Author's Note: So, it's about time we get a point of view that isn't from our little love birds, no? Gotta catch up on all those thoughts and feelings other people are having around the camp. Anywho. Thanks to everyone reviewing and following along! You're all wonderful, and I'm so glad you're enjoying the story.
The "Antivan" that Zevran speaks in this chapter (and any subsequent chapters) is spanish. While the country of Antivan is modeled off real-world Italy, the language is a mix of spanish words, basically. So, for lack of an Antivan dictionary, it's spanish directly!
Chapter 43 – A Pang in Your Chest
The ruins were elven, or so they soon discovered, which made since, considering the propensity for the Dalish to cross this way. Hours of winding tunnels filled with everything from werewolves, to giant spiders, to ancient trap mechanisms, and they'd eventually come upon a door that appeared to lead to the werewolves main lair, but was barred from the inside. Instead of forcing them on through the night, Serena had suggested they camp in the ruins for a few hours, get some sleep in shifts, and pick up the chase afterwards.
The ruins, however, were riddled with secret passages, dead ends, and crumbling spider tunnels, most of which were filled with not-so-crumbling spiders, that by the time they finally set down, Zevran found himself wishing they'd decided to camp outside in the forest instead.
After a quick dinner of leftover rabbit jerky and rolls from the night before, Zevran sat down on his bedroll to start first watch with Leliana. Casually glancing around the group, he noticed the two Wardens were nearby, sharing a bedroll. Usually, they were relatively secretive with their relationship, but he supposed after their hurried declarations of love days before, and the many times both of them had been near-death in the last weeks, the two given up most of their pretenses. Even now, Alistair's arm was lying protectively around their unofficial leader as both of them dozed quietly. Her hound slept a short distance from their feet, already snoring away.
"Almost makes you feel like you've eaten too many sweets, doesn't it?" Zevran murmured. He saw Leliana follow his gaze and she grinned at the sleeping pair.
"I think they are adorable," the bard replied, scooting up next to Zevran, her arms wrapping around her legs. "It has been rough for both of them... they have lost so much. It's sweet when you can find someone to... to accept you, unconditionally."
Zevran turned amber eyes on the redhead, his eyebrow arched. "Such an interesting statement to make, my dear. I wonder, have you ever found such sweetness?"
"I thought I had... things do not always work out the way we intend them to, though. It was a long time ago, besides." Leliana shrugged her slight shoulders, her head resting on her knees. "What about you, Zevran? Any special ladies in your life? Or men."
"Ah, ha, no… no, no. I give just as much of myself as I am comfortable, I believe." Zevran rolled a dagger in his hands, a nervous habit he'd never been able to break. "I... once had feelings for a... coworker, you could say. It did not end well."
Leliana inched her hand over to his, grasping it gently, her eyes soft in the darkened ruins. "What happened?"
Zevran glanced at her, and then at the sleeping Wardens. Perhaps it was time to tell someone... what did he have to lose anyway? He was basically a dead man walking.
"It... it was my last mission in Antiva, before I took the contract on the Wardens. My friend, Taliesen, a fellow Crow, agreed to be part of my team on this most difficult mission, as well as an elven lass named Rinna." Zevran sighed. "She was... a marvel."
"Tough, smooth, wicked. Eyes that gleamed like justice. Everything I thought I desired... Rinna was special. I had closed off my heart, I thought, but she touched something within me. It frightened me. When Taliensen revealed to me that Rinna had accepted a bribe from the mark, told him of our plan, I readily agreed that she needed to pay the price and allowed Taliesen to kill her."
Zevran sighed again, his hand unintentionally squeezing Leliana's. "Rinna begged me not to. On her knees, with tears in her eyes, she told me that she loved me and had not betrayed us. I laughed in her face and said that even if it were true, I didn't care."
"Taliesen cut her throat, and I watched her bleed as she stared up at me. I spat on her for betraying the Crows," Zevran whispered.
He heard Leliana gasp, and her hand tightened on his. "When we had finally assassinated the mark, we found the true source of his information. Rinna... had not betrayed us after all... I wanted to tell the Crows what we had done, but Taliesen convinced me not to. He said it would be a foolish waste, and I was so cocky and arrogant back then... what did I care, truly? So we reported that Rinna had died in the attempt."
