Vin's heart sank as she landed on a wide wooden beam with a crack that shook through her body.
She whimpered. There goes my fucking back. Can they fix spinal cord injuries yet?
And then, to her intense relief, the cracking noise came again, as the chimney came down around her feet. The beam gave way underneath her and the plummeting began again. She managed to exclaim 'Fucking–!' before landing on the floor of Zevran's room.
From somewhere above, pieces of roof, now largely unsupported, were crumbling. Vin had just enough sense to scrabble forward to get her legs out of the way of the falling debris–
A gauntleted hand snatched her by the face, the metal points biting deep into her cheeks; Vin forced her eyes open. Amid the wafts of smoke and dust a figure, clad in black with a hood that covered much of their face, smiled down blankly at her. They spoke in a purr, with a light accent not unlike Zevran's.
"What a terrible day for you to come, Fire Warden." They flickered their eyebrows once. "Had it only been any other day, hmm?"
"Who the f–?" Vin caught a flash of approaching metal in the person's other hand and yelped, not quite moving out of the way before a knife slashed over her forehead. The cut seared and itched– and, to Vin's consternation, made it very, very difficult to continue grimacing.
A series of growls and shrieks issued from up above. Another figure fell through the hole in the ceiling and landed in front of the fireplace. Vin found herself stumbling forward as her face was released and the face-grabber shot past her. It took far more effort than she remembered not to crash face-first into the floor– and aiming an attack was no easier.
She summoned ice anyway. The cold blasted the entire western wall, freezing the knife-wielder mid-leap and sending them tumbling back to the ground to join the other one.
Vin's legs trembled under each step as she hobbled over to the hole in the ceiling. If she'd had any more starch in her, she'd have touched her forehead, sniffed that cut. What was on that knife?
The scuffling noises above had died away; someone up there was panting. Dust dislodged from the ceiling as hurried steps above rattled the boards.
"Zevran?" she slurred warily. Another ice spell sat ready in her palm, on the off-chance it wasn't him–though Maker only knew how she would be able to lift her arm to launch the wretched thing.
Zevran's blood-spattered face peeped through the hole in the ceiling, his smirk quickly faltering as Vin sank to her knees. He swung down to the floor in one quick motion, reaching down and catching Vin before she could topple forward and smack her face on a segment of chimney.
Vin's breathing grew rapid and shallow, her body totally functionless as Zevran gently turned her onto her back and rested her head in his lap. Her eyes watered as she thought of Lint, who would be waiting in the kitchen where there was a clear sightline of the ladder. And all the while, Zevran was simply frowning and running his eyes over her like she was an interesting insect.
"Loo'– hey– loo'- af'er– Lin' fo'-me," she choked, gasping shallowly. Her heart fluttered like a bird's; even her tongue was too heavy to move properly any more. "My– ca'. Grey. In– fores'. Fee-d… her."
Zevran, who up to this point had glanced down at her briefly, now leaned forward and sniffed her forehead. And then, as if he had discovered an exploitable secret about Vin, sat back and smiled down at her.
"Breathe calmly," he said, looking entirely unconcerned that Lint would need to be fed, and that Vin's fingers were tingling and vision was blurring around the edges. "You were poisoned with… hierba valluda, what would that be in Common…? Ah! Witherwisp, yes. It temporarily paralyses the voluntary muscles."
Vin made to gasp a protest, but with her mouth and tongue now completely immobile, the only thing she could get out was an 'Ah!'
"You will not die," he said calmly. "Breathe slower. You are taking in too much air."
Too much–?
"Ah. Ah."
"Vin– Vivian," he tapped her cheek. "You must take slower, deeper breaths. You will pass out if you do not slow down."
Zevran kept talking, kept cooing stupid things about calming down, and as his voice got softer and quieter, Vin felt that funny, unnamed part of her (was this what the soul was?) peeling away and leaving the rest of her to drain away into the dark.
