Author's note: Some of you may notice a familiar name in here – the lovely Inveleth, who drew some stunning pictures for All It Takes (links in my profile, or just look for her on deviantArt), and graciously agreed to appear here. Nor is it the last we'll see of her... Many thanks, also, to Oleander's One and pennies-for-eyes for their advice with the numbers on this one.
It has been some time since I last updated, due to various stuff (some of it good) and may I therefore add that I'm thoroughly sick of this chapter?
Aveline: Fortitude Save vs. Poison : *success* (17 + 11 = 28 vs. DC: 22)
Aveline: Fortitude Save vs. Poison : *success* (16 + 11 = 27 vs. DC: 24)
Aveline: Fortitude Save vs. Poison : *failure* (13 + 11 = 24 vs. DC: 26)
Fenris: Fortitude Save vs. Poison: *success* (17 + 8 = 25 vs. DC: 22)
Apparently she'd spent too long on the road and grown too accustomed to night watches to properly appreciate a dark room and a soft bed, at least without deep exhaustion to help her along. Safiya grimaced to herself, and turned over.
"You too?" Tarva's soft voice floated through the darkness.
"You know, I remember complaining once – near Lake Mulsantir, I think – that you weren't giving us enough time in civilised surroundings. I take it back."
"Would you prefer to be camping in the snow?"
"It appears my current sleep patterns would." Safiya sat up, and sighed. Her eyes were sufficiently adjusted to make out the shape of Tarva, beside her own bed, rising from her knees. "How long have you been awake?"
"A couple of hours," Tarva said. "I... had a dream."
"I realise it's probably personal, but I'd like to hear about it. If you're willing." She thought about it a moment longer. "If it's the kind Hawke was warning you about, however, you should probably mention it to her as well."
"Safiya. After all this time, do you really think I'd still keep secrets from you?"
Safiya distrusted the lightness of her words. "There's a difference between something private and something secret," she pointed out. "I don't tell you absolutely everything, you know."
"I trust you to tell me what's important," Tarva said. "And there really isn't much to tell. It was just a voice in the distance, whispering reassurances. Everything would be all right, it said, all I had to do was wait and trust, and all would yet be well."
"Was it Gann?"
"I... don't know. It might have been."
"If you're not sure," Safiya told her, "then it wasn't." She wasn't good at certain aspects of interpersonal relationships, but the woman she once was had loved Akachi, and some things she'd never forget. "You love him; things would have to be very bad indeed if you couldn't recognise him instantly."
The half-elf was silent for a long moment. "I wouldn't have guessed you were such a romantic, Safiya."
She laughed a little. "It's not exactly expected of a Red Wizard, but it certainly shouldn't surprise you. Parts of me have spent hundreds of years planning to free my lover from his torment. What am I if not a romantic?"
"Very persistent?" Tarva suggested. Her tone sounded wry, but there was a little quaver in it. "Forgive me. I should have asked earlier, but I've been... selfish. Between Akachi, and Kaji, and Nefris and Lienna and the Founder –"
" – my head feels a little strange, yes, but I'm basically fine. I'm still myself, still Safiya... just... rather more so. The Founder split my soul, but we've never truly been separate. I've been put back together in a slightly different way, that's all. I was part of the Founder before. Now she's part of me. Except that we're all me." Safiya laughed again, properly this time. "Szass Tam, Common just doesn't have the pronouns for this! I think I could sketch out the representative equations –"
"Please don't."
"It is... odd, having these memories that are and aren't mine. Suddenly remembering every conversation I ever had with my mother from her perspective as well as mine. I didn't realise just how difficult a child I was." She smiled to herself in the darkness. "It's similar with Akachi. Mother, Lienna and I retained an... echo of loving him, but it was abstract, in a way. Distanced. The Founder kept all of that, but I have it now, and she was me. Or I was her. It's... I don't think I can explain it any better than that."
"I won't even pretend to understand."
"I'm not sure I do, either," Safiya said, "but the important part is that I'm all right."
