All Fall Down
By: SurreptitiousFox245
Disclaimer: I don't own Elder Scrolls or Dragon Age. I wish I did. But I don't. If I did...I don't know. I'll think of something to wish to do to either of them. Not sure yet *goes off to plot*
Quick Author's Note: I'm on a roll. Again. Anyway, this chapter is really more of a filler - I needed to bridge the gaps between last chapter and next chapter, which is going to start in on the events of Inquisition. I have this thing all outlined up until chapter 31, and that's only about three-fourths of the whole thing. Yeah. Well, enjoy!
"Do you remember the day?
Remember the song?
Remember how everything went wrong
when you renewed your faith,
but you didn't feel saved?
You said, 'To be a savior, you're taking so damn long.'"
-One Less Reason, "Someday"
Chapter 6
~Thedas – 9:34 Dragon~
You crossed your arms as you leaned against an extravagantly decorated pillar. The people around you wept and sobbed and bemoaned the sad, sad event that had just befallen Thedas, but you paid them little more than a scoff. Divine Beatrix III had passed – you failed to see the sorrow in it. People died every day. Just because it was a religious leader this time around didn't mean the whole city of Val Royeaux had to be decked out for the elaborate funeral procession through the streets. Ridiculous, you groused to yourself.
Of course, you were not stupid enough to be trouncing through the major Orlesian city in full view of its denizens. Surreptitiously cast invisibility and muffle spells, as well as the "just-in-case" invisibility potion you had managed to distill from some local Aloe Vera and wormwood plants ensured that the surrounding Orlesians clad in masks that made your own seem like the finest work of art in all the four eras weren't aware of your presence along the Avenue of the Sun in the slightest.
The city was undeniably in mourning, however. You had allowed yourself a glimpse upon entering its gilded Sun Gate and had seen the garishly-painted buildings decked out in Chantry banners and ribbons and streamers that were a horrible contrast of dark color to signify the overreaching depression the Royans – indeed, most all Andrastian Thedosians, you had heard – were currently feeling. The denizens of Val Royeaux were even more ostentatiously dressed than was usual for Orlesians, though you were marginally grateful that all of the outfits you had seen were significantly dulled in color. While even you had to admit that Orlesians (sometimes) had a way with matching hues, it did tend to irritate the eyes after a while. If only, you mused with dull humor, their tasteful decorations when it came to clothing were to be transferred over to their architecture. Then you probably wouldn't feel the need to compare them with Altmer so much.
Your senses sharpened when you detected the heightening pitch of wailing that signified the passing of Beatrix's procession. The woman who was the first-in-line candidate to be the new Divine was presiding over the funerary rites for the deceased priestess. It wasn't the first time you had witnessed the parade. You could still recall the old Grand Cleric named Dorothea swathed in ceremonial robes and looking all too frail as the fabric seemed almost to swallow her whole. At her side were the Left and Right Hands, surely to be inherited from the dead woman. To her right stood a grievous-looking, dark-haired Nevarran woman in Chantry armor, sword at her waist and shield at her back. Your eyes, rusty as they may have been, still noted that the weapons lacked functionality and were purely decorative pieces. If your information was correct, and it always was, the woman was Cassandra Pentaghast, a Seeker of Truth and a hero to Orlais. You didn't know the story behind the title, but figured it intriguing and resolved to do some digging while staying in the city.
The other woman was situated on the Cleric's left side, quite appropriately as she was the Left Hand. The Orlesian court knew her as Leliana, Lady Nightingale, and just the way she held herself spoke a thousand words. Her gait was soft, subtle yet also firm, and her blue eyes sharp while outwardly appearing lax and despaired. You hadn't had to put on a public face in a little over four years, but you instantaneously recognized the façade as one worn often by spies.
The gaggle of thundering Templars and simpering Chantry priestesses that accompanied the corpse and three women at the head of the procession did little to interest you otherwise. They were unimportant. The Chantry had always been on the fringes of your consciousness as a threat to your pseudo-"empire" of information trading. Under Beatrix you had never been too concerned with the religious organization singling out your escapades in the Free Marches. The Divine, you had heard, had been long-afflicted with dementia that had only gotten significantly worse as the years trudged along. Her Hands had been the ones to covertly guide the faithful of Thedas along with the aid of several higher-ups in the Chantry hierarchy. Oh, appearances of every single decision coming from the Grand Cathedral having been made directly by Beatrix had been immaculate with barely a flaw. Rumors, however, would forever be a disease so long as curiosity lingered, and your business thrived on rumors.
