XXVIII: Plots, Threads, and Vellum

Recently, Varric had suffered more than his fair share of unpleasant meetings. Guild business, Old Tintop's crowing for powder, all sorts of "friendly" gatherings – some with crossbow, some without. After all that, after all he did to scrape together two more sodding coins for this sodding venture of theirs – he never thought he'd be subjected to religion.

"Serah Tethras," the stiff-lipped Chantry Sister spoke, her hands clasped before her.

Varric lounged on his reclining chair, projecting calm while feeling wary. "Sister Petrice, I'm told?" Varric asked. He studied her, sparing only a glance at the armored man now looming in the corner. "And who's the fine Templar over there?"

The Templar sneered; his gauntleted hands that ostensibly rested on the hilt of his sword tightened their grip. Those hands are looking for a reason to pull.

"He is my bodyguard, the honorable Knight-Corporal Varnell. He is not here for these proceedings, only to ensure that I come to no harm in my travels through the city." A sister with a personal escort. Varric thought. What will they think of next?

"And I am indeed Sister Petrice," She continued. "I have heard the name of one you represent as someone of bloody skill, but also integrity." She spoke stiffly, stood stiffly, sodding clasped her hands stiffly with her straight hair and straight gate and straight stare that drove Varric absolutely crazy. This one's got a stick so far up her ass she's letting the stick do the thinking for her.

"I represent many people," Varric groused, as if he hadn't a care in the world. "Nobles and dusters, both."

"I speak of Hawke, the mercenary," Sister Petrice answered, her eyes somehow stiffening her glare further. "I wish to negotiate her assistance – and I have been told you are the one to whom I must speak."

"As long as you've been told," Varric said, leaning back in his chair. He couldn't help but slip a little sarcasm into his words. "One of my many 'friends' pass the word your way? Sent you to me to… what, keep a prayer meeting safe? Fix the hinges at the Lowest Chantry? Do tell, I'm sure there's many a 'Maker-Blessed' duty I can help you with."

She grimaced, her severe calm twisting to irritation. "Bloody skill is needed for bloody work, Serah, but the work is certainly blessed by the Maker."

Blessed by the Maker's sodding backwind, I bet. "Why don't you have a seat?" Varric offered, gesturing to one of the chairs in front of his desk. He for his part shifted in his own seat, kicking his legs up onto the desk and clasping his arms over his waist.

Sister Petrice, for her part, didn't even spare the chair a glance. "This matter is delicate. Can I trust this arrangement will not lead back to me?"

Varric couldn't help but narrow his eyes. "What about Ser Templar over there? He doesn't look like the delicate type."

"I know my part, dwarf," Varnell growled, his face twisting further in rage. "You clearly do not."

"Peace, Ser Templar." The Sister rebuked with a placid coldness that didn't remotely seem peaceful. "Ser Varnell is a man of honor with personal obligation to me. He will not speak of this conversation to any others. So I ask again: can I trust that this matter will remain between us?"

"Well, for it to get any farther we need to actually have an 'arrangement.' I don't just agree to everything that comes my way." Varric replied, affecting disinterest. "I need details before I'd be willing to even consider putting my people on this." Not like Hawke is mine, but all's fair in love and business.

The Sister paused for a moment before continuing. It was more than her dismissive rigidity that irked him, he realized. There was something seriously wrong with her. Like she just knifed a beggar on the way in and is looking for someone to bury the corpse. I'm sure her pet Templar would've been happy to assist. Bah, she probably looked down her nose at the poor sod the way he bled out, too.

"The Viscount, and others, believe that peace with the Qunari begins with appeasement," she stated, not without disdain. "A former member of their number has fallen into my charge. No doubt were I to turn him over to the Guard, the Viscount would return him to his brutal kin. He can serve a better purpose. I want him free – escorted from the city, to begin a new life free from bondage."

It was Varric's turn to be taken aback. "What, you need a smuggler? There's loads of them in Darktown who'll take him, no questions asked. It's not like the Qunari will pay to have him back. Why can't you just point him that way?"

Her frown deepened. "I believe him to be a mage. A survivor of infighting with their Tal-Vashoth outcasts. He does not speak, for the Qunari bind their mages with chains far tighter than any Templar. His mouth has been sewn shut. But he has followed me, and heard my offer of freedom." She spoke stiffly, dispassionately – as if she didn't believe a word she was saying.