§
"Take a deep breath with me, hmm? Like so–"
Zevran went to take a long, demonstrative breath, only to stop as Vin's eyes dropped shut and her head lolled in his lap. He sighed and tutted under his breath, and hummed a short tune. Four bars into the song, Vin's eyes fluttered open again. Zevran looked down at her with a raised eyebrow.
"See?" he said. "What did I tell you? I suppose you feel very clever now, hmm?"
Vin blinked up at him.
"Just so. Now, it will be some hours before the poison wears off and you regain your movement. Understand?"
It was a silly thing to ask if she had or hadn't understood, given that blinking to communicate was off the table for now. Vin blinked anyway.
"Mm. And you fell a long way," he nodded up at the hole in the ceiling. "I should check you for injury, hmm?"
Vin blinked again; Zevran gingerly shifted her robes to inspect her limbs and midriff. A handful of small, purple bruises were swelling around the back of the pelvis, and he clucked his tongue sympathetically as he caught sight of a deep gash on the front of her shoulder that went down to the bone. Dusted liberally with ash, too, no less.
"This looks terribly painful," Zevran murmured, shifting the robe away from the area. "I shall move you to the bed, yes? A little softer than the floor." He glanced over at the bed, which also had a thin layer of dust. "Mmm… I was going to say cleaner, too, but that might be debatable at this point."
Slowly, carefully, Zevran tucked Vin's arms over her belly and scooped her off the ground. The Fire Warden was a little shorter than him, and decidedly lighter. Were her bones hollow? From memory, humans weren't usually so easy to haul about. If only! How many disposals of marks' corpses would have been simplified with a lighter body?
Vin blinked rapidly as he set her down on the bed; he apologised in a hush and adjusted the pillow under her head.
"Try sleeping if you can," he suggested. "You've a boring few hours ahead of you. I will loot the bodies and– ah!" Zevran trotted over to the pile of dead Crows, relieved them of their heavy cloaks, and brought them back to where Vin lay.
"Something to keep you a little warmer, no?" He opened out the cloaks and draped them over her. "Two should be enough, I think. And one for me…" Zevran put one on with a flourish and posed with a hand on one hip. "Don't I look handsome, my lovely Fire Warden? I do love the longer cuts on me."
Vin blinked. Zevran took it as a definitive 'yes' and gently shut her eyes for her.
§
Paralysis was so. Bloody. Boring.
And frankly, so was pain. Even after Zevran had kindly cleaned her shoulder and applied a little liniment to it, the ache was inescapable, persistent, and absolutely unsuitable as a distraction. If she'd slept, it felt like it had only been a few minutes, at best. And Zevran had warned it would be hours? Wretched. Totally bloody wretched.
Was it even safe to be bored? After what had just happened, making it home to Lint tonight was anything but assured. If it wasn't another bandwagon of ceiling-dwelling freaks who'd snick her head off, it'd be the Templars upon finding out their least favourite mage demolished an Alienage roof.
Vin's guts twisted at the prospect– apparently that wasn't a voluntary bodily function. Of course it wasn't. Then, at the thought of bodily functions, her guts writhed again, and she prayed to the Maker that she didn't accidentally shit in this man's bed while she was out of action.
And then Vin startled– (internally, at least), as she finished said prayer with a rueful groan that came out as an, "Er." It was weak and utterly woeful, as far as sounds went, but it was an audible one!
Zevran, who had turned to the sound, smiled down at Vin.
"I see you have a little of your voice back, hmm?" He gave an encouraging nod. "Very good. I would offer you water, but I think it will be too soon for you to try swallowing. Are you still in pain? Make one 'ah' for yes, and two for no."
"Er."
"Very bad pain?"
"Erer."
"Mmm. I should not put any more of the liniment on it, or it will interact with the witherwisp. Are you warm enough?"
"Er."
"Shall I bring you anything?"
"Erer."
"I see. Well, you could try sleeping again, if it pleases you. You still have quite some time to go before you will be able to do much, and paralysis is very boring, no?"
"Er."
Zevran chuckled and patted her hand. "Yes, I know. Have no fear, my dear Fire Warden. You are in good hands with Zevran. Sleep well."
