To Be Fearful of the Night
By:
SurreptitiousFox245

Disclaimer: I don't own Elder Scrolls or Dragon Age. All rights go to their respective peoples. I'm just a sleepy 20 year old playing in the sandbox.

Quick Author's Note: So terribly sorry for the wait. My summer was hell where I thought I'd have time to write. I found out I may have epilepsy. My parents got a puppy (mini dachshund, and his name is Thor and he's adorable, but HOLY SHIT HYPER AND STUBBORN). Bright side - he apparently can tell when I'm going to have a seizure and warn me. Bonus - I'm really tired and rambling.

Aaaaanyway, Dand! I'm bringing Dand back! I really like Dand, actually. He's one of the few OCs that I've made that I'm actually proud of. I drew him. I ought to share it sometime. I only have a chapter or two before we get to Inquisition. Exposition is boring-ish, but it's quite vital. I changed Lys' time in Kirkwall from AFD - I realized that her brokering didn't really make much sense, so I had her be coterie instead. Or at least start out that way. It made more sense to me.

Well, enjoy!

EDIT: I revised this chapter, at the end. That's why y'all are getting the update for it since I'm taking it down and reposting it. Sorry!


Chapter 3: Liberty or Death, I Can Never Decide


"Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? … I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!"

-Patrick Henry


~Thedas – 9:34 Dragon~


I leave the clan three months later.

It seemed like a natural ending, if I'm honest. I waited until Merrill left with some human refugee and his merry band of misfits to go live in the city. Garrett Hawke, I believe is his name. I hadn't spoken to him or the dwarf, elf, or other human that tagged along, but I hadn't gotten the kindest impression from him. He smelled of unfamiliar magic, but the way he spoke to his companions and Merrill had made my skin crawl. While they were running an errand up to the top of Sundermount for some woman the Dalish revered, I aired my concerns to Keeper Marethari. She shared them, but tensions in the camp, and between herself and her First in particular, had grown too heated. The girl had to leave, and if Hawke was going to be the one to take her, then so be it. Merrill would be alright.

Glancing at the young First's sleight form and adoring naïveté, I had to question that notion. But it was not my place, so I kept silent.

Still, I followed after her to Kirkwall within a few months. I kept my distance, kept to the shadows and lurked mostly in Darktown with the rest of the city's criminals and downtrodden. The Undercity was the easiest place to hide myself away, and one would be amazed at the amount of gossip and information one can glean from those who are to most people invisible. I occasionally lingered around the Alienage, the elven slums, for the same reason, and to keep an eye on Merrill. But it was in Darktown that I could blend, even with my mask. I could probably show my bare face and not draw a lick of attention, honestly.

To this day, I don't quite know how exactly I ended up associating myself with the Coterie. It just sort of happened that One-Eye found me. The aptly nicknamed dwarf seemed to know that I was looking for information, though she knew not the specifics of why, and bartered a deal with me. Work for her, and I would be shown how to gain access to the archives I sought in the Gallows (the Circles of Magi as a whole being entirely different issues I took affront with—neither here nor there, however). It seemed a good deal and an effective use of my talents, so I accepted. I hadn't known what the Coterie was until after I had signed my life away, so to speak. A thieves' guild in reputation, it does a little bit of everything, from larceny, to assassination, to spying, to smuggling. One-Eye is one of a handful of cell leaders all answering to a man named Harlan, though from the dwarf's comments, I get the feeling that she and the main boss are not on the best of terms. Most of her jobs consist of spying, occasionally lending out her subordinates to other cells for assorted jobs as required. We do a lot of smuggling, too, though I suspect it's mostly because it's a considerably profitable venture at the moment. Plenty of addicted former Templars crave the lyrium that the Chantry regulates as tightly as their religion. The volatile mineral that when treated to be safe for ingestion gives the supposedly holy warriors their anti-magic abilities is worth more than its weight in gold. At least, it is valuable so long as demand outside the Chantry-leashed Templar Order endures within the city. Profit changes like tides in a storm in Kirkwall, or so I've noticed.

I don't mind the work too terribly. It's…a way to survive. A means to an end. I need information, and the Coterie can give me a path to get said information or at least see if the answers I seek even exist. And I am content with that, at the moment. Nirn will always weigh on me, but I feel…relatively at peace. I have centuries to live, to find an answer. Rushing will make mistakes, and mistakes will not help get my world back. How impatient I am to actually do that notwithstanding. If there is one lesson my caretaker at the Temple of Auri-El was able to drill into my head when I was a child, it would be patience.

