I walked into Varric's suite to find a Guardswoman sprawled out on the bench near the door, her armor in a heap beside it. She had an arm thrown over her face, and what looked like several of Varric's spare coats piled together to make a pillow.
"Wake up sunshine." I called, balancing a tray with several mugs on it in both hands. "It's almost dark."
"...fuck off." Sergeant Brennan groaned, not even glancing my way. "Let me sleep until sunset."
"You know we can't. Now get your pale ass up, I've got your first bribe of the night."
There was a bit more grumbling, but she let her arms slide free and blinked a few times. Seeing the tray and its many mugs seemed to help her focus; she quickly heaved herself up to a seated position, her brown hair incredibly mussed from how she'd been laying.
I rolled my eyes when she held both hands out, giving me her best puppy-dog eyes at the same time.
"You're not that cute." I said, though I still walked over to offer her a mug. "Here you go."
"Thanks." She murmured, bringing it straight to her lips. "And I am cute. Merrill just gives you stupid expectations for cuteness."
"Heh. True."
Said cute woman pouted as she walked into the suite, cheeks already tinging pink. "Do you both have to tease me so much?"
"Yeah." I said.
"Yup." Brennan agreed.
She pouted some more, "Why?"
"Because you're extra adorable when you blush." I slid the tray onto the table, "Your ears get all red. Yeah, just like that."
Merrill groaned in defeat, quickly taking her usual seat at the table before hiding her face behind a mug of ale. Chuckling quietly, I undid my sword-belt, hanging the weapon off the back of my own chair before turning it so that I could talk to Brennan while we waited for everyone else to show up.
"How bad have the nightly patrols been?"
Brennan scowled around another gulp of ale, "I'm behind on sleep because that corrupt ass spent three hours berating me this morning. Apparently I was just supposed to magically know that I wasn't supposed to arrest the men trying to break into the Lefèvre Estate."
"He change your patrol route again?" I guessed.
It was the Guard Captain's usual trick, according to her. Last minute changes to patrols to 'respond' to invented problems. All so that whoever he'd been bribed to ignore could go about their business without attracting attention, while still letting the Guard claim that they'd been dutifully keeping the peace.
That let him complain that it wasn't their fault there weren't enough troops to patrol every street; they desperately needed a bigger budget.
Which they kept getting, yet strangely few new Guards ever seemed to be hired.
"No." She snorted. "Bastard's so incompetent that he flat-out forgot to. I marched out halfway through his screaming, grabbed the patrol orders from the barracks, and slammed them down on his desk. I've never seen that bastard go so white so fast. 'course the fuck just started bellowing about insubordination instead."
"You need a new job." I told her seriously. "Or a promotion."
There was definite grimace. "Maker's balls no. The Lieutenants have to deal with him on a daily basis."
"I meant a bit higher than that."
"...the pay would be nice." She admitted after a moment, not looking bothered in the slightest that we'd have to kill her current boss to make that happen. "But no. I don't want to be Guard Captain. That'd mean dealing with the Viscount. And Meredith."
"You sure?" I asked.
Brennan gave me an amused look over her beer. "Trying to get your pet guardswoman in power, so she can ignore all the illegal things you run around doing?"
I grinned. "You know it. And you know Varric could make it happen. His brother would be all too happy to bribe the right people to get you in place, once the position was vacated."
"It'd be a bidding war." She glanced at the door, then back to me. "I was waiting till Varric got here, but rumor in the barracks is that the Templars are making sounds about removing the Captain too. They want Sergeant Aveline in his place."
The more things changed, the more things stayed the same I supposed. "She didn't impress me much."
A quiet snort. "Hard to impress someone when you tell them they can't speak in their own defense. She cares about keeping the peace, and is really protective of the people in her section. I'll give her that much. Not sure how she'd do as Captain though. I don't think she's got any head for politics. Meredith would chew her up and spit her out, assuming the nobles didn't first."
I thought Aveline could hold her own against the nobility, but Meredith... I was pretty sure Aveline wouldn't last long in a bureaucratic fight against her. Maybe she'd refuse direct orders from the Gallows, if the Templars tried to be that heavy handed about it, but Aveline wouldn't resist an order from the Viscount's office. Even if it was a stupid one.
Her attempt to arrest people who'd gone to the Qun proved that in my mind. I mean, honestly. Trying to march in there when you knew that the Qunari were a bomb waiting to go off? She couldn't have provoked the incursion any faster if she'd tried to.
I didn't think she was a particularly bad person, but... as both an elf and a mage stuck living in Kirkwall, I didn't really want her as Guard Captain. Especially not if her husband was still alive and influencing her opinions.