"And Kaji?"
She swallowed, her throat suddenly feeling very dry and narrow, which wouldn't be a problem if there wasn't also a large lump stuck in it. "It's stupid. He was just a little made thing, a lump of clay and twigs and magic who couldn't even pronounce 'thaumaturgy' –"
"It's not stupid at all," Tarva told her. "He was your friend." She paused, apparently searching for words. "Safiya, you know I don't understand magic, but... can't he be fixed?"
"I don't know," she said slowly. "But if he could, it wouldn't be here. Like all the rest of my magic, he requires the Weave." She sighed. "You know, I never wanted to be a sorceress before."
"I'm sorry."
"I know," Safiya said, which didn't come out quite the way she meant it. Never mind; Tarva would understand anyway. Too thoroughly awake to bother trying to sleep again, she got up and pulled her robes over her head. Tarva, she saw, was already dressed in the thin trews and shirt she usually wore beneath her armour padding. It was certainly more appropriate for the sweltering Kirkwall heat than her own robes.
And her friend was looking at her, with a particular cant of the head Safiya thought she recognised. "How long has it been since you got any real practice with that quarterstaff?"
There were occasions – rare, but not unknown – that Safiya preferred to be mistaken. "I leave hitting things to those of lesser intellects."
"And greater survival instincts," Tarva parried the barb. "With no magic you can use, are you going to be defenceless?
As always, her friend had a point... Safiya sighed and surrendered to the inevitable. "No, Tarva. Yes, Tarva, I will go out into the courtyard with you and practice. Yes, Tarva, I will approximate your intelligence and therefore keep the smart comments to a minimum. Please don't hit me too hard, my teacher."
"Don't worry – I'm not in any condition for that."
"Hardly reassuring."
-0-0-0-0-0-
Her guests tucked away in the library, Hawke was enjoying a quiet breakfast with her mother.
In theory.
Hawke tapped the muffin with her butter knife. The result was a thoroughly unappetising thunk, and she set the knife down. "Tact is one thing, Mother, but it's failed. There must be some other way to keep Bodahn out of the kitchen. And Sandal."
"That was an isolated incident, dear, and we did clean the purple off the ceiling eventually."
"I'd still like to know how he managed it with just a pumpkin and some iodine. Purple dye's expensive; we could make a fortune."
"Another one?" her mother said, sipping weak tea from a dainty cup patterned with lopsided violets.
"Varric rubs off on people," Hawke admitted, and took another stab at the muffin. Her fork bounced off. "Anything you'd like me to pass onto the Viscount today?"
Leandra smiled. "Tell him I've booked the Chantry next month for the wedding."
She did know when her mother was setting her up to ask the obvious question, but ... "Who's getting married?"
"You and Saemus, of course." Leandra set down her teacup, blue eyes sparkling as she teased her daughter.
"Really? I thought it might have been you and Seneschal Bran." Hawke grinned, returning favour for favour. "I was looking forward to finding out his name. Or maybe the Grand Cleric would've said, "I, Seneschal Bran, take you, Leandra Hawke, née Amell –"
"Don't be silly, dear," she said. "He was named De Witt for his mother's family."
"De Witt Bran?" It took Hawke a moment, and then she wasn't sure whether to laugh or groan. She settled on echoing her mother's smile, sly and ladylike as a cat's. "That would make his son Dote, wouldn't it?"
"Quite possibly," Leandra said, as Hawke rose from her chair, leaving crumbs and a triumphantly inedible muffin on her plate. She engulfed her mother in a tight hug (the only one left, her mind whispered. Hold on tight, don't let her slip away as everyone else has) as her mother murmured, "I love you, Flower."
"Love you," Hawke answered, and held on a moment longer before letting go. "Right. I'm off to save the world, one political leader at a time. Keep Sandal off the chandelier if you can, and don't let him have any salamanders – or iodine, pumpkins or knick-knacks. You remember what happened to that miniature glass mouse."
