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The City of Chains

The City of Chains

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{Completed} These are the stories of nine lives in the city of Kirkwall, intertwined in the midst of magic, prejudice, war, and strife.

11,695 readers have visited The City of Chains since AugustArria created it.

Copyright: The creator of this roleplay has attributed some or all of its content to the following sources:

http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/dragon_age_wiki

Introduction



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Blesséd are the righteous, the lights in the shadow.
In their blood the Maker's will is written.
-Benedictions 4:11

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With the Hero of Ferelden defeating the Fifth Blight after merely a year, it seemed as though the world would be spared the ravages of another decades-long war that typically accompanied the arrival of the darkspawn hordes. But in the city of Kirkwall, just across the Waking Sea from devastated Ferelden, the turmoil was only just beginning.

The issue of magic and how it should be handled hangs over the city like a dark cloud, promising to bring a storm in good time. The mages within the city are kept on a very short leash by the local Templar Order and their driven commander. Some believe such vigilance is necessary to avert the dangers mages pose to the world around them, and to themselves. Some believe such vigilance is more akin to tyranny and oppression. The issue doesn’t merely involve the respective members of the Templar Order and the Circle of Magi, however, but everyone within the city. And as the tension between the groups rises, everyone will have to take a side eventually.

In addition, other issues have arisen recently, and though they are overshadowed by the issue of magic, they have a large effect on the city. With the Blight destroying much of Ferelden, thousands of refugees fled across the Waking Sea, seeking refuge in nearby Kirkwall. Having no homes to return to, most were stuck in the city after the Blight’s end, forced to carve out any kind of living they could. A fleet full of Qunari warriors was decimated by a storm off the nearby Wounded Coast, and while the reason for their presence in the area is unknown, they have since been stranded in Kirkwall while they wait for a ship to return them home. A clan of Dalish elves recently traveled near Kirkwall, and was forced to halt at the base of Sundermount upon losing their halla.

Combine all of this in one city, and Kirkwall is the very picture of chaos. It is into this city that you were thrown, either by birth, desire, or circumstance.

What kind of mark will you leave behind in the City of Chains?





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A Dragon Age AU written by:
AugustArria | The Valkyrie | Talisman | Yonbibuns | Kurokiku


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The City of Chains

Set during the events of Dragon Age 2, The City of Chains tells the interwoven stories of nine individuals who come to reside in the city of Kirkwall during the most turbulent eight-year period in its history. They come from all walks of life, but are united in their desire to build a life in the city they come to call home. But that life isn't easy in a city where magic, religion, race, and politics clash on a daily basis. To secure their future, they must navigate a dangerous road, one that leads to events that will shape the very future of Thedas.


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The Canticle of Fate

Three years after the events of The City of Chains, the south of Thedas is in chaos. The Mage-Templar war threatens to destroy both factions, and wreaks havoc across Ferelden. Civil war looms in Orlais as Celene's grip falters. In an effort to contain the chaos, a Conclave is called between mages and templars at the Temple of Sacred Ashes. But this only leads to tragedy, as an unseen enemy strikes, and the temple is destroyed, leaving only two mysterious survivors. With the Divine dead, the Inquisition is reborn, and called to restore order where chaos now reigns. This is their story. This is The Canticle of Fate.

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The Canticle of Fate: Silver Lion Stanza

Following the defeat of Corypheus, the Inquisition was restructured and moved to a new home in Lydes. While no imminent world-shattering threat remains for them to combat, there are still a great many dangers left over from the strife that ravaged southern Thedas. The Canticle of Fate: Silver Lion Stanza is centered around the city of Val Royeaux, where growing racial tensions between humans and elves threaten to escalate into chaos. The new Emperor and Empress send for two elven Argent Lions, agents both capable and trustworthy, to find the source of the trouble, and keep the peace. With the weight of the past and expectations for the future bearing down on them, their time to be heroes has come.

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Dragon Age: The Undoing

Something of an informal, retconned prequel to the other stories, The Undoing takes place back in the year 1:95 Divine, at the end of the second Blight. It follows a group of elite (and expendable) warriors on a last-ditch, desperate suicide mission: to take out the Archdemon's four most elite darkspawn underlings, and bring the areas of the world these generals occupy back under the control of the Grey Wardens and their allies. The team is made up of oddballs who don't fit anywhere else, the mission is damn near impossible, and everything points to an early failure. Naturally, it gets worse before it gets better.


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The Story

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael

Earnings

0.00 INK

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“We stand upon the precipice of change. The world fears the inevitable plummet into the abyss. Watch for that moment... and when it comes, do not hesitate to leap. It is only when you fall that you learn whether you can fly.”



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It was busy time in Kirkwall, the City of Chains. Though fortunately untouched by the Blight that had sprung up from the Korcari Wilds before being decisively defeated at Denerim by the Hero of Ferelden and her gathered army, Kirkwall has still suffered ill effects due to simple proximity. Thousands of Ferelden citizens took ship and sailed away from their homeland while the war was still in doubt, many of them stopping and seeking refuge in the Free Marches, with Kirkwall being the first stop. Many of them have since had their homes destroyed by the darkspawn, and have nowhere to return to. Those that could work their way into the city before it shut its doors have since taken shelter in Darktown, or if they were lucky, the slums of Lowtown.

The memory of what happened to Ferelden’s Circle of Magi is also fresh in the minds of many mages and Templars in the Free Marches. Blood magic, demonic possession, an entire tower overrun by abominations. It has served as yet another reminder to Kirkwall’s Knight-Commander that she must remain vigilant in the face of magic, no matter the cost. Many mages, and quite a few citizens, disagree. The tension between mages and Templars can only rise in the future, and what last remnants of stability remain may soon disappear altogether.

It was also the year in which the Arishok of the Qunari, the supreme military leader of their people, was shipwrecked along with many of his warriors off the Wounded Coast, and left stranded in Kirkwall, while they await a ship to take them back to Par Vollen. They seem content to simply wait in their compound on the docks, and not bother the locals, but the degree to which they have embedded themselves within the city already is… slightly alarming, to the Viscount if no one else. Already resistance to their presence is building, and racial tensions threaten to flare with time.

Hurtled into the chaos, there are those that fight, and the world will shake before them. Whether it is fate or chance will be left to them to decide. These are the stories of the individuals who left their mark on the City of Chains, and the world…


The Chanter’s Board has been updated. New quests are available.





How could so much have happened in just a few hours?

Sophia Dumar was fuming, hiking her skirts up slightly and descending the Chantry steps as quickly as she dared. Upon reaching the bottom, she took off towards the Viscount’s Keep, desiring to break into a run, but just barely having enough sense not to. It was very important that she was never seen to panic. Sophia was really the only well-respected member left in the Dumar family, as the nobility in Hightown had often witnessed, and then talked about, her unfailing efforts to hold her father and brother together. As much as they talked about Saemus and her father behind their backs, at least they knew the pair of them had a voice of reason at their side.

Of course, they would whisper other things if they saw the Viscount’s daughter running through Hightown in a panic, her dress streaming behind her. It irked her that such posturing was still necessary even when her own family member was in danger, but she had to think long-term here. Always she had to be two steps ahead. Saemus was not in immediate danger, as anyone who had kidnapped the Viscount’s son would do so for the potential profits from ransom. Damaging the family’s reputation beyond repair was something she could prevent by appearing calm.

Well, calm was a polite word for it. She walked swiftly, her face set as stone, an undeniable urgency in her step. She shuddered to think of the possibilities had Sister Mirabelle not been in the Viscount’s Keep, and had not thought to inform Sophia, who had been praying for her brother’s safety in the Chantry, and speaking with the Grand Cleric. Elthina had advised Sophia not to do anything rash upon returning to the Keep, but her warning had little effect on the girl. She had to do this herself. Regardless of what her father thought, she wouldn’t trust just anyone with the well-being of her brother.

The Keep seemed farther away than usual this time, but at her pace, it wasn’t long before Sophia was climbing the other large set of stairs in Hightown, the approach to the Keep on Viscount’s Way. The guards gave her respectful nods as she passed, and the two before the great doors into the Keep cleared the way for her, allowing her to stride into the main hall of the Viscount’s Keep unhindered. She just about ran into the first person she saw inside, a tanned, hardened looking woman, well-armed and outfitted in light leather armor. She grinned at Sophia as she passed her.

“Don’t worry yourself overmuch, sweetheart. We’ll drag your brother back here and make a bloody mess of whoever took him. The Winters are more than a match for any Qunari, mark my words.” She blew past Sophia before she had a chance to respond, the half-dozen men she’d arrived with following her out. Sophia could have screamed. The Winters. She’d learned of them recently, some mercenary band out of Nevarra, looking to get a foothold in Kirkwall. They did not have a good reputation, at least not for getting things done cleanly. They got their work done, that was for sure, but their methods were unsavory, to say the least.

Sophia shook her head, moving swiftly up the stairs out of the central room, taking a left and heading towards the Viscount’s office. She found her father’s seneschal, Bran, outside the door, his red-orange hair neatly slicked to the side, his dress impeccably fashionable as always. He attempted to preempt Sophia as she approached.

“My lady—” he began, but Sophia was quick to cut him off. Don’t, Bran. You’re not going to talk me out of this one.” Bran flashed her a charming smile, which was deflected fully by Sophia as if she’d smacked it out of the air with a shield. “That doesn’t mean I can’t try. Please, don’t put yourself in danger for this, the Winters are more than capable of—”

“Bringing Saemus home safely? You don’t believe that, do you Bran? They’re brutes, more likely to bash my brother’s skull in than rescue him! Does father know of this?” Saemus glanced around slightly nervously. “Please, my lady, if you would just keep your voice down. Appearances must be maintained, as I’m sure you already know. Your father gave me orders to hire anyone skilled enough to help. He will take no chances with this Qunari, and as the Winters say, they leave nothing to chance. Although, I admit, their methods leave something to be desired, and I didn’t think them the best choice for a rescue mission, but what am I to do?”

“How about not sending murderers to keep my brother safe?” she said, her voice stinging him slightly, but she let it slide. What was done was done. She could still fix this. “What’s this about a Qunari? Tell me what the Winters learned so that I can go after them and make sure this doesn’t go horribly wrong.” The look on Bran’s face told Sophia that he wasn’t giving in easily. “The leader of the Winters, Ginnis, said that her scouts had successfully tracked the boy down, and that he had been captured by a Qunari. But please, Sophia, the Winters are very intent on receiving their reward for this. Don’t put yourself in their way. There’s no telling what they might try. And your father explicitly stated you were not to go.”

“Bran,” she said, quieter now, “I need to know where he is, where the Winters are headed. You know I won’t let this go. I just want to be there in case something goes wrong. Are you really willing to trust Saemus’ life to a band of thugs?” The seneschal sighed, before giving in. “I should know better than to keep arguing with you, my lady. The Winters tracked him to the Wounded Coast. If you leave soon, you should be able to follow their trail.” Sophia exhaled in relief. “Thank you, Bran. I appreciate this.”

She took her leave, heading to her quarters, passing her father’s room on the way. He likely knew she would go after Saemus, but unlike Bran, he knew better than to try and stop her. He’d long since lost his ability to stop Sophia from doing what she would. Sliding her door closed, Sophia slipped out of her dress and began donning her armor.




It was days like this one in which Ithilian found himself wishing he’d chosen to stay with Marethari’s clan, instead of coming here to wallow among the downtrodden and the hopeless.

But perhaps it was a fitting place for him, hopeless as he was. He sat in front of his pitiful little home in the alienage, leaning his back against the wall, facing the vhenadahl in the center of the elves’ little corner of Lowtown. In his hands was what was formerly a small block of wood, but was now beginning to look very much like a halla, though the noble beast’s spiraled horns were not yet quite in the shape Ithilian wanted. He chipped away with a small knife of his, a blade that had been through far more than these elves here could ever imagine. He remembered a specific occasion in which he had plunged this very blade deep into the skull of a darkspawn hurlock that had tackled one of his comrades to the ground. He’d saved his fellow’s life, but only temporarily. The taint got him a few days later. One by one, they had all fallen to the wretched darkspawn, as they desperately tried to flee through the Brecilian Forest to the north. Even Felaris hadn’t been able to survive. A shriek had been able to sneak into their camp when one of the hunters had fallen asleep at his watch from exhaustion, and by the time the creature’s screams woke their makeshift camp, their leader’s throat had been slit from ear to ear.

The thought of those days made him restless, and angry. Oh, how far he had fallen, by some chance at the hands of the Blight, yet another thing the shemlen had brought into the world. He had lost his connection to anyone who thought as he did among his kind, that they would simply run themselves into the ground if they did not change course. If they did not fight against the weight that wanted to crush them under its heel. No one would hear him, and no one would join him. Marethari protected her clan well enough, he could give her that, but she’d turned them into a bunch of fearful nomads, trying to hide from the humans while they focused on remembering the past. Remembering. The word made him feel oddly sick to his stomach. Reclaim was the word that Felaris had used, and the word Ithilian had lived by.

The word he still lived by. He had to remind himself of that every now and then. To admit defeat in his fight was to admit that he had nothing left to exist for. If that were true, he might as well go back in his house and hang himself with his bowstring. No, he wasn’t done yet. Not by a long shot. This city was ripe with opportunity for someone looking to make a mark. He just had to bide his time, avoid the attention of the city guard, and find the right chance, the right way to get his message across. He had to not only make the humans feel what he felt for once, but also find a way to inspire the others, to convince them that they could achieve something greater if they were just willing to push back.

He was shaken from his thoughts as the gleam of shining silver armor caught his eye. He looked up from his woodcarving to see a man in the unmistakable armor of the Templar Order descending the stairs into the alienage. Ithilian shifted his headscarf and squinted with his one remaining eye to get a better look at the man. Red-brown hair, striking blue eyes, a thick goatee, and middle aged, perhaps five years older than Ithilian or so. It was not the first time Ithilian had seen this shem within the alienage. In fact, he had visited several times in the past few days, always meeting with Arianni under the vhenadahl, where they discussed something Ithilian had previously considered to be not his business. He wasn’t looking to get the attention of the Templars if he could avoid it.

But Arianni’s vallaslin marked her as one of the People, and for that Ithilian felt obligated to speak with her. Whatever she had gotten herself in, the woman was Dalish, and worthy of his assistance. Perhaps once the Templar left this time, he would see what her troubles were, and if he could be of use. Gods knew he could use something more meaningful to do with his time.

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

Lucien wasn’t particularly fond of Hightown. Everything, from the stones underfoot to the people chatting at market stalls, seemed to carry an air of whitewash, as though the sparkling cleanliness of appearance was merely a façade for manipulation and scheming. Of course, his cynicism was perhaps understandable, given that he’d once been elbow-deep in a similar mire with no desire to be there, limbs thrashing through the weighted honey of sweet lies that seemed feathered promises instead. How different could nobility be in the Free Marches?

If what time he had already spent here was anything to go by, then the answer was a simple, disappointed, not much. The names and the faces were sometimes different, but the game was the same, even if the players would barely be amateurs in his aunt Celene’s court.

He didn’t fit in with it. Never had, really; a man who preferred to wear his armor rather than his coronet, and speak with his actions rather than his words. Righteous was not the word; he was filled with no holy zeal. Surely, that was here and everywhere reserved for Templars. But he at least had his honor, and this alone was enough to make him a pariah. If that was what it meant, let it be so. Here, it was almost worse: his armor was not quite so rich or recognizable, and the weapon slung across his broad back was, of all things, a scythe, a simple farmers’ tool, modified to stand up to the increased pressure of battle.

The disgraced Chevalier looked down at the parchment missive in his hand. A general announcement, seeking those sturdy of body to return the Viscount’s missing son. Frankly, the details were a bit sparing, but if in fact the boy had been kidnapped, there was nothing for it but to find and retrieve him. It rankled Lucien that people would exploit a mere boy for political advantage, though of course he had seen far worse. If indeed this was the intent of the kidnapping, retrieving the lad as soon as possible would be imperative, lest he wind up slit in the throat and left for dead as soon as the assailants had what they wanted. Assuming, I suppose, that he is not already so.

Lucien’s long strides eventually carried him forward to the Viscount’s Keep, a great building with brutal architecture, the spires of it towering over everything else by the chantry, jutting into the sky as if to challenge the blue expanse for dominance in the eyes of man or Maker. The concept was familiar, though here I was executed in a manner almost Spartan. No sweeping buttresses, no painted ceilings, no ornately-patterned rugs, just crimson runners and more spikes than he bothered to count.

Pausing at the bottom of the steps, the mercenary palmed his cheek and rubbed absently at his slight stubble, turning his head this way and that so as to look around with his good eye. He managed to step aside even as a tanned woman nearly ran straight into him, eyes glinting with purpose. “Move before I move you,” she growled, and the former knight blinked, acquiescing mildly and allowing his tread to keep him moving forward thereafter. Discourtesy, he had grown used to, and he shrugged, proceeding up the flight of stairs and inside the Keep.

The Seneschal was in front of his office, looking a rather harried man. Lucien stopped a respectful distance from him and executed a shallow, but polite bow. Holding up the missive with a deferential smile, he ventured the first words. “I doubt I am the first to inquire, serah, but might you have any further information on the whereabouts of Lord Saemus?”

Bran had appeared slightly worried upon seeing yet another mercenary approach him, but Lucien's tact seemed to put him at ease somewhat. "Indeed there has been news, though the situation may soon be under control. A group of mercenaries has already departed to retrieve Saemus." It looked as though the Seneschal had been about to ask the mercenary to leave, when he thought better of it. "However, there is something I might ask of you, if you're looking to make some coin. The Viscount's daughter, the lady Sophia, has decided to follow these mercenaries to ensure her brother's safe return, and it is apparently not my place to stop her." He paused for a moment, as though searching for the best way to word his request. "Lady Sophia is a capable warrior, but these mercenaries, the Winters, have earned themselves a rather... dubious reputation, and they are numerous. If someone were to accompany the lady, and ensure her safe return as well as Saemus', they would be entitled to the same reward."

Lucien considered for a moment, thoughtfulness drawing his brows together, but he nodded in short order. A protection detail was a relatively complicated assignment, especially if the person he was to be looking after was to be willingly putting themselves in danger, but he did not think it beyond his capabilities. Besides that, he did not much like the idea of putting the safety of both a hostage and potentially the Viscount’s first child- reputed to be the most reasonable member of the family- in the hands of a group with a less-than-stellar reputation.

“It would be my honor,” he replied simply, distancing himself from the Seneschal that the other man might return to his duties. He took up residence against a pillar, crossing his arms over his chest and one leg over the other. He was the picture of unruffled composure, if perhaps slightly scragglier in appearance than one would usually associate with such a demeanor.




Errant fingers teased harpstrings, though there was precious little audience about to hear it. This was inconsequential; the Ben-Hassrath played for herself. If others derived enjoyment from the lulling tunes, then that was all well and good, but she of all people understood the difference between a fringe benefit and a real purpose. Playing was an aid to her thought process, as if hearing the harmony of chords and melody somehow reminded her that everything in the world had a place in it even as every note made a song better for its right placement and presence.

Sitting as she usually did, facing the entrance to the Alienage, back against the painted tree, the vhenadahl, one of the young ones had told her it was called. Its boughs stretched overhead, and she decided that if one had to choose a symbol of something better in a place like this, it was not a bad one. Of course, she had little use for symbolism, as letting things stand for other things did very little in terms of accomplishing goals. Were they so content to languish under one tree when they had once been masters of entire forests? Suffering ill-suited most of them, and yet they were apparently satisfied bearing it, to some degree.

In one sense, it was admirable, in another, deplorable. Amalia’s boat-light eyes narrowed slightly, and she plucked a few more strings in quick succession. For all that many things were certain, few were ever simple.

That was when the Templar entered. She watched him mildly, unmoving from her position, but clearly a sentinel all the same. Sometimes, the authorities from that foolish religion humans had bothered her charges for their conversion, and while she had not needed to intervene directly as of yet, she was not a fool and knew that the tensions in this respect were only growing more taut by the day.

The man approached Arianni, a woman who the Ben-Hassrath knew to have a son with a human, and to be formerly of the Dalish. None of this was information she had asked for, but whatever the reason, her charges seemed inclined to speak to her of little things, and she saw no reason not to hear them. Their voices were low, at least at first, but this did not stop her from hearing the gist of the exchange. So the boy was Saarebas. This fact was neither here nor there, but it had obviously provoked the Templar to action.

Amalia’s fingers stilled, and she pressed her palm to her strings to silence them. The heavy tread of armor-laden feet heralded the Templar’s departure, and it was then that she stood, flowing to her feet like so much silk and tucking the instrument gently beneath one arm. She was not Averaad, the leashing of Saarebas was not her responsibility, but… her role often constituted finding that which was missing, as few who left the Qun did so publicly or with courage, and this was therefore an extension of her abilities that did not fall to someone else. Reason enough to justify it.

Approaching the elvish woman on light feet, Amalia cocked her head to one side and spoke, words low but clear. “If you fear what might become of your child should the Templars find him, it would be best to ensure that someone else finds him first,” she pointed out plainly. This manner of hers, she knew, tended to unnerve people unfamiliar with the Ben-Hassrath, but she was a common-enough sight here in the Alienage that most no longer took offense to it.

Arianni appeared somewhat surprised at Amalia's words, or perhaps just her presence. "Hello, Amalia. You overheard that, did you? I... I am more fearful of what will happen to my Feynriel if he is not found, not the Templars. He... has had difficulty controlling his power of late. He dreams of demons, speaking in his mind. I'd rather lose him to the Circle than to himself."

It was then that a third party entered the conversation, when the Dalish, Ithilian, came forth, rather swiftly, moving through the shade cast by the vhenadahl. He was armed and armored as though he were about to go for a hunt, which he very well could have been. His bow was slung across his back, a full quiver of arrows at his hip, and a pair of long knives sheathed at his waist. He greeted Arianni with a small nod of his head. "Andaran atish'an, Arianni," he said. He gave no greeting to Amalia. Arianni looked perhaps more intimidated by Ithilian than she was by Amalia, even though he too was one of the People.

"Good day, Ithilian," she responded quietly. He did not wait for further reply. "If there's something to be done for your son, half-blooded as he is, it should be one of the People that aids you, not a shem." Arianni hesitated for a moment, looking between Amalia, who Ithilian had still not acknowledged, and Ithilian. "I... had been afraid to ask you for your help, Ithilian. I know you do not look fondly on my child." At this Ithilian crossed his arms. "Whatever you are now, you were Dalish once, and for that, you have my assistance. Perhaps it might help to remind you of what you turned aside."

Amalia could not say that she was particularly accustomed to being ignored, but then it was not as though she expected any different. This one looked at the world around him with hateful eyes, on every occasion she had seen need to observe, and she seemed to have done something to deserve at least one elf's ire. No matter; what bas believed of her was not her concern.

Even so, she had no intention of backing off here, and while he spoke, she stood, for all the world as relaxed as she had been under the tree, a single index digit resting gently perpendicular to her lips. A repose, really, and she cracked her neck first one way and then the other. Interesting, that he understood something of purpose, of differentiation, even if his parameters were in this case wholly mistaken. "Saatarethkost," she intoned, addressing him though she doubted he'd be so courteous as to return the favor. "Your understanding of boundaries is worthy, but here, you draw them in the wrong place. I will help Arianni regardless of your will, but if your true goal is success, you would understand that to accept my assistance is nothing shameful." She shrugged, a surprisingly light motion, and turned again to the woman.

"Does the dathrasi still maintain the shop in Lowtown?" she asked flatly, referring to the boy's father in no kind terms. Though she did not much go in for the bas methods of childrearing, even she could understand that to have so little involvement in the process was shameful in a society such as this one, and a man who shirked his role as father was not one worthy of any distinction. She'd been made aware of his return through the same gossips that provided her all of her information, and she had yet to hear of him leaving.

"He does. Vincento will be in the bazaar. He recently returned to the city from Antiva. Feynriel might have sought him out when he ran. But if Vincento knows nothing, you might also speak to Ser Thrask, the Templar, in the Gallows, to learn what ground he has already covered."

Ithilian had been scrutinizing the girl Amalia after she had greeted him with a word he was not familiar with. Something to do with her Qun, likely, the beliefs which he had heard she followed instead of the shemlen Chantry. "Your ears are as round as any shem's," he noted, "but if you would help Arianni regardless of my opinion, then there's little I can do to stop you. I'm willing to see if this Qun of yours can elevate you above the other humans," he paused for a moment, before adding, "though I have my doubts." He then turned to Arianni.

"We'll start with this Vincento, then. With any luck, I can tear your boy's location from his hide. We'll get him to safety." Arianni bowed her head in thanks. "Ma serranas, Ithilian. Thank you, Amalia. I will pray for your swift return." Ithilian gave Amalia a nod of his head, before heading off towards the steps out of the Alienage.

"Let's go hear what this shem has to say."

"Is that all it takes, then?" she mused, though truly more to herself than him. She had heard this word, shemlen, and knew it designated the same thing as human, though less charitably. Apparently, it was an entirely useless category, one that served no actual function other than to classify based on physiology. There was a reason the horned Qunari no longer referred to themselves as kossith.

Nevertheless, the battle against ignorance was not hers to fight, at least not at present, and he seemed about as willing as he was going to get to tolerate her presence, so that much at least was done. "Meravas, then," she replied, and it was answer to both Ithilian and Arianni. "So shall it be." Doubting very much that the other would wish to put his back to her, she decided that she might as well lead the way to Lowtown, as she had some idea of where the one called Vincento operated. If she was concerned about exposing her back to him, she certainly did not act it.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Rakkis

Earnings

0.00 INK

#, as written by throne
”You needn’t go so soon, you know.”

Rakkis was standing just to the side of a bed in disarray, not a sword’s length away from the waif who’d just crooned those words. He spared a glance over his shoulder as he pulled his breeches up and cinched his belt with two sure movements of his scarred hands. Artfully, he had cocked an eyebrow at the young human who lay florid and tangled in the sheets, playing his part even after the deed was done. Harlan must be making half a fortune off this one, he decided, And no small part of it from me.

”Say ‘mustn’t.’ ‘You mustn’t go so soon.’ It implies more want on your part, rather than disinterest on theirs. Everyone loves to be wanted and nobody wants to be disinterested.” He peeled his gaze away from the whore, inspecting his surroundings for- ah, his shirt. He scooped it from the scrollwork arm of the ornate chair that it had fallen upon in the midst of their unwrapping of one another. Returning to the bed, he knelt upon it and then tugged the shirt on, fumbling like a child to get his head out the right home, then the same flapping business with his arms. He reappeared with a dazzling grin at the young man. ”But as it happens, I must. Go, that is. Though, before I do… He reached down and lifted- Stavros’? Stentos’? It started with an S and ended with an S, he remembered that much- at any rate, he took him by the hand, smiling. ”Why don’t you tell me who gave you these?

The squeeze he gave that delicate wrist was not painful, but the whore gasped in surprise. Rakkis kneaded the heel of his hand expertly over the whore’s wrist in such a way that it caused the make-up he’d noticed during their mattress theatrics to give way to ugly bruises. They described the shape of a large man’s hand in stark, yellow-purple contrast to S-some-other-letters-S’s exquisite pale flesh.

He listened, nodding, his eyes steeling up briefly in the wake of a few more graphic details of “The Story of How a Boyish Whore Was Bruised”, which his erstwhile entertainment delivered quite well. He was an actor, once, or I’ll join the Chantry.. When it was through, he let his fingers dance briefly near his hip, somehow extracting from his pocket a single sovereign. He smiled like one would when consoling a squalling child and briefly made it disappear, then walked it down his knuckles, then with his thumb, flipped it so that it landed on the portion of the sheet that was rather needlessly preserving the last gasps of the boy’s modesty. ”You should choose a different name to go by here. Something punchy, easy to remember. How will anyone ever ask for you a second time if they can’t remember your silly name?” He grinned in the face of a whore’s indignation, and then sat at the edge of the bed to lace up his boots.

Those same boots, not a moment later, carried him lightly down the steps to the ground floor of The Blooming Rose. He set his hands on his hips as he bounced down the final two steps, a heroic pose, or more likely, a mockery thereof, and then swept toward one of his oldest true friends in Kirkwall. Most whores considered time their greatest enemy, robbing them every second of the looks that kept them in coin. Maeve, on the other hand, was always more beautiful than he remembered. He embraced her quickly before pulling away. After a bit of banter, he casually mentioned what he’d only heard just moments before, though he did dimly recall seeing a poster, now that he thought of it, which he hadn’t bothered to read. ”You’ve heard about the Viscount’s son, I’m sure.”

Rakkis was fond of saying, or rather, thinking declaratively, that one had no need of spies if one had whores. Maeve’s tale overlapped partially with the waif’s, sketching out for him a few salient details: there was plenty of coin to be made finding the brat, the Winters were planning on using the reward and good-will from finding said brat to get a foot-hold in Kirkwall, and that a few of The Winters had indeed passed through the Rose recently. He stood on the tips of his toes to kiss each of her painted cheeks before bidding her farewell and promising that his next visit would be soon.

The Viscount’s Keep was not so far that Rakkis felt inclined to rush. He enjoyed sauntering through Hightown. There was no one who relished being unwanted half as much as the elven brigand did. He paused to inspect a poster, nearly identical to the one he’d ignored earlier, and realized that they were hung everywhere. He spat on the ground. Sons went missing in Lowtown and Darktown every day, daughters too, and nobody cared but the ones they were missing from. If it weren’t for the music of very many coins clinking together in his mind or the bruises on a boy-whore’s wrists, he might have turned about for the sake of spite.

He didn’t turn around, though. He went right on sauntering, right up the steps and inside the Keep. He rolled his eyes when a guardsman moved to bar his way. The man was nearly two heads taller than Rakkis, and at least twice as massive. ”I’m here to help find poor Saemus. Be a good statue and direct me to whichever doddering functionary I need to see about signing on.” As was often the case with hired help, the guard was quite unsure what to make of Rakkis, and he grudgingly pointed the way to Bran, the Seneschal, whose title vaguely reminded the elf of the name of a whore he planned to avenge.

He strode with ersatz dignity to the seneschal’s office, literally puffing his chest out… which proved to be for naught, given Lucien’s presence. He would have needed several extra chests and a pair of stilts to look impressive in that sort of company. Despite his relative diminutiveness, he looked the man right in the eye as he nodded up at him in passing, displaying the sort of grin that madmen often died wearing. He swept onward, bound for the fire-haired majordomo.

The Seneschal looked up from his desk, where he had been writing. His eyes made a pass over the length of the elf entering the room, one eyebrow raising slightly. He then sighed, finishing up the letter he'd been working on, before reluctantly speaking to him. "Tell me you aren't here for what I think you are."

The elven rogue's lips pressed into a smile that he probably imagined as rakish. "I'd never presume to know the thoughts of the Seneschal of Kirkwall, so I'm afraid I can't tell you that. What is it that you think I'm here for?". As he idly awaited a reply, he slid his tongue along his teeth, as if trying to clear some obstruction between the gaps, and then reached up to lend a fingernail to the effort.

Bran did not seem amused. "You're here about the bounty for bringing Lord Saemus back safely," he stated flatly. "Let me tell you now, the situation has changed... but the Viscount would not wish me to turn a willing hand aside. So I'll give you the same offer I did for the last mercenary who came looking for coin." He put down his quill, leaning back in his chair. "The Viscount's daughter will be following a mercenary company that has already departed for the Wounded Coast, to retrieve Saemus from his Qunari captor. Lady Sophia will be ensuring nothing goes wrong. If you would accompany her, and see to it that both she and her brother return to the Keep alive and well, you will be granted the reward."

Somewhere in the midst of Bran's speech, Rakkis had either unstuck whatever was stuck in his teeth or abandoned the pretense of trying to. He only seemed to be half-listening, having turned his gray gaze to inspecting (with a dearth of approval) the decor of the man's office. "'Bounty' is such an ugly word for rendering such a valuable service to our fair city, don't you think?" He smiled absently and shook his head. "I'm aware of the changes in the situation, m'lord, which only makes my presence even more necessary. But I'm sure you look forward to hearing all about that when we return. Where have my fellow adventurer's gotten off to, then?"

"Lady Sophia is donning her armor at the moment, I imagine. She will be present shortly, and will no doubt immediately depart. The mercenary outside will also be accompanying her."

His gaze slid toward the open door and he smirked. "Tell him to keep an eye on her, did you?" He didn't bother waiting for Bran to not answer. "You've discharged your duty in this matter quite adequately, Seneschal." With that, he bowed very low and took his leave.

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

If ever there was a soul that looked out of place absolutely everywhere, it was probably Rilien Falavel. Fortunately for him, neither the open staring nor the curious whispers that followed his presence ever really seemed to bother him in the slightest. Presently, three Hightown wives were clustered about some distance behind him, the low rasp of their whispers carrying even over the distance they stood.

Worthy, the dwarf with whom he was presently doing business, moved sideways to glance at them from around the elf’s hip, but in the end he simply shrugged and went back to business. The pragmatism of a merchant dwarf was as much a boon as anything, assuming you knew the value of your goods. For all that he did not much care about money, Rilien was well aware that his products were of excellent quality, and very much sought-after, which entitled him to a certain amount of profits.

A coin purse changed hands, and the Tranquil tied it to his belt wordlessly. He was making to depart when Worthy’s voice stopped him. “Hey, Ril. I’ve got something else you can do, if you’re interested in a bonus.”

The man paused in his movement, stilling as though he were formed from stone. "What is the task?” He asked in his customary monotone. This increased the fervency of the muttering, but he paid it no mind.

“Client of mine wants something delivered. Gascard DuPuis. An Orlesian ponce, with an estate in Hightown. You can just pass it to his steward or his doorman or something, they’ll know to pay you.” Rilien blinked once, then turned smoothly on his heel, accepting the package from Worthy and diverting his course for the Estate District of Hightown. He was aware that this would take him past the Chantry, which was troublesome, but unlike most people, Rilien was quite capable of putting his hangups to the side and doing what needed to be done. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that he didn’t really have hangups, only memories of them.

Still, the stride that carried him past the place was efficient and fluid, enough so that between it, his smooth facial cast, and his barely-sunned hue, he might have resembled something more ghost than elf.

He was slowed by the voice of a woman, one that seemed to carry more panic than anything in its tone, but the folk here were simply passing her by as though she did not exist. Though some anguish was clear in the tense lines of her body language and pleas fell from her lips like water from a mountain stream, not one even paused. To say that this plight stirred his sympathy would be to mistake him for someone who understood what sympathy was, and even his memories held no recollection of such an emotion being bestowed upon him or named to him. Regardless, it did pique the curiosity of a well-sharpened mind, and he tucked the small package beneath one elbow and approached her.

She had hair of an ashen-blonde most often seen in humans, and her eyes were a very clear blue. Her clothing- a dress of sturdy fabric, but frayed in a number of places- put her in Lowtown at best, though considerably better off than anyone in the Alienage or Darktown. Which meant that she was here because the Chantry was here.

He wondered distantly if he was going to regret this.

"With what do you require assistance?” he asked bluntly, well-aware that, for the moment at least, his snowy forelock was sufficient to obscure the translucent orange of his sunburst brand. It felt hot and slimy on his skin, always.

The woman seemed to overlook his tone of voice for the most part, wrapped in her panic as she was. "It's my brother, Keran," she said, seeming to latch on to the elf with her eyes as he approached from amidst the other passerby in Hightown before the Chantry, like she was clutching at a rock in the middle of a raging river. "He joined the Templar Order here a few months ago, even though I begged him not to. You hear dark rumors about the Templars here... but it is dangerous even to speak of such things."

She glanced around the courtyard, to ensure that no passing Templars had heard her, before continuing. "I would write to Keran every day, but he recently stopped returning my letters. I went to the Templar Hall to see if everything was all right, but Knight-Commander Meredith had me thrown out. They wouldn't tell me anything!" Her voice had grown rather loud, but she quickly quieted down again. "Do you think you could help me find out where he is, or what has happened to him?"

There was no visible reaction to her tidings, merely a pause of several seconds, during which Rilien turned the information over in his mind. A missing Templar, new to the Order, now entirely disappeared. How peculiar. Though Rilien was inclined to avoid Templars whenever possible, he was aware that they posed comparatively little danger to him, given his obvious condition. He was unmoved by the woman's distress, but all the same he could see no reason not to acquiesce to her request. There was little to be gained, but also little to be lost. "Does your brother have any friends among his Order?" he inquired quietly.

"Yes, he does! He wrote to me about them. He spoke fondly of the recruits Wilmod and Hugh. They were his best friends in the Order, and if anyone knows where Keran is, it would be them." She then bowed her head in thanks to Rilien. "Maker bless you for helping. May he watch over you in this endeavor."

Quite frankly, Rilien would rather the Maker kept out of his business entirely, but he did not bother to say as much, instead inclining his head in return. He would make his delivery, and then find Sparrow. Adventures to search after mysteriously-vanished fellows were something he imagined would strike her very active sense of fancy, after all.


The sound of armored boots managed to gain distance, no matter how many times she turned a corner or burst into a sprint. Despite being essentially sheathed in steel, the Templar still managed to keep step and even gain on the woman. And they called her the monster... Sweat was already beading on her brow and rolling down the bridge of her nose. If she didn't lose him soon, the next time she'd see Lowtown was from the Gallows. Another hard turn and she began to look for place to hide. Then it came, like the Maker himself guided her to her salvation... Well, as much as the Hanged Man can be called salvation. She ducked into the tavern and quickly scanned the bar before calmly walking over and taking a seat at random.

She pulled her scarf up around her head to hide her red hair and ordered a drink. As the drink made it's way over to her table, she began to talk to her new drinking buddy like they had been friends forever. "So the bastard has these slippers he's tryin' to sell me right?" she said with a brogue just as the Templar entered the bar, "He's tellin' me how they are genuine Orlesian slippers and how they'll feel like they're making love to my feet," The Templar scanned the bar as he looked for his target, but seemed confused. The woman disregarded this entirely and continued to tell her story.

"So then I tell the rotten bastard, those slippers look like a rabbit's ass!" She said laughing harder than her small frame would allow. Behind her, the Templar looked defeated and exited the Tavern, continuing the search for the woman who had ran. "You should have... Seen.. His... Face? Is he gone?" The woman asked her new friend-- an elven woman. Once she was sure the Templar was gone she sighed deeply and slipped into a more familiar Antivan accent. "Oh my. I almost didn't think that it would work... Uh.. My apologies for dragging you into this," She said, "My name is Aurora," she introduced herself, the Rs rolling off of her tongue, "And I thank you for your aid. Can I get you a drink?" Hopefully, this woman was liquored up enough to forget the entire scene.

Some minstrel played a jolly sailor’s tune somewhere to her left, but this was a piece of information Nostariel scarcely noted, absorbed as she was with staring at her empty flagon as though the dregs of her ale contained the answers to all of life’s greatest mysteries. Occasionally, there was a bard that played in here, and his music was much better, but the white-haired elf (odd as it was), hadn’t been by in some time. She wasn’t sure what made her think of that just now, but it was considerably lighter than the other thoughts swimming around in her mind these days, so she allowed it to convalesce a while longer before the next, more ponderous thing moved in to take its place.

She wondered how Lucien fared, at this moment, and Rakkis and that curious man Sparrow. Considering that they and the bartender were the only four people she knew at all around here, it was probably natural to wonder after them. Occasionally, the slumped-over Warden would remember herself enough to be ashamed of this, her slow, undignified death, and unfortunately right now was one of those times. Probably because this was her first drink today, and she was still sober because of it.

A situation easily-enough remedied, she supposed. Her hand was halfway up to motion for the bartender for another round when movement caught her eye from her peripheral vision. Nostariel paused then, lowering her hand and following the newcomer with surprisingly-sharp eyes. She knew all of the regulars by gait and carriage if not by name, and this was not one of them.

To the Warden’s surprise, the woman (for indeed it was one, and a rather small one, for a human), slid into the seat across from her, and began talking slightly too-loudly. Nostariel, despite frequent intoxication, was no idiot, and it was obvious that the act was being put on for a purpose. When the Templar stomped through the door, the reason was apparent with silver-armored clarity, and her decision was made.

“Utterly deplorable. I say he’s lucky you didn’t call the guard, my dear.” Nostariel sniffed haughtily, straightening her posture and nodding along with the rest of the rant until the Templar left, sparing just one more when the woman asked if he was gone.

“Think nothing of it,” she replied to the woman’s thanks, placing the accent as vaguely Antivan, maybe Rivaini, but… no, definitely Antivan. “I spent enough time under the watch of the Templars to understand that it is no desirable thing.” Despite her words, there was something almost wistful in Nostariel’s tone. She waved a hand to decline the offer of a drink; she didn’t usually let anyone else buy for her.

“Aurora, is it? My name is Nostariel; it’s a pleasure.”

So this woman had run-ins with Templars as well? Aurora was intrigued. Just who did she managed to sit in front of? "Nostariel? It's a pretty name," she said, cocking her head curiously to the side. She let a pause pass before speaking again. "Templars... You too? So does that mean that you... Uh.." She trailed off. How does one go about asking if another is a mage? Was there some sort of process? Was it rude? Aurora was interested, but didn't want to be pry either. Instead of saying the word outloud, she made odd gestures with her hands. There was something about this girl... Did the Maker really have this kind of a sense of humor?

Nostariel nodded, a trifle melancholy, some unknown affliction flitting across her facial expression before it smoothed out into something gentle again. "It means exactly what you think it means," she replied softly, then tapped the crest on her shoulder, the sole marker of her status as a Warden, the red band underneath the logo denoting her rank as Captain of the Grey. "And a few other things, too." Of course, not all of them were good things, and it was probably obvious that there was far more to the story than she'd bothered to say, but it was not a tale that would pass easily into empty air, fellow mage or no.

"So tell me, Aurora, how does an Antivan apostate find herself running from Templars in Kirkwall of all places? It's not the first location one thinks of when the word 'freedom' is mentioned; of that I am quite certain." Her tone had transitioned smoothly to diffidence, a miniscule smile tugging at one corner of her mouth, and it was clear enough that the question was meant at least partially in jest, and need not be answered seriously if the young woman should wish to avoid doing so.

Her eyes followed her fingers to the crest on her shoulder and Aurora's eyes widened in surprise. Not only a mage, but a Grey Warden at that! She had never met a Grey Warden before, but everyone knew their symbols of Griffins. Strange, seeing a Warden in back end of Kirkwall's seedy tavern. Surely there was a story behind that, but Aurora wasn't going to press. She was happy just knowing that this woman was a mage as well. But a Warden... At least she didn't have to worry about getting sent to the Gallows.

"You knew I was Antivan?" She started. It was obvious how the Warden came to that conclusion. Her accent hardly left any doubts. The corners of her mouth tilted downward in a show of disappointment. "I've been trying to get rid of the accent. You know, try not to draw any unneeded attention to myself," she said turning to look at the entrance where the Templar had been standing. "Been failing spectacularly recently," She shook her head and took a drink of her beer. It tasted horrid. She had merely bought it for the facade, but she hated to waste it. She sighed again and said, "It's not like the word mage does any better. There was a surge of refugees, and I figured that it'd be harder to track one apostate among them."

"Or, you know, I could say that I just wanted to see a Qunari," she said with her grin coming back.

"Indeed not," replied Nostariel, thoughtfully. A wry smile twisted her lips at the mention of the Qunari, and she quirked a brow. "They are... certainly something. What that something is, I couldn't say for sure." The young woman rested her chin on a hand, propping her elbow on the table and regarding her newest acquaintance with something approaching curiosity.

"You know, it helps to have safe places all about the city, ones that you can duck into from just about anywhere. There's a network of tunnels beneath the place, too, but sometimes just having friends in the right places is enough." She paused, her index finger circling the rim of her tankard slowly, then glanced up at the redheaded apostate. "My rooms are just up the stairs and to the left. Second door on the right, next to the storytellers'. If you ever need somewhere to hide and I'm not around. The word 'Ewan' disables the ward, and also replaces it again, so you should be able to get in without fuss."

Was it foolish to entrust such information to a total stranger? Yes, but Nostariel had not counted herself anything other then a fool for a very long time. "You will, of course, need more than one such place. How well do you know Kirkwall? I could show you a few potential hiding spots I've noticed, if you like. The key to keeping a secret is to make it look like you aren't." That, at least was something Nostariel knew a fair bit about.

Aurora eyes widened at Nostariel's offer of safe havens. Thus far, she had been relying on her wits and her feet to keep her out of reach of the Templars. Sure, her... lodging in Lowtown served her well. It was out of place from the main bustle of the city, though she dare not track any suspicions back. She had survived by staying away from the Templars and rarely resorting to magic. Knowing that this woman was offering a couple of more safe havens... It was comforting.

She nodded as Nostariel spoke, listening intently to her words as it may save her from a trip to the Gallows one day. "Ewan... Is there a meaning behind that," She mused outloud. She wasn't posing it as a direct question to the Warden, just a bit of curiosity making it's way out of her mouth.

"Long enough to know the best paths to avoid the heaviest traffic. But I don't have 'safe houses' no," She said. She knew her way around Lowtown and the paths best suited to losing Templars, just in case, but that was about it. "I'd like that. Very much." She said with pure gratitude written on her face. She then glanced back at the Hanged Man's entrance. "It doesn't happen often... Today was... Unfortunate," she said. She wouldn't have had this problem if a band of rogues didn't try to prey on a young woman... Though whether the day proved to be ultimately unfortunate remained to be seen. She did managed to find a Grey Warden mage after all.

"I guessed as much," Nostariel replied easily, ignoring the implications behind the young woman's innocent question. They were certainly present, but she lacked the strength to face them quite yet. It was a foolish piece of sentiment, after all, better left as far away from the stark lights of daytime and sobriety as possible. "Well," she continued, perhaps a shade more brightly than she'd spoken in a while, "I suppose there's no time quite like the present, is there?" Splaying her fingers on the tabletop, Nostariel lightly leveraged herself off the bench she'd been seated at, standing and dropping a few coppers on the table for whomever happened to clean it. She had a running tab at the Hanged Man, one which she paid monthly with her board fees.

A tilt of her head gestured for Aurora to follow her out-of-doors, and the Warden's light footsteps were without hitch or stumble.

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Rakkis

Earnings

0.00 INK

The Viscount's daughter slid through the door to the private quarters and into the Seneschal's office. Bran looked up to see her sheathing Vesenia, her hand-and-a-half sword, across her back, her suit of armor gleaming in the morning light that streamed through the window. It was an expertly crafted suit of silver plate, remarkably light for the protection it offered her, and yet still strong enough to turn aside any glancing blow. It was also stylish enough to make most Orlesian Chevaliers moderately jealous, with crimson and white ribbons sown into the shoulder pauldrons and breastplate, as well as a crimson skirt falling loosely around her legs to reach her knees. She had tied her thick golden hair back into a ponytail, securing it in place with a headband of tightly interlaced red and white cloth.

"My lady..." Bran began, but as ever, Sophia was quick to quick to cut him off. "Bran, I'm going. Everything will be fine." He shook his head. "It's not that. A pair of... mercenaries, I suppose, arrived while you were donning your armor, and I've assigned them to accompany you to the Wounded Coast." Sophia sighed. "More mercenaries? And how am I supposed to trust these ones any more than the Winters?"

"Because they are fully aware that their reward will only be presented if both you and your brother return unharmed. And, well... the first one seemed an honorable enough sort. The other should be held by the coin, if nothing else. You'll see soon enough. They're waiting for you outside." Sophia shrugged. There wasn't any more time to waste. She wasn't going to argue with him about this. And... she had to admit that taking on the Winters herself should things go awry was a bit of a tall order. They were skilled killers, not commoners. "Fine," Sophia gave in, before turning to leave.

"Maker guard you, Sophia," Bran called to her as she left. Sophia had never thought the Seneschal a very religious man. Perhaps he was just saying it to encourage her. If he was, it worked well enough. She passed through the Seneschal's door swiftly, moving easily in her armor, a feat not many of the noblewomen in Hightown could perform. She noted the presence of her two companions, the first a large, well-built man, a warrior like herself, the second... a slender elf. His facial tattoos initially identified him as Dalish in her mind, but... the tattoos seemed oddly vulgar. She had to admit, she'd never met a Dalish elf, but she'd always imagined their facial tattoos would be more... elegant?

But it didn't matter. He would help her, or he wouldn't get paid, which was likely all these mercenaries cared about. She waved the two to follow her, and moved swiftly down the steps away from the Viscount's quarters, expecting them to keep up.

"Let's do introductions on the move, shall we?" she called back to them, golden hair swishing behind her as she walked. "Sophia Dumar, daughter to the Viscount of Kirkwall, as I'm sure you know."

Lucien tracked the elf's movement with his single mercurial eye, returning the rougish nod with a markedly more respectful and decorous one, though other than that, he was quite content to remain out of the man's business, and maintained a fair distance from the Seneschal's office. Eventually, the tattooed fellow reemerged, and the warrior was fairly certain he caught the tail end of a jest made at his expense. Never heard that one before, he thought with faint traces of sarcasm, though he was more interested in the fact that the other man seemed to be lingering as well. It was not difficult to put two and two together, and he drew the conclusion that he would not be alone in his endeavors this day.

He was spared having to ask the actual question by the appearance of an armored woman, face set into an expression that was all business. The craftsmanship of her arms and armament spoke to wealth, but also the presence of mind to maintain such things, and her gesture was all he needed to suppose that she was accustomed to being obeyed. After that, the introduction was only a formality, and he uprooted himself from his spot against the pillar at last, rotating his left arm in its socket as he tread carefully after her trailing ponytail. He maintained a respectful distance of two paces behind and to the right, but the motion made bowing a frankly ridiculous option, so he embraced the efficiency of the situation and spoke while walking.

"Lucien Drakon, milady, lowtown mercenary, as I'm sure you have no reason to know." He echoed her delivery with something approaching mild humor. And why not? Though he'd been told she was a warrior, it was still in his nature to expect formality thick enough to choke, and its absence was... refreshing.

Rakkis played a single thumb along the exposed hilt of his unnamed rapier while he waited. He smiled pleasantly enough at Lucien, then at Sophia when she made her appearance. The slender elf gravitated toward the large mercenary's right side when they were underway, hanging just a step back; not out of deference, but more likely to be annoying. ”And I am Rakkis. A pleasure to make your acquaintences, of course." He eased his hands behind his back, clasping them at the small of it. He had to step quickly to match his companions' longer strides, but did so easily enough.

Sophia made note of their names, if only to know what to call them in case orders needed to be given. The name Drakon might have had a greater impact on her had she not been in such a hurry, and had she not been so distracted. "We could go through the formalities," Sophia commented as the group exited the Keep, "but personally, I'd rather we just got moving. I hope the two of you can ride. We'll be making haste to the Wounded Coast, where we should be able to pick up the Winters' trail. Maker willing, we'll catch them before they do anything stupid." She made a sharp turn at the base of the steps, turning towards the Viscount's stables. The guards nodded and let her pass, her two companions let through as well.

Rakkis' nose wrinkled up on the word ride. He had no great affinity for animals, particularly the sort large enough to flatten him with a kick. Of course, the well-bred beasts that the Viscount was liable to keep might be less surly than the nags he'd had occasion to saddle before. ”That," he commented dryly with a smirk toward Sophia, ”Would require catching them before they get anywhere near your darling brother."

"That is my intent," Sophia said as the three of them made their way into the stables, an open courtyard of mostly cold stone flooring, though they would be able to see the Viscount's private riding grounds through a gate against the far wall. A stablehand was quick to bring Sophia's horse to her, a proud-looking white warhorse which she smoothly mounted without breaking stride. "Bring horses for my companions," she commanded, and in short order a pair of them were brought forth, both black. Strong, sturdy horses, not the caliber of Sophia's, but noble creatures all the same. Once the group was mounted, Sophia kicked her heels into her horse, calling back to them.

"Try to keep up!"

Lucien was forced to adjust the way the scythe lay across his back, in order that he would neither stab the horse nor himself. It was a minor inconvenience at best, but it had never been a problem when he carried a sword. It would be some time, perhaps, before he allowed himself that luxury again, or any other. Still, there was a faintly-pleased crinkle in the corner of his visible eye when he swung astride the beast. This, the exercise of military skill from astride an equine, was one of the things the Chavaliers took most pride in, and the Orlesian cavalry was, in the opinion of its members and a fair amont of others, the finest in the world. Lady Sophia spurred her beast foward, and the call that issued over her shoulder, filled with no small amount of confidence, sounded very much like a challenge.

The Orlesian man's good eyebrow ascended his forehead, and he shook his mane of hair good-naturedly. How tempted he was to revert, even for a moment, to his boyhood, when he'd answered so many such barbs from his father or his comrades and raced with no thought for anything but the joy of it. Alas, that was likely not the intention, and there were much more important matters to be taken care of. Steering with only his legs, Lucien squeezed his horse's flanks rather than kicking it, but the response was the same, and he made sure to actually heed the command and keep pace, aware that time grew short.

”Horse," the elf said, nodding toward the coal-colored steed that was brought before him as if that were its name. He hadn't the same aplomb or horsemanship as his two human comrades when it came to getting astride the damnable thing; it was nearly a trapeze act of sorts for him to get one foot into a stirrup and then swing for the sake of momentum to wind up in the saddle. He situated himself, looking cross and uncomfortable, and then leaned in to whisper into one of the animal's large ears. "There is a woman down in Darktown who makes a most delightful horse-meat stew. I know her well, and would see her business thrive. Do not cross me, Horse." He kicked his heels into the great beasts sides, then held on for dear life as it started off its cantor. The animal probably barely realized there was a rider in the saddle, so slight was Rakkis, and it was with wide eyes and quite a few curses that he managed to stay seated at first. Sophia and Lucien would likely gain a sizeable lead before he finally got the hang of it.

The three of them departed Kirkwall, heading for the Wounded Coast.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

The shem chose to walk in front of Ithilian, perhaps as some kind of show of trust, or cooperation. Or stupidity. He welcomed the third in shemlen, but had no desire for the first two. But he made no complaints. Best to know where the girl was, and what she was doing, at all times, at least until he could discern her motives. There was no coin to be had from this job. Arianni had nothing to spare. There were toes that could possibly be stepped on, such as those of the Templars. And from what Ithilian had gathered in his short time in the city, the Templars were not a group to be trifled with, or a group to be made enemies of. At least, not publicly. And neither Arianni nor Feynriel were of her people. Arianni was Dalish, and Feynriel... had no place. His human blood would mark him as lesser among the People, and his elven blood would mark him as lesser among the shemlen. So what was she after?

"Why do you care?" Ithilian asked bluntly from behind her as they walked up the steps, in the direction of the Lowtown Bazaar. "The boy is no kin of yours, and neither is Arianni. What do you get from doing this?"

"Must it be about what I stand to gain?" Amalia asked, neither pausing nor looking back. "There is a task that needs doing. A boy who, by your reasoning, has no place in the world, needs to be found. I am both willing to and capable of finding him. Is there any reason I should not?" Truly, she had never understood thinking of this kind. Among her people, everything that needed doing was done, by those who were suited to do it. Personal gain was irrelevant. Care was exercised because other people were just as you were, but perhaps incapable of doing some of the things you could do.

As she walked, she fiddled with the loose straps on her back, slinging her harp next to her chain-weapon, careful not to scratch the wood. It was not a paticularly valuable thing, and she of course held no particular attachment to it, but this was no reason to be neglectful to it. Her stride continued uninterrupted, and she led him around a corner and into Lowtown proper. There was the Hanged Man, a popular establishment if she heard correctly, but Vincento was located further still, on the other side of the Bazaar.

Ithilian frowned at her answer, watching her carefully. He would have been much happier had she just admitted to whatever greed was driving her to help a half-elf, but instead she continued with this line of what seemed to be complete selflessness. She had nothing to gain. But because she was capable of helping, and because she couldn't think of a reason not to, she offered assistance? No, there was a snake here somewhere. He could hear it hissing beneath her words. There was something she was hiding from him. The Dalish ensured that his knives were loose in their scabbards at his waist.

Entering the Bazaar made him tense. Especially since he was armed. Depravity ran thick here. In the Alienage, the pitiful nature of the citizens made him feel sorrow for the fate of his people. The pitiful nature of these shemlen made him want to tear something open. Fortunately, he had a target, and a very good reason to carve answers from him. He picked up his pace to walk almost beside Amalia, knowing the location of this Vincento's market stall, as he had passed by the Antivan just the other day.

Vincento's Northern Merchandise it was called. Even from a distance, Ithilian could pick out the man's accent, his voice carrying over the crowds. The second he spotted Amalia, he turned his attention on her. "You, my lady, look like a woman who appreciates exotic garments from faraway lands! Would you care to take a look at my wares? I have a fine selection of goods from glorious Antiva!"

"Do I?" The Qunari mused, glancing down at her ordinary, threadbare dress. For the moment, it was a useful disguise, underneath which she kept more appropriate garments for dirtier work. No, she was quite certain that she looked nothing of the sort. "I believe you may wish to reevaluate your claims later. Presently, however, I am here to inquire about your son." She fixed him with a knowing look, more than a little eerie for the fact that one of her irises was an unnatural red. Crossing her arms over her chest and leaning predominantly on her right leg, Amalia cocked her head to one side, a bird-like gesture that conveyed nothing but the utmost patience.

The merchant gave a single laugh, though it was obviously infected with his nervousness. "Son? No... I'm afraid I have never had the pleasure. My wife, sadly, is back in Antiva, and cannot often--ugh!"

His gaze had been fixed on Amalia, likely distracted by her mismatched eye colors, and he hadn't been prepared in the slightest when Ithilian rammed his forearm into the merchant's throat, growling. His other hand drew a knife from the sheath at his waist, and he drove Vincento backwards, slamming him against the wall and pinning him there, the point of the knife pressed painfully into his side, in between the two lowest ribs.

"Listen very carefully," he said, his tone deadly serious, the look in his eye matching quite well. "If you know anything about Feynriel, and where he is at this moment, you are going to tell me. If you think for a second that I won't slice your belly open, watch your entrails spill about your pathetic little stall, and enjoy every second of it... well, you get the picture." Vincento struggled, but he was hopelessly trapped against the wall, so after a few tense seconds of this, he managed to sputter, "S...Samson!"

Ithilian reluctantly released him, allowing him to collapse to the ground in front of him. He flipped his knife around to point at the now sitting Vincento. "Speak," he ordered. After collecting himself for a moment, the Antivan did just so.

"The boy... he's in over his head, but... he came to me, after running away. I could do nothing for him, but... I sent him to the only man I know who does not despise mages. An ex-Templar named Samson." Ithilian sheathed the knife, crossing his arms. "And where can we find him?" Vincento coughed several more times. "He... he is a wanted man, so he stays out of sight. But he can usually be found near the entrances to Darktown. Please... you won't turn him in to the Templars, will you?

Ithilian shook his head. "I intend to make sure the boy doesn't end up a corpse. What he does with his life is his business. Gods know you've never made it yours." He turned back to Amalia. "Most shem don't respond very well if you appeal to their good natures. They have none. I find force to be far more efficient... and satisfying."

Amalia, perhaps more conscious than her companion of exactly how public this encounter was, had shifted, moving so as to obscure the exchange to anyone entering the Bazaar from Hightown, which she knew to be the patrol route for the city guard. She released a soft exhale from her nose that might have been a sigh when he went straight for the aggressive option, but in the end, results were the most important consideration, and as long as he was not so wasteful and foolish as to attempt to kill Vincento, she couldn't say she much cared. The man was clearly dathrasi, and the Qun had little use for liars.

Still, Ithilian's proclamation seemed to trouble her, if for no other reason than she still did not understand what the great difference was between being shemlen and being anything else. "There are many paths to the same end, Sataareth," she responded slowly, glancing between the winded merchant and the armed elf. "Not all of them require violence... nor will all of them see you arrested or killed by the shemlen you despise so much, particularly when executed in broad daylight."

"And not all of these paths lead us to Feynriel in time."

She shrugged lightly, as if to say the argument was of little consequence. "Perhaps we should seek this Samson. I suspect the dockside entrance is the one we want."

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel

Earnings

0.00 INK

If Sparrow belonged anywhere, it might've been in the deepest recesses of Darktown or in the moderately acceptable bits of Lowtown, both of which she was incredibly, irredeemably fond of. These were the places you could move about unnoticed, unhampered by cloisters of eavesdropping women, flashing wealthy fans in front of their faces, or scowling men who questioned your motives without actually vocalizing their thoughts. It was in their piggish eyes, digging inconspicuously through your pockets to see what kind of coin you could spend at their shops. These were the places without plated gentleman who'd rather wring her neck up on the gallows then see her gallivanting the streets, without a care in the world. It didn't matter that freedom often tasted like mouldy residue, chokedamp and stale body odour. Lowtown smelled considerably better, anyway. Though, it still harboured disgusting chambers that threatened her independence – the Gallows, with all of it's cages and bars and bordered cells. Thankfully, the Templars themselves seemed to congregate, and stick around, in the Gallow's barracks, taking refuge with the statues while dutifully avoiding the Alienage and taverns as if they'd somehow contract the plague if they ventured too far. Dirty bludgers with a penchant for swinging their batons about, like heckled roosters.

The only redeeming feature Hightown claimed was the fact that it had the Blooming Rose in it's midst, nestled in the back alleys like a scuzzy cousin you'd prefer avoiding. It had as much accordance and belonging, among such highborn, snobbish citizens, as a wolf in a field of sheep, gallivanting as a kindly shepherd. She had long since lost count of the young women and men she had flirted and exchanged passionate kisses with, though she hadn't ever taken it further. Her identity was important. Still, it was one of the places that Sparrow frequented, if only to steal a few kisses, a few touches, and the sweetest of words – she couldn't help it, really. She'd become a regular, and those who worked there knew her name, her tastes, her peculiar behaviour. Hard-eyed Madame Lusine always offered her a special table whenever she swaggered into the establishment, always keen to subtly offer her a position if she so wished to take it. Peculiarities were always desired. Sparrow often wondered whether or not those eyes, so devilishly keen, could see straight through her.

In Kirkwall, Sparrow could be anyone, anything. She could be a gentleman or a woman. Hardly a lady. She could be a stiff-shouldered warrior with enough ferocity to make a man think twice, or a soft-eyed boy pressing his lips to proffered knuckles. To them, Sparrow was what she put herself off to be: a man. It was easier that way.

Sparrow's business took her into the heart of Lowtown. Her swaggering gait slowed, ponderously, until she finally stopped. She rubbed her chin thoughtfully, eyebrows scrunched. Where had Rilien wanted to meet up, again? They'd been recently looking for work, even though Rilien truly had need for nothing and it was only Sparrow who was constantly landing herself in financial trouble. These little, completely relevant, bits of information always slipped her mind. Especially if someone sidetracked her, which happened quite often. Her absentmindedness was commonplace and if it hadn't been for Rilien's otherworldly patience, his Tranquillity, then surely he would’ve dealt with her in an unpleasant fashion long ago. Her excuses were lame, half-hearted things. It didn't assuage the sense of squirming, half-caught guilt that quietly mumbled in her mind. A gnawing resignation that Rilien deserved better from her. Most likely, it'd be her companion that'd find work, anyway.

Too late to dwell on something that would be rectified later in the day. Rilien always seemed to find her in the end. She often joked that he could find her quicker than a rabid Mabari hound, though she suspected he always ran into her from sheer luck, otherwise he'd just become accustomed to all of her preferred places. Hadn't she mentioned that she was heading to Ashton's shop? Perhaps. With a huffing breath, Sparrow continued walking to her intentioned destination. She was originally heading for Ashton's cozy shop, but all of those other tempting stops hampered her little journey – primarily the one where she'd gone into the Hanged Man and guzzled down several goblets of dry whiskey, like a fish who'd suddenly been driven to land. To remedy her lateness, she'd bought Ashton a bottle of sweet rum from behind the barkeep's counter. Corf was kind enough to part with it when she, actually, won a few rounds of cards and slipped her winnings across the dirty counter, wringing her lips into her affable grin. The warmth still wound it's fingers through her stomach, kneading a comfortable satisfaction. She was tickled pink; a pyre at the world's edge, dancing, smiling, laughing.

Ashton's wasn't just another stuffed shirt. She wouldn’t even consider him a dirty shemlen, which was saying something considering her opinions on humans as a whole were as quaky and unstable as a collapsing building. Her insatiable, unexplainable hatred for them burnt far hotter than her passion for life, for everything breathing. She was like a slow spreading fire, slick and smooth. She'd learned, over time, that they weren't always the same. Sparrow's heckles did not raise in Ashton's presence, so she'd deemed him safe. At least, her fingers didn't twitch along the hilts of her blades. So, the half-elf resisted the urge to dramatically kick in the door and opened it, politely, with a little jingle of the chimes. One thing that she loved, or adored, about Lowtown in particular, were the varying smells – and not the musty ones everyone complains about. It was the candied nuts, exotic fruits, sweetbreads and glazed pastries. It was the smell of leather, rich, fresh.

Deep, earthy, musk – it welcomed her into the shop, brought her almost dreamily wafting forward until she slapped her hands on the counter, careful not to drop the bottle tucked into her armpit. The unmistakable and unfading scent of leather. Ashton must've known about it's magical properties. She wondered whether or not she was the only one who was so drawn to it, so irrefutably fascinated. “Ash!” She crooned, depositing the bottle on the counter. Her eyes, half-shuttered, searched for her friend – perhaps, he was in the back. She laughed heartily, tossing her head back like a delighted colt. "I've a gift for you, but it may be gone by the time you get here." Her reasons for coming were long forgotten. She always had ulterior motives, or favors to ask. Perchance, it was conceivable that going to the Hanged Man, for once, was a bad idea.

Setting

4 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

"Well, there's not actually a lot of places in the Bazaar itself, but losing a pursuer in a crowd like this is very possible, especially if you can change your appearance on the go, though... I'm sure you already knew that." Nostariel gestured at Aurora's hood with an approving nod. "Still, if you're really in a pinch and can't make it to the Hanged Man, there's always the sewers." It might have been expected of a tidy-looking woman like her to wrinkle her nose at the very thought, but this was a soul who'd been covered head-to-toe in Darkspawn guts and the vomit of her weak-stomached junior Wardens on more than one occasion, in no place less dangerous than the Deep Roads themselves. So yes, sewers were far from desirable, but certainly she could put things in perspective if need-be.

The two were just now rounding a corner, but the blonde elf drew up short upon looking around it. Having just passed a garment shop that tended to sell less-obvious raiment for mages, they were now within a few feet of a most disturbing scene. Vincento, an Antivan merchant who sold mostly luxury items, had his back to the wall and his posterior to the ground, clearly struggling to maintain even that upright position. Over him loomed a man the Warden had never seen before, an elf with some kind of covering on his head that sloped down to cover one eye. She was reminded for the barest moment of Lucien, but then decided that this small thing was where the similarity ended.

As she watched, the man's companion spoke to him, and Nostariel found herself puzzled by the exchange. The name, Feynriel, did not sound familiar, but it did sound Dalish. Nostariel had always had things to worry about besides the plight of her fellow elves, and indeed she was too much a mage and a Warden both to feel much more than a cursory connection to the People, as she understood they called themselves. Even so... there was an urgency in their actions that compelled her to ask. She was, if nothing else, an aide to causes larger than herself, always.

Glancing back at Aurora as if to beg her pardon, she addressed the other two. "My apologies, but... can I help you?" It was probably the most generic offer of assistance she had, but then she didn't understand the situation fully, only that it was somehow important enough to drive this man to violence. Whether it would be he and his companion she helped or Vincento, she could not yet say.

Ithilian had been aware that the scene he'd caused would draw some attention, but as he heard another speak, he found himself thinking perhaps he should have been more observant. He hadn't really checked to see if anyone potentially dangerous was around. But there were no guards grabbing him by the arms yet, and he had really wanted to hit a shem so he figured it had worked out well enough.

The Dalish found himself highly intrigued when he saw who was speaking to him, however. That she was an elf was the first thing he noticed, but he soon took note of what she was wearing. His old clan had encountered a Grey Warden once, Duncan, an older man with a full beard, and impressive skill with dual blades. He had been human, yes, but Grey Wardens were another matter. The Dalish had always respected them, and Ithilian's clan had been no different in that regard. This elven woman's garb was of the same make, and the sigil was the same; she was a Grey Warden.

She had no vallaslin however, and he had to admit, she didn't quite carry the same aura that Duncan had. Perhaps it was her age. Ithilian would have guessed her over ten years younger than he. Or maybe the way she carried herself. Where Duncan had appeared stronger than an ogre, she looked... different, slightly reminiscent of the other city elves. Perhaps she had been one of them.

"Andaran atish'an, Grey Warden," he greeted her, his attention occupied by her enough for him to not really notice that she was accompanied by a shem. "We seek a boy by the name of Feynriel, who recently fled the Alienage due to disagreements with his mother. He is also a mage," he said, lowering his voice significantly when he spoke of magic. He then gestured back to the still sitting Vincento. "I have just wrung a lead out of this shem, and we are headed there now. I would welcome the company of a Grey Warden, if you wish to offer aid."

A mage. Well, if Nostariel had entertained any doubts about whether or not she was going to help, they evaporated with that particular revelation. A youth, troubled by his magic (for truly, it was impossible not to have been troubled by something like magic at some point, she was sure), and now missing. Swallowing, Nostariel glanced back down at Vincento before kneeling in front of the human and checking him for injuries. He appeared to be mostly unharmed, but she cast a quick heal just in case, offering the man her hand to leverage him to his feet.

As soon as he was set to rights, she turned around to face to the other two. "It is Nostariel, if you prefer. I suppose I cannot ignore a story like that," she said, voice just as quiet as the Dalish man's had been. "My assistance is yours."

Sighing, she looked back to Aurora and managed a thin smile. "I must ask your forgiveness, Aurora, but it seems this cannot wait. I'll not ask you to put yourself at even greater risk. Remember what I said about the wards."

"You say this as if I'm not coming along," Aurora said, crossing her arms and grinning. The whole issue with the Templar had only momentarily dampened her mood, she was not the one to let it get her down though. Her interest was roused as soon as this Dalish said mage. She knew the troubles the boy had probably encountered-- and will encounter yet. What sort of person would she be to just allow this boy to stay missing? "Perhaps it will give me time for things to cool down as well?" She said, picking her words carefully. They were out in public among many prying ears, not to mention the Dalish and his friend.

Today had certainly been interesting, and it seemed that it had only began. Aurora began to brighten at the prospect of doing good for another fellow mage.

"Perhaps it will," Nostariel replied evenly, returning the smile with half of one of her own. She'd had a feeling the answer might be something like that, but who was she to stop someone from doing what they felt was right?

The appearance of two new individuals was not exactly unexpected, and Amalia was for the most part perfectly content to allow them to conduct their business through the Sataareth. If someone of his demeanor was capable of tolerating them, someone of hers would have no trouble. The first was dressed in blue and silver armor, with a staff slung across her back. Amalia had heard of the Grey Wardens, though she'd never had cause to interact with one. She understood that they were a group tasked with a very specific mandate, one that they held to, on average, with no less diligence than a Qunari. That bas could successfully understand the principles of duty and boundaries was impressive to her, though she was not even remotely tempted to say so.

The other was female as well, and apparently in some way associated with the Warden. When the blonde woman stooped beside the merchant, the Qunari caught the brief flash of magic, and her eyes narrowed. It was still difficult to get used to the idea of Sarebas without Averaad, but it was apparently woefully common in such societies as these. It was not her role to adjust situations of this nature, however, and so she like her kith behaved as tolerantly as they felt themselves inclined to be.

"If we are to go, it would make sense to do so now," she pointed out mildly. This ex-Templar did not strike her as a particularly trustworthy sort. Perhaps it was simply in her nature as an enforcer of law to frown upon those who could not be bothered to follow it. And basra laws at that- though she thought their systems fatally flawed, there was no mistaking the loose nature of their restrictions.

Ithilian glared in annoyance when the shemlen girl accompanying the Warden insisted on coming along, but it seemed more a matter for the Warden, Nostariel, to deal with, not him, so he did not object openly. That didn't mean he had to like it, of course. He'd be keeping an eye on her, as well.

"My name is Ithilian, formerly of Clan Mordallis of the Dalish, from the Brecilian Forest in Ferelden. This is Amalia, of the Qunari, who is right. We should leave before this shem decides to crawl back into his hole."

To them both, Nostariel simply nodded. Their words made sense, and rescuing that poor boy was clearly the priority in this situation. As she did not know where they were going, she gestured ahead of herself deferentially, allowing the Qunari woman (and how odd; she had thought that female Qunari did not fight, but this one bore weapons despite her civilian's clothing) to walk in front, since he seemed to have the best idea of where to find this person they sought next.

Still, her mind was troubled. Children with elven blood who went missing around here... she'd heard too many tales of this city's history to dismiss his capture by slavers as a very real possibility. And trapped, with nothing but his fledgling magic to defend himself with... she shuddered. She knew what that felt like, how strong the Fade-demons were in those moments, and she had been raised to resist them. She could not imagine what might become of a youth with no formal training and no other visible options. The musing suffused her steps with urgency.

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Rakkis

Earnings

0.00 INK

Lucien had been given cause to visit the Wounded Coast on more than one occasion, given that this location was rife with bandits and Tal'Vashoth alike. Despite the rather unsavory nature of its residents and its repuation for running ships aground, it was very much a scenic place, with the same raw beauty as many of the lands that surrounded Kirkwall. Here, in the Free Marches, what was not city was often wild, and the landscape was dotted with caves, outcroppings of rocks, and in this case, quite a lot of sand. It was very unlike Orlais, where just about everything was farmland or else relatively-tamed forest. The air here was crisp and salty in his lungs, but he did not quite allow himself to forget his purpose.

The group had slowed to an easy canter, to spare the horses the indignity of a turned foot or a potentially-catastrophic stumble. It also allowed Rakkis an opportunity to regain the ground he had lost at the start of their mad dash for this place, which the once-knight considered fortunate. It would not do to encounter these other mercenaries, nor the boy and his captors, at less than the full strength of their force, however few in number they were.

The tracks the Winters had left were easy to follow; the divots in the sand indicating the passage of many human feet but no equine ones. That were clearly making no effort to hide their presence here, and perhaps they had no need to, with that many of them. It was hard to put a number to it, for some tread in others' steps, but it was no mean force. A true company, and not just a loose association of individuals, then. The tracks diverted south, and Lucien pulled his horse up when he heard the first unnatural noises. That was down very close to the ocean itself; a bandit camp had been there until recently. Perhaps the Qunari had killed them?

Squinting his eye, he placed a hand on his brow to shade it from the sun, but no more details of the situation were immediately visible to him. "There," he indicated the area with a gesture. "We can approach from any one of three directions, or all of them, if you prefer. Given their number, I would of course advise caution, though I'd also understand if you preferred to forgo it, given the circumstances." A not-quite-smile twisted his lips, and the expression was perhaps best classed as wry, patiently so.

"I'd rather not give them the impression we mean to attack them," Sophia said from atop her horse. "They're not our enemies yet, after all." She swung one leg over the horse and smoothly dismounted, squinting at the area. She could see some of the Winters from here, and judging by their postures, the situation was not a very tense one. She gestured to her two companions to follow. "Follow me. Keep your weapons sheathed, please. It appears the Winters may have things under control. Maker willing, the both of you can return to Kirkwall and receive your rewards without ever drawing blood."

Rakkis dismounted as gracefully as he'd gotten onto the black steed in the first place. He somehow managed to get both feet beneath him and land silently upon the soft sand. The elf glanced toward Sophia and shook his head. "You pious types really do take all the fun out of rescue missions, you know. I suppose you are in charge though." Something about the way he intoned the second sentence might have cast doubt on the matter.

She led the way down with smooth, long strides, movement with a purpose. She took the middle of the three paths, leaving her sword sheathed across her back. A pair of Winters stood watch at the entrance to the old bandit camp, but made no motions to stop her. She nodded respectfully towards them as she passed, and they made no reaction.

"And the world's rid of one more Qunari," came Ginnis' voice from the center of the camp, and Sophia's attention was snapped to her. The leader of the Winters stood with twin daggers drawn and dripping dark red blood, over the prone form of a lone Qunari, lacerated by multiple wounds, his blood staining the sand. "Easier than I expected." She called back to the men accompanying her. "Call the others back, we won't be needing them. We've got an appointment with the Viscount, isn't that right, Saemus?"

Sophia's younger brother of two years was kneeling beside the dead Qunari, his attention fixated on the corpse. "Ashaad..." Sophia was confused for only the briefest of moments, before she understood. Suddenly everything made perfect sense. Oh, brother... this is going to complicate things. Saemus had turned his gaze on Ginnis, anger in his eyes. "You killed him! You... you vashedan bitch!" He had risen to his feet now, and seemed entirely unaware that his own sister had now entered the area. He likely mistook her for another mercenary.

"That one of their words?" Ginnis responded, with a mix of amusement and annoyance. "See, that's why you need to be dragged home. You're playing too nice with those things. I'll wager you've gone even further than that, haven't you, brat?" Sophia decided to make her presence known now, lest things get any more out of hand. "Enough!" she called, getting their attention. Saemus turned. "Sister? What are you doing here? Did father..."

Sophia shook her head. "No, I came on my own. You and I will have to have a talk with father when we get back. For now, I just came to make sure you were safe." Saemus cast a hateful glance at Ginnis. "I was safe! I was never not safe, at least not until father sent thugs to do a job he should have done himself!" Ginnis rolled her eyes. "Quiet, you! Listen, girl, the Winters were more than capable of handling a single Qunari. We've done the job, and we've already claimed him, so the bounty is ours. The boy is coming back to the Keep with me."

Saemus seemed indignant, proud, defiant, and most of all, completely sure of himself. Sophia knew this to be when he was most rash. "Sophia... if I must go back, so be it. But I will not see these... murderers, rewarded." Sophia sighed inwardly, but outwardly she just met Saemus' eyes, so that he would know just what he was asking of her. She would do anything for her family, of course, she just needed to be sure that this was truly what Saemus wanted. Ginnis took a threatening step towards him. "You spoiled little shit! Maybe I should cut out your tongue, and charge extra for bringing you back quiet!' Saemus stood firm in the face of her threats, however.

"Saemus... are you sure about this?" Sophia asked, glancing down to the dead Qunari. Had he really meant so much to him, that he would ask his own sister to risk her life for him? And Saemus nodded. Sophia took a calming breath, before slowly reaching up with her right hand, and sliding Vesenia from its sheath, and stepping beside her brother. "Serah Ginnis, I'm going to have to ask you to leave. My brother will be returning with me."

Incredularity was soon replaced with outrage on Ginnis' features. "You're kidding, right?" When Sophia made no move to answer, she shrugged. "It's no problem for me, you know. I can always kill you and make it look like the oxman did it." Sophia raised her eyebrows at her, but she had no doubt in her mind that Ginnis was crazy enough to actually think that would work. Realizing her remaining time to talk was short, she looked to the two that had accompanied her, Lucien and Rakkis.

"Serah Lucien, Serah Rakkis... I will not ask you to put your lives in danger for a cause you do not believe is just. I must stand by my brother in this. These mercenaries murdered someone who was a friend to him, and I cannot see them rewarded for such an action. If you wish to leave, I would do so now." Ginnis took a few steps back, putting some distance between them before the inevitable fight. "The girl has a point. Neither of you will be sharing my bounty. You can either clear out now, or die with her. Your choice."

Sophia swallowed, holding her blade at the ready. There were perhaps a dozen Winters around them, and if she had heard Ginnis correctly, more on the way. Certainly not a fight she could survive on her own, and Maker knew Saemus was useless at fighting. But she would stand with her brother. These people would not be rewarded for murder if she could help it.

Lucien, having dismounted and left his horse tied near Sophia's, had followed at a fair distance, single ocular taking in his surroundings. Desiring a bloodless end was noble and good, but he didn't much like the look of the situation. The dead Qunari only made his apprehension tangible. A full mercenary company for one Qunari? He knew little of them, but nothing he had ever learned led him to believe they were the sort to kidnap anyone. So much of this reeked of excess force already.

The three-way discussion did nothing to set his mind at ease, and indeed the lad seemed to confim that he had been at the very least a willing party in this little expedition, if not its mastermind. The details of the family squabble simmering under their dialogue were not something he really desired to know, but he was rather used to people airing their dirty laundry in front of him. Things like this happened in far more spectacular and public fasions in Orlais all the time. It actually seemed relatively mild, though the presence of the mercenaries was still his primary concern. At least a dozen, and an allusion to yet more. His hands itched to heft his scythe, but out of respect for his charge's wishes, he stilled them for the moment.

Of course, as soon as Sophia's sword was in her hands, all bets were off. Gritting his teeth, Lucien released his overlarge farming tool from the straps that held it to his back and lifted it, blade down, placing it in the sand and leaning on it with false nonchalance. "Vengeance may not always be just, but breaking a promise never is," he replied neutrally, fixing his gaze on Ginnis. "Nor is needless murder, whomever the victim. If this is what it comes to, then I will fight until it is done, milady."

For his part, Rakkis looked rather bored by the conversation that ensued. He kept casting his eyes skyward, tapping his left foot, fingering the silver knife earrings that lined the lower edges of his pointed ears. He'd drawn a bit closer than Lucien had, somehow managing to creep closer and closer without every seeming to actually move at all. His annoyed and annoying performance served a distraction, and his edging took place when all eyes were on one of the two women doing most of the talking. Unlike his companions, he didn't bother drawing his weapons. Instead, he folded his arms across his chest. Unseen, his fingers brushed the hilts of throwing knives cleverly concealed on his person. Amusement limned his gray eyes as he glanced askance to Lucien. ”Speaking technically, killing the mercenaries would be needless murder. But you have to admire the boy's spirit, mmh?" He gave his head a shake. ”The Coterie has no issue with the Winters. Given that they've offered us the chance to be on our way, I really shouldn't do anything to cause problems."

The elven thug smiled apologetically at Lucien, Sophia, and Saemus in turn and took a single step backward.

It isn't needless when innocents will die if I don't, Lucien told himself firmly, but it was a thought he did not voice aloud. It was not for him to force his ways upon anyone else.

"Well, would you look at that," Ginnis said in amusement. "The only one here with half a brain is the knife-ears. Wise choice, elf. Right, let's get this started. Kill the bitch and her bodyguard. Leave Saemus untouched. I'll deal with him later." With that she dropped a small flask at her feet that exploded into a cloud of thick smoke, in which she vanished utterly. The other Winters, wielding an assortment of dual weapons, swords and shields, and two handed-weapons, charged.

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Rakkis

Earnings

0.00 INK

Sophia had little time to be disappointed in the elf's decision, as the Winters were quick to jump into the fight. Not that his backing away was entirely unexpected; she hadn't judged him to be the most trustworthy of individuals, and his apparent affiliation with the Coterie did him no credit. But there was no time to think about that now. It appeared as though she and Lucien would have to take them all on. So be it.

Her method of removing Saemus from the fight was a rather ungentle shove, sending him stumbling away from where swords would shortly be clashing. Sophia had no idea how Lucien behaved in combat with that outlandish weapon of his, but her strategy was not one she had to debate for long. She would take the fight to them. Sophia wasn't good on the defensive, certainly not when multiple enemies were attacking, as they were now. At least four were coming right for her, two wielding sword and shield, a third hefting a battleaxe, and the last carrying a bastard sword similar in size to her own. There were a few towards the rear, the way they'd come in, wielding bows, but it would be difficult for them to get clear shots in with all of their allies getting in the way. And of course, Ginnis would be entering the fight at some point. She'd disappeared in the smoke, and would soon be hiding among the rocky surroundings, no doubt waiting for the most opportune time to reemerge.

The axeman reached her first, swinging downwards at her. Sophia sidestepped, deceptively quick even with her armor, and countering by slicing across his leg, though she didn't have a chance to inflict any more damage, as one of the ones with a shield, a brutish woman, sent a sweeping horizontal blow her way. She threw her blade up to parry, catching the sword solidly and deflecting it to the side, letting her momentum open up her defenses, giving Sophia the opportunity to send a quick slash at her throat. It found its mark, and the first Winter fell to the sand, clutching her throat.

Lucien found himself dealing with a smaller share of the melee combatants than Lady Sophia, which was vaguely insulting to his sense of pride, but they'd realize their mistake soon enough. As it was, two heavily-armed and armored individuals was nothing to be reckless about, though an honest self-assessment promised victory. With something that sounded suspiciously like a long-suffering sigh, the one-eyed man hefted his scythe in both hands. Part of the benefit of a weapon like this was the simple fact that nobody else used one, and so people usually weren't prepared for it.

The fighters coming at him were not well-matched in speed, and the faster of the two seemed to be unwilling to compensate for this and slow down. His downfall, the Orlesian supposed. A surprisingly-deft swing of his weapon brought it within striking range, though the duelist applied an extra burst of speed, causing himself to be struck in the side with the wooden pole rather then the steel blade. He appeared to be quite pleased with this development, correctly assuming that Lucien would not be able to arc his scythe back out and then swing again in the time it would take to close the distance between them. Unfortunately for the Winter, the mercenary had no need of such maneuvers, and with a sharp tug, hooked the inside of the blade around the man's waist.

It bit deep, slicing through leather as though parting water. The spine was a bit more of a challenge, but he didn't bother to try cutting it in twain, rather allowing the momentum of the pull to bring the duelist into very close range. Shifting his grip so that he held the polearm with only one hand, Lucien drew his other arm back and connected his gauntleted fist with the rogue's jaw, hard enough to leave very obvious rents in his face and render him unconcious.

The man fell to the ground even as his compariot drew within range, and Lucien simply changed direction, catching the much-larger warrior in the stomach with the end of the pole. While he doubled over, the Chevalier stepped in closer, walking his arms up the haft of the scythe so he was holding it around the center. The combination of arrangement and distance allowed for the equivalent of a pommel strike to the back of the head with the blunt end, followed by a quick reversal, the pointed end of the weapon burying itself in the joint of the man's armor underneath his shoulder. As anatomy worked, there was a rather important artery there, and Lucien was rather certain the man would not be standing again.

An arrow skittered off the pauldron on one shoulder with enough kinetic energy to force Lucien to bend or stagger. He chose the former, then decided that the archers probably oughtn't be allowed to keep shooting with impunity.

Rakkis silently added another dozen or so tallies to the ledger entitled "People Who Died Because They Didn't Actually Listen To Me" while he waited for the battle to take form. The Coterie may not have had any grievances with the mercenary band known as the Winters, but he did. And he'd specifically said that he shouldn't get involved, not that he wouldn't. He might have shrugged, if he weren't spending so much effort to make it seem like he couldn't care less about the skirmish that he was carefully monitoring. The melee began in earnest before he could reach two counting backward from three, and that was the instant that the elf chose to act.

His cloak fluttered. The Winter with the hand-and-a-half sword who was circling to get at Sophia's flank suddenly came down with a nasty case of dagger-hilt-protruding-from-throat. The axe-wielder got lucky, if recieving a wicked cut across the leg could be considered lucky. When he ducked as a result, Rakkis' throwing knife went sailing several inches above his head. His cloak fluttered even more when he broke into a sprint, his light footfalls carrying him over the treacherous beach sand rather than through it with barely a grainy spray to mark his passage. He ducked a bit low, having come to rather the same decision that Lucien had: the archers needed to be harried, and he was the only useful member of their merry band not currently waist deep in steel and blood. Presenting as small a target profile as possible for the bow-wielders to sight, he wove an abrupt, chaotic, somewhat serpentine course toward the nearest tent in order to use it for cover.

His hands slid across his thighs this time, and came away with a throwing knife each for the modicum of effort. Bowmen had the advantage of both range and stopping power over his little blades, but Rakkis had the advantage of... well, being Rakkis. One arrow tore through his cloak; it would have sailed clean through had the fletching not gotten muddled by the bands of iron he'd sewn into the hem. The trapped projectile bounced about harmlessly as he skidded to an abrupt stop behind the tent, hanging very close to the canvas on the off chance that the archers were savvy enough to arc their fire over the temporary structure. Using one of the throwing knives, he cut his way through the first side of the tent, pausing to listen for the twang of bow-strings. Given that none of the arrows had impacted the tent-side with a whump, it was safe to assume that they'd taken advantage of the Winters' numbers thinning on the battle field to pepper Sophia and Lucien with arrows.

The second he heard the twang he'd been waiting for, he slipped from the entrance of the tent and rushed the mercenary's artillery line, if it could even be called that. His arms pumped much more deliberately this time, sending the knives in a pair of flat arcs one after another; he didn't have time to aim for a killing shot, so instead he just made sure he hit something, which in this case, happened to be the stomach of one and the drawing arm of the other. He didn't miss a stride in his bullrush, but he did cross his arms, drawing his rapier and parrying dagger with a simultaneous flourish as he moved into stabbing range.

It occurred to Sophia that she may have been a bit quick to judge Rakkis, as one of his knives struck the throat of one of the men attacking her. And while she always preferred the path of honesty, she could certainly see the advantage he'd given himself here, and her by extension. The field of Winters around her was thinning, however, which would make her a target if those archers couldn't be dealt with.

She'd preoccupied enough by her surprise at seeing the man fall with a knife in his throat that the sword and shield armed mercenary had been able to effectively close the distance. He rammed into her with his shield, the weight behind the blow sending her reeling backwards, but she maintained her feet. Unfortunately, this put enough distance between her and the Winters for the archers to loose their arrows. The first deflected harmlessly off her shoulder plate, but the second hit directly, punching through her armor just under her ribcage, effectively taking her wind from her. The mercenary closed the gap, hoping to take advantage of the injury, but Sophia's training far outdid his own. Winded as she was, she was able to put him on the defensive with quick, well placed strikes, before finally opening his defences and plunging her blade through his gut. She withdrew it just in time to deflect the heavy blow of the one with the battleaxe, who was clearly working through the pain of the deep slash she'd put in his leg.

Sophia brought the pommel of her blade up to his skull, the blow knocking him back, allowing her to turn the tables on him. His wound hampered him, and his axe was poor for defence. Sophia was able to get a clean slice into his knee, taking him down to the ground, before stabbing downwards, Vesenia cutting its way through his chest.

That was when Ginnis chose to reappear, as Sophia expected, at a highly inconvenient time. Her blade still buried in the man's chest, she had no guard up as the leader of the Winters appeared behind her. One of her daggers expertly found the weak spot in her armor, the sides, where the back and breastplates were strapped together. Sophia sucked in a breath as the dagger buried itself just above her right hip. She was forced to abandon her grasp on her sword as the other dagger went for her throat, barely catching Ginnis' arm in time. The woman drove Sophia back to the rock wall, pinning her up against it momentarily, before Sophia surprised her by headbutting her squarely in the forehead. The blow knocked her back, and she lost her own grip on one of her weapons, leaving it in Sophia's side, but she certainly seemed confident still, as she dropped another smoke bomb, and disappeared again.

Lucien's plan to assist his crafty elven cohort in tearing through the line of archers was cut woefully short. As things worked out, his path was cut off by a woman, apparently in the throes of a true berserker rage. Wielding a sword that had to be at least her height, it was relatively clear that she was not going to simply allow him past.

In his youth, Lucien had been of the restrospectively-comical opinion that it was improper for a knight to do battle with a lady. A few years in the Chevalier's barracks with some truly fierce females who had not hesitated to hand him his hide on a platter the first time he tried to pull 'that chivalry bullshit' on them had firmly disabused him of this notion, and so there was not even a break in his movement as he swung, only to be deflected by the massive sword. She clearly had not picked the weapon only for show, and the enraged bellow that heralded her own attack put him on the defensive immediately. He was forced to give ground when the sand proved less-than-solid under his feet, but it seemed only to drive his opponent further forward.

Rather more in control of himself than she, Lucien did not waste time in a weaponlock that would tire both of them quickly. The size and strength advantage was his, but the advantage of fighting intelligently was ever greater. Stepping aside, he used the opportunity to disengage. With all of that force still in play, she stumbled right past him. He pressed the advantage, swinging and scoring a deep cut on her left arm, but apparently part of the draw to surrendering to battle-rage was that you could ignore non-fatal wounds, because she had recovered and was coming at him again before he had the opportunity to hit a second time.

The sword was aimed squarely for his hip, and the wooden pole of his scythe would not be able to block, so Lucien did something warriors weren't typically trained to do: he dodged instead. Dropping to all fours, the Chevalier lashed out with both feet, entangling them with hers and wrenching forward, causing the berserker to overcompensate and crash onto her back in the sand. Regaining his feet, he noted that her sword had come loose from her hand and picked it up, hurling it far enough away that it would not be a problem- into the ocean to be precise. Of course, she was back on her feet before he could recover his scythe, so apparently it was down to a more literal strength of arms now.

Obviously still angry enough to tackle an ogre, she swung recklessly, and he caught the incoming fist deftly. He'd expected the second hand next, and so was rather surprised when she kneed him in the stomach. It smarted even through the scale armor there, and he had to suck in a deep breath before he could comfortably move. When he did, it was to lift her arm above her head and twist, in something parodic of a waltzing twirl. Had she moved with it, it would have been, but instead, he twisted her arm behind her back rather painfully and put her in a sleeper hold. Counting the seconds until she lost consciousness, he was grimly aware of something that smelled of smoke and blood approaching from his blind side. Able to drop the berserker just in time, he deflected the dagger aimed for his throat with a gauntlet and took a few large steps backward.

The advantage of surprise gone, Ginnis would find him no easy target, especially not when his foot found the scythe. Without taking his eyes off the Winters' leader, he nudged his toe under the ploe and kicked upwards, catching it with his hand. Not content to wait for him to attack, Ginnis rushed him, disappearing mere seconds before entering his range. He hated it when they did that, because it meant-

Of course. He whirled around in a half-circle, anticipating the backstab. One of her blades managed to slip in between his scales of armor, and Lucien's breath left him in a low hiss. Still, he'd wager he came out the better, because the business end of the curved steel head of the scythe was at least four or five inches into her left thigh, and he could feel it scraping bone.

The first time anyone witnessed Rakkis fighting, a single word came to mind: amateur. He did everything wrong, or at least, he seemed to. As he whirled into the midst of the archer's, he was literally whirling. It was a tight spin, granted, driven by three hard pivots on the very balls of his feet to avoid too much shifting on the sand, but presenting one's back to a foe was virtual heresy in most training programs. His arms were out wide, bringing his rapier through an elaborate figure-eight, leaving him wide open to an attack... or at least, he might have been, if his spin didn't present only the side which held his parrying dagger to his enemies as he closed the last few feet to engage them. Odd, that.

There were two sort of men who wound up as archers in mercenary companies. There were those who were actually archers, and those so useless at anything else relating to combat that they were best served by having a bow thrust upon them and learning how to hit stationary targets some of the time. The man whose arm Rakkis had cut was obviously part of the latter group. He partially released when the pain came, sending his arrow in a dejected arc toward the sand some ten meters distant, nowhere near anything living. While in the midst of his first pivot, Rakkis drew his parrying dagger across the man's bowstring, severing it neatly.

The second archer, the one he'd caught in the stomach, didn't really have a chance to show what brand of man he was. As he passed, Rakkis swung his elbow hard into his gut- or rather, into the hilt of the dagger that was still extending from said gut. The resulting agony had the poor fellow doubled over, then on his knees. He'd probably survive, Rakkis noted, but he was not going to be participating meaningfully in the fight any longer.

The third archer, though, was worth his wages. He'd been drawing a bead on Lucien, but quickly adjusted his aim and let fly. Had Rakkis not been in the midst of his absurd spin, the arrow would have caught him in the chest, puncturing a lung and rather ruining what had proved, so far, to be a very interesting day. Instead, his lanced along his right flank as he finished his last pivot. Pain blossomed, followed quickly by blood, staining his shirt and slowing him down, or vice versa. He immediately dropped his bow and drew a short sword, battered looking but well kept. It was the sword of a veteran without a great deal of coin, and Rakkis identified it as such immediately.

”Your friends are very good at this," he quipped, his breath running just a bit ragged. He launched an easily blocked feint, a forward thrust of his rapier, which his foe picked off cleanly just as he'd been expecting. He was stronger than the elf, Rakkis learned from that exchange, but only just so. The archer pressed what he conceived to be an advantage of some sort. After all, Rakkis was mid-thrust, his forward leg bent, his rapier arm fully extended. He leveled a savage, hacking sort of cut that would have bit into the slender elf's collarbone if Rakkis hadn't taken advantage of the soft sand and twisted himself ninety degrees around, ducking his head. A precise swipe of the rapier, practically an afterthought, across the man's midsection stung him into falling back. Rakkis sprang to his feet...

... Just in time to see stars when something very solid and made of metal clanged against his skull. Thoroughly dazed, he staggered forward. The first bowman, in a fit of desperate ingenuity, had pulled off his half-helm and clocked Rakkis in the head with it. The elf chose to stumble and fall, exaggerating the effects of the blow. He used his seeming delicacy to his advantage for the thousandth time as he sprawled himself out on the beach, belly-down, and groaned theatrically. He counted the sand-logged footsteps and then rolled onto his back, bringing his rapier up and extending his arm again.

His shoulder jolted terribly at the impact. The tiny point of his weapon passed easily enough through the flesh of the under-chin, through the palette, up through the skull. It was when it connected with the very crown of the inside of that skull that Rakkis found his arm buckling. If the third archer had been wielding anything other than a short sword, it might have been an impasse. As it was, the battered weapon, which its now-very-dead wielder had brought in an overhead cut to stab into Rakkis' back, hung just inches from his face. He abandoned his rapier and scrambled backwards, letting the corpse topple without entangling him.

Helmet-fellow had the sense to draw a dagger. He saw himself, clearly, as having the upper hand versus an injured elf on his ass with a weapon of similar make. Rakkis reached up lazily for the clasp of his cloak as he got his feet beneath him. It seemed a pity to waste such a thoroughly dramatic maneuver on such an unimpressive enemy, but he didn't have time to play around, if the sounds of Lucien's and Sophia's scuffle weren't too affected by the concussion he'd probably endured. With practiced aplomb, he sent the lead-weighted bundle of fabric flapping through the air like some unholy specter toward the unwitting archer. Ignoring his injuries, he fell into a brisk jog behind it, building momentum unseen. Just as it fluttered into his adversary, Rakkis threw himself forward, driving his parrying dagger through fabric and sternum alike. He got his free hand on the hilt and then ripped it downward, savagely, ruining a perfectly good cloak in the process. He also "parried" the lack-wit's internal organs, which were no proof against good steel, but that was of rather less concern to the elf. He hated sewing.

Lucien had drawn Ginns' attention away from Sophia, and Rakkis had torn into the line of archers, the pair of them effectively taking the heat off of her, for which she was very grateful, considering that she wasn't at her best currently. Deciding she had to do this while the adrenaline was still going, she braced herself against the rock wall, before gripping the handle of the mercenary leader's knife in her side, and sliding it out, exhaling heavily as she did so. A gloved hand naturally went to the wound as she dropped the dagger, coming back wet with her blood. The arrow would have to be dealt with later. She'd have to remove her armor for that.

Sophia pushed away from the wall and pulled her sword from the fallen mercenary, surveying the field. Rakkis had things... somewhat in hand against the remaining mercenaries, while Lucien had buried his scythe in Ginnis' leg. Sophia quickly covered the distance between them, taking advantage of the mercenary leader's wounded and pinned position by utilizing her increased reach. Vesenia could strike farther than those daggers ever could. The flat edge of her blade slammed into the side of Ginnis' knee, taking her down to a kneeling position. Without hesitation, the Viscount's daugther sliced horizontally, lopping off her head.

The first fight was won, and though Sophia didn't know exactly how bloodied the others had been, she herself was not looking forward to the prospect of more Winters arriving. Blood was dripping down her right side, and in a thin line down her left leg. But at least that bitch was dead. Sophia tried to avoid hate, but that woman had been simply unbearable.

Setting

5 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Exodus, the Angel of Death Character Portrait: James Kirk

Earnings

0.00 INK

Ashton sat on the corner of the counter picking his teeth with one of his arrows. If there was a more bored looking man in all of Kirkwall, he would have probably killed himself by now. Normally, Ashton would have been a bit more forceful in standing outside trying to shovel his wares down the throats of the Lowtown inhabitants, but a bout of lethargy struck him like a hammer. It was decent weather, there was only a bit of cloud in the skies, and here he was, inside, trying to make a living. Oh cruel fate indeed. He would have much rather been out hunting or fishing, but no. He had to sell what he had first.

The store had been quite for the day. Only a couple of customers, and too far apart to be called busy at any rate. Ashton scanned his shop once more, his lazy eyes making sure everything was in order. The flies were trying to get to Ashton's meats, placed in brown paper on the counter. He'd have to sell them soon, else they would rot. Ashton sighed again, hopping off of his counter. There had to be something else he could do besides watch flies try to make off with his goods.

Ah, he would go work the leather in the back. Soften it up and get it ready to work with. It wasn't much, but it was a lot better than doing absolutely nothing. So it was Ashton slipped off to the back of the shop-- not for long however. A familiar coo came from the front as soon as he had sat down to work the leather. Needless to say, the coo hinted at a lot more entertainment than the silly old leather did. The leather flew across the room and Ashton scampered back to the front shop.

"Oh, isn't it my favorite Sparrow!" Ashton cooed in turn. His eyes immediately found the bottle and he grinned. "A gift you say? I don't remember it being my birthday... But I suppose I can make an exception for you," he said coyly. Tis a dangerous game he played, flirting with Sparrow as he did. He still wasn't completely convinced that she was indeed a she. If he found out to the contrary, it might be the last push that snapped his sanity... Or he would laugh his ass off. One or the other. Maybe both.

His parcel delivered and his belt-pouch a litte heavier with coin, Rilien scanned the horizon, eyes moving slowly and deliberately over the furthest things he could see. It was... midafternoon, which meant that Sparrow was unlikely to be at their dwelling-place, but probably had not yet embraced the desire to imbibe copious amounts of liquor and gamble her- his, really- money away on games she would never win. Wicked Grace, as he understood it, required the ability to mask one's thoughts, and his erstwhile living-companion was so effulgent that he truly doubted she would ever master the art.

Am I trying to fool myself, or someone else? There way no way she'd not been yet today. Perhaps she'd played a game more suited to slight-of-hand, or at the very least not one that depended on the ability to bluff. Their stomachs would thank them if they ate something other than soup this week, perhaps.

Somehow, this slow roundabout of thoughts and vacant-looking gazes brought him quite solidly to the conclusion that the person he sought was in Lowtown. Probably the Bazaar, probably visiting that merchant friend of hers that she had talked about but never introduced him to. Not that he much minded either way, of course, but it did mean he'd have to do a little looking to find her. His motion resumed on no visible cue, the flutter of loose fabric the only sound the Tranquil made as he passed into the Red Lantern district. That establishment, the Blooming Rose... that accounted for the other half of the missing coin he replaced into Saprrow's hands every fortnight, he was certain of it. He'd never been inside, and he disliked even walking past it, because for some reason, he often found himself pursued by individuals asking if he was looking for long term employment within.

Today, he went unaccosted, and decended the steps to Lowtown watching with muted interest as the quality of the buildings and the clothing on the residents decreased by degrees. It was too easy, to spot someone and place them in the city: here a slumlord, there a nobleman whose coffers were emptying faster than investments could fill them. Miner, dockworker, Alienage elf, Darktown knocker. Alighting at last in the Bazaar, he began his unhurried search.

In Kirkwall, there weren't very many folk Sparrow was genuinely fond of. Especially in Kirkwall, what with all it's buildings pressed together like sardines and it's feverish oppression weighing down like pregnant clouds, breathing down honest necks. Layers upon layer of people crammed together in warrens and squares, all headed someplace in a hurry. It was no wonder that everyone's undergarments were twisted in knots. Those she knew – her many acquaintances, dealers, and clientele – were either too stingy, too prudish, or too unflappably boorish to suit her tastes. Hardly friend material. Thankfully, Ashton was neither of those. There was a comfortable anonymity in Kirkwall: in choosing her companions, her friends, her allies. She didn't have to watch what she said or did here because no one cared. Ashton had shown her in particular the beauties of Lowtown and why he'd chosen it in the first place to set up shop. It housed the lower-end marketplace, which was loud, smelly, obnoxiously colourful, and filled with all sorts of rude people who haggled and shouted with the shopkeepers right into your ringing ears. Rude hand gestures, sweeping arms, and gaudy expressions. It was filled with secrets, stories, rumours, and mysteries. Sparrow loved it.

Ashton! My, it's nice to see you.” Sparrow warmly greeted, twirling the bottle in a lazy circle, forefinger and thumb keeping it from spilling over. She shrugged her shoulders evasively, as if to say that it didn't matter if there wasn't any occasion to celebrate. Spontaneous acts of generosity came few and far in between in her world, but Sparrow needed a favour and she certainly had a good feeling about today. She would not, however, mention this yet. Like a feline rolling it's shoulders and testing it's claws through the dirt, she'd take her time. This wasn't to say that it wouldn't benefit them both. She wasn't entirely selfish. “Thought that you would, Ash.” She added with a brazen wink and a flick of her wrist, finally relenting her preoccupation with the bottle. It wobbled slightly, then righted itself.

She did not correct those who guessed wrongly at her biological pronouns. She did not refer to herself as any in particular, preferring to level the balance with a solid indifference: an anonymous brainteaser favouring neither side of the gender spectrum. Sparrow simply was. Those who thought she was an effeminate young man sauntering in from the ports certainly could. She would not correct them. Her corkscrew smiles and glinting eyes needed no verification. She was who she made herself out to be.

Her shoulders rose, then dropped dramatically. “Close shop for the day. I've a proposition to stave your boredom.” Sparrow's eyebrows furrowed, then she laughed as if she'd proposed something ridiculous. As if he'd swat her away. It was almost a lie. Or else, it was a small fib. She wasn't sure whether or not Rilien had a job prepared. She hadn't even introduced them. “I'm serious! Rilien and I have a job lined up, I'm sure of it. One that beats sitting around shop all day – and who knows, there may be women. Buxom women.

"Close the shop? But what if a customer comes and absolutely needs one of my fine products?" Ashton said in a sarcastic tone. In fact, he was half a heartbeat away from running out of the door and locking it behind him. Though, he had appearances to keep. What kind of shop owner would he be if he didn't put up some kind of resistance? No, he had to pretend he was important. However, she did make a good point about his boredom. And the buxom women did tickle his fancy... "Before I run off to who knows where doing who knows what," he started. Like he actually cared about the wheres, whats, and whys. Not the Howes though. They were an issue in Highever a year ago.

"Who's this Rilien fellow? And does this job pay?" Again. He couldn't care less. And all this pretending to care was getting old. He stared at Sparrow for a few moments before finally just shrugging. He couldn't do it anymore. He just couldn't find the will to pretend to care. He had to get the hell out of there, and do something else entirely, else his sensitive mind would snap from all of this nothing. "Pffffft, Right. Let's get going then. We don't want to keep this Rilien and the Buxom women waiting, now do we?" Ashton said, pivoting on his foot before Sparrow could respond and making his way towards the door. Finally. Some action. It was like the Maker smiled upon him.

Before he left he stopped suddenly, spun around, and grabbed the bottle off of the counter. "Almost forgot the most important meal of the day. So where were we?" Ashton said, heading towards the door for the second time. Though now nothing would stop him from leaving this place.

"Excuse me," Rilien intoned flatly to the woman who worked at the potions shop in the Bazaar, "I am looking for Serah Riviera."

Lady Elegant, as she liked to be called, was familiar enough with Rilien not to waste any time inquiring after his monotone, but that didn't mean she liked him, either, and she simply gestured with one hand in a vague direction. While inclined to ask for more specific directions than that, Rilien actually spotted Sparrow disappearing into a shop, and that of course was his destination. Flowing around the crowd, he crossed the crowded Bazaar, choosing to ignore the vigorous hawking of several merchants and what appeared to a small spectacle just over near the Antivan Imports.

Even for someone with as much inclination to careful movement as he, navigating the thick crowds of the afternoon took a considerable amount of time, and he did not actually make it to the place in question for a good few moments. The sign, perhaps appropriately for a storefront that sold game and animal products, appeared to be called The Hunted Stag, and the swinging sign in front depicted a deer with an arrow in its haunch. Nodding slightly to himself, the elf decided that this was the place and swung the door inward, producing a small bell-chime.

He walked in in exactly enough time to hear an inquiry regarding himself, and blinked. "I am the Rilien fellow," he offered blandly, and his eyes flicked to Sparrow. Based on what Ashton was saying, she had anticipated his arrival. How was that? He had never been to this location before, and ordinarily would have no cause to be here. Blinking slowly, he decided that his presence was likely expected in more general terms than here-and-now. The rest of the conversation perplexed him slightly.

"The woman from whom I accepted the entreaty possessed a bosom of average size," he pointed out, unsure exactly what Sparrow had promised if it involved such considerations. "And we are looking for a missing Templar, who is male." If he was at all surprised that Ashton seemed to be coming along, he did not act it in the slightest.

Yes, close the shop. All those desperate souls will have to wait for yer' wares. They'll have to stick their noses against someone else' leathers, today, I'm afraid.” The half-breed insisted wryly, throwing her hands out in an all-inclusive crescent, gesturing grandly to Ashton's spotless wares. Even though she often stumbled into Ashton's shop, hauling him out for misadventures, Sparrow would've vouched for each and every item in the shop. They weren't cheap, shoddy things. His leathers were impressive. His meats were tender, juicy, palpable. His entire shop smelled of hard work and dedication. It was admirable, to say the least. There was a simplicity that made it feel homely, as if you could come off the streets and kick your feet up, enjoy yourself – much similar, she had to admit, to the Hanged Man without it's obvious flaws. For instance, this establishment wasn't filled with slobbering drunks or cloaked travellers you'd rather not gamble with. It was safe. Her eyes danced with mischief, alighting anew when Ashton's initially feigned hesitance angled away from divergence.

Sparrow's calloused fingers rubbed thoughtfully at her chin, before skating quickly behind her head in an effort to delay her answer: build the suspense. Nothing was clear-cut and obvious when she spoke. It was all peculiar riddles, dancing rhymes, and coiled smirks. Half her acquaintances absolutely hated this particular trait, while the other half found it entertaining. His seriousness – his attempt to pretend to actually care about his whereabouts, about his company, about whether or not their was money involved – dismantled his framework, spiralled out of remission and sunk back into his whip-fire smile. Her silence dragged on. Then, they were both pivoting away from the shop, though Sparrow took the opportunity to give Ashton something. It wasn't fair dragging the poor boy all over the place without even disclosing whether or not they'd be running for their lives. Of course, Sparrow wasn't inclined to do any job for absolutely nothing. Her heart was not a man in shining armour, brandishing it's sword in the air while promising to save all the troubled maidens and poor peasants from the beasts.

All you really need to know is that you'll find him interesting, I promise.” The half-breed finally revealed, spreading her fingers out like wiggling spiders. As always, her explanations were unnecessary. Merely fillers. Her companion was a man of adventure. He didn't need any reason or rhyme to do anything as long as it was amusing. As long as it tickled his fancy. It was the reason why they got along so well together. Her footsteps faltered when Ashton spun on his heels, doggedly heading back towards the counter to acquire the bottle she'd brought. She laughed softly, eyes lidded. Her mouth opened to respond with another heady quip, but she'd been in the process of taking another step, reaching blindly for the doors handle before she walked smartly into Rilien's chest. “Makers tits!” She sputtered, retreating back a few paces. Fingers splayed. Raccoon-eyes squinting. Chest heaving.

You scared me—oh! So, you did find a job. Well, of course, you did.” Sparrow recovered, dusting her shirt off as if she'd gotten up from a nasty fall. “This here, is Ashton. Fellow adventurer, and certainly not a stick in the mud. I think you'll like him.” She believed that Rilien should, or would, like anyone she was acquainted with, which wasn't entirely true. Even if Rilien absolutely abhorred someone, he wouldn't show it – but at least, he wouldn't hesitate to say it loud and clear, unhesitatingly. He was her stone companion. An ungrudging friend. The pallets of her teeth flashed in a quick scowl, curling back across her gums. Templars. “A missing Templar? You do know what, exactly, they do to us, right? That's a dangerous job. More than dangerous. Lock us up dangerous, you know?” Then, as quickly as Ashton had relented, Sparrow's features softened, quirking slightly. “Can't refuse a woman with an average bosom, can we...” A job was a job, after all.

"Where do we start?"

"Average bosom? Male Templars," Ashton echoed, tapping his foot like a disappointed mother. He couldn't help but note the emotionless delivery of this Rilien, and had he been a spectator, he would have found it hilarious. Alas, all he managed was a dry chuckle, "Oh Sparrow. How you wound me so. I had expected us to be groin deep in a league of woman-- Alas, I'll take what I can get. Average bosom and all," Ashton said in a sarcastic tone. It was all a game to the man, he never took anything too seriously, as that would undoubtly drive anyone insane. Perhaps that was the reason Sparrow took a shine to him.

"... Wait. Templars? They can go missing? How do you even lose one in all that armor?" Ashton said, tilting his head curiously. He never known Templars to go missing. Then again, he never known Templars, so it really didn't matter. Ashton noted Sparrow's apprehension at the job-- for all of about a second, then she was her cheerful self again. Ashton couldn't help but grin.

"Here. Of course," he answered Sparrow, "Then we find the Templar fellow who is there. The trick is finding out where this there is," Ashton said before shrugging. A lot of help he was doing. He then placed his lips on the bottle and tipped it, taking a drink before adding to his master plan. "Surely the fellow had friends in the Order. Perhaps it'd be best to hunt these fellow down and ask them where he's at? Did the contact with average bosom mention anything of that nature?" Ashton asked, for once trying to be helpful.

"If so, instead of starting here, why don't we start there?"

His eyes then drifted back to Rilien. There was something about this man that was different. Not in an Ashtion or Sparrow type of different either. Different different. The man had hardly any emotion about him when he spoke. Besides, how did he even manage to find his way to the shop, Ashton didn't recognize him, and he wasn't the kind of person who forgot someone like Rilien. He quietly shrugged as he took another sip from the bottle. Didn't matter really, any friend of Sparrow's was a friend of his. Though, he would make a point of trying to invoke a laugh out of the emotionless man... It was all just a game to him.

Rilien generally remained silent as the friends exchanged quips. He was not, of course, bothered by it in the slightest. Such verbal repartee, he remembered, had once been a favorite pasttime of his own. Technically, he could still do it, but he'd grown something of a distaste for lying, and pretending to feel things he did not counted a far as he was concerned. When Sparrow ran straight into him, Rilien held steady, blinked slowly exactly once, and used his hand to steady her by the elbows, removing himsef from her path as though he had never been there.

He had figured the thought of involving themselves with the Templars would cause his compatriot some concern, but he did think this might be the occasion for a well-placed sentence of his own. "I had thought your sense of adventure might be sufficient to overcome your reticence." Just that, nothing else. No hint of a joke like a sibling's fingertips at your ribs, but no stern solemnity from a parent's rebuke either. A perfectly neutral observation, stated without inflection, and really whatever you read into it was your business. A man had once told him that he was little but a mirror, reflecting the little quixotic eccentricities of people back upon them, right alongside their flaws, and, with any luck, their small glories.

It was hardly necessary. Sparrow, he was certain, knew every last one of her small glories, and wore them rather like a peacock wore its shimmering azure feathers. Light, iridescent, on display for the world. So were the oddities and the flaws, and there was an honesty in that Rilien appreciated. She was also exactly as he'd said: crazy enough to venture into Templar territory with nary a disguise. Then again, so was he.

Their third, Rilien observed steadily. "Perhaps it is less that Templars can go missing as it is Templars cannot find things," he replied dryly. "Given the fact that we will likely be walking into the Gallows as we are and leave without arrest, I would say this is logical enough." The next series of questions were actually quite relevant, and the Tranquil nodded sagely. "Miss Macha said we should begin with the recruits Wilmod and Hugh. They are, I would expect, to be found in the Gallows."

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Rakkis

Earnings

0.00 INK

#, as written by throne
As Rakkis crossed to retrieve his rapier, he stooped, extracting the throwing knife that he'd left in the portly archer's stomach indelicately. The man groaned, which only prompted a decidedly dagger-like smile from the elf. ”I could put you out of your misery, if you'd like," he spoke wryly, wiping each side of the small blade in turn clean on the shirt of the corpse that his primary weapon was still skewering. A pitiful, wet, grunting sound was the only reply that the surviving Winter was capable of making, and it fell on deaf pointy-ears. With a grunt of his own, Rakkis used the toe of his boot to roll the heavy cadaver onto its back. The business end of the rapier remained hidden somewhere in his gray matter, and Rakkis knew from experience to be very careful as he gripped the dueling weapon by it's hilt and slowly slid it free from what had once been the seat of the unfortunate mercenary's consciousness. Blood and more began to dribble out of the widened entrance wound in the man's throat. The whole mess was now only fit to serve as breakfast for a dog.

Wiping that weapon clean as well, he sheathed it. The cloak, he decided, was a loss. He still had his parrying dagger in hand, fresh from its grisly work, in case any new challengers presented themselves before expected. Shaking his head, which almost felt as if it were still vibrating in the wake of the attempted braining by means of helm that he'd endured, he set off at a brisk jog toward Sophia, Lucien, Saemus, and quite a motley band of dead folk. ”Well, isn't this a fine mess." Anyone else might have been exercising sarcasm, but the elven thug seemed earnestly appreciative of the carnage. His eyes wandered it, like an appreciator of art's eyes might wander in a museum. Shaking out of his violence-inspired reverie, he grinned, letting his gaze move from Sophia's feet to her face. ”I'd heard somewhere that pious folk bled less than we heathen sorts. I suppose I might have heard wrong."

"The Maker provides me not with a physical shield, but rather the will to overcome, Serah," the Viscount's daughter said in response, as she surveyed the carnage the three of them had created, at the cost of only a few wounds to each of them. She examined her own wound more closely. The mercenary's knife had indeed cut deep, and the wound was bleeding steadily, but there wasn't time to worry about that now. More were on the way, and they couldn't afford to stop and treat their wounds just yet.

Saemus came over to rejoin the group. He was the only one without any blood on him, save for small bits on his knees, when he had knelt beside his fallen Qunari friend. "Dead, and good riddance. My thanks for standing with my sister," he said towards Lucien and Rakkis. "You're wounded, though. And she spoke of others coming, did she not?" Sophia waved him off. "It's nothing, Saemus. The wounds can be treated once we get out of here. Serah Lucien, Serah Rakkis, if neither of your injuries require immediate attention, we should focus on a plan for when the others arrive." She glanced at the way they had come in. A single path led down from the main road, but then split into three sepearate pathways through the rock walls, before coming together in a choke point at the entrance to the camp.

"I suspect the Winters will not go for caution, especially if they see only two of us. If Serah Lucien and I met the enemy at the entrance to the camp, Serah Rakkis could lie in wait along one of the side paths, and strike the Winters once they focus their attention on us."

Lucien, having retrieved his scythe, now leaned on it again, arms crossed over the end and supporting his chin in a way that could only be described as relaxed. Perhaps a bit discordant, give the situation, but he'd learned long ago that his impulsiveness, while unfortunately not entirely avoidable, was best saved for battle and not the spaces between. At the mention of injuries, he straightened and looked down at his abdomen, in which the small blade was still lodged. "Ah yes."

Relaxing his muscles there, he gripped the hilt of the knife in three fingers and eased it out. Examining the small blade for a moment, he shrugged and slid it into his belt. His armor would prevent it from stabbing him in its naked state, and he'd rather avoid too many more barehanded matches if at all possible. In retrospect, that had actually been rather enjoyable, though perhaps a tad too time-consuming. He felt a slight warmth as blood seeped slowly from the wound, but his scale mail had made it shallow at best. "I'm nothing to worry about, so a plan might be good, yes."

Scratching absently at his stubble, Lucien considered it. "No, perhaps not caution, but they may approach from all sides anyway. It is a tactical advantage I would not pass up, had I the resources to take advantage. All the same, we are but three, and there is little we can do about it. Allowing Serah here to flank seems the best solution."

Rakkis stooped at a corpse to clean off his dagger, his expression fairly bored as the others spoke. ”There is," he said, grunting again as he rose thanks to the arrow-wound he'd taken to his side, ”A better solution." He smirked to Lucien. ”A bloodless solution, in fact." He gestured with his dagger toward the noble siblings. ”You two take him and Horse back into the city. I'll remain here. The Winters are not a large organization, and their leader lays slain. If word were to circulate that they'd been butchered by a one-eyed man, the Viscount's daughter, and a very handsome elf, they wouldn't be able to obtain work cleaning out stables for all the laughter, never mind actually mercenerizing." He paused to consider his neologism, then shrugged; not one of his better ones. ”We'll let them pick their comrades corpses clean, and I'll encourage them to seek gainful employment within certain establishments in Lowtown. Much neater, don't you think? And if I'm wrong and they exact their retribution, well, you'd have a nice headstart by the time they managed to cut me to bits, so I really don't see a downside for you lot."

Either insanity or confidance blazed in the elf's gray eyes as he regarded them. It would be a bit of a coupe, on his part, to manage to recruit the remnants of a brigand-band that he'd had a hand in destroying. There was also the matter of the man that the whore had told him about. Rakkis had not recognized him among the dead, and suspected that his honorable comrades might object to or even interfere with the plans he had for that fellow.

Sophia let the tip of her blade fall to the ground as the elf explained his alternate plan. Indeed, the biggest obstacle to them simply taking this opportunity to escape was the matter of horses. They only had three, and while Saemus could certainly double with her, the elf's riding... left something to be desired. If Rakkis were to stay behind, and the three of them were to leave very soon they could perhaps make it onto the road in time, and take the far way back to Kirkwall, avoiding the remaining Winters who would be coming the short way.

And he was right. Their reputation would certainly be crushed, not only by them being defeated by a mere three people, but by their blatant attack on royalty of Kirkwall, the very sister of the one they were charged with protecting. Such a botched assignment would be near impossible for a small group of mercenaries to recover from. But... Serah Rakkis had revealed his ties with the Coterie. Sophia had expected he might be apart of one of the criminal organizations plaguing Kirkwall. He was going to encourage them to strengthen his organization? She didn't like that... but she couldn't help but feel that it was preferable to the coming battle if she refused his plan. More would die if they stayed, and there was no small chance that it would be themselves, wounded as they were.

"You are very dedicated to your organization, to risk your life in such a way for it, Serah," Sophia said, certainly not having any illusions that the elf was staying behind simply so that they could escape. "My concern is what harm these people may cause should they be corralled into a criminal group such as yours... but if further bloodshed can be avoided this way, perhaps it is best. And we've little time to discuss it further. Saemus?"

Her brother thought for a moment, aware they had to hurry. "Ashaad's death has been avenged. The Winters will no longer receive their reward. And I would not wish to condemn them all to death for the actions of their leader, though I've no doubt many of them would do the same in her situation." Sophia nodded, agreeing with him. It felt wrong... but there were many ways things could end up worse if they stayed and fought. The fight had taken a good deal out of her. "Very well. Serah Lucien, if you have no objections..."

Lucien blinked his good eye several times, looking to the much shorter man with somthing akin to shock, mixed with no small amount of perplexity. He seemed to give the matter some consideration, turning the implications over in his mind, finally shaking his head. "I doubt the world would benefit from more criminals, but that is not the reason for my refusal. If the Lady Sophia wishes to leave and take Serah Saemus, then I understand completely. I, however..." Lucien smiled then, a rueful sort of expression that was as much self-effacing as mirthful. "Well, however dubious your solution may be, I am fool enough to feel that you should not face the consequences alone, if your deal goes south."

The Chevalier shrugged, lifting his scythe and slinging it over both shoulders. "In other words, if they prove like their comrades and reject the peaceful solution, I might be convenient to have around, if for nothing more than a big metal distraction that allows you to slip away, no?" His honor would not allow him to leave another man behind to face such grave danger on his behalf, regardless of what deal he was planning on offering the Winters. That said, he knew the type. He expected that they would't accept, especially if the numbers in the second wave were greater than those of the first and their opponents were a woman short. He also understood that Rakkis might well take him up on his offer and make himself scarce if it came to that.

These and other practicalities, Lucien reflected with that same deprecating smirk, were the kinds of thoughts and fool notions that got men killed. But when Lucien died, he wanted it to be having done what he thought was right, at every last opportunity.

Rakkis tilted his head as he regarded the much larger mercenary. ”I never imagined you'd grow so fond of me so quickly. However..." He paused poignantly, studying the man. It was possible that he'd read even further ill intentions in his plan than Sophia had, but that didn't strike him as the truth behind his protestations. No, he had a military bearing, and that meant he likely had a military mindset, however deteriorated it might have been. He simply didn't want to leave a comrade, however temporary, behind. ”I believe that you set out having given your word to see Sophia and dear Saemus back to their father's keep unharmed. As they'll be setting out, very soon, it will be very difficult for you to ensure their safety from here. If you'll forgive my saying so, you may be a sword-for-hire, but your grasp of the Winters' situation is fairly tenuous. Your presence only makes it more likely that they'll choose the bloody course. A single elf, even one as daunting as myself, poses very little threat. Add a lummox in plate with a ridiculous weapon to the equation, and... well, they might feel differently." He shrugged. ”I have no qualms accompanying our charges, if you feel that you might be better suited toward the negotiations." The smile he offered Lucien was deprecating as well... but Lucien was the target of that deprecation, not himself.

"On the contrary, my obligation was to facilitate their safe return, which is considerably easier if I know where their enemies are, and whether or not those enemies will retain their hostility. I think we can both agree that the Winters are a greater threat than an incidental creature on the road, and Lady Sophia is herself far from a pushover. As to my impact upon your success, well..." He cast his eye about, considering the landscape. "I suppose I may be a smidge more intimidating than you, but who expects treachery from 'a lummox in plate'? If nothing else, looking like you have hired muscle hanging about lends some legitimacy to your claims of identity. I suppose if you want to appear alone, I could conceal myself." It would be nothing so stealthy as a puff of smoke and invisibility, but even a warrior could hide behind a rise in the landscape or an outcropping of stone.

"It seems wise that Lady Sophia and Serah Saemus leave, yes, and your choice is yours, but I will remain." He was quite aware of the look he was getting from the elf, but the simple fact of the matter was that he didn't care. He had made his choice, for his reasons, and the relative likelihood of succeeding in adding more ruthless mercenaries to Kirkwall's underbelly was of no concern to him.

The mercenary, Lucien, had made her feel significantly worse about leaving, but also significantly more certain that it was what she needed to do. That he was staying for honor, well... the feeling was something akin to the wound in her side. She couldn't help but feel she was abandoning these two, certainly Lucien moreso than Rakkis, by leaving them to persuade the remaining Winters against further violence. But as it was, the way she could best ensure his safety was by, in fact, leaving. Were she willing to let Saemus return on his own, things would be different... but she couldn't.

"You don't make this easy for me, Serah Lucien," she admitted, "and were I willing to allow Saemus to return home alone, I would stay as well, but I must see to my family's safety, and I can best ensure your own survival by leaving with my brother." Saemus rolled his eyes. "I'm so glad for the vote of confidence, sister." At this, Sophia sighed. "I would recount the ways you assisted during the battle, brother, but I can't seem to recall any. You'll forgive me if I want to ensure your safety on the return trip."

He had no reply to that. He actually seemed rather confused by the whole situation, between Rakkis' not-so-noble reasons for remaining behind, contrasted by Lucien's extremely noble reasons, and his sister's conflicted stance. "We must be away from here, then," the Viscount's daughter said, beginning to back away. "May Andraste guide you both. We will not forget your services here. Should you survive, I will ensure that you receive your rewards. They are well earned." With that, she turned, feeling like she was tearing herself apart as she went. The elf had made things so complicated...

"Doing what is right is rarely ever easy, milady," Lucien replied with a more genuine smile. "But protecting your family is nothing to be ashamed of." He inclined his head in a small gesture of deference, then turned back to Rakkis.

"I cede to your superior understanding of the Winters' motives. Without telling me to depart, what would you have me do?"

The elf considered refuting Lucien's points. It was how easy it would have been to do so that gave him pause. There was no point arguing with someone so clearly insane as the Chevalier was. He let his attention drift to Sophia's valediction and her quibbling with Saemus. He didn't quite think that Lucien had seen through the ruse of his willingness to leave so much as he was ignoring it. He'd been hoping the craven notion might lower the man's opinion of him enough that he'd agree to set off... but that didn't seem to be the case. ”I'd prefer that Andraste stay out of this. There are already too many players remaining on the beach as it is. And enough of this 'serah' business. Rakkis will be quite sufficient in the future." He nodded then, and turned to spit Lucien with an insolent stare.

”I would have you do exactly as I tell you to, and say absolutely nothing." He waited for Sophia to depart, for Lucien to give his word of honor that he'd comply, before outlining his modified plan.

Delaying no longer, the two Dumar children swiftly made their way to the horses, and sped off in the opposite direction they had come, Sophia giving one last glance towards the two men who had undoubtedly saved her life before disappearing from view.

Setting

4 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

"Very well. We seek a former Templar named Samson. I have some idea of where he might be found." Amalia let the words hang there for a few seconds, then turned, leading the group towards the Dockside entrance to Darktown.

The group made their way downwards, through the maze that was Lowtown. They passed the Hanged Man, bustling with patrons even at this relatively early hour, passed a rather disturbing view of the city's foundry district, a place saturated with the smells of smoke, burning metal, and generations of misery. Their surroundings grew steadily poorer as they approached the sewers and the entrances to Darktown, near the city walls and the stairs leading down to the docks. The streets were lined with refuse, of the physical and human varieties.

There were plenty of beggars and lowlifes populating this part of Lowtown, but one of them was set apart from the others by exactly what he was begging for: the dust. Dwarven dust. Lyrium, the ingredient the Templars used to enhance their trained abilities in combating magic, and also the means by which the Chantry held such a firm grip over their military arm. Lyrium was highly effective, but highly addictive if taken for a long enough period. But only those familiar with the Templars and their ways knew that.

Aurora didn't enjoy the look the elf, Ithilian gave her. It was glare of annoyance and... Hate perhaps? She knew that look. It was the look she had seen many times when others realized that she was a mage, and thus, this look from the stranger irritated her. What did he know of her to judge her so? He had never been in her shoes, lived her life. She returned his stare with a defiant one of her own, her jaw locked and set tight. She would speak out over such a small thing like a look, but it did manage to set her against the elf.

With that, the group descended into Lowtown proper.

As she said before, the streets were known to her. The winding mazelike pathways held no mystery for Aurora. If a templar was to appear and begin to chase her, she knew every sidestreet and back alley to take to escape. Though, this time, she wasn't the one being hunted, she was the one hunting. It was a comfortable change of pace honestly.

Trailing behind the others, Nostariel was likely the last to lay eyes upon the man seeking dust, but she had more reason than most to recognize the signs. Dark circles around sunken eyes, a slight tremor in the outstretched hands... she'd be willing to bet he was also light-sensitive, and found it difficult to sleep. Biting her lip, she toyed with the end of one of her braids. This could go very wrong in a number of fashions, most of them involving the Dalish man who'd apparently decided to extract information from Vincento in the least-gentle of ways.

Maybe this could be brought to a less-violent conclusion if she was able to obtain the information herself. "That man," she murmured to the group of them, "He's addicted to lyrium. If you're looking for an ex-Templar, that's definitely the best indication you'll recieve." Taking the opportunity to step forward, she was the first to approach him. Her smile didn't quite make it past her lips and into anything else about her demeanor, but she supposed it would do. People had to look closely to notice those kinds of things, and in order to do that, they usually had to care first. If he cared about a complete stranger, getting Feynriel's location shouldn't be a problem anyway.

"Your pardon, serah," the Warden began, her tone gracious. "But might you be the man called Samson?"

He was sitting on the ground as the Grey Warden approached, dark eyes scanning the people that passed, likely looking for a potential target to beg to. He had to look up to see her, and the act obviously took a bit of effort, as he squinted, and his hand reflexively went to block the sun from his eyes. Grumbling, he shoved himself to his feet, and peered at the members of the group that had approached him, before shrugging. "Depends on who's asking, I suppose. Why? What do you want from me?"

Ithilian stepped forward beside Nostariel, his demeanor significantly less... polite, than Nostariel's. "A location. An elven boy was sent to you recently, told that you were a friend to mages. Feynriel. Where is he?" Samson seemed to light up upon hearing the boy's name. "Ah, yeah, that was it, Feynriel. Been trying to remember that kid's name all day. Knew it was Fane-something, but I just couldn't get the last part. Good on you. I'll tell you now, though, there's not much I can do for you."

Ithilian had gotten out a good deal of his aggression on Vincento, but an elf like him always had more stashed away, ready to be pulled out on a moment's notice. He looked just about to recreate the scene in the market.

Amalia, having learned the sight of a near-violent Ithilian already and dutifully committed it to memory, flowed smoothly forward, reaching into her coinpurse with one hand even as she gently displaced Nostariel with the other, palming the other woman's shoulder and applying gentle pressure until she stepped sideways or back, whichever she preferred. "I have no lyrium, but I believe merchantile culture allows for the exchange of it for such as these," she said, though there was an underlying note of contempt in her tone. "We have little time, and the Sataareth even less patience. So tell me, basra, what did you do with the boy?" The Ben-Hassrath's tolerance for men who valued material things over other men was incredibly low, but she like her kith in the compound understood the value of using the customs of the bas when necessary. The Qun did not encourage those of her role to use violence, merely pointed out that it was sometimes necessary.

Sataareth were as a rule more militant, but this one, were he of the Qun, would have been reminded long ago that even the Antaam made great use of patience and judicious applications of diplomacy when more efficient.

The ex-Templar gladly accepted the coins Amalia offered, making a point of averting his gaze from the angry elf and holding it instead on the more charitable members of the group. "That's very kind of you. Been hurtin' lately, so this should help. Anyway, here's how it went. The boy came to me, but the Blighter was dead broke, didn't have two coppers to rub together. I don't work for free, you know? Help one apostate for free, and soon I'll have half the Circle banging on my door. Well... if I had a door for them to bang on, that is." Aurora twitched at the word apostate.

"So... what? You abandoned him? Turned him away? Get to the point." Ithilian was indeed confirming Amalia's words. His right hand rested on the hilt of a knife, but it was relaxed. Still, not the best sign. "I was gettin' there, my good man. No, I didn't just abandon him. I pointed him to a ship-captain I know, guy named Reiner. He takes on runaways sometimes. He took one on just last week, a girl I sent him. It, uh... might of gone wrong though. I heard some rumors, that Reiner took the pair of them captive instead."

"To ransom them to the Templars, perhaps?" Ithilian commented, in an unsurprised but disgusted tone. "Perhaps," Samson admitted, "or they could be holding them for someone else. Tevinter slavers, more like. The Templars make for poor businessmen." Ithilian slid his knife out an inch. "You should stop talking now, shem. And if anything's happened to the boy..."

"Yeah, yeah, I know. Something involving lots of blood, right? Anyway, you'll want to head to the Arthuris Private Dock, down on the water. I wouldn't expect a warm welcome, though."

Aurora pinched the bridge of her nose in annoyance. Things were becoming difficult real quick. No longer was it just Feynriel, but now Tevinter slavers were added to the mix. Magnificent. "I don't," Aurora agreed. "Shall we make our way to this Dock then? The more time we spend dallying, the further Feynriel gets," she said, leaving out the bit about wanting to meet this Captain Reiner. Selling mages like animals, she had a few words for the man. And spells. With that, Aurora turned on her heel and headed towards the docks as instructed. She hoped Feynriel was okay.

Ithilian approved of the human girl's need for haste. He locked a last glare upon the ex-Templar, before sliding his knife back into its sheath and turning to follow Aurora towards the stairs that would lead down to the water, and the private dock to which they had been pointed to. He had more than enough for slavers. If this Reiner did indeed plan on selling the boy into slavery, there would be no negotiations. Perhaps there were other paths, as Amalia had suggested, but the path of violence was the only one that would satisfy Ithilian if shemlen slavers were involved.

The docks, perhaps predictably, entailed the scent of salt, fish, and unwashed bodies, mostly human. As Nostariel understood it, though commerce of all kinds ran through here, the area was largely unsafe. The large, rough types that worked them probably didn't have much to worry about, but a youth with no combat experience was another matter. The roads beneath their feet were chipped and worn, large chunks missing from the off-white stone in places where it had fractured and none had bothered with repairs.

The private docks were set a bit away from the others, and as a rule a bit tidier, but given the complete absence of city guards, no more safe than anywhere else. Nostariel hesitated for the barest moment before pushing open the door to the storehouse they were looking for; she had a bad feeling about this. Of course, that was kind of the point, so she completed the motion with one hand, reaching behind herself with the other to grasp her bladed staff. The first room was largely empty, but it let out into an open cargo-storage area, and as soon as she stepped into it, she knew they weren't alone. "Look lively!" she called, an old phrase taken from a friend of hers in the Wardens.

Sure enough, several enemies, most of them rogues, seemed to emerge from the woodwork as she moved aside to allow the others to enter, readying the first burst of magic and letting fly from her stave, catching an archer solidly in the stomach. This just looked more and more ominous for poor Feynriel.

Setting

4 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

Reiner's men were obviously not looking to entertain company at present, as they attacked the group on sight when they entered the private dock. There was a high pitched scream of a young woman from the second level, and Ithilian caught sight of a girl being dragged into one of the back rooms by a pair of armed men. The one dragging the girl shouted something to the men, before shutting the door behind him, drowning out her pleas for help.

It was understandable that they would attack anyone unfamiliar entering their dock. Slavery was certainly still illegal in the Free Marches, and the city guard would crash down hard upon those who broke that particular law. Considering that none of these people wanted to spend any time locked under the earth in the dungeons located below the Gallows, it was no surprise that they were willing to commit murder to cover up slavery. A few deaths were more than worth the avoidance of a life rotting in the Gallows.

The group had prepared their defence by placing a trio of archers on the second level balcony, overlooking the door Nostariel had led the way through, with clear shots at short range. Those caught in the open would have a difficult time protecting themselves from arrows. A ramp to the left led up to the archers' balcony, but there were six armed men and women descending it to rush the enemy currently, armed with a variety of melee weapons and light armor, their faces covered by masks. To the group's right lay an open area, with crates for storage piling up on the right wall, and stairs on the left leading up to the second level, where Reiner had dragged the girl he was holding captive. There was no sign of Feynriel yet. More rogues and a few warriors were charging the group from the right, with another pair of archers holding at the top of the stairs.

Ithilian was glad there was no chance to negotiate. These shemlen had revealed their intentions to him, and he was more than willing to kill them all for what they were attempting to do. He smoothly ducked behind a wooden support so as to avoid getting shot while he drew his weapons, a pair of long, curved knives from his waist. He intercepted the first rogue on the left, who had been looking to blindside Nostariel, by plunging his right dagger into his belly all the way up to the hilt. The force of the stab lifted the rogue off his feet slightly, catching him by surprise. The Dalish wasted no time, slashing his other blade deep into his throat. Ignoring the spray of blood, Ithilian ripped his blade from the rogue's stomach, before grabbing him and turning him, pulling him close to his body as a shield just as a pair of arrows thrummed into his chest.

A woman heaving a battleaxe swung downwards at him, and Ithilian backed away swiftly, causing the blow to only crash onto her fallen comrade, splitting him open at the neck at least half a foot deep. Continuing to back away, Ithilian's knives were sheathed in an instant, his bow drawn and an arrow nocked. A swift aim later, and there was a thwack as his shot cracked through skull, and the warrior fell in a heap.

An arrow whistled by Amalia, catching her dress by the sleeve and tearing the thing as it went past. The aggression was all she needed to respond with the same, and she flickered before vanishing from sight entirely, stepping out of the useless garment and leaving only her much quieter fitted cloth-and-leathers beneath. Jogging soundlessly, she placed some distance between herself and the rest of the group, so as to avoid being hit by anything on accident, and half-unwound her chain, swinging the weighted end to build centripedal force. A deft flick of her wrist sent the weapon flying, tangling in the legs of a warrior trying to make a charge for the other three. The Ben-Hassrath yanked back hard, tightening the chain's hold and bringing the slaver crashing to his knees.

Gathering her weapon back up, Amalia held it loosely in one hand, a poisoned needle now resting carefully in each of the spaces between the fingers of her left hand. Still in a lingering shroud of stealth, the Qunari understood what needed to be done, and padded quietly up the ramp, passing by the archers undetected. There wasn't really a way to open a door without being discovered, and so getting into the room where the one barking orders had gone was going to be difficult. Perhaps if she... no. There was no telling exactly what was beyond. Though she trusted herself to handle most things, she was nothing if not realistic, and walking into that room by herself was just as likely to get the hostage killed as it was to save her.

Instead, then, she used her position behind the pair of archers to her advantage, tossing first one needle and then another with pinpoint accuracy, burying the steel projectiles at the base of each man's neck. Qunari poison was nothing to be trifled with, and they each swooned, shots arcing far off-course, then collapsed, the neurotoxin taking full effect very quickly. Choosing to hedge her bets, the now-visible Amalia stooped, taking first one head and then the other into her grip, wrenching sideways with speed that translated into great force. The wet cracks informed her that she had broken their necks, and she glanced back out to the center of the warehouse, swiftly taking stock of the situation.

Why was Aurora not surprised. Everytime slavers were mentioned, violence followed close on it's heels. Much like Ithilian did, Aurora found herself taking shelter behind a wooden support with an arrow thumping into the wood behind her. Suddenly, her lack of weaponry dawned upon her. She had left her staff at her home in Lowtown, hidden wrapped in some blankets under her bed. One couldn't just walk about with a staff slung across her back if she wanted to keep a sense of anonymity. She grimaced. It would have been helpful right now. Still, she wasn't going to let a little thing like lack of a weapon stop her.

She had caught sight of a group of archers above them before she took cover. She knew her target, but in order to get a line of sight on them, she'd have to wade out into the middle of the building. This thought only graced her mind for a split-second before it was decided. She looked to her sides, Amalia had disappeared in a puff of smoke and Ithilian was busily dispatching those who approached. She would not be the only useless one here today. However, the illusion that she was just some ordinary girl was about to be shattered. Still, that was a worry for another time.

Aurora crossed her arms in front of her chest and dipped into the fade, calling upon the natural elements of the world to come to her aid. When she opened her eyes, she was sheathed in a layer of stone. That should hold up against any errant attacks.

With her defenses set, she dropped out of cover and sprinted to the middle of the building, stopping suddenly and pivoting to face the archers above. Her hands danced around each other as she called upon another element, just as the archers were drawing a bead on her. Then her hands shot out, a streak of lightning erupting from her intertwined hands and zipped towards the archers. Upon impact, the lightning split and chained amongst them. The shock caused them to lose grip of their bows and two of the arrows hit wide while the third buried itself into the chest of her rock armor. She could still feel the bite of the tip, but it was just annoying more than painful. If not for the armor, the arrow would have surely pierced her heart.

She could hear the calls, "She's a mage! Try to take her alive!" Aurora frowned and echoed,"Try."

The group dispersed at once, each member going about their affairs as though trained for nothing more than this moment. Or at least she would not have put it beyond the ones called Ithilian and Amalia. She had no idea how the two had come to be working together, but they were both her comrades now, they and Aurora alike. Nostariel was only glad that her fellow mage had the sense to cover herself in rock armor before going after the archers.

Drawing upon more experience in the thick of enemies than she was truthfully comfortable having, the elf pulled protection from the Fade, draping both herself and her allies in the violet glow of an arcane shield. Where armor sought to protect, magic would help divert, and hopefully the both would be enough to do some good. The ranged combatants taken care of between the efforts of the clandestine Qunari and the bold human, Nostariel was forced to focus her attention on the more immediate problem presented by almost a dozen incoming melee combatants. Ithilian seemed to have a fair number in hand, but the two of them would not be enough on their own, and the Warden figured it was a good time to seed some chaos in the slavers' ranks.

Pulling a deep breath in through her nose, the mage released it in a whispered exhale, the rune of an infamous misdirection hex lighting the ground beneath more than half their tightly-clustered enemies. The insidious magic crept into the crevices of consciousness, and for a bare moment, Nostariel could feel the confusion fog taking hold of their minds, before the spell slipped from her grasp and sealed itself to them. The woman closest to her struck out with a knife, only to find that the blade went wide of its mark, whistling harmlessly past the Warden, by means of either her confusion or the shielding, it mattered not.

The chill crept into her left hand, and with a sad sort of smile, the ice arced from her palm in a half-circle, freezing four in place and making their flesh and bones brittle as crumbling ash. She did not relish in this, but she would not hesitate, grasping her staff in both hands. Twirling it with a cry, she brought the bladed end down on one frozen man's shoulder, and he shattered, nothing but shards of ice falling to the floor. Their efficiency was deadly, their ability to confound and enrapture and disappear more then men such as these would be able to handle. It was something she knew, down in her very bones.

Ithilian's mouth curved into a wicked grin as his companions did their work. The human girl revealed herself to be a mage. He suspected she'd had something hidden up her sleeve, if she were so willing to come into a base for slavers. She risked herself quite willingly, making herself a target for the archers into order to get at them. Amalia had disappeared, and moments later the archers on the stairs fell. And the elven Warden, Nostariel, had unleashed her own brand of magic on the close combat fighters of this Captain Reiner's. A hex and a well cast ice spell that effectively held off those coming from the right. Ithilian would continue his work on the left.

He switched back to his long knives, leaping into the air over the mercenary he'd shot in the head, and plunging both knives into the chest of the nearest mercenary, his weight taking the man to the ground. The merc had managed to get a knife stuck just under his rib, but the Dalish ignored the wound, snarling in his anger. A mercenary with a greatsword slashed horizontally, looking to lop off the elf's head as he rose, but Ithilian had the good sense to roll forward under it, getting a position at the merc's side while his momentum still carried him forward. He rose swiftly, one hand finding the top of the merc's head and pulling back, the other drawing his knife sharply across the throat, before pushing him forward, where he stumbled to the ground, clutching his throat.

He turned to catch the blow of a sword and shield armed mercenary, the sword getting caught in his blades, giving Ithilian an opening to kick the man backwards. The last of this group, a smaller female rogue with dual knives much like his own, flanked him from the right, scoring a slash across his thigh, and driving him back with swift blows which he parried madly, before finally seeing an opportunity to counter, blocking a strike that had been too slow to the side, and launching a kick to the side of her knee, twisting it at a wicked angle and sending her to a kneel, allowing him to get a firm grip on her head, and twist violently, snapping the neck.

The shield armed mercenary had returned by this point, blindside Ithilian with a slice across the back of his leg, causing him to roar in anger, and fall to a knee himself. Rather than waste any time down, however, Ithilian pushed hard with his good leg, and launched himself into a tackle, driving his shoulder into the man's gut and surprising him, causing him to drop his sword. They hit the ground with Ithilian on top, and he drove his first blade down, then the second, both burying themselves in his shield and getting stuck. Thoroughly frustrated by this one, Ithilian pulled an arrow from his quiver, shoving the shield aside with one arm, and then driving the arrowhead directly into the man's face, repeatedly, until there was little shape remaining to it. Only then did he take a breath, rip his blades from the shield, and turn to see the state of the battle.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Rakkis

Earnings

0.00 INK

#, as written by throne
Rakkis didn’t tarry watching the viscount’s progeny ride off. The Winters reinforcements would be arriving soon, which meant that he needed to solidify the plan that had started crystallizing in his mind just moments before. There wasn’t time to argue with his large human cohort, either. He had to hope that Lucien would indeed play his part well enough for them to emerge as unscathed as they presently were. The bashing his head had taken was slowly coalescing into what promised to be one of the worst headaches ever experienced. It felt as if a small bird had become trapped in his skull and mistaken the very front of it, just between his temples, for some glass aperture. That metaphorical tiny bird was beating itself against the imagined glass in an effort to escape, and Rakkis had experience enough with drink and head injuries (which, aside from stress, were the two major causes of headaches) to know that the bird would soon transform into a larger bird, and then a flock of large birds.

Rubbing the side of his head gently, the elf waxed thoughtful and still. In a flurry of moment that was both the complete opposite of that stillness and the product of it, he sprang into action. First, he went to Ginnis headless corpse; he’d rather liked her smoke trick, what he'd seen of it from his vantage point, anyway, and decided to liberate a few vials of the compound that enabled it for later playing around with. He secreted them up his sleeve for a later transfer to his pockets; he didn’t need an argument from Lucien on the ramifications of duty when it came to robbing the dead. He had a different purpose, and snapped his head up to regard the larger mercenary.

”Well don’t just stand there like a lackwit. Start arranging the bodies in a more dignified fashion. It will minimize their initial reaction. I doubt they were all boon companions, but a few of our arriving guests may have had friends in this lovely boneyard we’ve made.” His hands kept patting searching. Most mercenary companies had books of sorts, or at least contracts which their members would mark (since most of them could not in fact write). He’d known a few leaders to keep them on hand, but Ginnis must have had better control of her lot. It was probably back in the city. Ah well. He let her body fall to the ground indelicately, and then arranged her into some semblance of repose: limbs flat, body straightened. There was, of course, the matter of her head, which had bounced several feet after Vesenia had cleaved it off. Grabbing it by the hair, Rakkis frowned slightly at the body, then at Ginnis' deathmask. ”You really wound up being troublesome to the very end, didn't you?" He stooped, and made a sort of mound of sand just where her neck ended. Pressing the decapitated head into that mound until it more or less lined up with the larger part of her remains, he wiggled it a bit until it sat right, then stood to inspect his work. So long as no one looked too closely, it might seem that her throat had merely been slit egregiously. A shrug; it would have to do.

Lucien gave a shrug; providing the corpses of his foes with a little more dignity was not something he was against by any means, and if he was offended by the fact that Rakkis saw fit to insult his intelligence at every opportunity, he made no sign of it. Lifting or dragging several corpses, he arranged them in a neat line, closing open eyelids and moving hands to clasp together over abdomens in the classic picture of repose used at funerals and cremation ceremonies both. He was no great believer in the Maker or his human bride, but all the same he silently said a few words for each of the departed, nonspecific and directed at any supernatural being fool enough to have some kind of interest in mortal affairs.

”For the purpose of this exercise, try to imagine that you are not an idiotic man of honor gone to seed. Imagine, instead, that you are some idiotic-if-very-loyal hired muscle.” He paused and appraised Lucien for the span of a breath. ”Thresh,” he declared, his eyes on the man’s unusual weapon. ”You go by Thresh. Now, it’s quite possible that I may need to kill one of them. If I do, do not take that as a signal to attack. If I want you to attack…” He trailed off thoughtfully, remembering the smoke bombs he’d just inherited. ”Well, you will know if I want you to attack.”

When the Winters arrived, moments later, Rakkis and Lucien would just be finishing tidying up the dead. If the mercenary band valued their comrades, they would appreciate the gesture; if they were a pack of psychopaths, they’d see it as a sign of weakness, and the elf did enjoy being underestimated. Setting his hands upon his hips in jaunty fashion, he wished that he hadn’t gone and ruined his cloak. He looked much more impressive in a cloak.

It was obvious that there was a reason these particular Winters did not make up the vanguard. Their armor and weapons were obviously less impressive than their compatriots’. Most mercenary companies kept the best steel in the best hands, and Rakkis had actually been hoping for that to be the truth. As they saw the results of the battle, some of the Winters looked angry or concerned or even slightly sad. An equal number were greedily eyeing some of the fallen weapons and coin purses littered about. Rakkis didn’t find it hard at all to grin, and splayed out his arms theatrically to encompass the area.

”As you can see, you’ve rather botched the rescue mission. My condolences on the death of your co-workers and of your group’s reputation within Kirkwall.”

Hands fell to weapons. The mercenaries looked to one another. Rakkis hoped that Lucien was in character enough to react to the potential hostility. It would have been a nice detail to support their charade.

Lucien, for his part, understood the value of good acting, and assuming for the moment that Rakkis was his employer, the natural reaction was to take a step forward, grip the scythe at his shoulder a little more firmly, and simply loom. He did not speak of course, but body language could be plenty expressive, and the fact that he was a good head taller than most men and heavily-armored would not go to waste in this situation. His jaw was set into a scowl, but he was careful to direct the majority of his attention to the elf, as though awaiting orders.