One-Eye is a different story. I don't like the woman. I respect her because I must, because this unspoken contract we have demands it to be so, and there is no escape for me just yet. Because I still need her, still need the Coterie, need the knowledge they give me a way to attain. However, she does not treat those under her command with any inkling of professionalism or kindness. On her whims, if she finds a particular spy or agent of hers to be an annoyance, she is not above sending him on a suicide mission just to be rid of him. She has turned her own people over to the guards for the slightest infractions, and I know on more than one occasion she has quietly done so to people working for other cells. It's a source of contention within the Coterie as a whole. Part of the reason Harlan distrusts and dislikes her, I suspect, but her efficiency prevents him from acting on suspicion. Other than disliking her for the things I know she's done, I have no concrete proof, and it is not my place. So I do not meddle. Don't ask too many questions is a bit of an unspoken rule, I suppose.

I find myself on the Wounded Coast because of a job, actually. Sequestered in a cave, waiting for a contact One-Eye promised. Recovering cargo was the all the gist I was allowed. That typically means smuggling, though, and I've played the smuggling game plenty of times in the past two or so years to be familiar with it. I've not met this contact, a commander of a mercenary company contracted much in the same way I am contracted to that wretched woman, but while I hate her, I also have enough trust in One-Eye to believe she will not send unreliable or sketchy agents. Coin motivates her, and it freezes her in predictability. I keep my ears tuned for the sound of shifting footprints in the sand, changes in the flow of air, the smell of strange magics on the wind (because any company worth their salt will have at least one apostate), clanking of weapons and armors. Foregoing invisibility chafes. It is an unfortunate necessity for this venture, but I refuse to be caught off guard. I will know their approach before they know me.

I'm a tad overcautious—it's a safety measure.

I cannot take risks. Not with my face, not with my magic, and definitely not with my origins. Fingering the daggers at my hips, finely tempered glass a dangerous remnant on one, with ironbark steel reminding me of my debts hanging from the other. Sol'Adahla is who I am now, in many respects. Amaryllis. Not Lys. Not her. Not the me of before. The me of now is new—scarred, but new. Lys is the too dangerous thing behind the mask I wear, and she is not to be unveiled. So I do not. Will not. Her failures are hers and hers alone. Thedas, this glimmering second chance I've been handed, does not need to know of them. Does not need to suffer for them.

A distant, far off crunching sound. Lingering bickering, a prickle of magic on my skin, restrained but there. I do not see them. Blindness is something I still suffer from, though I feel I will for the remainder of my life. A trade—for what, I suspect, but cannot prove. Seeing through touch I can also still do, a mockery of sorts. Though my skin from head to toe is covered in dark fabrics and leathers, small, unnoticeable holes at the pads of my fingertips as well as Mage-Sight give me more than most. It is not perfect, and it is limited. But one takes what one is given.

I press those fingertips to cool stone, peek at the watercolor light spilling on the sand as they approach. Mid-afternoon, and the tide is also telling. Four people, sun glinting off metal. One mage, human. A dwarf, likely a rogue. An elf, specialization not readily apparent. I hazard warrior by the halberd she carries, but looks can be deceiving. She leashes something tightly, though, so perhaps not purely one class or another. Interesting in this world where only one is encouraged.

Their leader draws most of my attention as I believe he is the one I'm to be dealing with the most. A man in armor that is garish, stained a displeasing orange in spots and silver in others to create some pattern I cannot identify. A warhammer thunders on his back as his boots trudge weight through the sand. It does what I think it is intended to do—draw attention from his face. Distract. Who would guess this man a spy? He is too obvious. He hides in more than plain sight—he hides in attention. If people fail to notice the face, then out of the shell that identifies him, they would fail to notice the man. It would not be my usual way of doing things, but it gets the job done, I suspect.

He's middle-aged, too. At the very minimum, he approaches it, if I'm able to read the fuzzy lines on his face correctly. Rivaini, at least in descent by the mocha of his skin and the deep stormcloud of his eyes. Well, eye. The right has a silvery scar slashed through it, and the eye itself is the intimidating milky shade of blindness. Another scar, smaller and perhaps a bit fresher by the pink, carves along his cheekbone under the other. That he doesn't hide his blinded eye, though, is interesting. Another subterfuge? Covering it would be distinguishing, but not so much as the eye itself. Perhaps common for a dock worker or some other public grunt of whom no one would think twice speaking of secrets around. Smart of him.