"Dear, I won't have the time. I intend to devote the day to finding you a suitable husband, even if I have to import one from the Anderfels." She pursed her lips. "Do you like blonde men?"
"Not particularly," Hawke said, thinking of Anders, thinking of Fenris.
"Par Vollen, then," Leandra said, with a little nod. "Would you mention it to the Arishok while you're there, Flower?"
Hawke considered this. "I could just marry the Arishok. I'm pretty sure that'd solve whatever diplomatic issues Viscount Dumar is having with him, and Fenris says he's one-third of the Qunari leadership, so socially speaking, you couldn't hope for a better match. And he's even taller than me – that's a rare thing in a man."
"Yes... yes, I believe he'd be suitable. Bring him home to meet me this evening, and I'll have the good silverware set out."
"Have the doors enlarged, too," Hawke said. "His horns tend to get stuck." She looked at her mother, determined to keep a straight face... but then her lips quivered, and she broke into laughter a bare instant before Leandra joined her.
-0-0-0-0-0-
Varric frowned at his messy notes. Baldy's lecture had given him the facts – a bare skeleton to construct a story on. Such a story it would be, once he toned down all the really outlandish bits and added some different, equally outlandish, ones... but he just didn't have enough at the moment. Facts were all very well, but he needed descriptions, more emotional weight, more drama. He'd have to wangle them out of Baldy somehow. Or her friend Paragon, which would probably prove just as much fun and as futile as trying to flirt with Aveline.
Pushing his notes aside and casting a fond glance at Bianca, Varric left his suite. As always, the familiar ambiance of the Hanged Man made him grin a little. It wasn't much – he had his fingers in much bigger pies, and most of them smelt better – but a dwarf was allowed to have a soft spot for his home, wasn't he? It was even paid for, after the expedition.
In gold and in blood.
"... Your eyes are like black pearls, pieces of grit covered in the iridescent mucus of men's hearts-"
"Ew," Isabela commented, not an unusual response to the poet's attempts to woo her, and downed her tankard.
"Better give it a little more work," Varric advised the poet, who tore his hair in a artistically depressed manner, gave a sigh of despair, and tore upstairs in sobs (also not unusual). Varric watched him go. "Reckon he'll ever get tired of that routine, Rivaini?"
Isabela laughed. "Maker, I hope not. Words like that set a girl's heart aquiver."
"I bet." He left the pirate drinking and headed outside to check on his artist.
Well, strictly speaking, she was only his artist for as long as it took her to touch up the figure of a hanged man dangling outside the tavern. It was a bit different from the portraits he'd first noticed the elf drawing on the streets of Lowtown for anyone with the coin and the time, but she was perched up on the rickety ladder and painting steadily away.
It wasn't a task Varric would have done himself for any amount of coin – the few experiences he'd had with heights had not been pleasant ones, the ladder looked decrepit, particularly in the rising wind, and he knew where his talents did not lie.
"How's it going, Brushes?"
She tucked a strand of brown hair behind one pointed ear, leaving a livid smear of green paint on her cheekbone. "It's Inveleth, messere. And you are the judge of my work – you are the customer."
The murky blues and reds of the mannequin were slowly being replaced with a jaunty uniform of green and black, with gilded trimmings, and she'd given him the beginnings of a face. Even at this early stage, Varric noted with a grin, it bore an unmistakeable resemblance to –
" - sorry, Fenris."
Varric turned his head at the familiar voice: Hawke, Broody at her side, probably headed back from their meeting with the Arishok.
"I had a nice, wrathful speech all prepared for the Viscount – how it wasn't right to take advantage of your expertise with the Qunari without recognising you for it, treating you like a lesser person –"
"I am an elf," Fenris said.
"- which shouldn't matter, especially when he's asking you to pull his arse off the pyre." She sighed. "Just... just couldn't do it. He's looking so old. I felt like a bully just thinking it."
"Hawke!" Varric greeted her. "Broody! Come and admire Brushes's work, then tell me about your meeting with the Horned Head of the Heathens."