One of the Winters came forward. He was the best armed of them, with a long sword in his hand and some light leather armor hung about a very respectable physique. He would have been very handsome if it were not for his hawkish nose. It was twice as large as his face would otherwise have required and possessed of a decided curve, as well as some knobbiness that indicated its having been broken at least twice in the past. His eyes were hard, but the hate in them was mired with confusion. ”Who in blazes are you, elf? Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t kill you where you stand.” Now, weapons slid from sheaths; the mercenaries tightened up, but not into anything reminiscent of a respectable formation.

Rakkis was more preoccupied with the man’s nose than the danger. He’d been given a description of just such a nose back in the Blooming Rose, by a pretty young man who Rakkis finally remembered was named Silas.

”For the purposes of this discussion, I am the Coterie.” More looks were exchanged between the mercenaries, and Rakkis continued before they could say anything else. ”But you may call me Rakkis, and regard me as a friend until given reason to do otherwise. As for why you shouldn’t kill me? Well, you couldn’t. There’s one reason. More importantly, I have a proposition for you. All of you.” He pulled his eyes away from the man’s monumental proboscis in order to regard each of the mercenaries with his panning gaze. The Nose bristled at the truth that he perceived as an insult, but seemed willing, at least, to listen. Opportunism was one of the few common denominators in his line of work.

”What you see here is the inevitable.” He tilted his head toward the laid out bodies. ”We took no pleasure in it, Thresh and I, but your former leader was the one who pressed the attack.” Technically Saemus was ultimately responsible for the bloodbath, but they didn’t need to know that, and judging by the lack of shouted objections, Ginnis’ aggressiveness was quite in character for her. None of the Winters looked surprised at all. ”You could, I suppose, carry on. Perhaps with this fine fellow taking up the onerous mantle of leadership?” He singled out The Nose with an inclination of his head. ”But your numbers are halved, and your power considerably moreso, I’d wager. There is another option, though. The Coterie has need of men and women like you. I could see to it that you have a fair chance at joining our august organization, provided that you don’t see the need to make Thresh and I upset. We do terrible things when we’re upset, you see.”

Lucien was still not exactly pleased that 'success' here was adding to the volume of Kirkwall's already-swollen criminal underworld, but he did have a certain kind of respect for Rakkis's skill with words. The elf would have made quite the Bard, he was willing to wager. Really, there was little difference between that job and the one he was doing right now, save perhaps for the fact that Bards were seldom so direct.

The Nose looked back at his companions, gauging their reactions to the proposition. Rakkis meanwhile asserted his grip on a throwing knife, ready to silence any rallying cry that the man might choose to make. The elf smiled when he saw the point of the man’s sword lower toward the sand. Rakkis used his other hand instead, tossing a small bag of silver pieces, each of them blemished with an “X” marked by a dagger. The erstwhile Winter opened the bag and inspected it, making a sound of derision. ”You talk better than you bribe, elf. This is a pittance.”

”If you could see past that beak of yours, friend, you’d notice the markings,” Rakkis drawled. ”Distribute the coins amongst you. Use them to buy a drink in Lowtown. You’ll no doubt be contacted by the end of the night.” He shrugged. ”Or put them toward a whore and make your own way. It’s no matter to me. Rest assured, though, that you will find more profit and bloodshed with the Coterie than you ever would have found as Winters.”

The mercenary took another long look at one of the coins. He turned in toward the others, and they conversed in low tones. Rakkis’ keen, knife-like ears picked up a few murmurs of dissent, urges to kill them and have done with it, but then more murmurs came. The two of them had killed everyone else. One had even heard about a tattooed elf killer with a nasty reputation who worked in the Coterie’s employ. The overall tone of the caucus was that they’d really rather be with the Coterie than against them with Ginnis and so many of their peers dead.

”Very well, Rakkis. If this is some sort of trick, you won’t have seen the last of us.” Keeping one coin for himself, The Nose passed the pouch around. His words elicited a delighted laugh from Rakkis.

”Oh, it’s most assuredly a trick, but quite beneficial to you, I avow.” Rakkis tilted his head and regarded him. ”I like you. You’re very droll. If you have half the potential that you do nose, I could use you. Come to the Weeping Violet after sunset. I intend to take a more personal hand in your continued future in Kirkwall.” His tone was unctuous, flattering, even seductive. There was no mistaking the brazenness of that proposition for anything but what it was.

To his credit, the man didn’t blush, stammer, or shout. ”The Weeping Violet, after sunset,” he confirmed, keeping his voice neutral. ”I’ll see if I can arrange to be there.”

”Delightful.” Rakkis clapped his hands together and looked to Lucien. ”Thresh and I will be off, then. We’ll leave you to caring for your dead and whatever else it is that you’d like to do. You’ve made the right choice.” He nodded to Lucien, then started back toward the road.

Rakkis said nothing as they walked. He’d once again veered to amble along in Lucien’s blindspot, and was smiling with prodigious self-satisfaction. ”Do you know what I’m going to do with my reward money, first thing?” he asked in abruptly, picking up his pace enough to come into Lucien’s view.

Lucien knew he was doing that intentionally, walking in his blind spot, but it didn't really bother him. He had no reason to expect aggression from Rakkis; he was rather penniless as far as mercenaries went, and the likelihood was that someone working for the Coterie knew better than to expend the effort that would be necessary to attept to kill him for the pittance it would earn. Such sorts tended to live and die by the sovereign, and not the kind that sat on a throne, either. The question was actually a tad unexpected; he had thought he earned enough ire to be ignored for the rest of their mission, but apparently 'twas not the case. "I can't say I have that knowledge, no. What does a Coterie man spend his coin on?" He asked out of politeness and some trace of regard; he did not want to automatically assume that it would go to whores and booze, but he would have guessed as much if absolutely forced to hazard one.

”Interesting that you would classify me as such, don't you think? You can learn so much about a man by the answers he gives to innocuous questions." It was less a matter of ire or lack thereof than a means to banish boredom for the length of their journey back to the city proper. "Since you asked, though, I will be buying a new cloak. You may have noticed that I ruined my old one. I'm thinking perhaps something lined in fur this time, a color suited to my complexion." He curved his mouth into a broad grin. ”Of course, you've likely no taste for the sartorial. I'm probably boring you." Which of course, turned into a very involved lecture regarding what the length, color, and make of a cloak said about its wearer. It may have been insipid at times, or actually quite fascinating. Whatever case, short of gagging his companion, it was the sort of thing that Lucien would be subjected to until they parted ways.

Setting

1 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar

Earnings

0.00 INK

Saemus paced about nervously on the far side of the road, not wishing to look at her sister as she tended to her wounds, sitting on a rock on the other side. The Viscount’s son had mostly averted his eyes during the fight, as he had always been squeamish around blood. It was perhaps surprising, then, when it had been Saemus that had suggested they stop and she treat her wounds, at least temporarily. He brought up a fair point in saying that Sophia was leaving something of a trail that the Winters could potentially follow by the occasional drop of blood falling from her side. Sophia had been glad for the excuse to stop. The horses were in need of a rest, and if she were being honest with herself, so was she. She wasn’t keen on losing any more blood than she already had. Thus, the royal children had come to a stop, Saemus keeping an eye out, and Sophia doing her best to halt the bleeding. She expected the remaining Winters had reached Rakkis and Lucien by now.

She could only hope that they would see the elf’s reason, and not attack them. If she returned to Kirkwall and then heard news of their deaths, well… she didn’t want to think about that. They had both risked their lives for her and her brother, with the promise of reward, of course, but still, the deed still stood, and Lucien at the least had seemed an extremely honorable man. To leave them so that she and her brother could live, even if it gave the elf’s plan a better chance at working, just felt wrong. She had felt so much confident with the situation when things had been simple. The Winters had been an enemy that needed to be defeated, a straightforward life or death conflict in which there was no choice, other than to kill or be killed. The Maker would forgive her for defending her own life, and that of her brother’s, and the cause that had driven them to conflict. Leaving an honorable man to perhaps his death, as well as allowing another to turn these mercenaries to a life of further crime, however… was more questionable. She had no doubt she would be debating this one with herself, and likely Elthina, for a while to come.

“They aren’t the brutes you think they are, sister,” Saemus said rather suddenly, revealing that he had been thinking about his fallen Qunari friend while Sophia had been continuing to battle her conscience. She had no immediate answer, having not given the matter much thought. She finished fashioning Saemus’ torn off sleeves into a bandage of sorts, and began unstrapping her breastplate. “Saemus, I never said anything about—” He cut her off. “No, you didn’t. I don’t think I’ve heard you say two words about the Qunari to me since they arrived. I know you well enough to know that when you avoid a topic like that, it’s because you disagree with me, and you just don’t want to anger me.”

Sophia grimaced, and not because of the wound. He had her there. She’d avoided bringing it up with him, mostly because she knew he had taken an interest in them, an interest she couldn’t help but see as dangerous, both politically, and for Saemus himself. It was no secret that the Qunari’s arrival had caused a good deal of unrest within the city, and there was already pressure on the Viscount to do something about them. She respected Saemus’ idealism, his kind heart, and his open acceptance of other cultures, but if this got out, which it probably would eventually, it would only make things worse. The idea of the Qunari having such a strong influence over the Viscount’s son reflected an inability on the Viscount’s part to maintain control over his own family. “If things were different, I would not object. You have every right to want to find your own path… but surely you can see that this will fall back on Father.”

“Maybe when it does, it will make father see what I see. Ashaad never lied to me, never coddled me. You were worth his time, or you were not. He was one of the few people I’ve ever met who saw me as simply Saemus, and not the Viscount’s son.” Sophia could understand that. She was the Viscount’s daughter, his eldest child. She dearly cherished those places, and those people, who could see her as something more than a title, a noble to cozy up with and ensure preferable treatment in the future. “I know the feeling. But there is considerable pressure on Father to do something about the Qunari presence in the city. Individuals with considerable sway. Even the Templars have expressed their discontent that the heathens were allowed to stay in the docks.”

Saemus turned to face her. By this point, Sophia had removed all of her armor from the waist up, and even she herself had been somewhat alarmed by the state of her tunic underneath. It had been entirely white upon setting out, but now was a dark crimson color more or less from her ribs down. She had carefully eased the arrow out, and was currently binding the wounds with the makeshift bandage she had fashioned out of Saemus’ sleeves. He swallowed. “Is that all you see them as, then? Heathens? You’re taking the Chantry stance on this?” Sophia averted her eyes for a moment. It wasn’t as though there was another stance she could take on them. They blatantly denied the Maker. That alone guaranteed that prolonged coexistence with the Templar Order was not likely, and certainly dampened them in Sophia’s mind. “It is an unkind word, but they do deny the Maker openly, and thus it applies. I would gladly see us able to live alongside them in Kirkwall, and I will do my best to ensure that father acts within reason, but the forces arrayed against them are numerous.”

Saemus sighed slightly. “Father won’t go against the Templars, certainly not on an issue as big as this. And neither will you, it seems.” Her wounds bound, and the bleeding stopped effectively enough for now, Sophia stood, gathering her armor and organizing it into one of her warhorse’s packs, before slipping her arm back through the strap of Vesenia’s sheath, letting the sword rest across her back once more. “You also know me well enough to know, Saemus, that I’d do anything to protect you and Father. If there’s a way to convince the people that the Qunari are more than they see them as, while also protecting Father’s well-being, I will find it. But I would not see him take on the Order without chance of success. It would destroy him, just like it destroyed Viscount Threnhold.”

Her brother shrugged somewhat, seeming to see her point, and accept her stance for the time being. He gestured with his head towards the horses, indicating that they should get moving again. Sophia’s thoughts drifted back to Lucien and Rakkis. Assuming the Winters did not attack them, they still only had one horse between the two of them. Being the honorable man he was, Sophia imagined Lucien giving the horse to the Coterie thug, and walking back to Kirkwall. The thought actually made her smile for some reason.

“Father’s going to fly into a panic when he sees you like that, you know,” Saemus commented from atop his horse. Sophia’s smile did not waver as she mounted her own. “I’ll tell him what I know: I will be fine.”




The clattering of hooves on the stone courtyard of the Viscount’s stables announced their arrival. Several guardsmen came to meet them. Sophia and Saemus dismounted as they reached them, their horses swiftly taken by the stable hands and led away. A guardsman offered to take Sophia to a healer in the Gallows, but she refused, intent on being there when Saemus confronted their father. She too had a few words for him, though she was certain Saemus would speak them as well.

The pair made their way swiftly through the Viscount’s Keep, ignoring the rather surprised gasps from the nobles who happened to be in attendance at the time. Bran met them at the front of his office, shaking his head. “Did it really come to violence, then? Was this the Qunari’s doing, or the Winters?” Sophia waved him off. “I’ll explain to Father. You’re free to listen in if you want the details, Bran.” It was obvious that the Seneschal had every intention on being present for the conversation, or at least the beginnings of it, as he led the way into the Viscount’s private quarters, closing the door behind them.

Viscount Marlowe Dumar was pacing by the window behind his desk. Sophia noted that he was looking older than ever as of late. Wrinkles were forming around his eyes where they had not been a mere year ago. He had all but given up on his hair, electing instead to shave what white strands had remained. But there was still some amount of shine in those bright blue eyes of his, eyes that Saemus shared with him, along with the black hair he had once possessed in far greater amounts. According to her father, Sophia was a mirror image of her mother, with her flowing golden hair, light brown eyes that gave off a sense of warmth, and that same inner fire. She wished she could have known Vesenia Dumar better.

He turned, and his eyes widened upon seeing both his children in their current states. She supposed Saemus must have looked quite unlike himself, with the experience of the morning, and his sleeves all torn off as they were, but of course it was for Sophia’s injuries he showed immediate concern. “Maker, Sophia, that can’t all be your blood? We’ll send for a healer immediately. Bran, if you would.” Sophia waved him off. It was getting rather tiresome. “I’m fine, father. The healer can wait. I would speak to you about what occurred on the Wounded Coast first.”

At this his turned his frustration upon Saemus. “It seems clear enough to me. Your foolish decision to traipse about the coast like you do nearly got your sister killed trying to rescue you!” Saemus responded in kind. “You hired thugs for a task Sophia could have performed herself! I was never in any danger until the Winters arrived.” The Viscount turned to his daughter with a heavy sigh, at least understanding that his decision to hire just anyone to have been a mistake. “Bran told me the Winters were involved. What happened? Are these wounds not from the Qunari?”

Sophia struggled for a moment to word things tactfully, but it seemed there was no way. “No, Father. They murdered Saemus’ friend. Saemus could not let them receive a reward for such an act, and neither could I. I requested that they leave Saemus in my care, and return to Kirkwall. Intent on claiming their bounty, they attacked. If I recall correctly, their plan was to kill me and the two companions I traveled with, and cast the blame for my death at the feet of the Qunari, either the Tal-Vashoth bandits in the area, or on the Arishok’s warriors themselves.” The Viscount seemed somewhat dumbstruck, and so Bran took the opportunity to step in.

“If I might ask, what became of your companions? Did they fall to the Winters?” he asked. Sophia paused for a brief moment. “No, they… stayed behind. Both to allow Saemus and I to escape, and to attempt a solution without further bloodshed.” Bran raised his eyebrows. “That was very noble of them. I must admit, I would not expect such behavior from Lowtown mercenaries.” Sophia nodded awkwardly. Saemus said nothing, waiting to hear from his father, who seemed to have collected his thoughts enough to pose a question.

“It was my understanding, Saemus, that you were captured alone. What’s this about a friend being murdered?” Saemus took a rather strong step forward. “And here is the root of the problem, Father. I was not captured, I was with Ashaad. The Qunari. They are not monsters to be feared.” He calmed himself, or at least tried to, understanding that an aggressive tone with his father here would certainly help nothing. His next words were rather pleading. “If you would just try to understand, others would see as well.”

His father put a hand to his forehead upon realizing what the true nature of the situation had been. He shifted his thin silver crown upwards so that he could rub his temples. “Better that you were thought abducted than to have their influence suspected in my own family… benign or not, it’s too much.” Sophia pushed a sweat-caked strand of hair from her face, strongly disliking the ever so common bickering between her father and brother. “Father… there must be some kind of middle ground that can be reached here. Father, surely you can see that Saemus means no harm. He seeks to understand and accept the Qunari. If the city is to coexist with the Qunari, than certainly an understanding of their ways will be necessary. We need not all join them, but we can at least respect their views, if they can respect ours.”

Her brother stood beside her, and seeing them both, she knew her father would not be able to keep this up. For better or for worse, he relented. “Very well, Sophia. There is a great deal of resistance in the city to the Qunari presence… but I will try to keep them at bay. For the sake of maintaining peace, if nothing else. And I’ll likely be needing your help with this, my girl. Changing the mindset of a city is no easy task.”

Sophia nodded, understanding the effort that would be required to get a group like the Templar Order to coexist peacefully with the Qunari. “I understand, Father. I am always willing to help, you know that.” He smiled, placing soft hands upon her shoulders. “That I do. Now, the healer. I’ll not stand to see my daughter injured a moment longer. Bran, if you would…” The Seneschal bowed slightly. “Of course, Excellency.” He turned and swiftly removed himself from the room, to summon a healer from the Circle. Feeling glad that the day’s events were finally over, Sophia allowed herself to be guided to her quarters, and eased herself into her bed with a more or less contented sigh.

Perhaps a healer wouldn’t be so bad, now that her task for the day was complete. Then perhaps it would be best to head to the Chantry. She needed a calm, quiet place to think about everything that had happened.

The Chanter’s Board has been updated. The Unbidden Rescue has been completed.

Setting

5 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega Character Portrait: Amalia Character Portrait: Numerai

Earnings

0.00 INK

Another blade came down upon Aurora's head, which she intercepted by throwing her rock encased arm in it's path. The sword bit deep, cracking the stone off from her elbow to her hand, Before the swordsman had time to lop off an entire arm, Aurora balled her other hand into a fist and placed it an inch away from the warrior's chest. A sudden flash of magic and the man was being rocketed backwards with a heavy fist of stone, catching those who were unfortunately caught in it's wake as well.

The stoneskin was beginning to flake and crumble around her, it wouldn't be able to take many more blows in the condition that it was in. Though luckily, thanks to Nostariel, chaos was sown into the Slavers' ranks and what her stoneskin was losing was made up in her wards. Some were fighting against each other, and others looked confused as to what was going on. Two rogues however did not have reservations and advanced on the soft, squishy mage. Aurora held her ground, waiting for her moment to strike, if she telegraphed her spell, they could easily escape it. As such, Ithilian's roar was a blessing as it drew their attention elsewhere. Aurora didn't take the time to look at what was causing the cry, her hand already weaving for the next spell. When the rogues turned back around to face the little poppet of a mage, they recieved a fireball to their faces.

The force of resulting explosion sent both rogues cartwheeling back before their scorched bodies stopped short on the cold floor. Breathing heavily now, Aurora figured it was best that she escaped the heavy fighting and began to backstep. She came upon Nostariel and her statues of ice. Feeling particularly helpful, she reared back and shattered one with her heel before looking at the Warden and then back to the fray.

Nostariel methodically worked her way through the small enclave of fighters she'd been left to deal with. One more ice-sculpture fell to the shattering force of a staff-blow, and two confused rogues were downed with a fireball. A feral yell drew her attention momentarily to Ithilian, and she paid for it when a rogue slipped into her pacticed guard and scored a slice on her upper thigh. Wincing, Nostariel smacked him over the head with the blunt end of her staff, dropping him to the ground, then reversed direction, plunging the bladed end into the exposed skin at the back of his neck.

Aurora stepped in then, her rock armor a little worse for wear but otherwise apparently unscathed. Now at a point in the battle where she had to ease off a bit and allow her reserves of magic to recover, the Warden cast a simple heal in Ithilian's direction and went about smashing the remaining ice-statues before they could regain movement and control. There were a few more to go, at this point, but the majority of the foes in this area were down, and they wouldn't be getting back up again. Firing off a couple quick bursts of magic to keep two incoming warriors from closing on her, Nostariel carefully backed away, seeking to preserve that precious distance between herself and the end of the pair's weapon-range. Rogues, she could usually deal with, but warriors were simply too well-armored to take on up close and personal.

Sharp eyes took in the details of the battlefield with an apparent lack of concern. Combatants were frozen in ice, reeling from pulses of lightning, and falling beneath the press of anger and sharpened blades. Sizing up the remaining threats, Amalia determined that her best course would be to deal with the remaining archers first, and let the other three terminate the two remaining warriors. To this end, she did not bother cloaking herself once more in stealth, instead taking advantage of the siezing achers' distraction with the erratic movements of their own bodies. Pulling herself up onto the railing, she calculated the distance of the jump she'd ave to perform to get to where they were efficiently and nodded. It was well within the realm of possibility.

Lowering her body into a crouch, Amalia bunched her muscles beneath her and jumped, clearing the distance in a rush of motion that registered as little more than a sensation of weightlessness and the whistle of air past her ears. Flipping over once in midair, she landed lightly on her feet. Her last presently-held needle was nothing more than a glint in the air before it punctured one man's eye. She did not stop moving, shoving him back with a palm into one of his fellows, who stumbled but did not fall. No matter. Her chain lashed out with all due celerity, this time winding around the man's neck. The last vesitges of electiricity ingled her palms through the metal of her weapon, but what remained was weak enough, like the energy that built in rich carpets and tapestries, only to be surprisingly discharged on door handles.

A sharp tug pulled the man forward, and she caught most of his weight on her shoulder, in enough time for the arrow of the third archer, a female, to thud solidly into his back. Wasting no time disentangling her chain or withdrawing more needles, Amalia took the archer's dagger from her present corpse's hip and hurled, sending the knife flying end-over-end until it sank into the woman's chest cavity. Discarding the body with callus disregard, she unwound her chain and decided she might as well retrieve the knife also. The man who'd taken her poison to the eye was still writhing slightly even as the paralysis took hold, but she jammed her heel into his neck, producing yet another snap and stillness. Setting all her weapons back in their places, Amalia hopped the railing, jogging back over to the others, who appeared to have killed the ones that remained.

"There appears to be a door at the top of the stairs, but I do not think it leads outside. I suspect there will be an ambush on the other side."

The healing spell Nostariel had cast in his direction was invigorating, and expertly executed. She clearly had experience with such spells. He ripped the arrow from the mercenary's skull for a final time, surveying the battle. Amalia was gracefully crossing over to deal with the other three archers, and two warriors were approaching the pair of mages, who were visibly tiring from their spells, and would likely need assistance. In a smooth motion his bow was in his hands, the arrow drawn back, dripping with blood already.

His turned his shot towards the ground, noting the warrior's lack of armored boots, and loosed the arrow, sending it punching through the nearest warrior's foot and causing him to howl in pain. More important, it caused him to remain still for a moment, giving Ithilian's second shot a target that was not moving. A twang of a bowstring, and a sharp whistle of an arrow, and the projectile cracked through the eye slit of the helmet with a crack of metal and bone, causing the merc to collapse onto his back.

The Dalish drew his knives for the last one, armed with a greatsword and directing his attention towards the elf after he shot down his ally. Ithilian sprinted forward, covering the distance between them while the mercenary still had his sword raised over his head. He scored the first hit by slicing deep across his abdomen, sidestepping as he did so in order to not run into the man. The mercenary took the hit well, to his credit, and swiftly turned to attempt another strike, this one more diagonal than the first. Ithilian caught him by the wrist with his left hand, before slicing down hard with his knife, taking the mercenary's hand clean off at the wrist. The Dalish then slid his left knife into a soft spot in the warrior's armor at his side, burying the knife under his ribs for a short moment before he ripped the blade out, and the man fell to his knees.

Ithilian actually paused for a moment, standing over the shem and peering down as he cradled his stump of an arm, before placing both of his knives in an X in front of the mercenary's throat, and slicing across with a snarl. His helmeted head tipped over backwards and clanked onto the ground before the body tipped over on its side ath the Dalish's feet.

Amalia was saying something about an ambush in the next room. Ithilian shrugged, his blades dripping at his feet. "If they fight us, they die. If they run from us, they die later. Let's go."

With the last enemy dispatched, Aurora finally allowed herself to breathe. Her stoneskin flaked off and fell to the ground as she let out her first long exhale. She hunched over with her hands on her knees as she breathed, obviously tired. It hadn't been the first time she had been thrown into a fight-- Lowtown was full of unsavory sorts looking to prey upon a hapless-looking girl. Though she had never been in a scrap of that size, and if what Amalia had said was true, then she wasn't done yet. A fine layer of dust left over from her spell still graced her skin, but she brushed this off revealing only a couple of nicks from where a blade or an arrow bit too deep and pierced skin. Still, she was hardly in bad shape. She hoped it would stay that way.

Ithilian on the other hand... The man looked like a demon, his blades still dripped with the blood of his enemies. He fought like one too from what Aurora witnessed. He cut deeply and without feeling or remorse for his enemies. Truly, this man had frightened her, though she would not let it show. He was dangerous and lethal and she was merely glad that he was on their side. She made note not to do anything that which may set those blades of his against her. She was brave, not stupid and that surely would end her quicker than any Templar. Aurora averted her sight from the bloodsoaked man and to the flight of stairs and subsequent door Amalia had spoken about. Ambush or not, they needed to get past those door if Feynriel had any chance to survive.

Aurora took a couple more deep breaths and straightened up. Satisfied that she could continue and face whatever may be on the other side of the door, she nodded. "Yeah... Let's go. Talking about it isn't going to help Feynriel," she said, obviously lacking the blood and guts reply that Ithilian gave. With that they ascended the stairs

Ithilian led the way up the far stairs with the group at his back, sheathing his blades and drawing his bow. From just outside the door, he could hear the sounds of a struggle inside. Perhaps just a one-sided struggle, but a struggle all the same. He'd only seen two men go back there with the young girl as a hostage. Nothing they couldn't handle, nothing they hadn't handled already. Not delaying any longer, the Dalish pushed the door open, and the voices from within sounded out loud and clear.

He went in, an arrow pulled back and ready to be fired, to what appeared to be the captain's office. One man was struggling with their young female hostage, whom he had forced into a kneeling position on the far side of the room. The second was looking on, pacing back and forth slightly. "What in the blazes is going on out there? Dammit, bind her hands already, you fool! I heard they can't cast anything without their hands." The girl looked up to see the group having just entered, and she screamed out. "Help me! Please!" The next few things happened very quickly. The captain turned around, and Ithilian loosed his arrow into his chest, sending him staggering backwards, at the same instant the other slaver soundly smacked the girl across the back of the head.

She began to shake violently in her kneeling position, and not a second later flames erupted from her skin itself. An explosion with her as the source caused a blinding flash of light, and sent the man who had been restraining her flying backwards in a charred heap. Where the young mage had just been now rose a creature of nightmare, contorted flesh and warped appendages, bristling with magical energy and unchained power. The captain stumbled back into its reach from the arrow protruding from his chest, and the abomination made short work of him, burying fingers that were like knives into his back and literally ripping him open, before turning its attention on the four that had just entered the room. It cast a single spell, hands glowing with a dark energy, before charging.

The dead mercenaries outside stirred, before rising once more, weapons in hand, and making their way up the stairs with the singular purpose of death and destruction that the abomination had given to them.

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel

Earnings

0.00 INK

The Gallows represented everything Sparrow hated about Kirkwall, bundled up in a sordid assemblage of stone walls, chains, faceless monsters and the act of stripping your freedom away, forcefully, mercilessly. The hunchbacked statues, slaves heaving themselves forward against their bindings, remained vigilant at the Gallow's entrance. Clearly illustrating what occurred in time's past. Even still, it smelt of despair, clinging to your clothes if you wondered too close. There was an oppressiveness of the very architecture. With it's stone buildings pressed inwards like domineering, nameless Templars bending over you, plucking the hemline of your skirts and pulling at your collar as you passed. Promising that soon they'll strip away everything you've ever come to love. Those buildings, in particular, were symbols of despondency. She did know know if she cared whether or not a Templar was missing – better yet for the untested apostates if there was one more whoreson missing.

There was nothing beautiful in the Gallows. No ghostly smiles or birds fluttering from the underbelly of canopies, wings stretched wide to hide slivers of the sun. No magnolias or climbing cartels of ivy or yellow daisies. If you were looking for certainty and something to lift your heart, then you'd turn back and walk far, far away. It's tepid air often felt like a noose strung around your neck, pulling it backwards like a tethered horse. The magic hung as thick as cream, leeching all comforts. Everything was sharp and unfriendly. How could they say that they protected the inhabitants of Kirkwall? They didn't. The lot of them were worse than rabid dogs, worse yet, then Darkspawn. How could anyone feel safe? It cataloged darkness. If she could, Sparrow would've pissed on the gates long ago. She glanced in Rilien's direction, noting the slight change in demeanour. Hardly noticeable to anyone who didn't share the same household. It was gone, quick as a flash of sunlight before it buried it's head in the clouds. Sometimes, she wondered whether or not she imagined these things.

The Gallows. Rilien had never been partial to the location. He understood the intimidation factor involved of course, the statues of prone and suffering souls to be seen upon approach to it. The themes only seemed to continue inside, more bronze and stone and spiked iron trellises. It was an open, partially outdoors, completely spartan prison. He'd used to think that he'd do anything whatsoever to be free of the Orlesian Circle, but considering the circumstances under which his... liberty had been returned to him under, it was hard to tell if that was the case any longer. The magic here was contained, but palpable: he could very nearly taste it on the air, electrifying the atmosphere like the salt-sea before a thunderous monsoon.

It made him... feel. Not much, and not often, but just a little more than usual. His impassive expression tightened slightly, a flash of what might have been wistfulness or nostalgia flickering like a candle-shadow in the dim light of Darktown. But then it was gone, ephemeral as a child's passing fancy to some ill-made trinket, and it was as if nothing had occurred at all.

Wisdom dictated that a young Templar would be friends with young Templars, and though he knew nothing of Wilmod or Hugh, he supposed anyone he spoke to would point them in the appropriate direction. Moving decisively, he swept through the courtyard and made eye contact with a group of three recruits who appeared to be speaking in hushed whispers. "Sers and madame," he greeted with a bob of his head, the slightest hint to the far more extravagant manners that had once been his trade, "I seek the young Templar Keran. His sister bade me locate him. Might you know of his location?"

The madame Rilien greeted crossed her arms upon being spoken to. "We cannot speak to you, messer," she said, narrowing her eyes at the elf. The man next to her, however, was not nearly so strict. "To the Void with that! Keran and the others are missing." The third, a shorter man, seemed almost physically hurt by the other recruit so blatantly disregarding their apparent agreement of silence. "But our orders, Hugh!" he hissed. The middle Templar, Hugh, seemed undeterred. "The Knights aren't doing anything to find them. Maybe it's time to ask for outside help."

Ashton had been picking his teeth with his arrow once again. That blasted morsel still hadn't budged from the gaps between his teeth. He followed behind Rilien, still holding the neck of his bottle as he swept through the courtyard and before long they found their intended targets. Or target. They had found Hugh, but he wasn't completely sure Wilmod was there as well. Ashton shrugged and stopped picking his teeth with the arrow, and instead began to spin it between his fingers. He glanced between Sparrow and Ashton then said, "Looks like this is going to be a bit more difficult than a simple lost and found deal. Meh, it's not like it's unexpected, things can never be simple. Though I suppose that's half the fun..." Ashton trailed off, realizing now was not the time for his brand of philosphy.

Instead, he opted for a bit more helpful approach. "Orders huh? While I don't know about the orders of you Templar types, I do know how to find things," he was a hunter after all, this was just a different type of hunting, "If the knights aren't doing anything for your Keran, then we are your best bet. Instead of asking us for help, why not skip that and tell us what you know now? The longer we wait, the loster Keran gets. So chop, chop," Ashton said snapping his fingers. The mouth of the bottle found it's way to his lips before the arrow did this time. Perhaps some liquid would help dislodge the annoying morsel...

Ashton, most likely, was right. This would not be as easy as Sparrow had thought. Hugh had been entirely unhelpful. Her shoulders dropped exaggeratedly, before she flicked Ashton's swaying bottle. It pinged solidly, sloshing it's contents. “Hopefully, we find the bludger far, far away from the Gallows. Might be he's just passed out on a heap of apostates.

The shorter Templar next to Hugh stroked his mustache for a moment, his eyes shifting about suspiciously, looking for perhaps any high ranking Templar that would overhear him. "I hear that Knight-Commander Meredith has some new initiation that recruits have to go through. And if you're not strong enough, or fervent enough in belief, you don't make it out alive." At this, the female Templar rolled her eyes and sighed. "And you honestly believe that?" she asked. Hugh shrugged. "Recruits do keep going missing. The Knights aren't saying anything about it."

"Wilmod came back," she responded, as if to prove that there was nothing wrong. Hugh obviously had been unaware of this. "What?" She nodded at him. "He did. I saw him this morning. You see?
No crazy rituals or initiations. Keran will show up soon, too."


"Then perhaps we should speak to Wilmod," Rilien broke in. Their argument, while interesting, wasn't really getting himself and his two companions anywhere. Rumors without substantiation or specfics were like more powerful versions of fairy stories: gripping, useful for manipulation, but otherwise entirely pointless, especially when one was concerned with actually obtaining concrete results. "Do you know where he might be found?"

"Wilmod told me he was headed out of the city for a bit, to clear his head, he said," the female Templar explained. Hugh jumped in. "Why didn't you tell us any of this?" Now it was her turn to glance around and ensure no one would overhear her. "Knight-Captain Cullen ordered me to stay quiet, right before he went and chased after him." She turned to the group offering their aid in finding him. "That wasn't too long ago. If you leave quickly, and hurry, you might catch the Knight-Captain before he catches up with Wilmod. He took the main east road out of the city, the one that passes by the Bone Pit. Just... if you see the Knight-Captain, please don't tell him who sent you, okay?"

Instead of puffing like a forlorn fish, Sparrow's outer conduct reflected a swashbuckling lad who hadn't a care in the world. Certainly, she didn't appear bothered that she was going to be traipsing in the Gallows, surrounded by slobbering Templars with their troublesome ilk. As long as they kept their hands to themselves, kept their flapping tongues where they belonged, then she wouldn't be necessitated to forcefully remove it. She'd enjoy that, really. She followed Rilien, alongside Ashton, and took the chance to look around. Nothing had changed. She doubted that anything really did in the Gallows. Perhaps, that's what made it so foreboding, so obnoxiously alarming. It's immutable status, unchanged with time. The thumping instrument in her chest mocked her, irregularly thrusting against her ribcage. She'd have to bathe after this. Or get bloody well too drunk to walk properly. They approached a small group of recruits – or well, she wouldn't have known what they were either way, but supposing they were dawdling in the Gallows, that's all they could really be. Whispering like children from what she could see. Her mouth twisted, sourly. Rilien was far too polite.

Why the bloody well not?” Sparrow suddenly hissed, stepping forward to prod her in the shoulder with her fingertips. It was to her advantage that she was taller. More likely than not, the Templar-woman would be astutely offended that an Elvish man had touched her so. She did not care. Her short-lived annoyance flapped away like a discarded token when the second Templar spoke up, and she promptly ignored the woman's undignified expression. At least, Sparrow knew when to stop harassing someone – at least, long enough to extract information. Ashton approached with a more aristocratic method, stroking their sense of helplessness. They hadn't found Keran by themselves, so it'd be best to rely on someone else. Preferably someone who was actually willing to tarry out of the Gallows and get their hands dirty, if need be. It seemed like this wasn't the first instance of a missing Templar without the aid of the Knights: useless as tits. Ashton's logic was sound. If they twiddled their thumbs any longer, then their dear Keran might get even more lost, or even closer to dying by some Templar-hating individual. Surely, there were many runaway apostates or sympathizers who'd want one dead. She chuckled when Ashton drew the bottle to his lips, balancing the arrow between his fingers.

Templar's going through a shifty sort of initiation? It sounded sorely like the trials untested mages had to endure: the Harrowing. It was either the Harrowing, death, or Tranquillity. She nearly laughed. She didn't like Knight-Commander Meredith, but she could've commended her for applying such a justified, if not ironic, tribulation for the Templar's to go through. Her empathy could've danced a jig in front of these apprehensive recruits, because she dearly hoped, for a moment, that they didn't solve this little ditty. That they'd remain huddled in the Gallows with all their fears and their bewilderment and the small feeling of anticipation that one day Meredith would evaluate them. But, gold was gold. “That sounds dreadful.” She emphasized, nodding her head like a clucking hen. She nearly flicked the shorter man in the nose when they started arguing amongst themselves, clearly at odds with what was actually happening. Then, the woman spoke up. She'd seen Wilmod. How hadn't Hugh heard of that? She was beginning to think that the ever-so organized group were like scattered children grabbing at straws, festering conclusions when fearful. Like always, Rilien cut through their nonsense and Sparrow smiled, eyes flickering.

Enough chit-chat, then. Let's go find Cullen and... whatever his name is, Keran. We won't dirty your little secret, miss. Not unless you prove to be naughty later on.” She pursed her lips, then blinked. “To the main road!

Setting

4 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

Nostariel gasped sharply as the abomination's hands darkened with fel magic. It was, unfortunately, not the first time she'd seen it used. The trick was a favorite of maleficarum and the occasional Darkspawn Emissary, and she knew exactly what it meant. For one, this had to end quickly or it would end badly. Well, worse than it was already, at any rate. A glance at the shambling corpses rising from the ground outside, snapped necks, gashed bodies and all, was enough to confirm her guess, and the Warden swallowed thickly past the bile in her throat. Oh, how she hated the undead... "She's raised the others!" The elf warned. "I'll hold them off as long as I can, but as long as the abomination lives, they'll keep moving!"

Well, until they had nothing to move with, anyway. Renewing the arcane shield, she kept it contained to herself this time, knowing that if she was going to hold out long enough, she'd need all of the magic available to her, and every advantage she could muster. On the plus side, undead were slow and awkward. On the downside... they had incredible endurance. Bracing herself in the doorway, the Warden opened fire on the closest targets first- the incoming archers from the top of the staircase that Amalia had put down early in the confrontation.

She concentrated her fire on the legs, hoping, quite frankly, to blast them right off. They'd keep crawling forward with their arms alone if they had to, but these ones wouldn't be able to do that and attack at the same time, and all she had to do was survive until the others were done. Why... why does it always come to this? Can none say no?

Several events occurred in quick succession, and before any of them could get a word in edgewise, there was an abomination in the middle of the room, yet one more victim of this society's inability to control itself. Everywhere was excess, and everywhere was poverty. Of dignity, of duty, and most importantly, of anything resembling order. Like so many squalling children, crawling blindly toward the glitter of gold as though it were the only thing that mattered, as if freedom could be bought or experienced by sloughing off all restriction upon its acquisition. Utterly ridiculous.

The Grey Warden had moved to the door, informing the rest of them that the dead rose once again, and this too, was an unnatural symptom of their rot. A body was a dead husk, nothing of what it had once been, and it was not supposed to move again. But even corpses were drawn forth by greed, by that lust for power that inevitably overtook people who lived without understanding. When the blond elf informed them that she'd be blocking the door and staving off the undead, the Qunari realized the greater implication: to drop this corrupted creature would end the farce outside as well. "Merevas, Warden. So shall it be," she spoke quietly, the faint echo of the enclosed space sounding as if from nowhere when the woman vanished once more from sight.

The twisted thing was dominating the middle of the room, and she did not much like the chance of slipping past its flailing limbs without sustaining great damage. To the left side, however, was what appeared to be a shelving unit, little more than four long poles on which were braced slats of wood. Taking a grip on one of the supports, Amalia began to climb, ascending to the top by pulling herself up with her arms alone. The top shelf was about even with the abomination's head, and it was onto this that she stepped, pausing in her motions when the wood creaked softly. It was not a sound easily heard over the din or the creature's own roars, but it forced her caution all the same. Giving away her position would crush her advantage, and if they wanted this done quickly, she would need to be hidden and take advantage of the distraction that the Sataareth and the Saarebas were bound to provide.

The archer's knife slid noiselessly from its sheath, and Amalia perched herself on the edge of the wooden slat, waiting for her opportunity.

“This is why we are persecuted!” Aurora barked. However defiant she may have sounded, deep within the pit of her stomach, she was afraid. That Abomination in front of her was a very real reminder of what she would become if she ever faltered or her willpower lagged even briefly. For her, it was like she staring right into a twisted mirror. It made her sick to see what she might become one day. She didn’t want to fight this thing. Sure, she had seen abominations before, but she never liked them. They all made her feel the same way. Afraid, weak, and sick. Now she had to kill this thing, she just had to. Both for Feynriel and for the mage. She just couldn’t let the poor mage suffer like that.

Nostariel’s words and Amalia’s vanishing brought her back into the realm of reality and out of the realms of what-ifs and what-mights. Undead behind and an Abomination in front. They had to kill the unfortunate beast before they were overrun and snuffed out… Else she may end up like the creature in front of them. She shuddered but pushed it out of her mind. Now was not the time to dwell on such weakness, now was the time to act.

With quivering hands, Aurora once again dipped into the fade, though now with a bit of apprehension. An icy haze engulfed her hands as she readied her spell. She drew back her hands on either side of her and then suddenly pushed forward with both as if earnestly pushing the wall of ice at the Abomination. The Winter's Grasp barreled towards the Abomination and struck, slowing the creature down and causing icicles to form across the creature's body. It was a temporary thing, and it wouldn't be long before it broke out of the ice.

As she coiled her hands in wait for her next spell, tears ran down the corners of her eyes. "Not all of us are like this... Not all of us..." she murmured. Was she telling that to her companions... Or to herself?

Ithilian certainly didn't care for the human mage's murmuring, and he certainly wasn't going to have a debate with himself about the dangers of magic or what this situation signified. To him, it was a threat to be dealt with, nothing more. The shemlen had given in, lowered her guard, allowed the demon to take control of her. What was done was done. She was gone, and this abomination was her new form. And with Nostariel volunteering to hold off the undead on her own, with Amalia disappearing into stealth, and Aurora being physically inferior as she was, it fell to Ithilian to take this thing head on. They needed to work together to bring it down, and it that meant Ithilian had to face its claws, so be it. Nostariel had proven her capability as a healer. Perhaps she would need to demonstrate it once again in a moment.

He drew his knives, steeling himself for the briefest of moments before charging. He had never actually fought one of these creatures before, but surely they were not immune to mundane attacks? There was only one way to find out at present. He sprinted forward and leaped with a roar, his blades backwards in his hands and raised above his head. The abomination burst from Aurora's ice an instant before Ithilian's attack landed. He plunged both blades into the creature's back, the weapons sinking into corrupted flesh right up to the hilt, but the abomination had made attacks of its own, its knifelike claws stabbing into Ithilian's chest on both sides, dangerously close to the heart.

All became pain and chaos. The abomination had him lifted into the air and abruptly slammed up against the wall, his feet perhaps a foot off the ground. In such close proximity to each other, any of Aurora's spells would have hit them both. He reacted with instinct, lifting his feet up to the abomination's chest, and pushing with all the force he could muster. With a terrible shredding sound, the knives ripped free from the creature's back by carving their way out, and the abomination's claws retracted out of his chest, sending him sliding down the wall to a sitting position, leaving a smear of blood along the way. The abomination stumbled backwards into the center of the room, wounded, but not dead, and there was little Ithilian could do but sit on the ground and try to breathe, which was proving remarkably difficult.

Amalia's breath left her in a muted hiss when Ithilian launched himself at the abomination. From her vantage point, she could tell that it would likely end well for neither combatant, and furthermore, the proximity was such that either of the saarebas launching a spell was just as likely to kill the elf as it was to end the abomination. Still, she could not act too soon, lest she spoil what little advantage she had been able to gain by dent of silence and precision. Her eyes narrowed and her weight shifted in her crouch, from her forefoot to the one bracing her from behind. If she were visible, she even so would not have seemed so real, more like the most lifelike of carvings in stone, apparently unmoved even by the stirring of breaths.

Ithilian hit the wall, and that was as much a signal as anything. Perfectly tactical or not, if she refused to act now, he would die, and while that was technically no concern of hers, the baseline will she possessed was that others survive where they might, and so she leapt, her hard stare never leaving the abomination as her body twisted midair to hit where she intended. She was not incredibly strong, and when training against her kossith comrades, she had learned to compensate for that. Height and the resultant force of gravity were a particularly useful way to do this.

Her feet, together and knees locked, collided with the abomination's shoulder, and Amalia kicked off as though the creature were just one more platform, bouncing a bit back into the air and refocusing, this time striking with the dagger she'd acquired, unsure how needles would puncture skin not of ordinary consistency. An experiment for another time. A blade, as she'd already observed, bit deep, and hers slid smoothly into the opposite shoulder, her body weight serving to drag it further down, parting flesh like roughened leather, crisscrossing with one of the wounds the Dalish man had carved. The abomination cried out, as though many voices converged in a single syllable, and gave a great heave, bucking the now knife-less Amalia off. Without enough time to land on her feet, the Qunari tucked into a roll, hitting the ground safely but with more force than she'd anticipated, and she kept right on rolling until she was unceremoniously smashed into the same wall the elf presently occupied.

Red and black dots fought for dominance in her field of vision as she struggled to inhale. By the Qun, that thing had better be dead now or within a few seconds, because otherwise she was going to have to stand up again, and that was going to be difficult. At last, she managed a shuddering inhale, coughing several times as the dust stirred up by her slightly-undignified crash filled her lungs, and she braced herself against the stone with both forearms, pressing her back to the cool surface as she gathered shaking legs beneath her. She'd be a mess of mottled bruises in the days to follow, and the telltale twinge in her ankle was probably a break. Maybe just a sprain, but given the pain involved, that was unlikely.

The first two undead fell under Nostariel's magical onslaught, but she didn't have time to bother being relieved about that, because there were about a dozen more at various stages of 'on the way.' In stepping forward to launch a cone of cold at the first wave of melee fighters, she inadvertently exposed herself to a tricky flank attack from one of the three archers most distant from her, and the twang of a bowstring was the only warning she received before the head of an arrow buried itself in her left thigh, causing her to gasp sharply and nearly drop her staff in the process. Swallowing past the lump still in her throat, she decided to leave the arrow be for the moment, lest removing it cause her to bleed far too much before she could find the time to treat it.

Stepping back so that the doorframe and angle offered her temporary protection from more projectiles, Nostariel tried not to panic when the undead broke through her ice, continuing their shambling march to her location. Biting her lip, the Warden knew she needed something bigger, and quickly, so she sank into that peculiar mindspace that related to her magic and calmed her haggard breaths, drawing upon a wellspring of flame somewhere in the Fade to summon large globes of it into the sky above her enemies. The first crash of the firestorm missed, but the second impacted a corpse dead-on, the creature flailing helplessly as it was inexorably cremated. Ashes we were, and ashes we will become. She was not by any means a devotee of the Chantry, but that line had always held a particular kind of truth when stacked beside the events of her life.

For now, the corpses were delayed enough that she could turn her attention to the battle raging inside the small room. Thus far, the abomination had been distracted enough that Nostariel had not taken any spells or claws to the back, which she considered to be a good sign, but some of the things she'd been hearing...

Nostariel chanced a glance and murmured something unintelligible, blue irises rimmed with pristine sclera and her eyes grew wide with shock. Ithilian appeared to be struggling to breathe against the far wall, and Amalia was just now rising to trembling feet, looking more dazed than the sharp-eyed woman she'd been before. This left Aurora alone against the heavily-injured but still moving Abomination, and something that sounded suspiciously like a string of Starkhaven oaths tumbled over the Warden's tongue. Without another thought, she gripped the arrow still in her leg and wrenched, unable to prevent the jagged groan that accompanied it. Switching tactics, she pulled the healing energy from the Fade spirits with as much speed as she was able, pushing it outward to encompass the whole group. Her leg wound stopped bleeding and closed seamlessly, but without further treatment, she'd be limping for a while.

Aurora's allies were being thrown about like ragdolls from the onslaught of the fade beast. Her ice spell did little to even phase the Abomination, much less even slow it down. It even seemed to shrug off Ithilian's rage fueled slashes before picking him up with it's razor-like claws and slamming him against the stone wall. Aurora could not attack for fear of hitting both the abomination and Ithilian. The fade around her hands weakened as she began to feel more and more helpless.

Next to attack was Amalia, flying from the shelf across the room. While her acrobatics were impressive, the abomination bucked her right off and she too hit the stone wall hard. The roar the abomination gave caused Aurora to step back, frightened and hesitant. A groan behind her indicated that Nostariel too was wounded. They were being crushed and if the abomination didn't fall soon, they would all meet their end at the claws of the fade beast. If it was to fall it would be up to her. What could she do to this creature that the others could not? How could she hope to vanquish her own nightmare given flesh? She was weak before them... And weakness in a mage invited disaster. No. She could not be weak. For the price of weakness lumbered right in front of her. She could not afford the weakness, she could not prove the templars right for locking mages up. If she wanted to truly be free, then she had to have the strength to make it so.

She shut her mouth tight and set her jaw. She had to defeat this beast, else they would all perish. The fade around her hands strengthened again as she balled them into fists, ready to face the beast. For the second time, she charged forward, magic gathering around her hands. The abomination was ready for her, waiting to plunge it's claws into her neck. Then Aurora jumped into the air, right hand drew back in a heavy fist of stone. However, the abomination caught her in mid-air, driving it's claws deep into her back. It would snap her in half if she tarried. So with a cry of pain she crashed down with her fist and with a heavy stone burst, drove then beast into the ground.

Still, the abomination lived, prone on the ground with Aurora sitting on it's chest. Without thinking, she drew back her left hand, now encased in a blade of ice and plunged it into the beast's face once, twice, and then she hesitated before burying it for the third time in the beast's face. Panting heavily and with an excruciating pain in her lower back, she allowed the bloody ice around her hand to fade away, leaving her victorious over the creature.

Setting

4 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

Amalia watched with poised composure as the mage-girl charged the abomination. Once she was fairly certain the one called Aurora would not die, she was free to observe the woman’s hand-to-hand technique and cringe inwardly. Thankfully, the abomination was no expert either, relying on its unrestrained strength to dominate its foes… much as it had carelessly tossed her aside. A frown marred her visage; that would not happen again. That she as a combatant was so wantonly discarded by a foe, any foe, was a sting to her pride. Had it occurred under other circumstances, she might well have been obligated to admit she had failed her sacred task, and failure was not to be taken lightly.

The soothing warmth that mended the delicate bones of her ankle did not go unnoticed, and Amalia inclined her head in tacit acknowledgement of the Grey Warden- she at least had performed her task admirably, as not a single unliving corpse had wandered into the room as the confrontation dragged into its twilight moments. Knowing that Nostariel would also tend to Aurora, she made her own way to Ithilian, just a few feet from where she’d fallen.

Lowering an outstretched hand into his field of vision, she said nothing, merely waited. Whether he took the hand up was his business, but it was there if he wanted it. There was a chest over on this end of the room, but unsurprisingly no Feynriel. The Qunari was beginning to wonder if the boy was still in Kirkwall. Like as not, this room would contain any answers they were likely to get from the raiders’ warehouse.

Ithilian regarded Amalia's hand evenly for a moment, before he made his own way to his feet. He felt annoyed for some reason. Perhaps because a human had just offered him a hand, or perhaps because he was confused as to whether or not he should still have been regarding her as a human. She had still done nothing to imply that she had some kind of hidden agenda beyond simply offering her assistance. The human mage he understood. Mages looked out for each other, in order to prevent situations like the one that had just occurred. But Amalia he still couldn't figure out. For the moment, it seemed as though she was helping simply because she was capable of doing so.

He wiped his blades clean before sliding them back into their sheaths, his lone eye watching the mangled form of the abomination. He hoped to avoid fighting too many of those in the future. He and Amalia had heavily wounded it, and it was still managed to injure the human girl before she finished it off. The battle likely would have gone much worse had Nostariel not thought to hold off the corpses from attacking them from the rear. And her healing spell had Ithilian functioning again, his wounds healed enough to overcome. He certainly intended to learn more about her when this business with the slavers was done. She'd already proven to be a valuable ally.

Wordlessly, the Dalish moved past Amalia and made his way to where the abomination had torn Captain Reiner to pieces, callously shoving a half of his torso over with his foot to see if he had potentially had anything useful to them on his person, but that appeared to be a lost cause. He then moved over to the chest in the room, kicking it open, and rummaging around inside for a moment, shoving papers aside, before snatching one that interested him.

Sold:
- 2 barrels of fish, Viscount's Keep
- 3 barrels of rum, Hanged Man
- 1 male half elven mage, Danzig (Undercity. Exchange to occur at southernmost entrance to the sewers.)
- 25 Rivaini furs, Helton's Clothiers


He almost wanted to laugh. "The shem was fool enough to keep records of his slavery. Our Feynriel is being sold to one Danzig, the exchange occurring in Darktown, by the southernmost entrance to the sewers, it says. There's no time given. It may have already taken place. Regardless, we should leave before the shemlen decide to get back up again."

As soon as the abomination fell, so did the corpses outside, and the Warden straightened from her half-crouch, relieved that it was over for the moment. Shoulders slumping, she turned back to face her comrades, but froze when she caught sight of Aurora, still astride the corpse of what had once been as much a mage as they, apparently in some form of shock and bleeding. Of course. The poor thing has probably not often seen such horrors. Sympathy turned the elf's mouth downward, and she approached her fellow magic-user cautiously. Laying a hand on Aurora's shoulder, Nostariel knelt at her side and glanced briefly at the abomination. Several stab wounds to the facial region told her everything she needed to know.

The Warden's hands glowed with a soft blue light as she cast a concentrated healing spell on the redheaded Antivan, and it was not the first time that her sorrow had made her feel more than twice her meager years. "Aurora," she murmured softly, nudging the girl with her free hand. "Are you still with me?" She needed to know that the shock hadn't set in too deeply, or she'd be sidelining her companion here, no 'ifs,' 'ands,' or 'buts' about it. She'd seen more than one fellow Warden succumb to the psychological pressure of intense fighting with things so foul they must surely be unnatural.

Ithilian spoke then, and Nostariel rose, her hand still upon the apostate's shoulder, mouth compressed into a thin line. "Yes, we should. Lead the way, if you will."

Aurora looked down at what had been once a mage and shook her head. She felt terrible, she had killed another fellow mage-- No, it was no longer a mage. What she did was mercy. She had to keep telling herself that. Why couldn't the mage have resisted this? Why couldn't she had held on for just another minute? Why weren't they a minute faster? It wouldn't do, all of those what ifs were doing nothing for her mental state. She had to keep strong. Else... She averted her gaze away from the the lifeless fade beast.

Just as Nostariel's hand touched her shoulder. She jerked away at the sudden sensation of touch, but relaxed when she realized who it was. "I'm fine, mother," she said in a distinct Antiva accent, a sure sign of her fatigue. Despite her sarcastic emission, it was clear that she would need time to come to terms with what happened. Though she was strong. She had earned her dues as an apostate and as a circle mage. She had taken her harrowing, she had escaped the Antivan circle, and she had survived the most inhospitable place for a mage at that time-- Kirkwall. It was just another test, and though shaken, she was determined to come out stronger for it.

Ithilian's voice drew her eyes. "Let us hope he is still there... And let us hope he is still himself," Aurora said, her gaze lingering on the abomination before she rose. Either way, she needed to get out of that room and out of that building. Though haggard, she now had a spark in her eye. It was all the slavers' fault. All of it was the slavers' doing. She would see that this Danzig would come to pay for his crimes...

Shrugging when she was rebuffed, Amalia stood by patiently and waited for Ithilian to sort through the items in the chest, then raised an eyebrow. Truly a strange thing to do; she was under the impression that, backward as this place was, slavery was illegal. Why keep records of such things in plain sight? Then, of course, she looked around and realized that most curious interlopers probably would never have had the chance to read them, so perchance this was not so inexplicable after all.

At the Warden's behest, though perhaps it had been meant for another, she nodded succinctly and led the way out. Darktown was not the most familiar of locations to her, but she knew where they were going, anyway. Rolling her shoulders, Amalia resisted the inclination to render herself unseen, as it would rather defeat the purpose of leading anyone anywhere. Her life, her role, was by nature often a clandestine one, but there were many ways to achieve a single directive, and understanding this subtlety was even more important than any skill in her repertoire. Today, she walked in the sunlight. Tomorrow, she might well be called upon to slip into darkness again, but until that happened, she would make the most of what was, and not concern herself with what might otherwise have been.

Setting

4 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

Ithilian was no regular visitor to Darktown, but he'd learned the layout well enough during his brief forays into the depths. The weight of the city above them seemed to crush down upon the district, the weight of the shemlen elite in their lofty nest overlooking the scum of their own kind that they spat upon daily. It was the perfect example of human depravity, that they would allow even their own kind to be trod upon in such a manner. There was truly no compassion among them, no desire to see the entirety of their race thrive. But, disgusted by it as he was, Ithilian had made note of its usefulness. The shemlen law enforcement had little power down here. The Templar Order even steered clear of Darktown, for the most part. Down here the power was the Coterie, and the dozens of gangs that wanted to be like them.

It was the ideal location for slavers to make a deal within the city. Slavery was illegal in the Free Marches, but it was not so in the Tevinter Imperium to the north, and many of the gangs saw the potential profit in selling valuable individuals to a magister. The city guard would have a difficult time interrupting an exchange in Darktown, and the Tevinters could easily make their way back home with a new slave in hand.

Cold needles of apprehension pricked at Nostariel's spine; places like this reminded her of the Deep Roads, only the residents forced to live in such squalor were not unfeeling Darkspawn but living, breathing people. Human, elf, even the occasional dwarf, such distinctions had ceased to mean anything to her when she realized how each bled exacly the same way when cut, wept exactly the same way when they knew they'd never again see the surface...

The Warden shook herself, abandoning the memories to someplace deep in her consciousness that she could ignore for now. Usually, the numbing sensation of drink helped, but she had no such luxury right now, and there was no use wishing for it. Something more important than her comfort was at stake, and if there was anything that this life, that wearing this armor and its attendant crest had taught her, it was that the preservation of innocence and life was the greatest undertaking she could ever assume. She would not fail it again.

Her discarded garment slung across one shoulder and her harp tucked under the same arm, Amalia seemed unconcerned by her surroundings, flanking Ithilian and only occasionally casting her eyes over this or that dirty peasant human. The smell down here was offensive, but her passive expression remained untouched by the realization. In truth, the entire situation was offensive, and she did no understand it. Had she never been to Darktown before, she probably would have hammered at her compatriots with implacable questions, demanding an explanation for that which she could see plainly before her. No Qunari would ever have to live like this; the very notion would be considered a shameful failure of the entire society. Waste, waste, always with the waste. It was enough to stoke her temper, and in an attempt to bank the slow-burning flames of it, she resorted to reciting the words of the Qun mentally. Shok ebasit hissra. Meraad astaarit, meraad itwasit, aban aqun... and so on it went, the familiar syllables helpful for her focus if nothing else. She had been taught to solve problems; it was difficult to refrain from that tendency even in impossible circumstances.

So instead she walked, one foot after another, gaze straightforward and unwavering. Anger would solve nothing here, and so she abandoned it to the natural ebullient rise and fall of emotions inside herself, allowed it to slip away with nothing so ceremonious as a farewell. It had no use, and so it woud not remain. The dust would coat her feet, the grime slick her tracing fingers, and still she would walk. This was simply the way of things.

They made something of an odd group compared to the typical Darktown residents. A Grey Warden was among them, her clothing identifying her as such. Amalia had removed the simple dress she had been wearing during their previous battle, and was garbed in a manner Ithilian had never seen. The mage, Aurora, was the least conspicuous of the group, though she certainly didn't have the look of a Darktown rat to her. And Ithilian's own clothes were of Dalish make, making him look more fit for a hunt in the woods than a trek through Darktown.

The Dalish led the way with an urgent stride, not really caring for the group's appearance, but rather the haste they needed to make in order to interrupt this deal, if it had not yet occurred already. He had noted the southernmost entrance to the sewers on his first trip through the Undercity; it had been an excellent route to take if one needed a quiet entrance or exit from the city, so long as one didn't mind a bit of a stench. As he grew closer, he pulled his bow into his hands, slowly sliding one arrow out of his quiver and calmly preparing what would be his first shot.

Indeed, they weren't too late. The first indication Ithilian received was the direction all the nearby people were looking: away. No doubt questionable activities were a common occurrence in Darktown, and it only made sense for the locals to turn a blind eye, so as to not get pulled in. Looking in the direction the others were looking away from, Ithilian spotted the group he was looking for, at least twenty men, all armed, gathered in the small clearing before the sewer entrance, a view of the channel leading into the city behind them. One of the Twins, as they were known, the two massive statues of slaves covering their faces, overlooked the scene from afar. How fitting, Ithilian mused momentarily, before analyzing the threats.

They had a height advantage, as there was a single flight of stairs that led down to where the exchange was taking place. The enemies themselves were of course broken up into two groups: there were Reiner's men, a dozen or so of them, making the deal, oblivious to the fact that their leader, their comrades, and their base had all been torn to pieces moments earlier, and then there were perhaps fifteen or so men and women accompanying a single robed man. Ithilian was willing to bet that was Danzig. Probably a low ranking Tevinter magister looking for a useful slave, or perhaps an apprentice. Those that accompanied him were better armed and armored than Reiner's thugs, as they actually possessed a decent amount of chainmail or scalemail armor, and longswords that didn't appear as though they were forged in the Divine Age.

And there in the middle, held by the arm by the largest of Reiner's men, his hands bound behind his back, was Feynriel. He looked, for the most part, unharmed, though his clothes were filthy by this point, and he looked terrified. The slight point to his ears, and the slightly altered facial structure, were all that evidenced his race, half-elven. Ithilian drew his arrow back slightly, his mind working quickly, and certainly not waiting for input from the others. Danzig gestured for the boy to be handed over. The man holding Feynriel piped up.

"Not until we see the sovereigns, magister." The others of his group looked tense, uncomfortable. Danzig's men looked imposing, confident stances, greatswords resting casually on shoulders, hands resting comfortably on the hilts of longswords. None of them had seen Ithilian or the others yet. The Dalish decided he'd take the opportunity to sow dissension among the shemlen. They did so enjoy killing each other, and these two groups were primed to do just that.

Without waiting for any sort of agreement, Ithilian pulled his arrow back and loosed, sending a shot directly into the throat of the large man holding Feynriel. He staggered backwards, clutching at his neck, releasing the boy. There was a moment of confusion before it happened. "Shit! We had a deal! Swords! Kill them!"

The call had come from one of Reiner's men, and they clearly thought they were being double crossed by Danzig. The magister looked back at his archers in the rear, but all of them were preparing to defend themselves. Reiner's men clearly didn't intend to just be killed, and with that, the two groups attacked each other. Danzig roared in frustration, before hurling a fireball into the ranks of Reiner's men, sending two smashing against a wall, setting their bodies alight. He then cast a quick teleport spell, and appeared by the edge, with his group of five archers. Ithilian readied a second arrow. Whoever went down there would be attacked on sight, no doubt. It would turn into quite the bloodbath.

"Someone grab the boy. I'll cover," Ithilian growled. Feynriel had dove to the ground, covering his head in the center of the fight.

"Right," Nostariel replied quickly, though figuring out exactly how she was going to manage that task was considerably more complicated than agreeing to take it on. Chewing her lip, she decided it really didn't matter, and she was going to have to rely on the others to protect her no matter how she chose to approach it. Her customary shield rose into place, and she headed down the stairs, ducking around one large man who took a stray swipe at her with his axe before he was engaged by one of Danzig's men.

Dodging and weaving wasn't going to serve her so well forever, though, and she threw a fireball at another couple of rogues who'd broken off from the fray to pursue her. This was not going smoothly, but then she hadn't really expected it to. 'Run in, grab a scared and possibly dangerous young man, then run back out without dying' wasn't exactly going to go into the history books as a marvel of tactical briliance, but as long as it worked, it didn't need to. A stray arrow shaved a few hairs off the side of her head, and Nostariel swallowed. Right. Okay, just keep going. It was right about now that she was wishing she'd asked Amalia to do this; stealth would probably have been smarter than running about in the open like this. All the same, she was about halfway there now, and barring any major mishaps-

As it happened, a major mishap was waiting in the wings, and she almost ran smack into the incredibly broad chest of one of Danzig's men. Her jaw worked for a second, almost as if trying to produce some kind of greeting on reflex, but the words simply wouldn't come, and she settled for backpedaling quickly, nearly stumbling over her own feet in her haste to avoid certain death from a mighty swing with that lohengrin he was carrying. Most unsettlingly, the man let her go, smiling the whole time as though he were privy to some secret she did not understand. Well, there was little time to dwell upon it, and if she had, she might have remembered that she had quite a bit in common with Feynriel and had wandered onto the field like a rabbit into a trap, but as it was, she went for launching an ice spell at his legs instead.

Amalia was not entirely useless at range, but she had more versatility when confronting her foes directly, or indirectly as the case may be, but either way, she decided that the most useful thing she could do would be to shadow Nostariel. To this end, she set down her burdens and padded down the stairs after the Warden, chain in one hand and three needles in the other. It crossed her mind that she'd have to consider upgrading to lethal venoms if she was going to continue in this sort of work, and she found to her own surprise that the thought of doing more tasks of this nature was not entirely displeasing to her. Certainly, she would prefer that they were unnecessary, but as long as they were, completing them did not seem to be an untoward idea.

The axe-man that first swung for Nostariel met his end by point of two needles, the combined toxicity more than enough to shut down his nervous system permanently, but the better-armed swordsman he'd been engaging managed to avoid the third, and so Amalia stepped back, putting some distance between them and swinging her chain for his legs. Smarter than he looked, he jumped over the throw and landed on the weapon, which provided her with no small inconvenience. Shrugging, she drew her knife and approached with rapidity, ducking under his fist swipe. His shield clipped her hip, and she spun with the momentum of it to minimize damage, stepping forward so that they were side-by-side, facing opposite directions. Her blade bit into the shoulder-joint of his plate, greatly weakening his shield-arm.

While he was distracted by the obvious pain, Amalia took the opportunity to pull with her other hand, the sudden jerk enough that his foot lifted from her other weapon, and she slid the knife out of the man's shoulder even as an arrow pierced the eyeslit of his helmet. The Sataareth really was quite the exceptional shot. Without so much as a hitch in her movement, the Ben-Hassrath was moving again. The Warden Nostariel had run into trouble, but she was not going to be able to both help there and keep additional opponents from closing in on her position, so she went for the latter, disappearing on order to make her saboteur's intent less obvious.

It all happened so fast, but Aurora was quick enough to discern what was going on. A look over to Ithilian proved that he was the one who fired the first shot which broke the uneasy truce between the factions. With that one arrow, the magister, one Danzig teleported away from the front lines. Such use of magic put a thin frown on her mouth. "That's not fair, I can't do that..." She muttered. However the magister did provide a way for her to use her own magic to sow even more chaos among the battle and perhaps take the heat off of Nostariel, who had bolted after Feynriel. She didn't expect that out of the reserved Warden, as she was the one most likely to rush headfirst into battle. Though, recent events managed to change things. She hoped that Nostariel got to Feynriel before he suffered the same fate.

For her part, Aurora focused her attention on Reiner's men. Once more she allowed the fade to flow through her as she readied her spell and sent the force of magic up above the main body of Reiner's men. Moments passed as a supernatural cloud formed around the blast of magic and before long began it's purpose. A crack of thunder signified the first bolt of lightning that fell from the Tempest. Hopefully, the men would believe it was the doing of Danzig instead of the inconspicious girl standing beside the Dalish.

By this time, Nostariel had run into a road block of a man. Trying her best to help out her fellow mage, Aurora conjured another fist of stone and fired it off above Nostariel's head aiming for the man's head. She was completely unaware of the effect of Nostariel's ice spell had on the man's legs. With luck, it'll put the man down in order for Nostariel to continue her trek to Feynriel.

Setting

4 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

A short time after the battle was rendered even more chaotic by bolts of lightning descending from the sky, a stonefist whizzed by overhead, missing Nostariel's assailant's face by a few inches, but colliding with his shoulder at about the same time as the Warden's ice hit his relatively underprotected legs. Because he was so heavily-armored, there was no telltale snap indicating that the bone had been broken, but she was willing to bet it had hurt anyway, and the ice successfully hampered his movements, which helped considerably when he raised his sword and attempted to strike.

The swing went a little wide to the right, a result of one arm packing considerably more force than the other, and Nostariel blocked his attempt to compensate with the steel end of her staff, deflecting the sword off rather than trying to engage in a contest of strength that she was sure to lose. Aware that she was making a target of herself and putting a great deal of pressure on Amalia to pick up the slack, Nostariel knew she had to act fast. A few blasts of magic from her staff forced the warrior to take a step backwards, and she pressed her advantage, following up with a nasty hex of torment and a fireball. The Warden only just held back a sigh as she watched magic reduce another physically-strong man to a trembling mess of apprehension and confusion. It wasn't even difficult to slide the blade of her weapon up into his chin, and that scared her more than anything.

Feynriel wouldn't wait for her fears to be assuaged, however, and she jogged to where he was on the ground, covering his head with his hands, apparently. She knew she needed to be careful with him, as his psychological state was likely incredibly fragile at the moment, but this had to be weighed against the urgency his predicament demanded, and she crouched at his side, gentling her tone even while she tugged- not roughly, but insistently- at his wrist. "Feynriel, you have to get up. We're here to save you, but we can't do that if you won't try to be strong for me. Stand up, we must get away from here." Please, child, be strong. I know it's hard. Rising to her feet, Nostariel attempted to bring him with her, though he was grown enough that her success would largely depend on him.

Nostariel was perhaps the perfect person to be persuading Feynriel to move, from the combination of her soft touch, gentle tone, and the fact that she was an elf who looked like she knew what she was doing in situations like this. He took a glance up at her, before seeming to decide that she was his best chance out of here. He struggled to his feet on shaky legs, and allowed himself to be guided by the elven Warden.

Ithilian sent an arrow whistling past them into the throat of one of Danzig's men, who had been looking to blindside Nostariel. The battle had quickly decimated both sides, between their vicious attacks against each other, the combined efforts of the mages Danzig and Aurora, Ithilian's arrows, and Amalia's agile tactics. The last of Reiner's men fell to a blow from a Tevinter mercenary, and with that, one of the sides had been obliterated, meaning that the group looking to see Feynriel safely out of here would receive much more heat.

Danzig himself was still remaining with his archers, two of which had fallen to Ithilian's arrows. With an angry scowl he watched Nostariel drag his prize away, until an arrow from the Dalish hit him, deflected slightly by the arcane shield he'd erected around him, but still burying itself in his shoulder. He snarled in pain, before launching a fireball in Ithilian's direction. He and Aurora were forced to dive away from the vantage point, the blast exploding behind them and temporarily enveloping Ithilian in an intense heat, though he suffered no real damage. However, it gave Danzig the necessary time to prepare a powerful telekinetic bolt, which he aimed at Nostariel, hoping to literally blast her away from Feynriel.

Amalia had been making swift work of the more lightly-armored and quick among the slaver's forces, but truthfully, she was really hoping Nostariel could get the boy up an moving towards the exit as soon as possible. Endurance was not her strong suit, and this battle was about to become considerably more pitched, as the last of the pirate's men hit the dirt. It seemed that her thoughts were answered, as the youth rose to his feet, shielded by the Warden, and the two began to make headway back across the area to the stairs. She was not unaware that this left her the sole acceptable target in the pit, and it was perhaps only because of the wariness this realization brought her that she was able to catch on to what Danzig was trying to do.

The exact nature of the spell was beyond her, but she knew enough of magic to know that it wasn't something as casually-ducked as the swing of a knife. It was considerably more inexorable than that, and she didn't trust the boy to know to get out of the way in time.

The decision was a split-second thing, one that perhaps she should have made differently. But she didn't, and so even as the Tevinter mage loosed his attack, Amalia jumped. "Move," she hissed emphatically at the pair of mages, a hand on each back shoving them forward with little ceremony. She was in no position to tell if the action had even succeeded in any measure, for all she knew was that she took the brunt of the telekinesis in midair, which in turn slammed into her with the force of a Tal-Vashoth at full charge, and she barrel-rolled at dizzying speed until she smacked bodily into the wall behind her. A wet, sickening crack informed her that two of the ribs on her left side were broken, and a thin line of blood trickled from the corner of her mouth as she slid the moderate distance to the ground, trying to keep her breathing even. Injury was a reality of what she did; fighting past it was rarely easy.

She didn't have much time to consider that; an arrow embedded itself in the wall about half a foot from her right eye socket, and Amalia forced herself to her feet, ignoring the screaming agony in her abdomen. One hand gingerly tested the wound, and she winced. If that was hit again, she was likely to pass out from the pain alone, but at least she could still move. Out came the needles, in both hands this time, because the use of her chain demanded far too much movement from her injured torso, and she needed to remain conscious.

The heat was intense on her back and the only thing that Aurora could hope for is that she did not catch fire. She laid prone for a moment, hands over her head hoping that she wouldn't feel the flames licking her back. Luck was in her favor as she did not catch fire and the fireball was gone as fast as it appeared. She looked up and saw that Danzig was preparing another spell, this one aiming for Nostariel. She opened her mouth to cry a warning, but the spell struck before she could find her words. However, Nostariel had a guardian angel in the form of Amalia who shoved both the Warden and her charge down taking the blow herself. She took the blow with all of its force and slammed into the wall. From the way she slid the rest of the way to the ground, Aurora just knew she hurt. She grimaced and got back to her feet.

The mage summoned a fireball of her own and chucked it at the magister, looking to give him a taste of his own medicine. At the very least it would occupy the man long enough for Nostariel to react. Then she approached the fray herself, erecting a partial rock armor around the length of her arms. Trying to erect and hold a full rock armor spell would take a lot more energy and she didn't want to risk it crumbling on her on an inopportune moment. As another of Danzig's men was trying to salvage the situation by trying to approach Nostariel and Feynriel, Aurora appeared, greeting the man by slamming a heavy armored fist into his belly, causing him to double over. Using her armor like a club, she bashed the man over the head and he was out. She called back to Nostariel, "Get him out of here! I'll keep them busy!" she said as she drew her armored arms over her torso.

A hissed monosyllable and a hand roughly upon her back were the only signs Nostariel had of the impending danger. Reacting instinctively, she wrapped her arms around Feynriel as they were shoved bodily forward, successfully cushioning his fall. Of course, there was no time to register the fact that she herself had landed none-too-delicately; the time that Amalia had bought them was ticking away already. Pulling herself to her feet, the Warden positioned herself to the boy's ouside flank, moving in step with him so as to keep her person between him and the still-raging combat. With a weary sigh, she summoned a healing spell and fired it off at Amalia, but her concentration had to remain on what she was doing, else something would catch her off-guard again as it just had.

Aurora appeared then, arms coated in stone, and Nostariel suppressed the agitated maternal fluttering that this would ordinarily have triggered and accepted that the young woman knew how to take care of herself and would do so as well as she could, with or without the elf's nagging. Besides, she presently had someone much less-able to care for, and she couldn't be everywhere at once, no matter how she wanted to. Within another half-minute, they were at the stairs and ascending. Of course, what they were going to do when they got there was not immediately clear. She wasn't sure they could outrun the slavers and give them the slip, and dragging this much violence all over Darktown was hardly warranted. Like as not, it would have to be a full rout, one way or the other.

The Tevinter mage threw up a powerful shield against Aurora's fireball, the blast enveloping him and yet harming him only slightly. The archer that stood next to him was caught in the blast, however, and found himself on fire, stumbling about and howling in pain. Danzig was looking more than a little frustrated at this point. "You fools! Perhaps your blood will be more valuable than your skills!" He took the blade end of his staff and plunged it into the chest of his fire-stricken archer, silencing him. He then outstretched his hands, consuming the man's life force to heal himself.

Aurora had come down to cover Nostariel's retreat, and Danzig watched angrily as the elf began her escape up the stairs. He quickly cast a tormenting hex in Aurora's direction, before preparing another teleportation spell. Four of his merncenaries remained. The two with melee weapons, one dual wielding, the other with sword and shield, made to attack Aurora, while the two remaining archers looked to take shots at Amalia, who had visibly slowed after taking the brunt of Danzig's telekinetic attack.

Ithilian had fired off an arrow at Danzig, but he disappeared just a moment before the arrow would have struck his skull. An instant later he appeared at the top of the stairs, to block Nostariel's exit. As the fight began to spread away from its once contained area, the nearby residents began ducking for cover, or running entirely. Ithilian turned to fire a point blank shot at Danzig, the arrow already nocked, but the mage deftly smacked his aim aside with his staff. He dropped his bow, drawing his knives instead. His staff sent two bolts of spirit energy into Ithilian, but he underestimated the degree to which rage dulled pain.

Ignoring the injuries, Ithilian charged forward, slashing furiously at the mage, scoring hits on his legs, arms, chest, abdomen, before finally Danzig collapsed to the dirt, crawling away and holding up a hand. "Enough, elf! I yield! Take the boy, I don't care!" Ithilian walked forward, lips curled in a snarl. "Tell it to your Gods, slaver." He then reached down, grabbed the top of Danzig's head with one hand, and drove his knife up under the slaver's chin, nearly up to the hilt. Danzig had long since been silenced by the time he ripped it back out again.

The magical rejuvenation was a welcome thing by this point, and though it did little more than set Amalia's bones and allow her to breathe more comfortably, that was at once more than a fortnight of natural healing and more then enough for what remained of her task. The melee fighters had diverted for the present, and the mage was encased in some kind of barrier, readying himself to teleport again, perhaps. Either way, that meant the pair of archers remaining fell to her to deal with. A burden she would carry gladly.

Ducking out of the way of a second arrow the second she heard the twang of its release, Amalia started forward, the slinking nature of her walk eveloving until she gained enough traction to propel herself forward in a half-bent sort of run, minimizing the size of the target she presented. Whatever the archers had been expecting, a direct charge was not it, and though one more arrow sliced a rent in her shoulder, it was not an apt-enough shot to remain lodged anywhere upon her person, and with that, they had lost what advantage remained to them. "Ebost issala," she hissed vehemently, abandoning caution for the moment and exploiting surprise instead. With a sharp motion, she pounced on the rightward archer, bringing him to the ground, her feet planted firmly in the center of his chest and her right arm cocking backward as if for a direct sucker-punch. The needles caught the incoming sunlight, and he threw up both arms to defend, which allowed her ample opportunity to insert the three needles in her left hand into vulnerable areas.

In the meantime, his friend had regained his wit, and perhaps sensing that taking on the Qunari up-close and personal would be a bad idea, had drawn an arrow back and aimed it point-blank for her face. Amalia raised a brow, tilting her head to one side. "I believe the word is...fire," she pointed out, diappearing even as it passed her tongue. She reappeared behind him, the long-bladed knife she'd acquired hilt-deep in his spine. Just in time, too, because the adrenaline fueling her movements dropped off just then, leaving her acutely aware of her unfavorable physical condition. Her shoulders sagged visibly, and she withdrew the knife, wiping it on the dead man's pant leg before sliding it home into the sheath. Breathing ragged and shallow, she turned back towards the staricase, hoping to discern the fate of her comrades.

A weakness washed over Aurora's limbs as Danzig cast his spell and teleported letting his cronies handle the apostate and Qunari. Her arms drooped and she felt a sudden tiredness envelop her body. "Damn.. Those hexes," Aurora muttered. She hated entropy magic, a vile distortion of nature. She prefered the pure magics of nature, of rock, ice, fire, and lightning. These curses were an affront to the world. Alas, complaining about them would do little to slow the blades of those approaching with murderous intent. She had to have faith in her companions to be able to deal with the threat of the magister on their own. She'd try her best to keep these goons out of that fight. WIth a huff of irritation, she lifted her armored limbs back into defensive position.

The first to strike was the quicker dual-wielder. The first blade bit deeper into the rock arm than she expected, the curse probably having a hand in that. Instead of trying to right out block the next blade, she batted it away. The rock armor felt heavier and she overcommited to the block, throwing her behind her block. From behind another of the fighter's blades came in a relentless assault. She contorted her body to get her arm up to block the blade with her rock arm and did so just in time. But the contortion took it's tool on her weakened body and she was driven to a knee. Fighting with the dual-wielder allowed the sword and board fellow to approach her from behind and then suddenly a shock rocked her entire frame and threw her face first into the ground. The shield bearer smirked as he recoiled his shield from the bash.

Aurora's head was spinning but she knew she had to get out of there, she had to move. On instinct alone, she rolled over to her back just missing a strike from one of the dual-wielder's blades. Now prone, Aurora did the only thing she could think of. Lifting both of her feet, she empowered them with her magic and thrust, sending two stone fists into the bellies of both warriors. The attack didn't have the power she had wished behind it thanks to the curse, but it bought her enough time to get to her knees. Panting heavily now, she quickly targeted the dual-wielder. His blades and speed would wear her out far sooner than the shield barrier. A small fireball to the face incapacitated him as he dropped his blades and reached for his face. It would serve as a distraction until she could finish him. Then she turned to the shield bearer...

Who had advanced quicker than she had thought. By the time he garnered her attention, he had his sword reared back and had committed to a pierce. She did all that she could think off, put both of her rocky hands infront of the blade. With little resistance the blade pierced her hands and entered her shoulder. It wasn't the kill blow he was looking for, but it still hurt like hell. She let out a injured howl but quickly searched for her next spell. While the warrior's blade was incapacitated by her flesh, she could attack without worry of him dodging. A blast of fire surged in her injured hands and flew up the blade and scorched the warrior whose shield could not stand the heat. He fell backwards dragging the sword with him. She let out another wail as the blade ripped flesh and she fell forwards, bleeding heavily, scrabbling for what little healing magic she possessed.

Nostariel scarcely avoided falling backwards when Danzig materialized in front of her, but she did step protectively in front of Feynriel, shielding the boy with her presence. Of course, that turned out to be unnecessary, as within the space of moments, Ithilian had him reduced to a surrendering mess, and then just to a dead one. Judiciously, she blocked the half-elf's view of that, but she had a feeling the boy had seen enough of this whole thing that it wouldn't even make a difference. The thought made her chest ache with a familiar heartsickness, but she pushed it away immediately when a pained yowl sounded from below.

Leaning over the railing, the Warden caught sight of Aurora, on her back and with the cold steel length of a sword driven through her hands and shoulder. Amalia looked on the verge of collapse not too far off, and she knew Danzig had gotten in at least one or two good shots on Ithilian. Nostariel's face morphed into a scowl, and she knew what she had to do. Firing off spells in quick succession was not particularly good for your stomach, should you be a mage, but it hardly mattered right now. The first was simple: a chilly shot of winter's grasp hurtled downwards, thunking into the dual-wielding fighter's torso and spreading like some kind of parasitic ivy, crushing his chest cavity and puncturing his lungs with his own ribs. The second was a mass healing, and the third was a smaller, more directed one, aimed for Aurora, who was far more in need of it than the other two.

The fact that these things all came within seconds of one another was enough to twist her innards a bit, and a thin line of blood trickled from Nostariel's nose. Heedless of it, she leaned heavily on the railing and climbed the rest of the stairs, Feynriel at her side. It was only fatigue; she'd dealt with far worse before, and probably would again.

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel

Earnings

0.00 INK

The group was indeed fortunate enough to catch the Knight-Captain on the road, though not before he had first caught Wilmod. The pair of Templars could be seen in a small clearing just off the road, deep in heated discussion about something, though the vast majority of the heat came from Cullen, identified by his superior Knight-Captain's armor. Compared to the recruit, he was quite impressive in appearance, both in armor and in simple physical stature. There were few travelers on the road today, and that was perhaps fortunate for the Order; the scene looked more like an interrogation than a simple chat by two men who had wanted to get some air.

As Rilien, Ashton, and Sparrow grew closer to the Templars, Cullen's voice sounded out loud and clear, conviction and and quite possibly aggression sown into his tone of voice. "Andraste be my witness, Wilmod, I will have the truth from you. Now!" He stepped forward to seize the smaller Wilmod by the shoulders, and the recruit visibly shied away. "Mercy, sir! Mercy!" The Knight-Captain shook him. "If only it was that easy." There was fire in his eyes. Wilmod's voice trembled mightily. "Don't hit me!"

So Cullen did the exact opposite, kneeing the recruit in the gut and sending him to his knees with a pitiful cry. "I will know where you're going," the Knight-Captain demanded, drawing his sword and leveling it downwards at Wilmod, "and I will know now."

The mountain trail was littered with gravel, well-worn and better-travelled than most. Rilien's feet disturbed very little, but he made no attempt at silence, and so the occasional scuff was added to the ambient noise of the wind overhead and the occasional bird-cry. His head cocked to one side when something else became evident in the soundscape, and the voices belonged to neither Sparrow nor Ashton. They were both male, and both wholly unfamiliar to him. When they rounded the corner, however, it was not difficult to guess who they were. Both were in Templar plate, the flaming sword of Andraste etched ever-so-subtly into the worked steel. One of them had more decoration and heavier pauldrons, which Ril had learned long ago designated that he was somehow more important. Had he attacked a mere recruit those years prior... but now was not the time for such idle reflection.

Had Rilien always been so quiet? Light-footed as a bloody panther, all softly padding feet and magnetically avoiding fallen leaves that may crunch underfoot. As they walked along the mountain trail, Sparrow couldn't help but admire his elegant decorum, nearly tripping over fallen branches, stumps, and jutting rocks in the process. From her point of view, it seemed as if he were gliding a few inches above the beaten path, disturbing nought a pebble or earthy flake – until he suddenly kicked up a small dirt devil, scuffling small lumps of gravel in a spray of powder. The magic was lost. She turned her attention elsewhere, cupping a hand to her forehead to admire the birds flying overhead. Fine feather's tickling the air as they flexed, dipped, and eyed them from their vantage points. Everything was interrupted when Sparrow's stubby ears twitched, once, then, twice, as they picked up pieces of a heated conversation through the thick, dry underbrush. It wasn't until they rounded the bend that the voices gave way to their owners. Two Templar's wholly consumed by their own affairs, obviously intent on escalating the situation further – well, one was, anyway. The less decorated Templar reminded her of a quivering rabbit thrashing in a barbed trap, sorely attempting to make himself smaller and smaller.

"I do not believe, Ser Templar, that he is going anywhere presently." There was something, something about Rilien's tone that was not quite perfectly flat, but perhaps only Sparrow would recognize it. For all that, he stood as unperturbed as ever, hands folded into his sleeves, sunburst brand plain as day upon his forehead. It was as if he wanted the man to think himself mocked, then be forced to countermand that assumption once he realized the elf addressing him was a Tranquil and thus incapable of mockery. In fact, this was exactly what Rilien intended, and it was about as close as he allowed himself to humor, because the glint of amusement in his eyes was easily filed-away as something else. It was a bit of a risky game he played sometimes, but he remembered in his distant way that he had never liked Templars, and once believed that they all needed to be led about by the nose on occasion.

Andraste's insignia flashed greedily, blinding in the sunlight. How did the bludgers not cook like shelled fish in those tin cans? The logic eluded her. She, at least, had the common sense not to wear her armour unless she absolutely needed it. The Templars seemed to relish stamping around in their shiny plates like puffed up roosters, extending their feathers like peacocks in heat. Is that what was happening? It surely didn't appear like Wilmod was going to scamper away with the Knight-Captain's sword pressed so intimately close to his throat, jolting wildly against his Adam's apple. Her mouth twisted sourly as if she'd plopped a particularly tart apple in her mouth. She did not like this. When Cullen's knee sank mercilessly into the recruit's exposed gut, successfully sending him spluttering forward, eyes bulging, mouth gaping like a fish, Sparrow's fingers immediately hovered over the heavy mace swinging at her hip. Rilien's calm, decisive words brought her back before she chose to do anything foolish – kept her from charging forward and forcefully removing the man's fingers from Wilmod's shoulders, prying them off with a particular blunt object. It was in Rilien's tone. In his own peculiar way, her companion was leading the Knight-Captain by the ear.

The Knight-Captain's sword remained in its threatening position over Wilmod's head, but at the sound of Rilien's steady voice, he turned his head. "Stand back. This is Templar business... stranger..." His brow narrowed upon seeing the Tranquil brand upon the elf's head, and he immediately looked rather confused. "What is this? Who sent you, Tranquil?" Wilmod continued to tremble slightly at the Knight-Captain's feet.

Rilien was well aware that he needed to handle this situation delicately. Nothing other than the literal truth would work for an answer, becuase any suitable lie would be discoverable as such, and the implications of that were far greater then one Templar's ire. The Tranquil could not lie; it required far too much imagination. All the same, the fact that he was not a mindless Chantry drone was a piece of information that he did not desire to be generally known. Not illegal, but inconvenient, and bound to invite more scrutiny upon him- Sparrow by extension, and her secret was just as dire as his.

So, he did what the most masterful Bards had made a fine art of long ago: he misdirected with the truth. "I have been sent seeking Keran. This Wilmod is the last person to have seen him alive." Naturally, the implication followed, I have come seeking the same thing as you.

"Tranquil, huh? That explains the complete lack of humor," Ashton remarked, bottle between his lips. It explains a lot actually. Ashton guessed that the sunburst mark on the man's forehead was like a badge or something, something like those brands the dwarven outcasts wore. Ashton shrugged, Rilien was an alright guy even if he was tranquil, if not particularly a blast to be around. He could have done worse for a companion on this little trip though.

At Rilien's last remark, Ashton's eyebrow raised. That was quite the subtle jab for a tranquil. Was this man really a tranquil or was it some game he played? A lingering gaze upon Rilien vanished with a shrug of his shoulders. Only one way to be sure, and that was to make the so-called tranquil laugh. With that firmly lodged in Ashton's mind, the game had begun.

Hadn't it been for Rilien's interjection, Sparrow's methods would have been far bloodier, with less tact. Her fingertips slowly eased away from her mace, idling quietly, non-destructively, at her side. Her words were only smooth and charismatic when she liked someone – and she certainly did not like Templars and their ilk. Especially when they behaved this way. She regarded the Knight-Captain like a cat who'd been kicked across the room, full of hissing spite and bristling heckles. Too many questions would bring down unwanted attention. If they were interested enough to know why someone rendered Tranquil was seen wandering around the mountain trails, then they'd send wringers through Kirkwall searching for them, plucking piggish fingers into their affairs. Sparrow glanced in Rilien's direction and exhaled through her nose. Those who thought that Tranquil were sluggish in response were bloody well wrong. To ease the tightness binding whatever lied behind her ribcage, the half-breed casually wrestled the bottle away from Ashton's lips, took a swig herself, and returned it to it's rightful owner. "What are you talking about? He sings and dances in his spare time. It's practically like the Blooming Rose.”

Cullen seemed annoyed more than anything. "Tell whoever sent you that this investigation is being conducted by the Templar Order, and that the matter of the missing..." His voice trailed off as the recruit began to laugh. It grew to hysterical levels, as though there was something truly outrageous occurring. Cullen made no move other than to look thoroughly confused as Wilmod pushed his way back and to his feet, an unnatural certainty in his tone. "You have struck me for the last time, you pathetic human." With that, a flash of light exploded from within him, and where Wilmod once stood now was a twisted creature, a mockery of humanity, encased in the Templar recruit's armor. It cast a hand outwards to the dirt, and from it sprung a group of shades, five to be exact, flanking the former recruit on each side, as well as a fiery rage demon behind him, scorching the ground where it traveled.

The Knight-Captain pulled his shield from his back and prepared himself for battle. "Maker preserve us..." he said as he took in his opponents, who wasted little time before attacking Cullen as well as the others.

Ashton dropped the bottle and grabbed the bow on his back. He had an arrow in his hand before the bottle even shattered on the stones. "Templars aren't supposed to become demons!" He wailed. It was cruel irony really and surely after the battle there would be many quips to be had, but as it stood, a demon and a few shades had need of being dealt with. The idea that Keran may have met the same fate hadn't had time to cross Ashton's mind. Instead, all that encompassed Ashton's mind was the hunt. The silly grin painted on his face melted into a stern grimace as he brought an arrow back to his cheek. His eyes glinted with anticipation and the thrill as he drew a bead upon the former Templar's feet. Then he let the arrow fly, looking to bite deep into the feet of the demon and pin it to the ground so as too give his partners more time to plan their own moves.

He had another arrow nocked and he started to pelt the shades and abomination indiscriminately with arrows-- whichever painted the easiest target at the time recieved an arrow for it's trouble. To be honest, Ashton didn't know the effectiveness his arrows would have on such twisted monsters of nightmares, but he was trying his damnedest to put an end to the threat. On his third shot, he fitted a bursting arrow which snaked through the air to hit the pinned demon once more.

Sparrow's lingering gaze raked back across Cullen's face. “We've come to help. Seems like there's shady business going on—” She was rudely interrupted by hysterical laughter, bubbling from seemingly nowhere. It took her a few moments, a few blinks, to realize it was coming from the man kneeling at the Knight-Captain's feet. Wilmod's lips shuddered with the effort, wracking inappropriate bouts of amusement. Hadn't he been crying moments before? She watched idly, glancing at Rilien, then to Ashton, as if to confirm what was happening. She wasn't just imagining this. The crooked voice crowing from Wilmod did not belong to him. It echoed hollowly, as if he were speaking through many tunnels. This time, Sparrow's hand was occupied with her flanged mace. Bursts of sunbeams temporarily blinded her, like fragmented glass. What came out was worse. Wilmod's flesh was patchworked and stretched, cracked and bloody, an overly sick purple colour. An abomination. She'd only heard stories, hushed tales to scare children. Things that could happen to her if she wasn't careful.

The creature's hand dug into the dirt as if it were butter, clearing a large hole. Shades sprang out, sprightly, determined to devour them. Another creature, one she was much more familiar with, hissed wildly, flinging flames and sparks from it's gaping mouth. The Maker would laugh at the absurdity. Ashton had the right of it – Templar's weren't supposed to become demons, what had become of them? Surely, this had to do with the initiation. Surely, this involved Commander Meredith. This couldn't be just coincidence. She didn't believe in those, anyway. As soon as Ashton's bottle shattered on the stones, Sparrow sprang into action and cried: “I've got the fire demon!” The half-breed dipped away from Ashton's range of fire, dragging her mace through the dirt as she charged in the fiery demon's direction. Magic channelled inward, expanding and pulsing through her veins. Mumbled half-whispers slipped from her lips, before a streak of light splayed from her open fingertips, sending an arcane bolt in it's direction, followed shortly by a heaving swing of her mace.

Where she lacked in speed, Sparrow relied on Rilien. She always had.

"None are immune to temptation," Rilien replied tonelessly. It was something that had been repeated, parroted really, back at him from the time he was a small child in the Circle to the time he'd left the service of his Bardmaster. It was spoken in many different voices, with inflections as varied as colors on a spectrum, used to burden his spirit and then by him as a weapon most insidious, but always the truth of it seemed to follow him about, a gossamer string tied to his smallest finger, reminders, reminders.

He watched the transformation as though he'd been expecting it the entire time, though with a background like his, suspicion served well at every turn. So, perhaps he had been. He was inscrutable enough, even to himself, that it was hard to say. He felt no stirring of pity, nor anger, nor much else, even though the Fade called to him at this distance, and the faintest whispers of Pride promised him what he had lost. He was still inured, and Pride went ignored as easily as Rage. Such had never, he supposed, been the case for Sparrow, and as Ashton fired, she leaped, and Rilien at last drew his knives with the faint rasp of steel-on-steel and the slight ring of sound as they were freed. It was as good a pitch as any to begin. "When spring, to woods and wastes around, brought bloom and joy again, the murdered traveller's bones were found, far down a narrow glen..."*

The words to bardsong never mattered, only the power behind them, and this one was intended to fortify, mostly speed and endurance if he'd got it right. The effects on himself were relatively instantaneous, and he spent no more time contemplating his attack. Taking advantage of the fact that the abomination was pinned, Rilien drifted apparently without care to its side, flaying into the flesh coating its ribs with a decpetively-light flick of the wrist. Destruction was an art form all its own, and he the perfect practitioner. No empathy, no regret, no anger to mar his handiwork, and when he remembered himself, it was the cleanliness and clinical nature of his deeds that horrified him the most. Perchance it was to his benefit that he rarely recollected his former persona anymore.

At a maximal ratio of damage to depth and time, the blade was withdrawn, and he pivoted neatly on one foot, bringing himself behind the abomination to trace an equally-precise line vertically along the spine of what had once been Wilmod. Flesh split open to bone, and yet again Rilien was gone and elsewhere, never lingering in one location for a split second longer than necessary. One eye was, as it ever was, figuratively upon Sparrow, lest her impulsiveness land her somewhere she could not quite escape.

Even amidst the heat of the battle, the Knight-Captain was able to take note of Sparrow's arcane bolt launched at the rage demon. Of course, that would be a matter for another time, as the outcome of the battle was far from decided. Ashton's arrows were indeed doing a good deal to damage the shades, and a few of them dropped already. His bursting arrow blasted at the feet of the abomination, scorching the already mutilated flesh, and banishing two shades, but where they fell, the abomination conjured up three more to take their place. Cullen was putting his skills with a shield on display, holding off three shades at once, and even occasionally getting in a blow of his own. A blast of holy energy exploded from within him, stunning the shades and damaging them heavily.

Wilmod's abomination was heavily wounded already due to the combined efforts of Ashton and Rilien, but it still stood, and the shades seemed to draw strength from it. Several more left to engage the Knight-Captain, and he would likely soon need assistance. The abomination finally ripped the arrow from its foot, and set off towards Ashton, hoping to end the pesky archer. The rage demon had taken up the arcane warrior's challenge, releasing a gurgling laugh or sorts before it raised both of its hands and unleashed a stream of magical fire in Sparrow's direction.

*Taken from "The Murdered Traveller" by William Cullen Bryant

Setting

4 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

Darktown suddenly seemed rather quiet, now that the lightning strikes, exploding fireballs, and clashes of steel had halted altogether. The slaver and his men were dead, as were all of Reiner's mercenaries. And due in no small part to the elven healer, none of the group that had come to free Feynriel had fallen. Ithilian had wiped his blades clean on Danzig's robes, before sheathing them and heading back to the scene of the battle. Nostariel had healed the group at large before tending to Aurora more exclusively. None had gone through that fight entirely unscathed, though Ithilian had perhaps taken the least damage. He'd seen Amalia volunteer to shield the Warden and the boy from Danzig. He would have to speak to her about that, and this whole assignment... later. For now, there was the matter of Feynriel to attend to. Their search had not been in vain after all.

The half-elven boy stood at the top of the stairs, Ithilian arriving by his side. He initally flinched away from the Dalish elf, but upon recognizing him as one of the ones who had saved him, relaxed somewhat. Relaxed was perhaps a kind word, however. He gazed about in no small amount of incredulity at the carnage the three separate groups had wrought in this little pit of Darktown. He shifted about nervously as those below got to their feet.

"Who are you?" he asked. "I mean, thank you, of course, but who sent you? Was it the Templars?" Ithilian crossed his arms, watching the others get up beside Feynriel. "It was your mother, actually." He scoffed at that. "Hardly a difference. I can't believe her. My whole life, it was all 'I'll love you, and protect you.' Then I have some bad dreams, then it's off to the Templars!" Ithilian didn't have much of a comment for that. Magic was not something he dealt with in detail very often. He had not grown up with magic, other than of course the Keeper and his First. But he'd never really observed their struggles from anything but a distance.

Aurora inhaled as she threw herself back into a sitting position. The pain wasn't entirely unbearable thanks to Nostariel's spells, but she was still very tender and very weary. The Hex of Torment still hadn't completely wore off but there was nothing that could be done about that. She sat for a moment, trying to collect herself before looking down at the hole in her shirt. If she hadn't caught the blade, that surely would have hit something more important, like a heart or a lung. Nostariel could apparently heal a lot of things, but she had her doubts about her healing a serious case of death. She looked back to her companions at the top of the stairs and was relieved to find that they had escaped safely-- safer than she did at any rate.

Amalia approached and offered a hand to the Apostate to which she graciously took and managed to rise to her feet. It had been a hard day, but at least there were a lot less slavers in the world and one more mage relatively safe now. That alone made her feel like it was all worth it. She approached the rest of her companions at the top of the steps and arrived just in time to hear the comment Feynriel made about his mother. Aurora's pale lips turned into a thin frown as say weakly slapped the back of his head. "Don't give me that you dolt, she only wants the best for you and she's doing what she can for you. These nightmares aren't something to trifle around with," Aurora reprimanded in an Antivan accent. She wouldn't have this boy speak ill about his mother like that. She hasn't seen her own mother since she was taken to the Antivan Circle, at least this fool boy knew how she was doing. Though the idea of sending him off to the Templars didn't sit too well with her either...

Speaking of the nightmares, Aurora wondered. Nightmares were a common thing, sure, but what kind of nightmares was this boy suffering from to warrant sending him to the Gallows? Aurora looked to Nostariel for some kind of hint but then shrugged. "I don't like the idea of sending him back to the Templars for... Obvious reasons.. What should we do with him?" Aurora asked.

"I'm not going to the Circle, I know that much. It's different in other kingdoms, but here? You do one thing wrong, and you get the brand! There's no way I'm doing that." He looked to Ithilian then, noticing the markings upon his neck. He seemed rather enthralled by them. "I had been trying to get to the Dalish. That's why I ran away. They wouldn't be afraid of my magic." He looked to Ithilian as though expecting support, but he did not seem inclined to give it. He held his gaze on the boy, as though studying him, but did not give an answer. After a rather awkward moment of that, Feynriel looked to the other elf in the group, hoping to find support there.

Nostariel's expression was all soft lines and tenderness when Feynriel turned to her as if in appeal, and she nodded. "If the Keeper will have you, I'll take you there myself," she offered with resolve. She did not desire to impose upon them, but surely they would see the plight of the boy and agree to help. If they did not, well, she might well be forced to take other measures. She would not see him taken from everything he knew and locked away in a cage, not after knowing exactly how terrifying that was for someone like him. She was actually surprised that the dreams had only started to truly torment him now, and wondered if there was something more going on here that she did not understand.

"I promise you, Feynriel, one way or another, you will not have to go to the Circle if you do not wish it." This boy still knew his mother's face, and her affection, however much or little she understood of his plight, and she would not see him forget these things as she had forgotten them. She looked about at the others, as if to see if any would offer protest, but on this much, her will would not be moved, and she shifted uncomfortably at the thought of any protracted arguments about it. Aurora simply nodded approval at the plan. The boy would not go to the Templars on her watch. Amalia offered no words, nor even a hint as to what her opinion might be, shrugging as though it did not concern her in the slightest where he went, now that he was not going to slavers.

Ithilian frowned. Of course the Warden and the apostate wouldn't see him go to the Circle. It wasn't as though Ithilian wanted that, either. It was an installation of the shemlen religion, and he had no love for it along with anything else the humans had created. But Ithilian suspected he was the only one here who truly saw that this boy had no place. He would not go to the Circle. He could not remain in hiding, not with Templars searching for him. The part that annoyed him the most was Marethari. She would accept, he knew she would. She had too kind of a heart not to. That wasn't the issue. His blood was the issue. He would have no place among the People. He would be only a step above an outcast, and that only because of Marethari's word.

"Your blood will mark you among the People. You would have a lesser place there for your humanity, not your magic. As it should be. Marethari will take you in, this I know. But you will be alone, even among the clan." Feynriel seemed bolstered by Nostariel's support, however. "Compared to being imprisoned, or made Tranquil? I'll risk being lonely." Ithilian sighed, placing his hands on his hips and directing his gaze away from the group. "Since it has been made clear to me by the Sabrae Clan that my opinion is meaningless to them, I suppose I have little choice in this matter. Go with the Warden. Marethari will do what she thinks is best."

Though it certainly wouldn't have changed his mind one way or the other, Feynriel seemed relieved to have the Dalish's permission, even if it had been more of a grudging relent than a blessing. "Thank you! All of you, thank you for coming after me!" His thanks seemed rather directed at Nostariel and Aurora, however. "I will never forget what you've done for me."

Nostariel looked vaguely troubled by what Ithilian was saying. If it were true (and she had no reason to believe that he was lying), then the next few years of Feynriel's adolescence might be particularly troublesome. She resolved to do what she could to ease the burden of transition, but for now, she needed to get him to the Dalish emcampment. "Coming?" she asked lightly of Aurora, then turned to the other two. "You have my thanks for allowing me to assist, Ithilian, Amalia." With that, she grasped Feynriel lightly by the elbow, guiding him from Darktown with lighter step than she'd known in too long and Aurora followed close behind.




The Dalish, she knew, were camped at the base of Sundermount, apparently unmoving due to an accident that resulted in the loss or death of their halla. She did not know the exact circumstances, being aware of any of it only through rumor and the grapevine, so to speak. She had been to visit a Dalish settlement before, but not this one, and there was still much she did not understand of their ways. She might have even been Dalish, but it was just one of many things she would never know about herself. As ever, she was restrained by the fickle nature of a child's memory, and by a future wrought with far more tangible, dangerous things than journeys of self-discovery.

The trail itself was relatively clear, and the encampment, unlike the other she'd seen, was not at all difficult to find. They must really be stranded out here, she thought, a twinge of pity strumming an idle note on her too-vulnerable heartstrings. At their approach, however, they were stopped by a pair of guards. "Hold there, strangers," the one on the right, a male, began. "What business have you with the Dalish?" His accent was that odd lilt she had observed before, and her own Starkhaven brogue felt clumsy in response.

"We've come to see the Keeper," Nostariel began, inclining her head respectfully. "This boy is of Dalish blood, and he seeks her help to learn control of his ancestral magic."

Apparently, this was about as close to the right thing to say as she was going to get. "Very well, you may enter," the first guard's feminine counterpart replied, though there was no small amount of haughtiness to her tone, and she eyed Aurora with distaste. "But make your business here quick. There are Dalish arrows trained on you." Frankly, Nostariel thought the threat was highly unnecessary, but she did not reply to it, simply nodding and stepping past the guards, leading the other two into the camp. "Are all Dalish so... Hostile?" Aurora whispered to both Feynriel and Nostariel, noting Ithilian's own demeanor from earlier. Still, she kept her mouth quiet and her head down. She was already afraid of Ithilian's wrath, she didn't want to provoke a whole tribe of his kind. That seemed like the quickest way to an early demise.

Aurora followed closely behind her two companions as they approached what she imagined to be this Keeper Marethari that Ithilian had mentioned. She felt out of place here, in this encampment. She could feel the eyes of the entire tribe on her shoulders. She felt like she was an outsider-- and in truth she was. It was the story of her life really. Being an apostate tends to sow those feelings after a while. However she shouldered those feelings herself and tried to make herself seem cheerful, hoping that would make her seem less of a threat to the Dalish. She even ventured a smile at the Keeper.

Marethari was rather easy to pick out among the elves, due to her clothes. She wore not the hunter's garb, but rather a very ceremonial-looking robe. Every Dalish clan typically had just two mages, the Keeper, and his or her First, or apprentice. Marethari was Keeper of this particular clan, and just her eyes seemed to convey the wisdom necessary to hold such a title. She was a very small woman, not imposing in the slightest, and her face gave off a kind, warm, almost grandmotherly aura. But there was indeed a certain hardness, perhaps simply from her age, behind those eyes.

"Andaran atish'an, strangers. I am Keeper Marethari. You are a Grey Warden, are you not?" she asked of Nostariel, though the way the question was posed implied she already knew the answer. "You honor us with this visit. What business might you have with the Dalish, I wonder?" Aurora frowned as she was overlooked.

"Andaran atish'an, Keeper," Nostariel replied, the words unfamiliar on her tongue. Still, it was best to be polite whenever possible, and what she was asking was no small favor. "The honor is mine to be welcomed here." Welcomed was definitely an overstatment of their reception, but she'd had worse greetings before. Her smile was genuine, if a bit strained, and she stepped aside so that Feynriel was plainly in front of the Keeper. "I'm afraid I come with a favor to ask. This is Feynriel, and he seeks refuge among his mother's people, to learn proper use of his magic. I would be more than willing to help however possible, but... my posting is in the city, and right now, that's no place for one the Templars would call apostate and hunt so avidly." She glanced knowingly at Aurora, then fell silent, allowing the Dalish woman to ponder as she needed to.

"His mother's people, you say?" the Keeper asked, before looking to Feynriel. "Ah yes... it is starting to become clear to me. Da'len, you are aware that the path you wish to walk will be a difficult one, yes? I will not turn you away, but I must first know that you are prepared for this." Feynriel, nodding to assure her. "Yes, Keeper, I understand. The Dalish hunter who helped rescue me explained. I know my human blood will mark me here, but this is where I want to be."

Marethari nodded her approval. "Then you will join the People. To the pair of you," she said, looking towards Aurora and Nostariel, "I would ask a small favor in return. Feynriel's mother is welcome here should she wish to visit, or rejoin the People, and she should know such. And... this hunter Feynriel speaks of. He should know that the road he travels leads only to further despair. His mind may be decided already, but perhaps a friend could alter his course."

Aurora shrugged, "He's not the friendliest man I know and I know he doesn't count me as one," she said. Though her gaze did shift towards Nostariel, "Perhaps she would have more luck getting to him than I would. Still... We will take your message to his mother. Thank you for taking him in... Circle life is not for him," Aurora said, the hint of experience evident in her voice. "We'll also send your mother your goodbyes Feynriel," She added. She of all people understood the preciousness of a goodbye to a mother... Then she nodded and tapped Nostariel on the shoulder. "Let's get going yeah? I'm sure his mother would want news of her son," she said. Though unspoken, she also wanted to get out of range of the "arrows" that were trained on her.

Nostariel simply nodded, not trusting her voice on this particular topic of conversation, and followed her fellow mage from the encampment.

The Chanter's Board has been updated. Wayward Son has been completed.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon

Earnings

0.00 INK

Lucien,

I was relieved to hear that you returned from the incident on the Wounded Coast. If it isn't an inconvenience, perhaps you might be willing to speak with me in the Chantry today? There was little time for talk, and I must admit, I have been troubled by how events unfolded.

-Sophia


Lucien, presently reclining his chair against the wall of the tavern, a tankard's worth of decidedly-suspect brandy in one hand and the sparsely-marked parchment in the other, raised his single uncovered eyebrow and read it over again, just to be sure. This was probably highly irregular. Usually, when mercenaries did a job, they were paid for it and ushered quietly out of the way, to hopefully not be heard from again until their services were, inevitably, required once more. There was always a chance that this situation was exactly that, but something about it suggested otherwise. "Can't say I understand why the Chantry, but I suppose I'm less likely to track Lowtown dirt where there are no carpets," he mumbled wryly to himself. It was not so much a reflection on what he assumed of Sophia so much as it was his general experience with nobility, and he thus discarded it.

"Well, no time like the present." He'd been here more in hopes of finding something to do than because he enjoyed the atmosphere, and it seemed all of the people he usually spoke with were out, which was especially unusual for the Warden. Nevertheless, he'd managed to find himself the intended recipient of a missive, and so he set his half-empty mug back down and paid the barkeep before sliding his gauntlets back on and slipping out the door.

The walk to Hightown was the same as always, and he took a slight detour to enter through the market instead of the red-light district, which was ironically closer to his destination as he was travelling. The merchants up here were a bit more passive-agressive and a little less in-your-face, but he wasn't usually a target. Just as well; it'd be a waste of their time on what he managed to bring in. He raised a hand to the guard on duty, a man by the name of Donnic, and ambled his way to the Chantry Courtyard. The Chanter's Board seemed to have a few new missives on it, and he decided to see about having a look on his way out. He'd always been taught that it was impolite to keep a lady waiting, however, and he pushed open one of the grand double doors, stepping inside with as much reverence as he could bring himself to muster.

The Lady Sophia was not immediately visible, so he ventured further in, feeling distinctly out-of-place amongst the robed brothers and sisters.

Sophia had almost jumped when Elthina gently touched her shoulder, deep in thought as she had been. "Your mercenary has arrived, Sophia," she said, the slightest hint of disapproval in her tone. Sophia knew that Elthina tended to have a distate for those who fought for only coin, but from what the Viscount's daughter had seen of Lucien the other day, there was likely more to him than that. All Elthina saw, of course, was a man who would probably encourage Sophia to go risking her life for this reason or that. Not that Elthina thought fighting for a noble cause was necessarily a bad thing. She simply recognized that Sophia's willfil nature could often land her in situations that were more than she could handle. That would have been just the case had the Seneschal not had the caution to send men to assist her.

"Thank you, Elthina," she said, rising. The Grand Cleric nodded before taking her leave. Sophia had been before the great statue of Andraste in the center of the Chantry, a raised platform that overlooked the entrance. She turned to see Lucien cautiously venturing forward, looking quite like he didn't belong. Sophia wasn't sure what to make of that. Rakkis had made it quite clear that he hadn't cared for her faith, but she didn't recall hearing a word on the subject from Lucien. Perhaps it had been a mistake to ask him to come here. She would just have to find out.

She made her way down the stairs towards him. Her appearance was a rather complete turnaround from the first time they had met. She looked significantly smaller today, not wearing her armor as she was. Lucien already had quite the height advantage over her, and the fact that he was wearing his armor still emphasized the man's already impressive build. Sophia was dressed in a simple, albeit well-tailored dress of a soft grey, belted at the waist and leaving her shoulders bare. Her thick golden hair was no longer tied back out of the way, but rather falling in droves to rest on her chest and shoulders, and down her back a short ways. The only accessory she wore was a simple, thin silver chain necklace.

"Lucien, thank you for coming. Forgive me if the Chantry is not an ideal setting. It's... well, one of the few places where I don't feel quite so much like the Viscount's daughter."

Contrary, perhaps, to what most people would have assumed of a man like him, Sophia could not have been more intimidating right now if she were in full Templar regalia and surrounded by fifty more of the same. Battle, and the business of it, were what Lucien was comfortable with. Go here, kill that, help these innocent defenseless peasants... that sort of thing was easy, as far as the Chevalier was concerned. It was... this, the socializing and the finery and the elegance, that had always been unnatural. It felt rather like being an enormous bear in a room full of glass figurines. One false step, one miscalculated move or ill-planned word, and he was liable to break something important. Or crush somebody's toes. Figuratively, of course; he did at least know how to dance.

But his mind was wandering, taking him to faraway places that were not here, and it really would have been much easier were she in armor still and they standing just about anywhere but here. But she was not, and they were not, and it did him no good to desire otherwise. Her words filtered through his brain in sepia-tones, making him aware that perhaps what custom dictated here, that he sweep a refined bow and kiss her knuckles, was perhaps not what she'd prefer either. Of course, that left him in the even more undesirable situation of not knowing what to do at all, but inaction would condemn him as surely as anything, so he simply inclined his torso in a deferential motion witout excess. "I suppose," he ventured by way of reply, thankfully absent of social anxiety at least in his tone, "that such duties would grow burdensome after a time, and I certainly cannot blame you for taking sanctuary where you find it."

He truthfully supposed nothing, and knew better than just about anyone exactly how she felt. His own solace was to be found in the barracks and on the practice field, but he understood at least the nature of the problem, even if the solution was different. The knowledge in hand, he forced himself to relax, consciously easing the tension in his back and shoulders and for the moment content to ignore the movement of the Chantry folk and visitors around them, though he could never lose that awarenss of them. "Let it trouble you not. Your missive indicated that there was something of the other day's occurrences you wished to speak of?"

"Yes," she said, and it was her turn to look uncomfortable, though she buried it away quite swiftly. She wasn't exactly sure how she wanted to word her concerns, now that he was here. "Perhaps we could sit? If you follow me," she gestured gently before turning and leading Lucien up the stairs on the far right side, a short climb to the upper level. She hoped this a more comfortable area. A cozy fire burned in the hearth, a table beside it with several free chairs. More importantly, the sisters remained on the lower level, and this area gave far less of a feeling that they were being watched. Sophia knew the sisters meant no harm, but they overheard what they overheard, and she could understand how that might bother some.

"I never actually received a detailed account of what happened after Saemus and I left," she said, lowering herself into a chair, "Did Rakkis get them to join his organization, as he intended?"

The former knight inclined his head and followed without protest, indeed rather relieved for all that he was still in the Chantry. He knew, of course, that he was unlikley to be attacked here, or perhaps worse, spied upon, but such places were no sacred ground for Bards, and it was a constant effort to remind himself that they did not dwell here. It didn't suit him to stand in the middle of an open space; an ingrained caution had him placing his back to a wall as soon as he was able, the measured discomfort he felt at sitting in the presence of someone of rank here outweighed by his desire to be accomodating as he was able.

Ah, but of course. The question made sense, and it was hardly a surprise that the Lady Sophia wished to know if the ranks of her city's criminal underbelly had swollen considerably practically overnight. "I believe he was mostly successful in his aim, yes. For what it's worth, I doubt the Winters will assimilate wholesale. It is not in the nature of every mercenary to capitulate to an organization with such a repuation as the Coterie, even if the reason is simply that they prefer choosing their contracts freely." He understood that this was the case at least with the Red Iron, a group he'd had some contact with. Not of sterling reputation, that lot, but stubbornly proud of their independence.

"As for the rest, well... there isn't much to say. Our comrade-in-arms may well achieve more by means of gilt tongue than sharpened knife." He raised his shoulders slightly, as if to shrug, but then thought better of it, reminded once again that he was not in the presence of another mercenary or even another tavern patron. It was not a barrier easily overcome even in the most relaxed of nations. He might once have belonged in this situation, but now... well, he wasn't in Orlais anymore, and sincerely doubted he ever would be again.

"His gilt tongue certainly made things more complicated, didn't it?" she asked rhetorically, getting to the heart of the matter. Everything had worked out, save for the few new criminals that Kirkwall would have now... so why did it feel like something was gnawing at her insides? She had to try and explain. "Everything had been so straightforward before his proposition. The Winters had needlessly murdered my brother's friend, and it was only just that they not receive a reward for that. I stood by my brother, prepared to defend him when he was threatened. I gave them the opportunity to leave without bloodshed, which they did not take. They gave us no choice but to kill them. I have since prayed for their souls, that the Maker might forgive them and they may find a place at His side..."

Sophia crossed her legs, tilting her head over slightly to rub her forehead in one hand. "I had half a mind to try and stop Rakkis. I wanted to avoid further bloodshed, yes, but I've also always wanted to see this city a safer place, and allowing an organization like the Coterie to grow does nothing towards that end. The issue of fighting or avoiding it aside, I also fled, leaving two men who had certainly saved my life to potential deaths. I couldn't trust my brother to get back to the city. I couldn't even trust myself to survive the fight. It feels like I left out of desire to save myself."

She was silent for a brief moment, before flushing slightly red and looking down at the table. "I apologize. I'm not sure what I expect you to say. I just... well, you seem so certain, both in your abilities, and in your beliefs. It's admirable."

Lucien leaned forward slightly, resting his chin on the thumbs of his clasped hands, elbows braced on the armrests of the chair he now occupied. He was not one to interrupt a person while they were speaking, especially not when the words were coming thick and fast enough so as to almost constitute a confession. I would have thought one of the sisters here would be more suited to hear it than I, he thought, just a touch of sardonic self-reproach tinging it. Still, it wasn't the first time he'd heard such things, sentences dredged up from some troubled part of the mind or soul. He never minded.

The end of her ruminations, however, drew from him a chuckle, a quiet thing, more a slight shaking of shoulders and a crinkling at the corner of his eye than any booming sound. He smiled behind his hand, caught somewhere between sheepish embarassment and easy amusement, then sat back again, rubbing at his stubble with one hand and letting the other drape loosely on the armrest. "Certainty, is it?" he echoed, his tone slightly distant. Was he certain? He supposed that, in most situations, he had a grasp of what he felt was right, but the real difference between himself and the people he tended to encounter in his work was that he simply had no problem aligning his actions with his thoughts. Consequences were relatively unimportant to his considerations, but it had not always been so.

"Perhaps I am fortunate enough to count a certain degree of assurance mine, but... I also do not have the fate of an entire city to consider, nor is my life so important that its loss would deal any great blow to anything, and so I simply act in accordance with what mine own honor demands." His tone was less instructional and more contemplative, as though he were unused to putting his thoughts to words. "It... is not always a clear mandate, and I will admit that what came about was of trouble to me also, but, well. The increase in Coterie thugs is a problem, and in time, one or both of us may find ourselves dealing with it. If, however, that later trouble is the result of something I did that was at its core the right thing to do, than I accept those consequences and will bear their burdens when the time comes. Not all the good in the world can be done at once, and I do not relish living only in the future." He coughed into one hand and rubbed at the back of his neck, clearly a little uncomfortable with how much he'd just said.

"That... well, it's only one man's opinion at any rate, milady, and a rather penniless vagabond mercenary at that."

Sophia gave him a close-lipped smile at that. "And your wealth makes your opinion less meaningful how? Wealth is certainly no virtue. I fear if I spend any more years in Hightown, they'll rub off on me, and I'll spend the rest of my days complaining to the merchants that they have no silks to match the color of my eyes."

She thought for a moment. Not all the good in the world could be done at once. That was very true. She had been presented with a choice, and she had taken the route that seemed the greatest good. Or perhaps the least evil. Either way, there had been a choice. Perhaps it would have consequences. She could deal with those when they presented themselves. There was still the feeling that she had taken a choice solely benefiting her and her family, but for now...

"I think I'd like to start doing good more regularly, Lucien. I am capable of helping, and I don't see why my future as Viscount should prevent me from doing so. No doubt my father, and Bran, will fly into panics at the mere though of me traveling about Lowtown, but they've never been able to stop me when my mind is made up before. And I think the people wouldn't mind seeing the Viscount's daughter doing what she can to help those typically beneath the notice of us Hightown types." She seemed to relax somewhat at the idea. Of course she would not abandon her father and brother to deal with the storms while she ran off doing good deeds, but it would certainly be refreshing to get out of the shadow of the Keep once in a while.

"Perhaps we will work together in the future, then? Maybe if one of us finds a cause worth taking up, they could call on the other?"

"Ah, well, let us hope it does not come to that," he answered with humor, tilting his head to one side. "Though... I think I may have seen that shade just today. You might want to lodge a complaint; where I come from, such things are blatant mockery." The rest of what she said was a good deal more serious, and he nodded solemnly, recognizing that the conversation was drawing to its close. Standing, Lucien really did bow this time, as there was something of a promise attached to it, and such things were to be taken seriously, always.

"If you should find that my... scythe-arm would be of assistance in this, all you need do is ask, and it shall be yours."

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel

Earnings

0.00 INK

Ashton's deft feet dug into the smooth gravel as he began his back step to play a game of keep-away with the demonized Templar. All of Ashton's arrows were now focused on center mass, drawing the demon away from the main body of fighting. Things would go smoother for all involved if they didn't have to worry about a demonized Wilmod blindsiding them. Another arrow whistled through the air as it struck true, though Ashton took no pleasure from a simple hit. Pleasure would be derived from the kill, not the process of killing. When Ashton stopped and assumed a nonthreatening stance, baiting the creature. It didn't take much to send the demon carreening into a mad charge towards the foolish Archer. It would surely crush his feeble bones into a fine dust.

But the creature had sprung Ashton's trap. At the last moment, Ashton evaded to the side and in mid-roll vanished in a puff of stealth. The monster had fallen for Ashton's game, taking it's eyes off of the Archer for just a moment would prove to be a dire mistake. Now like the shadows around them, Ashton silently stalked his prey. A single pebble shifting, a blade of grass bending was the only clue to the hunter's whereabouts. Now the roles were reversed, Ashton was the Predator. During his little episode of stealth, Ashton had quietly circled around the beast to gain a fantastic angle on it's vulnerable back. He had an arrow nocked as the shadows around him faded, and before he was fully tangible, the arrow struck.

The sudden and surprising blow disoriented the foe, allowing Ashton to pump more arrows one after another into the vulnerable back of the creature. After every arrow he shot he took another step forward towards his prey so that when he finally stood over the demon, it looked more like a pincushion than a former Templar. Ashton drew back on his bowstring once more and sent one last arrow into the creature's head. just to be sure they wouldn't have a nasty surprise later. With his prey defeated, Ashton turned to see where he could best aid his companions.

To Rilien's (very mild) surprise, Ashton was able to goad the once-Wilmod into charging him, leaving the snowy-haired elf very much bereft of something to kill. Well, perhaps 'bereft' was too strong a word for the situation at hand, as there were still plenty of shades and at least one rage demon wandering about. A cool sweep of the situation indicated that if the Templar did not recieve assistance soon, he would probably die. While the thought as such was not at all troubling to him, the bard was very conscious of the usefulness of an extra pair of hands, especially ones attached to a body capable of wearing heavy armor and taking hits for the sake of people with less heavy steel plating encasing their persons. As such, it was to their advantage- his advantage, even, for the man to live.

Very well, the Templar would live. Rilien was off like a shot, his momentum carrying his rght-hand blade across the arm of a shade, which, as they tended to do, spewed a blackish ichor instead of blood, the jet of which he was certain to neatly avoid. Having to clean it from his garments would be... inefficient at best. Repeating his earlier maneuver, the elf pivoted and turned the motion into a backstab this time, suppressing the tiniest of satisfied flickers when it howled and sank back into the ground.

The next was upon him in short order, turning from the Templar upon hearing its fellow's call. Rilien caught the obvious telegraph of its swing and ducked, switching grip on both knives simultaneously and plunging them into both of the shade's shoulders, severing the muscles that allowed for the beast's control of its arms. Stepping back, Rilien flicked his wrists, sending most of the ichor flying off his knives in two wide, spattering arcs, watching with apparent nonchalance as the shade shrieked an unholy cacophony and attempted to charge him bodily. A neat sidestep and a ruthless slice later, and the thing's head was nearly parted from its shoulders.

In the distance, someone was screaming. It might've been the gurgling notes spewing from Wilmod's swollen lips, pitching forward in such a way that it sounded like a scream, but more or less, it was a malformed creature's spitting squeaks, blatantly hitched to sound like the relentless hiss of a geezer releasing it's fumes. The catcalling whirr swam through her ears as she hustled past the abomination – she didn't spare it a single glance because she didn't want to see all of it's disgusting features up close, patched, wickedly hobbled with eroded pocks. It served as an ugly reminder that she was not immune to the coaxing whispers of Pride, nor Rage's enchanting promises of retribution. Even if Rilien could renounce his half-remembered feelings into tidied, allocated blocks, Sparrow, admittedly, could not. Those promises, those feverish pledges, sat there in the dark, patient, watching and waiting for it's turn to surface again and again. Like chokedamp creeping in your lungs to chortle just a little bit of venom into your lungs, spreading it's corruption like a sordid sweetness that was all too familiar.

“When spring, to woods and wastes around, brought bloom and joy again, the murdered traveller's bones were found, far down a narrow glen...” Whether or not Rilien sang the words, spoke them in soft hushes, or merely parroted the words in his accustomed intonation, composed, effortless, mattered not. It was the conclusive strength bellying those words, rippling through the stratosphere and fortifying her backbone, igniting her energy, sending her sluggish alacrity to acceptable levels. And so they both stood so tall, so accomplished. Renewed, rejuvenated, Sparrow's muscles tensed. The fiery demon's presence gave off malice in hot, angry waves. It might've brought a lesser person to their knees, but not her. She thrived off those feelings, absorbed and whittled them into little sculptures she could produce at will. It was as malleable as clay. She knew, without a doubt, that she needn't worry for Rilien's safety. Her companion was an art form of measured destruction, designating the appropriate amount of cleaving damage in the most undoing ways, rendering his victim's prostrate. This wasn't the first time she'd witnessed his cutthroat mastery, and it certainly wouldn't be her last.

Foolishly, Sparrow did not care if the Knight-Captain witnessed her flashy use of magic – though, she honestly hadn't thought much about it. Engagements such as this rendered her hopelessly reckless: a flashing muse of grating teeth, swinging mallets and glistening peepers. Someday, it would be her undoing. She would not be controlled. She would not be stripped of her freedom. She would not. Even if she had to crawl into the dirtiest, most repulsive, hole that Darktown had to offer to elude capture. It certainly was an option. She'd never, willingly, bring any undesirable attention down on Rilien. How hypocritical. Templar's utilized their holy magics, expatiated by their frequent use of lyrium. From the corner's of her peripherals, Sparrow caught sight of the Knight-Captain's blast of light, sending the shades scampering away like rats. If Cullen asked for assistance, she'd wryly remind him that Andraste stood vigilant at his side. With her, he needed nothing.

A gust of sweltering heat startled her attention back to the fiery demon in front of her. The strong-armed sweep of her mace was met with titian flames, bellowing out from the creature's claws like dangerous fireworks. Sparrow's initial charge faltered, ever so slightly, before she pitched her weight in the opposite direction. Fortunately, Rilien's bardsong greatly aided her reflexes and momentum. Still, Sparrow smelled the charcoal-like stink of burnt hair. Her left arm hadn't tucked close enough to her body, leaving it vulnerable to the creature's jet of magical fire. She immediately pulled in inwards, grappling, one more, with her flanged mace. “Bloody bastard.” She rasped, clearly upset that it'd even landed a blow. Her eyes flashed, imperceptibly. Then, the mace shuddered and, as if it were growing new skin, covered itself in a thick sheen of ice. If her companions looked at their own weapons, they'd noticed that, theirs too, appeared the same. She bolted a few paces to it's side, then lunged forward to slam the mace into it's charred skull. Sparks exploded. It's mouth snapped shut, driving it backwards. She did not stop. Rage demons' were best fought relentlessly, feverishly, savagely. She did not stop until it fizzled up into a neat pile of ashes, sifting away with the wind. Her chest heaved, once, twice, before she wiped her brow with the back of her hand and regarded the others, levelly. "You Templars are terrible."

Cullen was able to turn the tide on the shades, in no small part due to Rilien's help, as well as Ashton's dispatching of Wilmod, who seemed to have been the source of the incoming demons. The Knight-Captain bashed one soundly with the shield even while lopping the head cleanly off another one, before plunging the blade into the one he'd just stunned. Moments later, it was done, as Cullen ripped his sword from the last shade, sending the creature howling back into the abyss. The Knight-Captain looked very grave as he surveyed the fallen corpse of what had been Wilmod. he sheathed his sword, shaking his head.

"I knew... I knew he was involved in something sinister. But this... is it even possible?"

As Ashton approached, he realized that the rest of the fel demons had been dispatched by his companions and Messere Templar. With that realization firmly in mind his muscles loosened their grip on his bones and he stood straighter, allowing his taut bowstring a rest. He replaced the arrow intended for another foe back into the quiver, but given the day's circumstances and his luck, it would bound to find another home in the warm skull of another soon enough. He arrived just in time to catch Cullen's disbelieving comment. With the hunter's work finished, Ashton replied with this gem, "I would say... Yes. Yes it is possible," he said, prodding a pile of ashes with his foot, "Else I'd still have my bottle and an Abomination wouldn't have a score of my arrows lodged in 'em," he said, none too smoothly. He then pointed a finger accusingly at Cullen and added, "You owe me a bottle, Messere Templar."

The Knight-Captain sighed tiredly. "You have my thanks for the assistance. I am Knight-Captain Cullen. I was not expecting a force of demons to deal with. As for you," he said, looking towards Sparrow, "I realize that you and your companions may have just saved my life, and I am not unreasonable. I would advise you, however, to not cast any more spells in my presence." "I didn't see any spells. Did you?" Ashton asked Rilien in mock surprise.

"Anyway, Messere Templar... Do you have any idea why Wilmod went all... Demon-y on us?" Ashton asked, leaning on his bow. He hoped that it wasn't a portrayal of what to expect with Keran...

"I have been conducting an investigation of some of our recruits who have gone missing. Wilmod here was the first to return. I had hoped to confront him quietly, out of sight." He shrugged, noting how poorly that plan had gone, before turning his gaze on Rilien. "You, Tranquil. Forgive me, I do not have your name, but you said you came seeking Keran. Who sent you?"

Rilien had in fact seen Sparrow cast a spell, and as such, he remained wisely silent on the subject. When it came to being addressed by the Templar directly, however, silence was an unacceptable method of answer, and so he instead fixed the man with his most unnervingly-blank stare. "Recruit Keran's sister was alarmed that his letters have ceased. Given the sensitive nature of goings-on in the Gallows, the best course of action was to rectify the problem as quickly and efficiently as possible." The agent of such a decision was not mentioned, of course. Free will was not absent from his sort, but independent motivation often wound up so sorely lacking that it might as well have been. For all the world knew, Macha had presented him with a problem that he automatically set about solving. Better yet, someone else had determined that he should solve it and let him do so.

Without allowing the more subtle implications of what he'd said too long to sink in, the elf continued. "In the interest of that efficiency, may I inquire as to what you have discovered, Ser?"

"His sister recruited you, then? That certainly doesn't explain how you knew to find me here... but I suppose I should question you no more. Your assistance was certainly appreciated. And perhaps my role in this investigation should come to an end. A more deft touch may be necessary. If you three are looking for Keran, you might try the Blooming Rose. Keran and Wilmod were last seen there. I had no luck interrogating the... uh, young ladies there." He shrugged. "I doubt they know anything of magic and demons, but it could be that they did not wish to speak with me due to my being Knight-Captain. They fear I'll try to shut them down for serving our recruits, or some such nonsense."

Ashton's prospects brightened considerably at the mention of the Blooming Rose. Perhaps the day wouldn't be full of wanton death and destruction. The humorous glint returned to Ashton's eyes as he opened his to add his comment for the Templar, "Well Messere Templar, if they know nothing of magic it's only because they have yet to meet me," he said with a smirk and a wink. Then he turned to Sparrow all smiles, "Looks like we get to see these buxom ladies you had promised me. Well let's not tarry then, these women aren't going to want to wait all day for myself. Maker knows I wouldn't... And I suppose Keran needs finding as well," he added as an afterthought. With his day looking considerably less grim he spun around on his feet and headed back to the city of Kirkwall and the Red Lantern District within with a certain spring in his step.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

It occurred to Ithilian the next day that he hadn't ever really seen the Warden, Nostariel, around the Alienage. Their meeting and subsequent cooperation in rescuing Feynriel had been the first time he'd ever seen her. It crossed his mind that she may have been a newcomer to the city, or that perhaps she was merely passing through, and got caught up in events. But she'd seemed to have known her way around the city well enough. Ithilian had never met an elven Warden before, or many Wardens at all.

It was not long then before he began to make inquiries about her among the elves who tended to get out of the Alienage more. Ithilian didn't qualify in that category. He was too likely to do something very illegal if he spent too much time among the hordes of shemlen that pervaded every level of this city. He passed by Amalia several times during his inquiries. He meant to speak with her... but not yet. He needed some more time to think before that conversation would happen. Eventually, he determined that Nostariel spent a great deal of her time at the Hanged Man, the tavern here in Lowtown. Ithilian had frowned at that. He supposed there were worse places, though. Like Hightown. Still, for every worthwhile person that passed through that tavern, there were no doubt a few shemlen that would tempt his wrath if he spent too long around them.

Not having anything in particular to do at the moment, however, the Dalish decided it wouldn't hurt to pay her a visit. He left the Alienage, armed as always, keeping his head down as he worked his way through the bustle of people. He passed a shem hawking what was apparently a pouch of Andraste's ashes to a crowd, demonstrating their magical healing effects on a woman of suspect illness. His frown grew as he went by. Beggars lined the streets, mostly human, by Ithilian's estimation. In his experience, the dwarves typically joined up with the Carta before resorting to begging. And the elves went to the Alienage, where they actually looked out for one another. The shemlen were content to let themselves rot, it seemed.

The Hanged Man eventually presented itself before him, rather busy as it always seemed to be. He waited for a pair of drunk mine workers to clear out of his way, overhearing them mumbling about opening up some new passage at the Bone Pit, before pushing through the door and entering. With the variety of types that passed through the Hanged Man, it was difficult for anyone to look out of place, but Ithilian seemed to be trying his best to do so. A woman approached him to see if he needed something to eat or drink, but he waved her off with an annoyed flick of his hand, scanning the patrons instead.

He spotted Nostariel in a corner of the room, a table to herself. Ithilian found it puzzling how at home a Grey Warden could look in a tavern. Nostariel definitely looked as though she had been here many times before, and would be here many times again. It was... angering, in a way. He moved forward, weaving between tables, until he had reached her corner. "Marethari took the boy in, did she not?" he asked, not taking a seat, or appearing as though he wanted to. "Did she object at all?" He felt he already knew the answer to the question, but it was worth asking, anyhow.

Nostariel was, much to her own surprise, not really in the mood to get drunk on this particular day, and so her cup was filled with watered wine, the safest beverage of choice in Lowtown, where the water itself was far from non-toxic in large doses. She was presently enjoying a light lunch, and rather simply pleased at the fact that her salad wasn't even rotting. It was, as far as she could tell, as good a day as she ever got for free, and she was resolved to enjoy it. Lifting a green-laden fork to her mouth, she was halfway through taking a bite when the door to the tavern opened.

Normally, this would scarcely concern her, and she was quite content to ignore the influx of patrons just as she ignored the egress of anyone still sober enough to walk. Those that couldn't, well... there was magic for that.

As it was, however, she would not be ignoring this particular entrance, completely obvious as it was. Her eyes found Ithilian seconds before he located her, probably because she was far less obtrusive... or curt, for that matter. Her frown was a fledgling thing, small and rather tame compared to the scowls he seemed to sport nearly-constantly, and she calmly chewed over the rest of her mouthful before gesturing that he could sit. He probably wouldn't. His question was direct enough, and she answered it in kind. "She did, and she did not, in that order." A small pause. "She requested that I relay a message to you, though. The Keeper seems concerned for your welfare, and would deter you from your present course." Her composed neutrality contained faint echoes of melancholy, but they were subtle and might well have simply been the natural tenor of her voice. They certainly rarely left it.

The Dalish crossed his arms over his chest. "She said that, did she? I've heard it before. Many would deter me from my course, though few have deterred me so politely. I'll take the Keeper's words under consideration." The way he said it implied that it was most definitely a no. Ithilian's beliefs and Keeper Marethari's conflicted far too greatly for one to ever fully see the other's side, he knew that. But as of yet, nothing had changed since he had left her clan for Kirkwall. He saw no reason yet to accept a life of being pushed from one area to the next every time the humans decided to do something about them. Reclaim. Not remember.

"Do you live here?" he asked, glancing about the place as he changed the subject. The look on his face as he surveyed the other patrons, and perhaps simply the atmosphere was... not quite disgust, but perhaps disbelief. "It hardly seems a fitting place for a Warden."

"I see." She didn't, really, and she had half a mind to ask him exactly what this course of his actually was, but his question was quicker, and she accepted that for now, the conversation, such as it was, would proceed in a different direction for at least a short while. Nostariel followed his glance, smiling faintly when she saw Varric about to depart, that crossbow of his slung over his back as usual. She raised a hand to bid him farewell, but she was unsure if he saw it or not. Either way, she had to think for a second about how to answer that one.

"Perhaps not, but it is surely a fitting place for me." Sipping her wine, she set the tankard back down and leaned on her elbows, cupping her face on both hands. "Do not the drunken disgraces always end up in such places?" The question may as well have been rhetorical, for she answered it herself, after a fashion. "But I suspect you have no desire to hear the story, and I'm far too sober to tell it anyway." Shifting her grip, she traced one finger absently about the rim of her mug and shrugged.

"If I may ask, what is the nature of the disagreement between yourself and the Keeper? I had gathered the impression that such folk were revered leaders of the People, that conflicts of such... devisive nature were uncommon, and tended to cause quite the stir." She couldn't decide if she expected him to answer, or growl like a threatened wolf and tell her it was none of her city-elf business.

Ithilian watched her finger for a moment as it circled the rim of her tankard. "I do revere the Keeper. That doesn't mean I can't think her a cowardly grandmother. Or have a differing opinion. I am not Sabrae, nor was I ever. I was of Clan Mordallis for much of my life, in Ferelden. Keeper Felaris had differing ideas, and I shared them. But that clan is no more, and now I am here. I'm far too sober to tell the rest of that story, as well."

A drunken disgrace, huh? The Sabrae no doubt thought him a disgrace to the People. He'd faced his fair share of misery in his lifetime, and he was willing to bet that it matched the Warden's, though of course he could not be sure. He hadn't turned to drowning himself in taverns. Not yet, anyway. "If you don't mind me saying, you did not seem a disgrace yesterday when we fought through slavers, mercenaries, and abominations. I don't see why you should let yourself rot in this pit. Not with the gifts you have."

It was annoying, almost, and he wished he knew her reasons for whatever disgrace she had brought upon herself, for then he would know whether or not to be truly angry, or... well, less angry. He didn't see how he could sympathize with this. "Do I need to buy you a drink for you to tell me how you joined the Wardens? I have only ever met one, a shem, though I have not encountered a worthier human."

His sullen echo of her own words had tugged the smile further up her face, flashing teeth for the briefest moment, but it was short-lived. "If I did not, then perhaps it is simply because the world has a sense of irony," she replied dryly, shaking her head slightly and dislodging a few blond hairs from behind her ears. She replaced them carefully, considering the next question, though perhaps not quite so seriously as it appeared. "You should be careful, Ithilian. If you continue to say such things, people might come to believe there is compassion somewhere in that vengeful soul of yours." She wasn't sure exactly how she'd struck on the word vengeful, but nothing she was observing told her it didn't fit, so she didn't bother to correct herself.

"Hm, no. I don't think I have to be inebriated for that one, but you do have to be seated. I'll not speak to someone so much taller than myself if he insists on looming so." The last person she'd told that to was actually a good deal taller than Ithilian as well, but it applied all the same. "Of what would you like me to speak? The Joining itself is a rather interesting process, I suppose, but usually people are looking for the circumstances that lead to it, or perhaps the valiant tales of first battles with fellow Wardens." A single eyebrow arched gracefully, and it was clear that she really was going to insist that he sit.

Seeing that he might actually get something from the Warden, Ithilian was willing to take a seat. He pulled his bow from his back as he slid down into a chair, placing the weapon across his lap and settling into a somewhat slouched posture. Her comment about compassion had almost gotten a guffaw that would have been dangerously close to a laugh, but not quite. At the word vengeful, he had almost wanted to trace the lines of the vallaslin decorating his neck, the symbols for Elgar'nan, the God of Vengeance. It was indeed all that was left in his soul. Occasionally, on days like yesterday, he yearned for something more meaningful to devote himself to... but until such a thing presented itself, vengeance would have to do.

"Let's start with the circumstances. You are from a city, are you not? A Circle mage, then, or rather, a former one?"

"Hm. You're either entirely correct, or only half so. I couldn't tell you which." Nostariel chewed absently on her lower lip, free hand now occupied pushing her salad around on her plate with the fork. "The Circle is the first thing I remember. I couldn't tell you who I was, who's child I was, before that. But you are right that the Circle eventually found me, or I was given up to them, whichever." It was among the reasons she so vehemently did not desire Feynriel to be pushed into that life. He was long old enough to remember his mother, remember what he'd had, but he would have been subsequently without it even so. "I'm not sure if that's worse or better then being able to remember, to tell you the truth."

"As for the rest, well, I suppose I was the sort of person who had dreams a little too big for that tower in Starkhaven. I'd always wanted out, and the Wardens offered me that chance. I'd have been a fool not to take it."
Particularly when the other options were tranquility or death. She wasn't quite comfortable talking about it, though, as the inevitable next question would have been what did you do to deserve that? and the answer was incredibly painful, a wound in her very soul even now. "I... can't say it turned out exactly how I expected, but... what ever does?"

"Indeed, nothing ever does," Ithilian agreed. What she said hadn't bothered him, though. She hadn't been given a choice at birth, but rather was forced under the heel of the Chantry and their Templars. It seemed only natural that she would want to escape, that anyone would want to escape that, and yet many of them willingly allowed themselves to be caged by their shemlen jailors. Their talents were wasted in such a way, when they could be used to help their people.

"We take advantage of the chances given to us. We have to. If we don't, the shemlen will. They'd see us all forever under their heel like the Templars would to the mages. That is my present course that Marethari would deter me from, in a sense. To wait for a chance to be given to me, and then to take it. Elgar'nan, vengeance, was branded into my skin. I can take no other course." He looked down at the bow in his lap. Thought for a moment on the number it had claimed. More had been added to that tally yesterday. It would never be enough, and he knew that... but he didn't know what else to do.

If Nostariel had flinched slightly at the mention of Templars and shemlen, she did not acknowledge it. Instead, she simply watched him as he spoke, reading into the silences as much as the words. She wasn't always right about these sorts of things, but she liked to think she could guess at what he was thinking, and it was uncomfortably familiar. "Grey Wardens know a thing or two about lost causes," she demurred. "I can't say I share the thought that humans all desire us beneath their feet, though I won't contest that it happens. Circles are.... a bit different from the outside world, as are the Wardens. I'm a captain, you know. I suppose a few humans have had a problem with that, but by and large they're a little more scared of my magic than my ears." She shrugged lightly.

"Even so... I'd like to think that there's always hope for a better world, no matter how futile it seems to work for it." She could not condone killing your way through humanity as a means, but surely what Ithilian seemed to desire was not just the violence and the vengeance, but rather the world wherein his people could be free of their chains. That much, she understood without reserve.

Ithilian certainly would not argue with her about the subject of humans and just how much they oppressed his people. He suspected both of them were far too sober for that discussion. And from what history he had learned of her... being elven was not what she considered the most impactful on her life, but rather being a mage, or being a Warden. She'd lived in a Circle, and then she'd lived with Wardens. As of now, he did not believe she had experienced the state of their people as he had.

"There was a better world," Ithilian said, rising to his feet, and returning his bow to his back. "It was called Elvhenan. It is gone now. Whether or not it can be recreated in a world with the shemlen, I don't know. I intend to take the All-Father's vengeance just the same." He gave Nostariel a respectful nod of his head. "Ma serranas for your time, Nostariel." With that, the Dalish took his leave of the Hanged Man, headed back for the Alienage.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

The day after Feynriel's rescue, the group had since dispersed, and Amalia had made her way back to her home in the Alienage. Even she would not deny that the process of integrating herself as much as was warranted into the place had been no easy task, but after a while, the majority of the residents seemed to accept that the bizarre human with the harp was to be a fixture in their run-down corner of the city, and life now tended to proceed around her like a river around a particularly tenacious stone. Sometimes, she was even included in the ebb and flow of it, though always as an entity distinct, unusually proud and tall among a people whose eyes were most often downcast. Her viddethari were the bridge, those few women and children who had accepted the Qun and now required her instruction in it. They sought a way to live by its words without losing everything that did not, and at this, she was adept.

The midafternoon was usually a time of rest for the Alienage, especially in the summer, when the sun's hot rays struck just a little too harshly. People tended to take small respites in their homes, but being a creature more inclined to the outdoors than anything, she preferred to rest under the great boughs of the vhenadahl. Presently, she had assumed a crosslegged posture, hands resting loosely upon her knees, eyes closed. She might have been asleep, save that nobody slept in quite so upright a position. Indeed, she was more aware of her surroundngs than most, allowing her ears and nose to funnel her the information she needed about her surroundings. Active mediation, an excellent way to ponder reality and unreality, and think upon the words of the Qun.

Aurora on the other hand was a bit more... Active. While she wasn't in the process of running from Templars at the moment, she stode about Lowtown with an energy that she always had about her. It was another day spent not dead or in the Gallows, so what was there not to be happy about? She was a bit sore though, particularly her hands and shoulder. It could have been worse, yes, not many can take a sword through both hands and shoulder and still be as chipper as she was. The last day however... It did make her think. It made her think about a lot of things. Feynriel being abducted by slavers, a mage becoming an abomination before her eyes, and a magister using his magic for his malintentions. It was people like him that the mages were locked up in circles. Her thinking had kept her up most of the night until she fell asleep from the exhaustion. She realized she walked a fine line as an apostate. Between the Templars, the draw of demons and their promises of powers, and even magister slavers, every day was dangerous for her.

She had to become stronger. Mentally as well as physically. She could take the odd roving band of ruffians, sure, but her experiences yesterday proved that she could not stand toe-to-toe with trained warriors or another accomplished mage. She had to become stronger in order to survive, in order to keep her freedom that she cherished so much. She would not let becoming an abomination be the only option, she would never let that be an option. That wasn't freedom, that was a monster. It was what brought her on her sojourn that day. She didn't walk around Lowtown without purpose, she had a destination in mind. The Alienage in particular. She had a Qunari acquaintance on her mind. She had asked around Lowtown about her whereabouts and the unanimous answer was "The Alienage". Seems it wasn't hard to pick out a single Qunari among the depressed citizens of Lowtown.

As she descended the stairs opening out to the Vhenadahl, she couldn't help but look up into the branches. It truly was a magnicent tree, a glowing spot of green in the desolute browns and greys of the innards of Kirkwall. Her eyes fell down the tree examining the writing and drawings with a sense of wonder until she reached the roots. There sitting at the roots was who she was looking for, Amalia. She seemed to be in some sort of meditation or trance. Aurora hesitated about interrupting her, but forged ahead. She needed to do this. For herself.

"Hey. Amalia? I'm not interrupting, am I?" She began, "I want to.. Ask you something."

Amalia was aware of the fact that someone approached, and the tread struck her as vaguely-familiar, but she did not ponder much on it. If she was required, she would be sought. If not, she would remain undisturbed. The steps stopped within her proximity, and the voice that followed pegged her visitor as the mage from the previous afternoon, though not the Warden. Curious. Humans did not often tread here, especially the ones that knew of Ithilian's presence. Amalia cracked an eyelid, looking up at the girl with a light-blue ocular. "You are," the Qunari replied evenly, opening her other eye and rising to her feet in a smooth, controlled motion. "But this is not unacceptable. Shanedan, Imekari. I will hear you."

Aurora had forgotten how curt the Qunari was and it caught her offguard. She also noticed Amalia's eyes as she rose from the roots of the Vhenadahl. First was the sky blue orb, then the crimson one. It too surprised her, as she had not looked Amalia in the eyes the previous day. She had just met this woman and she was already proving to be extremely unpredictable. One could only imagine how she would handle Aurora's request. Odd, how readily she threw herself into the fray for the sake of another yet how awkward she was trying to ask a simple question. Though, it was a question that needed to be asked. Though how to put it in words... That eluded Aurora. She hesitated for a moment before measuring her words, "You are... You're strong. You are so sure of yourself. So... In control," she began.

"I'm... Not so. The sight of that... Creature," She avoided use of the word abomination, "Yesterday. It sent me into a spiral. I thought I was strong. It made me realize that I'm just as susecptible as any one else," She said, feeling as if she was finally gaining momentum. "I don't want to end up like that. My abilities are a potent force, but without the strength to back that up, they are more a liability than a boon," Feeling as if she was rambling, she decided to issue her request now, else the Qunari send her away for her longwindedness, "I suppose the question is- Will you help me become stronger?" There it was. She watched Amalia in the fight. She seemed so in control, so sure. She didn't hesitate when she fought, she didn't even pause when she saved Nostariel and Feynriel. Of anyone, Aurora felt she could help her become stronger. The only thing she needed was the Qunari's answer.

Amalia fixed the girl with her stare, hard enough that it might have seemed as though she were trying to pin Aurora into place with nothing but a look. Perhaps it was not so fanciful a guess, given wat she was, and that the kossith in the compound seemed to be capable of something similar at times. The child did not realize it, but she had presented the Ben-Hassrath with quite a conundrum. None would fault her for refusing point-blank, but the fact remained that this was not necessarily what Amalia wished to do. A conscious recognition of weakness, and a desire to correct the problem were both admirable traits, encouraged by her Qun and demanded of her as surely as any.

Yet. Aurora was also saarebas, and that made any intervention on Amalia's part highly subject to scrutiny. Crossing her arms, the woman leaned back against the vhenadahl, still silent and unwavering in her scrutiny. She was not one to speak wihout due deliberation, and when her words came, they would be exactly what she meant. "My strength, you call it. That certainty is not me. It is the Qun itself, and drawn from that is everything else I am." Her eyelids dropped, half-obscuring her irises. "Sometimes, I do not think bas can understand. The simplest way to give you what you seek would be to bring you to the Qun. But... there are always other paths." The blond rogue tilted her head slightly to the left. She seemed to be waiting for something, and would apparently not speak further until Aurora said or did something. What that something was, she gave no clue of.

