Disclaimer: I don't own Dragon Age or any of its related characters. This is just for my own enjoyment and the potential enjoyment of other fans like me, and no monetary gain was expected or received.
Rating: T
Spoilers: May contain spoilers for Origins, Awakening, and Dragon Age II as well as the novels The Stolen Throne and The Calling.
A/N: Maker's breath, thirty chapters! And I still have no clear idea of exactly how long this thing will string out. Just given the amount of crap cluttering up my highly disorganized outline, I may not even be halfway done, although I do have some idea how it will end (my writing style is fluid, to say the least, so there's no guaranteeing my outline means anything). Hope you're up for a long ride…
(Beldam Prima, apropos of nothing, is my great-grandmother, an Italian immigrant who was nothing if not a phenomenal cook. I think she used magic. "Heavenly Glop" is my own recipe, a pasta dish comprised of whatever I happen to have laying around and cheese. Lots of cheese.)
Chapter Thirty-One: Harvestmere
In the morning, after a relatively leisurely stroll of but a mile or two along the nicely-kept packed earth track and a rather thin and unsatisfying breakfast of leftover stew, the smells of cooking wafted to their appreciative noses. It was a heady mixture, a conglomeration of a hundred different chefs preparing a thousand different foods, but after so long living on what little they'd brought with them (hardtack, mostly, after the first few days) and what meat and greens were to be had, even the not-too-harmonious combination of boiling seafood and baking fowl and whatever else was being prepared struck upon their senses as something devoutly glorious.
They crested a small hill and came upon a pretty picture, the village of Gwaren and its sturdy, practical Keep nestled between the trees that were one-half of its livelihood and the sea that made up most of the other half. It was a homely little town, really, but the way it sat its little hollow was picturesque.
Varric took a deep breath, and sighed it out happily at the same time his stomach gave an audible rumble. "Is this heaven?" he asked, with a touch of whimsy.
"No, it's Gwaren," Loghain said, quite seriously. "It really has grown, I see. A lot of new buildings have sprung up. Glad to see they've kept some sense of organization, at least, but those stacks look a bit like death traps, don't they?"
The "stacks" to which he referred were a long double line of tall wooden buildings, well-built but a bit grim in their sturdy plainness. Elilia understood what he meant - the buildings were large enough to contain a score of families each, and their height, coupled with the wooden construction, meant cookfires and careless smokers would pose a grave danger.
"I bet that's where the people who live in them have to go to cook," Elilia said, and pointed out a long, low building set some distance away from the others as well as from the crowding forest. Numerous chimneys protruded from the sloped shake roof, all smoking merrily, adding to the general light haze of good wood smoke rising from the chimneys of every other proper house in town.
"Inconvenient," Laz said. "Why didn't they just make the buildings out of stone if they're so worried about fire?"
Loghain laughed. "Spoken like a true dwarf. Gwaren boasts plenty of rocks, Laz - many of the houses down there are built of them, and all of the local fencing. But the people are not stonemasons and there is no quarry. Gwaren is a wood-built town, predominantly, both structurally and economically. Even the Keep is mostly wooden. Only thing they mine down there is salt."
"Well, you'd think they could at least clear out a bit more space from the forest," Varric said. "Spread the buildings out instead of piling them to the sky."
"Oo, bad idea - at least if I know anything about the Brecilian Forest," Elilia said.
"True enough. The woodcutters who ply their trade here are the bravest men I know, even more courageous than those who risk the sea for crab and lobster. No one, no matter how stout-hearted, would dare incur the forest's wrath by taking one stick more than she's willing to give. Gwaren has to exist within the space she's offered, and that's an end to it."
"Why did they bloody well build it here, then?" Varric demanded.
"Ask your ancestors," Loghain said. "Gwaren started out as one of their surface trading posts, though who they were trading with I've no idea. Alamarri, I suppose, or maybe Clayne. The Avaar don't seem to have made much of an impact here, at least."
"Might have been elves," Elilia said. "There's a very strange set of ruins not all that far from here."
"I remember," Loghain said. "I suppose it's possible."