"We needn't have bothered. The Crows knew what we had done. One of the masters told me the Crows knew... and they didn't care. And one day, my turn would come. After that... I wanted... I wanted to die. And what better way than to throw myself at one of the fabled Grey Wardens? Of course, lucky me, it did not go as I had hoped."
They both turned, glancing once again at the sleeping Wardens, even in sleep their love and contentment in each other was so plain. It made Zevran's heart ache to think of Rinna, seeing the two Wardens like that. What he had so easily thrown away... What he had spat on, in his arrogance and disgust.
"She showed you mercy," Leliana said quietly. The almost musical tone of her voice made his stomach clinch tightly, but he ignored it.
"Serena has shown many mercy, especially those who do so little to deserve it... I wonder perhaps if it is not because she herself was shown none by the man who murdered her family." The assassin sighed. "Regardless, I owe her a great debt." Zevran shrugged, his fingers were tracing lines on Leliana's hand, unbidden. With a small shake, he pulled away, smirking. "Yes, so, that is my sad tale of lost love. It seems I am full of sad tales of late."
"I think perhaps you are too hard on yourself, Zevran. Sometimes... watching them together... I am reminded that we can always find love, in the darkest of places, even when we may feel we are undeserving of such things." Leliana stroked Zevran's cheek affectionately, and the assassin smiled at her, cupping her hand to his cheek. They sat like that for a long time, simply enjoying the quiet and each other's company, until eventually Serena stirred.
Reluctantly, Zevran pulled away from the bard, straightening his shoulders as he watched Serena gently place a kiss on Alistair's still sleeping form. He wondered absently if he would ever be able to allow himself that sort of comfort, if perhaps he could even find it with Leliana.
"Thanks for keeping watch, you two. If you want to grab some sleep..." Serena motioned to their bedrolls and shrugged. "I was going to wake up Ser Sleeps-Too-Much over here in a few minutes." She grinned at Alistair, tapping him gently with her foot. In response, the man simply rolled over, murmuring softly about five more minutes.
"Quite the catch you have there, Warden." Zevran smirked, stretching his muscles as he pushed out his own bedroll. Beside him, Leliana had already slipped under her blanket; pulling it up high so only the tip of her fiery red hair was visible.
"Don't I know it," Serena replied, kneeling down beside her fellow Warden and poking him. Quick as a whip, Alistair's hand snaked out and grabbed her arm, pulling her down onto him. She giggled with glee, collapsing on top of him as he wrapped her up in the blanket, muffling her laughter.
"I'm not deaf, you know," Alistair said quietly. He pulled the blanket from over Serena and stroked her hair affectionately. "You know you deserved that." She nodded happily, kissing his nose, and Zevran felt the familiar pang in his chest again.
"See you a few hours, Wardens," he called, turning his back on them to curl up in his own bedroll.
He threw his blanket over his head, but could still hear the two of them whispering quietly to each other on their own blanket. Normally, their happiness at simply being around each other would have been infectious for him, drawing him into a jovial mood, but now...
He shouldn't have told Leliana that story, perhaps. It had been a long time since he'd thought of Rinna... and even after all these months, his action, or rather, his inaction, still burned within him. Despite his exhaustion, he knew it would be awhile before any sort of sleep would take him, if it did at all.
A few hours later, they were all back up and ready to move on. It was tough to tell from within the ruins themselves, but between Leliana and Serena, they were able to surmise it was a little past four in the morning.
"And so we are hoping to... get the drop on whatever beasties happen to be sleeping right now, I imagine?" Alistair had his shield out, raised slightly, to protect from what Serena assumed were spiders coming down from the ceiling. Just a hundred paces from their camp and they'd already run into two more giant webs, and she could tell everyone was on edge. Even Serena's normally exuberant mabari seemed subdued; his tiny tail was between his legs.
"Do spiders sleep?" Leliana asked. Her nose wrinkled as they passed down the hall. "They certainly smell bad enough."
"That's not the spiders, my dear." Zevran kicked carelessly at a pile of filthy rags and a few bones spilled out. Serena watched as the skeletal hand jerked, her eyes going wide.