Even under Amalia's piercing glare, Aurora did not recoil. She couldn't show weakness in front of this woman, not after asking her to teach her to become strong. Aurora took her stare on the shoulders and continued to maintain eye contact with the woman. It was then, she realized the height difference between then, Aurora had to look up to Amalia, a fact that did nothing to lessen the imposing figure Amalia painted. Aurora listened to her words, waiting for a forthcoming answer, but none came. Only a riddle. She spoke of the Qun, of differing paths, and it all confused Aurora, though she couldn't afford to let it show on her face. The only hint she gave was a simple tilt of her head. "Other... Paths?" Aurora said, more to herself than Amalia. "Always other paths, she repeated, nodding her head.

"If these other paths can help me become stronger, I would happily take them. I don't want to end up a monster, and I don't want to end up a slave-- To the Templars or to Tevinter Magisters. My gift, my curse, is meant to serve man. But if I am not strong enough, I'll only end up serving it. I need these other paths," she said with conviction.

"To struggle constantly against the danger from within is the burden of us all. Saarebas bear that more directly than most. Self-mastery is the noblest cause, for it is the only way to serve the Many." If it was an answer, it was an oblique one, but Amalia seemed satisfied enough with what Aurora had said to speak again, which was as good a hint as any that there was some connection between what the mage had said and what she was saying now. "Merevas, Imekari. My role is to teach, and yours shall be to learn. As I understand it, saarebas become demons because they become desperate. You must discipline your mind so that this desperation is never yours."

This was always particularly difficult even for viddethari, and she suspected that for Aurora it would be even more so. "What would you say," she asked, settling back down under the tree and assuming her former crosslegged repose, "If I told you that the turmoil you feel when the Fade calls you, the struggle you feel to not beome an abomination-" the word was not of her language, but she did not hesitate for the barest second to use it- "Was all an illusion?" She gestured for the girl to sit across from her, seeing no reason to move their conversation elsewhere, though they were drawing a fair few curious looks by this point.

"... An illusion?" Aurora posed as she took a seat in front of Amalia. She was entirely ignorant of the stares they were recieving, as she was too focused on Amalia's question to pay attention. Even so, she wouldn't ask for a change of scenery, Amalia seemed to know what she was doing, even if she was guided by this Qun. "It'd be... Hard to believe. The whispers, the promises, they all seem so real. The tug is always there, always wanting me to forsake myself and promising me their power," she said. "Sometimes they are hard to drown out," she added. It was hard to explain all of this to a nonmage, though Amalia seemed to know more than she let on. She had seen abominations before, and knew what she would become if she gave in to the empty promises... Ever since she was a young child, she had been afraid of abominations.

Amalia inclined her head; an acknowledgement. Though of what, it was hard to say. "I understand that to be often the case. Your Chantry does nothing to dissuade this opinion, this reality. In the beliefs of the humans here, the Fade is the world of the Maker, and even those who do not adhere so closely generally accept its reality. The Qun is different. Look around you. What you see is the Truth. The rest is only an illusion, and it is lies that corrupt." This was one thing non-Qunari had difficulty accepting, and she imagined that a mage would be even worse, in a sense. "Understanding that usually takes time. For now, it will suffice that the disciplined mind is much less vulnerable to the machinations of demons than the unfettered one. Take a phrase that means something to you. It can be anything: a motto, a piece of a song, I suppose even the Chant would do, if you must. When all else fails, repeat it, aloud, to the exclusion of everything else."

"A phrase..." Aurora repeated. "Well.. The Chant won't work. I'm not particularly.. Religious for obvious reasons," Of course, she never faulted people for their own beliefs. Having something to believe in did make life easier to live. However, the Maker has certainly shown her no kindness and the ideal of an uncaring God seemed silly to her. No, the chant wouldn't do. Neither would a motto, she would seem unhinged if she walked around chanting "Live free" repeatedly. No, it had to be something else. Something from her past. Her eyes lit up as she remembered. "Rosaline. It's Rosaline," she muttered. That would do nicely.

Amalia paused for a moment, growing thoughtful again and receding into silence. It was different, working with someone who had no understanding of the Qun. "Parshaara, but I have given you enough to think on already. Were you Qunari, the meanings to be understood from these things would be your task for the next weeks, if not months. You may return tomorrow, if you wish. You may linger, if you wish. There are many paths, after all." There was the barest ghost of a smirk on Amalia's face as she said it, but it disappeared so quickly it might well not have been present at all. She closed her eyes and resumed her earlier meditations, though she made no move to banish Aurora or speak further to her.

Feeling as if she wasn't going get anything else out of Amalia, she nodded. Sitting around meditating was not something Aurora did, but she was not going to fault the Qunari for it either. Instead she stood and bowed deeply. "Thank you Amalia, for the lesson. I'll think on what you said." With that, Aurora turned and left, her mind opened just a little bit wider for the experience.

Setting

4 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Rakkis

Earnings

0.00 INK

#, as written by throne
The sun had not yet begun its descent, though it might have seemed ready to. Its light still spilled down into Hightown, but almost reluctantly. The posh district was for the most part humming. It was nearly time for dinner, a time which held little distinction in some segments of the city where food was eaten almost immediately upon acquisition for fear of incipient spoilage or even more timely theft. There was a notable exception to the late-afternoon furor- the Blooming Rose. It wouldn’t be until the shadows stopped simply shifting and actually joined together into darkness that the upscale whorehouse would see its share of activity. The most talented and most beautiful of them likely weren’t even getting ready for work yet, though some were, since that sort of thing could indeed take hours. Those who were on the premises were not unpretty, not without skill, but they were hardly the headliners of the staff.

Rakkis was fairly bored. After he and Lucien had made it back into the city, he’d opted to traipse into the very establishment that had set him on the viscount’s brat’s trail once more. Maeve was still there, and had reacted to the rough-and-tumble appearance of her former co-worker not at all. It wasn’t so strange for him to turn up, in need of stitches and high-proof anesthetic, given his new line of work. With the amount of coin he’d spent there, his boss owning half of the venue, and his many friends in the flesh-stables, he tended to be welcomed regardless of his state of dress.

At the moment, his state of dress made him look like a very strange whore. He was seated at the bar, leaning against it, really, with his body at an angle that let him look out over most of the main room that dominated the first floor. The dining tables were very sparsely attended- mostly by die-hard regulars who had no families of their own to eat with. His expression, which probably wasn’t the first thing that anyone would notice about him, was a compound of boredom and tipsiness that came off as mostly-annoyed.

The first thing almost anyone would notice was the robe. His breeches and torn shirt were being laundered and mended, and so he’d been forced to borrow something to wear in the meantime. With no male elves on the current rosters, there was something of a shortage of masculine garments that came even close to fitting him. He’d instead been offered a satiny pink robe reminiscent of a kimono, imprinted with blush-colored floral vines. He wore it open, revealing the clean white bandages that were wrapped tight around his chest, and had been kind enough to pull on some loose, drawstring pants that, fortunately, almost matched the darker pink of the flowers on his robe. The dainty outfit only served to provide stark contrast to the scars on display, the lurid tattoos, the anything-but-feminine jewelry studding his ears. He was not visibly armed, though that meant little when it came to Rakkis. There were no less than a half-dozen throwing knives secreted about his person.

He took a long draught of amber liquid and let his eyes slip to the entrance. As it burned its way down his throat to flood his small gut with warmth, he willed something interesting to happen. His last impatient query about the readiness of his clothing had been answered with ”When it’s damn-well ready, ye’ an’sy elf!”, which he estimated to be at least twenty minutes. He’d already checked to see what sort of company might be available upstairs, but none of his preferred young men were working at the moment.

”Something,” he muttered, still staring at the door. ”Anything.”

As if right on cue, the door swung wide with one Ashton Riviera doing his best to swagger in the whorehouse like he owned it. In his mind, he was doing a damn fine job of doing just that. The first thing Ashton's eyes were drawn to was, of course, the main reason he went to the establishment with such a giddy enthusiam. The women. The promised buxom women. They may not have been the prime choice that would undoubtly come after hours, but Ashton wasn't one to complain about the sight of pretty ladies flaunting their wares. He looked back to his companions like a child would to his parents in a candy store. "I wonder if we have enough time to... Uh," A wicked grin was beginning to etch it's way across Ashton's face, "Well.." His eyes were now trained on Rilien, "Tranquil my mage," And with that, in his opinion, the shining gem of cleverness that day, he burst into a fit of laughter and snickers.

Once he finally managed to suck the air back into his lungs he pointed towards the bar, "Oh Andraste's ass... Still, first thing's first. We need to see the book keeper before anyone gets their jollies. We still have to find this Kerin or Carol, or whatever his name was," Ashton added with increasing forgetfulness. Something else entirely different must have been occupying his mind at the moment... But what could it possibly be?

With hippy swaggers and pinned elbows, Sparrow's light-footed steps kept in pace with Ashton's, nearly sweeping through the doors as if she belonged in this place, as if she were just coming home – because, honestly, she too had been overly excited to be heading to the Blooming Rose. She liked the fine establishment as much as she enjoyed the Hanged Man. Both had prospects she held in high regards, including buxom women with fluttering eyelashes, slender shoulders, and plump lips. Of course, she'd promised Ashton that buxom women would be present, and whether or not they'd been sent this way simply because of propriety, she would've made a point to swing by, anyway. Nothing could put a stopper on her earnest appetites. Thankfully, Ashton's admirable desires did not conflict with her own. Fragrantly scented ladies crossed their legs, dragging fingernails across their thighs in such a way that could've been called elegant, delectably appropriate given their environment. Loose curls floundered across exposed necklines, breathing soft waves over their pulse lines. Intricate designs of ivory lace, subdued silks, and simple robes were very much the fashion. Everything smelled strongly of rich oils and perfumes, all lathered in the heavy scent of sweat. It was appealing.

The half-breed waggled her eyebrows imploringly, before smirking, wickedly. Exposed breasts strained against tightly laced bodices, threatening to spill right over as clients were served goblets of vintage wine or morsels of food plopped into their open mouths, served from pinched fingers. Madame Lusine was always fond of Sparrow, often subtly offering a position if she so wished to try something adventurous, though that would've meant shedding the layers of identity she'd so carefully built over the years spent in Kirkwall. She'd told her that it wasn't just her handsome – sometimes, she was pretty – face, but her skills with a flattering quip. Still, it was not an option. For as much coin she spent gambling at the tables of the Hanged Man, Sparrow spent just as much contenting herself in the Blooming Rose, contributing to Madame Lusine's graceful mistresses, and impressive gentleman. Her tastes varied. She was not so set in her ways that she would not enjoy either gender, either persuasions. Both had qualities that she enjoyed. She did not, however, often completely satisfy her needs, because that would involve revealing her secrets – and if she knew anything, Sparrow understood that whores gossiped just as much as the snobbish bourgeois residing in Hightown. "Of course we've got time to—" She began theatrically, then faltered, eyeing the beauties waiting the tables. Oh yes, they had a job to do. She glanced in Rilien's direction, flashing another grin. Simpering like a shark swimming around a floating carcase. "After we've dealt with the matter at hand, yes?"

Sparrow often wondered what Rilien's opinion was on the subject of whores, on their subjective roles, or on the Blooming Rose as a whole. Did he find it repulsive? Had he ever gone to a brothel before he underwent the Tranquil procedure? She did not nip at his heels with these questions, as much as she wished to know, because she understood that they both enjoyed their privacy and would only share what they felt like sharing. It was a mutual, unspoken agreement. This didn't mean that she didn't fastidiously push Rilien in the direction of magnificent, compatible creatures. He needed love, too, didn't he? Chortling softly with her own bouts of laughter, more out of the fact that Ashton's laugh was contagious, Sparrow wheedled her way past towards the bar. “I'll be glad when this is done. Honestly, this is too much trouble for a Templar. What if he's already gone all abomination on us, chewing on a bar stool somewhere? He better not be accosting any lovely ladies here.” Finally, Sparrow reached the bar stools and slapped a hand on the counter. Murky eyes observed a nearby Elven's sauntering strut before slipping towards the barman. It took her a few seconds to process who was standing in front of her, entirely oozing boredom.

Maker's dimpled ass. Is that you, Rakkis?” She squinted at him, hard, before leaning across the counter and plucking the rosy robe's sleeve, letting it fall from her inquisitive fingertips. Sparrow straightened her posture, rubbing her chin thoughtfully. “That really looks good on you, y'know?

One was perhaps a strange person indeed if one managed to look rather exotic in a brothel, but the three of them traipsing about, still covered in shade-spume (well, actually, he wasn't, and Ashton had fought at a distance, so perhaps it wasn't so bad after all), visibly armed and dangerous, and at least on his and Sparrow's parts, of extraordinary coloring and construction respectively, somehow managed it. The first thing he noticed upon entry was how the demeanors of his companions changed. Saunters became swaggers, and they might has well have spread their arms and invited the world to wait on them like a pair of cormorant royals. Then again, he figured that this was supposed to be the mindset that one entered a brothel with, as that was rather the point of the exercise.

His subsequent realizations were about what he expected. Rilien was accustomed to using his nose to divine the nature of certain ingredients he crafted with, and as a result, it was laborious if not difficult to sort through the substances used to scent the place. Crushed rose petals, wisteria blooms, violets, vanilla bean extract (which incidentally would have to have been imported from Antiva), Orlesian sandalwood, and in a move most ironic, Andraste's Grace buds. He could actually appreciate that one, and for a moment he wondered if it was a private joke they played on their Templar patrons, who were apparently many. He also smelled sweat and old sex, which frankly would have repulsed him had he enough presence of mind to be repulsed. Even as he was, he did not like it in the slightest, and would have preferred to step back outside.

As for what he was seeing, well... he was Orlesian. It was all relatively tame comparitively, especially if he counted some of the places he'd been forced to visit as a bard. Neutrally as ever, he folded his arms into his sleeves and trailed after Sparrow and Ashton with reserve and as much dignity as one could muster when one was walking into a den of whores. The conversation they exchanged mostly passed right over him, though a reminder of their purpose was halfway-formed on his tongue before they seemed to recall it between themselves. Fortunate; he had no wish to taste the air he was smelling. Ashton's innuendo earned him a flat stare. It was almost, almost enough for Rilien's eyebrow to ascend his forehead in a clear question of the man's sense, but not quite. "Do be careful about that," he commented tonelessly. "You will find it quite counterproductive to acquainting the women here with your magic. It is also rather painful." The subtlest of jabs at the hunter's parting remark to Cullen the Templar, but of course for the way it was delivered, it may be no jab at all, but a mere literal interpretation of his words then and now. Instead, it was Ashton's eyebrow which raised. His mouth worked, trying to find the word What? but alas, his tongue could find no footing for his surprise.

Sparrow's exclamation diverted Rilien's attention, and he observed that indeed, the Coterie's racketeer and his own 'debt-collector' was in fact seated at the bar of the establishment. Not being most people, Rilien noted his expression first, his peculiar choice of garments second, and then decided that Sparrow had said enough and there was no need for him to contribute. Instead, his eyes ficked disinterestedly over the goings-on, and through this, he became aware that their promenade of an entrance was garnering them a fair amount of attention in return. He wished to simply acquire the information they needed and be gone from the overwhelmingly-perfumed air, but unfortunately he had very little recollection of how brothels were run, and Orlesian knowledge may not be all that transferable to the Marches when it came to this.

Rakkis was grateful that the clerical sorts present were otherwise engaged; it would be unseemly for one of them to witness his prayers, if they could be called that, being answered. His eyes had flicked to the door when it opened out of habit, and he was fully expecting to see the gut of some privileged pomp leading him in. Instead, he was greeted with a small and perplexing parade. First, the handsomest scarecrow in the Marches. A note of interest flickered to life on the elf's once-handsome features, but guttered and dwindled when he followed Ashton's gaze to a particularly large pair of bosoms. The perplexing bit was the fact that the human was outfitted as an archer. An image of the scrawny fellow drawing, nocking, and loosing played through his mind, only rather than propelling the arrow, the bow's string sent Ashton flying backward instead. That trifling amusement was interrupted by the second entrant, or rather, by Rakkis' recognition thereof. Sparrow was always slightly perplexing. When he was sure... she?... wasn't looking, his gaze would often linger on certain areas of the body that were usually the tell-tales of gender. Hips, throat, groin, chest. He could never quite make up his mind, but he'd decided, for the sake of simplicity and his lack of desire to bed... her?... to regard her as a female and have done with it.

The last of their little trio was the most confounding of all. It was rare enough that he came across the emminently neutral Rilien outside of the little shop that he'd been paying monthly visits to. Encountering him in the Blooming Rose of all places was somewhat akin to misplacing the a piece of a puzzle only to have it turn up in one's sock drawer several days later. He took a measured sip of the potent drink that had been lazing in his hand while he mused. All of them seemed battle-ready. That fact seemed to accent a sudden draft that occured in the wake of their opening the door, sluicing a bit of cold air across his thighs to make him all-the-more cognizant of his ridiculous robe. He remained inert as they approached, washing away anything resembling an expression save for bemusement, and then trilled laughter at Sparrow's remark.

”You say that as if anything might not, little bird." Glass met lips once more, and he glanced askance to Rilien and then Ashton. He nested his chin in the palm of his free hand, elbow braced on the counter, and smirked at Sparrow after swallowing. ”What brings you here? I can't imagine that dear Rilien has finally worked out what his cock is for, and you're hardly dressed for patronage." He tapped his thumb against his cheek, considering Ashton. ”You should introduce me to your new friend. If he's at all as interesting as he is attractive, I daresay I'd like to know him." He straightened to stand, wincing slightly at the slight protest from the wound on his flank. Perhaps it was the influence of the girly robe, or perhaps it was a bit of posturing meant for the presumably heterosexual Ashton, but Rakkis stood with his left hip jutted out just a bit, and his left hand resting upon it. It was a decidedly feminine way to stand, and the profundity of pink on his person only made it that much moreso.

Thus, their little game bloomed. If there was anything Sparrow enjoyed more than a healthy pair of bouncing, buxom bosoms, it was the possibility of settling two individuals in a heated embrace. It was more puzzling than anything else, but she still enjoyed it. Once she'd sidled up to the counter, she leaned backwards with her elbows braced on the counter's lip, so that she could still watch the comings and goings of the women tending to needy, beady-eyed clients. This was a more masculine stance if anyone had ever seen one, bellying the rich, unimpeded inclination dancing in those abysmal eyes. Two coins of burnished coal with an imperceptibly muted polish, effectively hiding her pupils. It was difficult to tell where, exactly, she was looking. Her lips parted, considerately. Would Ashton be a good sport about this or slap her across the head at a later time? It was tempting, tempting. “Forgive me.” Sparrow cooed over her shoulder, feigning having made a terrible blunder. Of course, Rakkis looked good in anything. It was necessary for his line of work, though she suspected he did not dress out of necessity. Perhaps, something had happened to his usual garb? Rilien had always been weary of tarrying in Rakkis presence – not because he made him uncomfortable, but because he didn't like the environments Rakkis surrounded himself with, acting crudely as he did. Most likely, Rilien would ignore any jibe made to his person, or react with his monotone quips, that were as sharp and keen-edged as any of her own.

Unfortunately, we're here on business.” The half-breed traded a passing glance in Rilien's direction, as if being gently led in the proper direction by guiding hands. Always there to remind her that she needed to finish the job at hand before prancing off to play. If it weren't for him, she believed she'd most likely be dead in the gutters, floundering like a fish whose fins had been cut off. Before Sparrow could explain their reasons for being in the Blooming Rose in the first place, Rakkis' keen eyes immediately turned towards her, equally, rapacious companion, Ashton. How enchanting. Her lips fluttered like a butterfly in flight, fracturing into a pleased smile. Her jingling laughter could not be contained, spilling forth. “Oh.” She began, purposefully slow, between bouts of amusement. “Rakkis meet Ashton, Ashton meet Rakkis. I'm surprised you haven't met before.” She introduced wryly, expectant eyes twinkling, while she swept her calloused hands in their direction. Again, Sparrow's gaze lingered on Rilien. Her companion did not wish to dally. Even if he didn't outright propose that they wasted time talking, she knew well enough by the subtle hints. It might've been what she saw in his eyes. “Ah, and we're searching for a man, a Templar, to be exact, named Keran. D'you know if he's in the ledger, lovely?

In further extension of his current costume, Rakkis, rather than coming forward to shake Ashton's hand or anything so subdued as that, offered a curtsy that was likely as uncomfortable to watch as it was to enact. His left leg bent at the knee just before his right crossed over to touch the very tip of his toes to the ground. His free hand came up limply, palm upturned and elbow crooked, and that was that. ”Charmed," he drawled at Ashton. His voice emerged from his throat, deep and somewhat edged, and he steered his drink upward one last time, finishing it off in a single admirable swallow. Setting the glass down on the bar with a clunk, he listened as Sparrow outlined their reason for being there rather than saying anything that he found interesting.

Sensing that Rilien was the cause of his fun's cradle-death, Rakkis treated the not-bard to a not-playful scowl. ”A Templar, hm? I don't believe the Rose employs any at the moment, that seems like something I'd be distinctly aware of. It seems we have similar tastes. The gear is of course a nice touch. A bit of role-playing, eh? I believe they abolished the group rates, unfortunately." His eyebrows lofted ridiculously. He was, of course, being an ass. He knew full well that they weren't looking to get their jollies- at least, not until they'd found this Keran and likely done him some harm. ”You'll want to speak to someone who actually works here, about that. I certainly haven't seen any such person since I arrived."

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

Ithilian's morning had been entirely unremarkable until Elren came to him. He'd attempted to finish carving that halla he'd been working on, only to end up ruining the horns. He'd need to start over after a mistake like that, so his left the remains of the carving for one of the kids to find. No doubt they'd still find it interesting. He then decided to do something he was far more skilled at, and had far more experience in: fletching. His arrows were without match, a skill he had developed over close to thirty years. There was something about using solely one's own arrows that helped with his accuracy. He knew the way the weapon would feel in his hands before he even pulled the string back, knew the weight and balance by heart. Every arrow was the same. There was nothing left to chance, leaving only the skill of his shot remaining.

He had just finished his twentieth arrow of the day when he was interrupted by a middle-aged elven man, light red hair pulled back behind his ears. Ithilian had learned his name to be Elren. He was as city elf as any of the others, but Ithilian at least had some respect for him. He wasn't blind to the fact that elves were stepped on constantly in Kirkwall. He wasn't in a position to do anything about it, but at least he didn't close his eyes while the shemlen oppressed him. Were he in a better mood (not likely) he might have tried to convince the man to join the Dalish and find a purpose, but as it was, he couldn't help but feel he'd be of no use. Too old, too set in his ways. Extra weight for a clan to carry around.

"I... heard about what you did the other day for Arianni, Ithilian. How you butchered those slavers to get her boy safely to the Dalish. My name is-" Ithilian cut him off, not looking up from the arrow he was currently working on. "Elren, I know. Is there something you want?" He tentatively continued, obviously intimidated by approaching Ithilian. "It's my daughter, Lia. There's a shem who has been kidnapping elven girls. And... murdering them. My Lia wasn't the first. He targets us because he knows the authorities won't do anything about it. No one cares if a few elven girls go missing."

Ithilian paused his work, peering up from his chair in front of his home at Elren. He studied him for a moment before speaking "Go on."

Elren picked up speed. "But he slipped up after taking my daughter. The city guard was able to follow him to one of the old abandoned mines outside the city. They cornered him there." Ithilian shrugged. "So he'll be caught and dealt with. Where do I come into this?"

"He took my daughter into that mine, and he killed her. But the guards won't go in after him. I tried to find out why, and they said they got attacked by some kind of creatures when they went after him. And now there's a city magistrate trying to recruit people to go in and bring the killer out alive and unharmed. There won't be any justice for my daughter if he lives. No one cares if a shem kills a few elves here. We're nothing to them." Ithilian gave him a rather blank stare "You say that like you know better than I. Why not let these creatures kill the shem if they're so dangerous?"

"I think they're protecting him. I think he's controlling them somehow to keep the guards out. Please, Ithilian, you could go there, pose as a hired sword for this magistrate, and then go inside and get vengeance for my daughter. The man who took her is a despicably sick shemlen who deserves nothing more than death at this point."

Now there was something Ithilian could get behind. Vengeance. Retribution. Removing a twisted shem who would soon realize that murdering elves was the worst mistake he ever could have made. City elves or no, the murderer deserved death... and apparently word of his actions was spreading somewhat, if Elren was actively seeking his help. He certainly hadn't been spreading tales about his daring rescue of Arianni's boy from the slavers. Arianni must have spoken of him to others. Perhaps with more time and effort, he could get this Alienage behind him after all.

"Consider him dead, then," Ithilian agreed, rising, and sliding his just finished arrow into his quiver. "I will bring Elgar'nan's wrath to this shemlen." Elren looked mightily relieved, and he clapped Ithilian on the shoulder, to which the Dalish made no response. "Creators, thank you! I know it won't bring my Lia back, but getting vengeance will be enough." Ithilian fixed him with a hard look. "No, it won't. But we'll take it just the same."

With that, he pushed his way past Elren, slinging his bow across his back, and buckling his quiver at his hip. His two long knives were sheathed at his waist, as ever. He didn't plan on getting his vengeance for Elren alone, however. He'd meant to speak to the human, or rather Qunari, girl usually sitting beneath the vhenadahl before now, but hadn't been able to force himself to get around to it. Apologies typically weren't his strong suit. And so he looked more than a little uncomfortable as he approached her now.

"Aneth ara, Amalia," he began. The informal, perhaps even friendly greeting, and the usage of her name rather than shem, were both things Ithilian had not expected himself to say. "There is something I would ask of you, if you are willing to hear. And... I feel I must also apologize."

Amalia had spent much of the morning inside the home she presently shared with a fair few viddethari. Though it was her preference to be out-of-doors when conditions were suitable, she was aware that dragging a full assortment of alchemic equipment out in front of the dwelling was impractical, and she had no wish to inadvertantly teach the basra anything of the manufacture of Qunari poisons, nor expose them to the fumes. So she'd been working under a cloth "hood" of sorts for most of the pre-noon hours, mixing ingredients in various bottles, labeled only in Qunlat, then preparing a new assemblage of needles by coating them in the quick-drying substance, which was successfully double the concentration of the ones she'd used last time. The results were recorded meticulously in a book she had acquired for this purpose, as she was certain the Ariqun would have some use for the improved formula. Craftsman she was not, but the Qunari were a much more pragmatic people than most outsiders assumed, and things which had a use were welcomed.

The needles so made were stowed carefully in small pouches, which she strapped to the cloth-covered thighs beneath her disguise, and she'd needed only to clean and sharpen the knife she'd looted from the dead archer and slide it into a boot before she had successfully adjusted for the damage to her supplies caused by the last fight. The noon hour, she'd occupied with further tests on a different weapon, a spring-loaded blade designed to be disguised by an ordinary gauntlet. The triggering mechanism wasn't quite right yet, but she trusted firmly enough in her ingenuity to know that it would come to her in time.

By the aftenoon, she was outside again, in the same location as always, but one more set of extra eyes on the entrance to the Alienage. She watched without concern when the one calling himself Elren walked by. A merchant, she understood. As was strangely-common in this place, he had to her knowledge but one family member, though she'd never met the girl herself. He moved out of her range, and Amalia went right back to her business, which right now was nothing more complicated than transcribing a copy of the Tome of Koslun into a language her viddethari could actually read.

Apparently, she was not meant to finish the task upon this particular afternoon, however, for a shadow, darker than that cast by the vhenadahl, fell over her work, accompanied by the sound of footsteps she recognized. For a moment, Amalia said nothing, finishing the sentence she was working on before marking her place in both books and closing them carefully, with something approaching reverence. She looked up, then, and nodded. "Shanedan, Sataareth. I will hear these things, if it please you to say them." She noted the unease in his carriage, and though she did not show any signs of the feeling, it amused her. This ought to be rather interesting.

He still needed to figure out what that word meant. He hadn't heard her use it with anyone else. He also didn't know if that was a good or bad thing. Perhaps it was some kind of taunt in her Qunari tongue, that she hung over his head, knowing he could not understand... but she didn't seem the type to taunt. He'd ask her later, it was far less important than the current matter.

"I've taken up another cause for the Alienage, and I would not object to having another blade at my side, so to speak. There is a shemlen that has been taking elven girls captive. He kills them. The city guard cornered him in a mine beyond the walls, and have him a trapped, but creatures of some sort prevent the guards from retrieving him. A magistrate would see him brought out of there alive, no doubt to be put through this city's putrid system of justice. He would no doubt walk free in a small matter of time if the decision is left to the shemlen. Elren's daughter was the last to be taken. He would have me go to this mine and see to it that the shemlen does not leave it alive, so that no more of my kind might be murdered by his madness."

He looked about the deep roots of the vhenadahl, as if consciously making an effort to avoid looking at her. "I don't need your help, but I would like it all the same. Which... brings me to the apology. I assumed that you were acting on selfish impulses that I could not see when we tracked down Feynriel, and I was proven wrong. You even voluntarily sacrificed yourself so that the Warden and the boy might escape. I still don't know why you're here or what motivated you to put your life at risk for a boy you had no ties with, but... if more shemlen acted as you did, I wouldn't mind."

She wondered if it hurt, to carry around such pride everywhere one went. The anger was sure to be uncomfortable on occasion as well. For her, this was not a subject of mockery or something to judge, merely a question she did not know the answer to. Either way, she accepted that because of these things, asking for her assistance was likely difficult, and apologizing even moreso. "I wouldn't mind if more humans acted like me either," she replied, the faintest edge of wry humor coloring her tone. Standing with both books in her hand, she gestured over a passing elf.

"Viddethari, would you please return these to the house?" The boy, probably not more than twelve, nodded his consent and took them from her, darting off to his residence. Amalia, for her part, dusted off her hands and stood. "I will assist you, Sataareth. Your apology is accepted. Is Elren certain his daughter is among the deceased?" She took a moment to check over her equipment again, ensuring that her newly-treated needles were present. The chain was a solid, comforting weight on her back, and the knife less ponderous in her boot. Grasping first one ankle, she lifted the foot behind her and stretched, repeating the motion with the opposite side before she nodded. Making ready was never a long process for her, after all.

"No. He does not have her body, but the killer has not spared any of those he's taken so far." Again she was easily willing to help. She was important to some of the elves here, though certainly not all, and it seemed they were important to her, too. Her Qun was not something Ithilian understood, but from what he saw, it was... impressive. Such a certainty of purpose. He had wished to learn more even before meeting Amalia, but the Qunari at the compound in the Docks always kept their gate closed to outsiders, and none seemed interested in speaking with any not of their kind.

Elren approached the pair then, looking anxious to be off. "You are departing now, then? I will be coming along, if you don't mind. Not inside the mine, of course. I am no warrior. But I want to be there when the task is finished." Ithilian did not object. He was still trying to decide if he was doing this to prevent the deaths of any more city elves, or simply to take vengeance. "Let's go, then," he said, and Elren led the way from the Alienage.

The Chanter's Board has been updated. New quests are available.

Setting

4 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Rakkis

Earnings

0.00 INK

Sweet, innocent Ashton took Rakkis' curtsy as a joke, as the man was wearing a pink robe and matching pair of trousers. The circumstances behind the outfit though, was a mystery to Ashton and he figured it had something to do with either a bet, or had a hell of a story behind it. But first, introductions. When Ashton was introduced, and when he realized that the two of them weren't going the normal route of shaking hands, Ashton opted to play along with the man's sense of humor and curtsy as well... Well, as best as his slender, lanky build would allow. He looked like a fool, but Ashton had no fear of playing the fool if it allowed for a good joke at the end. Once his sad act of a curtsy was done, Ashton listened with arms crossed as his new acquantance spoke. As he explained that the Rose employed no Templars, Ashton could help but chuckle, "That's be a strange sight. All that armor and religious fervor... It'd be a wonder nobody got hurt afterward. You'd have to issue helmets first."

Sensing that they wouldn't be able to fish the information they needed out of this aimble fellow, Ashton deciding to hunt down someone that would.
"I'll see if I can't find someone who can direct us to our Templar fellow," he said and began to look around for someone who might look like they worked there. His search rewarded him with one lady tending after a thick book at the corner of the bar. "Aha!" Ashton said as he approached the book keeper. "Excuse me Madame," he said with his patented grin gracing his lips, "If you would be so gracious as to entertain a question or two, I'd be forever in your debt."

The book-keeper, a short human woman with a rounded cut of dark red hair, raised an eyebrow at Ashton. "Forever, huh? I can think of a few uses for that. Alright, go ahead and shoot, archer."

Oh, he'd found a clever one. He let out a soft laugh at the woman's pun and asked his question. "Do you perchance have any records of a couple of Templar lads named Wilmod and Keran. This Keran's sister is dreadfully worried about her dear brother and we kindly offered to search for the boy. Any aid you could lend us would be much appreciated," Perhaps his charm was good enough so that the woman would humor his request. If not, well, he'd happily entertain some of this woman's lady guests in return for this information. Perhaps a little bit of Ashton wished for that particular outcome.

"Templars?" she asked, though her tone didn't darken at all. "We had one of those come through earlier, asking for those same boys. Handsome fella, though he wasn't quite on your level. He also wasn't interested, being the Knight-Lord of some such nonsense. Anyway... we happen to get a good amount of business from nervous Templar recruits looking to relax once in a while. I couldn't help the nice Templar earlier, but so long as you'd be willing to give your word not to spread this back to them, I suppose I could take a look through the books..."

"My lips are sealed Madame," It wasn't like he had planned to go around flaunting these kids' private business all around Kirkwall. Everyone was entitled to a little downtime every now and then, and who would Ashton be if he faulted them for it, considering his own urges? No, these Templars and their whore of choice would be a pretty little secret between them, one which he had no part in. As he waited for the most gracious lady to finger through her book, looking for the desired information, Ashton turned towards Sparrow and Rilien and shot them a thumbs up. Things were going well so far, though really, how could things go wrong in a place as magnificent as the Blooming Rose?

She flashed Ashton a pleased smile before turning to the large book behind her. "Let's see... Wilmod, Keran... ah, there we go. Wilmod came in here a lot. You sure he had time to be a Templar?" She ran a finger horizontally along the page. "They last saw... Idunna, The Exotic Wonder from the East. Seems they were regulars of hers, actually. You might try her, then. She's just up the stairs, the first door on the right. Oh, and you didn't hear any of this from me, okay?"

"Of course milady. Thank you again," Ashton said with a bow as he backed up. He needed to get this news to his companions and then decide where to go from there. He approached the bar where he left them and Rakkis, "Right, we got a lead. One certain Exotic Wonder from the East, Idunna up them stairs there. Said that she was the last to see our buddies Wilmod and Keran. Say what you want about our Templars though, they do have good tastes..." Ashton trailed off as his eye caught the wares of a pretty young lass.

Her mouth twisted bemusedly. Already, Sparrow could tell that Rakkis and Ashton, together, would make an interesting pair to be around. She scoffed, snorting loudly when Ashton attempted his own curtsy, though far less graceful then Rakkis' alluring display. She scratched idly at the back of her neck to cover up her amusement, smirking behind her extended elbow. Sparrow watched as her companion swept away from the group, swaggering towards the woman shuffling, nonchalantly, through an open book. She'd, obviously, point them in the right direction. She made no move to follow him. Surely, with both of them ogling the Blooming Rose's women, they'd only distract each other. When Ashton returned with news, Sparrow laughed bawdily and prodded him softly in the chest to remind him why they were here. “Let's see this Exotic Wonder from the East, then.” Both of her hands sailed forward, as if to get them moving towards the stairs. Her lips pressed into a line, before a wily grin appeared. Her eyes shuttered at half-mast, decisively saucy. “Perhaps, this was one of the tests Meredith put them through. Test their wills. If you fail, then you she gives you the old boot.

Rilien, neither directly addressed nor attacked, took his present circumstances as leave to let his mind wander. He was not interested, for the most part, in the pleasures of the flesh, though this had not always been his nature. Certain things, however, were ample deterrent from the environment he now found himself in, and Tranquility was not the only one he could claim. So instead he thought of other, more complex things, such as the potions and poultices left stewing in the Darktown hovel memorable only for its cleanliness and the bunches of dried herbs hanging from the ceiling, and he reminded himself that he'd have to add the mugwort to the batch of restoratives he had going in the back room...

Drawn from his musings by Ashton's return, the former bard wasted no time discussing the relative merits of brothel naming conventions or the tastes of Templar recruits. Brushing past several patrons and employees without actually touching any of them, he ascended the staircase to the upper level of the establishment, stopping dead in his tracks as something twinged faintly in the back of his mind, a small niggling sensation that reminded him too easily of things lost and things still hidden. "Be wary," he pronounced evenly, and then his stilllness shattered as he moved efficiently to the doorway behind which he'd felt the magic. He stared at the door but made no move to open it, though he'd proceed through normally when one of his companons did. It was situations like this that reminded him most acutely of what he had lost. He could sense it, quite nearly taste the magic on the tip of his tongue, much like he felt in the Circle, only this... this carried some tinge of bitterness to it, a metallic taste that he swallowed as if he'd bitten his own tongue.

He didn't like it.

Illustrious colours seemed to blend together into a sludgy kaleidoscope of lace and silk as she walked, never focusing on one long enough to discern which colours attracted her more. She tunnel-visioned her way towards the staircase, a few paces behind her companion, Rilien. Even if she often got distracted, and even if beautiful eyes and long eyelashes and delicate fingers could sway her over into unmindful thinking – when Rilien got that look in his eye, like he'd rather not be where he is and that, perhaps, it would just be best to deal with this thing quickly, silently, pleasantly, then Sparrow could not, and would not, ignore it. He'd done more for her then she could ever admit. More than she could ever repay. A silent buzzing provided her with an empty slate, a vacuous background noise to focus her thoughts on, much like the murmuring cicada's hanging from the trees outside of Kirkwall. It was enough to drag her attention, forcefully, away from those sprightly patrons, weaving their way between tables, giggling between grubby fingers. They certainly didn't deserve their attention, anyway. Piggish Templar's and pug-nosed aristocrats.

And so, Sparrow followed Rilien, idling towards the railing so that she could steal a glimpse of his current fluid expression. Those, infrequent as they were, passed as quickly as a thoughtless blink. It was not in the way any normal individual would express themselves. It was not shown through an inquisitive waggle of an eyebrow, the flash of a smile, or the intuitive wink of the eye. She wasn't even sure when she'd discovered that Rilien expressed a lot more than you might've originally thought, given that he was Tranquil. It made no difference to her, so she was always attentive to the little clues. The small, nearly transparent, indications that something was askew. From her vantage point, Sparrow could only perceive a few eyelid clicks and a placid nothingness. It was only when Rilien verbally cautioned them that she took a breath, inadvertently nodded, and pushed past him to open the door. Her movements were brisk, unhurried. Her shoulders imperceptibly tensed, tightening into ready knots. Those who knew her best could tell she was preparing herself, coiling her energy as tightly as a cork being pressed into a bottle of wine. She too could taste something.

The three were greeted by a lavishly decorated room upon entering, a blast of color and wealth that quite literally exuded from the very furniture. The room had but one window, and only the one entrance. Curtains covered the window, leaving the only light remaining produced by the candles dotted about the room, giving the whole area an extremely seductive and romantic aura.

Which was no doubt amplified by the woman lounging on the bed. Dressed in a wispy dress of loose silks that seemed to fall perfectly around her curves, Idunna smiled rather welcomingly, peering at them with her striking green eyes as the group entered. She pulled some of her thick, dark hair back across an ear before greeting them. "I wasn't aware my next client was bringing friends, but I suppose the more the merrier. I'm afraid this will cost you a little extra, of course."

It was an extremely tempting offer. Tempting enough that it caused him paused and made him debate the issue. He turned to his companions and realized that it may not be so good of an offer. He wasn't sure of Sparrows persuasion, only that he hoped that she was indeed a she. He didn't quite feel like answering that puzzle anytime soon. And then there was Rilien. He did not like that idea, seeing how he was undoubtably a fellow-- and a tranquil at that. He didn't think that they would too fun to begin with. No, that settled it, this would not be a group party. "I apologize my fair lady, but this is a business calling. Pleasure can come later," and if I have my way, it will, "We have it on good authority that a couple of Templar types favored your services, and for good reason I expect. My companions and I are hoping you would be able to help us? One of their sisters is terribly worried about her brother."

Sparrow blinked her way into the chamber, then sidestepped. She teasingly swept her arm like a foppish nobleman, allowing her companions to pass her, bowing low, before gawking quietly at the woman lounging across the lavishly decorated bed. Her features certainly were of an exotic flavour. It was a pity she was human. Her mouth parted, then closed. Something was wrong. Carnal pleasures – how wrong was that? She couldn't quite put her finger on it. Overwhelming scents of faraway places teased the nostrils, indubitably coming from the Orlesian herbs hanging from the rafters in lovely bunches. A simpering pout graced the woman's ruby lips, deliberately unruffled by their numbers, by their sudden appearance in such disheveled states. Dim candles, lush fabrics, pillows liberally placed. “Ah,” She mouthed, softly, then reconsidered. Ashton was already filling in the pieces for her. For that, she was strangely thankful. What was wrong with her? Her words clambered on top of each other, pushing their way back down her gullet. "Two naughty boys by the name of Wilmod... or Keran. Sound familiar?"

There was an ever so subtle narrowing of her eyes at the mention of the two names, but that was soon replaced with a thoughtfulness. "Wilmod... Keran... no, I'm afraid those don't sound familiar." She sighed, her breath blowing a lock of hair away from her face. "But... with a body like mine, men rarely have time to give me their names, busy as they are with... other things."

Her eyes wandered about the three before her, traveling up and down the lengths of their bodies, seemingly seeing through them, or perhaps simply seeing through their clothes. Her eyes locked with Ashton and she gently patted the bed beside her. "Come now, darling... questions are so utterly boring. Why don't we have some real fun? Just thinking of the things we could get up to is almost too much." Her tone was decadent and seductive, and there was now unmistakably some kind of air about her, an aura of attraction that was incredibly difficult to resist, and perhaps unnoticeable to someone who didn't want to resist.

"They may be boring madam, but they are... Necessary. I think," Ashton said in a melancholy tone. Why was he helping these Templars? He had no stake in this, he owed nothing to this Keran. Spending some time with this woman, with this Exotic Wonder of the East seemed like a better use of his time than finding a Templar he knew nothing about. "Are you... Sure you don't know anything about this Keran? All that armor... It's kinda hard to miss. Surely you would remember all of that crashing it would make," he said, trying his best to keep his eyes on the task at hand. But the curves of the woman.. The pretty face, the whispers of flesh and carnal desire. It was all too much to bare.

"I... Suppose Keran can wait... He's bound to be... Alright. Right?" Ashton asked Idunna as he approached the bed she sat on. Somewhere deep within him knew this was wrong, knew that something was off. But he was far too bewitched to fight the pull, the urges. The only hint of resistance that Ashton had was his slow, deliberate steps-- a farcry from the spring in his step had a mere moments ago.

Her eyes turned on Sparrow and Rilien next, after delivering Ashton an approving smile. "Listen to your handsome friend here. Surely you'd rather enjoy your time here at the Rose than spend it inquiring after Templars. No charge, either, just this once."

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

The journey to the mine was longer for Elren's presence, but Amalia made no indication of aggravation at this. It was clear that he was not intended for such treks, but he did not complain, which was more than could be said for many. The Qunari was content to follow a pace or two behind Ithilian, no longer seeing any need to make a point of presenting her back to him. If he didn't know she wouldn't slide a knife in his by now, then he never would, and she wasn't going to perpetuate a fruitless battle of that sort. Peace-of-mind was not something she generally went out of her way to provide for others, though it could perhaps be said that she was capable of gentleness when it was most required.

The three of them rounded a bend, and the mine came into view on the other side of it. Set deeply into the hill, the opening was little more than a person-height opening in jagged brown stone, perhaps two armspans in width. She had little doubt that a kossith would have trouble fitting through without considerable stooping. The Arishok's horns would catch unpleasantly on the rocky shelf, if he tried. The conjured image of this was something she'd do well not to remember when next she saw him, else she smile and ignite his famously-volatile temper. She was not his subordinate, but it was unwise to anger the powerful.

A few guards ranged about the outside of the mine, though even the closest were a conspicuous distance from the entrance, and she suppressed the derisive snort that threatened. And these men called themselves warriors. Were they of her people, such cowardice in the face of danger would ensure their demotion. Here, it was likely to be viewed as proper discretion. From the looks they were giving Ithilian and Elren, this was going to be unpleasant. Perhaps if she did the talking, they wouldn't all end up dead in the sand. Unnecessary death was a waste, after all, though some wasted more by living. She wondered which sort these were. "You may wish to wait here," she told Elren flatly. She raised a single eyebrow at Ithilian and tilted her head sideways, as if to signal him forward, though perhaps any entreaty to that effect would be wasted. He was unlikley to stand around as these guards did.

Still, she maintained her initial thought and spoke first, once they were within earshot of a guard. Close-cropped red hair, the stocky build of a native Marcher... and the closest thing to an air of authority that any of these men possessed. It would have to do. "This is where the fugitive has taken refuge?" She had nearly called the criminal vashoth before she remembered that the word would likely only earn her blank stares. Besides, one was only vashoth when one defected from something worthy.

The guard stroked his chin for a moment, sizing up the two that had presented themselves before him. "Huh... so you're the reinforcements the magistrate promised?" Ithilian gave him a sturdy glare in return. "We were sent to collect the fugitive that you cornered in these ruins. You have a problem with that?" The guard shrugged. "No, I suppose not. The fugitive's holed up in this mine, though I doubt he's still in one piece."

"It makes little difference to me. I'm going in to collect him, or to collect his corpse. You just keep cowering out here, and I'll have your job done for you soon enough." At this, the guard took a step forward. "Watch yourself, elf. You're speaking to a member of the city guard." But Ithilian was already heading off towards the mine entrance. "A fine example of the best the shemlen have to offer."

Killing them would have been to his liking... but it was inconvenient and unnecessary. He was here to kill one shem in particular. Also, murdering members of the city guard wouldn't get him far in the city, certainly. He didn't need the kind of scrutiny that would bring. As the daylight dimmed around them and they entered the mine itself, Ithilian slid his knives slowly from their sheaths at his waist. "And they call themselves protectors of their city. I wonder how many receive coin from the Coterie."

He took a glance around the interior. This place was largely collapsed, fallen into disrepair since the Tevinters had been driven out, which had been some time ago. Slaves, largely elven ones, had worked mines such as these, mercilessly whipped into servitude by their Tevinter magister overlords. Creators only knew how many deaths occurred down here, hidden from the light of the sun. In places like these, any number of unearthly horrors could present themselves. "This place reeks of death. These creatures Elren spoke of must be shades, undead of some sort. Restless souls of dead elven slaves. Our fugitive seems a fool to flee here."

"About half, if the sampling from lowtown is statistically average," Amalia replied, though she knew the question was largely, if not entirely, rhetorical. She tended to make it her business to know the business of her charges, and more than one had been harassed by the Coterie before. Not so much now, with a most unusual soul occasionally standing guard in front of the place at odd hours, but still it was important to know. The Qunari mind was designed for logic, for science, at least compared to the ones bent in the direction of gods and magic.

The first thing she noticed about the mine, interestingly enough, was the way it smelled. Sulfur, brimstone, and wet rot. It was enough to twist her face into a grimace, and she resisted the urge to pinch her nasal passages shut. She did wrap her scarf around her nose and mouth though. While it would muffle her voice to some extent, she didn't often use it anyway, and the lack of an olfactory distraction was well worth the price. Her hand slid into one of her leg-pouches, the slipped out to rest at her side. Her needles, longer and slightly thicker around than the ones she'd used before, rested loosely in her grip for the moment. Tempted as she was to take to the shadows, she realized that she was not working by herself, and it made more sense for the moment to remain where her companion could see her. Her steps still made no noise.

Rounding one of the ninety-degree corners in the mine, they were faced with several doors. From the rubble surrounding one of them and the hinges rusted over with age, it was likely immovable and certainly not a route recently taken. Of the two that remained, the one in the center looked serviceable, and the one on the left was set back at the end of a short hallway, filled, incidentally, with giant spiders. "I suppose that way is our best bet," she pointed out nonchalantly, indicating the door to the left with a quick jerk of her head.

Ithilian did not cover his face any more than it was already covered, but instead his features molded into the frown that they wore so well. He grunted assent to Amalia's suggestion, taking the lead on the way through the door, stepping over the remains of the creatures without much care. He'd seen far larger and far more sinister beasts in the Brecilian Forest. And far bigger spiders. The largest one he'd encountered was actually as big as some of the homes people had in Lowtown. That had been an interesting occasion.

Torchlight lit their way from braziers placed along the wall at various intervals, another indicator that someone had passed through this way. It wasn't long before Ithilian's shoe cracked down upon the rounded surface of a skull in the earth, the first visible skeleton they had encountered. Elven, by the shape of the ear holes. He frowned. Or rather, continued to frown. "There could be dozens, hundreds even. The magisters were not careful with their workforce in the slightest. Half of their lives were likely taken by their overlords themselves. Hopefully whatever force lurks in here cannot raise them all at once."

And right on cue, there was a creaking of bones from further in, and a pair of mangled skeletons rose from the dirt, beginning to shamble their way towards them. Ithilian was quick to sheath his daggers and draw the bow, pulling the string back and loosing an arrow into one, and then the other, the force of the arrows taking the heads right off the spines and sending the rest of the bones clattering to the ground. Silence returned, but only for a moment. After listening for further threats, Ithilian spoke again.

"The Qunari fight the Imperium, on Seheron, don't they? Is it purely territorial?" There was genuine curiosity in his tone. There were few shemlen as vile as those of Tevinter, and anyone who fought against them deserved at least some of his respect, regardless of the reason.

Amalia as a rule had little use for hope, but she understood that this turn of phrase was more idiom than anything and left it unanswered. At the skeleton, she cocked her head, examining it this way and that. The bones were, upon close inspection, slightly charred. With no braziers in the immediate vicinity, she'd have said, were she asked, that this elf had met her (for indeed her pelvic bones and skull were shaped in the manner of a female) end via fire spell. The lava flows that flanked some of the paths here would not have left even bones behind. In fact, the presence of them at all placed the most recent active use of this place far later than she would have expected, long after slavery had been legal in this part of the world. She chose not to mention this to Ithilian; chances were, he already knew, and if he didn't, she saw no need to make him angrier for no reason.

Moving on, she trailed a little ways behind, quickening her pace slightly to catch up. "Yes," she replied to his first question. "And no. Land is of no consequence to the Qunari." Her people were efficient enough to control populations and resources well enough that they would never overtax their designated areas, regardless of how small those became. They were more skilled at bare survival than those who aimed always for more, for decadence and wealth, but neither were they content to merely subsist. She thought, perhaps, that this was something Ithilian might understand, if he thought about it properly. She did not elaborate, however, because this was not the thing she had been asked.

Ithilian did not seem satisfied with the answer, but he did not press, instead choosing to focus his attention on their surroundings, another arrow nocked into his bow, his fingers pulling it back slightly, prepared to fire at a moment's notice. Amalia was as to the point as ever, not answering any more than was asked. To be honest, the Dalish had been looking for a condemnation of the ways of the Tevinter, some kind of indication that the Qunari fought against them for simply being the despicable and depraved things that they were. She gave him no such answer, only more questions. She was a frustrating one... but it was certainly better than the snake-tongued shemlen who told the elves only what they wished to hear in order to keep them in line.

The two eventually came to another door. Slipping past the Sataareth, Amalia pressed her ear to it, brow furrowing in concentration. She heard a piece of rubble hit the ground, and then echo for some time. After that, everything was silent, or else beyond her capability to detect. "The room is large, and mostly open. Nothing moves inside... yet."

Ithilian watched their backs while Amalia listened for signs of threats. There was an angry presence about, and not just himself. Perhaps he was imagining things, but it was as though the very walls seemed annoyed that anyone would tread where so many had died. This place was a tomb now, and they were disturbing it with the intention of adding yet another corpse to its earth. They needed to press further in, and would undoubtedly run into more resistance, and whatever force was raising the dead within. He wondered how useful those needles of the Qunari's would be against creatures that had no blood or flesh to speak of. Poisons were not the best choice against those already dead.

But the Dalish had learned (slowly) that it was not a wise decision to underestimate her. She'd likely had as much training as he had, if their previous exploits were any indicator. "We've already disturbed this place," he commented, "the dead know we're here. All that's left is to let them rest once more." He gestured with his head for Amalia to step aside, before lowering his shoulder into the stone door and pushing. It was large and heavy, but with force it moved.

Amalia was correct in her educated guess about the room. It was large and square, with a very high roof, being built into the mountainside as it was. This was perhaps a main chamber of sorts for the mine, no doubt a place where the magisters could convene away from their hordes of slaves. Here the darkness felt the thickest. It echoed about the chamber like the sounds echoed off the walls. The cause of this was clear, as Ithilian gazed towards the far corner of the room. A pride demon had possessed the corpse of a magister, creating an arcane horror. The bloodless, skinless corpse currenly floated about a foot off the ground, wrapped in tattered mage robes that the human had been wearing when he died. The dead rose around it, elves enslaved even in death. It seemed as though the horror had made this room its home.

"Fine by me if the magister wants to die a second death," Ithilian growled, drawing an arrow back and loosing it into the skull of the nearest corpse. He was aware that the floating form of the arcane horror was not a Tevinter magister but rather a demon, but it didn't hurt to think of it that way. It summoned forth its magic as the Dalish began his attack, throwing up a powerful shield around itself while the dozens of its skeletal minions advanced on Ithilian and Amalia.

Amalia scoffed gently beneath her breath at the sight, stowing her needles and for the moment remaining unarmed. She had thought the presence of the spiders indicated that more were ahead, but apparently she was to be dealing with the walking dead. Any moral reservations that she might have considered regarding the wastefulness of taking life vanished abruptly; for a Qunari, a corpse was scarcely of greater value than refuse. There was nothing here to be slain, only automata to be dismantled.

So thinking, Amalia took off in a dead sprint, veering abruptly to the left and very much intending to make a more tempting target than Ithiian for the ranged fighters among the dead. She noted from the corner of her eye that several archers were indeed tracking her with their heads, followed swiflty by their bows. This would have to be timed well, or she would very likely end up a pincushion. Waiting for the moment when they committed to their shots, she doubled back suddenly, altering her angle by a bit more than ninety degrees. The arrows whizzed by, aimed for where she would have been, though one of them caught her upper left arm. It didn't embed there, merely left a shallow cut in the region. Now, though, she was drawing closer, and the seconds the corpses spent aiming would have been long enough for her companion to drop two or three with well-placed arrows of his own, which was rather the point.

As they readjusted their aim, Amalia wavered from visibility and disappeared entirely, costing them yet more time if they wished to fire at a visible target. A few loosed in her general direction anyway, but firing blind yielded them nothing, and she was pouncing upon the first before any could shoot thrice. Knocking the once-slave back onto the ground, she crouched on his ribcage, grabbing either side of his head in a hand and twisting abruptly, snapping his neck with a much drier sound than would be expected of the living. Something- vitality, perhaps, or whatever foul magic kept it moving- seeped out of the creature, and it fell still beneath her, giving her just enough time to roll out of the way of a hammerblow from another. Drawing the knife from her boot, the Qunari rose and stabbed in a single motion, twisting the blade embedded in this larger foe's throat. It, too, sagged against her, and she concluded that what would have been fatal (physically) to a live person worked well enough on these possessed clusters of bones and rotting flesh. It might have been a comforting fact, even, had she thought comfort a notion that applied to these situations at all.

She didn't, really.

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel

Earnings

0.00 INK

His warning had apparently been ignored entirely. Rilien could not say he was unused to this; people rarely bothered to pay him much mind when he spoke. Perhaps it was the monotone, perhaps it was the fact that they were too busy staring. Either at his brand or the elf himself, depending on the person. Maybe he was just too creepy. He recalled being called so, on more than one occasion. He was personally inclined to liken it to an old expression: damned if I do, damned if I don’t. Have magic, that was.

Not being much for the effects of mood lighting, and not paying much heed to scent beyond dissecting it mentally, he was entirely unmoved by the room itself. He did, however, catch a flash of irritation passing over his mind, even as he felt a peculiar twinge in the back of it. Emotional states that pronounced were sure indicators of powerful magic being worked in the vicinity, and as he knew Sparrow was not presently casting and Ashton was as amagical as the average Mabari (and perhaps slightly less conscientious when it came to heeding advice), it left the woman.

The Tranquil's eyes narrowed, lips pursing faintly, and he ignored the swooning archer in favor of directly addressing the whore. “Release him, mage, and answer our questions.” it was an actual struggle to keep his tone flat, though he did manage it with effort. If he had his guess, he’d say blood magic. The Fade was close here, and this woman was no spirit healer. They felt different, brought out his more gentle emotions, or what was left of them. This situation produced a frustrated flex of his fingers and something dangerously-close to indignation at the fact that she thought she was being clever, playing such base games with defenseless minds.

He… disliked it.

Idunna's delicate brow furrowed in frustration as Rilien did not seem affected by her magic. At least, not very much. At the tone of his voice, however, she appeared somewhat surprised. She had not noticed him for a Tranquil, perhaps simply assuming that it would be ridiculous for a Tranquil to enter the Blooming Rose in the first place. It presented a problem for her. She could not simply will him into obeying her commands. He wanted something from her, something involving the Templar recruits Wilmod and Keran. She did not let up the spell that Rilien had called her out on, instead narrowing her eyes at the Tranquil.

"And why do want to help them? They're Templars. They did that to you," she said, gesturing with a flick of her hand towards the brand upon his forehead. "What I know is that I'm fighting for mages, and that the recruits are playing a part. I'm helping make sure no one else ends up like you. Isn't that something that's worth a little sacrifice?"

It was peculiar. She'd never been the victim of a blood mage, let alone such a convincing one. She'd found herself moving forward, albeit at a much more sluggish pace, towards Ashton and Idunna, nearly tiptoeing. Her thoughts dragged along like murky molasses, sucking her down like quicksand. It offered no refuge for clarity. From within, Sparrow battered at her glass walls, unsuccessfully. She was aware what was happening. There was no room for any thoughts beyond inhabiting the closest space possible to this woman she knew nothing about – and perhaps, taking her up on that offer of carnal pleasures. Her usual guardedness, mutely whispering that shedding any clothes would be detrimental to her health, had already laid down it's weapons, undermining itself through the means of ignoring her survival's instincts. She might've proposed, in hushed tones, that it was a good idea, that they should treat this beauty a little better, that perhaps they'd been mistaken. Most notably, Sparrow's eyes were dull.

"What is the point of doing so if in the process, one becomes exactly what they said? You would make them right for what? The illusion that you could topple an institution that will outlive all of us?" Rilien appeared vaguely nonplussed, but it passed quickly. "My motives are none of your concern. Release the archer and the other, or I will kill you." From the way his right hand drifted to the hilt of the correpsonding knife, and the complete lack of anything resembling confusion or hesitation in his words, he meant what he said, even if he did inflect it as though he were idly commenting on the weather. Maybe that made it worse.

"It isn't an illusion," she responded, perhaps as though trying to convince herself, "sometimes change has to be forced. The Templars will only outlive us if we let them. We've found a way to sow chaos in their ranks like never before. We could destroy them utterly if only our own kind would quit helping the enemy!" She followed with her eyes as his hand drifted to the knife hilt. "There can't be peace with the Templars. Some people just can't see that yet. But... I cannot fight you."

And with that, the aura was dispelled from the room, and the perceptions of Rilien's companions would return to normal. Idunna stood, looking perhaps frightened by the Tranquil's cold manner, and she averted her eyes, for the most part. "There, they're released, and I am at your mercy. If I tell you what you want to know, will you let me go?"

"So... No fun time is it? Suddenly, that sounds okay. Surely there are others who won't kill me for it," Ashton said, now of his own free will once again. He took the following moments to quickly step backwards-- particularly behin the two mages, Rilien in particular.

Rilien did not desire to have to raise his voice to be heard over another person, and so he waited for Ashton to regain his bearings, though his fingers did loosen from their grip on the weapon at his back. He tracked the human's movement with his eyes until the tall archer was behind him, and resisted the sudden urge to roll them skyward. The magic had ceased, so this was no longer particularly difficult, though he could still sense the ambient Fade in the area. "If you tell us everything you know about the situation, I will no longer have any reason to harm you," he replied honestly. He, after all, was not a Templar. It was certainly none of his business whether mages consorted with demons or ran about freely in Kirkwall, nor indeed if they had particular kinds of liasons with Fade-blind recruits.

He did glance sideways though, to make sure Sparrow was still with them, so to speak, before he allowed himself to make that statement. It would not do to lose either of his companions, to this blood mage or to their own startling lack of self-control.

Everything seemed to fall back into place, like puzzle pieces shifting in the correct order. The room's details brightened, contrasted, and appeared less hazy. Sparrow glanced at Rilien, sucking back an impatient, if not annoyed, breath. How hadn't been she been able to clear her head, or at least, break the mage's seductive spell? Something in her mouth tasted bitter – the Fade, no doubt. Her chest heaved, as if trying to expel what had just occurred. The serpentine whore had been trying to harm them. Her enticing beauty fell away like pockmarked curtains, heaping around her bare feet like a snake who'd finished shedding it's skin, revealing an ugliness she could not ignore. Just as bad as any abomination. Her mouth twitched, and her expression transformed. She did not have her companions lenience, nor did she have any of Rilien's controlled impassivity. Her fingers imperceptibly flicked, once empty, now occupied with a jagged, ornately decorated, dagger. Ironically enough, it'd been one of Rilien's offhanded gifts, probably given out of sheer necessity. The distance closed immediately between them. Sparrow snatched a handful of the woman's flowing hair, close to the scalp, and dragged her forward, tipping her chin with the blade's tip.

You heard him, didn't you? Answers, now.

Idunna's breathing quickened as Sparrow grabbed a fistul of her hair and dragged her closer, the knife sliding up under her chin. She swallowed, eyes averting her intense gaze. "Yes, of course, everything I know... you're looking for a woman named Tarohne, she's the one that recruited me and taught me the spell which I used upon you. It's blood magic, given to her by a demon of desire, which she in turn taught to me." She realized that they had probably already figured out she was a blood mage, but it seemed worth mentioning. She didn't want to seem dishonest in the slightest anymore, not with the tip of a blade pressed up against her throat.

"Her goal has been to create chaos among the Order, from within. She found a way to allow demons to possess nonmages, and we've been using it on Templar recruits. I've been directing them to her, enthralling them with blood magic, and then sending them to our sanctuary in Darktown. There's a secret entrance near the western staircase, a door marked with an amulet like the one I wear." It was rather nondescript, a silver pendant with a small, ruby colored gem set into the center. "That's all I know, I swear. I don't how she does it, I just send her the recruits. The Order would collapse from within if cases like these continued to pop up. Abominations within their own ranks... they wouldn't even be able to trust themselves! Please, don't kill me, don't turn me in to the Templars. I only want my freedom."

Ashton's fingers intertwined and rested on top of Rilien's snow-like head as his chin rested upon his fingers, peering at the blood mage from the relative safety behind the tranquil. He listened quite intently to the Exotic Wonder's words, looking for any more hints of bewitching or anything even remotely that smelled like magic. Despite his distance from the blood mage, and the fact that his bow stood unstrung in the quiver on his back, he wasn't completely defenseless. If she expressed anything but repentance or a willingness to talk, then one of Rilien's knives would find her heart.

However, such violence wasn't necessary as she squealed like a nug in heat-- At least he imagined nugs squealed. He never actually laid eyes on one before. Either way, she gave up the information with relative ease. The knife under her chin probably had something to do with that. "Right. Well. Now we have our heading. Let's go and get this over with. Blood magic tends to sour my appetite as it were," Ashton spoke, head bobbing above Rilien's.

"A shame really. A blood mage has such potential in a brothel-- if you know what I mean," Ashton teased as he playfully tugged at one of Rilien's pointed ears, "Alas, if only she used her powers for the good of man instead of evil. That is one of the tenants, no? Magic must be used to serve man?" He said, chuckling. Sure, she might have just tried to ensnare him, but Ashton was nothing if not curious. He couldn't help but wonder what a... Sampling of a blood mage would be like.

"Sparrow." The two syllables, dully-spoken as they were, may have carried many connotations. They might have been an admonishment, a caution, a warning, and, if his fellow elf listened closely enough, almost strangely affectionate. Of course, perhaps that was only the case if one read too far into the situation. Perhaps it was only a fancy of the imagination that would make Rilien into a caretaker, a guardian, and something vaguely protective. He was, after all, supposed to be a creature without feeling. But Sparrow, he understood, was given to flights of fancy and capricious whim, so she might well understand some or all of these things by his singular word.

He was aware of the archer looming behind him, and though he did not expect to be touched, neither did he react to it, the flattening of his smooth-textured hair, and his carriage remained entirely vertical even with the additional weight of Ashton's leaning on him. His face did not change for the duration of the undignified incident, not even when the human manhandled his ears. Rilien did not understand the reasons for it, but as he had no particular claim to discomfort from it, so he saw no need to correct it. It was, as so many things are, simply what it was. He folded both arms into his sleeves again, and the thought crossed his mind that this probably only added to the absurdity of the image.

Without futher prompting, Rilien walked out from under Ashton, heedless of whatever damage he might do to the archer's balance in the process, and headed for the door. "Then we are headed to Darktown. I doubt I need remind anyone what will happen if this Tarohne is prepared for us." The answer was simple, and one or the other of his companions was sure to punctuate it anyway. He doubted this Idunna was brave enough to attempt to warn her fellow blood mage, besides; not when she gave so easily under the limited pressure they'd applied. Thereafter, he drifted out of the brothel, though the motion was perhaps with too much purpose to be given such an errant label. He expected that the other two would follow; surely they also could feel that their task neared its end.

Had it been Rilien's admonishment, or his quiet suggestion, that idled the blade's tip a little lower, a hair's breath from the woman's quivering chin. It might've been something else. Either way, Sparrow's sooty eyes narrowed ever so slightly, reflecting two shady mirrors: the Exotic Wonder's dismay, spilling out. Where was her confidence now? Where was her bravery? Big doe-like eyes, soft skin, pouty lips – as if those things would warrant any sympathy from her, as if what she'd nearly done was worth forgiving. Where Sparrow screamed and hissed, Rilien merely cocked his head to the side, and where Sparrow was filled with a reckless courage, Rilien was calm-collected common sense. Surely, Ashton agreed that this woman wasn't worth another moment of their time, regardless of any fleeting fancy involving her long eyelashes fluttering against their collarbones. She sang like a bird hanging from a cat's mouth, dangling between teeth and a lolling tongue and a hungry stomach. “Lucky girl, you are.” If he hadn't been here, would things have ended differently? Probably. Sparrow finally released her grip on the woman's scalp, tapping that blade's tip against her cheek before sighing softly. The half-breed squared her shoulders and rubbed at the jewel hanging at her earlobe, regarding Ashton silently, then down at Rilien. They'd be good friends. She could already tell. The anger she'd felt at being so easily tricked melted away, sifted through her fingers like sand.

Sparrow pointed her dagger in Ashton's direction, laughing, and motioning in a quick circle before replacing it back in it's hidden sheath. “Much more fun when you're a willing participant.” She added with a cluck of her tongue. Things hadn't panned out accordingly, but at least they'd seen the Blooming Rose's wares before things went sour. She didn't need to tack on her own threat. It was unnecessary. If Idunna did not think her capable of hunting her down, crawling around Kirkwall like a bloody bilge-rat, then she did not know her at all. Unspoken promises lingered. She offered one more lingering glower before following suit, hot on Rilien's heels with Ashton following close behind.

Setting

1 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

Nostariel woke that morning with something of a headache, having apparently consumed a bit too much the previous evening. Sometimes, her own tendencies disgusted her, but in this way, she was only driven deeper into her surprisingly-endless well of self-hatred, which of course tended to result in more drinking. She held no illusions that this was a healthy way to live, and in order to ensure that she remained aware of this, she refused to cure any of the symptoms of her own hangovers, though she was not so stupid as to fail to cleanse her body of the worst of the toxins it acquired. It was like curing any other case of poisoning, really, and it was a procedure she practiced not only on herself, but on a few of the bar's other most adamant patrons as well.

Her mouth tasted lke it had been stuffed with cotton, and she sat up blearily, the clean straw of her mattress crinkling softly beneath her. Picking individual pieces of it out of her hair, she advanced to the mirror-glass braced against one wall and frowned. Is it any wonder you don't have a family? She thought to her reflection with a liberal dose of bitterness. What soul would ever wish to spend time in the company of the likes of her, that pitiable (but not likeable) soul in the mirror, staring at the world with baleful eyes? Sighing softly, she put the questions and their invariably defeatist answers from her mind and set about repairing the damage. Vain she was not, but she had no desire to wander about looking like she'd had a fight with a large bird and several goats (and lost). Thankfully, there were ample provisions for hygeine in her adjoining room, and when she emerged, hair damp and back in another set of armor (apparently in case someone or something needed her after all), she looked much less worse for wear and at least somewhat presentable.

Perhaps it was time to see about breakfast... or lunch. It was hard to tell from in here which was more appropriate to the time of day. Disabling her ward, she pushed her wooden door open with the flat of one palm and stepped out, replacing the spell with a quiet murmur. She really did have to stop torturing herself like this; perhaps she'd grown into one of those people who embraced pain to an unhealthy degree. What were they called? Masochists? Yes, maybe she was one of them now.

She walked with eyes to the floor, which was perhaps helpful in instances like this one, as it stopped her from running into her neighbor of sorts, the dwarven storyteller Varric Tethras. Offering him a wan smile, Nostariel dredged up the effort to speak. "Hello, Varric. Good to see you."

Varric's smile was much more enthusiastic upon seeing Nostariel. He kept his voice rather quiet as he spoke, however, understanding that loud noises were probably not the best way to greet the Warden at the moment. "Nostariel, dear. A pleasure. I'd been hoping to speak to you, actually."

The dwarf scratched at his stubbled beard for a moment. It was a rather rare sight to see Varric Tethras struggling to come up with words, but he'd actually been putting this conversation off longer than he should have. Here he'd expected it to be difficult to get a hold of a Grey Warden, and the Hanged Man just happened to get one living in it! But he had to admit, she wasn't what he was expecting. It wasn't often that Varric considered encouraging someone to drink less, but he'd certainly thought about it in Nostariel's case. In addition, her current state made asking for favors potentially problematic.

"If you're feeling up to it, I was hoping we might share lunch in my room, on me. You look like you could use a meal." That was true enough. She was a skinny thing, and while Varric wouldn't go so far as to label her as delicate, he was willing to wager he had at least twice the width she did. And he wasn't a fat dwarven merchant by any standard.

"Is that so?" she asked of him, though mostly rhetorically. She wasn't really sure why Varric wished to speak with her, but the suggested location clued her in to the fact that it wasn't likely to be idle chatting. She blinked exactly once, but needed no more time than that to think it over. "Lunch sounds lovely, actually. You have me all curious, now," her tone was warm as she followed him inside the set of rooms next to her own, though she decided that she didn't really understand how he got by without a door. Hers filtered out noise and served as protection (not to mention privacy), should she ever need it. She supposed Varric's reputation and his silvered tongue were enough guard for him; even the Coterie shut up and listened when he spoke.

His quarters were rather richly-decorated for Lowtown, though not so much so that they seemed too ostentatious. The long table in the center of the front room was perhaps admittedly more for someone of his height than hers, but she was not so large that it would be a problem. For a moment, she tried to picture some of her more notble acquaintances sitting here. The Qunari was so agile and flexible she'd probably just fold herself to fit. Ithilian might refuse the indignity. Lucien, though... he'd feel obligated to be polite, and wouldn't that be something to see? The mental images chased away some of her gloom, and she settled herself comfortably-enough into a low chair.

"So, Varric, what is it you'd like to talk about?"

Varric took his seat at the head of the table, as always, delicately resting his peculiar-looking crossbow against the side. Without him even asking, one of the serving girls brought in a variety of food for them, and another brought some choice of beverages, wine and ale among them, though there were non-alcoholic drinks as well. The display implied that Varric had indeed planned this, and gone so far as to preemptively alert the serving girls that he'd need some food. After settling into his seat and thanking the servers, the two were left with privacy, the only sound the faint music echoing from the main hall.

Varric dug into some chicken and took a swig of wine before beginning, clearing his throat. "I don't know how much you've had your ear to the ground lately, but you might have heard something about a little expedition my brother and I have been planning." He took another bite. "Well, my brother mostly just shouts at people and does a lot of chest-pounding, that sort of thing, but I've been planning the expedition, and... well, we've hit a bit of a bump in the road, so to speak."

He sat back in his chair, one hand around a cup of wine, the other arm resting on the end of his crossbow. "As I'm sure you know, the recent Blight presents those with... an adventurous spirit, let's say, with a window of opportunity. An expedition to the Deep Roads in this area could produce untold riches, considering how long it's been since anyone's really explored down there. Bartrand's got his ways of funding a trip like that, but there's still the problem of where exactly to go. Maps of the Deep Roads and their entrances aren't easy to find."

He shifted slightly in his seat. "But I figured our best shot at getting such a map would be to ask the kind and lovely Warden living next door. My brother and I would be extremely grateful if you could help with a map... or perhaps even by being our guide." He felt a little guilty just saying the words, trying to drag Nostariel down into the Deep Roads with them, but it wasn't like there was nothing for her to gain. She would share the profits if she wanted, of course. And the guidance of a Warden in the Deep Roads would be invaluable, no doubt.

One pale eyebrow ascended Nostariel's forehead at the rather overdone selection of food and drink to be had, and it didn't take a genius to determine that Varric probably wanted something from her. What exactly that something was, however, she could not guess off the top of her head. Assembling a pile of berries and greens, Nostariel debated taking her chances with the water before determining that no, gout was not really a risk she wanted to take and settling for the milk instead. This early in the day, even she didn't usually reach for the mead, though it was tempting to take the edge off her hangover that way.

She was slicing into some bread when he began to speak, and the Warden paused momentarily in her motions at the word 'expedition.' She chuckled to herself and resumed movement when he managed to turn it (as with many things) into a joke about his brother. At the phrase 'Deep Roads,' however, all humor immediately dropped from her face, and she choked on the raspberry she was chewing, swallowing about half her glass of milk in quick succession to stymie the coughing fit that might have followed. Setting the wooden cup down with a soft clatter, she dabbed her mouth with a napkin, suddenly very much put off the idea of eating.

He didn't mean anything by it, she knew. He wasn't trying to bring up the incident that had brought her here in the first place, but that didn't mean he wasn't succeeding. Nostariel's hands fell to her lap, and she clasped them together tightly enough to turn her knuckles white, staring resolutely at the wood grain of his table as though the knot just to her left fascinated her for some reason. When she spoke, it was very slowly, and with a forced cheerfulness. "It also presents those 'adventurous spirits' with a chance for sudden, agonizing death, Varric." Inhaling deeply, the Warden sighed, knowing that he'd probably convinced himself long ago that this was what he was going to do, and she'd be entirely unable to change his mind. It seemed to be a recurring theme in her life, that people she knew made decisions like that and she was powerless to do anything but try her best to help and watch them die anyway.

Now there was a macabre thought. For all that, it would change nothing, because apparently she was unable to resist a lost cause and born to do nothing but help others attempt and fail. She wondered if this was a property of the people she made friends with, or if she was just that utterly useless at everything. "As it happens, I have maps you could probably use. My last incursion into the Deep Roads took place..." she swallowed. "Well, not far from here, at any rate."

The second matter required a bit more thought, but in the end, her aquiescence was just as automatic. "Since I know I'm not convincing you to try some other way to make money from archaeology, I suppose... no, I will take your expedition down there as well. You're right of course; what use is a Warden that sits in a tavern and doesn't take an opportunity to kill Darkspawn, hm?" She was still smiling, but she'd always been a horrible liar; it wouldn't take someone as sharp as Varric to tell she was uneasy about it. For all that, though, she seemed resolved.

"It goes without saying that my brother and I will be very much in your debt," Varric said. He had certainly taken note of Nostariel's sudden uncomfortability, but made no real reaction to it, maintaining his cheery demeanor. "If there's anything Bianca and I can do for you in the future, you have but to ask, of course."

This had gone better than he'd hoped by far. He'd expected Nostariel to be disapproving of the venture entirely, but she had realized that there was no turning back at this point. She had the maps they would need, and she agreed to come along on the expedition. She hadn't even named a price. In fact, the only thing that Varric felt hadn't gone right was the fact that he still felt slightly guilty about all this; getting the poor girl to come along to the Deep Roads with them for no charge. He had to remind himself that she was a Grey Warden, and quite the skilled mage. She'd probably be the safest one in the group down there.

That, and the darkspawn would likely be in manageable numbers, and it wasn't like they were going down there unarmed. There was the issue of the Warden's reaction to the Deep Roads, but perhaps it was not uncommon. Although he hadn't had the pleasure of knowing any Wardens other than Nostariel, Varric imagined most of them probably didn't enjoy the place. It was filled with darkspawn, and if familiarity did indeed breed contempt, then it made sense for the Wardens to hate the place. "And don't worry. You and I will make this all work out perfectly. This is the kind of trip that can set people up for life. Just this one risk, and we can sit back and enjoy the show. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?"

"Indeed not."

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

Ithilian's sharp eye followed Amalia as she took off towards the skeletal archers, his bow training itself on those that began to fire in her direction. He had taken a pair of them down before he noticed a change in the arcane horror's movements. The shield surrounding it had lowered, and it was actively following the Qunari with its gaze. Perhaps all of the corpses in the area were finally raised and on the offensive. Ithilian hoped so, since there were perhaps twenty or more standing in the room they were in.

Strongly desiring to kill the arcane horror moreso than any of the others, Ithilian turned his next arrow on it, sending it into the mage's skull with a thwack of piercing bone, but the attack did not take down the creature as it did the others. The Dalish growled. Perhaps they'd have to hack this thing to bits to put it back to sleep. That was fine by him. He had hardly finished the thought, however, when the former magister summoned forth a spell directed at Ithilian. A ball of energy grew in power just behind him, and Ithilian felt himself immediately being pulled towards it as though gravity had simply changed its natural course. He struggled against it, gripping the corners of stones in the floor to get better leverage, and forcefully pulling himself away.

Too soon, however, the spell exploded behind him, a forceful blast sending him flying to the side, his bow slipping from his grasp as he skidded along the floor a short ways. He'd put enough distance between himself and the spell to significantly lessen the damage, and as such, it was really only his pride that was injured by being tossed about by the mockery of a magister. The corpses descended on him before he could even rise to his feet, hacking down at him with ancient weaponry. He barely drew his knives in time to parry, before rolling away and scrambling to his feet, hacking the head clean off the corpse before him. He ducked under an incoming arrow, slashed an arm off another attacker, moving swiftly to ensure he was not surrounded. The arcane horror seemed content to let its minions deal with the elf, as no further spells came his way. He could only assume it had turned its attention on Amalia, or reentered the shield that had protected it.

Amalia wasn't in much of a position to do anything about the Arcane Horror aiming for Ithilian, as she still had three more skeletons to deal with at the time. Still, even as she parried an incoming swing with her poniard, using her other hand to grab the empty ribcage of the skeleton and yank it forward to break its lower spine over her knee, she registered the sound of a much more substantial body colliding with stone, and the clatter of wood as he presumably lost hold of his bow. Her lips compressed into a thin line, small but obvious evidence of displeasure, even as she caught the telltale dull roar of flames being conjured to life. The former magister was doubtless aiming for her now, and she needed to think fast. The Qunari's odd eyes flicked quickly over her two remaining menaces, and she grabbed the nearest one, earning herself a stab wound to the side in the process when a longsword sliced through her thin armor and into the right half of her abdomen.

Nevertheless, she pivoted, forcing the corpse to come along as she swung about in a half-circle, and as soon as the fireball hit the creature, she stabbed backwards with her knife, wrenching upwards to gut what flesh remained on the last of them. Ithilian, she could tell, was mobbed by many of the others, but they were slow and he was not. Of greater danger was the thing being allowed to throw spells about with impunity, and she was halfway to invisible, tucking her knife-handle between her teeth and drawing her chain, when it teleported, reappearing with a resounding noise perhaps three feet from her person. The disorienting spell it fired off caused her to stagger, unable to slip into stealth, and she was completely visible and at its mercy.

The ice that crawled its way up her left foot was some clue as to what was going on, and thankfully enough the biting chill was all she needed to regain her senses, and Amalia tugged, trying to free herself. The frost cracked, but did not give, and she was forced to the conclusion that unless she disrupted it, the problem would only grow worse. Her first chain toss went slightly wide when her side twinged in painful protest of the motion, still bleeding freely, though not particularly copiously. It would have to be ignored. The ice was up to her knee by the time she threw again, but this time she was much more sucessful, managing to wrap the length of linked chain several times about the Arcane Horror and pinning its arms to its sides. Its motion was now, more or less, hers to control. A precise toss of her knife embedded the weapon in the thing's other eye socket, but the arrow sticking out of the first had been enough to inform her that this alone would not be sufficient.

The corpses of the elven workers could not be simply ignored, even if Amalia had her hands entirely full with the magister, and so Ithilian steeled himself, going to work. "Souver'inan isala hamin," he spoke to the corpses as he tore into them, twin blades a flurry as he dodged, parried, countered, hacked limb from limb without hesitation. "Na melana sahlin." If there was any kind of release to be given to them from this, then he would see it done. At the very least, this demon had made a mockery of their deaths, and what was wrong needed to be put right.

His purpose clear, he blocked out the rest of the room, perhaps the rest of the world, as he tore the unwilling skeletal warriors to bits. If they wounded him, he did not feel it, or did not care. In short time, the last in the immediate area fell, Ithilian breathing heavily, but steadily. Given some room to breathe and work, the Dalish quickly went to retrieve his bow, seeing as the Qunari had gained some amount of control over the arcane horror. He quickly fired off a few arrows, each hitting the creature in a different area, and it struggled viciously against the chain restraining it.

A snarl forming on his lips, Ithilian drew steadily closer, walking towards the arcane horror, loosing arrows into it all the while. It was clearly weakening, and once both of its enemies were in range, electricity bristled from its fingertips, and even with its hands at its sides, it was able to cast the chain lightning spell, directing it at Ithilian. Spells were not an easy thing to dodge, and so Ithilian soon found himself roaring in pain and momentarily stunned as lightning coursed through his body, sending him to a knee before it arced away towards Amalia. Thoroughly annoyed at this point, Ithilian drew both his blades, intent on closing the distance. He wanted to see if this damn thing could keep casting spells without a head.

When the chain lightning rebounded towards her, Amalia had the sudden thought that ancient Tevinter must have been sorely lacking in scientific knowledge. "This is going to hurt you just as much as it hurts me," she murmured dryly, not even attempting to dodge the incoming bolt.

A Qunari scientist had once conducted an experiment involving lightning and metal. She imagined that it must have been much less painful, though perhaps no more informative, than this was about to be. Clamping her jaw shut so as not to bite her tongue off, Amalia tightened her grip on her chain and waited. It was... about as excruciating as she was expecting, give or take a few pins and needles. As it was, she was mercifully spared from the indignity of a very feminine scream by the fact that she was rather prepared for the endeavor. Not so for the former magister, and even as the energy from the bolt traveled from her body up her unconventional weaponry, leaving her numb and her skin tingling uncomfortably, she watched what must have passed for its musculature seize up, locking it in place as it was hit with its own spell.

She was not so foolish, and dropped the chain immediately, just in case.

The magister's spell had rebounded against it, and Ithilian would make certain to take advantage of the opening. He bolted forward, flipped his blades around backwards in his hands, and threw himself into the air upon reaching the creature, the same move he had used against the abomination the other day, but this time it was much more effective. The arcane horror released a shriek as the Dalish's weapons plunged into its chest, and it went down, chains still wrapped around its body. Even still, it thrashed against him, trying to muster up the mana for another spell.

Snarling, Ithilian ripped his right blade free from the chest, plunging it down just above the bridge of the creature's nose, the blade tearing through the skull between where the eybrows had been, to burst out the back end of the head, only stopping when the point of the blade was stopped by the stone of the ground. Still the thing struggled, refusing to die.

The elf was more or less lost to rage at this point, pulling the left blade free and plunging down through the chest several more times. "Ar... tu... na'din!" He shouted at it, the final word accompanying a horizontal slice across the neck, taking the arcane horror's head clean off, leaving it speared and stuck on Ithilian's other sword, and forcing the body to finally stop moving beneath him. Well, that answered that question. Indeed, the magister could not cast spells without a head.

He was still for a moment, breathing heavily, staring down at the arcane horror with his one remaining eye, at the severed head that still remained upon his blade. It was certainly no justice for those that had died here, and hardly what one could call vengeance, but perhaps he had given them some measure of peace. It would have to do. He stood slowly, looking about for any further threats, but the horror seemed to have been the source of them. Amalia seemed well enough, though there was the matter of the bleeding wound she had sustained, but Ithilian suspected she would be fine. He was done underestimating her. Instead, he moved back to the pile of bodies he had created, the corpses of the elven slaves. He gripped the head of the magister with a powerful hand, wrenching it free from the blade, and tossing it at their feet, before crouching down at their feet and speaking quietly.

"Vir sulahn'nehn. Vir dirthera. Vir samahl la numin. Vir lath sa'vunin. In uthenera na revas."

Amalia didn't need to speak Elvish to understand the general direction this one-sided conversation was taking. She couldn't say she shared the sentiment, particularly, mostly becuase she didn't make it her business to deal in sentiment at all, but she also didn't feel the need to be rude about it. So instead, she made herself useful, checking over her wound with a clinical eye. The first few layers of skin were sliced relatively cleanly, though she would not discount infection as a possibility given the amount of time these weapons must have been down here. It certainly didn't give off the impression of sterility, if indeed the ancients had actually known what that was in the first place. Somehow, she doubted it. The cut was about five inches long, and bleeding, though not profusely.

After a minor internal debate, Amalia shrugged and withdrew a vial from one of the pouches at her belt. Pulling out the stopper with her teeth, she downed the red concoction inside in one swallow, replacing the glass in a different compartment. It smarted rather badly, all things considered, but it was certainly better than the mix of yellowish pus and blood she'd be dealing with if the wound was left on its own and did take on too much dirt.

Waiting until she was fairly sure Ithilian was done speaking to corpses, the Qunari cocked her head to the side and spoke. "Injured?" She didn't have too many potions on her at present, but there was certainly one to be spared if he happened to need it. They did no good just sitting there, after all.

Ithilian didn't know what Qunari did with their dead, but he was glad at least that she hadn't interrupted him. Satisfied as he was going to get, the Dalish rose smoothly, sliding his blades back into their sheaths, his face rather devoid of any emotion, which was perhaps an improvement from the typical glare or frown or snarl of annoyance or hatred. "I'm fine," he responded to Amalia. The skeletons hadn't done anything major to him, and though the chain lightning spell was causing the muscles in his back to occasionally twinge in pain, there was little to be done about that but wait for it to pass. Amalia, as he expected, was fine, and the only remaining threat was this fugitive, who Ithilian couldn't imagine was more dangerous than the arcane horror, a pride demon possessing the deceased form of a magistrate.

"Let's be done with this," he suggested, moving onwards. Though the horror had made this room its home, the door was open to them to explore further. Perhaps the creature had simply been drawn to this place for the weakness in the Veil here, and refused to venture elsewhere. Or perhaps the fugitive had somehow controlled it or made a deal with it, and arranged for it to wait here for them. Either way, Ithilian suspected they weren't quite done yet, and he drew his bow, nocking an arrow in it as the pair ventured further into the ruins of the mine.

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel

Earnings

0.00 INK

Home away from home. Darktown signified many things to Sparrow, all of which were positive – it was a welcome sanctuary, her personal hidey-hole, and possibly the only place in Kirkwall she felt completely safe. It was a welcome incongruous repartee, truly ironic. In more ways then one, it's downright filthy. The streets were paved with violence, leading into dark corners filled with grubby-fingered, greedy-eyed men and women who'd just love to make a meal out of you, figuratively, and perhaps, more literally. All the world's scrubbing would not clean it's avenues of filth, of corruption, of poverty. It hung in the air like a heavy blanket. Hardly-stable establishments jostled their elbows against brick walls and discarded rubbish, sheltering knock-toothed orphans underneath canvas tarps and sewn cloaks. Everything leans inwards, as if trying to support itself on something else. There's something that can be said about Darktown, there's no emptiness, no place that hasn't already been occupied by someone else; every inch of the street, of the ramshackle buildings, of the alleys, is filled. They each had interesting stories. She thanked her lucky stars for this place.

Idunna spoke the truth about the location of her group's sanctuary. The door was nondescript, what appeared to be an entrance to a hovel like any of the others in Darktown, the amulet she spoke of the only thing setting it apart. The trinket itself was covered in dirt, but still recognizable. It seemed likely that there was some kind of spell cast on the amulet, perhaps to make those not searching for it to simply not see it, as such a thing would no doubt be stolen rather quickly in a place like Darktown, where even the slightest amount of personal possessions were considered luxuries.

The group passed through the door unchallenged, and laid their eyes upon a normal looking hovel, a makeshift shelter with only the barest amount of furniture. There was a trap door, however, in a corner of the room, and voices could faintly be heard from beyond, though it could have simply been passerby from outside the hovel. What they perhaps wouldn't see, however, was the pressure plate buried just under the dirt in front of the trap door, something only the keenest of eyes would pick up upon.

The trip into the slums of Darktown were relatively uneventful. Of course, Ashton witnessed a mugging or two-- but that happened every day or so, so it really wasn't that much of a surprise. He couldn't help but pity those who had to suffer though the day-to-day in that pit of hell. A lot of refugees from Feralden inhabited Darktown, and it only reminded him how lucky he was that he had managed to snatch a shop in Lowtown, where the muggings weren't as common. Once inside the hovel, Ashton went ahead and strung his bow and had it at the ready. For once, they knew what they were getting themselves into. There would be little if no surprises this time, like a Templar going demon, or a whore being a blood mage. No, this time they were after maleficarum.
As his companions moved forward, he reached out and hooked Sparrow's neck with the bow, reeling her in like a fisherman would a fish. "Easy, Sparrow sweetheart" he murmured. His eyes weren't on her, but on the ground in front of her. Something in those eyes had hardened to fit the seriousness of the situation. He released Sparrow from his bow and then took the steps forward himself, before kneeling "They've got traps set up.." He said, gingerly brushing the dirt off of the plate. "Shoddy traps, the plate's raised up too high from the surrounding ground. It would fool ordinary people," He said, throwing a grin back to Sparrow and Rilien, "But not the best hunter in Kirkwall." He said, rising and stepping over the trap. "Careful. I don't want to figure out what any of these traps do. Probably end up with a Shade or two up our asses."

Sparrow eyeballed the plain door critically, smoothing her fingertips across the knotted wood as if it would somehow tell her it's history, or it's inhabitant's. She was the first to move forward, pushing the door slowly, while peering inside, before crossing it's threshold. Her stunted ears twitched. She swore she could hear voices further in. The voices sounded shallow, hushed, and slightly hasty. These voices promised secrets. Her dancing eyes – so usually trained to detect traps, treasures, and tomfoolery alike – were solely focused on the next door, and what it held inside. With the exuberance of a leg-swinging child, Sparrow's footsteps bounced across the cracked rocks, hardly considering what she was getting her, and her companions, into. She wasn't exactly known for her caution. Then, the half-breed jerked backwards, huffing like a dog who'd just abruptly found that it's leash only went so far. Her fingers immediately flew to the bow wrapped around neck, slipping underneath it to regain her composure. Though she was already backtracking towards Ashton, and soon after, released. “Whu—” Sparrow began to say, shuffling her feet awkwardly, and following Ashton's line of sight to a small pile of dirt, shoddily scuffled around the presumed trap. It was a raised plate – and one that she would've missed if it hadn't been for her companion. How hadn't she noticed, again? “How can I ever thank you, oh, greatest hunter of Kirkwall? Might'n I buy you a lovely dance after all this.

Then, Sparrow gracefully stepped over the elevated plate, quickly moving ahead of Ashton. Too late. She'd noticed the second trap only as her foot was descending – it seemed like it took forever to actually press down, to actually apply weight to the plate. Her foot fell in slow motion, stepping into the emplacement on the ground. From the looks of it, it wasn't very well made, either. The dirt around it was lazily chuffed around. Though, they'd at least placed the damn thing on more even ground. To her credit, it was a little less noticeable. Of all the times not to listen to Ashton, this was the worst. Her eyes widened, two pinpricks of light reflecting against the backdrop of her pupils.

Ashton could do nothing but level a dull glare on Sparrow. Of course. Why did he even dare to expect any different?

She glanced back apologetically, though some would've thought she was secretly pleased with the current prospect of bloodying her flanged mace. "They can't say I don't show a lady a good time." It might've been the Qunari in her – the mysterious facet within her that roared in defiance, expressing that this is how it was meant to be, so it must be. Her leather boot immediately extracted itself from the compressed plate, far more quickly then she'd actually stepped on it. It was baffling.

The muted click of a mechanism locking into place reached his ears, and Rilien blinked. More the fools he and Ashton, for assuming that a mere warning would make Sparrow sufficiently cautious. She was many things, and he found but few of them unpleasant, but discretion had never been her stong suit. If one needed a hammer, a blunt mallet to swing at a problem and crack through it with force alone, she was better than anyone he knew. Finesse, though... finesse was assuredly his area, and he exhaled quietly, the merest of sighs. He'd still never think less of her for it.

The trap seemed to do little, at first, but his ears tracked the sounds of shuffling a distance further off, beyond the door, and he decided that they'd just warned the blood mages of their approach. It seemed indeed a suspicion confirmed, when he also heard (and felt) the rise of demons and shades aplenty back there, and Rilien's knives rang free of their sheaths before another second passed. "A blood mage that summons demons... how novel." There would be absolutely no mistaking him for serious when he said that, but as the only people around to hear were Sparrow and Ashton, he didn't mind. Sparrow would never give up his identity, and he supposed that if Ashton tried, he'd be thought a liar. Why believe a lowtown rogue rather than the obvious brand on his forehead. But no, really, he tells jokes! Hardly.

Ashton raised his eyebrow from the surprising burst of sarcasm from the Trainquil and then curiously tilted his head like a puppy would. He then gave the Tranquil an applause with an approving nod. "I know right. If only they'd summon other things. Nicer things. Cuter things... Like kittens. How could you hate a mage who summons kittens?" Ashton rambled, but shut his trap as Rilien approached the door. Now was serious time.

Advancing towards the door, he waited until both of his companions indicated that they were ready, then shouldered it open, stepping through soundlessly, which was useless considering that every eye in the room rested on the three of them. Nothing was attacking... yet.

The room wasn't particularly large, but it did consist of lower and upper sections, and looked to be perhaps a meeting place, where a speaker could hold a group's attention from a raised platform at the end of the room. The blood mages were currently in this position, guarded by what was perhaps an eight foot elevation and a railing on top of that, the stairs on the left that led up to them currently blocked by a group of four shades.
The blood mages themselves, four in number, were all hooded and masked, though only one of them was female, and it could be assumed that this was the Tarohne that Idunna had spoken of. Their staves looked to be of Circle-make; no doubt they had fled from one Circle or another before seeking revenge against those they saw as their jailors. At their side they had summoned a desire demon, her hands bristling with entropic energy, preparing a first spell. "Kill them," the woman commanded, "they will not make for suitable vessels."

Perhaps what was most interesting was the human form floating in the back of the room, behind the mages, seemingly caged by some kind of magic that was creating a golden aura around him. He was a young, strong man, but looked significantly worse off in his current state, stripped down to his underwear and covered in bruises and cuts. They wouldn't have much time to think about it, however, as the shades moved forward to attack, two more assuming their place at the foot of the stairs, while the desire demon and the blood mages launched their first spells from their elevated and protected position.

Rilien's mentality, devoid of things like delay for surprise, presented to him immediately several logical solutions to their predicament, but he was nobody's commander, and so he said nothing. Zipping forward, he veered to the right even as a fireball crashed into the wall behind him. He'd have been obliterated if he remained still, and it was obvious that diplomacy was not an option here. He couldn't be sure, but he might actually like it better that way. Conversations tended to produce multiple possibilities, ones that he had to weigh against each other with probabilities and behaviour patterns and observation. Interesting, sometimes, but also often tedious. A fight was simple: kill until nothing but you and yours remained standing.

An elegantly-simple directive. Darting between two of the four shades, he flipped his knives so that they lay back against the outside of his forearms, edge out, and in this manner sliced the arm of one and the abdomen of the other on his way past. This drew the attention of the two, and caused them to leave the cluster. Before they had much chance to do anything else, however, he disappeared, reappearing behind the first and stabbing with his left-hand knife. The right-hand one, still laid for maximum leverage against his arm, blocked an incoming strike from the one with the gimped arm, biting into its good hand. Drawing the other knife out of its flesh-sheath, he kicked that shade away, sending it forward perhaps a bit more than it would have intended and whipped the newly-freed knife across the throat of the other, dropping it in the time it took its partner to turn around.

What should have been a rather simple manoeuvre to dispatch his remaining shade was interrupted when his muscles locked up, freezing him in place. A glance to the mages atop the platform revealed the likely culprit: the female blood mage had sliced into herself and was presently holding her hands outward, fingers hooked into claws, clearly struggling to puppet the Tranquil's body. Rilien jerked forward most ungracefully, as though pulled forward by something in the center of his chest cavity. He registered that he was in pain, but discarded the sense-data as irrelevant. Even if this mage was unable to control him fully, she was still making it incredibly difficult for the elf to move, and the second shade was approaching fast. His breath hissed between his teeth in a frustrated exhalation, and Rilien flexed his grip on one of his knives. It would do.

He relaxed, causing the mage to overcompensate and hurl him towards the shade with too much speed. They were bound to collide, and Rilien counted on it, focusing all his effort on angling his right-handed dagger just so. As expected, he smacked bodily into the creature, and his blade slid into its heart like a hot knife through butter. Apparently spent, the mage's hold on him slackened, and the Tranquil stood with much more dignity, eyeing the woman with something oddly approaching hostility. He did not, as a rule, enjoy killing, but he knew how to make a death very slow indeed.

With a battle cry, Sparrow unleashed her flanged mace from her hip, whirling it in a lazy circle, before slicing through shadow stuff in wild arcs. Undistinguished black ink sloughed through the air, spattering the walls in what she could only assume was the shades blood, or gooey body parts. Several noises assaulted her – from the grating shrieks of shades dragging themselves from the cobblestones, branch-like fingers clutching the lip of whatever abyss they'd come from, and the irritating squeals coming from the dying, banished back into whatever realm they belonged. She did not fear shadows, even as they whispered pleasantly between their orchestra of squawks. It was the Fade-promises that called to her, willing her to lay down her weapons and simply allow them to rake their ephemeral claws across her face. The devilish spirits descended on her in droves, as she willingly stepped forward but she preferred it that way, it was her fighting style; more for her to hack and bludgeon, and more freedom for her friends who were undoubtedly dealing with their own pair of nasties.

"What, no pillow talk first?" Ashton mumbled. Despite his enthusiatic upbeat nature, all of the recent blood magic and subsequent demons trying to kill him seemed to begin to wear at the silly Archer. He was sick of all of the mages playing with the very fabric of nature like a cat would a ball of yarn. Making just as big of a mess as one too. One that somehow he'd ended up having to clean. His eyes, once bright with boundless humor, once again sharpened into the hunter's gleam. Just a couple more nasties and the day would be won, they could deliver the boy-- or news of the boy-- to his sister, the he forget about the blood mage business. Finally, then he could go bury his face in a bottle of something with a kick.

But first thing was first. The nasties sitting in front of him. Without a word of encouragement or direction (not that he expected one from the Tranquil) Rilien darted off with the guile of the aforementioned cat and likewise Ashton too departed from the targeted area. The racket of a fireball colliding with something filled his ears, though he was grateful that he wasn't that something. While Rilien darted to the left and engaged two of the four shades near the stairs, he took off to the right, hoping to divide and conquer the mages. Ashton grabbed a handful of arrows out of his quiver and nocking all of them simultaneously. Pulling back the mass of arrows he aimed up and gauged the angle at which to fire. With his mind now firmly in the hunt instead of finding a joke to crack or a pun to make, the calculation was easy thanks to the allocation of more of his grey matter. He drew back and released, causing a hail of arrows to fall from the skies and rain down upon those who stood on the platform.

The arrows would be only mere annoyances as they lost most of their power during the ascent, but he hoped that the act would draw attention away from the quickly approaching Tranquil rogue and if he was extremely lucky, would cause the mages to vacate the platform entirely. He drew his next arrow and kept light on his feet in case the need arose for either quick footwork, or quick fingers.

Sparrow took a deep breath, allowing the power of the magic to flow through her body. Her fatigue stretched, moulding itself into energy. It flowed outward like a channel, swirling through her veins and wiggling out her fingertips like a pleasant shudder. She could feel its tingling in her mind, and her heart soared at the pleasure it bestowed – something like heavy-petting, or a particularly good kiss. Sometimes, Sparrow agreed that it was no wonder that some mages fell into the abomination category, voluntarily accepting a demon's heady promises because it felt like the Fade, the magic, and everything it entailed, would simply carry you away to paradise. It was a sickness. Her hands twisted in the air, casting quickly, and soon enough Ashton's many arrows were engulfed in flames as they pelted the platform. Instead of lobbing arcane bolts at the remaining blood mages, Sparrow stepped underneath the platform and swung her mace, striking the wooden stilt until it splintered and shook. She struck it again, and again, until the damned thing buckled and tipped precariously forward. If the mages didn't want to become living pincushions, or fall flat on their faces, they'd be forced to move away.

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel

Earnings

0.00 INK

The air a fair distance in front of him, atop the platform, was rent by the passage of a dozen or more arrows, the wooden shafts forming vertical bars by a trick of the eye, imprisoning the mages and the Desire demon under their pinning hostility. Behind them, faces, expressions, flickered in and out of visibility, all worn with a mixture of surprise and grim determination until the faint whistling was overlaid by the slower, much more powerful sound of muscle and steel banding together against a support beam. Rilien's gemstone eyes were turned from the spectacle of Ashton's hail of projectiles to the most unusual sight of Sparrow, attacking the platform itself with gusto. It shivered under the assault, then buckled with a splitting crack, and finally, just as she hauled herself out of the way, it crashed to the ground, pitching those atop it forward to stand on even ground with their assailiants. Just like Sparrow, he thought. Was she aware of the symbolic nature of her justice? Probably. She was much smarter than most people gave her credit for, including, on occasion, himself. The symbolism did right fly over Ashton's head however, as he was too busy yelling "Timber!" on the other side of the platform.

The Desire demon maintained its uprightness, though the rest were pitched to the ground, scrambling to their feet with various degrees of efficacy. It didn't matter: he had his sights set on only one, and though this did not blind him to the others, it certainly made them less relevant to him. A kindness, in one way, though it wouldn't save them from his companions, so a completely useless mercy at that.

Tarohne was behind one of her cohorts, still prone on her stomach, but Rilien did not subscribe to notions like fair play and honor or mercy. They might have been in his nature, a very long time ago, but any shred of them that would have survived his imperfect Rite was stamped out entirely by the Bard's trade. Applying his speed to his advantage, he shot right into the middle of the group of them. The one foolish enough to distract him in his path by raising a staff to fight close-up was swiftly reminded of exactly why mages were generally considered safer at range. His clumsy swing was simply leaped over, and a glimmering knife greeted his gut with a wet sliding sound, exiting in much the same way before the elf was at last brought face-to-face with the woman who'd thought to puppet him like a marionette.

Nobody had that right. Not the Chantry, not their Templars, not even his Bard-master. He'd seen to these things in the only ways he knew how, exactly as he would see to it now.

Tarohne had used the delay to regain her feet and lobbed a winter's grasp spell for Rilien, who translated his momentum into a swift roll, feeling the chill of the ice spell zip by just above him. Unbroken in movement, he reached her before she could lob another spell, abruptly vanishing from sight.

Now that the playing field was even, he'd no longer need to adjust his angle and trajectory in order to even have decent accurarcy. Physics was never a favorite of Ashton's and only comprised of basic elements such as: Things fall down and fast things hurt. Seemingly too enthralled by the speeding Tranquil dancing towards their leader, that left all four-- three, seeing how Rilien had just gutted one with little fanfare. Sucking out all of one's emotions would logically dictate that once one's mind was set to it, they would only become a killing machine. Not for the first time, Ashton noted not to get on Rilien's bad side and only tease him as far as a Tranquil's limits allow. Though first, he'd have to gauge those limits... An experiment for another day perhaps.

As it stood, Ashton drew a bead on a single mage who thought himself clever as he weaved a spell no doubt aimed towards Rilien. He decided to do the roguish tranquil a solid and fired. The arrow flew through the air and struck right where Ashton aimed-- the right asscheek. Ashton cackled madly as the intial strike jarred the mage about four feet into the air before he commenced running around in circles trying his damnedest to rip the bloody arrow out of his ass. A puff ceased Ashton's laughter as he realized that Rilien was no longer among the mages. Which meant that there was no one else to target... Which meant that he drew all of the heat from the Mages, due mostly in part to the vehement swearing and pointing by the mage with a recent additional assholes.

His grin was wiped off of his face as three mages turned their sights on him and readied their spells. "Well shit. Y'alls can go to hell," Ashton said before flipping them the bird and promptly vanishing from sight as well. Just in time as the spot he was just standing in erupted in a symphony of magic. Surely there were better vantage points than right bloody across from them. Perhaps the highest point of the wrecked stage would provide a better view?

The uncanny symbolism feltright. She did not have Rilien's finesse, nor his easy grace with any blade. The man's swift fatalities were to be admired, and were nearly impossible to mimic. The same could be said about Ashton's deft fingers, plucking arrows and scoring hits on his targets, or purposefully missing to attract the attention of his opponents. With each mighty blow to the wobbling pillars, superseded by grunting cuss words and the cracks of splintering wood, tremors rippled down her forearms and threatened to disarm her mottle-white fingers from her mace. She did not falter. Her dark eyes shone brightly whenever the wood buckled in, then out, then back in, leaning a little farther each time she heaved herself towards the precariously leaning mass. There was no doubt in her mind that the mages who'd been so confidentially casting towards her companion, safely planted on the platform above them, were now scrambling to gain a better foothold and trying desperately not to pitch forward across the jagged rocks, jutting up from the ground like stalagmite-stakes. It was almost beautiful. The last sound of the platform's last creaking breath, followed by hasty shouts of retreat, announced that it was now time to get the hell out of the way, lest she be crushed under the pillars she was so lovingly destroying. She threw herself forward, tucking herself into a somersault before springing back to her feet. Her mace clanged clumsily behind her, though it was already thrown out wide to face her new combatant.

She glanced towards the Desire Demon, eyes flitting to half-mast, and took a withering breath through her nostrils. Those damned things deserved no quarter. They'd steal your soul blind with offers of your greatest desires, of wealth, of ambition, of fixing something that plagued your thoughts. They alwaysknew what you wanted, whether or not you were aware of it yourself. Already, Rilien's light footed steps were weaving an astonishingly complex path through the cohorts, who were doing a pretty bad job of protecting Tarohne, if that was their intention, since the Tranquil easily sidestepped away from their gawking faces, and even vaulted over a staff before planting his knife between the man's organs. It shimmered through the air, glimmering moment's before it slipped through the man's exposed gut. The man seemed trapped in time, unaware, or unable to process, that he was dying. Blood sputtered from his lips as he tipped forward, catching feebly at the air. The other mages spun away, as if they were shuttering the curtains on something they didn't want to see behind them, and focused solely on the grinning archer. Rilien would not need help dealing with that bloody woman. She'd seen him battling many a foe one-on-one, and it'd be terrifyingly quick depending on his mood. She backpedalled towards the mages, madly rushing towards the one who was hysterically holding his asscheek, shrieking like a banshee. The arrow jutting from the man's rump indicated the perpetrator. Her grip loosened until she held the very end of her mace in one hand, while she threw the other in front of her and nearly sang another incantation.

When Sparrow got close enough, and when the mage had finally turned away from Ashton to regard the flash of dark flesh barrelling towards him, it'd been to late for the poor bludger. She swung her mace like a baseball bat, striking the man's open face, and nearly lopping it off, if she could so proudly say, before spinning away. If it'd been any other situation, and if the time permitted, she might've stopped to examine the damage. The ugly crack was enough. Her wild run hadn't stopped. She barely slowed before she wound her arm around the second mage's shoulders, successfully pulling him down and swinging her in the opposite direction. Sparrow's puffing steps took her towards the splintered wreck, still inhabited by the Desire Demon, though it's attention was drawn towards Rilien. She'd have none of that. Peddlers of lust. Disgusting wretches. She leapt across a fallen beam of wood, landed solidly on the slanted platform and continued running until she was able to swing her mace. Unfortunately, the damned thing was quick. Her swing seemed almost clumsy, or sluggish. It whipped past the demon's wicked face as it bent backwards, fingers brushing the ground, before it merely back flipped back to it's feet and away from imminent danger. She cursed, then swung again, and again. Each swing was met with wily, impossibly flexible evasions. The half-breed finally stepped forward, dropping her weapon and throwing out her arm to clutch the creature's thin throat – enticingly thin, sensuous even as it's tendons strained against it's assailant.

It smiled even as Sparrow squeezed, digging her fingernails into it's skin. Then, an unforeseen tremor shivered down her spine, numbing her fingers, and draining her of energy. Beads of sweat trailed down her forehead, strangely reminiscent of serpents. She nearly slumped forward into the creature's breast, but kept her feet firmly planted. Inquisitive claws tipped her head backwards, then gently guided her chin so that she'd be forced to stare into it's spinning eyes.

Make a deal, sweet?

Within seconds of his disappearance into faint wisps of smoke, Rilien was at Tarohne's back. The mage had the presence of mind to anticipate this by just a moment, and there was enough time for her breath to halfway fill her lungs in what might have been either a gasp or an incantation, it was hard to say. The passage of air was forcibly stopped when the rogue appeared behind her, his right hand firmly blocking her mouth and nose in a familiar motion. His left drove a dagger between two carefully-chosen ribs, rupturing her spleen and spilling bile with blood. The knife twisted, the mage's cries muffled by the expanse of his callused palm. Rilien blinked, slowly, timing the damage, then removed the blade with steady, agonizing slowness.

Tarohne's knees buckled, but Rilien was hardly concerned, simply adjusting his grip to brace the woman's back against his chest. Inclining his head forward just slightly, he spoke softly enough that only she'd be able to catch the words, murmuring his admonishment into her ear. "I," he pronounced deliberately, still without anything resembling feeling, "am not a tool for your use." Abruptly, he removed all support from her, stepping back and letting her drop as though vaguely disgusted, though only the speed of the motion gave that impression. Her wound was very intentionally nonlethal, and he watched with cold disinterest as she struggled to pull air once more into her body, coughing weakly and bracing her hands on her knees. The fight to regain her feet was fought valiantly, and she met the flat stare of the elf with hatred and vehemence, summoning fire to her fingertips and thrusting her hands outwards at him, scorching the floor between them with flames that flew true, right for-

-nothing. Rilien was already gone, and in his passage, he scored a shallow cut into Tarohne's arm, aimed to cause bleeding and pain without too much inhibition to her movement. The process repeated itself several more times, and with each new injury, Tarohne's aim and reaction time grew worse, until the danger she presented was clearly more to her fellow blood mages than her expressionless tormentor. By contrast, Rilien was as calm and unruffled as ever, a marked counterpoint to her mussed hair, red-rimmed eyes, heaved breaths and dozens of small cuts. She'd even tried blood magic again, but found that she simply didn't have the needed reserves to puppet his body and drive one of those agonizing knives into his heart. He placed one index finger beneath his chin and let his head list sideways, as if her battle to stay upright was merely an object of intellectual curiosity. "Is there a problem? My understanding of blood magic is that it requires lacerations in order to function. This number is sufficient, is it not? By all means, then. If it is powerful enough to justify all manner of sins, surely the slaying of one Tranquil should not prove so difficult?"

Tarohne screeched, a somewhat-inhuman sound that more than likely came just as much from the demon she'd contracted with as from herself, and drew upon all the resources remaining to her. Her own blood rose in thin tendrils from where it had pooled on the floor, undulating like the boneless limbs of some sea-creature, and her eyes flashed with malevolent red energy. Hooking her fingers into claws, she charged him bodily in her desparation, her blood turned into acidic, stinging whips. The technique was one he'd never seen before, nor even heard of, and he looked at the new hole in his sleeve and the corresponding caustic mark burned into his forearm with genuine curiosity. Glancing back up, his eyes zeroed in on something happening beyond the charging woman, and narrowed considerably. That required his attention, which meant that this farcical charade would end now. The thrust of her first arm was caught by the wrist on the sharp edge of one blade, and he used it to lift the offending limb up, opening her virtually nonexistent guard to his second weapon, which found her throat with little ceremony. Tarohne fell, finally dead, and Rilien scythed through one of the other extras, attention fixed on Sparrow.

Fast as he was, it wouldn't be enough to reach her in time. A deal could be made in an instant, and though he was not lacking surety in Sparrow's mental fortitude, everyone was vulnerable to something. If his physicality could not reach her, then something of the rest of him still might. And so he sang, the normal tonelessness of his voice melting away, replaced with a honey-smooth bard's tenor. He was not as a rule one for the Chant, but it was a reminder in this case, infused with strength and resolve as only bardsong or magic could be. "They watched/ And grew jealous of the life/ They could not feel, could not touch./ In blackest envy were the demons born."

During all of this, Ashton was busy of work scaling the fallen platform. The nimbleness of the hunter came into play as the vertical plane may as well had been horizontal for all the good it was doing at delaying Ashton and his goal. Even despite one hand clutching at his bow, he made short work of the incline, using powerful leg muscles to lunge himself up and latch on to a hand hold with his free hand. It would be an intricate and interesting sight if he hadn't been invisible the entire time. The showman in him mourned the loss of a audience, but the hunter in him applauded the lack of eyes directed at him. The only trick that needed to be seen was the first arrow tearing into the first unfortunate target he could find.

Before long, Ashton's grace brought him to his chosen perch, the top of the ruined platform. The footing was awkward and unstable, but proved firm enough for the agile and surefooted archer. He looked over the battlefield with hawkeyes trying to discern his first choice of prey. That was when he first heard Rilien's song. It wasn't the lyrics of the song that caught him first, but the fact that a Tranquil could muster the emotion to sing a song to begin with. Tones other than tonelessness flew from Rilien's mouth, and for a moment Ashton wanted nothing more than to sate his curiosity and listen to the entirity of his song. He could not do that, not right now. The hunter had to hunt his prey first. Afterward, if he still feels up to it, he'd ask the Tranquil for the song. But now was business.

From the sound of the chosen verses, it seemed like a bit of the Chant. Part of the Chant directed at demons. What dem- Oh shit, Ashton just remembered the Desire demon floating around earlier. How could he miss a sight like that with her... Bits with hardly a napkin convering them. Stupid, stupid Ashton. His eyes scanned the area in search of the forgotten prey, and soon he came upon his target... And Sparrow. Ashton was split, he was jealous of Sparrow's position inside the demon's bosom, but worried about the danger she was in. It was only exacerbated by the fact that she was a mage. Quickly, Ashton knocked an arrow and fired the shot off, right into the heel of the creature, pinning it. With the shot, the cover of shadows he was enveloped in shuddered and dissipated, leaving one irritated looking archer.

Hearing that Rilien's song was finished, he added a verse of his own, "So don't give that bitch a damn thing!" Still, the deal could be made, and then they would be in even more trouble.

The demon closed it's spinning eyes, shuttering them to half-mast so only a sliver of her yellow irises were peeping through, and she actually purred – full of seductive, full-blown promises. She was smiling smugly, like a cat who'd just pulled a rat from it's hovel by it's fat tail. Far too pleased for it's own good. Her clawed fingertips tugged Sparrow's chin up, imploringly. She laughed at her feeble attempts to shudder away. If Sparrow had been in the right state of mind, then she would have admired the demon's state of undress; the way the creature's bosom was completely bare save for two squares of golden cloth, hardly concealing her naughty bits, the way her hips swayed to a secret beat she could only hear, the way her claws tenderly flitted across tendons meant for pumping blood. Her voice resonated beautifully in the hollow of her ears, though her mouth hadn't even opened to speak; four very different intonations that managed to sound sultry and elegant all at once. Sibilant, hypnotic, irresistible. The sweat beading on her forehead and neck were sending wisps of steam billowing around her head, slithering into misty puffs. Around them, the room flickered and destabilized, colours and shapes shifting sickeningly. Backdrops sloughed off like thrown sheets or discarded curtains, revealing hazy sepia tones. In the distance, as it'd always been, lied the smoggy silhouette of the Black City. The Fade. Surreal ships sailed past, while lengths of rope-bridge swung between floating islands. Colour bled from each object, leaving it lifeless and dull. Familiar objects hung limp against the background of things she did not quite recognize. Everything was wrong.

So, what is it you'd like, sweet? I can give you anything. The demon's presence was too close, close, like morning mist, like a shadow across her soul, as if it could take one step further and disappear through her chest like an open doorway. Sparrow's eyes widened, desperately flickering on the unfamiliar environment. These things could conjure unfortunate encounters. Things that were best left buried and forgotten, safely hidden away in holes she'd dug long ago. She'd planted them deep enough. I can take it away, you know. That pain, all of it. I can find them for you. Wouldn't that please you? Not woman, not man. I can take your weakness away, all of it. Poor little girl, sweet thing.It's whispers echoed in her very being, ricocheting through her thick skull. Perhaps, they were being imprinted on her mind, because he thoughts were broken, desperate things that answered without consulting her. Her mouth quivered with all the no's she wanted to scream, but they'd already stuck their tiny hands against her oesophagus and refused to meet her lips to form anything besides a pathetic mewl. There were iron pellets anchored in her mouth and acid spreading sickness through her stomach, but she couldn't even bring herself to focus on those things. She felt out of place, as if her skin didn't fit the same way it did when she was awake. As if it belonged to someone less foolish. From the very corner of her peripheral vision, Sparrow spotted the inevitable. Desire Demons dipped through your thoughts, your memories, and always plucked the most unpleasant things to dismantle your already trembling will.

There's one thing to be said about the younger, more palpable, version of Sparrow – of the young girl who dipped her fingers in ponds to scatter the tadpoles. She'd had a pure, unblemished outlook on the world she could no longer claim to have. It was taken away in those very moments. The little girl who had sticks in her hair instead of flowers, with words that weren't pretty nor wise, and rosebush thorns stuck in the pads of her feet, lost something important: her identity, her trust, her gentility. The demon's taloned fingers guided her chin, keeping it in place, so that she would be forced to watch the spectacle reenacting itself in the clearing. She smirked, forked tongue tracing Sparrow's jawline and clawed hand gliding over her curves. It disgusted her with every form of the word disgust. It'd been the tiny fireflies fluttering from the ramparts that'd drawn her way from the camp in the first place, skittering across blades of grass and billowing branches. Sparrow watched, wide-eyed, as her much smaller self thrashed her bird-boned legs and gnashed her teeth at her assailants; bawdy men with calloused hands, black eyes, and flashing teeth. The Fade had a funny, not-so-funny way of making everything incredibly, horrifyingly real, right down to the small speckling of freckles on her left shoulder. Skin variegated by bruises. It was sick. It was sick. “No! No!” Her voice sounded distorted, a sheep's cowardly bleat, hardly her own.

I can fix this, if you'll let me. I can take that away.

Had she even agreed? Her mind flung itself wildly, and already, the Desire Demon knew how well she'd done in swaying this one's heart, this one's soul. It was fetching itself against a fence, destroying itself. Sparrow felt nothing. Nothing like it'd been described. The Desire Demon's ethereal fingers released her chin and dipped low across her chest, idly plucking fabric, before resting below her sternum. Sparrow's mouth gaped open to sputter anything to rid herself of the heavy blanket of Fade, though she only managed a sharp intake of breath. Sharp talons parted her ribs, plunging into chambers she didn't know existed. It is done, sweets. Darkness fell like a blanket over her head. But, she could hear, from the distance, a familiar voice: singing. Or shouting something vulgar. Like a child, Sparrow reached towards it.

In reality, or to those who had been watching their bodies, it appeared as if Sparrow was knocked unconscious, rolling off the Desire Demon's shoulder and tumbling back down the leaning platform. The demon hissed when Ashton's arrow sliced through it's ankle, successfully pinning it to the wooden platform, though it seemed nonplussed by such violence. Now that she'd found a host, it didn't matter what happened to her body. It'd turn into ash, and she'd return to the Fade: to wait. “Oh, look at that, you've put her to sleep.” She teased wryly, slowly bending to wrench the arrow from her foot. She offered Ashton a sidelong wink, tittering long enough to showcase her assets. “Ah, and you're certainly a strange one. Tranquil – you poor, unfortunate man. You could fix most of your mistakes with those abilities, couldn't you? Do you even remember what it was like, or has the Rite already addled your brain? You must miss it. I certainly would. Practically half a man, now.” Her slow, methodical steps found herself back in front of Sparrow, where she nonchalantly toed her shoulder blades. Her eyes were solely on Rilien, as if she were flipping pages of a book. Her smile faltered, twisting into a feigned pout. I know it wasn't your fault... One has to wonder what happened to the girl.”

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

Picking her chain up from where it had fallen on the ground, Amalia wound it around her hand and elbow until it rested in an even coil, then fastened it to a quick-release leather loop at her back, adjusting the strap that cut diagonally across her chest from shoulder to hip. From the horror’s head, she extracted her poniard, wiping the blade relatively clean on a scrap of fabric from its beheaded body before stowing it in her boot-sheath.

But a single door stood open before them, the other possible exit blocked by too much rubble to have possibly seen recent use. “Convenient,” she murmured, a hint of a sarcastic drawl coloring the barely-muffled syllables. As Ithilian had expressed his desire to move on, she wasted no time inquiring further, and covered the intervening distance in long strides. She could not shake the feeling that they were drawing close to the end of this endeavor, and also that her role in it was even closer to a termination. She had not come here to kill the fugitive, after all.

The door led them into another hallway, the earth-red tiles running in between more streams of lava, the heat these released causing sweat to bead at her brow and between her shoulderblades, where it trickled slowly down her back. Looking for any length of time over to either side brought about a shimmering effect in the air, as the warmth radiated ever upwards. They must be deep underground, for the magma to be present. Why anyone would want to mine anything here was beyond her; all one was likely to find was porous stone and occasionally those compressed ones with little practical use but much aesthetic appeal. Diamonds- the Qunari made scarce use of them, and even then only for their durability.

Another two turns, and at least these rooms were moderately cooler. They seemed almost to be spiraling inwards, but they encountered no more hostility. What- or rather who they did meet caused the Ben-Hassrath’s eyes to widen just marginally for a moment, and underneath the covering on the lower half of her face, her lips pursed. Sataareth.” drawing his attention, she pointed at the half-prone form some distance away on the floor, what appeared to be a small female elf.

Amalia herself remained slightly behind, watching the area with wary eyes. She was more than satisfied leaving Ithilian to do most of the talking. It was not, expressly, what she associated with her inner determination of his closest Qunari analogue, but even she realized the name she called him was not perfect. Besides, the alternative was to do it herself, and she sometimes encountered… difficulty when communicating with people unsure of her due to either the shape of her ears or the carriage of her stride or else her relatively-impressive height, to say nothing of her brusque mannerisms.

Ithilian looked more like a deer catching sight of a hunter than a Dalish upon seeing the elven girl, but he managed to set his face quickly. He hadn't expected this. This hadn't been a rescue mission; it was simple vengeance, clean and clear. The girl before him was a beautiful child, just at the beginnings of growing into a woman, perhaps no more than twelve or thirteen, with short, dark brown hair pulled into ponytails behind her. She opened her eyes upon hearing the two approaching, big blue orbs that widened further upon seeing visitors. Ithilian sheathed his weapons, well aware that his appearance alone could scare her, as it had scared some children back in the Alienage.

The girl rose, taking a few tentative steps towards them. Though Ithilian did not distinctly remember her face, it was possible that she remembered seeing him about the Alienage, as she spoke towards him rather than Amalia. "Please, can you get me out of here? I just want to go home." Ithilian was unsure of himself for a moment. How was he supposed to handle this? It had been so long since he'd truly interacted with a child of his kind. Most just steered clear of him. "Lia?" was all he could think to ask, to confirm what he was seeing.

She nodded. Ithilian found his eyes falling to her feet. "Your father believed you were dead." She took a step forward at the mention of Elren. "My father? Is he safe? Kelder said that he'd hurt my family if I didn't come with him..." Upon hearing that, Ithilian was reminded of his purpose here. "This Kelder is the one that took you?" he asked, slightly more harshly, though his anger was obviously directed at the human, and not the girl. She nodded again.

Was she injured? It didn't appear so. She seemed alright, if a little shaken, which was certainly understandable for a small girl having just been kidnapped by a murderer. In fact, Ithilian was somewhat surprised she was functioning at all, given what he assumed she had been through. "Are you injured?" he asked bluntly, at which point she averted her eyes. "He hit me, told me I was nothing. I begged him to stop hurting me. I didn't think he would, but out of nowhere, he pushed me away and just... started crying." She paused, before meeting Ithilian's eyes. "Don't you see? He didn't mean to hurt me! He told me! There are demons, they make him do these horrible things!"

Ithilian crossed his arms, narrowing his gaze at her and studying her. She seemed to believe what she was saying, but that was hardly a deciding factor. And regardless of whether or not this human was in control of his actions, he was killing elven girls, and for that he had to die. Ithilian would not tolerate attacks like that. "Is he a mage? Are these demons with him now? Do you know how many?" It was purely a tactical question. Demons were dangerous enemies, as the arcane horror had just demonstrated. Lia shook her head, however.

"I... don't know. I didn't actually see any of them. But Kelder told me to run, to get away so they couldn't make him hurt me anymore. Please don't kill him, it's not his fault! Please..." Ithilian slowly shook his head. "I can't, da'len. The shem has killed others before you. Demons or no, vengeance is demanded. It will... protect you, and others. He can't be allowed to hurt anyone else." She shook her head. "No! He won't fight you, you'll see! Don't just kill him!"

"You'll understand someday. It has to be this way. The way out is clear, and your father awaits at the entrance. Go to him." his tone was... surprisingly fatherly. Stern, strict, carrying a sense that he was not to be argued with, and yet still retaining some sense of caring. Lia looked as though she wanted to resist further, but gave in under Ithilian's gaze, pushed her way by him, and made for the exit. Ithilian watched her go, before looking to Amalia, who had remained silent throughout the discussion. "That was... unexpected. You still with me? The way it looks, our killer is either a possessed mage, or an insane madman."

He was looking forward to slitting the shem's throat. Something to clear from his mind whatever memories that little girl had dredged up.

Though she kept her distance, ostensibly occupied with staring into space, there was a telltale crinkle at the corner of Amalia's eyes that on anyone else would have signified a smile, minus the actual tilt of the mouth. She watched the girl pass without comment, raising a golden eyebrow at Ithilian's inquiry. "You still need ask? Nothing has yet changed my mind about assisting you, and I am not here to kill the man as you are. What he is or is not doesn't concern me." She shrugged lightly, but added another observation, simply because it had occurred to her. "You are more Sataareth than you realize."

Ithilian studied her for a moment before speaking. "Perhaps I was once... but nothing of that time remains save for memory. It seems that's all my people are destined to do. Remember." He turned away, his face settling into a more familiar scowl, something between annoyance and anguish. He thought he was starting to figure out what that word meant. If he was correct, then it had indeed been true... in a time that felt like another life at this point. "Let's go," he said darkly, setting off again. "A shem needs a blade in his eye." They moved further in, encountering no resistance, but even still, Ithilian found himself sliding one of his blades from a sheath.

He found his quarry not far from where they found Lia, sitting on the ground, leaning against a pillar in the room they'd entered. A hood covered most of his face, but from the way he was dressed, Ithilian instantly recognized him as nobility. No man from Lowtown could afford such lavish garb. As Lia predicted, he did not immediately resist, but rather simply cast a glance Ithilian's way. He seemed to have resigned himself. "I knew someone would come eventually. I was hoping the beasts down here would get to me first." Ithilian studied him for a minute, narrowing his gaze at the sitting human. "We had to carve our way through them to reach you, shem. You must have had to run from them to reach this place. Why not simply let them kill you, if that was what you wanted?"

"Killing oneself is not so simple, I'm afraid. I... couldn't do it. But it's what I deserve. I should be torn apart, forgotten down here. Not protected by my father." Ithilian ran a finger along the edge of his blade, viewing the human before him as so much meat. "This would have been a lot simpler had you just knocked on my door. Or Elren's. Or any of the fathers of the girls you've killed. I'd have gladly ended it for you then. I'm still going to kill you now... I'd just like to understand first."

He stood at Ithilian's words. "Wait... my father didn't send you? He didn't send you to rescue me? Then... you came to kill me?" The Dalish nodded. "I am an instrument of vengeance, shem. It's what I do." It was unclear whether Kelder looked relieved, or frightened. "I had thought for certain that my father would drag me out of here. He's a magistrate, and he sought to cover up what I've done for years now." Ithilian almost snorted at that. Typical of the shemlen in this city. Charged with the protection of all within the city, including the elves, and yet he allows a killer to remain free and hidden because his exposure would make him look bad.

Kelder turned and took a few steps away. "Father is a good man. He tried to help, to stop me. But he can't... no one can. That elf girl. She had no right to be so beautiful, so perfect. The demons said she needed to be taught a lesson, like all the others. The Circle was supposed to help me, but they lied! They said there were no demons, that I was mad. This isn't my fault." To say Ithilian was looking skeptical at this point was quite the understatement. "Can even a shem be so blind? Your demons are the callings of a sick mind. You're simply broken." He sighed tiredly. "I'm not mad... but I suppose it doesn't matter what you think, if you're going to kill me regardless. Just... can you tell my father that I'm sorry? For everything?" Ithilian looked at him for one long moment before speaking.

"No."

His blade stabbed upward in a heartbeat, piercing under the chin and stabbing up through the brain, out the top of the skull, the way he had executed Danzig. In an instant Kelder was still, and Ithilian ripped the blade out, allowing the body to topple to the ground. He wiped the blade off on the man's Hightown made pants, before turning to leave. "He deserved worse... but the Dread Wolf will have something waiting for him, I'm sure."

"If it suits you to think so," the Qunari replied neutrally. She frowned lightly, looking down at the body with something approaching curiosity. Madmen, truly mentally unsound individuals, were rather rare as far as she knew. At least she had not run into many. Given that her job often consisted of reeducating those that strayed from the Qun, she suspected that she probably had some authority with which to proclaim as much. She briefly entertained the thought that the man was under the influence of something like saa-qemek, but discarded it nearly immediately. The Arishok had no reason to do so, and it was only on his authority that the stores the Qunari presently possessed could be distributed. She alone of those in this city joined the Antaam's craftsman in understanding the process of its manufacture. Perhaps, then, it was simply a natural defect.

The product of inbreeding among the classes of nobility, like as not. It was something of a problem in unregulated human populations, or so she was given to understand. Aware that her examination would have to be left incomplete, she pivoted neatly and followed after Ithilian, tightly-bound braid swishing steadily behind her.

The two exited to the beginning of twilight outside, but it seemed that all of those who had been present when they entered were still so, and she was expecting opposition. Truthfully, she could not say she thought the guards courageous enough to try tackling a strangely-dressed woman and someone as obvously-hostile as her companion, but who could say? Ithilian's oft ill-chosen words could spark a confrontation for all she knew; humans and elves were moved to violence in ways she still did not fully understand.

Ithilian's eye narrowed against the sunlight, and the sight of the shemlen guards. There was clearly some confusion among them, likely caused by the fact that a small elven girl had emerged from the ruins only moments ago. Elren was still checking his daughter for the life threatening injury he was certain she had somewhere, while a few of the guards were looking to their leader for some kind of direction. All eyes turned to Ithilian and Amalia as they appeared, however. The leader among them took center again, approaching. "Where's the fugitive?"

That was indeed the question. Ithilian had not been honest about his intentions upon arriving here, caring little what these men thought or did, or even caring if he had to carve his way through them to reach his quarry. His lip curled into a snarl as he was about to lash out verbally at the man, but catching Lia's eyes just before had a clear effect on him. He could not risk a confrontation, not here. These men posed little risk to Amalia and himself, but the girl and her father were another story. He forced his anger to cool; it was an unusual feeling, one he hadn't felt in some time.

"The fugitive lies dead, slain by my hand. His body is located in a chamber not far from the central room. You may collect it if you wish." The look on the guard's face was first one of incredulity, that Ithilian had killed the fugitive himself, rather than the monsters within the mine, but also that the elf was honest about it. Ithilian would have lied... but he wanted Lia to know the truth, if no one else. He would see to it that she understood this someday. "You care to explain your reasoning, elf?" The guard spat, clearly dissatisfied. Ithilian crossed his arms, keeping his temper under control.

"He had a broken mind. He was incapable of preventing himself from hurting more innocents. He wished death for himself, and I granted it to him. No more elven children will be taken by his insanity." The guard shook his head. "True as that may be... well, I feel as bad about the death of one of your kind as much as the next man. But going against the magistrate's direct orders? That's true madness, right there."

"My task here is done. If you'll excuse us," he said, moving around the guard and towards Lia and her father. It was clear that the Dalish was struggling to keep his blades sheathed at this point, particularly since the man had just valued following the orders of a politician over stopping a murderer. He gestured with his hand for Elren to follow him and Amalia. The girl followed Ithilian with her eyes, clearly shaken by his actions and the ordeal altogether. But there was still a certain... admiration, there. It wasn't often elves were shown a display of strength of the likes that Ithilian could perform.

The Chanter's Board has been updated. Magistrate's Orders has been completed.

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel

Earnings

0.00 INK

The taut bowstring holding Ashton’s next arrow suddenly slacked as he watched what transpired. To him, it all happened in mere moments. Sparrow just up and… Fell unconscious. Seeing the normally solid Sparrow just give in that easily caused him twitch in his skin. Worry was the first sensation to work its way into his thickhead, then anger, then caution. What could he do? Risk hopping down from his vantage point and running to her aid? What’s to keep that demon from doing the same thing to him? No, no, a clear and level head was only thing that would ensure that they would all leave her alive… If Sparrow was even

Dammit, there was no point in thinking like that! Fight, live, survive, then worry. In an instant, the bowstring became taut again and the bead was drawn up on the demon again. The piercing arrow seemed to do little more than annoy her—what effect would his next arrow have on it? Ashton grimaced as doubt crossed his mind. Would petty arrows really be able to hurt this thing? And what about Sparrow? How was she. The hunter’s mind was serious for the first time in a long while.

While Ashton was busy being mentally conflicted, the damnedable beast opened it’s mouth and began to speak to Rilien. Surely the Tranquil could resist the false promises… Right? There wasn't enough emotion in the man to even consider being tempted by the harlot demon. Though... Ashton did observe enough emotion from the man during the day to render that thought wrong... He desparately hoped that the man was tranquil enough to resist. Even from his distance Ashton heard the uttered promises. His eyes grew wide as saucers as it became a very real possibility that he might be playing field might soon just consist of him and a demon. Then the demon played with Sparrow's unmoving body like a toy. Somewhere deep in Ashton, a vein of long unused anger was struck. The bowstring gave a loud twang as the arrow hurtled towards the demon, followed by a very serious shout from Ashton, “I’ll see my boot on your neck first!”

Rilien's eyes narrowed precipitously; his irises were nothing more than bright slivers of color peeking out from beneath snowy lashes. He didn't need to see it clearly- he could feel what was done to his live-in companion, his feckless bird, sitting at his window and trilling her song to anyone who would listen. The Fade had wrapped around her like a wet blanket, seeping into her skin, dampening her lungs and stifling her song. Everything felt damp, heavy, ponderous, as though it were pressing against him, too. It prickled his flesh, sending ripples of feeling along his arms, down his spine, teasing at his scalp, the tips of his pointed ears. His breath hitched in his throat; it was as though the fog that had fallen over his every feeling was lifting, carrying that feeling of sodden linen with it, and he knew without asking that this was what she promised.

Everything he had once held dear, returned to him, if only he were willing to make the bargain, to trade to her what Sparrow had traded. Sparrow, lying unconscious on the floor, was this thing's new, truer vessel. What they did to the disgusting, pitiful form before them was of no consequence. If they were to kill the creature forsooth, they would have to run blade or arrow through the prone mage's heart. It was a precise, logical formulation of the facts. It made sense. It was necessary; this one had shown no compunction about harming them, and bearing its black burden upon her soul would kill Sparrow slowly, but surely. Doing the deed himself, quickly, would be a mercy upon her.

So why couldn't he? He ignored the seductress' purr, senses fixed firmly on the erstwhile gambler and vagabond who'd taken up residence in his home and his life as though it were the most natural thing in the world. As though exchanges like theirs were commonplace, everyday, easy. As though he were nothing to be reviled, to be feared, to be wary of or avoided. She knew he didn't have sentiments. She knew he allowed her to stay because he saw no reason not to, and with no other justification. She knew he killed that which he judged it most expedient and efficient to kill.

Were she awake, would she have expected it?

What had she done to him, that he hesitated now to do what was obviously rational?

He couldn't look at her any longer. The demon was still speaking, but he was even now coming to grips with what he was feeling, or rather that he was feeling at all. It was the Fade-presence here, there was little doubt of that. It connected again what had been severed, and the horned beguiler offered him a permanent return. His magic... he'd felt so acutely the absence of that thrilling power, sparks of raw energy racing to his fingertips. His had been force and finesse in equal measure, when he'd had it, a talent that rarely went unacknowledged by peer or senior. He'd had not only the skill to manipulate the world to his will, but the flair to do it well, to create flickering mirages in the air, to make the flames dance and form shapes as he desired, fickle and capricious as his smiles and quixotic mannerisms. He'd been dazzling grins and quick-steps, hoodwinking the Templars with no real malice, but frightening alacrity. He could be all of that again, if he accepted the bargain.

The bird on the windowsill wasn't the first he'd failed to save. If anything, it was the mention of that, his oldest guilt, that put the final nail in the demon's coffin. She'd never really had him, but at least he'd been distracted. That though, that was a mistake on her part, to assume that he'd react like an ordinary man, accept sympathy as his due and power as his right. That he'd take it as a way to rectify a wrong, to make up for what he'd been too weak to realize before. She was probably incapable of understanding just how far off she was. He caught the flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye- Ashton's arrows accompanied by a shout.

"Then you do not understand this half of a man," he replied. His voice was glacier-cold, not quite the normal tonality. Then again, he wasn't much himself at the moment, and he didn't much care, taking advantage of the precision of Ashton's arrows and sweeping low, swiping a dirtied blade across the backs of the demon's knees. This combined with the projectiles brought her low, and Rilien did not hesitate- his next slash was precise, angled just so as to cut through the delicate neck like so much meat. The resulting gore spattered his face and darkly-clothed chest, the first time he'd actually stained anything but his steel in months, at least.

The feeling of the Fade's presence at hand subsided somewhat, and the Tranquil easily reined in his emotions. Granted, even just then, they'd hardly been what a normal man would call outrageous, but for him the matter was another thing entirely. Something still clenched tight, wrapping cold fingers around his heart and lungs, settling there in a way that convinced him it would not be easily banished. Their foes were slain, but at what cost? He inclined his head towards Ashton, an acknowledgement of demonstrated skill and a thanks besides, but he knelt beside Sparrow, a dark shadow flitting behind his eyes before vanishing. Turning her over, he noted that she appeared to simply be unconscious, but he could still sense it- the demon.

Glancing askance at the archer, he spoke. "She has been possessed." Rilien said nothing more, instead waiting for the other man's reaction. If Ashton was observant, he probably would have noticed that the elf had positioned himself in such a way as to block Sparrow's prone form from immediate attack by the hunter. It was as clearly as Rilien was ever going to communicate on the matter. He would not attempt to rationalize for her, or excuse what she had done, but if Ashton chose to attempt the mercy he himself could not perform, the ex-Bard would act to stop him- violently.

Rilien proved him right, something deep within the fibers of the man refused the demon's seduction. Relief filled him to know that he wouldn't have to watch another ally fall to this demon's foul promises. Ashton followed up his single arrow with another, and another, doing everything in his power to aid Rilien in banishing the creature. The deadly tranquil accomplished the deed, and once again, they were alone, victorious in the face of their enemies... Victorious? It didn't feel like much a victory to Ashton. Pyrric or otherwise. He slowly lowered his bow and scanned the area for anything else that dared him to raise his bow again. Satisfied that nothing would interupt them, he slung it across his back and began to descend the wreckage. As he picked his way down-- which proved much more difficult than the ascent-- his mind wandered. His chest was heavy and his breathing erratic.

Now that the danger was over with, all the caution and anger Ashton felt suddenly turned itself into worry. Was Sparrow okay? What happened to her? Will she survive? Has she changed? All the questions sucked the cheer out of his soul until his lips set into a grim frown and his eyes lost the ever-present "Ashton cheer". He was worried, afraid, and it was written as plain as day on his face. There would be no more jokes, no more humor, or anything of the sort for Ashton. For first time in ever, Ashton was solemnly somber. He had never felt this way before, not that he could remember. He always had a strong sense of optmisim, like everything would turn out for the best. He never had a care in the world except for what kind of meat would be for dinner that day.

Now that was all he thought about. When he fled Ferelden away from the blight, he wasn't worried. He'd rebuild in Kirkwall. The Blight could never reach that far without the Grey Wardens ending it. He had never even seen a darkspawn, much less had to worry about them. But this. This he saw in front of his own eyes. The demon beckoned to her, and she fell. He didn't know what happened... He wasn't sure he wanted to. As he approached Sparrow and Rilien, his fears was confirmed. She was possessed. He grimaced as he covered his hand with his face. "How can you be so sure? She could have just fainted from the pressure. That doesn't mean she's possessed," He argued. Futilely. He knew it was the truth, Rilien wasn't the sort of man to just lie about that. He had an odd habit of sensing magic and knowing what to do. He had to know what to do now. Rilien simply looked at him, allowing the hunter to read the answer in the Tranquil's silence.

"Is there nothing you can do for her?" he asked with dread in his voice. Sparrow seemed like she was stronger than that. A few poisonous promises could corrupt her... Obviously that ideal was dashed against the wall. Perhaps... Perhaps she was weaker than Ashton gave her credit for-- No, not weak. Sparrow was not weak. Sensitive perhaps. Fragile. Like a rock, if one presses on a weak spot, it will all come crumbling apart. Ashton looked past his hand, past Rilien, and to the woman laying on the floor in front of them. He took a step forward, closer to the defensive tranquil, and he too knelt. He pushed a hand past Rilien, uncaring what the tranquil thought of the action and simply brushed a couple of hairs out of his friend's closed eyes.

Even if he didn't know whether she was a man or woman, Sparrow always seemed so solid. Yet in her current position, she didn't look nearly so. It was breaking his heart. "What do we do Rilien?" he asked in a somber tone. He wished the Tranquil had an answer, for he had none. All he wanted to do was to leave that place, leave it far behind. Yet he would not do so without Sparrow.

Rilien's posture relaxed, just infinitesimally, when the archer moved not to attack, but to crouch beside him. That was fortunate. He hadn't desired yet another conflict to arise from this. Placing his arms beneath Sparrow, the Tranquil hefted her onto his shoulder in a rescue carry, picking up her mace in his other hand. "There is no known way to separate a demon from a person once a possession has taken place, but demons are also individually variant in the frequency and.... severity of their vessel's usage." He answered blandly. What he did not say was that he was almost certain there was more to it than that. He could, perhaps, recall reading something on the subject, but it was long ago and not exactly Chantry-sanctioned subject matter, so he may be remembering imperfectly.

Still, if it were true, then there might be some kind of serum or tincture that could produce the necessary effect. As it happened, Rilien was quite talented in the preparation of such substances, but he was not going to do something as futile as hope, and it would be counterproductive for Ashton to do so as well, and thus the elf remained silent on the matter. It was presently no better than rumor and legend, but it would not go unexplored. "For now, we should see to that Templar, and return her home." He paused, the nature of the hitch in his speech almost deliberative, and stared hard at the hunter for a long moment. "Also, we should behave as though little has changed. Demon or no demon, she is Sparrow." She would doubtless be in need of emotional support, and this was something Rilien knew he could not provide. In this sense, Ashton was necessary, and bound to be more useful than he himself could ever be. The thought brought him no relief, but he would have to trust the man with her secrets, and perhaps one or two of his own, in time.

"Of course." Ashton answered blandly. No cheerful undertone, no humorious inflection, just a flat answer. She was still Sparrow... Just Sparrow plus one, and that plus one was what worried him. Still, like Rilien said, there was little else they could do besides provide support. Ashton tilted his head and looked towards the Templar hanging suspended in his magical cage. "You... Don't think he's possessed either?" Ashton asked more to himself than Rilien. Though, there was still a poignant hint of worry in his voice. One he just couldn't quite shake, and perhaps wouldn't until Sparrow woke up and personally told him she was alright. Without his novel jokes, Ashton picked his way around the crumbled platform and towards the caged Templar.

The cage was a strange thing, it looked more like bars of light than bars of iron. Plus the bit that he was floating an entire Rilien off of the ground managed to add to the effect. Again, Ashton found himself at a loss of what to do. He stared at the contraption for a bit before taking an arrow and poking it. "How... Do we get him down from there? You seem to know more about magic than I do. I would've thought it would have released Keran when we killed the blood mages," he said, tilting his head again as a puppy might. All he wanted to do was get the man down, get him out, and go home. It may be boring there, but at least the threat of getting possessed is zero.

Rilien, apparently not much bothered by the burden of the woman over his shoulder, followed the hunter up to the configuration with the Templar inside, unconsciously mirroring the inquisitive head-tilt. He'd never seen the like of this before, but then that didn't surprise him. Despite his brief span of time in a Circle and the fact that he'd passed his Harrowing, he knew relatively little compared to proper mages, and most of his knowledge was from books and theory rather than successful spell-casting. "He is not," the Tranquil elf asserted, completely void of doubt. Aside from this suspension, there was no magic hovering about the youth at all- he was even willing to bet that the young man's personality was scarcely more dynamic than his own, if it came to that.

As for the second question, well... lifting his free shoulder slightly, Rilien swung Sparrow's mace, the steel passing through the light without resistance. Whatever the reason, that seemed to do the trick, and there was a warping sound as the magic faded, depositing the young recruit on the floor of the underground passage with little ceremony. "Keran, I presume." It wasn't inflected as a question.

Clearly still trying to collect himself, the young Templar, who had been stripped down to his underpants for reasons unknown, struggled for a moment to move, the imprisonment clearly having taken some toll on his body. He did, however, understand that he had been spoken to. "Yes, that's my name... Oh, thank the Maker. I thought He had abandoned me." His voice was weak, and he was clearly parched from a lack of water. He looked rather beat up, but no injuries were very serious. "And you freed me. Thank Andraste, and thank you. Who are you? How did you find me?"

Putting up a false facade, Ashton looked down at the Templar with what could best said as a nonchalant manner. He didn't want this man to know about Sparrow and her... Issues. He was still a Templar, and despite just saving his life, Ashton didn't know how he would react to someone in her condition. Instead, Ashton tried to play it off cooly-- which managed to seem more serious than previously. "We're just a group of people fufilling a favor. Your sister's worried you know? Asked my associate here to find you," he said, nodding towards Rilien. "I'd say mission accomplished, wouldn't you?" He asked hypothetically. "As for finding you? Don't you know you are talking to Kirkwall's best hunter? How couldn't I find you? Killed a couple mages, exorcised some demons, you know. The usual." Ashton said, crossing his arms and taking on a bored stance.

Keran rubbed his hands along his temples, perhaps trying to deal with a headache caused by the imprisonment. "My sister asked you to find me? In that case, you have my sincerest gratitude. I had assumed the Templars had sent or hired you. I hope your friend there will be all right." It was genuine concern, as he could safely deduce that if these people were helping his sister, they were doing so with little thought of reward, as there was not much that Macha could offer them. "Speaking of Templars, I will be needing to return to them. Could you lead me out of here? I'm... not exactly sure where we are, to be honest."

Rilien was not much inclined to speaking. Indeed, at present, his focus- intense as it could be when one was able to exclude everything else, seemed to be (mercifully) fixed on neither Keran nor Ashton, nor even Sparrow over his shoulder. For once, it had turned inward, and though his eyes found some point over Keran's shoulder and lingered there, they were lacking their usual clarity. His thoughts were moving with rapidity, which was nothing so odd, but they seemed currently to be unable to leave a certain eddying circle, a pattern that simply cycled itself on repeat endlessly. His jaw tightened, and though he moved off towards the exit at around the same time as Keran spoke about leaving, it would have been impossible to say whether or not he'd actually heard the words at all or just met with lucky timing. As though he were ever lucky at all.

He was tempted to split off from the others when they emerged back in Darktown and carry Sparrow to their home, but he justified his continuing tread towards the Gallows with the thought that a) Sparrow would heal much faster if a trained mage saw to her and b) that Cullen would probably need him to confirm that the young man was not possessed, which would probably secure him that beneficial service that he would otherwise have to ask for, a thing that might seem odd for a Tranquil to do. So instead, he led the others to the old slave barracks, ignoring the obvious stares that their party accrued and making straight for Cullen. A Tranquil carrying a mace in one and and an injured person over the other shoulder, accompanied by a bloodied, scarecrow-tall hunter and a half-naked Templar recruit was bound to be a once-in-a-lifetime sight, after all.

Indeed there were quite a few eyes on them as they entered the main courtyard of the Gallows. The Templars displayed a variety of responses, many of the recruits nervously whispering to one another out of earshot, some of the older veterans simply crossing their arms, staring at the developing scene from behind the slits of their helmets. Cullen himself took front and center among the gathering watchers, perhaps hoping to head this off before it got out of hand and the entirety of the Order learned of it. It was probably too late for that already.

Keran's sister Macha emerged from the crowd with a shout of her brother's name, and he staggered backwards momentarily as she flung herself onto him in a hug. In the meantime, Cullen approached the two coherent members of the party, the Tranquil and the hunter. "I admit, I did not expect you to bring our recruit back at all. Well done. The mages can see to your friend's injuries, if you like. Tell me, what did you learn? Has the threat passed?" He spoke in a low voice, so that his words would not echo about the Gallows. Still, there would be some that could hear him.

Rilien nodded slowly, catching the eye of an elderly woman he knew to be a healer, but otherwise refusing to budge. She correctly interpreted this as an indication of the fact that Sparrow was not leaving his sight, and so she approached the group to begin her work instead. The Tranquil set his friend down carefully immediately beside him, and spoke to Cullen without seeming to divert much of his attentions from the goings-on there. The Fade was being opened up again, and it was distracting, but he let no indication of this fact slip. "There were blood mages kidnapping Templar recruits to allow demons to possess them. The boy is clean. The mages are dead." He gave some consideration to volume, and it was probably only Ashton, Cullen, and the working healer that had heard him.

"Explains the deal with Wilmod," Ashton mused, Eyes firmly on the healer working on Sparrow. He hoped that the woman would be able to feel the... Other presense in her. Though, he wasn't sure it was a thing that one could feel-- Except Rilien. He was a special case though, with his tranquility. Though, he kept a watch over the healer, even as he spoke. "I'd keep an eye on some of your recruits Ser Templar. Don't want the Order getting a nasty surprise, now do we?" Because that would be a bloody shame. Though there was sarcasm in his tone, he was serious. No one should have to go through that. Much like Rilien, when he spoke, he too kept his volume down. He didn't want to spook the Templars assembled.

"Sweet blood of Andraste..." Cullen whispered to himself upon hearing Rilien's report. "But you say the mages are dead, and that Keran here is not as Wilmod was. There's that, at least. And the Order will compensate you for your work, as I believe the boy and his sister will have a difficult time as it is. If he does not show signs of demonic possession in ten years time, he'll be eiligible for a full-knighthood. You have done the Order a great service. We will not forget it." With that, the Knight-Captain took his leave.

