Sweet, cool fingertips brushed over her knuckles and wrists, but Chiyo shook them away. Blind and too sore to tolerate the intrusive, soothing touch, she reeled back. "Get off!"

"Come on, let me see. Move your hands." With considerate prying, the bloodied face below was exposed. She bared her teeth as the inquisitive digits returned to inspect the angle of her nose and tender sinuses. Chiyo squinted through a pair of watery eyes to find Solas close and crouched down on the floor.

His attentions flicked from her ghastly features to their surroundings and back again, every sound and shuffle prickled his already alerted senses. Spine hunched, legs set to spring, the attack in broad daylight had him primed to bolt. "Don't raise your voice… explain what happened?"

"She-Pft!" Chiyo spat the coppery run of blood from her mouth, "A damned dwarf... pinched my bag… called me a snoop! And punched me! I don't snoop! I investigate... that's my job! Fuck, this hurts."

"Andraste's shining ass-cheeks, are you going to let that thing swell up crooked or are you just going to fuss like an old hen?" There wasn't a chance to swat the second set of hands away before two thumbs took her nose. A sickening pop reverberated through her skull.

"I'm going to shove a tree up your-!"

"Oh shhh," Dorian's palm lifted from her cursing mouth once the worst of it passed. "You'll thank me later. Before mathematics, I had a brief study in medicine. But it was the anatomy that truly perked my interest."

"I hate you." She hoped there was venom enough in her words behind the fresh tears and mumbling.

"Can you stand?" Solas stopped to glance over his shoulder. He tugged on her arms as a blond officer, belted in crimson and badged with a steel emblem in the center of his chest came patrolling around the corner.

"There's something about a man in uniform... and a scar! Pardon me, but I'm going to have to introduce myself." Sidling through the crowd and smoothing back his hair, Dorian stepped forward through the throng and met the lone templar-lieutenant first.

"We need to go. Now ."

"Not without my recorder," Chiyo whimpered as she was forced to her feet and pulled forth into a brisk, unbalanced walk. Solas paused only to snatch up her remaining luggage from the now unattended hatch and add its weight to his back alongside his own. "And my notes, why did it have to be my notes! That thieving midge took them! Couldn't she have just nipped my wallet?"

"This wasn't a simple mugging." His low voice urged her onwards, holding an arm in a tight grasp to keep her close to his person as they dodged the bustle of the morning's first scheduled stop as workers, migrants, and tourists flooded the station. "You were targeted for having something they want."

Chiyo held her nose and mouth, the bleeding had slowed to a coagulated trickle down her chin and onto an already unsightly blouse. Bumping into several passersby to cross their path, many opened their mouths to complain but were struck dumb by the gruesome sight.

"But to follow us here… How did they even… We must have struck quite a nerve there in Qarinus." Flustered and babbling in broken thoughts to himself, Solas guided them on a twisting path through the people-clogged cluster that finally had them out on a public road.

Great… He wasn't just a madman chasing phantoms, he was apparently paranoid too. To her, this was nothing more than a continued string of bad luck, notably worsened since she'd met the striking photographer. All but the brusque insult fit the mold of a random robbery.

Skirting around the edges of shops, peddler carts, and eateries, they were fortunate enough on several counts not to run headlong into the bustling residents taking advantage of the cooler early hours before the noon sun chased them all back inside. She knew naught what sigil of security he searched for, but with a sudden veer in direction, something seemed to have snagged his interest.

At the first opportunity, Solas ducked into a door propped open by a chalky vacancy sign.

"Hide your face." It was his only instruction as they approached the desk. Solas took her arm and placed it snug about his waist, the whole front of her body was tucked into concealment against his taller frame. With a tap, he struck the table's small call bell.

"Avanna travelers, how may I help you folk?" A man spoke and she heard the creak of wicker under an added load as the host took to the chair. "My my, fresh off the last train are you?"

Solas shifted with a yawn, but his hold on her didn't falter as a pen scratched briefly to provided parchment. "A room please, and yes. Completely tuckered out, we've journeyed too much for one morning already."

"Of course," The other voice softened to little more than a pleasant whisper. "You've chosen a wonderful time to visit. The pickerel being fished now are the best they've been in years. Couples just flock from all over to try it, but that little place on the corner has a curried version like no other. Take your wife for a treat when she wakes up, if you tell them I sent you they'll get you a good table too."

The plink of coin on the desk was traded for the rattle of a tagged key. "Ah, I'll keep that in mind, thank you. If you'll excuse us, she will need all the rest she can get."

Still wrapped around each other, Chiyo did her best not display her wounds or to trip as she was escorted down the hall. Only when he loosened his grip did she withdraw from the red, sticky smear she'd left on the breast of Solas' shirt.

"Smooth talker." There was little elegance left in her speech beneath the swelling of her cheek and lip. No real lie had been given to cover their ruse, but no truth offered up either. Any suspicious clerk with a smidgen of merit to their name would have turned away an unmarried pair, doubly thus if a member of the party looked like they'd just been beaten on the street.

Offensives against the Chantry's doctrines weren't just looked down upon, they were finable if businesses were discovered to be entertaining such disgraces to society.

