The Names We're Given

Chapter 9: Pretty Words

by Dreamer In Silico

(Trigger warning - oblique references to past sexual assault)

Road to North Calenhad

The past several days had passed in a rhythm that would have almost been peaceful save for the ever-louder hum of tension Mei felt as they neared the Tower. Alistair had finally stopped needling her about her past in the Circle, a boon for which she felt she could thank – or offer apologies to, more appropriately – the assassin, for providing a new target for Alistair's distrust. Zevran had borne it surprisingly well, deflecting the templar's pointed treatment with humor as a matter of course and with wicked flirtation just rarely enough that Alistair had yet to get used to it. Mei was dimly aware that she would have once found their dynamic irresistibly hilarious, but only faint shreds of amusement seemed to answer, dry and fragile like bits of leaf tossed about in the breeze.

It did not help that the road was slowly becoming more familiar in feel, in smell – she and Giselle had fled this way at first, before they left the main thoroughfares. And now she was retracing those steps in the wrong direction, toward Irving, toward Greagoir, toward Cullen and Thom. A sharp ache in her palms as her own nails dug in reminded her to unclench her hands, revealing deep crescents in the flesh.

What did she actually expect to happen there? In the worst case, Greagoir could try to order her arrest. Her Grey Warden status should mean something in that event, but it wasn't exactly enforceable with Loghain's declaration that they were traitors, so she should ready herself and at least some of her companions to react quickly.

What did she want to happen?

She wanted the chance to cut pieces off Thom very, very slowly, perhaps while Morrigan made sure he stayed conscious for all of it – torture him like Giselle had been tortured, like Mei hadn't done to Giselle's murderers before she killed them, make him feel what it was to be helpless and rue the day he and Alec had decided to have their fun with a "pretty little elf."

But Alec, at least, was ashes, and thinking about exacting retribution for her shattered life would only make her angrier. She could not afford it.

She would go to the Tower as a Grey Warden, and she would demand aid as a Grey Warden. And she would make damned sure that she was ready to defend that status.

"Morrigan," she said quietly as the party stopped for a midday meal. The other woman raised an eyebrow in answer. "Sit and speak with me a while?"

A nod, and Morrigan loosed her staff from its shoulder sling to lean it against a tree and settled silently on a mossy patch of ground, her watchful stillness putting Mei oddly in mind of the forbidding carvings of dark birds that watched over the high places of the Tower library. Mei herself sank crosslegged to the ground nearby.

"What would you speak of?" Morrigan asked.

Mei took a long breath and let it out quietly. "We're getting close to the Tower."

"Indeed, I am most aware," came the reply, tinged with impatience.

"You are also aware that I am not expecting a pleasant reception there, yes?" Mei asked.

Morrigan gave a disdainful sniff. "Yes, I am certain the templars were quite put-out with you when you left. What of it?"

Mei frowned, picking absently at her baldric. Of all her companions, Morrigan should be the easiest to explain this to; it annoyed her that she was having trouble even talking about it. "That's one way of putting it, yes. My concern is that some of them may attack us – me – outright, and if that happens, I want us to be ready."

That brought a small, dangerous smile to the other woman's lips. "You truly did do something spectacular, it seems. Let them try."

Morrigan's enthusiasm for the idea perhaps should have been more disturbing than comforting, but Mei would take all the comfort she could get, she supposed. "Killed the two they sent after… us, when we escaped, but I don't actually know if they think I did that. Where we were, it could as easily have been the Dalish. What's more likely at issue is that I escaped with another mage who was about to be executed for killing one who was… attacking me." Coward. How can you think of avenging her if you can't even name what she saved you from? She let out a short, humorless laugh. "I don't even think she meant to kill him. But there you go."

The witch was mercifully silent while Mei collected her thoughts as they tried to flutter away from her and found the thread of her purpose once more. "The point is," she continued at length, "have you fought a templar before, yourself?"

Morrigan shook her head. "Betimes a few would come into our Wilds, chasing tales of powerful apostates, but while my mother would often use me as bait to draw them to places of her choosing, I never confronted them directly."