Hawke gave the mannequin no more than a quick glance. "Love to, but there probably isn't time. Remember Javaris Tintop? He stole a recipe from the Qunari – thought it was for that gaatlok stuff, but it's actually poison gas, which causes murderous delirium and then death. I'd like to get to him before he mixes up a great big cauldron of it."
Varric grimaced. "Sounds like fun." Tintop – the 'top' bit clearly referred to his head. "That explains the word on the street that he skipped town in a big old rush. I've got a contact down in Darktown – Coterie – who might know more."
Hawke nodded. "Isabela inside?"
"Where else would she be?" Varric asked, and added, "Don't answer that," as he saw Hawke's mouth opening.
The tavern's door swung open. "Did I hear my name?" Rivaini purred. "Were vile and scurrilous things said about me? Please?"
"Qunari troubles," Hawke told her, and the pirate's sultry expression died as abruptly as if she'd been hit with a wet fish – nice simile, that. He'd have to write it down somewhere - "Will you get Anders and Merrill, and see if they know anything to lift a poison gas, or ameliorate the effects? Even protect people caught in it. Check with Sandal, Tomwise and Lady Elegant if you get the chance – oh," she added an afterthought, "and maybe Safiya, as well. Can't hurt."
"You got it," Rivaini nodded, and darted off with uncharacteristic enthusiasm and lack of attention to her surroundings – in fact, she shoulder-barged the ladder. There was a cry, a flash of black and silver, and then next thing Varric saw was the ladder on the ground, Broody standing beside it with Brushes caught safely in his arms, and a thick smear of green paint down the side of his face where her namesake had caught him.
Brushes blinked, a flush as rosy as the sunrise spreading over her cheeks as she looked up at Broody. "Ah... thank you, ser."
Broody looked rather ill-at-ease as he set her down. "It is no trouble."
Varric snuck a glance at Hawke, and chuckled mentally at her slight frown. He'd thought there was something there! First Paragon, and now Brushes; she definitely didn't like the sight of Broody with another woman in his arms.
"All the same, I..." Brushes turned away to pick up the ladder. She only got some of it; the ancient wood had split on the ground. "Oh."
"No worries, Brushes," Varric told her.
"It's Inveleth."
"Of course. I'll arrange another ladder first thing tomorrow – a sturdier one, even – so why don't you go inside for a break? Corff'll fix you up with whatever you fancy."
"Thank you, messere." Her eyes lingered on Broody as she went, though.
Hawke coughed a polite little plea for attention. "Qunari? Poison gas?"
"Let me just grab Bianca," Varric told her, and did.
-0-0-0-0-0-
Varric stepped over an arm that had been attached to a Carta thug a few minutes before. "Hawke, I think we just went around in a circle."
The mage shook her head. "These caves all look alike to me. Varric, aren't you dwarves supposed to have some sort of magical sense of direction underground? Stone sense, or something like that?"
"Not if you're born topside. Didn't we establish this on our little jaunt through the Deep Roads?"
Fenris sighed. Some variant of the same discussion seemed to turn up any time they had to pass through a cave, and the warehouses were almost as bad. He'd learned to keep track himself, purely in self-defence. "We are not lost, nor have we gone in a loop."
Hawke flashed him a grin. "Good to hear."
"I do not know, however, where the exit is."
"Less good to hear, Broody. What's the good news?"
We have not yet encountered any spiders."
There was a certain... scuttling in the shadows, and Varric groaned. "You just had to say it, didn't you?" In one smooth movement, he pulled his crossbow down from his shoulder and fired a bolt into a spider's eye.
"You've got to wonder why they never seem to eat the Carta people," Hawke said, readying her staff. "D'you think they're allergic to dwarf or something?
"Somehow I doubt it," Varric laughed.
Only five of them? Fenris charged, the familiar touch of Hawke's magic a cold sting across his skin. He welcomed the greater speed that it imbued as he welcomed the jarring impact of sword on exoskeleton and the thing's angry chitter as it died.