Well, it thrived on rumors only after thorough investigation, of course.
The Hands, in any case, were deemed the immediate threat. Keeping the masses of Thedas content with the belief that their beloved Divine was firmly in control despite her ailment had been quite the achievement, but also taken much effort and dedication. Searching for an information broker whose network was steadily expanding and was on the fringes of threatening Chantry rule had been on the back burner. Now that it appeared the new Divine would be well enough in mind to perform her duties, you were sure that investigations were going to start stirring.
The whole thing amused you. To think that you would use your influence any time soon to topple their gods' damned religion was moronic. You had reach, but not that much reach, barely starting to creep into Ferelden as it was (whispers and secrecy, it seemed, often beguiled the truth). You still understood the concern from a political standpoint. Information brokers did not sell based on moral compass or personal beliefs – at least, true brokers did not. Those that did tended to become regarded as little more than freelance spies. As a broker's influence spread, so did the fear of their unpredictability. If the wrong people paid the right amount of coin for the right information, it could ignite a very short fuse to a very quick toppling of an empire.
Or, as was the case, a religious institution.
Understanding did not imply that you had to like the fact, though, and you would do whatever it took to safeguard your own interests. You knew few, trusted none, and when thrown in a pit of sleeping horkers, it was usually best not to tempt the beast. Thedas was arguably the pit of horkers. Horkers in very gaudy outfits with strange customs and all-around outright hostility to what they didn't understand. Or…was that just Orlais…?
Arkay, if you didn't miss Nirn…
Still, a bad feeling was stirring in the pit of your stomach, a feeling you knew better than to ignore. There was a look in Dorothea's eyes that unsettled you, an air about her that screamed determined sophistication. She was Orlesian, you reasoned, and therefore probably knew her way around the mechanics of the "Game" they liked to view their politics as. As you heard rather than saw the procession turn a corner out of sight, you wondered idly if the woman's determination boded ill or well for Thedas.
~Thedas – 9:37 Dragon~
Denerim's market district was in an uproar.
You grunted as you narrowly avoided collision with a frantic citizen. A feeling of slight relief washed over you as, in the panic, no one noticed the momentary shimmering fault in your invisibility spell caused by your brief lapse in concentration. Directly next to your right ear, a Chantry sister wailed in shock. You cringed. As much as you loathed admitting it, there was the occasional downside to frolicking around heavily populated areas completely invisible.
As for what was going on, you were at a loss. You had been curled away in a shady little public courtyard off of the capital of Ferelden's main thoroughfare, waiting for night to fully fall before beginning your work of establishing a new dead drop. You were minding your own business, for once, and had been lost in thought trying to figure out exactly where in the little square space to plant your symbol of an amaryllis flower when two men passed by the entrance. They had been speaking loudly and appeared in a hurry, worried about something. Their words hadn't really stood out on you until you heard them utter "disaster in Kirkwall", and you had decided rather quickly after that to find somewhere to go and eavesdrop. You had barely set foot in the market square before the news had started to spread like wildfire.
Resolve only strengthened, your pace had quickened until you were in about as much of a frenzy as the people lining the city square. Kirkwall was your turf. If something had happened there and you didn't hear about it before the rest of Thedas, you damn sure wanted to know why. Hence why you were fighting your way to the one place you were sure you'd be able to hear any news – the Chantry.
At least, you were until your invisibility spell timed out and you were forced to duck into an alley.
Slamming your back uncomfortably onto the slimy brick wall of some odd shop the moment you felt your arm start to become visible, you kept yourself to the shadows cast by a nearby streetlamp as best you could. "Damn it!" You snarled, reaching into one of the pouches at your waist for a potion. The vile tasting liquid made of wormwood and deep mushroom (you'd found the fungus to have qualities similar to other types used to make invisibility potions back in Nirn) would keep you out of sight long enough to find a nice crevasse or shaded rafter somewhere in the Chantry to listen and leave its occupants none the wiser. Before you could pull the phial out of the leather bag and drink it, a very recognizable baritone speaking a very recognizable nickname interrupted your thoughts.
"Sighs?"
You froze and whirled around to face the figure that had been moseying his way through the alleyway. What in blazes was he even doing there? "Dand? Well…shit…" From the vague, startled look you saw on his face when you pressed your hand to the wall, you knew he had seen you appear out of thin air just outside the maw of the alley.