No helm obscures his head in any fashion. Intimidation, I think. His hair is barely thinning, curly and pulled back at his nape into a tail streaked with yet more silver through the midnight. A single curl, mayhap too short for the tie, falls across his face. Distinguishing as well, but easily hidden. Twofaced. A man who can flip his image and be gone. He is skilled at what he does, then. Good. I loathe partnering for a job, but when I do, I'll not suffer those who are not able to do their jobs. The others appear competent enough, but they are not my contact. They are tools that come with him. He is to direct them, and I hope he can do so effectively.

I admit that I test a little first. "You're three hours late." I see the human mage jolt a little, as I'd spoken without turning my head fully in their direction. Poor pup. He'd thought I hadn't noticed them yet. The leader, though, smirks. I grin under the mask.

"Aye, got harangued," purrs the leader. His voice is scratchy, and his Ferelden accent tumbles out almost too thick, forced but yet softened by years of practice. "Boss lady ain't one ye' mess with when havin' an ear talked off." The elven woman grumbles at the back of his head. And he shifts oddly, tellingly. One-Eye has a fondness for dead drops and codes—she is loath to give information in person. More knowledge given to advantage one agent over another on a job, certainly, particularly if she is attempting to outmaneuver her own men. But in person, she wouldn't. I know he is lying, but I let it slide. His preoccupations are not my concern.

Scoffing, I push off the stone behind me and turn to them, still in shadow, but not as postured. Defensive, as I can no longer see. But I'm not so blind as that, and they know nothing of it either way. "Reasons are inconsequential. You're lucky I did not run this on my own when you failed to show. If you think this a joke, then go back to the city."

"And get a shiv to the kidney?" He barks a laugh. "No, I ain't a fool, dove. 'Sides, I'll note ye' didn't run the job. Ye' talk big for a lil' thing, I'll give ye' that one." I stiffen and narrow my eyes at the name and words. I don't know what alias One-Eye gave him for me, but I doubt it was "dove". I chagrin about the "little" comment, but it is true. I'm altmer—I'm perhaps too used to being the tallest living thing in the vicinity, though if there's one thing I've noticed in my years in Thedas, it's that I'm only three to five inches taller than the average elf here, about a human's height. It's disconcerting. Helps me blend, but disconcerting.

Another disconcert—this man feels odd. He doesn't have the uncomfortable tingle of a Templar who strengthens reality, nor the too-rough sandpaper of an Aedric mage. His breath does not smell of lyrium, but of something else, something powerful I can't place. I don't know if I like it. I shrug instead, to both him and my own musings. What he is remains of little consequence. I doubt I'll see him after this job, regardless.

"A courtesy, the only one I'll offer." I step into the sunlight. It's the middle of First Seed—no, Drakonis here—so the bit of warmth is welcomed. The illumination, not so much. I'm a creature of shadow and I do not appreciate being forced out of its confines.

I wonder briefly when I became such a sneak—perhaps Lurks-In-Shadows influenced me more than I had originally thought. Shadowscales are tricky things.

Were. A stab of long-buried pain I ignore with too much effort.

"You lead," I say nonchalantly with a careless wave of my hand. "I assume you know where the drop is supposed to be?"

"Ye' don't?" He challenges back, humor in his voice that I disregard.

A shrug. "I do."

He shifts by the sound of his armor clanking. The others do as well, nervously instead of defensive. Do they feel their leader is being threatened? Have they not seen it before? Interesting. "Do ye'? What's ye'r name, dove? Greetin's are usually a courtesy."

Thankfully, he starts walking, taking point as I'd asked. I keep to the edge as his contingent follows behind in a uniform that seems as if they've got a routine for this sort of thing. Rogue in the back. Human and elf to the sides. Rivaini to the front and taking charge. I stay outside of this group's boundaries, but still close enough to the front to continue the conversation. "You've used the only courtesy I offer. I fail to see how it matters, anyway. You seem to have given me one of your own. I have no name you need to know."

"Ah, so ye' approve of mine?" A smug grin must be across his face. I don't rise to the challenge.

"No."

He outright laughs now. "And what am I to call ye' if I need to get ye'r attention durin' this job? Things ain't guaranteed t'go perfect."