With a despairing inward shrug, Vin closed her eyes and prayed that some passing Sloth demon– Maker, even a Dozing demon would do, so long as it took pity on her and whisked her out of consciousness again.
§
"Who."
Zevran looked up from the knife he was cleaning to find Vin watching him, her mouth slightly open. Her fingertips twitched ever-so-briefly.
"Well, well!" he smiled and strode over to her. "Someone is awake."
"Yeh." Her eyes darted down to the body by his feet. "Who."
"Who is this?" he tapped the body with the toe of his boot.
"Yeh."
Zevran shrugged. "I do not know her name, but I know she is an Antivan Crow."
"Eh?" Vin's eyes went onto another body in the room now enquiringly. Zevran laughed and nodded.
"Also a Crow, yes. They all were." He tilted his head playfully, "I take it you know who the Antivan Crows are?"
"Yeh…" She looked at him, her face pinching just a little as she laboured through attempts to move her lips. "Who…? Who… oo?"
"Who am I?"
"Yeh."
Zevran grinned and waved a hand over himself. "You cannot have forgotten the name of such a pretty face, my dear Fire Warden, surely. I am Zevran!"
Vin squinted a fraction. "Who… oo?"
"Ah, very well, very well, I will not play any more." He sighed out a laugh, "I am Zevran the Crow. Well, ex-Crow might be a better term, even if it isn't true, strictly speaking."
"... Oh."
He smirked. "Disappointed?"
"Yeh."
Zevran couldn't help but laugh at that. He perched himself on the foot of the bed and stretched his back until he felt something in there pop.
"Ay."
He glanced over at Vin. "Hmm?"
"High?"
"'High?'" he echoed. "What about height?"
"Mm-mm," Vin negated, blinking frustratedly. "H-hhhigh?"
Zevran gave what he hoped was a patient smile. "Shall I go through the letters and you can tell me when I have the correct one?"
"Yeh."
With a nod, he cycled through the alphabet and was stopped at the letter W.
"W, high… oh! Why?" His eyebrows rose. "You were asking why?"
"Yeh," Vin's head gave the tiniest twitch. "Hhhigh."
"Why what, though?"
"High… oo," her eyes flickered between him and the corpses.
"Why I–? Ah! Why they tried to kill me, yes?"
"Yehyeh."
Zevran shrugged as nonchalantly as he could manage. "They were under orders to, I imagine."
"... Yeh? High?"
Unable to do much else, he shrugged again and made a point of looking like he hadn't noticed Vin's expectant stare.
"I had an assassination contract that I failed to complete," he finally offered.
"Ah?'
"Mmm. I was hired last year to kill the two remaining Grey Wardens in Ferelden–"
"HUH!" Vin shouted, her eyes like dinner plates.
"Shhh!" Zevran waved his hands and glanced at the window. Outside, not a single head turned. Heaving a sigh of relief, he turned back to Vin, "Not so loud, yes? Anyway, I failed to fulfill the contract–"
"HUH!"
"Hush, Warden," he insisted in a whisper. "We have somehow managed to not attract attention yet, but if you keep making noise, people will hear us."
At this, Vin growled. Zevran sighed.
"Yes, I am aware that one of the Grey Wardens is now the King, and he closed the Circles and such–"
"Oh! Oh!" Vin's brows drew a little.
Zevran rubbed his brows. "Maker, I will be delighted when you can make the usual number of sounds again. Shall I presume you are angry at me for attempting to kill good King Alistair?"
"OH!"
Alarm sent him surging forward and placing two fingers firmly over Vin's lips.
"Shhh," he insisted. "I will tell you what you wish to know, but you must be quiet. You will not get answers if people storm this flophouse and find us like this."
The Fire Warden gave an awfully haughty sniff for someone who wasn't in a position to fight. Zevran withdrew his fingers.
"... Yeh," she conceded after a moment.
"All right. So shall I assume your 'ohs' meant 'no?'"
"Yeh," Vin murmured. "Ah-ee."
"'Ah-ee…?'" Zevran echoed with a frown.
