. Gimme time to poke around."
"Would be nice if you found an accounts book entitled 'Show to the Inquisitor's People' and a second one called 'Never, Ever Show to the Inquisitor's People,' but I doubt we'll be that lucky."
"Aw, that'd be grand, wouldn't it?"
Sister Kennedy is a steel-haired woman with pale blue eyes. Sera tries to pretend she's Iron Bull as Blackwall questions her. He talks half-bored, like he's been visiting camps for weeks on end and this is his last stop. His attitude makes her cheeks flush and her voice rise as she all-but demands better supplies for her people, or at least more soldiers to guard against bandits. She seems like she means it, too.
Since it's only a few hours from nightfall, Sister Kennedy says they should "enjoy what meagre comforts we have." The Sister and the guards eat from the same food as the refugees—their supper is watery gruel and a thin slice of black bread. As night falls, Blackwall whittles something while Sera pretends to write in her journal but really watches Sister Kennedy go through her accounts. The Sister prays to a small idol of Andraste before bed.
It's easy as breathing to wait until everyone's asleep and poke around. Blackwall's right: there's no cooked books, no drawer with a false bottom hiding sacks of dirty coin. The only thing Sister Kennedy has worth hiding is some lacy red underpants.
Sera takes an entire page in her journal to write Find out who supplies Dusklight in large letters. Why should Leliana's people have all the fun?
Ardley and the fam come to say goodbye to them before they leave the next day. The little girl runs up to Blackwall, who presents her with the wooden knight he made last night. She tries to gnaw its head off. Ardley scoops her up with a "Say goodbye and thank you like a big girl, Bessie." Bess drops the toy in favour of tugging Blackwall's beard and biting his nose.
Walthur, holding the baby that's now merely whimpering instead of shrieking, chooses that moment ask Sera, "Don't suppose you know anything about elflings?"
Sera snorts and rolls her eyes. That's how she catches Ardley's hand on Blackwall's coin-purse while Beardy's still chuckling away at Bess. Ard's got good technique: smooth, quick, without even the clink of coin as he slips it up his sleeve. This is the first hint of teeth she's seen from the nag since the attack, and it impresses.
Walthur doesn't seem to notice. He's embarrassed, not worried, when he says, "My apologies. He's just so fussy. I suppose I hoped…. Well, no matter."
"Give 'em some brandy. Shuts 'em right up."
Walthur chuckles, like she was joking. When she frowns at him, he coughs. "Ah, right. Thank you."
Sera follows Blackwall to the horses, then turns back like she just remembered something. "Oy! Ard!"
Ardley meets her halfway, Bess in hand. Just the three of them, now. The sleeve where he stuffed the coin-purse is half-hidden behind Bess so Sera won't notice the bulge. "Mm?"
"You ever want to be more than some forest-stinking murderer or small-time purse-snatch, find me at Skyhold, yeah?"
"As I told ser Blackwall, I've changed—"
"I bet Beardy ten sovereigns you wouldn't be here. I could pay him right now, 'fore we leave."
She watches Ardley's face go grey. With a muttered, "Shit," he shifts Bess's weight to one arm, then begins to drop the arm holding the coin-purse.
Sera grabs his wrist and stops him. "Like I said. Stop by. Ask for Red Jenny. There's not always coin in it, but usually."
Bess giggles. "Shit, shit, shit!"
"Too true, sweetie plum," Sera says, ruffling her hair. "Enjoy the donation, Ard."
With that, she leaves. Well, that offer was either stupid or brilliant. Have to see, I s'pose.
Adder got a letter from Sera. Cole heard it as she read it.
Here's what made me think of you today, Sera wrote. Pages of sketches follow: A tree with Adder's face hiding in the lines of bark. A rabbit with jagged little ears like Adder's horn buds. Adder's vagina in the way two tree branches curve together. Eighteen sketches in all, chronicling everything from breakfast to sleep.
Didn't leave because of anything you did, just needed to get away, sorry for being a twat. Sera illustrated this by drawing herself with a vagina for a head.
I'll ride you til I break you when I get back.
Love you.
S.
Adder wrote a quick reply: Saddled up and ready, love. She sketched a complicated thing of leather straps, metal buckles and lacquered wood she or Sera can put between their legs to make it look like they have a penis. They call it a toy, which confuses Cole; toys are rocking horses or wheeled ducks on strings to most people. He knows not to talk about things people do together unclothed, so it's one of those mysteries he'll have to figure out on his own.
The letter from Sera isn't what has Adder pacing the battlements after midnight. Cole joins her. He makes his steps loud and obvious. He's learned that he walks quietly out of habit; people have told him not to sneak up on them when he never meant to.
Adder, leaning against the battlements, smiles slightly at him, then blinks as her gaze falls to his hands. Cole realizes he's still holding the flowers. "Hey, Cole. Those for me?"