Humming, I reach my hearing out and make sure his thundering along hasn't alerted anyone to where we are. The Wounded Coast is notorious for having plenty of unsavories hidden along its slopes and cliffs, tucked away 'round blind bends, who will not hesitate to attack even an armed group. Fool. "I suppose I'll have to force myself to answer to 'dove'. You're not likely to call me anything else."

"Maybe I oughtta' call ye' Sighs. Ye've done it four times in the past few minutes."

Sharply, I tune my senses to this man again. I had indeed sighed four times, but unnoticeably. Quietly. He should not know. Maybe not quite a fool, after all.

I consider him more closely. Consider his company. "Amaryllis." I decide finally. It is not a lie, but it is not the truth he wants. "That's my call. Take it or leave it."

"Sighs. Fits better," he chuckles. Though he does point to himself. "Dand. These're—"

"I don't care," I interrupt emotionlessly, calmly. It causes him to start, amusingly enough.

"But don't ye'—?"

"No."

He's probably giving me an incredulous look. "Uh…why?"

I scoff, "Why, indeed? They are your tools. I've no need for words to call them." Crass, but it's bad enough I gave him an alias. I shouldn't have given him, Dand, anything at all. I shouldn't have let him give me his name. Alias. Whatever it truly is.

The dwarf at the back of the group snarls a curse at me in the dwarven tongue that makes me smirk. Good. Let them hate me. All the better for it.

Dand grits a response through his teeth. "They ain't tools. They're my guys."

Waving a hand again and crossing my arms across my chest, I say, "Yours all the same."

"Their agencies are their own—I ain't no slaver."

"Of course not. If you were, you'd be dead—I do not suffer people of that ilk. And I was not implying what you think I was implying. Doesn't matter. The mine is just over there. Something doesn't seem right." And it didn't. Too many people swarm the drop, people I was not warned of. And from Dand's reaction, neither was he.

The warrior curses violently under his breath, ducking the group behind the rocky outcropping. The mine in question is down a slope, across from us on the ledge, but the boulders along the edge provide decent cover.

"Shit. Teg. Can ye' scout 'em out? Find out who they are?"

Grumbling something under her breath, the dwarf shoots me a dirty glare and slips away. I find my own curses silently spilling towards this group I am with, as without them, I could use my magic and be done with it. While it is not my forte by a long shot, I am adept enough in illusion magic to make myself invisible. Enough as well so that my magic unconsciously hides itself. Not a master, but enough. Even if these people in the mine have mages or templars among their rank, they cannot read me unless they are looking for Daedric magic. As I am the only Daedric mage I've seen yet, they wouldn't be.

I try to look as best I can. A few milling about I can tell are armored. Crates or wagons, I think. It's tough for me to say. I can't bare my hands completely to get a better look, or get closer. Something hazy flits about, the dwarf I hypothesize. She's back no more than ten minutes of awkward waiting later.

Except she's grim, and I don't like that. "Are you all sure that this was supposed to be a smuggling job?"

I raise a brow but answer before her boss can. "It's what the information said. Recovery, more like. I was informed that cargo was stolen and we were to retrieve it from its drop point. No people were supposed to be involved—an in and out thing, actually." That makes me pause. Two agents for cautions sake, but five is overkill for the ostensible parameters. Two is far too few, however, for the unexpected presence of these unnamed people, and One-Eye had to have known Dand would bring some of his merc band. Unless…she didn't? She couldn't have known about the occupation of her drop…unless she did.

"Do you know what cargo?"

"Lyrium. It's never been anything else."

The girl sighs low. "Then they took over your drop. They recently moved. No banner, but I think they may be Tevinter. They have no cargo, so they may be camping out to find some. I suppose they're as likely as anyone else to take a lyrium shipment if they find it."

Human Mage pipes up sarcastically, "Aren't you a dwarf? Shouldn't you know lyrium better than anyone?"

"Casteless," she grinds, annoyed. "I know about as much on lyrium as you, shit-face."

Dand smoothly gets everyone back on track, something I find myself mildly appreciative of. He knows when business is business. "Tegna, Dot, focus. Sounds like we got a race on our hands. Dove, ye' plan for a hiccough like this?"

I stay emotionless, but do slide my daggers out. "Maybe." I had not, really, but the solution was rather simple: Beat them to the lyrium. Kill anyone in the way. I could do that.

"Care t'share?"

"No. You four do what pleases you."

