34. Wallowing Blonds and Big To-dos
It took two days for the elf to wake up.
When he did, Garott heard him hoarsely ask for water. Then, once given a sip, he slipped away again.
It took another day of the elf wavering in and out before he showed any sort of coherence. And when he did, the blond wreck spent a good half hour weeping into his lap. The elf, of course, spent the entire time patting his back and whispering soothing words, and that was really only encouraging the man's wallowing, as far as Garott was concerned.
But what did he know? He was just some dumb duster, after all.
The ex-Templar wasn't handling things much better, to be honest. He wasn't screaming at the clouds or trying to kick the crap out of his companions, but he had grown overly morose. Apparently, his defense mechanism—his sense of humor—had completely broken down under the weight of his personal tragedy.
Pfft. Please.
Garott was hardly heartless, mind. He wasn't particularly happy that the boss was dead; of course not. And he'd miss some of the more entertaining Wardens, like Emmit and Kazar. But you just had to adjust to their absence and move on with your life.
He didn't understand why the topsiders didn't get that.
He chopped dexterously at the gourd now, feeling his frustration pique just at the thought of it all. They had a sodding job to do. It didn't matter that his boss was dead (again)… when Garott Brosca was given a job, he finished it. And his companions—the only other Grey Wardens within any reasonable distance—were starting to become a distraction. Not the entertaining kind, either.
He glanced over his shoulder at them now. He was stationed in the hut's kitchen area, preparing dinner from what he could with the witches' strange stock. After living with humans for a month, Garott was under the impression that these herbs and cuts of meat were strange, even by surface standards.
Still, one couldn't go wrong with some old-fashioned roasted meat and vegetables. Thus, the gourd. And it was better than letting Percival try to cook, or—Ancestors forbid—Alistair.
He shuddered at the memory of that one time they'd let the ex-Templar cook dinner at Ostagar. No one would ever make that mistake again.
The rest of the Wardens were in the hut's bedroom area. Finian was, of course, still bedridden—although Flemeth indicated that he should be up and about in only a couple more days. The broken leg would likely not stand up to extended travel for another week or so, but that was still damn impressive as far as Garott was concerned. He'd once seen a woman get her arm broken by an angry client. It had been swollen and useless for over a month afterward. Of course, she'd then died of whatever sickness the client had given her, but that wasn't the point.
Finian seemed to be teaching Percival some sort of card game. It looked like a gamblers' game to Garott—the kind Beraht used to rig. And it seemed it worked the same way up here on the surface—every time coin changed hands between the two, it always passed from human to elf. The sneaky rascal was cheating, no doubt about that. Still, they both seemed to be having fun. Garott even saw the blond wretch crack a smile or two.
Percival had been relatively docile since his breakdown a couple days earlier. He seemed to have better control of himself, anyway, though there was still the potential for something nasty. Garott had resolved to keep an eye on him. If there was one thing they didn't need at this point, it was to have one of them cut down by the sword of their own comrade.
Alistair sat on the other pallet, watching Garott, of all things. Apparently just because he could. It made the dwarf sigh. Like he'd said… all this wallowing was distracting.
Flemeth puttered around the kitchen near Garott, mixing some sort of potion together out of various herbs and roots. He never bothered to ask her what she was up to… as something of a tinkerer himself, he found the greatest satisfaction in being able to work uninterrupted during the building process, thus saving all the payoff for when the item in question performed the way it was intended. This was the case whether it was a claw trap concocted out of old bits of armor, or an acid flask rigged to burst explosively when one threw it at an ogre. He assumed it was the same case for potions.
Morrigan had been in and out in the last few days, but she rarely did more than offer cool remarks or be deliberately provocative—in multiple meanings of the word. That morning, she'd quite deliberately trailed a hand up Percival's arm while asking insincerely about his fading injuries. After she'd left for her daily woodsy wandering, Percival had set to brooding something fierce. Finian had then pointed out that she was likely just uncomfortable with the strangers in her home and was trying to take control of the situation. After a bit of thought, Garott had to admit that the elf was probably right. Finian was one manipulative son of a nug, but that certainly gave him a good eye for motivation.
Sometimes, Garott wondered what the elf saw when he looked at him.