He warned the group of the isolationist attitude of the locals. "Unless there's been enough outsiders come in to change things, the true native Gwarener always looks down a bit on those poor fools from 'Away.' In all the years I was Teyrn, I never managed to completely live down the stigma of being a 'foreigner.' And I'll tell you also, to Gwareners it is always 'the Queen,' and 'twas even so during the reign of Cailan. I can't imagine they've had enough contact with Alistair to conceive a love for him great enough to overpower their loyalty to Anora. She's 'theirs.' But they're not exactly unkind, just a bit suspicious."
"As long as they feed us," Varric said, reverently.
"I'm sure there's no fear they won't," Loghain said. "Gwareners are good at feeding people, they seem to be able to do it even when they have no food."
They went down into the town, then, and the streets thronged with people preparing for the holiday celebration, cooking right out in the open in some cases, offering food and good tidings to passers by. It was easy enough to tell the true natives from the new settlers, even without Loghain's muttered commentary on "local" and "not local." The refugees mostly didn't recognize anyone of the party, and if they had any hospitality to offer it was of the honest sort openly offered to anyone on so festive an occasion, but they tended to be a bit more open and generous with the humans and the dogs than the elf and the dwarves. The ones that did recognize either the former Teyrn of Gwaren or the fabled Hero of Ferelden made themselves ridiculous, falling over themselves to offer anything and everything they had.
The true natives, on the other hand, were not exactly hospitable toward anyone though their generosity on this day at least was great and divided equally among the races. None of them seemed to know Elilia when they laid eyes on her, but all of them knew Loghain - and he knew them, and greeted them by name. None of them seemed particularly surprised at his return. It was difficult to tell, but they seemed pleased to see him.
"Harvestmere is my new favorite holiday," Varric said, munching the drumstick of a roast turkey he held in one hand while the other gripped the handle of an enormous mug of Gwaren ale. "It was never taken as a very big deal in Kirkwall. In fact, I don't remember ever actually celebrating it before. Just another day for making deals, in the Merchants' Guild. Ancestors' asses, this ale is good."
"Strong, too, so proceed with caution," Loghain advised.
"What's this?" Seanna asked of a woman tending a coal-burning brazier on which were roasting long strips of flesh.
"Wilds Crawler," the woman said crisply, and turned the meat with a fork. With the other side revealed, it was easy to see that she was cooking nothing more nor less than an unskinned snake, sliced in half lengthwise. Seanna jerked away in shock.
Loghain snorted a laugh at her reaction. He'd eaten snake and worse before ever coming to this place. The woman took a sharp knife and cut away a good-sized chunk of meat, skewered it upon a sharpened wooden rod, and offered it to him. He accepted with a nod of thanks and bit into the crunchy flesh and chewed, enjoying more the blanching faces of his companions than the meat.
"Tastes like chicken," he explained, once he'd swallowed. "Really crunchy chicken, with a bit of a kick to it."
"I think I'll pass," Varric said, weakly, but Laz stepped up to the challenge.
"Hey, not bad," she said. "Kind of like deepstalker."
The next station was boiling chicken feet, the taloned digits curling gruesomely in the pot, the one after that dishing out great steaming bowls of fish chowder. Clams and oysters were fried up to order by the next streetside chef, and beside him stood a man nearly identical in appearance who dipped abalone in a batter and fried them up in a deep pan of boiling oil. Varric went back for seconds, thirds, and fourths from him.
"Let's stop in here," Loghain said, pointing out a large house with a wide-open front door, through which people poured in and out. The ones coming out had a distinct look of repletion to them.
"A native?" Elilia asked.
"A longtime-resident," Loghain corrected. "Beldam Prima is from Tevinter, originally, but she's lived in Gwaren for decades."
"A Tevinter? In Gwaren?" Elilia was surprised.
"She wanted to get as away from the Qunari as was possible, or that's the local legend. I think she may have been from Seheron."
They went inside. A gigantic steaming cauldron was set over an open fire in the middle of the dirt floor, and a short little woman wider than she was tall presided over it like a witch in a fable. People came to her and held out large bowls carved out of great loaves of round bread, and she ladled into them a thick, gloppy…something.
