XVII: Family

"You there, little brother?" A voice called out to him, a laugh within it. "It's a wonderful morning – birds singing, sun shining... whores moaning."

"Nell!" A distinctively irritated woman scolded. "Must you be so foul?"

"It's a foul city," the original voice, also a woman spoke. "Would it be fairer for me to be fair? It would hardly be fair to describe the foul fairly, would it not?"

"Maker save me, you crack that wit of yours so tightly I swear I can close my eyes and see your father, returned from the Maker's side."

"Certainly a prettier version of him, at least, though not to smear dear Da. He certainly cut a fair figure in your dress on Wintersend."

"Nell!" The scold was hardly there this time, amusement clouding any sting.

"CARVER!"

At Nell's shout Carver snapped awake, his neck whipping up from the hard pillow of his arms. He sat at the stained mess that Gamlen claimed as a table, Mother and Nell sitting on either side across from him. Sun shone through the slats on the front window, painting Nell's self-satisfied grin in a bright gleam. Dust and dirt seemed to float and cling to the narrow light.

It took Carver a moment, as it often did, to remember where exactly he was – to chase away the scent and taste of hard rain, of Blight, of the image of Bethany crushed beneath massive fists. Bethany! Her name was a cry in his mind, a shout of a dream even now he only remembered the end of.

And it was a dream. He was awake, here, in Lowtown. In Gamlen's pathetic excuse for a house.

"You look a right mess, brother." Nell smiled at him. "No red-headed lass I'm chasing you away from, I hope?"

"Shut your bloody mouth," Carver groused, with little of his usual venom. Would've been proper mad at that waking, had I dreamt of her. Although… as of late, tattoos and pointed ears haunted his dreams more than Chantry sisters.

"You do look rather worn down, Carver. Are you alright?" Mother asked, concern painting her lined features. Lines that tunneled through her happy veneer and gave her the appearance of a woman more than a decade older than her true age. Lines that had not existed at all when Father had still been alive, and lines that more than doubled during their long trek through the Wilds.

Carver shed that thought as he always did these days, with an imaginary shake of his shoulders to loosen the ever-present grief from the front of his mind. Sometimes he envied his sister's ability to simply ignore that grief, to smile and joke and piss on the world like she had a right to.

Like she doesn't give a damn. A small part of him knew such a thought was unfair, that even the unvoiced blame for the loss they both shared was a wrong so great it bordered on evil. His sister would've torn herself in two if it would've spared Bethany her fate.

But she didn't. And Bethany's dead for it.

He rolled his shoulders one more time, stretched, dropping the thought for good. Not for good, never for good. A little while, at least.

"No," he grumbled, noticing a slight further dip in his mother's expression as he spoke. "Had a late night. Still need to catch up on sleep."

"Now, now," chided Nell. This time her flippant tone did raise his hackles. "'When you flout yesterday - '"

"You pay tomorrow,'" Carver interrupted, unwilling to hear his father's words from her mouth just then. "'As Da used to say,' no doubt. Mother," he groaned, turning more to avoid looking at his sister's smug face than to meet his mother's gaze. "What's this all about? You said you had something important to tell us."

His mother smiled bashfully, rubbing her left ring finger with her right hand. "Well..." she started, "I was going to make breakfast first, but this is too important. I have finally had news from the Seneschal."

"Come off it," Nell demanded lightly enough, but with true interest in her voice. "The Seneschal? The Viscount's second? That bloody Seneschal?"

Mother was nodding vigorously, a smile splitting the lines on her face. "Well, I don't believe it's actually from the man. But it bears the Viscount's seal, and it was delivered from the Keep - "

"Most Guardsmen can't get a word edgewise with the Seneschal," Nell continued her awed wondering. "Even Aveline as a sergeant hardly ever meets him."

Carver frowned at the thought of the Sergeant. She's avoiding me. I know it. She doesn't think I have what it takes to do what she does. "You didn't rope Aveline into this, did you, Mother?"