"One learns many things to evade an enemy and steer clear of trouble when necessary. I have found when one's mind is left with small hints they'll often fill in grand dreams of their own and it keeps their thoughts preoccupied." He stopped at the door with the same painted number as the key in his hand. Looking each way as he turned the lock, Solas pulled them both inside.

He set the chain and deadbolt as soon as the door clicked back into place. With a shrug, Solas dumped their packs by the coat rack.

Released at last, Chiyo tottered to the foot of the bed as her peculiar partner went first for the parted blinds, peeked into the tiny washroom and then opened the closet. Finding nothing, he let loose a long, whistling sigh and ran his fingers over the hairless temples behind his ears. "I knew that last arrest was going to cause issue..."

She watched him pace a few steps before he returned to their bags on the floor and proceeded to dump his belongings out onto the carpet. Pictures spilled from envelopes torn asunder. A toiletry bag was hollow of any prior contents, though a razor and toothbrush were soon recovered in the mess. The pockets on his spare clothes, identical to the ones Dorian had forced him to dispose of, had all been pulled inside-out. Ransacked!

"But how did they find us so quickly here in Carastes? Where else have we been followed?" Spare rolls of unused film were found opened and exposed, he grasped them in his fists and then promptly tossed into the nearest waste bin. His nose crinkled in a silent growl.

Good job, now not only are you bleeding and stranded in a Tevinter town where nobody from home knows your location, you're also alone in a hotel room with a probable criminal too. Hope you leave an interesting corpse… That'll make the headlines for sure.

"You keep saying they ?" Chiyo shifted a few inches up the bed to pad the distance between them. "Are you in some kind of trouble I should know about?"

"At one point, I very well should have asked the same of you. Considering the circumstances." He began to stuff his personal effects back into the sack, wadding the clothes and images with a gruff shove.

"I've grown used to the constant harassment, but this time, they nearly put the screws to my thumbs about a journalist prying her way through the same haunts they knew I frequented. Oddly, they wanted your name above all else."

"What did you tell them and when, exactly, were you going to mention that the police were actively looking for me?" Chiyo's jaw dropped, certainly it wasn't her first rub with the law but in the scheme of her adventures all the incidents had been rather minor. Trivial counts of trespassing, lack of permits, and general annoyance to property owners. No one in her field could claim a pure, spotless record, but it was required that they keep their noses clean and above major scrutiny. The honor and validity of the paper came first, their autonomy depended on certain standards being maintained.

"What could I have said?" Solas rose and returned to the washroom where he ran the tap to the sink. "I barely knew who you were at that point."

Blood-dried fingers crept to cover her tired eyes. A full-blown investigation by the state could be a career fatality, no one would hire a journalist who couldn't work without the Chantry's dogs constantly sniffing about their heels. "What do the police want with my notes… I haven't even reported any misconduct this year… And why would they enlist purse-snatchers?"

"It's not the law I'd be most concerned with. That dwarf most assuredly didn't work for herself alone." A damp washcloth bumped her bruised cheek and in her misery Chiyo let her hands drop into her lap while her face and neck were subjected to a thorough cleaning. "The Chantry, the templars, the lyrium trade, the dwarven mobs, they're all shaking hands under the table to speak."

"I really, really don't want to hear some conspiracy drivel- Oh shit! They have all my drafts… Weeks of recordings, interviews, I can't replace those…" She was too exhausted to even consider crying over her woes, but there was energy enough for catastrophic doubt to ensnare her already miserable mood. "I'll never have something prepared in time… I'm… I'm going to get fired."

Her life began to come apart at the seams inside her mind. She could see it now, going home with nothing, her job already coasting on brittle ground. Without her latest piece completed, they wouldn't pay her or reimburse the trip expenses. She'd be too broke to make rent for that tiny apartment with the stove she could almost reach from her bed.

Chin in his hand, Solas turned her head and found more to groom. "Why didn't they just arrest me? I wouldn't be homeless in jail… This is going to ruin me."

"I'm sure you'll come up with something. Lay low for a bit and they'll think you've quit. Otherwise, you'll be changing cities every few weeks for a decade or so. It's an amusing existence, let me tell you." His teasing joke was lost as he worked next to clean some of the blood from her shirt.

Her thoughts continued to spiral. She'd have to move back to the Lavellan compound. Her aunt would rail her for the wasted effort and costly education. She'd have to find a new job and probably end up teaching, stuck behind a desk and grading the papers of children until she was old and covered with cellulite and scraggly veins from a sedentary lifestyle. Chiyo would pick up that ever-present mothy, ammonia smell of all language and literature teachers she'd been a student of.

"Ms. Chiyo the school marm… I can hear the pop of spitballs and pointy paper darts already..." With a slump, she fell back onto the mattress and stared at the ceiling. "I'm going to have cankles and cats and a collection of candles I never burn because they were gifts…"

"You're a strange one, aren't you?" The reddened rag, still cool and damp, came to lay across her nose and eyes. "The Carta themselves probably just stole your satchel and you're going to fret over turning into some old biddy?"