Great, as if I don't have enough apostates in my life, Varric thought. "Helping an Apostate escape bondage doesn't sound like a very Chantry thing to do."

Varnell positively reddened in anger – but he kept his mouth shut. The Sister spoke instead. "He is not under the Chantry, and so not subject to confinement. He must be free, I know this. He knows this."

Varric sat in a moment of long silence, barely registering the complete contradiction that was the Sister's argument.

"Wait," Varric said. "Did he tell you this?"

Petrice's eyes narrowed. "Not in so many words, but I know it to be true. Do not all those chained by the barbarous Qunari desire freedom?"

'Not in so many words'. Sewn shut mouth? 'I know this, he knows this?' The whole thing stank – he didn't trust Petrice or Varnell as far as the door. This job was terrible, and Varric was tired of picking losers.

He kicked his feet off his desk and leaned forward. "I think I've heard enough, Sister. In fact, I've heard more than enough. Not interested. Take your business elsewhere."

Her brow furrowed in surprise. "But you have not heard my offer! I am willing to pay – "

"Save it. Way too risky – and besides, moving people's not exactly our line of work. You could try Athenril. I doubt she'd go for it, but no harm in trying."

"You are insolent, dwarf." Varnell practically spat, this time twisting dwarf somehow even further into slur. "You speak to a duly ordained Sister of the Chantry, not the low filth you are accustomed to."

"Well, you speak to a due-paying representative of the Dwarven Merchant's Guild, Serah," Varric responded sweetly. "In his duly recognized place of business, and since you have no business I'm interested in…" He gestured to the door.

The Templar appeared to be half a hair from drawing his sword, but he looked to his mistress. Petrice sat for a moment, a withering look on her face. Finally, she smoothed her features and stood. "Very well. Then you shall forget this encounter, and I shall endeavor to do the same."

Varric followed her lead, standing and pushing his chair back with his foot. "What encounter?" He said with feigned ignorance. "Why, I've been alone here all day."

The Sister nodded one final time, turned, and marched out the door. Varnell shot Varric one last glare as he followed her, leaving the door open in his wake.

Varric was only a few steps behind her, anticipating his guest's rudeness and shutting the door himself. He sighed once it was finally closed, then shrugged. "I'm the sodding soul of discretion," he mumbled in annoyance.

He moved back to his desk, pulled up his chair and searched for his quill. He needed to hurry, while the meeting was still fresh in his mind.

After all, how can I remember what to forget if I don't write it down?

[=]

It took Aveline longer than she expected to find The Red Door. Funnily enough, there was more than one establishment that bore a red door, even just at the Nothron Quarter. Not to mention how close she had to get under the crackling torches and fires that lit the Quarter even to see the color of the door in the dim moonlight.

All the places bore whimsical names, as if they weren't half a mile from the squalid suffering of some of Lowtown's dingiest neighborhoods. Meek and Sundries, The Eighth Night, Viscount's Rest. Hightown's wall lets them play-act ignorance, pretend that poverty is only below the cliffs, down the lifts.

She shook the dour thought from her mind as she finally located her destination, or at least, another door painted red that did not have a contradictory sign on it to tell her she was wrong again. Evidently the red door itself served in place of a sign. At least I hope it does.

Sighing in exasperation, she pushed the door open and crossed the threshold. It was a quaint place, smaller than the usual Hightown fare. A dozen or so scattered tables littered the room accompanied by plush seats. A bar lined one wall, while an inviting fireplace sat in the corner of another. The lit fire bathed the room in a comforting glow, radiating welcome.

Aveline spotted her man rather quickly – there were few patrons even at this hour, and most were dressed in relative finery. Donnic sat at the bar in his simple fare, his back to her and the door. The bartender stood at the far side of the bar, worrying a rag across a steel-trimmed tankard in hand. The squat dwarf's head was bowed in evident conversation with Donnic, though at Aveline's regard the dwarf jutted his bearded chin her way.

Donnic swiveled in his seat, meeting Aveline's eyes as she approached. He smiled sincerely and stood, nearly knocking his tankard off the bar. Only the dwarf bartender's swift catch saved it from clattering to the floor.