She could not taste, or touch, or feel anything. Her being ebbed and flowed somewhere between an ocean and river, drifting against the rocks and slowly, perhaps even gently, began eroding itself away. Moulded like beach-combed glass. If anything, it felt like she was drowning without the unpleasant effects; of water surging up her nostrils, into her mouth, of her lungs beating in a lagoon of liquid, of her heart beginning to slow. She was floating... up, or down, she couldn't really discern the direction. Through the thick of wherever she was, Sparrow could feel something plucking at her, as if it was a particularly bothersome child pulling at her sleeves, wanting her attention, trying to tell her something important even though all she wanted was to be left alone. She couldn't pinpoint the feeling. It felt like a vague throbbing behind her eye sockets, or an awkward leaden weight in the pit of her stomach. A tightness in her chest, in her throat, that felt awfully like she was about to cry – but she didn't, and couldn't, and instead reached her fingers in front of her, grabbing for the faint disturbance above her. She reached and reached and reached.

Kitten.

Sparrow's entire body jerked forward, struggling in the old woman's arms, as if she was spluttering out a mouthful of water or heaving her first breath in a long time. Her eyelids shot back, opening fully. Nothing could erase the shame and regret that came with the pain. It was immediate. It was quick, and dirty, and unforgiving. In lieu of awakening, she wished she'd forgotten that she was a mewling mess, a coward, and a weakling. As quickly as she'd sat up, Sparrow's shoulders bunched together and she fell back against the woman's lap, staring up into her wrinkled eyes. Did she know? Could she tell? The look that was returned was sincerely worried, insisting that the healer had no ill-intentions. Better yet, Sparrow wasn't sure where she was. Her dark eyes, red-rimmed from forced sleep, skittered across the cobblestones, up the familiar statues, and towards the back of Ashton and Rilien's legs. She spotted an unfamiliar man retreating in the background. She wasn't sure why, but her breath hitched in the back of her throat, troubling itself into tight knots. Her hands lifted to her face and she exhaled through her fingers, past her knuckles, temporarily blocking out the world.

Surely, Ashton would jest about having her head nestled in an old woman's lap.

She dropped her hands away, then took another deep breath to steady herself. Still, Sparrow made no move to stand. She laughed weakly, then glanced at her companions long enough to see that they were alright. “We save the day, and I miss the best part. He paid, right?”

"Mm," Rilien confirmed with an even hum, though exactly which of her sentences this was supposed to verify was not immediately clear. He offered his hand to help Sparrow pull herself to her feet. Glancing at Ashton, he would have almost shrugged, except such a gesture wasn't really in his repertoire. To the healer, he inclined his head, but his next words were for his companions. "I think it's time to go home. You are welcome if you wish to be, Ashton." Ashton nodded and provided his own hand for Sparrow. Between the two of them, surely Sparrow could make it to her feet and stand proud once more. "I suppose I'm welcome then," He said, flashing that old cocksure smile of his. "Let's get out of here then. Templars give me the heebie-jeebies."


The Chanter's Board has been updated. Enemies Among Us has been completed.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel

Earnings

0.00 INK

Inside the Hunted Stag, things were, as always, boring. Though, luckily, the shop wasn't empty. There was a lovely elven lass looking through his selection of fresh venison (he had gone hunting the evening after the... Templar business). She was taking her sweet time, and Ashton was happy to give her all the time in the world. It would be a shame for such a pretty face to leave his shop with too much haste. Ah, Ashton. He sat on top of his counter, kicking his legs back and forth as he was fletching some arrows. The foray into the deep and dark world of Templars, demons, and maleficarum had severely deminished his supply. His attentions weren't completely on the work at hand-- perhaps a fraction of it was. Most of it was on the lady.

Unlike many humans, Ashton held no bias against the elves, especially the lady elves, naturally. Word had managed to get around that his shop was the only one which wouldn't try to cheat them out of their hard-earned coppers. He enjoyed the business of just as many elves as humans, which in itself was good for business. Copper was copper, no matter whose hand it had been in. It also provided ample chance to get to know the elven people. Ashton always did have a fondness for the sharp corners of the elven ear.

Of course, elven ears aren't the only thing that were sharp. In a momentary lapse of attention, an arrow head he was affixing to a shaft slipped and slid right into his thumb. The pain was instant and sharp. "Andraste's flaming tits!" He cried, dropping the unfinished arrow and clutching his thumb. He sat for a moment, rocking back and forth cradling his injured thumb. It was only then he remembered the girl still in his shop. He looked up to meet the eyes of the lady, who was staring at him with something that was akin to a grin. She was laughing at him. Well enough, he'd cut his finger numerous times just to see the extravagance that was the smile of a woman. He returned the smile and asked, "Apologies for the language. The heads are sharp so that the animals don't suffer,". He hoped this explanation would win him points with the pretty lass.

She nodded and approached the counter with her pick of venison. Ashton put his injured thumb in his mouth to stem the bleeding, and spun around on the counter placing himself behind it in order to ring the girl up. With one hand, he deftly ripped a length of paper in order to wrap the meat in and began to wrap the order-- making mental note of the weight and what to charge. Once tied with twine (which was a feat which caused further laughter from the lady) and placed it in front of her and began to calculate the price of the meat. "Right. So, around say... A pound. Normally this would be seven coppers-- But!" Ashton quickly interjected before she had time to withdraw the payment. "We have a sale today! If you would so kindly give me your name and a smile, I'll knock it down to four coppers," he said with a flirty smirk. And he wondered why he was having trouble paying the taxes on the shop.

Rilien's left ear twitched; he stepped to the side in a smooth motion, in just enough time to avoid the headlong charge of a spooked horse, merchant's carriage attached, of course. He didn't bother looking where it went after it passed him; the telltale crash was enough for him to conclude with reasonable certainty what had actually occurred. Just another minor disaster in Lowtown, which of course wasn't unusual in the slightest. The string of Orlesian oaths that drifted across the market would once have brought a salacious grin to his face; truly, the wine merchant (and what else could he be if his cart smelled like that?) had some considerable color in his vocabulary. If the way his syllables slurred into one another was anything to go by, he also enjoyed sampling his own wares.

Hearing his mother tongue reminded him briefly of something; a debt he had yet to repay. For the moment, he filed the information away and let it be. He hadn't forgotten, precisely; the last few days had simply been unusual enough that even his perfectly-regular routine was thrown off considerably. Sparrow had taken more time to recover than he would have expected, but she was finally up and about today, meaning that he was free to have a conversation a little past due.

A miraculously-intact bottle of Monrenny vintage rolled just past his heel, apparently lost in the carnage, so to speak. Blinking slowly, the Tranquil stopped its passage with his toe, then dug the point of his foot under the bottle and kicked upwards, catching the neck of the darkened glass vessel in his right hand. With nobody any the wiser, he simply continued along his path, winding around a few corners until he reached the familiar storefront. Pushing the door open without hesitation, he stepped over the threshold just in time to hear Ashton's 'offer.' "He is being dishonest," Rilien asserted in his most flat of intonations, "He offered it to another lady for three earlier, but her bosom was larger." Odd. It would seem that he had just lied for no reason whatsoever.

A chime of bells over his door signaled the arrival of another customer. He seemed exceptionally busy today, but when he looked up to regard the customer, he realized that it was instead the Tranquil. A twist of his eyebrows betrayed his surprise and had just began to open his mouth to welcome him to his store when his own mouth beat him there. The befuddled eyebrow then sank down into a scowl directed at Rilien before vanishing as quickly as it came. He looked back down to the girl with the most innocent puppy-dog smile he could muster and explained, "Not by much though." The resulting slap surprised no one.

"Right. Three coppers was it?" He said without turning his head back to it's original position-- it was harder to slap at the angle it was in. The sound of three coppers hitting the counter and one huffy elf leaving the store came next. Ashton watched, enthralled, as the lady left his store, slamming the door behind her. "I hate to see them go... But watching them leave? That's an entirely different story," he explained to the Tranquil. Then Ashton glared at the him, "You owe me a copper and the name and smile of a pretty woman," He said pointing accusingly. With the sale made and the shop consisting of only him and Rilien, Ashton hopped back on the counter and resumed his bored-like demeanor.

"So, what do I owe the pleasure of this visit? Looking to buy something? Or more likely is there a gang of blood mages and demons that severely need one of my arrows in their face?" Ashton asked, picking up an unfinished arrow and went back to work fletching them.

Rilien looked down at the bottle in his hand and shrugged just slightly, setting it on the counter with a soft thud. "The approximate market value of that vintage is measured in sovereigns, not coppers. I expect any sufficiently comely woman you gifted it to would smile at you and return the favor with a name. Consider my debt settled, if you will." Divested of his negligible burden, he folded his hands back into his sleeves and stood silently for a moment, the shop quiet save the sounds of Ashton's work. He really should get back to his, as well, but he had come here instead.

"Sparrow has recovered physically from her... ordeal, though of course the larger problem still stands. I understand the two of you are given to indulge in certain mutual hobbies. I would request that you call upon her for this purpose some time in the near future." Having said his piece, the Tranquil took half a step back, intending to leave the man to his business.

With the mention of Sparrow, the air in the shop quickly turned serious. The work Ashton was doing on his arrows ground to a halt and even the whispered promises of the bottle didn't seem to lighten the mood. Ashton placed the unfinished arrows back on the counter. He leaned forward, cupping his chin with his hands as he thought. "That's... Good. That's she's alright. I've been worried about her," he said with surprising solomnity. He then tilted his head once again and nodded, "Perhaps I should. I'm going to investigate the promise of a job soon, but afterward... I'll see if she wishes to join me for a drink," with a surprising amount of solemnity in his voice.

"Hey. One more thing. Do me a favor and keep an eye on her, yeah?" He asked.

Rilien paused in his step, looking back over his shoulder at the hunter. "That..." he hesitated for a moment, a rare shade of uncertainty creeping into his tone. It was just enough to hint at what his voice might have sounded like before the Rite, the timbre of the tenor belonging to something closer than he to a person accustomed to lighthearted verbal riposte and cascading notes as soothing as the sounds of reeds in a quiet wind. Of course, it was showing some strain just then, so perhaps not quite. He swallowed, causing a pronounced movement in his thyroid cartilage, but smoothed his face over, correcting the flaw before it became any more obvious than that. "I will not fail again."

There was a moment, stretched longer to his perception than it must have been in reality, during which he entertained a few brief, too-sharp stabs of feeling, but he brushed them aside with the ease of natural dispostion and years of practice, and inclined his head, just a bit. "Thank you."

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

There was no music coming from beneath the vhenadahl today. Ithilian was somewhat surprised that he found that odd. He'd become rather used to the Qunari woman's presence, something he wouldn't have imagined when he'd arrived in the city. She had been a simple shem then, nothing more than a nuisance to be removed from their pitiful home. Several eventful excursions later, however, and he had a new view on her, one he had not developed of a human in... well, a very, very long time. But, he supposed that was because she wasn't human. She was Qunari, as she said. And perhaps that really did make the difference.

Lia appeared from behind the great tree when the Dalish approached. He hadn't seen her. They met eyes for a moment, before the young girl looked down, and proceeded to scurry off towards her home. He thought for a moment about calling out to her, but thought better of it. It was still too soon for her to understand. She needed time. He had needed time as well. Far more than Lia would, he hoped...

Feeling as though the lack of music in the center of the Alienage was a problem that needed to be dealt with, Ithilian let his eyes fall on a small wooden instrument that had been left there, a communal item belonging to the village as a whole rather than any one person. He had played the flute once, and been quite good at it, in fact. Perhaps the talent still remained. Easing himself down to lean back against the solid support of the tree, Ithilian took the flute in hand and examined. It was certainly not of the kind of quality that the crafters in a Dalish clan could create. No ironbark, no detailed engravings, and yet it was created by skilled hands, that much he could tell.

He felt a small breeze pass under the tree, carrying as always the stench of the factories rather than the scent of the wild, but he paid it no mind, put his lips to the flute, and began an old song he knew, one his Keeper had taught him personally, in a time that Ithilian was quite certain was another life entirely...

Amalia was presently doing her best impression of a stone statue, standing unmoving in the middle of a Darktown hovel belonging to a too-large family of Ferelden refugees. Normally, she would not have bothered being here at all, for the plight of expatriots was not her problem to deal with, but as it happened, the oldest son of this particular brood had converted to the Qun. As he was still counted a child, he was exactly her problem.

His family was insufferable.

Her long fingers clenched slightly about her upper arms. She'd been maintaining the diffident cross of both limbs over her chest for the better par of half an hour, while she waited for the angry and hysterical parents to stop sniveling and get to the point. Her questions had been met with only incredulous stares or hateful remarks followed by more needless emotional displays, and so she'd simply ceased to ask them. If they did not come around to the actual reason for calling her here soon, she'd instruct them on the merits of brevity the hard way. Until then, she made the honest effort to leave open as many alternatives as possible.

"None of this would have happened if it wasn't for you damn Qunari and your heresy!" This was the father, and it was about the seventh time he'd said that. She'd stopped counting after five. He clenched his fists ineffectually, looking very much like he wated to strike her, but the fact that half her face was obscured and the eyes remaining to his sight were narrowed and completely without fear was enough to stay him. The wisest decision he'd made in a while, she suspected. "Our son, our boy Finn, he's gone!"

"And where did Athlok disappear from?" Amalia repeated, pointedly.

"That's not his name!" The mother shrilled, and the Qunari felt her legend-worthy patience giving way.

Her next words were clipped, thick with condescension of an angry kind, and razor-edged. "You can scream and wail and correct me, or you can do the only useful thing you bas seem to be capable of and tell me where he went. It is I who will track him, I who will find him, and I who will bring him back to this cesspool of filth you dare to call a home and praise your uncaring hissra for!" Though the words were scarcely above a hiss in volume, they had a notable impact. The male's face grew ever redder, fading into a shade of purple, and the woman flinched as though each iteration of the first-person hit her like a lash. Just as well it would have; Amalia's knife would have stung more painfully, and she would not hesitate if that was what it took to find the viddethari.

At this, a younger woman- girl, really- piped up. "Brother went to work in the Bone Pit," she said, the name of the place dropping from her tongue wth what seemed great difficulty. "He said... he said his role was to work, and that Hubert was the only one who would take him."

"Hubert?" The Qunari's mouth dropped, unseen, into a scowl Ithilian might have appreciated. She knew of the man, and now understood the family's emotional state. Athlok had misinterpreted his directive, and sought to find work anywhere he could get it. She met evenly the glares of the parents and spoke slowly, her equanimity regained. "The Qun would not codemn its greatest criminal to work of that kind." She'd know; she'd see many a Qunari work camp. Nodding to the girl, she ignored the others and left.

There were dark rumors about the Bone Pit; she had a feeling deep in her gut that she'd be in need of assistance. She considered asking Aurora, but the young Saarebas was not quite yet ready, perhaps, at least not for Amalia to feel comfortable calling upon her. That left exactly one person, and she smiled beneath her muffler. Ithilian may not care for her 'shemlen' charge, but he was bound to feel inclined to rid himself of a debt she'd never bother calling upon. Maybe, in a way, that meant she was.



She found him under the tree, in her usual spot, apparently whiling away the time in her preferred way, though his instrument of choice was one she left alone. She approached moderately, but with purpose in her tread. Stopping a good few feet from him, she inclined her head and waited, leaning back against the vhenadahl a few feet from where he was sitting.

The song wound its way down to a low, melancholy final note, finishing its tale. Ithilian had drawn no spectators as the Qunari was often able to do. Valued as he was becoming among the elven community, he was still certainly not on a personal friendship level with the majority of the people. It was partly his fault, of course, as he did not see the point in getting to know the many meek and helpless elves here, those he still couldn't help but consider to be wholly lost. He gave Amalia a nod of greeting, lowering the flute into his lap.

"Aneth ara. It's been some time since I've played. I had thought for a moment that I would not remember the song in its entirety, but it came back to me as I played. Seems the People do not forget easily." But forget they do, eventually, he thought to himself. Setting the flute aside, he rose smoothly to his feet. "Something you wanted to discuss?"

"The mind oft forgets, but some say it is best left to the soul to remember." She was paraphrasing, really, but it was an embedded thing, a piece of her childhood encapsulated in a phrase. Whether anything of it was relevant or understood was beside the point; it was an offering, even if only she knew so. Of course, for all a Qunari could be obtuse, she could also be direct, and his question was given a short nod. "I would ask something, were you willing. Ordinarily, the task would be undertaken with the asistance of another Ben-Hassrath, but here, there are none. A Sataareth is not so far. Might I request this of you?" She pushed herself off the tree, letting her arms unfold. This was not the collection of a debt- she hoped he would understand that.

Collection or no, however, Ithilian felt the need to pay. Especially with how... surprisingly well their last foray had turned out. He wasn't sure why he felt rescuing Lia from that mine had been so important, but he was starting to forget that he'd gone there not to save her, but to rid the world of a sick-minded shem. And he liked forgetting that part. Perhaps it was just the novelty of it. No doubt it would wear off in a few days time, and he'd go back to fletching more barbed arrows rather than remembering to play the flute.

"Is there some trouble? The Alienage has been quiet." His thoughts had immediately gone to the guards from the trouble earlier. Ithilian had realized that perhaps he should have thought his entrance through more thoroughly. He had humiliated them and caused them to fail in the task their superior had given them. And while the Dalish cared not for their feelings or their pride, when it potentially put someone other than himself in danger, it made things more... complicated. It was something he hadn't had to worry about for some time.

"Yes," she replied, answering both the question and the statement with the same syllable. "The matter concerns Athlok, one of the viddethari, our converts. He dwells still with his human family, in Darktown. They came to me because he was missing and they believed me responsible." At this, her brows drew together, a faint line forming between them. As though she would stoop to something as dishonorable as kidnapping, and for what? They'd produced no motive other than her simple existence. "Under questioning, his sister finally admitted what she knew: he has gone to seek work under Hubert, an Orlesian merchant who hires Fereldan refugees. He sends them to work in the Bone Pit."

She paused a moment, both because she suspected that name would hold some significance for him and also because she was trying to decide exactly how to say what she wished to get across. "Athlok misinterpreted his imperative. I... If there is anyone to blame for this, it is I, as his teacher. He did not return from his shift several days ago. I intend to find him, and this will most likely involve confronting Hubert. If I know anything about him- I do- it will probably also mean a visit to the mine."

The Qunari exhaled softly. Speeches were not her strong suit, but she'd felt it necessary to lay out as much of the information as she had. He may not wish to assist one he saw as human, even if the distinction meant nothing to her. He also might not care to visit a place so steeped in ill history for his own people, though the previous trip into danger quite nearly dismissed that concern entirely. Still, she would not let it be said or thought that she misled without reason, or for her own ends only. Amalia fell still then, though her silence was expectant. What she expected was as inscrutable as ever.

Ithilian was not familiar with every merchant that operated out of Hightown, and even though this Hubert and the elves with which Ithilian tried to concern himself with did not often cross paths, even still he had heard of the man. He'd heard of the Bone Pit first, the supposedly accursed mine outside of the city, one of the many in the area. It was rather big news when the Orlesian merchant had finally built up the guts to buy it, something no one else had been willing to do. He had filled up his workforce by taking advantage of the desperate Ferelden refugees fleeing from the Blight in the south. It could have been seen as charity, giving work to those that sorely needed it, or possibly as greed, giving work to those that would demand the least coin in return. Ithilian was willing to wager it was the latter.

This Athlok they were to retrieve was a concept he was still struggling to wrap his head around. It was difficult to learn a culture by simply observing one of its members, not even in her homeland. But he was able to gather that they were seeking a human, one who had converted to her Qun, or at least desired to. From the way she described him, it seemed to Ithilian as though he was still more shem than Qunari. No wonder, with the family she spoke of. Perhaps Amalia would be able to turn the human into something more useful if he were to survive under the Qun. It was preferable to his existence in Darktown, no doubt.

"We should drag him back, then, so that you might educate him better. I... would like to get out of the Alienage, anyway. It's been long enough since I've threatened a shem." He didn't really know why he added that other justification at the end. Helping her was enough, wasn't it? Certainly a good enough reason to get out of the Alienage, which he did want to do. He wasn't sure how much he would care for threatening more shemlen. Perhaps it would just be tiring at this point. In any case, he was willing to find out.

Amalia hooked her index and middle fingers over her muffler, tugging it down until it rested against her collarbones like any other scarf. The gesture revealed the wry twist to her mouth, and she shook her head just slightly. "You can certainly glare death at him if you choose, but Hubert is no madman nor Lowtown merchant. Indiscretion will be our enemy here, and if there is to be any, the ire will be drawn by the mighty army dockside, not by the innocent denizens of the Alienage. It is only fit that we defend our own, and bear the blows we must for doing so." She had no desire to draw the ire of the wealthy Hightown humans at all, but actions did not always carry the consequences one intended them to have. If there was backlash, it would be much more softly-leveled against her people than the ones hidden away in this dank corner of the city. She might not be a Kirkwallian in any sense of the term, but Amalia was no fool- she knew the score. The Qunari scared these weak-willed noblemen half to death already, whereas the elves they consigned to these corners were little more than refuse beneath their feet.

"Ma nuvenin, Amalia. Discretion it is. Perhaps you should do most of the talking, in that case," Ithilian said, the corner of his lips twitching upwards for a moment. He of course still remembered their encounter with the merchant Vincento. Apparently the approach of threatening to gut the subject wouldn't be as effective here.

If she'd been pressed, Amalia would have been forced to acknowledge an inconsistency. In accordance with her present logic, she had no reason to involve herself with Feynriel's disappearance, nor with the case of Lia and the magistrate's son. There was an answer to that charge, but she was much less certain of it than she was of other things. By extension, it made her uncomfortable, and even as it flickered across her mind's eye now, she straightened, the surprisingly-gentle amusement vanishing from her features as though it had never been there at all. "Meravas," she murmured, as if to herself. "My gratitude, Sataareth."

Ithilian nodded, not really sure what to do with the thanks. This conversation was... so much different from the first one they'd had, when assisting Feynriel's mother. He gestured with his head towards his home, eager to be off now that they had agreed on a course of action. "I'll just grab my gear, and we'll go pay this shem a visit."

Setting

4 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

Immediately upon entering the Hanged Man, Sparrow was forced to quickstep away from a stumbling miner who'd obviously had too much to drink, successfully dodging his flailing elbows and ducking casually underneath his arm to reach the bar stools, half-accidentally bumping into a barmaid in the process. She offered a sly grin and an equally questionable wink before snatching up her proffered hand, that might've just been trapped midair just in case she had to push someone away. She twirled the barmaid around her as if they were in a dance, finally releasing her by the fingertips, and gracefully lowering herself into a bow, murmuring a soft: “Fancy meeting you here, Darcy.” Her eyes twinkled mischievously, as if it hadn't done so in a long time. She was long overdue for a drink at her favourite institution. From her peripherals, Sparrow could already see that a sizable crowd was gathering – or else, an interesting cluster of patrons gathered off to the side, cheering loudly, stomping their feet, and clanking their goblets together as if they hadn't a care in the world. Must've been nice to feel that way.

The woman hadn't missed a single beat, quipped with her own: “'Get off it. Yer' always here, Sparrow.” The lithe man in question merely shrugged her shoulders, smiling all the while, and slipped into her designated stool. A moment later and a mug swilling to the brim with ale swept in front of her, speckling droplets across her knuckles with it's unceremonious halt at her extended fingertips. She cupped it in her hand and hunkered over it. How many times had she lied in the past two weeks? Too many times. Far too many to even begin counting. It left a sour taste in her mouth, and certainly didn't feel right. Her tongue felt thick, swollen, and her elbows ached. Nothing felt certain. She'd lied to Rilien, even though she had an inkling that he'd known all along, each and every time she'd told him she was feeling fine, that he shouldn't worry about her because she could take care of herself, and why-the-hell-was-he-looking-at-her-like-that-anyway? Those taboo words hadn't even been spoken, and already, Sparrow was desperately trying to cover her tracks and make it seem like nothing had happened: Desire Demon, possession, dirty apostate. If Ashton had asked her anything, would she have lied to him, too? Most likely. It was less painful that way. She was swallowing her spine, but at least they didn't have to feel wrong when they looked at her. As if she'd suddenly grow wings, talons, blue skin, or needle-point teeth and rip them
apart: an abomination – ugly things, really.

Her lies were like soft footfalls, tiptoeing across eggshells. Pretty much innocent. Like pebbles clicking against someone's window. Like her frequent assertions that she wasn't that drunk. She didn't want to paint herself a monster, or even acknowledge the fact that she'd made a mistake – didn't want Ashton, or Rilien, or anyone else painting her that way, either. She brought the iron cup to her lips, tipped her head, and chugged it down until the last drop slithered down her gullet, then gingerly placed it where it'd first appeared, softly, gently; with none of her usual clattering gusto. She traced the cup's rim with a finger, letting her head list to the side. Had Rilien seen her the past few nights, while she thought he slept? Her arm's felt as if they acted on their own, twitching to life at her sides, filling her with thoughts that turned her stomach; to hurt, to kill, to tear.

In her present frame of vision, Nostariel could see only the table in front of her, her tankard, the identical one across from it, and a single, blood-red gauntlet. It was a surprisingly-ornate thing, considering who it belonged to. Lucien was... unusual, by even her reckoning of normalcy, which was admittedly rather skewed. A self-professed Lowtown stomper, he nevertheless managed to carry himself with such dignity she was sure he would comport just as well with courtly knights and ladies as with the assorted rabble, riffraff, and vagrants one found here, in this tavern.

The worst part was that she was certain the suggestion would gently offend him, that he would still be the consummate gentleman and inform her that her company and that of those around her was no less desirable (or mayhaps more so) than that of the Queen of Antiva herself. It was... disconcerting. To be treated so much like some precious thing, to be in the company of someone who treated everyone like they really mattered, no matter who they were or what they'd done. She found that, most days, she was unable to muster the courage to even look someone like that in the eye. The other sinners, the others who make mistakes and wore them on hunched shoulders or in troubled eyes, these folk at least she could understand, could bring herself to know without too much guilt festering in her insides for it. But this man was another matter. For all his scars and the battered testaments to experience and bloodshed etched into that gauntlet (they were on the rest of his armor, too, she'd discovered on a braver day), he was still so untouched by those things that muddied her at every turn that she almost didn't know what to do with herself when he was present.

Yet it was impossible to begrudge him this, and she still managed a smile when he sat across from her, mug in hand, and told her that there was someone he wanted her to meet. Their lives had not really intersected in such a way before, and though she could guess at the reason, she wondered if all was as it seemed. In the end, did even he want something from Nostariel the Grey Warden? (What could she even offer?) Was nobody content with Nostariel the person? Not when she's like this, they aren't. At least the title means something. The melancholy thought had dropped her gaze to its current position, but it was dragged back up and over by a slight commotion at the door, which soon evolved into a full-fledged showman's entrance. There were at least three of those a night, though, so it was not her first instinct to pay attention, at least not until she saw who it was.

"Sparrow?" Her musing was soft, just a bit surprised. It had been an uncharacteristically long time since she'd seen the slight man inside the bar; she'd almost begun to suspect that he'd simply left town without a word. He seemed free enough to do that kind of thing, and it was a freedom she at once coveted and feared. Nostariel had no real idea what she'd do with it if ever she won it, but the idea seemed rather enticing all the same.

Would Rilien have told her even if he had? The dreary thought settled like a stone, heedless of any damage it did on everything else that flowed through the river; her mind. Remaining in Darktown, safe and tucked way, hadn't seemed like an option. She wanted to distance herself from her companions for their protection. They wouldn't understand, so she casually tossed her grins, heckled with winks, and announced that she'd rather be spending her hard-earned coin at the Hanged Man. Rilien had only looked at her, all too knowingly, and said he would be visiting Ashton. She balanced her goblet, tipped over, barely on it's lip, before settling it back down and pushing it towards Darcy, only to have it filled again. Her growing loneliness – her self-inflicted sentiments – was a bleeding wound, only festering with dark thoughts and a near-constant purr whispering just behind her ear, blowing soft kisses and promises and things she'd rather shut her ears against. It was enough to drive a lesser person mad, but she'd already decided that she would fight tooth and nail, before that creature, that thing, that demon, would control her. She was afraid of herself; afraid of what she might do if she let her guard down. Gloomy ideas were becoming a bad habit, uncontrollable, unwelcome. She didn't have a paperback spine, addled with burdens, because she was free, wasn't she? She'd always been free in her mind. Apostate-chains, Qunari regulations, and Elven racism hadn't slowed her progress. It'd been a long time since she'd cast her chains, shaking them off like the last remnants of rain.

It was a familiar thought that drew her away from her somber musings. She'd been mid-gulp when she stopped, eyeing the woman over the brim of the cup, nearly snorting into the frothing liquid – it wasn't a pretty sight, but at least it was amusing. Sparrow finished her second drink and pushed it away, casually leaning on her elbows so that she could better talk to the Grey Warden. “Bella-luna! It's nice to see you. It's been awhile, hasn't it?” She mooned thoughtfully, scratching at her beardless chin. They both drank like they were always thirsty, for vastly different reasons, but in the end, it all boiled down to their own sad stories and how much they wished to change things. For Nostariel, Sparrow had shared the hardships she faced as a runaway apostate, as an erstwhile Qunari warrior, as a misunderstood half-breed, as a race who'd never been treated properly. However, she hadn't told her what had happened that day in the woods, all those years ago; the day she'd become Sparrow. It was too early, far too premature. Perhaps, someday, she'd be as frank with Nostariel as she'd been with Rilien. “Aye. You look like you've had a few more adventures since last I saw you.” Her eyes, like two cesspits eating away at the stars, shone willfully. They couldn't hold themselves together, but they could still find comfort, if only a little, in relaying their stories. Then, just like that, the not-man, hardly a woman slipped from her stool, as slippery as a gentlemanly eel, and joined Nostariel at her table.

A marked contrast to Nostariel, Lucien was the very image of relaxed ease in the Warden's company. Well, perhaps not relaxed in the sense that most people would picture it. His posture was flawless and his manner genteel, even in a place where most of the more 'relaxed' patrons were slouching over benches and tables, yelling or laughing at great volumes, filling the entire establishment with the clamor of voices and the clinking and thunks of money and tankards changing hands, of fists banging tables to emphasize a particularly evidential point in some grandiose tale or another. Varric might well be able to hold attention with his voice modulation alone, but not everyone was quite so fortunate or skilled.

She wasn't looking at him again. She rarely ever did, and at first he'd thought it a rather amusing symptom of the vast difference in their height. He had to be a foot or so taller than the elf, and this sort of thing really wasn't all that unusual for him. The few times he had made eye contact with the lady Warden, however, he'd been quite certain she wore an inexplicably-guilty face. So he'd talked to her of inconsequential things and people he used to know, switching names and omitting titles so that the yarns were about ordinary Olesians doing normal (outrageous) Orlesian things, and he'd felt a small spur of satisfaction when a few of those anecdotes had chased away her apparent misery for just long enough that she'd smile or laugh. This was the way of things for them.

When Sophia had spoken to him about making a difference in Kirkwall, however, he'd had the thought that it would be beneficial for her to meet Nostariel, just as much for the Warden's sake as for the future Viscountess'. No, that wasn't quite correct. Just as much for Nostariel's sake as Sophia's. He may well address them by titles when the situation called for it, but it was best to think of them differently. He was almost certain that the both of them had a desire to do good things here (even if Nostariel was not yet aware of hers), and they would be of mutual assistance to each other, probably a great deal more than he'd ever be to either of them. So, here they were, waiting for the lady to make her appearance, even if he'd divulged to neither who the other party was. He was Orlesian after all, and a little suspense was just one of life's many rich flavors.

He did not suspect that the loud entrance belonged to Sophia, though he looked up anyway just to confirm. It was indeed not, though he was quite certain he'd seen this patron before. Androgyny was common and sometimes even fashionable in Celene's court, and so most of the time, Lucien didn't even bother assigning gender to such individuals unless they did so first, but he was also pretty good at guessing. His initial suspicion had been that his immediate instinct towards 'female' had been some lingering and unfortunate enculturated bias towards thinking that elves were delicate and women were too, but when he'd considered it the second time, he'd been relieved to discover that this was not the case and he really simply did surmise that the patron was female. It was good to know that even the notions brought into prominence by your childhood could be overcome with sufficient time and practice.

Nostariel's utterance brought his attention back to her, and he was finally supplied with a name for the person he'd never yet spoken to. "Friend of yours?" He asked mildly, raising his good eyebrow just slightly.

It was only then, looking at Nostariel, and glancing over her left shoulder, that Sparrow noticed another peculiar individual. How unusual. The man looked as if he'd fit in a ballroom just as well as he did in the Hanged man; with all of his gentlemanly posturing – but, not the rooster sort of posturing with it's tail feathers splayed, because he seemed modest. Her eyebrow raised, inquiringly, with a dash of a feline's curiosity. “Strange companions who bond over ale, more like. I still don't know how she puts up with me.” As she always did, Sparrow was teasing. Lilting her words like poetry. Dragging them out with veiled intentions. She folded her fingers over each other, twining her index and middle across her knuckles. Her smile simpered, then faltered. “Any friend of hers is a friend of mine. My name's Sparrow.” She would've held out her hand to shake, but it would've required reaching over Nostariel – and for the moment, she had enough control to resist such actions.

Sophia had to admit, she'd been hoping to hear from Lucien again, but was actually surprised to hear from him so soon. She had quite quickly accepted his invitation to meet someone in the Hanged Man, certainly believing that Lucien's connections in Lowtown would serve to be beneficial to her. What she hadn't quite thought over was the fact that meeting someone in the Hanged Man required actually going to the Hanged Man...

The few hours before she was due to leave, she had discovered how sadly little time she'd spent in the lower parts of Kirkwall. At least, time spent there as just a denizen of the city, and now in her capacity as the Viscount's daughter. Quite frankly, she had no idea what to expect in a place like the Hanged Man; she'd heard stories, some of which fascinated her, others which were more of the mortifying sort, and she really had no idea how to pick the truths from the falsehoods. Perhaps it would simply have to be a case of leaping before she looked.

After far too much internal debate, she'd settled on wearing the plainest dress she owned, one of a pale green color, skirts flowing about her ankles, elbow-length sleeves. Slightly more low-cut than she would have preferred, but she was willing to wager that there'd be more than a few women in Lowtown that would outdo her in that regard. She chose a pair of worn leather boots, which she had used more for traveling with her brother or her father than for social calls, but they were more fitting here than a pair of her more expensive shoes meant for court would be. Because she did not consider herself a fool, she slipped a knife into the right boot, and had assured Bran that she was fully capable of using it. The Seneschal had, as usual, sniffed out her plans, and she had, as usual, enforced her will over him, convincing him that an escort of two city guards was wholly unnecessary, and would just attract more attention than she wanted.

In the end, Sophia figured she looked more or less like the poorest woman in Hightown, meaning she still looked far better off than all of Lowtown. If she wanted to truly fit in down there, she would probably have to starve herself until she was mildly emaciated, and refuse to bathe for several days (or weeks? She wasn't sure, and didn't really want to ponder). Aware of the several eyes that followed her as she left the Vicount's Keep, but not really caring, Sophia set off towards the steps down to Lowtown.

She moved quickly. She fully expected word of her visits to Lowtown to spread quicker than a wildfire, but to be honest, didn't really mind. If she kept her composure, and did what she set out to do, it would probably only improve her standing with the lower orders. The nobles would perhaps raise an eyebrow or two at her, but she could handle them. She'd been handling them since she was but a young teenager. As she approached the Hanged Man at last, however, her thoughts left the bickering nobles and their greed, and fell to Lucien and whomever this person was he wanted her to meet.

She'd been about to open the door when it figuratively exploded in front of her, causing her to jump back slightly as an absurdly drunk man stumbled forth, not even seeing her as he shambled past. She stood rather still for a moment, aware that her heart was beating nearly as fast as when she'd had to defend her brother from the Winters. She would have to think on that later. Her second attempt at opening the door was successful, and she carefully slid inside, using her spatial awareness as though she were maneuvering through a melee.

Lucien was easy enough to spot, in his armor as he had been on both occasions she had met him previously. She made her way through the varying levels of chaos to his table, noting midway the garb of the woman he was seated with: a Grey Warden. Indeed, she had known Lucien would not have brought her down here for nothing. She'd met a few Grey Wardens some years ago, when she'd been much smaller, and had always valued the chance at meeting another. And to not do so in the environment of the Viscount's Keep was especially enticing. The prospect helped her overcome much of her uncomfortability at being in such a den as the Hanged Man.

"Good evening," she said, arriving at the table and curtsying slightly to the Warden. She wasn't sure to what degree the elven woman expected, or wanted, formality, and meeting in a place like this seemed to give Sophia the answer, but it never hurt to be safe. "My name is Sophia Dumar." She wasn't sure if it was necessary to add anything else, admittedly expecting the Warden to recognize the name, and so she gently seated herself in an unoccupied chair, curious as to where this would lead.

There were strange tides today, it seemed. Sparrow's flint-like eyes flit past Nostariel and Lucien, focusing solely on the newcomer. The kindliness and good manners were almost stifling. She'd never been one to hold her tongue or display unusual amounts of etiquette – she'd rather stomp on eggshells than tiptoe past them, and if anyone was offended, then she'd clear the air with crude jokes. She chuckled softly and leaned back in her stool. No doubt, Sparrow hadn't been noticed, so casually looking about as if she didn't truly belong anywhere, and all at once: everywhere. She had to peek over Nostariel's shoulder to catch a better look. “Now you look like you need a drink.”

Setting

4 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

Sophia hadn't been aware that Lucien wanted to introduce her to two people, and to be quite honest, she wasn't quite sure how to answer the elven... half-elven... the second person's greeting, which consisted solely of a recommendation: drink. Truth be told, that was one thing Sophia hadn't come to the Hanged Man to do, both because she had heard less than ideal things about the tavern's refreshments, and also because she wasn't much of a drinker in the first place, and figured a unusual trip to a potentially dangerous part of town for her a poor time to start.

She did note that the Warden and this other had certainly come here to drink, but made no mention of it. "I'm... thank you, but I'll pass. Not drinking tonight." Was her face reddening? Maker, she hoped not. It certainly didn't help that she couldn't tell what she was talking to, neither race nor gender. Her eyes darted away from the... man, she had to go with man, and towards Lucien and the Warden.

Nostariel was prone to gentle head-shakes whenever Sparrow was present, and now was no exception. Taking pity on Sophia, she backhanded her fellow mage (gently) on the arm and tsk'ed softly. "You leave the lass alone, you rake," she admonished, but there were faint traces of amusement clinging to the words. There was the head-shake, and she turned slightly to face the Viscount's daughter. "Don't mind Sparrow; that's just the way he is. My name is Nostariel Turtega. It's nice to meet you as well. I must say, if Lucien here had told me I'd be meeting yourself, I would have chosen a slightly less... harrowing location." Her glance focused briefly over Sophia's shoulder, where a pair of men (both completely pissed, by the looks of it), tried to support each other on the way out of the tavern. Nostariel's brows furrowed; those two worked at the Bone Pit, she was sure of it, and while they were quite often inebriated, she didn't think it was so bad usually.

She tucked the thought away, having more pressing matters to attend to at the moment. "Another friend of mine is essentially Kirkwall's rumor mill, so I'd heard whispers of the Viscount's daughter out and about in the city. May I ask the purpose of such ventures?" Nostariel raised her tankard to her lips and took a draught, setting it back down with perhaps more grace than a drunk properly deserved.

Sophia was quite certain she'd reddened more once the Grey Warden, Nostariel Turtega, as she introduced herself, stepped in to rescue her from Sparrow. An excellent first impression, no doubt. She'd probably looked more confident the last time she had met a Warden, and that was when she had been twelve. Of course, that was also in the Viscount's Keep and not the Hanged Man, but still. She might have agreed with Nostariel's sentiment about the location, but showed no sign of it. "It's quite alright. It's an interesting change of pace, I'll give it that."

And apparently rumor traveled faster than she herself did. Were her daily affairs such common knowledge? She supposed they would be, given her future as Viscountess. She sensed genuine curiosity in Nostariel's question however, which was far preferable to the accusatory tones she would no doubt get from Father the next morning, when he found out about this. "If I may be frank," and Sophia actually felt like it would be strange not to be frank with someone in a place like this, "there's a good deal about the city that doesn't sit right with me, and I want to fix that. It's hard just to know what the problems are, let alone fix them, when you spend every waking moment concerned only with the affairs of Hightown. So... I guess I'm branching out, and seeing what I can do to help. I don't have much actual authority over anything quite yet, but... I'm capable of helping people, so I think I should."

She hoped her ideal would resonate with the Warden, although she was aware that joining that particular Order was not always by choice. Her gut told her that Nostariel was a good person, though. Lucien wouldn't have introduced them otherwise.

“Much simpler to feel at ease with a warm belly.” She added flippantly, arching an inquisitive eyebrow. It was only when Nostariel playfully thwacked her arm, hardly knocking the simpering look off her outlandish features, that Sparrow mouthed a silent apology and dropped her hands from her chin, gesturing with one as if she were waving a white flag – surrendering neatly, politely. It wouldn't do to disobey a pretty lady. Surely, Ashton would agree. Her smile widened, ever so slightly, with her teeth peeping between her lips. This woman, who's name rang like seashells and bells, was adorable. Sparrow feigned an affronted pout, dipping her chin into her upturned hand, elbows already finding purchase on the table's chipped contour. She waggled her fingers. Her eyes rolled back towards her fellow mage. This was just the distraction she needed to keep her head out of the water, to keep herself from drowning. It would be enough for now.

“Sunshine – the Viscount's daughter?” It came as a soft whisper; a breathy intonation of surprise. She'd already given Sophia a fitting nickname: Sunshine. There was something pleasant, almost unscathed, in the woman's eyes. As if it hadn't been touched by outside influences. As if it hadn't been torn apart in the most unpleasant ways. It was refreshing and uncomfortable, all at once. Honestly, Sparrow wasn't used to anyone who wasn't remotely broken, or injured, or battered from earlier experiences. Her hands sidled at the table's edge, gently drumming to an invisible beat. This conversation was better left to those who's goals extended far beyond living day-to-day, drivelling in hovels and scurrying in the comfort of darkness. Hadn't she helped a group of Templars only weeks ago? A group so hellbent on stripping her freedom away. It was almost funny, and perhaps it would have been if it hadn't turned out so badly. Her hand was beginning to ache, interrupting the steady rhythm of her fingers. She couldn't stay. So, finally, Sparrow scrapped the wooden chair back, tipped a ghostly hat at Nostariel, Lucien, and Sophia.

“Good to see someone's trying t' change things.” Her voiced dropped to a conspiring whisper. “If it were me, I'd start at the bottom. Help the one's that don't have the coin to help themselves.” The Elves, the poor, the apostates. When did Hightown need for anything? Without another word, Sparrow threw Sophia a wink and swept past her, shouting her goodbye's to the barkeep and it's servers.

Almost as soon as she'd appeared, the rambunctious woman was gone, leaving Lucien blinking his good eye slowly, as if to make sure it was working correctly. He needed it to, given the state of his other one. There had been something uneasy in her demeanor, though subtle, and covered rather well by the flapping, strutting flashiness of a peacock proud of his feathers. If that hadn't been entirely standard where he came from, he probably wouldn't have noticed it. Still, it was none of his business, and he did not inquire after it, returning his focus intead to the two women that still remained.

Of course, he was hoping that Sophia's frank mannerisms and obvious good intentions would earn her some help from Nostariel, because the woman was undeniably a good ally to have; a hell of a healer, not to mention someone with real (and very unfortunate) experince in achieving what seemed to be impossible. While the elf didn't necessarily know it, he'd wager she was close to the ideal voice for city eles, mages, and large groups of other unfortunates who may or may not recieve due attention elsewhere. At the very least, she knew a great deal more than he about all of those things, and it was infomation Sophia needed to have if she was to succeed. Conversely, well... it was fair to say that if his initial estimation of the Viscount's daughter was correct, then nobility was not to be given up on quite yet, and his Warden friend could use some reassurance of that.

He understood, however, that it was not for him to baldly assert any of these things, no matter how certain of them he was. Some things would only ever show their value when unearthed one step at a time. So Lucien faded into the background of the conversation, present if he was needed but otherwise as unobtrusive as a six-and-a-half foot man in plate armor could be.

Sparrow had a way of making the atmosphere around him lighter, as though some of the oppressive, miasmic weight of it cleared for just a little while. His childish expressiveness and silly gestures were welcome interruptions to the monotony of her misery, just as Lucien's unfailing politeness and gentle, coaxing manner of conversation and Aurora's stubborn optimism were. Too soon, the lanky man was gone, and she was left to face something she wasn't quite sure how to answer.

This woman, Sophia Dumar, reminded her quite acutely of Lucien, only... well, the fact that she was dressed more richly wasn't important, but she was blunter, in a way. The same feeling of essential goodness was there, though, and it was easy to see why the two got along well enough that he'd invite someone from Hightown down here, and why she'd acquiesce and appear without visible armament. (Not, of course, that Nostariel believed she was unarmed). The Warden appraised the Viscount's daughter with genuine curiosity. "I know the feeling well," she demurred, propping her elbows on the table and clasping one fist in the opposite palm. Setting her chin atop both, she sighed softly.

"Our mutual friend is no fool; I may very well be able to assist you. But... I would ask one thing in return. There will come a time when what you want to do seems impossibly difficult, when the right choice isn't clear to you. When everything you've been raised or taught to think pulls you in one direction, but some little part of yourself that wasn't there before makes you unsure. When that time comes..." The Warden trailed off and swallowed, her voice thickening with something not quite nameable. "Well, I won't tell you what to do, but I'd ask you to listen to that small thing. Its power is not indicative of its truth." Blinking rapidly several times, Nostariel straightened her posture slightly, tilting her lips in a self-effacing smile.

"My apologies; I may have just convinced you of my strangeness rather than anything else. But I would ask it of you all the same. By the nature of our world, the decisions of some matter a great deal more than those of others, and I have a feeling that yours will mean a great deal, Sophia."

Sophia had been quite absorbed in the words of the elven Warden, enough so to forget that she had just felt a fool from the encounter with Sparrow, enough to forget Lucien was silently observing their conversation, enough even to forget that she was in a place like the Hanged Man, noisy and chaotic as it was. Her words made her feel... strangely uncomfortable, though. The idea that what she had been taught, or led to believe, could possibly be... not false, but not true either. Grand Cleric Elthina came to mind. There was perhaps no one who had taught her more in her life. She couldn't see herself ever going against the Grand Cleric.

"Strange? No... I find the lack of any caring among many nobles to be strange, not this. But... I've had teachers that I have always aspired to, Andraste and the Maker above all. I haven't felt doubt in..." Not so long ago, she had to remind herself, brought on by that troublesome criminal and the man sitting right next to her. Sophia became aware that she was looking at him, or his gauntlets, rather, and pulled her eyes back up to meet Nostariel's.

"I can speak only for myself, of course, but I have to believe in the rightness of many of those who have taught me. I'm certain I'll be tested far more in the future than I ever have, but their guidance has not led me astray yet, nor do I believe that it will." Quite suddenly, she found herself wishing she'd worn her armor, or at least some kind of armor. She felt rather small compared to Lucien next to her, and even the Warden, who she was certain had seen far more than the little Hightown Sophia had grown up in.

Oh, the things I could tell you, Nostariel thought to herself, but she recognized that assurance, that confidence, well enough to know that nothing she said would make a difference. So instead of asserting herself, she backed off without a fight. "I used to think much the same. I suppose I can only ask that you trust yourself as well as trusting them. At any rate, perhaps it was presumptuous of me to assume. I will offer my assistance when you require it, provided I am not occupied with anything for the Wardens. I can also keep my ear to the ground, so to speak. You might be surprised what one can learn in a place like this."

"I would greatly appreciate it," Sophia said, nodding her head in thanks. She was also grateful Nostariel did not choose to push her point further. Perhaps it was unwise to discard advice from a Warden, but Sophia thought it far more dangerous to discard advice from Elthina, a woman she had known far longer, the wisest soul she had had the privelege of being taught by. Pleased, however, with at least making the acquaintance of a Warden, and the possibility of future cooperation, Sophia stood, and bowed once more, though it felt unnecessary. "I should probably return to the Keep, lest Bran send out a search party," she said, smiling slightly at Lucien. "Thank you for inviting me here. It was a pleasure to meet you, Nostariel."

She then made her way cautiously from the tavern once more, careful to avoid more stumbling drunks and other assorted dangers of Lowtown at night. Yes, she definitely would be wearing some armor next time she came here.

"Likewise," Nostariel murmured politely, but she wasn't sure there was much truth in it. It was not that she disliked Sophia, or even that she thought the woman was doomed to fail. It was just... taking on such a burden, no matter how apt her allies, was going to bring her much pain and sorrow, and some of it probably self-caused, if she was unwilling to veer from dogma and really see the things that her eyes would show her, if she spent long enough in places similar to those Nostariel had dwelt. Looking morosely into her cup, she took several deep swallows and glanced at the large man across from her. She made it to one of his ears this time, though eye contact was still impossible.

"I hope she winds up more like you than me," she said simply. They'd both suffered, but his had made him better, and hers had only sunk her, like a swimmer weighted with too many stones, drowning, drowning.

There was an underlying current to this conversation, one that was almost enough to cause Lucien to break into it. With what, exactly, he couldn't have said. The line of tension was relatively easily identified. Sophia was devout, Nostariel was a mage. He had thought the similarity in their intentions would have made it less of an issue, and to a certain degree, perhaps it had. The problems, however, had not simply vanished into thin air. He liked to think that he was in some way privileged, to know a fair deal more of Nostariel's woeful history than most, but there was still something there, underneath the general air of melancholy, that wasn't quite explainable with what he knew. She did not fight Sophia's assertions spitting like an alley cat (and he knew quite a few who would), but neither did she roll over and demur.

In time, the conversation itself was over, and their guest was departing. Lucien offered a nod, making sure Sophia successfully maneuvered her way out the door before glancing back to the Warden. He didn't exactly flinch at the amount of ale she was intaking, but the inward sentiment was about the same. He hadn't meant to depress her further; that had actually been the opposite of his aim.

When she spoke, he sighed, unheard over the din of the bar, and leaned his head into one hand, the drop in his height quite effectively forcing eye contact for at least a moment. "You shouldn't," he replied seriously. "There is nothing wrong with you, Nostariel."

The woman stilled, looking for a moment much like a doe staring down some form of very large predator. It wasn't that Lucien frightened her, but the sentiment was so... something. Surprising, perhaps. She shook her head slightly and swallowed, looking back down at the table. "...it's generous of you to say so." She replied at last.

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

It seemed her meeting with the Grey Warden was paying off already.

Sophia had received a brief missive from Nostariel, suggesting she speak with the owner of the Bone Pit mine, Hubert. An Orlesian setting up shop in Hightown among the nobles, looking to make his fortune by salvaging one of the old and lost (and rumored to be cursed) mines. Sophia certainly wasn't interested in helping the man become rich, as he had certainly already taken care of that if he had bought out the Bone Pit, and filled it with workers. According to Nostariel, however, it was the workers who were in need of aid. They were missing. Apparently they were, for the most part, refugees from Fereldan, desperate for work, and willing to stoop to the undoubtedly awful wages Hubert offered them. Sophia had to admit, it seemed possible they'd simply abandoned the man and his mine, but she was willing to investigate nonetheless. She trusted the Warden wouldn't send her on a needless errand.

She'd slipped out of the Keep unnoticed by Bran this time, glad to avoid his disapproving head shakes, dressed in a somewhat lighter set of armor this time, light plating over a suit of chainmail, a crimson skirt flowing down to her knees, Vesenia sheathed across her back as ever. She'd had the foresight to bring a few other weapons this time, considering the near disaster on the Wounded Coast, when she'd momentarily been disarmed by the mercenary leader, Ginnis. A shortsword was sheathed at her waist, and the dagger from the trip to the Hanged Man still sheathed in her boots. Her hair was once again pulled back into a ponytail.

The Viscount's daughter made her way to the market, where she had been directed. Hubert was not a hard man to find, and Sophia had more than enough experience to pick out his strong Orlesian accent from the crowd of merchants. He did seem so intent on selling his wares today, as well, no doubt preoccupied by his troubles as he was. She strode directly towards him until she had his attention.

"I hear you've been looking for help," she offered, coming to a halt, "something about the Bone Pit?" He appeared as though a physical weight had been lifted from his chest when she mentioned help. "Finally, someone comes to help me," he gave her a look-over, then, and appeared somewhat less relieved. "You... look a bit unseasoned, but I hope you will do!" It occurred to Sophia that this man did not know who she was. He likely hadn't been in Kirkwall for long. She found it immediately refreshing, and planned to keep it that way.

It was just a little bit apalling, how easy it was to mark the wealth of a certain area's residents just by the look of the buildings. Oh, there was no denying that Hightown was possessed of beautiful (if austere) architecture, but Amalia was more preoccupied by the fact that this was allowed to exist at the same time as Darktown. Within a mile, no less! Humans confused her, there was no denying that. They'd just climbed the stairs to the Hightown market, both looking about as unsuited to be there as it was possible to look. Amalia's manner of dress was probably scandalous, and Ithilian was a scowling, one-eyed, armed elf. This was more satisfying than troubling to her, anyway.

She'd been told that Hubert was an Orlesian who ran a stall here, though exactly what he sold, she did not know. As long as he didn't attempt to tell her exactly what she wanted as the Antivan had, she didn't really care, either. A breeze carried the sound of voices to her, and Amalia paused, cocking her head to one side. That accent... the male was Orlesian, the female local. He might be exactly the one they were looking for. Passing a dwarf with a small enchanting table, Amalia wove past a couple of pillars and emerged into both the sunlight and the market proper. Able to see the speakers now, she noted quickly tha one appeared to be midle-aged and indeed the proprietor of something, while the woman was substantialy younger, dressed in armor but still clearly of this area. It was irrelevant.

Some observation about the woman was made, but Amalia had no time to stand and wait patiently for her turn. There was a life at stake, a life she was responsible for. "Bas. You have information I require. Where is your Bone Pit, and what has happened there?"

Hubert at first looked slightly startled by the woman's tone, and then rather offended. Sophia had raised her eyebrows and crossed her arms, and Ithilian stayed a pace or two back, consciously reminding himself to keep his hands away from his weapons, and looking about to identify the positions of all the guards in the area. No doubt they would take offense to his presence if he remained here too long. Amalia would likely be politely asked to leave, being human, at least by their standards, but he had a gut feeling they wouldn't be so gentle with an obviously armed and clearly disgruntled elf.

"What happened?" Hubert said, raising his voice ever so slightly. "I had to suspend my operations, that's what happened! My workers are lost, or... have run off, or something! Serves me right for hiring Fereldan refugees." Sophia was clearly still maintaining her patience with the man, and her tone was not nearly so demanding as Amalia's. "So you have no information on what's gone wrong at the mine?" He shook his head. "I sent others before, but no word. Perhaps they are putting me off... in any case, I need someone competent to figure out what is going on."

"And you can think of no reason your miners would want to abandon you, I'm assuming?" Ithilian offered from practically afar. It took a moment for Hubert to realize who was speaking to him, but he shrugged at the elf upon locating him. "I am at a loss. No miner has reported in, and no one will take me seriously. They fear local superstitions about the mine, but the Bone Pit is harmless, I am sure."

"I'll go to your mine then, and see what I can learn about your workers," Sophia offered, before turning to Amalia. "It seems you've some reason to investigate as well? I know the way, and I would welcome the assistance, if you would like to work together."

Amalia spent a moment or two longer than was strictly polite in silence, contemplating the offer. Heterochromatic eyes narrowed, contemplating Sophia as though she were some curious specimen under a magnifying glass, and the Qunari was looking for something in particular. From the fact that Ithilian hadn't immediately (and obviously) made his opinion known, she inferred that much as he would dislike it, he was going to leave the decision to her, something the Ben-Hassrath appreciated. She could not afford to waste resources in a situation where her enemies were as yet unknown, should there be any at all.

At last, she broke her moratorium on speech. "Merevas. If you know the way, I will follow." She did not speak of her purpose, nor did she speak for her companion. Even if the same could rarely be said of those that lived in this place, she at least respected boundaries. To Hubert, she offered only a cold stare. Harmless, indeed. Lying basra. She wasn't exactly surprised that this well-dressed woman didn't know the rumors surrounding the Bone Pit, nor what the working conditions were supposedly like, and she wasn't going to bother enlightening anyone. All of those things would be clear soon enough, after all.

"Ahem," Hubert tried to break in, holding up a hand slightly, "The reward would be split three ways if I'm to have a team investigate, not tripled. You should be aware of that, of course, and that you'll be paid based on what kind of troub--" But Sophia cut him off. "You may keep your coin, Hubert. I'm interested in the miners, not the mine." The Orlesian looked somewhat shocked, but wiped it away quickly enough. "Very well, then. Please hurry, though. Each day the mine is not running costs me more than those miners make in a year, after all."

Ithilian chose a rather interesting time to speak up. "I'll take my share of the reward, actually. The shem does not speak for me." Hubert sighed. "Yes, yes. We will discuss rewards upon your return, is that acceptable?" The elf nodded, clearly not wishing to deal with him further. "Take us to this mine then, len'alas. Like the man says, quickly now."

Not appearing intimidated by the heavily armed Dalish, Sophia gestured with her hand for them to follow. "This way, then. And you may call me Sophia, should you wish."

Ithilian almost smirked. He didn't. Len'alas would do.

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

Lucien,

There's a merchant making a lot of noise in Lowtown about the Qunari, Javaris something. Says he's offering quite a bit of coin for anyone who'll help him. If the horn-heads are involved, it probably won't be easy, but that's kind of your speciality, isn't it?

-Mirren


Admittedly, when he'd woken this morning to find the note affixed to his door with a red-handled dagger, he'd rolled his eyes (the bad one could still do that, after all) and wondered when the Red Iron had picked up such a flair for the dramatic. Nevertheless, he was grateful that they were passing work his way, regardless of how they chose to go about informing him of it. So here he was, going through the daily ritual of strapping on his copious amonts of armor and tying his patch over his scarred eye, thankfully about to be gainfully employed once more. Lucien's home was fairly typical of Lowtown, save one thing: it was incredibly neat and free of clutter. The rooms were scrubbed to Chevalier-barracks standard, which was to say that dust was treated as a mortal foe, and everything had a place. It wasn't exactly clinical, but it clearly lacked the touch of someone who hadn't lived a military life.

Buckling his last gauntlet into place, he removed the scythe from its hook near his bookshelves and places it in its accustomed place at his back. There were no mirrors in his home, so he made due with a quick inspection, ensuring that his cleaning of the plate and chain the day before had not missed any errant blood spots or debris. It hadn't, of course, and so he stepped outside, locking the door with a brass key, kept on a ring with only one other. Looping this through his belt, he set off towards the market, which was for him a fair distance, given his location just a few streets over from the Alienage.

As was usual even this early in the morning, the place was fairly abustle, and he had to scan the heads of the merchants he was used to seeing for the ones that he wasn't. Javaris was not an elf's name he'd ever heard, meaning that he was looking for a human or a dwarf, probably the second. As it was, he pulled over to the clothier's stall to inquire about it and recieved his answer. "That blighter? Won't shut up about Qunari or explosions or something. Yeah, he's over there." Lucien followed the trajectory of the woman's arm and smiled politely, dipping his head in thanks.

The smell of ale and old vomit had been a little too much for Nostariel to handle just then, and it occurred to her that she hadn't been out of the Hanged Man since the last time she'd gone to check up on Feynriel, which was at least a week ago. That was long enough, and after bathing, she'd taken up her staff and decided to go walking, to make her pesence known if nothing else. The absence of a Blight didn't excuse her from her duties as a Warden, however much a "retirement" this posting was supposed to be. Admittedly, she felt a little more motivated right now than she had in a while, partially because of her promise to the Viscount's daughter, and partially because of what Lucien had said to her. She hated disappointing people, which was why she often tried to remind them (and herself) that it was unwise to expect much from her. But the man didn't seem to understand the hint, and he'd gone and said there was nothing wrong with being her.

She still disagreed, but it couldn't hurt to find out if there was some truth to the statement, could there? It was unlikely, but she might surprise herself.

The elven woman had reached the Lowtown markets, lost in thought and her face firmly pointed towards the ground, when her trajectory crossed the Orlesian man's. Unless he noticed and moved, she was actually going to run straight into him.

Lucien was trekking towards the indicated merchant, an old bard's tune escaping him in the form of a low whistle, when he noted a familiar face. Well, really it was more the body language and clothing that gave it away, for her face was turned, as usual, downwards. She did not seem to have noticed him, and the Orlesian neatly sidestepped her determined path, his tune ceasing mid-note. Ever decorous, he did not touch her shoulder to stop her as another might have, but he felt it would be rather inconsiderate of him to pretend he had not noticed her presence at all. "Ah, Nostariel. It's quite the surprise to see you here, I must admit." He smiled kindly, stopping in his forward motion so as to speak to her properly, if that was what she wished. People that needed to pass him simply went around; nobody was going to complain to a man so tall and clearly well-armed.

The sound of a familiar voice snapped her right out of her reverie, and she looked up sharply. How was it that everyone she knew was so much taller than her? Clearly, she needed to befriend more dwarves. It was worse when they were standing, and it would not be an exaggeration to suggest that Lucien loomed. Not that she believed he intended to. The lady Warden blinked, her mouth opening and closing a few times before her words finally caught up with her thoughts. "Oh, Lucien. What are you doing here?" She winced; that had sounded somewhat impolite even to her own ears. Had it really been so long since she'd needed to socialize without the aid of ale or brandy?

Lucien's smile grew, and he chuckled lightly. "I do have to earn my keep somehow, I'm afraid. I'm here on a bit of business. Apparently, there's a merchant here who needs some help involving the Qunari. I'm told the coin will be lucrative, but I came to discover the nature of the task first." After all, he was not the Red Iron. He didn't take anything that would pay well outside of slavery and assassination. Still, however suspect this seemed, he was at least willing to speak with the client before making a decision.

"Ah, of course. Sorry." Nostariel felt the faintest hint of color rising to her skin, which only made things worse. She should have guessed that he was here for his work. Even if he hadn't been, what right did she have to inquire? She paused for a moment, considering simply making her goodbys and departing, but something made her hesitate. She recalled the way she'd felt upon Feynriel's rescue, as well as Sophia's words in the pub the day before. Biting her lip, she gave it a bit of thought, then took a deep breath. "Can I come? That is, I won't ask for any of the profits, I just..." she exhaled, at a loss for how to explan her desire to be active to actually accomplish something again.

Lucien shrugged, the corner of his visible eye crinkling with faint good humor. "I don't see why not; I'd be happy to have some help, in fact. And you're welcome to your share of the payment, whatever that might be. Shall we?" He gestured ahead of himself, and the two approached the merchant identified as Javaris Tintop. "Pardon me, sir, but I'm of the understanding that you're looking to hire help of a certain kind. My friend and I were here to inquire about the circumstances."

The dwarf fiddled with his rather short and well groomed beard as he sized up his potential help. "So that's how it works, is it? Gotta put out a load a coin before you get anyone with some muscle on them? Can't get a decent blade at a bargain anymore, that's for sure," he finished, half-mumbling the last bit. "You two, though! You might be what I need. The name's Javaris Tintop, in case you didn't already know, and I need skilled help in order to pacify the Qunari."

He leaned forward on the little stall he was set up at, to speak more directly to Lucien and Nostariel, even though it was unlikely many of the other Lowtown merchants would hear him as it is, or even care if they did. "Those horn-heads in the Docks have a... powder, and it explodes! Just dust, no lyrium, no magic, no demons. Anyone can use it! Problem is, that Arishok said I wasn't worthy or something, then he said something about how not even their outcasts, those Tal-Vashoth as they call 'em, are that mercenary. Made me think... if I got rid of something that bothered the horn-heads as much as those Tal-Vashoth do, maybe he'd bargain with me! Therein lies the job. You up for hunting some outlaws, my good man?"




Today was not a shop-sitting kind of day, as Ashton locked the door of the Hunted Stag behind him. Sure, he may have had gotten some customers over the course of the day, but that really wouldn’t help pull him out of the bind that he was currently in. While he was a shopowner, that didn’t exactly mean he owned his shop. He still had massive payments to make out to the Viscount’s Keep—and he couldn’t shake the feeling that they cheated him. Hard. Ridiculously so. So that meant every now and then, on days like this, Ashton would have to venture from his lowly shop and try his hand at freelancing once more—though he’d rather stay away from the type of freelancing that got him into the city. Smuggling would leave a bad taste in his mouth.

Luckily, due to the prime location of his shop (in the heart of the Lowtown bazaar) that meant that if he kept his ears open, job opportunities would just up and appear. This was one of those times. There was word of a dwarven merchant looking to hire. From what he had gleaned the job wasn't anything illegal-- though that wouldn't have stopped him in the first place. He already associated with mages and tranquils, it's not like breaking a little law here and there would weigh too heavily on soul. The dwarf, a Jarvis Tin-something or another, was actually nearby where Ashton had his own shop. He reached behind him to make sure he had his bow and an adequate number of arrows (he once left his bow at the shop... When he went hunting. Throwing arrows at animals didn't quite pan out.) he began to make his way to where he believe this dwarf was set up.

True to his name as a hunter, he came upon the dwarf in spectacular time. Even so, it seemed that two others had already beaten him to the punch. It was a good thing Ashton wasn't shy. He coyly rubbed his hands together as he realized that one of the party was a very pretty elven lass. "Seems like it times to make some friends," Ashton said to himself as he approached the group. He arrived just in time to here the bit about exploding powder and Qunari. Dammit. The Qunari were intimidating creatures, and hunting them sounded... Suspect. Though, he did need the money. Else, his shop may not be his for much longer. Besides, he couldn't call himself a man if he let the elven lass attempt something this dangerous by herself could he now? So with his mind firmly set, he opened his mouth.

"Explodes you say? Surely something that dangerous would never be used for something grisly," Ashton deadpanned. "Though, hunting these outlaws sounds like something I could do. For the right price," He said with a wink to the elven girl.

Nostariel's mouth was set into a small frown. The way the merchant spoke conveyed absolutely no care for anything but the money he could make off the enterprise, and that did bother her to a degree. Still, what they were actually being asked to do seemed a decent-enough task. She was about to speak when she was interrupted from behind by someone unfamiliar. Turning to see the newcomer, she sighed inwardly. He was nearly as tall as Lucien! One of these days, she was going to end up with neck problems just from looking at the people she spoke to, she just knew it. For all that though, they seemed otherwise completely different. This one wore what seemed to her a friendly face, but considerably more open than her friend's.

She coughed slightly and looked away when he addressed her. People were sometimes forward with her, but they were also usually drunk at the time (as was she) and that did quite a bit to reduce her embarassment. Not so presently. "Erm... indeed not," she replied as much in kind as she was able, though her tone grew more serious when she continued. "Varric tells me that these Tal'Vashoth, they often prey on travellers and merchants trying to make their way into or out of the city. On the Wounded Coast, mostly. It seems they've displaced many of the other bandits with, well... bigger bandits." It seemed like reason enoughto do what Javaris was asking, even if the results might be... less than entirely savory if he successfully claimed credit for it. Someone purely merchantile likely wouldn't bother all that much with caring who he sold such a substance to, as long as they paid well enough.

Maybe they'd get lucky somehow, and it wouldn't become an issue. She glanced briefly in Lucien's direction, trusting his judgement a good deal more than her own.

"I'll admit to not knowing as much as I'd like to about the Qunari," Lucien pointed out, "But it seems like the Arishok's word is not something commonly overturned." Still, it appeared that this hadn't dissuaded Javaris from his resolution in the slightest, and he was about to decline on the grounds of insufficient reason to simply further the ends of a money-seeking merchant when a stranger joined the conversation. He seemed to be primarily intent on addressing the Warden, and the once-Chevalier had to work very hard to suppress the amused grin that threatened. Few people in this country were quite so direct; it was almost like being back home.

The thought fled quickly enough when she spoke though, and her words gave him reason to reconsider. Bandits... perhaps there was some merit in taking the task. An outlaw was one thing (he probably qualified as one where he was from), but a bandit was something else entirely. There was the matter of what Javaris would do with this powder if he gained it, but Lucien suspected that, opaque as they were, the Qunari were not simply going to hand it over to him. If they made to do so, perhaps he would be able to convince them otherwise. "Very well, Javaris. It looks like you have three pairs of hands where once you had none. Are we to assume that these Tal'Vashoth are indeed on the Wounded Coast?"

"Exactly so, my friend!" Javaris responded, considerably more excited now that he had a team of able individuals agreeing to help him. "Hell, loads of travelers and traders have been avoiding the Wounded Coast road just because of the damn oxmen. They hide in the hills, so I've heard, just off the roads. You probably won't have to look too hard to find them. Come find me here when the job's done, and we'll go get the powder from the Arishok, and you'll have your reward, all three of you!"

Ashton's answer was a wide grin to first the dwarf, and then second to his newfound companions. "So we just need to find these renegade Qunari, get rid of them, and get back just in time to get paid. Sounds like a simple job," He said sarcastically. Obviously, this wouldn't be easy as he made it out to be. He wasn't that stupid. The straight laced Qunari were already frightening, these renegade Qunari sounded like they had no qualms about splitting his head like an overripened melon. However, that just meant that he just had to stay out of their reach. The tall fellow with the armor could worry about that, he'd just hang back. Ah! Which brought him to his next point. He pivoted on his feet, coming face-to-face with the elven lady... In a manner. She was strikingly shorter than him, which he readily remedied by leaning over and taking her hand in his own. He gave it a light peck and then looked back up to the elf's hazel eyes and introduced himself, "I am Ashton Riviera, hunter extrodinaire, at your service Miss..."

"N-Nostariel," the Warden stuttered in reply. More than a little irritated at herself, she cleared her throat and tried again, this time with considerably more composure. "My name is Nostariel Turtega, Captain of the Grey." She hadn't used the title in a long time, but a present, she felt like a little distance might not be at all unfavorable. She couldn't remember the last time someone had so much as touched her except on accident, so this was... very strange, and more than a little uncomfortable. Taking a quick breath for fortification, she plowed onwards. "It's... nice to meet you. This is a friend of mine, Lucien..." She threw a glance at the aformentioned warrior, as though pleading with him to step in and smooth this over. She was awkward enough around people like he and Aurora and Ithilian. This was... another step away from even that.

Lucien decided that it would be best to do the lady a small mercy and get the task underway at the same time. "Lucien Drakon, at your service," he finished smoothly. "As fond as I am of both conversation and knowing my allies, I think it might be best to be underway as soon as possible, perhaps." He raised a brow at Ashton and smiled, just slightly, at the other man over the Warden's head. It was, mostly, something sympathetic, as though to point out that the Warden's reticence was universal and not his fault.

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

"I don't believe I ever got your names," Sophia offered, if only to break the silence. How these two could stand it, she didn't know, but the walk to the Bone Pit had been more than long enough and more than quiet enough to become rather awkward, in Sophia's opinion. That and, well, it wouldn't hurt to get some basics down, right? If they were going to be working together on something that could potentially become dangerous, they should at least have something to call each other by.

"That's because I never gave you mine, shem," Ithilian shot back, eyes off the road as ever, searching for other threats. "But if you must, call me Sataareth. It apparently suits me." He didn't so much as glance in Amalia's direction, and certainly didn't intend to speak for her. It had been enough of a challenge for Ithilian to accept that he'd be working with this len'alas. He supposed another blade would be useful in the event that they were attacked, but that was about as much use as he could think of for her at the moment. He had his doubts she was even competent with the hunk of metal strapped across her back.

Sataareth. Sophia rolled the word around in her mind. It was certainly no word she'd ever heard before, but she would be the first to admit that was not too difficult to accomplish. To her shame, she had little understanding of the languages of other races, only those spoken by humans. She could tell by his appearance, however, that the elf was Dalish, or at least had been. She had never seen an elf so... well, confident, before. Also well armed. And the tattoo along his neck was something she was certain was a Dalish thing. Perhaps it was a Dalish word, then. It would work as well as any real name he had. The woman, however... Sophia didn't have the slightest clue who she was or where she came from. She could only hope she'd be willing to enlighten her.

Amalia's tread did not waver as Sophia's voice dropped words like stones into the stillness of their silence, but upon hearing Ithilian's response, the Qunari did something most unusual: she smiled. It was not an overt thing, and she flashed no teeth, but there was a definite, perceptible shift in the set of her mouth, as though she were contemplating some small, but complex secret and wondering slightly at its depth. On another face, it would have almost been a smirk, but not so here. Her eyes shifted almost slyly in the Sataareth's direction, but he was still looking about in that way the vigilant (or paranoid, but it was a thin difference to begin with) were inclined to do. He was playing games with the human woman, and she knew that, but it didn't seem to bring her any displeasure that he was using her words to do it.

"I am Ben-Hassrath, and I have need of no other name. It pleases some to call me Amalia, and you may do so if you are among them." She had not so much doubt as Ithilian did about Sophia's competence; she rcognized a warrior's tread when she saw (and heard) one. It continued to confound her that humans saw fit to place their women in such positions, but that itself was no mark against any one of them in particular. Anyone could, with proper work and training, become skilled in just about anything- this itself was not something the Qun denied.

The mountainous incline was beginning to level out, presumably as they approached the mine. The ground here was well-worn and gritty with the passage of countless feet, though it took them precariously-close to dropoffs that would likely kill if fallen from. Amalia was not naive, and she had no doubt more than one unfortunate had met his or her end in this way. Likely most of them were not accidents, either, but beyond a certain point it was all conjecture, and she wasn't about to bother when there were more concrete matters to be taken care of. There was, she noted, a rotten smell on the air, faintly but certainly. She suspected it might be coming from the mine passages themselves.

Instead of focusing on how she'd been randomly saddled with perhaps the strangest pair in all of Kirkwall, which she certainly could have, Sophia decided to focus on the road ahead. They had nearly reached their destination. The Viscount's daughter had not actually been here in such small numbers before; she'd had no reason to. It had been a desolate, abandoned place up until not so long ago. Still, she knew the way, as perhaps any local would who had been in the city long enough. It was located not far from the city walls, and its infamy insured that all knew of its whereabouts if they listened long enough.

The skies had clouded over by the time they arrived, leaving the haphazardly paved stone roads and venturing onto the rough dirt path, which eventually became little more than sand beneath her boots. She took a single glance off the side, enough to know that she didn't care to do that anymore. There was an ill feeling in the air, one couldn't help but feel it. The land itself seemed to protest to being tread upon, but Sophia was not one easily deterred, nor did she suspect her companions were. Still, the fact that there was hardly a bird chirping in the trees was slightly unnerving.

After a sharp left turn and a small rise, the entrance to the mine itself came into sight. Sophia was immediately greeted by the stillness of the scene, for the most part. There was, as Hubert had predicted, not a worker in sight, and the equipment was strewn about the ground in a careless manner, implying that whoever had been here before had quite hastily made a departure. It didn't appear as though there had been an attack, nothing was burning or destroyed, but the state of the entrance seemed to imply some kind of flight on the part of the workers.

The movement that did catch her eye, however, came from directly in front of them, down the little hill, at the start of the abandoned equipment. A few people were poking about through the dirt, searching through abandoned sacks and pouches, looking for perhaps valuable left behind in the haste. Sophia's gaze narrowed in disgust. Looters. The first to be on the scene, no doubt Darktown dwellers who had heard from a miner why they'd left, and thought to brave whatever dangers there were in order to pick up a few easy coins. Sophia called out them, but made no motion to draw her sword.

"Hey! You there! Stop!"

It had quite the opposite effect. A looter's head darted back to where the trio of unnanounced visitors had appeared, before slapping his fellow on the shoulder, and the pair bolted away. A few others further in dispersed as well, far out of the group's reach. Ithilian made a lightning quick motion, his bow in his hand and an arrow drawn back before the humans had so much as ten paces from where they'd started. He aimed for a brief moment, steadied his hand... Before his bow was pulled down hard by an outside force just as he released the string, sending the arrow twanging awkwardly away into the dirt. "What are you doing?!" Sophia shouted at him, having interrupted his shot. "We don't need to start killing anyone just yet, regardless of how lacking in morality they may be."

Meanwhile, Amalia, who detested wasting time, had moved at just about the same moment as Ithilian, with precisely the same thought. The only difference was an operative one: she was not quite so obvious in her intent, and rather than drawing a weapon, she simply disappeared, vanishing from broad daylight. The sand, she took as sufficient disguise for the sound of her motion, and so she did not bother slowing for stealth, instead sprinting dead-on for the nearest pair of fleeing looters. She stayed out of the elf's most likely arrow-trajectory, and though she was puzzled when it landed far short of the goal and much closer to her than she would have expected, she did not pause, using her momentum to leap into the air, launching herself into a scissor-kick that caught one of the looters about the neck. All three of the parties involved hit the sand, but Amalia was (as she had expected to be) by far the first one to recover, and rolled over on top to the back of her intended target much faster than either of them regained their breath.

Twisting one of his arms behind him, she ignored his feeble struggling and leveled a glare at his friend, flickering back into view. "Leave," she commanded in a flat, almost-bored contralto, and the man shot a glance at his companion. Amalia hissed faintly, the exhalation of annoyance whistling past her teeth. "Now, basra. I will not ask twice."

Apparently, that was enough, and the second man turned tail and fled once more, though he did look several times over his shoulder, as if to confirm that he was not being followed. The one beneath her was whimpering slightly, and she loosened her grip just enough to relieve his pain. Removing her knee from its spot between his shoulderblades, Amalia stood, bringing the looter with her. "This way, bas. Cooperate and you will leave intact." So saying, she walked him over to where Sataareth and the woman Sophia were still apparently arguing about something. Amalia and her quarry approached the two from behind, and the Qunari cleared her throat, loud enough to be heard, but not obtrusively so. "This basra will speak, and he will start with anything he knows of a human boy named Finn." She gave the man in question a meaningful look, and then released him, dusting off her hands and crossing her arms over her chest. If he ran, he would be pursued, and not nearly so gently as the last time, either.

The elf looked as though he'd just been told by Sophia perhaps the stupidest thing he had ever heard, and took a moment to overcome his own incredulity, before he looked over the scene again. The majority of the looters were gone now, save for the one that Amalia had managed to ensnare, her approach having been much more subtle than Ithilian's, and thereby avoiding Sophia's attention. He quite forcefully pulled her arm from his bow, shoved it away, and moved forward to retrieve his arrow. "Len'alas. I aimed to cripple, not kill. They could have told us something." He flipped the arrow about in his hand, before sliding it back into his quiver, and glancing back over his shoulder. "Do not do that again."

The looter Amalia had captured, a young man of scrawny stature, freckled face and shaggy brown hair, cowered slightly before his attackers, breathing heavily from his futile attempts to struggle away from the Qunari woman. Having been released, his eyes flickered about left and right, possibly looking for a quick escape, but upon taking a better look at his captors, made the smart choice, and remained still. He held his hands out before him as to show her that they were indeed empty, or perhaps clean of whatever she thought him guilty of. "I dunno nothing, miss! I mean, I may'a seen Finn 'round the Undercity once or twice, but we wasn't friends or nothing! Haven't seen him since the miners started coming back to town, raving 'bout monsters in the mine or something."

"Be specific, shem," Ithilian suggested, his free hand resting on the quiver of arrows at his hip. Not deterred by the elf's earlier wrath, Sophia stepped forward, perhaps attempting to calm down the young man somewhat. "Any information you can give us will help. We're trying to make sure the miners are safe, that's all." Though she wasn't quite sure that was what her companions were doing. Apparently they were looking for someone specific. She wondered what for.

"Right, right," the looter said, nodding to himself, "I was jus' hanging about the Darktown, and I overhear some workers sayin' the whole crew ditched this place, 'cause they didn't want to get eaten or nothing. I asked 'em about it. They said there's some kinda monsters in the mine, they didn't know what. I asked if they was coming outside, too, an' they said no. I figured I'd go poking 'round the equipment out here with some others, seeing as they're not using the stuff no more. That's all I know, I swear. Haven't seen Finn, or any of the miners since I got here. Maybe the monsters got him, I dunno. Can... can I go now?"

That made things more complicated, Sophia thought. She was glad for the company of these two, seeing that they were at least skilled, although she still wasn't sure as to what their motives were. Monsters was such a broad term. She didn't like going into the mine blindly, but it seemed they didn't have much choice. They had to get rid of whatever was making the mine dangerous, and her two companions would no doubt want to go in to search for their lost person. She nodded to the boy. "Yes. Thank you for your help. Try to stay out of trouble, would you? Not everyone will be forgiving."

He took a few cautious steps away, as if waiting for one of the others to make a move, but when they didn't, he bolted like the others, taking off and out of sight. Ithilian scowled (or continued to scowl), but made no comment in regards to Sophia's mercy. The woman herself had turned to Amalia. "If I might ask, who's Finn? I'm just curious if we all have the same purpose here. My intent is to make sure these miners will be safe when they return to work. All of them."

"Their affairs are not mine to be concerned with," Amalia replied levelly, "but his are. Finn is Athlok, viddethari. A child, and so my responsibility. If our actions help others, then so be it, but such considerations are irrelevant." Her words were blunt, their tone factual, but all the same there was nothing patently unfriendly about either. It was as though she were simply commenting on the weather. So having spoken, she turned without further comment and headed for the mine's entrance. The basra's story had troubled her, though she would not allow this to be apparent. Her fingers twitched for just a moment, the motion curiously-simliar to the one she'd use for flicking a harpstring.

"Come. We are wasting time and breath this way. If we are to speak, let us at least move simultaneously."

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

"So, what brings a beautiful Captain of the Grey out to the ass end of Kirkwall anyway?" Ashton asked Nostariel. "I haven't seen a darkspawn in... Well.. Ever," Ashton said, his face scrunching into something of a quizzical look as if he just asked himself a question. "Hmm... Wonder if I have the Wardens to thank for that. Certainly have to thank them for saving Fereldan. Archdemon business, you know? Of course you know. I was one of the refugees from Fereldan. Thanks to the Wardens, my Aunt and Uncle aren't some headpiece for a 'Spawn," Ashton rambled, unaware to how the lady warden would feel about it. To be fair, Ashton was just enamored with the fact that this woman was a Warden. He'd never met one before, he was only told stories about them. Grand, fantasical stories of warriors of great renown and strength, mages with the power of the fade in their hands, rogues that flirt with the shadows themselves. He found himself wondering which category this woman belonged to.

"So. What does bring you to our Kirkwall?" Ashton repeated, this time leaving room for Nostariel to answer.

The Warden was accustomed enough to being spoken at that she knew she didn't really need to do much besides nod and smile faintly, though she was listening. This Ashton seemed to enjoy the sound of his own voice, but that had ceased to annoy her long ago. It was funny; she would have thought his name Rivaini, but his appearance and accent practically screamed 'Fereldan,' and his words confirmed it. He was also trampling through tender ground (unintentionally, no doubt) without much self-consciousness at all. It would have been enough to depress her further if he didn't whisk by every sentence too quickly for the feelings to really set in. At the end of it all, she was perplexed, mildly overwhelemed, and still a smidge embarassed (Beautiful? Really? Who just said things like that so casually?), but surprisingly not upset.

"Well... I've been in the Free Marches most of my life, with a few exceptions here and there," she replied, casting her glance around as though trying to find something to fix it upon. Seeing as how the landscape was mostly rocks and sand, 'something' amounted to either the occasional shrub, Lucien's back, or her own feet. She went with some flitting mix of all three, which was perhaps mildly vigilant but mostly just served to keep her distracted enough to speak freely on the subject. "I grew up in the Starkhaven Circle, but Warden service takes one strange places, sometimes. I'm here now because... well, it's considered wisest to have Wardens in major cities during peacetime, and this is where they put me." That wasn't quite a lie, but it was certainly not the whole truth either. Lucien would know; she just hoped he wouldn't say anything about it.

Lucien didn't feel any particular pressure to contribute to the conversation; he was content enough simply letting the man called Ashton talk his tongue off and smiling to himself when Nostariel seemed a fair mix of confused and unusually open in response. The bowman had the "disarming" quality down quite well, he would readily admit. As he was presently leading, he didn't see the need to disguise his amusement as anything else, so he didn't try. He was considering pushing his female friend just a little further, but he knew her omissions were very purposeful, and he had no wish to make her truly ill-at-ease. Besides, they were here to do a job, and he was by his very nature focused on that until it was through.

Which was, perhaps, why he heard the shouting first. The voice was barely audible, and sounded like it was comng from atop the low cliffside to their right. "Terribly sorry to interrupt," he broke in, and quite genuinely remorsefully at that, "But it appears we have company already." He did not take his scythe to hand, for thus far, all he was hearing was a warning, which seemed a civil-enough sort of thing to be hearing, though it was sadly wasted on the likes of them. They hadn't come here to avoid the danger, after all; rather the opposite.

"A Mage huh? I suppose that walking stick of yours would have given it away." Ashton said with a wry grin. Another mage. He wondered why they flocked to a city whose circle is called the "Gallows". Even so, the mere admission of her... Mageyness drew immediate comparisons between the Warden and Sparrow. He wasn't able to get too far into it however, as the fellow leading the way-- Lucien was it? Called attention to someone shouting a warning. Just in case, Ashton had his hand on his bow, waiting for a reason to draw.

A large, gray-skinned form appeared before them, dropping down from the low cliff to their right, a spear in hand. He gripped it casually however, and did not clutch it as though preparing to strike. He was kossith, the horned people that made up the majority of the Qunari population. Short black horns curved backwards away from his head, ending over shoulder length white hair. He wore nothing above his waist, which revealed that he, like perhaps every Qunari in Kirkwall, was in excellent condition, a powerful combination of strength and speed. Bronze bands lined his arms, a larger one encircling the base of his neck. He held out a hand to the group, both as an offering of peace, and as a warning. His voice rang out strong and clear.

"Go no further, if you are wise! Tal-Vashoth control these passages. They will show you no mercy."

"I confess I wasn't expecting much," Nostariel replied. She didn't know enough about the Qunari to fill a book or anything, but if their treatment of their mages was anything to go by, mercy didn't really enter into the equation. Amalia had seemed not at all discomfited by her presence, but she put that down more to the fact that Amalia hadn't seemed discomfited by anything than any cultural tolerance. Glancing up the path from which he'd come, Nostariel placed her hands on her hips and looked up at the kossith with an expression best classed as underwhelmed, but curious. "How is it that the Arishok allows this? Surely, the Tal-Vashoth are not simply allowed to roam as they please?"

This was something that had been bothering her about the situation. The Qunari sat there at the docks, presumably largely inactive (and probaly bored out of their minds), and just sort of allowed traitors to their incredibly militant order to gallivant about the Wounded Coast, probably causing no small amount of diplomatic pressure and trouble? It just didn't make sense.

"It is not my business to know Arishok's mind," he answered evenly. "Perhaps we are beneath his notice, and we are to be insulted by being ignored. We have turned our backs on the Qun, and as such we are no longer Qunari. Perhaps it is no longer within his role to deal with us. We have become bandits and highwayman. A problem for the city guard moreso than the Antaam, wouldn't you say?"

He took a few cautious steps forward, to better examine those he had come upon. "I expected to see another caravan passing through, the usual pickings for the Tal-Vashoth, but you three appear well-equipped. The path ahead is littered with my kind. If your skill matches your arms, it would please me if you killed them."

"A cheerful sort, wouldn't you say?" Ashton quipped as he removed his hand from the arch of his bow. This Qunari-- or was he still a Qunari, since he had abandoned the Qun? Hmm. A curious question for another time perhaps. As it stood, this Qunari was asking them to slay his companions. "Is it usual for Qunari to ask others to kill their kind? Or is this a one-of-a-kind deal that we were fortunate enough to be a part of?" He asked, doing the head tilt that was usual for him. Perhaps his words wouldn't have been so sarcastic if the mass of man that was Lucien wasn't currently standing between him and large horned devil creature.

"I have turned my back on those I formerly belonged to. The second time I have done this in a short time," he explained. "I did not like my role, so I left the Qun. I do not wish to be a murdering thief, so I left these Tal-Vashoth to warn their victims. You are clearly no victims, if you have come seeking blood as I suspect, so now I will take my leave." He turned to go, no longer seeming to care about the three he had just come to warn.

"Right. That was weird," Ashton deadpanned.

Lucien raised his brow as the Qunari- well, Tal-Vashoth, most correctly- walked off, apparently not that concerned after all. "You obviously didn't grow up in Orlais, my friend. That doesn't even begin to reach the level of 'weird,'" he replied mildly, reaching back to clasp the haft of his scythe and loosen it from its bound position against his back. It gave without trouble, and the warrior hefted the thing to rest casually across the broad line of his shoulders.

"It appears to be about time to be at business, I suppose." The chances of bandits simply giving up and dispersing, he had learned some time ago, were slim to none, and so he didn't entertain much hope that they'd agree to stop raiding and killing people. Still, he'd offer them the chance. Everyone deserved that much, regardless of the circumstanes in which he'd found them. Casting a glance back at the other two, he shrugged nonchalantly. "Ready?"

Nostariel sighed softly. She probably ought to accept that she was never going to get the Qunari. They were just so... obtuse. That was probably the right word for it. Still, for all they made no sense to her, she had always believed that they operated on some kind of honor-based system, which was a good deal more than she could say for these Tal-Vashoth. Pursing her lips, the Warden mirrored Lucien in motion if nothing else and loosed her staff, planting it into the ground for the time being and nodding resolutely.

"Ready," she confirmed, her grip on the smooth sylvanwood tightening. "Bandits, I can certainly deal with." Bigger bandits just meant she had to avoid getting hit as much as possible. It occurred to her then that it might be beneficial for the other two to have some form of information about her talents, which were less obvious than a scythe bigger than her person or a well-kept bow and arrows. "Oh, and... if it comes up, I happen to be a healer, so the magical explosions will be on the smaller side." Her lips twitched for a moment, but it was time to go, and so she shook her head minutely and followed.

"Small explosions? Well that's no fun," Ashton said as he pulled his bow out of the quiver. In a single deft movement, he strung the bow as if he was tying a bootlace. He had a deftness about his fingers that his nonchalant and silly demeanor belied. With his bow strung and ready to use, he swung it over his shoulders until it rested nicely over the back of his neck. "Orlais you say? I had you pegged for a chevalier type. And I must admit, I wasn't so blessed to be born in Orlais. Highever more like it. Have many Qunari in Orlais?" Ashton said with a wry grin. He found himself rather fond of Lucien now. Still, there would be more time to talk when a band of roving horned demon bandits weren't on the road. He nodded and added, "Yep. Ready."

The group had just climbed a rise and crested a small hill when the first of the Tal-Vasoth came into sight. From the looks of things, there were quite the number, a mix of melee combatants and javelin-throwers. Lucien blinked his good eye and returned his comrade's grin with a faint smirk.

"Oh, scads. Qunari everywhere," he replied offhandedly, the double-meaning of the words quite apparent given what they'd just stumbled onto. "Simplifies our problem of finding them," Ashton grinned as he reached back for an arrow.

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel

Earnings

0.00 INK

The contrast was striking. From Hightown to Lowtown, one would be surprised to learn that it was one city-- if she didn't already live there, Aurora would have been surprised herself. Even then, when she went on her walks around Hightown it felt like she was walking somewhere else entirely. Lowtown was, well, as the name put it, Low. Dusty streets and grungy alleyways, unsavory sorts staring as people walked by. Muggings and thugs were rampant. Though all of the negatives were there, there were a couple of positives. A silver lining of sorts that those optmisitic enough to look would find.. It felt real. There were no facades, no gilt to hide the dirt and grime. It was all out in the open, written plainly on every person who lived there. They were real. Their intentions were clear.

Hightown however did not have the decency to hang it's dirty laundry out in the open. It was hidden, under layers of gilt and gold. Still, Aurora had to admit, Hightown was pretty. Large mansions, immaculate stonework, wide open areas, and even the grim statues had a certain majesty about them. Plus, she didn't have to worry about getting mugged near about much as she would in Lowtown. The people living in Hightown however... Left something to be desired. Sneering nobility, entitled men, pompous women, and pride just because someones great-great-ancestor made their fortune in the city. She became used to a noble sneering at her like she didn't belong, she certainly looked like she didn't belong. A farcry from the robes and silks of the Nobles, she wore a pink shirt and leather pants with her red scarf. The majestic city hiding the ugly within the people's hearts. Much like Lowtown's dirt hiding the pride of her people.

But who was she to condemn and parade those she didn't know? There had to be real people in Hightown, kind people looking to just make their city that much better. The same for Lowtown, people who look for more than just to survive, but to live and thrive. Eh. Perhaps she was just that optimistic. Aurora tilted her head as she pondered the mysteries that were Hightown and it's sister, Lowtown. She had found a bench in one of the open areas and sat about meditating. She looked around, reflecting on what Amalia had said. All that she saw was the Truth. She could touch it, feel it, and know it. Everything else was an illusion. She had been pondering those words ever since Amalia presented this to her. In a way, she understood, yet she did not. She did understand one part of what Amalia had said. One word, which meant something to her. Keep it close to her heart and repeat it when all else fails. That, she understood. "Rosaline," she murmured to herself. To remind her of where she came from, somewhere far away in Antiva. A name she remembers from her childhood, and if the need arises, the name that would save her.

She shook her head and arched her back, stretching. A number of pops told her that she had been stationary for far too long and demanded that she move somewhere, anyway. Anything to get the blood flowing. So she stood from the bench and began to walk. The destination didn't matter, it never mattered. Only the journey counted. And her journey was bound to lead to some strange places yet. Something caught her eye as she walked through an arch. A poster of sorts, with the words "Help Wanted" printed in large letters at the top. The sudden appearance of the poster caused her to stop Aurora in her tracks and draw her in. She was a curious sort, and always helpful. Pity that it tended to get her into trouble.

Reading the poster, it seemed that one Ghyslain de Carrac, was the one looking the help. She chewed on her lip for moment before shrugging. She had nothing else planned, and all this meditating was dull. Perhaps a good deed would help with that. So Aurora spun on her heel and headed towards where the poster pointed.

Rilien, impeccably (if not richly) dressed as always, led their lightfooted path through Hightown. It was something at which he'd had much practice, the ability to shift back and forth from unobtrusive to downright distracting. It was something Sparrow could stand to learn, especially given the new development in their lives that he did not much appreciate. That morning, he'd simply handed her a parcel of his wares and taken up the other two himself, leading the way out the door. Any hand-flapping or flighty prostestations were silenced with a single flat look, one that telegraphed, plainly as day, it's not as though you have something better to be doing. Truth be told, this sort of presumptuous, overbearing (but subtly so, if indeed such a thing was possible) behavior was the direct result of the fact that he was both worried and protective, two things which he never had been before where she was concerned. This, he put down to the presence of the demon itself. The disturbance its presence caused, the ripple in the Fade that he could feel as acutely as water on his skin, was opening him to a (slightly, but even so) wider range of emotion that that to which he was accustomed.

It was, in short, uncomfortable. His understanding of the phenomena did nothing to diminish it, and things that most others would have dismissed as slight disturbances or errant thoughts were for him consuming to the point of a mild fixation. He needed to find a way to exorcise the demon from his friend, else he might never return to his state of equanimity. And if he was ever to feel emotions properly again, it would not be until he had flung the door to the Fade wide open and regained his magic along with it. For now, he tolerated his worry and his unbidden hunting-cat awareness of her predicament as unavoidable, and acted accordingly. Less disruptive was the concern when she was nearby and he could observe that she was not getting herself into trouble, and so for today, she was accompanying him to business and making herself useful in the process. He would not, could not smother her, and this would not be a matter of new routine, but for his own peace of mind, it would have to happen at least occasionally.

He wondered if Sparrow understoof this. It seemed unlikely; even he only comprehended it in the most abstract sense.

His present lack of focus meant that his orders were coming along more slowly than they used to, and he found himself often unmotivated to make the lesser potions and balms people came to him for. Motivation was not something he'd ever needed before, but now he felt its lack distinctly. The Tranquil huffed a breath silently through his nose. There was rent to be paid, and Coterie racket dues, and what was more, he was saving as much as he could for rare ingredients he'd need for experimentation if he was to ever develop his (formerly one, now two) most vital concoctions at all. He was very good at what he did, but nothing paid quite that well when you were working below peak efficiency and had a friend's stacking gambling debts to deal with also.

Which was perhaps why when he overheard a voice thick with the tones of his homeland, apparently arguing with someone in a position of authority, he stopped abruptly, listening acutely to the confrontation. From it, he gathered that there appeared to be a missing person, and the City Guard were refusing to deal with it. Given their present location, it was perhaps likely that the complainant would be willing to pay for something not given for free. Turning to Sparrow, Rilien simply raised one frost-hued eyebrow. Thoughts? From the corner of his eye, the Tranquil caught a flash of red, and his eyes flickered in that direction for just a moment- mage, female, auburn hair- before he returned them to Sparrow.

On the other hand, Sparrow hadn't bothered dressing any differently, meaning she looked very much like she'd stepped off the docks; a dishevelled, exotic mess of bright fabrics, elusively strong cottons, and pastel knee patches. Always appearing as if she'd just stepped out of the brothel or a particularly rowdy bar, which starkly contrasted against her well-dressed companion. Hightown would not steal any of her bluster, nor force her to dress any differently. What would she wear? Coattails, frilled hats and petticoats? They'd have to drag her kicking and screaming into those contraptions. Hopefully, and it wouldn't have been hard to imagine, Sparrow looked as if she were accompanying her master as a mocha-skinned apprentice who was aiding him in carrying his wares. Or at the very least an unusual hireling. There had been slight disharmony between the two – though she would never have admitted to noticing. Ever since returning from the Gallow's that day, from that rickety shed searching for that damned Templar, she'd had trouble looking Rilien, straight-faced. He'd always known. She couldn't figure out what was worse: not speaking of it, at all, or him looking at her in such a construed way, murmuring through his eyes that there wasn't a thing she could do to bury her mistake; to sweep it under the rug and simply forget that it existed. It would've been easier, and much kinder. The ghouls and monsters and demons had their talons slung over her shoulder like a cape, exuding the Fade as if it'd become a thin, translucent layer of skin. Imperceptible to those without magical intuitions – and to people like Rilien, no doubt it carried its own stench, its own sting, its own uncomfortable weight.

She'd wanted to put as much distance between them as possible, but with one levelled look, Sparrow couldn't have denied him. What else did she have to do today? Nothing besides wandering Darktown, clenching her hands into ineffectual fists so that she could still feel like it belonged to her alone. She'd tucked Rilien's parcel neatly under her armpit and followed him without a word, occasionally lagging behind to peer into neighbouring shops. Her cheeks puffed, then blew out in a long, exaggerated sigh. Would he kill her if she turned into an abomination? It was a nagging thought that frequently rested on the harried premise of her mind, never dissolving long enough to be completely forgotten. They didn't last long enough before they were replaced, slapped away like insignificant gnats: unproductive to the vessel. Her voice was soft, and soothing and beautiful. It's own orchestrated melody filled spine-chilling suggestions, coated to appear sweet and tempting. It beckoned with clawed fingers, a smile that boasts fangs. She'd dredged up enough strength to resist, to remain in control, and to leave everyone in the dark. These were her problems to face and defeat and solve, even if it meant clubbing it, viciously, with her mace. Cleverly puzzling the pieces out, shifting them in analytical order had never been her style; that belonged to silver-tongued Ashton and Rilien. The expression that simpered on her face was one of pure, unadulterated tedium, as if Rilien were dragging a child around by the scruff of the neck, minus dragging her feet and wailing like siren.

She did not walk in tandem with her companion, preferring to lag a little behind. It was easier to avoid his gaze that way. The weight of the responsibility he carried was too much to share, grinding down on brittle bones that threatened to give way beneath her – she was stubborn, so instead of whimpering like a sopping wet kitten, she picked a spot in the horizon, above the indelicately decorated balconies, and stared. Some nancy from Hightown this time? Bludgers hardly appreciate anything.” She scoffed sourly, squinting in the sun. “Bet it's some lass who's sick of her husband.” She added as an afterthought, rattling the parcel under her arm. Before Rilien could flatly remind her that those things were fragile, Sparrow balanced it on shoulder, tucked into the curve of her collarbone. “Unless it's not actually what I think it is.” With an inconspicuous twitch of her ears, she'd already skipped ahead of Rilien. Coin, Ril. Good, honest coin.” The remark was shaded with sarcasm, because she didn't really mind dancing around questionable lines to fill her pockets. To certain degrees, she was still Darktown-minded. Survival of the fittest. Clanging pockets by any means – almost. She'd almost missed the brief flash of auburn hair in her peripherals, and if hadn't been for the equally vibrant scarf flung around her neck. A half-whispered coo later and Sparrow's attention was directed elsewhere.

“Ah, yes. Good honest coin, right?” She repeated, softly. The light, which was infrequently present these days, danced in the dark pits of her eyes, before she snatched up Rilien's sleeve and tugged him along until she was sure that he'd follow her. They still had the parcels to deliver, too. Her free hand clutched the corner of the poster, quickly peeling it off before tittering forward. “Interested, ducky? I'd say it'd be much easier looking with a group of three. Wouldn't you, Ril?”

His amnesiatic dreamer was a full-blown gypsy dancer again, if only for a moment, and he wouldn't have denied her whim, however absurd it was. This was the push and pull between them, the tidal forces of her exuberance and his stillness. She gave, effusively and without direction, and he simply let it wash over him without damage, a reminder of what he was and what he once had been instead. This exchange, which had shaken her in some odd way from whatever somnolent half-parade she'd been putting on, still dressed like a flighty exotic bird or festival token, all flash and no fire, brought that familiar pattern to the fore once again, and for all it was bizarre and odd and fantastically strange, for them - these two friends, unlikely as they may be- it was normal, and Rilien could not deny that he had missed it.

Unsurprisingly, her renewed enthusiasm, the dampening in that foreign influence and his own return to something more like himself, was brought on by a complete stranger and an opportunity. She was embedded in the world that he stood apart from, and the rising and falling of their collectives tides was as much a matter of her reation to what occurred around her as it was anything else. He, as ever, was affected only vicariously, through that transferrance of dynamism that denied him any kind of permanent inertia. What happened when an unstoppable force met an immovable object? Sparrow and Rilien knew. They were what happened, in a way.

And so he deftly plucked the package from underneath her arm, stacking it on top of the one he still carried, and handed both off to the Hightown clothier, who'd asked for an infusion of dyes. Not the Tranquil's usual stock and trade, but a simple-enough thing to know. He was deliberate, in the time it took him to secure the man's payment, and he finessed the silvers into a smaller, separate coin-purse, the drawstring of which he drew tight, pinching the satchel closed. With an equiniminous nod to his customer, he tossed the little bag to Sparrow. "If you wish." His tonelessness betrayed none of the difficulty he had in maintaining it. He was, as ever, the consummate actor, and he would be whatever it was he needed to be. Besides, it would be of no good end to him if she understood the degree to which her whim could presently shake his footing. That would lead to questions he could not answer without blame, whatever his intent.

The capricious bird was already off again, flitting in the direction of something new, which in this case turned out to be a young woman- the same one he'd briefly noted a short time before- and she was making presumptuous suggestions before he could get a word in, not that he tried that earnestly. Walking up behind her, he blinked slowly at the woman and continued his friend's thread of conversation in perhaps more sensible terms. "What Sparrow means to say is that she believes you are about to go talk to that man-" here he briefly indicated with a gesture the raised terrace above them- "and that is our intention as well. We seek employment. If it is not objectionable to you, it may be of benefit to go together." He made no indication of his own opinion on the matter, and fell silent immediately afterwards, clearly waiting for some form of response.

"Eh... What?" Aurora asked the fellow. Or was it a fellow? His broad shoulders suggested yes, but there was something feminine about him... Was it because he was an elf perhaps? Perhaps not, he did not look the part of the elf, he was much thicker, much more... Filled out. Strange, his words and his appearance had already seemed to throw Aurora off. If given the inclination, she would have probably taken the time to ponder on what and who this man was. Hmm... Perhaps meditating would be the better word-- No, she was not going to meditate again. She was done with that. She would go with her gut instinct and consider this being a male. And if she could help it, she'd try to keep pronouns out of the equation. She had had enough of meditation under Amalia's tutalege, she would not find herself navel gazing on her free time.

Helpfully, another fellow-- for this one was clearly a man, if elven-- interjected and clearified what his partner meant. Though she found herself dwelling more on the delivery of words than the contents thereof. The tone he used was... Flat. Aside from that, he looked like a bright man-- literally. Snow white hair, tangerine eyes, sun-kissed face, and a nifty little sunburst tattoo on his brow-- Oh... Oh! Oh... Poor fellow. That explains his delivery. The man was a Tranquil. Though, something wasn't quite right with this one. He seemed to possess a great deal more free-will than the Tranquils she knew back in the Antivian Circle. Not to mention that he was out gallavanting about without an Enchanter. Unless the other man was an Enchanter, though she doubted that. He certainly didn't look the part. And she didn't know of Tranquils forming attachments with others as he seemed to have done with this... Sparrow. Great. Even his name wasn't indictive of his gender.

However, she did find herself suddenly not the only oddity in Hightown this afternoon. Sweet serendipity perhaps. Plus, it seemed like this pair was looking to assist de Carrac as well. Though from what she gathered from Sparrow's words they were in it more for the coin than the good deed itself. Still, she couldn't fault them for that, they all had to make a living somehow and apparently delivering parcels didn't tend to make enough to put the food on their tables. So where was the harm in assisting this pair if their goal was the same? Many hands make light work as they say. Besides, perhaps it would give her enough time to... Study this Tranquil and the walking question mark that was his partner. She was a curious sort after all.

With her mental calculations done she nodded in agreement. "Sure, why not? I'm up for it. Another pair of eyes would make the work easier after all. My name is Aurora Rose," she said with a mock curtsey and a wry grin on her face. Of course, only Sparrow would find the humor in this, the Tranquil being, well, Tranquil.

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

Anger and frustration had become the norm for Ithilian, and so he did not feel that the day was going strangely or unnaturally at all. The human girl was wearing on him, but it wasn't as though he'd expected any different. She was a Hightown type, that much was obvious. He could see it in her, smell it on her, practically view her history from a glance. She'd never been made to feel low or beneath anyone, never been taught anything other than her superiority. She was still but a child. She'd soon find out that the rest of the world would not bow before her simply because she walked past.

But the len'alas was not his concern here. She'd swing at things with that sword of hers, possibly be of some use to them, and then go on her way, and Ithilian would have to deal with her no longer. He was here to help Amalia. She had found his own causes worthy of fighting for, and proven herself an ally at the very least. This was the first time he'd been asked for help by her, and as such he could only assume this was something important to her. Debt or no, he would be willing to repay the favors.

Making their way into the mine, it became apparent just how much the place had fallen into disrepair over the years. There was clear evidence of Hubert's workforce putting the place back together, but for the time being, Ithilian couldn't image much actual mining was taking place here. It looked as though they were still just trying to get set up. They didn't have to go far to locate evidence of the trouble. There were bodies scattered about the ground, most of them torn into several pieces, the skin of others charred either a bright red or an ashen black. The sound of snapping jaws and tearing meat reached Ithilian's ears.

The three entered a more open, cavernous area, before Sophia stopped quite suddenly, her face set as stone, if perhaps a little pale from the half-eaten corpses they'd already passed. Her right hand slowly reached upwards and back, closing around the hilt of her sword and sliding it from its sheath. Ithilian nocked an arrow and slowly pulled the string back. Across the open area from them were perhaps a dozen or more scaly creatures about the size of a mabari each. Little wings were tucked back against their sides, sharp claws digging into the flesh of miners, razor sharp fangs ripping and tearing away at their meal.

There was little time to discuss how they should proceed, as before they could do anything further, a shriek came from their immediate left, and Sophia turned just in time to see one of the little dragons leaping through the air at her, having been crawling about on the wall to their left. The Viscount's daughter was just swift enough to get her blade up in front of it and whack it to the side, where it tumbled hard into the ground. Quickly regaining it's feet, it lunged again, right into a downstroke from Sophia that cleaved its face down the middle, sending it back to the dirt in a heap.

The other dragons all looked up from their feast to see the three fresh bodies before them, hissed in greeting, and then moved forward to attack, some rushing headlong at them, others taking more indirect routes to come around the sides. Young as they were, it seemed they already knew how to fight as a pack. Ithilian loosed his first arrow into the head of the nearest dragon, but they were far too many to hold off in that way, and he quickly decided to switch to his dual blades. "They did not lie about the monsters," he commented, his remaining eye trying to keep track of all the separating dragons. It was a futile endeavor. This was going to get messy.

"Mm," Amalia replied noncommitally. From a pouch at her thigh, she extracted a small, breakable vial. Miasmic flasks, they were called. Nothing so dangerous as saa-qamek, of course, but useful all the same, especially when their foes were swarming in such a way as they were now. With a flick of her wrist, the Qunari deftly tossed the flask into the center of the group of tiny dragons (and that did not bode well- there were no tiny dragons without larger ones somewhere in the area) and it shattered with a soft tinkling sound. The broken glass issued a purplish cloud of smog, which had the rapid effect of halting the motion of many of the little reptiles, causing them to swoon back and forth as though intoxicated, which, strictly by definition, they were.

This motion was followed up with several barrages of needles, as a weapon like her chain would be of little use when the the creatures were so small. Thin steel projectiles glinted in what little light filtered in from cracks in the mine ceiling, embedding themselfes in necks, spines, throats. A half-dozen fell this way, before Amalia withdrew her singular knife from her boot and waded in among the rest, kicking the nearest one over and stepping with one foot onto its tail and the other just beneath the chin, at the start of the serpentine gullet. A clinical slash gutted the creature, even as another sank its teeth into her ankle, drawing blood. Frowning, Amalia hacked into it, rending it in half just above the shoulders.

Testing the foot, she found that it was still perfectly serviceable, if a little tender, and made a note to monitor her condition. Wyvern saliva was poisonous, but she did not believe the same to be true of these. A shame; for it would have made quite the exotic toxin indeed, and one not easily remedied.

Ithilian had entered the fray alongside Amalia, focusing his efforts where she could not see. Even one so skilled as Amalia could not account for all directions at one time, as evidenced by the bite to the ankle she received, and so the Dalish more or less put his back to her, dual blades a flurry as they cut through the numerous dragonlings that endeavored to surround them. One slipped between them, jumping onto Ithilian's back, claws digging in a short ways as it bit down hard where the shoulder met the neck. He growled, reaching up to grab the creature and throw it to the ground before him, before driving both knives down through the dragonling's chest.

A more resounding thud and a deeper shriek alerted them to the presence of a larger dragon. Sophia whirled about from her most recent kill to see the mid-sized Drake, surpassing her own height by a foot or more, armed with wicked claws as well as teeth that looked as though they could rend steel. She hoped she wouldn't be testing that guess shortly. Seeing that her two companions were cooperating very well on their own, and were rather preoccupied with the horde of dragonlings, Sophia determined herself to be the best candidate for tackling the larger dragon. She was the only one wearing armor that was at least superior to leather, after all.

A single smaller dragon got in her way while she closed the distance to the drake, but Sophia was able to lop its head cleanly off, her stride uninterrupted. The drake itself appeared outraged at the slaughter of the smaller ones, which was rather unfortunate. It wasn't as though they had given them a choice. The thought of Bran's horror stricken face at the current scene crossed her mind for the briefest of moments before Sophia and the drake were close enough to begin their battle.

She'd never fought a dragon before, nor had she really studied the best kinds of ways to combat one, but Sophia assumed the usual tactic of hack it to bits could also apply here. Glancing at those claws, she also figured speed would be of the essence here, given that she wasn't willing to bet her armor would stand up to those. Moving in, the drake snapped out towards her head with its jaws, an attack that Sophia was quick enough to duck under, before darting forward further and cleaving upwards with Vesenia. The drake was forced to lift a front leg up to block, and the blade sunk deep into the flesh, vibration shaking the weapon to the hilt when the blade hit bone. The drake shrieked in pain, smoke puffing out from its nostrils.

She withdrew her blade, dodging backwards when the next strike came from the claws, slashing horizontally, their tips missing her by inches. She used her next opportunity to lunge forward with her blade and attack at its exposed side, the sword plunging a foot into the drake's abdomen before she was forced to withdraw again. Death by small cuts would be how she'd have to take this thing down, since going toe to toe, so to speak, was not an option.

There wasn't much of a way to prepare for the fire, however, as she would find out. She'd put distance between them to avoid a melee attack, but the move had also made her an easy target when the drake extended it's neck forward, opened its jaws wide, and a blast of fire spewed forth, a short burst all it was capable of producing, but dangerous all the same. Sophia had just enough foresight to turn her face aside before the flames hit her with surprising force, sending her stumbling back, and then tripping over a rock. It was perhaps fortunate that she had, as the immediate roll she performed as a result served to put out any fires on her.

It did not favor her, however, when a dragonling took the opportunity to jump on her. With the creature literally on top of her, her two handed sword was virtually useless. Her arms immediately went to protect her face, and in short order she felt teeth bite into chainmail on her forearm, while claws tried to scratch at her chest and stomach. Having occupied the dragonling's teeth, Sophia slammed her arm to the side, throwing the relatively little enemy off her, before she yanked the knife from her boot and stabbed down hard into its chest. Determined to regain her feet before another dragonling got the same idea, Sophia scrambled up, tucked the knife under her belt, and grasped Vesenia once more.

Sometimes, being right was more troublesome than being wrong. Now was probably one of those times, but honestly, Amalia was willing to deal with it. The appearance of the drake was exacly the devlopment she'd been expecting, which was not to say that she relished the idea of being set on fire. As it was, however, she and Ithilian still had dragonlings to work through. Her knife was hardly visible, flashing in a quick series of movments that flayed open a series of the tiny reptiles, though the cries of the larger one overlaid any noise they might have made. It was only after she'd lunged in at the last one before her, tightening her fingers around the base of its head and slicing open its windpipe, that Sophia was thrown backwards by a brief gout of flames from the larger one.

The Qunari straightened from her half-crouch, necessary to combat creatures so low to the ground, and shot Ithilian a knowing sideways glance. If they didn't step in, it might well choose to press its advantage. She was not sure how intelligent such creatures were, but she certainly had no reason to believe they were any more foolish than the average predator. As if to question whether he was coming or not, she raised a brow and shrugged, tossing the knife at the drake, where it embedded itself in the delicate, membranous tissue of one wing. It wasn't going to be much use against something with a hide like that, anyway.

Vanishing, Amalia unwound her chain, swinging one end of it in her left hand so as to generate centripedal force, then loosed, aiming for the dragon's neck. The metal links coiled several times around the base of the esophagus, which would doubtless grant her some level of control over a beast whose strength was without qualification much greater than hers. Pulling back, she tightened the noose and, still holding the opposite end of the weapon, began a rapid circle around her foe, intent on reducing its mobility and ability to block anything the other two should see fit to launch at it. Preferably soon.

Deciding to view his next actions as attacking the dragon rather than saving the shem, Ithilian replaced his blades with his bow, seeing how the drake was preoccupied with Sophia, as well as the chain wrapped about its neck. The maneuver appeared to be royally pissing it off, but moderately effective for the moment. He began to loose arrows at a rapid pace, targeting mainly the body, but he switched his aim to the head whenever it held still enough, which was not often. It's breathing was becoming ragged, both because of the constricting around its throat, and because of the several arrow shafts that had now pierced its ribcage and likely its lungs as well.

Sophia waited for the right moment to strike, not wishing to time this poorly and run into naught but the dragon's claws. The dragon had seemed intent on her up until Amalia had chained it around the neck, and now it looked to be caught between the two, with the Dalish a serious annoyance, but otherwise out of reach. At last the drake reached up with a powerful claw and tried to pull down hard on the length of chain running away from its neck, giving the Viscount's daughter the opening she needed.

She moved forward swiftly, her sword leveled to the ground, and plunged into the drake's chest, just under the front leg it had raised. It looked about to snap down at her, but soon gave out entirely, toppling onto its side. Sophia withdrew her sword, slowing her breathing as she glanced around. That appeared to be the last of them, for the moment, anyway. "You two alright?" Ithilian came forward to inspect the corpse of the drake, grunting in answer to Sophia's question.

The sudden jerk on the chain pulled Amalia from her feet, but she'd been rather expecting that, and neatly flipped herself over, allowing just enough slack in the links to accommodate the drake's movement. It didn't much matter, it seemed, as her purpose had been fulfilled, and the other two were able to finish it off between them. The Qunari joined them at the corpse, crouching beside the head and lifting one of the reptilian lips with her free hand to inspect the teeth. She might have a use for those, or the scales. Still, her priority was not the collection of reagents, but finding Athlok, and so if it was to be done, she would come back afterwards. Rising once more, the woman plucked her knife from the creature's wing, along with several of Ithilian's arrows which were in the proximity and unbroken. These, she offered to the elf, absently wiping the blade of the knife on the edge of her scarf.

"Fine," she replied to Sophia's question. "You were hit with fire. Do you require a restorative? I have several." Even as she said this, the Qunari glanced in the direction they had yet to go, clearly of a mind to be moving as soon as possible if not.

Ithilian slid the unbroken arrows back into his quiver, while Sophia shook her head. "I'm alright. Skirt got burned worse than I did. Let's keep moving, see if we can't find any survivors. Or the source of these dragons."

They moved on, further into the mine. At this point, Ithilian was wondering if they'd even be able to recognize Finn if they found him. Some of these bodies weren't in good shape. As for the dragons... to be honest, Ithilian didn't really desire to kill them. They hadn't done anything to him, only to these miners. They were few enough in number already. But if it was necessary to help Amalia complete her task, he'd put them down.

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

The Tal-Vashoth were clearly prepared for, and rather experienced with, ambushing their targets. Large as they were, they seemed to simply appear from behind foliage and rocks, spears and javelins in hand. They came forward with startling speed, given their size, each of them having arms that looked as though they could rip the arms right off a smaller person. Strong and swift as they were, however, they wore little armor, with most of them covering themselves only in tattoos from the waist up. It would be an uphill battle for Lucien, Nostariel, and Ashton, with spear armed warriors charging down the hill towards them, with momentum enough to rival a charging bronto, all the while javelin throwers waited behind the front line, looking for openings to launch deadly ranged attacks.

The ambush, insofar as there was one given their forewarning, was well-planned. The slope of the ground meant that the Tal-Vashoth were bearing down upon the three of them, and without hesitation at that. Still... Lucien had certain obligations to fulfill before he could swing his scythe in order to defend himself. They were often counterproductive and certainly abnormal, but neither of those considerations was proof of their superfluousness. Fixing his eye on the foremost charging kossith, he spoke with considerable volume, more than enough to be heard even over the clang of metal and the roar of battle-cries. "It need not come to this," he pointed out, a slight note of (sincere, but very very dubious) hope tinting the words. "Cease your onslaught and-"

It was just then that the front of the pack reached him, and the former Qunari swung, aiming to take the man's head off. Lucien sighed and ducked, fully aware that this was how things were likely to end. He wasn't a fool, despite frequent assertions to the contrary. So he had been prepared, and brought his scythe around in a full-fledged counterstrike, the arched blade connecting with the kossith's midsection and tearing through it with an ease that belied the sheer force of the blow. The Tal-Vashoth fell with a heavy thud to the sand beneath his feet, and Lucien braced himself, shoring his defenses and preparing to play large, solid target, hopefully blocking most of the javelin throwers from getting a clear shot at either Nostariel or Ashton.

The next two rushed towards him, another pair not far behind. The former Chevalier dug his feet into the sand, bent knees and soft ground absorbing most of the shock of impact as one of his assailants slowed himself too late and collided bodily with the tall man. A quick glance upward revealed that the ranged kossith appeared to be sizing up possible throws, and Lucien called back to his allies. "Don't worry about these; just make sure those spearmen don't have a chance to hit us." He could handle the melee for now; the narrowness of the rock-edged incline meant that he'd probably only have to deal with two or three at a time. A rain of javelins, however, could do all of them some serious damage.

For all the times they'd spoken, Nostariel had never had cause to observe Lucien in a hostile situation. She was a bit... puzzled by his insistence on giving the Tal-Vashoth a way out- it was obvious that they weren't going to take it. At the same time, she felt her respect for the man increase yet again. Certainly, it wasn't the wisest tactical move and he had lost himself precious seconds, but... he'd presumably been at this for a while, and he was still alive. She wondered if his chivalry had cost him that eye. Either way, it didn't seem to lessen his effectiveness afterwards, as one of the bandits was down before she could even find the target for her first spell.

His advice, she took to heart, locking on to the presently still-searching spearmen and dipping onto the Fade. The misdirection hex was an insidious thing, like creeping fog at one's ankles, and she grasped it, pulling the magic into reality and launching it, arching the spell over Lucien's head and for a cluster of three Tal-Vashoth, one of which was just about to release his first projectile for Ashton. The javelin flew harmlessly to the side, but the Warden didn't stop to breathe a sigh of relief, gripping her staff in both hands and channelling ice-energy from it in quick bursts, aiming to overwhelm the leftmost ranged fighter and succeeding when he fell back, encased in a growing sheath of ice. Nostariel's face was set in a grim line, her work almost methodical, as though she could do this sort of thing in her sleep.

Perhaps she could. A globule of fire gusted past the Chevalier, a few feet from his head, and hit the two enemies behind the ones he was currently engaging, burning both but felling neither. Still, it would weaken them, and she turned her attention back to the four throwers that remained.

"Surprised that they didn't take you up on your offer Ser Knight," Ashton teased as he trained a bead on a spearman. "They seemed so civilized too. Pity," Ashton finished, punctuating his own sentence with the twang of a bowstring. Much like the ball of fire that flew past Lucien's head, Ashton's arrow whistled past the opposite side and dug deep into the pectoral of a javelin-thrower, causing the weapon to fly harmlessly to the side, instead relaying it's deadly point into the side of a rock. Ashton grinned, this wasn't going to be much sport if things didn't become a bit interesting. Despite the ground advantage the Qunari had, their tactics left something to be... Desired. Rush the enemies and chuck spears at them. A flawless plan against trading caravans... Too bad they weren't a trading caravan.

As the tagged Qunari ripped the arrow out of his flesh and threw it away, Ashton delivered another present post-haste in the form of another arrow, in the other pectoral. The Qunari must not have liked that, as it let out a howl and left the arrow in and reached for a javelin, probably looking to shove it down the playful archer's gullet. Instead of retrieving one arrow this time, Ashton grabbed a handful of white fletching and nocked them all at once. He aimed up and fired the mass of pointy instruments of death into the atmosphere and let them all fall around the four javelin throwers. The arrows raining down at terminal velocity wouldn't outright kill any, unless they were stupid enough to look up at the rain of pointy objects, at which point it'd just be natural selection and he would have ended up falling on his javelin any way. Good riddance.

They were not so lucky for that to be the case as the throwers began to try and escape the sudden pointy change in weather-- Mostly by stumbling thanks to Nostariel's hex. "You've got time Ser Knight, why don't you ask and see if they wish to surrender this time?" Ashton asked, followed by a cackle and a nocking of another arrow.

As if in response to Ashton's teasing, the Tal-Vashoth shouted commands to one another, and most of the frontline warriors fell back, trying to create more openings for the ranged attackers to return fire against the pesky archer and his companions. The javelin-throwers shouted upwards and out of sight, towards the mouth of a cave just in their line of sight. More warriors came to reinforce the current group, and they took up a more defensive posture, responding to the ineffectiveness of their initial attack. They'd clearly been expecting a target that was not adequately capable of defending themselves, not a group of skilled combatants, a mage among them.

Lucien's fourth Tal-Vashoth, this one already sporting nasty burns, fell atop the pile of his brethren, and the knight took a moment to straighten his posture and survey the field. A hail of arrows was quite successfully pinning down the magically-disoriented throwers, but reinforcements were arriving, and taking a much more defensive stance at that. Lucien loosened his feet, pulling them from their entrenched position in the sand. "To ask once is a professional courtesy," he replied to Ashton's jibe, smiling wryly. "To ask a second time is just insulting. If it's a fight they want, it's a fight they shall recieve. Shall we press the point?"

He shrugged, as if to say he planned on it anyway, and advanced up the hill, at proper march pace. He perhaps would have run, but keeping his footing was more important, and he was wearing more than forty pounds of armor, after all. A javelin flew from somewhere beside him, but Lucein spotted it in enough time to knock it from its trajectory with a broad sweep. They did not travel so fast as arrows did, after all. He alighted at the top of the slope, the flat area containing the reinforcements. The advantage was still theirs, in that they were more numerous and several were now free to attack him at once, but they seemed to be much more cautious than their once-allies.

Well, perhaps it was time to remedy that. "And here I'd heard the Tal-Vashoth were mighty predators. The likes of you are scavengers, carrion birds feeding on the weak. Look at what happens when the prey bites back..." Granted, it wasn't typical of the sort of hurled invectives that most people used for taunts, but the Chevalier's tone was thick with disdain and condescension, to the point that he seemed almost... disappointed.

It had the desired effect, at least on some, and Lucien felt the slow grin spreading over his face. It was true, courtesy was paramount. But no true knight abhorred the feel of battle. It was, after all, what they lived and died for.

After the Chevalier fellow taunted the horn-heads in such a fashion that it would have caused him to clap if he did not currently have his hands full, an idea struck him. A subtle bit of genius. Ashton tapped Nostariel on the shoulder with his elbow and jerked his head to the side. "Let's flank 'em, Milady," he said with a wink. It was a trap of a sort, something the hunter knew quite a bit about. In order to get a clean shot at a deer or such, one had to get around to the broadside-- the flank of the creature. He figured the same applied here, though tactics of warfare were a stranger to them. Though if the same tactics used for hunting were the same for small scale battles, then perhaps it would do the trick.

He was a bit touchy, wasn't he? Perhaps not egregiously so, but when you weren't used to it (and she certainly wasn't), it seemed... odd. Nevertheless, she kept her focus and nodded solemnly. The plan seemed good enough; they might as well capitalize on the fact that Lucien was tall and broad and inclined to draw attention, right? "All right," she replied with a businesslike nod, indicating with a gesture that she'd go left. She wasn't really sure what his thought was, but to her, it made sense to scissor from both sides. It was a tactical maneuver that had served her well in the past, and she had no reason to believe that that would change, anyway.

Circling around, she stuck to the fringes of the fight, avoiding letting off any flashy magic as she went. Stealth was certainly not her forte, but she was fairly good at not being noticed if she didn't want to be. Invoking a couple years of lingering in dark corners of shady establishments and many more of sidling along half-ruined walls in the Deep Roads, Nostariel emerged from the sparse undergrowth behind and to the side of the reinforcements, specifically the javelin-throwers. Sucking in a breath, Nostariel felt the familiar chill of supernatural ice in her palms, gooseflesh stippling the pale skin beneath her armor. With a sharp gesture, she swept her hand out in a powerful cone of cold, freezing the Tal-Vashoth in their tracks.

From there, she stepped forward, swinging with all her might at the nearest one. The first blow, placed at his shoulder, took that arm off, but it took three more to shatter him completely. By the end of the exercise, Nostaril was panting slightly from the exertion, but there was much more still to be done. Sighing softly, she moved to the next, counting out the strikes in her head in a toneless whisper. One, two, three, break this body. Four, five, six, stake your life on me. Seven, eight, nine... take my heart with you when you go.

Right. Split up. That would make more sense than for both of them to go in one direction. The idea was genius, perhaps too genius. He didn't like the idea that he'd have to part with the pretty Warden. Perhaps it was just a pretty face... Perhaps he just saw a bit of Sparrow in her. Either way, it seemed seemed he'd have to part company with the Warden for now. As she struck off to the left, Ashton took to the right. Unlike Nostariel, stealth was his forte, his strength, and his meal ticket. One doesn't survive as a predator if they were clumsy fools. His foot steps were silent, not even the brush beneath his feet betrayed his prowl.

Deft feet picked their way around the side of the Chevalier as Ashton's expression changed from the silly grin into a focused stare. Eyes to the ground, eyes to the side, eyes on the prey. The Qunari didn't even suspect a thing... Of course, the fact that a mage was now currently smashing them in the face with her staff. Hm. To be fair, she did possess a lot more stealth than he could see Sparrow possessing. With the Qunari's attentions now turned completely on both Lucien and Nostariel, Ashton figured it was the best time to make his own entrance. Without a sound, he nocked an arrow and fired, driving it through the back of the head of one of the Qunari who managed to approach too close to the little Mage for his comfort. He just hoped that he didn't spatter her with blood.

While Ashton and Nostariel wreaked havoc on the ranged Tal-Vashoth, Lucien had his hands full with the others. Quite literally at present, as he'd somehow wound up with a handful of chitinous black horn when one of them, disarmed, had decided that headbutting was a solid plan of action. To be fair, he wasn't wrong- if the blow had connected as it was intended, then the former knight had no doubt that he'd be laid out on the sand, either very unconscious or very dead, so there was that to consider. Unfortunately for the bandit, Lucien had reacted on pure fighter's instinct, dropping his scythe by his feet and meeting the attack... well, head-on wasn't the right phrase. Instead, he'd used his arms, and presently he was locked in what approximated some odd kind of barehanded wrestling match with a kossith. He'd have to write his father about this one, he decided absently, wrenching his arms in an attempt to take the somewhat-larger being to the ground.

The others were waiting, presumably because at this range, they'd just as likely hit their comrade as their enemy. He was glad of that, and of the fact that this situation was either interesting or ridiculous enough to warrant their attention. The maneuver sort of worked, and either way, both combatants were on their knees within a few seconds, which was not the way the Chevalier had planned it. The strain to his muscles was enormous; made only worse when the bandit gripped either of Lucien's forearms in a hand and squeezed. Gritting his teeth, the mercenary realized he was not going to win an outright contest of strength this way and shifted to the side, rotating his entire person three hundred and sixty degrees. The barrel roll crossed his forearms over one another, but it also forced the ex-Qunari to relent his hold and move with it, lest his neck snap.

His biceps were quite nearly screaming at him to let go, but he wouldn't, not before he took advantage of the temporary reversal. Still holding on, Lucien planted his knee in the kossith's back, leveraging his weight to stop his opponent from getting up. At last moving his arms, he swiftly uncrossed them, not relishing the decisive snap that followed. With labored breathing, the Orlesian man rose to his feet, retrieving his scythe from the sand and hefting it a bit more slowly than before. For whatever reason, he wasn't attacked until he looked back at the Tal-Vashoth, but once he did, all bets were off.

The first of the remaining three went down with a swift blow to his unarmored side. The second might have met the same end, but his weakened arms were not providing him with the same precision as they usually would, and he scored a bruising hit to his abdomen for the failure. Reversing his grip, Lucien hit the one responsible in the gut with the blunt end of the scythe, replacing it with his knee, then stepping back just as the other made a sweep for his neck with a claymore. Ducking, he shifted his feet, spinning with the pole of his scythe braced against his back to make up for the stability he was presently lacking. The maneuver left one of them with a broad slice to the midsection, gushing blood at an alarming rate, but probably not fatal.

He had just enough time to block the next incoming swing, and stepped closer to his assailant, an armored foot arcing for the bandit's knee. It hit, and the kneecap shattered with a wet squelch, decreasing his mobility considerably. Not that he much had to worry about it; his distraction with the injury was fatal, and the next swing took off his head. The injured one remaining scored a damaging blow to Lucien's hip, finding a joint in his armor. The blade of the axe he carried wasn't quite small enough to pirce the chink completely, but the force with which it was swung made up for that, leaving the Chevalier with a bloody gash there. Given that the whole-body rotations needed for decent swings was now denied him, Lucien drew back and punched, gauntleted fist landing in the kossith's face with considerable force. His left heel smacked into the back of the other's knee, forcing him down. Lucien drove the point of the scythe into the back of the man's neck, pushing it home with both hands applied to the base of the blade.

The iced Qunari laying in shattered pieces on the ground, Nostariel turned, about to be met with a spear at close range. Bracing herself, she called the magic back to her fingertips, only to blink rapidly when the Tal-Vashoth responsible collapsed at her feet, an arrow sticking out of the base of its neck. She could't see Ashton, but she nodded in what she believed to be his general direction, turning back to her work with her grim frown still set in place.

This was nothing like the Deep Roads. She was grateful for that; it was probably this singular fact which kept her sane in the present moment. She aspired to no consummate grace when wading through her foes; it was not in her nature to turn killing into a fine art. For her, as for any Warden with sufficient experience, killing was a business, a trade, one whose greatest virtue was efficiency. The Darkspawn did not end. This, she knew all too well. So used to fighting against odds insurmountable, she strode for the nearest cluster of ranged bandits, a pair lodged in a corner, their backs to a rocky outcropping for protection. There was no way to sneak up on them, and she lacked the strength to make anything of a charge, so she ducked behind a small deadwood log, taking what little cover it could offer her.

The sound of a javelin thudding into the wood was reassurance that it had been the right move, and just to be as sure as possible, Nostariel surrounded herself with an Arcane Shield, which had the added benefit of similarly-protecting both Ashton and Lucien. poking her head up over the log, Nostariel launched a barrage of spells, starting with another fireball and following up with several bursts from her staff. The concentrated fire took down one of the throwers, but a lucky shot from the second hit her shoulder, drawing a sharp cry from the Warden. Biting down on her tongue to stifle it, she yanked the heavy weapon from her muscle and threw it to one side, using her opposite hand to hurl an icy blast of winter's grasp at the second bandit. He fell, his body frostbitten and brittle, to join his fellow.

What she failed to see was that the third of four had targeted her, and was preparing to throw even as she stood, moving her staff to her left hand to compensate for her injured shoulder.

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel

Earnings

0.00 INK

A pair of Kirkwall city guards had come to see the man asking for help, Ghyslain de Carrac, outside of his manor in Hightown. In appearance, he was not uncommon for the richest part of Kirkwall's society, nor was his home. In his current state, however, he did not look nearly so composed as an Orlesian-born nobleman would aspire to. The guards themselves looked somewhat tired through their body language, appearing eager to leave.

"What do you mean you can't help me?" Ghyslain asked with no small amount of incredulity. His tone carried urgency as well as distress, but the lead guard returned none of it with his reply. "This is a domestic matter, serah. If your wife has chosen to leave you, there's nothing we can do." The nobleman scoffed at that.

"Ninette is my wife! She's legally bound to me. Bring her back!" To this, the guardsman just shook his head, gesturing for his partner to follow. "We're done here." Ghyslain watched them go for a moment, before throwing his arms up into the air in frustration. "Useless! Why are we still paying those sluggards?" he shouted, asking no one in particular.

Rilien, hands folded demurely into his sleeves, passed the city guards on their way down the stairs, but did not pause. Reaching the top with a whisper of sound, he glanced dismissively at Ghyslain and approached. A poor nobleman he would have made in Orlais, to wear his true intentions so openly. His attitude was not uncommon, but in Val Royeaux it would have been expressed in saccharine, poetic declarations of love and suffering, meant to move crowds and inspire sympathy. Equally pointless, but aesthetically much more acceptable than bare possession and fret.

The former bard knew a thing or two about wordplay. "Perhaps it would be more fiscally responsible to pay us instead," he asserted blandly, indicating the two women behind him with a slight tilt of his head. "It will doubtless run you more, but surely this is a small thing compared to the future well-being of your dear wife?" The Tranquil's tone might have been tinged with sardonic irony, and in fact he was well-aware of his exaggeration of the man's concern for the lady herself, but as usual, he was not overt enough for most to catch, and plausible deniability was the name of his game, so to speak.

Ghyslain looked to initially think the elf was mocking him or something of the sort, but when he at last digested his words, he looked nearly overwhelmed with relief. "Finally! Someone who's willing to do something. I assure you, I will pay well for my wife's return. That foolish woman has caused me nothing but embarrassment. She needs to be dragged home. Ah... but dragged home quietly, I should say. Her family is getting suspicious. They think I might have... done something to her. Even if -- well, I just want to make sure they know I didn't do it!"

He looked at least somewhat aware that what he was saying might not go over well with most people, but that was mostly wiped out by his sheer enthusiasm for getting these three to bring his wife home quietly.

She inclined her head a little, conceding the point that, perhaps, Sparrow was indeed of the avian variety. Full of flighty, colourful feathers, and puffed up peacock tails, and iridescent plumage that nearly blinded you; in many ways, it was almost like staring full-faced into the sun. An ardent disposition fanning out to attract, or at the very least, confuse the hell out of anyone who chanced a look in her direction. It was the reticence of birds, the very essence of carelessness and riding along the overturning breeze; she regretted nothing. Well, until that fateful day. Rilien held their torch and she remained impassively perched on his shoulder, digging her talons and constantly on the verge of flight. The correlative connection they shared was astonishing. Her head bobbed in agreement. Of course, Rilien was far more sensible with his words, as if it were a dance he practised often. Her two right-footed steps found themselves, repeatedly, treading over toes, stumbling into buckets, and generally making more trouble than it was worth. Stark differences that made them irrefutable companions.

Her sleep-bowed eyes, glossy, and as black as a raven's underbelly, watched Aurora expectantly. This woman with hair like peonies and roses and a mixture of paint swirled across a painter's board; green eyes like moss, amassed in curtains of fire. She'd always liked red hair – there was something about it, something familiar. Sparrow resisted the urge to snatch up the woman's hands when she accepted their proffered suggestion. Instead, Sparrow offered her own flourish-of-a-bow with waggling fingertips, mockingly throwing an imaginary cape over her shoulder as a snobbish denouement. She wasn't overly fond of Hightown's residents, particularly because they didn't seem to give a bloody damn about anyone outside of their small circles. As if nothing occurred beyond their sights, which tarried no farther than the border between Hightown and Lowtown. She clapped her hands together, then slid them casually behind her head, extending her elbows. “This'll be a lot more fun now that we've got a pretty lady with us.” She casually mused, rolling her eyes towards the sky, before glancing sidelong at her companion. If it'd been anyone else, other than Rilien, other than Ashton, then they might've been embarrassed at such outspoken forthrightness. Her left hand slipped down, purposely dropping on the Tranquil's shoulder. “And this is Rilien. That's not the stink eye he's giving you, so don't worry.”

Painfully frank.

Sometimes, it was as if it didn't occur to Sparrow that Rilien was Tranquil. She certainly treated him no different. Her gregarious temperament sidled to a standstill, perking it's ears at the event unfolding above them. Any attempts at keeping their affairs private was hardly enacted. The man, who she presumed to be Ghyslain, was shouting at the guardsman, obviously distraught that they'd chosen not to do anything. She brought the flapping piece of paper back to her face, studying the poster. This was all about some petty marital concern? Certainly not a gallant rescue, snatching this woman away from this creature. She folded the paper and slipped it into one of her many pockets. It was only when Sparrow followed closely behind Rilien that she felt the first tendrils of anger trembling down her spine, warming her ears, throwing it's macabre beat against her heart. Everything felt much too tight. Her ribs, her chest, her throat. Legally bound to him? As you were to them. Isn't it the same, sweets? Her muscles tightened, clenched, tensed across the shoulders. Errant tendons contracted near her jawbone, thrumming it's own rhythm.

“Cerass Va!” It came out unintentionally, a vibrating yawl. Even if it wasn't understood, it's intonation was clear – Sparrow thought this was man was a wretch, hardly worth having any dealings with. If it hadn't been for the missing woman, this man's wife, then she would have walked away without any misgivings. Usually, coin would, or could, have swayed her, but this was different. Women weren't objects. They couldn't be owned, or bought, or possessed; not in her eyes. An overwhelming sense of disgust twitched across her fingertips, which dawdled dangerously close to the weapon swaying at her hip – one strike, one well-placed swing would finish him. He wouldn't suspect it. Then, at least, his wife would have a chance. “Your wife deserves better.” Sparrow prodded him in the chest, hard. “She deserves to be treated like a queen, you wretch. We're finding her, but not for you. We'll take her back here so yer' names cleared.” Another harsh prod.

Sparrow and Rilien. An odd pair to be sure, a flittery man and a Tranquil. A pool of emotion and a dry riverbed. Perhaps that was the reason they were together. They evened each other out. The fact that Sparrow was just full of emotion as his body language suggested was further proved when he took a deep bow in front of her. Aurora had to stifle a laugh. Apparently she wasn't the only one who found humor in the noblity's pompous ways. Of course, she managed to blush when Sparrow called her pretty. It wasn't that she was shy, it's just that she didn't hear it all that often in Lowtown. In fact, compliments were rare in that park of Kirkwall. Just as well, seeing how she was currently trying her best to keep a low profile.

Then the party's attentions were turned to the point of this temporary partnership. Ghyslain and his missing wife. Or rather his property. Aurora furrowed her bow and gave the man a tight-lipped frown. While she wasn't an especially hateful or confrontive person, Aurora hated the way the man talked about his wife like she was some kind of furniture. The reason why his wife went missing became suddenly became crystal clear and she even contemplated not even returning the woman back to her husband if they found her. Though her own anger and irritation was bottled up inside her in order to be let free elsewhere and not into the face of the mind via her fist, Sparrow seemed to take it even worse than she did. This first word out of his mouth-- even if it was a word. She couldn't honestly tell if it was, or if it was in another language. It certainly wasn't Antivan, that much she knew. Curious, she could tell this little venture would be extremely... Interesting.

Sparrow continued to give the man a tongue lashing, putting to words what Aurora felt. She gave him her approval by simply nodding along. It was unlikely that anything she said would be taken serious by the misogynistic man. Luckily Sparrow managed to chew him out before she had to. Aurora found herself liking this Sparrow, despite only meeting him mere moments ago. Sweet serendipity indeed.
"Give us a name and a lead so we can get this over with," She added behind Sparrow. The faster they could find this man's wife, the faster they could get it over with, and the faster Aurora could help the woman.

Ghyslain looked extremely offended at this point, and moderately furious, but it was rather apparent that Sparrow had intimidated him somewhat. He prodded back with words rather than jabs. "A queen? This is her own doing, gallivanting about with men half her age." He looked about to spit in disgust, before deciding that would likely be too low an action for someone of his status. "Bah. She's just trying to show me I'm tied to her purse-strings."

He shrugged then, obviously tired of this ordeal. "It wasn't always like this, you know. We were in love once. She defied her parents to marry me. Sometimes I wonder if I dreamed those years." He managed to shake off the reminiscing quickly enough however, at Aurora's mention of a name. "Jethann, at the Blooming Rose. You should speak with him. I didn't know she visited whores, not until Jethann sent a letter, to our house, no less! He even sent her flowers once. Lilies -- her favorite." The thought made him throw up his arms in anger again. "Bah! Talking about it makes my head hurt. Good luck to you. I will meet you here when you return."

Rilien recognized the hissing syllables of Qunlat, expelled from Sparrow's mouth like the spat invectives he assumed they were (Qunari, she'd told him, had almost as many oaths as Orlesians). He did absolutely nothing to stop her tirade, mostly because he didn't care but also partially because she was at least somewhat right. He had no time for sentiments about queens and love, but that did not mean he was inclined to agree with Ghyslain's assertion that anyone could belong to anyone else. The Chantry had once thought he belonged to them, and he'd wasted little time disabusing them of the notion. Then, his teacher had thought it, and she too was corrected. It was rather a recurring theme in his life, actually.

The young mage- Aurora, she had called herself- was apparently equally-incensed, but more subtle and direct about it; two things which he appreciated. The combined heckling earned them a name and a location, along with a few other miscellaneous tidbits of information that Rilien filed away for potential later use. The thought that he would be going to the brothel again produced a small flare of irritation, but he suppressed it quickly. What he should be more concerned about was how someone possessed by a desire demon was going to manage another trip into that particular den. Perhaps the matter would be important enough this time that diversions would be less likely; they were, after all, looking for a woman and not a missing Templar recruit, which would probably (and perhaps should probably) inspire more generosity.

"The trail seems cold already," Rilien pointed out mildly, "We should not let it ice over entirely." That was as much a warning as he was going to give, and abruptly, the Tranquil turned on his heel, descending the stairs and heading for the Red Light District. Not that he particularly wanted to go, mind.

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

The Qunari examined the blade of her knife as she walked. The drake's hide had given it quite the beating, and in all fairness it hadn't been top-quality to begin with. She was going to need something to replace it with at close range for those situations where bare hands simply wouldn't do the trick. Still, it wasn't broken yet, and she like most of her kith despised waste, so back into her leather boot it went, and she returned her attention to the path they were taking. Those bodies that weren't scorched beyond recognition were easily identified as not-Athlok, and she did not linger on the faces of the dead for any longer than necessary.

As they wound deeper and deeper into the mine, the bodies grew generally more disfigured, and she noticed also that the level of burn occurrence was increasing steadily the further they walked, suggesting the possibility of running into another drake, or perhaps something worse, it was hard to say for sure. This, she noted without any real foreboding. If they ran afoul of some creature, they would kill it. If they did not, it would remain as it was now: none of her concern.

The group of three rounded a corner, to be met with a most interesting sight: a young man was driving the point of a pitchfork into the body of another dragonling. He, and a few others, formed a rough back-to-back circle, several of the miniscule corpses strewn about them. None were without injury, but aside from the corpse of one unfortunate, this little group was all alive. From the looks the older men were giving the younger one, he was obviously in charge, and indeed he nodded solemnly at them all as he slung the mining implement over his shoulder with a heavy sigh. He was perhaps Amalia's height, though still in the lanky way that adolescents had, and aside from a bit of sparse fuzz, he had no facial hair to speak of. One of the other men pointed at the three newcomers, and the lad glanced over, blue eyes lighting with the spark of recognition.

He grinned broadly, raising a hand in greeting and approaching the group. The others were equally-relieved, but less outright cheerful about it. "Amal- er... Ben-Hassrath! But am I ever glad to see you! Of course, I knew you'd come if you heard, but this lot didn't believe-"

He was cut off by the harsh glare Amalia leveled at him, her crossed arms and aggressive body language clearly not what he'd been expecting to see. "That is... uh... I messed up, didn't I?"

Amalia's nod was sharp. "Yes," she replied bluntly, and he winced visibly. Sighing through her nose, she relaxed her posture slightly. "But the fault for that is not wholly yours." She glanced at the pile of dragonling corpses, and then back at Athlok and the others. "You led them to this?"

"Well... yes. I'm, um... well, I'm sorry about that too. I know it's not my role and all, but it was that or die, and there's an even bigger dragon inside and I-" The Ben-Hassrath cut off the rambling flow of words by placing one palm flat on her viddethari's head.

"You still speak too much," she said, the words almost gentle. "The Qun does not demand of you your death. I ask because a re-evalutation of your role might be in order. Now, we must leave before that other dragon finds you." He looked vaguely troubled by the statement, and she waited patiently for him to find the words he was so obviously looking for, aware that their time may be growing short.

"But... if we just leave it there, Hubert will send the workers back and they'll get eaten all over again! Even if he does believe us, it could get out and kill more people! Can we really just let that happen?" His plea, such as it was, was certainly earnest, but Amalia appeared unmoved.

"We can," she replied evenly, but she could tell he wasn't going to let it go.

"Maybe you can, but I'm not that good a Qunari yet! If I go, you'll have to go, right? It's your role to protect your viddethari, and that certainly means you can't let me get eaten by a dragon, right?" He seemed rather proud of this line of logic, and she pinched the bridge of her nose between her thumb and index finger. This was what happened when the only people brave enough to fly in the face of their traditions and convert to the Qun were, well... brave. Sometimes to the exclusion of intelligence. She might well have reminded him that nothing in her duty bade her save him from his own suicide, but whatever the reason, she chose not to. It was nothing more than a vague inclination, perhaps something born of the base principles of her way of life (those that demanded service to the whole above all else), but whatever the case, she didn't want to let him die, nor let the dragon eat too many more of the workers.

"We are wasting time. If I go, you will not, Athlok, so take your companions and leave. Now." The irritation in the words was enough to bid him to immediate action, and they left posthaste, returning the three actual combatants to their solitude. Shaking her head, Amalia glanced askance at Ithilian. "I did not bring you here to slay dragons, Sataareth. If you wish to leave, I'll think nothing of it."

Ithilian had maintained a respectful distance from Amalia and Athlok as Finn was now called. He'd actually been hoping for this chance to observe her with one of her own, although from the words exchanged he wondered just how much this Finn was Qunari. With Amalia he had managed to look past her race for once, something he hadn't thought previously possible, but for this one, the miracle did not repeat itself. Perhaps it was the presence of the len'alas that had him annoyed, but his thoughts on Finn kept falling into the category of shem.

Sophia, on the other hand, had been in the process of a small flood of understanding. The woman was Qunari. She... had never really considered that as a possibility, mostly due to the lack of horns and... sheer muscle mass. But once she thought about it, she supposed it was completely possible. After all, following the Qun was a religion in the same way as believing in Andraste and the Maker, was it not? With that knowledge, the Viscount's daughter could safely assume the purpose of the pair's mission here: to rescue one of their own, this Finn, or Athlok as Amalia called him. Rescue him, and no one else. The idea seemed immediately selfish to her, and her disapproval showed on her face when the Ben-Hassrath stated her willingness to simply leave the danger unresolved now that she had her target in hand, even though she could certainly have made a difference otherwise. Had her pupil (as the relationship seemed to her) not convinced her otherwise, Sophia was left to assume she'd be about to face the dragon on her own. Her own morals were far too strong to allow a massacre like the one that had happened here to occur again.

"I'm with you, if it makes any difference," she said, planting the tip of her sword in the ground. "It's what I came here to do, after all."

Ithilian didn't really care for what he'd walked into. They'd accomplished their goal, saved Athlok, and the way out was clear. He didn't see why they shouldn't take it. He hadn't agreed with Finn's logic, either. The dragon was an intelligent creature. It would not attack unless it felt threatened, or unless it thought it had the advantage. For it to leave its home to attack the city or something of that sort would be suicide, and if Hubert felt the need to send more shemlen workers to the mine to die, it was of no concern to Ithilian. It wasn't his task to prevent the humans from making mistakes.

But Amalia was going to remove the dragon, and that carried some weight. He hadn't come this far in repaying her kindness to let her be killed by a dragon now. He didn't think of much of their chances if just the len'alas accompanied her. Especially considering their difficulties against the drake, which had likely been a relatively small threat compared to whatever dragon was at the head of this movement. He had no intention of letting his best ally in the city (and perhaps only one) slip away from him.

"And I did not come for the boy's sake," he said, pushing himself away from the wall. "Let's get this over with. Sophia's eyes flitted back and forth between the two. An odd pair, indeed. The elf she didn't think was Qunari like the woman, at least he didn't seem to exude the same qualities. There was a lot more anger and hate there than was present with Amalia. Given that they had the chance now, however, and considering the situation with her brother back home, Sophia wanted to try and take advantage of the opportunity presented to her. A better understanding was something she'd been hoping to gain for the Qunari.

"If I may ask, Amalia, would you really have left the mine in danger had Finn not convinced you otherwise? Does the Qun really not promote protecting those who cannot protect themselves?" Perhaps it was too blunt of a question, but the Qunari woman did not seem one to waste time in conversation, particularly in moments such as these, and so Sophia figured it best to get to her point, and figure out what she could.

Amalia appeared to consider the question, a faint line appearing between her brows. "...There are many paths," she said at last, and she might well have left it at that. Except... whatever this woman had so far heard of her people was likely untrue, and while she was not compelled to remedy the condition of the ignorant, it was something she tended to prefer doing. "The Qun rarely demands specific action. How we interpret our directives is largely a matter of personal preference and a weighing of the immediate against the long-term. It is arrogance to assume that we can save everyone. Priorities are necessary. My viddethari are mine. What I do beyond that... is my choice."

She was done speaking of the matter, though, and made it clear by returning her attention to their location, heading in the direction Athlok had indicated with sure strides.

Sophia did not appear satisfied with the answer. Of course it would arrogance to assume that everyone could be helped. Things went wrong. But that didn't mean it was wrong to try, did it? It seemed an awfully cold way of viewing the world. She also realized that she wasn't exactly used to being turned away from, as Amalia proceeded to lead the way, with or without her. Sophia looked about to open her mouth to speak, but the elf shaking his head made her think twice.