"Right. Well, you know they're trained to subdue us, and the ones at the Tower proper are some of the best at what they do. Not your average Chantry entourage. If it comes to a fight, they need to be incapacitated as quickly as possible. I want you and me on opposite sides of the group so we won't go for the same target." Mei paused, chewing at her lip. "Normally the fact that I carry swords gives me the advantage of the enemy not pegging me as a mage immediately, but since they know me, that doesn't do me any good beyond supplementing my magic in case they manage to drain me. You… I worry about."

"Oh? And why is that?" There was an indignant note in Morrigan's voice.

Mei waved a hand impatiently. "Not because I don't think you can handle yourself – far from it – but no matter how well you can avoid notice in backwater towns, when you walk in there with a staff on your back and probably reeking of magic from all the fighting we've been doing, you're an instant target."

The witch's arms were crossed, but she nodded stiffly after a long moment of consideration. " 'Tis a fair point, I suppose. I've a thought."

"What is it?"

"How noteworthy would it be if you walked in with a bird on your shoulder?"

Quirking a slight smile, Mei shook her head. "I'd look like some caricature out of a storybook, minus the swords, but they wouldn't immediately think you were a shapeshifted mage and that's better that it would be otherwise. I like it."

Morrigan nodded again with satisfaction. "Very well. I shall wear my crow's skin and have the qunari carry my staff. 'Twill cause him no difficulty."

As Leliana's laughter carried across the clearing in response to some undoubtedly outrageous thing Zevran had said, Mei snorted and muttered, "I'll start bracing myself in advance for the inevitable joke about Crows riding mages."

A cool wind ruffled her loose hair and made her shiver where she stood. The apprentice dormitories were always drafty, but this air smelled of woodsmoke and leaves. Strange.

She did not have time to ponder the source of the scent, so alien and yet so familiar, for she was about to be late. Giselle would be expecting her. Hurriedly, she stepped into the hallway, absently reaching down to make sure her robes did not catch on the rough edges of the doorframe, and frowned slightly when her fingers touched only a tunic over loose-hung pants. Giselle would comment on her odd apparel, certainly, but she did not have time to go back to change. She'd have to go as she was.

The corridor was dark, despite the early hour, and while she was grateful not to see any templars along the way, it set her teeth on edge not to encounter anyone. Though the Tower was large, it was always a struggle to get away from other people, whether mage or templar. Privacy was much-sought and little found. To have it feel so empty… she should be rejoicing, but she could not. Still. Giselle would be at their alcove in the library. She never missed a meeting time, so much more punctual than Mei was.

The library looked just as empty as the dormitory and halls, but felt less-so. Its drafty air carried whispered voices, and Mei half-expected to come across any number of other couples, stealing a few minutes' time together under the guise of study. She saw no one, however, despite the time it seemed to take to traverse the labyrinthine passages between the shelves. By the time she reached the low archway to their special alcove, she had started to worry that Giselle would also be absent – there was surely something amiss, for her to have come all this way without encountering even one other person. But something loosened in her chest and she breathed a soft sigh of relief when she saw tightly-bound auburn curls and the sweep of emerald robes over the generous curve of her lover's hips.

"You're here." The voice held its usual fluidity, but with an oddly toneless quality, even in the hush of the small, text-lined clearing in the forest of shelves.

"Of course," Mei answered, and she smiled as the human woman turned from the shelf she had apparently been studying. It had been too long since they had been able to meet in private.

Giselle spun slowly, her characteristic grace rendering each tiny movement a line of visual poetry in the way Mei had always envied. She could communicate so much just in how she chose to carry herself, the set of her shoulder or cant of her head as eloquent as any ten of Mei's intent scribblings.

The welcome in her posture made the empty sockets where her warm brown eyes had been all the more jarring.

Jarring, yes – but in the macabre logic of the Fade, not surprising. The anger was a dull red pulsing sensation as she remembered it, like a heartbeat through her own living eyes. "Why did you come back here?" Mei whispered.

The full lips drew upward in that wry smile she knew like the last line of the Ballad of Shartan. "Because I don't think I ever really left." The smile was joined by an understated shrug. "I died here, you know. We just didn't realize it then."