Doubly especially since the Viscount took his orders from Meredith, at least when the nobles weren't ganging up on him. Which meant that, no matter what she claimed, Aveline would end up taking her orders from Meredith in the end.
Brennan would take her orders from Varric, which sounded a lot better to me.
"Think about it." I said, speaking more quietly. "The Alienage needs help, and you're probably our only chance in the Guard of getting it."
"...that's a kick below the belt." Brennan shook her head, staring down into her drink. "I'll think about it, Maeve."
"All I can ask."
Brennan tipped her head, then groaned a little as she got herself up right. Not that she stayed that way long. She strolled around to collapse in the chair next to Merrill in short order, setting her already half-empty mug down in front of her. "How about we talk about something more fun, eh? Merrill, how have you been? Gotten lost anywhere odd lately?"
Merrill promptly blushed for the second time that evening. "The Grand Cleric has a lovely airing cupboard."
Our Guardswoman paused, stared, then glanced to me. "Really?"
"Really." I sighed. "She won't admit how she got there, and I barely snuck her out before the daily service started."
Brennan snickered. "At least it wasn't Nug-Racing in Darktown this time."
"I don't know. It wasn't as pleasant, but it was more fun." Merrill tapped her chin in thought, "And I did win some money."
I rolled my eyes, "Yes, by betting on the Nug with the cutest name and somehow winning three races in a row. Varric and I barely showed up in time to help you fight off the thugs that Coterie brat sent after you for taking his life savings."
"Oh. Is that why those men were chasing us? I wasn't paying attention."
"Liar." I stabbed a finger at her, "Those sad, vacant eyes don't work on me. I know you're twice as clever as you pretend to be."
Merrill giggled, then tried to stifle them with a drink. Brennan didn't bother, simply belting out a fully-belly laugh. The three of us were still smiling when the door opened again, letting Varric roll in.
"Sorry I'm late." He drawled, idly pushing the door shut behind him. "Bartrand again."
I glanced over, watching him make for his working area. "What's your peach of a brother up to these days? He have another scheme destined to make him even richer than he already is?"
He shook his head, tossing a bundle of letters onto his desk before turning around. "I'll tell you later. Still trying to change his mind."
"Good luck with that." I muttered. "That man won't be happy until he dies surrounded by a mountain of gold."
The irritated grunt told me he entirely agreed with my opinion, but didn't want to rant about his brother tonight. Instead he took his spot at the head of the table, quickly grabbing one of the unclaimed mugs. "Anything I miss since last night?"
I shook my head. "No. Bodies disposed of, no alerts. Arianni kept an eye on the estate today, seemed like business as usual. They either don't know or don't care about what happened to the old man and his flunkies. Are the Coterie going to tip them off?"
"Shouldn't." He replied. "That's not part of their arrangement, and they like me better than some random 'Vints. Any news from the Guard?"
It was Brennan's turn to sigh, then she relayed the same thing she'd told me. That the Templars were starting to push about removing Captain Jeven, and clearly wanted to put Aveline into that job. Varric promptly made her the same offer I had, and she told him she'd think about it just as she had before.
Thrask arrived at the tail end of that conversation, in armor as he always was outside of the Gallows or his home. Not that he wanted to be; it was some kind of standing order. Meredith liked her thugs to stay in uniform I supposed.
"This is the first I've heard of an effort to control the Guard." He admitted once we'd gotten him caught up on the rumors. "But then only a few of the older Templars often associate with me outside of our regular duties."
I leaned back in my seat, "And how are your duties going?"
"Better than expected, my lady." Thrask smiled a little. "Your idea of taking the Tevinter's staff and notes on the desired qualities in his slaves was a good one. Knight-Captain Cullen got the point where he was describing which elves would only be good for use as a blood sacrifice before bringing me to the Knight-Commander herself."
"How'd she take it?"
"She looked me in the eyes and said that I may have been a soft hearted fool, but that at least I still knew my duty. I am to be given the Mark of Honor for killing a dangerous Maleficar, and she is considering my request to be assigned as a full-time liaison to the city's Elven population."
Merrill beamed at him. "That's good news, isn't? It sounds like good news."
Thrask nodded, "Assuming she approves, which I believe she will. She desperately wants more eyes and ears in the city, looking for rogue mages. So long as we identify those with ill intentions every now and then, I think I will be able to cover for you both long-term. And aid in protecting the alienage as well, of course."
That would extremely helpful. Not that he could be around full time or anything, but even an occasional appearance would help scare people off.
