"Drop everything, I figured it out," Siara didn't even bother to knock as she entered the dining room. Alistair was seated at the head of the table, about to take his first spoonful of chicken and turnip soup. He paused, then slowly put it back down.
"Figured out who the Venatori are?" he asked, looking from Siara to Anora and then back.
"Yup. Took a bit, they were very clever. But I am more clever," Siara looked quite pleased with herself.
"Are you going to enlighten us?" Anora asked, a bit tersely. She tolerated Siara, but she knew quite well what Alistair's relationship had been like with The Blade's sister. She didn't have anything against Siara, exactly, but it was hard not to notice the way that Alistair treated her. A bit like family. Something that he never really did with her. It wasn't that Alistair treated her badly, it was simply that they treated each other more as friends who have to do their duty to the crown and to Ferelden. Sometimes Anora wished for something a bit more than that.
"Well, first, I would highly recommend not eating that soup," Siara looked pointedly at Alistair, who was once again lifting the spoon to his mouth. The king once again paused, his mouth open slightly. He looked almost disappointed.
"Why?"
"Because the Venatori you're looking for has been working in the kitchens," Siara grinned, then headed through the door at the end of the room that led to the kitchens, only just being polite enough to refrain from kicking it in. Alistair moved to get up from his chair, then paused, darting a pleading look at Anora. The queen sighed.
"Oh, all right. Go on then," it felt almost like she was humouring a child. She knew that Alistair missed the fighting a little. Or at least, he missed not having to look after matters of court, and he hadn't had a good reason to use a sword for a while. The king grinned, getting up from his seat. The elderly mabari next to his seat stood up, wagging his tail excitedly. Alistair motioned for him to stay where he was, though. The poor dog was getting a little too old for fighting now, and the king didn't want to risk its health.
"So who are we looking for?" Alistair asked, stopping next to Siara. The elf was scanning the room with an eager look in her eyes.
"I believe the name was Donis," she said, "From what I could tell, he hasn't been here too long, and he has been noticed acting a bit strange on occasion."
"That's all you have to go on?" Alistair sounded a little disappointed.
"No," Siara shrugged, "but it was hard to get some of these people to talk to me, and I kinda promised to keep some of what was said to myself. You might be a nice enough king, but a lot of the people in places like this have trust issues from being mistreated by so many other people."
"I can respect that."
He was thinking about Mara. Mara'd had some trust issues at first, too. Being a mage and being an elf meant that she'd had a hard time of it, and she hadn't been shy about letting him and those around them know about it. Even the slightest comment that could have been taken as racist or mage-ist and she would tell you off. If you were lucky, she'd even do it nicely.
"So what does Donis look like?" he asked. He didn't exactly spend a lot of time in the kitchens, though he made a point to be polite to those who would serve him his meals. Siara pointed to a young-ish man on the other side of the room, kneading bread.
"He looks like that," she said, starting to make her way over to him. He looked up at that moment, seeming to realise immediately that having both the king and an elven mercenary walking towards you was bad. He knew he'd been discovered. Siara could see the flash of panic in his eyes, saw him dart a look at someone behind her, saw him reach out and grab the wooden chopping board he was kneading the bread on.
"Duck," she told Alistair.
"Where?" he asked, Siara putting her hand on the back of his head and shoving it down as the chopping board came flying towards them. He grinned at her, showing that he had known full well what she had meant, earning a tired glare in response.
"You take him, I'll take his friend?" Siara suggested.
"You never said he had a friend."
"I didn't know about it until the idiot looked at him," Siara admitted, standing up and grabbing a pan from the bench next to her, walking in the direction of Donis' friend with purpose in her stride. Kitchen staff started scrambling to get out of the way as the Venatori spies grabbed what they could to use as weapons. Donis grabbed a rolling pin, the second Venatori being a bit more lucky, happening to have been chopping meat at the time.