His expression hardened after a moment of staring you down, "Appearin' outta' nowhere now? Didn' know that was in your arsenal o' tricks, but I s'pose it makes sense." Commotion behind you all but forgotten, you threw your hands up exasperatedly.
"Well, now you know. I'm an illegal mage. Are you going to turn me in, Dand? I'll even save you the time – Templars are that way," chuckling humorlessly, you jerked a thumb over your shoulder and back the way you had come through the whispering chaos. You didn't have to see the warrior's face to know it was grim.
"You'd be long gone 'fore I could even yell 'apostate', you n' I both know that."
You crossed your arms, "Guess you know me too well."
Dand replied without missing a beat, "Not well enough, it seems."
"Maybe. What are you doing here, Dand? I thought you were working a job in Jader."
The warrior pursed his lips, "Was. Got done with it 'bout a week ago. We were workin' one on the Wounded Coast. I'm guessin' you heard about the fiasco in Kirkwall by now?"
"I was just trying to find a good place to eavesdrop."
"Got the skills for it," he scoffed. You bristled as your anger rose.
"Stop it," sourly, you shifted your weight on your hips. "If you've got something to say, say it. If you're going to turn me in, do it. Otherwise, drop the attitude. I'm your employer – I don't have to tell you every little deep and dark secret about myself, and I sure as salt don't have to take this from you."
A greying eyebrow rose and he let out a little laugh of disbelief, "After four years, Sighs, I'd 'ave hoped to at least be a smidge trusted, that's all. You really think I'd turn you in for apostasy? That'd be like me sittin' there and turnin' Dot or Milana in. 'Sides, I ain't ever heard o' any mage bein' able to turn themselves invisible. It all'd scream blood magic to the Chantry – I'd practically be signin' you over to be executed if I told the Templars." You narrowed your eyes.
"How do you know it isn't blood magic?"
Dand gestured haphazardly, "Well, y' don' have an air o' death 'round you. Most blood mages tend to reek o' death…and blood, come to think of it…" The warrior pondered something for a moment before shrugging in dismissal. "Look, let's just end this with the general agreement that I ain't turnin' you in, and get back to the reason I'm here in the first place."
"Alright. Fair enough, we can discuss this later. So, Kirkwall," you agreed, frowning. "What exactly happened? I was setting up a dead drop when suddenly the whole city's going crazier than a cat in a room full of yarn. And why am I just now hearing about something happening there? You could've sent Beaker." Thoughts of the black messenger bird belonging to Tegna almost made you grin. As far as Dand had alluded, the dwarf was still unaware that Beaker was actually delivering messages to you and not some fake lover Dand made up whenever he borrowed the bird. The deception almost made you feel proud for the warrior.
Almost. He was still a moron.
The aforementioned moron decided to lean against the wall opposite you, his orange cuirass and overlarge warhammer scraping against the brick as he did so. "Tried. Guess you were all smoke n' mirrors an' he couldn't find you – came back rather dejected, he did. I think you owe him an apology."
You stared blankly, "Right. Apologize to a crow. Consider it right up there on my to-do list, directly under you telling me what in Oblivion happened in Kirkwall."
"Alright, alright. Bossy," Dand rolled his eyes. "Some crazy mage decided to blow up the Chantry – mages started rebellin' left n' right. The Knight-Commander decided to take that opportunity to go completely outta' her mind an' went after her own Templars. Heard they had to put her down. Half the city's dead from the explosion and debris, other half's fightin' amongst themselves. I even heard on my way here that there's talk of an Exalted March."
Your mind flashed back to when you saw the Grand Cleric who later became Divine Justinia V during Beatrix's funeral procession three years prior, and the look in her eyes that you had pondered. Furrowing your brow, you felt the dread start to settle. An Exalted March on Kirkwall was about the last thing Thedas needed on top of a stirring mage rebellion.
"The Champion of Kirkwall," you said slowly, the name tasting acrid on your tongue. "Where does he fit into all this?"
Dand raised an eyebrow, "What makes you think that Hawke brat'd 'ave his nose in this mess?"
"Dand…that 'brat' has been at the center of every major shitstorm that's blown up around that city in the past seven years. I'm ninety-five percent sure that information about the Carta being holed up in that old Warden fortress you got from that job in the Western Approach was bought by one of Hawke's little friends. I think him being involved somehow is pretty much a given."
