I recognise that this work was produced on the traditional lands of the Kaurna and Ngadjuri peoples.
Warning: frank, though brief, discussions of suicide and suicidality.
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~:{}:~
She sat back in the warn orange canvas of her camp chair. It was a good design; circular so one could sit with a large variety while retaining back support – something like an inside-out beanbag.
They'd arrived at the canyon of interest at about mid-day, entering Gurindji country early that morning. They set up their camp about two hundred kilometres from the Wave Hill Station and were now taking a moment to survey the local wildlife for consistencies.
There was a dopy koala in the branch above her four-wheel-drive, for example. A Shingleback trying to eat at the succulent she'd thoughtlessly crushed under one of her chair's legs.
She, her older cousin, and their three research assistants had set up their camp in a secluded section of flat sand and planned – once night had fallen more completely – to clamber down into the ravine to check for native aquatic species.
Ultimately, however, they were looking for the jackpot – there'd been legend of a sacred crocodile there going back forty thousand years: eight meters in length and hide rotten enough to reveal the cursed-marked bone beneath.
Victoria shifted her rather red and orange parasol.
For all the heat: there had better be a sacred crocodile here – karking thesis depends on it.
…::…
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~::~
Shadows grew as light receded, and Victoria tried to remain calm. She and Sampson had spent the rest of that afternoon in each other's silent company.
It grew a glum atmosphere, their quiet – a cool and damp thing through the room.
Victoria tried to remain productive, although that was itself a short-lived battle; there weren't many belongings for them to really pack in preparation.
Rather, there weren't many belongings for Victora to pack, as Sampson was spending the time sitting and thinking on their ceiling. She was already wearing all she had sans her cotton coat. Sampson, however, had either found or recovered a small satchel of his belongings as well as his sword at least that's what she assumed the large rectangular leather satchel contained.
Maybe he was panicking instead of thinking. Hopefully not to the degree that he felt the need to never talk to her again.
Calm down. This is a lot for him to process. He'll come around.
He'll be ok.
The sun was still just barely above the cliffs. Their room, even facing the west as it were, was christened in the newly renewed shade.
Alright. Ok. Let's do something to bring him back into his body.
"So, the sun's setting."
Nothing.
"Shall we go for a walk?"
Still nothing.
She quicked – teleporting to her shadow-son's untrained eye – so that she was sitting beside him, upside-down on their roof as he was.
That went away to startle him: he took a deep breath and blinked.
"Sampson?"
"Sure." His grey eyes were so dark they might well be iron. "Walk." He blinked again, body remaining still.
"Things might seem different once the sun rises. It might surprise you still."
Another blink – although he did let her lead him down from the roof. Progress already – Victoria you're a natural!
"Normally I'd use the opportunity this night's walk might provide us with to search for and gather some items we'd want on our pending venture, however, seeing as the Tethras brothers are handling supplies we might just take the time to enjoy the sights before we leave, hm?"
"Will I ever grow used to this?"
"You seem to have become rather accustomed to somethings already, Sam, hanging upside down as you were."
She tucked his hand into the crook of her elbow and led him from the room. Maybe we should walk Low-town before moving into high-town as dawn returns? As good away as any to while the night away.
"How – How could I do that?"
"I'm unsure as to the exact mechanism myself. It should be impossible – we don't have the physical characteristics required to move in such a way – unlike the many insects, amphibians, and reptiles of the world." Victora smiled, descending the stairs with grace, a grace Sampson also now displayed. "I suppose it's in the own vampire's nature to defy restraints of a physical nature."
"Dead but alive." He began as they stepped from the hotel, circling to follow the street's path. "Living in shadow while stood in light." He looked at her. "Hidden, yet plain to see." Curious.
"And how does my son-in-twilight intend for that to be heard?"
He didn't seem to know what to do with his hands. "You were inside that barrel, weren't you? Literally and clearly inside it, and I didn't even question it when you said otherwise."
"I did have to influence your mind to ensure you thought otherwise, Sam. Yours is a sharp one, for all that others might not see it." She smiled, lightly patting his hand with her own. "If it helps, I have no-idea how I got into that barrel. One moment I was in my home getting ready to rest, the next I was surrounded by darkness and eggs. You saved me." She battered her eyelids at the pace of a hummingbird: it made for a rather disturbing sight, Victoria suspected.