Three bolts tore past him and embedded themselves neatly around Varric's first shot. "That's one down!"
"Stop boasting." Encased in her protective spell, Hawke plunged the blade of her staff into a spider's head, and leapt back from the spray of greenish-grey goo.
"Indeed," Fenris agreed, as he felled another. Hawke at his side, they advanced on the last of them, and none of them would be able to say, later, who'd actually killed it.
"Fenris," Hawke said, wiping her blade clean. "Next time you feel like tempting fate and summoning up some enemies, could you make it cute little fluffy rabbits?"
"Ignore Hawke," Varric said. "She has no sense of narrative fitness. Giant spiders are fine."
"Exit would be better," Hawke retorted, and smiled at Fenris the way she always did – warm, open, inviting him to share another of her jokes (which were never as humorous as she believed). And contagious; he felt his mouth taking that strange shape again.
The dwarf was staring at him – then he winked. "So let's find one."
-0-0-0-0-0-
"You can't be serious," Safiya said. They'd spent hours wrangling – the mages she'd met, a pair of alchemists she hadn't, and Bodahn's lackwit son – and seemed no closer to an answer. She enjoyed a good discussion, but this wasn't one. "Really, no Gust of Wind to dispel the effect? No air elementals to purify it for you? Not even a Call Storm? Szass Tam, how do you people get anything done?"
"Enchantment!" She decided not to take that as an answer.
Everyone else was ignoring her, which she supposed was fair enough. As far as they were concerned, she probably sounded like a ranting madwoman. She ran a hand over her scalp and looked at Tarva, who shrugged. "You didn't spot anything useful in Hawke's books?"
"I've barely started on the herbals and alchemy," Safiya admitted. "Besides, these people seem to know their craft."
"We're working blind!" the elf – Tomwise – said, while the woman with the pretentious name nodded. "Without knowing the components, we're just as likely to make things worse as to counteract it."
"We don't know the vectors," Anders said, ticking the points off on his fingers. "We don't know what it attacks. We don't know what constitutes a dangerous dose. We'd have better luck inviting the darkspawn to a tea party. I hope this is just Hawke being pessimistic again."
That was, of course, when Aveline rushed into the library. "Where's Hawke?"
"Qunari business." Isabela looked up from cleaning her fingernails with a dagger. "Off chasing down that dwarf Javaris with Varric and Fenris – lucky girl." The pirate was fickle in her pursuits, it appeared, which was something of a relief.
"Unless it's the kind of Qunari trouble that has a Lowtown alley full of poison gas and its inhabitants killing each other - "
Anders and Merrill looked at each other.
"What?" Aveline demanded.
"It is. Somebody stole the recipe for the gas from the Qunari," Anders said. "Hawke's off chasing down the dwarf, but asked us to find a counteragent for the gas."
"Without telling us anything else about it," Tomwise grumbled. "What does she think we are?"
"Hawke's herbcraft has never been much good," Anders said.
"Enough!" Aveline held up her hands. "Do you have an antidote?"
"We have nothing," the blond mage replied. "Just some basic precautions – breathing through a wet cloth, wearing goggles, limiting skin exposure. The same as you'd do in a fire."
"Good enough," Aveline said. "I'm going in to find the source and get out everyone I can. I need some volunteers."
Tomwise shook his head. "Don't look at me, Guard-Captain."
"Nor me," Lady Elegant sniffed. "I'll be sending Hawke a bill for my time. Good day to you all." The alchemists left, and Aveline looked sternly around at those who were left.
Isabela shook her head, earrings jingling. "Don't you have all those brawny men in uniform for that kind of job? You aren't paying them to stand around and look pretty." She grinned. "If you are, you should make them take their shirts off first. And they should be oiled. You can promote me to Chief Oiler, if you like."
"Shut up, whore," Aveline retorted, almost automatically. "I'm not about to order them into a situation like this."