"No! Of course not," she placated, taking his hand from across the table. "I didn't want to bother the poor woman. And what would it look like, for her? Passing personal messages from her friend's family, personal petitions even?" Carver tolerated a moment of touch before withdrawing his hand.

"It'd make her look like every other guardsman," Nell supplied, tilting her head as her grin turned sardonic. "Like the Guard is only secondary to other employers. Or at least, that she's taking favors or what have you."

"Exactly," Mother finished. "I couldn't bear the thought of that. We'll pull ourselves back up without putting out Aveline to do it… speaking of - "

She reached down under the table and withdrew a thick parchment, tellingly sealed in wax. Nell tapped it immediately, spinning the thing to face her. "That's the Seneschal's mark, alright," his sister observed. "Had to copy it once, you know, sos we could slip a ship - "

"Yes, yes," Carver growled. "I was there. Real killer time that. Open the bloody thing."

Mother moved to stand, "I'll just get - "

Before she even got a step up Nell had pulled, flipped, and stuck a dagger into the table from within her bodice. "No worries. Would you like to do the honors?"

Without a hint of perturbation at Nell's unhealthy skill with that knife, or its particular hiding place – though she's had both those nigh on a decade now, even Mother had to get used to it eventually – Mother reached for both knife and letter, neatly breaking the seal with a practiced flick to reveal a folded smattering of vellum sheets. She picked up the first page and gave it a little shake to straighten it out.

"'To the Scion of House Amell, Leandra Astrid Amell - " she read with practiced ease. "After the verification of your House's signet - " she waved her hand in demonstration, the ring in question catching the light far better than her copper wedding band. She seemed oddly regal at that moment, as noble as the name she once bore. "this Office regretfully… informs you… that your petition for the return of the Amell estates and holdings has been… denied." She frowned at that, her noble air slipping, but perked up as she read on. "However, as your Claim has been Rightfully Recognized, this Office will allow for...'"

She trailed off, her sharp eyes darting back and forth across the page, hungrily. "Oh my," she breathed.

"What?" Nell asked at the same time as Carver spoke.

"What's it bloody say?"

"...Well..." Mother said, her brow furrowed as she gleaned the page for further meaning. "The Viscount's Office owns the estate… but will hold it for us to repurchase at our convenience."

Carver banged a fist on the table at that, unable to fight down the bitterness that won through him. "They sell it back to us? Like hell we'll buy it from the bastards that stole it."

"Well, stole if you believe what old Uncle Gamlen says, at least," Nell frowned. "Though I wouldn't put it past this city. Do they say how much?"

Mother shook her head. "No, only to inquire at the Keep… although! Oh!" She continued reading in silence.

"What?" demanded Nell. "You can't just gasp with excitement like that, Mother! Come on, spill!"

"'Enclosed within is the property held in Trust by this Office for Leandra Amell. As witnessed by… hmm hmm…. Signed Seneschal Bran, in Service to his most Eminent Viscount, Marlowe Dumar." She reached down for the other papers, folded together.

Before she had them halfway off the table the front door burst open, momentarily filling the narrow room with the smells and sounds of Lowtown at morning. Shouting, folks moving about, oxen lowing, even… Carver perked up his ears. Some girl's plying her trade in the alley right outside. He grinned stupidly at that mental image, though he quickly schooled his expression (and thoughts) when he remembered his mother right across the table.

Those sounds and smells were abruptly cut off as Gamlen stepped into the room and slammed the door behind him. He stood with his usual unkempt beard, unwashed hair, and red-shot sunken eyes. He slouched miserably as he stood at the far side of the room – truthfully, it was only a few paces from table to door.

"Well," he grumbled. "Bad enough I have to step past Lisa, now I can't even slip to bed safely. Whole sodding family meeting, is it? What's this all about then? Finally found the coin to move out, have you?"

"No, not quite yet, Uncle." Hawke answered glibly. "Just receiving our mail from our old chum Marlowe. He's a right upstanding prig, has a whole Keep and all. His mate's just writing about how our claims are Well and Proper and the like, apparently."