"My hero."
Sampson seemed to lose himself in thought again. "One moment, home, the next: in a barrel. You don't know how this happened?"
"I do not. In fact, I had thought magic an extinct phenomenon before I arrived in Kirkwall. Something that may have occurred tens of thousands of years past though no longer – aside from us remnants."
He looked at her, his gaze questioning.
She smiled softly, "Treat me with patience now for to you this must seem ridiculous. We vampires – those with curiosities and strangeness woven though our bloods and beings – are the legacies of others. We were made such that we could continue to make ourselves – to procreate if you will – but what our intended purpose was? None can say."
Her shoulder moved in a gentle a shrug as she tried to explain. "Our flesh is eternal until fire. Our beings powerful until the sun's curse. We are vastly superior beings to non-mortals form a Darwinist perspective, yet we appear to have very deliberate, mundane, weaknesses – some cannot resist counting series of small objects, others are frozen in horror at the sight of a "pure" soul's tears. Someone made us and they made us for a very specific reason."
"Why would anyone deliberately make something as wicked as a vampire?" The iron grey in his eyes burning. Like his great uncles would do.
This one needs to learn subtlety…
"War, perhaps… To keep a people's records and share a culture's histories? For no other reason than they wanted to see if they could? Whatever the reason, we are and must be. Suicide is not an answer – it is a surrender."
The iron grey darkened still. "I wasn't thinking about such things."
"If you say so, then it must be true; yet never let it be said that there is shame in the consideration and honest discussion of one's deliberate self-inflicted demise."
He scoffed. "Whatever. You came out of a barrel, what do you know." Victoria scoffed, letting her own human-like canines' flash in a smile.
"An infallible statement, surely, Sampson."
"How am I to know that you didn't come from the fade?"
"And what is the fade?"
He groaned. "Later."
Is it a troubling topic?
"If it eases you mind, I do not personally think I am from this world." She confessed.
He gave her a look. As much as Victoria didn't wish to read into it, it did seem to say "no shit."
Still… "It's true: in my world the entire planet has been mapped. There are no Free Marches, or Tevinter or Qunari or any of the other places you've talked of. Our technology is much more advanced than I've seen here – especially our medicine and ability to wage war."
Victoria gave another gentle shrug. "We have machines that fly across entire continents carrying passengers like a barge crosses the sea. Our ships are made of steel. Our home's made from concrete and farmed wood. We have satellites in the upper atmosphere powered by sunlight that take pictures – instant painted images – of our planet."
She locked eyes with him: "we left no stone unturned and no path un-walked: there is no place like this on my planet."
His eyes were wide, maybe bewildered, seeming to find the truth in her words. Then those grey eyes sharpened. "What does this mean? No – what does it change? Nothing." He spat.
"It means only that this world is different from my own, and that something or someone brought me here – accident or intention. It doesn't change anything between you and I, true enough, yet I felt I needed to tell you still."
Victoria sighed. "And so, I have."
He stopped walking – "You want to return home, don't you? You're desperate for connection, it is why you turned me is it not!? You want information about this world so you can find out how return to your own!"
"For many reasons, yes. But what made you think I gave you the gift for that reason?"
He seemed determined. "It is correct, is it not?"
Victoria closed her eyes to think, letting herself be pulled along as he began again their walk, now at a striding pace. "I suppose so – although I think it's more complex than that: no ascension is ever simple. How did you know?"
"I just did." Is this a talent manifesting?
"Perhaps intuition is to be one of your talents? It would benefit you well if it was." She opened her eyes to take in their changing surroundings, the improvement of the structures and building materials. Stone fresh and without scares, wood varnished and hale.
The homes here seemed to wither be of Goergen style, two stories with a slanting roof and "beige" washed walls between the timber frame, or a more Mediterranean design with flat roofs overflowing with greenery – although the beige wash over the stone walls remained the same.
Sam's smile was poisonous: "All well and good then, hm?" Was he always this cheeky?
Victoria returned his venom: "You can read, can you not, Sampson?"
He scowled, brow folding down and shadowing his eyes as his lips pulled down at their edge. "Obviously. Books are fundamental to the robust spiritual life. Every squire – every page! – is expected to have read the chant of light." He snarked. "In my first circle where I was inducted, many of the mages worshipped in Scriptoria, even." Oh?