He looked at you a minute before nodding approvingly, "Well, you'd be right about it. Now, it's practically pre-rumor an' not the actual thing, but couple o' refugees I passed on the road were sayin' somethin' 'bout one Garrett Hawke havin' sided with the rebel mages. After the fuck up with the Knight-Commander, he and what of his little group survived fled the city. No one's seen 'em since." You rolled your eyes. Of course. You had honestly never heard much about Kirkwall's Champion – never really cared to, to be honest, but what you had heard had painted the man to be more of a prick than that mage sellsword you'd had the unfortunate pleasure of running into in Riften seven years back. Except, Hawke was at least a good-intentioned prick. But you had found out six months prior that the man had slaughtered the Sabrae clan, had killed the same elves that had taken you in during your moment of weakness. He had killed the clan that you owed for making everything you had become possible.
So, as far as you were concerned, you had more than every right to hate his guts.
"Lovely," you muttered. "The one person who could probably fix this mess not only helped start it, but decided to do a hit-and-run. This is just fucking peachy. I can kiss any and all information coming in, out, and going through Kirkwall goodbye." Shifting the way your mask sat on your face, you ran a hand along the back of your cowl-covered head. You felt the bump of the ponytail you'd haphazardly thrown your blond locks into and absently tucked a mental reminder away to cut your hair as soon as possible. It was starting to get too long to manage with the hood again.
Dand snorted loudly, "'Course, you don' give a lick about any o' the people who died in the commotion. Not very Sighs-like for you to start carin' now, huh?"
"Of course not. I'm going to be set back by this a good couple hundred sovereigns," you said in a matter-of-fact tone, as if the very suggestion otherwise was a personal insult. "Don't forget that that's also a good chunk that's going to be coming out of Bloodlight's share. It's only fair, after al." You had never mentioned to the warrior that Bloodlight's share of the spoils from your information selling was practically all the coin the Shadow Broker received. After all, what use did one wandering elf have of money save for food that you hunted and foraged for more often than not? There was an inkling of a notion from several lines of previous questioning that Dand had figured out that you had been paying him way more than his share, but the warrior was either too greedy to question it or was perceptive enough to understand that you wouldn't have done it without a reason. You were fairly certain the case was the latter.
At the notion of losing his pay, Dand seemed to slump only a margin, "Right. The coin. Maker forbid you ever worry for once about the innocent people who died in that explosion since you don't profit from it."
You rolled your sightless eyes as the two of you fell into a routine of familiar banter that you knew marked the end of any and all serious conversation. That feeling still stayed in the pit of your stomach careless to the light atmosphere that, if you were honest with yourself, was forced that time around. Dread. Kirkwall you just knew in your gut would not be an isolated incident. If the settling dust proved Kirkwall's Circle successful in staging a rebellion, you knew that others would try to follow their example. And while you, being a mage yourself, wholeheartedly agreed with their reasoning, your business sense was ringing alarm bells about how bad an Exalted March or, gods forbid, a continental war would be for your information system. Dand was at least correct on one count – you really didn't care much for the innocents, the Templars, or the mages.
The concerned suggestion that you should be cautious that he uttered before the two of you parted made you realize that you were in just as much danger as any Thedosian apostate, if not more. And that struck a chord of fear in you deeper than you cared to admit.
~Thedas – 9:40 Dragon~
It was all too simple, quite unlike everything else that had occurred to you lately. Prey was laid out so enticingly for you, and what made this hunt even sweeter was the fact that the prey actually thought that they were the hunters closing in on their own kill. You licked your lips in anticipation, grip tightening around the hilts of your daggers. Above you, an owl hooted to the starless sky and a cool summer breeze ruffled the canopy of leaves spread by the arching boughs of the Planasene Forest hanging overhead. Crickets chirped from a stream running nearby, and the hum of cicadas almost made you feel like you were back in Cyrodiil.
The thrill of the hunt still made you jittery. Your eyes narrowed out of habit as you heard your target shift slightly. You were close. So close. Only a few more steps and –
CRACK-SNAP!
"Son of a – !" A whirlwind of action followed that involved a lot of parrying, swiping, stabbing, missing, and punching. Your prey fought back valiantly, and through all of the cursing of your own stupidity that made you step on a dry twig, you had let out a bark of a laugh that probably sounded psychotic in hindsight. You'd always hated it when it was easy.