The dull red flared bright, and Mei half-shouted her denial. "No! We had something – we had a life!" She bit her lip after, reflexively fearing that a templar would come, even now.

Giselle shook her head, gentle but firm in her denial. "We had stolen time, nothing more. But you… you have wrenched your time from their grasp. It is your own."

"I want to give it to you." Mei's cheeks felt wet. "Leave this place, don't stay here. Come with me."

"You gave me what you could already, love."

"It wasn't enough!" Mei protested.

"It has to be enough," Giselle corrected with a note of finality. "Now, come here."

Mei took a slow step forward. Her ears remarked absently on the fact that all the whispers in the library had fallen quiet, but all that really mattered to every one of her senses was that Giselle was now standing just in front of her, bending her face down to Mei's as her soft hands came up to nestle in dark hair. Her tongue tasted faintly of salt, and heavy drops of her blood fell warmly against Mei's own eyelids, but oh – to be kissing her again -!

The silence was no longer silence, nor even whispers, but the clatter of plate armor and the swish of heavy skirts over a warrior's stride, and Mei found herself praying to a Maker she didn't even believe in that the templar would pass their alcove by.

Alas.

The gritty voice broke even the pretense of isolation. "You two are in for it – everyone's already in the chapel waiting to see you burn. Come along. You're late."

Steel gauntlets closed roughly over her shoulders and yanked backward, and a scream welled up in her chest but refused to escape –

Moonlight on glossy black feathers. A bird?

No, a witch. She'd drawn the tent flap aside. Morrigan.

"Mei."

Dashing the back of her arm across her soaked face and trying to pass it off as a reaction to the light, she grated, "I'm awake."

The dark head dipped in a nod. "Good. 'Tis nearly time for second watch – I would have woken you later, but you sounded… disturbed."

Ugh. The last thing she needed was for the whole camp to be hearing her nightmares. It would be all well and good if they were of the archdemon, but those dreams scarcely made her stir, much less cry out. "Did I wake anyone, do you think?" she asked reluctantly.

"No, I do not believe so. I was simply passing nearby and happened to hear."

Well that's a small blessing, at least.

"Okay. Thanks – for waking me." She sat up blearily, and Morrigan nodded and let the flap fall again.

"You are welcome. Alistair will wake the assassin soon, and I am going to retire," she said, voice slightly muffled by the leather walls. The barely-there tread of her boots indicated that she was walking away a moment later.

Mei scrubbed at her face again and sighed. She had assigned Zevran as her watch partner for a chance to further take his measure, but now she fervently wished it had been for first watch rather than second. She wasn't exactly at her most alert, and she wanted her wits fully intact to deal with him, but taking the few minutes left of first watch to wake up would have to suffice.

The night was on the cool edge of comfortable, scattering gooseflesh across her legs as she slithered out of her bedroll and dug through her pack for a mostly-clean pair of trousers. Having slept in her shirt, she'd only to pull tunic, belt, and boots once the pants were taken care of. She hesitated over her baldric – her staff would suffice for a middle-night watch shift, and her skin had chafed from spending so much more time in full fighting kit than she had previously been accustomed to – but finally picked it up and buckled it on anyway. A first evening alone with the Antivan was not the time to appear overly relaxed.

Exiting the tent, she acknowledged Alistair with a silent nod and took off at a light-footed trot around the camp to try to clear her head. It felt good to move unencumbered by the treacle-thick haze of her nightmares, though her legs protested that they had had quite enough abuse during the daylight hours, please and thank you. The rest of her told her legs to shove it, and picked up her pace. She had a long few hours ahead of her, and the exercise now would make it easier to remain awake later.

When at last she slowed and moved back toward the fire, Alistair had gone to bed, and Zevran lounged indolently against a log. She gathered her energy to speak, but he broke the silence first.

"Good evening to you, my Grey Warden." He dipped his head to her, eyes glinting in the firelight.

"Hello, Zevran."

"You do not look like one who spent the first watch sleeping," he observed.

She mustered a dry laugh and shook her head, pulling the kettle from the dying coals to see if there was any tea left inside. "It would be better if I had not, I think." There was some tea. Perhaps the night was salvageable, after all.