"In scriptoria? Now hold a moment, did they manually write or use their magic to make copies?"
He huffed and rolled his eyes. Clearly, this too, was an obvious thing.
"Sampson!"
"With their magic, obviously. It would take all day to organise the components for their ritual, but they could make ten copies of a work in that time. Histories, philosophies, commentaries of the Reverent Mothers – sometimes poetries form old Tevinter and even Antiva." Reverent Mothers? "It was a good practise."
It certainly sounds so… although…
"Sampson, in my own world there was an invention that made the mass re-production of literary works time inexpensive and thus massively more available to the every-man. It began a revolution of literature and free learning – is there such an invention here?"
He hummed; curiosity peaked even in his current mood. "Press d'imprimerie? A free-standing machine with ink that copies pages of texts? It arrived in the Free Marches maybe fifty years back, captured from a Qunari ship sailing from Par Vollen: we have several publishers here in Kirkwall that specialise in copping texts for Kirkwall's State Bibliothèque."
That snatched her attention. "Kirkwall has a state library?" No wonder Varric expected me to know him – books are an available commerce.
He looked at her oddly.
She grinned. "Let's go steal some books!"
"I don't think I like talking to you anymore." Victoria felt pain in her chest, though she didn't allow her face to show it. "Why, in the Makers good light, would we steel books?"
Having realised they had entered a secluded and narrow alley, Victoria changed their route, pulling him with her directly up the rightmost sandstone wall. "Because we can't afford them."
"But why do we need books? I know you want to know more about the world – and despite literally killing me I am still willing to teach you about it – but you can't just take things that aren't yours!?" they summited, revealing the buildings flat roof and the small, clearly well-tended, garden. It felt very Greek.
"I can if they don't catch me – and this would be a good opportunity to see what types of talents you developed on your Ascension."
Sampson was too occupied rubbing his hands against his face to talk, so Victora continued. "We cannot sleep, and we are about to leave on an expedition underground and in close company for at least a week but potentially a month. We cannot sleep… Are you following?
His grey eyes rolled in their sockets, flashing white for an entire second, excluding a dark mass of nerve.
"It's going to be boring if there's nothing productive to do, I do follow. Can we not just borrow the books?" OH. Right.
"I had not considered that – will they let us take them out from the library? Oh, and dear? You will need to take more care in some of the more thoughtless actions you took as a human – your eyes rolled so far back I could see the ocular nerve."
"The– Wha–" He sighed again, frustrations growing. "What is a library?"
"It's another word for the Bibliothèque."
"Right. Sure." He took a moment to think, to find a solution that didn't involve thieving. "They won't let us take them out, no –"
Victoria smiled. "Then we should just take them – I'm confident you and I can do something far more productive with those books and the information therein over whatever other function they were intended to serve for the week."
"I – dam it. Fine. But we need to return them alongside an apology!"
Her smile widened. "Let's do one better: lets become patrons to this most delightful and sacred institution. Hell – let's make Kirkwall the centre of all the worlds book trade! Now, point me – where is the Bibliothèque from here?"
He seemed unimpressed. "The Free Marches already are the centre of the book trade, Victora." Oh… "And they're all in high town, aside from the one in the alienage."
"Fine. Kill my fun – bludgeon its skull in with blunt fact." For all her tone had become hard, her smile did remain. "Also, you should take more care – you tried to trance me again for a moment there."
That seemed to surprise him. Although that could also be because she jumped from the roof top back to the ground. He followed.
"We'll practice your trance when we borrow the books, ok? In the meantime – we should make a list of topics we need to read up on: do you recommend any authors?"
He did – about seven – as they made their way towards the Stair. Almost all were women which Victoria found to be rather curious – his response to her inevitable question regarding that little anomaly was interesting.
"The Maker might be male, but it was his wife who gathered and united the tribes and warbands in his worship. It was Andraste who led them against the Tevinter Heretics, and it was Andraste who burned alive for her acts of divinity and worship."
"Her acts of divinity? She is a divine figure in your canon?"
"Of course." Andraste: the mummy version of Jesus…
"Very fascinating – in our family's wider mythos our Maker sent this son to unite us instead of his wife, however, much like your Andraste, he was murdered by heretics. Crucified. It's argued by various sects within our wider religion that he was as much "God's son" was he was himself "God.""