"Oh, no... no, no... Zevran..." Serena gestured wildly, reaching for the assassin. "Get over here-"
With a wrenching scream, the skeleton rose from the ground, its torn arm crawling along the floor towards them on its own. Excited by it's fellows cry, more skeletons pulled themselves up from the dirt and out of the crypts that lined the walls, their bones clanking and clicking.
Serena pulled her daggers as she heard the clang of Alistair's shield connecting with bone, crunching the reanimated corpse to the ground. Serena kicked out, knocking the skull right off the body of another ghoul. Her mabari ran forward, launching his thick body at the skeleton reaching for Zevran, ripping it apart in midair.
"¿Qué está sucediendo?" The elven assassin cried out, his surprise pushing his native tongue out of him. Zevran pulled his daggers, sliding them across the closest figure, its bones scattering to the ground in pieces. "¡Éstos son muertos!"
"Of course they're dead bodies, Zevran!" Serena cried, her knowledge of Antivan severely limited. "Kill them!" Heeding her own advice, she spun, slamming her dagger into another skeleton. Kicking out her foot, she realized one of the fallen bodies was now trying to cling to her boot and she shrieked, shaking it off furiously.
"There are too many of them!" Leliana shouted, her own swords out, swishing in a flurry. Beside her, Alistair knocked another skeleton into the wall as Morrigan flung a hand out, a ball of ice freezing another attacker in its tracks.
"Morrigan, freeze them, then all of you... get down!" Alistair's yell echoed through the corridor, and Serena grabbed Zevran by the scruff, pulling him down next to Leliana. She could see Morrigan throw out her arms again, a cone of frost covering the oncoming ghouls. Alistair nodded once to her, then motioned to the huge qunari. "Sten! Great sword!"
Like a thundering giant, the qunari held his great sword out in front of him, barreling down the narrow passageway, pushing all the partially frozen corpses to the end of the hall. With a great push, he crushed the lot of them as they exploded in bits of blood and icy slush.
"Now, there are less of them."
Serena pulled herself up from the ground, slightly stunned from how quickly everything had happened around her. She looked to Alistair; her shock still must have been evident on her face because he grinned at her. "Something troubling you, Serena?"
"That... you... you planned that!"
"You did not think we spent all our time discussing sugary confections, did you?" Sten rumbled at her, the ghost of a smile on his face.
"Was that... oh, my goodness..." Serena put a hand over her mouth in mock surprise. "Did Sten just make a joke? I think, oh dear, my poor heart..."
"We should move on," Sten replied.
"No, no, I want to bask in this just a moment longer." Serena sighed happily. "Alright, I'm good. Let's go."
And so they moved on, the mood a bit lighter now after a solid fight. Advancing through the ruins, they finally ran into the spiders to which the giant webs belonged, although luckily they were in much shorter supply than the reanimated ghouls, and the group was able to make quick work of them with Wynne and Morrigan stunning them first.
Another room held a small stone altar with a glass phylactery that when touched, summoned a few demons. After that, and Wynne's subsequent hour long lecture on magical items and their inherent danger, Serena learned to simply not touch anything that seemed even remotely interesting.
By far the most out of place thing they found in the ruins was the dragon, though. Not much bigger than a horse, Serena had found herself more confused than frightened by the beast.
"I didn't think there still were dragons," Alistair said softly, watching as the dragon hacked pathetically, turning in a circle. They stood at the top of a set of stairs staring down at the scaly monster as it growled and coughed tiny sparks. "Much less small, sickly ones." Serena shrugged, pulling her bow and aiming carefully.
"We could finish this in one shot, if you want," Morrigan said, eyeing Serena's arrow. With a snap of the witch's fingers, Serena watched as the tip of her arrow caught fire and she grinned, launching the flaming arrow at the dragon. The dumb beast opened its mouth to receive the arrow and it promptly exploded; the inside of the dragon's head now becoming the outside.
"Alright, even I have to admit, that was pretty incredible," Alistair said. Morrigan shrugged, as if she did this sort of thing every day, and swept down the staircase in one fluid motion.
"'Tis not even the best part," Morrigan replied, pushing past the downed dragon and starting to root through a pile of objects in a large nest. "Dragons are hoarders by nature." She picked up a set of light elven-made leather armor and tossed it to Serena. "This should fit you."
The companions scoured the dragon's horde, finding weapons, armor, gold, some precious gemstones, and even some health poultices that Wynne was particularly happy about. Between all of them, they were able to pick up everything worth taking, stuffing their packs and knapsacks almost to the brim.