"Leave it," he growled, "we've a job to do." Not satisfied with that either, Sophia sighed discontentedly, before lifting her sword back up onto her shoulder, and carrying onwards.

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

Despite all of Ashton's skills in the art of stealth, it was inevitable that he become noticed sooner or later. It turned out it had been the former. He fired off another arrow, tagging a Qunari in a leg before hesitating and watching the wrestling going on between the Chevalier and a Qunari. Ash was quite impressed with the man, one didn't see a man kill a Qunari with his bare hands before. He made a mental note to try his best to never get on the man's bad side... Or be a decent distance away from the man. Most likely the latter.

Alas, Ashton's spectating was cut short when a javelin flew past him. The hunter's instinct saved him that day, as he only heard the whistling of a long wooden pole being flung through the air before his body reacted, jerking himself out of the path and letting it embed into the ground at his feet. An arrow was nocked and fired before he even managed to lay eyes on the offending Qunari, thus his own accuracy was lacking. The arrow was low and struck a rock, but Ashton's luck played a bit of a role as well. Due to the angle the arrow was fired at, instead of shattering against the stone, it ricocheted and bounced, striking the Qunari in the shin.

Later, they were all going to have a little discussion about this adventure, and that shot was sure to go into Ashton's highlights. However, there was work to be done and no time to celebrate, so he drew another arrow and nocked it, firing it at the Qunari. Followed by another, and another. Before long the target began to look more like a pincushion than a Qunari. Though Ashton didn't stop filling him with arrows until he fell. Precautions, he wasn't going to chance not doing the job all the way. Nothing worse than a pissed off Qunari after your own blood after all.

Though now his attention was drawn to the second Qunari, who was now quietly eyeing Nostariel. Ashton's eyes went wide as the Qunari's hand went to one of his Javelins unbeknownst to Nostariel. Ashton himself ripped the Javelin at his feet out of the ground and vanished into a puff of smoke. The Qunari had a grin spread across his lips, as the mage didn't even seem to realize she was in his sights. This was sure to be an easy kill for him, and even if they all died, he wouldn't go down without taking one with him. That was his last thought before he raised a Javelin to throw. His large muscles tensed as he began to throw, but suddenly stopped. Instead of the Javelin striking the mage, it fell harmlessly to the ground. The Qunari's eyes widened before they dimmed as a trickle of blood ran down his forehead, from an exit wound created by a javelin. He fell to his knees, and then keeled over, lifeless. Ashton stood behind the fallen Qunari, panting heavily and holding a bloody javelin.

He spun the weapon in the air before planting it into the ground beside him and leaning on it. Though still panting heavily, as the exertion of sprinting across the battlefield was heavy, he managed a wry grin and a quip. "It seems that he's got the... Point," he said before laughing to himself. He then pulled the javelin out of the ground and laid it across his shoulders, draping his arms over it and made his way to the Chevalier. "How about you champ? Didn't think I'd see someone wrestle with a Qunari and live," Ashton said and patted the man on the shoulder.

When the battle proper was said and done, Lucien was quite sure he was ready for a drink and a nap, preferably in that order. There was still work to be done, though, and he took a look over at the other two. "If it's not too much to ask, Nostariel, I could use a little help here." Oh yes, he would most certainly be writing home about this. At Ashton's comment, he smiled crookedly. "Just goes to show that the correlation between foolishness and death doesn't always hold, I suspect," he replied with a hint of self-effacement. To be sure, he'd paid for it, but his other options at the time had been rather limited to say the least, and, well... here he was, alive and still breathing.

Nostariel turned in just enough time to witness the javelin blossom from the kossith's head, the collapsing bandit reveling Ashton standing behind him, clearly having heavily exerted himself. By her lights, that was probably the second time he'd saved her egregious bodily injury in one skirmish. She most assuredly owed the man a drink, not to mention something for that exhaustion. At about the same time as she had the thought, her own wound twinged painfully, and she struggled to breathe normally. Lucien, the brave soul, was also apparently wounded, and Nostariel nodded to his request, a tad dizzy but otherwise fine to meet it. "Won't hurt a bit," she promised, something she'd learned to say in those cases where she had no idea if her patients had ever been subject to healing magic before or not.

So saying, she took a deep breath in an effort to clear her head and called the magic upwards from that internal wellspring, letting the mass healing seep into her skin slowly, that fresh, cooling sensation something she still relished. It felt new, every time, even as many times as she'd used it, which was saying something. Her shoulder-wound closed, and she sighed softly, shoulder slumping in relief. Trekking over to the two men, she indicated the nearby cave with a gesture. "I'm guessing there's more in there," she pointed out with resignation.

"Ah yes... the obligatory ominous cave. There's quite a number of these around here. They all start to look the same after a while," Lucien agreed amicably, rolling his shoulders. The pain in his arms and the wounds on his torso were completely gone, and he felt as though he'd had that nap after all. Gracing Nostariel with a grateful nod, he scratched absently at the back of his neck, leaning on his scythe with the opposite hand. As if reaching some kind of resolution, though, he arced it up and over, laying it over his shoulders with the unconscious ease of practice.

"Well, no time like the present, I suppose. Are both of you ready?"

"Always. Though I do find myself wishing we didn't have to go spelunking in order to fish the rest of his kin out," Ashton said pointing at the Qunari with his neck broken with his foot. "Wish we could do it somewhere scenic, but alas, it looks like we don't have a choice in the matter," Ashton added, shrugging. "Well, let us go introduce ourselves then. Maybe instead of fighting, they'll invite us in for tea. That'll be nice, wouldn't it Luce?" He said, still poking fun at the Chevalier for his earlier display. Despite the goodnatured ribbing, Ashton would be the first to admit that the man had more than enough strength to back up his words. Seeing a man snapping a Qunari's neck with his bare hands tends to do that.

"Compared to some of the places I've been, a cave sounds perfectly scenic," Nostariel contributed, her tone artificially light. Nevertheless, it was clear that she also was more than ready to proceed, though she was not so silly as to lead the way in hersef, not when there was a stone wall of a person perfectly capable of doing so with much less risk. She'd be quite content to stick to the back of the group, thank you very much.

The inside of the cave was, as Lucien and Ashton had suggested it would be, rather uninteresting. There was a mix of raw stone and reddish earth beneath their feet, and their path was narrowed so that at most wto people could walk abreast, sloping down into a circular area wherein sat a campfire and the paraphenalia of some kind of craft, perhaps carpentry, if the awl and chisel were anything to go by. It was completely empty, and the place was bare of any sound save the faint clinking of Lucien's armor and the muffled tread of her footsteps. If Ashton made any noise, it was indistinguishable from those two things. Not far from the lit fire, there was a stone-panel door, apparently worked to slide to one side. The plae must have been used before the Tal-Vashoth got here, perhaps as a longtime base of operations for another bandit group, because she couldn't imagine that the former Qunari had had the time to design and implement such details of architecture. Then again, they were supposedly an incredibly-efficient people, so maybe they had after all.

The Tal-Vashoth had not thrown away their best warriors in the first fight, as was obvious when the three encountered the group within the caves. These were clearly the strongest of the group, warriors who had perhaps come from higher ranks in the Antaam, as shown by their superior armor and weapons, and their mere presence. It was possible that these ones had simply proven themselves the strongest of the bandit kossith, and claimed their places atop the chain of command, forcing the lower ones to do their bidding, and bring them the spoils taken from the caravans foolish enough to travel the Wounded Coast road. Whatever the case, the group gathered to meet Lucien, Ashton, and Nostariel was far superior to the one outside, and more prepared as well.

The front line was made of armored kossith foot soldiers, a mix of lighter spearmen of the likes from the ambush, as well as warriors bearing sword and shield, as well as various pieces of scavenged Qunari armor, and even equipment taken from the bandits they had no doubt driven from this place originally. More spear-throwers were in place behind them, though not in the numbers they appeared outside. They appeared to be guarding a staircase in the rear of the area, one that led up to an upper level that overlooked the soon-to-be field of battle quite niecely.

Perched upon this overlook was the obvious commander of the group, a massive warrior with a full set of Qunari made armor, and a greatsword that cerrtainly only the strongest of individuals could wield with much speed. Next to him was the harrowing sight of a Qunari mage, a Saarebas, his mask shattered and removed from his face, his formerly sown lips at last cut free. The collar was not so easy to remove, however, and remained secured around his shoulders. Lightning arced between his hands as he prepared to unleash his pent up anger on the intruders. The leaders of the bandit group had obviously prepared a suitable defense against the attackers while the lesser among them delayed their progress outside.

"So... No tea then." Ashton deadpanned.

"Indeed not," Lucien replied in a similar manner. "And no surrendering either, from the looks of this arrangement-" It was of course right then that the first of the line intiated the charge, and the Chevalier cut off his words, in order that he might move to meet it. However long it turned out to be that he could withstand the blows of so many Tal-Vashoth, that span was longer than either Ashton or Nostariel would last, and so withstand it he would. Bolstering himself with a fortifying breath, he scythed through the line, leaving a good chunk of the warriors with wounds, though none fallen. It was of course practical to assume that these ones would be more hardy than their counterparts outside, and indeed that seemed to be more and more the case.

Fortunately for Lucien (and by extension, the others), he was no slouch himself, and successfully evaded the first set of blows meant to hack him into little Orlesian pieces. A heavy sword-blow rebounded off his plate armor, and his breath left him in a whoosh. Staggered for a moment by the impact, he missed the blast of flames directed at his blind side from above.

Perhaps obviously, it hurt. Under the force of the fire, his armor heated, scorching the tunic he wore under his chain, the rings undoubtedly branding small circles into the flesh beneath. Gritting his teeth, the Chevalier dealt with it, refusing to allow the burns to slow him down. If he could last long enough out here, Ashton and Nostariel would be able to thin the ranks and make his job easier in turn. For now, though, pure endurance was key. Hooking his weapon around the shield of one of the melee combatants, he pulled, leaving the fellow's otherwise-solid guard wide open for either one of the others to exploit. Teamwork was going to be essential if they all wanted to live through this.

And teamwork he got. As soon as the Chevalier ripped the shield away from the trunk of the Qunari, Ashton introduced him to a recently found friend. He bucked the javelin off of his shoulders and coiled back before launching it at the suddenly defenseless Qunari. Ashton's eye and aim proved true as the javelin struck the chest of the horn-head, tossing it to the ground and rending the shield from his hand. Now lightened of his ill-begotten gains, he drew his bow from across his chest and reached back for an arrow. He had his sights set on the Qunari commander and mage as he nocked a rather thick arrow. A Qunari mage. Where were all of these mages coming from? First Sparrow, then a blood mage courtesan, not to mention that one cult abducting templars that she belonged to. Nostariel. Now a Qunari. If this kept up, he wouldn't be surprised to find that he could communicate with the fade.

He took a steadying step, leveling a bead on the collared mage as well as the commander beside him and let the arrow sing. The flight path of this arrow was lazy and fat as it dropped faster than a normal arrow should. Instead of embedding in flesh, the arrow embedded in the wood beneath the Mage's feet. Only a moment went by however, and the purpose of the arrow was revealed. It exploded, but the force wasn't as heavy or shattering as the one he used against demon-y Wilmod. This one instead was a lot more bluster as smoke quickly began to billow and expand, engulfing the mage and commander, obscuring their view from their merry band of mercenaries.

Ashton figured that the screen would save Lucien from the trouble of any more annoying spells the mage had in store. With his original goal now accomplished, he glanced at Nostariel and gave her a mischievious glint before he took a step backwards into the shadows and utterly vanishing from sight. While Lucien would draw their attention and ire, he would be the grim hunter, eliminating foes from the shadows... Or something equally badass as he would tell Sparrow over a good bottle of spirits.

Nostariel had to give credit to the Tal-Vashoth: they knew how to assemble a lineup. If the Darkspawn were this good at organization and mixed tactics... well, there would be far fewer Wardens, and she'd be dead. Not that she planned on dying right now, either, of course: if there was one thing history had shown of her, it was that she had a tendency to survive even in instances where she didn't do much to guarantee it.

Her first move was a relatively simple one: spawn a firestorm, far enough away from Lucien and Ashton that they wouldn't end up bright and burning, and hope that at least a few of the incandescent flames would tear into the back ranks of fighters and spearmen so as to prevent them all from charging forward at once. More than one succeeded, but she didn't bother stopping to watch. From upwards and to the left, the mage- they called them Saarebas,? She was fairly certain Amalia had used that word to either Aurora or herself- spat fire of his own, and Lucien recieved what must have been a nasty burn to the abdomen. For all that, the knight seemed to be handling it rather well, and she decided to press on without healing anyone just yet.

Still, that wasn't the only way she could help them. Setting her feet, Nostariel planted her staff into the ground, the thud of its contact coinciding perfectly with the formation of shimmering, purplish barriers around herself and the others. An arcane shield was pehaps slightly misnamed- it caused attacks to fail in connecting rather than blocking them outright. Launching a winter's grasp on the tail of Ashton's smoke arrow, its trajectory thankfully set long before the fog obscured their vision. She was opening her mouth to ask him if he wanted ice arrows as well when he up and disappeared, leaving her momentarily at a loss.

Shrugging, she decided for him- for both of them, really, and dipped once more into the Fade, activating elemental weapons and then falling back on staff-magic for a while. Magic might be a renewable resource, but it wasn't entirely without end.

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

"You know," Sophia pointed out, looking about the caverns as they passed, "I don't think a large dragon could even get in here. The spaces are too tight. It must have taken advantage of a hole the miners made, and sent the younger ones in so they could eat the workers. In that case... Maker, it's probably waiting to ambush us once we make it to the base of the mine."

Sophia recognized that that was where they were headed. The mine was leading down towards the Pit part of the mine, a large open clearing of mostly sand that lay at the bottom of the area, as they'd been able to see on the road towards the mine. It was flat, open, and empty, with little in the way of cover, things that could assist them if the dragon decided to use fire. It obviously had the advantage of maneuverability over them, given that it could cover much greater distances in much less time. Not to mention that a single mistake when in close combat with it would result in an invariably serious injury.

It didn't seem like an easy task for the three of them, to put it lightly. "I must admit, my experience fighting dragons is lacking. Some kind of plan should probably be in place before we go out there. Any thoughts?" The elf looked annoyed at simply being spoken to by her. Sophia had to admit these two were starting to wear on her, what with Sataareth's constant disdain towards everything he saw (save for the dragons. He seemed largely neutral towards them, even when killing them), and Amalia's impenetrably cold demeanor towards those not under her watch, or whatever exactly applied to her role. The elf was willing to see the reason of her request though, and reluctantly speak.

"Dragons made homes in mountainous areas more than forests, and as such I have not encountered many, nor had reason to kill one so large. That said," he continued holding the point of an arrow up, "even if the body is armored, there will be weak points. If we can make it keep its head still for a moment, I believe I could put one of these in an eye, and blind it on a side. Also, the underbelly is typically weaker, if it can be reached."

Sophia's brow furrowed in thought. Holding the head still would be no simple task, and she doubted Amalia's chain tactic would work as effectively as it had for the drake, given the massive increase in size and strength this dragon would have. But it was something, at least. If the elf could make the shot, that was. But Dalish were historically excellent archers, she knew, and Sataareth seemed quite skilled at his craft. Sophia looked to Amalia, to see if she had anything to add. She was willing to bet whatever it was, it would be quick.

In answer, the Qunari fished around in one of her many pouches, extracting what appeared to be a flask of a noxious-looking green liquid. "A potent toxin," she explained. "It will not kill a creature so large as a dragon, but it should slow it somewhat. Especially if it enters through a vulnerable area close to the brain." She held the flask out by its top, indicating that Ithilian should take it. "Also viscous enough to coat an arrowhead, if you like."

As for how they should get the shot lined up in the first place, she had less of a clear answer. Her repertiore was, plainly put, not meant for this sort of thing. Her tools suited the occasions she was called to use them for, and slaying dragons was simply not in the list of tasks she had ever expected to undertake. She had a feeling the woman Sophia was less-than-pleased with her reluctant cooperation, but the fact that she was doing any of this at all was something Amalia still didn't fully understand. It was illogical and by no means required of her. It also carried quite a good chance of her death; she was not well-armored, and her armament, while fine most of the time, left much to be desired here.

"We need to fix its attention on something, so that if the head moves at all, it will do so in predictable patterns, ones that we can control. I will be unable to deal much damage to something of such a nature, which means I'm the best choice for that." She probably wouldn't be able to hurt a dragon, but she was as agile and flexible and focused as she'd ever been, which meant she could probably survive long enough for Sataareth to put an arrow in its eye, which should in theory make the rest of the job easier for himself and Sophia.

Ithilian accepted the flask Amalia offered, certainly seeing the uses it would have. A lot would be riding on Amalia's agility (and how well she could draw its attention), as well as Ithilian's own archery skills, but to be honest, the elf would have it no other way. He certainly wasn't going to like any plan in which the len'alas played a more pivotal role. It was safe to say Ithilian didn't care for putting his fate in the hands of others, especially humans. If he had any misgivings about Amalia volunteering herself as little more than a distraction, he didn't show it.

Sophia wasn't too pleased with the fact that their best plan involved the use of bait and poisons, but she really didn't see an alternative at this point, and as such she couldn't complain. Amalia was correct in saying she was the best choice for getting the dragon's attention. The elf would need to make the shot count, and Sophia herself, while not slow even in her armor, couldn't hope to move fast enough to avoid the dragon's claws or teeth for long. Though she did wonder what the beast would do when Sophia began attacking it in earnest. A distraction could only last for so long.

"It'll have to do," Sophia admitted, taking her sword into both hands. "Let's go, then." She would have said something of a prayer for them, but she had a feeling they wouldn't be too appreciative of it, and so instead she let the words echo about in her own mind as they moved forward, passing through the Bone Pit's lower exit and into the open area beyond.

It was silent at first, and for a moment Sophia allowed herself to think they may have been in clear, but then came the piercing shriek on the wind, echoing off the walls around the Pit, making it unclear which direction the dragon was actually coming from. The sound of wings beating against the wind was all that told Sophia of its location. She looked up just in time to see the creature drop down directly on top of them. She was forced to dive forward to avoid being crushed entirely under its claws, the ground shaking with the force it had come down with. Pushing herself up off the dirt, Sophia looked to find her companions, seeing the elf scrambling away to put some distance between himself and the dragon, just as it exhaled an inferno in his direction.

She didn't have time to see what became of him, however, as the dragon's massive tail came swooshing sideways. Whether the attack was intentional or not didn't really matter, the effect was still the same. Her breath was taken from her in one blow as the scaly weapon slammed into her upper abdomen, a wet crack accompanying the stabs of pain that shot through her body as she was taken from her feet and sent tumbling away. Perhaps the pain had caused her to tighten her grip, because she somehow maintained her hold on her blade.

The gasp for air she performed instinctively backfired on her, causing more stabs in her stomach. It was a moment before she could even get past the pain enough to function, but she did so just in time, recognizing the shape of the dragon facing her through watery eyes. A claw came down towards her, and she was forced to roll to the side, the attack slamming to the ground where she had just been, the roll putting yet more pressure on her ribs. Whatever Amalia was going to do to distract the dragon, she would have to do it fast.

The draconian shriek rent the air, and Amalia pitched herself forward on instinct when the shadow passed over them, tucking her limbs into a tight roll and bouncing back onto her feet as quickly as she was able. Spinning around, she caught sight of the overblown lizard breathing a jet of fire at Ithilian, and her mouth dropped into a scowl. Gritting her teeth, the most trivial of signs that extra resolution really was necessary in the face of such a foolhardy endeavor, she nevertheless hefted her chain and tossed. She aimed not to entangle, for she maintained no illusions that her grip would match a dragon where a drake had nearly bested it. Rather, the weighted end was spun and hurled for no other purpose than to smack into the side of the creature's head, drawing its aggression towards her.

No sooner was the contact made than she abandoned the weapon, dropping it to the ground so that it would not burden her motion. The moment the dragon's slit-pupiled eye found her, Amalia was off like an arrow launched from a crossbow, her feet beating a staccato rhythm on the loose stones underfoot. Maintaining her balance would be important; running at full-tilt sprint here was unwise. She might have to do it anyway, and risk the fall.

The dry scrape of smooth scales over stone was the only warning she had; gathering her legs beneath her, Amalia jumped straight upwards, her heels just brushing the thickly-muscled tail that swept by beneath her. This dodge at least earned her the front half of the dragon, and she had to flip backwards thrice in quick succession to avoid the swipes of its claws as it switched tactics. The Qunari just caught the motion of its ribcage expanding, taking in air like a blacksmith's bellows might.

"Venak hol," she muttered under her breath, stilling her motion. This was going to take timing. If she could get this dragon to level its flames in one large gout, its head would probably remain still enough. Too much movement, and it would be no use at all. Too little, and she'd burn to death. Ebost issala, indeed.

She did not much relish becoming an idiom. All the same, she knew what she had to do. The glimmer of golden-orange in the back of the dragon's throat confirmed it, and even as the conflagration issued forth, Amalia waited. And waited. And waited. Just as she was feeling the underlying heat start to scorch her skin, she dove forward. The heat was blistering for an agonizing few moments, but she burst free on the other side, hitting the ground and rolling to put out the fires. The fortunate part of this maneuver was that the dragon couldn't see her through its own fire, and likely expected that she was cooking right now. Not too far from the truth; she had some nasty burns, particularly in the places where the fire had by chance scorched clean through her clothing already. One side of her ribcage and a good portion of her upper back were a visibly-blistering red, and Amalia found she couldn't move much at present.

Narrowing her focus, the Qunari controlled her breathing, hissing softly when even that hurt more than she'd expected. Still, she knew what to do well enough to keep doing it, even if it did feel as though a thousand of her own needles flayed open every square inch of those wounds. The smell of burned flesh was probably helping disguise the fact that she was alive, so there was that at the very least. Amalia's eyelids felt heavy, but she kept them open, knowing that to lose consciousness now would mean the end of her, most likely. Right now, she had to focus on getting her body to move as she willed it again. This would be the second time she'd attempted this seemingly-impossible task, but this occasion, dragon or not, paled in comparison to the first. She would survive. It was in her very name.

A rock had saved Ithilian, a relatively small thing, positioned at the mouth of the exit they had just taken. The Dalish had taken the rear of the group, letting the two who would be dealing with the dragon more directly go ahead. But the creature had instead dropped down directly on top of them, nearly crushing Sophia and Amalia entirely, and immediately facing Ithilian. His instincts had taken over, and told him to get behind something. The rock had been the closest thing on hand. He vaulted over, dropped low to the ground, and curled himself as tightly to it as he could.

The fire had washed over him, making his existence a temporary inferno, and for a moment there was literally nothing but the heat and the blinding light. But it passed almost as soon as it came, and Ithilian found himself intact. The sound of stomping feet and swiping claws alerted him that the dragon had elected a new target, and that time was short. Remaining behind the boulder simply because he did not wish to make himself defenseless while he prepared, Ithilian applied the poison given to him to an arrow, nocked, and stood as he pulled back the string.

Time seemed to slow as he gradually exhaled, relaxing his previously tensed limbs. His one remaining eye was as sharp as ever. He took in a scene in which the dragon was turned ninety degrees away from him, just about to release a second inferno on Amalia, who was seemingly standing still as though waiting for it. Sophia was on the ground on the other side, clearly injured. It was all or nothing at this point. As the dragon exhaled flame, it's neck extended forward, the head stilling itself. Ithilian's arm guided the arrow into place, releasing the arrow at the end of his exhale.

The string smacked against his bracer, the wood vibrated in his hand, the arrow whistled through the air. For a moment it looked too high, it was going to hit the creature's brow, but the force of nature pulled it down, and the poisoned projectile ripped into the dragon's left eye, burying itself halfway up the shaft. It's head recoiled, at first seemingly confused as to why half of its vision had simply vanished, before the agony clearly set in, and it reeled backwards, pain temporarily blocking its ability to act, or even think. It seemed to spasm for brief moments, writhing about in pain. It would no doubt give Amalia the opportunity the opportunity to get clear of the beast, if she could force herself to move.

Sophia was facing a similar issue. With the dragon no longer focused on her, she had a few moments to try and collect herself, though she wasn't sure that would be enough. Carefully testing the injury with her free hand, she was able to guess that she had multiple ribs broken, at least one on each side. The taste of blood was trickling into her mouth. Amalia had mentioned something of restorative earlier. Sophia was glad she turned down the offer, now that she actually needed them.

As it was, it was the most she could do to push herself up to a knee, planting her sword in the ground to steady herself while she fought to keep her breathing under control. The elf had made his shot, and the Qunari woman had done her part. The dragon was currently stunned more or less by its own agony, giving the three of them a window in which to recuperate, before they would need to set to the work of bringing it down. Sophia knew her weapon was the best suited for the task. She could only hope the Maker saw fit to give her the strength to wield it.

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

Pain was a sensation that Amalia knew very intimately. It had worn all its masks in her presence: dull throbbing drumbeats in the head, sharp stinging needles plunged into tender limbs, agony reaching into her skin to gnaw at her bones with razor-edged teeth. Fire, ice, lightning; physical, mental… even her soul had been seared before. Her body still bore the old wounds, writ in too many jagged, carefully-spaced white and pink lines, crosshatching the majority of her flesh. Most of the time, it was hard to tell- she made a habit of being clothed from head to toe.

Right now, it would have been plain as day, were the situation any different. The wounds of the past were overlaid, burned and blistered into red and black canvas splotches. Yet another tale to be inscribed upon her skin; of the time she was too stupid not to try playing bait for an ataashi, of all things.

Exposure alone did not immunity make, but if she knew anything, it was that an adequately strong mind, a hardy-enough spirit, could withstand just about anything done to the skin, muscle, and bone. When the force of it had softened its grip, even just a little, she seized the opportunity, pushing herself onto her hands and knees, shuddering when the effort pulled at the tender, burned flesh of her back and left side. Black and red haze swirled in her field of vision, and she swallowed past the bile that threatened to rise in the back of her throat.

Her breaths came raggedly, but otherwise regularly, even as she pushed herself to shaking feet, stumbling out from beneath the dragon at a shambling jog that nevertheless accomplished the task. The creature was evidently in no small pain of its own, but she currently found herself with precious little sympathy for it. Through the foggy spots, she could see Sophia trying to stand and limped in that direction, using her relatively-undamaged right hand to search for one of her potions. She’d brought just three, but from the fact that her hand came away covered in a slightly-sticky red liquid, she deduced that her fall had taken her down to two. Palming one of those vials still intact, she uncorked it with her teeth and passed it to the other woman, retreating shortly afterward away from the dragon’s immediate perception- and anyone else’s, for that matter.

The image of the burned and ragged Qunari shimmered like a desert mirage, then winked out entirely. She’d not drink the other, not when it might be more necessary later. Assuming she didn’t take too much more damage, she would live, and she could not guarantee the same of the others when all was said and done.

Pain and she were old friends, after all. Perhaps it was time to do some catching up.

Sophia accepted the healing potion with a wordless nod of thanks, not wanting to waste any breath on words that would certainly have no effect on the woman. She had to admire Amalia's strength, being able to pull herself out from under the dragon and make her way to deliver a potion to someone else, when she was clearly in a great deal of pain herself. Sophia almost felt bad about drinking the potion, considering Amalia's ability to carry on, but she quickly decided that it was entirely necessary. Wielding her blade required far too much motion from her torso, and in its current state, another hit would undoubtedly remove her from the fight altogether.

She downed the vial of liquid quickly, swallowing and shaking her head at the irrelevant concern that was the taste. She immediately breathed a sigh of relief when the tension was lifted from her ribs, and her ability to move more or less unhindered returned. She wasn't if the potion had healed them completely, or simply set them, as it was still tender to the touch. It would have to do. She pushed herself to her feet, readying her blade as she examined the best way to go about taking this thing down.

Ithilian had taken note of Amalia's current state with some amount of concern as he readied another arrow. "Suledin, Qunari. I didn't make that shot just so you could be killed later." Whether his cuationary words would be heeded, or were even heard, he didn't know, as he had lost sight of the woman. The dragon itself was still thrashing about in its pain, and Ithilian took the opportunity to put an arrow in the roof of its mouth the next time it screeched at the world.

It had been blinded on its left side, that much was certain. As it got its senses back together, it made a conscious effort to try and locate the attacks with its other eye. The Dalish took a shot at the other eye, but the head moved enough for the shot to bounce off the snout instead. Locating the source of all its recent pains, the dragon centered its attention on the elf, quickly turning to face him and unleashing a gout of flame from its mouth, arrow still embedded and all. Unable to see the target, however, Ithilian was able to relocate in time to avoid the blast altogether, moving to the dragon's blind side.

At the same moment came a resounding slice from beneath the dragon, as Sophia sank her blade deep into its softer underbelly, piercing a space between two of its massive ribs, and then cutting across, slicing nearly the entire length of the dragon's abdomen, allowing a staggering amount of blood to spill onto the dirt beneath it. The creature roared before reacting, hacking with its claws blindly in the direction the attack had come from, one swipe coming mere inches from replicating the wound on Sophia, but the Viscount's daughter was yet able to escape, putting some distance between her and the creature, while simulataneously remaining on its blinded left side. It would no doubt be a fatal wound, but the beast was certainly still dangerous as long as it drew breath.

IF Amalia had understood elvish, she might have even laughed. A short, gruff, contralto bark of the stuff, tinged with palpable irony. As it was, she guessed closely enough, and the ghost-smirk on her face only quirked her lips when she was already vanished, apparently into thin air. Unwilling to be entirely useless in any state, she prowled a circle around the dragon, knife drawn and in her good hand. There wasn't much it could do, and to use it would expose her again, so that was only happening if circumstances were particularly bad. As it was, Sophia managed to muster her strength, opening up a long line on the dragon's underbelly. Now, it was more a situation of waiting for it to die than anything else, and the Qunari's expression dropped into a frown.

So much suffering was a waste, to say nothing of the danger the dying thing still presented them. An ataashi was a noble thing, and by no fault of its own was its nature to kill things weaker than itself and consume them. They all danced about for survival, sliding blades here and there, and this was simply the way of the world. But suffering... to prolong a death in this way should be avoided if possible. Contrary to her presented personality, Amalia was not without sympathy, and it struck her now that she wanted to end its pain.

That alone as no guarantee that she'd be able to do it, but trying was beginning to seem more and more necessary. A second dose of the poison she'd given Sataareth coated her knife, and she flicked the excess away with a sharp hand-motion, lining up her shot as best she could. The poison wasn't intended for this purpose, but it was an anasthetic, working to slow the body's internal processes and dull pain. It would also hasten death. She was counting on that part especially. Inhaling only shallowly to aggravate her burns as little as possible, the Qunari decided to aim for the opened wound on the underbelly, which she'd be much more likely to hit than the the other eye or the inside of the mouth. Flicking her wrist sharply, she sent the knife flyng end-over-end. Injuries or not, the projectile struck true, the blade sinking to the hilt somewhere inside the slit Sophia had opened up. Hopefully, it was close to the heart or a major artery, either of which would speed the process.

Fading into sight once more a few feet from Sophia, Amalia sighed heavily, weariness weighing her limbs as even the sharp pain of her burns regressed into a dull throbbing, in tempo with her heartbeat. "Atash varin kata. Panehedan, ataashi."

The dragon was visibly weakening, and quickly, and though it valiantly struggled against its impending death, it was futile. Sophia relaxed her hold on her sword as the creature slumped to the ground, slowing her own breathing and heartbeat, although those were more symptoms of adrenaline now than the pain that Amalia was still in. She did not have an understanding of the Qunari language, but Amalia's words sounded like something of a farewell, which Sophia supposed was fitting. Even though the Viscount's daughter had been the one most in favor of slaying the creature, apart from perhaps Finn, it was still perhaps slightly sad to watch. Less so when she thought about how the dragon had almost killed her, but still sad. It probably hadn't meant anything ill in its attack, simply doing what it thought it had to in order to see the younger ones survive.

At last it let its head fall to the earth, and grew still and silent. The task done, and all three of them somehow still alive, Sophia let herself at last breathe a sigh of relief, wiping her blade clean before sliding it back into its sheath on her back. The Dalish came to join them as well, his eyes noticeably lingering on the Qunari's burns, or perhaps the multitude of scars underneath. Sophia couldn't help but wonder what the tie between the two of them was, but she certainly wasn't going to try and get them to open up about it. They didn't seem the talkative sorts.

"Are you all right?" Sophia asked Amalia, after noting that Sataareth was relatively unharmed. "That looks... incredibly painful. You're very strong." She didn't know if the compliment would carry any weight, but it was the truth, and she saw no reason not to commend Amalia for it. Most people would have let themselves be killed, in her situation.

"I am. It is. Not particularly." Amalia replied to the comments in order, but for all her brevity, a good portion of her ealier terseness was absent. Perhaps it was an effect of the fact that speaking (and drawing the breath required) was still a labor, or perhaps she had intentionally softened the usual slight edge to her tone in light of recent happenings. Whatever else may be the case, it was clear that Sophia was both courageous and skilled. Unseasoned, obviously, but that was no grave sin.

As soon as Sataareth appeared, looking not too much worse for wear, Amalia wasted no further time in such condition and immediately downed the contents of the other red flask, allowing her shoulders to slump in relief as the burns scabbed over and then cleared. The wounds left tender, reddened skin in their wake, but that was tolerable. An opportunity to mix a few more ingredients together and apply a cooling poultice, and even that would be little matter. She did pull her braid over her good shoulder though; no need to irritate the abrasions with hair.

Examining the corpse of the dragon, she knelt gingerly and fished her knife out of its chest, unsurprised when the thing came back too warped to be of any further use. Tapping a scale with an index finger, she glanced back at the other two. "It seems a dire waste to simply leave ataashi to rot here. I understand if your concerns take you elsewhere; you may leave without me and tell the basra that my share of the reward is Sataareth's to use as he pleases. I still think there might be some good to be had from this one, though." The scales, teeth, and heart were bound to be particularly useful, and she'd heard that dragons' blood was a powerful reagent besides.

"I should be off," Sophia said as Amalia began to make use of what the large dragon could offer. "The miners should know their workplace is safe once more. I very much appreciate your help today. Even if it wasn't your intention, you may have saved a good deal of lives."

It certainly hadn't been Ithilian's intention, but the deed was done, and the dragon was dead. He really had no further reason to stay, and though he didn't envy the thought of walking back to Kirkwall with the len'alas, he did intend on collecting as much of a reward from Hubert as he was capable of without physically hurting the man. The coin would no doubt help a good number in the alienage, especially since he had no real demand for money. He would take what he needed, of course, but little else.

"Ma nuvenin, then. I'll make sure the shem holds to his word. I should think fighting a dragon calls for a sizable reward. Until next time, Amalia." His bow replaced over his shoulder, Ithilian took his leave, returning through the mine the way they had come. Sophia too felt no need to linger any longer, and followed, although she did let the elf get a decent head start.

This was going to be an interesting story to tell to everyone.

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel

Earnings

0.00 INK

Blooming Rose, indeed. He was fairly certain that the only things blooming in the place were the bruises on the boy's face when one of the whores smacked him a good one for getting underfoot. He'd seen similar displays a million places, been subject to more than a few, before he was of appropriate size and skill to hit back. That he was to find himself here again after the passage of such a short time irked him, though it was manifested only in the steady pace of his march, breezing through the entranceway as he did, moving right past all the men and women on display to the second level. He'd read the name 'Jethann' on the brass nameplate on a door next to Idunna's room the last time he was here, which saved him the indignity of needing to stop and ask for the man's location.

The sooner they left this place, the better, and not just because the smell of it irritated his nose, either.

Rilien did the courtesy of knocking, but only once. Frankly he didn't care if he happened to intrude upon a conjugal visitation- it would be nothing he hadn't interrupted before, usually for much less pleasant reasons even than seeking out a missing woman. After that, he simply opened the door and strode directly in. "Jethann," he inquired (though to be fair, there was so little rising intonation to it it may well be mistaken for a declarative).

Perhaps luckily, Rilien did not interrupt anything he shouldn't have. Jethann was alone in his room, and for the most part, didn't even look annoyed at having unexpected visitors. In fact, a grin revealing a rather inappropriate line of thought spread across his face when he laid eyes on the trio, giving each of them a look over, and seemingly approving of each one. There was some recognition in his eyes at seeing Sparrow; the two likely knew each other to some extent, though if they knew each other was not readily apparent.

"I'm afraid today's my rest day," the elf said, before giving the Tranquil a more thorough inspection with his eyes, "but I'll make an exception for you. What do you say, want to see if we can make you feel something again?" His grin perhaps doubled in size as he shrugged. "What can I say? Why work if you're not working hard?"

The look Rilien gave Jethann was perhaps something Ashton would have described as 'priceless.' The usual flat stare took on the barest edge of incredulity, and he crossed his arms over his chest, shifting his weight slightly. "If I had the desire to feel anything at all, I would not ask you," he deadpanned pointedly, blinking once, slowly. He was planning on asking directly where Ninette was, but there was a rather perspicuous danger of being misinterpreted if there were not some form of transition, and while he didn't care, exactly, he also didn't want to deal with the extra superfluous commentary.

"As it turns out, we are here to work, unlike yourself. We seek Ninette de Carac, who has gone missing. I understand she was a customer of yours."

Jethann looked disappointed for only the slightest of moments at Rilien's rock solid rejection of his offer, but seemed intent on remaining lewd with his visitors. It was also possible that that was just his personality. "Ninette? Why yes, she is a customer of mine, but I haven't seen her for several weeks. A shame, really. I enjoy her company. I heard that she finally left her worthless husband. Good for her, right? She's probably out of the city by now. I just wish she'd said goodbye."

He turned towards Aurora, perhaps because he thought she would be more pleasing to speak with, now that the Tranquil had proven unsurprisingly cold. "Did you meet him? Surely no one can blame poor Ninette for freeing herself from that awful man."

Unlike Rilien, Sparrow wasn't displeased at the thought of returning to the Blooming Rose – it would've been an atrocity if she had been, and very unlike her. There was a certain wariness riding on her shoulders, tickling her earlobes. She was uncharacteristically uncomfortable. Exposed flesh made her fingers twitch, drumming tunelessly against the pommel of her mace. For once, Sparrow didn't want to be here.

“Bloody bastard, more like. Wouldn't be worried – she won't be with him again, once we find her.” Sparrow interrupted, crossing her arms across her chest. She couldn't hide the slight grin from her lips, tentatively pulling it's corners at the horrible attempt to seduce her companion. She'd often wondered what Rilien's type was, before he'd been affected by the Rite of Tranquillity. Surely, there'd been someone in his life: the apple of his eye. It was difficult imagining him alone, though she'd heard of the restrictions tendered on all individuals of the Circle. They weren't allowed to have relationships. They weren't allowed to do much of anything. Anchored by the wrists, and by the ankles, to something much more restrictive and cruel. They weren't allowed to live proper lives because everyone feared them. She understood that more than anyone, unless one was to compare him to other confined mages. Freedom was the only fortunate thing she was allowed to have as long as she turned tail and ran, as long as she was willing to part with her stubborn pride, jabbing it's fingers into her ribs because it was displeased at the thought of bowing out.

When she woke up that morning, Aurora surely hadn't expected to end up at the Blooming Rose of all places, looking for a man's (if one could call that a man) wife. When she entered, her eyes darted around, a little bit wary, but entirely curious. However, the Tranquil seemed to know where he was going as if he'd been there before. That of course raised an entire slew of questions. Mostly why. As he led the way, Aurora couldn't help but stare at the back of the man's white mane and just wonder what went on under that hair? What was it like being a Tranquil, to be cut from not only the Fade, but all of one's emotions as well. She winced inwardly as she thought about it. It wasn't the cheeriest thought, and one she tried her entire life to avoid. That and becoming an abomination.

She followed him right into Jethann's room. The elf was... Cheeky but then again what did she expect from someone working in a place such as the Blooming Rose? That kind of attitude came with the... job probably. Still, despite herself she couldn't help but chuckle at Rilien's frankness. Then the elf turned his attention's on her. At first, she was at a lost, the sudden change being so... Well, sudden. She opened her mouth to answer, but before the first syllable left her mouth, Sparrow answered for her. Aurora nodded right along and added, "He's not... Pleasant, to put it lightly," she said, agreeing to an extent with Sparrow's words, though not so vulgar.

"Do you know anything that could help us find her? Not for Serah Carac's sake of course, but ours. We'd like to make sure she's okay," She said, putting emphasis on the word. Sarcastic emphasis.

"Okay? But... who would want to hurt Ninette?" the elf asked, as though the idea simply made no sense to him. He suddenly seemed to get a bright idea, however, and another lewd smile made its way onto his face. "Everyone loves Ninette. Sometimes twice a night." He chuckled a bit at his own joke, before becoming significantly more serious. "Ghyslain's the only one who might hurt her, and he doesn't have the balls for it. He came here and yelled at me when he found out Ninette had been seeing me, called me a dirty knife ear, among other things, and accused me of corrupting his wife. We had him thrown out."

Finally getting around to the point of answering Aurora's question, Jethann continued. "There was, uh... one other person looking for Ninette. A Templar, I believe his name was Emeric. He wouldn't sleep with me, either. I can't see why a Templar would be interested in anyone who isn't a mage."

Templars. Again. If Rilien had been the kind to entertain such useless conspiratorial fancies, he would have sworn the world was out to get him. Out to get them, really, because he was in a much better position to be dealing with Templars then either of the two women with him. How was it that in recent weeks, he'd been sent twice to Templars, and twice to this den of... well, filth was too strong a word. There was a decided lack of cleanliness, though, and he a rather fastidious sort who did not revel in that in the slightest.

Choosing not to comment on Jethann's implied question, Rilien instead took it upon himself to hurry the matter along. "One final question. Did you ever send Ninette anything? Flowers or a letter?" He asked largely because that detail had seemed odd to him. Arguably, it was indeed a whore's job to keep his or her customers coming back, but from the sounds of things, Ninette was already a regular, and such measures were thus firmly in the category of 'excessive.' Perhaps the absence of any of his own had turned Rilien into a poor judge of emotion, but he didn't think so, and Jethann wasn't showing enough distress at Ninette's vanishing for the Tranquil to suppose that he'd done something so foolhardy as to actually love the woman, so something about the entire situation was off.

That said, he wasn't at all certain he'd be chasing down the lead anyway. In the end, he needed the funds, but he did not relish the thought of accompanying two apostates, one of them a maleficarum, no less, into the Gallows. If ever he decided he needed a compelling reason to flee the city and never come back, doing so might put enough Templars on his tail to ensure he made it all the way to Anderfels.

Marvelous. Templars. Just what she wanted to see that day. Despite herself, Aurora couldn't hide the displeasure written on her face. A twitch of nose there, a wrinkle of the eye brow here, and the flittering of a green iris spelled it out to anyone keen enough to be watching. Even as careful as she was, she didn't like the idea of being thrown in front of another Templar... However, this wasn't for her, but for another woman. Which brought to mind a myriad of interesting questions. What did a Templar wish with Ninette? Ghyslain, jerk that he was, didn't make it sound like his wife communed with the fade. Nor did this Jethann offer any suspicions otherwise. Indeed, this woman sounded completely normal, if burdened with a venomous husband. The wrinkle in Aurora's eyebrow found itself raised as she considered these... Questions.

Sparrow mouthed a silent apology for getting ahead of herself, nodding her head to Aurora's question. It was hard enough trying to keep her sailor's mouth in check, but more often than not, she'd forget who's company she was in – presumably, this was what made Ashton so desirable compared to herself. He was all sweeping bows, and chivalrous actions. Chock-full of gentleman flattery that would make the shyest lass blush. In comparison, Sparrow wasn't much of a catch unless they liked brusque men with theatrical movements, and straightforward tactics that involved wringing her arms around their waists and nearly mopping their hair against the floor in an undaunted act of passion. She didn't feel bold, right now. Her nerves were skittering like insects, bereft of anything that made her feel comfortable. Nerves overtaken, overwhelmed by demons. Or one, in particular. Her whispers were feverish against her neck, her earlobes, in the sensitive cavities of her mind, while Aurora and Rilien bartered for information.

She frowned ever so slightly, arching an eyebrow. She refused the urge to reach forward and tug the man's ears, reprimanding him for such a poor joke. Instead, Sparrow's foot tapped impatiently, indicating that he'd better get to the point. Her rhythmic footfalls finally stopped at his next words. They were dealing with Templars, again? From her recent experiences, and awry exploits, they only brought more trouble than they were worth. The crease between her eyebrows softened when Rilien asked whether or not he'd ever sent her flowers, or letters, or anything of the sort that might indicated that his relationship with her went beyond portly business arrangements. There was nothing indicating that he was genuinely upset at Ninette's disappearance. He was nonchalant, and a little more concerned about why none of his recent acquaintances would sleep with him. It left a bitter taste in her mouth. For some reason, or another, they were in agreeance.

Discarded just – like – that.

"Flowers?" Jethann said, as though it was a strange question. "I mean, apostate or no, Ninette certainly cast a spell on me, but the thought never crossed my mind to do something like that. It's not as if I wanted Ghyslain to come here and shout at me." He shrugged before returning to the subject of the Templar. "Anyway, Emeric said he'd continue his investigation in Darktown. He wasn't moving too quickly, though. You might still be able to catch him before he disappears down there, if you're quick enough."

Rilien's eyes narrowed, lids half-masted over his irises and sclera, and he simply nodded curtly. There was something to this, but if the investigation was to proceed in a logical manner, he would have to leave that thread alone for now. Darktown. That would be less troublesome than the Gallows. One Templar did not a Chantry army make. One Templar, he could kill without excessive difficulty if he needed to, and furthermore, he would not likely need to worry about retribution for it. Walking into Darktown anything less than fully prepared for confrontation was practically suicide anyway.

That in mind, he decided that, at least for himself, finding this Emeric would not constitute any excessive risk. Sparrow and Aurora were, as ever, free to make their own decisions regarding that. "Then I am headed for Darktown. Thank you." He inclined his head reasonably politely in Jethann's direction, since that was relatively ordinary Tranquil behavior anyway, and then took his leave.

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

Lucien was bracing to deal with an impact to the shoulder when the Qunari's axe suddenly veered left for no discernible reason, embedding itself into the ground in a way most unfortunate for the one wielding it, as Lucien took the fortuitious opportunity to strike downwards, sinking his scythe-blade into the bandit's back. The vague purple tint to his surroundings clued him in to the situation, and he silently thanked Nostariel for her excellent sense of timing. It was about that time that smoke covered the rise above them, and he concluded that it would be a little while before he had to worry about more fireballs being slung in his direction, which certainly counted for something.

Of course, it didn't stop him from getting shield-bashed directly in the chest when he was a bit too slow recovering his scythe from the last felled opponent, and he was forced backwards a step, digging in his heels and swinging in a broad horizontal arc, which opened up a large wound across the chest of one foe, dropping him to the ground. The one with the shield was ready though, and the tip of the scythe rang cacophonously against solid steel at about the same time as the elemental weapons spell activated, spreading ice across the banded metal and forcing its holder to drop it or risk having his attached limb frozen off.

Lucien didin't give him the time to decide, drawing back and striking again in the same way. The spell was powerful stuff, and the fact that the scythe this time bit into a wooden part of the assemblage rather than a metal one saw it split, jaggedly, into two pieces, the top half of it detaching from the rest and clanging to the ground beneath. Stepping forward and regaining his ground, Lucien followed up with a pommel strike to the neck, crushing the fellow's windpipe and giving him room to advance still further. The group tactics had, thus far, made it possible for the three of them to gain some form of advantage, between the cloaking arrows, the frost weapons, and the diversionary shield magic.

Hopefully, it would last.

Nostariel followed in Lucien's wake, occasionally shooting a blast from her staff to disrupt the enemies making for the Chevalier. She couldn't well see the Saarebas in order to aim anything at it, after all, and for now it made the most sense to get them all moved into a flanking position by the time the enemy mage could see again. Ashton's arrows would be more effective that way, and counterattack would take longer, an advantage of its own. The Warden soon found herself that target of a more direct assault, however, as one of the melee combatants apparently realized the complete futility of trying to kill Lucien and made for her instead.

Unlike last time, with the javelin-thrower, she was fully prepared for this one, though, and she resolved that it was time to start acting a bit more like the Captain she was. Nostariel knew her primary utility lay in healing and supporting others- truly, it had been like that before she'd joined the ranks of the Grey, before she'd learned magic, even. She was just one of those people condemned to be good at helping. Even so... even so, she was not the sort who was useless without an ally, and when it came down to it, every single one of her fellows had to be capable of surviving on his or her own, she no exception.

She was not so stupid as to try and win the same way Lucien would win: with domineering strength, endurance, and sheer force of will. Nor woud she win like Ashton: with cunning and guile and pinpoint precision. Hers was a different sort of strength, and though she sidestepped the oncoming Tal-Vashoth, she did not attempt to flank. Rather, the lady Warden spun, gathering as much force as she could muster into her staff, the bladed end of which bit deeply into her assailiant's arm. While he was off-balance, she drew closer, chilling her left arm with ice. Angling it, she cocked her arm and slammed the heel of her hand directly upward, into the kossith's chin. The force of the blow wasn't nearly enough to achieve anything dramatic, like breaking the man's neck. Rather, it simply served as easy conveyance, and the frost gathered around his throat and jaw, creeping like crackling spiderwebs.

Stepping back, Nostariel clenched her fist quickly, and the ice obeyed, contracting and crushing the warrior's windpipe, cutting off his air and causing his collapse to the ground. At one time in her life, she would have winced at the sound, perhaps even wept for the life she had taken, but enough years doing this sort of thing to survive tended to dull those particular sensitivities a bit, and right now, she was simply focused on survival.

Though the caves were dark, dank, and dreary, they provided a copious supply of shadows for Ashton to dart around in. He was nowhere near as overt as the strong-armed Cheveliar, though it was not a bad thing. He drew the ire and attention of the Qunari, leaving his ally to easily pick and choose his prey from the shadow. An arrow in the shoulder blades there, another in the thigh, once more in the back-- None was enough to kill, but each one would prove a hinderance. Added on to that the fact that every arrow Ashton nocked immediately enveloped in ice, they proved quite the annoyance to the hulking Qunari. The distraction was for the sake of his two partners on the frontline. While the enemy looked around wondering just where the hell the arrows came from, they were distracted from a certain scythe or bladed staff. The Ice spell naturally reminded him of Sparrow and how she once called upon the same spell.

Alas, all the shadows in the world couldn't hide him forever. His annoying arrows were bound to attract an enraged Qunari. For this Qunari, Ashton had misjudged his trajectory and did not expect the erratic movement of the Qunari. Say what you would about them, but they were not animals, they were a lot more unpredictable than a stag or boar. All of these factors had led to a certain arrow lodging itself in the ass of the Qunari. Needless to say, he was pissed. He whipped his great horned head around and saw Ashton standing, fingers just having freshly left his bowstring and trying his best to stifle his laughter. Not the smartest thing to do in front of an enraged Qunari. It came to no surprise that the Qunari left the Chevalier and mage in order to crush the insolent archer's head between his hands.

There isn't much scarier than an enraged Qunari charging oneself, and Ashton found himself backed up against the cave wall. Hopefully the din of battle was loud enough to drown out the unmasculine cry that came from Ashton's general direction. He found his hands working of it's own accord, nocking arrows and firing wildly at the Qunari, trying to stop it's charge, but pain didn't seem to affect the man who only had the thought of the Archer's grisly demise in mind. Luckily, Ashton found his mind before the Tal-Vashoth could separate his head from his shoulders, and he began to aim down at his feet. He fired three arrows, all three pinning the Qunari to the ground. The arrows halted the charge and the sudden end of momentum threw his to the floor. Right in front of Asthon. If given another second, he would have made it to the Archer. Though, he was still trying to crawl to Ashton, to lay hands on him, but a point-blank shot to the back of the head ceased all those thoughts.

A relieved breath escaped Ashton and he quickly escaped back into the shadows once more, making sure to pick his targets extra carefully.

The numbers of Qunari gradually thinned under the combined onslaught of three very seasoned combatants, and it wasn't long until almost none remained. The smoke above cleared, but when Nostariel lit flame at her fingertips, ready to preempt the bandit mage this time, it was only to discover that he wasn't there. Her eyes went wide, rimming hazel iris in pristine sclera, and the Warden murmured something under her breath, the surprise thickening her Starkhaven brogue until the words were likely unintelligble to anyone but her. There was no chance that the mage and the massive warrior-leader had simply disappeared, so where-

A glimmer of something appeared out of the corner of her eye, and she hit the ground just as the concentrated glob of fire rushed by with a hiss, missing her by several feet, but not so much that she couldn't detect the heat of its passage. "Ahead!" she called, adopting a cautious attitude. It was unlikely that either of the others would have missed that attack, but on case one of them had been turned away, it only made sense to warn them. By convention, 'ahead' was in the way they'd been going, not their current facing, and she suspected both would know that as well. Lucien's army training would practically guarantee it, and though she was less sure about Ashton, he seemed a clever enough fellow.

Pushing herself to her feet, the elf turned and faced the oncoming two-man onslaught. For all that the number was severely reduced from before, she was no less wary. In fact, it could be said that it was more worrisome this way, the pair striding forward in tandem, the mage with lightning arcing between his fingertips. Setting her jaw, the Captain stepped forward as well, meeting bloodshot eyes and taking a deep breath. On the exhale she fired ice in quick bursts: one, two, three, right for the Saarebas. If she could draw his fire, then that would free her companions to deal with his larger counterpart, the one with the enormous sword and armor and whatnot. The tactic, insofar as one could even call it that, had the desired effect, and the unleashed mage separated from his warrior counterpart, breaking off in parallel with Nostariel, both well aware that a fight of this nature would require some room to move about.

The last of the immediate charge fell beneath his scythe, and Lucien exhaled a deep gust of air. That had to be the majority of them, though of course, he hadn't yet seen the leader and the Saarebas again.

The application of flame somewhere to his left and Nostariel's warning shout served well enough to rectify that problem, and he was trying to decide how exactly he was going to approach this situation when she in effect made the decision for him, drawing off the mage to one side, leaving him free to engage the massive warrior directly. Lucien was a man both tall and broad, but this fellow had a good three inches on him at least, in the vertical sense, and another two across the shoulders. It was obvious he wouldn't simply be able to muscle his way through it. Thankfully, bullying people with his build was far from his only means to victory.

He had to think quickly, taking his scythe-blade into both hands and using it to block the incoming downswing. A rare event it was to be out-muscled, but that didn't mean he wasn't prepared for the eventuality. Lucien let himself list sideways, falling into a controlled roll that left his opponent with too much momentum and a very heavy blade. The predictable ensued, and the Chevalier regained his feet (and his proper grip on his threshing blade) just as the other was able to wrench his sword upwards again. This time, the Orlesian was faster than the bandit, and his flanking angle let his scythe bite deeply into the kossith's back. With a roar of rage more than pain, the man retalitated, swinging the two-handed sword in a wide arc that, by luck more than virtue of his aim, caught the knight a hard hit on his already-burned flank, forcing him to step backwards a few paces.

"Much as I love both dueling and also being hit in the same place repeatedly, some arrows would be of considerable value at present," he quipped to the air, since of course he couldn't well turn around and try to find Ashton at the moment.

"Ask and you shall recieve," the shadows quipped right back from behind the Qunari. As the words hung listlessly on the air, the Qunari jerked in a serious of three motions, throwing his offhand shoulder forward. A spurt of crimson shot from his shoulder as a trio of arrows dug deep into the kossith's armor. The owner of those particular arrows stepped out from the cover of the shadows on the opposite end of the fray, another already freshly nocked and drawn. Ashton was in a particularly giving mood that moment, so he decided to gift the mercenary another present. His aim fell from the large area of center mass of the Qunari and to the tender feet of the warrior. A whistle later, and an arrow embedded his foot into the ground. Kossith's being... Well, large, the singular arrow would most likely only provide a delay, but perhaps it would be long enough for the Chevalier to make use of it.

There were more than one combatant however. The more magically inclined of the pair sidestepped left, then right dodging the two ice spears from the magelet, then batted the last ice spear out of the air. Most of it's attentions were still focused on Nostariel, but the memory of stinging arrows and concealing smoke was still fresh on his mind. As a going away present, the kossith tossed a fireball in the now materilized archer's general direction before refocusing his assault back upon the mage.

Ashton for his part saw the fireball coming, but seeing was not the same as dodging. Accuracy was traded for speed, which meant that the fireball didn't give much of a warning for Ashton to utilize. The best he could do was cover the most important bits of his person, namely his head. Still, the accuracy wasn't there, and instead of catching the archer in the center of a hellfire, he managed to get off relatively lightly. Though at the moment, he didn't quite realize his luck as bits of his leather padding and quiver caught flames. All the archer saw was the licking fire at the edge of his sleeve and pants cuffs, becoming very warm, frighteningly quick. Like an animal, the sudden apparence of fire sent the archer into survival mode as he threw himself to the ground and began to frantically roll around trying to strangle the biting flames. It would be shame if burns would end up marring his boyish good looks after all.

Nostariel wasn't unaware of his situation, having tracked the progress of the fireball with her eyes. Unsure if he was actually wounded or not, the Warden decided her best option was to help the archer put out his flames, and so shot a weak ice spell in his general direction, aiming for where Ashton was about to roll. The magic produced what was essentially a powdery frost, one which would melt easily-enough if it came into contact with heat. Like any ice, though, it would also be helpful against the pain of a burn. Now in full confrontation with the Saaredbas, she couldn't spare the time and concentration for a full heal spell.

Even what little time that cost her made a difference, and the Warden turned her attention back to the fight in just enough time to catch the bolt of lightning headed towards her. Aware of that spell's tendency to jump from target to target she dove to the side, putting as much distance between herself and the others as possible. The bolt caught her in the back, and a strangled yelp escaped her as what would have been a relatively smooth transition back to her feet was interrupted by the siezing of her muscles and temporary paralysis. Fortunately, she seemed to have made it a sufficient amount of space away from the hunter and the Chevalier, because no secondary lances of yellow-white erupted from the initial impact.

The Tal-Vashoth mage was merciless, and his next spell was another fistful of lightning. Desparately, Nostariel rolled to the side, breathing a hard-won sigh of relief when the second round scorched the earth where she'd been seconds before. Drawing on the Fade, the mage pushed herself to her feet, channeling vital forces from behind the Veil to keep herself moving. It worked as it was suppsed to, and the two magic-users were once again at a standoff. This time, the Warden siezed the offensive, casting a misdirection hex on her foe, willing his mind to cloud and his accuracy to falter. It was followed by a rush, Nostariel closing the distance between them to let loose one of her closer-range spells. Sweeping her free hand in a wide arc, she blasted the Saarebas with ice. This was no mild snow as she'd given Ashton, but the full force of the chillest winter in Thedas, of mornings so cold you felt the freeze in your bones.

It halted him, at least for a few moments, his own counterspell frozen in its production, and she did not hesitate. Closing the remaining yards at a dead sprint, Nostariel drove the point of her staff home into his chest as though it were a jousting lance, the force of the blow jarring her arms painfully. The blade pierced ice, then flesh beneath, a swell of hot blood rushing from the frozen kossith's chest-cavity. He broke free of the containment of his ice too late, and she sidestepped the greatly-weakened retaliatory stonefist, allowing it to crash into the wall behind them both and shatter. He fell, and, panting heavily, she looked up and around her, trying to regain her bearings on the situation as a whole.

"Much obliged," the Orlesian murmured, a none-too-friendly grin splitting his face when he saw the arrow pin his opponent's foot to the ground. Ah, but this was getting to be good, wasn't it? Lucien did so enjoy the right kind of challenge. The armored kossith managed to rip his foot free of the earth beneath, but it was clear to his opponent that he'd be favoring the limb for the duration of the rest of his life. Taking advantage of the other's momentary distraction, the Chevalier swung for the neck, intending to scythe it right off. A glimmer of silvery metal, and the greatsword was raised to block.

The impact was momentous, Lucien's own enthusiasm winning out over his control. Both found their whole bodies jarred by the collision, both forced to drop their weapons and step away for fear of being impaled by falling steel. Lucien narrowly avoided a slice to his calf as it was, rolling his shoulders as both implements fell with a clatter. It was obvious that the Qunari's sword was made much better than his own improvised weapon, and part of him was sorely tempted to scoop it up for his own use, leaving the other with weapon both unfamiliar and inferior. Pragmatic though the move would have been, he knew full well that he could not do it.

A sword was a knight's weapon, and he was no longer a knight.

Recovering more swiftly due to his lack of injury, Lucien retrieved his scythe, and allowed the armored Tal-Vashoth to do the same. He very much doubted there was any such thing as a defenseless Qunari, but he understood that their blades were regarded as similar to their souls, if not the same thing. In an odd, peripheral sort of way, he understood the concept. Why else would he refuse to wield any proper blade until such time as he felt his honor had been restored? No, until he could call himself a Chevalier again, there was a stain on his own spirit, and he showed that in what he supposed must be a way a Qunari would understand, if what he'd heard of them was true.

With an impressive bellow, the Tal-Vashoth launched himself for the human, swinging his sword in a wide arc. Lucien stepped in to meet it, bringing an empty fist down on the flat of the greatsword just as it made for his midsection. The force of the blow was great enough to stagger his foe, and the blade hit the ground inches from his foot. Working quickly, the mercenary struck with the blunt end of his wooden handle, catching the other fellow between the horns, then reversed directions, digging the point of his scythe into one of the holes created in the Qunari's armor by Ashton's arrows. With a great heave, the hole became a rent, the flesh beneath it parting as well and leaving a long, jagged wound across the kossith's chest. Kicking at the injured man's stomach, Lucien brought the blade around for a second go, this time burying it deep into his back when he doubled over from the surprise blow.

That had done it, and for a hollow moment, the only sound was the ex-Chevalier's exhale as the Tal-Vashoth collapsed in slow motion, dead before he hit the ground.

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel

Earnings

0.00 INK

A Templar wandering alone towards Darktown was not a very common sight, and the old man in shining armor acted as something of a beacon as he descended down a suitably dark road. A beacon for those who dwelled in the Undercity, to be specific. Typically, Templars did not dare to travel down so deep into the underbelly of the city, and certainly not alone, and Emeric was currently proving why. He hadn't made it far before a small group of common thugs beset him from behind, four in number, armed with makeshift weaponry, and certainly not warrior-like in their carriage. The first struck him from behind, a blow that took the old Templar to a knee.

It was this sight that Rilien, Sparrow, and Aurora came upon as they hurried after him. The common criminals would no doubt be easy prey for them, if they chose to respond in a wholly violent manner. It may be necessary, as one of the thugs was currently sizing them up, clearly seeing only Sparrow as a potential threat. They were bigger, but simply had no idea what kind of individuals had just come upon them, and so they continued their work of restraining the Templar and forcefully searching him for valuables.

Rilien decided several things upon coming to the scene of the mugging: one, these criminals were entirely amateur. Two, this Templar was incredibly stupid for coming here in the first place. Three: Aurora should probably sit this one out. Given the fact that he and Sparrow both had nonmagical means by which to deal with this problem, it wasn't going to be an issue. Four unseasoned fools were not going to pose them any real threat. Rilien made a peculiar shrugging motion, a bit of sleight-of-hand producing a glass vial with a cork stopper from somewhere in his billowing sleeve. This, he pressed into Aurora's small hand until her fingers closed around it, jerking his head towards the Templar even as he drew his knives.

Clearing his throat just loudly enough to be heard, Rilien made directly for the nearest mugger, the amount of effort needed to draw the sharpened edge of his knife across one carelessly-exposed throat truly pitiful. It had, of course, occurred to him that it was not strictly necessary to kill the criminals, but this was Darktown. If you showed anyone a hint of softness, you'd be hounded by too many ne'er-do-wells for the rest of your days. Besides that, he really didn't much care. The second actually showed some initiative, attempting to use the first as cover for a motion to attack from the side. A Rilien from many years in the past would have rolled his eyes, certainly, and perhaps even sighed dramatically. The person he was now didn't waste the time, disappearing in a puff of smoke only to reappear from behind, both knives stuck in the fellow's back.

Sparrow was sure to be done with the other two in short order as well. He trusted that it was obvious that she shouldn't use her magic, of course. She was far from helpless without it.

Christmas lights exploded in the depths of her eyes, dancing along like thrown confetti, like bright streamers, like children scrambling to open up their presents. There was always something happening in Darktown, whether or not it was a fight to be had, or an unfortunate lesson to be taught. It was alive, and thriving, and free. Fighting was subjectively better than gambling her money away and drinking herself under the table – it was the only thing that required no giving. She always told Rilien that she could smell discord from miles away, and even though she'd remained quiet the entire walk, occasionally throwing quips Aurora's way, Sparrow could've told him that their merry little mission would start, or end this way. She took another breath, letting it out slowly again, feeling more centred, more in control. But, slightly less. Her energies felt different, amalgamated in her core, releasing like poisoned mushroom spores. Like the toxic wastes inhabiting Darktown, corrupting those who were unfortunate enough to cough and wheeze and hack in the alleyways, waiting for poor fops like Emeric to stumble down into them. Serah Templar.

Sparrow didn't need to be told twice – it wouldn't do her any good to allow two Templar's to know what she was, who she was, or where to find her. She offered Aurora a quick wink. Then, she threw herself forward, solely focused on the thug who sized her up earlier. Her flanged maces remained swinging, unsheathed, at her hips. What use were they against petty muggers? She closed the distance, quickly, and spun into a series of gut-busting punches. Small parts, indescribably formed, sifted away, eroded with her dogged focus. Shesmiled. She gripped her talons on her mind, squeezed. She punched and spun and kicked and blocked. Taking their hits and returning them ten-fold, relishing the baritone beats of her heart hammering in her ears. Rilien was precise, methodical in his killings. He wasted no time. Sparrow had always done things the hard way, recovering pieces of her that were best forgotten. If it gained her relief, then she would fight. Pain was temporary. She swayed as the last man fell, bruised, but revitalized, listing her head back, with her eyes closed.

It was only when her eyes opened that she truly felt herself, as if the talons had released, as if she was satisfied by the results. Her mouth pursed, then softened into a rattled frown. “Emeric. Templar Emeric? Are you still breathing?” Sparrow enquired, seeking a response, as she approached. Hopefully, the muggers hadn't just finished him off in the process of dealing with two nosey Elves.

His first response was a cough that had interrupted any words that may have come out. At a glance, anyone could see that he was old for an actively serving Templar, his gray hair growing slightly wispy, his face drawn and tired from years of hard service. After taking a moment to collect himself, he managed to rise. There were no bleeding wounds on him, merely a dozen places that would be extremely sore the next morning from the beating he'd received.

"I am, thanks to you. It's good you came along when you did." He took a moment to take in the slaughtered thugs, who had clearly not understood what they had been getting into, before he looked back to Rilien, Sparrow, and Aurora, who he couldn't be sure was part of the group, or simply a bystander. "I'm not sure it was necessary to kill them, but regardless, I'm in your debt. I am Emeric, Knight Templar." He regarded the Tranquil with some amount of interest, as though he had perhaps heard of him already, but he made no mention of it. "Might I have your names? I could see to it that the Order rewards you for saving my life."

Aurora looked at the vial in her hands and then followed the Tranquil's nod to the Templar. It didn't take a much to get what he was getting at. Sure, they were only bandits, and she could probably handle them easily... If there wasn't a Templar watching over the whole ordeal. She was wary enough about using her magic in front of strangers, using in front of Templars was just stupid. She nodded at Rilien and accepted the vial, and made her way around the oncoming melee. And a quick melee at that, by the time she reached the injured Templar, the two men had finished with the bandits, which gave Sparrow the chance to address the Templar. Aurora herself sighed, feeling a bit useless as she handed the Templar the red vial. "My name? It's Maria." she said nodding, before shooting a glance at Sparrow and Rilien. She wasn't comfortable about giving the name she used to Templars. She was either paranoid or careful. Probably both.

Rilien didn't even flinch when Aurora gave a different name. He assumed that this one was false, though that could easily be true of her first as well. Sparrow had not been born a Sparrow, either, from what he'd gathered. Of much more interest than a birth name was what one chose to call oneself. Naturally, his were one and the same, and he had no fear in saying so, though he doubted the utility of the act. "Rilien." Sparrow merely shrugged her shoulders, offering no name, and no other response beyond a flinty gaze. Surely, the Templar didn't need to know her name. Safety came in the lack of knowledge. It was something Rilien stood strongly for, and what she'd learnt from living with him. She was not as subtle, or graceful, as her companion in the ability to simply disappear. Thankfully, it was Aurora who saved her from Emeric's patient expectance.

"You can reward us now Serah Emeric," Aurora began,"We've come looking for you in order to ask about Ninette. We had heard that you were looking for her as well. If I may be so forward, may I ask why?" she asked.

Emeric gave his thanks as he accepted Aurora's, or Maria's as she would have it, healing potion. After drinking it, he seemed significantly more... well, energetic was not the word for it, since he did not seem the sort to ever be energetic, but more alert. "Ah... Ghyslain de Carrac's wife. Her disappearance interested me, and so I tried looking into it. The investigation, however, has been a waste of time thus far."

He sighed tiredly. "Most people just say she left her husband. Forgive me, I should explain... this all started when Mharen -- one of our Circle mages -- disappeared. I found it odd. She was a bit older and hardly adventurous. Then I heard about Ninette and two other missing women. I think the disappearances are connected, and I suspect foul play is involved."

Rather than simply assume that the Templar was operating on suspicion and inadequate evidence, Rilien pondered the comment for a beat before picking up the obviously-dangling conversational thread. "Why? Their ages may be similar, and their genders, but does anything else link them?" He held his tongue about the flowers for the moment- if Emeric had not come to that conclusion independently, it wouldn't have figured in his suspicions. If he had, he'd mention it with the open question anyway. One thing the Tranquil had learned long ago was never to tip one's hand before it was strictly necessary. If this man went away with the impression that they were looking for Ninette with no more reason than personal inclination, it was certainly of no concern to the elf.

Absently, Rilien flicked his blades to rid them of excess blood, though there wasn't much there. He'd slashed rather than stabbed, for the most part, and they both slid back into their sheaths without a sound or difficulty. He was perhaps fortunate that those like him were occasionally trained as bodyguards as well as merchants, enchanters, and personal assistants. The thought of ever being the latter was mildly replusive to him, but of course the average Tranquil would feel neither here nor there about it.

"The manner in which they disappeared is too similar, I believe. The guards tell me there's no proof they're connected, that these women simply left home, that it happens all the time. But all of them have simply vanished, not a single one leaving evidence behind as to their whereabouts. At first, I was merely tracking down Mharen, or at least attempting to. I had heard there were mage sympathizers in Darktown who sometimes transport mages from the city, and so I thought to bring my search here."

His gaze fell slightly, a tinge of sorrow coloring his voice. "But as you can see, my inquiries have made me unpopular. But I do believe the disappearances are connected. Mharen had received lillies from a suitor a few days before her disappearance. We thought she had perhaps gone to meet him. I then heard that at least one of the other missing women also received flowers before disappearing. We tracked Mharen's phylactery to a foundry in Lowtown, but it proved to be a dead end."

He shrugged tiredly, looking dejected. "You may investigate if you wish. Perhaps you can find something I could not. I need to give up this investigation. I'm getting too old to being doing this kind of work."

Sparrow took a backseat to the conversation, idling on the sidelines. She had to admit that Aurora had an uncanny, much appreciated ability to gain information in gentler ways. As a person made of rough hands, callous words, and frothing emotions, it wasn't difficult to see that there were different, much more prudent ways of handling situations. She licked her lips, and absently wiped her bloody knuckles on the back of her sleeves, smearing the fabric. She'd clean it later, when it was convenient. She didn't even bat an eye when Aurora offered an alternate alias – for she was Sparrow, as much as Aurora was any other name she chose to give to anyone she didn't trust. For vastly different reasons, all the other parts of her, along with her feminine name, died in the woods, tucked against moss and twisted vines. She listened, intently. If the Templar could give them any leads, then perhaps they could actually find Ghyslain's wife, Ninette. Perhaps, then, they could right a small, significant wrong. “A killer of women?” She mouthed softly, as if she were chewing bitter herbs. Her inclination towards men hadn't changed, hadn't been salved or calmed by reason or experience. Her shadows were far too long, strung up like gloomy curtains on her windows. It might've been the extra inhabitant chewing at her thoughts, dragging her fingers across her spine, but she still hated them. She still blamed them.

The information was disheartening. No longer were they chasing a woman who'd willingly ran from her bastard husband, but now they were facing a possible, if not probable, homicide. A particular killing focused on an innocent, soft-skinned individual. Her eyes immediately sought Rilien out, attempting to steal some sort of secret sign that he was piecing everything together while they spoke to the Templar, or at least something that would give her peace of mind. If this wasn't just a case of a missing person, then it might turn into something much more grave. Something similar to hunting apostates, blood mages, demons and sickly cultists. The measly hope that these seemingly unconnected murders were just that were violently quashed, buried into the back of someone's heel when the Templar mentioned lilies – flowers, flowers, flowers. This wouldn't be an easy job. This wouldn't be anything like they thought they'd been walking into. “We'll do just that. Might'n be better for your health if you find some place to rest, and avoid any treks down here.” She implored, gesturing wide towards the alleyways. As if remembering her manners, Sparrow tipped her head and mumbled a curt, “Thank you, Serah Emeric.”

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

The inside of the cave had fallen silent save for the sound of their breaths and movement. Nothing else stirred; presumably any wildlife that would have inhabited the place had died when the Tal-Vashoth moved in. Nostariel straightened her spine, wincing slightly when the vertebrae clicked into place. Lucien and Ashton both seemed mostly okay, if a little battered. Still, now that the fight itself was over, she was able to concentrate much more simply, and healed all three of them in one fell swoop, a graceful gesture calling the needed relief from behind the veil. She did not bother to hide the soft sigh of relief that gusted over her lips, lifting a few errant pieces of hair that had come loose during the confrontation. Plucking one such tendril between her fingers, Nostariel twisted it and tucked it behind a pointed ear.

Ashton had just stop rolling wildly, finally noticing the flames went out a long time ago and now noticing the sudden chill in his bones. He supposed the fine powdery snow around him had something to with that, and the only friendly mage in proximity with that. If it had been the Saarebas, he doubted that it would have been something so pleasant as a powder... More like an icicle. He had just made it to his knees with another arrow nocked, looking for anything else that may desparately need the business end of it. Though it seemed naught as the only thing left standing was pretty little Nostariel and large barrelled Lucien, each standing over their respective foe. Ashton shrugged with a pleasant chuckle as he let the bowstring become slack.

Another quick scan of the area proved that the day had indeed been won, and they were now alone in the cave except for the bodies of the fallen Qunari. A moment passed by in silence before it was irreparably shattered by none other than Ashton. His arms shot up in a victorious gesture and he barked, "Woo! Victory! Thy scent is sweet!"

Thy scent is...? Nostariel's nose crinkled just momentarily, and she wasn't able to suppress the snort that followed. Before that could become actual giggling, she turned it into a light cough, bringing her curled hand in front of her mouth. She greatly disliked the sound of her own laughter, punctuated as it often was with the embarrassingly unladylike sound. What disturbed her even more was that she'd felt like laughing at all. How long had it been since she had? Years, at least. Now hardly seemed like the appropriate time to start, however absurd the declaration had struck her to be. It sort of made him sound like an overgrown puppy, all long limbs and floppy ears or some such.

Desiring a smooth transition to thoughts she was more comfortable having, Nostariel spoke next. "Well, I suppose we ought to go tell Javaris what happened." She cast an aside glance at the dead Saarebas and barely stifled another sigh, this one considerably more melancholy. Averting her gaze, she waited to make sure the two men were of the same mind, then led the way out of the cave the way they had come, rather inclined to leave the gloomy scenery behind as soon as possible.

The trip back along the Wounded Coast was uneventful, and for her part, Nostariel was content to remain silent, treading lightly across the sandy pathways as though they were paved. When you were used to sloughing through the bloody muck and mortar that littered the Deep Roads, sand was hardly a pressing concern for you, she supposed. If only all the 'benefits' to her vocation were so tangible, she might have a life to work with. The trio reached Kirkwall just as dusk was beginning to trail across the sky, rosy brush-strokes of color dyeing the horizon a maidenly shade of pink.

Javaris was in the market where they'd left him, still at his stand, and Nostariel slowed her pace, allowing one of the others to overtake her. They were both better at talking than she was, though in completely different ways. She'd leave it to them to explain their success.

Unsurprisingly, Ashton was the first one to speak, never the one to be quiet for any extended amount of time. His face was and had been beaming ever triumphantly ever since they all had left the cave. Perhaps there was a slight saunter in his step as well, but it was indistinguishable from his regular saunter. In front of the dwarf, Ashton fell into an aloof stance, arms crossed, head tilted. "The deed is done-- if the fact that all of our limbs are still attached is any indication, it went rather well. Wouldn't you say?" Ashton called back to other two. "Though by no means was it easy Serah Dwarf. The pay better reflect the effort on our part." he stated, the urge to embellish the tale rising. "It felt like we had to slay an entire army," and there it was, "I personally believe I took out a little over a score. The Chevalier, more so. Even the mage got an impressive body count. It would have been rather difficult for anyone other than us glorious warriors. You, Serah Dwarf, are just lucky we aren't charging by the head," With the steady stream of... Embellishment finally out of his mouth, he finally allowed someone else to get a word in edgewise.

"Yes, yes," Javaris acknowledged, waving his hands as if to urge Ashton to stop, "you'll have your coin. In fact, all of us are about to become very rich, I think. Come on, follow me."

The dwarf led the group down the stairs to the docks with a spring in his step, though it was tinged with no small amount of anxiety. Going before the Qunari in what had become their own home was no easy task. It was obvious that this particular was not the courageous sort, but he had at least enough guts to present himself to the Arishok, which said something either about his barvery, or his greed. In short order they came to the compound the foreigners had fortified for themselves, and through some annoyed negotiations with the gate guard, the group was allowed entry.

Perhaps too boldly, Javaris Tintop strode into the compound, passing by walls lined with spears, as though they were being prepared to repel an invading army. The kossith gave the visitors cold, annoyed, and disapproving glances, but otherwise made no attempts to remove them as they made their way up an incline, to stand before a set of stairs leading up to a centrally positioned chair, which was vacant. Javaris grabbed the attention of one of the guards with a wave of his hand. "Summon your Arishok. The bargain is done!" Interestingly, the Qunari offered only a scowl before he moved to comply.

Only a short wait later, he presented himself, towering over even his own kind, elevated above all on his pedestal above the outsiders standing below. His horns were black as night and curled back behind him. His physique was the very picture of strength, sheer power, making even Lucien look small in comparison, but he was not without grace. His movements were light rather than careless as he took a seat and gazed down upon the dwarf and his hirelings.

When he did not say anything initially, Javaris tentatively offered his report. "Greetings... Arishok. I am here to report that your hated Tal-Vashoth were felled one and all." He looked back to the others as he had suddenly become unsure. "Right? Yes, they were." He turned back to the Arishok. "So, I'm ready to open negotiations. For the explosive powder. As we agreed." The Arishok leaned forward to scrutinze Javaris for a moment before delivering his reply.

"No."

Javaris was a bit stunned by this, perhaps expecting far more willingness from the Qunari to trade than he'd received. His first reactions was to look back to those that had come with him, to see if any of them could add anything to help their situation.

Lucien frowned. He'd had a feeling something like this was going to happen, particularly when Javaris had mentioned that the Arishok had already deemed him unworthy. The mercenary in him knew much better than to get involved in his employer's business, but for all that he was still a bit like he'd used to be, and at the very least it seemed like a good idea to understand what was going on. He hadn't missed the fact that this place, and the people in it, appeared outfitted for battle at a moment's notice. Perhaps this was simply a facet of Qunari culture that he knew nothing of, and if that was the case, he'd be more than happy to simply leave. Yet... there was something about this setup that pulled his instincts towards battle, as though that very thing were palpable in the air here, held back only by time and this kossith's will. What that meant, he didn't wish to dwell upon at present.

"I would request clarification, if that is permissible to you," he said, loud enough to be heard but certainly without any hint of Javaris's bluster or presumption. "Is it the case that you are unwilling to sell to Javaris, or unwilling to sell more generally?" Not that he was going to negotiate for it himself; he certainly had no need of explosive powder, but if there were merchant quantities of such a substance here, and the Qunari were planning on keeping all of it... well, that would be quite the interesting piece of information.

"A useful question," the Arishok acknowledged. "The dwarf imagined the deal for the gaatlok. He then invented a task to prove his worth, when he has none. There was never an agreement."

During the trip to the Qunari compound, Ashton's gait slackened a bit and allowed Lucien to take lead. Despite all that he ran his mouth off about to the dwarven merchant, he was still a mere archer and hunter, and these Qunari were, quite frankly, frightening. The air was tense as dozens of hardened eyes lay on them, stripping their layers and weighing their worth. He managed to put on a fine show against the Tal-Vasoth, maybe he could have even been called brave in that circumstance, though here, now, with all of the real Qunari, his boastful bravado melted away. If he had a tail, it would surely be tucked between his legs.

The Tal-Vasoth were chaotic, undisciplined, more akin to wild animals than actual soldiers. If it was one thing Ashton knew it was animals. But these Qunari were no mere animals. They were trained, hardened soldiers. Disciplined beyond belief and completely stoic in their duty. And if their duty proved to be strangle the life out of the pitiful archer, Ashton didn't think he had the strength to deny them that. So yes, Ashton was uncomfortable-- if his demeanor didn't give it away. He twitched and fidgeted behind Lucien, his silly grin wiped off of his face and replaced by a grim frown. His eyes were quick, sharper, darting from one soldier to another, keen for any sign of danger.

Ashton thought it would be a quick visit. Enter, get their payment, then get the hell out. It seemed it wasn't that simple, though things rarely did. Ashton was surprised at the fact that he was surprised. He cast a quick glare at the dwarf-- a simple thing to do when one stood behind a Chevalier. He then looked to the Arishok with much less harsher eyes. "Apologies S-Serah Arishok," he began, stumbling over his words for the first time in a long time. "We were led to believe th-that you and the D-Dwarf had ironed out a d-deal of sorts," he said with an uncomfortable goofy smile plastered to his face. A facade, and anyone with two eyes could have seen that. "We were promised pay-payment in return for a task-- A task in which we completed. Are you saying that the payment is now forfeit?" Bold, perhaps, but he had a shop to pay for and the payment promised was a means to that end.

"Bloody hell you're scary..." Ashton mumbled afterward, dashing any progress made on the courage front.

Nostariel was rather calm and blank-faced as the group entered the Qunari compound. Oh certainly, they were large and not at all friendly-looking. But then, so were Darkspawn, and at least Qunari had rationality. Besides that, it was a rare occasion indeed that she wasn’t the frailest-looking person in an area, so one could say she was well used to situations of this nature.

What might have been a breathy sigh ghosted over pale lips when the nature of the “agreement” between Javaris and the Arishok came to light. Namely, that there apparently was none. Lucien seemed more than capable of handling the conversation, or at least the Qunari gave him more words than he’d given the dwarf. If Amalia was anything to go by, that meant his question had been better. She wondered what the Ben-Hassrath would think of all this. …It probably wouldn’t be particularly kind to any of them. Not that Amalia struck Nostariel as wicked, only… she seemed hypercompetent, and would likely have informed all of them in advance that they were being sent on a fool’s errand by a bigger fool still.

Ashton’s fear was palpable, and the elf-woman blinked her surprise. He hadn’t seemed the type to be overly-intimidated by anything at all, but apparently even his wit could not make a joke of the Qunari. Probably for the better, though… if he kept rambling like that, he might anger them anyhow. With no other touchstone for understanding them, she could only guess that it would have irritated Amalia, and that probably meant worse where these warriors were concerned.

Unsure exactly what to do, she figured the worst option was adding more words to the mix, and hoped Lucien would be able to smooth that over. For her part, Nostariel went with her healer’s instincts first and moved to Ashton’s side, surreptitiously slipping a bare hand about his wrist. This served two purposes: first, it allowed her to take his pulse, which was indeed elevated. So he was genuinely afraid then… it was secondarily supposed to be a measure of comfort, and an affirmation that he was not alone here. Patients tended to need those from time to time, and she had never resented giving them. Still, her eyes remained fixed forward, upon Lucien’s back and beyond that, the Arishok. Her free hand flexed, and she forced it to relax at her side.

Perhaps Ashton’s anxiousness was contagious. Perhaps it was simply the utter lack of regard in the Qunari’s body language and expression, as though they were beneath contempt. As though he knew that, without understanding a single thing about any of them.

Ashton twitched hard at the touch and whipped his head around fast enough to give most people whiplash. His surprise was quickly stifled when he realized the culprit was none other than Nostariel. Was she looking to scare him out of his mind, the last thing he needed was somebody grabbing his wrist. If it had been a Qunari, Ashton couldn't have promised he wouldn't have thrown Lucien at him and ran. Though the touch itself wasn't... Unpleasant. Just surprising. He managed to calm down a bit, though it was still quite clear he was anxious. They were outsiders in the Qunari compound, and the lovely mage's silky smooth hands would do little against a Qunari with a burning desire to mount their heads on the wall. Still though, he did enjoy it in any case...

At Ashton's tentative comment, the Arishok chose not to direct ire at him, but instead at Javaris. "Dwarf," he said, sternly enough to get a flinch out of Tintop, "did your imaginary bargain make promises on my behalf?" The dwarven merchant's gaze fell to the ground, before slowly searching it's way back up, never quite returning to the Qunari war-leader. "I... uh, expected your wisdom to be more, uh... profitable." He left it at that, and the Arishok bowed his head, possibly in disgust. A few of the surrounding warriors shifted, both their bodies, and their weapons, which were perhaps a part of their bodies. The mood was definitely changing in the compound, and not for the better.

The Arishok stood. "Then you will pay on my behalf," he commanded with significant force, even if his voice did not raise to a shout. Javaris sighed, knowing he had no other options to turn to. He tossed each of the three a coin pouch. "Sod it all, take your coin, take whatever." He turned and walked away, pushing past his hirelings. "Sodding bunch of oxmen and sellswords. The whole lot, breathing smoke. Bah!"

When he was gone, the Arishok returned to his seat. "There is no profit in empowering those not of the Qun. The means of creating the gaatlok is ours alone. It shall be dispensed only to our enemies... in the traditional manner." He shook his head, clearly annoyed by the entire conversation, and waved the visitors away. "You will leave as well. There's no more coin for you here."

Lucien caught the coin-pouch thrown at him with an obvious frown, tucking it away with a shake of his head. This could have gone... much better. Frankly, he thought they'd be wisest to take the Arishok's advice and leave, but then that was no different from what he'd been thinking five minutes ago. Rubbing absently at the back of his neck for a moment, he met the Arishok's eyes and dropped into a slight bow. "Our apologies for the intrusion. Had we understood things would be this way, we'd not have wasted your time." So saying, he turned, meeting the eyes of the clearly-nervous Ashton and the steady Nostariel, gesturing with a jerk of his head for the entrance to the compound. Lingering beyond the duration of their already-tenuous welcome would be little short of madness, and he did not wish to discover this day how long they could last against a large chunk of the Qun's own army.

Ashton caught his pouch with one hand, displaying his natural dexterity before turning it over in his hand. "Oh. Hey. Looks like I am getting paid. Neat," Ashton said before stuffing the pouch into a pocket. He nodded along with Lucien's comment. "Right, right, terribly sorry Mister Serah Arishok. No more coin and wasted time and all that. We'll be on our merry way," Ashton spouted. At the Chevalier's gesture, he grabbed Nostariel by the shoulders, spun her around, and began to march her towards the exit with all due haste. "Leaving, leaving, leaving, leaving," he said rhythmically.

Nostariel marched at a dutiful pace, a little perplexed by Ashton's apparent need to keep her in front of him, but she went along with it for his sake. He seemed incredibly pleased to be leaving, and she couldn't disagree with the sentiment. The Qunari were... unnerving, to say the least.

The Chanter's Board has been updated. Blackpowder Promise has been completed.

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

Afternoon was beginning to wind down into evening by the time Sophia was able to escape the Viscount's Keep, armored lightly as she had been the previous day. She wasn't expecting to get into any fights today, but for her purposes, being unarmed and armored in a Hightown sewn dress weren't going to cut it.

Her father had taken much of the day off for his own purposes, something to do with the Qunari, though Sophia wasn't fortunate enough to hear what, exactly. She had heard that the Arishok had grown increasingly restless of late, apparently due to the actions of some of Lowtown's denizens, though she knew not how her father planned to appease him. No, she had instead been saddled with the duty of attending to the Viscount's visitors for much of the day, a task rarely performed by Marlowe Dumar himself these days. Bran usually handled much of it, but he too was off with the Viscount. Thus it fell to Saemus and herself to use their judgment in dealing with the requests of those who came to see them.

Which of course meant that Sophia was the effective Viscountess for the day, given that Saemus had no head for politics, and did not care in the slightest to get involved. Sophia doubted that her brother left the Keep entirely, but he was not seen within the throne room after a short while. She had expected as much. It wasn't the first time she'd been forced to effectively assume her father's role for the day, but it was still somewhat new to her. From the reactions of the people, though, she was doing well enough. As she had been instructed, she was generous, merciful, but firm and consistent. She knew when to draw the line, the difference between someone truly plagued by misfortune, and the liar seeking a handout from the crown. She would not allow herself to be taken advantage of, nor would she be seen as harsh. A delicate balance.

When the task was finally over, however, Sophia was glad for the opportunity to leave, slipping into the chain and light plate she had worn the day previous. The dent and scuff marks where the dragon's tail had collided with her ribs had already been mended and cleaned to a shine, her sword removed of any evidence that it had tasted dragon's blood the previous day. The miners they had saved had already gotten to work spreading the word, it seemed, and one had even recognized her for who she was, apparently, as the rumor was already circulating around Lowtown that the Viscount's daughter had slain a dragon in defense of the people. As was perhaps to be expected, the role that the Qunari and the Dalish played was diminished. Sophia didn't care for twisting of the truth, but she had to admit... it felt good. To be spoken of as a protector, someone who sets an example for others to follow, selflessness augmented with strength. It was what she aimed to achieve.

Which was partly the reason she was returning to Lowtown today. The meeting with Hubert had gone well enough, all things considered. The elf had collected his reward and then promptly left, leaving Sophia to explain more fully to Hubert. After convincing him that there had indeed been dragons at his mine, and denying any form of monetary reward, he had offered her half of his mine, wanting to make her something of a business partner, now that she had proved her usefulness. She refused, but promised her services in the event that the miners needed further protection. On a related note, he asked if she would willing to convince the miners to return to work, so that he might pay them for their efforts once more, and so that his business could return. As always for the miners' sake, she accepted, and this task saw her returning to the Hanged Man under the setting sun.

She'd been told to find the miners inside the Lowtown tavern, and not falsely. They had congregated in rather large numbers at a table near the rear, a sizeable group that was very easily picked out. She spotted the crimson armor of Lucien out of the corner of her eye, but figured she could converse with him once this was done. Didn't want to risk them all getting up and leaving, after all. Although, the way their night seemed to be going, them leaving the bar seemed the least likely of options.

The group of miners was a dozen at least, but Sophia was able to pick out a familiar face easily enough, and one of them indeed had been one of the ones they had seen within the mine, with Finn's group. Amalia's student himself was not present, but that was no great surprise to Sophia. She had been just about to try getting the group's attention when one of them shouted in a pleased surprise, pointing her out to everyone. "Hey, it's the one that rescued us from them dragons! The Viscount's daughter, no less!" A second roared his approval, his head wobbling violently, eyes somewhere in the vicinity of her chest, hips, legs, neck, stomach... well, he was all over the place. "Come lass, have a drink with us! We're just getting started."

The first man gave him a rough smack on the shoulder. "Hey! Eyes on her face, you fool! Remember who you're talking to!" Sophia raised her hands slightly to try and slow them at least, but the severely drunken one pressed on. "Bah! Just because she's royalty or some such don't mean she can't have an ale with us, am I right? She's a lady of the people, this one!" At this, a general cheer went up from the group, a few offering their own drinks to her, and Sophia becoming more than a little unsure of how to react. What a change from earlier. She was a natural at making decisions when in the position of power, of royalty, but this... among commoners like this, it was painfully apparent how much of a Hightown noble she was.

A bit of a distance away from the incredibly-intoxicated laborers, Nostariel was well into her own cups, though this evening she wore not a trace of the melancholy, slighty-sullen look she usually had about her. And why should she? The whole Qunari incident, as she was now calling it, had been incredibly strange but mostly successful, and she felt somewhat productive for once, which was nice. She'd met a new face and spent some time with a friend, with a nice walk along the coast for her troubles. The whole "protracted battle and extremely unpleasant encounter at the compound" bit faded as easily as her other unwanted memories under the vague haze of a light buzz, and though she'd never smile, things weren't so bad at the moment.

Her eyebrows ascended her forehead when the Viscount's daughter came strolling in, but the Warden presumed she was there for Lucien. What other possible reason could she have? Of course, theoretically, she could also be there to ask something of Nostariel herself, but that seemed unlikely when the only link between them (tenuous as it was) was the mercenary. The mage watched with curiosity and perhaps the faintest hint of amusement when the armored woman was immediately recognized by the bar's rowdiest patrons. There was a story there, or she was the Queen of Antiva. Nevertheless, it quickly became apparent that the young lady didn't really know how to handle herself in this situation, and some vague sympathy stirred in the Warden. She'd been the same way, nary a few years ago.

Meeting Lucien's eyes (well, eye more properly) across the room, something which still required far more effort than she would have liked to admit, she frowned slightly and jerked her head in Sophia's direction, standing surreptitiously and making her way over to what was slowly amalgamating into a crowd. She was not possessed of the Orlesian's deft tongue and subtly-persuasive presence, but she did know a thing or two about dealing with drunkards. As it was, she moved to stand slightly behind and to the side of Sophia, folding her arms over her chest and raising a speculative eyebrow at the men. It was one of her best scolding looks, and she'd learned it from a Senior Enchanter in the Circle. The fact that she'd been the woman's apprentice probably explained why a lot of her social attitudes were somewhat maternal in nature- one could only learn from what they could know.

She'd leave the actual speaking to the much larger, much more impressive-looking man beside her.

Lucien was, less unusually than most people believed, presently deep in thought. Why he was doing his thinking in the Hanged Man rather than his home was an interesting question, and he supposed it was because he felt less isolated here. In the end, there was little cure for lonliness, but isolation could be fixed with a simple walk to the tavern. His house was filled with too many things that reminded him of what he wasn't, and while he counted it an important lesson that was worth repeating to himself daily, it was not, perhaps, something that required constant fixation. Hence, the bar.

For this reason, he was not immediately aware of Sophia's presence as she entered, occupied as he was with staring somewhere into the middle distance, the downward slant to his mouth slight but present. The hand not presently occupied with wrapping itself around a tankard handle was drumming a staccato march tune on the rough wooden planks of the table, a fact which was irritating the morose-looking sot closest to him. Of course, while he would have noticed and stopped on an ordinary day, he didn't this time, and the much scrawnier individual was not going to risk angering the heavily-armed mercenary for the sake of something so small.

Whatever the reason, he did notice from his peripheral vision Nostariel's movement, and his gaze snapped back into focus in enough time to observe that the Lady Warden was for once looking right at him, rather than at the table in front of her. She tossed her head tersely to the side, and his uncovered eye followed the movement with cuiosity, widening with his surprise as he took in the most peculiar scene. His pensive frown dropped into a full-blown scowl upon the realization that at least one of them was failing in the gentleman's imperative to keep his eyes on a lady's face. Mirroring his Warden friend, Lucien stood, approaching the group from the other side. Apparently, the diminutive elf woman was content to level them her most haughty stare, and he took that as his cue to act as mouthpiece.

"Lady of the people, indeed," he agreed amicably, tone light. That said, his body language was anything but. Lucien was well aware that he could loom, though in this instance he chose not to. They were, after all, just drunken workers with a little too much cheer at the moment. So rather than attempting to intimidate them, he folded his hands neatly behind his back and stood at something resembling parade rest, which was perhaps a certain kind of reminder all its own. "If so, don't you gentlemen think it might be wise for the people to allow the lady to speak without being interrupted so rudely?" He smiled, as though it were just a friendly suggestion.

"Aye, aye!" one agreed, his voice eclipsing the others. "Le's let the lady speak!" As if this had been their idea, another general cheer went up from the crowd. "To what do we owe the honor?" asked one in the front. Sophia wasn't sure if it was the long overdue cooperation of the miners or the support behind her, specifically the massive presence that was Lucien, but whatever it was, it had done the trick, and succeeded in opening the way for her words.

"Gentlemen," she began, "I've come to inform you that the last of the dragons have been killed, and that it's safe for you to return to work tomorrow." This got about the reaction she was expecting, a kind of cautious approval, mixed in with a few fearful grunts. "What if there's more dragons later?" One asked, "Or something worse, like uh... bigger dragons!" A few were having thoughts along these lines, considering their nodding heads, although one blonde-haired one towards the back piped up otherwise. "I go back to missus without this job, she'll rip me apart sure as any dragon!" More had the same problem it seemed. Sophia was once again struggling to get a word in.

"What can we do?" one asked. "That bastard Hubert is the only one willing to hire us." Considering she'd been asked a direct question, Sophia was at last able to respond. "I've promised my services in the event the mine should need further protection. I have no intention of letting any of Kirkwall's citizens come to harm under my watch." That breathed some life into them, pulling a few from their cups. "You hear that boys?" One of them said, a smile spreading across his face. "We've got Sophia Dumar, Viscount's daughter and slayer of dragons, looking out for us! Don't think we'll be getting a better deal than that any time soon!"

Yet another general cheer went up, followed by a toast in her name and a promise to return to work. Sophia found herself smiling, and only a little red in the face. A success, if she'd ever seen one. "Sure you can't have a drink with us, my lady?" one of them asked with a hopeful grin. Sophia had been about to politely decline, but when she thought about it, she didn't really see why not. The thought of her father or brother seeing her now made her smile to herself as she turned to Lucien and Nostariel.

"I think I could spare the time for a drink, if my friends would be willing to join me," she said, her smile growing slightly. "Thank you for the help," she added, sincerely.

For his part, Lucien shrugged, relaxing his shoulders and letting a slow grin creep over his visage. "Think nothing of it. Though, I confess that slayer of dragons is an appellation I've not heard before. I find myself frightfully curious and perhaps more than a little envious. Perhaps you would do us the honor of the tale?" He motioned to a waitress, who, having seen a good chunk of the goings-on, brushed off her apron and hastily supplied the group with a fresh round of ale, including one for Sophia. The young woman curtsied awkwardly in serving that one, and Lucien chuckled quietly to himself. It had taken a fair amount of deft omissions and pleading on his part to convince her not to do that every time she saw him; Sophia would likely be dealing with it from now on.

His success was nothing less than she'd expected, and Nostariel was left to wonder if there was much point to her presence at all. Ah well, perhaps not, but the issue wasn't really there. She'd have been remiss if she didn't try something. She really didn't know what this whole situation was about, but the words exchanged did seem to clarify things somewhat. It was apparently connected to the mines, which she should well have guessed. Apparently that had gone well, then, though she wasn't certain when dragons had become involved. Apparently now-dead ones.

The Warden's muscles slackened perceptibly, and she was quite ready to head back over to her table and resume her rather inactive business, but then Sophia mentioned that she might stay. Nostariel paused in her movement, cocking her head sideways a bit and blinking several times to be sure she'd heard that right. Now there's a suggestion you don't get every day, she mused, and the corner of her mouth quirked upwards just momentarily. Deciding to stay and see what would come of it, the mage easily accepted the drink offered to her by the unusually- enthusiastic Gemma, who usually spent her time complaining about how slovenly, drunken men ogled her and Lucien didn't. Not that she was about to complain about free drinks, mind.

She nodded along to the Chevalier's request, curious despite herself. "That sounds like quite the undertaking, especially alone," she agreed, taking a sip and relishing (as well as she could) the raw burn of cheap alcohol sliding down the throat. She was certainly not envious, as Lucien's tone and words suggested he might be, but it sounded like the kind of thing that would make for good listening. Maybe she'd pass it along to Varric and have him regale all of Kirkwall with it. It could only help Sophia's cause, so she resolved to take it down as factually as possible, then let the dwarf work his magic with it.

"That's because I wasn't alone," Sophia was quick to explain as they took seats. She examined the drink she'd been handed for a brief moment before deciding it was better to just not look at it, and drink. She did so, and imagined that the face she made afterwards was probably very amusing to both Lucien and Nostariel. That out of the way, she began to explain in more detail, and more truth, the story of what had happened in the Bone Pit. If anything she was modest as to her own part, focusing instead on Amalia's bravery in acting the distraction, and the Dalish's archery skill, putting an arrow through the beast's eye.

That said, there was some amount of pride in the deed that she wasn't doing the best job of containing, especially after hearing that Lucien was in fact envious of her. She imagined there were a great many things he had seen and done that would draw out her own envy, pulling on her desires for a life of more adventure, less tied down by the responsibilities of politics, more free to follow her heart.

But being called a Dragonslayer, with truth behind it? Perhaps enjoying the moment a little more was well earned. Sophia took a slightly deeper drink. How anyone could savor the taste of such a concoction, she could not understand.

The Chanter's Board has been updated. The Bone Pit has been completed.

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel

Earnings

0.00 INK

Lowtown’s foundry district always smelled of sulfur. It hung there, thick and toxic, in the air, and Rilien’s nostrils flared, his nose crinkling just slightly in distaste. For someone sensitive to changes in his olfactory sensation, it was not at all pleasant. He imagined it wasn’t much better for people who usually didn’t bother paying attention to what they were smelling. It was overpowering that way.

The buildings here were run down, plaster and stone chipped, peeling from the facades of buildings like the skin could from an orange, or the papery outside of an onion. None lived here, for what foundries were still working operated day and night, and even Darktown was preferable to living in one of the derelict, hollowed-out shells that had died here. Their passage kicked up a fine layer of dust, mixture of chalk, crushed stone, and ash, he was willing to bet. The building Emeric had indicated as the endpoint of Mharen’s phylactery’s trail appeared to be one of the old shells from a time long past, but unsurprisingly, the dust on the way up the stairs to the door was disturbed considerably.

The Tranquil’s eyes narrowed. From the patterns in the dust, something heavy and reasonably-sized had been dragged through here, recently. Shooting a glance behind him, he made sure both of his companions were still present and alert before padding up the stairs. His knives made no more than a raspy whisper of sound as he drew them from their sheaths, putting his back to the wall and approaching the door. It was just slightly ajar, but there was no way any of them would be able to get through without moving it still further. A quick scan of the area indicated no other acceptable method of entrance, and so the Tranquil bit the arrowhead and nudged the door open with his foot, entering as soundlessly as he was able.

Not soundlessly enough, it seemed. The metal door gave a squeak as it was nudged further, only a small thing, but enough to give them away. The three of them would be able to get a glimpse of a human presence within the foundry, a robed man fleeing their sight on the second level of the interior, towards the back, leaving naught but a small bag behind him. Not long after, the entire foundry began to rumble beneath their feet, a blinding flash of light erupting from the center of the ground floor.

A pride demon was left in its wake, a massive creature of thickened flesh and claws, beady eyes gazing down at the intruders, clearly with hostile intentions. It was safe to say that Emeric had not encountered this on his trip into the foundry.

For once in her life, and perhaps the only time in it, as well, Sparrow decided to lag behind, watching Rilien's movements, and acting accordingly, to direct whether or not she should continue moving forward or remain where she was. She'd learnt her lesson the last time she bumbled into an apostate's clumsy traps, strewn across the cobblestones as apparent, and noticeable, as a prostitute's exposed bosom. It might've seemed unusual, but she did learn, sometimes. Her collected weaknesses were small, insubstantial things, that pushed her to greater, reckless heights. Or else, it might have been the asserting voice whispering against her collarbone, or into the contours of her earlobes, that kept her impulses in check, as if it was protecting her property from any further compromise. It would do her no good if she had to fight another needy demon's promises, scrambling for a better hold on Sparrow's body, on her mind, on her thoughts. Her fingers finally conceded to holding the flanged mace in her grip, tightening with each step closer to whatever it was they were going to face. Someone had obviously been through the Foundry before them. Sparrow glanced towards the doorway, slightly unlatched, then towards Aurora, who she shared a capacious smile with, mouthing a silent ready? Ready.

A recently prepared mantra repeated in her thick skull, resounding against her temples, trying to drown out the singing of her blood. The loud, echoing drumbeat of her heart, impatiently waiting for Rilien to signal them. She must be patient. She must be disciplined. She must be hopeful, shedding off whatever weary thoughts that might hamper her ability to protect, to fight. Sparrow was none of those things, and so she watched intently as Rilien's foot slowly lifted towards the door, easing it open with a rusty, unexpected squeak. She inwardly cringed, stepping forward. Through squinted eyes, Sparrow spotted a departing man with his robes flapping behind him, quickly scrambling up the stairs to the second level of the foundry. You! Stop running, fool—” She called after him, gritting her teeth and slamming the door open with an open, ball-faced kick. She hadn't even noticed the small bag he'd dropped in the wake of his haste. Instead, Sparrow's hands pinwheeled from the sudden quakes, flinging down onto the wooden railing to keep herself from stumbling into her companions.

“Always with the demons.” She cursed loudly, eyeing the creature who'd erupted from the centre of the foundry. It was quite clear what kind of individual they were dealing with – a cowardly mage who wasn't so keen on letting them walk away unscathed, and this particular mage was running instead of facing them himself. They'd have to give chase after dealing with his lackey. She whispered again, pressing her to move. She looked over her shoulder, towards her companions, and added a quick, “No need to hold ourselves back, now.” Directed towards Aurora, because she needn't hide her abilities when not in the presence of any Templars. Sparrow threw herself down the rampart to her right, nearly hopping down the entire case of stairs, while ripples of rock created a thick protective structure, more akin to armour, that enveloped her chest and joints. If she needed to, then she would distract the creature while Aurora cast her spells, and while Rilien sunk his daggers from the shadows. Her arms tensed, and then she closed the distance between her and the pride demon, swinging her mace towards its midsection.

The first thing Aurora did instead of berating the fleeing mage or quip about the pride demon was stumble backwards in surprise. First abominations then straight to Pride demons? No middle ground? No hunger demons, no desire demons, just a pride demon. Marvelous. At least it was only one of them right? And three of them? Though, the thing was big enough to count as much as three of them... Her breath hitched as the creature looked at them with disdain, as if they were trash. There was no positioning or bravery from Aurora, as the creature was easily thrice her size. Instead, now backed up against the wall, she crossed her hands in front of her breast and dipped into the fade, drawing a sheath of ethereal rock armor around herself. She mentally steeled herself as she repeated the oft recited name in her head once more. Rosaline.

So intent she was on the chosen word and the hulking pride demon, she nearly missed Sparrow's words. She offered no reply in her own words, just a curt nod. It seemed like these people already knew she was a mage. Strange. She thought she was very careful about that. Though with Sparrow's own rock armor spreading across his chest and joints, she figured that her secret was safe with him. Now it made sense why he was so stand-offish with the Templar. As Sparrow darted towards the pride demon, Aurora couldn't help but be impressed and envious of the man's bravery. Head first into battle, mace in hand ready to fell all that stand in his way. So sure, he was, it even gave Aurora strength to step forward, and ready her repertoire of spells. A sidelong glance at the Tranquil Rilien and she strode up to the railing and readied a spell.

She called to the fade with her hands, drawing upon the natural forces of the world. The air around her hands shimmered as the warmth was sucked out and replaced with cold, the skin of her hands taking on an icy texture. Then she pushed into the air with her frigid hands, casting out a cone of cold and caused a fine layer of frost to build up on the demon's head and shoulders. Pride always was a hot-headed emotion, so why not cool it down?

Sizing up the Pride demon with a cool, appraising stare, Rilien was perhaps the only one in the room who could have matched it for haughtiness. Not, perhaps, in the same way, but he appeared as unimpressed and unruffled as ever upon the conclusion of his inspection, and possessed neither the apprehension that belonged to Aurora nor Sparrow's drive to attack as quickly as possible. Flipping one of his blades so that it lay parallel to his forearm, he kept the other as it was and calculated his attack. Unimpressed with the result, he shifted his tactics, and instead chose to part his lips and sing. An Orlesian ditty, translated into Ferelden for the sake of a wider audience. It was a lively thing, and the way the words rushed over his tongue, infused with that certain something that only a bard could manage, he was quite certain that his allies would benefit from it.

"And she shall bring the birds in spring, and dance among the flowers. In summer's heat her kisses sweet, they fall from leafy bowers." The result was immediate to his own reckoning, his reflexes and strength enlivened, and the next verse shifted, focused instead on slowing and befuddling the demon itself. "She cuts the grain and harvests corn, the chill of fall surrounds her. The days grow old and winter cold, she draws her cloak around her." If the Tranquil had still smiled, he would have done so when the mighty demon seemed to hitch in its stride just a bit, as though its body were no longer to move perfectly-aligned with its thoughts. As it was, he chose the moment to join the fray, heedless of the light coating of frost that fell from above like snow, dusting his head and shoulders. Sparrow's blow connected with the creature's midsection, forcing it to a temporary standstill, and Rilien took full advantage of that, ducking in towards its other side and drawing his knives over the skin of its arms and legs, angling and applying pressure so that the blades bit deep into tendon and muscle, leaving eerily-precise, bloody lines in their wake.

Before the demon could so much as raise one of its massive arms to crush him in retaliation, he simply vanished, forcing it to redirect and try to bat simultaneously at Sparrow and Aurora, both of whom would by now be well aware of its intent.

Had it been Aurora's choice words, or her elusive fib towards the Templar? It might've been Rilien's subtle exclusion in Darktown, but if anyone asked, then Sparrow would have shrugged her shoulders, professing that she just knew. The Fade did not taste as bitter as Rilien described and she wasn't as compellingly in tuned as he was, but still, there were quiet whisperings, and a heaviness that pressed against her skin. She'd whispered to her, nudging her in the proper direction, indicating that she wasn't alone. Her methods were mysterious, unknown to her. It burned pleasantly on the back of her tongue, leaving no compromise. The last remaining bits of rock-ribbed armour encased her cheekbones, head and mouth area, appearing uncannily like a horned mask. Perhaps, if one looked close enough, a lapidarian Qunari. Her eyes were nothing more than two nebulous slits within the craggy crown, occasionally catching glints of Aurora's glacial stream and quick flashes of Sparrow's gritted teeth, bared like a beast.

It had always been his voice – her Tranquil companion who seemed more alive, more animated than anyone else she'd ever known while singing. Unusual, unexplainable. Like long forgotten memories of violins howling through the night, painting temporary pictures across boulders with damp fingertips, dipped in water. Watercolour paintings made up of oyster tones, washed away by the sunlight. He was a shadow with a morning dove's voice. Even now, Sparrow's breath hitched in her throat, momentarily struck by how he sounded. Rekindled spurts of energy wound it's way across her arms, warmed her fingers, and tightened the muscles corded in her shoulders. She was able to pull back her mace and strike again, slightly lower than her initial swing. This was not a song of hushed lullabies and codling whimsy – it breathed fire in her belly, extorted it into something wild and uncontrollable. His voice was copper. Utilizing the Pride Demon's disjointed movements, Sparrow swung again, and again, before careening to the left to gain a better vantage.

Rather than exert itself moving towards the mage that had cast ice all over its upper body, or struggle to locate the vanished bard, the pride demon instead called upon arcane magic that would affect a large area around, enough to encompass all three of them, and likely hit the bard as well, invisible as he was. Its hands lit with magical energy, shimmering airwaves twisting around its feet as the spell activated, an altered form of the crushing prison spell. In addition to inflicting considerable pain on the joints, the spell also carried with it a powerful pull, a strong force to bring the pride demon's enemies into very close range. Regardless of any damage suffered, the demon laughed as though enjoying itself, a deep, rumbling, throaty sound echoing about the interior of the foundry.

When the spell was complete and the magic released, the pride demon immediately lashed out with backhanded strikes towards both Aurora and Sparrow, the two that it could still easily locate, and the two most visible threats.

The spell caught Aurora by surprise. The day was just chock full of surprises. Aurora hated surprises. One doesn't normally expect a creature the girth of a pride demon to also be able to cast spells, and she paid the price for her ignorance. At first, she tried resist the spell by grabbing on the railing in front of her and holding on for dear life. That helped her from diving off the edge and to a painful drop below, but it did nothing to the screaming pain in her joints. Her elbows, knees, ankles, and even fingers felt like they were being poked repeatedly by red hot needles. It was an annoying, and painful experience, she tried to push it out of her mind. It was all an illusion. There was no pain, no real pain. It was just an illusion of pain. Rosaline.

Her heart was not docile. It did not slow, or stutter in fear when the Pride Demon conjured arcane magic, alighting it's proffered claws with raw, unholy energy. She had never been frightened every time a blade came too close to ending her life, leeching her lifeblood. She merely laughed and moved on to face and conquer another danger or obstacle in her way, heedless of how reckless she was becoming. This was another battle, another fight to be won. Weren't they all equally dauntless when facing such disgusting creatures? Creatures better off left in whatever damned hole they'd crawled out of. She disagreed.The Fade felt heavier, much more potent. With a war cry springing from her lips, she suddenly lunged towards the Pride Demon with her mace ready to batter flesh and spill blood. However, Sparrow didn't exactly follow through her wild swing – instead, faltering when her joints seized, as if they were tying themselves into awkward knots. The creature's rumbling laugh echoed in her chest, hollow as an empty chamber. It rang through her ears, temporarily muzzling her unwanted occupant. Her teeth chattered noisily, grinding against the sweltering pain prickling across her skin.

Her mind thrashed against the disillusioned agony. Deep fissures crackled down her armour, rattling her concentration. Fear clung to her skin, coalesced to her being. Unfortunately, Sparrow was already in close vicinity, digging her heels in the dirt to keep herself from falling face-forward. She still felt the uncomfortable pull.The throbbing in her joints beat in time with her heart, rising to a crescendo, then to a low roar. Two seconds of hovering in a borderland between triumph and despair. And while immeasurable agony spread from a point just below her ribcage through her whole body, into shoulders, arms, hands, fingertips; hips, legs. toes; into her scalp, into the tips of her hairs even in her fingernails. It was the remnants of Rilien's song that kept her from tumbling straight against the Pride Demon's knobby knees, and forced her limbs back into movement.

Then the railing began to creak. Then it began to creak again, although louder. Aurora wasn't even able to coax a single complete Antivan curse out of her lips before the railing gave away and dropping her to the ground below. She landed with a hard thump, and though no cracks or pops resulting from broken bones were heard, it still hurt. She felt every single stone that comprised the back of her rock armor in her back, and it was uncomfortable, if not painful. Even if the pain she had experienced before was an illusion, this pain, illusion or not, felt very real. She laid on the ground breathing deep and hard trying to force the air that had escaped her lungs back. It was not the time to be lounging around, not while a pride demon still stomped around. There was an urgency, but she just couldn't find her way back perpendicular to the ground. She lay, unawares of the demon's back hand strike, scabbling about trying to force the ground beneath her feet once more.

Rilien grit his teeth as his feet left the ground, drawn towards the manifestation of Pride like a moth to flame, entirely against his own will, and inexorably. The situation, and all others like it, was one of a scarce few things that managed to stir the Tranquil's irritation, and even as he went still, not bothering to fight the gravatic force pulling him in, his eyes narrowed to slits, his hands tightening around the hilts of his knives until his knuckles were pale. Pain was inconsequential like everything else, and he bore scant thought for the pressure inflicted upon elbows, knees, fingers, vertebrae, too intently focused on his whirring thoughts.

It was a funny thing, what people thought about the Tranquil. It must seem, on the face of it, that his stillness of emotion was somehow reflective of a stillness of mind, as though he didn't think just as he didn't feel. On the contrary, it was as if the cognitive capacity required to feel anything was now free for his use, and he at least put it towards thought. Constant calculation, the ticking away of some inevitable time-bomb, the explosion of which was action. Always decisive, always focused. Nothing was extraneous, nothing went to waste. Which was why, even now as he was thrown unceremoniously to the ground, he was observing, thinking, planning. The noisy protests of the stair railings alerted him to Aurora's predicament, and even as he picked himself up off the floor, still invisible and unnoticed by the demon, he observed that she was having considerably more difficulty doing the same.

His next sequence of thought was quick, which was just as well, for her anyway. Even as the demon's arm headed towards the mage-girl, Rilien applied a burst of speed, made all the easier by his own quasi-magical bardsong, to stand a good few meters in front of her downed person. His arms, he crossed in an 'x' over his chest, the points of both knives upside-down but outwards, blades facing the ceiling. The creature paid the price for ignoring what it could not see, and even as the massive hand swept towards the redheaded woman, it was forced to a paintful halt, the momentum from its swing now working against it and forcing it further onto the Tranquil's weapons. Rilien dug his feet into the ground as well as he was able, trying to preserve his traction as he wavered into view again, but the effort was about as useless as he would have expected it to be, and his boots tore furrows in the ground as he was lifted, effectively tossed from the area as the Pride demon snarled at great volume, sending the elf flipping end-over end and into the nearest wall of the foundry, only one of his blades still in his grip. The other remained staked in the creature's hand, both wounds now oozing ichor at an impressive rate, and it aborted its attack on Aurora, that hand now dangling more or less uselessly by its side, clearly a source of considerable agony.

Perhaps the pain it was under approximated something like the amount he was feeling now, slammed bodily into stone and mortar, the breath leaving his lungs as he slid to the ground. He'd avoided hitting headfirst only with some tricky midair acrobatics, which accounted for his present state of, well... life. Even so, he heard with a distant sort of antipathy the sound of one of his own ribs snapping, then another, then a third, in a quick succession of popping cracks. He landed with uncharacteristic heaviness in a crouch, pulling breath into his lungs evenly, minimizing the pain as much as he was able. Pushing off with his free hand, Rilien regained his feet with a wobble, his perfect composure for once disappeared. For all that, he still looked as though nothing was wrong, at least if his expression was anything to go by.

The blood trickling out of the corner of his mouth spun a different yarn, perhaps.

Her head whipped around to see where her companions had wound up, and whether or not the Pride Demon's magic was effecting them too. Drawing them in like mice pulled unceremoniously by their tails, except they weren't scuffling into holes to hide. It was the Pride Demon's greatest folly. Even though she couldn't see him, Sparrow imagined Rilien gravitating towards the creature, daggers held tightly in his hands, irrefutably poised to rip the creature's advancing legs into something less than limbs, and a little more like skewed beef. It was almost like tugging a wild animal's chain towards you, instead of back-peddling away, with its killing intent clear as day. Surely, the Pride Demon underestimated them. Pride, the deadliest sin, in her opinion, was going to be his downfall. It was predictable, ironic. This was nothing like the sweet promises the Desire Demon relayed, near constantly, reaching out to her with promises and waving it's propositions in her face like a banner that couldn't be denied. Where was Rilien? Probably whirring possibilities and probabilities and possible solutions through his mind. In these moments, even in the midst of pain tingling through their limbs, it was difficult to imagine that Rilien felt nothing at all. He felt nothing, and it wouldn't scare him because she didn't think he remembered fear. In his world, there were no emotions, no wrath, no loss of control. Nothing to dampen his concentration. He was unhampered by tedious responses, unaware of the startling acidity that crawled it's way from her throat, throttling her with violence.

The penetrating shriek of metal, as if a force were pushing against it, snapped Sparrow from her thoughts. Her eyes flew away from Rilien, and caught sight of Aurora as she was falling from the first level of the Foundry, toppling along with the broken railing like a sack of potatoes – certainly not like a monarch butterfly, because she hadn't landed on her feet, or rolled away from the Pride Demon's scaly limbs. Her mouth hung open like a hinge, as if ready to call out. Sparrow's reflexes were stunted, riddled with energy she couldn't seem to harness. She'd been too far away, hadn't she? It still didn't stop the quick pang of guilt, tasting coppery in her mouth. There was a brief thought of splintered bones and empty sockets before Sparrow's entire body was swept from underneath her.She caught a quick glimpse, already listing to the side, of Rilien appearing in front of Aurora, arms crossed, and both knives glinting like two pieces of transposed objects. Like quicksand, like a sucking swamp, like damp dirt, Sparrow's vision blossomed, then contracted in a spray of pinpricks and slithering worms. The Pride Demon's scaly fingers, knobby knuckles, had felt like anythingbut a hand hitting her – it was a brick wall, or a horse trampling her. She was ungracefully thrown across the chamber, past Rilien and Aurora, and past the initial stairway she'd hurdled down. It'd been her stoney-armour that kept her mobile, kept her from suffering the same fate Rilien had experienced. She flipped over backwards, into an awkward somersault, and teetered to a stop when her shale-like plates shlepped off like snake skin, pebbling across her feet. Her mace clattered on the ground.

The Pride Demon's guttural snarl jarred her back to her senses, as did the horrific scene of Rilien slamming against the furthest wall, slithering down the brickwork like a broken puppet. “Ril!” It came out like a nervous, crackling croak. She had already regained her composure, revelling in the fact that her limbs no longer hurt as they did before. The needles had stopped. Rilien was shallow-breathed, and sluggishly moving. Obviously, something was wrong. He was hurt. It seemed an impossibility, as if he were an impenetrable force – but, he wasn't immortal. It was certainly something that Sparrow needed to constantly remind herself of. The slight wobble awakened her voice, her anger, her weaknesses. The dribble of blood threading down his chin, starkly contrasting against his temperate repose. Unbeknownst to her, Sparrow's mace was back in her hands.It felt as if molten lava was spilling from her lips, bubbling past her clamped teeth. Like a hurricane swirling in the midst of an ocean. She erupted. Shedid not try to brush the crags away, or push her impulses back into a sea shell. She did not pacify as Rilien could. Inhale, exhale. Her heart paced, erratically. Her pupils dilated. Shereleased the reigns, whispering lies. Her awareness expanded. Sparrow darted forward, and threw herself around the creature's knurled elbows, only to come back up swinging her mace, utilizing her momentum, straight into the creature's jaw.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera

Earnings

0.00 INK

"Slow your breathing," Ithilian commanded, gently but firmly, "it will steady your arm. A hunter must remain calm, even when preparing for a kill."

Lia's left arm wobbled visibly, struggling to keep the drawn arrow level. The Dalish leaned up against the nearest tree, arms crossed, watching her form from beyond the girl's peripherals. She looked rather silly. It hadn't surprised Ithilian to learn that Lia didn't own a single pair of pants suitable for the forest, nothing but handspun dresses and simple sandals. He'd been easily able to buy some clothes from a Lowtown tailor using a small portion of the reward he'd collected from Hubert, but he had slightly overestimated her size. Perhaps he'd been using the wrong reference.

Her boots would give her blisters if they continued on much longer, he knew. Her feet were soft, delicate things, having tasted no other dirt than the kind that blew in from the foundry districts. They would toughen, if Ithilian had his way. Her trousers were a muddy brown, baggy things, held up by a buckled belt fastened tightly about her waist. Her tunic was meant for a girl probably three years her senior. It had fallen nearly to her knees until she'd bunched it up and tucked it under the belt.

He'd make her a hunter yet.

It was her choice, too. It had been Lia that had come to Ithilian one day under the vhenadahl, interrupting a conversation between he and Amalia in order to ask him for a lesson. She had convinced her father of the usefulness, and of her own desire, and he had relented, giving the Dalish permission to teach his daughter. And so here they were, trying to put arrows into a tree trunk twenty meters away. The reward from Hubert had given Ithilian time to do as he pleased for a while, exactly as he had wanted.

"It's too big," she said, referring to the bow, "the string is too hard to pull back. It's making my arm shake." Ithilian gazed at the weapon, not his own bow, but another of his creation, smooth whitewood with inlays of silver halla horn spiraling along the ends, seemingly dancing along the wood. He allowed himself a great deal of pride. It was beautiful. "It should be difficult at first," he explained, "but you'll grow stronger if you practice. In time it will seem easy. Lift your elbow."

She did so, the altered position helping her somewhat, and steadying her hand. Unwilling to hold it any longer, however, she released her hold, the arrow loosing with a twang, the whitewood bow extending back to full length as the arrow left. It skimmed the side of the tree, taking off some bark before it sailed into the distance. Ithilian judged it for a moment. "That was better. You learn quickly."

The sun was getting low, casting a yellow orange light through the canopy of the forest. "We should return. I've kept you too long. Let's fetch the arrow and then return." Though somewhat disappointed, Lia was clearly worn out, and nodded her head. "Can we practice more tomorrow?" she asked, sliding the bow over her shoulder as he had shown her. "Perhaps," was all the response he was willing to return. This was... a learning experience for him as well. Or rather, re-learning.

They set off after the lost arrow, Ithilian pulling the three he'd put in the trunk himself on the way. He traveled slow, allowing the girl to take her own pace. He often forgot that she was not as comfortable with the landscape as he and his kin were. This was the unnatural to her, the cities her home ground. It was so backwards, it made him feel ill to linger on it.

As they crested a small hill however, Ithilian held out his hand to stop her, his eye picking up movement in the distance. A deer, a sizeable prize to bring back. He slid his bow from the sheath on his back, pointing it out to Lia as he drew an arrow. "Watch," he commanded. He hadn't actually killed anything in front of her yet, and wondered what her reaction would be when he made the shot. She would have to get used to it, one way or the other, if she intended on being a huntress. He pulled back the arrow, the string resting taut against his upper lip, as he breathed slowly out, lining up the shot to pass through the deer's head.

A shadowy figure danced through the woods, leaving neither trail nor sound in it's wake. Which was strange, considering the shadowy figure was none other than Ashton. For once, he had his large mouth closed and actually seemed focused on the task at hand. He neither wore the jester-like grin that defined him nor even the silly glint that danced in his eyes. In the place of that, he wore a stern frown followed by eyes filled with purpose. He had a job to do, and he was going to do it. He had earned enough money in order pay rent on his shop, but that mattered little if he had nothing to sell. That was the goal that day. Inventory for the shop. He had an order for leather boots to fill and he had to restock his supply of venison. He gave away what little he had left for nothing as any longer in his shop and it would spoil. Not that he needed a reason to be in the forest... He never felt more alive when he was in the forest. He weaved around another tree with guile and dexterity belying his tall frame. He was crouched low to the ground, so that the aforementioned frame wouldn't spell out his position to his prey.

He was on the hunt, one of the rare places where all traces of the fool dropped and was replaced by an intelligent and sharp entity. In this state, he was a bloodhound, tracking down his target with acute senses honed by years of practice. Light footsteps that were more akin to the wind washing through the forest rather than a human. He had picked up the trail of a deer, a large one according to it's prints. He had passed a scrapping on a tree as he hunted, gathering that it was a stag with antlers any bar owner would be proud to have hanging over his door, but to the hunter, the antlers would be used as well. Waste not, want not after all. His shop didn't need such extravagancies. It was a shop, not a museum, and everything in his shop had a utilitarian purpose.

The hunt had been going on for an hour then, and Ashton knew that he would catch up to it soon. The prints led to the base of a hill, and if Ashton was a betting man (he was) then he'd bet all the gold that he earned from Jarvis (if he hadn't already thrown it in the Viscount's general direction) that the deer would be in a small copse, bedding down for the evening. That only left the issue of getting through it without the stag hearing him. He lowered his breathing and began to stalk toward the Copse. His steps were more careful, more restrained as he deftly picked his way towards his prey.

Sure, he could have just vanished into the shadows and struck from the darkness, the trees around him could provide him that luxury. But that wasn't hunting. That was killing. And it left a bad taste in his mouth. The hunt was a proud thing and it was one thing that Ashton would never cheat at. The animal deserved a chance, and assassinating it from the shadows was no way to hunt. He ducked his head under a low hanging branch and entered the copse. A few more steps brought him around a large tree-- perhaps the largest in the copse-- which then revealed his target. It was just as he thought, a sizable creature, a prize for a hunter. It would make for a fine kill.

He crouched beside the tree, sitting on his haunches and leaned up against it for stability. He drew an arrow from his quiver, the soft leather never giving away his position. In one smooth motion the arrow left the quiver, arced forward, nocked, and was drawn back to the fullest. The white fletching lay on his cheek as he bided his time. The positioning was perfect, broadside. Left him a clean shot to the creature's front shoulder, where it's heart was. Clean and quick, no suffering. He lined the shot up, and before he let the arrow sing, he issued a short and curt whistle. The stag paused it's grazing and looked toward the area where the whistle came from.

That's when the arrow struck. The arrow flew right where Ashton placed it, through the heart and out the other side. The creature managed to get one step forward before it fell. Moments passed with Ashton frozen in time. The deed was done, and the hunt was over. With that, he stood and made his way toward his kill, pride welling up in his heart.

The animal fell before Ithilian had loosed his arrow, another projectile striking it true, clean through the heart. He blinked once, before releasing the tension somewhat, lowering the bow. If these woods had belonged to the Dalish, his immediate thought of poacher would have been correct, and he would have had decent grounds for killing the intruder where they stood. That said, he had to remember that these lands did not, in fact, belong to the People, and then the shemlen of Kirkwall had the right to hunt here as well. The quality of the shot made him wonder if he had traveled too close to Marethari's clan, but when the hunter came forth towards the kill, his humanity was confirmed.

Had he been alone and a few months in the past, Ithilian would have given strong consideration to putting an arrow through the man's head, and taking what would have otherwise been his. But he was not alone, and he was not in the past. He had nearly come to the conclusion that a confrontation was best avoided when Lia made his thoughts irrelevant.

Hey!" she called out loudly, making her way forward before Ithilian could stop her. She crashed through the distance of undergrowth and bushes between them, coming to a stop a short ways away, well out of arm's reach, but close enough for them to speak without shouting. Ithilian was shortly behind her, his own movements silent compared to hers, seeming to almost soothe the forest, after the young girl had trampled it. "That was our kill, you know. We were here first." Ithilian resisted the urge to roll his eye at her boldness, only so he could keep his gaze on the human hunter. He had not returned the arrow to its quiver, nor the bow, only lowered it and released the tension on the string. He didn't want a problem in front of Lia, but some problems with the shemlen were unavoidable. He would not be caught unprepared.

The "Hey" cut through the silence like his arrow did to the deer, and the crashing of footsteps told him he that was no longer alone in the woods. He halted midstride and turned towards where the ruckus was coming from. The stark difference from the silence of one moment to the racket of (small) feet was staggering and it suddenly expelled all semblance of the hunter. At least the hunt was done with and he would not need to focus any more. It wasn't like the deer was going to resurrect and walk off... If it did, that would present other, more important issues. Like what the hell just happened. Either way, the owner of the noise wasn't some creature of the forest-- Well, in a sense, it was. Elves being elves and all. But still, this elf didn't seem Dalish to him. She was too adorable for that.

Ashton leaned on his bow and the girl blamed him for stealing their kill. So she wasn't alone. Made since, with the racket she caused, she couldn't have been hunting alone. Nope, there had to be someone else with her, a much better hunter-- that was no doubt. But still, she was adorable, and that made him feel an obscene amount of guilt. His eyes went to the felled creature, and when they returned, he relized that the girl was no longer alone... Another elf-- this one with a scary face that was half-covered with a cloth. The bow with an arrow nocked didn't help either. However, it did answer the question as to who she was hunting with. Compared to the girl's footsteps, this man was silent.

"I apologize sweetheart," he said, kneeling. He hoped the gesture would set them, and especially the scary elf with the bow, at ease. "It's a testament to you and your father's skills as hunters that I couldn't tell that others were hunting the same creature. I promise, if I knew that such a lovely lady as yourself was hunting him, I'd let you have him," he said. It was the truth. He may have been stalking the creature for the better part of the afternoon and though he was serious and focused during the hunt, he would have gladly let her have it. There was nothing like the experience of the hunt, and he would never willingly take that away from the child.

The word sweetheart was enough to get an annoyed twitch out of the scarred corner of Ithilian's mouth. It wasn't strange that the human had mistaken them for father and daughter. He was well aware that that was exactly how they looked. In a moment that saddened him slightly, Ithilian realized that was exactly how he had intended it. Among the Dalish, it likely would have mattered little, as each clan was more or less a family, each child raised by all, in addition to their own parent.

This hunter's aim, he could respect. He hadn't noticed him before, which meant he was quiet, experienced at what he did. That also made him dangerous. His tongue, however, was asking to be cut out, something Ithilian would have gladly performed had Lia not been present. "Do you speak to every daughter in that way, even when the father is present?" he asked, not actually wanting an answer. He moved in front of Lia slightly, studying the man a little closer. He seemed vaguely familiar, but then again, he had trouble telling many shemlen apart.

"Do you hunt here often?" Ithilian asked. He wasn't interested in more encounters like this occurring, certainly not when Lia was present. He'd rather find another place to teach her to hunt, than to risk repeated conversations with this shem and his nausea-inducing compliments towards a twelve year old.

His line of sight with the elf girl, and perhaps the friendlier face of the two, was cut off by her father, stepping protectively between her and himself. Fair enough, he was armed, and had just taken down a kill. If he was a different person and had a daughter with him, he couldn't say that he'd do anything differently. The world was dangerous place after all, no telling what kind of strange people it held. Honestly. While it would be better on the legs to keep kneeling while he spoke to the man, it didn't seem like the proper thing to do, so he rose up to his full lank, once again. Though, he did make an attempt to reign himself in and do it slowly as to not set the man off. He had the look of someone who was rarely happy and they were alone in the woods. Who would miss him if he just didn't... Come back?

He let the first question fly by unmolested. It didn't sound like one that warranted an answer, and truth be told, Ashton reckoned that the man didn't care. Though... Yes, he supposed he did talk to a lot of people like that, no matter the circumstances-- well, except maybe if they look like they could crush his neck if they set their mind to it. The Arishok, case in point. The next question caused him to pause and examine his surroundings. So enthralled was he in the hunt, he wasn't quite sure of the path he took. He could get back to the city, no issue, but still. It'd be nice to know where one was when getting stared down by a man with one eye and his daughter. Upon further reflection, he concluded that no, this was not his normal hunting grounds. It seemed as if the stag had led him on a magnificent journey to a hither unseen part of the forest. Neat.

With that settled, he shook his head no. "No, can't say that it is. I've just been tracking that big fella for a while. Took me out of my usual hunting grounds, a couple of hours work-- Not that it wasn't your kill mind," he added for the girl behind the man. That brought up a muddy pool of ethics in the hunt. Would the kill belong to the one who stalked the deer? Or the one whom the deer came to. It wasn't something Ashton felt like sifting though at the moment. Instead, he offered up a trade.

"How about this sweet-- uh, How about this?" Ashton said, catching himself and forcing himself to look at the father. "Say you take the antlers now-- have him carve something pretty for you," He added as an aside to the girl. The man looked like the type of elf that carved things. Surely those daggers at his sides are used for something else besides stabbing, "And I'll take the deer proper, have him processed in my shop. I'll give you and yours a discount if you come in? It's a win-win, really." Appeasement. Smooth.

The hunter appeared uncomfortable looking at Ithilian, even if the elf had to look up to meet his eyes. He studied him for a moment, deciding if his offer was meant as charity, or as an attempt to part on peaceful terms. For his sake, Ithilian hoped it was the latter. Without responding, Ithilian slid one of his long knives from a sheath and knelt, plunging it with precision into the animal's head and getting to work. Lia chose to remain quiet, perhaps in response to the tone Ithilian was taking with the hunter.

The Dalish some words under his breath as he cut, otherwise not acknowledging that there were others around. In his head, he was struggling to contain aggression. In his opinion, the human had shown a blatant lack of respect for him in the way he'd spoken to Lia. The fact that he'd incorrectly assumed him to be her father was meaningless. The man was good with a bow, but Ithilian was willing to bet he wouldn't last long if he were to be taken to with knives. They were in the middle of the forest. Surely it would be days before anyone even went looking for him.

But the girl behind him stayed his hand, and he didn't even know why. Was she too young? Had he been too young when his own father had introduced him to bloodshed? His father hadn't thought so. His clan hadn't thought so. If this shem had threatened them in any way, in addition to disrespecting them, he wouldn't have hesitated, and he would have felt justified...

Bah. It was too complicated. He needed to get away from this. To be alone. He finished severing the antlers, rising. "We're leaving," he said, more to Lia than the human, as he strode away. Lia looked back to make sure Ithilian wasn't watching, before giving the hunter a quick wave of goodbye.

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel

Earnings

0.00 INK

Aurora wheezed a heavy cough as the needles in her joints subsided and the world around her ground to a halt. She had managed to come out of her daze sore, but alive. She could still feel the pebbles and rocks that comprised her armor still digging into her skin, but they provided her the protection that perhaps shaved her bones splintering from falling at the upper levels. She rolled over on to her hands and knees and coughed again, as the shattered railing and awkward landing lifted up a fine layer of dust around her. But something was off. During all the time that she spent immobile on the ground, the demon could have easily taken the opportunity to crush her. What stopped it. She shot a wayward look to her side, and there her answer lay. Rilien was on his feet, yes, but something about him was off. The dribble of blood at the corner of his mouth and the way that he no longer possessed a feline agility told her something was wrong.

She shoved herself to her knees and looked for Sparrow. He too was apparently knocked away, though he seemed to have suffered less though than the Tranquil. Perhaps due to his own stone armor, or perhaps because he hadn't hit suddenly decellarated against a wall, he seemed to be alright. That was good. At least they were all still alive. She couldn't help but resent the fact that a demon was getting the better of them. It was a pride demon, but a demon still. A perversion of nature, of a mage. Rosaline she steeled herself once more. With that, she rose to her feet once more and dipped right back into the fade, allowing it to envelop her like an old friend. She began to look for a weakness, and almost immediately, she came upon one.

Something in the creature's hand glinted, something metallic and sharp. It was Rilien's blade, probably stuck him when he lashed out, throwing Rilien into the wall. The thought brought her eyes to the man himself and realized he would probably need healing... Eventually. Aurora was not as well-versed in the healing arts as Nostariel, though she was satisfactory enough. She would need time to concentrate and will the bone, blood, and sinew to knit back together, not something she could do in the midst of a fight with a large demon. As much as it made her feel guilty, she would have to make Rilien wait until the demon was dealt with. All that much more reason to kill it quickly.

Her eyes darted back to the demon with purpose in her eyes. The blade would provide the perfect conduit for what she had in mind. While She summoned the natural energies in the air, weaving them between her hand like a true artist. As she weaved, sparks arced between her hands and fingers, dancing a mesmerizing ballet. She couldn't help but think how marvelous and graceful lightning was as it flew from her fingertips and struck Rilien's shining blade. The lightning arced from the blade and ran rampant through the interior of the beast, causing internal damage and frying the nerves in its hands. The voltage of the lightning would stun the creature, allowing one of the others the perfect opportunity for a follow-up.

It was an opportunity that Rilien would not let go to waste. Seeing Sparrow making a running jump, followed by a swing for the right shoulder, he went left, darting by Aurora even as the lightning left her hands. It was a motion that his body violently protested, but Rilien showed it exactly the same regard as he paid other inconsequential difficulties: absolutely none. Mind over matter was a much easier affair when you no longer possessed things like pain aversion. The glistening bolts of electricity homed in on his already-planted blade, and there was a flicker of something like appreciation for the cleverness of that tactic, one which he ignored in the same fashion. Sparrow's mace dug furrows in the Pride demon's shoulder thereafter, and the creature gave a great howl of rage, shaking itself in an attempt to rid its limbs of the offending half-blood.

Rilien was having none of that. Aware that he was currently severely lacking in upper-body strength, he decided that his remaining blade would need to go somewhere with little resistance, and he knew exactly where. Taking advantage of its inability to move much and its preoccupation with his cohabitator, the ex-Bard gathered his legs beneath him, bunching his muscles and launching himself into the air, sailing forward and landing in the crook of one simian elbow. The force was enough for the creature to pitch forward slightly, but he did not linger, pushing off again. This time, he focused on his arms, and found that, with the proper calculation, his remaining knife slid home into the Pride demon's left eye socket with little resistance. Letting it remain there, the Tranquil flipped over the massive monster's shoulder and landed, harder than he would have normally, but otherwise still as unruffled as he'd ever been.

"Lightning to the brain will do much more damage than to the hand," he pointed out blandly, his glance flickering from Sparrow to Aurora. Something warm and wet filled his nose, and he brushed one callused thumb over the smooth skin between his nose and his lips, apparently undisturbed when the digit came back smeared with red. He'd expected a maneuver like that would make the damage worse. Assuming the battle ended with the next pass (which it surely would if they did as he'd suggested), he'd be able to remain conscious long enough to take the requisite potions, though his ribcage and lungs would be at suboptimal capacity for several days.

The half-blood's absolute, unmitigated focus was centred in swinging the bulk of her mace in savage arcs, allowing her momentum to be thrown in the direction of her swing to avoid any of the Pride Demon's flying elbows, or whipping horns. It was doubtful that Sparrow even noticed the supreme conduit, Rilien's glistening dagger, anchored in the creature's hand. Her thoughts were elsewhere, so hellbent on barbaric, unrestrained destruction, which might've worked in Aurora's favour, anyway. He would have to face her, or she'd constantly assuage him with blows until he was forced to deal with her. There was a quivering tension set in her square shoulders, shadowed bruises beneath dulled eyes, a reckless soul striking out with abandon, without acknowledging that she had companions that could help her fell the beast. Her magical abilities seemed a moot point, as if they'd suddenly been forgotten, as if it weren't even a possibility in such a maddening state. The Fade, it seemed, had momentarily abandoned her. Left her to her own devices as she darted to the left, then the right, only to dive under the Pride Demon's extended elbow – an irritating gnat buzzing around the creature's eyelids, unrelenting in it's assault.

She wouldn't even have noticed Aurora's plan, electrocuting Rilien's dagger, if it hadn't been for the Pride Demon's spontaneously sluggish movements, as if he'd been dunked into a vat of molasses. Sparrow did not slow, did not stop to wonder at the creature's puzzling posture, frizzling and twitching. Flecks of something spattered her cheek. It wasn't raining, was it? The thought had no foundation, so it shook apart with her mounting acrimony. An ear-shattering roar came from the Pride Demon, and Sparrow squeezed her eyes shut, willing the sound to be blocked from her senses, but to no avail. She backpedalled enough to avoid the swinging arm, momentarily receptive of the wind kicking through her hair, pushing white locks out of her eyes. It did nothing to rattle her nerves. The Pride Demon was desperate to dislodge her from bombarding his limbs, in impetuously futile attempts,from another mindless onslaught, which she achieved with renewed vigour, or vicious stubbornness. It was a perpetual rage that could not be quailed, or extinguished, until the creature was nothing more than a sifting pile of ash, and they were free to leave the foundry alive. Brief flashes of another figure blinked in her peripherals, launching into the air, at considerable speed.

Sparrow did not falter in her steps, or relent her ferocious swings; one high, one low, then another sweeping across as if she were brandishing an axe rather than a blunt weapon with it's star-flanged knobs. She demanded it's attention. She issued another battle cry, grunting with the effort it took to swing the bulk of her two-handed mace. Her muscles twitched with each impact, rattling straight through to her bones. Another speckle of blood rained down across her forehead – not her blood, she wasn't bleeding. Each time the Pride Demon manoeuvred away, possibly towards Aurora, Sparrow stepped in it's path. Lightning to the brain... Rilien's voice.

When had she stopped hearing them? When had she stopped whispering?

Mage as he was, Sparrow didn't seem to rely as much on the fade as Aurora did. Sparrow seemed rather inclined to hammer the demon with relentless blows from his deadly mace, looking to make the creature bow in the face of martial prowess over magical arts. Not that Aurora found fault in it. Everyone was different in the way they did things. She actually envied the man, having the strength to protect himself with only physical power. Yes, she was well versed in the art of the fade, but that counted for nothing out in the day, where one ill-timed spell could send to the Gallows for the rest of her life. This man did not have to worry about that. She did. She was small compared to these men-- even if they were elves. She didn't have the aclarity that the Tranquil had nor the strength that Sparrow possessed. All she had was magic, which was both a blessing and a curse.

However, that did reveal one thing. She wasn't going to count on Sparrow halting his assault in order to fling a lightning bolt the demon's way. That was seemingly left up to her. Sparrow did give the demon enough of a hassle to draw attention away from her as she prepared her second lightning bolt. Strange it was, how the Tranquil calmly implied her next course of action, despite him not being in the best of shape himself. It always surprised her how calm and... well.. Tranquil the Tranquil were. It only made sense that that mindset should carry over into combat. Though, to be honest, she had never seen a Tranquil fight before... It was a learning experience. One she could analyze after the demon had fallen.

Lightning cracked the air as it began to dance around her arms once more. The air around her became dry as the lightning evaporated all moisture around her immediate vicinity. The time it took her to prepare this spell was longer than the other, thanks to the time afforded by Sparrow. It was with that bolt that she was going to end it. She didn't want to risk just mildly damaging it with a weak spell, no, she was going to ensure the demon fell. The cracks and pops around her arms sang a dangerous symphony, begging to be released. Which she did with a forceful throw of both arms.

The lightning ripped through the air as it streaked towards the blade lodged in the creature's eye. The air ruptured with the heavy thump of thunder as it struck the blade and fried the brain and nervous system of the Pride Demon. The beast uncontrollably convulsed for a few moments, foam spewing from it's mouth, before it went limp and fell to its knees. Smoke rose from the husk of the demon as it's glazed eyes rolled to the back of it's head. It fell forward, issuing forth a tremor as it landed and nearly causing Aurora to topple from the force. But the creature lay dead, and the battle was won. Which left one more issue to be addressed. Aurora ran to the Tranquil, already working on her next spell. A Healing Spell.

"Where does it hurt?" She asked between pants.

Only when the Pride Demon had toppled did Sparrow regain her senses, shaking her head as if she'd suddenly awoken from a particularly nasty dream. The Fade seemed more prevalent, thrown across her shoulders like a cold bucket of water. It was strange how she hadn't relied on her magic this time around – as if it weren't so important, though she knew she would've been better off using both her physical prowess, and her array of spells. Sparrow scrutinized the sizzling demon at her feet, splayed across the ground with it's tongue lolling out. Her gaze didn't linger long. She found herself looking back over her shoulder at the smaller, unassuming magelet, Aurora. Underestimating her would surely be someone's downfall if they so chose to judge her weak, for she was anything but. There was a cleverness there, more akin to her wayward companion, Rilien. “You're strong, you are.” She mouthed softly, more to herself than anyone else, though she'd stated it loud enough for both of her companions to hear. Her smile soon faded, replaced with an expression of singular concern. She nearly dropped her mace, though it only slid in her palm, dragging against the ground as she half-jogged, half-ran towards her companions.

The flecks of blood. The wetness against her cheek, her forehead. She quickly swiped her fingers across her face, eyeballing the sticky smears on her fingertips. His blood. How hadn't she noticed? Her mouth hardened. Any childish thought that her friend was invincible, or beyond any afflictions, was quickly swept away, hidden under a metaphorical rug. She was pleased. For her, it would be easier if the nosey, troublesome Tranquil was injured, less likely to present any offers to distract her husk, her vessel. “You're bleeding?” She queried stupidly, resisting the urge to swipe away the blood from his chin. When Aurora enquired about his injuries, and where exactly did it hurt, Sparrow sat back on her heels, resolutely focused on Rilien's feet. It hadn't even occurred to her to stop and help him – all that mattered, at the time, was destroying her opponent.

Rilien blinked slowly, then moved off to retrieve his second knife from the Pride demon's hand. With a sharp gesture, he cleared it of most of the blood and grime, then resheathed both, returning to his companions, both of whom were regarding him with some concern, which he took to be sentimental and rather unnecessary. All the same, he lifted a hand and prodded carefully at his ribcage through his leathers. "The second and fourth ribs on my right side are broken, and the third on the left is shattered," he reported blandly. Before he could say anything else, he was forced to turn on his heel, a wracking cough spattering a significant quantity of blood onto the ground beside the fallen corpse. Pausing to catch his breath, the Tranquil dabbed at his bloody lips and chin with one long, flowing sleeve.

"It would appear that one of them managed to puncture or abrade my left lung," he concluded. He was more concerned with the shadow of a person they had seen disappearing deeper into the foundry, but realistically, he knew there would be little chance of being effective against the mage that had summoned this demon unless he could move about properly, and so he would simply have to spend the time. More properly, he supposed Aurora would, as he had never seen Sparrow to use a lick of healing magic. He'd never been terribly interested, either, in his prior life. An odd shrugging motion produced several vials of liquid from his sleeve, one of which he immediately held out to Sparrow, who'd also taken something of a fall. One, he left aside for Aurora, as her injuries were not as severe as his own and could probably be attended to afterwards, and one, he drank himself, to assist her healing process.

Truthfully, he was not fond of having magic worked upon him, as it tended to draw the Fade into close proximity. In this case, that meant the pain was going to get much worse before it got better, and admittedly the potion was partially an attempt to mitigate that somewhat. If the situation were any less dire, he probably would not have allowed the assistance. As it was, he still could not say Aurora had the full measure of his trust, but he was willing to allow her this much, which was startlingly-fast acceptance for him. If Ashton had been a mage, Rilien would have put off any such attempt. Logic had its own rules, however, and he did make an attempt to conform to them. Loosening his muscles, he half-closed his eyes and set his jaw into place, as close to a signal as the mage with the healing spells was ever going to get from him.

Aurora felt the caress of the Fade once more, though this time not for a bolt of lightning or a dusting of frost. Rather, she dug into the little used area of herself that held the power to knit flesh and bone. It had been a while since she had performed a healing spell on something so severe. Recently, it'd only been used for a stubbed toe or a mere flesh wound. As she rooted around, grasping for that knowledge, the rock armor she had summoned around herself cracked and crumbled around her, the hardened defenses no longer needed. It freed up a bit of reserves to better cast the magics.

The way she healed wasn't the same as Nostariel's, hers required a bit more effort and time. A mage, her mentor, in the Antivan Circle once likened her skill "Rapid natural healing". In essence, she used the body's natural drive to heal itself and enticing the process to do it faster. It fit in with her own inclinations to use the magics of the natural world like ice and lightning, only this time it applied to the body. She lightly placed her hands on the left side of his ribcage, targetting the most damaged rib first. Her hands began to a light bright green aura enveloped her hands as she set about willing the rib back together.

Aurora had never had to fix a rib in this manner before, so she didn't know what it felt like. Her guess was a ticklish, itchy feeling sparces by brief pinches of pain. That's the way her toes always felt when she stubbed them-- minus the pinches of pain. That was an educated guess. Knitting bone couldn't be comfortable. At least with this he could breathe. Such as it went for the next couple of ribs, and then finally stitching the lung back together. She stopped and took a step back. Drained was the word, she felt drained. Never before had she needed to call upon her healing arts so intensively, and the lack of practise left her winded. Even then, she believed that Rilien was still tender.

"Let's... See if the mage is still here, yes?" She said, hints of her Antivan accent slipping between pants.

There was an uncomfortable grinding sound as Rilein's bones rearranged themselves, trying to fit back into place to accord with the will of the mage. This was considerably more difficult with the shattered one on his left side, and Aurora's estimation of the amount of pain this caused was quite considerably under-done, especially since the presence of magic so near to him was disturbing his Tranquility. It didn't amplify the sensations themselves, but it did make them harder to ignore. A muscle in Rilien's jaw jumped as he clenched his jaw, still stubbornly refusing to make his discomfort evident.

With time, she finished, and he repeated the process of checking his ribcage, satisfied that though they were considerably weaker than normal, they were now simply bruised rather than broken. Since the block was sliding over his emotions again, it was nearly completely inconsequential to him. Turning the last vial about in his fingers a few times, he offered it to Aurora. The liquid inside was blue rather than red, with a strange pearlescent quality to it that marked its potency for those who knew to look. "My thanks," he said simply. Rilien did not leave debts unpaid, and this time would be no different.