Stab! The rush of warm blood over your gloved hand as your dagger landed solidly in an elf's unarmored chest made you grin with satisfaction. Your ears found macabre music in the pained death groan and wet squelch when you drew your weapon back and set about incapacitating your second target. It would prove slightly more difficult, you knew. Your first kill had still been in the midst of confusion your blunder had caused, but fact of the matter was you were dealing with spies. Soldiers would have been better armored. Mercenaries wouldn't have been caught unawares. Travelers wouldn't have even registered the twig breaking as a person – they would've brushed it off as an animal. Templars would have felt comfortable building a campfire, which your two targets were strangely lacking as the night proved to be chilly. Mages would have set wards even you wouldn't have been able to avoid triggering. Bounty hunters would have explained no campfire, the sitting in silence, the apt attention they had been paying to the smoke rising from a fire you had set as a decoy, and the handful of snares you had found and subsequently disarmed, as well as the rigged flash bomb meant to momentarily blind the person unlucky enough to trip it about a hundred meters back. That one had amused you – a trap intended to disorient a person visually was utterly useless on someone who was blind.
However bounty hunters wouldn't have been quite so secure even in their own campsite as to remove any and all armor. Bounty hunters did their research on their targets before capturing them – they would have known you were a stealth expert before even thinking of coming after you and would have either set better traps or been more alert. Spies were who people sent to gain that kind of information, not act on it. Spies who didn't know everything about their mark made mistakes. In the case of the two-sans-one in front of you, they had made too many, and they had, very unfortunately for the pair, been fatal.
Finding an opening and making quick work of the second spy's hamstring with a few expert slices, you wrenched the lithe human woman's hands behind her with a force borne of the adrenaline pumping through your veins. She let out a gasped shriek as she was forced to her knees and her bare wrists held in a vice grip. Your right-hand dagger's razor-sharp, green-tinged edge being held to her throat thankfully silenced her shrill cries to muted whimpers.
"Who are you," you whispered in what you hoped came across as an ominous tone, "and who sent you? I'd answer quickly if I were you, unless you want to end up like your friend there."
She sucked in a shuddering, gasping breath, soft voice lined with a terror that sent a pang of pity through your heart, "N-no one! W-we…we're mages from Dairsmuid! We were just trying to find a good place to stop for the night, to stay away from the Templars! We saw the campfire and were trying to decide if it was safe to stay here. Please! You have to believe me!" Your eyes narrowed into the tiniest of slits, ears working furiously to detect a tone in the words that try as you might just was not there.
"Dairsmuid?" you asked disbelievingly, an eyebrow arching delicately behind your mask. Your dagger dug a little deeper into the girl's flesh. "The Circle there was disbanded. You've no reason to be outside of Rivain, running from Templars – even less of one since the Seekers split from the Chantry and the Templars scattered gods-only-knows-where."
Her eyes probably widened, and you could feel her jaw clench, "We were trying to join one of the rebel groups near Kirkwall! Th-they discourage relationships in the Circle, and they take away any child born of a mage! I refused to let that happen to me."
You snorted at this, shaking her arms roughly more for your own benefit than to prove a point, "Quit lying. Explain the traps. If you're really a mage and pregnant like you're trying to claim, the first thing I'd be doing in your shoes is keeping my ass planted firmly in the city that outlawed the gods damned Circle. I would not, under any circumstances, be creeping around in a forest a half-day's walk from the most chaotic city in Thedas in terms of mage-templar conflict. So either you're a moron, which I'm thinking has a good chance of being likely, you're lying, which I think is even more likely, or both, which I'm thinking is the winner here."
She stayed quiet. The jaw muscle situated beneath your wrist jumped with effort, and your sensitive ears could hear the sound of teeth gnashing against teeth. Her heartbeat picked up, a staccato rhythm that caused her breathing to become choppier than it already was. Becoming impatient, you shook her again.
"Answer me!"
A hiss of air escaped her nose, "What tipped you?" You smirked.
"At first, the traps really didn't seem that drastic. You could've just been setting snares to catch some dinner. The flash bomb was a big clue, and then the suspicious lack of warding magic when you claimed to be a mage. I've yet to meet a mage who camps in small numbers without placing wards." Your captive seemed to consider this a moment.
"You're good," she admitted, though it sounded begrudging at best. "Lady Nightingale was right to be cautious about you."
You started at this, "Lady Nightingale? You work for the Chantry?"
"The insignia emblazoned on the tunic didn't clue you in?" The woman scoffed. You were almost positive that, had she been facing you, the look would have almost been comical.