"What is that?" Elilia whispered to Loghain.
"Her accent is so thick it would be easier to understand her if she'd just speak Tevinter," he whispered back, "but whatever it is, it's delicious."
They each took a bread bowl and queued up. The beldam broke into a toothless grin when she saw Loghain, and a flurry of words that were almost utterly incomprehensible. She dished out her glop and sent a little elf girl scurrying with a gesture, to return moments later with a bowl of something white and cold from the icebox outside. The beldam spooned up a dollop of that for each of them, and Elilia was surprised to see that it was sour cream.
"Er…that's a lot of sour cream…" she ventured tentatively, but Loghain was unperturbed. He mixed his own blot into the glop with a fork.
"It's good, Elilia, trust me."
She shrugged and mixed the glob into her glop. Up close, the stuff appeared to be a heavy stew of ground-up meat and something that looked like soft oyster shells. "That's not what they are, I hope?" she asked.
Loghain shook his head. "They're made out of wheat flour. Just eat."
She obeyed, not without hesitation. That first small bite exploded in her mouth like First Day fireworks. She recognized the taste of tomato, a dozen different herbs and spices, and the rich surprise of several varieties of cheese melted into the sauce. Instead of overpowering her as she'd expected it to, the sour cream blended perfectly and smoothed out the whole concoction.
"Mmmmmmm." Seanna closed her eyes and enjoyed the mouthful of flavor. "That is heavenly."
"This definitely makes up for the chicken feet and roasted wharf rat," Varric said.
"I liked the chicken feet," Laz said, but she tucked into her bowl with gusto. The dogs, too, were given small plates of heavenly glop, and ate as happily as the people did.
As they were eating the last of their sauce-soaked bread bowls, a man walked in to the beldam's house, distinguished from the others who entered and left at will by the fine clothes he wore. He begged off the old woman's offer of food and came straight for their party, though he seemed not to notice any of them except Loghain. When he was still a few steps away, he dropped to one knee with his head bowed.
"My Lord, at your service."
"Hello, Cort," Loghain said, sounding as if he were not terribly happy to see the man, but resigned. "How flies the Teyrnir?"
"All is well, my Lord, for now. The Queen has sent workers and resources for the fortification of the harbor, and the improvements are well under way. Your idea, I presume?"
"My suggestion," Loghain corrected.
"Word has come from the outlying freeholds that border the Blight lands - they're saying that they've become fertile again. I cannot believe that your sudden arrival in town close on the heels of this miracle is a mere coincidence."
"Believe whatever makes you feel comfortable, Cort."
The man laughed slightly and bowed forward from the waist a few degrees. "You will be staying with us, I hope, my Lord? I have taken the liberty of having your rooms made up, the moment I heard you were here."
"I and my companions will be staying tonight, Cort, but on the morrow we must move on," Loghain said. "I trust you can see to ensuring their comfort as well as my own?"
The man blinked at the others in some surprise, as if he'd only just noticed them. "Oh. Yes, my Lord, of course. I will make arrangements at once." The man turned sharply on his heel and strode briskly from the house, evidently intent upon his task.
"My former Seneschal," Loghain explained. "Wondered whether he got to keep his job in the aftermath."
"You know, for someone who 'never overcame the stigma of being foreign,' people around here really seem to like you," Varric pointed out.
"Cort hails from Redcliffe," Loghain said. "I would've preferred a local man, someone a bit less…zealous…but few of the natives have any education at all. And they resist efforts to introduce the concept of schooling, too."
"I'm not talking about just Messer Worshipful," Varric said. All the natives seem to look at you like you belong to them."
"To them perhaps," Loghain said, with a bit of a laugh, "but never of them."
Elilia finished the last scrap of her bread bowl and yawned. "I'm stuffed, and all I can think about is taking a nap. Why don't we head to the Keep for a good old Antivan siesta? I'd…like a chance to speak with you in private, anyway, Loghain." Her eyes communicated something profound, and Loghain knew that at last he'd hear the truth of her opinions on his elven ancestry. With a faint, rueful smile, he nodded. It certainly didn't take her three days of silence to come to terms with his offhanded "my love."