"I should just resign now and buy a drawer full of those thick, ugly, beige stockings." She felt the laces of her boots loosen before they were pried away.

"Rather, why don't you get some sleep. It will all appear better once you are in less pain, that I guarantee. Meanwhile, I must find Dorian... Can you promise me something?"

Chiyo groaned, her body grown too heavy and morose to roll over or reach for a pillow. "What, not to jump off the roof?"

"Close," Even his chuckle sounded tired, it was a wonder he could still stand. "Don't leave this room."

"Fine."

She didn't hear the door shut behind him, her consciousness fled and body vacated long before his hand ever touched the knob.

Skin slid in a stretch between crisp sheets as the feather-soft bed dipped down on the far edge.

Fine fingers brushed the curls back from over her eyes and returned to trace a marked path across her cheek.

Quiet and warm as the sleepy, crackling fire, a word was sighed and sealed by lips onto her ear.

"Vhenan."

Her bones had grown infinitely ancient during the ages she must have slept away. Each joint popped as it stirred, knees, elbows, neck, but her face seemed surprisingly numb. Upon lifting her head, a mostly melted, rubbery bag of ice slipped off and rolled across the scratchy bedspread.

A glow still leaked from behind the drawn curtain, though without a clock she wasn't sure if the day was ending or a new one just beginning. Considering how tired she'd been, a week could have passed. Cautious fingers reached to touch the chilly center of her nose and cheek, but even ice cold the pain radiated across the damaged structures beneath puffy skin.

Chiyo forced her legs out of the depression they'd created on the mattress and bid them carry her to the bathroom in the corner. A single surviving sock shuffled across the carpet, she groped for a switch in the dark. The pulsing pale flicker of blue-white light stung, but the image revealed in the mirror left the little elf wincing out of self-pity. What a mess…

Dark blues and reds splashed across one side of her face from beneath a bleary eye down to the edge of her stiff jaw. For already having a round nose, the added swelling and discoloration only made the feature that much more prominent and wide. One nostril was swollen shut and whistled when she tried to draw air through it.

With her pinky, she poked and prodded, feeling for cracks in the arch that made up her cheek, the socket around half-closed lids and the bridge of her clotted, but straight nose. A tinged rag lay on the counter, she re-wet the fabric and dabbed to remove the last few traces of blood. The front of her shirt was utterly ruined with diluted stains. Chiyo stripped the garment and dropped it on the floor, her slacks soon followed.

Staggering to her bag, she rooted in it for something clean. Discovering the contents disturbed in much the same manner as the man who'd joined her on this venture, she settled on a simple, speckled summer dress that seemed the most unmolested and easiest to pull on. The rest she wouldn't wear until they'd been thoroughly washed again after unknown hands had beset them.

Beyond the pain, her stomach turned, sick with hunger. The morning's morsels of bread and fruit had long since disappeared. Gone were her favorite snacks, along with the brunt of her funds, documents, and chances at a real future.

Her spare coin purse had been opened, but most of the hidden stash tucked into a shoe seemed to be accounted for. It wasn't much, but a few copper pieces would be ample for something to eat and perhaps cajole another into getting her some new aspirin. Chiyo eyed the glass bottle she'd brought from home, but paranoia was perhaps more contagious than the common cold.

Into the trash, it went to join the contaminated film in the bottom of the bin. She should have packed that willow bark tea gifted on her last name-day...

Belly growling and head pounding, promises were soon revoked. She wasn't going to wait an eternity for that photographer to come back and watch the shadows for lurking fiends. Coin in hand, she panned the floor for her boots, the other sock she'd fallen asleep in had disappeared into the unknown reaches of the Void.

Found placed in a neat fashion by the entrance, Chiyo slipped in her feet before she opened the unchained door.

She saw a raised fist before anything else and promptly slammed the door shut again.

A soft knock followed, drowned out by the hammer striking behind her sternum. "Awake, presumably?"

"And wishing I wasn't again..." With a sheepish pout, Chiyo turned the knob and peeked out at the man whom she'd nearly struck in her haste. A brightness had returned to his eyes, but the dark bags below had yet to be sufficiently slept away. Much more himself in less boisterous attire, Solas seemed to have recovered somewhat from their ordeals.

"I was going to drop this off, doubtful to think you'd want to sit at a table in lieu of your... condition." She sniffed, smelling out the bribe even before he lifted the waxy paper box in offering. It wasn't mere manners that let him in without question, but overwhelming appetite.

"You know, if you want to say I look like shit and you can't be seen with me in public, I'd wholly agree to leave it at that." He might be borderline bonkers, but the man couldn't have been a better mind reader.

The warm weight placed in her palms wiped clean the debt, all prior transgressions were forgotten with the opening of the lid. Cumin, ginger, garlic and jasmine sifted through the side of her nose that still worked. Glorious cuts of fish bathed in rich, creamy orange sauce paired by hefty scoops of long grained, beautiful rice.

She might have the food, but it seemed he'd kept the cutlery. "How about I just ask you to eat dinner with me?"

If it tasted as marvelous as it looked, getting punched by a dwarf would almost be worth the reward. This elf surely knew a few ways to a lady's heart. One at least, through the route of her stomach.