Sampson nodded along. "There are various Reverent Mothers and clerics who believe something akin to that here in the free marches. They argue that the Maker separated himself from his feminine spirit and that this spirit was then manifested beyond the fade as Andraste – marriage within this perspective is only metaphor for the inseparable link between man and woman."
"Hm. This fade is like the afterlife, is it not?"
He laughed. His spirit returning at last. Victora grinned brightly at the sound.
"Absolutely not: let's make the fade one of the topics we gather books of, alright?"
"Drats. I felt I was onto something there. If I might use you as a sounding bord? This world, so far, seems to me a bizarro version of my own. There are many similarities, many, and the differences are like inversions or opposites."
They began to ascend the Stair; the hewn stone having become almost familiar to Victoria.
"Indeed?"
"Again, it seems to be. That might need to be our second topic of books: world history."
"That seems wise."
"Magic ought to be the third topic."
"Are you sure? You'll have access to me and that mage you were hunting for will you not. Two primary sources."
Victora hummed. "Point."
"Shall I keep score?" He snarked.
The answering grin was sharp. "Only if you think you can win."
He laughed.
…::…
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~::~
As the sun filtered into their room in the Hanged Man it fell upon a frustrated Victora and a placating Sampson sitting side by side on the bed.
"You'll get it."
"This is so ruddy embarrassing."
"You've done it before you'll do it again."
"I'm a published scientist; this is a literal nightmare made material!"
"Deep breath, let's try again."
She put the book to her side and lay back, letting the light wash over her face. It tinted the backs of her shut eyelids red.
"Sampson."
"Victora."
"Read it to me like I'm a kid."
He sighed. "I'd rather do something interesting. How about I meet the people you've signed my labour away too? You can relearn tonight."
…
"Victora?"
She fought a pout – she was an adult damit.
"Sure. Let us people watch."
Victoria stood and followed the boy, making sure to keep a close eye on his body language: it wouldn't do if were to snap and try to eat everyone – although that type of response this early into his un-life would be exceptionally rare. His hunger won't be an issue for a week at least, unless he had the reaper gene like her uncle's brother and his sons.
Hopefully, if he does carry it, it won't prove active. While it would be difficult to have a ghoul under her responsibility – their inhumanity was simply too visible – it wouldn't change her desire to support and nurture Sampson in his un-life.
They sat themselves in their company's booth, in the corner of the common room. The early rising and late sleeping tenants of the hotel eyeing each other strangely in the early hour.
Sampson was tense here, though his face was more open now than it had been the hours before their walk.
After what Victora judged to be thirty minutes they were joined by Varric. Victora checked her watch – the American seemed to wake early even when sleeping late. Maybe dwarfs don't require as much sleep as humans typically do? Or perhaps this dwarf doesn't require as much sleep as humans typically do… He could be an insomniac… if Dwarfs can have insomnia…
"Varric, how did you sleep?"
He looked up suddenly, flashing a charming grin for all that it didn't reach his eyes. "Well enough for my nerves. Yourself?"
Victoria sighed dramatically. "Oh, not a wink I'm afraid."
Sampson choaked.
They both gave him an odd look, even if their reason to inspect him so differed.
"And yet your skin glows, lady Chen." The short man's eyes drifted to the stairs, searching.
"And how was the contract sorted – agreeably I should hope?"
He leaned back, his grin a fixture now it seemed. "The official business partners have been marked as myself, my brother, Hawk, and yourself, Victoria. I'll be paying George a percentage of my share, about 20%. Hawk will pay Anders a daily wage with hazard pay considered, while you will pay Sampson's wage – whatever you two determent that to be. You yourself will remain the company's physician for the next two years, while volunteering time weekly at Anders clinic. Does that sound agreeable?"
"I should think so." Victoria smiled.
"Good – It took us three hours to finalise."
"And what is to be my wage, Victoria?"
"You have me at a disadvantage – I'm unfamiliar with common rates here. What would you consider fair?"
"I'll take this as my que to gather a breakfast, I think, Sir and Lady."
Sampson grunted, causing Victoria to scowl and reprimand him.
He cleared his throat after that, and Victoria interrupted him before he could continue. "How would you rate your desire to launch across the table and chew that man's throat out?"