"One of the scullery maids lost her husband at Haven. She felt so sad today because she realized she was forgetting him. He brought her these flowers when he courted her. I was going to put them on her pillow, so she could smell them while she slept and her dreams would be happy."
Adder gently says, "She'd probably be scared that someone snuck into her room while she was sleeping. Maybe leave them outside her door."
Cole hadn't thought of that. "Oh, thank you." He tucks the flowers into his belt. "And you should talk to Sera about why you don't like her yelling."
She laughs, but he hears the hollowness. "My problem is not enough people yell at me. The day my lover or my friends can't will be the day I quit the Inquisition." Kindness cocoons her voice as she says, "Sera's outburst startled me for a moment, that's all."
Adder wants so hard to believe that. She fills her mind with this belief so that's all he hears. It might be kinder to walk away, to forget he's ever heard anything else... Cole breathes deeply.
"You don't want me to worry. You especially don't want her to worry. You'll be the hero for her, where there's laughter and light instead of caution and carefulness. But she would be your hero, too, if you asked it."
"I don't—" She feels as she does when her hands go to her daggers, but swallows the tension down. "You of all people know you don't change Sera. Too many have tried. It's part of why she snaps and can't calm down, sometimes." There's the shadow on the edge of her thoughts—another person who couldn't calm down.
"It's not forcing if you just ask. She would fly for you. She would perform magic." He isn't violating Sera's mind. Adder knows this. All Skyhold knows this.
Adder looks away from him, frowning, and Cole realizes he's misstepped. She stares out at the castle she dreams so often of leaving, at all the people she has to lead that she never wanted to. She will never ask anything of Sera, not even what she needs to ask.
Her mantra sounds so clearly. "This will pass. This will pass. Just breathe deep and this will pass." He feels the slide into red-tinged memory. "Rage roiling, anger aching. My hand catches Karaas across the cheek. The slap sounds like thunder, like justice—I've told him, over and over, don't touch my stuff. Spoiled fucking brat. Then he cries, and I realize I'm my mother's daughter. I do what she did until she stopped caring and everything that went wrong became our fault: Hold him. Apologize. Say I'll never hurt him again. But that's a lie. Same as it is with her."
She half turns to Cole. "I was a whore, too, if we're talking about my favourite memories." Her smile is the snap of an injured dog.
"I'm sorry." He grimaces. "I didn't know I was speaking. Sometimes I forget when it's late." At least there isn't anyone else here, like there was last time.
"I know."
"That girl is you, Adder. You should listen to all of you. Then you can love Sera without the ice that shoots down your spine when she shouts. That's how things should be, isn't it?"
She's leaning heavily against the battlements as if she doesn't trust herself to stand. "I am not her." The words are sharp and taste of blood.
He looks, this time, not at the pain, but at the growth surrounding the pain. "It doesn't diminish you that hurts still hurt, even years later. Adder, why would you think that?"
"I…." She can't find an answer. She swallows, blinking away the tears forming in her eyes. "This is why I need Sera around—look at how mopey I get when she's not." Making a joke out of what's true.
"People do bad things when they're scared. You took your mistake and used it to make you a better person...but even if you never did so, you are still allowed to ache." A thought makes him pause. He shared this incident unwillingly once. Rhys and Evangeline understood. They were kind. Adder will be, too.
"The real Cole was scared of his father. There was a lot of shouting in his house, too. Cole hurt his little sister, Bunny. He hid in the cupboard to get away from his father. He held Bunny tight to keep her quiet, so his father wouldn't hurt her like he hurt their mother." He looks at his hands, flexes them, feeling an echo of Cole's shame. "He held her too tight."
"Oh, Cole," she says, more sigh than word. Then she's hugging him so hard she knocks the hat off his head. It's different than hugging Rhys: she's so much taller than him, and her chest is squishy. He wishes that Evangeline was hugging him, but lets the wish pass, fade like a wisp into nothingness.
He wants to tell her it doesn't hurt much. It feels like a dream that happened to another person. But he doesn't say that. The hug is nice. Her arms are strong around him. He puts his head against her chest and she strokes his hair.
This is what she needs. You're not alone, Adder. Cole knows that. He hears pain every day. But even without voices in the head, it shouldn't be so easy to forget, to feel lost and only, to feel lonely. Right?
People are complicated. Will I ever understand them?
"My lamb," she murmurs. She's said that before, long ago, to a different person.
"I'm not your brother, Adder. I'm me. Cole."
Her breath steams when she says, "I know. Sorry." She says the words, but her heart doesn't agree; it wants to see a little white-haired boy she can guide and protect because she failed to when she was younger.
The flash comes and words spill out. "The wind lashes the caravan. The tea is strong, bitter, keeping me awake. Of course I drew the short straw—again. Only three more hours until my shift is done." He can't glean more.
"Hmm?"
"Your brother."
Adder pauses. "Karaas?" Flat, without inflection.
Cole nods.
"You heard my brother?"
"I can sense pain that links people." He leans down and scoops up his hat.