"Ahh, I must agree – there are far better things to do in a tent than sleep. Particularly when one wishes to avoid unpleasant dreams."

She waved one hand dismissively as the other fished for a cup. "I am accustomed to it. It's nothing."

The Antivan gave her a look that was too shrewd by half. "You are uneasy as we draw closer to our destination, this much is obvious."

"And does that surprise you? Would entering the heart of Crow territory now not set your teeth on edge?" The tea was astringently bitter from having steeped too long, but the ritual of sipping it was as much a part of waking up as the stimulant properties of the leaves, and she did so as quickly as she dared.

Chuckling, he replied, "I admit, you have me there. Though I have more pleasant memories of my home than you seem to of yours."

Her response was as bitter as the tea. "The Circle is not, nor ever was my home."

"My apologies for the assumption." Zevran held his hands palms-up, the image of contrition.

He isn't poking fun at me yet – he must really want on my good side, she thought sardonically. Still, goodwill between them would be best if it went both ways, and she knew she was being prickly. Mei sighed. "None needed; I know what you meant. I am… perhaps too accustomed to having to explain… and re-explain… that concept to certain people."

That brought an amused smirk. "Certain templars, perhaps?"

"Perhaps." She managed a slight smile in return, settling down on the log nearby with her tea. "But what of these pleasant memories? I assume you're from one of the cities?"

"Oh yes. I hail from the glorious Antiva City, Jewel of the North. Nowhere in my travels have I found a city with such bright spaces that cast such long, deadly shadows." He tilted his head back, almost wistful. "It is very warm and colorful there. None of this mud and chill, even in the summertime… no offense intended."

"None taken. I claim Ferelden only a little more than I claim the Tower, though both would try to claim me," she said wryly. "You sound like you miss it."

He shrugged, a movement almost studied in its casualness. "I do, but there is little use in dwelling on it, yes? Perhaps one day I will return… if I live through the Blight, of course… and set about making it a place I can live in again."

The statement had been almost a footnote to describe something which – if she guessed rightly – would encompass an enormous amount of planning and no small bit of mortal danger. Once, his flippancy would have horrified rather than amused her, a point that she noted in passing; the last several months had been an express education in the joys of understatement and gallows humor. Perhaps the shift in herself should have been disturbing, but she was hard-pressed to reject anything that pushed the hopelessness and constant strain just a little farther away, now. "That sounds like a task with a large body count," she observed just as neutrally.

"Most tasks are so, in our respective lines of work, are they not?"

Mei tossed back the dregs of her tea, coughing slightly as she caught a mouthful of soggy leaf bits. "They are, indeed. How does one become a Crow, anyway? I mean, aside from all the obvious years of training you must surely undergo."

That brought a chuckle. "If you are looking for a career change, my friend, I would advise against it – the severance package is garbage, as you have seen."

"Something else we have in common," she murmured.

He cocked his head curiously. "As a mage, or as a Warden?"

Mei really wasn't sure which was worse, come to think of it. "Both. As a mage, you're hunted down by templars until they find you and drag you back at best, or torture you to death if they're feeling peevish, or make you Tranquil at worst – " He raised an eyebrow. " – and as a Warden, you make sure you die fighting darkspawn before you turn into a ghoul." The eyebrow went higher. She suspected she wasn't supposed to go around talking about that, but she had little loyalty regarding keeping secrets that were kept from her until it was too late to refuse them. Alistair could take his Warden rules and shove them someplace anatomically unlikely. "I escaped the first, much as you have the Crows. The second isn't something you can just smash a phylactery and kill a few templars to get away from, unfortunately, though according to Alistair it takes a few decades before it comes calling."

"How charming," he said, looking almost taken-aback. It was a surprising expression to see on him. "To answer your question, one is purchased, most often. I was a boy of seven when they bought me from the whores who had raised me from a babe. Fewer survive the training than not, but make it that far, and it is a life that has its privileges… and a tight leash, of course."

"Of course." There always is a leash, isn't there? "What sort of privileges?"