"Sergeant Aveline!" He greeted with a slight waver. He reached a hand and clasped her offered forearm with a strong grip. "I didn't think you'd make it!"

"Donnic," Aveline acknowledged, projecting as much warmth as she could muster. "You can call me Aveline off-duty."

"Alright… Aveline." Donnic replied, his voice hitching a moment on her name. "I appreciate you joining me. I hardly hoped… well, expected that you would! You've always got your nose to the grindstone."

"It's not often I'm invited," Aveline explained, inexplicably feeling vaguely defensive at the comment. "My own failing, perhaps. There is much to do in the Guard."

"Too right," Donnic agreed easily. "Sometimes it feels no sooner than my head hits the pillow I'm back out on patrol. Not enough hands, I say."

"Agreed, though it might rather be we need better hands, not more of them."

Donnic grimaced, as if he'd tasted a particularly sour gooseberry. "I suppose you're right. What a day it's been!" He gestured to the stool beside him. "Let me buy you that pint I promised. Maybe we can wash down our troubles."

Aveline sat on the indicated stool and rested her arms on the bar, picking at a chipped piece of wood near the edge. Donnic followed suit, mounting his own stool but affecting a more casual rest.

"The usual for me," Donnic began to the bartender, before turning to Aveline. "Any objection to stout?"

"The stouter, the better," Aveline agreed warmly, remembering days when she enjoyed dwarven stout regularly with fine company. With her fellow footmen in service to Ferelden, with others similarly bound to service.

With Wesley.

She buried that thought. Now is not the time for grief. Perhaps later, tonight. But not now.

As she prodded at the loose bit of bar with her thumb, lost in thought, a stout slid before her. She looked up to see Donnic, his own tankard held aloft. "To better hands," the man declared. "And a righteous Guardswoman."

"To a stout Guardsman," Aveline echoed, clanging her tankard into his. Donnic immediately lifted his drink to his lips, throwing back his head for a large swig. Aveline instead took a shallow, ordinary sip, savoring the flavor. It tasted of rolling hills and better days.

The dwarven barman let loose a silent chortle. Shaking his head, he moved down to the far end of the bar, mug and rag back in hand.

"And to a stout!" Donnic grinned, foam covering his mouth before he wiped it off with the back of his sleeve. Aveline couldn't help but smile. Like, yet unlike my soldiers.

The two guards sat in companionable silence for a moment. Donnic now matched Aveline's slow pace of drink, as she sat in wistful remembrance. Not remembering, not mourning… just savoring her stout.

After a time, Donnic twisted in his seat, turning to face Aveline fully. "So tell me, Sergeant – er, sorry. Aveline. It occurs to me that I don't know very much about you. Were you always a guardswoman, back in Ferelden?"

Aveline shook her head. "No, I was not. I served in King Cailan's regular army as an armored footman. I was a chosen woman for a time, before I was commissioned after a skirmish with bandits in the Knottwood Hills. I was placed in command of forty men."

"Ah, then, no wonder," Donnic responded amiably. "It must be disheartening to go from serving a King to a Captain."

Aveline shrugged. "I had a captain then too, though he was a Bann. Still, officer to guardsman was just one more change for me. One to add to the others."

She took a drink and considered her reflection in her mug. "Change has been the last two years, for certain. Before I'd ridden in ship, but only along the Coast with dozens of other men. Now I've crossed the Sea, in a barge hardly meant to sail a river. The land I knew changed before me; the home I knew faded away. I watched it happen." Her reflection stared back at her, as if considering what she felt at this moment.

The reflected Aveline felt like continuing. "There's a new King now for a new country. From what I've heard, he seems cocksure, but you can't fault an active hand in ending the Blight." She glanced at Donnic, who sat in rapt attention. "That life – it all ended for me at Ostagar. Whatever change has come, it is here. And so am I."

Her companion nodded as if he understood, though he could hardly be expected to. He sat quietly for a long moment, as if measuring his words. "So, you are here to stay in Kirkwall, then?" he asked.

"Yes," she replied easily. "This city, whatever else it may be, offered me a place when all else was lost." This city – and the Hawkes. "I would like to do right by it, if I can."

"A worthy goal," said Donnic. "One that would, if more embraced it, carry this city into a future worth living."

"Indeed," Aveline agreed. "It would."

