17: Dressing Distractions

"Just keep me informed if you hear anything more from the Coterie about protection."

What on earth had she walked in on? Beau leaned in the doorway that led into Varric's rooms at the back of the Hanged Man. She raised an eyebrow when he glanced at her past the man he was speaking too, making a rude gesture at the amusement that flickered over his face. Rolling her eyes, she dropped her hands to smooth down the front of one of the more… inexpensive dresses she had allowed her mother to dress her in. It really wasn't anything special, it was just the fact that she was wearing the damned thing.

"Blondie has enough trouble."

The man inclined his head and Beau stepped aside so he could pass.

"Isabeau-"

"Don't call me that," she walked towards him, dropping down into a chair in a very unladylike manner.

"You look so… sweet and feminine."

Her green eyes narrowed as she reached into the bodice of the dress, pulling out a very sweet and feminine dagger. The little dagger's equally little sheath probably matched the trimming on her dress, it had been like a consolation thing from Leandra. You get the dress and the deadly fashion accessory!

Aware she was silently threatening him and totally unconcerned, Varric gestured to Norah, the waitress, for a refill when she peeked in. "How about a pint, my lady?"

"You're going to screw with me the entire time I'm here, aren't you?"

"You bet your frilly ass I am, you've been putting on airs for a weeks now and avoiding us riff raff."

She really was going to slit his throat, the only downside to this would be matting all that fine chest hair with blood. "Already, I regret this."

"Admit it, you've missed me," Varric's grin changed into a genuine smile, seeing her exasperation fading to something between amusement and resignation. "I'm well aware you've been spending time with your mother, as you should. How is the old girl anyway?"

"Weird," Beau propped her palm in her chin, elbow resting on the table. "She's apologized, a lot."

"For the years of mental and emotional abuse?" Varric knew the stories quite well, he had learned that if you got her drunk enough, Hawke would finally start discussing herself. Well, herself beyond the sarcastic and coin hungry persona she had shrouded herself with. At her second nod, he dropped the teasing, leaning in towards her. "I imagine it couldn't have been easy, losing everything and everyone she had."

Beau's next nod was very stilted.

"It's good then, that she's pulled her head out of her-"

"Varric."

"You know what I mean," he drew back as their drinks were set down, watching as she eyed it. "Not going to relapse, are you?"

"Nah, Anders might actually kill me if I did."

"Speaking of Blondie," he had been meaning to ask her what was going on there. He had noted that she was keeping the mage at arm's length, which seemed fair given Blondie had tried doing the same to her. "Honeymoon over?"

"There was never a honeymoon, why are you being so nosy?"

"Because, it's what I do, and as your unofficial biographer, I need to make sure every minute detail is documented."

"Nothing is going on, we're friends. Just like I'm friends with you." Beau gave him a pointed look, twirling her little deadly fashion accessory now between her fingers in what was a warning to let it go.

"My dearest Hawke, the day I give anyone, you included, the same love and devotion I give Bianca, is the day I also decide the Merchant's Guild is worth my time," he quipped back, which was his way of informing her that there was definitely something going on between her and Blondie. "And that ale is disgusting. Oh, and I'll grow a beard."

She sat there in silence for a few moments, trying to imagine him with a beard. "No, can't see you with a beard."

"Me either, hiding this devilishly handsome face? Perish the thought!"

Varric had asked her what she intended on doing now that she was in Hightown. He had figured most people would get 'compliant', and she was already doing the thing with her mother, reconnecting and spending time. Beau had to think about that one. She had gotten involved with a merchant who also owned a mine, the Bone Pit, taken on a job to investigate it and get the miners back to work. He had offered to make her a partner after all that and she had signed on. Maybe, she figured, she'd focus on that a bit more, having a stream of legitimate revenue coming in wasn't a bad thing.

That would have to come after she was done visiting her favorite apostate. She hadn't missed the bit about 'Blondie' and after she and Varric were done harassing each other, she had inquired about the protection thing with the Coterie. Templars… why hadn't he told her? She was still down in Darktown regularly, helping him with his free clinic, still joking and being 'friends' with him, she just recognized the boundaries now and didn't cross them.

"I'm closed today."

Anders hadn't even looked up from his desk, busy scrawling something on a bit of paper. Beau quietly walked up behind him, peering over his shoulder.

"I said-"

"Hello," she smiled cheekily when he twisted so he could look up, watching as the anger and annoyance faded into confusion and something she wasn't focusing on. "Since when are you closed?"

"Since I needed some time to… think, and to rest."

"You're not resting. What are you writing?" She stepped back so he could stand up, watching as he held the paper before him.

"It's a manifesto," what was she doing down her? And in -was she wearing a dress? "I uh," she was, it was odd to say the least. "It's to convince others that mages are… here." She could read it, he thrust out the papers, trying not to stare as her gaze dropped to them.

"Andraste suffered at the hands of magisters, thus she feared the influence of magic. But if the Maker blamed magic for the magister's actions in the Black City and for the physical death of his Bride, why would He still gift us with it? The oppression of mages stems from the fears of men, not the will of the Maker," she read it out loud, finally falling silent as she continued on. Eventually, she held it back out. "Get your fill?" She had been aware he had been staring at her.

"I'm sorry, Hawke, but you in a dress- it's… a novel idea. What do you think? Of the manifesto, not the dress."

Beau followed him around to the back, to his private area and took in the disarray. "I think you're going to need more talking points. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who aren't going to care," she supposed that was the right way of putting it. "that Andraste's fear is the cause of the way things are. Most will still consider it to be from the Maker himself." She had no idea where she stood on the Maker, if she believed it or not. It was hard, believing in something that had never presented itself. Maybe the whole 'the Maker abandoned us for this reason' was more like 'there is no Maker but we need something to say, to believe in', ugh. Religion gave her a headache.

"You do not believe in mage rights?"

"I didn't say that, this isn't from what I believe Anders, I'm just saying what the general population is going to think. You know I believe in your cause," she came from a family of mage's and up until Kirkwall had never been so grateful that she wasn't one. Seeing how things were here… she was quite pleased to be 'normal'. "But you have to see it from the other side, what mages are capable of. How many have we seen in Kirkwall alone, resort to blood magic, because they were backed into a corner?" She had seen it more times than she cared to count, mages turning to blood magic and demons instead of unleashing a massive storm or raging inferno, made no sense to her but she wasn't a mage either.

He slumped, bringing a hand up to his face. She was right, it was something he had pointed out more than once, the blood mage thing. "But to judge so many of us because of so few…"

Sighing, Beau settled herself in the one chair back here, watching as he sank down onto his bed. "Varric said you've been having problems." It had only been a few weeks; she had been coming down regularly before that to help him, how had she missed this?

"Things have been getting worse down here," Anders said after a moment, wondering just what Varric had been up too. It occurred to him, a little belatedly, that the lack of issues from guards and templars over the years may have been thanks to his short friend's influence. "Templars were practically at my door the other night. They've been down throughout the area almost every night this past week."

Now that was new. Templars in Darktown weren't anything unusual, from time to time, but every night? "Are they looking for you?"

"No, not me in particular."

Relief coursed through her and she slumped back in the chair. "Good. You know, telling me things, it makes me want to lock you up."

Anders gave her an amused smile, shaking his head. "Sweetheart,"

Now it was something else entirely coursing through her.

"I'm not letting anyone, not even you, lock me up."