"'Marlowe? Claims?'" Gamlen asked in disbelief. "Don't tell those fool letters of yours actually amounted to something, Leandra."

"As a matter of fact, they have," Mother answered, a smile breaking her furrowed brow. "They've also returned some documents they held in trust for me, we were just about to read them. Would you care to join us?"

Gamlen squinted, as if in pain. "Documents? What documents?"

"Well," Mother looked down to the papers, flicked them as before to straighten them. "Oh goodness! It's Father's Will! I thought he left no word!"

"No word?" Nell asked slowly. "What, was that how the Viscount got his paws on the illustrious family fortune? You never really talked about Grandfather much."

"Father died as Mother did, from the bloody flux." Gamlen interjected, tone insistent. The man was white as a sheet, his face stricken. "I heard nothing of a will, or any such foolishness. It's not my fault my sister was not here to negotiate with the vultures the Viscount employs. I never was any good at that sort of thing," he practically spat out those last words.

"Now, now," consoled Mother. "That was hardly your fault, Gamlen, though you might have told me in the letter you sent."

"Oh, don't you blame me for that," Gamlen shot back, as if Mother was arguing with him. Though that's how he acts most days, Carver observed without reflection. He leaned back in his chair, thoroughly uninterested in hearing his mother and uncle argue for what felt like the thousandth time since they'd moved in, though he noticed Nell lean forward in her seat. The slatted light cast her face in shadow as she looked down at the table.

"I received just two letters from you after you ran off," Gamlen continued. "Then a decade of silence, until I get a third note hand delivered by a sodding guardsman of all people, 'from your sister,' he said. Then I scramble to call in every bloody contact I know to get you into the city, and hardly a word of gratitude from the sister I haven't seen in over twenty years. Then again, I suppose if you didn't give one wit about me when you were off with your lover doing Maker knows what, it would be quite out of character to start caring after I saved your bloody bacon."

Mother frowned, her face darkening in anger as the pages shook in between her clenching fists. For a moment she looked ready to retort in kind, but instead she calmed, her face smoothing. "I've already apologized for the lack of letters, Gamlen. Things were hard when we first arrived in Ferelden, what with Nell's birth. I had a hard time of it, and she took all my attention for quite some time."

"I wrote you when Mother and Father died! I told you about the funeral!"

At that she did snap back, though she kept her tone below a yell. "The twins weren't even a year old then! I wrote back, I did! I explained why I couldn't come and asked for you to write back more. I comforted you!" She immediately schooled herself back to calm, breathed deeply. "We shouldn't fight like this. There's nothing that can be done about past mistakes, and we're family. Please, now's your chance to finally hear Father's will. Sit with us."

Gamlen physically recoiled. "No. I don't care what that old fool had to say. I'm going out."

"Where?" asked Mother, bewildered.

"Out!" he shot back, turning away. Before he made it two steps Nell suddenly spoke.

"So help me, Uncle, you take one more step and I will personally ensure you never take another."

Gamlen froze in place, hand reaching for the front door's latch.

"Nell!" Mother gasped.

"No, Mother," Nell looked up, the light revealing her horrible grimace. "If dear old Uncle Gamlen hasn't fibbed about the how of the Amell fall from grace, I'm sure he wouldn't mind reminiscing with Grandfather's Last Will and Testament with his beloved extended family. Isn't that right Uncle?"

The man stood shock still, hand still outreached towards the handle. He didn't move, didn't so much as breath for a long moment. Then he surprised them all.

Gamlen turned with a sneer, standing from his slouch to his full height. His face, still pale and stretched, twisted with rage. "I don't need to sit and hear that thing again to know what he said. I was here. You ran away with some commoner, abandoned the family and disobeyed Father. He disowned you. He told me you weren't my sister anymore; you were no longer an Amell. It broke him, you know. Him and Mother both. And you left me here to sit at their sides, alone, to change their soiled sheets and wipe their sodding noses as they wasted away before my eyes. You know what Father's last word was? 'Leandra.'"

Mother paled, looking to the will, back to Gamlen. "They… they didn't hate me? In the end?"