After that, he shot Sparrow a glance, double-checking that she was in passable condition, then headed up the stairs to where they'd seen the mage disappear. As he'd suspected, there was nobody still present and visible, and a slightly-ajar door leading out a back exit explained that well enough. What he did find, however, was far from nothing.

It didn't take too much guessing to figure out what was in the smallish sack, judging from the way it was seeping blood. Rilien sniffed the air quietly. Oh yes, that was most certainly blood, and though his nose could do no such thing as differentiate between species, logic provided him the conclusion that it was probably human. Withdrawing a much smaller knife from his boot, the Tranquil knelt beside the sack and deftly cut the twine holding it closed. The bag fell away, and his eyes narrowed as he stowed the knife again.

Inside the burlap lay a severed human hand amid several older-looking bones, an ornate-looking ring still attached to one finger. From the make of it, he'd hazard that it was from the same location he was; Monrenny was famous for producing fine jewelry from the nearby diamond mines. He did not move to touch the hand or the ring, instead rising to his feet and folding his hands into his sleeves. "Mharen was unmarried. It would seem this belonged to Ninette."

He was so methodical, so precise, when numbering off his injuries, that Sparrow winced, lowering her head as if to examine the offending ribs. As if they were laid open, spread open like puzzle pieces. She very nearly sprang forward, hands extended, when Rilien coughed off to the side, flecking the dirt with bloody constellations. Her knuckles dug into the ground, halting her forward momentum.Again, Sparrow needed to remind herself that even though he couldn't feel distraught, or upset, over his bodily nuisances, that he could still feel pain all the same, right? She wasn't so sure. It did nothing to dampen the worry blossoming in her chest, spilling over like an overflowing sieve. He was just a man made up of cells and muscle tissue and nerves wrapped around bones – broken bones, shattered bones, cracked bones. This Tranquil didn't need any emotional balms, or comforting words, needn't be asked whether or not he was okay, because his responses would come out levelled, assured. He didn't need to be glued back together.

Sparrow followed Rilien's gaze, settling where they'd last seen the mage, robes a'flapping. It was typical that he wanted to give chase, follow the man until they solved this increasingly challenging mission. It suddenly struck her as strange, and perhaps a little more to Aurora, then to herself, that she wasn't making any movement to offer any healing spells. She may have been a mage, too, but she could never heal. She'd tried before—everything between closing a paper cut to trying to mend a blistered sunburn. Instead, Sparrow was anything but a healer: she was a devastating killer, she could make things freeze and burn, or harden her defences so that her opponents' swords rang off as if they'd struck a brick wall, much like the one her companion had ricocheted off. She was a barbaric warrior, a wily thief, a woman, a man. An apostate, on all accounts. She accepted the proffered vial of whatever-it-was-that-Rilien-created and gulped it down. How many times had Rilien created some sort of potion, or vile concoction, that had helped her survive in Darktown, in the less pleasant parts of Kirkwall? Far too many times. How many times could he have poisoned her, done off with an inconsequential nuisance? Far too many times.

She watched as Aurora's hand gleamed anew, pressing with a light tenderness she could only admire. An accomplished herbalist, and a noteworthy healer. She'd only prove useful when it came to breaking things, not setting things back together. Sparrow settled her hand on Aurora's back, thinking she were about to topple over, then dropped it as soon as it was apparent that she was fine, if not a little tired. It appeared as if she were about to say something. Forming her own words of thanks seemed appropriate, on both their behalves, but she concerted with a sly grin. “You're amazing. You know that, right?” She glanced sidelong at her companion, flitting gaze meeting her own, before pushing herself to her feet, hands planted on her knees. They weren't finished yet, so they'd continue on their way. Neither Rilien, nor Sparrow, were particularly inclined to leaving anything unfinished. It was an unspoken acquisition between them. More likely than not, and without even truly knowing for sure, Sparrow felt that Aurora shared the same dedication. There was a certain goodness in her that she hadn't encountered in a long time.

Aurora looked at Sparrow gratefully before shrugging skeptically to her compliment. "Not that amazing, there are others who could do so much more than me," she stated, gaze lingering on Sparrow. The warrior-mage was bold, bolder than she was. To streak straight for the demon without a moment's hesitation, gleaming bravery the entire way. And to top it all off, he was a mage too, yet, he seemed unfettered by that fact. While her true identity hung over her head like a dark cloud, Sparrow accepted his strength seemingly with the same boldness and bravery exhibited. No, there were others more amazing than she was. It was sweet serendipity though that she had the chance to meet them.

Following closely behind, nearly double-hopping the steps, Sparrow let out a puff of disappointment. The likelihood of the caped gentleman sticking around to meet them face-on had been next to nothing. But even still, she couldn't help but feel as if they'd just missed him by a hair's breath. She'd almost stepped on the bloody sack Rilien had been scrutinizing, drawn towards the exit-door, which had been thrown wide open. It was Rilien's kneeling, in close proximity, reaching underneath her foot, held aloft, that caused her to move backwards. Her nose crinkled. “Uh—gross. What was that mage doing with those?” When Rilien rose to his feet, unmoved by such disgusting things, all gathered up in a neat pile, Sparrow took his place and stooped down to inspect the slim fingers. A soft sigh escaped her lips, “I was hoping she'd escaped. Not this. We'll have to report back, in any case.”

Upon finding the hand, Aurora did neither what the Tranquil nor what Sparrow did, inspecting it and acting nonchalant about the whole thing. It was to be expected from the Tranquil of course, but still seeing the way he acted when faced with the bloody stump was disconcerting. However, for her part, Aurora gasped loudly and took a step back. A hand was not was what she was expecting. Truth be told, the ever smiling optimist in her believed that she would find Ninette alive and no worse for wear at the end of the excursion. Instead, she was reminded of the harsh reality of the world. There were no fairy-tale endings, and the truth of the world was a bloody thing. She quickly averted her gaze and began to study a loose brick on the wall.

"We-we should go... We should bring the news to... Ghyslain," she stammered, still shaken up.

"...Indeed," the Tranquil replied, stooping to slip the ring from the clammy finger it rested upon. He took perhaps more care with the action than would be expected of one so unmoved, and he couldn't exactly say why he'd even bothered in the first place. He reasoned that the article would help them confirm that the hand belonged to Ninette, and that was the sole motive for his retrieval of it. Sentiment fit ill upon him, like a cloak made for a man much smaller. Or perhaps, one much broader, who wore his armor like it weighed nothing and spoke always of honor and dignity.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon

Earnings

0.00 INK

Lucien sighed heavily, slinging his scythe over his back and gripping his left shoulder in his right hand. That bruise was going to smart tomorrow, but there was little to be done about that. It was, he supposed, the proper price to pay for a moment of carelessness. That he still lapsed often enough for things like this to happen to him did not sit well with the perfectionistic ex-knight. There may come a time in the future when such an error in judgment could mean someone else’s life. If he were the only one who had to bear the burdens of his failures, than he would not dread their inevitability half as much.

Rotating the offending shoulder in its socket, he made his way from the hovel where the gang had been holed up. A woman staying at the Hanged Man had apparently decided he was exactly the thing to set on these street thugs, and he’d cleared out three different ratholes already, one belonging to the Sharpers, one to some unnamed association of smugglers, and this last, in Darktown. With the coin on offer, he’d have thought that they’d be able to find more people to take care of this sort of thing, but if they had, he’d not met them, and he might as well be alone in it. Ah well, a more lucrative livelihood for himself then, not that he required much.

They never did surrender peacefully, either. Dropping his arm, Lucien made his way up the cracked staircase, intent on heading home for a quiet evening, perhaps to finally write back to his father. He’d received the last communication a week ago, and the messenger falcon was clearly tired of being in his house. Not that he could blame it- the roosts at his family’s castle were much better equipped for the well-being of hunting and courier birds than a clean but small home around the corner from the Alienage.

Speaking of couriers, he spotted a man up ahead, moving with purpose. The package under his arm said delivery or something similar, and were it just about anyone else, Lucien would have paid him no more mind. It wasn’t anyone else, though, and he knew that bone-white coif anywhere, even if it was significantly shorter than he’d seen it last. Not even Orlais made many people that looked quite as unique as that particular elf.

“…Ril?” he asked speculatively, hastening his steps to approach the former bard and his own erstwhile companion. “Is that really you?” He’d had no idea where his comrade had gone after they parted ways in Denerim, and the idea that he’d somehow also wound up in Kirkwall was both fantastical and probably what Lucien should have expected. Chance had a funny way of playing with their lives like that. A smile cracked the Chevalier’s countenance, and he wondered if the Tranquil still remembered those days as acutely as he did.

Certainly, it must be so; he’d never known the man to forget any detail, no matter how trivial.

Rilien, having just returned from the docks with his last shipment of glassware in hand, was making haste back to his shop for further experimentation with some unusual substances he’d picked up in a journey to Sundermont (keeping well clear of the Dalish encampment, of course), when his steady pace was interrupted by the baritone notes of a familiar voice. The elf halted midstep, his head snapping in the appropriate direction. He knew exactly to whom that call belonged, and not just because nobody else addressed him as ‘Ril,’ either. What drew his brows together faintly was the fact that he was hearing Lucien Drakon speaking to him in Kirkwall.

But there he was, and apparently changed little in the three years since Rilien had last seen him. “Ser Lucien,” he intoned evenly, dipping his head. Upon rising, he tried to determine if the similarity was indeed universally so, and he decided upon further inspection that the man seemed less… angry than he had been then. Not that he’d ever been particularly enraged, but there was a certain bitterness that seemed to have fled him entirely, if Rilien’s limited observations were anything to go by. That stiffness to his posture, the hart glint behind the eyes, these things were mostly gone now. Of course, much of what he remembered still held, including the rough wooden haft of the peculiar weapon the Orlesian noble carried.

“I see you are still using the absurd farming implement to do a blade’s work.” That had been something Rilien never came to understand about the former Chevalier. He willingly sacrificed an advantage in battle for the sake of some abstract sense of honor to which it seemed none were capable of or willing to adhere save himself. In other words, he risked his life because he was too prideful to use his well-honed abilities to the fullest. It was illogical, and on occasion, produced in the Tranquil something akin to the feeling he got when Sparrow did something particularly foolhardy. Only at least he could make sense of Sparrow’s motives, for the most part.

The knight was by some odd turn inscrutable to logic alone, and it had always left the elf mildly flat-footed in his company. Nevertheless, there was no mistaking what he owed him, and Rilien always paid his debts in full. It helped that the youngest Drakon had no particular desire to call upon those debts, to restrict the freedom of the once-shackled Bard. Chained to a Circle, and then chained to a Bardmaster, but apparently never to be chained to the Chevalier who had freed him from the latter. It produced the closest thing to gratitude that the Tranquil had ever known, before or after his Rite.

It was ever-so-predictable, the response he recieved. Nothing more than a pause, a blink, and a name, given in return, only with less inflection. He had not, of course, expected to surpsise the Tranquil, but over a good year an a half of being in scarcely any other company, he had come to understand that Rilien was... different. Not just from other people, but from other Tranquil people. Occasionally, there was a little something, a tightening of the jaw, a narrowing of the eyes, that gave him away. Surely, Lucien had always believed, a man with such a keen mind could not be entirely without judgment on those things which he observed. The elf had always been silent on the matter, save once, and that simple answer had been all Lucien needed.

The fact that after everything, he still adhered to the formality and addressed him as 'Ser' was as much a frustration now as it had been then, but unlike then, Lucien offered no comment. Trying to make Ril change his habits was much like trying to push water uphill- a futile endeavor and one whose result wasn't much worth the effort even if it was achieveable. Though there were many things upon which they disagreed, and Lucien wasn't quite sure that Rilien was the kind of soul to whom such banal words as 'good' and 'bad' even applied, he nevertheless could not fault what he was at his core, and wouldn't much want to change it. More than once, the voice of reason that seemed to be he ex-Bard's inherent state of being had saved not only his own life, but also many others. Lucien was not a pragmatist, but even he could see the value in that.

The jab (and he knew it to be more than a simple observation; what Rilien chose to say was often much more important than how it was delivered), had him shaking his head. Unchanged, indeed. He doubted that the weight of the world would change Ril. So very different were they in this. "So it is," he replied with a half-cocked grin. They'd spent some days bickering on this subject before Rilien seemed to decide that there really was no logical justification for it, and therefore no logical argument would change it. Even thinking of it brought a peculiar mood over the Chevalier, as though he were in some sense out there in the countryside once more, felling bandits and Darkspawn with equal fervor, the quick, illusory flicker of an elf beside him, uncaring of the carnage he caused. It had been disturbing, at first, but he'd come to see the reasons behind it.

"How is it that you wound up in Kirkwall, my friend?"

"The usual way," Rilien replied. "I took a boat." That was, he was sure, not the answer Lucien was looking for, but it was enough of one. His passage had been booked almost as soon as the two had last parted ways, and he'd caught a passenger vessel seeking to retireve some Fereldan refugees from Kirkwall. Most unusually, none had batted an eyelash at the presence of an Orleisian elf aboard the boat, but he suspected that this had something to do with the fact that he'd used the Drakon family seal to ensure his passage. Well, something close enough to the Drakon family seal anyway. He'd discovered that anything suitably ornate passed for "Orlesian" in Ferelden, and the same was more or less true of the Free Marches.

He was certain Lucien had a perhaps more interesting tale to tell, but this was hardly the place for the conversation. Standing in the middle of the street in Darktown was asking to be eavesdropped upon, if not outright attacked. Chances were good that most would take one good look at his companion and think better of it, but Rilien found it easier to just avoid taking the chance. "I am returning to my shop now, if you wish to speak indoors." It was not an invitation he would have extended to most people, but as he'd learned in the most dangerous of ways, Lucien Drakon was not 'most people.' He wasn't even 'most Chevaliers,' when it came to that.

The deadpan response, so completely without any joking inflection, drew a laugh from Lucien anyway. What he chose to say, indeed. He could almost, almost imagine the kind of person Rilien had been before the Chantry stole his soul, his fire. A right hellion, probably, bent on the witty metaphorical eviseration of people of lesser intellect, and probably a showman about it, if what remained of a fastidious, nearly-flashy taste in clothing was anything to go by. It would have been something to see, he was certain, and part of him was angry at the injustice of it all. He'd heard the (obviously abbreviated) version of the story, and it only served to further reinforce his notions that power corrupted, and absolute power corrupted absolutely. What the religious would think of that sentiment, he didn't really want to consider. He kept it to himself, for the most part, and kept the peace by doing so.

The Tranquil extended a most unexpected invitation, but Lucien just shook his head. "I'll not force you to entertain me, Ril. Just... don't be such a stranger. I live in Lowtown, if you're ever inclined to visit, and I suppose I'm normally at the Hanged Man if I'm not there or working. If you ever need anything, don't trouble yourself about debts or any of that nonsense." His insistence would not make it so, he knew, but... the thought of a personal friend of his living in a place like this did not sit well with him. Well, the thought of anyone living here was rather repulsive, but Rilien certainly didn't deserve it, and somehow, Lucien felt remiss for not having discovered this earlier.

Either way, he hoped that the Tranquil was making a living for himself without too much difficulty, and that he'd allow the former Chevalier to assist if anything too bad came up.

You didn't survive hell with a man to leave him cold. At least not if you had a shred of honor left in your soul.

"Very well," Rilien demurred, though he left it open to interpretation whether he was respondng to Lucien's polite refusal or his offer. It was better that way; if he was intentionally vague, he knew that the knight correctly interpret that as a reluctance to discuss the matter further. Because of his own prevailing sense of chivalry, he wouldn't press the point, either, which was precisely what the Tranquil preferred. It wasn't exactly impossible to successfully lie to Lucien, but the man had a perceptiveness about him that was not immediately evident from his appearance. As the Bard had been taught to lie, the Chevalier had been taught to detect the truth of things. That was hardly unusual in the region of their birth.

He watched for a few moments as the other man left, before shaking his head minutely and resuming his own walk. He spared but one last passing thought for the encounter before his mind was once again on his business. It was one he had with alarming frequency where the exiled nobleman was concerned: peculiar fellow.

The irony was not lost on him.

Lucien sighed through his nose and shook his head ruefully, alighting upon the stairs to Lowtown. It appeared that the Tranquil was as immovable as ever. Then again, there was something about that which could be considered quite admirable. No matter what he was faced with, Ril remained much the same. It was something Lucien strove for with far less perfection. Still, he wished the bloody bard would be willing to accept some help here and there. It wasn't like it would kill him.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

A week from the Bone Pit episode saw Amalia returning to the site for the last time. It was often stressed in the Qun that waste was to be avoided, and she'd clearly taken the sentiment to heart. The hide had been removed in strips, followed by the meat and bones, the blood collected to the extent she was able to save it from sinking into the ground. The bones and teeth would prove most useful, she was sure, and even the majority of the organs were preserved and currently stored away on shelves in her home. It might, perhaps, have struck some as macabre, but there was no need to see it this way, at least not as far as she was concerned, and besides that, the effort was already paying off.

She was presently in her workshop, putting the finishing touches on the result of an idea that had struck her some months ago. The mechanism had been sorted, but it had been difficult finding a material strong enough to endure repeated triggering, and still allow for clean retraction. As it turned out, a small portion of the hide worked perfectly, and the tests had indicated that he wouldn't even have to give up a finger for proper use, which meant that it would also serve others well. What she was willing to sacrifice was not always congruous with what others were. That much, she knew quite well. Nodding to herself, the Qunari woman slid the gloves from her hands and plucked a sheaf of packaging paper from the counter beside her. Efficient movement wrapped the invention in a plain brown shell, well away from the prying eyes of city guards, merchants, and those who did not deserve to understand what she now did.

Informing her viddethari that she'd probably be out for a good portion of the day, Amalia shut the door with care behind her and padded out of the Alienage. She'd mostly dispensed with the need for disguises, aware that in this place, conflict was much closer than a careful few hours of preparation. Still, she didn't quite wander around wearing Qunari symbols all the time, and had exchanged her previous Alienage-made dress for a set of loose robes with a sash at the waist. Much easier to hide several weapons on her person that way. She had inquired after Imekari's dwelling-place following their last lesson, and now followed the directions she'd been given with surety to her steps.

The building she eventually arrived at looked exactly like those that surrounded it, which Amalia certainly considered to be wise. Approaching the door, the Qunari shifted her light burden so that it rested against one hip, and raised her hand to knock thrice before stepping back.

Aurora had spent most of the afternoon in her house. It was strange for her to voluntarily coop herself up for such an extended period of time, though truth be told recent events were strange. She found herself laying on her bed, legs crossed, hands behind her head and staring at her ceiling as she "meditated". It really wasn't meditation, she just thought really hard about things. Sometimes her past. Sometimes the present. Very rarely even the future. Today's allotted time though had been fixed on recent events, the whole de Carrac debacle.

Particularly, she thought about her companions for that little quest. A warrior-mage and a Tranquil. An unlikely pairing hardly-- if ever-- seen. She found herself wondering at the circumstances behind Rilien's Rite of Tranquility. He was obviously a bard if his bardsong had been any indication. Bards were known for being spies and inflitrators in Orlais, and the way he handled a blade told that he was trained, though. That led to the question on whether or not the Tranquility was a political thing, if he was an unruly apprentice, or if it was by choice. She had to figure it wasn't a matter of choice. For the short amount of time she had known him, she just didn't feel like he would be the one who would voluntarily consent to the Rite of Tranquilty. Whatever the reasoning, she felt pity for the man. Having one's emotions, and essentially their soul ripped from your mind and body couldn't be a pleasant thing.

Sparrow on the other hand, he had enough life and vigor for the both of them. No questions, no hesitation, he wore his emotions on his sleeve. Aurora found herself liking Sparrow. She doubted the man's name was his given name, though she didn't mind. There was no room for her to talk, as she had given two aliases since she met them, one to a Templar, and the one she used in Kirkwall. It just meant he was hiding something-- which was perfectly fine. Everyone had something to hide, and it was up to them to go about how they hid it. She in particular had a staff under her bed, wrapped in a number of sheets, from her days in the Antivan circle.

Before she had time to further examine what went on in the various recesses in her mind, there came three nocks at her door. She never gotten house guests before-- and she worked hard to make sure of that. It surprised her enough for her to bounce on her bed, almost shocking her into the floor. She did manage to get to her feet without mishap though. She hesitated for a bit before creeping to her door. Anyone could have been on the other side. She found herself hoping against hope that whoever it was, they weren't affiliated with the Chantry in any shape. She opened her door into a hairline crack and felt relief wash over her as it was only Amalia. That was soon replaced by curiousity. Amalia didn't seem like the kind of person to make housecalls to just see how she was doing.

She opened the door wider and welcomed her cheerfully. "Hello!" No one could fault her for being a bad hostess. "Amalia! What brings you to my quaint little... Hovel. I'd invite you in for tea... But I haven't tasted tea myself for ages. I guess I'll just invite you in," she said with a smile.

Amalia waited patiently for Aurora to cease speaking. There was a question in there somewhere, one that the Qunari would have answered, but it was soon overridden by further speech, and so the Ben-Hassrath just blinked her odd eyes and waited. The mention of tea brough several things to mind, but none of them were important, and so she banished them with an effortless exrcise of mental discipline, focusing instead on the interior of Imekari's dwelling-place. At least a dozen potential breach-points, more than half of which the average assassin could use for stealthy entry. She could use any of them. This was not, she knew, any fault of the girl's, but a fact about the lackadasical way humans built their infrastructure. It still bore rectification, and she would have to approach the matter soon.

Perhaps now was not the time, though. She had come here with a purpose, and lingering longer than was required to fulfil it seemed... unnecessary. Admittedly, Amalia felt a bit like she was intruding, and though her discomfort was not obvious on her face, it was perhaps evident enough from the way she stood in the entranceway, only moving further into the residence when it became clear that she was blocking the owner's path.

"In answer to your original question," she said, looking around and picking a wall to lean against, the package still propped on one robed hip, "I came to give you this." With a deft movement, she presented the parcel in one splay-fingered hand, holding it out to her young student with no further fanfare than that. What was under the wrapping appeared to be a bracer, designed oddly-well for Aurora's forearm, an indication that it had been crafted specifically for her. The thing was surprisingly lightweight, and made primarily of the skin of the dragon Amalia had helped slay some time before, with leather where necessary for flexibility and fit. Clearly, the thing was crafted to withstand serious damage, the scales at least as good as steel plating would have been, but much easier to wear.

There was more to it than this, but Amalia would stay her explanation until it was opened at the very least.

Aurora took the parcel with tentative fingers, turning it over in her hands as she examined the brown paper concealing it's contents. "A... Gift? For what occasion?" she asked reflexively. Then she thought such questions would misconstrued as rude, so she gave a little smile and opened the package. Beneath the layer of brown paper was a bracer, though not a bracer like any other. She was awestruck at the craftsmenship displayed in such a peice and merely beheld it moment with mouth agape. She turned it over again, and looked up at Amalia, "Where... Did you get this? You didn't buy it did you?" she asked with guilt in her voice. Such a piece had to be extremely expensive, and she couldn't stand the though of Amalia spending that much on her.

Still, she carefully slipped it over her wrist, still adoring the workmanship. The weight was perfect, the fit was perfect, it was like it was designed specifically for her. She tapped the exterior of it, and it produced a series of metallic-like clinks. Surely that would be much better the block a slaver's sword with than only the flesh on her arms. She looked back up to Amalia for the third time and shook her head, "I can't accept this. This is too fine. I've done nothing to deserve such a gift," she stated.

"It was not purchased; it was made." The Qunari pulled back one of the loose grey sleeves of her plain robe, exposing a matching gauntlet. It was similar in design to Aurora's bracer, save that the scales had also been finely-worked to cover Amalia's fingers. She'd thought to do the same for Imekari's, but it had struck her that with the magic her pupil worked, it might be more beneficial for the hands to remain bare. At the refusal, though, the taller of the two women tilted her head to one side, allowing a faint hint of her puzzlement to show through. This was something she did not quite understand, and she shook her head faintly.

"What anyone does and does not deserve is not at issue here, and it was made for you. Nobody else would make appropriate use of something so specific. It will not fit me, and the one other person I might offer it to has no need of it. You have need. It is yours." As if to puncutate her point, Amalia moved her arm sharply, causing a soft click as a tempered steel blade slid from the underside of the gauntlet, extending a good foot in front of her wrist. "Attached to the arm as it is, it requires little strength. There are places where it may be unsafe to use magic, are there not? With this, you will never be without a defense, and that was my intention. The material cost of the item is irrelevant- but if it satisfies you, I skinned the dragon myself, and therefore it cost me nothing but time and labor."

When Amalia revealed her own gauntlet, Aurora's eyes danced between the similiar instruments. The only difference being the uncovered hand on hers and the fit, but otherwise they were identical. That meant the craftsmanship she had been admiring had been Amalia's own. Aurora's regard and respect towards the Qunari woman grew even more as she nodded, struck speechless, as she continued to speak about need and use. She had a point that Aurora could not counter, and to try would only end in failure. Instead Aurora only accepted the gift. The sudden snap of Amalia's wrist and the extension of the hidden blade caused Aurora to twitch in surprise. Again, her eyes danced between the sibling bracers and on the third pass, she too flicked her wrist as Amalia.

Without fail, her own blade snapped erect causing another surprised twitch from the mage. She hesitated for a moment before finally finding her words. "That's... Going to take some practice," she stated matter-of-factly. Again, Amalia provided more reasons why she should except the gift. She was indeed restricted to magic, which was inconvienent in a place where Templars made their home. A memory fluttered back during the bout in front of Serah Emeric, where she was rendered useless under the gaze of the Templar. With the hidden blade, she would never be defenseless again. "I... I don't know what to say Amalia. Thank you. I don't know if I'll ever be able to repay you-- Wait..." Aurora stopped. Dragon? Did Amalia just say dragon? "Skinned... The dragon. Yourself? What.. Dragon?" Aurora sputtered.

Aurora's offhand, the one not sporting the deadly dragonskin gauntlet covered her mouth in surprise. When she had managed to reign in her astonishment, she asked, "Where were you at that you could skin a dragon? What have you been doing since I last saw you?" Suddenly the battle with the Pride Demon seemed relatively minor...

Raising one arched, golden brow, Amalia let a small smile lift her mouth, and decided it was probably best to address these issues in sequential order, else Imekari lose track of the conversation entirely. Out of context, it probably did sound a little shocking, or at least the Qunari would have thought so were she less stoic and jaded. "Repayment is unncessary. It is enough that you have it and use it." She left the fact that she explicitly wished Aurora to remain alive implied rather than stating it directly. It was, perhaps, an untoward sentiment, but she was not in the business of deluding herself, and it was there all the same.

"I was at a place called the Bone Pit, looking for one of my viddethari. He had gone missing, and it was my task to find him. The mine was infested with dragons. One of them was rather large. I distracted it, and Sataareth and one other killed it. Neither of them saw need for the hide, so I made use of what others would have wasted. These are a portion of the results." It was just as well her hypothesis had been correct and the parts were useful; she'd destroyed upwards of ten knives trying to get the job done, to say nothing of the hours that had gone into the task. It would, she suspected, be paying dividends for much longer than that, especially if her plans for the bones and the rest of the skin turned out as well as these had.

"While I'm here, I should tell you that your dwelling is very insecure. If you are unsure of what modifications need to be made to rectify this, I can draw up plans." Just like that, however, she was moving on, though she suspected that there might yet be a few unanswered questions. She was content to answer them, but she would not volunteer that which she had not been asked.

As it were, there were a few questions Aurora had. "The... Bone Pit. I'll make note to avoid it. Though if you and some others went through it, it should be safe," she offered a veiled compliment. "I take it the Sataareth was Ithilian, but who was the other one?" Aurora asked.

"You presume correctly," Amalia replied. "The woman's name was Sophia. From the craftsmanship of her arms, she resides somewhere in Hightown, but I know little else. If you should meet her... be wary. I do not think she would be hostile to you, but those who reap the benefits of the status quo are its staunchest defenders, in my experience." To be entirely fair, Amalia had no real evidence that Sophia would be particularly intolerant of mages, but the warning felt like the responsible thing to give all the same, given the patterns she had come to see in the fabric of this city.

"Sophia..." Aurora said, crossing her arms careful not to inadverdantly flick her wrist. It would be ashame for Amalia to go through all the work of crafting it only for her to gut herself with it. "I'll keep that in mind, though if she's from Hightown I doubt our paths will cross," she stated. Though, strange things have happened before. At that, she began to look around her home for the insecurities that Amalia had brought up. It was a Hovel, various structural weakness didn't surprise her, though she had never thought of it before. She had tried to keep a low profile so that those who would seek to do her harm didn't have a chance to use those weaknesses. Though, she was still touched by Amalia's concern. She didn't bring it up however, as she didn't seem like the person who would enjoy such sentiment.

"I won't stop you if you want to, just don't spend too much effort on my expense. I try not to draw undue attention to myself or my home. Though if a band of Templars wanted in, I don't think that some reinforcements would stop them..." Aurora mused. Though.. The idea of a trap door leading away from her home was enticing...

"Fair enough," Amalia replied, inclining her head. She glanced around at the room once more, taking a few approximate measures, then nodded to herself. "I will see what can be done."

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon

Earnings

0.00 INK

Lowtown was anything but a safe place when the sun fell and darkness set over the city, but Sophia Dumar did not feel threatened. Muggers and thieves usually passed over armored individuals with two-handed swords sheathed across their backs. Her chainmail and light plate were becoming something of a second skin for her, each outing increasingly her comfortability wearing them. Now it was the dresses that were starting to feel unnatural. She felt awkwardly light without the weight of Vesenia behind her. Like she'd float up into the clouds or something. She actually had considered wearing the sword more often, but a quick glance in the mirror had confirmed that large swords looked rather silly when not accompanied by armor.

Her foray into Lowtown tonight was more serious than usual, however. At least, she suspected it would be. Time spent in the Chantry had alerted her to something suspicious. Despite her refusal to acknowledge the sisters as a human rumor mill, they often functioned as such, and it was through them that she overheard that one Sister Petrice would be visiting Lowtown again tonight, the Foundry district specifically, where she was supposedly to meet with a group of thugs whom she'd hired for a job. As unlikely as Sophia thought that, she decided it couldn't hurt to investigate, for Petrice's sake if no one else. She was not familiar with her personally, but many sisters were not exactly aware of the dangers that much of the city could present. It was entirely possible that she had no idea what she was getting herself into, and would possibly need protection.

Of secondary concern was the matter of what exactly Petrice would need a group of thugs for, but for the moment Sophia was intent on not doubting the integrity of the Chantry.

And so here she was, making herself somewhat scarce, overlooking the supposed meeting place from nearby, and growing slightly impatient. It wasn't as though she'd had some other pressing matter she'd put off in order to come here, but she also wasn't fond of wasted time. She'd have to have an honest word with some of the sisters if this was indeed nothing but a rumor.

Lucien, who'd been on his way home from a series of minor jobs for the Red Iron, had run into the Chantry sister in the middle of Lowtown, apparently looking around as though somewhat lost. Which he found this to be curious, verging on suspicious, he'd felt obligated to follow when she was approached from the south by a group of what appeared to be the kind of men who barely earned 'mercenary' status. Thug was probably more like it, if the body language they were exhibiting was anything to go by. He wasn't going to set that judgement in stone without more justification, but all the same, he was not- as he'd tried unsuccessfully to convince several people- a complete fool. Which brought him to where he was presently: following a priest and a bunch of rough-looking men into an alley in the foundry district.

This probably deserved a mention in a letter home, just for the sheer oddity.

He did have to resist the urge to sigh, though; if the sister wasn't up to something she shouldn't be (and he'd like to think she wasn't, really he would), she was... less-than-intelligent might be the mild way to formulate the trait. Anyone who had spent any time whatsoever out in the world knew that one did not conduct business with heavily-armed people in dark recesses without witnesses, at night. It was so obviously foolish that his wariness to deception was crawling out of his background psychology and to the forefront of his mind. Something was very wrong here, but he wouldn't be able to figure out what unless he followed for a while. Odder still was that none had yet acknowledged him- he was making no effort to conceal his presence.

Taking up a position at the choke-point of the alley, the former Chevalier crossed his arms and leaned sideways against the wall, waiting for something to happen.

Petrice was led into the alley by the leader of the thugs, a man adorned with strikingly orange, braided back hair. A half dozen of his fellows made their presences known, all armed with a variety of cheap weapons and armor. It was a choice location for an ambush. Not even the moon was hitting the area, blocked as it was behind the nearby structure of a tall foundry.

It also helped to conceal Sophia somewhat, hidden in a nearby doorway as she was. She'd become considerably more awake since the sounds of footsteps and voices reached her ears. It seemed there was something to the rumors after all. "Right this way, ma'am," one said, holding an arm out in front of the sister, who was quickly becoming surrounded by the thugs. Sophia was able to see by peeking one eye around the corner. It was enough to see the glint of a knife, coming up behind Petrice.

Sophia sprang into action, darting out into the open, Vesenia coming free with a telltale ring that announced her presence to all, as if the thuds of her boots hadn't already done that. It was enough to make the thug about to stab Petrice hesitate, and give Sophia the window she needed to interrupt it all. With a deft flick of both hands she smacked the blade away from the sister, following up with a pommel strike to the nose, bloodying the man and pushing him back. Petrice was startled, but responded well when Sophia gently moved her with a gloved hand.

"Stay behind me," Sophia suggested, reforming her grip on the pommel. The seven thugs appeared unintimidated by the threat of a single woman, and moved to surround her. She responded by pushing backwards towards the wall, hoping to at least reduce the angle she could be attacked from three-sixty to one-eighty. The leader among them paused the group for a moment when he spoke. "Easy there, lass. You don't need to be throwing your life away tonight. Walk away now, and we'll pretend this never happened."

"I extend you the same offer," she responded. Truth be told, she wasn't sure if she was capable of seven-on-one. While they chuckled at her boldness, she considered explaining who she was, but decided that would be just as likely to make them want to kill her as it was to make them want to back down. There was no more time for thought, however, as the first pair of them moved forward to attack.

The first swing was intercepted by a curved blade, which jerked abruptly to the side, disarming the right-hand thug, who collpased in a heap to the ground when the maneuver was followed up with a pommel strike to the side of his head. Unconscious, certainly, but not dead, by any means. The blow from his partner reverberated off Lucien's dark grey plate, apparently not at all fazing the knight, who merely blinked his exposed eye at the fellow, who took a few steps backwards in surprise. With a sigh, the young man ran a hand through his shaggy hair and shook his head. Amateurs.

"Allow me to reiterate the lady's generous offer," he said calmly, offering a nod in Sophia's direction. He hadn't expected to run into her here, but he was not at all displeased at her presence. An ally would be most welcome if this remained hostile as it was now. "I think your immediate tactical retreat would be best for everyone involved, don't you?"

Sophia had been left in the awkward position of being prepared to receive a blow that never came. The thugs jumped back momentarily to rethink the situation, now that a second, and much larger, foe had taken up arms against them. Sophia had let a small smile creep onto her face. The mercenary's rather dashing entrance had been most welcome. She moved up beside him, keeping her sword at the ready. With Lucien here, she was quite certain they were capable of defeating them. It didn't make the act any more pleasant, however.

"Good timing," she said, settling into her stance. As much as she hoped the thugs would turn around and leave now, the leader didn't seem to be going for it. "What are you waiting for?" he shouted to his men. "There's only two of them! Surround them, kill them!" It provided the necessary encouragement for the thugs to begin the attack in earnest, three going for Lucien, three for Sophia. The leader notably remained back, allowing the pawns to go first. "Maker," Sophia grumbled, "Why must they insist?"

"I've been asking myself the same thing for years," Lucien replied mildly, but the street fighters had apparently decided that the time for words was past them.

The first swung downward with a flanged mace, a heavy weapon to wield, one that Sophia was able to sidestep easily enough before throwing her pommel into his face. She knew she wouldn't have time for anything else, as she preemptively threw a sword strike to counter the second thug's horizontal blade slash. The third took a more brute force approach, trying to beat her with pure strength rather than skill at arms, which was a sound plan. Rather than strike at her with any weapons, he lowered his shoulder and charged, catching her in the stomach and driving her backwards. Petrice had to jump out of the way just before the wall stopped Sophia. Her breath left her in a rush, and her sword was useless at this range. She responded by pushing the thug away as he was drawing his knife back, and throwing her right knee into his nose. A sharp crack told her that she'd shattered it, and the thug yelped in agreement, staggering back and clutching his face.

That left the other two, and again Sophia rushed to parry the sword-armed thug. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a mace coming for her, and had the good sense to move her head before it took a chunk out of the wall. She kicked him in the gut to force him away, before forcing the other thug's sword aside, laying a fist into his jaw. Surely these thugs would only take so much beating before they made the wise choice. Any longer, though, and it would have to come to deaths. Sophia wasn't fond of fist fights.

The first two of Lucien's opponents came at him as a team. Both were warriors, but also considerably smaller than the towering Orlesian fellow, and they correctly judged that getting close would be the best way to prevent him from swinging around his scythe with unfortunate accuracy. Unlike Sophia, however, his back was to the open alley behind him, and so when the first man charged, bashing the Chevalier's chest with his banded wooden shield, Lucien endured the discomfort and backtracked several steps, intending to use the extra space to get a hit in.

The second man wasn't going to allow that, however, and his attempt to heft his scythe was met with a downward stroke from a one-handed axe, followed by another attempted shield-bash. At that, he frowned. It would appear that their strategy was to drive a wedge in the two-person line by backing him out into the street, and he was not having that. This time, he braced himself, using his superior strength and sense of balance to simply absorb the second hit, unmoving and refusing to stagger. It pushed a considerable amount of breath from his lungs, and if he kept it up, he'd be bruising quite badly tomorrow, but that was the least of the concerns on his mind. Using his free hand, he grabbed the rim of the shield in a firm grip, effectively holding the man in place. With a wrench, he maneuvered the fellow so that he was blocking his friend from getting a good shot in.

Forced with the choice of being entirely at Lucien's mercy or abandoning his shield, the bereaved thug wisely chose the latter, leaving the knight with a shield in one hand and his scythe still in the other. Shrugging, Lucien tossed the metal disk in the air and caught it again, sliding his arm into the straps without difficulty. It wasn't a properly-adjusted fit, and somewhere in the back of his head, his old armsmaster shook his head and muttered something suitably obscene. The thought, however, simply caused him to smile, which apparently was as good a signal as any for his foes to renew their assault. The third one had disappeared entirely, and Lucien had a bad feeling about that, but there was nothing he could do save pay attention to his surroundings.

The man still fully equipped charged first, swinging in a broad horizontal arc with his longsword, which Lucien deflected deftly with the shield. It had never been his preferred weapon arrangement, but he'd learned it as surely as the rest, and it was clear that these men had not. When the thug staggered backwards, the clang of the contact ringing in both their ears, Lucien advanced forward, adjusting his grip on his scythe and placing the top against the ground to block the axe-man's attempt at a simultaneous hit which would have gone much better if the prior one had worked. With his other arm, he gagued his strength as best he could and swung at the second man's head with the shield, successfully rendering him, too, unconscious.

It was considerable effort to swing the scythe with one hand, and he'd rather not do so if he could avoid it, but it appeared that the axe-holding brigand was not going to be so kind as to either allow him the opportunity to shift his grip or attack his shield-side, so it was with a sigh followed by a grunt of effort that he hefted the unweildy thing and swung. His weakened momentum allowed the other fellow to block fairly well, and Lucien shifted his hold on the shield so that he was simply holding the leather fastening straps in one hand. He attempted the same maneuver a second time, expecting the same result, and he was not disappointed. This time, though, he took a lesson from certain competitive tourney events in which he'd once participated and threw the shield like a discus, succssfully catching the man in the stomach. Given their proximity, it was hardly a fatal hit, but it did cause him to double over and freed the Chevalier's off-hand, which was enough. A solid hit to the temple with the flat of the scythe-blade opened up a vertical cut in the thug's cheek, but also dropped him like a stone.

Now... where was that damned rogue?

The clang and ring of battle was clear and crisp in the night air. The sounds even managed to make it to a certain redheaded maglet on her way home. Aurora was just returning from an extended lession with Amalia and some of her... Viddathari she believed the word was. Converts of the Qun. The walk home was dangerous during the night, yes, but recently Aurora felt brave. Perhaps even foolhardy. Maybe it was Amalia's lessons. Maybe it was her gift. Either way, she would make an effort not to allow these nightly strolls through Lowtown to become a common thing. She didn't want to invite trouble after all. Though being a mage, she couldn't help but feel that trouble tried it's hardest to find her.

The trouble for that night were, indeed, the sounds of the battle that drew her attention. She made her way towards the racket, which led her to an alleyway, and as she expected there was a tussle that was on going. He hid behind the corner of the building as she watched. The numbers were unfair. Somewhere around a dozen to three-- two, considering one of the women was merely being protected. She felt as if dozen were the antogonists of this, as the two warriors fought to disarm or to incapacitate while the doze looked to kill. Despite the odds thiyfg, the large, eyepatched man and his lady companions seemed to have things under hand. The large man had an unsurprising stength about him, easily waylaying two of the thugs, while the woman fended off and disarmed three of the thugs.

It was an impressive showing and she expected the thugs to give in at any time. Lowtown thugs weren't known for their bravery, and she personally managed to frighten a few off with a mere cantrip. Who wanted to actively fight a mage anyway? And who were they going to tell? The Templars? They'd have to get to them first, and these highwaymen weren't on good terms with authority figures. Back to the fight, she watched as a rogue began to slink up behind the knight. The knight seemed to be unaware as to his plight, with his back turned both on the rogue and herself. That was when the bold streak inside Aurora acted up. She slipped from the corner of the building and began to sneak up behind the rogue. Amalia hadn't only taught her about the mind, but the body as well. She had watched the Qunari woman, how she walked with grace and aclarity. When she walked, it was like she floated, not even disturbing the dirt and dust at her feet.

Aurora however, was not so graceful. Though it was good enough. The rogue had his eye on the target and was unaware as to everything else. He didn't even hear the blade extend from Aurora's bracer. It was a shocking surprise when the blade bit deep into the joint behind his knee. The knee collapsed on him immediately, yelping in pain as he knelt. He attempted to turn around to see the perpertrator, but was stopped by a bloody blade resting on his neck. "I suggest you be still if you want to limp away from this," Aurora warned. "I'm still learning how to use this. It would be a shame if it were to... slip," she added, winking to the knight.

While Lucien had been busy with the three that had attacked him, the leader of these thugs had chosen to join the battered trio going after Sophia. Or rather, she was left to assume that as she saw him disappear out of the corner of her eye, just as she smacked the flat side of her sword into the knee of the mace-armed thug, removing him from the fight when he fell. The knife armed thug, whose face was now a sheet of blood since she'd shattered his nose, came at her angry, but the Viscount's daughter was prepared this time, effectively sidestepping his hurtling punch and slicing her blade across his hamstring, taking him to the ground as well. That left the one with the sword, and the leader, dual knives hidden somewhere nearby.

She needed to make short work of the one in order to be prepared for the other, and thus she went on the offensive, quick and powerful strikes testing the thug's skill at swordplay, which was surprisingly good, but not good enough. She got him off balance with a strong horizontal slash when he'd expected vertical, battering his guard to the side. Sophia followed up with an elbow blow to the side of the head, and then a sweep of a boot, taking his legs out from under him. The finisher was a kick to the head, knocking him out cold.

The crunch of a boot on dirt behind her alerted her to the leader's attempted backstab just in time, and Sophia whirled around, throwing her guard up high. The attack, however, came much lower than expected, slipping under her plate, just above the belt, cutting across her lower abdomen. Sophia was slowed down much less than expected, however, when she immediately brought her sword down into the thug's arm, cutting until it hit bone, and garnering a loud yelp from the leader. Taking the advantage, Sophia wrenched her sword free, then stomped downwards into his knee, breaking it and causing the leader to spin into a fall, going to a knee on his remaining good leg. Before he could move further, Sophia came up behind him, lowering and leveling her sword to let an edge nearly touch the stubbled skin of his throat. He froze, grimacing at the pain, and at last acknowledging their defeat by dropping his weapons.

Sophia glanced up to see that Lucien was fine. As expected, he was, though it seemed the ruckus had drawn a third participant on their side, a smaller woman who held a thug at the point of her blade. Sophia spared her a brief nod of thanks before returning her eyes to the thug leader, not willing to give him the chance to catch her by surprise. "You're very lucky to have fought against us tonight, I hope you realize," she said, no small amount of frustration in her voice, "Few would be willing to let you live at this point. Perhaps you should take this as a sign from the Maker that continuing on like this is only going to get you killed. Do you understand my meaning?"

The thug nodded as much as he could without letting any part of him touch her sword. "Yes, milady. Quite clearly. We'll trouble you no further, we promise." Sophia loosened her grip slightly. "So long as you realize that preying on the weak in this city is what troubles me, then you may go." She removed her sword from his throat, and he immediately got to his feet as best he could. Sophia pointed to the one the other girl had captured with the tip of her blade. "Let him go, please. The threat has passed."

Sophia wiped her blade on a cloth tucked under her belt, before sheathing the sword across her back, breathing something of a sigh. That had been more eventful than she had anticipated. When her leg began to feel warm and wet, however, she remembered the wound she'd taken. A touch of her hand to her stomach brought it back red and wet. He'd managed to cut through even her light chainmail, but thankfully the wound was relatively shallow. It would need to be seen to at some point, but for now, they needed to move.

The thugs that had been capable of standing had cleared out, leaving the others unconscious in the dirt. Sophia gestured for Petrice to follow her. "Thanks for the help," she said, looking to Lucien, "that could have been bad. And thank you as well," she said, to the woman who had arrived to assist them. "I don't believe we've met. My name is Sophia Dumar."

The Chanter's Board has been updated. New quests are available.

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

Warden Nostariel,

I hope this letter finds you well. You will no doubt remember the boy Feynriel, whom you assisted in rescuing and escorting to the Dalish. I was the Templar assigned to bring the boy in. I do not seek to undo the work you have done in that regard, however, but something else entirely. Another matter involving the mages has arisen beyond the walls of the city, a situation that I fear could turn violent if it is not resolved soon. I do not believe the Order capable of ending this without bloodshed, and thus I turn to you.

Please, meet me outside of the eastern city gates at your earliest convenience, and I will lead you to them. I would recommend bringing others, but only those you trust. This is a matter most delicate.

Regards,

Ser Thrask.


Nostariel refolded the letter carefully, placing it into a pocket in her robes and sighing softly. A matter most delicate, was it? She wasn't sure she was properly euqipped for such things. She would better describe herself as a blunt instrument, to be directed to batter away at situations until something gave, but then that wasn't quite right either. Whatever she was, she needed help to do what this templar was asking her, and there was no mistaking that she would do it. That left the matter of who to go to for help. She knew several people with appropriate... skills, but not all of them were discreet.

Her first choice would have been Lucien, since he was most obviously capable of great discretion, but much to her dismay, he was nowhere to be found. She doubted very much that either Ithilian or Amalia would have any reaosn to assist her, and if Sophia was half as committed to the Chantry as she indicated, this was the kind of business it would be best if she didn't discover at all. Never mind that Nostariel would not feel comfortable asking the Viscount's daughter for a favor. Aurora was equally problematic, but for the opposite reasons. The idea of her mage friend working magic anywhere in the vicinity of templars unsettled her, and she shook her head. She wouldn't ask that of anyone.

Which was perhaps how she found herself outside a Lowtown shop she'd never been to before, glancing apprehensively at the sign swinging sideways above the door. It seemed like the right place, though she wasn't entirely confident that she should be here, asking this of him, of all people. He made her... vaguely uncomfortable, but this she was inclined to blame herself for. More than that, she had taken him to be some kind of mercenary, and there was to be no coin in this, of that she was certain. Still, what other option did she have? It was with a mild grimace and no small amount of trepidation that she pushed open the door, startling slightly at the unexpected sound of a bell tinkling. Reminding herself that this was no enemy fortress, she soothed her nerves and moved over the threshold.

It struck her that she wasn't really sure what to say, but she decided that she'd make it up as she went along. "...Excuse me? Ashton? Are you here?"

Ashton, ever the vigilant shopkeep he was, was sitting on top of his counter-- his usual seat-- sewing of all things. Deft fingers criss-crossed a cross-stitch, stitching together two pieces of fresh leather. At the sound of the bell ringing, he casually recited a memorized phrase, "Welcome to the Hunted Stag! You can't track a lower price than me!" not even taking his eyes off of the stitching at hand. When a familiar feminine voice responded, his eyes were torn from the work at hand and to the owner. Just as he thought, it was Nostariel. He opened his mouth to greet her, but somehow he managed to forget to stop stitching before talking, and a needle found it's way into his thumb.

He jerked as if a volt of electricity shot through his body at the pain, but managed to keep his composure. A hard twitch and a quiver of his smile was the only thing he was going to let Nostariel see. Inside however, was another story. Within the confines of his mind, a flurry of expletives, both common and colorful were being yelled. Had he been alone in the shop, he couldn't promise that the leather, needle, thread, and all wouldn't be flying towards the opposite corner of the shop in a fit of rage. As it stood, Ashton just smiled at Nostariel awkwardly and silently as the pain began to subside. Once he was sure he could speak without cussing, he finally did so, though there was an edge to his voice.

"Well. If it isn't pretty little Nostariel. What can I do for you milady? Can I interest you in any of my fine wares? Though, I doubt that's what you're after," Ashton admitted with a wink. She didn't seem like the type to want to wear his crude fabrications of leather, nor did she seem like the kind who bought venison from a run-down shop such as his. Hm. At this Ashton tilted his head, "If that's the case, what brings you to my humble little shop?" He asked, finally giving her time to answer.

Nostariel wasn't exactly sure why he was looking at her like that, face vaguely strained in its effort to maintain a smile. His hand twtiched, though, which naturally drew her attention, and she noted with something approaching amusement the small bead of blood welling from his thumb. "You can take a blade to the side or an arrow to the shoulder, but that still smarts, doesn't it?" she asked quietly, offering a half-smile and waving a hand nonchalantly. The faintest trickle of healing magic enveloped the tiny wound, easing the pain and closing up the small puncture. She hadn't missed his questions, though, and internally breathed a sigh of relief.

It was nice that he was so direct, else she'd have doubtless made a fool of herself trying to wade through small talk. Once upon a time, she'd thought nothing of idle conversations, and in fact was well-practiced at them, at least with one person in particular, but her life had sealed her lips together, in a sense, muting her voice and stilling her tongue. Now, when she spoke at all, it was of things either useful or otherwise important, as she was sure most of the people she knew could attest. She wasn't always... clear about it, nor transparent in her demeanor, but she certainly couldn't manage much in the way of pleasantry anymore.

Which was why, though she sensed she should glance around the shop and offer some sort of comment on the merchandise within, she didn't. "Er... actually, no. Sorry. I came to ask for your help, really. I- well, perhaps it's best if you just read this." Reaching into her pocket, she withdrew the folded leteer on its heavy vellum and handed it over, allowing Ashton a moment to peruse its contents before she explained further. "There are... precious few people I can turn to about this, and unfortunately, about half of them are presently... unavailable. I was hoping I might be able to impose? I can't offer much in the way of coin, but I do bring in a stipend for my posting here. Next week's is yours, if you would like it."

Ashton sat the leather to the side and crossed his legs as he listened to what little Nostariel had to say. Though, it was scant little, just a favor to read a letter. He accepted it and turned his nose down as he read it, nodding along with the contents. The contents that sounded extremely interesting and in a way-- fun. "Hm. Mages? There seems to be a lot of issues involving mages recently. No offense of course. You're among my top favorite mages," one of which was of course Sparrow. And perhaps Rilien. Did Rilien count as a mage? He was a mage once. Hm. Perhaps a question for the white haired elf himself. Ashton also noted the recent surge of mage activity, remembering his own experiences with Sparrow and Rilien, along with the past event alluded to in the letter.

He craned his neck to glance at the unfinished leather good and then back to the paper. Ah. Decisions, decisions. He could either suffer and toil in his shop. Or agree to help the little dove in front of him and do the world a little bit of good. To be fair, it wasn't a difficult decision. He handed the little back to Nostariel with a little flourish, handing it to her in his upraised palm, and then hopped of the counter. "Give me a minute and let me get my things. The fellow who commissioned the jacket can wait a little bit longer, don't you say?" Ashton asked as he made his way around the counter to grab his bow and quiver. As he did, he continued to speak, "As for the payment, don't worry your pretty little head over it. I won't take money from you," he said, peaking his head from over the counter, "The only payment I require is a smile," he finished, standing with his bow and quiver in hand.

Nostariel found that, as she had come to expect with Ashton in their very breif acquaintance, her conversational input was only minimally necessary. Considering her own reticence, this worked out quite well for her, and she simply nodded along, considerably relieved that he was agreeing to help, and at no expense, no less. It was still odd to her when she encountered generous people; she certainly hadn't grown up around anyone who had much means to be charitable, and the Wardens couldn't spare much of anything but their service to their cause. In a way, that was probably the ultimate form of self-sacrifice, but on the other hand it left very little in terms of time and resources for just... helping with the more-or-less mundane intricacies of everyday life. If she'd had regular duties in the Deep Roads, she might have been unable to assist, but all they'd told her was that she was to do assignments if they came in.

So far, none had, leading her to the belief that they really were just retiring her.

Ashton's words dragged her back to the present. "As much as I would like it to be just us two on this mission together, in case things go... South, perhaps we should see if a couple of my associates would like to lend their help for this worthy cause?" He'd also want to see if Rilien would still classify himself as a mage. Sparrow would hop in without hesitation, he knew. They did share the same sense of adventure, and there was no way she could say no to a pretty face like Nostariel's. Rilien... Well, they could drag Rilien along. He raised his eyebrow as he awaited her answer.

She wasn't surprised that he had people one would call 'associates.' She wondered if that was what they were now, come to think of it. She doubted very much that Ithilian or Amalia were her associates in this sense, but it seemed plausible to think that Aurora might be, and Sophia in a sense. Lucien was almost a friend, and that probably counted. The thought that she might have here one more such person was not at all unpleasant, and she found herself curious as to just what kind of people he'd give that label to. The suggestion was practical besides, and she nodded sagely. "That.. seems a good idea. If you want to lead us to them, I will follow." She didn't indicate the way out the door as a signal to go, largely because he obviously knew where it was and also because she had no wish to seem impatient or force departure before he was prepared.

"The let us be off my fair maiden," he grinned as he produced a keyring from his pocket. He led the way out of the shop, spinning the keyring on his finger before stopping and locking the door. He pocketed the keys again and began to walk off to where Rilien and Sparrow's hovel was. It was so convienent that they lived in the same place, he didn't have to spend the afternoon hunting them down separately. Though, he did hope both of them were home. And free.

"If you don't mind me asking... Who is this Feynriel kid the letter spoke of? Ashton asked trying to make small talk.

It was not lost on her that they were descending into Darktown, a place that she seldom had cause to visit, except when she was feeling cheerful enough to endure concentrated doses of sorrow without succumbing to it, which was incredibly infrequently. Still, she'd made it known that she could be found in the Tavern if anyone was in urgent need of healing. It was the best she could do without making herself even more miserable and bitter than she already was. It wasn't enough, but then it wouldn't have been no matter how much she was able to give. The problems were just that oppressive down here. In a way, reminding her of something she'd actually more or less succeeded at was the kindest thing Ashton could have done, thought she doubted he knew that.

"Feynriel's a friend, I suppose you could say." She'd been to visit him nearly weekly since his recovery, and though he was distinctly uncomfortable still among his mother's people, she sensed that her visits helped somewhat, and she was certainly convinced it was better than the Circle. "A boy who discovered his magic in the wrong city. He's with family now." She couldn't give away anything more explicit than that; though she trusted that Ashton was no Templar in disguise, it was not her secret to tell.

Some time after their entrance into Darktown, she found that Ashton had led them to a hovel, notable for the fact that it appeared to be constructed of mostly-sturdy material. It was a wonder that nobody had stolen the non-rotting pieces of wood from the facade yet, and she suspected that if the acquaintances Ashton was referring to were as skilled as he was, that might have something to do with it. To Nostariel's surprise, the door opened as they drew within ten feet of it, opening to reveal a man she dimly recognized. The memory was fuzzy (for the usual reasons, unfortunately), but she was quite certain it was associated with music that she'd found quite sublime. Since she didn't often go other places where music was to be found, she could only assume he'd played at the Hanged Man at some stage. She hadn't formed a memory of the odd coloration or sunburst brand, though, and her eyes widened near-comically. A Tranquil? Was it perhaps the case that Ashton had Chantry loyalty after all?

"Ashton." The Tranquil acknowledged in that uncanny monotone they tended to have. "Why are you here? And why did you bring a mage?" His eyes swung to Nostariel for a moment. "A Warden, at that." The last thing Rilien needed was the kind of attention that was bound to attract.

Ashton donned a mock pained expression and cooed, "Oh Rilsie, is that how you greet a friend? I am pained. I do not know how ever I shall recover from such a mortal wound!" he said clutching his heart. Just as quickly as it came though, the facade was dropped and the stupid grin returned. "Nah, just teasin'. She's a friend. She's alright. She's not your average Warden and what not-- Though just as grim-faced sometimes," he said grabbing her shoulder and squeezing. So he didn't miss the forlorn looks that she sometimes had about her, "Though the way you sniff out mages is... Disconcerting," He added with a puppy-like tilt of the head. Then again the subject was completely dropped and he hopped straight into another.

"Ah, introductions are in order. That is what people do in these situations, right?" He shrugged. Normal people perhaps. In their case, they were just a Templar shy of a bar joke, "Rilsie, this is the Warden Nostariel. Miss Nostie, this is Rilien. He's a friend, so don't let that emotionless tone fool you. Now... Who's missing," He said sarcastically and tapped a finger on his lips before snapping. "That's right, how ever could I forget! Can Sparrowsie come out to play too? There is an issue that has been brought to Nostie's attention and I pledged our services to her cause." He commented offhandedly. Though he seemed nonchalant about the statement, he carefully watched Rilien to see if it irked him in any way, shape, or form. He hadn't be able to play his game with the Tranquil for quite a bit. "Something, something Mages, something," he explained ever-so helpfully.

"Watching you attempt to render my services would doubtless be educational," Rilien replied, alluding without any apparent irritation to the considerable differences in the way they went about things. Following this, he turned towards Nostariel, fixing her with a flat stare. She swallowed; something about this man unnerved her, but that was probably just the Tranquility. It wasn't a stretch to say that most mages were not overly fond of the Tranquil, which was doubtless why they were kept in such close proximity. But...

"You're not part of the Circle?" she asked, unable to help herself. She'd seen no Tranquil in Kirkwall outside the Gallows, and certainly, the Chantry in Starkhaven had not made a habit of letting them wander around either, assuming they'd even want to. Were they not supposed to be content doing whatever they'd been told to do? That was what she'd always found the most alien, personally. And yet here this one was, living in Darktown, dressed not as a lay Chantry brother in their robes, but as a- rather stylish- citizen.

Rilien thought the answer to this question was obvious, and he ignored it. The question regarding Sparrow's whereabouts was considerably more relevant, and he nodded sagely to Ashton, still stonefaced. "Sparrow is out. I sent her on a delivery this morning. She has yet to return. I can locate her, if you wish, but her assistance is her own to offer or refuse." The empahsis was very, very slight, and Nostariel nearly missed it. Even though she'd picked it out, she had no idea what it meant, and was halfway inclined to believe she'd imagined it. She wasn't sure why the Tranquil- Rilien, Ashton had said- had ignored her, but she resolved not to be offended. Such a sentiment was probably pointless where the Tranquil were concerned. It wasn't like they were capable of offending intentionally.

"Sparrow?" she said instead. "I know a Sparrow. He comes by the Hanged Man rather frequently, and usually brings considerable... excitement with him?" Given Aston and Rilien's mutual feminine pronoun use, she wasn't sure they were all referring to the same Sparrow, but how many of them could there be?

"That would be her, yes," Rilien demurred blandly. "That does sound like our little birdy" Ashton agreed. Rilien didn't have to follow his hovel-mate into the bar to know the kind of ruckus she probably caused, after all. Glancing between the two of them once more, he shook his head minutely and closed his door behind him, locking it with a brass key on a ring of similar instruments. "Follow me, and I will lead you to her." "Aye my captain," Ashton said with a wink directed to Nostariel before falling in line. The Warden herself was more than a little perplexed by the situation, but she shrugged and brought up the rear anyway. Little of this endeavor was how she expected it to be, but given her particular outlook on life, that was not necessarily a bad thing.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

Everywhere Sparrow turned, it seemed as if there were Shades and Pride Demons and particularly relentless baddies who were just waiting in Darktown's dingy corners, whispering foul things, stringing her along like a badly-wound puppet. Fallible noises transformed into approaching footsteps, always encroaching on her privacy, nipping at her heels. Scrummy elbows belonging to Darktown's denizens appeared pronged, fabled with growths reserved for Fade-beasts. Only for a moment before her eyes adjusted, blinking away the delusions. It didn't help that Rapture seemed hellbent on perusing her most intimate thoughts, sorting through them with circumscribed boredom. There was an undeniable curiosity in the way she was scrutinized, as if she were a flickering candle cupped in the hands of a naughty child. It was all she could do to distract herself by wandering outside of Rilien's safe-haven, shake her head like a dog with fleas. Sitting still for long periods of time pained her, filled her with an itching anxiety – if that wasn't enough, it took her down an unfamiliar path, sending her into bouts of teeth-gritting mood-swings. Her companion didn't deserve to bear the brunt of her affliction.

She was tromping on her chest, playing fiddle on her heart, squeezing her lungs, and generally making everything incredibly uncomfortable. Sparrow ground her molars, murmuring soft-spoken curses between set teeth. Instead of collapsing against the wall, clutching at her head like some kind of abomination, she decidedly rolled back her shoulders, straightened her spine, and climbed up the steps, heading towards Darktown's rickety lift. If she didn't leave the hovel, with it's dark streets and vulnerable wretches, then she'd end up doing something that would get herself in trouble. She doubted that Rilien would want to clean any of her messes, or smooth out any ruffled feathers for her sake. She breathed deeply through her nose, in controlled breaths, as if the smoggy clutches of chokedamp could strengthen her foundations, and filter out her unease. She'd found out the hard way that no amount of intoxication, or merry dancing, could silence that kitten. If she wanted something, then she made it clear as diamond.

With a wayward, resigned sigh, Sparrow huffed strands of streaked hair from her eyes, trailing her fingers across cobblestones, iron railings, and whatever inanimate object she walked along. It helped a little. She felt grounded touching something that wasn't moving or capable of anything beyond a little give, a little push. Her eyes closed, then creased when her fingers brushed against air, clear of it's craggy touch. Somehow, somewhere along the way, she'd taken a wrong turn. Nowhere near the Hanged Man, Sparrow found herself blinking up at the gnarled tree, bridled with twirling colours, mainly in rich reds and soft whites, painted carefully along roots. The Tree of the People, so it was called. Familiar and unfamiliar all at once – it baffled her more than anything that something beautiful and green could grow in the heart of Kirkwall; a city renown for it's oppressive weight, it's shackles and chains.

Even if it was mysterious, and even if she didn't really feel acquainted to the Dalish ways anymore, Sparrow felt an unforeseen quiet; a strange reprieve from her systematic cleaving. As if a sopping wet blanket had been plucked from her shoulders. No more prattling. Her relentless promises were silenced. Her insistent warbling temporarily muted. She stepped forward, feeling lighter than she had for days, and pressed her hands against the trunk, nearly bumbling into it. Her eyes focused on the drying leaves, curled into themselves, and then, onto the rustling leaves, still vibrantly green, hanging overhead. This was alive, and real, and natural. Not cold stone pressing into her back, clipping her shoulders whenever she was too drunk to make it home. If she could sink into the earth, grab handfuls of grass, then maybe she'd be able to take back her one mistake. Saying yes, being too weak, giving in.

On just the other side of the tree, the laughter of small children was obvious, trilling as it did like windchimes, moved to tumbing sounds with the slightest stirring of some unseen breeze, something in their childish psyches or innocent hearts. Amalia was not accustomed to being the focus of such attentions, nor indeed their cause. To be fair, she dealt with children on a fairly-regular basis, and though she was no Tamassran and did not raise them, many of her viddethari were children like these.

None of them had ever derived such delight from her hair. And yet here she was, seated in her spot under the painted tree, harp currently held loosely in her hands, and several girl-children had taken it upon themselves to unwind her plait, leaving the honey-colored mass of it to pool on the stone. One of them was putting tiny braids in it, which seemed to amuse the other greatly, and the slightly-uncomfortable look on the Qunari's usually-stoic face was enough to draw in a few others, who more or less gathered at her knees and feet as they always did and entreated her to play something. Despite the irregularity of the ministrations to her scalp, she accepted them as a matter of course. No harm was being done to her person, and she conceded that there were certain things she would have to endure of she wished to be a proper denizen of this place, as her role demanded.

It was far from the most unpleasant thing she'd ever endured, and she endeavored to keep her head more or less still so that the thin, deft fingers of the elf-girl could proceed uninterrupted, and the others would have their song as well. Her left thumb flicked a string, producing a soft, warbling note, sustained alone until just before it faded, whereupon it was replaced by another. Somehow, this reminded her of a time a number of years ago, in her own childhood, when the silly, pointless things children did were not so far beyond her that she almost forgot how to understand. There was a time when she'd lain awake in the night, exchanging whispers with a friend, demure phrases allowed their release only when the reality of the world, of her impending committment to duty, was temporarily suspended. Magic, she'd called that time, before she'd learned what that word truly implied. Illusions danced freely in front of the eyes of children, things that adults were not allowed to see.

Amalia had been made an adult before most, and in her unguarded moments, she sometimes wondered if she'd lost something in so becoming.

The slow progression of notes evolved into something much more complex; it was a melody she'd written to bring him sleep, on those nights when the quiet murmurs were not enough. She'd known, even then, that his nightmares were somehow worse than hers, but she'd not understood why, and devised him a lullaby for the purpose, she'd asserted matter-of-factly, of making them more pleasant. He'd always told her it worked, and requested it of her periodically, but she knew now that the effect, if any, had likely been negligible. Why then, had he asked? It was illogical, and she no longer comprehended what had been so simple for her childhood self. Sometimes, she wondered what had happened to him. He was Vashoth, now, if he yet lived. The notes, her fingers, the harpstrings, her memories; these were all that remained to her of that time. Perhaps it was best she shared them.

There were no birds tittering in the branches, scratching absently under outstretched wings, flashing their colours for all to see. Several scores, like scars peeled across her knees, were torn across bark, stippled over roots like ruddy birthmarks. Sparrow paused, slowly pulling her hands away from the tree, when she heard small sniggers of laughter, obviously belonging to small children. Though, she hadn't spent enough time in the Alienage to know any of the children, or even realize that she might've not been as alone as she felt – so caught up in her own thoughts, she'd been. She whispered softly to turn about, stalk in the opposite direction because something didn't feel right, as if nasties lurked around the corner. Sparrow sighed a long sigh, blinked and slowly, gingerly, circled around the tree, careful not to kick over the boxes and candles settled around her. A tree in a cage did not stand as tall as a tree in the forest, even if it was as revered as this.

Unwilling to reveal who indeed was laughing, Sparrow suddenly stopped walking, only glimpsing a brief tumble of honeyed hair being released from a braid before back-peddling a couple steps. Her mouth remained resolutely closed, opposed to the idea of interrupting whatever they were doing. It hadn't been, after all, only a few children playing behind the great tree, but rather a small army of the gathered at the feet of some woman. From what she'd glimpsed, anyway. Instead of revealing herself, and explaining why she was wondering around like a sneak-thief, Sparrow pressed her back against the tree, and half-sat down, straining her stunted ears to hear any bits of conversation. Apparently, there was none to be had. The children crowed in amusement, giggling requests for songs to be sung. Her hand was loosely curled, like a child's fist, with her neck bent forward. She was completely lost to this. These willow-dipped, sharp-eared fledgelings lived in such indigent hovels, still regarded as wayward toilers, and still, they laughed loudly, without apology.

How long had it been since she'd laughed like that? Far too long. Perhaps, as long ago as when she'd been adopted by the Qunari clansmen, in the woods, miles from her own clansmen. The unlikeliest kith and kin she could've come across, sallying her in as one of their own. Whether it was pity, or mere duty on their part, Sparrow would never know. The days had long passed where she would've whittled small animals into long slats of wood, describing stories that she could hardly remember to make herself feel a little better. She could spring through the meadows unfettered, as if there weren't stubby-eared shemlen sheltered in the treeline, waiting to clutch at her shoulders again. Where the soft braying of her breathing and the erratic drumming of her heart wasn't dependant on survival, or striking first. Things were much simpler then. Even with the deep-rooted beliefs all Qunari shared, heavy-handed and strict, yet somehow effortless. Everyone had their own place, chosen since birth, but still, they weren't painted as outsiders concluded – as barbarians without music, without art, without beauty. They weren't savages and they laughed loudly, recklessly.

She leaned the back of her head against the Tree of Life, listing her head to the side. Familiar notes plucked skillfully, only three or four feet around the tree's trunk, tightened it's ghostly fingers around her lungs, tickling tendrils of cold down her spine. It was a harp. Those warbling notes, so unlike anything she'd ever heard as a child, were unmistakable, nearly sanctioned in her memory. The instrument needed no accompaniment. It never did. The music sounded so familiar, like Sparrow had heard it once before. Her eyebrow knit, eyes closed in concentration. Most of all, she supposed it reminded her of her first friend among the horned-ones, her silent brethren. Perhaps, she'd been the only one who ever accepted Sparrow, without any further enquiries, and dutifully ignored the ripped remains of Papyrus. Scrawny-armed, bruise-lipped, with knobby, ineffectual elbows. It reminded her of all the nights spent in the valley, arms tucked behind their heads like chickens, leaving behind grassy impressions like imprints left in the snow. The notes, with the wind, curved across the small alcove, like colossal chimes jingling with each pull. It transformed; became something much more complicated, much more intimate. The awareness snapped her eyes open.

It was her song. Sparrow was sure of it. Her heartbeat quickened, thumping loudly in her ears. It was almost too much to take in all at once, far too much to subdue. She cooed softly, urging her to turn away, necessitating the need to make herself scarce, for wasn't Amalia still very much apart of the Qun, willing to strip away her freedom for abandoning the way? In one swift movement, Sparrow pushed away from the tree, quickly circled around until she made herself known. Her eyes flit from the woman's honeycomb hair, plaited in several small braids, but still pooling around her shoulders, to the harp sitting in her lap. Her eyes stung. “Amalia...” It came as a choppy exhale of disbelief, bereft of her usual assurance.

Amalia had taken note of the presence just on the other side of the tree, but initially thought nothing of it. Occasionally, one of the children was too shy or timid to approach her, and this she took as a matter of course. She was aware that she had not the most... tender of visages, and she had cultivated herself to withstand, to endure. It did not, as a rule, dovetail well with softness in demeanor, and she generally relied upon other people to overcome their natural aversions to her if they had them, or otherwise leave her be. Such things were not her decisions to make, and she didn't concern herself with attempting to be other than she was for the sake of others' comfort.

A flicker of movement from the corner of her eye drew her two-toned gaze upwards, and both irises were soon surrounded by white sclera. A small, but sharp intake of breath was the only other sound of her registered surprise, and for anyone else it would perhaps have been quite a scene. For her, it was already too much a lapse of ironclad control, and she smoothed out her face immediately, turning back to her music and finishing the song with a few last tremulous notes before she placed it onto the knee of a small boy and guided his fingers to the strings. He plucked at one experimentally, and the Qunari nodded her approval. That small thing seemed to inspire an entire bout of confidene, because it was not long before he was trilling sequences of them, discordant but getting better as he gained a bit more of an ear for what each strong produced. The others immediately gathered around the new source of entertainment, and Amalia stood, for the moment forgotten.

"Venak hol" she replied, and the words were scarcely more than a soft whisper. There was much in them. Literally, it was something of an insult, but between these two particular people, that was the least of it. A "wearying one:" one who causes vexation or concern, worry. This person, this being before her had had many names, but Amalia had called him ever and only this. A simple enough statement, and one she used to refer to her viddethari when they frustrated her in one way or another, and yet... it was never the soul-rooted worry of their childood, when she'd watched him flit about from this place to that, unwilling or unable to settle as the Qun demanded, one layer of deception laying beneath another. She knew his secrets, inside and out, and always they had worried her. Worry was, for people such as herself, a pointless emotion. It achieved nothing but lowering the efficiency of the one who worried, and it was something she'd near-wholly eliminated from her person.

It was only this, the subject of so many old memories, of sprawling in the desert sands of Par Vollen and laughing at something the Tamassran had said, or else linking pinky fingers quietly before they slept, so that they might be connected even bereft of conscious notice (she'd thought herself guarding his dreams, that way), that could still cause her anxiety in this way. Qunlat had no word for "brother." Sometimes, in her most deridable moments of weakness, she found this to be a failing.

"Why now?" Why appear before her now? It had been years. She'd believed him dead or else so far moved beyond her and her kith that she'd never encounter him again either way. He'd always been capricious, that way, the fluttering breeze to her steady, still pond. He could sweep about, gestures overexaggerated and words careless, and he'd even so only ripple her surface. It was more than she'd ever allowed anyone else to do, if she'd allowed it all. Perhaps it had simply happened, like a happenstance, a coincidence, luck. It was too bad that she'd never believed in those things the way he had.

She knew her friend well enough not to expect any fierce embraces, tender moments, or anything of the sort, but still, Sparrow was shocked at the expression on Amalia's face, a brief wink of surprise – so astutely different from the calm, collected child she remembered, wiggling daisies between her toes, while remaining completely tranquil. There had always been an almost laughable contrast to her gregarious personality, though, she believed, they still complimented each other. How long had she been without her anchor? It was Amalia who'd dutifully dug in her heels whenever Sparrow chose to flit about as breezy as the wind, halfheartedly reprimanding her for not acting accordingly, for not falling subserviently into her chosen role within the Qun. The feelings swelling in her gut was overwhelming. Small smiles, simple handshakes, and simple greetings. They'd never done that, either, so she stood, expecting something for certain, but unaware how she would react to seeing her after all this time. This woman's thoughts were composed of complicated things, whirring in directions she couldn't follow, much like trying to decipher Rilien's frame of mind – impossible, like scrawled hieroglyphics. How much had she changed?

Her heart dropped when Amalia's mismatched eyes fell away from her own. She turned back towards the gawking children and resumed her song with steely determination, plucking at the resounding strings to end her lullaby. A few of the children turned to regard her, eyeing her with inhibited interest before swarming around the boy who'd been handed the harp, already begging for another song that the boy could not possibly play. Even without knowing what Amalia had been up to, or where she'd been, Sparrow could already tell what role she'd adopted from the manner she treated the fledgelings, as tenderhearted as the ones who rehabilitated, or re-educated, new converts and those who stubbornly went against their established roles. For her, it'd been different. Her days had always been heavy with the shrieks of terrified people, heavy with the smell of smoke, heavy with blood. It had certainly become a simple way to live when one was living by the sword, or by her mace, as it was. Her days had slowly drifted away from her companion. She hadn't had any time to warn her, to tell her of her plans to escape and live her own life freely. Chains, it seemed, did not suit her well.

Venak hol. That was something she could not forget, and wouldn't have chosen to forget even if she had the choice. There were many things in the Qun, in the oppressive way of life they managed to live, that Sparrow disagreed with, but her days among the Qunari were some of the best, especially with Amalia's endearing nickname. She was, after all, the only one who knew her true name. When Sparrow had initially come to the Qun, as bedraggled as a ruffled bird, they were the ones who had picked another, more suitable, title to begin anew, to create something out of nothing. In more ways than one, Amalia had aided in putting her back together. She had puzzled out her pieces, struck out the old and strengthened her foundations so that she didn't shake so much anymore. It was one of the reasons she pestered her to play her harp when the nights were far too dark, or when her hands refused to cease trembling, even if it didn't truly still her nightmares. Her mouth wouldn't peel back into a smile. Another sharp intake of breath whisked through her lips. She was speechless. Speechless and vulnerable, stupidly mute.

She offhandedly observed that those two-toned eyes had hardened. They didn't properly belong to the one she'd linked pinkies with, nor did they seem intent on welcoming her with open arms, as if they were merely wayward companions who'd traded letters from afar. Sparrow had always known that Amalia was alive, for the Qunari had always been great protectors of their own, solid walls that were almost impenetrable. It hadn't occurred to her that Amalia might've thought she'd perished. Her mouth felt parched, nearly like the sands of Par Vollen. It took a few seconds for those two individual words to sink in – why? Why now? Why hadn't she come to find her before? Why had she left in the first place? Why here in Kirkwall, in the strangest of places? So many unanswered questions bellying between two simple idioms. Her feverish tales of exploits and adventures, of freedom and excitement, suddenly tasted bitter in her throat, hardly capable of rationalizing her decisions, her choices. Time had never stopped, time never waited. She'd chosen something else without Amalia, her greatest friend.

Any witticisms she'd planned beforehand had already withered and died. They were far too inappropriate at a time like this. She hadn't thought this through. Had she been thinking at all? She didn't know what to say, how to react. There were gaps spun between them like disagreeable spiderwebs, mitigating an unexpected tension. She remained unhelpfully quiet for once. The question had caught of her guard. There was somebody precious standing there, a woman (once a small girl), frowning at him, not holding her hands out towards her to reconcile any hurts or worries, but standing at a regulated distance. No amount of hand-flapping or sweeping bows could placate any wrongs she'd done by running away, by leaving everyone behind who'd ever meant anything to her. “I never meant—,” she began awkwardly, taking an uneasy step forward. She hadn't cared back then, if she disappointed anyone, if she hurt anyone because being free had taken priority. Now though, after coming to Kirkwall, after letting down her guard and letting people in, things hurt a lot more. “I would've told you...”

"Your tongue is as unhelpful as it has always been, Venak hol," Amalia replied, tilting her head to one side. A forearm slid just behind her neck, catching the hair that had spilled over her shoulder and tossing it behind to lay flatly against her back. Despite herself, her lips just barely turned upwards at the corners. For all he lamented of being caged, it would seem that, in his own way, her friend was still playing the same role as he always had- he was certainly dancing to the same tune. The Qunari had a catch-all idiom: Merevas. 'So shall it be.' The phrase, like everything the Qunari said, was meant to encapsulate many things. Inlcuded in it was the notion that nothing ever truly changed. New facets of things were revealed to the world, and new forms of being could come to take prominence, but everything was at its core the same, forever and always.

Perhaps this made it simpler for Amalia to accept that what was not now was again. Venak hol had left, but he had never been truly gone, by one reckoning of things. She would not lie; the girl she had been had felt quite betrayed at her best friend's disappearance, nearly inconsolable for some months afterwards. This had, eventually, manifested a stronger will to see the Qun's promise fulfilled, it's directives spread to all corners of Thedas. When there was nowhere without the Qun, she had thought, there would be no chance that he would remain gone, beyond her reach. That selfish thought had been tempered, and while she would not deny that she was surprised to see him, she would not begrudge his past absence. This was to be the way of things- then, and now.

Merevas.

Setting

6 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

Since his work at the Bone Pit was still paying his way for the moment, the Alienage's resident Dalish hunter saw no reason to overly stress himself with mundane matters this morning. Lia's father had required her to stay within the city walls, and more specifically the alienage, since their little run-in with the human hunter in the woods. No doubt she had spoken of the encounter with him, and Elren had been displeased. Rather than confront the elven warrior with the two vicious scars running down one side of his face, he simply demanded his daughter stay away from the man.

It bothered him somewhat. That he would coop her up within these dreary walls, when she so clearly desired more, but also that he himself now felt different kinds of uncomfortability when either with the girl, or away from her. He was still naturally averse to the reminders of his former clan, and his own history, for the pain that it brought, and yet, he was beginning to think it was necessary for him to move forward. Confront the past in order to move on. Something like that. Perhaps it was something a knife could solve.

Deciding to test that line of thought, Ithilian grabbed one of his shorter knives, resting next to his bed, and slipped it under his belt. He threw on a simple tunic of a dark green color, before sliding over to a bucket of water in the corner, sinking his hands into it. He ran them through a shaggy mess of black hair, pushed back away from his face, reaching the base of his neck. It wasn't every day he left the cap inside the house, but seeing as he wasn't planning on leaving the city, or the alienage, for the day, he saw no reason to wear it. Grabbing the antlers taken from the hunt, Ithilian pushed out the door.

His eyes usually went to the great tree upon first exiting, as did anyone who entered the elven part of Lowtown, and so he immediately noticed the crowd of children, the one attempting to play the now familiar harp, and Amalia herself, risen from her usual spot and speaking with an unfamiliar elf. Well... half-elf, judging from the ears and general body type. Ithilian had previously thought he was already acquainted with mostly everyone who came to the Alienage seeking out the Qunari woman, but perhaps he was wrong. Setting the antlers down outside his door, he made his way towards them, surveying the half-elf with the eye that was cleaved through by a claw. "Friend of yours?" he said somewhat lightly, bare feet padding to a stop near them.

Amalia's glance flitted sideways, and she found herself interestingly-positioned. It was almost like looking at a figment of her past alongside a representation of her present. She found it... humorous, in a way, and nodded gently, her reply a reflection of his address in tenor. "So it seems. Sataareth, this is Venak hol, and Vashoth." The last word was tinged with something unusual for Amalia, what would be characterized in a human as regret. Nevertheless, she did not linger over it as humans were so wont, and continued without effort. "Venak hol, this is Basra Sataareth, Basalit-an," the extra edifications were certainly far too long to use in informal address, but to her old friend, they would say something important about her new one.

She did not provide anything further, however, as she found herself rather without anything else to say. It was one of those situations in which there were so many things that could be said that the tongue choked on all of them. Where would she even begin? Perhaps it was simply better to let them decide for themselves. She held no illusions that they were all that similar, but even so, there was nothing about either of them that would, to her knowledge, offend the other's sensibilities, a rare enough thing, especially in Ithilian's case, she was certain.

Ithilian knew not what the first name Amalia had given to the stranger meant, but the term Vashoth he was familiar with, at least to a basic understanding. This was someone who had once been a part of her Qun, and had since left it behind, for whatever reason. He had not had cause to deal with them, but Ithilian was aware of the bandits that preyed in the cliffs along the Wounded Coast. The Tal-Vashoth. No doubt the extension to the word was meaningful, and thus the Dalish could confirm that this half-elf was not one of them. He found himself viewing... her, with a similar feeling that he had for Feynriel. There was no place for a half-blood, certainly not in a society such as Kirkwall. Apart from her unfortunate blood, there was nothing inherently wrong with her, at least as far as his eye could tell.

"If you prefer to no longer use Qunari words, Vashoth, then you can call me Ithilian. I see to it that these elves are not trod on as they have been in the past, that they might remember some part of the strength that is our race." Perhaps there was no reason to explain what exactly his intent was, but Ithilian was not yet sure how to treat the half-elf, and would have it known that threats to the elves did not last long under his watch.

Sparrow couldn't possibly recreate the meaning of things already gone past, and even if she floundered with her words, was Amalia actually expecting anything more from her, or anything less? Wasn't that what “so shall it be” meant in the first place, whatever she so chose to be had already been written, almost expected by the Qun and its kith. Perhaps, that had been the reason they hadn't stopped her from leaving. It would've been all too easy to identify her unease, her unwillingness to encompass the Qun's teachings as if it were as easy as breathing. Those shackles, however imagined, were strangling things that pulled her back into the clutches of rough-handed men. Or maybe she was, after all, just an unrealistic dreamer, a liar, and a traitor. She hadn't changed much, aside from the fact that she'd let down her guard more than once, allowed herself a little reprieve from her loneliness. Her tangled thoughts were interrupted when another man, presumably one of Amalia's acquaintances, or friends (it came as a surprisingly bitter thought), approached from around the tree, moving away from a crooked set of antlers. Dalish? Tired, lined eyes told her different stories altogether, as well as his bare feet, bereft of leather boots. Grizzled and raw, scarred. Reasonably more Dalish then she'd ever had the opportunity of being.

The temporarily abated tension between them was a welcome thing, briefly disengaged with something as simple as a question. Still, Sparrow was somewhat disappointed at the fact that she couldn't solve her own problems with long stories or fabulous fables or a mouthful of cheap ale, hunched over the Hanged Man's dirty counter. Somehow, she'd imagined something like that, rather than this. Ever the optimistic blighter, Sparrow turned towards the stranger, dipped her head slightly and flashed a welcoming smile that felt awkward and forced given the current situation. Inadvertently, Sparrow might've bowed a little lower when the introductions were made, because being an honored one demanded respect. Her Qunlat was not so rusty that she didn't understand the meaning of the titles, and why Amalia so chose to introduce him this way. It was almost humorous how those titles could still evoke, still stir, something within her, when she thought she'd already sloughed off those teachings long ago. Apparently not. Venak hol brought on a small smile, simpering, one that mirrored her childhood self, while vashoth slowly pulled her expression apart, curling into an unaccustomed frown. The truth, however honest, had ways of needling itself into the chinks of her armor.

“My respects, Ithilian,” Sparrow greeted breezily, eyeing him as if for the first time, with renewed understanding. Old habits died hard, but she was thankful that he wasn't opposed to being called something that was less of a mouthful, less of a reminder of her own failings within the Qun. Somehow, it didn't surprise her that Amalia had befriended such a rugged individual, for she'd never been adverse to necessary violence or severe personalities. “And you may call me anything you wish. Maker knows I have many names. Vashoth, Sparrow, wearying one.” The half-elf counted them off her fingertips, curling them in towards her palm when each was named off, though with only a small spoonful of joviality. It seemed the rest had already scrambled away with her useless tongue. It came as a surprise when Ithilian mentioned the elves in Kirkwall, and of protecting them. There was a flicker of recognition, of mutual agreement. Dirty, useless shemlen. Amalia had always been the exception – in her opinion, disregarding her biological race, she was not human, but Qunari. “You're a guardian, then? A protector. In the city of chains, we're all in a little need of strength, seems to me. I hope that goal is met.”

Rilien had not expected his tracking of Sparrow to lead him to the Alienage. Perhaps the singular practical benefit to her present condition was the fact that she lit up in his senses the way a campfire did in the night, or perhaps more accurately the way a Tevinter Candle exploded in the sky, scattering multicolored incendiary sparks everywhere. A piece of technology invented for sheer decadence, stolen from something the Qunari had thought of, no doubt. He was surprised the Orlesians hadn't done it first. They were certainly the primary market for anything unncessary and frivolously beautiful. He would know.

Of course, he hadn't been able to sense her from all the way in Darktown. No matter how familiar she was to him, that was an impossible feat. There was simply too much magic in this place to differentiate from that distance. Even the Veil itself was weak here, one of a few reasons he'd intially chosen to settle in this area. But once he'd led the other two to the Hanged Man, she'd been close enough to recognize, and it was only a few more winding turns before they were descending the steps towards the elven ghetto. The sounds of quiet conversation and the occasional oddly-struck harp note did not produce any change in his expression, nor did the fact that the air was a little fresher here for the tree's presence. Sparrow was not too far off, visible from this distance. The party or parties she was speaking to were not, and he approached cautiously, quietly.

She seemed... melancholy, and that did not often happen. If someone was trying to shake her down for coin again... He rounded the tree and observed that in addition to several children, happily distracted and oblivious to what was going on, there were present a Dalish man with heavy scarring on one side of his face and a woman, human from the looks of it, with the air of someone more accustomed to moving through the dark without sound than standing in the middle of a sun-dappled patch of stone. There was a lapse in the conversation, and Rilien slipped his own word into it. "Sparrow." He said nothing else. Sparrow, in turn, whipped her head around to face the caller of her name, though in all technicality, she already knew who it was by the monotonous tone. Her name. Perhaps, she preferred Sparrow most of all. It didn't stop her from gawking like she'd been caught with her trousers down. In the Alienage of all places. He wasn't alone, either.

Nostariel had been following behind the Tranquil, still faintly uneasy in his presence, but walking next to the overtly-cheerful Ashton was probably the zero-sum of a balanced life in this respect. She would not have supposed that Sparrow spent much time in the Alienage, but Rilien had led them here without hesitation, and that in itself was strange. He'd not given the impression that Sparrow had been lingering somewhere, which suggested that he was on the move. Yet, he'd known exactly where to find him. The Warden recognized all three parties at the gathering, and while she might have supposed that running into Ithilian in the Alienage was a live possibility, Amalia's presence here was... unexpected. Both of them were somehow different than she'd recalled, too. They seemed more... at ease. Ithilian wasn't scowling for once, and seemed to be without his cap, and Amalia, though her face was harder to read than just about anyone's, appeared as much at home as Nostariel could imagine her to be, and there were fanciful little braids in her loose hair.

"Amalia, Ithilian," she greeted, looking from one to the other. They also seemed more relaxed around one another, or at least Ithilian wasn't glaring at her sideways like she could have sworn he'd been doing when they rescued Feynriel. "It's good to see you. Our mutual acquaintance is doing well, and passes his greetings to both of you." She hadn't really expected to get the opportunity to convey that to them, as they did not cross paths, usually.

"The Alienage is a busy place, today," Amalia commented dryly, shooting Ithilian an aside glance. She recognized the Warden among them, and inclined her head in acknowledgement of Nostariel's presence, and her comment regarding Feynriel. The male elf, she was certain she would have remembered, had they ever had cause to meet before. One did not regularly encounter beings shaded with such a palette. His movements and tone were immediately evocative of iron control, without losing a certain capacity for grace. This in itself was admirable. The other man was tall, and stood out sorely from the others because of this and also the fact that he was clearly the only human in the gaggle of people. There was something loose about his posture, the set of his elongated limbs. It was the opposite impression from the one the elf gave, and something much more like Venak hol, for all their physical differences.

“I wouldn't know – first time I've been here myself.” Sparrow put in, knowing full well that the statement wasn't exactly directed at her. However, it was only the truth. A moment of weakness, of faltering reflection, had brought her down here. If she hadn't wandered into the Alienage, then she wouldn't have been reunited with her childhood friend. Fancy coincidences, lady luck flipping her coin, and spiralling turns of events had always been her cup of tea – or ale, actually, but it still surprised her that after all this time, if Amalia had been in Kirkwall for that long, she hadn't bumped into her in other parts of Kirkwall. Did she have anything to do with the Qunari occupants inhabiting the ports? Somehow, Sparrow doubted this. She looked sideways, regarding her companions. It was almost as if pieces of her past were directly colliding with her future, with what she'd become over time, with gentle, intrusive prodding. Freedom had a funny way of shaping someone. Funnier yet was how friendship had shaped her.

"I presume these people are here for your sake, Venak hol," she ventured without much risk. It seemed that he was calling himself Sparrow these days- fitting enough, as names in this tongue went, for what was he but a flightly little bird? He, or whomever had named him thus, was not without awareness. She wondered if the jewel-eyed elf had done so, and if he had assumed her role with regard to him as he was now. The Bas-Ashaad surely had not. "Perhaps it is best if you depart." She was aware of his oversensitive nature, and it struck her that she should say something further. Where he was transparent, she was opaque, and it was in his nature to flit about and cause himself undue stress. Were it anyone else, this would not be her concern. But it was not anyone else, it was Venak hol.

“Ah, yes. Rilien, Ashton. Bella-luna.” She rattled off, much like she'd done when recounting her many names. If they wanted to specify who they were exactly, then they were free to do so. Sparrow had never been in the habit of revealing too much, too quickly. Like a magician or a particularly nasty swindler with predisposed deceptions, her life thrived on people not knowing who she was, or where she'd come from, or where, exactly, she was headed. There were too many in Kirkwall, particularly Templars, who would be all too glad drag her off to the Circle or simply lop her head off to forgo the troubles of bringing her in. Likewise with Rilien. She realized long ago that she was willing to cheat, lie, and kill to keep both of their secrets under guard, under iron-clad protection. Sparrow looked around at the sandy walls, at the children still hunkered by the great tree. So, this was where Amalia stayed. The reason was not immediately apparent, though she'd already guessed that she had initially been sent here to do something other than look after fledgelings. Perhaps, they were to be new converts? Rescued from a bleak, unforgiving environment. They had no future within the gates of Kirkwall, anyway. When Amalia suggested that she take her leave, Sparrow blinked, then flicked her gaze away from the amalgamation of stacked boxes, of unlit candles. Her shoulders sagged momentarily, stricken by such an immediate disuniting. “Uh, I see. If that's best, I guess I should.”

"If you wish it, I shall visit your dwelling-place next time." Even so, she could not say that the current volume of strangers in the Alienage was amenable to her, and she perhaps betrayed herself when she turned her head the barest fraction to make sure the children were still busy. A few had glanced up, but immediately turned back to what they were doing when they became aware that she had noticed. She was not... territorial about this place, but... the Qunari crossed her arms, hands grasping her biceps. Perhaps she was, just a little.

She recovered in slivers, small bits, when Amalia offered to visit her. Like the flighty bird she was, it didn't take much to smooth out the ruffles in her feathers, calming whatever harried thoughts she had in her brief moment of distress. “I'd like that. That better be a promise.” How strange it would've been to offer her pinky finger, waggling it like she always did before making an impossible agreement. It was symbolic of their friendship, locked between fingers. Locked with a thousand promises and wishes and dreams, beheld by the Qun and the night sky. She looked back up at her friend, as if waiting for some kind of affirmation. She didn't raise her hand, because she couldn't. There was a moment where her hand twitched, before the movement snapped up to clap Ashton on the shoulder, pulling him closer into the circle they made of acquaintances, old friends, and new, alike. "Now, I'm guessing that we're not all here for several rounds of ale at the Hanged Man, eh?"

Ashton's eyes, instead of turned to the percularity of how Sparrow and the woman apparently knew each other, were turned to something familar and yet just as strange. He leaned forward, hovering over Rilien (Whose shoulder he used to prop up his elbow) and looked at the elf. A badly scarred elf. One could never forget that face, even if half of it had been hidden the last time they met. And apparently, from what Nostariel had said, he gathered that they were all acquainted. How quaint. "Ithilian, hmm?" He said, "Funny seeing you down here with our little birdy," he followed with a bright-- stupid grin directed towards his Sparrow. The fact that the woman had called Sparrow Venak hol merely rolled off of his mind. If he didn't understand, might as well not bother oneself. He could always ask later.

"How's your daughter doing? Becoming quite the little huntress I'm betting," he said, easily making small talk with the intimidating figure. "Which reminds me. You still haven't come into my shop for your share of the deer," he finished.

Ithilian had been rather neutrally approving of this Sparrow's response, save for her mention of the Maker, when others arrived, apparently looking for her. An odd looking group, led to the Alienage by a white-haired elf, a Tranquil. He was the only one Ithilian did not recognize of the three, and the only one for whom the Dalish had no real thoughts. His experience in dealing with the Tranquil was minimal, considering that it was a Chantry practice and that the Dalish would never consider doing such a thing to their own mages. More than that, he did not know why he should care, at least until the elf showed himself an ally or an enemy of the Alienage.

The other two he knew somewhat. The Warden Nostariel was among them, and he offered her a respectful nod of greeting. The news she delivered, that the boy Feynriel was doing well, had little effect on him. The half-elf had not really been his concern so much as helping Arianni had been. If Ithilian had had his way, the boy never would have joined the Dalish. The elves needed less human blood among them, not more. But of course Marethari's decision had been hers to make, and there was little Ithilian was willing or capable of doing to influence the choices of a clan that was not his own.

The third was the human hunter he and Lia had run into, and that alone was enough to make Ithilian feel significantly more uncomfortable about all of this. Amalia had suggested that if they had come for Sparrow, they should leave with her immediately, and Ithilian found himself agreeing. The human did not belong here. Sparrow and the Tranquil likely did not belong here. Nostariel had seemingly chosen not to belong here. This shem's voice had an instantly irritating effect on Ithilian. It was the sound of what was most likely arrogance or stupidity. Either he thought himself invulnerable, or he simply wasn't aware that his words could easily be construed as a twisting threat, given what many city elves had experienced under human oppression. His hand twitched, resisting the urge to rest on the hilt of his knife.

"The deer is yours. You made the kill," Ithilian said, voice tinged with irritation, "and we're more than capable of feeding ourselves. You should remove yourself from our home now, before you say something that gets you into trouble." It was as kindly as he was willing to put it. He would get no response about Lia, as Ithilian was not in the habit of delving into personal affairs with strangers, shemlen no less.

Nostariel cleared her throat, discreetly tugging on Ashton's sleeve to indicate that perhaps he should take Ithilian's advice and stop talking. She wasn't sure exactly how they knew each other, and the fact that the former had a child was definitely news to her, but obviously not something she had any right to inquire after. Not really sure what to do, she spoke to the most neutral party in the group, fixing her gaze on Amalia, perhaps just because she wasn't really sure that she felt entirely comfortable looking at anyone else. Large social gatherings were hardly her forte, and she needed to center herself and attempt to be diplomatic. Whatever the reason, it seemed like the Qunari of all people was the best choice for that. Nostariel wasn't sure if that said something about Amalia or the incredibly-strange combination of people present. "Ah, actually, yes. There's something I would like to request your help with, Sparrow, and your friends have already generously agreed to assist."

Actually, she had no idea if Rilien had ever agreed to anything, but the point was to get them all out of the Alienage (and consequently Ithilian and Amalia's hair), not to be technically accurate, so she continued. "It's perhaps best discussed elsewhere, if you would be so kind?" The Warden had to admit that she really had no idea what was going on, so hopefully that wasn't rude. Edging away from the gathering slowly, she maintained her gentle grip on the archer's sleeve, assuming that his gregarious (and apparently also oblivious) nature would make him the hardest to convince otherwise. "Good day to you, Amalia, Ithilian."

Rilien, for his part, seemed completely uninterested in any of the goings-on, though he would have had to be an idiot not to notice the tension infusing not one, but two of the threads of conversation being exchanged. The Tranquil was many things, but he did not consider himself an idiot by any means. Of course, knowing a thing and taking it into consideration were entirely different, and had he been inclined to stay, he would have stayed, regardless. Perhaps fortunately for the tense truce that seemed to be occurring here, he was not inclined to stay, and so when the tall woman, the scarred man and the Warden-mage all suggested that the group leave, he left. Catching Sparrow's eye, he gave a miniscule lift of one brow, tilting his head towards the stairs. The message, subtle as it was, would be to her obvious. You are coming, aren't you? Sparrow followed Rilien's gaze to the stairway, inclining her head in a curt head-bob of acknowlegement. Perhaps, her past wasn't ready to meet her future, but she still hoped that things would pan out and become more agreeable. She quickly offered Ithilian a nod, affirming that they would be leaving, though she made no promises that she wouldn't return to the Alienage just because he was uncomfortable with her, or her intentions. If she wanted to see Amalia again, then nothing, not even the threat of Ithilian's knives, would stop her. Turning to go, she glanced once more over her shoulder, trying to piece out where exactly the innocent conversation had gone sour. She had her guesses, even if the details remained unknown. When they finally reached a safer distance, where none save the one's being shooed could hear, Sparrow arched an inquistive eyebrow at her companion - the one who was just as prone to snuffling out trouble as she was, and scoffed softly, pursing her lips. "Seems like you've been making friends. Don't tell me you slept with his daughter or something."

"If I had, I doubt I'd made it out of there alive," Ashton answered. Though he played the part of the fool expertly, even he felt the sudden air of hostility. In the woods, he misconstrued this Ithilian's attitude as simple caution and irritation, though now back in the city, it was clear that there was more to it than simple irritation over a stolen kill. Though whatever it was, Ashton had nary a clue. He had not seen the man before the evening in the woods, and he felt that there had been no slight made between the hunters. Just him speaking to his child like... Well, a child. What was stranger still, was that he didn't see the child, even among the children playing behind the woman, this Amalia. His eyes were sharper than he let on, and when pressed, could notice even small details... When he wanted to.

The keen instincts of the hunter told him that he was to blame for the sudden change of tone in the conversation, in what he thought was innocent enough small talk. Was it some subtle accidental insinuation that the elf had picked up on? Curious. Perhaps it was by some blessing that he had arrived in the company of friends, else he feared that thing would have turned sour. He also posted a mental note in his head. Do not head into the Alienage alone-- at least without one of his elven companions. Ashton wished to attempt to smooth things over by admitting that he meant no offense-- from one hunter to another-- and that his shop was open to any and all. It was by Nostariel's hand that the words died in his throat. whereas he allowed her to lead him away. Perhaps that was a good thing-- else it may not had been the only thing that died.

Well, at least the powder keg of a situation was defused and they were all alive. That was good. That was always good. "Besides, she was like... twelve or something," he said furrowing his brows. "I was just hunting, and I accidently shot this deer who they were hunting too. Though I never thought it would delve into murderous eyes-- eye rather," Ashton said, scratching his chin. He then shrugged, putting it all past him. He never was the one to hold grudges. "Anyway. Disaster averted and such," he said slipping behind Nostariel. Obviously the next whiplash subject change would focus on her. "Now on to current business. Miss Nostie here has a mage issue-- of sorts. I guess," he began as he rubbed her elongated ears from behind. "Something, something, mages, threat of violence, something. Apparently a Templar fellow needs help defusing a situation," He said, shrugging, hands never leaving Nostariel's ears.

Nostariel was mostly minding her own business, halfway through a sigh of relief and quite content to allow Ashton to... sort of... explain their business to Sparrow, when she was subjected to a rather tremendous shock. Apparently, someone- and there was no way it was the Tranquil and Sparrow was too far away- touched her ears. To say that this was a matter of some surprise was to do a disservice to the startling nature of the incident, and she let out a strangled sound that sounded vaguely like a meep, jumping no less than a foot and some in the air, an unwelcome shudder coursing down her spine and prickling the flesh of her arms. This was apparently insufficient to dissuade the culprit from his actions, and as she regained her bearing, attempting to slow her rapid and shallow breaths, an obvious flush of embarrassment heated her face and neck, turning her ordinarily rather pale complexion a dark shade of red.

The Warden was entirely out of her element and not at all sure what to do. Should she be offended? Angry? Amused? All she could really manage in this state was bewildered, well, aside from the embarassment. It seemed like a rather... personal place to be casually touching someone, but here her knowledge of how people conducted their everyday business was just completely lacking, and for all she knew, she could be reading far too much into this. Or not enough. Swallowing thickly, she decided to be direct. "Um, Asht-ton... w-what are you d-doing?"

If it were possible for Rilien to look wearied, he probably would have chosen that moment to arrange his features in the suitable fashion. Instead, he shook his head minutely, floding his hands into his distended sleeves and picking up where the explanation left off, for Sparrow's benefit if nothing else. "More Templars," he elaborated flatly, given that Nostariel seemed presently unable to do so. He wasn't sure exactly why she appeared so flustered by this; certainly it wasn't normal human behavior, but she had to have discovered by this point that Ashton was hardly what one would describe as a normal human. Perhaps she was a tad slow? It was unlikely they'd have made her a Warden if so, so he chalked it up instead to some kind of staggering naievety. "Apparently one of them actually prefers to avoid bloodshed, and has requested assistance."

The idea that anyone would look to them to prevent a gory mess was incredibly ironic, and that fact was not lost upon him. He doubted the Warden had any idea what she'd just gotten herself into.

The reaction Nostariel had wasn't surprising, but rather cuter than what he had expected. A small victory in turning the recent terse situation into a rather light-hearted and humorous one. The fact that Rilien wore a unsurprised look on his face was only the icing on the cake. For his part, Ashton too wore and unplussed expression to further sell his antics. When Nostariel asked quite reasonably what was he doing, he merely shrugged and said, "Your ears looked stressed so I decided to give them a massage," he said. The expression on his face positively screamed What else would I be doing?

Nostariel found that she didn't really have a response for that.

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon

Earnings

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Aurora wiped her own blade on the shoulder of the thug at her mercy, causing him to twitch in response before grabbing his collar and pushing. "Go on. You heard your boss. Limp on out of here," she said, tongue firmly in cheek as the blade receded back into her bracer. She may or may not have been on a power trip thanks to the versatility of Amalia's gift. She began to wonder why hadn't she ever thought about carrying a dagger or something before. As the thugs left Aurora approached the others she had just so recently aided. Introductions were in order, of course. Though now that she was closer, she finally realized the sole noncombatant was a Sister of the Chantry. Her gaze lingered on her for a couple of moments before her attentions were turned on the woman wielding the sword.

The name she gave was one she certainly wasn't expecting. Sophia Dumar? As in the Viscount Dumar? This woman was the Viscount's daughter? Traipsing about the Lowtown slums at a such an odd hour? It was strange to put it mildly. The wheels in Aurora's head began to turn for a moment before she responded. For a Noble, she knew her way around blade, almost better than the thugs she had fought. Then another thing clicked. Was this the Sophia Amalia spoke of? If so, that meant this woman was also present for the slaying of the dragon and the cleaning out of the Bone Pit. Surely, this woman was not one to be underestimated. The immense coincidence of them meeting there was not lost of on her. Either way, it seemed like she picked the right side to aid. Though, Aurora made a note to be careful with her magic around her, just as Amalia warned.

For her own introduction, she bowed and said, "Hello miss Dumar. I am Aurora Rose," despite her own careful nature, she couldn't find the will to give the woman a false identity. Well... More false. She then pointed at the wounds Sophia had sustained and said, "Do you need bandages or..." she trailed off. It was perfectly within her power to heal the woman of her injuries, though she did not wish to reveal her mage powers. Obviously, she had close ties with the Chantry and things could get... Muddy if she revealed them.

Lucien's head had whipped around just in time to see his final assailant being handled by a slender young woman with a most curious weapon. She winked at him, and he found himself smiling. There was something to be said for being able to maintain a certain amount of levity in situations like this one, and he straightened even as Sophia dealt with ridding them of the men still conscious. The ones he'd put under would all wake with massive headaches, but it wouldn't be anything worse than the average hangover, perhaps. Probably not an unusual occurrence for at least a few of them.

At Aurora's introduction, Lucien's smile only grew, and though the bow had not been for him, he returned the gesture in kind, though he was perhaps more practiced with them. "A pleasure, milady," he said, just a trace of humor at the edges of the words. "Lucien Drakon, at your service." He was not worried that anyone knew their ancient Orlesian history well enough to recognize the name. Nobody he'd yet met had, after all. Straightening, he followed the redheaded woman's line of sight to Sophia and frowned when he noticed the injury. It wasn't a debilitating one, but it was bound to be uncomfortable at the very least, and of course it brought him no pleasure to see his friends in pain.

Sophia seemed to be more or less fine, however, and his eye fixed askance on the priestess. He had not missed that she was still present, and his initial curiosity as to her reasons for being here had returned now that the immediate problem was dealt with. The armored Templar just now edging in on the scene was of further curiosity, and Lucien had the dark suspicion that he was going to be quite displeased in short order, as he might well be discovering that the three of them had risked themselves for a problem that was not a problem after all. That would, if true, transform the lady's injury from an unfortunate but tolerable consequence of doing what was necessary to an entirely pointless case of pain, which was most certainly not the same thing. Especially not to him.

Still, he would wait for an explanation before he jumped to conclusions.

"I'll be fine," Sophia said to Aurora, dismissing the injury. She reached into a small pouch on her belt and pulled out a little vial of red liquid, which she proceeded to drink only half of. Bran had gifted it to her, figuring if he could not stop her from pursuing a dangerous path, he'd at least help make sure she survived it. The half of the healing potion was enough to stop any bleeding, and allowed her to return to the matter at hand: Sister Petrice. The Chantry sister was at Sophia's side at this point.

"Thank you for your timely intervention, Sophia. And you two as well. I am... out of my element." Sophia nodded her understanding. That much had been obvious. "I'm just glad you're alright. These streets can be deadly at night. Why are you here, Petrice?" She sighed, a sign of frustration perhaps. "I had to come here to get the type of person I need. Someone of bloody skill, but also integrity. If I'd known of your presence here, and your skill with a blade, I suppose I could have saved myself the trip."

Sophia rested her hands upon her hips. "And why the need for someone like me? Is whatever you need done not a task the Templars could perform?" Petrice shook her head. "It's not so simple. I have a charge who needs passage from the city. If you are willing to assist the Chantry, please meet me at my safehouse at this location. We can discuss in more detail there." She handed Sophia a small piece of parchment with an address upon it, the location to meet her. "If your friends would be willing to assist," she added, "there would be coin available to them."

Now Sophia was beginning to become frustrated. Of course she would be willing to assist the Chantry, but why the need for all the secrecy, and why the search for Lowtown mercenaries? She was starting to get the sense that whatever Petrice was involved in, she was in over her head. "Petrice, what's going on? If you'll just-" but she was cut off by the sister with a wave of her hand. "I'm sorry, Sophia, but I can say no more here. Varnell!"

The name was called to the armored Templar, who had made his way towards the group from behind Sophia. The sight of a Templar here as well only served to confuse Sophia further. Clearly, she was not so defenseless as she had first seemed. "I hope you will consider coming, all of you," Petrice said. "This matter only grows more urgent with time." With that, she and the Templar departed quickly, in the direction of their safehouse, leaving Sophia, Lucien, and Aurora among the unconscious thugs. The Viscount's daughter turned to the mercenary, and the young woman who had come to their aid.

"I have a bad feeling about this," she admitted. "I'm not sure what she's gotten herself into. Escorting a charge from the city? I'm not sure why the Chantry would involve themselves in such a thing... but there must be a reason. I'm going to find out, at least, and see if there's something I can do to help. I would not ask either of you to throw yourselves into this, but if you would like, I would appreciate the company." She wasn't sure if Aurora had any training in defending herself other than with the little blade she'd used, but she seemed like she could handle herself. And Lucien of course would be extremely helpful to have along, both for his superior skill in battle, and his knowledge of the area. Sophia also had to admit she was hoping he would offer his assistance.

Lucien was, indeed, displeased. A test. It was always nice to know that agents of the Divine were willing to risk the lives of good samaritan passers-by to find someone who could do a job that the Chantry was apparently unwilling to put the Templars, the face of their military arm, on. The fact that that Templar- Varnell, the sister had said- was only one in number only lent fuel to the low-banked fire in his gut. Such an insufficient force would have been no guarantee of anyone's survival but the sister's, in all likelihood. It reeked of everything he'd learned to expect from the politics of the Grand Cathedral, and more than once, he'd seen his aunt frustrated by corruption she could not publicly decry. Something was very, very wrong here, and he didn't even know what the plan was yet. Even so, he knew that Sophia would not share these particular thoughts of his, or at least certainly not to the same degree, and so he kept his face neutral as he replied. He would not allow himself to be dishonest, but he was not going to be confrontational either. She did not deserve it.

"I must confess I find the entire affair incredibly shady thus far, but if it is your wish to see this to its end, I will assist," he replied quite truthfully. He was concerned, both about what they would be asked to do and also about the fact that Sophia's natural trust of the institution might blind her to potential dangers. She was not foolish, but he knew quite well that sometimes, those of naive faith in something could simply not register its flaws. His faith had not been in the Chantry, but for all other purposes, she was much the same as he'd been some years ago. It went without saying that he wished to prevent her from suffering the same consequences if possible.

"Did anybody else see the Templar... Just watching us?" Aurora pointed behind the Sister and at her armored friend. That... Irked her. Sure, she didn't like the Templars on principle, them trying to lock one up in a Tower for the rest of one's life could do that to a girl, but that wasn't it. It was rather that he chose to watch the pair fight without stepping in. The mere sight of a Templar could perhaps have nipped the fight before it began. Though, secretly it was a bit of a proud moment for her. A mage stepping in where a Templar would not. She liked that idea. What she did not like was the muddy dealings she had just stepped waist deep in. Something was off and askew, and she had to get to the bottom of it, else not be able to sleep that night due to pure curiousity.

"Me too," Aurora added behind Lucien, "I'm curious as to how far this rabbit hole goes, so to say." she stated.

Shady was a word Sophia had never considered applying to the Chantry, but she couldn't help but feel the same way. It bothered her immensely, and only strengthened her desire to investigate further. The fact that she, Lucien, and Aurora had all just risked their lives when Petrice could have simply asked Sophia for help was unfortunate, but Petrice had said herself she hadn't been aware of Sophia's skill with a blade. That in of itself seemed odd, considering how quickly word of her recent behavior had gotten around, but Sophia reminded herself not to make too much of it. There had to be a better purpose here. No doubt it would become more clear once they saw the charge they were to escort.

"Thank you, both of you," Sophia said, visibly relieved, though clearly quite bothered by what she had just heard. "Surely it won't hurt to hear her out. Come on, we shouldn't keep her waiting, if this is as urgent as she claims." With that she led the way towards the location she had been given. She knew of the general area, as the street named was not far from the Hanged Man, and thus she avoided getting lost as they traveled. It was well into night at this point, but the seeming weight of the situation served to keep Sophia very much awake.

The safehouse was numbered according to the parchment Petrice had given her, and Sophia pointed it out as she saw it. "Here we are," she said, leading the way. The door was slightly ajar, and Sophia pushed it open, heading inside, Lucien and Aurora behind her. Safehouse probably implied more than the place was worth, as it was little more than a hovel with a door. Sparse candles against the far wall lit the interior of the initial room, but otherwise, it appeared as though no one had used the building for a living space in some time. The Templar, Varnell, leaned against a nearby wooden table, his sword in hand, the point of which was resting against the ground. He offered no words upon seeing Sophia, and she gave him a slight nod of greeting in return.

"I'm glad you came, Sophia," Petrice said from near the candles on the far wall, "This matter is most delicate, but I'm certain you and your friends will be more than capable enough to handle it." Sophia took a few steps forward, to stand near the center of the room. "It is an escort," Petrice continued, "but I think you will agree, the nature of the party makes this... unique." More sidestepping around the point. Sophia folded her arms across her chest, visibly growing tired of it. "Petrice, I want to help, but if this is something criminal..."

The sister did not immediately refute Sophia's suggestion, which bothered her even more. "This should make things more clear. Here is my burden of charity... Ketojan!" At the call of the name, a disturbing sight came into view: he was immediately recognizable as kossith, one of the Qunari, but he was... chained, in nearly every conceivable way. A half shattered mask covered his face, the lower part gone, revealing lips that were sown mostly shut, and it was not immediately clear if he was capable of speaking at all. An incredibly heavy looking collar sat around his neck and shoulder, chains draping around every part of his being. Still, he carried himself with a certain undeniable strength, as though the bindings he wore were simply a normal thing. The sight caused Sophia's breath to catch in her throat momentarily, before she managed to breathe out a simple "Maker..."

"Behold what the followers of the Qun do to their mages. A grotesque and extreme stance, to be sure. Where the Templars seek to protect the mages from themselves as well as others, the Qunari seek only to bind and imprison them. A fate comparable, and perhaps worse, to death." Petrice took a few steps towards the Qunari mage, to stand before him. "He's a survivor of infighting with the Qunari Tal-Vashoth outcasts. I call him 'Ketojan,' a bridge between worlds."

She turned back to Sophia and the others. "Instead of returning this mage to his brutal kin, to no doubt continue this same terrible existence, let him serve a better purpose. I would see him free. He must be guided from the city without alerting his people."

"Wh-what? Qunari... Mage?" Aurora fumbled as she took a step back, bumping against Lucien. That is what they did to their mages? It shook her to her very core. He was chained and collared, mouth sewn short. He was burdened. The comparisons with how the Templar treated mages was instant, even before Petrice brought up her own view. This... Poor creature. It was as if he bore the physical manifestation of the burden every mage carried. Her breath was hitched and she was near to tears, unable to hide her obvious distress. To the others, it may just seem like simple fear or pity, but it struck deeper than that. Much deeper.

Did Amalia know? She had to have known. Did... Did she see her like this monster? Like a creature that should be chained up-- mouth sown shut and caged? A hand reached up to her mouth to stifle the sobs that threatened to escape. She couldn't bear to look at the the Kossith anymore, she averted her gaze down, both hands now cupping her mouth, breathing deeply and heavily. Her mind raced with the possibilities, of Amalia, of what she may, or may not had planned. It was with great effort she managed to push it all out of her mind with repeated mental recitation of her chosen word. Rosaline. Rosaline. Rose. Rose. Rose. Bloody Rose. Even that hardly did what it was meant to. Considering it was the Qunari who had taught her that. Suppose it was easy to lock up your fellows if everything was an illusion...

She... She needed to help this creature-- No, this man. He was a mage, just like her. Who would she be if she could not find it in herself to aid her. Even if helping the poor man was against the Qun, she didn't care. No one should be caged like that, no matter what. The Qun could go to hell, along with the rest of the Qunari, she was helping him find his own freedom, just like she had found her. She nodded and added, "Th-this is wrong. Mage or not, no one deserves this. He must be set free," she said resolutely. So distressed she was, she did not see the irony in that it was the Sister who wished to free the mage.

Lucien's hand automatically found its way to Aurora's shoulder when she stumbled back into him, but the rock-steady Chevalier did not even move. She was hardly much weight, and the motion of his arm was more for her benefit than his. He heard the sister's words, but his eye didn't leave the Qunari, head tilted faintly to one side, a thoughtful expression on his face. Certainly, it looked like quite the unsavory predicament, and yet if he was suffering or troubled by his existence, the kossith made absolutely no sign of it. He seemed to be... waiting for something, almost. Patiently, unwaveringly. It was not something Lucien would have recognized had he not known it firsthand. The comparison was imperfect, but something in the man's posture reminded him of a soldier at attention, a vassal awaiting his latest set of orders. By no means was it Orlesian parade rest, but... it was evocative.

He wondered if all was as it seemed. It rarely was, after all. A muffled sound distracted him, and he glanced back down at the young woman in front of him. Was she... shaking? No, perhaps he was imagining that. Either way, he removed his hand from her person, as it was apparently no longer necessary to her balance. She seemed quite stricken by the Qunari's predicament, and he wondered about that, but it was not really any of his business, and so he let it be. Really, none of this was any of his business, but here he was. The situation was so strange that he couldn't really say for sure if his honor required a certain course of action over another, and this, he thought, was probably due to a dearth of information, one which he doubted their contractors would be willing to rectify, if indeed they were able.

"You are asking us to risk much," he pointed out quietly. "The Arishok did not strike me as a particularly tolerant fellow, and if we are discovered, the Lady Sophia's involvement could easily be taken as an indication that this act had official sanction from the Viscount. Peace is not maintained by making such overt moves against a potentially-hostile force." His words were directed more at Sophia herself than Petrice, though it was certainly possible she had realized this fact already. For his own purposes, these considerations were important, but he would have been more interested to hear what the Qunari's preference on the matter was. "Does Ketojan speak the trade tongue?" he asked curiously, though he did in fact address himself to the kossith. His lips were sewn, but the bindings seemed somewhat loose, as though he might still talk past them. Perhaps it was more a symbolic or ritual act than one meant to actually prevent him from speaking. It probably had to be, if he ate.

Ketojan made a slight grumbling noise, but otherwise did not move or react to being addressed. Petrice seemed to ignore the majority of Lucien's words, focusing on a particular part. "You... have met with the Arishok?" She shook her head, perhaps due to the unlikelihood of encountering anyone who had spoken with him, considering how few were granted that chance. "Then you know how they would treat those who leave their heathen order. The Arishok would doom this poor creature." She seemed to consider something for a moment. "But perhaps this is advantageous. They must respect you, at least to some degree, if you were allowed to speak with them, the Arishok specifically. Surely they would not attack one whom they were previously civil with, should it come to that. It would only confirm their barbarism."

To say Sophia was torn would be an understatement. After finally wrapping her head around the situation, the gravity of it became extremely clear to her. This situation was only made more dangerous with her involvement, and yet now that she saw this mage... could she really walk away? The revelation that Lucien had dealt with the Qunari seemed insignificant to her at the moment, though she would likely want to ask him about it at some point. Right now, there was a decision to be made. Aurora seemed adamant on Ketojan's freedom, for whatever reasons she may have had. Lucien acted as the voice of reason as always, and his point hit home with her. The last thing she wanted was for this to fall back on her father. She wanted to help him, not undermine him. And yet... she knew what he would do in this situation. He would return the mage to his people without a second thought, appease them, give them what they wanted. Sophia had sought to better understand their culture, as her brother had suggested, but this... that they would do this to their own people sickened her.

"Is this truly something that Chantry resources cannot perform?" she inquired quietly. She needed more information. "The Chantry will soon realize the Qunari presence is more than a test of faith... it is an open challenge," Petrice explained, "But for now, I must act on my own. Can we simply ignore their heresy by allowing such an injustice to continue? The one who allows an evil act to occur is as wicked as the one who performs it, I say." It was exactly what Sophia hadn't wanted to hear, and exactly what she'd expected. This was going against the will of her father, and against the will of Chantry leadership. But the sister's words... the Qunari did not seem to be making urgent attempts to remove themselves from the city, in fact, what they were doing could easily be called militarization. They had already built themselves a fortified position within the Docks, unleashed deserters in the form of bandits upon the city's travelers. They did not negotiate with her father. As much as she hated to admit it, the city would be a significantly less troubled place if they left. And while this act would not make them leave by itself, it was a start. Differences in culture she could understand, but this... brutality, this senseless pain they inflicted on their own, she could not abide by.

"I'll do it," she said, steeling herself. "I cannot leave him to this kind of suffering. You have a plan, I'm assuming?" Petrice nodded. "Yes. The passage here," she gestured to a trap door in the back room, "leads into the warrens of the Undercity, a route that leads beyond the walls of the city. It is dangerous, but I trust in your abilities, Sophia. Thank you for doing the right thing here. I wish you the best of luck."

That left the matter of her companions, and Sophia turned to face them. Aurora she was quite certain would join her, and though Sophia was entirely certain how much help she would be, if the girl wanted to assist, she would not deny her the opportunity. Lucien, however, she could tell was much more apprehensive. She had no desire to drag him into something like this... but she also knew his help would likely prove invaluable. "I'm not sure about any of this," she admitted, "but I can't just walk away."

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon

Earnings

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Lucien wasn't certain about all of it, but he was damn sure of a few things. First: they were being played by the Chantry (or, he had to specify, by this sister and this Templar) like his friend Rilien played a lute, only far less gracefully and with little subtlety whatsoever. Secondly, he didn't have all the information he would have liked. Particularly egregious seemed to be the lack of any input from the Qunari. Whether they pitied him or were using him, they were still treating him like an object rather than a person (his allies unfortunately included), without any apparent inclination to seek his input, and the knight didn't like it. Third... he was going to be getting himself stuck into the middle of this anyway. Without any idea of what exactly the right thing to do about the kossith mage before them was, there was still something it was clearly right to do, and that was to help Sophia and Aurora. There was no telling what they were about to face, and which if any traps they would be inadvertantly springing, but something unpleasant was about to occur, he had no doubt about that.

The Chevalier sighed, wondering when his rampant idealism had become tinged with such a jaded hue. On second thought, he knew exactly when, and couldn't bring himself to regret it. Some things were just necessary. There were dozens of arguments to be had about the greater good and what to do in the case of ideological disagreement- he doubtless would have been wasting his breath on the intolerant sister, and frankly, right now it seemed counterproductive to voice at all. What faced him was a choice: he could either accompany the two young women and the kossith to whatever trials awaited them, or he could leave now and let them fend for themselves in exactly the same circumstances, one body and one weapon short.

It was hardly a choice.

"I'm hardly surprised. If that is what you want, then I shall come as well," he replied with what seemed to be good humor. His face, which had closed off to an unusual degree during his deliberations, returned to its more common, friendlier cast. "That said, I'd very much like to know what he wants," he continued, glancing over at Ketojan. There was a long moment of silence, during which the Qunari did not respond, and Lucien shook his head slightly. By this point, he was as close to completely ignoring Petrice as he could be while still remaining polite. Her disparaging remarks about the Arishok and the Qunari, he gracefully left unanswered. There wasn't much of use to be said. Lucien didn't share in that disdain, and though he would admit that there was something unsettling about this mage's condition, he did not pretend to be able to judge that which he did not understand. Who was he to call anything wicked? He could only act according to his sense of these things, and that hardly seemed to apply in this situation. The Qunari were alien to him in a way that very little about human society was anymore.

Still quite sure this was not a good idea, he nevertheless proceeded to the back room, past the unfriendly glare of the Templar, and hefted the trap door open, indicating that all three of the others were free to proceed him down into the warrens.

Sophia too was curious as to what exactly the Qunari wanted, but at no point in the conversation had he shown he was even capable of speaking. A low grumble that did not constitute words was all he had offered, and as such, it seemed that they would be left to make their own decision in the matter. Sophia expected that so long as Ketojan possessed free will, he could choose to not follow them into the warrens if he wished. It wasn't like they were going to (or capable of) carrying him to his freedom. Once she had Lucien's agreement to help, which she was certainly grateful for, she moved towards Ketojan, trying for a moment to discern any kind of message written in his eyes. A futile endeavor, indeed.

"Ketojan," she began, trying to make sure she had his attention, "if you would like, you may follow us, and we can lead you safely from the city." There was a brief moment of awkward silence before the Qunari responded with another grating gurgle. Sophia looked back to Aurora and Lucien to see if perhaps either of them had gotten anything out of that, before she shrugged, and made her way to the trap door that Lucien had opened for them. After passing a thank you Lucien's way, she made her way down the ladder.

Her boots sunk slightly into something upon reachng the bottom, and Sophia gave the floor a disapproving look before positioning herself somewhere dryer and focusing on ignoring the smell. Apparently agreeing to follow them, Ketojan was the second one down, the ladder clearly straining under the weight of both his body and his chains. He safely made it down, however, coming to a stop at a distance from Sophia that was close enough for her to feel slightly uncomfortable about it.

As Aurora made her way down as well, Sophia thought to speak up about a concern. "I appreciate the assistance, Aurora," she began, choosing words carefully, "but these warrens can be quite dangerous at times. I just want to make sure you know what you might be getting yourself into." She couldn't help but glance down at the less savory parts of the ground and think of the double meaning of her words. "Also, watch your step coming down."

Aurora ran a hand down the thick arms of the caged Qunari, a mix of pity, sorrow, and a hidden flush of pain and anger comprising her tumltious emotions. "We'll get you out... I promise," she offered as she strode forward towards the hatch-- her hand lingering on the arm of Ketojan until they slipped out of reach. She placed one foot in the hatch before tossing a weak smile Lucien's way. Aurora's voice may have sounded sure, but a battle was raging inside that redhead. Mostly about her preconcieved notions of the Qunari, mostly concerning Amalia and her actions. So enthralled in her own mind that she missed the last step and stumbled into the soft dirt beneath. A little too late for Sophia's careful warning-- even if she had been in the right state of mind to hear it. Though, she did catch the... Tone she had used (intended or imagined), asking if she was sure. As if she was some lost little girl getting in over head. If she had taken the time to think about it, that what she did seem like, descending into the underbelly of Lowtown armed with seemingly nothing more than a little blade strapped to her arm.

Neither of them knew that she could ignite anything dangerous with her mind.

"I'm sure," she said, her voice lined with an edge that wasn't there before. Lowtown tought me how to look after myself. I can handle it," she stated in a matter-of-factly manner.

Lucien waited for the others to precede him down the ladder, then passed a polite half-bow to the Chantry representatives before following, lowering the door carefully after him as he went. If he were rude to everyone he didn't like, he'd probably be quite the uncouth individual, a bit less so now than in the past, though. It was helpful to constantly remind oneself of one's blessings.

He reached the ground in enough time to overhear the exchange between Sophia and Aurora, and avoid the trouble spot on the ground. It was not always helpful to remind oneself of one's surroundings. The air between the two women seemed to thicken, and he shot Ketojan a knowing glance, determined to at least include the Qunari in the nonverbal side of communication. Probably a misappropriated piece of goodwill, but that was only if you believed goodwill could ever be misappropriated. As he suspected the chained mage would not be of great assistance in dispelling the tension, he did his part in hopes that it would be sufficient. "I rather expect that it has," he agreed amicably, "and I have that fact to thank for the presently-uninjured state of my back. No insult was meant, milady; caution rarely goes astray is all." Lucien was fairly certain that this was indeed the truth of it- though he hadn't known Sophia long, he would be incredibly surprised to learn that she'd ever intentionally belittled someone offering her assistance. He smiled genially at all three of his companions, then started forward.

"While I'm not sure about either of you or our friend here, I much prefer fresh air over this dank. Shall we find some?" He started forward with surety in his step, intent on just that. Things were never so simple as he was making them seem, but one grew to expect the complications with time. Some days, he was quite certain he embraced them.

Sophia had indeed only meant to ensure that Aurora wasn't jumping into this blindly. She hadn't meant any offense, and in fact the woman's response had surprised her a bit in its tone. She seemed very confident that she could handle the trouble, though Sophia hadn't seen what exactly she had to defend herself with other than the little knife she'd used in the fight earlier. Still, Sophia had underestimated allies recently, and she was willing to accept that she could make the same mistake again.

"As Lucien says, no insult was meant." With that she followed after him, and the heavy thuds behind her informed her that Ketojan was moving as well. That was a start.

Aurora's gaze was leveled on Sophia for a moment before she sighed, allowing her shoulders to droop signifying that she relented. "I'm sorry. Seeing what they did to this... poor man had put me on edge. It had nothing to do with you," she stated. It didn't mean that she wasn't still wary of the girl, she wasn't planning on outright ignoring Amalia's advice after all.

It was indeed unsettling, and the fact that Sophia was agreeing to this at all spoke to how cruel she thought it. She was defying what her father would do in order to free a mage, one whose intentions and motivations were almost entirely unknown to them. Sophia had never been particularly moved by the plight of mages, and yet here she was. Petrice's words had struck a chord within her. Where the Templars sought to protect the mages from themselves as well as protect the people, these Qunari, from what she could see, only wished for their suffering and enslavement. It was too far, and it was too much for her to simply turn a blind eye. Not in this city.

They carried on in silence from there, following the path that was seemingly laid out for them through the warrens. Presumably this would lead out of the city at some point. It was quiet save for the thumping steps of Ketojan behind them, and their own feet slogging through the Undercity. Sophia had been just about to allow herself to think they'd get out without any trouble when they rounded and corner in came into the view of a group of Undercity denizens who were quite clearly thugs, judging by the way they were openly brandishing weapons and looking belligerent. Sophia made sure to loosen her sword in its sheath.

One of them stepped forward and surveyed the approaching group. "Well, look at this. Undercity's feared by all, and yet there's no shortage of fools who want to test it." Sophia groaned inwardly at this. Did these people really have nothing better to do? In the meantime, the thug leader was narrowing his eyebrows at Ketojan. "What is this thing, collared like a dog lord's bitch?"

Really. Sometimes it was just a little too much to ask for people to really think about things, wasn't it? By this stage of his life, Lucien would have settled for as little as a bit of creativity in the insults that got hurled at him. After you heard "fool" enough times, you began to wonder if you should just take to wearing bells and telling bad jokes. Truly, he knew half the things he didn't weren't exactly genius, but surely the idiocy of walking around down here was mitigated at least a little by the fact that there were four of them, three of whom were armed, two of whom wore moderate-to-heavy armor and two who were considerably taller than anyone else in the room. Who decided to attack a party with a Qunari in it, anyway? He swallowed the question, as well as the resulting determination about who was truly being foolish here, as it was perhaps not the kind of thing he ought rightly to say anyway.

Sophia made sure to be standing in front of her charge, folding her arms over her chest. "This is no concern of yours. I'd ask that you please remove yourself, and allow us to be on our way." He seemed to find that funny, which did not surprise Sophia. "Hah! You some sort of Qunari lovers? Maybe I should get rid of you all and see who'll pay the most for your pet." At that, Ketojan made his first move to acknowledge really anything around him, taking a step forward to come nearly beside Sophia, and growling towards the thugs.

"Uh, I don't think it likes you threatening its master," one said, looking up at the horned mage. "Maybe we let this one pass?" After overcoming her disbelief that one of them had seen reason, Sophia seconded him. "This will go better for all of us if you just step aside." The leader wasn't having any of it, of course. "And let you make a holiday of the last free place in Kirkwall? No, I think I'll cut you up and save the biggest piece for your pet."

He had pulled a knife, and went to stab at her. She'd been ready to grab for his arm when she felt a force blow by her, the air blasting outwards and pushing back, sending the entire group of thugs onto their backs. Ketojan's hands were alight with magical energy, his stance low, almost predatory. The thugs were readying their weapons even as they rose. "By the Void! Kill it! Kill them all!"

Sophia drew her sword. It seemed trouble had found them after all.

"Well, this wasn't exactly the complication I had in mind, but I suppose it will do," he murmured, watching a few of the men climb to their feet, still a bit disoriented from Ketojan's burst of magic. It was interesting; he'd known a few mages in his time, and Rilien knew a great deal of the theory, which he'd divulged to satisfy Lucien's curiosity from time to time, and there was something a bit off about the situation. It seemed less... refined than he'd come to expect of a mage. Then again, he doubted very much the Qunari were giving theirs formal educations, so it could just be that. Sophisticated or not, it was clearly effective, and he'd take it.

"I don't suppose you could do that again, could you?" he asked the collared kossith. "Seems useful." Either way, it was with a weary sort of frown that he reached over his shoulder and grasped the haft of his scythe. He really needed to consider upgrading to one with a metal pole; the wood was already chipped and wearing in several places. The instrument was clearly not intended to be used in the way he was utilizing it, after all. Nevertheless, it swung easily enough into the midsection of the brigand who'd just attempted to gut him, leaving a debilitating but not fatal wound there.

This was a familiar song and dance, and it seemed that no matter how he searched, the steps rarely changed.

Setting

4 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

The letter had asked her to show up at the city gates, and so it was there that Nostariel led the oddest group of misfits she'd ever had the... fortune to encounter. If anyone had told her that morning that she'd be spending her day with a Tranquil, a cheery, androgynous half-elf and an incredibly confusing (and touchy) hunter, she probably would have thought them drunk or insane. Yet here she was, approaching the portcullis that led out onto the Wounded Coast, that warren of sand and caves and long stretches of beach over aquamarine water. If there weren't bandits and raiders and Tal-Vashoth and now apparently Templars crawling all about, it might have been a scenic sort of locale. Now, though, she was trying her best to be as businesslike as she could, as if to make up for the lack of it in her companions.

Well, all right, the Tranquil probably couldn't have been more efficient and solemn if he'd tried, but Ashton and Sparrow were quite the opposite.

The scuff of her leather boots on flagstones would have tipped off Thrask to her approach of the general ambient chatter of the others had not, and she drew up to a stop a polite distance from him, staff in hand. It was a subtle thing, but it would not do for either of them to forget that he was dealing with a mage here. It was a line that had been firmly drawn in her perception from the moment she'd started her lessons, and though she had once labored with fervor to blur it, she was no longer sure this was possible. Whether that was tragic or all for the best, she had yet to decide. "Good morning, Ser Thrask," she greeted politely, inclining her head.

Even if she'd been opposed to running face-first into another confrontation with Templars, who seemed duly incapable of dealing with their own problems as of yet, or magical baddies and particularly nasty demons who had a penchant for appearing whenever she rounded the corner, Sparrow had always been unable to turn down a pretty lady in need of aid. She busied herself by throwing quips Ashton's way, ricocheting them into something that involved Nostariel, quickly ascertaining that Ashton touched her ears because he liked her – it was in his nature, if they wiggled, then they'd be pressed into the folds of his palms regardless of how she reacted. Her own were nothing to throw a stone at, as they were stunted, half-formed things that barely reached halfway to any elven normal ears, compared to Nostariel's elegantly shaped ears, or Rilien's, for that matter. Still pointed, but indubitably significant when singling her out as a half, as something that didn't quite belong here, nor there. It had probably been the main reason why Ithilian was so wary of her presence, or why he'd even allowed her into the Alienage in the first place. A fusion of disconcerting thoughts; of whether he should hate, or tolerate, her...

Her hands slowly stretched above her head, accompanied by a cat-like yawn, before resting at the nape of her neck, fingers intertwined. The Wounded Coast, in all it's barren glory, with it's expanse of ocean and gritty terrain, homed the ones who called themselves tal-vashoth. Those who rejected the Qun, much like herself, albeit in a more congregated, specific way. They sawed off their horns, terrorized the countryside and adopted a role more suited to petty mercenaries than proud Qunari. If she weren't in such a cheery mood, in good company, then she might've been disgusted at the thought of chancing an encounter with them – though, she'd do what any arvaarad would do and cut them down without any forethought, or hesitation. She found herself in step with Rilien, though her heavy, horse-clopping gait certainly did not exude his effortless grace. If one looked at them, they'd notice that they couldn't have been more different. He moved with the shadows, as light as a feather. She stomped, scuffed pebbles, and was, generally, the loudest of the group.

Nostariel had explained Thrask's intent beforehand, so that Sparrow did not jump to any conclusions regarding his objective. A Templar who supported mages? It seemed, for lack of a better word, questionable. A Templar who wasn't sniffing at Meredith's boots like a faithful hound? That seemed even stranger. She stood at a reasonable distance, though she was far less cautious than Nostariel, crossing her arms over her chest as if to scrutinize him – how would the Templar even know whether or not any of them were mages, with the exception of their wayward Grey Warden and her staff, and Rilien, with his sunburst marking. She'd always passed off as a brute swinging a mace. This time, it was no different.

Thrask surveyed the group with a look that was hard to read. It was possible that he was confused at the assortment or Tranquil, human, elf, and half-elf, and the glance he gave to the mark on Rilien's forehead implied he had perhaps heard of him from a certain Knight-Captain the Tranquil had run into. Regardless of what he knew, he revealed little, greeting Nostariel in return instead.

"Thank you for coming, and for bringing others. This would be a difficult task for any one man or woman. Please, if you'll follow me, I will take you to them, and explain on the way. I'm afraid haste is important in this matter." He immediately led them through the gate and out towards the coast. "Before you ask, the Templars no longer directly seek the boy Feynriel. We regret that he could not be returned to safety at the Circle, and we are aware of his presence with the Dalish. It is obvious to us that any attempt to extract him from there would be pointless, and thus we leave it in the elves' hands to ensure the boy is taught properly. I contacted you because I thought perhaps you and friends would be willing to show mages another kindness."

After some time it became apparent they were not heading directly towards the coastline, but rather up into the cliffs above it, where a number of caverns and old mines were located. Their trek was notably simple, and notably free of Qunari outlaws. "There are a number of apostates hiding in one of the caverns up ahead," Thrask explained. "I was hoping you might speak to the group, and convince them to surrender peacefully before my fellow templars arrive."

Nostariel caught on to Thrask's urgency, as well as a near-palpable undercurrent of worry in his demeanor. Her mouth turned down at the corners, and she gripped her staff a little tighter, but she did not speak until he was through. Whether that was mere politeness or a more insidious reminder that some habits were hard to break was indeterminate, and she hardly gave it passing thought. When the group came to a stop, she shifted her weight uneasily. This had the ring of something very clandestine about it, and she wasn't exactly sure why.

"I am given to understand that the usual practice is for the Templars to enter these negotiations themselves," she enunciated slowly, cautiously. "Is there a reason the matter must be settled before they arrive?" Of course there was; there was always a reason. She simply wanted to know what it was. The automatic assumption was too easy, too commonplace, and she wanted to hear it confirmed from his own tongue before she allowed herself to mourn the moderateness that had been the hallmark of the Templars in her childhood, lost to the extremism of blood magic and Andrastean zealotry.

The fault lay with both sides, but there was no mistaking who suffered more as a consequence, and this situation was looking to be no different.

"Isn't it obvious my little magelet? Ashton began, tearing himself from the various quips thrown between himself and Sparrow. He had just the one too! About Templars no less. But alas, his tongue got ahead of him, "This Templar's grown a heart while we weren't looking and he'd like us to shepherd his lost lambs for him, before his fellows come around and lead them to the slaughter," While the analogy was certainly... colorful, it did it's job of explaining what he had born witness to. The treatment of the mages in the city wasn't very... nice, to put it mildly. His fine white-haired friend at his side spoke of what would happen to mages who do not comform. True, it seemed that he had slaughtered his own share of mages recently-- but they did start it. Bloodmages and their crazy demony rituals... He then turned back to Sparrow in order to throw the joke at her, but found that he had forgotten it. Dammit.

"Templars are not without hearts, Ashton," Nostariel replied quietly, each syllable drawn a little longer with something almost unidentifiable to those who hadn't heard it from their own lips. A faint tremble in the words, weighted down by gravity and the deep blue melancholy only the past seemed capable of producing. It was, to those who knew it, the barely-perceptible razor edge of grief.

Rilien ignored it, rather more interested in discovering if Ashton's conjecture was indeed the case. "You fear the mages will be killed if the other Templars are forced to extract them," he concluded, much less sarcastically than Ashton had. "Why?" That was not, as far as he was aware, Kirkwall Chantry policy, though he had little doubt that if it did happen, it would be properly excused and apologized, changing nothing. What were a few more dead people in a city like this? Much less a few dead mages. In this, they and peasants were alike; if there was nobody important to miss you when you were gone, you simply didn't matter. This was a lesson he'd learned the hard way, long ago, and it had merely been repeated to him in different guises ever since. Only one person had ever given him reason to believe that it could ever change, and even that was a vain hope in which he did not often allow himself to indulge.

"Why?" Thrask repeated, seeming slightly offended by the question. "Because I do not revel in the deaths of mages. That is not what my order stands for, what it was built upon. True, there are zealots among us, and a zealot leads us, but many Templars still desire a relationship of cooperation with the mages." He had expected a certain level of antagonism from the help Nostariel had brought, considering that he expected them to be favorable to the cause of mages. The realization of just how much some despised his order was still something of a shock.

"Though your wording was less than eloquent," he said towards Ashton, "I suppose you have the truth of it. A knight-lieutenant of the Templars by the name of Ser Karras leads the Templars on their way here. He is a great crony of Meredith. Should he find apostates hiding from pursuit, Meredith will consider him justified in murdering the lot of them. Since these mages escaped following the destruction of the Starkhaven Circle, they have been known to attack Templars on sight. There will be a massacre here if Karras is the one to meet them. I'm hoping a group more kind to the mages might be able to make them see reason."

Ashton merely uplifted a palm in order to wordlessly indicate that he, in fact, told them so. Though quite unlike him he did not punctuate that with a rambling series of words, instead keeping his tongue within its pearly white cage. He felt that he hit upon a sore spot with pretty little Nostariel, and it wouldn't do to exacerbate that. However, he would thoroughly investigate the matter at a later time. Perhaps somewhere where the ale flowed like a river. And a grotty, pissy river at that.

Sparrow's fingers drummed soundlessly against her forearm, as she weighed the possibilities that this Templar wasn't just jerking them around for his own amusement. Or trying to lure said mages, including herself, in the group to some sort of sick slaughter on Templar holy-ground. Her mouth pursed slightly, then drew itself into a tight-lipped scowl. Why were they dealing with these blighters again? Couldn't they deal with things themselves? It seemed like every corner they turned down, or every mission they partook in, had heavy involvement with runaway apostates, grisly details, and Templars who couldn't keep any semblance of order themselves. It was obvious that Thrask wanted them to be on their way without explaining much of anything. If they needed to scamper along in the darkness, in the wake of another danger, then she wanted to damn well know about it. As if to accentuate her unvoiced opinions, Sparrow threw her arms out wide, shrugging her shoulders in exasperation. He might've wanted to help whatever mages lied below-ground but he still spoke as if they needed the Circle's help to maintain their twisted methodologies; as if they were wayward beasts turned out to another pasture. The Dalish took care of their own without oppressive measures.

Her patience was waning. Like a string pulled taut until it couldn't stretch out any longer. He sought to remedy the situation with words before the Templars came to take them away like dogs. What kind of person would be convinced back into shackles? She had been hearing about these things ever since entering Kirkwall. Apostates were never to be treated like you and I – they were creatures that went bump in the night and if they weren't smothered with a justly pillow then they were better off dead. Hadn't that always been their opinion on the matter? Anger flashed in her eyes for a moment, before being wrestled into submission. These days her composure was a sickly, wavering thing. Prone to brief bouts of insecurities, of helplessness and relinquished power. It seemed as if she was in accordance as well. She agreed with Ashton. Perhaps, if given enough thought, she'd proposition the fact that she hated the Templars nearly as much as she hated the shemlen who'd ruined her in the first place – no, no, Papyrus. Not Sparrow, but Papyrus. The analogy was sound enough. She didn't trust Thrask because he was a Templar and he'd probably done things to innocent people while serving Knight-Commander Meredith. Things that couldn't just be swept or washed away. Things that stained his hands indefinitely.

Even as Ashton turned to look at her, Sparrow found that all the merriness, all of the elbow-jesting they'd done earlier had filtered from her toes. All she felt was a lean, sour anger. "It's a choice being a Templar." She said through her teeth, eyeing Thrask. They were heartless. Or worse, yet. How could someone continue doing what they knew was wrong? If Thrask actually wanted to help runaway mages, then he'd deal with these things himself or simply leave the Templar Order to do some good with his life. Sparrow understood that her own hands were no cleaner, but at least she knew that she hadn't hounded a disconsolate people for simply being born with abilities they couldn't control. They needed guidance, not chains and shackles and promises of death if they didn't obey. Her fingers twitched at her sides, then clenched into her palms. She'd heard Nostariel and it almost sounded as if she were defending the Order. It made no sense to her. “One Templar with a heart – one sot who cares? If Templars desired cooperation with mages, then they'd leave them the hell alone. What would you have us do?” Her hand opened, then flashed upward, palm towards the sky. “Talk them down, and they'll be arrested. Punished?” Again, Sparrow opened her other hand as if weighing the outcomes. “Or allow them to be slaughtered.” They certainly weren't doing this for him. To her, it was always for them.

Kill the Templars.

"I'd rather not discuss the entirety of the magic issue here and now, as we do not have the time and I do not have the patience," Thrask said, looking tired. "I can only ask you to judge the situation as it stands: if any Templar goes in that cave there will be blood and death until all of these mages are slain. You are the only ones who can prevent their deaths now. Regardless of how any of you feel about me or my order, surely you can see the good that can be done here. I will say no more."

"And you need not, Ser Thrask," Nostariel cut in, for once sounding every bit the authority figure she could be. "I will go. Whether my companions choose to follow me is their business, but the longer we wait, the worse the chances will be for the mages in the cave." The look she shot Sparrow might have been reproachful, but if so, it was only that way in the gentlest of manners, as a mother might look at a child which has spoken out of turn but done no real harm. If she'd realized she was wearing it, she would have been a little bit abashed at herself, but it was not a face she knew she had in her repertoire. Gripping her staff firmly in her right hand, the Warden approached the cave entrance, ducking into it without anything further. She hadn't always been able to be as good as her word, but she was going to be now, if she had any choice in the matter.

Ashton propped an elbow as he usually did to his elven friends, right on top of Sparrow's head. A simple hook around her neck, all buddy-buddy like would have also sufficed, but he felt that it didn't have his brand of nonchalance about it. Though the move seemed to be typical Ashton fare, perhaps there was another intended effect. Perhaps playing his silliness to diffuse the suddenly tense situation. Or perhaps more likely the situation completely flew over his head and he was merely acting as Ashton would, silly, out-of-touch, oblivious to all that surrounds him. He leaned his walnut shaped head on the propped arm and issued a large sigh. Maybe this conversation was getting old for him. Maybe not. Ashton was either a man of many mysteries and enigmas, or he was merely a simple fool. Chances were, the second. Though who knew but the silly fool himself?

"So, mages, Templars, Tranquils, so on, and so forth," he issued rather boredly for himself conducting the list with his free hand, "Tis an adventure and since we walked all the way out here why not see this errand to it's eventual end?" Ashton said, upraising his other palm in a shrug. "I'm in. I love mages after all-- Wait! I said I was coming too! Don't leave me like that! Come on now!" Ashton whined behind Nostariel as her distance between them lengthened. "I'm supposed to be the one to jump headfirst into these things!" He wailed as he jumped into the cave behind the pretty little mage.

Perhaps, it'd be best if Sparrow started with this Templar. Her approaching footsteps had an ungainly spring to them, completely unlike her usual graceless gait. Her lidded eyes seemed glassy, beaming uncharacteristically. Even her joints felt wooden, as if they were attached to swinging ball-joints – with distinctive decorum, without any jostling elbows or wriggling gestures. Bereft of anything but a prodigious poise that did not belong to her. The mages-in-hiding would not be free unless the Templar's were dealt with. Why would they wish to have shackles and chains slapped on their wrists? Would they prefer a life endured beneath a heavy blanket of oppression or a chance to fight for their freedom? She knew what she would've chosen in their position, even if the chances in her favour were slim to none. Her shoulders straightened, ceased the nervous energy that buzzed angrily in her chest. Justice would be served today. Compromise? How could they. She wondered idly what Thrask would do if the Templar's simply refused to accept their interference, if they simply accounted the mages as too dangerous and decided to prematurely end their lives. Execute them in a cave. What would Thrask do if they fought in their honour, slaughtering their captors? Sheushered her encouragement with a smile, sidling a ghostly hand at the small of her back.

It was Nostariel's reproachful expression that caused her to pause in her steps, halting completely – it might've made her laugh if it didn't stop her in her tracks, so entirely was she taken aback by her words, her look. The expression was one that was reserved for a mother she no longer remembered. It was almost as if someone had thrown a bucket of cold water over her, ending her anger far too early. She was not satisfied, hissing in her ears as if someone had tried to take her pet away. She knuckled her eyes, feeling suddenly exhausted. What had she wanted to do, anyway? Drive her blade through the Templar's heart. The notion seemed alien to her, as if appearing from nowhere in particular. As flighty and unreal a thought as diving headfirst into a cave in order to pacify terrified apostates, to watch as they're lead back to the Circle where they would be watched and possibly prosecuted for defending themselves against monstrous shemlen. An awkward silence stretched between them, until Nostariel resolutely turned away and ducked beneath the cave's lip.

Some sought forgiveness through their actions, while others made excuses for what they'd done in the first place. Sparrow believed that this was the case with Thrask. Hadn't he already killed mages in their Harrowing? Something force-fed unto fledgelings to control them. Her hands were no cleaner, but at least she had the comfort of knowing that she wasn't ruining any innocent lives. Her thoughts ended abruptly when she felt Ashton's elbow prop atop her head, wriggling fingers obscuring her view. In one simple motion, Sparrow's anger sieved through her fingertips, hollowed out her toes and anchored her. A switch had been pulled. Her frigid expression had already been replaced by something much like herself; a curtain had been dropped. She flapped her hands at him, ducking underneath his armpit with a breathless grin, inquisitive eyebrows raised. “Fine, fine. Let's get this done. Never leave a job unfinished.” Sparrow chirped brightly. She'd never been very good at lying. If it came down to it, and either parties were threatened, or the opportunity presented itself, she would hurtle into the only option that felt right.

She automatically kept pace with Rilien, watching absently as Ashton scampered after Nostariel. She felt none of their determination, only an adamant cold that extended up her forearms. There was impending danger nipping at their heels, and a difficult decision that had to be made that went far beyond simply calming down mages, or making a deal, or trying to convince them that it was better to lower their heads and give in. She felt justified in her anger, but still, even so, she felt as if she needed to apologize. To who – Nostariel? Why had she defended them? Because one sot felt as if he were finally responsible? In passing, Sparrow regarded Thrask, “You might've grown guilty for what you've done, but we will always hate what you stand for.” It came curtly, soft enough for none to hear but her taciturn companion.

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon

Earnings

0.00 INK

At the first sign of trouble, Aurora slackened her steps and drooped behind the marching warriors. Unlike them, she wasn't covered head to toe in armor, nor did she wield an implement of death as tall as she. No, all she had at her disposal was a hidden blade and the scant little she had learned from Amalia, though strained it was, reflecting on previous circumstances. Though, there was always the ability to dip into her considerable arsenal of magic, but that would prove far from the most favorable approach. She didn't quite feel like stating to the world that she was a mage just right yet. Thus, the shadow games. As Sophia conversed with the belligerents, she had a gut feeling that mere words wouldn't get them far. Such as the state of the underworld. She didn't get a good line of sight on the rogues, since she had positioned herself right behind the large frame of Ketojan.