He glares, voice still light save a warning lacing through that I do not appreciate. "That ain't how a partnership's supposed t'work, Sighs."

"Not a partnership." I live up to the name, though, if only to humor him. "Fine. Distract the ones outside. I can slip in. Get the cargo. Get out."

His brows shoot up to his receding hairline, and his huffing chortle is anything but amused. "No. I ain't lettin' ye' run in there without backup."

"With all due respect, I'm not in your employ. My agency is my own. Messere, I know my abilities. You do not."

"All due—ye' can just say 'kiss my ass', y'know?"

I use the daggers in my hands to point, first to the group of thieving slavers setting up camp outside the lip of the mine, and then to the mine itself. "You do your job. I will do mine. You know your people best. I do not. Sending any of them or yourself with me would only get the both of us killed."

"Ye' don't know that." His hiss is through a jaw clenched too tightly.

I back away, slowly, preparing to sidle down the hill and to a place I could carefully veil myself in magic or potion. "Think. I was picked for this for a reason. I know what I'm doing. Do your job. I'll do mine."

I'm gone before he can get a chance to protest.


Getting into the mine undetected was easier than I expected. Dand and his party actually do what I tell them and begin an assault on the slavers outside the entrance, so I use the chaos to my advantage, down an invisibility potion instead of risk magic, and slip inside. My daggers are poised, ready to kill anyone I find. I'm not leaving one of these bastards alive. I meant what I said to Dand. I don't suffer slavers.

The mine twists and turns, but it's a drop point One-Eye has used before. I know my way to the usual spot, but I am familiar enough with these abandoned caverns that I can search if need be. I catch a few of the Tevinters mumbling about a shipment as they themselves scour, but I know not what they speak of. It makes me narrow my eyes a little, though. These aren't the caves they tend to frequent for slave trades, and while Tevinter does deal in lyrium smuggling on occasion, it's not the slavers that do it. They're far more inconspicuous about their lyrium deals than they are their trafficking ones. What that says about their culture as a whole is a tad revolting.

Creeping up behind a lone sentinel, I time my strike so that his partner is at the opposite end of the makeshift corridor, around a bend. Far enough away he won't hear and won't see if I do this quickly. I lunge up, sharp ironbark dagger in hand, and clasp a palm over his mouth so he can't scream. My own lips purse into a displeased grimace as I suddenly am able to see his eyes widen with the contact, witness his face contort in shock that quickly turns to horror as he realizes what's happening. I used to be an archer back in Nirn. I've never liked getting up close and personal, but with my blindness, ranged kills are no longer an option.

The thing with the armor slavers wear is that there's a weakness on the side of the neck that's easily exploitable if one can get close enough and knows how. Flipping the dagger so that the blade faces outward, I plunge it into the weak spot, lodging solidly just short from under the ear. He chokes at the feeling, but I don't give him time to analyze it as I swiftly yank the weapon out the front of his neck. The wound that the action leaves behind is jagged and ripped, messy, blood pouring from the severed artery even as he suffocates from a torn windpipe. That he dies quickly is not much of a consolation. He suffers, however slight. It is the same method I used on the bodies making a path behind me, just as it is the same I use on his partner, and those after. Methodical murder. I hate this part of my job.

I hear the mercenaries enter the cave several twists and turns behind me. They're grimly solemn as they follow my trail of corpses. I don't have time for their disapproval. If I exit this mine to find any of the camp alive, I'll kill them myself. I don't suffer slavers. If the softhearted fools following after me like pups want to allow them life, then I'll happily rectify their mistake. I may not like killing, but this is a cause in where I wholeheartedly feel it justified.

A good friend of mine was Argonian. He was never a slave in Dunmer lands, but he'd freed many a one. The stories Lurks-In-Shadows told, cautionary tales, were no less than horrors. Laws prohibiting the practice don't necessarily eradicate it. The border of Morrowind and Black Marsh had been unpleasant proof of that, but at least they tried to keep up a veneer of illegality over the whole thing. Tevinter actively encouraged the barbarity, which I cannot tolerate when I come across those that indulge.

I find the area where the cargo is being kept just as my potion wears off and the last guard falls dead to my blades. I decide to wait for the mercenaries to catch up. There are several presences in the little room, but only one stands out as threatening in comparison. Rough sandpaper abrading my skin. A mage. I twist my face into a grimace. Lovely.

"How the bloody—do you think we're going to be able to move this?" A voice faintly carries through the zig-zagging entrance to the final cavern. I listen closer.