"There is wealth to be had, though that is mostly for the Masters and their favorites, and prestige for all aplenty. There is a certain glamour that we assassins have in Antiva, for it is a land with… sharp tastes," Zevran continued with a sly grin. "I cannot deny that that part was enjoyable."

She caught her mind batting at the idea of what he meant by 'sharp tastes' like a cat with a ball of yarn, and irritably shoved it back into the conversation. The way his eyes had flashed as he spoke was far more distracting than it had any right to be. "It does sound a damned sight better than the Circle in that respect – with all the templars, you can probably guess at the environment."

"Mmm… Ferelden repression at its finest!" He laughed. "In truth, I believe it is not so different in the Chantry spaces in Antiva, but I have seldom cared to get close enough to observe in detail."

Mei shook her head. "Can't say I blame you." She had been looking for a good way to ask about his motivation, and this was as good a segue as any. "With all those good points – and the rather unfavorable comparison Ferelden seems to make beside Antiva – why leave? Besides the obvious."

Zevran's eyes danced with what looked to Mei like a whole array of quips, but he surprised her by holding them in apparent reserve. "You mean to ask if and why I would want to leave, our particular circumstances aside, yes?" She dipped her head in a nod. "Yes… I believe I would. It is not something I have given a great deal of thought to in recent years, but I also prefer not to dwell on opportunities I do not have. As to why – you are familiar with the allure of choice, I am sure. I had never had such a thing before – unless you count the choice to fight or die, which I do not."

Stay or go, die or live. Her words to Morrigan echoed back in Zevran's voice. "I am very familiar with that allure," she agreed quietly.

He tossed a lock of hair that had escaped from one of his braids out of his face and gave her a level look. "Then I've a question of my own, if I may."

"You may."

"Why did you choose to spare me over the very noisy objections of your fellow Warden? Other than my obvious charms and the opportunity to drag me into your bed, of course." He waggled his brows suggestively, belying the seriousness with which the question was delivered.

Of course. The offhand overture should probably have set her on-edge – she would have expected it to, until very recently – but Zevran's blatant sexuality was somehow completely different in character than anything she had ever seen from other men, mage and templar alike. It was oddly… straightforward, impossible to ignore, but lacking any element of coercion or entitlement. And so she laughed instead of bristling, and answered. "Other than that… exactly what you just said, about choice."

He regarded her lazily. "And our dear Alistair's worries that I might yet turn on you? What of that?"

The breath she drew to answer came out in a half-exasperated gust. "Zevran, in case you haven't noticed, I am a Fereldan apostate elf traveling with an ex-templar of bastard nobility, an Orlesian bard-like-hell-she's-a-minstrel, a qunari warrior we scooped out from under a death sentence, and the daughter of a legend the Chasind use to frighten their children into good behavior. Your overt motivations are more honest than any of theirs, and your hidden ones are no more likely to do me harm than any other. I'd rather make the choice I think has at least a reasonable chance of being the right one and then stop worrying, rather than spend all my time looking over my shoulder for a knife when you could have poisoned me ten times over already." Mei stared him down, crossing her arms and feeling faintly reckless, but it was so good just to be blunt without having to endure someone's scandalized squawking that she didn't much care. "…So I won't burden you with ineffectual suspicion, and all I ask in return for that is if I'm wrong, you don't let me see it coming… because I really hate being wrong."

The man blinked at her for a moment, then threw back his head and laughed. "You make your point quite clearly, my lady Warden! And I would so hate to demonstrate that you were wrong."

"Because that would be sloppy?" she suggested dryly.

"Just so." He flashed her a saucy grin. "Are you certain you have not spent time with any Crows before? You think quite a lot like one."

"Just too many people who use pretty words in all the wrong places and none of the right ones," Mei answered, stretching and noting the moon's path across the sky. They'd a while yet in the watch, but at least she wasn't getting sleepy again. "That gets tiresome."

"Then for you, my Warden, I will be sure to use my pretty words most carefully." There was that half-playful, suggestive undercurrent to his voice again. She wasn't even quite sure what he was aiming at, this time, but thankfully, the correct answer was obvious.

"See that you do."