An abrupt chuckle from Varrric made me glance over to see him shaking his head. "Just the irony of it, Buzz. Here we are, hoping to make old Meredith think the entire Alienage is her personal collection of spies, at the same time I'm wondering how we can sabotage her choice in the Guard."
I couldn't help but laugh as well. "Yeah. Life's fucking strange sometimes. Thrask, you think she'll make you bring more Templars with you?"
"Possibly." He admitted. "But if you allow me to claim our actions tomorrow, I may be able to leverage that into picking my own subordinates."
Meaning Templars who were sympathetic to the plight of the Mages. Or, at least, sympathetic to the fact that no one deserved to be locked up under Meredith's control.
"Do what you can." I said. "It's a minor miracle no one in the alienage has told on Merrill or I as it is."
Merrill winced. "Do you think someone would?"
"Those back-wall shacks have people living in them for a reason, Merrill. Most Elves won't turn on another, even if we're scary mages, but there only has to be one who is desperate for money or religious enough to hate us."
"Oh." Her eyes fell, then promptly lifted. "Oh! But if Ser Thrask is there, then anyone trying to turn us in would just go to him! And he'd stop anyone from hearing about us."
I pointed at her. "Exactly. And even if they try one of his subordinates, if he gets to pick them, then we'll still be covered."
She brightened up considerably after that. Which made it just typical that Fenris choose then to arrive. That meant an end to both our banter and our long-term planning, and a focus on the serious business just ahead of us.
He hadn't changed much in the last twenty-four hours. Same outfit, same scowl. He'd added a second sword, a two-handed thing that looked more a club than a proper blade, and had it strapped to his back.
"Broody!" Varric held his mug up, "Here I thought you weren't coming."
Fenris flicked his eyes around the table once, stopping just a few feet from the still open door. "I have conditions."
Varric tipped his head to me. "Talk to Buzz then. She's running this caper, I'm just the finances."
I glared at him, turning in time to see Fenris glaring at me in turn. I spoke before he could, "It's an even split of any loot we take, and we're not negotiating that point. Also we need Thrask to take credit for killing a pair of Maleficar, so whatever he needs to sell that story are his."
"I am not interested in either." He crossed his arms, looking down his nose at me. "I need to interrogate them about the location of the Magister hunting me, and about the traps in the second estate."
Easy enough. Mostly. "We can do our best to keep them alive long enough for questioning, but I can't make any promises about taking them alive. I don't want anyone to get killed trying to take one of them alive."
He grunted. "I can handle that, so long as I can reach one of them first. All I'll need is a distraction."
Meaning he wanted to sneak up behind one of them, and grab their heart through their chest. After that they'd tell him anything he wanted to know in the hopes of not having it ripped out. Which, of course, he would do anyway.
I may have lost sleep over the girl I'd ordered killed last night, but I doubted I'd lose much over a pair of pampered Tevinter mages. Considering that they'd both been working with a known slaver, I doubted either of them was redeemable like Dorian.
"...fine." I said after a moment. "We'll see if we can make that work. Anything else?"
"Yes. I don't trust mages, especially ones who have corrupted their very own pet Templar."
Thrask started to narrow his eyes, only for Merrill to chirp out, "Oh! He's not our pet. Templars would make awful pets. They're armor makes them very loud, and not at all fluffy enough to be cute."
Fenris started to reply, stopped to stare at her for a moment, then rallied and went on as if she hadn't said anything. "I will be bringing a second set of eyes along to watch my back."
It was my turn to narrow my eyes, frowning. Who the hell did Fenris trust to watch his back? Among mages? I couldn't think of anyone of the top of my head.
"...I'm not thrilled at bringing another person on board. Not one we've never met before." I said.
"The Guardswoman has met her, or so I am told."
The rest of us glanced at her, only to get a helpless shrug.
"I meet a lot of women every day." Brennan said. "How am I supposed to know which one he's talking about?"
A thickly accented voice promptly carried through the door, and made me freeze in place. "You gave me directions to this lovely dive three days ago."
Well.
Fuck.
Captain Isabella didn't walk through the open door, she strutted through it, clearly reveling in being the absolute center of attention.
Unlike Fenris she didn't seem to be wearing her clothes from the games. Instead she wore finely crafted leather armor that hugged every curve, and there were a lot of curves to hug. A blue bandanna covered her curling hair, while a matching half-skirt failed to hide the throwing knives strapped to her right thigh and shin.
As far as the rest of her went... well. She was fucking gorgeous. Enough said.
Merrill's abrupt giggles made me snap out of it. "Varric! That's exactly how she looked at me the first time."
