Though we share this humble path, alone
How fragile is the heart
Oh give these clay feet wings to fly
To touch the face of the stars
Carver and I decided our strategy to try and get this job yesterday; we need it more than we've needed anything in our lives, or at least I do, and he's being brotherly enough to pretend that means he needs it too. Or he's paranoid enough to think that being related to three apostates, albeit two of them no more than ashes anymore, is enough to land him in the Gallows beside me. So he's doing his best to look like the tower of muscles and brute force, perfect for a bodyguard, and I'm mentally begging him to remember some of the lessons in diplomacy Mother and I have tried to teach him over the years. It's not Carver's fault that he has a temper, or that the dwarf can't seem to do anything but step on it. Maker forbid that he lose said temper and beat our last hope senseless, though.
"Andraste's tits, human! You know how many people want to hire on to this expedition?" Bartrand Tethras has a voice that makes me want to spit sparks, and I'm the calm one in the family, but then again it just might be desperation.
"Look, we know you're going into the Deep Roads." Blunt and inelegant, that's Carver all the way through; I can't understand why he was named for the action of a knife, because a blade moves with finesse, leaving neat, straight wounds. My brother is more of a wallop mallet, crushing everything in his path, with me following along behind in life trying to fit the shards back together. Many times it just proves too much even for all the healing skills our father taught me. "You'll need to hire the best and we're…"
"No! You're too late! Already done!" The dwarven merchant starts to turn away but Carver hold him back with a strong hand, though not so strong as to be perceived as a threat. We don't need the guards on us after all.
"The money from this trip could fix everything! You need us. We've fought darkspawn!"
"Look, precious," the sneer sends a flush of red up Carver's tan cheek, muscles bunching in his jaw as he grits his teeth in anger. Quickly, I lay my hand on the top of my brother's arm. Don't lose your temper, please. For Mother's sake if nothing else. "I don't care if you tore the horns off an ogre with your bare hands."
My touch is shaken off, two angry sapphire eyes glaring down into my own amethyst gaze. For a moment I think, I hope, the anger will be directed at someone other than me just this once, a favor from one sibling to another, but his words crush that emotion before it can even properly bloom. "You make him understand! We're running from your bloody Templars!" Accusation, the last two words hissed under his breath like a knife trying to stab me through the heart, but I'm ready for it. My heart already bears such wounds as this.
Calm, cold, collected. My mask stays in place, the wise older sister, the voice of reason in our business discussion. Any thoughts, and desires not of this immediate moment have to be dismissed, banished, displaced; I must forget how small I am, more than a head shorter than my burly younger brother, how pale and thin I am from lack during this last year trying to keep my family alive in the hovel we now call home. I must forget that I am a mage, that, were it not for that problem, my family could be living so much better. "I know how you feel, but we'll earn no favors with your fist in his face."
Carver's angry toss of his messy black hair as he stomps off tells me, no matter what, he cannot forget. Or forgive. "Then we do nothing, as always."
"My brother can be hotheaded," I say diplomatically, turning back to the dwarf, trying to stand in such a way that he sees more of my chain tunic than the graying homespun blouse and worn leather pants and patched boots made for a soldier much larger than I then cut and re-stitched to fit my feet. I want him to see me as a fighter, not some worthless piece of baggage trying to sail along on her brother's wake. "But we do have the skills to benefit your expedition."
"You're looking for a quick way out of the slums, right?" Amber eyes look me up and down, and for a minute I have hope, but then I realize what he's looking at. Maker, not again. Please, Maker, not again. In one motion I slip my staff from my back, gripping it tightly in my hand, my own gaze never faltering as I see his face contort and color. No, I'm not hiring myself out that way. "You and every other Ferelden in this dump. Find another meal ticket." Silently, I turn and walk away, keeping my staff in my hand until Carver rejoins me, then I slip it back into the hanger on my shoulder. He's oblivious, as always, but I don't try to enlighten him to what just went on. Obliviousness to what happens to me is one of the few gifts I can offer my little brother in these hard times.
He didn't ask when I walked away from the Red Irons, and I didn't say; doesn't ask why, when things are so dire I don't go crawling back to Meeran for a job to see us through. Maybe he thinks I can't stand the thought of begging for scraps from someone who essentially owned us for a year; maybe he thinks it's like the little bits of healing I do when I can for people I know will keep my secret - a matter of honor that I won't sully by placing a price on it. There's a twisted irony in the fact that my brother actually thinks I'm honorable enough to believe that life shouldn't have a price, because I'm not. There are very few things I wouldn't do for my family; that just happens to be one of them.
"Well, back to waiting for someone to turn us in." Carver sighs and slumps his shoulders, looking so dejected and pathetic it takes all I can do not to laugh, even though it's not funny at all. He doesn't know how right he is; I've spent a lifetime seeing to that, but I have to calm him down before he does something stupid, for his own sake. I've already lost one sibling to my own carelessness, I'm not about to lose another.
"It'll get harder if we're at each other's throats." Calm, cold, collected; still the mask. Well, maybe not so cold this time, I let a touch of warmth thaw the frost of my words as we walk beside each other through the streets of Hightown,
"I know. It just… seems like you die in this city, or you end up like the scum we're bargaining with. We need coin, status, something we can shove in that dwarf's face. And keep people off our backs." He hesitates for a moment, rolling his tongue in his mouth like he's trying to decide whether what's inside is sweet or so bitter it needs spit out; for a moment he has such a look of lost child that I feel the scarce two years between us as if they were centuries. Finally, he blurts: "And all I can think of is Uncle Gamlen."
It's not a bad thought, but not the best either. I hate beholding to our mother's brother, though I doubt that Carver likes it anymore than I do. Really, what other choice is there, though? As it is, we can't go forward, and we can't go back. Things stay the way they are now, I know where I'll end up. Thoughts of being hunted by Templars chill my blood, though my mind doesn't dwell on what they will do to me when caught. Oh, Papa, how much longer do I have? Will it be long enough? "He got us into the city, more or less." Finally I reply, dragging my thoughts away from Templars and the memory of my mother's face as she looked at the small amount of old cheese and stringy, dried mystery meat I had managed to procure for dinner the night before. "If there's a chance he can push Bartrand…"
"Worth checking, I guess. What else can we do? We're losing ground, and I don't fancy waking up in the Gallows." Another dagger finds my heart as he glares at me again, letting me know once more this is all my fault. My lips part to remind me that I had no choice in what, how, or when I was born, and had I been given the choice I certainly would have chosen differently than my current reality. I never wanted to be a mage, never wanted the curse that infects my blood without any known cure other than the living death known as tranquility, but the decision was not mine, nor was it his, and before I get the words out, the pickpocket stumbling into my side pushes me off balance and out of… normal… awareness just long enough for me to forget what else is going on. By the time I've regained my wits enough to chase after the thief, I see a dwarf… an odd dwarf, with a crossbow of all things… recovering my coins from the man he had pinned to the wall with a well-placed bolt, before felling him with a hard punch to the jaw.
"How do you do? Varric Tethras, at your service!" The dwarf smiles at me, uncertainly, I smile back, then with a flash of knowing, I realize we have a way in for our way out.
Breathe life into this feeble heart
Lift this mortal veil of fear
Take these crumbled hopes, etched with tears
We'll rise above these earthly cares
A/N: Lyrics from "Dante's Prayer" by Loreena McKennitt. I own nothing. I'm really not satisfied with this chapter, and I was really debating putting it up at all, and I honestly may take it back down later, but I couldn't figure out how to get more of the Carver / Ebony dynamics into the Anders intro chapter coming up next, so this is staying for now. If I can figure out how to re-write this later, I will.