Training, and then a Chantry scene. Sorry guys it might be a little rougher than usual, I pushed myself to get it out as quick as I could. After the news this week... well, here's something not election related to distract yourself with. And, as always but never yet actually stated, much love to everyone!
More notes at the end.
While she waited for the advising shems to decide the Inquisition's next move given the Chantry shem's support, Lavellan had taken to training on the grounds outside Haven's gate. She had laid claim to one of the training dummies, glowering at anyone who dared come near. That combined with her burgeoning reputation for aggressive hostility kept the shemlen recruits at bay.
But there was only so long Lavellan could strike at a target that couldn't strike back. Cassandra occasionally filled the void and sparred with her, when she was not at the ambassador's desk ("discussing the Inquisition's strategy going forward," apparently). The warrior shem fought fiercely, doggedly matching Lavellan blow for blow, and Lavellan appreciated her no-holds-barred approach. Lavellan was still slightly wary of the woman, however - her stubborn nature held true not just in her swordplay but her personality, which at times led them to clash with words as well as weapons. Since they both had rather short tempers, their arguments usually devolved into one of them storming away.
It was for that reason that Lavellan sought out a new sparring partner. There was a rather short list of acceptable substitutes - Lavellan was not about to stoop to training with a wet-behind-the-ears shemlen recruit, as satisfying as it would be to beat one down.
Lavellan was eyeing the training grounds for such a partner when Trevelyan came by, led by an agitated soldier. Lavellan rolled her eyes. One of the idiot recruits had the bright idea to try to block his partner's powerful vertical strike, rather than sidestep. His the flat of his own blade, pushed back by the impact of the blow, had hit him in the face. His jaw was covered in blood, but whether that was more from a bloody nose or a gash was unknown. The shem wouldn't take his hands off his face, howling all the while. And while Cullen had dismissed the rest of the trainees, many lingered only to stare and whisper.
Shemlen, Lavellan thought, wrinkling her nose.
Trevelyan, preoccupied, hadn't noticed her, so Lavellan watched covertly. The mage was greeted by the Commander, who said a few short words, running a hand through his hair with an odd expression on his face. Lavellan narrowed her eyes, pausing in her annihilation of the training dummy.
Trevelyan bent next to the injured recruit, whose unholy racket wavered but continued on. The mage murmured something to him, and he lowered his hands slowly. Trevelyan gently placed her hands as near the wound as she could without causing undue pain. A pale green aura enveloped her fingertips, and for a moment nothing appeared to happen. Heads in the gathered crowd craned for a better view, some watching in awe, some in blatant distaste. But then the recruit's screams grew quieter, more subdued, and finally stopped altogether. Lavellan couldn't quite see, as blood still smeared his face crimson, but it seemed like the cut on his face had mended, though not disappeared completely.
Trevelyan took a potion from the satchel at her waist. She asked him something, and for a moment the man hesitated, then shook his head. When the he reached for the potion, his hands shaking, Trevelyan said something to him with a small smile, putting a hand on his shoulder briefly before standing. She handed it to Cullen, gesturing to the recruit and giving instructions for its use. The Commander nodded, taking the vial carefully. Trevelyan moved to leave, but he spoke again.
Lavellan rolled her eyes. What exactly could be confusing about a potion? Dense shem.
When Trevelyan turned to leave for the second time, a tight smile on her lips, her gaze scanned the area and landed on Lavellan. The shem's smile gave way to one bright and true, her honey-colored eyes lighting up, and she made her way over to where Lavellan stood. Cullen eyes trailed after her, a peculiarly lost expression fleeting across his face. Seeing it, Lavellan came to a decision - the shemlen commander would be her new sparring partner. After all, if he had time to gawk, he had time to parry Lavellan's blade.
"I thought I might find you here, Lady Herald," Trevelyan said by way of greeting, standing next to the training dummy. The shem's gaze swept Lavellan up and down, which provoked an odd little flutter in Lavellan's chest.
Lavellan wiped some of the sweat from her brow with a small frown. "Hmph," she responded, since she couldn't think of any actual words to say. Because she was...tired.
"Is he putting up a good fight, at least?" Trevelyan asked, placing an arm around the dummy and giving it a consoling pat.
Lavellan scoffed. "More than any of these shemlen could." That much was certain. At least it didn't knock its own self in the face and then blubber about it.
Trevelyan arched a brow. "Perhaps the Inquisition should outfit them with armor and send them into the Hinterlands, then." she said, attempting dryness but humor leaking through her tone. She glanced around at the crowd of recruits training in the clearing (some of which were glancing back at the two of them surreptitiously, Lavellan noted, and she glowered). "There are a few former Templars here. Surely one of them could be a match for you?" Her eyes hovered on Cullen for a moment before moving on, and yes, Lavellan was definitely going to challenge him.