Sampson went deathly still, eyes losing their humanity for a moment while hie considered her question. "It was noticeable. Constant, as well."
"You concealed it well. If it begins to get too intense fain a stomach-ache and return to our rooms or to an otherwise secluded and dark space. One is always hungrier in the light, do not forget that." She smiled suddenly "Now, pay – how much a day and what type of hazard bonus?"
He hummed: a much more respectable nonverbal que than a grunt, honestly. "Five florin a day. An additional three florin during those days with noticeable hazards – darkspawn, constructs, etc."
"And a florin; this is the primary currency in Kirkwall?"
He wasn't even surprised by the question, simply nodding along before his explanation. "Florin are gold alloy coins printed within the free marches. They have tender in Ferelden and Antiva. They can be broken into a half piece or a quarter piece, understand?"
Victora hummed; the sound almost musical. "I do. This too is alike something in my own culture's history."
Varric sat himself backdown, clearing his throat as he did, this time with a plate of crisp bacon, pepper sausage, and black pudding; two runny eggs pushed to the side such that they had messied the rest of the foods. In his other hand was a tankard of something which smelled like honey.
Victora checked Sampsons expression, trying to monitor the micro-changes as he took in what must be a new depth of these scents – the salt in the fat, and hints of rosemary in the intestinal casings of the sausage meat, and the beautiful sweet-savoury mouthwatering whisper of blood in that black pudding.
His eyes dilated slightly just as their company was joined by two others – Geroge and the elder Tethras, each with their own plate and drinks.
George naturally sat a far as was polite from herself and Sampson, leaving Bertrand no choice but to squish close to Sampson. Victora tried to move further into the booth to make space, someone pulling up one of the heavy wooden chairs to the edge of their table as she did so – Hawke if she were to judge by their pace of breath and the pressure of the blood in their veins.
"And how were your nights, Sirs? And I don't think we've been introduced properly, I'm Sampson." her spawn-in-twilight reached over to shake the elder dwarf's hand, exchanging pleasantries before reaching to their Hawk.
"So, you're the Templar? Smaller than I expected." Really? He's over six-foot Hawke?
Sampson stilled, not even breathing. Oh Sam. She nudged his leg to get him to at least try to be human.
"I'm still growing – and my diet has been unkindly varied since I was removed from the order."
"You were removed?" Anders moved into the booth, sitting beside George, next to Hawke in her chair. "For what reason?"
Victoria let her being bind about underneath the shadows of the table, the entire common room darkening so slightly as something in her chest relaxed about her heart, then pulled tight.
Victoria's voice whispered into Sampson mind: 'Honesty now, child, the best masquerades are established within truth and false clarity. Let them trust and treasure us.' She could feel the worms in her spleen squirming at the sudden sensations.
Sampson gave no outward indication of having noticed anything strange. "I was passing along letters and love notes to mages in confinement."
Hawke opened her mouth to say something, stopping on the first syllable, before closing her mouth dumbly.
"Oh." Likewise, was Anders intelligent reply.
Yet it seemed Goerge was bord enough, having managed to have finished his plate in the two minuets Sampson had taken to make introductions. "So, our party moves out today?"
He was making strong headway into his drink even now.
Betrand nodded, leaning forward, and talking quietly. "We're going east. Once we've made it away out of Kirkwall we'll discuss the exact direction."
"Well… Before we go I ought to earn my keep. I'd like to do a private check-up of each of our number." There were groans from George and Hawke. "I'll conduct an interview and then an examination to ensure we're all in good health and that, should there be anything I need to be aware of, I am aware of it."
Varric sighed. It was a drawn-out exhale for all that it was make sharp coming from his noise.
"You can finish eating first, Varric."
Then he scoffed. Still, there was a smile in his eyes as he folded the heavy cuffs of his starched overcoat back and began neatly cutting into his meats.
To her own surprise, the company were largely in good health – even their teeth, aside from staining.
Hawke had a painful seeming fissure in the calluses of her right ankle – but Victoria was able to shave most of the dead skin back to help it begin to heal using the girl's "murder knife".
Bertrand turned out to have a joined tow.
The only thing that really worried her was the abscesses and saws Geroge had, and her interview with Anders. The abscesses could be symptoms of variety of things, however, given their clustering about the genitals and armpits and his more promiscuous behaviour with the cities sex workers – Victora suspected syphilis.