The voice that replies is more cultured than the first. I assume it to be the mage. "Does it really matter? We can transfer it to a smaller container." Large shipment? For lyrium? I doubt it, so…something else? But what?

"If you say so," says another, the sound of a rock being kicked echoing out. "It's crude, though. Risk damaging the merchandise this way. We getting paid well for this?"

Grimly humorous, the mage responds, "We better be."

The mercenaries thump up to me, but I hold a gloved finger to my mask's lips before they get too close. They thankfully quiet instantly, and I interrupt Dand before he can hiss out the lecture behind his countenance. "I saw a mage. At least two more people, probably not all though. This is where the cargo is. They've reached it first, but for whatever reason, they're not moving it. Don't think they're able for some reason."

The elf shifts on her feet. "I don't sense any lyrium." Her whispered accent is thick and Nevarran. It is also untrusting, but I expect this.

"I said it may be lyrium. I never said it was. I wasn't told. Above my station."

Dand hisses, "That mage'll hit hard."

"Uh, hi. We've got two. I think we'll be fine." The other human waves his hands in wild gestures to himself and the elf humorously. So she's a mage? Interesting. She doesn't outright feel like one. It's faint. Hiding? Or maybe she's not the strong of one. Elves are usually more "connected", as it were, to magic, so that doesn't particularly make sense. Hiding is better.

"Still'll hit hard. I hate fightin' mages."

"Spar with us more," the man replies dryly. His accent is very faintly Orlesian, I note, otherwise an amalgam of several different pronunciations that I can only assume he picked up as a mercenary. He's probably not considered himself Orlesian for a very long time, what with being a mage. "I can try to cast a suppression in the room before we go in. It'll knock him, maybe enough to get him down quick."

I ready my daggers again, crouching next to the small entryway that twists and separates the two areas. "Figure it out. I charge in ten, with or without you lot."

The mage goes serious and everyone readies weapons this time, but I think they're sour with me. "Done." The scratch of magic being cast, a startled cacophony of yells, and the five of us burst into the chamber a flurry of blade and magic. The dwarf is a trap-setter, and I avoid them with disdain. The elf is a competent battlemage, but relies on melee a tad more than is practical. Dand is skilled with his hammer and the armor allows him to draw attention and take blows, but not as well as someone with a proper shield would. The Orlesian seems to be support to the elf's combat, casting barriers and healing where it is required.

Dand gets the mage quickly, thankfully in one blow, and the paltry handful of guards fall rather quickly. It was strangely easy. I begin circling the container in the middle of the room, allowing the mercenaries to take care of the bodies. A large crate, not the smaller, lined container I was expecting.

I frown at it as I circle its breadth, mildly confounded despite the fact that I'll never admit to such. It's easily three feet taller than myself, two or so taller than even Dand. Eight to ten feet across either way—there's no plausible method for this to be carted back to Kirkwall. Staking it is an option, but this, I remind myself, is a two-person mission. I'm fairly sure Dand wasn't supposed to bring his mercenaries. We aren't supposed to have the manpower to guard the shipment until other cell members can transport it. My eyes narrow.

I run my fingers along the wood gently, looking for clues while the others focus on rummaging through the Tevinter bodies for useful loot. Halfway around the overlarge crate, something reverberates against my hand. I pause, tilting my head.

"Don't look like these lot managed t'set up shop 'fore we got 'em," calls Dand, ransacking the corpse of a warrior and gleefully attaching a mace to hang at his belt. I can't fathom what for. His warhammer seems plenty capable.

The Orlesian and the elf are patting the mage down for potion, though from the smell of things, I doubt their search will bear fruit—no leafy berry of elfroot is on his person, nor stinging metal of lyrium. "Suppose we can count our blessings on that, then. Think they moved this cargo you were meant to get?" Another rumble from the crate, and sickening realization begins to churn in my gut.

Dand scoffs. "Blast it if I know, lad. Unless we find the Coterie's sign, we're in the dark and—"

"Damn it! Dand! Get over here!" Almost before I can finish my call for help, the warrior is sprinting to me deceptively quick for someone lugging around all that bulk. I'm too busy frantically trying to pry one of the sides of the gargantuan crate off to really notice, though.

"What? What is it?"