"I like helping," Merrill said, "but Hawke doesn't like it when I do, and anyway I don't know what I can do against poisonous air, if it's like cavedamp it might even explode if cast a fireball into it and I wouldn't want to be in the middle of it."
Anders opened his mouth, then shrugged. "Ah... actually, I think Merrill covered all my points."
Safiya spread her hands. "I'd help if I could – Tarva and I have considerable experience in almost-certain-death situations – but neither of us are likely to be much use currently."
"I wouldn't say that," Tarva suddenly spoke up. "I have some questions. Aveline, does the gas behave more like fog or smoke? Does it hug the ground or rise? What's the layout of the area?"
The Guard-Captain regarded Tarva with some surprise. "Uh, we've locked down the affected area, and my guardsmen haven't reported any incidents among them, so I suppose it must be staying close to the ground." Tarva nodded, and Aveline went on. "It's Lowtown – slums. High tenement buildings grouped around a few alleys. Isolated enough that we could cordon it off without difficulty."
"Are the roofs in good repair? Accessible?" Aveline nodded an answer to Tarva's question, with the beginnings of a smile that suggested she was starting to see what the half-elf had in mind. "Merrill, Anders, what's the range on your spells? Particularly healing, Cure Poison, and sleeping, knock-out effects, things like that?"
"Line of sight, mostly," Anders said, frowning slightly. "More delicate healing is better done much closer, but the brute force stuff is fine as long as I can see what I'm aiming at. I wouldn't be able to flush out poison at any distance. "
"I don't know any healing," Merrill said, "but I know a spell to make people sleep, although it doesn't last very long, and another one that sort of makes them stand still for a bit, but that one's not very nice since it fills their heads with nightmares. I don't know anything about poison."
"There would still need to be someone on ground level," Tarva said, her eyes level on Aveline. "Probably not more than one. "
"That's my place," the Guard-Captain said firmly. "These are my people."
"I get the feeling I'm missing about half of this conversation, you know," Anders muttered, and Safiya grinned.
"It's very simple, really," Tarva said.
Oh, that sounded familiar. Safiya couldn't resist asking "But is it easy?"
"That would depend on conditions in the alley," her friend said. "It goes like this – Merrill , Anders and Isabela on the rooftops. Merrill to incapacitate any attackers in the alley, Anders to heal them. Isabela – if you're willing – to protect the mages, just in case. Aveline in the alley, trying to find the source as quickly as possible. Anders, you'd also be doing your best to keep her safe."
Aveline nodded. "That sounds workable." As Isabela opened her mouth, she added, "I can authorise a suitable payment from the Guard."
"Then what are we waiting for?" Isabela grinned, stretching herself like a cat.
"Uh, what about the part where we're casting spells in broad daylight and begging the templars to notice?"
"I doubt we'll see them, Anders," Aveline said. "This is a Guard matter, and Knight-Commander Meredith has been very good about keeping her nose out of messes this large anyway." She fixed him with a hard-edged stare. "There are people in there dying, healer."
"I know you're trying to make me feel guilty," Anders sighed. "Fine, but you'd better break me out if I get caught."
"Don't leave me behind," Merrill said. "Templars always look so grumpy. Was Wesley grumpy, Aveline?"
Anders gave Aveline a look. "You know Hawke wouldn't approve of using Merrill, don't you?"
"She's not here," the Guard-Captain pointed out. "And Merrill is, by the way. I'll take what can get. As long as you don't use any blood magic, Merrill."
The little elf looked miffed – which nearly made Safiya laugh, since her face really wasn't constructed for it. "I do know other spells."
"Then let's go," Aveline said. "Thank you, Tarva, Safiya; if Hawke gets back before we do –"
"I'll explain the situation and send her on to help," Tarva assured her.
-0-0-0-0-0-
"Spiders and all, worse ways to spend an afternoon than a wild goose chase," Hawke said, and added, "thanks, Varric," as the dwarf held her estate door open for her. "Remind me to keep that exit in mind; should've taken us much longer to cover that much ground. Anybody home?" she called out.