Deciding to pass the comment off with a shrug, you said dryly, "It's dark and this mask is restricting, what can I say? Why were you sent by the Chantry to spy on me? How much have you reported back?"
You could feel the woman's face contorting into a sneer, "I'm doing the Maker's work, that's all that should matter. Guess a barbarian like you wouldn't be able to understand that." Barbarian, you frowned. There were a lot of things you had been called in your twenty-seven years, but "barbarian" always seemed to hit you where it hurt. And, of course, by "hit you where it hurt", you meant "hit you where it pissed you off". Royally.
The dagger was pressed deep enough into the spy's neck to draw a thin, beading line of blood that you could smell easily in the chilled air, "Tsk, tsk, tsk. I said to answer all of my questions. That's not an answer – that's avoidance. I should know – I do it, too. You need to remember whose hand's controlling the deck here, honey. And also remember that I have full sanction to stack it."
"We were sent to investigate possible leads on the Shadow Broker," she growled out, swallowing thickly as if the words poisoned her to say. "Lady Nightingale gave us a profile and said to investigate anyone who matched it. Ash and I have been tailing you since you left Ostwick a week ago."
You lessened the pressure on the knife and felt the spy relax the slightest bit once the bite of glass was no longer tapping precariously on her jugular. "Why is the Chantry interested in the Shadow Broker?"
"I…," she bit her lip, "I can't tell you why. We were never told. We were just expected to do our jobs and be gone."
"So you have no idea? None at all of why they could possibly want the Broker?" You supposed it could have had something to do with the threat you posed, but you doubted that to be the case. Assassins would have worked far better in eliminating you than spies. The civil war in Orlais was out as you had made it perfectly clear that the Shadow Broker was not about to touch that particular family feud with a ten foot pole made of moonstone. The only thing that remained was Nerys, but the Commander of the Grey had dismissed you from your little side-job of scouting the Deep Roads around six months ago before vanishing practically into thin air. You doubted very much so that the dwarven woman had left anything that could have traced her to you. The Broker's reputation was clean, as far as underground shufflers were concerned, but an information broker was an information broker. If someone as influential as the Hero of Ferelden got pegged to someone with your infamy, it would not bode well for either of you.
The spy shaking her head violently left and right brought you out of your musings, "No! I have no idea. The mage-templar conflict, maybe?" You snorted. That you doubted.
Sighing in an over-exaggerated manner, you leaned closer to the human's rounded ear, "Very well, then."
"Y-you'll let me go, now?"
You chuckled and shook your head negatively, "Oh, you know as well as I do that I can't do that. What if you go back to the Chantry? I'm sorry it has to be this way. I really am. But I can't leave loose ends – you understand. It's nothing personal." She whimpered pitifully as the dagger dug into her neck again. Spies, you mused, were only courageous as long as the shadows could conceal them.
Before you could add that final bit of pressure and jerk the blade across the woman's throat, you whispered, "Oh, and another thing that tipped me off? Your accent – it's Nevarran, not Rivaini."
With one clean slice, warm blood gushed onto the forest floor. Once sure she and her partner were well and truly dead, you swiped your weapon a few times on the back of the corpse's wool tunic before sheathing it again at your waist. Walking away calmly, you whistled a bit under your breath as if you hadn't just dropped a purple amaryllis flower on the blood soaked ground beneath your two victims.
Final Words: Before anyone gets all huffy about the spy's accent and starts reminding me that mages from any circle could very possibly be from anywyere in Thedas, know that I am fully aware of this, and of the fact that not all mages are brought to the circle as children. However, a majority of them are, and if you spend long enough immersed in another culture, speaking their language or with their accent, you're going to pick it up at least a little bit. And I'm also fairly certain a spy would be able to fake an accent, however, you have to remember that she just watched her partner be stabbed to death unmercifully and has a dagger digging into her own throat - I don't know about you, but I'd not really be thinking very clearly because of the shock value alone. I'm not making Lys out to be some sort of super-spy, I swear. She's just cautious, paranoid, even.
Yeah. I also made Hawke a bit of a jerk. I don't know why. Maybe I played as a renegade Commander Shepard too much in Mass Effect before trying to characterize my Hawke. Like I said, though, he may be a jerk, but he's a jerk with good intentions. Sort of. God, all my characters are starting off as sleaze-bags...
Well, I hope you enjoyed!
~SurreptitiousFox