"You fucking jinxed us, that's what!" I hissed roughly. "There are people in here! Help me get this off!" The others scramble from their places to give assistance, and between the five of us, the boards come away rather quickly. We're left staring at several frightened, emaciated elven women huddled on the opposite side of the box. Cowering back, eyes flashing in the darkness left within despite the open side and holes in the top. They cling to it like a lifeline. I don't quite understand that feeling of their situation, but I do understand reaching for darkness in hopes that it will cloak. If they could see my own blinded, filmy eyes, they'd see them soften from the hard, glaring edge.

Moving to reach a hand out, Dand stops me quickly. I turn to reprimand him, but he makes a motion like shaking his head. I understand quickly when one of the girls makes a strangled noise of fright. My mask is too much, the design too dark, too close to Tevinter style. I'm intimidating, so I acquiesce and step back to investigate the crate more thoroughly, leaving the tending of the slaves to the mercenaries despite the voice in the back of my head screaming to do anything but.

I'm around back of the crate and the girls are finally calming, being fed elfroot potions from the Orlesian's stash, when I find it. A small etching on a piece of wood deliberately snagged on a nail. It's a shipping address, to these caves, but that's not what infuriates me. It's the crest that lay on it that makes me see red through the darkness. A stag. A one-eyed stag.

"Aye, got harangued. Boss lady ain't one ye' mess with when havin' an ear talked off." That's what Dand had said. The elf had glared at him, and I'd assumed he was lying. But lying and fear can sound similar. I hear the shifting of body language, sure, but some things are out of my scope now. I can't hear blinking patterns change, eyes darting in a telling direction, micro expressions tugging the face just right…

The tag is ripped unceremoniously. In a flash, I'm stomping over to Dand, fingers curling around the back of his armor and slamming him against a boulder before anyone can so much as react. A blade is poised at his throat, and aside from the initial squeals of the elven girls we freed, no one dares make a sound or a move. I am deaf and uncaring of anything outside the fury flashing white in my mind, however.

"Did you know?" My voice is low, dangerous, a viper ready to strike. I can see a hazy outline of Dand's face, and to his credit, it is confused. His heart is racing, belying his fear, but I'm cautious with it. Emotions can sound so close to one another, and I'm already second-guessing what I think I know…I don't buy it, not completely. But it is a start.

His gauntleted hands are raised in surrender, voice calm despite the fact that he has a very sharp knife threatening his life. "Know what?"

"This." I shove the tag practically into his face. He stares at it a minute. Then his face tenses enough that my fingers pressed to his collar allow me to see it, and I know his anger is genuine. His gaze steels in a way that can't quite be replicated, face gaining a flush that is only barely visible with his dusky skin tone but is still there. I can smell the blood just under the surface with how close I am to him. To my chagrin, I know his answer is truthful before he even utters it.

He's making eye contact with me, to add to his credibility. "No. I swear to ye' dove, I ain't got no clue 'bout that. I had no hand in this."

"Her personal symbol," I spit, letting up and sheathing my dagger, taking several steps back to show the others with hands on their drawn weapons and magic loosed that I mean no harm any longer. "This wasn't a Coterie job. That fucking bitch trades slaves on her own business and uses Coterie grunts to do her dirty work, clear the way for her to—damn it all!"

Dand raises an eyebrow, I can tell from his voice. "Ye' don't suffer slavers." His parroting isn't lost on me.

"No, I do not."

"Hey," the Orlesian is quick to cut in through my seething. "Much as I'd love to play 'Twenty Different Ways to String This Lady Up by Her Earlobes', there are some more pressing matters. I've done what I can for these girls, but they need a real healer. You two can plot how to murder your boss once we get them somewhere they can be seen to."

This jars me out of my anger. The human is right. The girls are wounded, bruised, starved. I haven't a clue how long they were in that crate. It makes One-Eye's crime worse by thrice. Not even Tevinter slavers transport people in crates, like inanimate objects. They chain and degrade and carry them in cages like animals. But never sealed in shipping crates, and it makes me sick.

"Right. There's a healer in Darktown. If we can sneak them in through the smuggling tunnels…well, Darktown won't notice a few more refugees. And the healer won't turn them away." I look back at Dand. "We are continuing this discussion once they've been tended."

He pushes off the boulder and gives me a look as he strides back over to the group to help carry one of the girls. "Lookin' forward to it."


Final Words: And we have a Dand locked in! Yay!

I'm gonna leave it here. Hope y'all liked it.

R&R!
~SurreptitiousFox