Donis began throwing random items in the direction of Alistair and Siara, Alistair dodging most of them. He got hit by a couple of smaller items, such as random bits of fruit, but he successfully dodged the rolling pin. A lot of the items didn't even get close to Siara, even though she didn't seem to be actively dodging them, all her attention seeming to be fixed on the venatori in front of her. He was mumbling something under his breath, pulling a small item from under his jacket. A book. Which he opened. It hovered in front of him, opened to a page that Siara was certain had some sort of annoying spell on it. Of course she got the bloody mage.
She hurried her step, launching herself over the bench between her and the Venatori. Most of her attention was now fixed on him, though she still paid enough attention to what was happening with Alistair so if the king required her assistance she could step in. Though she doubted he would need it against a boy who seemed a little bit inexperienced.
The mage almost hit Siara with a fireball, fire instead smashing into the bench and sending it flying into the bench behind it, setting it on fire. Vegetables went everywhere, but for the moment they were ignored as Siara brandished her frying pan. The Venatori mage blocked the blow with his meat cleaver and attempting to cast another spell. Siara reached out with her free hand and made a grab for his book, instead grabbing the man's wrist. She felt a jolt pass through her, unable to fully explain or understand the feeling, and a panic stricken look passed over the Venatori's face.
The book fell to the floor, the cleaver now being aimed at Siara's head. She ducked out of the way, still holding the man's wrist, and darted behind him. He cried out, his arm being wrenched into an extremely awkward and painful position. The cleaver was immediately raised high, the Venatori spinning around and slashing at Siara. She did her best to dodge out of the way, still holding onto his arm, dropping the frying pan and trying to grab the cleaver. She managed to hold him at bay, but the Venatori was a lot taller and seemed to have a bit more strength in his arm than he looked like he should. She gritted her teeth together, not wanting to let go of the arm that she was holding, but not exactly wanting a cleaver in her skull either. Next thing she heard was a loud, low growl followed by a short, sharp bark, then another scream of pain.
She looked down as the Venatori stumbled, the strength behind the cleaver evaporating as the mabari sunk its teeth into his lower leg. Siara ignored the cry of pain, taking advantage of the distraction and twisting his wrist so the cleaver fell from his hands. She then roughly turned the man and slammed his head into the bench that had been behind them. He slumped over, unconscious, and Siara turned to the mabari.
"Good dog," she said, getting a happy wagging tail in response before she turned to see how Alistair was going. Donis had somehow managed to get Alistair half pinned against the bench he'd been working at, beating him repeatedly with another cooking utensil. Alistair had his arms over his head to protect himself, searching for something he could grab. He looked more annoyed than in any kind of pain or danger.
"Alistair!" Siara called to get the king's attention, calmly throwing the frying pan over to him. He neatly caught it, calmly but firmly swinging it at Donis' head as the boy raised his implement again, catching him on the side of his head and sending him collapsing to the floor. Siara turned and grabbed a bucket of water from nearby, calmly sloshing it over the fire that was starting to look like it was spreading. Thankfully it was easy enough to put out. Siara regarded the broken eggs that covered the workbench, the soot and fire scarred benches, and the king, the flour that still hung in the air and was settling in Alistair's hair. She half smirked.
"Having fun, were we?" she asked. Alistair grinned back, then gave the frying pan an experimental swing.
"Not bad, this thing," he muttered, "Who'd have thought?"
"You find a lot of good things to use as weapons in a kitchen," Siara told him cheerfully, regarding the two unconscious Venatori.
"So people should be calling you The Frying Pan instead of The Blade?"
"Because The Blood, The Bow, and The Frying Pan has such a nice ring to it." Siara regarded the two Venatori, "So what's the plan with them?"
"I'm sure Anora will have already summoned some guards to come deal with them. I guess we just wait for them to show up."
"One last question."
"Hm?"
Siara motioned with her thumb towards the dog, who was sitting nearby, still happily wagging his tail while he watched the unconscious Venatori mage closely for any signs of movement.
"What's the dog's name?"
Cullen looked up from his desk at the quiet but firm knock. He quickly shuffled his papers to the side and moved to an armchair in the sun.