They sat another long moment in silence, this time one less comfortable. Donnic sipped at his drink, shifted in his seat. Aveline felt her thigh itch – she did not move to scratch it. She sat, and considered her reflection. The thick jaw, stern lips and freckled eyes she knew so well, and of late stared back at her as at a stranger.

Her thumb still flicked at the bit of loose bar.

"I… er… well," Donnic stammered, before seemingly finding his feet. "As for me, I've had changed. Things are certainly different here in the city than they were back on the estate. There's a lot more noise here. A lot more people, as well. Strange to find oneself coming from a land where your mother is in command, only to find that your whole world isn't even a corner of your country, let alone the world."

He scratched at his chin idly, looking past her. After a moment, he met her eyes. "I think we have that in common, in a small way. Coming here was a change to me as well. Kirkwall is certainly intimidating in its own fashion. But still, I came with family here. I had some inkling of what to expect, as little good as that did me! It must've been such a leap to come here from Ferelden. A brave leap. I'm not sure I could have done it, were I you."

He looked at her so seriously, so strangely, Aveline wasn't sure what he meant. Why ponder meanings, when honesty will do. "It was hardly a brave thing, to survive. A difficult thing, assuredly, but I did not choose to come here. It was the only place to go. The first place to go. And here I remain, like so many of my countrymen. We cannot all be brave."

She turned to her drink, the swirling blackness a sea of calm before her. She had shifted her mug, throwing ripples through her reflection. "All those soldiers I commanded, good men and women all. All dead. We saw our King fall. I saw…"

Wesley, choking and coughing, collapsed to the ground. Black ichor twisted behind his eyes, gurgling in his throat. His eyes darted back and forth, back and forth.

A croaked plea bubbled from his lips. A request. A plea.

"You can't ask me this. I won't." She refused. She too, begging.

Hawke, her hand on Aveline's shoulder. Her heart offered, her support. Her hand.

Aveline shook away the memory, buried it deep before it could resolve. Before her hand once again held the dagger.

"It was the end of everything," she continued, as if she hadn't stopped. She wasn't even sure why she was speaking… but she knew she had to. She had to, finally. "But Hawke… she was there, at Ostagar, with us. She fought with us to the last, fought so that so few of us could live. It was she who brought me here, out of Blight. It was she who gave me life. Her bravery. Hers and Leandra's, and even Carver's. Bethany's." Wesley's. "Not mine."

"I see," Donnic nodded, his tone wistful. Aveline turned to him, saw that look of sadness that so often meant pity. "This Hawke, she must be very special," he continued. "I am glad you found such worthy company."

"Thank you," she replied. "The worthiest."

Donnic nodded, turned to his drink, and took a long, thorough drag. Aveline lifted her tankard to him in salute and followed suit.

To Lysa. Gren. Rendon. Roan. Fenton.

Cailan. Bethany. Wesley.

She toasted them silently, one and all, all those she had lost. All of Ferelden that had died at Ostagar.

And she drank. The entire remaining pint.

Donnic sat beside her, his own drink in front of him. Not quite done, but well on its way. His earlier cheer was replaced with a sense of strange melancholy.

"I am sorry," Aveline said, suddenly so very weary. "I did not mean to turn the evening so dark."

Donnic held up a plaintive hand, a gentle smile breaking across his face. "No need to apologize. I blundered where I should have known better than intrude. I am only glad that you are here – tonight, and in Kirkwall."

Aveline nodded gravely.

Donnic looked away, as if he suddenly could not look at her. Aveline meanwhile looked down into her empty tankard, searching for a reflection. She still scraped her thumb at the loose edge of the bar.

It was as if all life had left the room, and she was not sure why.

She suddenly did not want to be there – and she knew where she needed to be.

Aveline pushed her tankard forward and stood. "I must be off. I will see you tomorrow, then?"

It was Donnic's turn to nod, no less gravely than Aveline had. "Bright and early."

Aveline stood and patted him on the shoulder once. "Goodnight, Guardsman."

"Goodnight, Sergeant."

She turned, and marched her way back out into the dimly lit streets. The brisk Marcher air was bracing, calming in its own strange way.

Aveline wound through the darkened streets of Hightown, what few braziers remained lit casting long shadows in her wake. She was hardly aware of her path, though she was aware of the space around her at each moment. The Sergeant was always prepared when on the streets of Kirkwall. There was always the chance of danger, and she would be ready – unlike the Officer of Ferelden.

