(Charamai: I do try to make things more interesting, at least. :) That's a fair take on the Connor thing. In game, I tend to do Redcliffe first, then tackle the Circle once my potion stores can withstand no replenishment, so that tends to color my opinion of the whole thing too. Again, it's the wonder of the game that things are not black and white, so every player has their own interpretation. For the sake of the story, I have been adjusting distances and travel times for consistency's sake (DAO tends to play fast and loose with their own timeline XP), so that does exacerbate certain things.)
64. A Family Matter
He'd sworn to himself he wouldn't come back here. Yet… here he was. Ankle-deep in multiple kinds of refuse, smelling the stink of tunnels too tight and too populated, and staring at a scum-encrusted doorway he'd sworn he'd walked away from forever.
"You are unnerved," Sten observed.
Was that the word for it? Garott wasn't sure. He'd come here on some gut-wrenching impulse, despite the fact that he knew it was a bad idea. He was starting to make rash decisions based more on instinct than calculation, apparently—maybe it was a Grey Warden thing.
"Promise me one thing, Sten. If things get… messy, don't kill anyone."
"You are telling me not to fight for our defense?" The Qunari sounded miffed. "Why?" He'd been doing that more and more lately... questioning him. It was almost enough to make a guy feel inadequate.
"Let's just say I'd rather you didn't decapitate my mother."
"I see." The giant paused. "I do not understand the pointless importance you southerners put on kin ties. If she is worthy of being decapitated, why not let it be so?"
"It's a respect thing, Sten. This woman raised me and Rica on scraps... somehow between all the drinking, anyway."
"You do not sound respectful."
"Yeah, go figure. Just... don't kill her, okay?"
Sten seemed to mull that over, then sighed. "Very well." It was low, as if it were against his better judgment. The dwarf was half on-board with that sentiment.
Garott nodded his thanks and waded through the muck, opening the door without preamble.
The two-room shack was warm, at least, with the hearth lit. Even so, Garott had forgotten what a rotten pisshole the place was. After staying places like the Spoiled Princess and an upper-end inn on the edge of the Diamond Quarter (gratis for the financially-conscious Grey Warden, of course), he couldn't imagine living in this dungpile. Old trash littered the floor, and the walls were stained with decades of filth. It carried the same stink as the rest of Dust Town, with the addition of one particular sharp tang that Garott had gotten to know very well growing up.
"Sodding Stone, girl!" slurred a voice from the back room, where Garott knew the beds were. "I've told you time an' again not to come sloppin' through Dust Town. Those boots are too damn nice to-"
The voice fell silent as its owner stepped through the doorway. Kalah's hair was the same scraggly red mess, her face brand stark against her splotchy skin. Her bloodshot eyes narrowed at the sight of him.
"I don't think my boots are in any danger of getting worse," Garott said. "Darkspawn blood stains pretty damn bad."
"Don't you sass me, boy," his mother snapped. She stalked across the hut and backhanded him. Garott felt Sten tense up behind him, but the Qunari was as good as his word. "Who do you think you are, waltzing back through the slums like you own the place? How long you been back, huh? Days! Days an' you don't even visit your own mother, you ungrateful whelp! I hadda hear that you were in Orzammar from Alimar!"
This had been a bad idea. He'd known this had been a bad idea. Why had he come, again?
Garott took a breath, schooling his face into neutrality. "I had business in-"
"Don't feed me that slop, you little wretch! You were down here just yesterday, pokin' your nose in Carta business, 'cause you just can't leave anything alone. And now what we got down here to keep us afloat, huh? Am I supposed to go back to cleanin' chimneys?"
Despite himself, Garott felt anger stir in him, along with something else that felt an awful lot like grief. "I killed Leske yesterday."
"An' it's all about you, ain't it? You just had to have your revenge, an' now all us Dusters are gonna starve, because you went and slaughtered the only thing that made us matter!"
"We never mattered!" Garott rarely raised his voice, but when he did, it came out as a vicious roar. Even Kalah, in her drunken rage, flinched back. "Those people up there? They never cared about us; they're too busy living in their shiny little worlds to give a shit about the dusters… the only reason any of 'em ever cared about the Carta is because it dipped into their own profits. If that's all dusters had going for 'em, then maybe it's better I slaughtered 'em!"
"Why you…"
"We can be so much more! We can be craftsmen, and fighters, and… sodding paragons, if we work at it! We just have to get the chance!"
Kalah was staring at him like he'd lost his mind. Maybe he had. Once, the words coming out of his mouth would have felt like idealistic drivel, except now they felt sodding true.
"That's what I've been doing since I got back. Bhelen claims he's gonna change our lot if he gets put on the throne… let us in the army, make us respectable. I don't know if he intends to keep his word, but I'm gonna sodding make him keep it."
Kalah let out a bitter, dry laugh. "You really believe that, don't you?"
"I do," he growled back. The insanity that had infused him was fading, leaving him simply tired with dealing with all of it. He turned and started toward the door. Sten even ducked down and held it open for him.
"Don't you turn your back on me!"
"Go sleep it off, old lady. Next time you see me, the world'll have one less archdemon."