The hut door opened, and there was the witch now. "Mother, I'm home. And it seems I've been followed by a handful of strays."
"Welcome back, dear. Do be a good hostess and let them in."
Garott glanced back curiously, only to nearly drop the kitchen knife as a familiar dark-haired head poked through the door.
"Felicity!" Percival was the first to react, leaping up and crossing the room in two long strides. He swooped down on the mage and wrapped her in a hug that was part enthusiasm and part relief.
"P…Percival?"
Alistair was equally dumb-founded. "You're… you're alive?" Finian just smiled broadly and waved from his bed.
"Great," Garott grumbled, though he couldn't bite back his own smile at seeing the mage alive, obnoxious though she was. She'd healed his ass once or twice, after all. "Now I gotta cut up more of these damned gourds."
"You're… you're all here?" Felicity's smile grew as she extracted herself from Percival's embrace. "Alive? Oh, wonderful!" She turned and shouted through the door. "Guys! Alistair and the others made it!"
Percival hurriedly opened the door, and Meila's tattooed head poked in, scanning the room. Meanwhile, Flemeth shooed Alistair off the pallet and began smoothing it out.
"Lay him over here, dears."
"One might think, Mother," Morrigan said acidly, crossing her arms under her bosom, "that you were expecting me to bring company."
"Of course not, dear. Your will is your own, after all." That sly smile said entirely differently, and that made Garott chuckle.
Meila moved into the room, a litter behind her, borne on the other end by Marnan (aw, son of a nug. Her too?) Slung between them was Kazar, looking weak and pale, and rather miffed at life in general.
Garott laughed. "What is it with elves being so damned delicate?" At Meila's sharp look, he amended, "Well, elf men anyway."
Finian, of course, had a smile and a retort for that. "It's because we're so handsome. The Maker felt the need to compensate somehow." This earned a snort from Kazar.
The girls laid the mage on the pallet, and Flemeth retrieved some of her fresh brew and ladled it into a bowl. This, she brought over to Kazar. While she coaxed the elf to drink, Garott turned and started digging through the cooking supplies. They genuinely did need more food, if all of them wanted to have dinner.
Really, Flemeth could have warned him, at least.
"Oh, Fin!" Garott heard Felicity cry. "What happened?"
"He decided to take a ride an ogre, that's what," Alistair said. Ah, so there was a bit of that humor again, though a bit more melancholy in tone than usual.
"Not recommended," Finian said lightly.
Marnan chuckled. "Well, I could have told you that. Going for the eyes, I take it?"
"I dual-wield daggers. It was pretty much the only target I had available."
"I gotta say, funniest thing I've ever seen," Garott put in, chuckling at the memory. He glanced back, noticing that the others had settled down into various positions around the hut. Morrigan, meanwhile, was sulking in a corner, glaring coldly. Yep, elf had a point about her. "The look on the ogre's face, when the elf just jumped up and latched on… like 'what the Stone is this little thing, and why is it stabbing my face?' Priceless."
"And then," Finian said sheepishly, "it decided to use me for sackball practice. I was kind of tempting fate, on that one."
"Still," Percival put in, "we couldn't have beat it without you."
He could feel the shock run through the new arrivals at the sound of Percival's voice. Garott just shrugged and started preparing the spit for the meat. He was now used to the advent of the man talking. They'd get used to it, too. Assuming the guy kept talking.
"It's true," Alistair said. "If you hadn't blinded it, Percival and me would have just kept smacking at it until it got smart enough to just try to attack one of us at once." He paused. "Lucky for us, ogres have very short attention spans." That drew some chuckles, though it was more the relieved kind of chuckling than the humor-elicited kind.
"How about you, Kazar?" Finian asked. "What happened?"
"What does it look like?" the mage said crossly. "I got shot."
"Loghain quit the field," Marnan said, and the whole room darkened at the reminder. "We were left with a horde of angry darkspawn and an incapacitated mage. So… we retreated."
Morrigan chuckled. "Is that another way of saying you ran away like little schoolgirls?"
"Wisest decision I've even heard you make, princess," Garott countered.
"Honored to have your approval, brand," she shot back.
"Whoa, whoa!" Alistair broke in, looking between the two dwarves. "Can we not… do this right now? Please?"