"Hate you!" Gamlen barked. "Father left you everything. Fucking everything. He left me a bloody stipend. A stipend! Me! After all I did for them! After all I bloody cared!"

Carver, shocked to silence until that point, made to speak but was one upped by Nell. "What happened?" she asked dangerously.

Gamlen smiled a horrible, hateful smile. "Well, your mother was hardly around to claim her inheritance. I was the last Amell – it was my responsibility. So I took it. Spent it. Lived the sodding high life. Made some investments, though those didn't turn out so good." His grin died at that, fading into a frown. "Leandra was always better at that sort of thing."

They all remained still, Gamlen slouching a little from his upright tirade. After a moment Mother spoke furtively. "Gamlen… how could you? How could you do that to me, to us?"

"You weren't here," he replied, tone softening. "You weren't here, and I just wanted something for myself for once. It didn't go all at once… and I didn't do it on purpose. I just… made mistakes."

"Did you not think?" demanded Nell suddenly, her chair clattering to the floor as she cast it aside. She stood, slamming a fist to the table. "Do you even realize… what you did to us? Did to me?"

There was something manic about her then, an anger that even Carver felt genuinely perturbed by. "Sister..." he tried to say.

She silenced him with a snapping gesture. "We're stuck here, in the damned dirt, our hands soaked in blood and shite… because Grandfather didn't hug you enough? Loved Mother more than you?"

Gamlen shied away as she took a step around the table, towards him.

"You sold us into servitude! We prostituted ourselves to get into a city that we should've owned the ploughing keys to!"

For all his faults, all his usual sniveling – Gamlen did not run. Though he shrunk under the torrent that was Nell, he did not turn. "I did my best. I did all that I could. It was hardly my fault a Blight rose up to chase you all back, now is it?"

Nell advanced to arms-length with Gamlen, looking just about ready to strangle him. Mother stood now, wringing her hands frantically at the sight of the confrontation. Carver, as a matter of instinct, reached to his back for the blade that wasn't there. He reached even as he realized the emotion that passed through him at Gamlen's revelation was anything but anger.

"Nell..." his mother whispered.

A sudden rap forced Gamlen a full handspan off the ground, as the door he leaned against pounded under someone's fist.

The sound was enough to set Nell back a step, for her hands to fall back to her sides. "Get out," she said softly.

"This is my house..." Gamlen protested thinly.

The door shook as the person outside knocked yet again.

"So help me, if I have to look at you for another moment..."

Gamlen studied her for a moment, before turning and throwing the door open. Varric stood on the stoop, his hand poised for another bout of knocking.

"Well hello, Gamlen," he oozed. "Is Hawke - "

"Get out of my way, dwarf," Gamlen pushed past him without fanfare, nearly sending the visitor careening back into the street.

Varric grasped at the door frame to keep upright, throwing a confused look at the way Gamlen turned. "Sodding duster," he muttered, stepping into the room, giving the illusion that the now unmuffled sounds of Kirkwall followed in his wake.

He stopped as he saw Hawke, standing rigid in front of him. "Uh, hey Hawke. Leandra. Junior." Carver bristled at that. "What's up with sourpuss?" He gestured with a thumb towards the open door.

Mother sat down and buried her face in her hands. Carver, for all his conflicted feelings moved his chair over to wrap an arm around her shoulder. She leaned into him, though she didn't cry. He wasn't sure if that was a good sign or not.

"Oh, he was just telling us how he ploughed us out of the family fortune, pissing it away to spite Mother," Nell said with a feigned nonchalance. Fury still tinged her tone, her stance, her shoulders.

Varric picked up on it, even as a woman in the alley outside shouted in apparent ecstasy. "No shit," the dwarf half said, half asked, as he kicked the door shut behind him.

"You said it," Nell replied in the sudden dim. "That absolute proper… bastard. I can't… Want to get out of here, Varric? That shite-kicker might be gone, but his stink clings like rot."

In that moment, as Carver felt rather than heard his mother's sob begin, he realized what he felt. Both for, and about, Gamlen.

He understood.