He seemed unsurprised and unconcerned, for all that this was a death sentence. Curious fellow – does magic have a solution here? Or has a treatment already been invented?
Anders, however, had presented something more insidious. "Have you ever had thoughts of suicide?"
"Suicide?"
"Thoughts of killing yourself." She clarified.
He took a moment to respond. "Sounds almost Tevene." The temperature about the room seemed to drop. I don't think I did that… Is this a mage thing – subconscious use of magic?
Something relaxed, and something pulled. He flinched, searching the room with his eyes. Odd. Did he feel that?
"It might be. I can understand if it is a difficult question, this can be a grim topic to discuss plainly."
"Right…"
"Have you had such thoughts?"
The temperature continued to drop. "I have."
"Recently?"
"Several times in the past week."
Victoria smiled. "Thank you for your honesty. Have you ever considered how you would kill yourself?"
"Yes."
"Yes?"
He expanded on how he'd thought to do it, Victora doing her best to remain receptive. While his was a plan with high lethality he also confided that he had no intension to enact it.
That, in combination with his clear efforts to make plans for the future and his involvement in what he described as spiritually fulfilling work, seemed to add up. Although his lack of hope was concerning – he felt there was no reason to stay beyond his clinic.
The man needed friends.
Hope would be something that could be worked on during this expedition, however. She would encourage him to make connections with the other members. Afterall, Victora couldn't fulfil her end of the contract and be this man's doctor for the next two years if he killed himself in a month.
It simply wouldn't do.
Once she'd finished with the last of them, she came down from her and Sampsons room to find Varric's man, the supposed elf, waiting to escort her outside to the Stair where the rest were now preparing their last.
She moved to stand by Sampson, who had changed into a quilted tunic, underneath a simple breastplate, heled in place with leather straps. There were other parts of him protected with simpler boiled leathers and ring mail. "Ready?"
He nodded. "Near to."
"Excited?"
"Ah, yes?"
Victora beamed. "Goodie. Our belongings?"
"Sent up ahead by winch – Bertrand is keeping watch over it all."
"Ah, a winch. Smart."
Hawke jumped in, "You thought we'd have to carry them didn't you?"
"I was a tad concerned."
Varric took notice of her: "Alright, let's get moving."
They began their clime, summiting just after an hour.
Although, despite being at the correct altitude for it, they never seemed to enter High-town. No, that place, as she'd learned the night before during the book raid, was a series of fully gated communities. Separated suburbs for different cultural groups. There were blocks of large homes and manners for those from Orlais, Tevinter, and the other Free States.
This seemed to the reason there were several libraries, aside from Kirkwall's State Bibliothèque: every community wanted to keep their own languages books.
The Keep that overlooked the Slit into Kirkwall's Bay appeared less imposing when one was stood at its level. In fact, it was startlingly artful, mural's panted along the towers and short-walls of sea birds and raptors. Even the shallow moat about the curtain-wall's gate was filled with yellow flowering thorn bushes.
Despite the common uses of red and brown dyes throughout Low-town, the keep was awash in blues and bright purples – various tones of greens bleeding through the painted animals.
Victora could still see, however, the Tevene dragon present in the stonework and ironwork. Weather it was a homage to the cities roots or an image they'd tried to cover up, however, she wasn't sure.
Here at the top of the cliffs it became clear that truly allof Kirkwall was sheltered within the it's tall cauldron of stone. Atop these cliffs – aside from the Keep – there was perhaps seven warehouses the length of a street block, four industrial size winch platforms and a squat, thick, wall surrounding it all, joined to the Keep's right side.
They rejoined Bertrand, the dwarf having hired a carriage for their belongings and two horses to hall it while they climbed.
It was through that squat wall which they left, gold moving from Varric's hand to their watchmen's. Their company weren't stopped or searched as they made exited, although Anders assured Victoria that their re-entry would be heavily scrutinised. Only a single way outside aside from the canal. One would imagen evacuation to be disastrous affaires. How do they manage natural disasters?
Stepping beyond Kirkwall was like walking into a great meadow. Everything before them was flat for what must to be a hundred kilometres until lazy rolling hills broke the horizon at the foot of a hazy mountain range reaching across the entirety of their lefthand side.