After mounting stair after stair, she finally found herself where she had wanted to be. At the grand courtyard at the foot of the Viscount's Keep.

She took a right through a small postern gate. Blackness swallowed the garden as she stepped off the brazier-lit main way. She took one turn through pitch darkness, then another where she knew a hedge lay. One more and she stepped into a dim open aired courtyard that was her goal, not far from the lowest entrance to the barracks.

The courtyard was lined with hedges, with a single latticed trellis of wood forming an arch over a small board planted in the earth. On either side of the board two stone plinths stood, the candles upon them spluttering where someone had recently lit them. At the base of the board sat a small basket of vellum topped with a stick of charcoal. Across from it, a simple stone bench sat, moss growing at its base.

There were no fine flowers here, none of the usual grandery that flooded the Viscount's Gardens. This was a place of prayer, and of mourning. Aveline knew not who had formed this little corner – she only knew it as a place few went. A little Wall of Remembrance, separate from the Chantry – for those who quietly grieved.

One single slip was tacked to the board, fluttering ever so slightly in the smoldering candlelight as the flame burned down near the quick. A name, mourned in vellum.

The little Wall had often served as a place of quiet reflection for Aveline since she had joined the Guard. Tonight, it would do so again. She moved before the board and sat on the bench, unheeding of the cold bite of the seat's surface.

She sat, and allowed herself to remember.

"It is a slow, terrible death," Hawke said beside her, undisguised misery in her voice. "You know this."

It had only been a few hours since they had fled Lothering in a panic, the horde hot on their heels. Fewer still since Bethany had fallen, her body broken by a rampaging ogre and left to rot in a forsaken corner of the wilds.

The ogre that Wesley had bravely faced beside her, with a strength he had held. Just a few short hours before.

Now he lay on the ground before her, in a state of weakened convulsion. "My love," her husband begged through a choked gasp. "I can't… please."

"There must be something we can do! Something that can be done!" Aveline shouted, her hands grabbing at her husband's chest. She sought to hold. To comfort. To protect.

"What has been done to your man, is within his blood already." The strange witch, hovering steps behind her, declared with finality. "There is nothing to be done now. Nothing, save mercy."

"No!" Aveline shouted, her eyes stinging. She did not look at the witch, knew that she could not stop her whatever she chose to do.

Instead she looked to Wesley, at his horrible agony. At his blackened veins, his parchment thin skin. Black ichor in his eyes.

"You can't ask me to do this. I won't!"

Hawke's hand was on her shoulder. An offer, Aveline knew. A terrible, bloody offer.

Aveline drew her dagger then without conscious thought, as if by another's will. As if some compulsion drove her to do so.

It was an illusion, Aveline knew. A trick of the mind. It was her will that drew the dagger. That, and terrible fate.

She placed the point to her husband's tunic, long bereft of its dented plate. The cloth was mottled and stained with blood, red and black. She held the point true to his heart, but could not keep it steady. His hands reached to hers, clasping her hands at the hilt with his own chipped and bleeding fingers.

He coughed again, a hacking, choking thing.

He could not say the words, but she felt them in his hands. Knew them from her heart. A brush of a thumb, and he told her he knew it too. He knew her true.

I love you. The words remain unsaid as together they drove the blade into his heart.

Aveline grimaced and shook her head to clear that final moment. That moment after, on which she did not linger. She could not visit there… not yet.

I wish I could weep. I wish I had that strength. The strength of my father, one who always knew how to feel.

Instead, she bowed her head in solemn prayer. Maker, make a place for him. Guide him through to rest beyond. Bless him as a peacekeeper, a champion of the just.

There was no answer to her plea. There was only the quiet wind, twisting through foliage, and the cold of her stone seat.

Aveline knelt to the basket, to take her own slip of vellum. Perhaps… perhaps she could cast Wesley's name to mourning. In preparation for the Wall of Remembrance in Kirkwall's High Chantry. One day, she would have the strength to place him there. For now, she could place him here.

The stout she'd drunk was stronger than her usual brew. With an uncoordinated shoulder, she knocked the pinned slip to the ground.

She picked up the scrap to return it to its place. As the candlelight died, she just managed to read the scrawled name.

Arren.