"Yeh. Ah-ee Oo-aa-aa."
He launched into the alphabet again. Six letters in, he had the name Jackie, and after a second round with two letters, a surname came to mind.
"S-U–... 'Oo-aa-aa…' Surana? Is it–? Ah!" Zevran smiled as the Fire Warden confirmed this in a slur. "Jackie Surana… yes, the other Grey Warden was a mage, that's right. You knew Warden Surana, did you?"
Vin's eyes watered enough that a few fat tears rolled down her cheek. "... Yeh."
"Oh, I see. You were close with the other Warden, yes?" Zevran nodded understandingly and carefully wiped her face dry with his sleeve. "Well, my dear, let me assure you that it was nothing personal. As the Fereldans like to say, I did not know Jackie Surana from a bar of soap."
A moment passed as Vin's reddening eyes raked over Zevran, then dropped to the floor, and then slowly made their way back up to him.
"Oo…" she grimaced and rounded her lips a little more, " Oowwwwhy Ah-ee?"
Zevran grinned and quirked an eyebrow. "You are getting more sounds now, good. And why Jackie, you say?" He shrugged, yet again. "I have no more idea why Teyrn Loghain wanted the Wardens dead than you do. All I needed to know was whom to kill. And, well, I failed to kill either of them."
"Hah."
"Yes, yes," Zevran waved a hand, rolling his eyes playfully. "Excellent news for the Wardens, but terrible news for me, as you can imagine. You fail a mission, you die. Very gruesomely, too, I am told."
Vin let out a sad little, "Ah," that Zevran waved away with a chuckle.
"My own fault for being foolish enough to take on two Grey Wardens," he crooned. "Ooh, your Jackie Surana was a hard one to fight. He–"
"Th-ay–"
"Th–? Oh, 'they?'"
"Yeh."
He nodded. "Pardon me. They killed my entire crew in two spells. Very impressive, no?" Zevran chuckled as the corner of Vin's mouth twitched up in a proud smile, and added with a little more panache, "Oh, I was on the ground in one spell, and your Jackie towered over me. What a figure they cut in the sunlight!"
Vin's face softened. "Yeh…"
"And, well, the only way to escape the Crows, if one likes living, is to gain the protection of someone powerful. So, of course, I thought I would try my luck and ask this strapping figure if they would let me serve them in exchange for protection against the Crows." He rubbed his chin with a wry smile, "Strangely enough, they did not trust me to keep my knives away from their throats. Incredible, isn't it? You try to kill someone once, and then they won't have anything more to do with you."
"Hah. An' th-en?"
Zevran huffed a laugh. "What was there to do after that? Warden Surana decided to release me on the proviso I did not come looking for their party again." He flicked a piece of creosote off the bed, "I suppose if the Crows never captured me, they did me a kindness."
Vin's eyes darted to the bodies, and then back to Zevran. "An' na-oo— nnnow?"
"Now they are hunting me down. As I know we they would." Zevran sighed and forced a smile, "For whatever it is worth, though, I am sorry that you were caught up in this. And I am sorry that your Jackie was, too. Why Loghain would have wanted to kill the only two people in the country who can stop the Blight, I do not know…"
"Mmm-mutt. Mmbut," Vin paused enough to let out a groan, "Bbbut you nnnow. Oo– what you too - too– ahhphuck. Do! Wwwhat you d-do nnnow?"
"Now?" Zevran laughed mirthlessly. "What choice do I have? I have been hiding in the Alienage since failing to kill your lovely Jackie, but now that the roof has come in and we have killed a handful of Crows," he pointed at one of the corpses with his nose, "I think my landlady will be less than fond of the idea of me staying."
"Oh."
He shrugged. "Nothing to be done for it. I should leave the Alienage at any rate, now that the Crows know I am here." Zevran indicated Vin with both hands and a smile he couldn't bring himself to keep in place, "There has been enough collateral damage as it is, no?"
"I'm orright." Vin's head nodded a little.
He chuckled. "Rest awhile longer and you will be."
Vin groaned. Zevran smirked and went back to sharpening his knives.