"I wouldn't count on it, shem," Lavellan replied haughtily. "A jailor is not much of a warrior. As the rebels in the Hinterlands have shown."
Trevelyan's smile fell away at the remark. She looked at Lavellan, and while there wasn't anger or sharpness or exasperation in her eyes, there was something lurking in them that Lavellan couldn't identify. "Evelyn, my sister, used to call them the same." She shook her head, a rough edge to her voice, and - sadness, Lavellan realized, that's what it was. By the time the mage spoke again, however, her tone was neutral once more. "You and she would've gotten along."
Lavellan didn't miss Trevelyan's use of past-tense, but she didn't comment on it. "Then perhaps not all shem are hopeless." The words felt heavy rolling off her tongue.
"Hm." Trevelyan watched her with a somewhat empty, faraway gaze, and Lavellan fidgeted beneath it despite her attempts to the contrary. She tightened her grip on the hilt of her sword, which now felt useless and weighty in her hand. "No, if there was one word that definitely described her, it was 'hopeless.' Hopelessly kind, hopelessly stubborn, hopelessly brave..." A ghost of a smile haunted the shem's pink lips, and Lavellan felt something in her chest constrict at seeing it.
"Trevelyan…" Lavellan was quickly coming to dislike the familiarity of being at a loss for words. She cleared her throat, sheathing her sword and crossing her arms. "None of those things are hopeless, shem."
By all the gods' mercy, she was going soft.
Trevelyan blinked, her honey-eyed gaze focusing. She seemed surprised, her brows raising, and it took her a moment to reply. "No." She let out a breath, straightening, gathering herself. "But I've taken up enough of your time, Lady Herald." She patted the training dummy on its shoulder. "I believe he's had adequate time to recover." She flashed a smile at Lavellan.
Lavellan shook her head, the shem's ability to dismiss and conceal her emotions baffling her. "Fine," she huffed. "Do what you wish." Lavellan didn't care. At all.
Trevelyan's smile quirked into a smirk. "What I wish?" Her eyes flicked down to Lavellan's lips. "That's a dangerous proposition."
Lavellan felt like she was on fire, burning from the inside out, and it was not...a completely unpleasant feeling. She clenched her jaw, trying to work the words from where they were stuck in her throat. "...You are a far cry from dangerous, shem."
Trevelyan's gaze searched Lavellan's face, and her smirk widened. "Shall we find out?" she asked, taking a step towards her.
Lavellan quelled the urge to step back, and instead pulled herself up to her full height (still a few inches shorter than the shem) and stared back at her challengingly.
Before she could retort (with something scathing, of course), a shout rang out. Looking over Trevelyan's shoulder, Lavellan spotted a soldier jogging into the clearing, making a beeline for the Commander. He gestured back to Haven, words pouring quickly from his lips though Lavellan was not close enough to make them out. Cullen's brows furrowed, and he muttered something crossly, then moved towards the gate.
"That doesn't bode well," Trevelyan murmured, having turned to watch the scene play out. Lavellan silently agreed.
"Shem!" she called out, crossing over to the shemlen that had brought the message. His eyes widened as she neared, automatically darting down to her marked hand. Lavellan glared at him. "What's happened?"
"T-there's a crowd, in front of the Chantry," he explained hurriedly, wilting under Lavellan's stare.
Lavellan snorted. Had he really run to Cullen to dispel a crowd? "What else, shem?" she ground out.
"It's the m-mages and Templars," he stammered out. "They're at each other's throats."
Lavellan growled. After everything she'd done in the Hinterlands, to have mage-Templar tensions erupt here, among the Inquisition's own people, was like being spit on. Lavellan glanced over her shoulder to gauge Trevelyan's reaction, but the shem was nowhere to be found.
Lavellan gritted her teeth, a spark of frustration flaring in her chest. She stalked to Haven's gate, resolving at the very least to knock some sense into these shemlen's heads.
True to his word, there was a loosely gathered mob of people outside the Chantry's doors. On the outer edges were the Chantry clerics themselves, tittering uselessly among themselves. Lavellan pushed past them, glowering.
At the center was only a handful of mages and Templars, each group standing a slight distance apart but glaring daggers at each other. Lavellan scanned the gathered on-lookers for Trevelyan and spied the mage's auburn ponytail near the front.
"Your kind killed the Most Holy!" a Templar accused, pushing forward to stand a scant few feet away from the small crowd of gathered mages.
The mage who took it upon himself to argue back was not so stoic. A fleeting flash of fear crossed his face as the Templar stepped closer, the same expression as that of a kicked dog at his master's heel. But then he straightened, his knuckles whitening around his staff and fear molding to anger (or at least an approximation of it). "Lies!" he snarled, squaring his shoulders and glaring at the Templar.