"Huh. I thought—" The body of a young boy, rotting by the side of the road, put into a mass grave if he was lucky, bird-picked bones if he wasn't. She swallows the lump growing in her throat. "Do you know where he is?"
Cole tries. "No. I'm sorry. This used to be easier. He's...someplace cold."
"Which is all of southern Thedas, of course." Adder snorts. She scrubs her hands down her face. "This is a 'sometime I feel less shitty' thought," he hears, though he doesn't think she spoke.
"We should get inside," she says to him. "It's freezing up here." She takes off her brown scarf and ties it around his neck. They go to the Herald's Rest and sit in front of the fire, facing each other on stools. Maryden, singing her new song "Fall of the Magister," moves from her usual spot so they don't have to talk over her. She's always so considerate; Cole nods to her in thanks and she smiles back. Cole finds himself smiling, too.
Adder orders some mulled wine for herself and cider for him. She sips her wine. Cole doesn't sip his cider, but he likes the warmth against his fingers and the smell of apples and cinnamon.
"Enough about me, I think." Adder's smile is still sad at the edges. "How've you been, Cole?" A distraction, yes, but she genuinely cares.
"I'm helping people." At her expectant look, he continues. "Since Corypheus died, people have smaller hurts. They didn't have time to think of them before, but now they do. I have to walk around a lot because I can't always hear them. Or," he shrugs, "maybe I'm getting worse."
"Does that bother you?"
"Sometimes."
"People help others every day without being able to read their minds."
"I know. But it will be...harder for me if I can't. Harder than for even a normal person, I think." Cole wants to get good at being human, so he's not the strange boy who stares too long. The Inquisitor's bug-eyed little freak. Always saying weird things. You're lucky he just watches you—it's even worse when he talks to you. A thing. Just wrong.
Solas said I am myself, and that is good. He took my worry and turned it to warmth in my heart. It would be nice to hear him say it again, though. Cole looks at the drink in his hand and tries to imagine swallowing it, apples and cinnamon and cloves on his tongue, then from tongue to throat to belly, then out in a warm stream. Over and over, again and again, every day.
"There's a boy," Cole continues, "one of the orphans in Skyhold's Shadow. Everyone thinks he's odd. He doesn't look people in the eye. Sometimes the world gets too big and he needs to sway back and forth to calm down. I think I'm a lot like him in some ways. I'm waiting for the kittens in the stables to get a bit bigger. A kitten wouldn't care about swaying. A kitten wouldn't call him names."
"You should pick one out for yourself, as well. You seem like a cat person."
Cole shrugs. "I don't know... What if I get busy and forget about them?"
"You can keep track of an entire castle's worth of people's hurts and pains. I don't think you have to worry about that." She puts a hand on his shoulder. "Maker, Cole, you're allowed to want things, too." Her lips don't move, but he hears, "It'll give him something to think about other than Varric going home to Kirkwall, poor little guy..."
Cole inhales and exhales far louder than he needs to. Varric has to leave. He knows this. "I'm not sad about that. Well...not very. Varric has to leave. Skyhold holds the sky, but not his heart. That's chained, bolted, sitting in the back room of a bar far across the sea."
After a moment, he asks, "Do you think a kitten would like a boat journey? We can visit Varric in Kirkwall. You said you wanted to go to the Black Emporium, remember?"
"I remember. And don't worry. Cats are pretty self-sufficient. Just give 'em food and you're fine." A thought strikes. "You know, Rhys and Evangeline are finished their work for us. I could invite them to Skyhold. Would you like that?"
In a note to the Inquisition, Rhys wrote that Cole was a spirit he couldn't help. What will he feel now that Cole isn't just a spirit? "I don't know if that would be a good idea."
"Suit yourself. But I think your friends would be proud of the man you're becoming."
Adder doesn't understand him like Solas does. But she tries. "Thank you. Perhaps you should invite them. I'll think about it."
She's sipping her wine when he hears, "If they aren't, I'll kick their asses." She didn't say it out loud, and she doesn't mean it.
They fall silent, listening to Maryden. Adder can't help but grin at the phrase "darkness never ever rise again." She'd love to live in that world, but doesn't believe she does.
When the song ends, Adder speaks. "Nobody gives us a list on how to be people, Cole. People are a lot more confused about that than you'd think." She looks at him, gaze going warm and soft. "You're kind. You're good. That's a better foundation than most have."
Cole nods. "You should still ask Sera not to shout at you."
Adder blinks.
"You were trying to distract me, Adder. I know your dodges, your feints, your parries. How could I not?"
"Well, thanks for humouring me, at least." She touches his arm as she quietly says, "If there's one thing I'd change, it's how she talks about you."
Cole shrugs. "I made errors unknowingly and now she sees a shadow to strike out at. But I've been staying out of her way lately." He smiles hopefully. "She appreciates it. That's a good start."
"Oh, my lamb," Adder speaks without speaking. "This world is gonna eat him alive."
Cole wonders if she's right.