"Come in," he called, Siara walking in a moment later. Her eyes narrowed at the pile of papers, then she turned her eyes on Cullen.
"I thought I gave you instructions to rest," she scolded, though she didn't sound particularly surprised. Cullen smiled slightly.
"How could you tell?" he asked. She shrugged.
"The papers aren't as tidy as they were before. And I heard you shuffling them around before I came in here."
Cullen chuckled. On one hand, Siara didn't want the commander to overwork himself. On the other hand, it was good that he was feeling well enough to actually work again, and not only that, but to try to hide that he had done some work.
"I have a report to make on the Venatori situation," Siara told him, grabbing one of the chairs from the dining table and moving it over to sit opposite Cullen.
"Go on."
"I managed to identify one Venatori threat. A boy named Donis in the kitchens. Turns out there was also a Venatori mage there, a man going by the name Dietmar. I'm not as convinced that's his real name as I was about Donis'. He seems to have more experience than the boy, so now that it seems like Donis had a handler of sorts, I believe it's entirely possible that both names are aliases," Siara leaned back in the chair, knitting her fingers together as she sifted through the information in her head, Cullen listening intently, "Both Donis and Dietmar are being held in Alistair's dungeons awaiting trial. I think leaving them to Alistair is the best play. I can have a go at getting information out of them, but I don't know how much luck I'd have. Donis doesn't seem the type to have been given any information, and Dietmar seems like he would have refused to be told much so he couldn't tell us if we caught him. Long story short, mission seems to have been successful, but I would like to stick around a bit longer to make sure that the Venatori threat within the castle has actually been neutralised. I'd only managed to identify Donis, if he hadn't slipped up then I wouldn't have known about Dietmar. With more time I can make sure there's no one else."
"I have no objections," Cullen nodded, "Were there any complications?"
"No, it was nothing that Alistair and I couldn't handle."
Cullen raised an eyebrow, mildly surprised.
"You and Alistair?"
"Yeah, his wife gave him permission to assist with the neutralising of the Ventatori threats in the kitchen. He dealt with Donis while I dealt with Dietmar. All worked out fine. He seems a little rusty in an actual fight, but he handled the frying pan perfectly well."
"I can't tell if that's a metaphor or not," Cullen shook his head and Siara smiled slightly.
"I think he's going to start making his guards carry frying pans as well as whatever their primary weapons are," she joked.
"So you don't want to kill him anymore?"
A thick silence fell on the room for a moment as Siara pondered the question, frowning slightly. She leaned forward after a moment, resting her elbows on her knees and looking at her hands. When she spoke, her words were slow and carefully measured.
"He isn't a bad man, I knew that before and I know it now," she said, "I've never been the best at controlling my anger. It's a personal flaw that I'm aware of and have been trying to remedy for years, but due to recent events I've taken a couple of steps back on that front. Fighting alongside Alistair, even in a brief skirmish in the kitchens… I don't know how exactly, but it's helped. I never wanted to kill him, but now I'm not so angry at him. I also know my anger was always misplaced, and that I was wrong to be so furious with him. Don't get me wrong, I still have a long way to go, but I think given time I could come to see Alistair as a pretty good friend."
Cullen smiled. He couldn't help it. It was a relief to hear Siara say that she could see the king as a friend. It was also a nice thought that she trusted him enough to tell him this, even if he suspected it was at least partially in a professional capacity. Siara looked up from her hands, making eye contact with Cullen, and the smile slowly slid from his face.
"It wasn't just the fight, was it?" he asked. Siara shrugged, now staring slightly vacantly out the window behind him.
"Just something in one of Mara's letters."
"I see."
Siara shook herself out of her daze, standing up from her chair.
"You keep resting," she ordered, "I'll write back to the Inquisition updating them on the situation. I think I should be done in a day or two; doubt there are any more Venatori in the castle, but it's better to be safe than sorry."
Cullen nodded, resting his head back in his chair and closing his eyes against the sun. He was already dozing off before Siara had closed the door behind her.