Marnan sighed. "You're right. I apologize." She met Garott's eyes with determination. "Garott Brosca, if you'll have it, I would like to declare a truce between us. At least until certain more pressing matters are dealt with."
Garott snorted. Leave it to the princess to make a big to-do about not biting one another's heads off. Still… he agreed with the sentiment. It made a lot more sense than the topsiders he'd been coping with recently. Maybe the dwarves did have something in common. "I'm game if you are… Marnan."
Judging by the look in her eye, she was very aware of the lack of surname, and not a little surprised by it. He just smirked and turned back to his cooking.
"I, too, would like to… what was it? Declare a truce?" Felicity said. She turned pointedly toward Kazar, who was squinting up at her with narrowed eyes. "Kazar, I… apologize for what happened at the Tower. It was none of my business, and I never would have wished… what almost happened… upon you." That piqued Garott's curiosity… there were lots of things left unsaid in that sentence. "I do not expect you to forgive me, or even like me. But I would like it if we could work together, as colleagues, and mutually endeavor to stop the Blight."
Kazar looked at her suspiciously for a minute from the pallet. Then, he rolled his eyes. "Yeah, sure. Whatever." Still, even a lukewarm response was a win, with him. And judging by the smile on Felicity's face, she knew it.
"I, too, would like to apologize, if we're airing things," Percival said, and all eyes turned to him. The blond man had taken up a position by one window, leaning back against the sill. When he spoke, it was in a soft, cultured tone… with none of the growls and clipped tones that Garott had assumed were customary for him. Percival's gaze flitted from Warden to Warden. "These past weeks, I've been… rather indisposed. Truth be told, some fairly painful events unfolded shortly before Duncan recruited me. I'm still not ready to speak of it… I don't know that I ever will be…" He drifted off for a moment, but then shook his head to clear it. "The point is, I've said some things I regret, and done some things I'm not proud of." At that one, Garott was included in the gaze. The duster shrugged it off. "I haven't been able to put my heart into the fight, and for that I apologize."
"In that case," Marnan said with a diplomatic smile, "we are glad to have you join us at last. It is nice to meet you, Percival."
He smiled. It was thin and still had some of that pain in it, but Garott definitely found it much more tolerable than any of his other expressions. "My friends call me Percy." He then did a strange hesitation, his mouth opening and shutting once. Then, he took a deep breath and swept a courtly bow, "Percy Cousland. A pleasure to meet you all."
Felicity gasped, eyes going wide and hand going over her mouth. Alistair, who had been tipping back on a stool, suddenly fell backwards with a crash. Finian hid sniggers behind his hand.
Everyone else, including Garott, looked around, confused by the reactions.
"Cousland?" Felicity sputtered. "As in Teyrn Cousland?" For some reason, the blond man winced.
Aaaah, a noble. That might explain it. Well, well; it seemed the princess wasn't in solitary company.
Finian smiled at Percival, though there was something sad in his eyes. "You know, Daveth once told me that from the moment he met you, he knew you were a noble. He called it a 'quality'."
"Did he?" Percival matched the elf's expression.
"Yeah." Finian sat back on the pillows, sighing wistfully. "I never did get him to teach me how to sense it. It would have come in handy."
"Mm. You'll have to detect nobles the old fashioned way, then."
"How's that? Look for the upturned nose and contemptuous smirk?"
"No. Walk up and ask a man the time of day. If he then kidnaps your cousin for your impertinence, he's a noble."
Finian fell back against the covers and roared with laughter. Garott sensed a story there, but it was obvious no one else was privy to it. Everyone was still too dumbfounded with the revelation that Percival had just told a joke—more than the fact that he was a nobleman, even.
Garott smiled and set the meat to cooking over the fire. Percival, it seemed, wasn't going to be too much of a burden after all. Now, they just had to worry about Alistair.
Speaking of whom… "Well, this is all quite touching, isn't it?" The man carefully picked himself up again after his tumble. "While we're at it, does anyone else want to submit any apologies? Say, for being a little bit difficult?"
"Why do you look at me as you say that, shemlen?"
"And don't you dare turn that look on me, Templar."
A sigh. "Right, never mind. Moment over, I guess."
Garott wasn't the only one to chuckle.