Trevelyan moved swiftly, silently, going to the mage's side and putting a hand on his elbow. She spoke a quiet word to him, the sound of which was swallowed by the murmuring of the crowd, but Lavellan could read it off the shem's pink lips: 'Don't.' Lavellan, feeling on edge as the group's tension swelled, darted her gaze between the three of them, a flash of sharp emotion in her gut. Anger, she reasoned, because it certainly couldn't be fear. Whatever it was, it had her elbowing her way to the forefront of the crowd.
The mage did not heed Trevelyan's suggestion, shrugging free of her grip and taking a half-step away from her. "Your kind let her die!" he accused with a hard, triumphant smirk when the Templar flinched.
Trevelyan's honey-brown eyes widened, face slackening in shock. Lavellan, seeing the Templar's jaw tighten and hands curl into fists, strode to stand next to her. She noticed the Templar reaching for his sword and felt a flash of something predatory, feral.
"Draw your blade and lose a hand, shem," Lavellan threatened with a growl, right hand coming to rest on the hilt of her own sword. The Templar halted in his tracks, brows furrowed, perplexed.
Cullen appeared at her side, moving between the two of them. "Enough!" he commanded sternly, putting a hand on the Templar's shoulder and forcing him to step back.
"Knight-Captain!" the Templar responded on reflex, akin to a verbal salute.
Cullen frowned. "That is not my title. We are not Templars any longer." He cast a look at the mages as well. "We are all a part of the Inquisition."
"And what exactly does that entail, I wonder?" A voice cut through the air. Chancellor Roderick, the snake of a shem, stepped forward, hands behind his back, his bushy brows furrowed.
Cullen's face twisted to match Lavellan's disgust, but Trevelyan was the first to answer. "It means working together, Chancellor. Which we need to do to close the Breach, as you well know." Her tone, while not icy by normal standards, compared to usual was cold.
Roderick's eyes narrowed. "By what order-"
Lavellan, seething, couldn't stand to hear another word. "By the order of someone far more important than you, shem."
Roderick looked affronted, his mouth opening then closing, nostrils flaring. Beside her, Cullen chuckled.
"That's enough," Cullen said again, the vague hint of a smile on his lips. He drew himself up, gazing at the assembled crowd. "Get back to your duties, all of you."
At the order and ending spectacle, everyone dispersed. Roderick gave Lavellan a black look, taking a beleaguered Cullen aside. Lavellan turned to Trevelyan.
"You can take your hand off your sword," Trevelyan pointed out, a slight edge to her voice.
Lavellan blinked. She hadn't realized, but sure enough, her hand was still gripping the hilt of her sword tightly. She released it, crossing her arms instead.
Trevelyan sighed, bringing a hand up to massage her temples. "Maker. To think they were close to trading blows…"
"It would have been a rather one-sided trade, shem," Lavellan remarked pointedly. "The mage is not the one who attempted to draw his weapon." That the Templar was so quick to anger, so quick to violence, made Lavellan's skin crawl. It was predatory behavior, the type that caused her people to fear shemlen.
Trevelyan frowned. "A mage is a weapon. Always. It's inherent to our very being," she said heatedly, looking away.
Lavellan's jaw tightened, frustration bubbling at the familiar argument. "Mages are people first, shem." She thought of her Keeper, her clan's wise and kind leader. She thought of the Keeper's apprentice, the bumbling idiot he often was. She thought of Trevelyan herself, annoying but good-hearted (though Lavellan would never utter that aloud). Was it really their fate to be treated like animals because of their ability? Lavellan couldn't understand the concept.
Trevelyan said nothing, and Lavellan couldn't glimpse her reaction before the shem turned away, retreating quickly in the direction of the apothecary. Lavellan let her go without another word, suspecting it would be wasted anyway. The shem was too wrapped up in her beliefs, in the beliefs of the Templars and the shemlen Circle.
Stupid shem. Though every time Lavellan thought the phrase, it lost some of its vigor. Still. Stupid shem.
And stupid Lavellan, because it was horrifyingly undeniable that she was starting to care.
Alright 2 quick story-related notes. First, just a reminder that this story is a very different tone from "Trading Secrets." Not as light-hearted and fluffy. Baby Trev has some issues, Lavellan has some issues. Make no mistake, it's going to have a happy ending, but there's going to be a lot more character development in order to get there.
Second, on a happier note. I thought I'd let you all decide what path to take vis a vis siding with mages or Templars. Siding with Templars means Maxwell Trevelyan joins the Inquisition, while siding with mages means you get...someone else (3 guesses who lol). They'll both show up, it's just who you want to keep.