As the sun rose in the east here too, that put those mountains to the north of the city, Victora mused, watching as the lights rays wavered through the mountain's air in marriage.
The lands were made of fields of green and yellow, it seemed.
Only a hundred meters from the wall and they were surrounded by wheat, barley, oat grasses, green and brown vines of seasonal gourds, and field flowers like marigolds, chives, sunflowers, and thyme.
There were wild onions along the shoulders of the trodden-in path they followed, and what seemed to be wild beats as well.
The scents were overwhelmingly alive.
It was gorgeous. One of the most breathtaking things Victora had seen, for all that it came with an uncomfortable longing for home, the feeling settling oddly in her stomach.
And the green was constant. Two hours into their journey, when half the company changed again and the air became cold and colder still the further they moved along the coast, they were still surrounded by farmland.
The chill was strange, carrying salt-sea sulphur through its breeze. Perhaps Kirkwall was just a pocket of hot air, baked in the sun as it couldn't help, and the wider coast of the Marches was in fact a rather cold environment?
Anders had swapped his footwear for heavy boots made of what could be mole skin, although Victora wasn't very sure. The false warden also pulled a heavy black coat from their waggon, just as Hawke pulled a long and roughly rectangular grey fur out – binding it against two points beside the points were her tall, square, bevor joined her plate cuirass.
The metal of her armour appeared second hand, uneven, and hard ; pockmarked with age. The metal a dark grey and thick beyond what Victora would have expected.
An heirloom or hand-me-down? Victoria side stepped a pile of horse dung as she considered it. Maybe everything out here is a little too alive…
After a second assessment of Hawke Victora realised that only her right arm was so armoured – the rest of her equipment being boiled and nailed leathers. Was it in a mages best interest to be mobile, or was this just a peculiarity of Hawkes way of fighting? Anders didn't seem to have any plate armour…
What's more her left arm is uncovered… is she keeping herself warm with magic? If so why is Anders not – the man's wearing twice as many clothes… her gaze shifted between the two. Do they have preferences or aptitudes towards raising or lowering temperature? Anders did make it colder in the interview…
Geroge at least was dressed sensibly in leggings, a long sleaved blue linin top and a cream tunic over that – his beard and long hair perhaps working to ward against the chill. Bertrand was dressed likewise, although his own clothes were of a much finer make and padded or maybe quilted – nothing rough spun or frayed.
For all it did make his movements seem stiff, the colours and style suited him well. His beard was still magnificent, woven again in precious metals.
Victoria was feeling about as ready as she could for what might lay ahead, however, the less said about the illusions she'd had to strengthen before the morning and after dusk to cover the blood stains in her blouse and skirt the better – she'd yet to investigate a way to clean them properly.
"You didn't have anything else? Something more durable or better suited for cave travel?"
"I'm afraid, Anders, I'm rather disadvantaged in the way of apparel currently."
She looked away, eyes drawn back to the newest field their line was moving through and the curious reddish plants therein. Those mountains still on their left, to the north, and the cliffs and sea still to their right, the south.
Something large dropped over her shoulders. A blanket? Strange.
"Thank you, Sir. Although I suppose I shall simply have to be very careful with what I have, to ensure they last the trip."
"I guess the rest of us will just have to make sure not to walk downwind from you." Hawke spoke, causing Victora to laugh.
The company's spirits were high.
Three hours further into their trek and it began to look cold, for all the dead couldn't really feel such things. The sky overcast and the cloud-shadows almost blue.
This was when Bertrand decided to fully reveal their destination, leading them to change their rout and follow a rather overgrown goat track leading sharply towards the coast, putting the green behind them, before winding between various rocky outcroppings.
The closer they moved to the cliffs overlooking the sea the more their terrain reflected the shifting tectonic plate beneath: rock jutting in small, jiggered, slices like giants knifes. Old skins and scabs against the land.
It was good terrain for an ambush, although fortunately none were forthcoming. It wasn't until the sun was in line with the horizon and night had fallen that they began to set their camp by a small crevasse only thirty meters or so from the cliffs.
This, according to their dashing guide, was the passage leading to a door to the Deep-Roads. Victora smiled, her imagination getting the best of her as she pictured towering pillars and sturdy bricked paths – a highway underground. She couldn't stop herself from recalling the red surface dirt and underground homes of Cooper Pedy.