I felt my face start to boil as I belatedly realized everyone else had turned to stare me while I stared at Isabella.
"Perfect!" Varric had produced a quill from somewhere, and was rapidly scribbling something on parchment. "Brennan? Would you call that struck dumb by her beauty, or something more lecherous?"
"The latter, she was definitely peeling that leather off with her eyes." Brennan grinned. "Good to know that Maeve's definitely a lady's lady though. I believe that's twenty silver to me, Ser Thrask."
"Fuck you all!" I growled, still feeling like a tomato. "And I like both just fine!"
"Tell that to the drool on your chin."
Isabella, to my consternation, cackled, clearly delighted as she came up around Fenris. Despite apparently being here on his invitation, she didn't hesitate to steal the last chair for herself. She didn't sit so much as she simply fell into it, grinning. "Don't be embarrassed, sweet thing. No shame in looking."
I muttered one of the few curses in German I remembered from high school, then glared at Fenris. "Shut the door already. We're planning a heist here."
Fenris hadn't so much as cracked a smile even as everyone else had laughed. He brooded on my request for a long moment, then walked back to shove the door closed without ever turning his back on the table.
I did my best to calm down, but Thrask handing over several several coins to Brennan didn't help. Him then giving five to Merrill didn't help either.
"What?" She asked, pocketing them. "I thought it was perfectly obvious."
"...the sooner we get this done, the sooner I can drink myself into oblivion." I muttered before raising my voice. "Right. Fenris? Who is she, and why should we trust her to come with?"
"Her name is Isabella-"
"Captain Isabella!" Said Captain immediately interjected.
"-Captain Isabella," Fenris corrected himself. "She's a pirate who I've worked with in the past. I needed someone to watch my back around all of you, she needed someone to do the same for another affair. We struck a deal."
I couldn't remember what Isabella's recruitment mission had been, but it was easy to guess that Fenris was apparently handling that this time around. Was that good? Bad? Ugh. I had no idea, and I was too frazzled to guess. And I had no idea how they would have met before now.
"As for trust." He shrugged. "I don't trust any of you, so I fail to see why that matters. We have a mutual objective. That will have to be good enough."
It wasn't. It really wasn't, but... dammit. What choice did we have? I had no idea if Fenris was vindictive enough to report us to Cullen or Meredith if we turned him away. Maybe he was, maybe he wasn't, but I didn't like taking that kind of chance.
"...her share of the loot comes out of your cut." I said finally.
"She can have it all."
Isabella grinned. "You know that's a dangerous thing to say to me."
His grunt said that he did. "When and where do we begin tomorrow?"
"Same time, right here. We make our last preparations, then head into the Darktown. Expect close quarters fighting."
"I remember what the Guard said last night." He paused, then asked. "Did you eliminate her?"
"...yes."
"You do not sound certain. Did you remove the loose end, or not?"
"She did." Merrill spoke for me. "After a full bottle of wine. Then she had another one when she came back from watching it happen. I sang to her while she cried until she fell asleep."
Fenris frowned. "You are joking again."
"Oh no! I'm not very good at jokes. Maeve's really quite sweet once you get used to the swearing. She's like a big, fluffy-"
"Not the Mabari comparison again." I groaned, trying to cut her off.
"You are though! You bark and snarl like one all the time, but you're very sweet and protective. And you both have very soft hair... though I suppose yours does smell a lot better."
Brennan snickered into her ale, while Isabella bit her lip and shook with silent laughter.
"Did I tell another joke? It was a good one, wasn't it?" Merrill beamed, clearly proud of herself. "I only ever seem to do that by accident."
"...I'm having second thoughts about this." Fenris muttered, loud enough for everyone to hear him. "Are you certain that one isn't possessed, Templar?"
Thrask shook his head. "She is free of spirits, serrah. They both are."
"...very well. I will be here at the appointed time. Are you staying?"
"It depends on how much fun this room is going to be tonight ." Isabella replied, leaning back in a way that emphasized everything that her armor covered. "I've heard the most interesting stories about Varric Tethras and his little circle of friends."
Varric met her grin with one of his own. "Have you now? There'll be ale and cards for the next two bells, but if you want stories we expect to hear some in return."
"Do they have to be true stories?"
"Where's the fun in those?"
And so Fenris left with a final huff and scowl.
And so Isabella stayed to blatantly cheat at cards.
Now I knew where everyone except for Anders was, and he wouldn't show up until after the Blight was well and truly dealt with. That meant I still had time before Batrand's expedition got started. Before I had to gamble my life in the Deep Roads.
Time to figure out just where the hell Hawke was...
...and just how off track things already were.