Then the Qunari took a step forward and a feral sound escaped his sewn lips. Aurora sighed, she knew that it would probably end this way, though not from the direct action of Ketojan himself. The blast of magic was also a surprise, but one she wasn't entirely ungrateful for. At this Ketojan lowered his own stance, like an animal would when it's ready to pounce. That gave her a better view of the battlefield, and most importantly, her first target. One of the rogues had gotten to his feet a little too fast, and had stumbled close to the Qunari and the redhaired girl behind it. Aurora fully intended to capitalize on this opportunity. Channeling Amalia as much as she dared, her short legs pumped, surging her forward toward the back of the Qunari. Ketojan, the mound of muscle that he was, surely wouldn't mind a light frame like Aurora to borrow him as a launching pad for a moment.

A hop brought her first foot to the base of Ketojan's back, the next step to his middle, and third and final to his shoulder. There she launched herself at the dazed rogue-- the fact of seeing a girl pop out of nowhere and launch herself at him surely not helping matters. In midair, she extended her wristblade and as she fell back to the earth, the blade entered the man's neck-- ending him before his back ever met the ground. Using that momentum, Aurora then dismounted the man, rolling forward and into a standing position. Hopefully the spectacle was surprising enough that it drew attention away from actively trying to kill her and into something more akin to "What the hell?"

She quickly let the blade resheathe itself as she backstepped towards the relative safety of her comrades.

Sophia was not pleased with how things had progressed. As she had suspected, open conflict was unavoidable, certainly now that Ketojan had made what the thugs clearly saw as a brazen attack. Lucien had gotten straight to work, as had Aurora, her acrobatic first attack coming as a bit of a surprise to Sophia. It succeeded in catching the thugs off guard as well, and Sophia took the opportunity to slice one across the back of the leg, taking him to his knees, and allowing Sophia an easy hit to the back of his head with her blade pommel, knocking him out. She would not try to force any ideals on Aurora, but she still did not think death necessary here. Not if it could be avoided.

It seemed Ketojan did not share her line of thought, however, which became apparent as Sophia turned to confront her next attacker. She'd been ready for a parry when Ketojan decided once again that she was in need of assistance, this time his hands igniting in magical flame. The fire shot forth from his palms, setting the thug alight and dousing nearby Sophia in the heat. She backed off quickly, a shout of surprise drowned out by the flaming man's screams. It was an unpleasant sight, sound, and smell all at once.

"Restrain yourself, Qunari, we can handle this!" she shouted, but the order went unheard. Sophia once again questioned why she was risking so much to set Ketojan free. The thought would have to wait, as she focused on engaging and disarming the next enemy.

Flashy, but not too bad. Lucien thought with a smile as Aurora launched herself off Ketojan and onto one of the thugs. Of course, she also went right for the throat, and he wondered about that for a moment. She didn't seem to be of Rilien's kind, those who saw no point in leaving an enemy alive that would have killed them, but he'd been wrong about that sort of thing before. The other options were that she was simply angry enough to do it now- quite possible- or that she was trained with that blade well enough to kill but not well enough to refrain from it. Also possible, though perhaps a bit less likely. Whatever the case, he wasn't here to judge, and he paid it no further mind, wading into the mass of thugs like he was out for a casual stroll.

Or at least it would have looked that way until the scythe started swinging every which-way. Spun, passed from arm to arm, contacted with three incoming heads. Never with the deadly bit, because he knew his timing and his intent. One locked eyes with him and disappeared, but this time he was more than ready for that old tirck, and smoothly as you please, the scythe just happened to be passing behind his back when the man appeared to attept to sink a dagger into it. Free of his immediate assailants, Lucien advanced for the back of the ranks, pivoting his entire body and adding force to the nearly ninety-degree angle of the whirling farm implement. Three repetitions, and three more downed thugs. It was quite apparent that they weren't even dealing with professionals here, just a large grouping of people.

Perhaps they'd find a new occupation, when (and in some cases, if) they awoke afterwards. It didn't seem all that likely, but then people like he (and apparently Aurora and Sophia) tended to deal in the unlikely.

Aurora hadn't meant to kill anyone-- at least that was her intention when she first began. That was why the first bandit encroaching on Lucien only got a knife to the back of the knee for his trouble. Though now she had blood, real blood on her blade. Sure, chances were that the rogue would still be doing what he was doing only elsewhere, though still. To kill wasn't her intent. It seemed that her mind was still clouded, despite her earlier words. It wasn't Sophia, no, rather she was a victim as well-- though she made off better than the next one. Visions of Amalia danced in her mind. If Ketojan was an example of how the Qunari treated their mages, then what did she see her as? A beast in need of a cage? Or something else entirely.

Confusion and frustration, pent up and ready to burst. The slaying of a rogue only added to that pressure. Now because of the Qunari, she had blood on her hands. True, it was foul blood, but she did not intend to start the night with bloodshed. It was only by her force of will that she stayed composed and kept the obsceneties from her mouth. Also, it was her will that kept the fade in check. It was mental states such as hers that invited demons into her soul, and unlike the metaphorical demons of common folk, hers were much more dangerous. Such conflict waging inside her head, between composure, outrage, betrayal, calm, anger, it was a small miracle that she didn't just start chucking fireballs. Though that would only add another facet to her issues. No doubt Sophia would take offense to her being a mage.

Though it was with a bit more control that Aurora approached the fray once more. A thug looking to take the seemingly easy prey, his other options being a chevalier swinging a scythe, a woman wielding a large sword, and a Kossith that could crush him with his mind. So obviously chose the little girl with the tiny blade strapped to her wrist. It was his underestimation that did him in. He thrusted with his blade, looking to skewer Aurora, but she spun, and knocked it away with the dragonskin bracer, using the momentum to bring her back inside the thug's reach. Close enough for a bear hug, had he the chance. Fortunately, he didn't have one. She brought her heel up and into the... sensitive area of the man, instantly lurching him forward on his knees. Aurora took a step forward with him and dropped her elbow right on the back of his head, knocking him out cleanly.

Now it was a dance.

Sophia found herself faced with two, but the way they wielded their blades was slow and clumsy, as though they were made of solid lead rather than any steel. She parried a wild thrust from the first, sidestepping away as she did, putting the thug in front between her and the second, removing him from the combat for the moment. Planting her back heel and pushing forward, she struck low and fast, straining his poorly trained guard with an attack that was awkward to block. It let her catch him off balance, his defense opened enough for her to cut a deep gash across his thigh. She raised her guard to receive the first blow from the second attacker, but it never came.

The thug burst into flames, adding yet more screams to the din, although the previous lowlife that had been incinerated has stopped his screaming at this point. Fire burst out with him as the center, pushing Sophia back at step, the flames close enough that they likely would have burned her had she not been wearing armor. With haste she put distance between herself and the burning man, looking about for any further threats. There were none to be had, however, as any thugs that were still capable of fleeing were doing so, turning tail and bolting for the nearest escape. If only they'd done that sooner, no one would have needed to die here.

The area secure for the moment, Sophia cleaned off and sheathed her blade across her back, before turning to Ketojan, whose hands were still alight with magical fire. "They're gone, Ketojan! It's safe now." It took a moment for him to respond, and for a moment Sophia thought he wasn't going to, but at last the Qunari gave a decidedly neutral growl, the fire disappearing from his hands. Glad that he'd relented at least, Sophia sighed and turned away, wiping a growing sheen of sweat from her brow. She'd felt quite enthusiastic about this task not so long ago, but now she wouldn't mind simply getting this done. Ketojan had already helped to smother any sympathy for the mages that may have been taking root within her. His actions reminded her why she believed as she did.

"It can't be far now," she said, taking note of their surroundings. "Hopefully no more of Ketojan's magic will be necessary," she couldn't help but put a slight amount of disdain on the word. The smell of charred flesh was doing little to calm her nerves.

"Well, ideally no more violence would ever be necessary," Lucien half-agreed, straightening and looking about him at the unconscious or dead bodies in various stages of disrepair. "But alas, it seems I wait for the day I become useless in vain, at least for now." His tone was light, with a hint of self-effacing humor, and he dipped his head at Aurora. "You were not wrong about the things Lowtown taught you." It was obvious that there was no further useful information to be had from this encounter, and it seemed that they were best served by simply moving on.

The thugs had been standing in front of (or on, in a few cases), a set of stairs, and the Chevalier shrugged to himself. It was the only visible candidate for 'way out,' so he saw no reason not to take it. Slinging his scythe back over his shoulder, he led the way up, reaching what appeared to be an old, ill-used door with rusted hinges. An attempt to use it the conventional way found Lucien with a handle in his hand, blinking with a slight hint of perplexity at the still-closed portal. Perhaps it was asking a bit much to expect anyone to run maintenance down here, but there was a comment in there about guarding a door that didn't even work, also. Discarding the lump of corroded metal to one side, he pulled the entire thing off its hinges quite on accident when attempting to utilize the hole the handle had left behind, and patiently set it to the side.

Outside, dawn was just breaking, and the door led out onto the Wounded Coast, by the looks of things. He'd been worried about the noise drawing undue attention, apparently needlessly so, as they didn't run into the Qunari for another few hundred yards. There was what appeared to be a large grouping of them, but they were organized in such a way that to him, it was immediately obvious that they were a single military unit. So, what was an entire unit doing out in the middle of nowhere? This was quite far from the Tal-Vashoth base he, Ashton, and Nostariel had dealt with the other day, and anything else worth note, as far as he knew.

Sophia had to admit, the situation going from bad to worse didn't really surprise her. The Qunari warriors before them were at least a dozen in number, well-armed, and clearly more organized than the roving bandits the Tal-Vashoth had been reported to be. These were the Arishok's troops, there was no doubt about it. As soon as they'd caught sight of a Qunari mage among the humans they were locked, their leader drawing them forward cautiously, but with certainty. There was no avoiding them now. This would have to be dealt with, one way or another.

She certainly didn't do anything so foolish as drawing her blade, but she did position herself in front of Ketojan as best she could. He was her charge, after all, and she planned to see him through this, if only to let the Qunari know that such things as the abuse he'd suffered could not be allowed within the territory of what was to be her city. Regardless, this was all really starting to seem like a huge mistake.

"They shouldn't be here," Sophia commented, mostly to herself. But regardless of where they should have been, they were here, and there was little left to do but steel herself and be done with this. "Here goes nothing..."

Setting

4 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

The cave reminded Nostariel of the one they'd found the Tal-Vashoth in, and she wondered if perhaps all bandits had the same interior designer. Presumably it had been a bandit stronghold at one point or another, since it was dubitable that runaway mages would have bothered to construct all these wooden platforms. It was coming to be a dangerous time to be a bandit outside Kirkwall, she supposed, what with the Qunari and the apostates around to run you out of your damp caves and suchlike. Then again, maybe they were just old mines. The smell was just as unpleasant either way, though she couldn't identify exactly why.

Rilien could, and he was quite aware that the stench of rotten eggs was due to sulfur, which meant that either one of these mages was using a very crude flame-based staff or there were natural pits about somewhere. These platforms were also of dubious structural integrity, and his eyebrows drew together nearly imperceptibly. "Watch your step," he said aloud, though he did not bother elaborating the reasons for this, instead picking his way carefully through debris and loose stone as a housecat might avoid puddles of water, minus the verbal indications of displeasure. The ground gradually sloped downwards, and without being asked, Rilien overtook the Warden, treading at the front of the group both to look for traps and because he was conscious that he and Sparrow were the most equipped for dealing with confrontation up close. Ashton was more than capable of guarding the rear against ambush.

That particular precaution turned out to be unnecessary, admittedly. They soon approached a more cavernous space, and as they did, the predominant odor transitioned from rotten eggs to putrid, decaying flesh. More than a few weeks dead, if the smell was already hitting them. Indeed, as they emerged into the opening, they quickly found themselves surrounded by fetid corpses, and in the presence of one very nervous-looking mage. The man (though perhaps he was closer to a boy, all told) appeared to be eyeing his surroundings with great trepidation and that was enough to put Rilien on edge. One of his knives slid from its place on his back with a quiet hiss, causing Nostarial to turn to him immediately.

"What are you doing?" the Warden hissed softly, reaching for the wrist that clasped the weapon. "We're here to avoid bloodshed. Don't you think that pulling a knife might just goad them to needless violence?" She'd seen too many mages resort to awful things when they felt threatened, and if she could forestall that here, she would.

Unperturbed, Rilien neatly avoided her reaching hand and drew his other knife, flicking his eyes to the corpse nearest the group. Confused, Nostariel gave up trying to speak to the obviously-reticent Tranquil and followed his gaze. Her own landed in the same place just as an unearthly howl filled the cavern, startling the poor mage standing by himself, but growing far too loud for her to hear anything he might have been saying. The air shifted, the stench growing only worse, and slowly, the corpses rose from the ground, taking up arms and apparently intent on the small group. Whatever words left her then were thick with her brogue and indesciperable over the fel sound of necromancy. Gritting her teeth, Nostariel summoned ice to her hands and threw it at the first three corpses she could see, falling back behind the Tranquil, who had already taken the hint and decapitated the first frozen body and moved on to the next, more mobile one.

Ashton for his part was relegated to the rear of the retinue, despite being second into the cave. T'was his lot in life, he supposed, always behind the ladies. Chivalry was not dead, no matter how many people said that it was. Seeing as caves weren't virtuous escapes from the danger that seemingly lingered all around Kirkwall, he had drawn his bow and nocked an arrow, but he left the string slack and carried it nonchalantly. The sulfur smell didn't seem to perturb Ashton, though as the scent shifted from that to something of a... darker flavor, his nose wrinkled in protest. This was not going to end up as any old simple meet and greet, he could have seen (or smelled rather) that right then.

However the party proved to be no longer alone in the caverns with a mage seemingly fidgeting nearby. The poor guy drew pity from Ashton and almost made him put up his bow... At least until Rilien drew his knife. While there wasn't much Ashton knew about the man for a fact, he seemed to have a penchant for sensing things like that. So instead of putting his weapon away, he drew the arrow back and awaited whatever the Tranquil had sensed. The scuffle between Nostariel and Rilien would have normally been turned into the subject of a joke for Ashton, but his own hunter's instincts had been ignited by the tranquil's wary ways. Instead he issued a calm, level, "Nostariel," devoid of any hint of jolly or silliness that was like him.

Right then, whatever had set off Rilien was made aware as a howl echoed throughout the caves and the corpses made their way to their feet. His arrow shot through the air, impaling one of the corpses with a dusting of ice in the chest with enough force to throw it down-- but it remained to be seen if that simple shot would be enough to finish off a creature that was already dead. He settled into his stance, knees bent, legs loose as he drew his next arrow and targeted the same, downed corpse and planted another one in it. If that did not outright kill it, then it certainly wasn't getting up, what with it being pinned to the ground.

What the hell was that smell? Sparrow's nose wrinkled receptively, though she fought the overwhelming urge to pinch her nostrils closed against the peculiar smell emanating from whatever was lurking in the cave. More like, rotting. If there weren't hidden copses filled to the brim with corpses and maggots and writhing insects, then she would've been surprised. She hadn't recognized the sizzling stench of sulphur, but rather bunged it down to animals dragging their prey back to their dens, where the mages also hid. Perhaps, this was some type of bear-cave they'd stumbled into. The wooden platforms appeared questionable at best – it certainly wouldn't take her mace to send one of those things tumbling down. They'd have to avoid walking across those treacherous things if they could help it. Sparrow's mace had been slung languidly across her shoulder, gripped in her hands all the same. It wasn't an issue of thinking that the mages would attack them, rather than simple forethought if they so stumbled onto something dangerous. She would not attack those mages.

She, too, overtook the Warden, but couldn't help glancing sidelong in the process. Had she been angry at her outburst? But, hadn't Sparrow been justified in forming her own opinion? Templars were ruthless individuals, and heartless in every sense she could think of. If Thrask was the exception, then it still couldn't account for all the others who stomped towards their destination in the cultivated hopes of extermination all of the hapless escapees huddled in a stinking grotto. Why didn't she, as a fellow mage, think the same way? Her mouth formed a soft line, fundamentally confused, before she looked ahead, picking her way through the scattered rubbish, much like Rilien had, though without any of his rhythmic dignity. Rather, she stomped, while he danced. He might've been a housecat, while she was an encroaching Mabari hound. Her footfalls slowed. The entire chamber was crowded with rotting corpses, with their arms twisted this way and that, and crumbling jowls hinged permanently open. “I knew it—uh,” She began to say, eyeing her surroundings, letting her mace drop onto the ground. As if the scene hadn't been stranger, there in the middle of the cavern, among all those corpses, stood a trembling boy-man. The familiar hum of Rilien's blades being freed from their hidden scabbards caught her intention, whirring her head around to catch the unusual sight of Nostariel trying to still his blades.

Sparrow hadn't had time to warn her against that, for if Rilien thought something to be wrong then something was assuredly afoot. Ashton beat her to it, murmuring her name. The dreadful howl rang in her ears. Her head whipped back, surveying whether or not it was the lonely mage's doing. Certainly not. The man-boy looked downright terrified. By the time Rilien moved around Nostariel, she'd already thrown herself into action by swinging her mace into a mass of animated ribs, cracking several in turn before throwing it bodily into the nearest corpse. Unadulterated energy pulsed through her fingertips, quickening her heartbeat, and searing hot through her lungs. There was a swift whooshing sound as electrifying pulses zipped from her upturned palm, breaking through bony arms and exposed jugulars – hanging loose from their fleshy cages – with phantasmal bars of heated energy. Just as quickly, Sparrow switched avenues, dropping her hand back to her mace and heaving it into another approaching moving-carcass like a swinging pendulum.

The corpses seemed now to be emerging from the ground itself, buried longer than any of the initial foes, perhaps. It was not of much consequence to Rilien, pivoting from one neat decapitation to the next. It was hard to say what would put them down for good, seeing as they were already dead in the first place, but that seemed to be working. Nostariel had settled back, usually tracking Ashton's arrows with magic, so that each hit with the force of fire or ice behind it as well. She hadn't the time to be concerned with her mistake, though she considered the very real possibility of being placed in a situation wherein she'd be apologizing to a Tranquil. Leaving aside the matter of whether Rilien would even have any feelings about that whatsoever, it seemed like something she should do.

Nostariel's pale eyebrows knit together, and the next corpse she hit incinerated entirely. Exhaling as calmly as she could, she tried to get her emotions back in line. It wasn't the simple matter of misunderstanding Rilien; it was the complex backgrounding collage of issues that underscored this whole venture. Her next blow was considerably more measured, and she could tell that the presence of the living dead was thinning considerably. She did not notice the one rising up behind her until a thin whistle rent the air, and Nostariel whirled in time to see the rotting head, some hair still dangling in greasy tendrils from one side of it, fly past her. She locked eyes with Rilien for a crystalline moment, nodding her thanks, but he turned right back around without any gesture in return.

There were a pair of archers homing shots in on him, but it was a problem he could solve with one word. "Ashton." It was all he needed. He trusted that the archer's sharp eyes would pick out the target he was about to leave behind. Rilien himself disappeared, taking out the target Ashton didn't choose from behind.

The archer had dug his heels in for the long haul and had planted a half dozen arrows at his feet for quick access. Sure and steady the arrows flew, striking each target true, though the effect of simple wood on rotten flesh and decaying bone was still questionable. The way the second body fell to pieces under his pointed assault told him that the arrows were doing something.. Or maybe it was Nostariel's chaser of magic that did it. He'd like to think that it was his arrows, painting a picture of machismo in his head. Or not. Who knew what went on in that warped head. The whole issue of Nostariel and Rilien seemed to be an afterthought to the hunter. It mattered little in the long run, and less in current circumstance as he saw it. She was already in an unusual state, what with being placed with so many of differing ideals. A bit of doubt in such circumstances was expected. But it wouldn't matter if they all ended up dead because of some soon-to-be fertilizer's lucky shot.

He was down to two arrows in the ground when Rilien spoke up with his name. His eyes shot to the Tranquil (his white hair making the acquistion all that much easier) and then they darted to the pair of archers that had eyes only for him. Pity. He'd have to help his buddy rectify that. There were two of them after all. "Left-- My left," Ashton answered, quickly adding an addendum to the answer. As soon as the words left his mouth, his own arrow left his bow, lancing through the air and into the empty chest cavity of the living corpse with a pinning shot-- rather, it would have been a pinning one, had he anything to pin it too. As such pinnable objects were missing, it just meant that the arrow carried an extra "umph", snapping the vertibrae of the undead creature and folding it in half like a piece of paper.

"Next customer?" Ashton called in a bored tone and nocking the next arrow.

Fortunately for Ashton, there were no more 'customers' to be had, as his companions obliterated the remaining skeletons. That left just the mage boy who had seemingly been hiding behind the corpse warriors. As the last fell, however, he came forth, clearly relieved. "Maker's blessing! I thought I was going to die down here in this... this tomb!" He took in the appearance of his rescuers, clearly not immediately placing them, and for good reason. "Are you with the Templars? Please, I need to go back the Circle. I never wanted to get involved in this." He gestured around him to the smashed skeletal warriors. "Not when he started making those... those things!"

"Ah... Necromancy. And here I was thinking that this job was going to be an easy one," Ashton said in a mirthless tone best described as "Rilien" in nature. After his little comment, he refrained from further gracing the conversation with any more of his wittisms, allowing his companions to do all the talky parts.

Nostariel was almost glad that the young man sounded so panicked; it was probably the right reaction to have to this sort of situation, even if she couldn't muster it in herself. Her companions seemed likewise jaded to the horrors of rising corpses and foul magic, sad as that was. "Be still, my friend. Ser Thrask is waiting outside. He will take you back. Before you go, though, I must ask..." The Warden cast a glance about herself at the pile of once again unmoving corpses, several missing heads, arms, or legs from the handiwork of the others. The piles of ash were probably her doing, though. "Who is he? Who is responsible for this, and what are we to expect if we should cross paths with him?"

"Sorry," he said, "I thought you would have known. Decimus... it was his decision. He kept saying the Templars would label us blood mages if we fled, and that in that case we should just use it. He slit his wrist, and the magic... it rose from the blood and woke the skeletons in the cave. I ran." He still seemed unsure of their intentions, even though he was clearly grateful for having been saved.

Decimus is wrong--blood magic is a work of evil, not just a power the Templars keep from us for spite. He's crazy. I think he was the one who started the destruction back at Starkhaven, thinking we would just be free with our phylacteries destroyed. I... I think there might be a demon working through him. No normal man would profane the dead like this, right?"

"Oh, blood magic. Great. Didn't get enough of that stuff the first time." Ashton quipped, sounding rather dejected. There was only the briefest hint of his gaze stuttering between the boy mage and Sparrow and then to Nostariel. Last time Blood magic and demons were involved, things didn't pan out too well for their merry little party. He didn't want to see another friend go through that again. He'd make sure that they'd escape this place, all in one piece. A lingering glance at Rilien made him wonder what was going on inside his own head. Ashton then turned back to the boy and spoke once again, "Think we can... Talk to this fellow? Talk him down or something? Blood magic bodes ill for all involved," and that was one of the more serious statements he had made in a long while.

"Decimus burned down a Circle tower to get away from the Templars," the mage said, "I'm not sure there's any force that could make him go back. But... you're not Templars. That's something, at least."

"I doubt we are to expect much quarter," Rilien concluded flatly. He was aware of Ashton's glance, but knew not what the archer was seeking. "Still, one blood mage does not make a coven." That was probably as close as he was ever going to get to something like mercy, all things considered. "If the rest do not fight, I will do as the Templar asks." That part was directed at Nostariel, who nodded solemnly. Perhaps she had moved too quickly to the wrong conclusion about the Tranquil, but even as she was opening her mouth to apologize, he shook his head.

"Such words are unnecessary. I do not act for the approval of others, and I do not require their assurances." Ah, well. Still quite cold, then. Even so, she nodded and turned at last to the boy.

"We have kept you here far too long. Please, do not hesitate to leave and find Ser Thrask. The way out is clear."

"Thank you," he said, "I never wanted anything to do with blood magic. Decimus has gone mad. I fear he'd kill us all just to take down a few Templars at this point." He departed, making his way towards the mouth of cave, and the Templar that awaited him outside.

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon

Earnings

0.00 INK

Sophia felt not unlike a child, having been caught by her father in the act of a transgression. These Qunari clearly meant business. They were led by a mountain of a Kossith, armored head to toe and equipped with a wide shield and heavy broadsword which the Viscount's daughter was willing to bet weighed simply nothing to him. At his flanks were some ten warriors, armed with halberds that looked to be eight feet long. They were covered by four javelin-throwers, trailing a few feet behind the main group. Their formation and their stance did not immediately appear hostile, but there would be no way for Sophia to apply the word 'friendly' to them without looking ridiculous. They were not to be trifled with. Fortunately, Sophia's father had never been able to rein her in, and she did not plan on letting a unit of Qunari stop her, no matter how dangerous they looked.

"You will hold, basra vashedan," their lead began, holding up a hand to signal that Sophia and her party were to advance no further. It was probably for the best. The ground was a little too open here; given their disadvantage in numbers, it would be easy to become surrounded, and they certainly couldn't let that happen, not against an enemy as skilled as Qunari military. "I am Arvaarad," the Qunari continued, "and I claim possession of Saarebas at your heel."

As with everything else that had happened leading up to this, there was something very wrong. The chances of this unit stumbling upon them out here were slim to none. Sophia knew the Arishok had wanted to scout the coastline, but surely that task had been completed already, relentlessly efficient as they were. "The members of his karataam were killed by Tal-Vashoth," Arvaarad explained, "but their disposal leads only here, to Saarebas and you."

A trail of bodies, leading to this location? This got better and better, didn't it? And they hadn't even reached the part where they discussed why there was a Qunari mage among them. Sophia was trying to wrap her mind around this. For perhaps the first time in the ordeal, she was forced to look at someone of her faith in a different light. She was not stupid. A trail leading here meant that someone obviously wanted the Qunari to find them with the mage. As far as she knew, Petrice and that Templar she'd been with, Varnell, were the only two who even knew of Ketojan's existence.

"Maker..." Sophia said, rubbing her temples momentarily. It had already been a long and trying night, and part of her wanted to think she was just tired and imagining things at this point, but she knew she had the truth of it now. Petrice wanted to stir up resistance against the Qunari in the city. Sophia had thought she meant to do that by defying their stance towards mages, but now it was clear: far more anger would be conjured if the rising leader Sophia Dumar was found murdered by Qunari, in the act of resisting their influence. She'd been made a pawn through her own faith.

That blow hurt in a way similar to the dragon's tail slamming into her. She had been monumentally stupid, and pulled Lucien and Aurora along with her. But as much as she desired to tear herself up over this at the moment, she knew she needed to focus. They could still get out of this, but only if she kept herself together. She met the lead Qunari's gaze, peering through the bars of his facemask as he was.

"We have killed none of your people, Arvaarad. My companions and I traveled from the other direction." Their leader was having none of it. "Yet you are here with Saarebas. The crime is his freedom, his leash held by unknowing basra. We will not allow that danger to continue. Let your own mages doom you--Saarebas will be properly confined."

The crime is his freedom.

It was that that struck the chord within Aurora the hardest. She took up a postion directly in front of Ketojan and stood the full amount of her dimunitive height, her jaw set, and her chest stuck out. Despite these warriors being nearly twice her height and thrice her width, she showed no fear. Their ignorant words had made the entire ordeal personal for the redheaded apostate. All of their words only served to further stoke the flames inside her. She had to remind herself not to become too aggravated, yet open the gates for a possession, but even still with that piece of information firmly lodged inside her head, it was difficult. They spoke without respect, they spoke down to them. It had already been a tulmultious night for Aurora, and these men were not helping the process in the least bit.

Not only that, but it was clear that they were manipulated. That the Qunari were meant to find them with Ketojan. All set up by the Sister Petrice most likely. Playing the damsel to lure in unsuspecting saps for her own goals. Another flare of anger, and another attempt to snuff it out before it grew too large for her to manage. Amalia might have said that her anger was just an illusion, but how much could she trust the Qunari now that she realized how they treated their own mages. Was Ketojan's chains an illusion? How about the thread that sewed snaked across his lips? An illusion? Because all of these illusions were beginning to piss her off. She calmed herself to speak, so that her own words wouldn't bely the injustice she felt in her heart.

"He is not a beast to be chained up or leashed, he is a person," She said with a bit of indignation. "It is only by unfortunate chance of his blood that his is viewed as a danger. Because of what he might become. Because of what all mages might become. It is not the chains that keep mages in check. They are stronger than that, they have to be because the price of being weak is too steep. No, it's not your chains, it's their hearts that keep them from what they might become.. It's not the mages who doom us, but it's you who doom them. You chain them merely in fear," she said, the last word hissing off of her tongue.

"Freedom is nobody's crime. It's their right," she finished, staring hard at the one call Arvaarad. It was her of all people who understood the value of freedom. She escaped a life in a tower, she left her only home, she fled across Thedas for that single elusive notion. She was not a creature to be chained, she was a person with a family, and hopes, and dreams, all of which were cut by a single drop of magic in her blood. By those who feared what she might become if she was too weak to resist the call of the fade. Those who cage people like her on the mere chance of their change. It was that that gave her the strength to resist the fade, her drive of freedom staved off what demons lurked just beyond veil. She would not fall, because she couldn't afford to. She saw a lot of herself in Ketojan, and perhaps that's why she was fighting so hard for the Qunari-- for the mage.

Under his helmet, Arvaarad ground his teeth together at the little human girl in frustration. Stepping away from his unit, he took a few paces towards Ketojan. "You speak for Saarebas, but you know nothing." He raised his voice. "Saarebas! Show that your will remains bound to the Qun." Immediately and without hesitation, Ketojan went to a knee, a murmured growl through his sewn lips acting as acknowledgement. The Qunari leader looked back to Aurora. "He has only followed you because he wants to be led. He is allowed no other purpose. The power that he has, that all Saarebas have, draws from chaos and demons. They can never be in control. We leash Saarebas because they are dangerous and contagious. Not even your Templars fully grasp that threat." He looked down towards Ketojan. "But it is not my role to enlighten bas."

If Lucien were a different kind of man, he would have been informing anyone who would listen that he'd known this was going to happen. Well, not this, specifically, but something caused by Petrice and detrimental to the rest of them. Perhaps fortunately, he wasn't the sort to get gleeful about this situation at all. Actually, it was making him angry. Quietly so, but enough to prevent him from intervening on the little melodrama that was playing out in front of them. It occurred to him distantly that this would make an excellent scene in a play of some kind, perhaps one wherein Aurora was the protagonist. He was also beginning to suspect that her passionate defense of mages was personal, because it was a very rare person indeed willing to stick their neck out for such an unpopular lot of people, especially to a group of Qunari. He wasn't sure if she was brave or just stupid, and he of all people knew that sometimes there was precious little difference.

But mostly, he was just angry. Not at the Qunari, of course; they were being led along by the nose just as surely as he and the others had been. He should have expected that helping the Chantry would lead him to a situation like this, and really, maybe that made it at least somewhat his own fault, which was worse. Still, there was a problem here yet to be solved, and if the young woman's tongue did not condemn them all, there was a way to repair the damage yet. When he spoke, his tone was understanding, but also clearly firm. "You are correct, Aurora; mages and Qunari are all people. It is for this very reason that we must allow Ketojan the freedom of his choice." He gestured to the kneeing Saarebas, a thoughtful frown lining his face.

"Perhaps it is not a choice that we may easily understand, but if ever he were free to make it, he is now, when the chance of resistance is right in front of him. That he still chooses as he does must be meaningful, and we would be taking away his freedom just as surely as the Templars if we were to try and tell him that he cannot make it. Our part in this is done; we would do best to leave without confrontation. It seems all of us have been manipulated; it would be prudent to reserve our anger for those who have earned it." Forcing a free choice was paradoxical, and though admittedly Lucien could not imagine choosing the life a Qunari mage led, he did understand something of voluntary imprisonment. Too much freedom-- the anarchistic tendency to do whatever pleased oneself in the moment-- was just as frightening a prospect as not enough. As with so many things, he found the best choice to be moderation, but not everyone was like that.

"Is it truly his choice? Or is it a choice made for him," Aurora responded, not looking back to Lucien. She was blinded by both her zeal and her heart, these ignorant fools had went too far. No longer had Ketojan have anything to do with it, Aurora had become selfish and made this issue about herself, even if the others had not yet understood. Their words struck too deep for her to simply brush them off and walk away from the one called Arvaarad. So she was dangerous? Contagious? The blessing and the curse that she was born with now made her a leper? If he was Saarebas, then so was she. The anger in her heart caused her to chuckle, her shoulders drooping a bit. Her mouth was a tightlipped thing, etched and lined with a quiet rage.

"I know nothing. Is that what you said? You chain him because he can never be in control. Because mages can never truly be in control. You said that I know nothing, yet I know much more about his struggle than you can ever imagine. Allow me to enlighten you, bas," she uttered, turning the word around on him. She had gone too far, and there was no turning back. Though could she say that she truly wanted to turn back? She was tired of hiding who she was, tired of being ashamed of what she was. She threw caution to the wind and outstretched her hands, dipping into the fade for a single display. As the veil rippled aroud her, an intense prismatic magical light danced around her hands, "I am Saarebas. Will you leash me as well? I dare you to try."

The temptation to allow the fade to just take over was there, ever present, tugging at her. Whispering promises in her ear. Showing this Qunari and his ilk the true power of an unleashed mage. To just give herself over to the veil a let it all be over. It'd be so simple to just let go.

Sophia had been about to second Lucien's stance. Ketojan's choice to remain under the Qun was clear; their presence here was now completely pointless. They had sought to release him from his people, apparently against his wishes, and they had been led into an ambush of sorts set up by a Chantry sister. And now Aurora was a mage as well. Sophia found herself wondering how she hadn't seen this coming. Her lack of any hesitance in jumping to defend the mage, fighting for his freedom... she was an apostate, either escaped from a Circle or never having been to one, dodging the Templars all her life. Her anger had been stirred hot by this encounter, and indeed she was starting to seem much more dangerous, drawing her magic about her, letting emotions take control.

She would have been more concerned with the apostate's situation if the Qunari had not been present. As it was, her outburst had set them off, and now any chance of avoiding conflict was gone. Arvaarad turned to his warriors, enraged at the blatant display of magic in front of his face. "Vashedan! Nehraa sataa karasaam!" He then turned back towards Sophia, Lucien, and Aurora. "You spewed your words at me, like a demon trying to poison my control! Like this mage, the Qun requires your death!" He pulled out some sort of electrical rod and activated it, enveloping Ketojan in a kind of restraining field. It was obviously painful, as he tensed and fell to the ground where he kneeled, growling in discomfort. That done, Arvaarad drew sword and shield and led his men into their attack.

Sophia had been about to try pulling Aurora back away from the frontline Qunari warriors, but she wasn't given the time, forced to dodge a downward strike from a halberd before she'd even drawn her blade. The poleaxe slammed into the sand at her feet, and she kicked downward hard, nearly snapping the shaft with her boot. Backstepping, she drew her sword in a smooth motion, falling in to stand her ground by Lucien's side. Outnumbered as they were by the Qunari, they would need to work together closely to survive. As much as she was loathe to admit it, drawing attention away from the apostate so that she could use her magic to greater effect was probably their best bet.

He should have knocked her out. That much was quite obvious by now. Rendering Aurora unconscious, while not the most tasteful thing he'd ever done, would surely have prevented the situation from progressing this far. Now, it was either to be an entire troop of dead Qunari, or three dead humans, one of them extremely important to Kirkwall's political and social climate. Ketojan had chosen to die, and he had no doubt that the Saarebas would stick to that choice. It was unlikely that many people would mourn a deceased mercenary or apostate, but a noble was another matter entirely, and because of the young woman's foolish actions, they'd now sprung exactly the trap the Chantry sister had set for them. The Orlesian set his feet as well as he could in the sand and loose turf of the area, drawing his scythe in front of him.

"You know," he mentioned offhandedly to Sophia beside him, "I do this for a living, but things are seldom this exciting when you're not around. I wonder why that is?" There was no point in stewing in his anger or frustration; those feelings only made it harder to see things clearly. He didn't deny that he was still quite upset at Sister Petrice for setting them up like this, and that was something he would put to use later. But none of these people were she, and none of them deserved to feel the effects of his ire. This was business, grim as that thought may be. A quick assessment of the situation showed that things would probably go best if he distracted as many of the Qunari as possible, letting Sophia back him up and pick them off from the sides with her superior maneuverability and lighter weapon, while Aurora maintained distance and shot them down with magic.

He could do that. Exhaling, Lucien bent at the knees and lowered his center of gravity somewhat, assuming a defensive posture that left one very obvious hole in his guard, around his left side. With a beckoning gesture, he taunted the Qunari forward, and for once he was relieved that these were true enough warriors not to simply ignore the large target in favor of one that appeared easier. The first to rush him swung for the opening, only to find that it wasn't there anymore. Lucien adjusted his grip and brought the haft of the scythe up to block the incoming axehead, meeting the pole of that weapon just below the metal bit so as not to break his own. The contact reverberated through all four arms involved, but the Chevalier had no intention of turning it into a contest of strength. He jammed one heel into the back of the Qunari's leg, causing the fellow to stumble, then stepped back, locking the blade of the scythe with the axehead and hauling, dragging the off-balance opponent to the side, and right into Sophia's range. He'd be a much eaiser target stumbling about in such a fashion, but it would likely only last a few seconds.

Disengaging that one, he was a bit too late to block the next incoming hit and took a hammer-blow to the abdomen, the breath rushing from his lungs. Grimacing, Lucien forced himself to inhale, ignoring the black spots in his vision for the moment and striking not at what he saw, but where he knew someone would have had to be to manage a hit like that. Even the most heavily-armored of the Qunari had obvious weak points where flesh was exposed, and the tip of the scythe caught on one of these, dragging vertically down the man's arm, severing the artery there and dropping him onto the sand.

Sophia had actually smiled at Lucien's comment. She did have a remarkable ability for getting herself into trouble, didn't she? Bandits, dragons and now Qunari had all attacked her recently. It was a shame that trying to help the city so often ended in violence. She would have replied, but the Qunari charging her had to take priority. In stark contrast to the bandits she'd been dealing with recently, these Qunari took their opponents head on, fearing nothing, looking only to assert their superior strength over their enemies. They struck for Sophia and Lucien first rather than only seeking the one with the least armor and the greatest appearance of vulnerability. That was commendable, she supposed.

The Qunari thrust high with poleaxe, but Sophia reacted quickly, swatting the weapon aside with Vesenia even as she pushed forward herself, throwing an elbow up into his jaw. He recoiled, and she spun quickly, slicing across the abdomen and cutting deep, coloring the sand beneath them a dark red. It was then she caught sight of the stumbling warrior Lucien had sent her way. Not one to waste the opportunity, she surged forward, taking her sword in both hands and thrusting the point through the Qunari's midsection.

A melee fighter backing off from her was all the warning she received that a javelin thrower had a shot lined up, but it was all she needed. After yanking her sword free from the Qunari's body, she maneuvered him between her and the ranged attacker. No sooner had she done so than a javelin thrummed into and through the deceased fighter, its velocity slowed enough that Sophia's armor halted it entirely. The speed at which they could hurl those weapons was remarkable, and more than a little frightening.

As she discarded the body, a halberd-armed Qunari attacked from her left. Preemptively she went to block a high or mid ranged attack, but he instead swept low, and the axehead bit through the leather of her boot and into her calf. He pushed through, taking Sophia's base out from under her and planting her hard upon her back amidst a splash of sand. His next blow came down with heavy force, and Sophia had to quickly throw her sword in front of her to deflect it. Her single attempt to push away was cut short as he rained further blows upon her, and for the moment all she could do was defend herself, thankful Lucien had drawn as much attention as he had.

Though the heaviest fight did center on Sophia and Lucien, Aurora didn't escape the ire of the Qunari. Of course she didn't, she was the entire reason they were fighting after all. Her mouth did manage to put her right up front as well, though she bought herself some time to prepare by causing the lights in her hand to intensify, stunning a couple of Qunari. It wasn't go to last any time, though it did allow her enough to erect an armor of rock around herself. Just in time, as a wildly swung sword dug deep into her shoulder. It'd bruise, but the stone ensured that she'd at least keep the arm. Instead of just taking the blow like the warriors she was with would, she shifted her weight and slipped out of the blow before it completely crushed her shoulder. She may have been angry with the Qunari at the moment, but that didn't mean she'd throw away all she'd learned from watching Amalia.

She spun away from the blade and issued a back kick, knocking back the stumbling Qunari and pushing herself forward and away. The time she had earned from her lightshow was over, and their enemies were regaining their vision. Though the first thing they saw wasn't the back of the mage's head as she fled, but her hands raised to the sky as she called to something. Brusque words were tossed about, ones Aurora guessed meant "demon" or something of the like. The mere thought of that only irritated her further. The thought that she'd succumb to demons like she was some weak willed whelp was ridiculous. The whispers might have been there, but that didn't mean she'd listen. They were false promises, honeyed words, illusions, nothing more.

A clap a thunder revealed what she had been really doing. A streak of lightning came down from a cloudless sky, dropping the fight into all out chaos and confusion. These soldiers may have been disciplined, but the forces of nature had a habit of crushing even the hardest stone beneath its might. Speaking of stone, the Qunari who had lash out blindly with his blade received a heavy fist of stone to the chest, throwing him backward into his fellows. Feeling as if she'd drawn enough attention to herself, she turned and tried to get away from the frontlines. The lightning would help cover her retreat as she made a beeline to a position behind Lucien and Sophia.

She could only imagine how irritated they were.

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon

Earnings

0.00 INK

It was with a solid thud that the scythe-blade buried itself square into the back of the Qunari assailing Sophia, sinking in a good five inches and doubtless severing the spinal cord. Lucien did not let the man simply drop on top of his friend, however, as that would be counterproductive and frankly rude. Instead, he used his foot to push the now-dead warrior off the blade and to the side, where he fell still. The move had cost him time, but it was quite worth it to have Sophia back up and in the fray. Unfortunately, his problems always began when he tried to do too many things at once, and the fact that the majority of enemy attention was on him came back to hurt him in a rather impressive sort of way.

Namely, he was bull-rushed by the Arvaarad. A more apt idiom could not have existed for it, either, as the repositioning necessary to help his ally had cost him his more-or-less solid entrenchment in the ground, and so when he was charged, he simply couldn't retain his feet, and hit the ground hard on his side, which would perhaps have crushed his left arm save that he was wearing so much armor. It would certainly bruise heavily, though, and the Qunari was not going to pass up the opportunity to press his advantage, swinging his sword for the Chevalier's neck. It would have hit its mark, had Lucien not displayed a surprising amount of dexterity for a person so large and rolled out of the way, ignoring the disomfort this produced in his arm. Unfortunately, this pinned his scythe underneath him, meaning that it was not immediately accessible.

Sensing the advantage and seeking to neutralize it, the mage-handler attempted instead to first pin him in place, using the kiteshield he carried as extra leverage. Knowing he'd be dead if that was successful, Lucien brought both knees up to block, successfully planting his feet against the incoming slab of metal. He'd never been more glad that Ser Liliane had been adamant that he learn how to "fight like a girl" which as it turned out had emphasized flexibility and mobility, as well as the building of mucle in the abdomen and legs as well as the chest and arms. It was probably the only reason he was able to reverse the Qunari's momentum, shoving him backwards and allowing the knight to regain his feet and his hold on his scythe.

Both were back on their feet now, and Lucien fended off an incoming assault from two more Qunari, dropping the first with a threshing swing to the throat and the second with the natural follow-up pommel strike before he was able to face Arvaarad properly. It struck him again that this whole thing was largely needless, but he could think of no way to stop it now that it had begun. Still, there was some small consolation he might be able to offer. "If I survive this and you do not, your Arishok will still know what transpired," he swore solemnly. The Viscount and the Revered Mother should know as well, of course, but he had little doubt Sophia would take care of that. Her word would be better than his in those situations anyway, especially with the Chantry. The Viscount might well believe him, but he doubted very much that a largely areligious mercenary would be counted over a dedicated sister of the Faith. It was only fair that everyone with a stake should know about this, though, and that included the Arishok.

He wasted no more breath on words, however, and when next the Qunari charged, he was ready, meeting it with forward momentum of his own. The enemy's sword was met with steel, but the shield he simply let strike him-- he was still far enough away that it barely clipped him anyway, and he only moved in closer when it was already pressed against his abdomen, effectively closing the distance and preventing either of them from getting much leverage. Since both of Arvaarad's hands were occupied, this passed the advantage to Lucien, who freed one of his own from its grip on the polearm and used it to clock the Qunari on the jaw. The blow carried the full weight of his shoulder and back behind it, and the pop it produced indicated that the mandible had been dislocated at the very least. It was enough to render his foe disoriented, and the next two strikes were quick, but efficient, and the Qunari was no more.

There was one downside to the mountains of muscle that the Qunari possessed, and that was loss of agility. They still possessed speed, true, but it was a brutish, raw speed. No control, only what trained discipline had instilled in them. And though these were true soldiers, Aurora was a mage. Her discipline, her training, all of which she possessed was learned in order to survive, to make sure she didn't fall to the allure of a demon. Martial prowess was good and all, but the strength of the mind was her trump. She weaved between the two warriors Sophia and Lucien, careful to avoid getting in the way of the battles they fought, while still doing damage of her own. Mostly layers of frosting cold, stonefists, couple of lightning bolts, anything she could do to be a general pain in the ass. A current theme apparently.

Alas, her skirting around could only last for so long, and it wasn't long before she was cornered by a Kossith. He had managed to back her up against the wall where they had exited the ratways beneath Kirkwall. Her hands felt the rough rock behind her, unyielding. The warrior towered over her own frame, but even so, the Kossith seemed wary. When one's society labels unattended mages as demonic hosts, it made sense, though the sight was no less strange. The situation was less than ideal for Aurora, though she'd make do. She always did.

First, she grinned darkly and taunted, "What? Afraid of me? You should be." The taunt had the desired effect, throwing the Qunari into a rage. Disciplined or not, the idea of a giant being afraid of little mouse was ridiculous. The giant was about to teach the mouse her place. The Qunari charged with his great two-handed sword, looking to rip the mage in half. Had he been able to get to her. As the distance between the two closed, Aurora swung both hands around and together, clapping. The clap was loud and thunderous, clearly not only from the force of her small hands. The clap issued a lightning bolt from her hands, arcing forward and striking the Qunari cleanly in the chest. His charge was immediately halted as the lightning ran it's course through his body, but the lightning wasn't the only danger.

Running behind the lightning, Aurora sprinted, and seconds after the bolt struck so did she. Still crackling with what little electricity remained, the hidden blade shot from her wrist and plunged into where the Qunari's heart was, effectively ending the warrior. She pulled her blade back, a thin line of blood trailing behind it, and the Qunari falling shortly behind. Though, she wasn't quite done yet. She fired off a petrifying shot at the next Kossith in Sophia's range, hoping the gesture of goodwill would do... something to smooth things over once they survived this.

Sophia had scrambled back to her feet after Lucien had put a halt to the blows raining down upon her. She felt a pang of frustration as he was slammed into by the mage handler Qunari, but there was no time for anything else, as her attention was immediately redirected to the remaining Qunari, bearing down on her and Aurora now that Lucien was otherwise occupied. They no doubt also wished to remove themselves from the electrical storm the apostate had conjured, and charging forward was the best way to do that.

Her left leg protested upon receiving her weight, but Sophia was forced to simply ignore it. Far more pain would follow if she compensated for it. In a smooth motion she redirected the thrust of a spear armed Qunari, planting her right foot and spinning, gathering momentum with her blade and she rounded, finishing the circle with a heavy slice across the chest, sending the Qunari spinning to the ground amidst a spray of blood. Two others fell in quick succession to her rapid and precise strikes, their brute force not enough to make up for her skill.

It took her to the three remaining javelin throwers, free to throw at will now that the majority of their close quarters brethren had fallen. She reached the first as he was extending his arm back to throw, plunging her sword into him with her weight behind her, plowing him on his back. As she withdrew the blade the second threw, and Sophia was just able to alter the position of her body, the spearhead skimming her right shoulder guard, the rush of wind and force past her face heightening her adrenaline further. She darted forward, slicing precisely into the throat, before taking another strong step and ramming her shoulder into him to flatten him to the ground.

The third and final one was now just on her left, arm back and ready to throw, at a distance where missing and dodging would not be possible. Her muscles instinctively tightened in preparation for the hit, but it never came, as the Qunari was suddenly and completely turned to stone before her, the work of Aurora. Not one to waste the opportunity, she struck forward with the point of her sword into his chest, the brittle structure crumbling to pieces.

She drew herself up to a halt, breathing heavily from the fight. The last Qunari had fallen, leaving Ketojan as the only remaining Kossith who still drew breath. He remained down, still entrapped by the device Arvaarad had held. As thoughts of combat left her mind, seemingly hundreds of others replaced them. Is everyone okay? I need to apologize. To Lucien, to the Arishok, to my father. What should I do about the apostate? What about Ketojan? What about Petrice? It was somewhat overwhelming, and so she settled for starting on the most pressing issue.

"Is everyone alright?" she supposed she had to include herself in that, glancing down at her now throbbing left calf, which had received a deep gash from a poleaxe, and was steadily dripping blood down to the sand. That would need to be looked at.

Lucien rolled his shoulders, testing himself for any severe injuries. He had a tendency not to notice those, sometimes, during the fights themselves, but such things had a nasty habit of sneaking up on him afterwards. His arm was still sore, but it wasn't broken, which meant it wasn't a problem as far as he was concerned. "Yes, thank you. I won't say it's all in a day's work, but... some days do end up like this from time to time." He cracked a grin, which faltered slightly upon noting that the sand underneath Sophia was red. "I could ask you the same, it seems." He glanced in Aurora's direction, but the little mage seemed to still be on her feet, and moving with purpose.

"I'll be fine. Saved the other half of this," Sophia said, retrieving the healing potion, half of which still remained. She had merely wished to see if anyone required it more than she, but she was glad neither of them were very injured, and downed the remainder of the potion herself, exhaling with some relief when the throbbing eased off in her calf, and the bleeding quite nearly halted altogether. A small price to pay for getting out of that situation, she thought.

Aurora thought it best to not answer Sophia right away, and instead see what she could do for Ketojan. After the skin of stone around her melted away, she dusted herself of and began looking for the... thing that Arvaarad has used to control. After moments of picking about the battlefield the instrument was found dropped edgewise in the sand where Arvaarad had stood when she unveiled her little show. She picked it up and looked at it, verifying that it was, indeed, some type of control rod. Other than that, she knew nothing. Her gaze flickered between the rod and Ketojan, finally she shrugged, ascertaining the best course of action. She threw onto the ground and stomped on it, shattering it to pieces. Much like the rod, apparently the control it had over Ketojan shattered as well, as he rose to his full height once again.

Aurora made her way to the Kossith and quickly looked him over, looking for any damage that may have been done in the chaos in the fray. Satisfied that he was uninjured, she asked, "Are you well?" though she didn't really expect any answer aside from the grunts he made thus far.

The Qunari mage straightened to his impressive full height, towering over Aurora. He seemed to test out his limbs, shaking his arms somewhat, rolling his head slightly. "I am... unbound. Odd... wrong... but you all deserve honor." Clearly, he was now capable of speaking, a low, grating voice that seemed as though it was certainly not overused. He raised his voice somewhat to ensure that all three present heard him. "You three are now Basvaarad, worthy of following. I thank your intent, even if it was... wrong." He turned and took a few steps away from Aurora, walking towards the coastline. "I know the will of Arvaarad. I must return as demanded. It is the wisdom... of the Qun."

At that, the Orlesian mercenary crossed his arms over his chest and tilted his head to one side. That was devotion indeed. The Qunari lived and died by the word of their Qun, and there was something admirable in that. If his devotion to his own chosen creed could one day match that certainty... well, he wasn't sure if it would be good or bad for him practically, but he couldn't help but think it was something to strive for anyway. "I understand, I think. It's your choice, as it always has been. As long as you make it because you want to, then you'll find no objection from me." He hesitated, just slightly, but then went ahead and offered. "Forgive me, but I do not know what your customs demand here. Will you be in need of... assistance in this matter?" He wasn't sure what the fact that he was even making the offer said about him, but it seemed like some small way to compensate for the enormous mistake they'd all just been forced to make, and he was more than willing to put aside his personal discomfort with the notion.

"My thanks for the offer," Ketojan said to Lucien. "But that will not be necessary." He seemed grateful, if not a little surprised, that Lucien was able to express understanding of his intentions, no doubt only reinforcing his decision to name him Basvaarad. Sophia was still unsure what to think, but she was quite certain at this point that she was done trying to make decisions for Ketojan. If this was the path he wanted to walk, she would hinder him no longer. Despite her efforts to remain in the present, her mind was already slipping to what she wanted to say to the Arishok, to her father, and to Petrice. There were so many things that needed to be said about this.

"Are... You sure?" Aurora asked, having followed Ketojan at a close clip to the coastline. "The Qun would demand your death just for being what you were born as..." Aurora said, clearly unhappy with the situation. Though, she knew the Qunari, she knew once their mind were made up, nearly nothing could be done to change it. Admirable, but so frustrating. She looked to Lucien for moment before shrugging. "I can not change your mind. You are free to do as you choose. It is your choice now, and only yours. As it should be," she said sadly, taking a couple of steps forward and placing a hand on the Qunari's arm. She wanted to say something to him, she wanted her last words to the mage to mean something. Nothing of her own came, only something she had heard. It was better than nothing she figured.

"There are many paths Ketojan. Choose yours," she said, and then stepped away.

The Qunari mage regarded the human one for a moment, studying her before he spoke. "I have chosen the Qun. It is the only choice. Asit tal-eb. It is to be." He exhaled, something that could have been construed as a sigh, but not obviously one. "I was outside my karataam. I may be corrupted. I cannot know. How I return is my choice." He then took slow steps towards Aurora even as she had backed away, cautiously taking hold of her hand and placing a pendant on her palm, closing her fingers around it. "Take this... secret thing, Basvaarad. Remember this day." Ketojan then returned to the previous distance between them, turned towards the coast, and summoned fire around the entirety of his body.

That was more than enough to yank Sophia back to the present. He did not cry out, or show any sign of pain at all, simply sinking to his knees, his forehead slumping over to rest against the edges of his collar. And then he was still. "Andraste's blood..." she whispered to herself. She wondered how much, if any, of this her brother had seen in his decision to fully support the Qunari in the city. Perhaps others could, but Sophia was certain it would be a long time yet before she could wrap her head around the philosophies of the Qunari. If ever.

"This was all a terrible mistake," she admitted, putting hands on her hips and surveying the carnage they'd wrought upon the sand of the coast here. "I need to return to Kirkwall. I will deliver news of this to the Arishok myself. It may help to lessen the damage I've already done." But there was still another matter that needed attention... if only she had the time. She could not simply turn a blind eye to an apostate hiding from the Templars. Perhaps others could, but not her. But given the circumstances...

"Aurora... I would ask that you return to the Circle, but I feel I already know your answer to that request. In light of the circumstances, I will allow this to stand, and I will not give word of your presence to the Order. Just... perhaps it would be best if we did not see each other again. I cannot force myself to look the other way in the matter of an apostate."

"Don't pretend as if you are doing me any favors," Aurora said. Now was not the best of times to mention the Circle to the apostate, and considering recent events, it was a miracle the rebuttal wasn't more caustic. "In a matter of fact, don't pretend that your Order and it's Chantry are paragons either. If it weren't for them, this entire mess wouldn't even had happened," she hissed out, clutching the amulet that Ketojan had given her. It was only a matter of time before this confrontation would begin, but before Ketojan's bones were cold? She was not in the mood for it, and it was tasteless to start a fight there. She instead turned to Lucien, deciding to start the "not-seeing" part between Sophia and herself right then.

"In any case. I have... Other issues to attend to. Besides, my appearance in front of the Arishok isn't perhaps the best thing right now..."

Well, at least it looked like he wouldn't have to do too much moderating here, though he did have to actively exert effort not to heave a sigh. Still, if this was the worst of it, he supposed he should consider himself rather lucky. It was obvious from the fact that he alone was being addressed that Aurora was presenting a particularly chilly version of the cold shoulder to Sophia at the moment, but patiently tolerating it was probably the best thing he could do at present. "There is... wisdom in that sentiment," he replied thoughtfully. This had been one Karataam. He would not care to see the young woman's temper repeated in the presence of the entire army. Actually, he was quite certain it was not the best situation for Sophia to be wandering into by herself either, given the stuation with Seamus and her own obvious loyalty to the Chantry. If his word to the Arvaarad had not been enough, that alone would have made up his mind.

"If it is your intention to see the Arishok, Sophia, I would request permission to accompany you. I gave my word to one of his men, after all, and I would be an ill sort indeed if I did not keep it. I have... spoken with the Arishok before, though I cannot promise one way or another whether that will help or hinder you now." All he could truly say was that he had honestly tried to do right by the Qunari, and always would. Whether they would in the end turn out to be allies, enemies, or neither was irrelevant. They deserved that much consideration all the same. "I'm sure it has already occurred to you, but it seems prudent to inform the Viscount and the Revered Mother as well." Case in point: he was not at all fond of the Chantry, but they, too, ought to be aware of what the three of them had so inadvertantly stumbled across.

Sophia would have accepted even if she hadn't heard of his promise to one of the Qunari. She understood that walking into their compound on the docks alone after having taken down one of their patrols was not the safest plan. "I don't think you could be an ill sort if you tried, Lucien. And of course, my father and the Revered Mother will be the next to know." She gave a respectful nod to the apostate. "Farewell, Aurora." She was certainly not going to respond to her attack on the Templar Order or the Chantry, not here. It was probably best for everyone if they parted ways before this could go any further. To that end, she led the way away from the site of the battle. The sooner she could be back in Kirkwall, the better.

"You give me too much credit," the knight replied modestly, but he did not linger over the point. Whatever else might be the case, Aurora had proven herself quite capable and earned his regard, so he also bid her farewell, smiling genuinely and inclining himself at the torso. "Until we meet again, my friend. Kirkwall is ever smaller than I expect it to be, after all."

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

The path to the Aliengage was one familiar to her, having taking the twists and turns through Lowtown many times already. Though this time she was seeking answers of a different kind. So many questions flew through her mind, and the bags under her eyes were not making the processing any easier. She'd been out all night after all, fighting thugs, rogues, and Qunari, and her day had only began. Things were bound not to get any easier for her. Had a bandit attempted to accost her presently, chances his friends would not find him in one piece again, if at all. Luckily for the bandits, none found their paths crossed with the apostate. Before long, she'd found her path had taken her to the top of the stairs to the Alienage. A quick scan of the area proved that her goal, Amalia, in the same place as ever, under the Vhenadahl.

She walked right up to the Qunari and spoke, her tongue getting the better of her once again, "So when were you going to sew my lips and chain me?" She asked bluntly. She was unmoving, her eyes never leaving Amalia's own. She wanted answers. What had Amalia planned for her? Was she really going to make a Saarebas out of her? Leash her? In her current state, that's the only thing she could think, irrational as it was. Why else would a Qunari take her in? They were so blinded by their Qun that they'd sentence another of their kind to a personal prison in their own body just because the were born wrong. She wanted, answers, no, she needed answers. Unbeknownst to her, her hand had unconsiously made it's way to Ketojan's amulet.

Tension had rendered Aurora's footfalls much louder than they were normally, and this was perhaps the reason that the meditating Qunari opened her eyes at all, blinking slightly against the invading light. She met the incoming stare with what appeared to be nothing but placidity, blinking slowly and tilting her head just slightly to one side. An interesting place to choose to have this particular conversation, but it had been inevitable that the Imekari would learn of Saarebas eventually. This reaction was no less than she'd expected, though she would admit some curiosity as to how it had happened, particularly because she recognized the insignia on the amulet that now graced her student's neckline. She almost shot a glance up the tree she sat beneath, but chose not to. It mattered not to Amalia who overheard their conversation; her words were spoken always as the truth she knew, and she was not afraid of it.

"I never had such intentions. Nor do I now." Her intentions had always been much simpler than that. Of course, as with everything else, information that was not sought for would not be given out freely, and it was clear that if Aurora really wanted to understand what was going on in her teacher's headspace, she would have to ask the right questions, for the Ben-Hassrath remained silent thereafter.

Was that it? A simple no? That Qunari stoicism wasn't going to work, the simplicity of the answer only further agitating the mage. Aurora gave Amalia a couple of more seconds to explain herself further, but when it appeared that no further explaination was forthcoming, Aurora began again, "Is that it? No such intentions? What other intentions could there be!? I've seen your kind try to force a Saarebas into death for no other reason than he may be p- different," She caught herself. Possessed was not a word to be yelled out where prying ears lurked around every corner and up in every tree. "Why would I be any different? It might be the same for me for all you know. How do you know that I'm not changed. Your Qun demands my death, does it not?" She asked, Antivan accent coming through cleanly.

"And just what do you presume to know of 'my kind'?" Amalia asked softly, tone curiously devoid of anything but an echoing inquisitiveness. "What you have seen is one Saarebas, in one situation. By your logic, I could as easily condemn you for more than that. I have seen your kind slaughter for nothing but the shape of a man's ears or the number of coins in his pocket or the ideas in his head. Am I to hold you responsible for these ills because you willingly live in the society that allows them?" Still, there was no accusation in the words. The questions were gentle, prodding, as though Amalia were trying to lead Aurora to something in particular, in the softest way she knew how.

"They-- I.. They weren't my kind," She tried to defend herself, though her words sounded less than sure. Amalia had pulled the rug out from under her and turned the argument around on her. The sudden change had tripped her up as she was currently stumbling over her own words. "I mean... My kind are persecuted as well. Just not... Just differently. The... We are perscuted as well, chained in one place. If we aren't strong, if we fall, then we are put to death-- or worse. But we are all chained, we treat the elves and everyone the same where we come from," The circle. It was a flimsy defense, and she knew it but she had to try.

"And what of the Templars? Those who use their... differences in ways condemned? The point remains, however narrowly you choose to see yourself." Amalia paused, sighing quietly. This was not what she was after-- as long as Imekari came to understand that her generalizations were dangerous, that would be enough. "The Qun may have demanded his death. I was not there; I cannot say with certainty. But it does not demand yours. You are educated, taught somewhere to control your difference. I endeavor to provide you with what control you still lack. The Ashkaari wrote of the dangers of Saarebas, it is true. He advises us that they alone understand what it is like to perpetually struggle. This is something we are told to pity and respect in equal measure. A Saarebas is always chained, whatever his physical conditions. How this is interpreted... varies." Truthfully, it was one point on which Amalia and the majority of her comrades seemed to disagree. There was no mistaking that she had a distaste for demons, and would not hesitate to kill a person possessed. But it was also true that there were many paths, and all the Qun truly demanded was that magic be controlled. How was a separate question entirely.

Aurora looked away, utterly defeated. Her hand dropped from the amulet and she was quiet for a long while. Amalia was right. Bloodmages were treated different, even if she thought the reason just, it mattered little. She sighed and found herself in the role of student once again, listening to Amalia and her wise words. At the end, she found herself quiet once again for a while, not even daring to look back up into Amalia's eyes. Finally, she spoke, offering a set words said for the second time that day, "There are many paths." she offered. Ever so slowly, she was beginning to realize the true nature of those words. It'd be a while, if ever, if she'd ever fully understand them, though she was glad for them. Still, she had one more question.

Amalia very nearly smiled, one side of her mouth quirking up at the corner. "And yet, there is only one choice. It seems a paradox, does it not? Its resolution is the heart of the Qun. A chained being might be free, if they understand it properly. But so few do, even, I think, among my fellows."

"How am I chained then? If I am Saarebas, then what are my chains?" she asked.

"We are all bound by something, Imekari. I could tell you where I see yours, but it would do you no good. They are something you must discover on your own. I cannot do your growing for you." Amalia paused, assuming a thoughtful expression, before nodding to herself and standing. "I can tell you that people are often held back by themselves more than others. We must constantly reexamine that which we believe to be true. It is the sincerest form of vigilance. I can also tell you that it is an ongoing process and need not be completed today. You look as though some rest would do you well. Take it, and return to these matters later, if you wish. The world will still be here when you awake, and I doubt it will change much in the intervening time."

She nodded, the irritation and anger she'd felt earlier completely bled from her. There was something about the woman and her ability to open the doors in Aurora's mind. How easily she could teach her, even though Aurora's head was hard and her heart fiery. The role of teacher suited her, it suited her very well. Though, like all students, she had another question, and truthfully, she'd probably always have questions, though this question was different. Personal even. "If that is true. Then... Where are your chains? Aurora asked, finally looking the woman back in the eyes. She was curious, she did not seem like the one who was held back by themselves, in fact she seemed to be propelled by it. Though, she still wondered. If everyone was bound by something, what was she bound by? The Qun? It seemed too simple an answer...

The question surprised Amalia, not because it was irrelevant, but because she would not have expected Aurora to have the boldness to ask it. Perhaps she should have; if there was a word that characterized the young mage, 'bold' might very well be it. 'Brash' was also a contender. Nevertheless, she answered. It might be of some help, and that was enough. "Mine? They mostly lie in the past, that which cannot be undone. There are some things there that are difficult to let go of, and if I am not careful, they will inhibit progress forward. Still others exist simply because of what I am, and who I have chosen to be. We cannot help but create those, and only the most fickle of creatures pretends to be able to ignore them." The notion of complete freedom was absurd, in actuality, but this too was something that had to be discovered, and not simply learned, so she did not say it.

Aurora nodded along, listening intently. The past. Fair enough, and she wouldn't pry further. The past was a personal affair and did not deserve to be delved into by others. Her own was far from tulmutious. Though now was not the time for stories of the past. She nodded and said, "Then I will go.. think on these matters. After a nap. I've had a long night." She then stepped back to exit the alienage before curiousity took hold again and halted her progress. She hesitated for a moment, believing she'd already asked too many questions, but figured at this point, what was one more? She looked over her shoulder and asked, "One... More thing. What does Saarebas mean exactly?" Aurora asked, a bit of blush creeping into her complexion.

"It simply translates to 'mage.' More literally, I suppose it could be rendered as 'something which is dangerous,'" Amalia replied.

"Something which is dangerous..." Aurora said and then chuckled. For some reason, she liked that idea. "Something which is dangerous", her. It tickled her. Or it could be the tiredness that was creeping into her mind. Either way, the next stop was her home, more specifically, her bed. She turned one last time and waved, "Thanks," her last word before she left the alienage.

Ithilian was fairly certain the shemlen mage had not seen him lounging in the middle levels of the great tree, his eyes closed and his face hidden from the light under his headscarf. Sleep hadn't necessarily been his goal, but rather simply the opportunity to relax somewhere the city couldn't find him. The breeze that ran across his skin carried not the scent of the forest, but rather that of industrial factories and smoke, so it was not nearly so calming as a venture to the wild would have been, but it was better than nothing. It probably didn't come close to the level of calm that Amalia's meditation could reach, but it was enough for him.

The conversation had been none of his business and little of his concern, so he hadn't thought to interfere. Amalia had been more than capable of redirecting and then utterly defusing Aurora's rage. Apparently mages were not treated as Aurora preferred among the Qunari. Again, it was little of the elf's business. The Dalish had their own methods for handling magic, but the Qunari were not the Dalish, and Ithilian did not want them to be.

When could no longer hear her footsteps moving away from the Alienage, Ithilian took his cap into his hands, slipping his feet under him and onto the branch, solidifying his balance before he slid to the ground in two rapid and agile hops. "Perhaps not the wisest place for her to speak of being a mage," he commented off-handedly, though that was about all he wanted to say on the matter. "I've taken a job for a dwarf, an expedition to the Deep Roads. It is to depart in a few days. I should be gone from the Alienage for a few weeks." While it was perhaps not correct to refer to her as a friend, she was certainly far more than what he'd initially thought. It seemed like information she would be interested in knowing.

Amalia's brows furrowed, and she looked at her unlikely ally from the corner of one eye. It seemed an uncharacteristic sort of thing for him to do, truthfully, but she pretended to no knowledge of his innermost inclinations, only the ones he wore on his sleeves for anyone to see. "Is that so?" she asked, entirely rhetorically. Of course, as ever, it was not a waste of words if one examined it closely enough, and echoed her mild confusion in form if not intonation. "Then I suppose I will watch yours for a few weeks as I would watch mine." A pause. "My people know little of Darkspawn, but it is not hard to discern that they are dangerous to the unwary. Do not die, Sataareth." Another pause, this time as Amalia ran some mental calculations on the number of labor-hours she could devote to something she'd been working on.

"See me the day before you depart, if you are so inclined. I am in possession of something that might interest you."

"She isn't mine," Ithilian was quick to remind, though his tone was not harsh. "I would do well to remember that. As for the Darkspawn, it's a good thing that I'm not unwary." There was some amount of humor in his voice, but it was half-hearted at best. "Whatever you have for me, you can be sure I will put it to good use. I don't plan on dying in the Deep Roads of all places, merely clearing my head and getting my hands on some coin at the same time."

Amalia's tone was clearly one of considerable amusement. "I referred to all of them, Sataareth." And that was enough, really. She felt she'd learned a little something just then, but it was not her way to point such things out in the obvious way, nor ask questions about it. So she didn't, instead choosing to take her leave. She'd need to finish her task tonight, and then make a trip into Darktown.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon

Earnings

0.00 INK

Once they'd managed to discern where they were, Lucien and Sophia were easily able to follow the Wounded Coast back overland to Kirkwall. The trip was mercifully free of bandits, or perhaps they simply thought better of attacking two well-armed strangers with such purpose in their steps; it was impossible to know for sure. Gradually, the loose sand underfoot gave way to more solid terrain, and this to the dirt and cobblestone roads which led back to the docks, conveniently their destination anyway. The natural salt tang of the ocean was here overpowered by the smell of fish, mostly, and occasionally the odor of industry, carried only rarely from the foundry district in lowtown. The Qunari compound was situated back from the shoreline, in what was likely once a large cluster of warehouses. As usual, the wooden gate was closed, manned by a single guard, his face and chest painted in red patterns that seemed based on triangles, mostly. He wondered if there was some significance to that. He remembered that the Tal-Vashoth had been without it.

"Your pardon," Lucien addressed the guard, deciding that directness was most likely to serve well here. "We are here to request audience with the Arishok. We have information regarding one of your Karataam which we believe will be of interest to him." That was about as succinctly as he could put it without either stating flat out what they knew or being too vague, something he doubted would be appreciated by a culture like theirs. Hopefully, it would be enough to get them a meeting.

The gate guard appeared to consider this for a moment, then nodded tersely and disappeared inside, leaving them to wait unaccompanied. Within a few minutes, he returned, gesturing that the two were to proceed into the compound. They were met there by a different kossith, this one simply leading them to where the Arishok sat, imposing as ever, on what was probably as close to a throne as the Qunari ever bothered with. It was raised from the floor on which they stood, at any rate. Still unsure about the protocol regarding bowing, he chose to be cautious and do so anyway. It wasn't as though doing so would damage anything, least of all his scant remaining pride. "Arishok." Lucien paused a moment. How exactly did one go about conveying a story like this, anyway? Oh, by the way, we killed a troop of your men because we were tricked into escorting one of your mages away from the city and our own mage lost her temper.

Well... the truth was best, of course, but even knowing that, it was hard to know where to start. Maybe with the part that seemed most directly relevant. "We are here to inform you that, due to a deception leveled against they and ourselves, one of your karataam is dead." Maybe he should stop there for now. From the limited previous experience he'd had, the Arishok seemed to have only sparse patience, but he wouldn't simply fly off the handle at that pronouncement. It was probably best to let him decide what the relevant questions were and then answer them as honestly and completely as possible.

The Arishok leaned forward in his seat, studying the two visitors to his compound. From the recognition in his eyes, he clearly remembered Lucien. Perhaps he had made an impression, or perhaps he was simply difficult to forget so easily. "The latest in a series of incidents," he said, not seeming particularly surprised. Taken aback may have been a better term for it. "I thought nothing could threaten Arvaarad. You have proven otherwise."

It wasn't the reaction Sophia had been expecting, but at this point, perhaps she should have been expecting to be surprised by Qunari. Greatest of her surprise was that he already knew of what they'd done, and that he was not immediately demanding their heads to be placed upon the ends of spears. Her plan for getting out of here alive had been to try and impress the Qunari leader with complete honesty, expressing her sincere regret over their deaths, explaining the misunderstanding, her intentions to ensure that this never happened again... but these thoughts quickly fled from her mind. "You aren't... angry?" she regretted the question as soon as she asked it, but it was all she could think to say.

"A mage is dead," he stated flatly, speaking slightly quicker. "That is what matters. The rest... impressive. But do not repeat it." Sophia had impressed the Arishok by killing his men? Although, it had been Lucien who had taken on Arvaarad and won. It wasn't clear, but perhaps the Arishok spoke more to him than her. She wasn't sure she particularly liked the idea of him judging her based on simply how powerful of enemies she had slain. Which led her to wonder if he had heard about that incident with the dragon.

It was likely best to change the subject away from talking about how she and Lucien had cut through a unit of Qunari. Even the thought of admitting what a Chantry sister had intended wracked her with guilt, but it was for that very reason that she wanted to be the one to deliver that bit of news, not Lucien. "Our encounter with Arvaarad was deliberately set up... by a sister of the Chantry." Why had that felt like such a betrayal? Petrice had wanted her dead, murdered by Qunari, and Sophia was feeling powerful guilt for admitting that to the Qunari. Was the title of Sister so powerful that she could not admit them of doing wrong?

"Friend and enemy blend together in this sea of filth," the Arishok responded, his disgust coming through clearly. "I can barely discern one group from another. Your recent actions have elevated you above your kind, the both of you. Perhaps if you continue, this city will not be so doomed as it appears. For now, I acknowledge the risk you have taken bringing this news to me." So they were indeed keeping an eye on her. It was only to be expected, she supposed, since word of her actions spread much more rapidly given her status. That aside... Sophia wasn't sure whether the Arishok had given her a compliment or not. It left her unsure of how to respond, and so she nodded her understanding, even if she didn't really understand.

When looked at from the right angle, the Qunari really weren't all that different from some of the old soldiers he'd known. At the very least, his own time in a proper army lent him what he chose to treat as a modest understanding of where the Arishok himself was coming from. There were only so many way to be effective in warfare, and perhaps this was why. The rest of the culture may have felt alien to him, but this part at least was relateable. Soldiers went into their every assignment knowing that it may be their job that day to die, and that it probably would be their job to kill. Life and death just didn't carry the same sacred weight for those people as it did for others. Regrettable, in a way, but until human beings reached greater levels of perfection than they had yet attained, necessary. Some learned to be this way so that not all would have to. What confused Sophia was actually, in some sense, reassuring to Lucien. It was a piece of common ground that he and they stood on.

He had guessed from his companion's tone that the explanation had not been easy on her, and perhaps that made sense. Hers was apparently a devotion much deeper in its nature than he had first thought. In a way, that made her like them, too, though he was unsure she would appreciate the comparison. He certainly understood how unwise it would be to make it just now. Instead, he sensed that the matter was drawing to its close. "Then we will linger no more. Good day to you, Arishok." It seemed like an appropriate time to leave, given that their business was concluded and the Arishok seemed to know more than Lucien would have expected, rendering inquiries seemingly redundant. Lifting both shoulders in something like resignation, he gestured with a hand for Sophia to precede him if she wished, and followed her from the compound.

"I suspect that could have been much worse, had the circumstances been different." That thought didn't faze him much, and it was voiced as an idle observation. It was nice, the rare occasion when acting as he felt he should produced better results for himself than being duplicitous or at least more risk averse. "If you like, I could also accompany you to the Chantry or the Keep?" He was careful to phrase it as the mildest of suggestions; far be it from him to assume she couldn't manage both disclosures on her own. Still, he was willing to wager that the encounter with the Grand Cleric especially was not going to be simple-- not if she'd had difficulty telling the Arishok about the Sister.

Sophia was glad to have that over with, and to still be in one piece. In all honesty, it had gone much better than she had expected. She had to admit, she was tempted to agree and allow him to accompany her to her next two stops... but these were private matters with the people she was closest to in her life, and his presence likely wouldn't be appropriate. "I'll be speaking to my father next, to let him know what transpired. That will likely be a family matter, but... walk with me to the Keep?"

The mercenary nodded his understanding with easy aquiescence. "Of course."

It was quite the walk from the Docks to Hightown, and no small amount of stairs were involved. It was reminding the Viscount's daughter of the fact that she'd had no sleep tonight. As soon as this business with her father and then the Grand Cleric, that would be priority number one. For the moment, however, there were a few things she needed to get off her chest. "I should have done this earlier, but I feel I need to apologize for what happened. None of this was necessary, not the first battle with the bandits, the tale Petrice spun, the deaths of those Qunari. It was not my intention to drag anyone into senseless danger. I was... unable to see what Petrice was planning, even though it seems so clear to me now." She sighed. "Perhaps it is the will of the Maker after all, that turned what should have been our deaths into a good impression on the Arishok."

He shook his head, half-smiling despite, or perhaps because of, the unusual situation he now found himself in. This was usually something he had to do, actually, or at least it had been so before he'd started working by himself. "No need. You were doing what you believed to be right, and I followed voluntarily. I would not have done so had I thought your intentions anything of the sort. Sometimes, the things right in front of us are the hardest to see, and I'm not saying that just because I've only got one eye to look with." His anger quite thoroughly banked for the moment, Lucien grimaced at his own bad joke for a moment, then shrugged. Sophia, however, gave it a laugh, thankful for Lucien's sense of humor, even if it wasn't the most sophisticated. Considering her current state of exhaustion, it was more or less exactly what she needed.

"Perhaps the Maker willed it, but do not sell your own skill and resolve short, my friend. A strong spirit and honest intentions can often move what all the force and cleverness in the world would not budge. Or at least, that's what an old man somewhere in Orlais seems to think, but I'm somewhat obligated to give my dear father the benefit of the doubt, I suppose."

Her smile turned to the self-contained close-lipped variety upon Lucien's mention of Orlais. All she knew of the man was that he had been a Chevalier at one point, and considering how useful she found his advice, and how much she was beginning to value his company, Sophia was hoping she might get her foot in the door he had just cracked open, so to speak. "You know, for having been in multiple deadly situations together already, I know remarkably little about you. You said you were a Chevalier once, didn't you?" They began working their way up the next great set of stairs, connecting the way from Lowtown to Hightown. "I'd understand if it's far too early to answer such questions, of course. Or perhaps it's too late. Maker knows conversation is about the only thing keeping me from falling asleep right here on these stairs."

Lucien for his part appeared thoughtful for a moment. "You're quite correct," he admitted, a little surprised to realize it. He had his secrets like anyone else, but he'd never considered himslef a closed off person. It was just that... "Though, truthfully, if you know that much, you know most of the important things anyway. I was in fact a Chevalier, yes. A Commander, if that's of any interest. The proper story is... long, though I suspect not that interesting. Still, it's a conversation for another time, perhaps. When we are not long due some sleep and with tasks yet before us." They had by this point entered Hightown proper and were approaching the Keep.

He was being honest-- he didn't find the details of his heritage to be particularly important, and the tale of his exile was... well, formative for him, but not as much so as the years before and since had been, and those were his periods as Chevalier and mercenary, respectively. Of course, there were many anecdotes to be given, some of them even humorous, but it was a discussion best saved for a tavern or a sitting-room, perhaps.

She stopped on the steps leading up to the Keep's great double doors. "I think I'd like to hear it some time. Whenever you're comfortable, that is. I'd exchange my own story, but I'm afraid the most important part is still being written." She smiled at bit at that. "Thank you for your help, Lucien. It is always appreciated." Now, for the matter of explaining all this to her father. Maker, but he was going to be angry with her when he heard this...

"'Twas no trouble. You are most welcome."

The Chanter's Board has been updated. Shepherding Wolves has been completed.

Setting

4 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

The tunnels grew narrower and more constricted as they went, tightening around them until the group was forced to progress in single file. For the most part, it was also completely silent, save the occasional dripping sound as some liquid- Nostariel could only hope it was water- dripped from the ceiling down to the stone floor beneath. The tunnels were only moderately lit, and she imagined that the mages fleeing in here must have been quite afraid, the spooky ambiance of the place only adding to that heart-pounding fear of being pursued. It was a feeling she knew, though the creatures who had followed in her tread were not Templars but Darkspawn, and their method of tracking her more infallible than any phylactery could be.

It was not something she envied, and even as the tunnels widened again, gradually sloping upwards to more mining platforms, she thought to herself that perhaps, for some at least, the reality of 'freedom' away from the Circle was as jarring and terrifying as it had been for her. The fact that they had burned her Circle was not lost on Nostariel, and she wondered how many of her old friends and teachers had been hurt in the event. Her teeth clenched in her jaw. Harming those who pursued you was one thing- and even that seemed so wrong to her- but harming the inocent so that you could escape? Did that not make them into the very monsters everyone simply assumed they were? Did they not realize how much damage they were doing, embracing their power so irresponsibly?

She was no fool; mages were set up in lose-lose situations all the time. But even so, there were ways to handle that better than killing people. After a while, it became little more than selfishness, still cast only by the players as a brave bid for liberation. Stone changed to wood beneath her feet, and the murmur of voices became audible some distance away.

They were close.

The voices belonged to a man and a woman, the woman a young, pretty thing, dark brown hair tied back into a bun, a notable black tattoo snaking around her right eye. The man was middle-aged, and looked somewhat ragged, his dirty blonde hair grown long and unkempt, a beard reaching down towards his chest. Their Circle robes were tattered and worn from overuse, and so were their bodies. The mages gathered about the cave seemed extremely weary, though a brave few were staying alert, hovering near their leader's side.

It was likely that the party triggered some form of magical wards as they entered, as Decimus was almost immediately alerted to their presence. "They're here! The Templars have come to take us back to the Circle!" he shouted, rousing the boldest of his followers from their stupors. The woman at his side, however, grabbed hold of his arm upon seeing the intruders for herself. "Decimus, no! Stay your hand. These are no Templars." The mage leader seemed conflicted for the briefest of moments, recognizing the Warden's sigil, the Tranquil's brand, the presence of magic. But the blood of his followers was hot, and he needed to direct their aggression now, lest it be lost to him. "What do I care what shield they carry?" he shouted. "If they challenge us, the dead themselves will meet the call!"

He conjured forth more of his dark magic, the power of his own blood, and likely some of his allies, to summon more dead from the ground. They set upon the group from behind, while the mages willing to fight these strangers followed Decimus' lead, attacking from the front. More than half, however, chose not to fight, instead pushing themselves towards the corners, hoping to avoid being caught in the battle.

Another slaughter this was to be then, and for him it was simply passe. Not one to forget, the Tranquil made a beeline directly for Decimus, well-aware what had happened the last time he'd let a blood mage remain too long on a battlefield. Control was essential to someone with Rilien's mental makeup; he existed in a state of perpetual fine-tuning of his control over himself, his environment, and his craft. When one could or would not be able to waste time in more sympathetic pursuits, it was sometimes all that remained. He would be content playing puppet to no one, least of all some spineless mage who had already resorted to the desperate.

Of course, it wasn't so simple as all of that. Not every enemy present was simply going to let him waltz up to their leader and stab him in the eye. In fact, they seemed rather keen on putting more warm bodies in his way. He spent a moment deciding if it would be better to leave them in too much pain to move, but alive, or simply dead. Given that these had sided with a blood mage, he concluded that if he didn't kill them, the Templars would, and decided to save the time. Lethality was a much simpler choice than its opposite, actually, though not even he was so crass as to factor simple ease into his choices. A slight flash; a mage dropped with a stump where his arm used to be. Another hurled an orb of fire at the Tranquil, who ducked in time to recieve nothing but a few singed hairs, though he wasn't sure of the status of anyone behind him. He was in need of a haircut, perhaps.

In fact, the progression forward was the hardest part; these were not physical fighters, and after the first few had tried to be just that and failed miserably, the rest had wisely decided to stick to pelting the group with projectiles. It had been years since Rilien had shot a bow, and he certainly didn't make a habit of it, meaning that he'd simply have to find a way through the barrage and to Decimus. The next conflagration caught his sleeve; he ripped it off at the shoulder seam before it could burn its way to his skin. Ice gathered at his feet, but he skated across it, failing to lose his balance. The hissing of mixing elements was accompanied by a thick cloud of steam and debris- finding his target in this mess was going to be difficult.

"We just wanted to talk!" Ashton cried as he settled into an archer's stance. Even though he'd rather not fight these people, if the choice was the between the safety of the mages over the safety of his companions, he'd choose his friends every time. "Are you so blood drunk that you'd deny even that?!" he pleaded, though based on his recent experiences with blood mages he doubted that mere words would sway their demon addled minds. Speaking of demons, Ashton kept an especially open eye out for anything from beyond the veil, and those such creatures would become priority targets. He would not let another Sparrow happen.

His first shot connected with the shinbone of a mage, thoroughly tossing the man to the ground and interrupting whatever spell he had aimed at them. The next shot he fired cut deep into the outstretched arm of another mage, sending the frost spewing from his hand in a wide arc away from it's intended target-- The tranquil. Ever the efficent one, Rilien had opted to wade directly in towards the leader, and cut the head off of the problem. Ashton wouldn't be surprised to see Sparrow wade in directly behind him either flailing that mace about and casting whatever spells she had in her repertoire either, considering her brusque nature and had began to account for her in the plan that was beginning to fall into place in his mind. What they needed was to stop Decimus, else be subject to what he could summon from the fade, or worse, while at the same time reduce the number of casualities of the other mages. While he may not have been the biggest fan of the Templars on principle, the one outside the mouth of the cave had the right idea about saving these mages. No one's life should just be tossed away like trash.

"Remember where Decimus stands Rilien, Sparrow, I'll cover your approach!" Ashton called, withdrawing the fat shafted arrow that released smoke upon impact. He nocked it and let it fire, directly into the middle of the fray. He trusted them both to take full advantage of the situation. The impact was punctuated with a solid pop, and an obscuring white smoke was beginning to fill the cave and hide their presence. Ashton, however, would not be able to do much more as a large Spirit Bolt cut through the smoke and slammed directly into his chest. It was enough force to take him off of his feet and fling him a good couple feet back, landing ungracefully on his back, trying desparately to get air back into his lungs.

"Ouch... That stung. I think it broke something..." Ashton weezed, coughing a thick gobule of blood out. "Yep... Definitely broke something... Man down. Medic?" He whined, his deadpan tone belying the seriousness of the injury. Looks like he'd have to trust Rilien and Sparrow to this. Though truth be told, he wouldn't trust anyone else more.

Shlepping off the remnants of goo from her fingers, promptly smeared across a snippet of cloth she'd ripped off one of the animated corpses, Sparrow seemed intent on not showing how discontented she was at diving deeper into the cave. It wasn't enough that the caves tunnels were constricting like a snake's belly, forcing them to walk in a straight line. She'd taken the rear, glancing over her shoulder on occasion and gripping her mace all the tighter. Each sound of skittering rocks, disturbed by nocturnal creatures, screwed up her eyes in consternation. She might've been foolhardy enough to appear brave in the face of stumbling corpses, but she wasn't fond of darkness, of not being able to see what was in front of her, or more importantly, behind her. It wasn't her strongest suit. She couldn't help but imagine long-fingered hands slithering from hidden alcoves, ready to pull her in. No amount of squinting could adjust her eyes to the dim lights. The incessant itch demanding to look behind her shoulder – just to be sure, only grew with each step forward.

The flickering lanterns, barely illuminated, cast weaving shadows against the craggy walls. Distorted masses of tantamount-duplications, familiar in their shapes, but terrifying all the same. It was as if the darkness whispered do you fear, do you? And she was afraid. The darkness was all-encompassing, enveloping; an omnipresent thing that promised monsters and deeds she'd rather not carry out, immeasurably vast and unrestricted in its limitless infinity. It was a dreadful, malevolent thing. Whatever happened in the darkness, usually remained gloomy, forgotten-things. She resolutely resisted the urge to grip Rilien's flapping sleeve, ordering her hands to still themselves. Weakness would not do in a place like this. She seemed absent from her thoughts, as if she'd taken a break from her ceaseless barrage of snippy opinions, settling herself on some faraway bench. And somehow, this unsettled Sparrow. She did not search for her, did not reach out her arms like a frightened child, but instead lowered her head and trailed her empty fingers across the nearest wall, allowing her mace to dip low to the ground.

Sparrow breathed a heavy sigh of relief when the tunnels branched out, extending into a much larger chamber. Much like the one they'd found the walking-corpses in. It rattled through her bones, breathed through her lungs, drooped her eyelids a little lower. She didn't need to look behind her shoulder anymore, at least, not unless they'd have to squirm through another tunnel, which didn't seem likely, because they could hear a faint conversation going on in the distance. As soon as they rounded the corner, Decimus and his merry crew of less-than-pleased mages were already moving to intercept them, staves brandished and eyes thrown wide open, wildly alert. Her mouth went dry, hoping wryly that the woman could convince him that they weren't Templar-bastards after-all. “Stop that, idiot.” She snarled, eyes darting to Decimus' fingers, swirling in intricate circles, spewing his own blood force to raise more dead enemies around them. It was Sparrow who first hesitated. She was shaking. She could feel it. “We don't need to do this! We're just trying to help.” Said with little conviction, dying off into a strangled sound when Rilien unerringly amputated one of the mages arms, continuing his way through the throe of warm-bodied people.

She barely dodged the fireball, skittering backwards. Slight fumes of her burnt boot wafted unpleasantly to her nostrils, though she quickly kicked it through the dirt so that she wasn't another ambling corpse, afire, trying to pacify her opponents. Sparrow was not behind Rilien – she hadn't moved, aside from scrambling away from the nearest projectile that'd singed her companions hair. It was Ashton's voice that'd broken her out of her conflicted thoughts, reminding her where she ought to have been and where she needed to go if she wanted to keep her companions alive and well. “R-Right! And watch yourself, no heroics!” Her heart was not in this. How could it be? It'd been left on the precipice that she'd be able to convince them to lay down their weapons and flee from the Templars before they'd even stepped foot into the cave to retrieve them. This wasn't how it was supposed to happen. Instead of hammering through the mages, Sparrow took another more indirect approach, squaring off with the ambling-dead and smashing through, swinging her mace, and inefficiently weaving around those who were still consistently throwing projectiles.

For once, she wasn't directly behind Rilien, but she was coming up beside him, throwing energy-blasts to parry icy-cones and balls of flame, scattering frigid pellets and sparks around them. Sparrow would turn her hesitation, her anger, her despair onto the forerunner of attack.

While Rilien and Sparrow seemed inclined to rush the enemy, Nostariel hung back with Ashton, the group's other ranged combatant.There were enough fierce foes this tme around that she could not afford to simply choose her targets as he chose his, though, and doubtless, the efficiency they produced would suffer for it, but the important thing right now was to keep these mages off the Tranquil while Sparrow smashed through the corpses directly in front of them. All told, it was a sound strategy for such a hastily-devised one, and everything seemed to be going about as well as could be expected until a spirit bolt whizzed by her only to catch the archer full in the chest, throwing him backwards an immoderate distance.

Nostariel had switched tactics before he even made the request. Healing and damage-dealing required completely different mindsets, and it was hard to swap quickly from one to the other. It was a rare mage indeed that could manage both in any kind of swift succession. Nostariel was not yet such a mage, if she would ever be, and it took her a moment to adjust. With a couple of deep breaths, though, she was able to summon the energy to herself, and then direct it towards her fallen comrade. If there was one thing she was good at, it was trauma healing. She was passable with illnesses, but the battlefield was where she shone. Ironic, considering how little she liked them, and how often she had failed at this very job.

Not today.

Rilien, much further afield, had only dim awareness that someone behind him had been hit. What he had noticed was that Ashton's arrow had added to the fog already present, obscuring his target even further. It was more than worth the inconvenience, however, as the mages were no longer firing upon him with anything even resembling accuracy, and he was a much more mobile fighter than they. He would find his quarry, even if he had to stalk it. It was not terribly often that he vanished under the cloak of stealth, though he was capable of it. Mostly, he relied on complete silence to achieve the same result, and this instance was no different. Footfalls normally only incidentally soft lost all noise whatsoever, and he threaded his way carefully in the general direction of Decimus. More than once, he ran into a different mage, but he was much quicker on the uptake, and as a result, each of the three died before they could so much as choke out a warning.

At last, he found what he was looking for. The shroud of smoke was starting to thin, just a little, and the Blood Mage could see him, too, evidenced by the expected half-mad, half panicked ramblings that ensued upon sight of the sunburst resting so obviously over his brow. It was an unusual mage that was not unnerved by it, especially outside a Circle. After a while, it grew repetitive, actually. That Sparrow had not paid it much mind at all was one of the reasons they got along as well as they did. Decimus was nothing even resembling Sparrow, and Rilien had little conscience to delay his action. Surprisingly, his first hit was blocked by a desperate staff maneuver, the metal blades biting deep into the wood of the thing. Ripping them free with exactly no change in facial expression, the Tranquil moved again, this time catching a few shards of stone in his exposed arm for his trouble. Considering that the mage's arm now ended at the elbow, he wasn't very concerned by this.

Predictably, Decimus failed to control his reaction and dropped his stave, clutching at his stump with his still-whole hand and doing quite a lot of screaming. At this point, Rilien was forced away from what would have been the finisher by an incoming jet of flames; the others around them were regaining full visibility, and apparently would defend their leader to the death. He supposed that could be arranged.

Whatever amount of hatred she'd harvested from wheedling out the animated corpses had not been enough to weave into the fray and clock Decimus in the head – which would have been quite easy, since he was already distracted by Rilien's merciless assault, desperately attempting to block the Tranquil's impossibly quick hands with his staff. It was numbingly obvious how the situation would end. Instead, Sparrow stepped in while the fog cleared and slammed her mace into one of the mages stomach. Certainly not hard enough to bust all of his ribs, but enough to debilitate him, to discourage him from throwing any more funnels of flame at her companions. She whipped to the side to engage another, busying her mace against a creaking wooden staff. "Kill him first!" Perhaps, then, the others would lose face. They would give up. They wouldn't need to die. Then, Rilien could stop killing the others.

On the other side of the cavern, after Nostariel's burst of healing magic, Ashton had managed to drag his sore corpse over to one of the many stalagmites that littered the cave and leaned his back against it. Sure the immediate pain was gone thanks to the pretty little mage, but he still felt as if a horse had kicked him in the chest. What little blood that had remained floating around freely in his system was still interfering with his breathing, but all things considered, he could be worse. He could be dead. And not being dead was always a plus in Ashton's book. The hunter did look worse for wear though, left over blood flowing from the corner of his mouth. He looked a lot worse off than he was. He'd try to milk it for all the pity that it was worth.

He wasn't of the strongest constitution, to say the least. He wasn't a strongbacked, rough and tumble individual, like Sparrow. He couldn't take punches, hell, he probably couldn't even take a stiff breeze. Even Rilien, with his Tranquil stoicism, was more hardy than the Archer. At the very most, he put himself on Nostariel's level, and that was if she didn't have that Wardened hardening training whatevers. He knew what he was, and that was why he put himself in the back of the fight, flickering in and out of visibility. Though, he'd not allow a simple magical bolt to hold him back. He wasn't quite out of the fight yet, he wasn't quite done.

Ashton had nocked an arrow, and was beginning to draw before he paused. His sitting position would not allow him to fire his bow upright. He sighed and angled the bow horizontally and drew once again. "That was the plan..." Ashton murmured behind Sparrow's command. At that, Ashton let the arrow slip, and like a bolt of lightning it streaked forward towards it's intended target. Luckily, for those mages that had saw Ashton get hit by the Spirit Bolt, they thought him out of the fight. They didn't expect him to crawl back into the thing. That oversight allowed the arrow fly unmolested, right into the head of Decimus. Well. At least the chance of possession by Blood Mage was down. "Yaaay... Can we go home now?" Ashton whined, his arms dropping limply.

The arrow struck Decimus's forehead at about the same time as Sparrow downed her last one and Rilien disemboweled the remaining antagonist. All those that remained were cowering at the corners, and one flinched noticeably when the Tranquil leveled a dead-eyed stare at him. That was largely a normal occurrence, however, and he paid it no heed. His part of this enterprise was concluded, and frankly, it would have been impossible for him to care any less about what happened to the rest of them. For someone who had been a mage, their so-called plight was of precious little consequence to him, except as it occasionally pertained to what few people ever managed to bumble their way into mattering to him.

He picked up his discarded sleeve on the way back to the back of the ranks, using the deep red fabric to clean his knives before he resheathed them. Blood still dripped in rivulets down his bare arm, and he busied himself removing what chunks of stone he could from the wounds, tossing them onto the ground with apparent disregard for any pain it caused. There were still a few in there, and those would have to wait until he could make his way home and use a smaller instrument to dig them from his flesh. After that, it would be a simple matter of alcohol, bandages, and potions. It would not be the first time he'd gone through that particular routine, and it would doubtless not be the last.

"Not quite yet," Nostariel replied to Ashton. "We have to talk to the rest yet, and see if any more bloodshed might be avoided. I can take better care of that later, too," she added, noting the obvious fatigue under which he still operated. The Tranquil's bloody arm also concerned her, but it did not appear to be bothering him in the slightest, and she wasn't quite brave enough to ask him if he wanted any help. That left Sparrow, who looked fine, and the other mages, who were apparently looking upon them with more fear now that the violent among them were dead.

"Please," Nostariel entreated them, gripping her staff as firmly as she could muster and taking tentative steps forward, "do not be afraid. This is not what we intended, and a peaceful resolution to this affair is still possible." She shifted her posture just a little, so that the insignias of her station were easily-visible, and hopefully that would help. The Wardens were not harbingers of needless violence, and they were also not in the back pocket of the Chantry, which she hoped would lend her pleas some weight. "Ser Thrask of Kirkwall led us here to you. He wishes for you to return to the Circle, peacefully and without anymore needless death, but that window of opportunity will be brief." She waited then, for one of them to speak, or do anything at all, really.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon

Earnings

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A couple of days after the whole Saarebas incident, Aurora found herself meandering around Lowtown, devoid of much to do. Which in itself may have been a blessing, considering that when she did find something to do, it usually ended in blood, magic, and heavy realization or more recently, all of the above combined. She hoped that she could just take a walk without tripping over trouble. Aurora didn't think she could handle any more trouble quite yet. Truth be told, she was in the mood for nothing that day. Not in a bad mood, mind, just in a mood to do nothing and just enjoy the day. Too long had she been holed up in her room thinking about what had transpired a couple of days ago. And though she still felt pity for Ketojan, it was his choice to do what he did. In honor of the Qunari though, she wore his amulet around her neck. Only the Qunari could know what it was, and she didn't think she'd willingly run into any of those any time soon (Amalia excepted of course).

Not doing anything however was beginning to wear on her. Taking a walk down Lowtown might have helped cleared her mind, but it did little for mental activity. That was when Aurora got an idea. She was near the Hanged Man, Nostariel's usual place. Perhaps she could check in with her fellow mage, they hadn't seen each other for a while after all. Ever since she had stopped visiting Feynriel with the Warden. She liked the boy, though she had wished he a had a bit more backbone about him. That and the fact that she never felt welcomed with the Dalish had put her off any more visits. That and she was getting the sneaking suspicion that their visits may have been doing more harm than good. The boy had to adapt to his surroundings, and visits from the mages wasn't going to allow an easy transition.

Still though, she spun on her heel and angled her approach towards the Hanged Man. She entered the raunchy dive within the hour, her eyes immediately drawn to the corner where Nostariel was normally found. Except this time. Her chair was empty this time. Strange, Aurora wondered where the Warden had gotten off to. Warden adventures probably? Probably. Aurora picked her way over to the table, where she hovered for a couple of moments before sitting. She didn't know what else to do. Her only plan for the day was thoroughly dashed. She hooked an arm around the back of the chair and leaned back, sighing.

What now?

The silvered, well-polished chainmail shirt slid easily into place over his linens, resting over his back and shoulders with a weight he didn't really even notice anymore. It was followed by padded leathers, and then a few pieces of dark grey plate, all buckled into place with well-practiced motions. Lucien knew from prodigiously-drilled experience that he could be in full plate to match a Templar's in less than five minutes, but he rarely bothered with quite so much these days. Today, he had no job and was simply meeting a potential client, so aside from the basic chestplate, gauntlets, and chain, he wasn't arming himself much at all, honestly. Perhaps it was more force of habit than anything that compelled the exercise in the first place.

He moved without much noise through his small home. It was a three-room affair, not much at all to look at, but it was his, and it turned out that even a ramshackle Lowtown hutch could reflect that quite well. The entire place was incredibly clean, from the stucco walls to the old wood planks on the floor. The central and largest room was dominated by a large bookshelf, weighed down with what he'd collected in Kirkwall and on a few occasional trips elsewhere in the Marches. A few had been shipped from friends in Ferelden and at home. There were a few armchairs in front of a fireplace, which had clearly been gutted and replaced with better stones, those a gift from a mason he'd helped a year or so ago. The walls bore a few rough-hand stetches, arranged with meticulous neatness, and a couple of mounted weapons, including a shield with an ornate crest upon its mirrored surface. Other than that, the place was spartan, free of decoration and gave off a distinct air of solitude. Crossing to a small table beside one of the armchairs, Lucien took up the scrap of black fabric there and tied it about his bad eye, glancing around to make sure eveything was in order before he left.

He was, as always, on track to be very early for the meeting, but he preferred the activity of the Hanged Man to his house, most of the time. He entered with no great fanfare, and by now he was a rather common sight there, so few people paid him much mind. With a nod to the bartender and a small smile for the usual wait staff, he thought to take up his usual table, only to find it occupied by a few despondent-looking individuals far into their drinks. He'd leave them be, then. A quick glance found a familiar face, though not the one he would have expected to see in that particular spot. Aurora looked about as bored as he'd ever seen a person, so he figured she wouldn't mind some company. Selecting the chair directly across from her, Lucien sat, shooting the mage a smile. "Hello, Aurora. It's good to see you, though I wouldn't have expected to find you here. What do you drink?" he raised a hand to indicate he'd like one of the waitresses to apporach, but soon refocused his attention on the redhead.

Aurora had been in the process of identifying the various intricacies of the Hanged Man's ceiling (there were none) when the chair in front of her moved, bringing her back down to floor level. Her vision stuttered for a moment as she tried to process who it was, but it didn't take long for her to realize that it was Lucien. She'd never forget his eyepatched face and large frame. She immediately began to straighten up in her seat, unhooking her arm from the chair's spine and instead leaning forward on the table. At this point, she'd welcome any human (or elf, she didn't discriminate) interaction. The question he asked was one she hadn't heard in a while and she pondered on it for a moment.

"Some... Wine I suppose? I'm not really a heavy drinker," she said. "The wine isn't too bad here, right?" she quickly added. In either case, ale or beer was definitely out of the question. Especially in a dive like the Hanged Man. Her entire day would be wasted, and though she was bored, she was nowhere near that bored.

Lucien chuckled. "Well, it won't kill you, and I can't say the same for the water." He relayed the order to the usual barmaid, a dark-haired woman by the name of Giselle, asking for two decanters of the best red they had. He wasn't holding out hope that it would be very good, but at the very least it would be better than anything else. He gave Aurora a look of obvious sympathy. "Alas, Kirkwall is neither Orlais nor Antiva, and the wine is about what you'd expect, given that." It was, in one sense, an educated guess, but he thought he'd caught a bit of that lilt in her voice at one point, during one of the more... contentious moments of their little adventure. "If you don't mind my asking, what part of that country are you from? I spent some time in Antiva City a while back, and I've been to a border province a few times."

The decanters arrived, accompanied by two empty glasses, and Lucien obligingly poured both, swirling the liquid in his glass and sniffing experimentally. He frowned slightly, and rolled his visible eye. Definitely not Orlesian wine. Sometimes, he missed those little things about home, but he had to remind himself that it was home for him no longer, and he'd do well to remember that.

Aurora took her time to answer. Lucien had proved to be much more clever than she initially believed, recognizing her accent as he did. It made her realize she'd have to work that much harder to get rid of it. Perhaps it was mere paranoia that made her try to erase everything that could track her back to Antiva. That being said, she was still hesitant to answer the mercenary. Though, he obviously knew she was a mage, and he had ample opportunity to turn her into the Templars if he so desired. She had decided that he was the trustworthy sort, mostly after necessity. After all, if she couldn't trust him to keep her secret safe... Well, she didn't like to think about that. She took her own glass, and swirled the liquid as Lucien had, though she was by no means a connoisseur.

"Originally?" She asked rhetorically, "Bastion. A costal city just above the Free Marches border. We lived mostly to ourselves on the outskirts of town. After that? Antiva City. The, uh... Circle specifically," she said, whispering the word. Even in conversation she couldn't afford to let her guard down. Sometimes it bothered her, but she always figured it was necessary. "Never got to see much of the city proper, just what the windows would allow me to see and what little field trips I was allowed," she said, shrugging. That was then though, now she was able to see whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted, without having a Templar breathing down her neck.

"How about you Lucien? Where from Orlais are you from? And what brings you to Kirkwall, beautiful city that she is," she said with not small bit of sarcasm. She then took her first drink of her wine, wincing at the rough taste. Definitely not Antivan either.

Lucien nodded his comprehension of the whispered syllables, a small, close-lipped smile the only reassurance he could offer. Worse secrets than that were safe with him, though he did not take this to dimish the importance of keeping this one. It was, after all, Aurora's freedom that was at stake here. He would speak no more of it if that was what she wished. "That's a shame," he demurred quietly. "Antiva City is quite something to see. I'm actually originally from the countryside myself. I grew up on a lord's estate quite some distance from the capital, in the province of Lydes. Quite close to the border with Ferelden. There was quite a lot of travel in my youth, though, I must admit." His singluar visible eye lost a bit of its sharp focus, receding into the middle distance, and he leaned back slightly. "Some part of me will always think of Lydes as home, though. As for why I'm here, well, circumstance sometimes forces us all to leave things we love behind, doesn't it?"

Though his words were rather sad, his tone was more kindly than anything, and he tipped the wineglass back, polite enough to put considerable effort into not grimacing. "As you may have guessed, Lydes is wine country. That close to Ferelden and the Frostbacks, you wouldn't think so, but they make an excellent white from a species of colder-weather grape invented there. There's nothing quite like looking out over the vineyards on a chilly autumn morning, when things have just started to frost over. The mountains are in view, and when the sun hits everything just right, it's the most beautiful thing." He grinned then, a little sheepishly. "But I think I may have bored you a bit there. My apologies. Nostalgia tends to overcome my needlessly sentimental soul at the oddest times."

Though he was polite enough to not grimace, the same could not be said for Aurora. The talk of home caused her to lean forward and hover over her own decanter. Truth be told, she tried not to think about home much. To many painful memories, and then there was the possibility that she may never be able to return. "No, not boring. I understand. I'm sure it's just as beautiful as our sunsets. If you stand on the coast right at dusk and the sun hits the Amaranthine Ocean just right, it's quite the breath-taking sight... Dancing colors of orange, gold, and red above and below, reflected by the water... We used to watch it all the time," A rose colored aurora... Her own voiced was filled the the same nostalgia that had filled Lucien's. The memories were enough to make her forget that Lucien had effectively danced out of the way of her question.

For his part, he attempted to picture the vista she was painting with her words, and whether his rendering was accurate or not, he decided it would have been well worth painting in the more conventional way. It was really too bad he couldn't see it, and worse that she might never again be able to. He wouldn't have necessarily expected it, but the two of them were quite alike in this respect. It was a Royal Edict that kept him from he beloved home, and her status as a mage that kept her from hers, but the result was the same either way.

She then leaned back in her chair and brought her wine back to her lips. The memories were enough to take all the energy out of her. "I... try not to think about it so much. It's easier, that way. Kinder, in a sense. It feels like so long ago, hard to believe it's only been six years since I left Bastion. Almost one since Antiva City," she said, melancholy apparent on her tones. She wanted to change the subject, maybe back on the man. Perhaps... Drakon? That sounded familiar..

"If you don't mind me asking... Drakon? It sounds like a name I've heard somewhere. My... Studies perhaps?" she asked inquisitively.

"I wouldn't be surprised if you had," Lucien replied honestly. He shrugged broad shoulders with diffidence. "Though it does tend to suprise me when people remember they've heard it. It's ancient history by now. Kordillus Drakon was a king from a long, long time in the past. The name... doesn't mean nearly so much now as it did then, though I'm happy enough to bear it, I suppose. It hardly matters now, but I guess that I carry it still because I really am just that sentimental." There was self-effacing humor in the comment, and he swallowed the last of the wine in his glass with an air of finality. "Names are funny that way, I think. They are given to us, in most cases, and we rarely choose them for ourselves, but... well, I always just wanted to grow into mine, become worthy of it and everything it meant. Other people try to duck them, or make them mean something different on the tongues of others, but there seems to be little denying their importance, no?"

Once again, she found his words relating to herself. When she asked her question, she didn't expect the conversation to turn to names. The fact that her own name, Aurora Rose, was a chosen alias, sprung to the forefront of her mind where it sat. She wanted to tell this man her real name, who she really was. But though she trusted him, she did not trust him that much. She'd never trust anyone that much. Her true name was a secret to everyone, buried thousands of miles away in Antiva. She was no longer that person, she was Aurora Rose, Antivan apostate hiding in the slums of Kirkwall, apostate hiding beneath the shadow of the Gallows. No one needed to know her name.

"No.." Aurora agreed, though she did not offer much more than that.

Lucien seemed to understand, though, and he didn't press the point any further, instead pouring himself another glass from the decanter and polishing it off slowly, before pushing back from the table, laying his palms flat against the surface to leverage himself from his chair with more grace than should be expected of such a large person. "I'd not mind keeping your company for a while longer, my friend, but unfortunately, business matters call me elsewhere." Reaching into his coinpurse, Lucien left behind enough for the decanters and a generous tip, dipping his head to Aurora even as his next client entered the tavern. "Until next we meet, may your steps be subtle and beneath the notice of certain sorts." His parting grin was unusually crooked, giving it a conspiratorial kind of look that well-matched his tone.

Aurora smiled quietly as the chevalier left, but kept to her own seat. She sat for a while, unmoving, just... Thinking. It had been perhaps an hour when Aurora took her own leave, and left the bar. While not exactly the expected outcome for the day, she couldn't say that it had been pointless.

Setting

4 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

The woman who had attempted to stop Decimus from attacking the group fell to her knees by his body now that the violently resisting mages had been dealt with. "You killed him!" she shouted, dismayed. "Oh, Decimus, you should have listened to me, love..." She gazed up at the four that had killed the blood mage. "Decimus gave us the courage to face the Templars. Without him, we would be prisoners still. He was our future... Until he came, we never thought to fight back. I told Decimus he was going too far, but he said it was the only way to protect us. To protect me." 

She stood, clearly desiring to look upon the maimed corpse no longer. "Please, we only want our freedom. Without your help, the Templars will execute us all for Decimus' crimes." 

Nostariel's expression tightened, the frown playing at the edges of her mouth and eyes clear evidence of her sympathy, though to the statement itself, she said nothing, at least not until the woman spoke her plea. At that, the elf shook her head, though whether this was from straightforward disagreement or resignation was not precisely clear. "Thrask will not. He sent us here to prevent just that, but you must understand something. He will not be alone for long, and if you are not with him when the others arrive, it... will not end well. Surely, you can see the need to protect yourselves from that. For the sake of those of you that still remain, please, return to the Circle." The words tasted bitterly on her tongue, and something in them weighed tangibly upon her, slumping her shoulders, but... she had seen too much of the world to believe that they were really better off just running away for the rest of their lives. The Circle was a cage, but compared to the fear and perpetual danger of an apostate's life, it was a gilded one. 

With their phylacteries still operational, they didn't stand a chance of remaining hidden for long, and then they really would be executed, or made Tranquil. The latter shouldn't be the case, but anyone with even a shred of realistic undersanding knew that what was supposed to be and what was differed substantially when mages and Templars were involved, and that went both ways.

“We must not.” Again, it was Sparrow who piped in, rolling her shoulders to rid herself of the growing cramps. She lowered her head when she caught sight of Ashton's appearance, blood welling down from his lips. It would do no one any good if they engaged another, tougher, foe in his state – not that she doubted his abilities, but he, for one, would not outright want to do battle with Templars. Her lip stiffened, and her posture straightened. “There has to be another way. Escape through another tunnel.” She added bitterly, whipping her head around to the other apostates. Hadn't they noticed a way out? Or was this cavern doomed to dead ends and disgusting smells? It was by the coast, wasn't it? She spread her hands out wide, then snapped them down. “Lie, or cheat if we must. Rilien can say that we've killed them. Slaughtered all of them because we had to. Thrask might be upset, but, but then they'll be able to go on their way. Leave the Free Marches and go to Ferelden – if not, expect injustice. You've committed crimes, and you're considered dangerous. They will kill you.”

Sparrow made a grunting noise, throwing her hands wide, as if to appease the Maker. She did not want to disobey her companion. She did not want to go against what she was saying. Hadn't Nostariel suffered at the hands of the Circle? But, because she'd been in one, did she think they would be merciful to their crimes? Not all Templars were as forgiving or compassionate as Thrask. There would be Templars within the Circles order who'd want to seek retribution, who'd pull on their own tethers to see these mages burn. Chains and cages were only so good if they were being compared to execution. If they hadn't a say in the matter, then wasn't this all pointless? “The Circle will not accept them anymore. They aren't runaway birds. They've killed Templars, Nos. We're leading them to the Gallows.” However metaphorical that might've been, Sparrow did not want to wring nooses around their necks. Had it been years prior to her arriving in Kirkwall, upon first meeting Rilien, then she would not have cared. Efficiency ran nearly as thick in her blood as it did in her Tranquilian companion. She'd spent years cultivating her nonchalance, her ability to walk away from the poorest souls when she might've been able to help; without a heavy heart. It's kept her alive thus far.

"Nostariel. Please..."

She was silent. She was smiling. 

"Yes," the mage woman said, clearly liking the sound of Sparrow's plan far more than Nostariel's, "We have found no other ways out of the cave apart from the way we came in, but if this Templar can be fooled, then lie to him, say you had to kill us all. You've enough blood on you to prove it. We can escape when they're gone. I hear there are places, outside the Free Marches, where the Templars are not so vigilant. With our phylacteries destroyed in our escape, we could make a go of it." 

She took on a different look then, a hardness in her eyes that hadn't been there before. "If he can't be fooled... surely the death of one Templar is preferable than the deaths of so many mages. Kill him so that we can escape before the others arrive. Please, if you want to help us, then help us."

Rilien, entirely uninterested in the discussion taking place, stepped over several corpses and partial corpses to where Ashton was still half-laying on the ground. With his back turned to the rest of the group, it was safe to assume that the slight lift to his eyebrow was intended for the archer alone, as if to ask what he was doing wasting time on the ground when he was perfectly capable of standing. The Tranquil offered the archer his good arm and helped him pull himself to his feet, figuring that even if he didn't care a whit whether these mages or any Templars lived or died, the loudmouthed hunter was bound to have an opinion of some sort. Furthermore, he wasn't a complete idiot, so it might actually be a worthwhile one, which was clearly not a guarantee where some of these mages were concerned.

Nostariel, meanwhile, had been about to say something to Sparrow when the woman spoke. The Warden's was not a face that appeared as if it could host any expression describable as 'thunderous,' but it soon became clear that appearances were misleading. Her stare matched and surpassed the tattooed woman's in its coldness, and for once, it wasn't hard to guess that Nostariel's favored element was ice. The bladed end of her staff slammed into the ground with uncharacteristic force, and she straightened, every line betraying her utter disgust. "How dare you," she hissed, tones low and glacial. It might have been the imagination, but the temperature in her immediate proximity seemed to drop by a good ten or so degrees, her irises hardening to chips of frost set into a stern face. 

"I understand what it is to feel trapped, but that does not excuse the very suggestion that we murder the man who called us, strangers to him and people far outside of the Circle, for the express purpose of saving your lives. How dare you suggest that his life is so insignificant. He is exactly what the Circle needs, and exactly the reason you will not be killed. Just how do you think he found you at all? Your phylacteries were saved from the Circle you burned. If not him, another Templar will find you, and you would be lucky indeed if that one is half as merciful as Ser Thrask. If you want the attitude the world has toward us to change, then you must be better than this. Better than his blood magic, and much better than the idea that the death of a good man means nothing. I will not lie for you, and I will definitely not murder for you. How you choose to take that is a measure of your own character." She left it unsaid that she already found it to be wanting. That much was clearly obvious.

Ashton accepted Rilien's hand with a nod of approval and thanks, before he put his hand on his back and thrusted, popping a number of bones. Now that Nostariel's magic had enough time to sink in, he was feeling better, if tired. That and the left over blood from his internal wounds was still clogging up his breathing and such. In the long run though, he'll be fine. He patted Rilien's shoulder for an extra show of thanks and then approached the brewing storm that was Sparrow, Nostariel, and the mages. If only he truly knew the depth of the murky waters he was wading in to. Or perhaps he did, and just didn't care or understood. He knew, a blow like that could scramble even the sanest minds, and Ashton's wasn't the sanist to begin with.

"Yeah, we're definitely not going to kill Thrask," Ashton backed Nostariel up, [/color]"Templar or not, he's too good a man to just off like that. So now that that option's off the table,"[/color] he mimed the action of cleaning off a table, "That leaves either letting them go, or bringing them back to the Circle," Now that the options were stated, next came the muddy job of siding on one. Great. Just what he woke up wanting to do today, side on the matters of mages. He pinched the bridge of his nose, still totally unaware of the drying streak of blood dribbling down the corner of his mouth. It gave him a rather serious appearance, more serious than he'd like.

"My kneejerk reaction tells me to let 'em go," Ashton said, again mimicking the kneejerking part. "Though considering that their leader had just tried to kill us and they already show no qualms about killing to get what they want... Maybe the best route is the Circle after all," Ashton said, offering an apologetic look for Sparrow. "Who's to say that they just won't cause more trouble, attack more Templars if we just let them go. Though the lot are machines, some do have hearts inside that armor like Thrask. Some are good people. And who's to say that they won't kill more good people just to keep their freedom?" Ashton said, clearly not enjoying the words coming off of his tongue. "At least it's safe there," He finished, rubbing his head. Then he shrugged, turned his back on the whole quarrel and went to stand beside Rilien. The Tranquil had the right idea.

"I don't care what either of you decide. I've said my piece. I'm not a mage, so I can't pretend this gobble-gook applies to me, do what you will and I'll be right behind you," Ashton said, settling in beside Rilien. "Besides, I just really want to go home now," he murmurred.

Oh great, now the mage was insinuating that Sparrow was on board with killing everyone else in her path to free them. That wasn't what she had in mind, after all. Her doubts about Thrask's ingenuity had been cleared as soon as she'd met him, for he could've taken a different route if he'd wanted the runaway apostates slaughtered. Whatever qualms she possessed against Templars could be momentarily set aside. She wouldn't kill Thrask just because she was asked to. The other Templars were an entirely different matter because they carried chains, false promises, and a nasty tendency to provoke their captives into coercive, inappropriate knee-jerks. Such things could be easily dealt with their blades because the mages were simply too dangerous to bring back to the Circle. If they walked away, and then the Templars rounded the corner to do away with them, without Thrask to oversee their journey, they wasn't it the same thing as signing their death sentences. This would be difficult.

She was slightly taken aback when Nostariel slammed her staff in the ground, galvanizing with unadulterated anger. Nearly bristling and bursting at the seams – if she were that little mage, however beautifulNostariel might've been while staring her down, she would've been shaking in her boots, as well. If she were in the mage's position, fighting for her own freedom, and if she was backed into a corner, then wouldn't she, too, want to kill everyone trying to strip her of her freedoms? She knew she would. Even if it meant destroying someone innocent like Thrask. They didn't honestly know who this Thrask was. He was just another Templar idling outside, waiting for them to convince the mages to lower their weapons and give up before they faced inevitable execution at the hands of more Templars. However stifling, and utterly frigid, Nostariel's disgust was, Sparrow couldn't help feel her heart go out to them, fluttering from her fingertips like two flighty things searching for another, much more pleasant way to end this. They wanted to live freely, much like she did. Would Nostariel have denied her if she had known what she was willing to do in the face of imprisonment?

Sparrow abruptly whipped forward, grabbing a handful of the apostate's robes before shaking her wildly, drawing her near so that she could look her in the eyes. Two pieces of flint meeting rusted copper, dark and darker. “Don't mince my words. Just because I don't want your sorry carcass to rot in the Circle, doesn't mean that we're dirty mercenaries willing to swing our swords around for just anyone. If it hadn't been for Thrask, then we'd be stumbling onto a pile of ash and bones, remember that.” She did not relinquish her grip, only tightened and spun her around to face her companions, her terrified fledgelings that had been lugged along with them. They clung to each other, as if letting go would mean they'd fall. They'd stumble, they'd be finished. Some of them might have had hands as bloody and stained as their leader, Decimus, but some even still might have been entirely innocent in any acts they partook in as they absconded from their Circle, only faltering when it came to the aspect of freedom, fleeing along with the rest of them. They would suffer. She looked at Nostariel, then to Ashton. Her tongue tied into knots, stuck to the back of her teeth to keep herself from saying things they wouldn't want to hear. She eyed the smear of blood on Ashton's lips. He should not have to suffer her pride.

“Condemn them all for the possible actions of a few?” It sounded familiar enough. Her argument was weakening already, like wobbling knees ready to buckle. Sparrow's grip loosened, allowing the material to slither away from her fingers. But, still, her heart felt heavy. It settle down to her heels like silt in the ocean, and no amount of well-wishing could dilute the impending shame. She might have hated blood mages for what they'd done to her, bringing a demon into her mindscape (even if it had been her own doing) but she felt disgusted at the very idea of marching a troupe of runaway mages into their grimy hands. She knuckled her eyelids, averting the sigh bubbling in her throat. “If you think this is right.” It was fine. Let them be done with it. She would drink for them later.

The mage seemed defeated. They certainly would not kill Thrask, and the Warden would put an end to any attempts to lie to him, which had been slim at best. Templars were easier to kill than fool, after all, that she knew. When faced with the choice between the Circle and death, Decimus had chosen death. But she... could not do it. She couldn't make the others do it. "You've made your point," she gave in. "I won't have all of us die down here in this cave. We'll go back to the Circle." 

The Chanter's Board has been updated. Act of Mercy has been completed.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

It would appear that the Tranquil did not need to locate his storefront conveniently in order to do sufficient business. Another person might have found this irritating; Amalia took it as a piece of evidence that his work was as good as she'd heard. This was not a matter on which she'd tolerate anything less than the best this cesspool of a city had to offer, and the word from anyone who knew anything about enchantment was that he was the best. This was the one part of the process of which she was not capable, and so it fell to her to find someone who was. That he seemed to be one and the same as the peculiar-looking man who knew Venak hol was an interesting coincidence, but not one that had factored into her decision.

The shop, like most Darktown endeavors, was run down to all appearances, the wood chipping away to the thinnest of boards. There was no sign indicating what it was for, and the door swung open without much noise. Amalia stepped through with less, casting her eyes about the room in an attempt to locate the elvish proprietor.

The workshop was much cleaner on the inside than it was upon its exterior, dominated by a large, central worktable and a singular chair. This surface was polished to a shine, and behind it stood several rows of open shelving, upon which were arranged the tools of Rilien's trades, all neatly aligned but not labelled. There was no need, as he knew what everything was, and nobody else needed to. When the door swung open, he glanced up, catching sight of a face he knew, but not well. This was Sparrow's acquaintance, the one she had seemed so distressed to meet. Conversely, however, she had also been somehow pleased, and though he did not pretend to understand it, he had noticed. The woman was much like Sparrow in her distinct lack of conventional appearance, but that, so far as he could tell, was where the similarity ended.

"You are Amalia. What do you require of me?" he asked bluntly, setting aside for the moment the delicate glass bottles he was working with, but not before stoppering each of them, content to ignore her until she spoke. The clear containers, he shelved, contemplating opening his singular window to rid the room of the smell of nightshade. In the end, he decided against it-- the scent was far more pleasant than Darktown's was.

Efficiency was something Amalia had always appreciated, and it seemed that this basra possessed the quality in spades. Far be it from her to dally in conversation when he was so clearly inclined otherwise, so she placed the wrapped bundle in her hands on the table, untying the ragged twine that held the cloth in place and flipping both ends of the burlap away to expose what lay underneath. "Can you enchant this? The material is most unusual, I am aware, but I was told that you were the person to ask." She stepped back from the table, giving him the space to examine the object if he so wished. In the meantime, she glanced around the shop's interior, paying particular attention to but not approaching the glass vials on the shelves. It would appear that the elf's trade was not limited to enchantment, but also included potions, and, if the smell was anything to go by, poisons.

An interesting fact. She might have even been inclined to inquire over it, were she not here for a very specific purpose and intent on its completion. Still, it was leading her to believe that things would work out after all. As someone who believed in maintaining a minimum of personal possessions, she did not have a fortune to offer in coin, and it had occurred to her that she was asking rather a lot, at least of a basra. Qunari did what needed to be done regardless of the amount of labor involved, but those not of her people were rarely the same.

Rilien's eyes narrowed, and he did cross to the other side of the table, though he did not place his back to the woman. He'd noticed how little noise she made; he was willing to assume that she was inclined towards stealth and no stranger to murder. Though he was not afraid, he considered himself relatively intelligent, and whether she would harm Sparrow was an entirely separate matter than whether she would harm him, had she the chance. Picking up the object on the table, he tested it with a small hammer, running a thumb along one edge. It only confirmed what the peculiar color and weight had led him to guess, and his brows drew together slightly. "An unconventional construction, indeed, but sturdier than most. I can enchant this. Lightning, flame, or nature would be optimal, but it would also tolerate an infusion of spirit or ice. The choice is yours."

He tested the heft and balance with a few deft motions of the hand, nodding ever so slightly. The workmanship was exceptional, actually, better than any of the Kirkwall craftsmen could manage. He also doubted they'd ever use bone. "You made this." It was not a question.

"I did," she replied. "But it will not be I that makes use of it." The Qunari pursed her lips momentarily, considering her options. The obvious choice was nature damage, but the more she thought about it, the more fire seemed appropriate instead. It was as much a gift from her as it was one to him, and she had burned for it, in a sense. It had also not escaped her that there was a certain violence in his nature that matched it well. "Enchant it to burn, and if you can have it done in two days, I'll pay you in this." Reaching into a pouch at her thigh, she extracted a glass vial of her own, filled with a viscous red liquid that was most assuredly not a potion of medicinal nature. She willingly handed it over, watching keenly for the Tranquil's reaction, though he was far harder to red than anyone else she'd encountered in this place.

Two days wasn't a problem, at least not in terms of the time it would actually take him to complete the task proper. Rilien could enchant an object within a few hours of intense concentration. Folding lyrium was not an easy task by any means, but it was also not a long one if you knew what you were doing. The demand in the time frame came from the fact that he'd have to move this job ahead of orders he'd received before it. Not that he cared in the slightest; this was by far the most interesting and challenging thing he'd been asked to do since he'd set up shop here. Most people just wanted rat poison or pain killers--it was only rarely that he ever received the opportunity to do something more than that. Most of the more complex brews he made were either for his own use or the occasional Red Iron contract.

He took the vial from the Qunari and examined it closely, unstoppering it and sniffing delicately. His eyes widened almost imperceptibly before he smoothed his face over. That alone was rare, but then, what he was holding was perhaps rarer still. "You would pay me in the blood of dragons?" he asked flatly, meeting the woman's mismatched eyes. He blinked slowly, then tilted his head. "If you part with three vials of this and the heart, it will be ready tomorrow." Were he more superstitious, he would be unable to believe his luck. There was a chance-- a slim chance, but still a chance-- that the heart of a dragon could be the key to something he wanted, not as a matter of necessity, but as a matter of what little emotional capacity he still possessed.

"It is done," Amalia replied immediately. Three vials was less than half of what she'd managed to collect and preserve, and the heart, while interesting, was not anything she had a use for. If he was asking for it without being offered, chances were good he had a reason, and that was enough to make the exchange a beneficial one for both of them. She paused for a moment, ready to leave, but found her steps pulling up short of the door. Frowning, she turned herself to lean against the wall. "Venak hol-- the one you call Sparrow. How long have you known him?" she crossed her arms and folded one leg over the other. She'd intended not to ask this question, but... it was unexpectedly difficult, ignoring the fact that this man knew things of her brother that she did not. It had been years, and perhaps she had no claim on the information anymore, but all the same, she desired to know.

Amalia could not say that she had ever cared for a particularly large number of people in her life. Well, that was perhaps not exactly true. She cared for all of her people, devoted her life to protecting them. She'd lost much in the effort to do so, endured much. It was still not the same as the sense in which one cared for individual other people. Though it was a common-enough word among the Qunari, none were kadan to her, and none had ever been. Venak hol was just as important, but she hadn't wanted to bind him with the appellation. Sure enough, he'd flown away from her in the end, as some part of her had always known he would. It was his nature and she did not blame him for it. Yet in the absence of true ties to anyone else, without anything to occupy that place in her heart, it had hurt more than it should have. Amalia, even as a Qunari, was an incomplete person, and she knew it. It was what prevented her from earning the last measure of the Ariqun's trust; the kossith woman had been explicit about this fact. What she had instead were empty spaces and a prodigal brother she could not let go of, even though she knew he was not capable of filling all of them in.

"A few years," Rilien replied tonelessly, beginning to pull certain tools and ingredients down from shelves and set them down on the table. He noted mentally that he was low on raw lyrium, and needed to purchase more of it. A minor irritation, considering the fact that the prices for which he was able to do so were very much above its market value. That sort of thing happened when you were not affiliated with the Circle and had to work through smugglers to obtain what you wanted. The independence was well worth it, however. He glanced over his shoulder, noting that Amalia was still present.

"She was hiding from debt collectors. In my house." There was the barest hint of dry humor there. "I took care of the problem and let her stay. She is... much the same still, but attempts to help, in her fashion." He could not ascertain if that was the answer the woman wanted, but it was the true one, if very abbreviated, and he wasn't going to mention the possession. Just because someone knew Sparrow did not give them the right to that secret. If Sparrow wanted this Amalia to know, she would tell her, and Rilien wasn't going to.

Amalia nearly smiled at the first part of the tale. That was just like Venak hol, to be hapless even when he thought he was being clever. There was something very honest about that quality, and it was the reason he'd earned the name she gave to him, because it had once worried her so. She'd always been concerned that the world would be too hard on him, given everything that he was but had not chosen to be. His very presence had convinced her that collaring Saarebas was not the right thing, and could not be what the Qun truly demanded. Collaring Venak hol would have killed him, like cutting the wings from a bird. Maybe Sparrow was an appropriate name, too, in its way. There was no way the Qun could demand that. She had firmly believed so then, and this much at least had not changed.

She was curious, though. "Why would you do that? He was not yours to look after. All I have seen of the people here leads me to believe that others would have killed him, or at least thrown him out. What makes you so different?" The question was clipped and blunt, but in this instance, it was something she could not help. The answer was important. If he gave a good one, she could breathe just a little more easily, knowing that her friend was at least being looked after, supported. Everyone needed that sometimes, even birds who wanted nothing more than to fly on their own.

Rilien was perhaps prepared for the question only because he had asked it of himself so many times. It had bothered him for nearly a year after he made the initial offer, because it seemed very much a rash, impulsive choice, and if there was anything he was not, it was rash and impulsive. He leveled a long stare at the Qunari, but she did not retract the question, so he answered it to her as he had to himself. "I did not know, at first. I still do not fully understand it. All I can say is that I was once in a situation where someone could have easily made life easier for himself by leaving me to die, and he chose not to. I had less to lose than he. I do not require extravagance. If someone could lose everything he cared about partially on my account, a few sovereigns was trivial. Perhaps I had simply known him too long. Now, she is my friend, and that is reason enough." He barely lifted one shoulder, then set about his work, a clear sign of dismissal.

Amalia took it for what it was and left without another word. For all the lack of certainty in the man's answer, she was satisfied with it, and knew now that Venak hol was well off here, perhaps moreso than he realized. Perhaps moreso than he had been with the Qun. That thought alone troubled her, but she banished it. Whether he knew it or not, Rilien was very much like a Qunari. She did not know what other person he spoke of, but perhaps she owed him her thanks, as well.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK



The tumblers inside the lock could hardly be heard over the pitter of the rain falling about his shoulders. What a wonderful time of night to go visiting, Ashton though as he locked the door to his shop. Still under the awning that led into his shop, he gazed out into the rain and heaved a big sigh. A marvelous night indeed. So it was with some resignation he flipped the hood of his cloak and adjusted his grip on the brown paper bag and it's contents in his hand. He then dove into the rain, running towards his mark, the local shifty dive bar, the Hanged Man. A couple of minutes and splish-splashes later, he found himself inside the bar, dripping wet. He knocked back the hood and sighed, once again, and began looking for his target. She shouldn't be that hard to find, considering her smile would light up the bar.

"I understand, Varric. I'll see what I can do," Nostariel promised, rising from her seat and returning the amicable dwarf's farewell. Stepping out from under his doorway, she contemplated the noisy main room of the bar for a moment, then shook her head. She'd rather not deal with all the people and the noise this evening, though she did feel very much like partaking in some of the ale. That job for Thrask had torn open more than one sluggishly-bleeding old wound, and it was something she'd be much better off forgetting. She was going to head straight back to her room when the door swung open, admitting a familiar face. Well, it would be rude not to acknowledge him, anyway, so the Warden stepped out to the middle of the top stair and waved, a somewhat shy effort that at was at the very least visible. Ashton was one of those people that she had absolutely no idea what to do with or how to predict. Not that it was necessarily a bad thing; it just left her feeling very often flat-footed or surprised and slightly awkward in his company. Considering that those were times she wasn't morose and abjectly miserable, that might be a good thing.

He didn't have to wait long, as Nostariel waved to him from the stairs. The rain dripping from his shoulders nearly evaporated from the sight of the Warden, or some such poetic nonsense. Seeing how he was not a poet, he decided to not compose a serenade right then. Sure, forward he may have been, but even he knew there were boundries. At the sight of the pretty little Warden, Ashton unclasped the cloak around his shoulders and tossed it on on the bar. If luck willing, it'd still be there by the time he left. If not... No harm really. It was a rough thing, made by himself, for himself, with only one purpose in mind. Keep him dry when the day was wet. He took his leave from the door way and slipped through the crowd on the way to the stairs.

The dive seemed to be a lot more active than usual, probably due to the rain outside. People looking for somewhere to escape it probably. And what better place than a place that sells ale by the barrel? Sure, sure, they all ran the risk of partaking a little too much and end up drowned in a gutter somewhere, but hardly anything could get in between a man in his ale. Not even Ashton. He made a point of slipping through the crowd in such a way that he'd have to touch the fewest people possible. Again, his movements showed the trained agility of the hunter, slipping in and around the people like a whisper. By necessity no less, the previous day revealed the fact that he didn't take punches well. It'd ruin the night he had planned if he got cold-cocked in the jaw by an unruly bar patron.

It didn't take long for the slippery Ashton to make it to the stairs and began to ascend them. He bent his lanky frame in order to better talk into Nostariel's ear. "Know of anywhere quieter? I'd like to not yell at you," Ashton said, his grin tugging at his lips. Yelling certainly wasn't romantic.

Insinuation had a tendency to do exactly one of two things to Nostariel: it either rendered her a blushing, stuttering mess of a person, or else it flew over her head entirely. In this case, the latter was fully at work, and she took the words at face value. Also having no desire to raise her voice to be heard, she simply nodded, turning and padding a little further down the hallway until she reached the wooden door after Varric's. Touching it with one flat palm, she spoke, probably audible, but not considering it much one way or another. "Ewan." A ward flared to life on the door, then faded, allowing her admission. Sometimes, she wondered why she did that to herself, forced the name to pass her lips several times a day, but masochistic as it may have been, she also thought it necessary.

Pushing the planks of wood inward, she held the door for her friend to follow, then let it fall shut. A spell lit the fireplace, illuminating a small, but serviceable sitting room with a small table and a few chairs, one armchair in a corner, and not much else. Assorted books were piled here and there on the table or the floor, a few loose parchments sticking out here and there. Despite the lack of furniture pieces, the room gave off an air of homey comfort, and was clearly quite lived-in."It's not much," she admitted ruefully, "but you're welcome to make yourself comfortable. Can I get you something?" Not that she had much on offer, but it seemed polite to ask anyway. Nostariel remained standing, shifting from foot-to-foot slightly uncomfortably. She wasn't exactly used to recieving guests here, as the slight untidiness might attest. Usually, when people wanted to see her, they just slid into the chair across from her in the tavern proper, but... he'd had a point about the noise.

The seal thingy on her door made Ashton's head tilt in curiousity, but he kept it to himself. Surely she had a reason and didn't go through all that hassle for no reason. The spell lighting the fireplace though, that was neat. The sight of the display caused his eyes to widen in awe. He'd never seen magic used for such mundane purposes, and already the gears were turning on the possible uses he could put to it at his shop and home. He'd have to inquire about that... Later. he wouldn't really just stop everything and ask, how you do that.... He'd do it later. "It's more than what I got. I sleep in a closet upstairs in the shop... No, forgive me. Closet is wrong. It's smaller," Ashton joked, the turn at the corner of his mouth revealing it as such.

"In a matter of fact, I suppose you can get something for me," He said, making his way toward the table chairs. He let her suffer through a few moments of silence before he answered, "Two glasses, I've got a present." He held up the brown paper and it's contents. It was blaringly obvious that the contents inside was a bottle of some sort. He then took a seat in one of the chairs and sat the brown papered bottle on the table. "You do drink right? You look like the drinking sort," he said, seemingly unaware of the blunt nature of the observation. Still, he patiently waited for Nostariel to gather the glasses and take a seat before he continued.

The statement was so plain, she almost didn't know what to do with it. She was too aware of herself to be offended, and instead she simply found it... funny. A smile cracked her discomfort and scattered it to the four winds, though she didn't quite laugh, instead disappearing through the one other door in the room and reappearing with two dusty, but serviceable, glasses. These, she cleaned with a dry cloth, and set one in front of him, settling across from him and eyeing the bag with curiosity. "I could say something about the redundancy of bringing alcohol to a tavern, but something tells me that's nothing this place serves." She quirked a blond eyebrow, conveying the rest of the question with a rare levity.

This was certainly unexpected; she had rather thought he might be here for business, but if so, he had yet to mention it. "How are you feeling?" she asked seriously, folding her hands primly on the table in front of her. "That was a hard hit you took yesterday, and emergency healing is only good for so much. If you're still in pain...?" She let the statement trail off. Nostariel knew she could be the pushy, overly-concerned type, and tried to avoid it where possible, since it wasn't the best impression to give off. Especially as a Warden; it made her seem like she didn;t have enough confidence in the abilities of her fellows, and that wasn't good for any of them. Still, some habits could only be curbed, not broken.

"No, no nothing like that. I'm fit as a fiddle," Ashton said. If that fiddle had been dropped down a flight of stairs. There was still the pang of soreness, but nothing to worry anyone with. It'd go away on it's own eventually, as long as he wasn't dragged into many more adventures any time soon. Now that that was out of the way, he steered the conversation away from himself and back to the bottle on the table, "A clever one, aren't you?" Ashton teased, "I guess you can say that." He then opened the bag and retrieved the bottle that was within. Now that it was free from the cloak, it was revealed to be the Monrenny Vintage that Rilien had so kindly dropped off for him.

"Something about it's worth being measured in soveriegns? I know it's better than anything this watering hole has. I'm surprised the bottle didn't just explode when I walked through the door, being subject to such mockery. Luckily it didn't, and we get to enjoy the fruits of Orliasian vineyards-- Er.."' he paused, his hand on the cork ready to pull. "But before we drink, I'm going to need your name and a smile," Ashton said, his own smile stretching from ear to ear. He chuckled at the personal joke before popping the cork and pouring for the both of them.

Nostariel, despite being accurately-describable as a lush and perhaps even a drunk, didn't really know that much about the subject. Still, pretty much anyone knew that Orlesian wine was fancy. If you didn't know it about wine, you still knew it about Orlais, after all. The second half of the statment perplexed her, and her brows drew together over her eyes. "Um... what?" She blinked quickly a few times. No, her vision wasn't swimming, she didnt feel the slightest bit dizzy, so she was definitely not drunk... somehow, that made the request make even less sense. Still, she shrugged and decided to play along. "Well, my full name's Nostariel Shea Turtega, which is a bit of a mouthful, I suppose. Most people don't use it anymore, but my friends used to call me Nosta." Back when she'd had friends, anyway. But maybe that was unfair to some of the people she knew now.

She offered a smile, though it wasn't the most natural one. It was genuine enough, even if the confusion was still clear in it.

At the, although forced, smile Ashton sat a glass in front of her and took the other for himself, "And I am-- and don't laugh, because I'm dead serious-- Messere Lord Ashton Cuthbert Riviera," the way he said his middle name told that he didn't particularly care for it, though he went right on to explain the "Messere Lord" part of it. "Yes, I was a noble. Once. A long, long time ago. I don't even remember it. I had it for an entire year before it was stripped. No fault of my own mind, it's just that my parents weren't... Quite right in the head," and the family resemblence shines through... "I don't dwell on it, I liked the way I was raised better. That's a story for another time perhaps," Ashton said, flicking his hand as if shooing the thoughts away. He brought the cup up to his mouth but hesitated, and he looked at Nostariel with all seriousness etched into his face. "Do not tell Sparrow my middle name is Cuthbert," he said, taking a drink of the wine. His eyes widened at the taste and he beheld the glass. It was really good.

The Warden bit her lip to stifle the snicker that threatened, though it wasn't so much at the name itself as his reaction to it that amused her so. "Cross my heart," she told him with mock gravity, drawing an 'x' over the left side of her chest with a small flourish. "Truly, though, I would never have guessed-- about you being a noble, I mean." She paused, coloring slightly and shaking her head. "Um, that wasn't an insult, I swear! I just meant that you seem to fit so well into your present occupation that it's hard to imagine you doing anything else. I'm a little jealous of that, actually." She took a sip of the wine upon noting his reaction and had much the same one. "Though from the looks of things, you have extravagant tastes in wine, so maybe I can believe it." Her eyes crinkled just slightly at the corners with the force of her grin; clearly, the statement was meant to be a joke.

"Hah that's a funny one. I wouldn't know fine wine if it hit me upside the head. You've got the Tranquil to thank for that, it settled a bit of a... Debt, I suppose you could say," Ashton said, rubbing his cheek. The woman that Rilien scared off really had a hand on her... "Anyway, I was like... one when I was cast off to my uncle and aunt. They raised me. Taught me how to be a hunter and fisherman, how to live off the land. They were good people, if the hardy sort. Uncle tried to beat the nobility out of me... and I think it worked," Ashton said, chuckling. "I start wincing and twitching when I walk through Hightown," he said jokingly, miming the effect of twitching. It was obvious he was fond of his uncle and thankful to the both of them. Another drink from the cup and he shrugged, "But enough about me. How about you? How does a Warden Mage get her beginnings?" He said, raising an eyebrow.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

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Nostariel was quiet for a long moment, and stretched it further by taking a protracted drink from her wineglass. When she spoke, it was quietly, the humor vanished from her tones. "I don't know," she admitted with a small shrug. "The first thing I remember is being inside the Circle, watching out the window while the archers practiced. I always used to think that they were the most wonderful thing, you know? Their armor was all white and shiny, and occasionally one of them would notice me watching and wave up at me or something. I wanted to be one of them, when I grew up-- a Starkhaven archer, one of the very best in the world. A bit of a silly dream for a mage, but I didn't know it at the time, of course." She polished off the rest of her glass, though she wasn't quite rude enough to just reach for the bottle again. It occurred to her that she was saying perhaps more than he'd asked for, and probably more depressing things than one should burden such a recent acquaintance with, and yet it was much... easier than she'd have guessed.

Ashton felt the mood shift, the silence drawing a rather solemn air about them. His face shifted to fit the mood, listening eyes, a soft line etched in his lips. A comforting smile awaited to shine through should it be necessary, always there on the edge of his mouth. He didn't move much or fidget as she spoke and merely lent an intent ear. For once, the loud mouth slowed and waited patiently. As she finished off the glass, Ashton topped it right back off for her. The way she polished it off didn't bother him, it was just another insight into who really was Nostariel. After he was sure she had finished, he shook his head softly, "There's no such thing as silly dreams Nostariel, mage or no," he offered, polishing off his own drink. He poured himself another before he continued, "It's never too late you know? The armor I'm not too sure about, but you can always pick up a bow and learn. You'd just need the time and patience. If you ever believe that you want to pick that dream up again, my shop's always open. I think I got a couple of old bows laying about and I know of a clearing not too far from the city..." he said, allowing the implications to sink in.

"You... you'd do that? For me?" Disbelief echoed somewhere in the words, and she clutched at the stem of her wineglass as though it were all that tethered her to the situation. Foolish as it was, the very thought almost made her want to cry, and there was a definite hot prickle behind her eyes, only made more pronounced by the fact that her obvious happiness was offset by something else he'd said. If only this was the only dream she'd ever had to give up on, she might have been able to believe him. There was no simple generosity that could repair the damage done by the other, though, and it was that one that weighed most heavily on her heart.

Again, he felt the air shift into something heavier. Too heavy. In an attempt to combat it, he offered a bit of humor to lighten the mood. "Of course I'd do that. I mean, I learned how to shoot straight. A clever girl like yourself should have no trouble firing off arrows like yours truly. Whenever you feel up to it, just drop by the shop and we'll go on a little field trip... Maybe the adventure will have less Ithilian this time..." Ashton offered, remembering the last time he went hunting, and remembering the run in he had with the dalish in the Alienage. "Really don't think he likes me," Ashton chuckled as if he could care less and took a drink of his cup.

"I don't think Ithilian likes anyone much," Nostariel replied with a brief shake of her head. She was a bit surprised still that they seemed to have known each other, but it made as much sense as anything. She didn't mind the Dalish man at all, but unsociable was putting it lightly where he was concerned. "I wouldn't take it personally, were I you."

He shrugged at the offered reply. It wasn't like he took every little slight his way personal. Else he'd be a lot more bitter. Feeling that the air was lightened enough to further the conversation, Ashton did just that, "You say that you were raised in the Starkhaven Circle? What was that like?" he asked with no small amount of levity.

That was a dangerous question, and she studiously stayed away from the most relevant aspect of the question in favor of keeping the lightness. "Oh, you know. Long nights in the library, Senior Enchanters always prodding you with questions, getting your robes set on fire by the little ones who still don't quite know what they're doing. Leaving secret messages in books for the next person who has to read them, chasing each other 'round the hallways, that sort of thing." She smiled fondly, enjoying the little pieces of recollection and the slight buzz that was now fuzzing her wariness over just a bit. "Some of us were right terrors, too. Not me, though; I always wanted to be the responsible one." A wistful sigh. Looking back on it, she wished she'd been a little more of a hellion in her own right, if only to have enjoyed that warm, ensconcd feeling of safety and all it offered to the fullest.

"Sounds like quite the adventure. Whenever I acted up, my uncle dumped me in the woods with one instruction before he went home and locked the door. Survive. Showed him when morning came around-- I had breakfast cooked," he said, laughing. Whether he was laughing at the memory, or whether he was laughing because it was a joke remained to be seen, and he certainly wasn't going to ruin the surprise. Once he got the laughter out of his system, he chased it with a swig of the wine before he sat quietly for a moment. It wasn't an awkward silence by any means and actually felt kinda... Nice. It was a bit before he spoke again, "Sounds like it was one big happy family. Hearing you speak about it reminds me of my own," he said, growing relatively serious.

"They might not have been my parents.. But I loved them like they were. Did more for me than my real parents did," he said, looking at the wall wistfully, "Sure, a noble's life might have been soft and cushy but... I just couldn't imagine it would have the same... Warmth? I doubt that'd I'd even see my parents that often had it all stayed the same. They gave me purpose, life, and a backbone. I don't wonder about the what-ifs. Having to leave them hurt, you know. Last I heard, they were still in Highever, living like they did before I left. Hardy people," Ashton said smiling and looking back to Nostariel. "I still miss them from time to time. I get letters and such, but it's not the same, you know?"

"I suppose not. Sometimes, I wish I had never left the Circle. In fact, knowing what I do now, I never would have. I got too greedy, I guess, and other people paid for it more dearly than they deserved. Looking back, it was warm, in its way, if only I'd been able to appreciate it at the time. I grew up with good people, but... I didn't understand what family was then. I thought it had to be something different, something more like families on the outside, or in tales. I wanted that so very dearly. Part of me still does, for all that desire has destroyed." She was halfway into her third glass by now, and if she'd realized that, she probably would have insisted they stop talking, because this was always when her loose tongue started to betray her. As it was, she knew it not, and even though her face was flushed with the effects of the wine, she easily attributed it to the fire and thought nothing of it.

"I suppose that's why you were quick to side the the Templar-- Thrask during out last little excursion," Ashton noted, bringing the glass to his lips again. He too was beginning to feel the edges of the buzz, and had thusly consigned himself to drink slower. If he ended up fully lit, then his loose tongue may get around to beating his brains out talking. He'd rather not do that just quiet yet. Still, he was beginning to get to the heart of why he wished to speak with Nostariel. Sure, he loved the conversation, he loved the companionship, but he was curious. He shrugged and with a vague hint of apology in his voice, he spoke, "It sounds as if you haven't led an easy life. Certainly not as easy as mine. I'm sorry for digging such things up," he said, looking at the woman across from him.

"That's not it," Nostariel replied morosely, staring into the burgundy liquid still in front of her as though it held all the answers in the world. "I know why mages don't like Templars. I don't particularly get along with most of them either, but... a good man is a good man, and sometimes, he's a Templar." She shook her head almost violently, trying to clear a particular image from it, but it didn't work. It never had. "I..." She raked both hands through her hair, clearly anxious about something. "Have you ever been in love, Ashton?"

That was an unexpected question, and actually managed to throw Ashton off guard. He paused for a moment, and looked away as if trying to register what she had said. Once he had figured out that, yes, she did ask, he hesitated some more. He then shrugged, "Sadly. I can't say that I have. Not... real love. I've been smitten a couple of times," he said, glancing at her, "But they're shallow things. I have yet to be blessed with real love," he answered, with a bit of weight in his own voice. Sure, he'd loved before, that much was blaringly obvious... He'd just never been in love, and that fact stung. A lot more than he thought it would. Damn Rilien and his wine. For once in a long, long while, he felt the pang of loneliness.

"Smitten..." she echoed softly, pursing her lips and chancing a glance up at him. "That may well have been all it was, but you have to understand. Mages aren't allowed to fall in love. They aren't allowed to do silly, childish things, or think about having families, or live the way other people do. All of that is denied us, and we never learn to differentiate between all those feelings that we can have. We especially aren't allowed to feel affection for Templars. It's one of the reasons they're encouraged to be so distant with us, and we with them. That distrust... it prevents attachment. Well, it's supposed to." The Warden slumped forward, resting her chin on her hands. She'd already said this much, and the story just seemed to fall from her tongue after that.

"His name was Tristan. I was studying in the library late one evening, and he'd come by as part of his patrol, I guess. I'd never seen a Templar actually look at the books before, and I suppose it surprised me enough that I just... broke that barrier of silence that usually exists. I asked him if he was looking for anything in particular, and he told me he enjoyed epics. You know, old legends, bards' tales, stories about heroes and dragons and wonderous things. I was reading a book at the time, called the Tale of Ewan, and I lent it to him. Somehow, that turned into weekly meetings, and we talked about everything. The books, our lives, my studies and his training. It just became so normal to be with him, and I fancied myself in love. Maybe I was, maybe not, but for once, all I could see were the bars on my cage, and what they were stopping me from having."