"Hawke!" Safiya answered, and came rushing to meet her, Tarva following a little slower. "Gas attack in Lowtown, which matches the symptoms you gave us. Aveline, Isabela, Anders and Merrill are on it." Quickly she outlined the plan they were following – Tarva's idea, apparently – and Hawke nodded once she thought she'd grasped it.
"Did Aveline say where?"
"Lowtown," the bald woman said, "tenement blocks, east of the Alienage."
"I think I know the spot. Thanks," Hawke said, and turned to Varric and Fenris to ask whether they were in. They were already nodding. Hawke threw something by way of a farewell over her shoulder and dashed off with the others following.
Neither of them really had the height to keep up with her when she was in a hurry, but they were not far behind when they arrived in Lowtown. No need to ask where the affected area was; there were stern-looking guards (almost all of those under Aveline's command) standing posted, and patiently explaining just why nobody was permitted entrance, no, messere, not even if they lived there...
"Rivaini would've taken up them this way," Varric said, and led them up a dark, twisting, and slightly crumbled stairway. Fenris stepped on an upturned nail, and swore; Hawke banged her head on a beam and was still rubbing it when they emerged onto the rooftops.
"Hawke! Over here!" That was Isabela, motioning them over to a cluster of chimneys, where Anders and Merrill stood casting their spells down into the alleys below.
"Merrill? What are you doing here?" They all knew how she felt about blood magic!
"Helping," the Dalish said, her mouth set in a sweetly obstinate line.
"Of course," Fenris scoffed, and although Hawke felt much the same way about it, she ignored the discussion for now, joining Varric in peering down at the scene below.
She only saw it for a moment, then turned aside. Even softened by distance and the blur of greenish mist, it was... too much. There were piles of people in every corner of the alleys. Many, far too many of them children; most adults were out earning their bread during the day. There were knives, sticks and other improvised weapons clenched in their small fists, and many of them were wounded. There were adults too, a few of them in the dark uniforms of one of the mercenary bands.
In the centre, Aveline, a muffled figure with too-large, goggled eyes, only recognisable by her weapons and the flash of bright hair. Her sword was sheathed, shield strapped to her back as she struggled to close a barrel that leaked the toxic gas.
"Oh, Maker. How many of them are dead?" Hawke asked, her voice quavering.
"Only a few," Anders said. "Too many. Come and help me."
Hawke nodded weakly, steeled her stomach, and pulled her staff off her back.
"The big girl's onto the third barrel. I think it's the last," Isabela said, as Hawke let the Fade fill her. "The lids are pretty stiff, it takes her a while, and sometimes she gets attacked. It's not just residents down there, either."
"I can see that," Varric said, and Bianca sang a bolt into a mercenary's back – one of three who came out of nowhere and went straight for Aveline, as Hawke set to work on the pitiful heaps of children. Below, Aveline turned from the barrel to clout another with the crowbar, and Varric dropped the third one.
Isabela said slowly, "Oh, that's not good."
Aveline struck again, and again, the crowbar swinging in wide, erratic arcs. Even at a distance, they could hear the sickening meaty smack as she battered the man's head in.
"Maker's balls," Anders cursed, a spell dying on his fingers. "That's the poison."
"Not Aveline," Merrill said. "I mean, she's too-"
Hawke sent a burst of healing down at the Guard-Captain, and felt the resistance in her blood. "Got to get closer to her –"
"She'd only go for you!" Anders shook his head wildly. "I can't fix a splintered skull, and I know you can't either, especially if it's yours!"
"Have to do something! Varric? Fen-"
Fenris was gone. Hawke scanned the area frantically until she spotted him, already several roofs away and climbing down to street level. No protective gear, nothing -"Fenris!"
"Is that idiot trying to get himself killed?"
"Shut up, Anders, and help me!" Hawke formed a shimmering sphere around Aveline – it wouldn't last too long, but it would protect her and keep her from hurting Fenris.
"He'll be all right if he's quick," Isabela said, shading her eyes against the slanting sunlight of early evening. "Aveline was in there about half an hour before she was affected."