As they pushed into the next passageway, Serena felt Zevran move up beside her, his amber eyes watching her.
"So, my dear, I find myself wondering... where did you learn Antivan?"
"My brother's wife is... was... she was from Antiva," Serena murmured. Peanut whined softly beside her, and she stroked his fur as they walked. "Fergus learned it, of course, to court her, and then when they had my nephew Oren, I picked up a working knowledge of the language as Oriana taught him. I understand a lot more than I can speak, and my accent is... laughably bad."
"Everyone's accent in Antiva is laughably bad, do not let it upset you."
"So, other than the few skeletons in the Circle Tower, I'm guessing that was your first fight with reanimated bodies, correct?"
Zevran shrugged. "I... may have been caught off-guard, yes." The assassin glanced at Serena. "I can guess by your devil-may-care attitude that it was, however, not your first encounter with the dead."
"Oh my, no. Redcliffe village would hold that grand distinction, I'm afraid. Before it was the idyllic lakeside village you've come to know and love, the entire place was overrun with walking corpses."
"Uh, the smell!" Leliana pouted. "I could not get that rotting stink out of my clothes for days."
"Oh, that's not from the undead, Leliana, just the fish," Alistair quickly quipped, moving past them.
"Mmm, the tower still wins for worst place ever for me," Serena replied, stepping delicately over a downed statue of an elven woman praying. "Demons, blood mages, The Fade, then more demons... maybe a couple abominations tossed in there for flavor... yes, no thank you. No thank you forever."
"Ah, Serena?" Alistair poked his head out of the room ahead, his face looking uncertain. "I... think you had better see this." Serena exchanged glances with Leliana and followed her into the room. Morrigan was already inside, peering down into a large pool.
"So... it's a dead end. Why have we stopped?" Serena glanced around. "We should just... look for a door, or something."
"Blocked, they're all blocked." Alistair frowned. "Morrigan believes we have to go... in there."
"In where? The water?" Serena saw the dark haired witch nod as she kneeled down beside the pool. "I... no. I don't want to go in there. I'm not going to try to swim in armor. That's just... stupid."
"The first intelligent thing I have heard you say," Sten added, his eerie red eyes gazed upon the pool before them.
"'Tis not water," Morrigan replied. "Watch." She placed a hand into the dark pool, and Serena watched as it disappeared briefly before the witch pulled it back out. "My hand... 'tis not wet. This is some sort of illusion, meant to confuse. The werewolves lie beyond here, I know it."
"Can you be sure?" Leliana asked.
"One can never be sure until one has tried something, so no, I cannot be sure." Morrigan stood. "After all we have faced, I would not think a simple pool would vex you all so."
Alistair scoffed. "I don't see you jumping in, Morrigan."
"Fine, I'll bloody do it," Serena said. She stomped up to the pool and looked down. "But if I'm... eaten... or I disappear... or something, you better believe I'm haunting you from the Fade, Morrigan."
"I'd expect nothing less, Serena," Morrigan replied coolly.
"Sweet Maker, this is insane." Serena dipped a toe in the 'water' and shivered. It was times like these that she hated being the leader. Not even Peanut would come stand next to her, the cowardly hound. If she survived this, Serena promised he was not getting any of her jerky tonight.
"Wait." Alistair stepped forward, his eyes locked on the pool as he grasped her hand tightly. "I'll go with you." With a quick nod of her head, before either could back out, they jumped into the pool, disappearing below the surface.
Zevran peeked over the edge of the pool. "So, should we assume they are not dead or...?" Pushing the assassin aside, Sten dropped into the darkness without a word. "I... guess that solves that. Bottoms up." Plugging his nose, the elf jumped into the pool and disappeared.
Leliana and Wynne grasped hands and moved to the pool next, helping each other into the darkness. "It's so... cold," Leliana gasped, letting go of Wynne's hand as she slipped below.
"Will you be taking the dog then?" Wynne asked the other mage as she slipped her legs into the pool, shivering. Morrigan glanced at Peanut, who whined piteously back at her, and rolled her eyes.
"'Twould appear so," the dark haired mage replied testily. She wiggled her fingers peevishly at the older woman. "After you."