The stars remaining bright enough for the others to see rather clearly, Geroge and Sampson preparing a cooking fire between three hulking stones, twelve foot tall, then banking the embers.
"This is all rather exciting, isn't it?" she whispered to Hawke. "I've never seen an underground road outside of a mine."
"Kirkwall doesn't count?" Varric, having overheard, wondered.
"Oh! I suppose it must: open top mining and such."
"And Dark-town as well." Anders joined. "Sometimes it feels like a third of that city is beneath the rock."
I should hope not – that can't be safe…
They lay bed roles, Victora offering to take second watch – Sampson catching on enough to ask for the last. Although as Bertrand saw them unpacking he spoke up "It should be possible to open the doors wide enough for the cart – leave what you can. We'll need the rickety thing to transport what we find."
They settled, small conversations beginning as they ate.
Victora watched avidly, listening in as she pretended to read.
"And so those mountains we put behind us today, they were the –
"–The Vimmark mountains."
"Huh. and what's beyond them? Stark Haven?"
Geroge hummed, politely interested in his and Hawkes conversation: "Just about. There are three other States, however, between us and that kingdom. They're minor, though, and rather small. Free-Strathum, Farbeit, and Vanetia. they function more as a single entity in the grand scheme of things. Lively local traditions, though."
The Hawk made an acknowledging sound, continuing: "don't suppose they have farer laws when it comes to debts?"
The mercenary laughed. "Please,; in the free marches? Losing a finger or ear over coin owed is fair."
How uncivilised. Victora tuned them out, moving on to the brothers.
"And your current book?"
"Oh, I'm not sure. Caddy is playing their cards close to their chest; they really don't think this is going to attract many readers."
"But it's a romance – people love romance."
"Hm, eat it right up?"
"Well, yes?"
"Not what our publishing records show. People want adventure and scandal; the romance is secondary – always."
"I suppose… but surly if it is from you–"
"–Not like you to flatter me!"
There was a sudden lack of sound from Sampson such that Victoria was startled into checking on him.
Anders and Sampson were whispering something together; curiosity burned within, yet nothing seemed untoward, and she couldn't sense any panic from the vampire nor see anything wrong with the human…
That the mage was able to silence the noise around them such that their conversation didn't travel was interesting – and something worthwhile to try to learn if she could.
Victoria withheld a sigh.
Magic seemed to be all about those two mages, something seeped within their bones, pouring from their lungs as they breathed: surly there was something she could learn? Something useful she could gleam?
She'd spent decades searching and searching for the history and evidence that her kin had mastered the dark arts.
There was tails and accounts all throughout her world, the human one and the undead one, of sorcery, yet the humans had proven them false, with a few exceptions which were kept under lock and key from the living.
The Old Kingdom's fertile transference of the Nile, the woven necromantic ward of the Great Wall, the ruined floating cities of Babylon. There were smaller pieces here and there besides, things that were much less difficult to keep doused in the fog of myth.
Her own locating and carbon dating of the various abominous un-living crocodilians throughout the outback had moved the agreed upon timeline of Vampiric history from twenty thousand years before the common era to forty thousand.
Those "sacred" crocodiles were the oldest evidence for their own kin's existence – and they still couldn't technically prove that Vampires had even made them, just that it was likely given the instructions found within the "Necrosis Scrolls" recovered from a Buddhist temple in Myanmar.
There was some fundamental thing missing from her kin, in the common era. Some spark that had died out and drained their ability to do anything "magical." Yet here she was… about to be confined under the ground with two mages and a templar, all three of which had studied the subject and seemingly practiced pasts of it, even if Sampson didn't want to call the abilities of his order magic.
There was insight to be gained now, and if nothing else, what could go wrong with trying to learn?
Afterall, Victora gave a relaxed, soft, smile as her fingers gently trailed the texture of the inked pages , what was already dead could never really die, could it?
…
Authors note: It's just occurred to me that the way I do vampires is a lot like the unholy dead in "what we do in the shadows" and I don't know how to feel about this.
Also (and this is so rough) a florin here is worth about seven American dollars, or about eleven Dollarydoos in my own homelands currency (as of 13/10/2023).
Comments are still writer's fuel.