"I'm not sure that's how it works," Anders muttered.
The elf made it down to the ground just as Hawke's Barrier expired, and immediately Aveline started for him, crowbar swinging. Merrill quickly hit her with a spell-
"Did you just cast Horror on Aveline?"
"It stopped her, didn't it?" the Dalish defended herself.
Well, it had – Aveline stood absolutely still, eyes wide and staring at nothing as Fenris tugged the bar from her hand and set to work on the barrel. Hawke watched, silently willing him to hurry up, get out of there, get Aveline out of there –
"Hawke," Varric patted her arm. "Try to remember to breathe. Fainting is positively unheroic, unless you've just slain a High Dragon."
"I'll keep that in mind," she said, as Fenris finally got the lid clamped down. Aveline stirred, and Hawke immediately enclosed her in a Barrier before Merrill could torture her again. She wasn't certain how long such a poison might linger in the veins, and after all, some still lingered in the area – better not to take any chances. Fenris looked up at them and gave a little nod; Hawke shook her head and yelled down at him, "You crazy elf-"
Which was when a female elf with a greatsword (surely the one Javaris had mentioned), waltzed into view at the top of the stairs, looking down at Fenris. Six mercenaries followed her.
"Someone's been studying their cues," Varric muttered, and readied Bianca.
Fenris's voice carried clearly as he addressed the woman. "Explain yourself."
With usual intensity of Kirkwall's many crazies (although this one, unusually, wasn't a mage), the elf ranted about how the Qunari were stealing her people, and how she'd planned to steal the gaatlok and set it off to kill people and foment anti-Qunari sentiment – well, it made as much sense as these kinds of diatribes usually did, and sadly Hawke had become something of an expert over the years.
Fenris, of course, was less than impressed. While he was too experienced a fighter to attack while they held the height advantage, his sword was drawn as he waited for the elf to finish talking and start her inevitable attack.
"Blondie, shall we hurry that up a little?" Varric said, without raising his head from Bianca's sights.
Hawke knew that tone of voice. "Fenris, get down!"
Fenris hit the dirt and the crazy elf looked up just in time to see Anders's fireball come roaring down at her. They scattered before it hit – "Andraste's arsewipes, I hate it when they have reflexes," Anders muttered, readying another spell – and Fenris's tattoos kindled as they rushed him.
Isabela, never one to stand idle with a fight at hand, had worked her way over to the route Fenris had used to get down – Hawke would have to have words with them both later – and climbed down as Merrill joined Anders at the edge of the roof, hurling spells at the mercenaries below. Varric fired three times, and the crazy elf went down – then the Barrier Hawke had put around Aveline dissipated, and, crowbar swinging, the Guard-Captain joined the fray.
And then it was just blurry chaos. Her friends were more than a match for the mercenaries, but that never meant it was easy. Healing the warriors and the rogue below, Hawke could've cried with relief when she saw the poison-madness lift from Aveline – not just because it meant her oldest friend had her mind back, but for what it implied for the many victims of the attack.
When Fenris felled the last of them, she did close her eyes for a moment. They'd all survived, and this would not be the day Kirkwall exploded around her.
In the soft blue twilight, the scene almost looked peaceful. "You are all in so much trouble," Hawke called down to those below.
"Not as much as trouble as we'll be in if the templars catch us here," Anders pointed out.
"True. Aveline has to call her guards off, and I have to report back to the Viscount. Maybe the Arishok, too."
"The Viscount would probably prefer his report tomorrow," Fenris said – his voice carried clearly – "but I intend to speak to the Arishok immediately. Hawke."
"Yes?"
"Given that we both answered his summons, it would be... appropriate if both of us were there to tell the Arishok that the situation had been dealt with."
Anders snorted. Isabela sniggered. Varric muttered, just loud enough for Hawke to hear, "That has to be the most awkward invitation I've ever heard. Also, not appealing."
Hawke ignored them. "Of course I'll come."