She sighed heavily, seeming to almost deflate with it. "He was far too good to defy his vows, and I didn't want to make him. Besides, it wouldn't have been enough. I'd always wanted a family, a real one, whatever that means, and he told me he did, too. Barely out of childhood, and yet so sure that we knew everything that was good for us. It took us a while to figure out how we could get it, but then the Warden recruiter visited the Circle, and suddenly everything was obvious. He was an excellent warrior, and I knew healing magic backwards and forwards. We were young, willing volunteers, with excellent recommendations, and the recruiter took us without an issue. I thought... I thought I was finally going to have everything I'd ever wanted. It was going to be absolutely perfect: I was going to do something so much more useful to the world than staying trapped in a tower. I'd get to see things I'd only read about, and I'd do it all with Tristan." She stopped then, taking a deep, shuddering breath.

"It turns out that less than half of Warden recruits survive the Joining. I just... woke up, and there he was. I couldn't save him; nobody could. Some dreams really are just silly, Ashton. And I've dreamed too many of those to hold out much hope for the rest anymore." She offered what was supposed to be a sardonic smile, which was too bad, because it was more or less drowned in the saline liquid dripping from her eyes. If she wasn't just a little too into her drink to avoid it, she'd have been ashamed of herself for subjecting him to this.

Ashton felt his heart in his throat. He knew that there was something to Nostariel, something behind those clouded eyes. But he never expected this. He felt... He felt guilty. He felt like it was his fault, he felt like it was because of him she had to reopen those old wounds and experience that pain again. Even so. As guilty as he felt, he refused to look away from the Warden. She deserved that much. She was spilling her heart to him and he couldn't look away. He wouldn't. He watched as the tears streamed down her face in unusual stoic silence before he began to shake his head again. He refused to believe that, he just refused. He reached across the table and wiped what little tears he could from the woman's face as he spoke, "Dreams are never silly Nostariel. I refuse to believe that they are. Everyone deserves to dream, mages, templars, hunters, even apostates. It's what makes us... us. I'm... I'm sorry," Ashton said, reeling back his hand. He didn't know what else to say. What else could he say? "I know... It may seem cheap coming from me. I've never lost anything. I have no right to say this... But... Never give up hope. That little bit of hope. It makes this life worth living..." he said, finally growing quiet.

Nostariel shook her head mutely, catching his hand even as he drew it away, holding it perhaps a little too tightly for comfort as she tried to gather the words. It was hardly an easy task, and it took a matter of minutes, during which she sobbed harshly but refused to let go. Somehow, in that intervening time, it felt like something that had been weighing on her eased, like a small space in between her lungs opened up and let her breathe just a little more easily. This was a story that she hadn't told a soul, but now that she had, it seemed... better, in a way. Maybe she just really, really wanted to believe him. It was hard to say. Collecting herself, the Warden swiped at the remaining tears with her free hand, looking up at the hunter with a melancholy, awkward smile. She managed to produce a halfhearted chuckle, even, and blinked away the rest of the waterworks that still threatened. She hadn't cried like that in... she couldn't remember the last time. Perhaps never. She'd had no time to mourn Tristan truly, as she'd been thrown straight into her Warden training thereafter, and had used it to pretend that she was in no pain. It was only really since being relieved of her command that she'd had this much time to think on her circumstances, and this was perhaps the first occasion on which she'd wept for them.

"Well," she managed, still sounding a bit tremulous, "now that I've established that I am absolutely the worst drinking buddy ever..." She trailed off, realizing she was still gripping his hand and released gently. "I'm sorry. It's probably horrible form to just dump all that on you. But... thank you, truly. I wish the world had more people like you. I wish I was more like you."

"You're not that bad of a drinking buddy," Ashton shooed. "A lot better than Rilien, I'd hazard a guess," though he mentioned it, he just couldn't muster up the energy to imagine it, hiliarious as it might be. Then he went quiet for a second reflecting on the second bit of the comment before shrugging, "Yeah, well, if there were more people like me, then I wouldn't nearly be as unique," he said, giving a false smile. There was.. A shadow over his own past. He didn't quite wish his past on Nostariel, nor did he really want her to keep her own... His was nothing like Nostariel's, but he too had his share of skeletons in his closet. Ones he never allowed himself to think about. However, he felt just raw enough, just drunk enough to think about them. He quickly tried to lock them away. It was not time for them to fall out, not yet. He reaffirmed himself with another smile, this one bigger and more real than the last.

He picked up the bottle, which still had some of the liquor in it before swirling it around in the bottle, "Really good wine," he restated, "Though, I'm not sure if I should thank Rilien, or just glare at him..." he posited before chuckling.

"I should thank him. I... it hurts, but..." she sighed gustily. "I think I needed to say it all, even just to hear it myself, and I never would have done it on my own." There was no mistaking that it hurt afresh now, and yet perhaps that was the way it should be. An infected wound needed to be cut open and cleaned quite painfully before it could heal properly, and in this case, she was sure there was no magic to substitute for that process, however convenient that might have been. She might have been a bit gone, but it didn't stop her from noticing-- or perhaps simply imagining-- the shadow that passed behind his eyes. "Next time, we'll talk about you, if you feel like it. Even if that means I just get to expand my repertiore of jokes and odd puns. I do need to try and keep up with Varric, after all."

"Stick around, I got plenty of 'em," Ashton replied chuckling. In a way, he was glad. She looked to be better than she once was, though the air of sadness still hung in the air, perhaps an air of healing hung around as well, though that might have just been the alcohol clouding his eyes. For both their sakes, he dared to hope that it was the case, and that it had helped, that he in some way helped allievate what weight was on her shoulders. It was of his opinion that no one should be bound, by chains or even by their pasts. Everything deserved freedom in a perfect world, and though it wasn't a perfect world, he wanted to try his best to make it that much closer. Perhaps that's why he still felt that tinge of guilt.

It was abundantly clear to both of them that a move away from such weighty matters was what the situation called for. Nostariel, bleeding afresh at least metaphorically, needed time more than anything right now, and while she wasn't sure about him, it seemed appropriate to steer clear of tragedy and awkwardness for the moment. She wasn't exactly sure what to talk about in the wake of it, though, until the subject matter came upon her quite by accident. It seemed so simple, now that she thought about it. "You know... Varric and his brother are planning an expedition into the Deep Roads. I'm going along to guide them, but they're in need of someone to invest. I'd just gotten through promising to see if I could find someone when you walked in. I don't know as many people in Kirkwall as I should. Perhaps you're aware of someone who'd be interested?"

Ashton pursed his lips as he thought. He had heard rumblings of an expedition, though he didn't quite understand the details. Muffled rumblings more like. Though, and investment meant a return. Any simpleton could see that the Deep Roads and what treasures within would be ripe for the plucking, especially after the recent blight. Most of the ugly creepy nasties would be dead or in the process of dragging their taint back underground. He was also running behind on his payments again... Perhaps, perhaps if... "You know. I think I do have someone in mind. He's got two thumbs, and is just crazy enough to go on this little adventure," he said, twitching his thumbs in the air to indicate that it was, indeed, himself. "I could take what savings I have under my mattress," and put his shop up for a loan-- though he wasn't going to tell her that part, "And invest in this little venture-- If I get to tag along and see my investment through... Plus one," He added.

He felt like Sparrow needed time out of the city, and though an underground adventure wasn't the normal idea of a vacation, the scent of adventure should have been strong enough to hook her in. Besides, he doubted they'd have to worry about demons, blood magic, and apostates underground. It sounded like fun, if he thought about it. "So how about that?" He posed, arms outstretched awaiting an answer.

Miracle of miracles, Nostariel managed a snicker. "You'd have to take it up with Varric, but I'm sure he wouldn't mind. He can drive a hard bargain, but he and Bartrand are so desperate that you could probably ask for a whole circus to accompany you and get it, but don't tell him I told you so."

"Not a whole circus... Just part of it," He grinned.

Setting

9 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

It was perhaps the strangest assortment of individuals Varric Tethras had ever seen in one room. He wouldn't have had it any other way. Off to the side there was sulking Dalish elf Ithilian who he'd tricked into coming, something about a mandatory information session for all the hirelings on the expedition. They had a Tranquil in the room of all things, someone Varric was very interested in seeing after a few mugs of ale. There was the Warden, a regular to the Hanged Man and a friend of his at this point, he felt he could call her such. The lanky hunter Varric had gotten to invest and come along was present... perhaps the most normal of the bunch, which definitely said something about them. Near Nostariel was the redheaded girl Varric had seen in here a few times now, who he always sent a friendly smile, and there was Sparrow as well, who Varric was also familiar with to an extent. Standing over the rest a ways was the mercenary Lucien whom Varric was very glad to have along, for his obvious size and skill. Then there was the two other human women, the one with the mismatched eyes whom Varric actually wasn't sure he'd seen in the tavern before, a Qunari as he'd heard... and to top it all off, the Viscount's daughter herself was in attendance, the increasingly famous Sophia Dumar. Not to mention all the other, less notable hirelings the Tehtras brothers had paid for. In all, the Hanged Man was pretty much packed tonight.

He'd have to have an utter moron not to see that there was tension between some of them; such personalities as their were bound to clash once in a while. It was, of course, none of his business so long as it didn't drag down he and his brother's expedition. Speaking of the devil, Bartrand was nowhere to be found, no doubt stressing over their finances yet again, which Varric had already assured him were in order, to no avail. It was good that he wasn't here, Bartrand had never been good for the life of a party anyway. Considering that their party was already consisting of a Tranquil, the angriest elf he'd ever met, a Qunari, and Nostariel, who he wasn't sure had ever had a drink to celebrate something. Well, there was a first time for everything, wasn't there?

Once the storyteller had their attention, he smiled broadly, situated near the top of the stairs that led to the rooms behind the tavern. "Thank you all for coming and celebrating the fact that when next we drink here, we'll all be filthy rich!" A general cheer went up from the crowd of hirelings, though notably more than one of the more interesting ones didn't react so cheerily. Tough crowd. "Tomorrow we'll be setting out for the Deep Roads. Our destination has been picked out carefully, due to the most helpful maps the dear Warden Nostariel Turtega provided me with," he said, bowing his thanks to her before continuing, "but that's for the next day. Tonight is for celebrating the wealth on our horizons! The drinks are all on Varric Tethras tonight! Enjoy!" The cheer that got was just as loud, and with that, the hirelings got to work.




If there was one thing Ithilian didn't like, it was being lied to, and Varric Tethras had lied to him.

Well, alright, there were quite a few other things Ithilian disliked just as much as being lied to, and to be honest, he'd wanted to get out of the Alienage anyway. His first choice of destination wouldn't have been the Hanged Man on what was undoubtedly its most crowded night of the year, however. The forest would have served better. Less... people, less shemlen. He was getting looks already, hirelings staring at the currently uncovered pair of scars that ran from the right side of his forehead, through his right eye, and all the way down past the corner of his mouth to his chin. At the vallaslin etched into the skin of his neck and shoulder, the long knives sheathed at his belt. His bow was absent if only because it was uncomfortable to sit with, and the tactical value of a longbow in a crowded tavern was limited.

It was an interesting gathering of people here. He'd convinced Amalia to come along if only to prevent him from being completely alone among the shem, an argument he hadn't actually expected to work. There was still the matter of whatever she was planning on giving him, though. The elven Warden Nostariel was here, apparently a key piece of the expedition. He couldn't be sure, but she looked somewhat... different. No doubt she would be surprised to hear he would be joining them on their trip underground, but then again, she understood Ithilian about as much as he understood her. That was to say not very much. They were elves from two very different worlds, and each had never really had a chance to live the other's.

The human apostate that was Amalia's pupil was here, as was the shem that he'd run into in the woods with Lia. For his sake, he hoped he kept his distance, lest his mouth get him into trouble yet again. Ithilian was aware that he would be coming along on the Expedition. He was also aware that jobs could often be completed without speaking. Among the others, the half-breed elf was about somewhere, as was the len'alas, the noble who knew so little of the people she sat atop. Ithilian doubted he would need to try very hard to keep his distance from her.

Amalia had been near him, and so he turned to her. "I'm going to need a drink or ten to get through this." He immediately put his plan into action, pushing his way to the bar to acquire a mug of ale, before retreating back away from the tightest concentration of people and finding his way towards a corner table, dropping rather heavily into a chair and getting to work on the ale. A foul taste, but it would do the trick, surely.

When Ithilian had appeared in front of her that afternoon, she had not expected this. In fact, it was probably safe to say that, the truly absurd possibilities excepted, this was the last place she would have expected him to go, much less with her in tow. It was loud beyond all good sense, smelled like stale... something, and was presently packed to capacity with exactly the kinds of people she was fairly sure he hated the most. Which was to say, boisterous, careless, half-drunk humans. Which in turn was perhaps why the comment went unanswered and she moved over to his table without a word, seating herself with her back to the wall. Qunari did not imbibe except ceremonially, and she was not about to taint her body and mind both with whatever they served here, so she ignored the possibility of ordering anything and instead reached into the smallish rucksack beside her, withdrawing a bundle wrapped in burlap and string.

It was probably best to give it to him now, while there was still no danger of someone accidentally cutting themselves. What happened on purpose was hardly her concern. There was a hilt quite visibly protruding from the wrapping, itself wound with a mixture of a fine silver wiring and black leather cord. She tugged at the twine, unwrapping the parcel and setting it on the table between them. "It was to be one of two, but time was short. I had it enchanted to burn at will." In sharp contrast to the dark hilt, the blade itself was stark white, fitting since it was constructed primarily of the bones of a dragon, reinforced with the Tranquil's lyrium. She'd managed to get ahold of a Dalish dagger for comparison, and had constructed it to have a similar shape and heft. Something was carved into the base of it, a few terse lines of the peculiar Qunlat script.

"It's yours, if you want it."

Ithilian was vaguely aware that he was currently imitating the posture he'd seen Nostariel hold while in the Hanged Man; he held his mug in both hands, leaning relatively forward against the table for support, head angled above the cup's rim so as to limit vision to only the contents. His one remaining eye he kept more or less fixed on the tabletop, where eventually he was able to see Amalia's hands presenting him with the gift she had planned. Deciding he'd certainly not had enough ale as of yet, he downright gulped the remainder of the first mug, turned his head and burped, and then signaled for another, which he began to work on as well.

It was a beautiful piece of craftsmanship, that much was certain. Surely on par with Dalish work, and better than most everything he could find in the rest of this city. He recognized the dragonbone, though it looked little like what he had seen the day he'd put out its eye and len'alas had cut it open from beneath. Like the dragon it would burn... he took his right hand off the mug and grasped the hilt, pulling it towards him. He tested the weight, the balance. It felt much like the blades he'd used all his life, though most of those had been borne of ironbark and not dragonbone.

Examining the weapon closer, he spotted the small carvings, in the Qunari tongue, of which he was not familiar. "What does it say?" he asked. He expected the choice of words to be few, and to have far greater meaning than was obvious.

"Parshaara.," Amalia replied. "For the Qunari, it is customary for the craftsperson to name the weapon. It is her way of imparting it with an intention, a purpose, which the wielder may choose to interpret as he likes. It means 'enough.'" She had considered naming it many different things. Shok, Kata, even Ataashi, which would have been unusually literal. But in the end, she had settled on this. "Of course, it need not be of concern to you if you are otherwise inclined. You may call it as you wish." Crossing one leg over the other, she folded her arms as well and leaned until her back hit the wall, ignoring entirely the noisy surroundings. As mental exercises went, it was not a particularly difficult one.

Enough. He looked at the etched letters and said the word in his mind. Ithilian then smiled. He leaned back away from the table, ran his left hand through his mess of hair, and smiled. It was a rather hideous thing, the scars cutting through his mouth preventing the right side from smiling as the left did, giving his face a mismatched appearance, the left side smiling, the right side appearing as it always did: maimed, immovable.

Enough. There were two possibilities: either Amalia could not for once see through him, could not understand the thoughts he tried to forcibly remove from his head every day as he rose from his bed and stepped into the dusty, smoky air of the Alienage... or she understood him perfectly. He doubted the latter, as the number of people he felt had truly understood him could be easily counted on one hand. The number of those people that were still living could be counted by a man with no hands.

He looked at the blade again, tested different grips. Unlike Amalia, he knew not how to drown the chaos of his surroundings with naught but his mind. Alcohol was all he had for that, and so he drank deeply once more, slapping the mug back down to the table and shaking his head when he could take no more in one go. His smile had gone by this point, and he took a brief moment to try and counter the already building headache, closing his eye and taking his head in his free hand, massaging the temples. Enough.

"I can't take this," he murmured, placing the blade back on the table, pushing it slowly back in Amalia's direction. He removed his hand from it, and took another long, deep drink. At this point, it was fairly obvious that he was making a conscious effort to not look at her, as his eyes had remained either at his drink, on the blade, or closed, since she had taken a seat at his table. "It's fine work, fine as any Dalish smith. You'll have more use for it than I will at this point, anyway." He went to take another drink, only to find that he was empty once more. "Shem! Another."

He may have been avoiding eye contact, but there was no mistake that Amalia's eyes were practically boring holes in the side of his head. She made no move to take the blade, nor to do anything else. In fact, for a few moments, it seemed that she might be content to simply sit there and behave as though he still hadn't spoken. Such was not the case, however: a Qunari could selectively ignore many things, she better than most. This was not one of those things. She took the more circuitous route to her point, however. "I will not. Only weapons intended for warriors are named. I could not use it, and it was not given that title for my benefit." She paused, pulling her braid over her shoulder to ease the discomfort of leaning.

"If it does not find its purpose by your hand, it will find none at all, and then it will be merely one more piece of refuse. That is the very nature of it." The obvious question, and the one she deliberately did not ask was why he was refusing. This was partially because she felt she might just understand the reason, and so it simply made more sense to skip to the part where she implied quite heavily that she thought the reason was inadequate. "The choice is yours." Truthfully, what he'd just done was rather insulting to her, but that was not the way it was intended, and she could not expect that Ithilian would understand that. For all that she called him Sataareth, he was not Qunari. This was something that she occasionally managed to forget.

She had given of her time and the labor of her hands to produce something, intended solely for his use. His refusal was tatamount to the invalidation of that effort, because it could not go to another. Unlike a tool she might craft for herself, or for Aurora, that was actually a hard-and-fast rule. She had offered a piece of her culture, and of herself, but perhaps she had offered too much. If anyone beyond the bounds of the Qun could understand or deserve that, she knew it was him. But perhaps it was simply the case that none could.

"The Dread Wolf can take its purpose," he spat, before drinking again. "I am no Qunari, I am no Sataareth, and my choice is to say that I have had enough." He shook slightly in his seat, his hand wavering as he wiped sweat from his brow. He was fully aware that he was being unfair and downright rude, but due to either the ale or the anguish, he didn't care.

He was quiet for some time, the voices and the noises and the madness swirling about him like a horde of darkspawn hounding him through the woods. "I'm not coming back," he at last admitted, still refusing to meet her eyes. "I'm taking the gold from this job and leaving. I don't know where I'm going, and I don't care. It will be far away from here." He sat back, his back thudding tiredly against the rear of the chair, and he sighed before taking another long drink. "You may watch over mine as if they were yours if you feel it is part of your role," he said, the last word falling slowly off his tongue. "I have had enough for one life."

"No," she agreed, "You are certainly no Qunari." The words were quiet, but they managed to sound more like an insult than any that had ever passed between them. "You are a coward." Gritting her teeth, Amalia uncrossed her legs and leaned forward even as he leaned back. "You haven't had enough, you simply believe that you'll never be enough, and with such fearful words, you make yourself right." She shook her head, a muscle in her jaw ticking. "If these are your colors, than I have made a grave error in judgement." Reaching across the table, Amalia took up the knife, examining it with an air of what seemed like intense concentration.

"But I do not think I have, even now. Not once. I name you Sataareth, one who is a foundation, a defender. I name you Basalit-an, an outsider worthy of the respect of all Qunari. From my soul to yours, I give Parshaara, and in doing so, I tell you that I believe otherwise, that what you are is enough. If you cannot believe yourself, you may believe me in the meantime." With an abrupt motion, she flipped the knife and brought her arm down hard, stabbing the weapon into the table with a solid thunk and a clatter of tableware. "Go on your expedition, take your coin, and then decide if that is really enough. If you can really leave them to their fate and run from it yourself. If the things they say about your people, that they are weak, worthy only of yesterday and not tomorrow, are true of they and you alike. If they are, do not return, and I will know." She stood, glaring at him and quite clearly exerting effort to remain as composed as she was.

"I will watch over them because I want to, but I am not you, and I will not be enough." Without so much as a farewell, Amalia turned on her heel, ducking in and out of the crowd with the expertise of long practice, and found her way to the door.

He didn't watch her go, nor did he react overmuch as she spoke. Ithilian just stared at the dagger she'd plunged into the table, watching it sway slightly in his vision. In a better state of mind, he might have realized the honor she had given him, realized the significance of the gift, the weapon made for him and him alone. But he wasn't in a good state of mind, and all he could think of was how there was nothing left for him to defend, how the respect of all the Qunari in the world couldn't change what was done, and wouldn't help him take anything back.

He didn't know Amalia, not really. He didn't know her past, he didn't know if she had endured what he had, and if she simply was stronger than him, better than him, more than him. But as he sat with his head swimming in a storm of noise, the dragonbone dagger serving as his anchor, all he could think about was a forest on fire behind him, and a people around him that could run no longer. He could only think about those he had grown up with and fought alongside as they were cut down or dragged off. His world fell away bit by bit, piece by piece broken off from the whole. His sa'lath they dragged off in the night when their legs could carry them no further, her screams the only thing that woke him. Trying to explain to his da'vhenan what had happened, why she was simply gone in the morning.

One by one they disappeared. The horde, the fires, the Taint, one by one they fell while shemlen nobles betrayed and murdered one another for the chance to rule the land once they were gone. They fought civil war while Ithilian drove a knife into his eleven year old da'vhenan as a mercy, for the Taint had claimed her by then. And when only his legs remained, somehow they carried him further, they carried him through, and away.

The merest spark of that memory in the form of a little girl that did not and would not belong to him had been sufficient to cut the last thread he hung by. Whatever force had guided him out of that forest, bleeding and delirious, while every last one of his kin was slaughtered, he cursed. So while he did not know Amalia's past, he did know what he felt, and he felt like enough was enough. He couldn't see the knife very much anymore...

But when Ithilian left the Hanged Man, it was no longer stuck into the table.

Setting

6 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

Nostariel was smiling as her friend the dwarf delivered his speech, so very typical of Varric it was. She leaned her chin on one hand, resting her elbow on the table, the fingers of the other curled loosely around the handle of her tankard. For once, she wasn't clutching it as though her life depended on whatever could be found within, and though there was still a tightness in her chest, it was for the moment banished by the lightness of the atmosphere. So many familiar faces crowded the tavern, and somehow it was reminding her that even if everything had been lost to her- thrice, in fact- there was still more to be found. It was... nice, and she nodded graciously at the mention of her name, mirth dancing lightly behind her eyes. No, the Deep Roads were not exactly where she wanted to be, but surely these were the most bearable circumstances for her return.

The partygoers slowly split off into groups, but Nostariel, perpetual wallflower that she was, remained in her seat. Conveniently enough, she was nearby Aurora, with whom she had not spoken in a while. "Good evening, Aurora. It's good to see you." Those words, usually relegated to the realm of mere small talk, carried something of an extra meaning when the person you were speaking to was an apostate. I can see you, which means you're still safe. It might have seemed hypocritical of Nostariel to insist that Grace and her companions return to the Circle while never even hinting that it was the good thing for Aurora to do, but she had her reasons. Aurora possessed a certain strength of character that was absent in the others, and that was just a fact.

"What have you been up to these days?"

Aurora smiled at the question. What had she been up to? Frankly, a lot. A whole lot. Something that maybe one night wouldn't be enough to cover it. Though, she'd have to try her best to do it. Good news though, that Nostariel was in her usual place that night. As was Lucien it appeared, whom she nodded to. Surprisingly Amalia was even there. Even more surprising, Ithilian was with her. She took a seat at Nostariel's table and shrugged, wondering where to begin. "I would say the usual, but we both know that would be a lie," she said, crossing her arms, a smile on her lips. The days were trying, yes, but after every ordeal she felt as if she'd grown a little. Or perhaps that was the optimism talking. It sounded a lot better than getting nothing but a head ache out of the ordeal.

"Let's see... Noble asses, Qunari, Qunari mages, bandits, thugs, homesickness and even a pride demon. Where do you even begin?" That was without mentioning the soul searching she'd been doing recently, though that was a private matter. An ongoing private matter at that. Her head bobbed with a stifled laugh, as from her mouth it sounded like it was an exciting life. A lot more than a trader's daughter from a coastal town ever expected at anyway. Though she waved all of that away as if it was really no big deal. "Never a dull moment, it feels like. Someone somewhere always needs help, and it's never as easy as you'd expect."

"How about you? Do anything special lately?" Aurora asked, continuing the small talk.

"It seems quite the list," the Warden replied, though perhaps not with the amazement it was really due. To be fair, she hadn't exactly been resting on her laurels, either, and perhaps people like them were just meant to be doing things. Taking a draught from her tankard, Nostariel considered how best to explain it, then shrugged and gave a smile. "I had a run-in with the Qunari, too, but mostly the Tal-Vashoth. Oh, but I did meet the Arishok. A rather intimidating fellow, I must say. Other than that... greedy dwarven merchants, Templars, mages, and expeditions, mostly."

The Warden shook her head, dislodging a small braid from behind her ear. Folding it back, she offered a hypothesis. "I'm beginning to think there's much more to this place than I'd thought. I've met some... interesting people, too," she said, glancing over at Rilien and Lucien, then Ashton and Sparrow. Sophia was around somewhere, too, she was fairly sure, and she had thought Ithilian and Amalia were present, though she could not spot them now.

"Interesting is the polite word," Aurora agreed, her own glance following Nostariel's to the Tranquil and the Chevalier. A pang of remembrance struck her at the appearance of Lucien, but the feeling was caught like a piece of paper just floating away, where she then folded it and stored away to be read later. Tonight was a mood of happiness and joy, not melancholy. She wouldn't be the one to sour the mood with such doubts or thoughts. Instead of lingering on Lucien, her gaze shifted to Sparrow and the lanky man that he was with. Both of them seemed happy, joyful, crazy almost. It was infectious and made her laugh. That was better. She had also seen Ithilian and Amalia, and though she saw Amalia leave earlier, she couldn't say the same for the elf, the slippery one he was.

"I think you're right. There is something more to this place. It's... Something else. There's been a lot more... Soul searching and learning that I imagined when I got here.... When I got here, that seems so long ago now," Aurora chuckled before her eyes went alight with realization, "Oh! I'm sorry, you shouldn't have to listen to me drone on like that," she finished.

Nostariel waved a hand back and forth in front of her face, a curious little affectation that she'd picked up from a comrade, some years ago. "No need for apologies. This is a bar. When you're not drinking and making merry like a fool, you're talking about things that you probably shouldn't. It's just the atmosphere." She followed the directionality of Aurora's glance, and again when it switched. "I think some of those interesting people might be mutual acquaintances. I'd be surprised, but this is Kirkwall, city of chains. It seems fitting that we bind ourselves together, does it not?"

The Warden didn't seem saddened by this; on the contrary, she was regarding the others with a mix of gentle affection and slight wonderment. She couldn't say that she had much in common with most of them, but then, having too many things in common with herself was not something she'd wish on any of them. She'd not have picked Lucien and Rilien to know one another, but the Chevalier looked at ease, and the Tranquil seemed less... wooden than usual. Even if she hadn't already known Sparrow and Ashton were friends, she would have definitely picked that one. Their effusive demeanors and common love of fun were similar in the best of ways, and she imagined they got on like two peas in a pod, or however that colloquialism was supposed to go.




"I'm telling you Sparrow, if this expedition goes well, I'm going to be filthy rich. Like, swimming in gold rich," Ashton not-so-subtly exaggerated. He wouldn't be swimming in a bath full of gold anytime soon, but if it was successful, then he wouldn't have to worry about money for a while, at least. He tried to not think about what would happen if the venture wasn't successful. That was a lot more depressing than he could handle at the moment. He could possibly lose his shop, his home, and everything he worked for. Hell, Rilien might even find that he has another stowaway if the thing doesn't pan out. Maybe that's why he was nose deep in whatever swill the Hanged Man slung. If the fact that he was draped over Sparrow's shoulder was any indication, he already had a good start.

He had ran by Sparrow's-- Rilien's hovel earlier and collected the lass with promises of good will, cheer, mirth, and as much ale as she could hold without dying. Before he told her was the celebrations were for. He had told her that he was going on an expedition to the Deep Roads to find his fortune, and he tried to entice her to come along. A lot of words were slung, gold, adventure, fun, adventure, danger, and most importantly adventure. Ashton liked to think he was very persuasive when he needed to be... Besides, he felt like he needed to take Sparrow to the Hanged Man. There was the promise to Rilien he had to fulfill. Well, while not directly stated, it was an understanding for him. He'd watch out for Sparrow as well. For some reason, he felt like... He was partially to blame for her predictament.

Now was not the time for such dour outlooks though. It was a party! One Ashton fully intended to enjoy. There were a lot of people in the bar again, though this time there were a lot of familar faces as well. Nostariel in her corner-- he had offered her a wave and a wink upon his entrance, Rilien, who was playing his role as a bard very well, the mercenary Lucien, Sparrow's friend Amalia, and even Ithilian. He made note to stay a ways from the man at all times. It would sour the mood if he managed to get stabbed after all. Besides, as he understood, the man was tagging along on the expedition as well... So that left plenty of time for his eventual stabbing. He turned his gaze back around to the bar and finally unlatched his arm from around Sparrow's neck. He raised his tankard to her and offered a toast.

"To fun and adventure, wherever we can find it!"

Ashton couldn't have gone to a more willing participant in his endeavours. Like the flighty bird she was, clicking her metaphorical talons across the prospects of filling her pockets with coins (if her companion didn't dump her share into a massive tub to swim in), Sparrow was all but entirely apt to listen to his tantalizing pitch, nearly frothing at the mouth if it hadn't been for the goblet already occupying that area. She swilled the mucky-looking ale in her mouth, swallowed, then slapped her goblet back across the table, splattering it's contents. With a least a small portion of those savings, she'd be able to drink at more reputable locations until she gambled it all away – though, she really didn't mind going to the Hanged Man because there were less chances of bumping into wayward Templars. Her eyebrows raised ardently, as if in wait for more incentives. He'd already secured her attention, hook, line and sinker. It was amusing to play off that she wasn't actually interested, toying with the rim of her goblet before nonchalantly shrugging her shoulders, laden with Ashton's arm. Still, it was her giddiness that won her over and she seemed as excited as her friend was.

“Alright, alright. Let me get this straight.” She began softly, clicking her tongue. She moved several coins, in the effort of exhibiting each party-member, pushed beneath her fingertips, and dragged them forward. She made a tunnel with her free hand. We're all going to the Deep Roads, where there'll be nasty Darkspawn and who-knows-what-else to get filthy stinking rich. Is there a chamber of gold down there I wasn't aware of, or do we have to dig through stomachs like we're panhandling?” Sparrow mimicked holding a pan, shaking it up, then threw her hands to the sides as if gold was raining down on them. She'd certainly picked up his habit of being overly dramatic, pantomiming each ridiculous sentence as if it were happening right that instant. Did he not forget what said Darkspawn carried on them? She, too, was not of the Grey Wardens. They would have to tread carefully and avoid having the creatures blood splatter on them if they encountered them. She did not know much about them, but she did know that they were horrid things capable of overcoming the most plucky adventurers. “If you're going filthy rich, then you best remember me when I save you from getting eaten down there.”

It was strange how full the tavern seemed at that time, as if her past, present and future had all collided into one inseparable thing. She, too, had offered a much meeker greeting to Nostariel, who was sitting in her own corner – one that she'd shared on many occasions, when things like mages and politics and all of that hadn't even been touched on. She still felt a small pang of guilt for trying to supersede her intentions. Immediately following that little adventure, she'd drunk herself silly in the Hanged Man, only to be bodily assisted, nearly hauled, home by her all-knowing Tranquil-friend. She noticed Amalia and Ithilian conversing a couple tables away. Sparrow's shoulders straightened, then hunched forward. The subtle weight of gravity, of all the things she wanted to talk about, weighed her down. Her friends nonattendance in Darktown had meant the obvious. She hadn't wanted to visit, or at least, not anytime soon. Rilien, as ever, was in the background. She would always recognize his voice.

Sparrow laughed loudly, broadly, and raised her goblet alongside his own. “To following good friends into the darkness!”

Ashton banged his tankard with Sparrow's goblet and downed the liquid in one fell gulp. It was better that way, he didn't have to taste the bitter liquid snaking it's way down his gullet. He slammed the tankard on the bar and belched, followed closely by a fit of giggling. "You can panhandle through their guts, I fully intend to keep my distance. I had to leave Ferelden because of the ugly bastards," he said, the alcohol in his blood beginning to take effect. He chuckled at the thought and brought his fingers to his mouth, mocking the fangs he believed the things had. Another fit of giggling had him leaning over the bar, unable to suck the air back into his lungs. As soon as the fit passed and he brushed the tears back he nodded and continued, "Still, I fully believe that there are riches untold in those dank tunnels," he said, placing his arm around Sparrow and waved the other in front of him, trying his best to paint the picture for them.

"You know how greedy the dwarves are? They'd rather cut you than give you your winnings in a card game. Now, imagine that, but hundreds of them. Now imagine all of those dwarves-- hold your nose though, I can't imagine that many beards in one place would smell nice-- now imagine all of them in one place. Now imagine all of their riches in that place. I'd be surprise if we don't get a tub full of soveriegns each," of course, the other option would leave him broke and most likely homeless. "That being said, I fully intend to not get eaten," he added, wagging a finger in front of Sparrow's face. "It'd be hard to spend my share of the money when I'm dead after all. Besides, I don't intend to give them the chance to gnaw on my legs. Pew, pew, pew," He mimicked the action of firing off a bow. "It's you that should remember me after I save your butt," Ashton said, poking her in the collarbone.

He took another dangerously large gulp from his fresh tankard before turning around at the bar and beholding what was happening around him. Good news, Ithilian didn't seem to be around any more, so his chances of getting stabbed were drastically reduced. Rilien and his Chevalier friend seemed to be making friends of the female variety. That would have been considered strange if Ashton had the brain cells to devote to the thought. Even Nostariel seemed to have a friend with her... Another lady. He waved to the table for a second as the gears began to turn in his head. Once again, his arm found itself horse-collaring Sparrow, his other hand gripping his tankard. "Come Sparrow, there are pretty ladies that need our company," he said, dragging Sparrow to Nostariel's table.

As he passed Rilien and his friends, he whistled recognition at him and held up his tankard.

The resounding clang of their swill-filled concoctions rattled through her head like a wobbly tambourine, though she still brought the goblet to her lips, tipping her head back to guzzle whatever she had left. Anyone who knew better, and who'd been frequenting the Hanged Man for any amount of time, would know that it was best to finish your drinks quickly, rather than savour the dirty-sock, spicy-whatever they managed to squeeze in underneath the counter. She did not belch, but she knuckled her sternum, squinting her eyes as if that particular gulp had pained her, then laughed. His laughter was contagious. She'd always been a heavy drinker, knocking back whatever-she-could-get-her-hands on with anyone willing to suffer her company, if only for a few hours before her companions were very much inebriated and desperately trying to claw themselves from under the stools. The only one who didn't seem to be entirely affected was Rilien. She does not drink for absolution, for the hopeless effort of forgetting all she's done or all that's happened to her, like Nostariel, but she still understands the enigmatic pull of momentary drawing a blank. She didn't drink like that, at least, anymore.

She knuckled her eye-socket, then threw them out wide, hooking her arms behind her chair. “Then you've already seen the blighters. I've no wish to dance with them. No thanks, no thanks. I'll be keeping my hands safely on my lady at all times.” Sparrow waggled her fingertips upwards, as if she were plucking them from a Darkspawn's stomach, then she settled them gingerly across her maces length, secured at her waistline. She, too, would be staying far away from those disgusting wretches, all pointy needle-teeth and flaps composed of boils. Unlike Ashton, or their pretty little Grey Warden, she'd never really seen any of them up close and personal and she did not wish to – they were frightening enough in stories, even the monochrome, colourless tales the Qunari had told her as a fledgeling: of what they were capable of doing. Her chuckles sifted into hardly-contained chortles, eyebrows arched incredulously at her companions efforts to try and describe how, exactly, the Darkspawn looked. Now, whenever she'd imagine those wretches, she'd think of several Ashton's running about, fingers wriggling from his mouth, hissing. “Y'know, the smell alone is going to be worse than that little cave we took a stroll through. But, if you say so—”

Sparrow's head lilted to the side, as if she were actually analyzing the pretty picture her archer-friend was describing. Her free hand opened and closed across the counter like a reaching child until the barkeeper smiled, shaking his head, and refilled her empty goblet. Dwarves were pretty damn greedy. If any large assemblage of those stubby, bearded-folk were headed down into the Deep Roads, then there was most assuredly something to be found down there – even if they so chose not to share any information until they were good and already down there. It was a tantalizing prospect. Her mouth pursed, then broke into a wide, charmed grin. “A tub full of sovereigns.” Each syllable was tested on her tongue, stretched out into one sensual sentence. How could she turn this down, anyway? It didn't occur to her what would happen if they found nothing or if they somehow got trapped in some small pocket of the Deep Roads never to return again becausethere was a small, or grandiose chance, that they'd all walk out of there chirping a happy song with their pockets overflowing with gold bits and pieces.

“Ashton Rivera – mighty and powerful God-archer, stopping one cavalry charge at a time.”
She bustled loudly, announcing it to the rest of the nonplussed customers and trying her very best to imitate knocking a clumsy arrow with Ashton's arm wrestling around her neck. She felt a finger prod her collarbone, laughed again. In more ways than one, with he and Rilien both sharing her company, they'd already saved her countless times. Not that she'd ever say so.

She, too, gulped briskly from her goblet, leaning backwards so that Ashton didn't unintentionally drag her from her chair while gawking around the establishment. Sparrow seemed interested in what was happening a few tables over, occupied by Rilien and the familiar-looking knight she'd talked to for at least a few moments. What had been his name again? Er, Lucien. That was it. He'd been mighty proper. For some reason, it wasn't difficult to see how they knew each other, and how at ease they both seemed in each other's company. A small smile, conspiratorially tugged at her lips. She would need to ask Rilien about that someday, if he so chose to share any of his stories involving that particular gentleman. Then, Sparrow was nearly bodily drug away from her stool, though she had enough sense to grip her goblet all the tighter, allowing her legs to work underneath her. Pretty ladies – was certainly enough to coerce her cooperation. She, too, dipped her head at Rilien, offering no such whistling-greeting. She still mock-shivered beside Ashton, attempting to stifle a snorting-giggle at her Tranquil-friends refusal to respond to such a tittering reception. “Brrr, that was cold.”

Then, they were suddenly in front of Nostariel's table and the tickling warmth of alcohol had lent her enough strength to place her goblet on the table, with her hands immediately pressed against the wooden-knots winding across the surface. Her chest puffed inwards, then she leaned forward, far enough in order to not be too intrusive, but close enough so that she wasn't screeching her entire conversation across the Hanged Man. Bella-luna. I never got the chance to apologize for stepping on your toes the last we were together and I thought I should, but I couldn't seem to find any time that wasn't just... out of place, and I—” The onrush of words, however breathy, slowed down when she noticed Aurora to the Grey Warden's right. Anyone with any sense would have known that the Hanged Man certainly was out of place for such a peculiar apology, “Think we should just start over.” This was, as always, accompanied by a sterling smile, and an animated movement that drug both she, and Ashton, into adjacent seats.

She tipped her head, then grinned. “It's mighty nice to see both of you.”

Apologies were always done best when they were accompanied by even more ale.

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon

Earnings

0.00 INK

The boisterous atmosphere didn't seem to bother Lucien at all. On the contrary, he was distinctly smiling as he stood against a far wall, beside Rilien closely enough that it was obvious they were in some way associated, but not engaging the Tranquil in conversation. At least, not verbally. The reality of the situation was simple: they didn't need to speak to communicate, as anyone who'd spent enough time on a battlefield with another person could have attested. Granted, there wasn't much to be communicated at the moment, but then that wasn't so bad. He was content to tip his head back to rest against the wall and sink into a little bit of nostalgia. Once upon a time, in a land far, far, away, this bard had been a frequent party guest of the empress herself, and the complex melodies he wove were a background tapestry to much of the mercenary's former life. Strange, that it could call to mind so much of that world even now, when he was in much the opposite situation.

The Tranquil's fingers played easily over the strings of his lute, occasionally lilting his voice into the air as well. Of course, he doubted much of it was heard, or rather listened to, but it was of no concern to him. The tavern paid him a flat rate for this kind of thing, and he'd thought it would be a pertinent sort of thing to do, to see just who it was that would be constituting this expedition. He was almost certain he would be inviting himself along, as for the most part, they did not inspire confidence. Beside thim, unspeaking but present, was Ser Lucien, and in this way, it was not so different from a few years ago, when they'd crowded the tavern with the rest of the revelers after the archdemon had fallen 'neath the hand of the Warden-Queen Cousland.

The last few notes faded, and Rilien shifted his grip on the lute, holding it at his side rather than in front of him. There appeared to be some form of contest occurring in the vicinity, and for the moment it was drowning out most else. "Ser Lucien," he acknowledged at last, "I was not aware that you would be participating in this venture. Were the Darkspawn in Denerim not sufficient?" He blinked, catlike and apparently uninterested, but it was an honest query, if also one tinged with that faint humor that one could only see if they knew to look for it.

Lucien chuckled under his breath, adjusting his posture and lifting his head again so as to properly meet his friend's unusual eyes. "You know me, Ril. I never pass up an opportunity to put myself in mortal danger." A joke, but only just. He did seem to find himself in peril more often than most people, including most mercenaries, but then, that was just the way he lived. Worthy causes were rarely the easy ones, after all.

To that, Rilien offered no reply. He had none, and none was needed. The Chevalier knew that the Tranquil thought his near-religious adherence to honor was foolish. Near-religious because the religious could only hope to approach Lucien's dedication. Most of them would never achieve it; Rilien was of the opinion that no ordinary person was even capable of it. They all thought about things like self-preservation. It was an interesting quandary: the very quality he disdained in the other man was the reason once-Bard yet drew breath and did not rot somewhere in an unmarked grave. It was difficult to give it the contempt it deserved, considering. So he didn't, choosing instead to occasionally comment upon it but otherwise leave it be.

Interesting to him were the cases where the cold, Tranquil logic he'd been cursed with met conflict. There was only one thing it could mean, and that was that his level of concern with a person had at long last overridden his cold calculation. This possibility, the very existence of the part of him that could still hold another person in regard, he had discovered only because of the man towering beside him. Rilien was never certain if he should thank Lucien for this, or disembowel him. Then again, he'd tried that once, and it hadn't worked out very well for him. Sparrow had Lucien to thank for her current lodgings, and if anyone else thought they owed him anything, well, that probably came back to the knight as well. Life was strange that way.

The Viscount's daughter had been trying to make her way from the bar with some wine, figuring it had to be at least a little better than the ale and being sadly disappointed, when she had been ambushed by a pair of the expedition's hirelings. "Again," she repeated to them, "I was not alone when I slew the dragon, nor do I think I could have killed the dragon alone. Just as much, if not more credit should go to the Dalish elf and the Qunari woman sitting over..." she had been about to point them out to the hirelings, as she'd seen them talking together at a table, but now both were gone, leaving Sophia pointing at nothing, and leading to a sigh. "Well, the point is, I wasn't alone. Now, if you'll excuse me..."

It was clear they didn't plan on excusing her, but Sophia had come here to see some people and to attempt to enjoy herself, not to be interviewed, and while she appreciated word of her actions spreading, the embellishments were... interesting. No doubt the charming dwarf had something to do with it, with his ability to command an audience in this establishment. At last making her way through the throng of people to where she had seen Lucien go, she sighed in relief and allowed herself to continue with the wine. Considering that this was supposed to be something of a party and not so much a trip into Lowtown to get herself into trouble, Sophia had favored a dress over chainmail tonight, certainly nothing fancy, a dark blue dress that looked as though it could have belonged to a merchant's daughter as much as the Viscount's. Her hair was down, falling in golden droves around her shoulders.

She found Lucien conversing, albeit not very much, with the bard, a white haired elf. "You know," she said, coming to a stop before the mercenary, "Hightown parties might win in the category of sophistication, but compared to this, they're sorely lacking in spirit." Indeed, noble parties were often disguises for whatever games the attendants wished to play, power moves hidden behind a birthday or a wedding. This was... simple, and undeniably more honest. She turned to introduce herself to the bard.

"I would love to hear you play more, you're very good. My name is Sophia Du..." she paused in a rather awkward moment, her face screwing itself up in temporary confusion when she noticed the brand upon his forehead. She knew it for what it was, but now that she thought about it, she had never really conversed with a Tranquil before. They'd always just been there if there had been mages around, or if she had required anything of the Circle. "...mar," she finished. "Forgive me for asking, but are you affiliated with the Circle here?"

The Tranquil was aware of a third party entering the conversational sphere, and he prepared himself to retreat from it. While he would always have words to offer the Chevalier if he required them, he was not a talkative person as a rule, and did not enjoy the subtle intricacies and power gambits involved in ordinary parlance. Unfortunately, he was directly addressed. The compliment, plain as it was, was one thing, and he was used to dealing with those. A small inclination of the head and another song would serve his purposes quite well, but for some unfathomable reason, the flaxen-haired woman chose to give him further address. Did she not see the...?

Ah, there it was. He'd been on the recieving end of that look more than once. Glancing once at his friend as if to say 'this is what happens when I'm forced to associate with people you know,' he was met with nothing, and sighed internally. Twisting his wrist, he brought the lute back up to playing position and worked at tuning it, occasionally plucking a string. The third one was a little off, actually... He didn't need to look to fix it, and instead flicked a glance between the woman and Lucien. He thought the part where the last Drakon was followed around by those of the female persuasion would have ended when his title was stripped, but to be fair, this one had not the air of a hanger-on. "...No." And that was as much as she was getting out of him on the subject.

Well, wasn't this quite a sight? He wouldn't call the attempted conversation anything so horrible as a carriage wreck, but it certainly was going about as well as he'd have imagined, which was to say very, very awkwardly. Deciding to spare Sophia the indignity of replying to that, amusing as he thought it would be, Lucien stepped in to smooth things over as well as he could. "Ah, I suppose you haven't met. Sophia, this is Rilien Falavel. He's a dear friend of mine, originally from Orlais as I am. Ril, well... the lady introduced herself, so I suppose I need not. She's also a friend." The statement was just slightly pointed. He didn't expect Rilien to change his demeanor simply because Sophia was a friend of his, but it was a subtle warning all the same.

He was cautioning the Tranquil against acting too against type. He had no idea how many of his sort Sophia had met, but if the number was at all large, it wouldn't take much to figure out that Rilien was not like them. Even he, who had interacted with very few, had been able to figure that out. He did not begrudge the Viscount's daughter her faith in the slightest, but if he could prevent his closest friend from being hauled into the Kirkwall Circle and executed, he would. Whatever that took.

The caution was correctly interpreted, and Rilien still wasn't sure why he bothered. Even so, he chose to amend his previous answer in his hollowest monotone. "I see. It is nice to meet you, Sophia Dumar, friend of Ser Lucien. However, I am on contract to provide accompanyment for this evening's festivities, and must continue to do so. If you will both excuse me." He dutifully ignored Ashton's whistle, letting both he and Sparrow pass without so much as a wayward glance, then relocated himself slightly further away, so as not to be intruding upon any further conversation between the parties involved. His instrument properly attuned, he started up another song, to add truth to his words as much as anything else.

Sophia's reaction to Rilien's simple no had been to stare rather dumbly for a moment, at least until Lucien spoke. Apparently the two were good friends, but Lucien explained no more, and then the Tranquil moved off so as to not disturb them, or perhaps to simply not participate in a conversation. He had said he was contracted to play tonight, and so it only made sense. The being a Tranquil part didn't make a bit of sense, though, but Lucien's clear statement of his status as a friend was enough to give Sophia pause in a situation where her suspicion would have otherwise overpowered anything else.

"I... suspect there's a story behind that one," she said, but she didn't feel like pursuing the topic further, having something else on her mind. "Shall we sit? There's something I wanted to ask you." She found the nearest table she could, which was easy enough considering that many of the hirelings in the Hanged Man preferred to stand and drink, and on this particular night, there had even been a decent sized space cleared for dancing, though the women present were considerably outnumbered by the men.

When they were seated across from each other at a table, Sophia took a drink of wine, ignoring the taste. "So I've been thinking... you've been working as a mercenary here in Lowtown. I have not heard the best things about many of the mercenary groups in the city, and I can't imagine making a go of it as a freelancer would a very efficient path. Forgive me for saying, but it seems a waste of your time, and your talents, to be forced into taking jobs for coin." She didn't state this expedition specifically, considering that this was a celebration for the members of said expedition, but she couldn't help but think it.

"You're the most honorable man I know. If Hightown had just a few more nobles that were like you, the city wouldn't be in nearly so bad of shape as it is. I just... feel like you deserve better. Oh! Not that I'm saying what you have is in any way inadequate, I just think men like yourself are far too few in this city to be spent on mercenary work, when they could be doing something more." There was more to this, she knew there was. He carried himself so well, acted with a dignity that no lowborn mercenary would learn. He said he had been a Chevalier, a Knight, many steps above a sell sword for certain. So why was he one? He was holding himself back for some reason, and she wanted him to stop, or at least find out why, so that she might help him as he had already helped her.

"If you want, after you return from this expedition, which you will return from," she said, her lips curling into a small smile. It was the closest thing to an order she'd given him since they had met. "My family could use your services. I could use your help. I would see to it that any needs are taken care of, so that you need not sell your blade for coin anymore. I... could ask the smithy to forge you a greatsword, if you like. The scythe seems such a difficult tool to use..." It was as much a question as a statement, as she was very curious why Lucien chose to fight with that particular instrument. Surely the Chevaliers hadn't taught him to use it.

Lucien was quiet while she spoke, as courtesy demanded. He was also, he had to admit, interested to hear what she had to say, and in the end, he wore a subtle quirk to his lips for the majority of it. It wasn't that he found her words humorous, only unexpected. When all had been said, he hummed a ponderous syllable in the back of his throat and raked a hand through his shaggy mane of hair. "I think," he said slowly, letting his words ferment just a little before he uttered them, in case he should decide against passing them over his tongue at all, "that you may be giving me a little too much credit. I do not mistake your offer for anything but the honor it is, and I am humbled that someone herself so worthy thinks so highly of me."

There was a pause, not necessarily uncomfortable, but laden with an implication he was not certain he was making sufficiently clear. There were some things that could only be said in the elegance of silence, but other things which required words. "Were my circumstances different, I would accept without hesitation. I would have you know this, so that you do not think my indecision is your fault. But there are things I have not told you about myself that may warrant your reconsideration. This was not an attempt at duplicity on my part, I swear to you; I simply never thought there would come a time when the information was relevant."

Lucien sighed, and for once, his shoulders slumped, as though a weight of some significance had been added to them. "I am... less informed than I should be regarding Kirkwall's diplomatic relations with Orlais, but I do not believe hiring that country's most contentious exile in recent years will do you any favors. The nobles were quite divided on the matter, and some would doubtless view the act well. But such a deed would be inherently a political one, and therefore one that deserves the most careful of considerations. Whether you intended to or not, you would be showing favor for my aunt and her allies and disfavor upon others, including certain mid-level Chantry officials." He finished off his brandy and gestured for another, but his single visible eye did not leave hers.

"It is a long story, and not all of it is mine to tell. But I promise you this: ask of me anything, and you will recieve only truth, even if that must be silence. I would also understand if you wish to rescind your offer in light of the circumstances, and I would certainly not hold it against you."

Sophia knew full well this was not the ideal location for this conversation, but considering that it would be a few weeks before she would be able to speak with him again, it seemed worth it to bring it up. What he had said, though, what he had hinted at... Sophia was able to put a few pieces of the puzzle together. "Of course. I should not have sprung this upon you here. If you feel comfortable sharing, perhaps we can discuss this further when you return, and a better opportunity is presented to us." There was no need to state what she thought she had learned about him, since this was not a conversation he wanted to have here, and she was certainly not going to try and force it upon him.

She took a longer drink of wine, noticing that the taste was diminishing with each sip. Perhaps the Hanged Man’s spirits were simply an acquired taste. Rather than try to shift the discussion to something else just as serious, Sophia decided on something else, Rilien’s music floating to her ears and bringing a slightly mischievous smile to her lips. This was a celebration, was it not? Then what was she doing sitting here speaking of mercenary work and greatswords? “I do have one question for you,” she asked, leaning forward. “Do they teach Chevaliers how to dance in Orlais?”

"With as much fervor as they teach us to fight," he replied lightly, standing and stepping out behind his chair. Bowing chivalrously, he extended one hand. "Would milady be so generous as to do me the honor?" The slightly-crooked smile was an indication that he wasn't giving it quite that much gravity, but manners were manners, be they in a lowbrow tavern or at a lavish party with all the world's wealthiest. Normally, he probably wouldn't have asked, as the music one heard in taverns was not conducive to the sort of dancing one learned for the ballroom, but Rilien was a world-class bard, and there were no two ways about that.

It was hard to give a dance of any kind gravity in the Hanged Man, and Sophia’s smile turned into something of a little grin when she took his hand, sliding to her feet, the pair heading for the space cleared for dancing. It certainly wasn’t similar to the settings she was used to, sparkling rooms and ridiculous gowns that she had to be sown into, gilded affairs that were always weighed down by one hidden agenda or another.

This was simply a chance to have some honest fun in a way that she couldn’t in Hightown, and for that, Sophia was glad.

Setting

7 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

Nostariel was only too happy to wave off Sparrow's apology and turn the conversation to happier things. Frankly, thinking about it right now was likely to give her a headache, and while unburdening herself on Ashton had doubtless helped, she still wasn't too comfortable lingering there. "Then start over we shall. Please, take a seat, both of you." From Sparrow's words, the Warden took it that he and Aurora were acquainted, but she wasn't sure if the same was true of the other two. So, feeling for once like a proper host or at least a proper friend, she made the introductions.

"Aurora, this is Messere Ashton Riviera, hunter and expedition investor." She'd intentionally paused just minutely between the man's first and family names, as if to tease him with the possibility of sliding Cuthbert in there somewhere. Still, private joke or not, she was as good as her word, and kept mum on the subject. "Ashton, this is Miss Aurora Rose, a friend of mine, if that's not too forward to say." Nostariel thought it was a bit appropriate, but then it'd been a while since she really had friends, so in a way, she wondered if it was maybe too much to hope for, that these people were her friends. "I see you managed to get your half a circus after all, Ashton." She hadn't been sure what he'd meant by that at the time, but now she could guess, and it didn't seem a bad choice to have made. Sparrow was boisterous and opinionated and a little bit lacking on social grace, but then, who among them wasn't at least a little like that? His mace was keen and his magic powerful, and she knew Varric certainly wouldn't care that he was an apostate. Not in the slightest.

"Messere Lord Ashton Riviera," he corrected, tongue firmly in cheek. His eyes went big at the pause between first and surname, as Cuthbert wasn't the most dashing of names. For it to be dropped in the midst of a lovely lady (and Sparrow), Ashton just didn't think his frail ol' heart could take it. Though the incident passed without calamity and he quickly regain his cheer, sliding a chair out and plopping himself in it. Harkening back to when he first met Nostariel, he took the redheaded girl's hand in his own, bowed slightly (as much as sitting in a chair would allow at any rate) and offered, "At your service Milady."

Aurora found this man to be... Rather forward. She twitched when he took her hand, though she was not so rude as to jerk it away. "Er... Right," she said, clearly suspect of the man. Surely the tankard in his hand had something to do with his brazen display. Though, if he was a friend of Nostariel's, then he couldn't be all bad, right? He finally allowed her hand to go and leaned back in his seat, allowing Aurora the chance to reply to Nostariel. "Not forward at all," she shook her head. They were friends after all, fighting through the underbelly of Dark Town looking for a wayward elf tends to do that to people... Though she couldn't say that she was really friends with Ithilian... Acquantiances, more like.

Still, she considered Sparrow a friend as well. Pride demons have the same aforementioned effect as well, as it turned out. "I take it that you know Nostariel as well," she said, the edge of her lips curling up. City of Chains indeed. "How has life been treating you, Sparrow?" she offered, much to the chuckling of the man beside him. Apparently, he was in on a joke that she was not, and caused her eyebrow to raise, though she did not venture to inquire what the punchline was.

The little blighter had already obliged Nostariel's invitation to seat herself. Even if she'd wanted her to mosey-on out the door, and away from her, it wasn't likely that she was willing to accept that suggestion. Sparrow, quite pleased that the conversation had taken a better turn, hooked her arms behind her chair, leaning backwards, as if she were some sort of lounging animal, of the feline variety. Her apology had been successful. She wouldn't have known what to do if Nostariel had openly rejected it – but, it might've involved heavy amounts of liquor and sulking until she finally crawled out of the Hanged Man. Her smile seemed shades brighter, though she'd been having a good time prior to wandering over. A slight burden, however light, had been lifted from her shoulders. Companions, it seemed, meant a lot more to her than they ever did – she wanted to keep them as her own, shelter them under her arms. She did not want to lose any of them.

Sparrow couldn't help but bark out a laugh, quickly burying it into the heel of her palm. “Serrah, Lord Ashton. Mighty, powerful God of arrows, wooing women all over the glade.” Then, she grinned. She was always teasing him, elbowing his ribs as if he were some sort of awkward-brother. His ability to brush things off his shoulders was uncanny, as if it were actually made out of rock armor, without any chinks or weaknesses. Sparrow was sure he'd seen his share of things, and the fact that he was still fighting and doing business in Kirkwall meant that he wasn't willing to settle down as Lord and live a comfy, pompous life. It was humble. Would she have done the same in his position? She wasn't so sure. Already giddy with optimism, and a little more ale than she should've drank, Sparrow slumped forward and listed on her elbows, hands cupping her chin. “Yes, yes. I had to introduce myself when I first spotted her.” Another smile, carelessly tipping up. Ashton's chuckling moved her to jostle him with her shoulder, then sidle backwards, hands intertwined behind her head.

“It's been fine—quiet, but fine.” Her response was purposefully nonchalant, indicating nothing of her internal struggles, or all of that Templar-business. “And how have you been? Keeping out of trouble?”

Rilien, for reasons unknown perhaps except to himself, chose this moment to shift his playing, taking up a tune with a rather merry cadence, all things considered, one that the bar patrons would be surprised to find could equally-well be waltzed to or utilized for less-formal purposes, including but not limited to jigging, cavorting, and generally being ridiculous.

Aurora chuckled at the man's question, just in time to punctuate the merry shift of the tune. "If I said yes, I'd be lying," she said, before adding, "Nothing huge though, I don't expect the Temp--" She caught herself, quickly throwing her gaze at Ashton. This man didn't know she was a mage. Sparrow and Nostariel did, but not this man. She didn't know how he would react, she was too comfortable with these friends (and fellow mages) to even think about it. She hesitated for a moment, her mouth hanging agape, wanting to spill the last syllable, though common sense fought her the entire way. She had thought she had learned to be careful about her powers. It didn't occur to her that maybe the man wouldn't care, considering the friends he kept.

Ashton merely smiled and took a drink from his tankard, and then finished the word for her, " --plars? Don't worry sweetheart, your secret's safe with me," he said winking. He then threw his arm over shoulder and hinted, "I'm good at these kind of secrets after all," He laughed then retracted his arm. "Also, she's lying. Things have not been quiet for us. Though things are never really quiet with that one around," he said, smiling to himself. Ashton too noticed the tune, and had began to tap his foot along with the melody. He looked over in time to see the Chevelier sweep a young woman off of her feet. Always the jovial type, Ashton gifted Lucien with a muted applause before tuning back to his own table, but the seed was sown.

The tempo in his foot never stopped and before he knew it he had a hand extended to Nostariel. "Looks like fun, doesn't it? Come on, join me?" He said, with his ever-present half-joking serious smile.

Nostariel hesitated for a second, unsure that she should really be dancing. She'd never learned how, though one glance at the floor was enough to convince her that most of its occupants hadn't either. With a small sigh, she shrugged, smiling up at her friend. "I hope you're wearing metal shoes," she joked, standing with him and allowing herself to be led into a more-or-less empty spot. "Seriously. I have no idea what I'm doing." She wasn't even sure what to do now that she was standing there. She'd seen people do this before, but whether they'd been doing it properly was a much more contentious question.

"Umm... I don't suppose nobles just inherently know this sort of thing, do they?" The look she gave him was nonplussed, but morphed swiftly into a full-on smile as she processed the absurdity of the situation. Here she was, Grey Warden Captain, healer, mage, erstwhile adventurer, and now expedition guide, and yet so utterly perplexed by something that should have been so simple.

The half-breed's hooded eyes found themselves flitting across the way, noting the shift in Rilien's song and how his fingers expertly plucked away at his instrument. It solicited a small smile on her lips, drumming her fingers along with the beat, tapping away against the wooden knots spiralling across the table. How many times had she badgered him to play her cheerful songs in their hovel? Too many to count, honestly. She wondered if anyone had approached him, wondering whether or not they could have a jollier tune, or if he'd chosen it on his known. Even if he was Tranquil, she had to admit that her companion had a better sense for puzzling out situations, and adapting to them, then anyone else she was acquainted to. Aurora's momentary fumble, and Ashton's easy recovery, brought another soft chuckle sifting through her lips – if it hadn't been for his personality, or his acceptance of others, then they might've never been able to get along. If she were to say that she was secretly some sort of spawn from the deepest, darkest recesses of the Deep Roads, she was sure that Ashton would've taken it in stride, regaling her with tales twice as bewildering.

She snorted, eyeing Ashton balefully. Had she been missing an arm, or soulless, then she would have announced, quite loudly, that things hadn't been quiet. Her life, it seemed, was teeming with horrible missions, and prospects of money, at the expense of her working alongside Templars, fluctuating from condemning mages, to trying to help them in incomprehensible ways. How could she explain that, anyway? Instead, Sparrow was far more content bobbing her head like the flighty little bird she was, indicating that her life had been rather uneventful save for the occasional trip to the Hanged Man. She laughed again when Ashton offered Nostariel his hand, obviously taken with Lucien's graceful dancing – and she, too, accepted his casual suggestion before moving off to dance beside them. Her steps, however clumsy, were charming. “Good company often accepts even the darkest secrets. It's hard to come by.” Such a small musing seemed innocent enough, spoken over top of her goblet – it was the truth of it, for if Ashton, or Rilien, had been anyone different, Sparrow would have been dead long ago or forcibly brought to the Circle. Her wings would not be clipped for anyone.

"I'll let you on to a bit of a secret... Nope. I have no idea what I'm doing," he said. He looked nonplussed about it, though really, who was going to disapprove? Sparrow? Aurora? Rilien? Even if they did judge, Ashton was never the one to care about what others thought. If he did, the he certainly wouldn't act the way he did. Either way, the whole dancing bit wasn't too hard, was it? Just step back and forth while slowly going in a circle, right? He wasn't aiming to dance in an Orlesian ball like the Chevalier after all. He had good enough control over his feet, so he wasn't worried.

"Right. One hand here, the other here..." He said, adjusting his grip on her hand. He then took her other hand an placed it on his shoulder, while his own went to her hip. "Now... Dance." he said with a coy grin. He began to step to the side, followed by a step back, and then a step to the other side all the while slowly turning in a circle. He took... Some ideas from Lucien, but a knight he was not, and form was not the idea. His grip was soft, almost as if the callouses on his hands weren't even there. His own feet were light, airy, as they danced. Once again, the technique of the hunter found itself bleeding into everyday life. He found himself enjoying the moment, like there were no one else but them. It was... Nice. The Tranquil's song, the mages at the table, the pair dancing beside them, they all melted away. If he died right then, he felt like it would have been okay. Everything would be alright. He found himself laughing at the thought.

"Erm... okay..." Nostariel wasn't really sure how dance explained anything, and for the first few steps, she tripped more than anything. Eventually, she thought she was getting the hang of it a little bit, but maybe that was just because she'd given up on trying to decide what direction she should go in and fell into his pattern as well as she could. Lightfooted or not, she did manage to step on his toes once or twice, and winced each time, offering hasty apologies. With a little time, she actually started listening to what was playing, and then maybe things made a little more sense. Still, it was a little unnerving. She hadn't been this cose to another person since... well, honestly probably never. Dancing wasn't exactly something that happened in the Circle, at least not with the person she would have wanted to dance with...

Frowning, she shoved the wayward thought away. That was years ago. This was today, and she should be happy about it. Then he started laughing, and for a second, she thought to be offended, only she realized it wasn't directed at her. How she knew that, she couldn't say, but she did. "What's so funny?" she asked, genuinely curious. Her brows gathered together on her forehead, and she looked at him skeptically. "Or is the ale just catching up with you?"

"Maybe that's it," Ashton said, stringing her along. Moments passed without him answering the question truthfully and when he felt like he'd kept his mouth shut for long enough, he clarified. "It's just funny is all. When I woke up this morning, I didn't expect that I'd end up here-- well, not here. Of course I knew I was gonna end up at the Hanged Man, but... Here... And the twirl... he offered unhelpfully as he lifted her hand and spun her around. Another laugh and he attempted to clear it up, his smile never leaving his face. "Life is funny like that, it's always an adventure, and you never know where it'll lead you. I just enjoy these small things," he said. "Or the likeliest answer is the ale is making it much more funny than it is. At least it hadn't taken my ability to dance yet, right?" He half expected fate to kick in right there and throw him to the floor.

Perhaps, it might've been while watching Ashton and Nostariel spin around, venturing to find their own beat, that Sparrow began to feel strange... Sparrow blamed her ale, mutely accessing whether or not they'd made her a bad batch. The world felt as if it were spinning, painted in a patina of confusion. From how hard she's clenching her jaw, settling the goblet down as if it were actually poison, she certainly felt like her her teeth were crackling against one another. Inwardly, it felt as if someone was letting out a puff of air that would have sounded embarrassed coming from anyone else – to her, it felt like impatience. Like someone had finally riddled their fingers across her squirming spine, shlepping off an uncomfortable coat to step into another. It was every kind of wrong. And then, stranger yet, Sparrow felt separated from herself, like someone had reached into her chest, taken her out and placed her into a metal cage, ruefully patting her head like a hound who'd destroyed the furniture. Rapture brought her own hand across her forehead, knuckling her eyes, and set her sights across the other magelet.

Ah, the music. Her ears were all her own, now. Her eyes nearly closed, lidded in appeased content – very cat-like, very unusual. It had been a long time since she'd felt at home, canoodling amidst living-breathing sacks. She missed the food, she missed the feeling of her fingertips, she missed feeling her own movements. Her eyes swept open once again. She, too, had risen to her feet, offering her hand to the little magelet. “Why aren't we dancing?” It was an offer, a soft suggestion to enjoy themselves. She was already feeding off her own ecstasy, entirely tickled pink with how she'd bullied Sparrow out of her mindscape, commandeering her nervous system. This coat was much more comfortable. The mischievous grin splitting across her face masked any ill-intentions hidden in her hollow chest – and Sparrow watched in horror, throwing herself against those bars and calling after them. The Fade around her was subdued, easily mistaken for her natural abilities as a runaway apostate.

Unnoticed to anyone who wasn't paying very close attention to the music, Rilien's fingers faltered, playing too hastily over the strings of his lute as something in the air spiked. In a way, this facet of his imperfection was the one that intrigued him the most: that sense he'd gained, vague but never wrong, exactly, for rippling disturbances in the Fade. It was how he knew a mage when he encountered one, but it was also how he knew when that thing was troubling Sparrow overmuch. This, though... he'd never felt this. It was as though his companion had receded, somehow, leaving the tang of the thing's presence nearly palpable, like something on his tongue or in his ear. His hesitation did not last long, however, and he resumed right on playing, though it would not be inaccurate to say he watched her motions like a cat watching a mouse. If things went wrong, he would be there in a mere second, ready to pin down the demon and drag her bodily from the crowd, and let people think what they may. It was all he could do for her-- ensure that her choice did not inadvertantly, unwillingly lead her to hurt somebody else.

Nostariel? Dancing? Aurora might not have known the Warden as much as she would like, but dancing seemed like a stretch for her. She could understand Lucien and Sophia, it seemed like something a Chevalier and a Noble would learn in their life. But a Warden mage and a goofy hunter? That was a different story. Aurora watching them for a moment in silence, noting the difference between their styles. She laughed softly to herself. She never imagined the Hanged Man becoming an impromptu ballroom in any stretch of the imagination. Her attentions were brought back around at the man across from her and his outstretched hand. Aurora had never been meek but at the offer she couldn't help but to blush wildly and retreat into her shoulders.

Still, there was no way she would decline and be one of the only ones to sit out. She took his hand and allowed Sparrow to lead her to the dance floor. She had no idea what was going through his head, though that didn't stop her from trying... "You lead?" Aurora asked.

Sparrow's offer was unwavering, entirely assured in the way her proffered fingers curled – as if, in the instance that Aurora refused to dance with her, it wouldn't have bothered her in the slightest. Her voice had an unintended lilt that might've brushed off from her better parts. She moved without her unusually clumsy gait, all full of clomping bluster and cheeky elbows. One might wonder whether or not she'd been drinking at all. She dipped low, arching an eyebrow as Aurora's shoulders raised, clearly surprised by her unexpected offer. Why would they not dance, indeed? Her dance was one of trickery, of lies, of deceit, of promises and of an expected paradise, twinkling in her eyes. This might've not been her body, yet, but that certainly didn't mean she couldn't have her fun. She wasn't necessarily ruthless, just unbridled and relentless in her pursuits.

She would cut them twice, and kiss them once. She would show them how it was done. The lights were low and matched her mood, soft and heady with the steady, rhythmic strumming belonging solely to the bard's merry twill’s. As soon as Aurora's fingers settled into her palm, she lead them both to the dance floor, smiling wryly. As pleased as a kitten with it's paws dipped in milk. “Of course, unless you'd prefer to lead.” Her response was intoned low, scaled sultry. Her hand came up to grasp her own, boldly raising it to shoulder level as she spread her fingers and entwined them into hers. She moved her other hand automatically, extending her arm to encircle her back. Sparrow's inner protests seemed a distant thing now; merely an annoying buzz against a brazen barrier that could not be broken with her weak complaints. Her movements, now, were imploringly gentle but insistent, as if she knew where they ought to be next. Her hands, however calloused, seemed minutely more feminine, and aware of where they were being placed.

On occasion, Sparrow – Rapture looked over Aurora's shoulder, observing their bard-companion. The one who'd so rudely turned down her offer. The Tranquil-man. Hardly a man, after all. She was aware that he was staring at her, and most assuredly conscious of how he probably knew whom, exactly, was in charge for the time being. His ability to taste the Fade had proven uncanny. Even so, her look was one of satisfaction. Tonight, she had won. Her hand dropped from Aurora's fingers, slipping to her waist, while the other guided her into a twirl – and even if she'd stumbled, her hand had already snapped up to capture her hand back in hers.

Aurora was taken by surprise. She had no idea that Sparrow was this good of a dancer. She had never danced before in her life-- except for childish things when she was a girl. Flowing dresses, flower wreaths, spinning in a circle with her brothers and sisters. The dance brought those memories back, from back before the circle. She remembered dancing with her brothers, her sisters watching and clapping along. It was a silly thing, memories of a young girl, but it was nice to relive them, even for just a second. She found herself guided by Sparrow's soft, but sure hands. Then she was spun, and though she felt as if she was falling, Sparrow caught her again. "You're pretty good at this," Aurora said.

Ashton quickly became aware of how full the so-called "Dance floor" was becoming, and though he wasn't surprised that Sparrow had managed to snatch up the other mage, he was surprised that at the skill with which Sparrow dance. He never knew she danced so well. Then again, whenever they danced, they both were drunk and it couldn't even be called dancing at that point... Flopping about more like. He'd have to remember to ask Sparrow where she learned to dance like that. But that was for later, what mattered was his own dance. His own feet (even if Nostariel had managed to step on them a couple of times) had found their way to Lucien and his partner. He tried to catch the Cheveliar's eye and nodded acknowledgement, though another idea quickly popped into his head.

He leaned down into Nostariel's ear and said, "How would you like to dance with a real knight?" loud enough for both her and Lucien to hear. Before he could explain what he meant looked up to Lucien and smiled a cockeyed smile. He gently spun Nostariel towards the Cheveliar and cried, "Switch," as he awaited for his new partner.

Setting

7 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

Lucien was quite conscious of the other parties on the floor, as several of them were to some degree inebriated, and as a result, he and his friend found themselves forced to navigate around them, but that was not to say he was at all suspecting what Ashton suggested. Well, suggested was perhaps a kind word for it, as the Chevalier scarcely had time to think before Nostariel was more-or-less tossed in his direction, and he wasn't sure she could be relied upon to catch herself. Trepidation and wryness fought a battle for dominant facial expression, but in the spirit of the evening, the latter won by a fair margin, and he shook his head minutely. From where it was lightly resting at Sophia's back, he brought his hand to circle around Nostariel's upper arm, so as to support her if she did in fact stumble.

"My apologies," he told the young noble, rolling his visible eye, "but it seems my friend over there would very much like to dance with you. I hope you don't mind? He's largely harmless, though... well, I won't spoil the surprise." The slight twitch to his mouth sealed the tone as 'dryly amused' rather than simply resigned, as it might otherwise have seemed. Though the gesture was a smidge awkward, he still managed to pull off a rather decent bow, as was custom at the conclusion of such things.

Sophia wore a wry smile as well, taking a look at the pair of dancers that had approached them. She had of course met Nostariel before, but upon their first meeting, she'd hadn't guessed the Warden to be the dancing type. It wouldn't have been the first time her initial impressions had mistaken her, but still, Sophia hadn't thought Nostariel would dance. It was nice to see that she was wrong. The man she dance with Sophia did not know, but apparently Lucien and he were acquainted to some extent. He was not so tall as Lucien, but still a good half foot taller than Nostariel, probably more. Lucien's bow was returned with a brief curtsy. "I'm sure he's nothing I can't handle." She was getting pretty experienced with Lowtown folk, after all.

She flashed a warm smile to Nostariel as they passed on her way to her new partner, taking his hand and resuming the dance. "Might I know your name, serah? I don't believe we've met," she asked with a raised eyebrow. She could only assume he knew who she was, given his initiative in the little partner switch that just occurred.

Ashton chortled deep down in his throat at being called "Serah." That was a new one. Still, he took the new lady's hand as he had done before when introducing himself, cocked a bow and spoke, his words very neatly hiding the slur that waited beneath the surface. Or so her thought. It was hard to tell through the buzz he had going on after all. "Serah? No serahs here milady, only Ashton. Ashton Riviera, at your service," he said, taking a sweeping bow and then engaging in the dance. His mind wandered off for a second as he wondered how his own rudimentry skills stacked up with a full-fledged Chevelier. Oh well, he was about to find out.

"So my lovely lady, what is your name," he asked in almost a purr. The idea that this woman would somebody of import was ridiculous. What self-respecting noble would found themselves in the Hanged Man? Discarded nobles (like himself) aside, of course.

Sophia found herself smiling in a lightly amused manner. It could have been attributed to three things, the first being the man's flattery, which was having a little more effect on her than it would have had she not been slightly intoxicated. The second possible cause was that this Ashton Riviera did not in fact know who she was, or at least claimed not to. It was utterly refreshing to not be recognized, especially so when one was not looking to be the center of attention for a night. It could have also just been the wine, the warm feeling that was most certainly not the heat of the packed tavern.

"I'm Sophia," she said, quite deliberately leaving out the family name. If he wasn't too far gone he would have a chance of figuring the rest out, assuming he opened his ears to local gossip at all. Her dress was no glittering Orlesian creation, but it was slightly too fine to be of Lowtown, and she looked a little too clean, her hair a little too well done. No, she still very much had the Hightown look about her. It wasn't something that could simply be taken off in a day. Not to mention that she seemed able to dance without so much as thinking about it, even while speaking to him and having been drinking. Beyond that, her name had been on more than a few lips lately. "So, Ashton, what is it you do? Besides flattering and dancing with women in taverns, that is."

"Ah, but milady, if I told you that, then that would kill any mystery I may possessed," Ashton teased. If he seemed to recollect Sophia's title based on a first name basis, he certainly didn't show it. Her names might have been on the tongues of common rabble, but then again Ashton wasn't quite the normal rabble. He never did have an ear for loose-lipped gossip. Not to say he didn't sling his share of mouth nonsense, but it was more of nonsense nothings. Anything of substance would roll down his shoulder. He did have his ear to the ground. The hunter never really got out much. He smiled though and looked down at the woman, dipping her.

"I'll tell you for a smile," he said, the phrase returning to glory. Smile or not, he continued and explained what exactly he did. "Oh, well, you know. I'm a hunter. I hunt. I sell the meat and skins that I don't use. It's not this fine," He said picking at a bit of fabric at her shoulder, "But I digress. If I say so myself, I'm still a damn fine tailor. Or something. How about you milady? What do you do in life-- aside from entertaining dashing rogues like myself?" Ashton said. He'd made the realization that she was of obvious higher class.

“Of late, I’ve been battling brigands, bandits, and dragons beyond the walls of the city,” Sophia said rather honestly, since it was entirely true, regardless of how unlikely it may have currently looked. “A woman can wield a blade as well as any man if she puts her mind to it. Better, even. Many men lack a certain… finesse.” Ashton didn’t, she could see. He was not so elegant a dancer as Lucien, but he was clearly not clumsy, though she had no knowledge of whether or not he could handle a blade. He was obviously no brute, something that could not be said for many in the tavern at the moment, and perhaps she would even consider his use of the word dashing as accurate.

“But really, most of what I do on a day to day basis is trying to keep my younger brother out of trouble and my father out of the stress his work puts on him.” She gave him the smile he was looking for on the other side of a twirl, golden locks whipping about momentarily. “Truth be told, I think I don’t get nearly enough opportunities to just enjoy a night among good company. But… we do the best we can with what we’re given, right?”

"Dragons? Sounds like an adventure. Hate I missed that," Ashton said, tone ambigious to whether it was a tease or geniune belief. Still, there had been weird going-ons recently, and he wouldn't put the idea down. Though, they were talking about work while dancing, and Ashton found it incredibly dull-- even if dragons were mentioned. Had the story included griffins, she'd have his rapt attention. "Ah, keeping your family out of trouble. So you're a family lass. That's good. Family's always good," he rattled off, though family wasn't terribly interesting either. It might have been if he had actually known who the girl's family was. Or maybe he did and just really didn't have an opinion either way. Ashton liked to think of himself as a mystery. Ladies loved mysterious men.

To her last statement, Ashton shrugged and responded plainly, "Nope." Now he was just being oblique. He gave her a dashing smile and put kept his lips sealed for a time, leaving her in suspense about his meaning. Ladies loved suspense too. Feeling that he had let her stew enough, he answered, chuckling. His answer was as nonsensical as usual. "Never settle only for best, take everything you are given, and then some and then stake your claim. Only settle for perfect, and never stop working to that end," he said, mischief and something else glinting in his eye. The something else, of course, was the alcohol. It had a delay effect apparently.

"Sounds like you need to make a little bit more you time sweetheart. Make every night you own one you can enjoy."

Sophia had known that Ashton wasn't presenting her with enough for her to get a good sense of him, but she still hadn't expected that. Maybe he was speaking more freely because he didn't know who she was? Or maybe he did know who he was, and simply didn't care all that much. To be honest, that would have been a refreshing change of pace. Alas, it seemed neither of them were willing to really speak to each other, which was not a surprise considering that this was their first meeting. "Perhaps if I can find a way to add more hours into the day I will find more time for myself, but that doesn't look like it will happen any time soon."

Seeing that the dancing was starting to slow in terms of numbers, Sophia gracefully came around to a stop without forcing it. "What I do think I need, however, is just a little more wine."

"Who doesn't?"




Nostariel was spun away from Ashton, probably only prevented from falling by Lucien's foresight and steadying hand. Coming to a rather more abrupt stop than she'd planned, her hair stung her cheek slightly as it was whipped over her shoulder. Shaking it back, she returned Sophia's smile and then turned her own up at Lucien. "Well, fancy that. I have been rescued by a knight after all," she deadpanned, just barely drunk enough that looking someone so good in the face wasn't going to cause her physical anxiety or pain. It was a nice face, as faces went, she decided, though she wondered how he'd damaged the eye. Still, it was awfully high up. "Have you always been this tall?" she asked blithely, blinking up at him. She was quite certain that the majority of people would suffer neck cramps if they had to make eye contact with him for too long.

Lucien, she knew, was a safe sort of person to be around. Docile as a lamb, really, and just as gentle in the handling of delicate things-- people, situations, objects. So, reserved as she was, she trusted him, and that was rather saying something. That thought firmly at the forefront of her mind, she decided she might just go ahead and keep dancing, though had it been nearly anyone else she'd been passed to, she might have pleaded fatigue. You get the same warning I gave him," she said, gesturing vaguely in Ashton's direction, "I'm really no good at this at all. You seem to be wearing the right shoes for that, though." Was the man ever not wearing armor? She hadn't ever observed him without it. Always wears armor, but never carries a sword-- there had to be something in that. Or maybe she was just used to looking for things like that, and was stating to see meaning where there was none.

"Assuredly not," Lucien replied. "Actually, until I was around sixteen or so, I was only slightly taller than yourself, and probably just as slender," he admitted wryly. The first few months at the Academie had been absolute hell, needless to say. Readjusting their positions so that one of his hands clasped hers and the other splayed without hint of impropriety at the middle of her back, he offered a reassuring smile. It was not as though he expected all of his acquaintances to be well-versed in the waltz. That was simply an idiosyncracy of his upbringing, and this was for fun, not formality.

"You needn't worry," he pointed out mildly. "I have danced with far clumsier people, and my feet are still very much functional. Just listen to Rilien; he has everything you need to know at the tips of his fingers, as a good musician should. If you're still unsure, you need only follow me. And do try to enjoy it, my friend; 'tis not a subtle form of torture." He paused thoughtfully, though their motion did not cease. "Well, at least not most of the time." It was true that she was considerably smaller than he, but then, so were most people, particularly most women, and compensating for the difference in height was a learned skill like everything else.

Cocking his head to one side, Lucien looked down at the Grey Warden, and noted that, for once, she was actually speaking to him, rather than to the air in his general proximity. He'd not known her to maintain eye contact before, and indeed, he'd not even been certain of the color of hers, so rare was it for her to lift them from the ground. "You seem to be in rather good spirits, Nostariel. May I inquire as to the circumstances?"

Nostariel had to admit, that was a little hard to believe. She had difficulty imagining Lucien as anything but the towering presence he was now, for all he seemed to try and tone it down with unassuming mannerisms. There were just some things you couldn't hide, and a height like that was one of them. Of course, it only made sense that he had to have been short at some point; he had been a child, after all, though honestly, that was even more difficult to envision. He was one of those people that just seemed timeless, like he'd always been as he was and always would be. One of her teachers had been like that, too, and she supposed the thought was as silly now as it had been then. Still, the motions he shifted them into were complex enough that she couldn't really muster the concentration necessary for a response, putting most of her focus on their collective feet and trying very hard not to trip. He obviously wouldn't let her fall, but that didn't mean she wanted to endure the abject humiliation of needing to be saved from her own clumsiness.

His words were encouraging, though, and she realized she hadn't really been listening to the music at all. Which was a shame, because she remembered now that she'd heard the Tranquil play before and had always liked it. So she cocked an ear to the delicate strains of sound and gave up trying to calculate precisely what she was doing, and everything was suddenly considerably easier. Not exactly elegant, perhaps, but passable, she thought. She had no doubt he was making it look effortless on both their parts, and the realization brought a small smile to her face, which for some reason only grew wider at his question.

"You know, I guess I just figured out for myself that you've been right all along. Sharing my burdens-- even just telling them to someone-- makes them easier to bear." She shot a look at Ashton, just passing with Sophia on their left, and shook her head minutely as a few snippets of conversation reached her over the din. "And knowing people, being friends with them again... it's nice. It hasn't fixed everything, of course, but..." she trailed off, not entirely sure how to finish the sentence. She settled on a shrug, figuring it expressed the point well enough. Truth be told, she owed the Chevalier a lot. Had it not been for his patient ear and gentle questions over the months she'd known him, his unobtrusive insistence in keeping her company, she might not have been able to open up to anyone at all--- not to Ashton, or Aurora, or him. In the three of them, she'd found friends she'd never expected, and though the realization had caught her off-guard, it was unmistakably warming. Though the hunter kept her most miserable secret, the Chevalier knew her darkest, and her fellow mage shared in a pain of placelessness that the others could never quite understand.

It was... at once unfortunate and a blessing, perhaps, that people could share these things with her. She'd wish none of it upon any of them, but at least they had each other. She understood, now, that this counted for something. And came to a sudden realization. "You seem to know much about overcoming suffering, Lucien..." the implication was obvious. For all his encouragement of the people around him, she hadn't known him to ever really share his own sorrow, and it was suddenly embarrassingly obvious that he had to have some. Whether he shared with her or not was his business, but it seemed imporant that she make the offer, just in case.

Ah, so it had been as he'd hoped then. It was an imperceptible hint of relief that slackened the last vestige of unneeded tension in the line of Lucien's shoulders, and his smile, unobtrusive as it was, could only be genuine. He might have had his guess as to how she'd come to such a realization, but it wasn't really his business, important as it might be, and so he didn't entertain the idle speculation without need. He did, however, make a mental note to buy Ashton a drink at some point in the future, preferably for what seemed like no reason at all.

Fairly enough, the topic of conversation circled back to him, and he considered the implicated question for a moment in silence, suddenly entranced with the flickering shadows of the dancers on the walls. Their movements were more erratic than their flesh-made counterparts, disturbed by the unsteadiness of fire-light, or by another passing in front of their source to make his or her way to the bar proper. His entire life had been staring at shadows, once-- he'd known the general shape of the world outside his experience, but not its colors, or it's flavors, nor even the myriad ways it smelled. The realization that not everything was the way he'd envisioned was a bitter one, but it was not he that suffered for it, really, or at least not he in greatest measure.

"More than some," he admitted, returning his focus to his friend. "Less than most, I expect. My trials have a nasty habit of ending up public knowledge, but I can hardly complain, I think." He injected a little light humor into his tone, and truly, even that was honest. Though he was, like everyone, not done growing and changing, he generally tended to think the worst of that was behind him, and likely, it was only that that gave him whatever small amount of wisdom he could claim. The music slowed to a halt, fading away on a few echoing chords, and he carefully escorted his friend back to her seat, surprised to find that so many candlemarks had disappeared since Varric's speech at the advent of the evening's festivities.

"Pleasure as always, Nostariel."




Sparrow, in turn, seemed to transform Rilien's merry jig into something else entirely. Metered, planned, controlled, but with wild tendencies in the way she slipped her hands away from Aurora's waist, sending her into another spin, only to tuck her back against her chest. The look in her eyes was entirely her own, enticingly new, and eerily misplaced. Slow, slow, quick, slow, turn, dip, repeat. The music playing here wasn't entirely dramatic and it wasn't similar to anything that thumped in her head like wild drumbeats that often paralleled her wicked thoughts. How boring. She silently wished that Rilien could play a more sultry rhythm – one that could mirror how she felt at that very moment, unbridled and reckless in her new coat. The new awareness of muscle, nearly masculine, taut across her shoulder-blades, her arms, her back. If she'd been any crueler, then she would have laughed at the very absurdity of Sparrow's gender-indecision.

She plucked through her memories as if she were leafing through an old, tattered book, for a proper response. Why would Sparrow be a good dancer? Well, she was of the Dalish variety. Privacy was hardly a matter in this. Even with Sparrow's dying squabbles echoing in the darkest corners of her own head, it wasn't difficult pick apart what she needed to carry a semi-normal conversation with her companions. Only those closest to her, perhaps, would pick up the subtle differences. The way she carried herself, or maybe that unusual glimmer in her eye – that bard, as well, was a troublesome whelp, ogling her as if she'd slaughter everyone in the Hanged Man. Were his hands poised against his blades, mere breaths away from the strings of his instrument? She inwardly shrugged. It would be interesting to see how far he could push him. Sparrow turned her attention back towards her dance partner, pulling her flush against her chest before craning her neck over her shoulder. “I grew up with the Dalish, and they were fond of dancing.” It wasn't entirely a lie, but it wasn't something Sparrow could remember herself. “And you aren't bad, either.” She, too, could see slivers of Aurora's past flitting away like flashing heels, skipping hearbeats, and flower petals in tow. Secrets were little more than leaflets in an accessible booklet. She'd continue licking her thumb, flicking through them, until she got what she wanted.

"It's nothing," Aurora replied, trying her best to hide the creeping blush. Instead of trying to stubbornly fight the redness, she found that redirection would best serve the course. Her voice was muted for the first bit then resumed normal volume for the rest of the conversation, "In the circle, I learned-- well. Not learned. Picked up how to carry my feet without falling on my face. Maybe the one good thing that came out of that ordeal," and instead of simply redirecting the conversation, she managed to steer it directly into muddy waters. Magnificent. Instead of letting the conversation stew where it was, she tried to steer the conversation one more time.

Instead of talking about herself however, she'd ask about Sparrow, "The Dalish... I never would have picked you as a Dalish. My experiences weren't... the best, shall we say." There was Ithilian, and he wasn't quite an overabundance of cheer and goodwill. There was also that whole Feynriel incident. Having bows trained on your first visit to the Dalish encampment wasn't the best of first impressions. Still, she was an outsider, and some of it was expected. She wondered what they really were like, when the eyes of the Shem were turned away. "What are the Dalish like? My firsthand impressions haven't entirely been of the happy sort... You know, staring down the point of an arrow tend to sour those."

Sparrow-Rapture had never been one to let comments sit idle, never had been and never would be, so she tsked softly, shaking her head as if to say: no, no, you're a splendid dancer, isn't that what I just said?Had there been no musician, and no expertly plucked notes coming from their resident bard, then she could have still danced. The music was there, in her empty chest, playing in her mind. The beating of this woman's heart was the pattern and the rhythm. And here she was, pressed up against a little magelet, still in close proximity to the Fade – it almost made her laugh at how ironic it was, how she orbited closer and closer to her own boundaries, her own birdcage. Each of her movements resounded something strikingly peculiar, two-folds darker than her merry counterpart. She was not shy. She would not move away and dance as a knight did, paying particular attention not to make anyone feel uncomfortable, for that wasn't who she was.

When Sparrow-Rapture spun them around, she'd momentarily close her eyes, as if she were the one skimming bare, tickling toes across marbled flooring and spreading petals through her fingertips. Her eyes were heavy lidded and half closed, inward looking and there was a small, secret smile on her face, laced with lazy pleasure and a bittersweet edge. Aurora's movements might've been best described as belonging to a child who'd been locked away, left to spin in circles by herself when no one was watching; airy, effortless. The loneliness, the yearning, and the pain. The expression dipped a little bit, as if she were about to make a comment on the matter – though, it quickly slipped away. What would she have said to that? The circle was filled with prissy, self-righteous people, always dipping their fingers into someone else' pie. Templar's had never been kind to her, neither had anyone else who'd been directly involved in stamping their foot down on anyone's chest who even mildly had a gift in the arcane arts. She, too, could fathom that hate.

Again, Rapture perused Sparrow's memories with the precision of a studious bookkeeper, careful to keep her expression arranged into one of thoughtfulness. Interestingly enough, and unbeknownst to her until this meticulous search, her own little mage hadn't even spent very long amongst them. Even if she'd wanted to, she wouldn't be able to unlock those particular truths. They were too muddied. Far too blurry to see straight, anyway. She tipped her head back, pulling Aurora slightly forward, and shot her a grin. “Alright, alright. You caught me.” She began to say, arching an eyebrow. “I was born in Tevinter – mum was Antivan, and my dad was of the Dalish variety, I fancy he fell in love with her and they ran away, eloped, y'know? Far more romantic then what probably happened.” Sparrow-Rapture nodded knowingly, leaving out the small bits she'd use for leverage on a rainy day.

“Sour sort if you judge them how they act around everyone else who isn't Dalish,” the half-breed responded, dipping her low, then pulling her back up. It was true enough, but from her memories, she knew that there'd been a great deal of kindness and acceptance for all Elves who so chose to run away from their captors, from the oppression they had to endure under rulers and masters. “If you're not staring down an arrow, then they can be beautiful. When they move, you move. They're the bow, you're the arrow.” Her laugh was not out of place when she added, “And they love loudly, dance carelessly.” These were her secrets, and she could give them away as she pleased.

"Sounds... Pretty," Sounded like the freedom she tirelessly hunted. They sounded freer than she did. Though she could in no way imagine their plight. Living apart from the cities as they did, secluded from the world around them while at the same time being attuned to it. She sighed as she closed her eyes during the dip, trying to think like they would, to no avail. She wondered how they treated their own kind, and trying to imagine who had held her up at bowpoint dancing and laughing. She even tried to imagine someone like Ithilian laughing. Once perhaps, but certainly not now. She couldn't even conjure a smile to his face, much less laughing.

She lifted her shoulders in a shrug and opened her eyes again. "I was never afforded the chance to be careless," she admitted. She was watched like a hawk in the Circle, the Templar's just waiting for her to become possessed. "You understand, right?" she asked. They were both mages after all, surely Sparrow had the dangers of demons and the fade beaten into her head like she had. "A demon lurking under every fold of the fade, just waiting for their chance to strike the moment you let your guard down," she sighed again, a bit melancholy this time. "Though, you do not strike me as a Circle runaway..." she added.

Rapture-Sparrow bobbed her head demurely, resisting the urge to tut her tongue like a clucking mother-hen. Of course it sounded pretty. It was the breeding ground of magic, and wherever there was magic, there was a possibility for her, or those of her own ilk, to lurk and wait and wriggle their taloned fingers in anticipation. She tilted her head when Aurora snapped her eyes shut, as if reminiscing of something or possibly trying to imagine those straight-stiffs dancing around a wild fire, wringing their hands and fingers together in harmony. Sometimes, it wasn't so, but other times, they were beautiful creatures in the throes of an equally wondrous dance, and with their intricate ceremonies, it wasn't difficult to imagine. Perhaps, with stingier creatures of the Dalish variety lingering in Kirkwall, Aurora's images would prove to be too difficult to behold.

She pulled them into a lazy circle, gazing – perhaps, uncomfortably – into the magelet's eyes. Her own were not red any longer, but a dark, muddy colour that did not give away much. In a sense, it was perfect. Only Rilien could taste her presence in the air, carefully plucking his notes and stealing glimpses of her over Aurora's slender shoulders. Perhaps, wishing mightily that he could simply skewer her with his eyes, and steal his companion, now completely wrung of energy, back to her own body. Again, Rapture-Sparrow nodded. She understood well enough. These questions tickled her pink, vibrating down her spine at how very close Aurora was to the truth. “No, not the Circle—but, I've done my share of running.” She began to say and gave her a twirl, tugging her neatly back into her arms when it was finished. She halted their movement, suddenly twining her fingers in the magelets short locks; a shock of red. “Little reason to fear demons, when you've got good friends.”

This she said loud enough, as if she were calling a toast. This she said while looking at Rilien, expectantly. This she said with a smile that was not her own.

Setting

6 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

The expedition was gathered in the Merchant's quarter of Hightown, in front of the two great statues of bearded dwarves marking the Dwarven Merchants Guild. Bartrand Tethras stood before them, his disposition not the sunniest they'd seen, possibly due to the fact that a number of the hirelings were significantly hungover from the previous night. His brother Varric was among them, standing at the side of Nostariel, awaiting Bartrand's words.

"We've chosen one of the hidden entrances," Bartrand began in a loud, commanding tone, creating silence among the gathered group. "The Deep Roads there will be nice and virginal, ready for a good deflowering." He spat out a laugh. Varric managed one as well, though it was likely directed more at Bartrand himself than at his words. "Now there's an interesting image," he murmered to Nostariel, who cringed. Ashton, with all of his tact, laughed quite heartily. He didn't expect to hear that analogy.

"It'll take a week for us to get to the depth we need, and there are bound to be leftover darkspawn from the Blight. Big risks, big rewards. But this isn't a foolish endeavor. This will work! Now, if there's nothing else, let's get underway!" Varric moved to his brother's side as they began their departure, the hirelings hefting packs onto their backs, ensuring the last of their gear was packed. "Been a long time coming, eh, brother?" Bartrand actually managed a smile, though it was kept to himself. "That it has. The Deep Roads await!"




Two weeks later, they had almost reached the depth they needed. Their entrance into the Deep Roads had gone as planned, but very quickly they ran into roadblocks and collapses they hadn't been expecting. Bartrand had occasionally directed anger at the Grey Warden, claiming her maps were leading them into dead ends, but Varric was always quick to correct him and calm him down as best he could, keeping a level head. Though the going was slow, the expedition eventually managed to come out into a more open area, with ruins beginning to appear in place of rocky caverns and tunnels. The signs of life, and more importantly, potential treasure, helped to inject life into the hirelings.

On the fifteenth day of the expedition, they came upon a large bridge extending out of a tunnel. Ithilian, who had taken up the role of scouting for the group, came striding back, adjusting the wrap around his head. He had been apart from the group for the majority of the trip, scouting ahead and reporting back to Bartrand, before he departed again. It was obvious he was avoiding speaking with other members of the team, given his body language. He looked more volatile than usual, and yet his shoulders were more drawn, his gaze lower than usual. Perhaps it was the higher than usual number of dwarves around.

"There's another collapse ahead," he said, gesturing over his shoulder as he finished fussing with his headscarf. "The bridge cannot be crossed." Bartrand stewed, the vaguely orange light of the underground accenting his anger at yet another setback. "What? Is there some way around?" Ithilian crossed his arms. "There is a side passage. Darkspawn have moved in." Bartrand looked as though the next part was quite obvious to him.

"Then I'm sure you'll be more than happy to clear them out for us, won't you?" The look Ithilian gave him seemed inspired by the molten lava that sometimes flowed beneath their feet, but he said nothing, instead moving past him and back through the group. Bartrand turned back to the group. "Set camp!"




For those not accustomed to the Deep Roads, it would be difficult to tell what time it had reached when they had the camp set up in a relatively secure, shallow side cave, but it was roughly midday. Bartrand was exchanging words with the dwarven merchant that had come along with the expedition when Varric approached him from behind. "Problems, brother?" Bartrand turned and threw his hands into the air in frustration. "Sodding Deep Roads! Who knows how long it'll take to clear a path?" Varric, as usual, allowed his brother's anger to wash over him like the sea on a large rock. "You have too little faith in our help, brother. They'll find a way around in no time."

He huffed. "We'll see. Facing a few stragglers of darkspawn isn't the same as facing the ones that have set up defenses. How many of these mercenaries you've bought have fought hordes of darkspawn, I wonder?" From the edge of the camp, Ithilian gave a light sigh, unheard by his employer. Varric chose not to argue with his brother on that point, perhaps believing it to be a waste of time, but pressed on all the same. "Then I'll go with them, and we'll take a look. If we come running back, screaming, you'll know trying to find a way around was the wrong decision." Bartrand shook his head. "Fine, fine, just get going!" And he stormed off.

The dwarven merchant Bartrand had been conversing with tentatively stepped forward once he was gone, rubbing his forehead. "Er... I hate to add to your burdens, Ser Varric, but I fear I must. I fear my boy, Sandal, wandered off. He's somewhere in those passages, right now! I beg you, keep an eye out for him. He just... doesn't understand danger like he should."

Nostariel, who'd been unusually restless of late, had been pacing the camp in relentless strides, stopping occasionally to help out with some task or chore, but otherwise ceaseless in her movement. It was clear that she was at once familiar with and uncomfortable in the Deep Roads, and from time to time, she'd murmur something as if to herself and shake her head. Each new sound produced a twitch in her ears, though she knew better than anyone when Darkspawn were present. Still, they were not the only potential danger down here. Had she been more focused on the people around her and less upon what might lay beyond, she would have noted Ithilian's behavior as antisocial even for him, but as it was, she had herself occupied just trying not to think too much about what had happened last time she was in this Maker-forsaken place.

Forcing herself to avoid drawing the comparison between then and now was no easy task, but she tried valiantly to content herself with the fact that the numbers were better this time around. She didn't know about the skill; Wardens knew these locations better than anyone else, and it was difficult to find warriors better-trained than they. Still, if any group of people from Kirkwall could handle it, 'twas this one, and that was a comfort, at least.

Her overactive feet carried her past where Varric and Bartrand were arguing, and while she would be volunteering herself to go along with the scouting group, she wasn't going to say anything about it until the merchant stepped forward. Blinking, she wondered just how it was that someone could wander off in the Deep Roads, but then perhaps if the boy was a curious sort, and unaware of danger as his father suggested... "We'll look for him, serah. I can figure out where the Darkspawn are and bring him back myself, if necessary." Her words were firm, unyielding. How many people had she seen lost to these unholy places? Too many, and not one more if there was anything she could do to prevent it. Lucien, who'd been walking by with an armload of tent poles (for some reason, he'd ended up doing quite a lot of the expedition's heavy lifting, not that he minded), deposited them in the designated area and approached from behind the Warden, his silent agreement clear in the way he adjusted the strapping of his weapon and armor.

Varric nodded his agreement. "When did you last see him, Bodahn?" He turned back to Varric. "Not a half hour ago. I turned my back to hand out rations, and he was gone! He gets so easily distracted. Ah, I should have been harsher with my warnings!" Bodahn then bowed his thanks to Nostariel. "But thank you, my lady Warden. If he has one of his enchantments with him, he'll survive. He's burned down the house twice by accident. I'm more worried about him getting lost, the poor boy!"

Ashton, the ever malleable fellow that he was, seemed to be taking the whole expedition in lackadaisical stride. Sure, he missed the sun. And the trees. Grass and flowers would have been nice too. But the prize! The prize was worth it. It'd better be worth it anyway. Else he'd have to strangle Bartrand and Varric with their beard and chest hair-- respectively. Still, the lack of fresh air and open greenery had put the Archer in a melancholy mood, and in this certain clarity of mind, had decided that opening his big lips anywhere near the Dalish elf would only serve to get them cut off. Not to say that the two or so weeks on the expedition wasn't chock full of stupid jokes and silly puns-- just that they weren't muttered when the elf was around.

Once the camp was set up, Ashton had found himself sitting atop one of the barrels they had brought to hold their water. Of course, his ass being on top of their water drew some glares from a couple of the hirelings, but Ashton played the oblivious fool and set about picking his teeth with another one of his arrows, as he was wont to do. A nearby conversation between the dwarves and their lovely guide reeled his ears in to listen. Something about someones kids getting lost in the deep roads. Hmm. He didn't know that could even be a possibility, who in their right minds would wander off in the deep roads. There were tons of nasty creepy crawlies down there. Should have brought a leash...

At the insistance of Nostariel though, it looked like they were going to be playing nurse maid for a bit. It was fine with in, really, it'd give him more chances to eye the magnificent displays of rock. Either way, it looked like they were going to be the expeditionary force of the expedition, sent out to find a path around their intended path. With that, he decided to stop polluting their stores of water with his ass and hopped from the barrel, walking over to their merry little group. "Right. Find a path. Find your boy. Would you like some milk and eggs while we are out as well?" Ashton said, smiling. His tone was a jovial one, and he meant no harm by the words. As if to further prove this point, he continued. "Don't worry about it. You've got one of the finest trackers in all of Kirkwall," And Ithilian. "We'll find your boy, then we'll find the path, then we'll find the haul. No problems," Ashton said.

"Should we be going then Master Dwarf?" Ashton asked Varric, "The path may not have legs, but the boy does-- stubby as they are-- and they could be carrying him farther away as we speak," He finished. Varric nodded. "Let's move quickly, then."

Before they left, Lucien made his way quickly to one of the storage units containing extra equipment, rummaging through it until he came up with what he was looking for: a moderately-sized roundshield. Though he was quite firm in his insistence that he would not lift a sword, he wasn't sure how well his scythe would stand up against Darkspawn. Or, more to the point, how many more of them it would stand up to. He took good care of it, but weapons with wooden components could only withstand so much pressure, and he didn't want to be completely without options if the worst occurred. This, he slung over his back for the moment, then swiftly rejoined the others as they moved out.

Rapture had not relinquished her hold on Sparrow's body, but kept unusually quiet. Her words, however choice, were irrefutably odd. Her actions were even stranger. She did not walk as she did, with her stupid, often lumbering steps, but instead resumed her nonplussed gait, so much more languid than her barbaric counterpart. She was still there, very much so, but her cries, her echoing wails, her beating fists had grown less frequent and a helluva lot more quiet – for that, she whispered a solemn curse to the Maker. She'd taken refuge amongst the smelly dwarves, occasionally throwing quips and questioning their motives; where they were headed, what they were searching for. Her questions were offhanded, hardly worth noting. She, did, however, occasionally watch Rilien with her lidded-eyes, effortlessly challenging him with the way she smiled. If he did not take any notice, then it might've been with some effort.

Ithilian wordlessly led the group out of the camp, pulling his bow from its sheath and drawing an arrow. He was not nearly so accustomed to the underground as a Grey Warden would be, but already he was developing a sense for how to move about the place quietly and efficiently. His footfalls were carefully placed so as to avoid loose rock or threats to his ankles, his remaining eye scanning the gaps in the walls, places where creatures dark and terrible might hide. Varric's gait in comparison was easy and relaxed, his unique crossbow held with care in his gloved hands.

The elf led the scouting party to just before the crushed bridge they'd encountered, and showed them the entrance to the side passage he'd spoken of, a hole in the rock wall big enough for all of them to pass through side by side. He stopped at its entrance, holding out a hand to signal that the others were to go first. "This is our side passage. The darkspawn are within, though I can't say their numbers. It's unlikely the merchant's boy still lives." "I've seen stranger things happen," Ashton added shrugging.

Rilien didn't much care either way, and the entire argument wasn't getting them anywhere. He was alive or he was not, and they would discover which only by proceeding further in. Sliding his curved knives from their sheaths, he dipped a small nod to Ithilian, their guide, and decided that he wasn't going to waste any more time, entering the passage in loping strides. He could not sense Darkspawn after the manner of a Warden, but he'd learned long ago that when one was close enough, that made precious little difference. They were noisy, and smelled awful, and died like anything else. These very blades had been christened in the black blood that pumped sluggishly through the engorged veins under sickly flesh.

A passing glance in citrine was flicked towards the Chevalier, a small acknowledgement of the familiarity he felt. Their last trials had been fought under sky, not stone, but that was hardly the important point. Padding over the broken stone, he noted that she Warden was quick to follow, sighing and shaking her head, though apparently unwilling to offer her own opinion on the matter. "Careful," Nostariel murmured to the group at large, "They are near. Perhaps two dozen, give or take a few, and at least one's an emissary, I think." Her hands tightened on her staff, and she took a shaky breath. Darkspawn were nothing to be feared, not really. Especially not in numbers like that. This wasn't a year ago. It wouldn't be. She was different now, and so were the people she was with.

The Tranquil's look was answered with a wry smile; for once, what Rilien was thinking was crystalline in its clarity to Lucien. It was almost like the old days, save that they were no longer fighting a Blight, just the Blighters, so to speak. His old friend's wariness drew the scythe from the Chevalier's back even before Nostariel uttered her warning, but he nodded his comprehension to her all the same. He'd discovered rather early on that few in the expedition guards were feeling too sociable, Ashton and Sparrow perhaps excepted. He spent most of his time walking either with they and Rilien, or guarding the rear and making small-talk with the laborers instead.

Within a few minutes of walking down the winding corridor, it became quite clear that the Warden was correct. The stench was the first thing to register. None of the surrounding area smelled pleasant, but this was the odor of rotting flesh and bile, which was different from simple stagnance and old blood. Before long, the sounds of shuffling feet and loud, wet breaths reached their ears, and it was clear that the 'Spawn sensed the presence of one of the hated Wardens, for the dull scrape of steel on stone registered, presumably as they picked up weapons off the ground. This was going to be interesting; the hallway was narrow at best, with enough room for maybe two across, though honestly, Lucien could probably fill the space by himself if he made an effort to do so.

Either way, the first hurlock rounded the corner then, and Rilien demonstrated once more that he had no time to waste, disappearing and crossing the distance remaining in an eyeblink, shoving the point of a Dalish knife into the back of a Darkspawn neck before flickering and disappearing again. The fight was on.

Nostariel hung back, casting a range of beneficial spells, giving every weapon in her range elemental properties, save any that already had one. An arcane shield and heroic offense followed, but she didn't cast offensively; the space was too narrow and she didn't want to risk hitting someone, plus this way, her energy was conserved in the event healing became necessary.

Almost rolling his eyes, Lucien followed on Rilien's heels, at least until the Tranquil disappeared. It had used to be he that charged headlong into battles, but of course the reasoning was completely different. Rilien acted ever as he did for the sake of simplicity and efficiency-- Lucien had just been reckless. Sometimes, he reflected as the first knot of Darkspawn tried to squeeze through and get at Nostariel and the others in the back, he still was. A straightforward vertical swing buried the point of the scythe in the head of one of those incoming, and until such time as someone else decided to cohabitate the frontlines, he kept himself to diversionary tactics, drawing those that would be taunted to him and keeping the line more or less clear with great horizontal swipes of the farmer's implement, freeing up the others to choose their tactics with impunity.

Her nose twitched, then wrinkled in disgust. If there was something she was not accustomed to, it was her ability to smell the most unpleasant things. The twisting tunnels were now emitting the foulest smells – something caught between a festering corpse, and a fistful of writhing maggots, perhaps, even shit. Even with her arcane, if not biased knowledge, of Darkpawn, Rapture-Sparrow certainly did not like the bloody things, so she would fight them if they so challenged them. The likelihood of the dirty-things making appearance was inevitable, as they were drawn to their resident Grey Warden like moths fluttering around a flame. She glanced in Nostariel's direction, noting her caution. The Dalish-man had undertaken the role of scout, flitting ahead like an animal, whilst signalling them forward, or back, or wherever he wanted them to halt and decide the best course of action. She was only to happy to oblige.

Rapture-Sparrow was expected to do something. From what she'd gathered, Sparrow was rather hot-headed with her mace, preferring to steal into the fray and swing that bloody thing around like a lumberman. She fingered the weapon curiously, clutching it in her hands as if she'd never seen the thing before. Of course – it'd been used against her, but could she even use it? Her speciality had always been in subterfuge, in deceit, in rallying her magical prowess. Would that not stick out like a sore thumb? She stood there, momentarily defeated by her own musings, while Rilien blinked away from her peripherals, already engaged with the oncoming 'Spawn. Nostariel, too, had begun casting her own spells. She'd tasted the Fade, and the woman's magic, before any spells had erupted from her staff. A soft whistle sifted through her lips, derisive in it's sound. She would not embarrass herself swinging that thing around. Instead, she'd dropped the weapon (much to Sparrow's internal dismay) on the ground and moved off to the side, hands aglow with energy, and began firing off sizzling spears of lightning.

The sight of the normally headstrong Sparrow dropping her mace to persue a more arcane approached struck Ashton as odd, but then again, it was not the time to question such trivalities-- at least while those reeking creatures still lived. Ashton was glad that he had specialized in the bow instead of more forthcoming weapons like the sword or mace, as that would put him in close proximity to the nasties. He was not a fearless man unlike most of his companions. Unlike Nostariel who had fought the creatures as Wardens are wont, he actively fled Ferelden because of the blighters. The sight of the creatures managed to strike a chord and he shuddered at the sight of them. Still, he would not be rendered useless because of some lousy Darkspawn...

Perhaps the number of bodies between him and the critters had something to do with his sudden stalwart bravery. If all else failed, he could always poof away like Rilien did, only in the opposite direction. An option to consider later perhaps, for now he was expected to take part in the battle and he would not disappoint. At least, he'd try not to disappoint. There was an issue though, as the previously mentioned bodies also had the effect of obscuring his aim. He'd rather not draw anyone's ire for a mistakenly placed arrow to the back. His head whipped back and forth as he searched for options. The most obvious answer would be up but the trench they found themselves in was sorely lacking in any stable platform. Anyone with a lick of sense would have allowed the frontline take out the 'Spawn for him.

Luckily, Ashton was blessed with the lack thereof. He pressed up against the side of one wall in order to get a running start on the other. A sane person would view him as running head long, though he had a plan. He ran and jumped, planting his feet on the wall a good couple of feet from the ground. Then he pushed off, giving him a couple more feet of clearance, enough so that he could fire without hitting friendlies. Still, it wouldn't do any good if he couldn't sustain the height. Fortunately, there was a step two to his brilliant plan. As he began to fall, he fell back toward the other wall, lengthing the entirety of his frame. Now was perhaps not the best time for him to realize that he had forgotten to measure his height to that of the width of the tunnel. Still, as he fell, he felt just what he needed to. His upper back caught the other wall, if only by a hair. There he lay, a couple of feet off of the ground, his feet and shoulders pushing against each other and the wall keeping him aloft. It was... Quite the display of dexterity. He couldn't help but laugh as he nocked an arrow and began to fire down upon the darkspawn.

If he had been just a tad bit shorter, this would never had worked. It probably shouldn't had worked for a sane man anyway. Ignorance is bliss however.

Ithilian might have noted Ashton's ridiculous display of dexterity and responded with a scowl or an eye roll, he might have cared that the no longer mace wielding half-elf was a lightning-throwing mage, or that the battlefield they found themselves in was far more confined than he was used to, but he did none of these things. One of his Dalish blades was in his strong hand, the dagger Amalia had gifted to him gripped firmly in the other, his face dead set with the expression of unbridled hate.

He kept a different kind of contempt in his heart for the darkspawn, one that rivaled, and perhaps surpassed, that of the shemlen. Here, at last, in these dank, dark tunnels and underground caverns, did he have the advantage. He was the hunter, and they were now the prey. As far as he was concerned, there was no one else here other than the darkspawn. He pushed forward and through, keeping his head low, his stance tight and coiled, predatory. He did not disappear as the Tranquil was able to, but rather used the distractions the warrior and the mages provided to cut through the first ranks, getting out ahead of any of them, and getting to work.

The first one he sliced lit with flames that immediately caused it to flail with the pain. He let it burn. He attacked the others more to maim than instantly kill, avoiding the throat and instead slicing and stabbing vulnerable areas, removing limbs, sending the beasts sprawling to the ground in sprays of blood, howling their anguish. How long had he waited to do this?

Far, far too long.

Amidst it all he was cautious to keep from opening his mouth, lest he swallow any amount of the blood splashing about. His face was stone cold and murderous, even if inside he was a storm of vengeance, his blades acting as messengers of Elgar'nan, each stroke exacting the revenge of one of his fallen kin. All too soon it seemed the fight was over, this cluster of them fallen, all the while the fallen still called out for their vengeance. The Dalish elf huffed through his nose, dripping with blood for a moment, before wordlessly moving on. More would be ahead.

Setting

6 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

Hindsight was a pain in the ass. During the entirety of his climb and even during the hail of arrows, not once did Ashton think about how he was going to get down. The realization hit just as the last Darkspawn fell under the vengeful elf's barrage. And vengeful it was. Ashton didn't know whether to be more frightened of the Darkspawn, or the elf. However, the elf was the least of his troubles currently. He looked down on both sides of him, noticing that was quite a drop for him to just land on his back on the cold unforgiving rock beneath. Even worse still, time was not in his favor, as every minute he stood wedged between the two walls felt like a year to his back. He needed down, without shattering what was left of his back.

He just decided to fall, and hope that the rock seemed a lot softer than it looked like. Really, what else was he going to do? Float down? He tossed his bow off to the side, his quiver close behind. He'd hate for them to break his fall. Now free of his possessions, he pulled his feet and shoulders away from the wall and the sudden sensation of falling took over. He braced himself for the impact to come.

--Only to find that it didn't. Lucien, who had only been somewhat aware of the archer's incredibly-odd maneuver during the battle, found himself more or less beneath Ashton when he let go, and reflexively, the Chevalier sidestepped and put out his arms to catch the falling person, determining that how exactly this situation had come about was something he could figure out later. Needless to say, when he staggered backwards a step, he was quite surprised to find himself looking down at the hunter. Glancing back up at the ceiling of the hall, he shook his head, setting the man down on his feet. "I'm sure I don't want to know," he decided with some amusement.

It was at this point that Nostariel was finally pulled from her vaguely-horrified musings about the way that battle had turned out. She had good reason to detest Darkspawn, but she'd never dream of doing that to them-- of essentially torturing them before they died. She supposed there must be something deeply-painful there, but all the same, she couldn't help but be somewhat upset about it, if for no other reason than the pragmatic: when you left something to die, it wasn't dead, and that meant there was always a chance it could get back up again and hurt someone. The clatter of wood on stone stirred her to action, though, and she glanced over to see what appeared to be Ashton's bow and quiver on the ground some distance from herself. Trotting over, she retrieved these, sure that he would want them again, though not without testing the weight of the bow in her hands.

It was clearly too heavy, but there was something about it that drew her even still. Shaking her head ruefully, she gathered up the loose arrows and replaced them in the quiver, slinging that over her shoulder and padding to where Lucien was setting the man on the ground. The Warden suppressed a giggle at the incongruous sight; it really did say something about the both of them-- the kindness of one and creativity (and small dose of silliness) in the other, maybe.

"My hero," Ashton said, clasping his hands and looking at the chevalier with mock longing. All the jokes aside, the man had just saved him from being a hunter flavored mound on the ground. So there was a hint of genuine thanks in his jest, buried somewhere deep in it. Still didn't make it any less awkward though. "Fair enough," Ashton admitted, "Not sure how I managed to get up there either." Ashton arched his back and pushed, trying to exercise the cramps that had built up while he was in his predictament. With one problem solved, that left the collection of his personal items. He believed his arrows to be all over the place when he turned and saw that Nostariel had collected them.

"Always happy to assist a damsel in distress," Lucien replied, rolling his good eye to the roof of the cave. Shaking his head somewhat, he moved on, following after the Tranquil and the Dalish man who was anything but. More danger yet awaited them, if he had his guess, and he did still manage to enjoy that, most of the time.

A smile formed on the Archer's face, and a teasing was inevitible. "Look at you, already the spitting image of an archer. Bow's a bit large for ya though," He said. He laughed and nodded, accepting the items from the mage before leaning over to whisper in her ear, "As thanks, I'll make you a special one at a time that I deem you ready," He said with a wink, alluding the promise he had made to her earlier. While it may not have been promise in words, Ashton felt as if it was one, and he wasn't the one to go back on promises to friends.

Nostariel coughed slightly, a smidge embarrassed at being caught in her idle little daydreams, but he really did seem serious about the whole thing, and that made her happier than she'd had cause to be in a while. Still, it wouldn't do to forget that they were in the Deep Roads, with a bunch of Darkspawn and some unhappy allies. So she smiled, nodded once, and trailed off after the Chevalier, intent on not being left behind. Not that they would, probably; they did sort of require her presence, at least for now. She wasn't sure if that made things worse or better. Once again, the archer found himself behind the procession. Fair enough, farther away he was from the blighters, the better. As he walked, he dipped low to pick up Sparrow's mace, looking to return it to its rightful owner.

Sparrow, in turn,shrugged her shoulders and retrieved the dreadful hammer-stick from Ashton's proffered hands, with a simpering smile. That Chevalier was interesting enough – how hadn't she noticed him before? Bound by things like honour, nobleness, duty and tightly-knit friendships. Her gaze lingered over his shoulder for a moment, before she offered the archer a demure thanks and strapped the mace back to her hip, following the group at a much leisurely pace.

Varric had gone off ahead after giving a hearty laugh at the scene with Ashton and Lucien, trying to catch up with the Dalish elf who'd gone off ahead of the group. A few scattered darkspawn were found butchered along the way through the winding tunnels, the walls occasionally lined with glowing blue lyrium crystals that lit entire walls a light blue color. After some trek further, the dwarf came upon him, standing at the top of a staircase leading down to a cliffside dropping off into an angry looking lake of lava. His blades were still out, dripping with darkspawn blood. Varric had been about to remind him of the usefulness of caution in a situation like this when he came up beside him, and saw what he was looking at.

At the bottom of the staircase lay perhaps a dozen or more dead darkspawn scattered about in a bloody heap, including one darkspawn ogre who was quite literally frozen in mid charge, glowing white with the magical ice encasing it. At the edge of the cliffside stood a blonde-haired dwarven boy, covered from head to toe in blood, and it didn't look like any of it was his own. Varric looked to Ithilian in surprise. "Did you...?" he began, but Ithilian just shook his head. "Well I'll be a nug's uncle..." Sandal was idly scratching himself in a rather awkward place as Varric began his descent down the stairs. We he noticed the crossbow wielding dwarf and the rest of the group, he gave a bright eyed smile and a simple "'Ello."

Rilien paused for the span of a breath when he came upon the scene Ithilian and Varric were looking at, but no longer. Instead, he continued forward, treading gracefully down the staircase. When he reached the bottom, he stilled, crouching so as to be at eye-level with the dwarf, elbows on his knees, forearms draped at a downward angle. He blinked, just the once, and nodded. "Sandal. Your father is looking for you." Raising one arm, he pointed back in the direction they had come. "You remember how to get back, do you not?" It was hardly a question; Rilien was sure the boy did, in that strange way that he was sure of many things, like precisely when to fold solidifying lyrium or when to reduce the heat on his mana restoratives to give them that pearl-silver tint distinctive to only the ones he made, his maker's mark, as it were.

It didn't mean he understood why, only that. Unlike most people, this was often enough to content him. Rising, Rilien folded his arms into his sleeves, glancing back at the rest briefly, but he would not move until they seemed inclined to it once again.

"How on earth...?" Nostariel was substantially more confused, looking between the dead Darkspawn, the petrified ogre, and the unassuming dwarven lad. Something wasn't adding up here; she'd never seen the like of this situation. Sandal was unarmed and apparently quite docile. How could he have possibly survived an attack of this magnitude?

Sandal ignored Nostariel for the moment, instead looking at the Tranquil elf with a happy smile, holding out one blood spattered arm, which held a small stone engraved with some kind of rune. His fingers grasped only the edge of it, implying that he wished the elf to take it. "Enchantment. Boom!" was all he said.

As if to try and answer Nostariel's confusion, he gestured up at the petrified ogre. "Not enchantment." Seeming content with his own explanation, he started off, heading back the way the group came, and returning to camp. Varric watched him go with an incredulous and very amused face. "Smart boy." Ithilian was perhaps the least affected by the scene, apart from the Tranquil, and was the first to move onwards. "We've still a job to do," he growled.

"Now. I'm not an expert on dwarves or magic..." Ashton began, standing in front of the orge, his arms crossed contemplative. The thing was frozen in its dire charge and looked absolutely terrifying. If it even moved an inch, Ashton wasn't sure if he could reliably contain his bladder. It didn't look like it was moving any time soon, so the evening's water was safe within the confines of his belly. Still, the whole thing was quite curious. "But aren't dwarves incapable of magic? I mean, I've never seen one waddle around weaving spells." Though the novelty the idea was rather fun. "If this was not enchantment, then what was it?" Ashton posed. Alas, it seemed he wouldn't get his answer, and their frontman in the elf apparently had somewhere else to be. Ashton gave the frozen orge one last look over and then trailed behind the elf (at a good distance, of course).

Rilien took the rune curiously, which was to say that he picked it up gingerly and rotated it a few times, inspecting the surface, before tucking it away up one of his sleeves. "Thank you," he told the boy, falling in next to Ashton, he watched blandly as the Warden quickened her stride to surpass them, something akin to determination on her face, until she drew apace with the Dalish. She spoke in tones too low for him to hear, but it sounded vaguely concerned. The Tranquil wasn't sure why she bothered; it seemed much more intelligent to just let him do what he wanted. If he died, that was his own fault, and if not, it was less work for the rest of them. As the Tranquil trotted up beside Ashton, the archer nonchalantly tossed an arm over Rilien's shoulder in a gesture that would have been awkward for anyone else. The Tranquil seemed content to ignore it, and proceeded as though it were not even there.

Nostariel wasn't exactly sure how to ask what she wanted to ask, and the fact that she had to ask Ithilian was only making matters worse. But the fact was, the things he was doing were just as likely to get all of them killed as help anything, and she wasn't about to allow that. "Ithilian," she said quietly, "Is something bothering you? Er, well, aside from..." she waved a hand vaguely behind them, as if to encompass the most salient possibilities: chatter, humans, Ashton specifically... She'd start with that. Command had taught her never to say too much too soon. It ran the risk of wrongly interpreting something, which could inadvertantly shut down the conversation. Still... if she had to pry, she would. The lives of those behind them were worth antagonizing him if she had to.

"I've learned to ignore his voice specifically," Ithilian said, and it was more or less true, as he had to look back to see the shem's arm over the Tranquil elf in order to pick up any part of their stress-inducing conversation. He trusted Nostariel would know who he was talking about. "Other than that, I've a score to settle with the darkspawn, though I'm afraid no amount of physical torment I can inflict upon them will satisfy Elgar'nan. Or me."

His eyes continuously scanned the dark corners, the shadowy halls that could possibly hold more targets for his rage, but none presented themselves to him. He was disappointed. "I've waited some time to obtain some form of vengeance. So yes, something is bothering me."

Nostariel closed her eyes against the images that threatened. She didn't have to know the specifics to understand what he was talking about; the story was all too common. How many people had she met who had lost everything to the Blight? How many more would she meet before they took her, too? Would she... would she ever be the reason someone grew to hold this much hate inside themselves? No, nobody loved her that much anymore, and for that, she supposed she should be glad. Perhaps, perhaps it was this that allowed her to undersand both sides of that particularly-gruesome equation. "Whom did they take from you?" she asked, and her voice, suppressed as it was, still managed to contain within itself a microcosm of raw, hoarse, whispered pain that she expected he'd understand.

She wasn't even sure what prompted the question. His grief was his own, truly, but... maybe not. Maybe it was hers, too, in virtue of something common to them. Maybe it was meant to be shared. Maybe she had no idea, but all she could really remember was that speaking it aloud had helped her, even if just enough. It wasn't just about getting him to exercise caution anymore, whatever else might be the case.

He took a deep breath through his nose, unsure as to why he was sharing this with her. Her status as a Warden didn't demand he relate his life's misery to her, but maybe he wanted her to understand, or maybe he wanted to know if she already understood. "They took my Keeper, Felaris, and Maro, his First" he began. "They took Ariana, Ashallo, Melori, Paivan, Serann, Dagan, and the rest of the hunters. They took those that had not yet earned their vallaslin, and those who were too old to still hunt. They took the craftsmen, the weak and the sick, the warriors strong and swift. They took Adahlen, my wife. And I took Mithra, my daughter."

He hadn't said the names in a long time. It angered him how few of them he could remember. Few names, fewer faces. Two that would never fade. "Butchering the 'Spawn in another country won't bring them back, I know, but the Gods know I have wanted this vengeance. There may not be another chance."

"So many lives," Nostariel murmured. "And so many more, past and future." She kept her eyes fixed resolutely on the path in front of her, unwilling to look elsewhere for the moment. She was no more comfortable speaking of these things than he was, really, perhaps even less. "Of all the people I have ever loved, only one was not taken from me by the Darkspawn, that only because she is prisoner in a Circle. I suppose my family was not mine by blood, but they were by choice, and I was supposed to lead them. The man I loved was taken by their foul blood at the joining, the team I captained by these very pits." She waved a hand, indicating that she spoke of the Deep Roads generally, not this spot specifically.

"They're still buried there, all ten of them. Because I wasn't strong enough to save them, because my magic ran dry and the foul things didn't. The Horde is endless, and when my time comes, I shall have my fill of their deaths. But here, and now, I can only try and keep the people here alive. I promise you, there will be no shortage of chances to kill Darkspawn, but I'm asking you to remember that this need not be your Calling, nor mine, nor anyone else's. I can't make the same mistake twice. A selfish thing, but one I will not give up, all the same." She trusted him to understand what she was asking him to do, but by no means did she have any idea whether he would.

"My life is not your responsibility," he said. He supposed he should have felt... something, at her losses, but it only made him feel like she should understand, and let him do as he wished. "None of those that you lost meant to die. But me? I heard my Calling during the Blight, and only delirium and blood loss let me ignore it. I have wasted away in my anger since then, using anything as an outlet, but I have had enough. I refuse to let my life fade into drink and misery. I will not become that."

His anger was rising, and it was causing him to lose some focus on their surroundings. "I see visions of my daughter in a girl I rescued with Amalia. I can't look at her anymore." At last he decided to stop watching the sides, and turned to look at Nostariel. "All I want is to see them again. I never should have left them."

The pronounced tic in Nostariel's tightly-clenched jaw was perhaps the only giveaway to her reaction, at least at first. Of all the people she'd known to have dealings with Ithilian, Amalia seemed to understand him the best, and so she'd thought to try and handle things as she guessed the Qunari might have, which was calmly, rationally, but not without the bite of exasperation when it was effective. That all sort of evaporated when he successfully managed to say about three of the worst possible things he could ever have said to her, so instead she slapped him.

To her credit, it wasn't particularly forceful, as some still-reasonable part of herself reminded her that she didn't actually want to hurt him. It was quick, though, and sudden, her free hand drawing back and smacking the unscarred side of his face. "So you mean to die, then?" she snapped, her volume drastically increased from a few moments before. "Because you don't want to live as what, me? You're already not me, Ithilian, because you don't even respect their sacrifice enough to live. You think she'd want you to die? To turn away from the things right in front of your face and give up?" Both hands found her staff, and she gripped it white-knuckled, more for the feeling of security than anything else, as it was just beginning to sink in, what she'd done, and she couldn't discount the possibility that he would (perhaps reasonably) retaliate somehow.

"You say you see your daughter somewhere. Why turn from her? I... I only wish I could know what that was like, even for a little while. You failed. I understand, I do. But don't let yourself fail again. See what's in front of you, and take it, and let it be enough, for as long as it can be. I... I'm sorry." She shook herself, tone having lowered to about what it was when she started, and she appeared to be shaking, though not from fear.

Ithilian took the slap without much of a reaction; truth be told, he was starting to get used to people being furious at him for his most recent choices. His lip twitched on the good side as he straightened his head again, using his half-foot or so height advantage to not really look at the Warden. Had he failed? To be honest, he felt as though he didn't. He felt as though there was nothing he could have done. He knew there was nothing he could have done. There were too many of them, for too long, for one elf to make a difference. They hadn't sacrificed themselves for him, they just died... and he should have died there with them.

But he did still draw breath. Maybe... maybe it was worth a look. Maybe he needed more time. His life had been so constructed, so complete, that to have it all torn down... how did one just start again? When it didn't seem that anything could ever be as perfect?

Lucien, who had been watching the discussion with concern, given the distinct body language of both parties, grimaced noticeably when Nostariel's hand drew back. That was... not what he would have expected of her. She was usually very peaceable and calm, if too melancholy. Having heard the story of her lost subordinates on a separate occasion, he knew this place could not be one of any but the foulest memories, but that alone should not have prompted such a reaction, and he was left to assume it was something the man had said. Of course, when she started yelling, he could guess at bits and pieces, and he was beginning to question whether or not he should intervene when things fell relatively quiet again, and he relaxed for all of three seconds before something in the distance caught his attention.

Was that...? Yes, yes, he was quite certain it was. Drawing the scythe from his back, he strapped the shield firmly to his off-hand and ran forward. "Sorry to interrupt," he called as he brushed past them, "But that's a dragon. Rilien?" He automatically turned his head to check his blind side for the Tranquil, a practiced gesture that he'd fallen back into without so much as needing to consider it. He need not have looked, for Rilien was already there, blades drawn and keeping pace with the Chevalier easily.

"I am here," he said simply.

Surprisingly, Ashton flanked the Tranquils other side, arrow already nocked. As he passed Nostariel and Ithilian, his offer was less polite and more curt, "Eyes up, company." While Darkspawn and ogres managed to send shivers down his spine, the sight of the dragon managed to draw out the hunter like nothing else could. The grandest of prey, the most legendary of hunts, a dragon stood before him. No hunter without his pride would pass up a chance to hunt such a magnficent beast. He only wished his uncle could see him now. A grin plastered his face as he thought of all the things he could do with the hide and bones of a dragon. But first, he'd have to survive the fight, and to do that, he'd have to kill the thing. A fair trade if there ever was one.

His pace suddenly slacked, dropping back behind the Chevalier and the Tranquil, and he darted to the right, slipping out of view in a gout of Shadow's smoke.

Ithilian noted the dragon before returning his gaze to Nostariel. He clearly wanted to say something, but there was simply no time. Perhaps the anger in his eye when he sheathed his blade and Parshaara in favor of his bow would say what he wanted.

Setting

6 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

The dragon didn't come alone. It floated to the ground atop a raised pavilion flanked by stairs on either side, wings draping over the edges. Its neck extended out over the edge, taking a brief moment to survey the group that had stumbled into its lair, before the mouth opened, revealing wickedly sharp and deadly fangs. More importantly, it unleashed a gout of flame in a thick cone in front of it, hoping to either separate the party to the left and right, or otherwise cook them alive. To the sides, small hordes of dragonlings descended upon them, monsters the size of mabari war hounds, with just as powerful a bite.

Ithilian experienced an immediate internal battle, a direct result of the words Nostariel had stung him with. Whatever his reasoning, his blades were sheathed, his bow in his hands instead, a swift roll carrying out of the way of the fire and off to the right of the room instead. No sooner had he returned to his feet than an arrow was drawn and loosed, aimed for the dragon's mouth. The fact that the beast's fire attack was cut short and the head recoiled back spoke to his accuracy. If he had wanted to die, then this was a pretty poor start.

If anyone appeared to be suicidal in this mad rush, it was probably Lucien, he who ducked to one side of the gout of dragonflame and propelled himself further forward still, of a mind to keep it quite focused on him. He'd had to, as he always did, resist the urge to either give or wait for orders, but if any part of his reckless abandon remained, it was this: present him with a challenge, and he'd not leave it unanswered. He was pretty sure challenges didn't get much bigger than this. Maybe some other varieties of dragon, but that was really it.

And damn it all, the fire was in his bones already, searing along his skin almost as though the dragon had hit him instead of missing. But of course, this was something less painful and more galvanizing, though admittedly sometimes the difference still became hard to distinguish. A shout and a lunge, and he shouldered into the thing's foreleg with all the momentum he had. It didn't do much damage, but it certainly earned him the beast's attention, and for now, at least, it left off the attempts at cooking the lot of them and swiped at him with the other front paw, a blow which he just managed to block in time, throwing up his shield and bending at the knees. The force of it took him almost to the ground, but his sense of balance and innate sturdiness kept him upright, and he smiled, pushing off the rebound in his legs and swiping at its head with the scythe, catching it a glancing blow on the snout as the crude blade skittered off the scales there.

If it was going to pierce anything, it would have to be the underbelly, an eye, or the inside of its mouth. For now, though, he was freeing up the rest to act as they would.

Rilien faithfully tracked Lucien's shadow until the Chevalier drew within range of the dragon, then veered sharply off to the left. While the opportunity was presented, he fully intended to cut down the small ones. They could be fatal enough if they wound up underfoot, and the dragon itself would take time to slay. He had no care for what was more glorious or made for a better story; his only concern was with keeping himself and a certain subset of this group alive.

Two fell to a brutal double-attack, his blades held out to each side as he tore past them, slipping between and successfully decapitating the pair. Their necks were thin things, and their scales had not the resistance of the larger one. This, he would captialize upon, and he took the left side of the dragon, leaving the right for now, aware that whatever his skills might be, he was most effective when focusing his attention. Reversing grip on both knives, he plunged them with a dull thunk into the spine of the next, tearing them free and stepping away as several more surrounded him. Wide arcs of brilliant red spattered from the ends of the steel, creating whip-lines blood upon the stone. Inside a small circle of dragonlings, Rilien vanished, reappearing behind the largest of these, stepping upon its arched back with one foot and cutting off the shrill mewling sound with a slash to the back of the neck. One tried to jump for him, and he gutted it, opening a line from clavicle to pelvis, shaking the next off his foot with a well-placed kick. Its teeth had dug into his ankle, but that was of no concern. Unlike a wyvern, there was nothing poisonous about these.

In fact, compared to a wyvern hunt, this was of little concern at all. Unfortunate that the same could not be said for the creature the others dealt with at present.

Varric was the last one into the room, and as such the initial burst of fire had dissipated by the time he entered the fight proper. His crossbow firmly in hand he darted to the right, following the path of the Dalish hunter, albeit slightly behind him. The dragon was a pressing threat, yes, but others were more properly equipped to handle it for the moment, or perhaps simply just to distract it, which was really what they needed so that they could deal with these smaller ones first. To that end, Varric ran by Ithilian and tapped him lightly on the shoulder, before pointing clearly towards the rushing group of dragonlings on the right side. "Go. Bianca and I will set them up for you."

Ithilian had almost asked who Bianca was, before deciding that there was really no time for the dwarf to answer. He obeyed, putting his bow away and drawing his Dalish blades. Parshaara would likely not be as useful here, considering a dragon's natural resistance to fire. His own weapons would suffice. Deciding to give the dwarf a chance, he charged headlong towards the cluster of creatures. Just in time a crossbow bolt shot past his side and exploded in the middle of the group, killing the one that it had hit in a most gruesome fashion, and stunning the others briefly, which was the opening Ithilian needed.

His anger was something different, his attack merciless and unrelenting, swift and brutal. The first two he simply removed of their heads, but some of the others had almost returned to their senses, and he adjusted, sidestepping the first lunging, snapping jaw and plunging both blades into the chest of another, ripping them from not a moment later when he was certain he'd punctured the heart, and turning on the one that had attacked him. It made a second jump at him, and he put both blades up in an X, catching the neck in the middle and stopping the teeth inches from his throat. A simple slice later it too had no head.

They were coming together as a group now, a dragonling attaching its teeth into his left bicep while another jumped at him from the front. He impaled the frontal attacker as it came in, using a foot to shove it off the blade, before lifting his left arm, and the dragonling with it, at least enough to expose the underside of its body. He drove his right blade just under the chin and cut down, opening it from throat to belly and dropping it to the floor before he jumped back to put some space between him and the remaining dragonlings.

Rapture-Sparrow had once again abandoned her mace by the entrance of the den, preferring to throw her lot in with Nostariel and send jagged ice-bolts through the air with unaccountable precision, impaling her first target straight through it's reptilian skull. It's brain matter, scales and blood, splattered backwards, on a nearby rock, where the ice-bolt had shattered in a floe of hail. Her aim was impeccable, but she still managed to hurl them disconcertingly close her companions. It wouldn't have surprised her if errant strands of hair were blown askew from the momentum of her projectiles, embedding themselves into their targets before she flit off to the side, gracefully ducking behind larger rocks and concentrating on whichever opponents were closest – but some idea had come to her as icicles accumulated in her palms, one that was much more entertaining than simply aiding and playing her part in this tiddly group. Her footsteps slowed to a halt and she smiled demurely, concentrating her now-empty hand behind her back, where it swirled with darker, malicious energy.

This energy did not belong to Sparrow – she had no gifts in the darker arts, nor had she ever tried her hand at it. It was the same as her mediocre abilities in healing; non-existent by all accounts. Her eyes trailed after Rilien and Lucien taking up the front, falling into a comfortable rhythm that could only mean that they'd done this before. Ithilian was elsewhere, tying up the dragon by firing arrow's into its gaping mouth. The human apostate, alone against the world, and she can feel it inside her, the darkness, the familiar pulling from the other side of the Veil. Her scars are razor-thin, like careful cuts that haven't had time to heal. Her uncertainty tells her many things. Deep cuts, whip cuts. She would make her remember. For her, Rapture-Sparrow cast a potent Waking Nightmare. She was sure to duck behind large boulders to hide her intent as the inky energy left her fingers, spiralling through a nearby dragonlings fire and dipping around it to reach Nostariel. She danced away with an unbounding giddiness, throwing the occasional bolts of ice before slipping away from sight. For the angry one, the one who shook with rage and vengeance, Rapture-Sparrow cast Disorient. If she was lucky, it would cause him to stumble, to make mistakes he wouldn't make under normal circumstances.

None of her little tricks would work on Rilien, but she could apply Weakness to his legs, which she did in quick succession. Sparrow, annoyingly enough, had begun to pound loudly on her walls, on her mindscape's birdcage. How deep were the Chevalier's scars? Did they run jagged and crooked, tangled with knots? Her voice whispered soothingly in her mind, reminding Sparrow that it had been her decision after all. It's easy, it's just a little more, she'll protect her. It won't hurt. Of course, it wouldn't. She was her mother, her sister, her lover, her friend; someone she knew, someone she could trust. Her voice was bright, clear, almost familiar. Those ineffectual fists ignored her soothing words, unmasking her hate, her fear. She promptly ignored it and added Ashton and Lucien to the list of Waking Nightmare recipients. Again, she skipped away behind the rocks, hands once again brought in front of her so she could resume her glacial assault on the remaining dragonlings. She remained dutifully ineffective, watching expectantly; jubilant.

Adrenaline flooded his system, the exhilarition puckering his skin. Ashton had never felt more alive, more in tune with himself than he did while he hunted. And, well, there was no greater hunt than that of a dragon. when he tore off from the flanks of Rilien and Lucien, he darted to the right and ran along the side of the wall. So intent was he on the prize in front of his eyes, he had forgotten that perhaps the scaley fellow brought along a couple of his friends. It came as a shocking surprise when his hunt shifted from the big dragon, to a smaller dragon. Even so, neither his himself nor his heart skipped a beat. He was still concealed by the shadows, and as such the dragonling didn't notice Ashton until the man vaulted over the reptile. A stutter in his step paused him as he swung his bow around and drilled an arrow into the base of it's skull.

Another shot of adrenaline coarsed through his system at the knowledge of a clean kill, but the hunter is a careful being, and another arrow punched right next to it's sister. He had never hunted dragon before, and it was better safe than sorry, plus he did not want to chance leaving the creature in undue pain. For all of the hunter's precaution and attention to detail in the hunt, the dragonling was not in the center of his mind, but rather the big scaley one currently engaged in close-quarters combat with the Chevalier. Say what he would about the man's astounding sense of honor, Ashton had to admit the man had the bravery befitting the title of knight.

Still, if there was a fire in the Chevalier's bones, then Ashton's entire skeleton was an incinerating inferno. Deer, wolves, bear, none of them had anything over a dragon. A marvelous hunter in it's own right. The only thing was that they didn't have the honor to fight it out one on one, though with the dragon's friends and his own, Ashton figured they'd even out somewhat. A powerful kick sent him propelling out of his stutter and into another run. Though he was no longer hidden by the shadows, he could easily dodge what he had too. He just had to think of the dragonlings as trees and he'd be able to slip right around them.

A spiral around one gaping maw and a swift kick to another put him past the Dragonlings and into a direct line of sight with his prey. He was in no better position either, broadside of the dragon, with ample opportunity to pick and choose his spots. A wide, wild grin spread across. First, along the neck, then around the heart, then he'd finish it off with a volley to the head. Ashton would have to be careful, else he risk hitting the Chevalier. But he was an archer, a hunter rivalling even the Dalish with them. He wouldn't miss. How could he? He drew back to enact this plan before something tugged at his mind at the back of his mind, draining all enthusiam he had. It was so sudden, so unexpected, that the arrow flew wide of it's intended mark and fell toward Lucien.

The world around him drained in color as everything slowed down. The dragon and it's ilk shifted into something more sinister, unexplainable monsters. It was no longer a dragon hunt, a dream for the hunter, but rather a waking nightmare. He was alone now, a child once more, facing down scores of these faceless monsters. Darkspawn, demons, unnatural things, and even Qunari bared down on him. He was alone to face the coming darkness again. It was only the ingrained instincts learned over many years that kept him on his feet. "No, no, no, no!" He cried, frozen in his spot, unable to escape his nightmare.

At around the same time as Ashton's shot veered wide, Rilien experienced what he considered to be even more surprising (in that dull way that he was capable of feeling surprise at all). Mid-step, on his way over to reinforce Lucien by pestering the dragon's flanks, his left leg gave out from underneath him, sending him spilling to the ground. Tucking into a neat roll, the Tranquil nevertheless had to struggle to regain his footing, and there was no immediately-obvious cause for it, which meant of course that there could only be one cause. But dragons, fearsome as they might have been, were not the kind of beings who could cast magic, and Rilien surveyed his surroundings with new attention. Ashton, Lucien and Nostariel, all of whom were within his line of sight, seemed frozen in place by something, and though he could not tell what had happened to the dwarf or the Dalish man, it didn't matter. With the Warden out of the running, there was only one party who could possibly be responsible for this.

He was too far away to stop the arcing arrow, and that alone was enough to cause a bubble of frustration to rise to the surface. Setting his teeth, he was making for that thing that inhabited Sparrow's body when several shrieks from behind him alerted him to the presence of more dragons. And not simple dragonlings, either: these were a bit more grown, somewhere between infants and drakes. With the state the others were in now, he had no choice, and though the slightest of unfriendly sneers lifted his upper lip in Rapture's direction, he turned anyway, treading with a studied, careful lightness back into the fray. He was no puppet, no thrall, no matter how wilful the puppeteer. His weakness would be ignored, compensated for, mastered, made irrelevant.

But even as his knife flayed into the toughened scales of the first to approach, he knew this was not something he could accomplish alone.

Though Nostariel was not, whatever she might seem, generally a weak-minded individual, it was not difficult for the waking nightmare to overtake her senses. What had been before was already so close to the visions that haunted her dreams, that the changes required to bespell her were only slight. The setting was exactly the same, and the reinforcements that arrived to aid the dragon were plausible if unreal. The difficult part was convincing her that the people around her were falling to it, and that, she'd seen before.

The Tranquil, Rilien, was the first to fall, blindsided by a mighty sweep of the dragon's tail, which plastered him to a cavern wall, from which he fell into a knot of Darkspawn, the likes of which tore him apart limb by limb. Ithilian was overcome by a wave of them, and she turned from that, unable to watch. Sparrow beside her caught an arrow in the neck, and try as she might, Nostariel could dredge up no more healing magic. She felt drained dry, exhausted as she'd only been once before. To her right some distance, Varric swore softly under his breath, catching a bolt of lightning from an emissary for his trouble. Lucien, valiant Lucien, fell next, opening up a grievous wound in the dragon only to be crushed between its jaws, shaken like rags in that maw of a mabari. Nostariel lost her footing, crashing to her knees and looking about for the only other person still alive.

Only to wish she hadn't. The angered beast fell upon the hunter last of all, biting down on his arm with a sickening crunch and tearing the limb from its socket. Its forepaw pinned the bleeding hunter to the stone, and slowly, too slowly, it repeated the process with his other arm, then a leg. It was small comfort that he must have been dead by that point, but if it was, she didn't feel it. All she felt was raw, bare pain, because this was exactly what some part of her had always known would happen. She wasn't strong enough to stop it then, and what had she accomplished since? Nothing, unless one counted an addiction and a sorry attempt at forgiving herself. No, they'd died then, and they died now, and if her luck held, she'd somehow survive this too, even though the Maker knew she didn't deserve it.

Lucien, still in front of the dragon, had been carefully-focused on it, concentrating on blocking or moving around its blows as much as possible. It didn't seem keen to use its flames where it may yet scorch its weaker kin, even if they would be more resistant than the average human. This, he could not decide about. On the one hand, he knew he should be counting his blessings. On the other... it was almost a little disappointing. If he was to dance with a dragon, he wanted it to be with a real dragon, a dragon using everything it had.

When the spell hit Lucien, his vision swam for a moment, and the Chevalier blinked rapidly, trying to clear his vision. At the corner of his eye, he could see whispers of fabric, gossamer and silk, but a quick turn of his head proved that there was no matching image to be seen. Clenching his teeth, he resolved to ignore it, rotating his field of vision to face the dragon again, only to find that there was now another person standing between it and him. The silk proved to belong to a deep blue dress, edged in silver, adorning the thin (too thin) figure of a lovely woman. Auburn curls fell about her shoulders and spilled down her back, her lips tilted upwards in a gentle smile. The lady held her hands clasped in front of her, looking at him with steady eyes with a hint of sadness to them.

"Oh Lucien," she sighed, the words tinged with melancholy, "Is he all that lives in you now? Have I been so swiftly forgotten?"

"What on earth?" the mercenary muttered, transfixed. There was no way the vision was real- of that he was certain. But what dragon could show him such a true likeness of his mother? It was sorcery, surely. Lucien's nightmares had never been of things that occurred on the field of battle. Combat was not just his occupation, it was his very lifestyle, and to it, he had been born, bred, and reared, in a way that few have the opportunity to replicate. Certainly, this came with downsides, but a weak will was not one of them, and he shook himself again. "Begone, mirage; I've not the patience to tarry here." He'd been doing something important, he knew he had. Something that he'd been enjoying, no less. Why couldn't he quite remember?

The figment opened it's mouth to speak again, but he was done listening, and advanced forward, straight through it, causing the apparition to disappear with a pained cry. This, he did flinch at, and scowled when it triggered a memory, but he knew that for what it was, and did not drown in it. He would have, once, but no longer. His pause left him vulnerable, though, and Ashton's wayward arrow struck him, by sheer bad luck catching in the relatively-unarmored spot between his collarbone and shoulder muscle. Lucien's breath left him in a hissed exhale, and his shield arm slackened involuntarily, giving the dragon the opening it had been seeking. A great forepaw slipped under his guard and pinned him, dragging the knight to the ground in a great clatter of steel plates.

Well, that certainly explained what he'd been doing, and the knight smiled sardonically despite himself. The dragon loomed over him, its great gusts of breath hot and sticky. Still, the unfortunate predicament drew only a breathy chuckle from the Chevalier. If his father could see him now, he'd be shouting at him not to be such an easily-distracted idiot. It was all right, though, because he was far from helpless, even like this. Tightening his hold on his scythe, Lucien waited, regulating his breathing as much as possible so that the beast would not simply crush the air out of him with its great weight. It seemed disinclined to do so, though the large inhale it took told him he was finally going to get that fire he wanted. Its jaws parted, mouth gaping wide.

Maybe now was a good time to give this a shot, then. Heaving with both arms, Lucien flung his scythe with all his strength, hurling it and pushing up against the clawed arm holding him simultaneously. The dragon reflexively pressed down harder, and so his attempt to free himself failed, but the more important half of this plan didn't, and the polearm found its way into the reptilian's throat, choking off the flow of flames. Unfortunately, the reflex to close its mouth was much less useful, and the thing roared with pain when the scythe-blade embedded itself into its soft palate. The resultant gout of hot blood spilled over its teeth, a good portion of the fluid landing on the knight, who felt about two of his ribs snap when the dragon stepped on him to push off, taking again to the air and wheeling erratically.

"Ouch," Lucien muttered, slowly pushing himself to his feet. Gathering his legs beneath him, he shifted his shield to his good arm and took hold of the arrow, tearing it from his flesh as quickly as he was able. That was no Darkspawn implement, if indeed any were even around. He honestly had no idea how someone with aim like Ashton's had shot him unless intentionally, but he didn't have much time to contemplate. That dragon was going to land sooner or later, and as the majority of the group seemed to be... indisposed, he needed to be there when it landed. Rilien seemed to be fine, though, and Ithilian at least was moving, as was Varric. Nostariel was on the ground, and Ashton not really moving, though. "Can you keep the smaller ones off her?" he asked of Varric regarding the Warden. He had a feeling more than a few of them (himself definitely included), were going to need her help when this was all over. With confirmation, Lucien jogged off after the dragon, albeit with considerably less speed than he'd had at first charge. Battles were often long; this one seemed little different.

Nostariel's vision of Ithilian falling was not far flung from reality; the Dalish elf was about the cut down another when he struck with a powerful bout of dizziness, and his attack veered right, missing entirely. The dragonling jumped freely onto his chest, teeth snapping at his face as claws tried to dig into leather for purchase. He tumbled over backwards, managing to keep the roll going and push the dragon off of him, but his brain was having difficulty working at the capacity needed, and at some point he lost hold of his blades, clattering somewhere among the reptilian bodies. The world was more or less upside down (or perhaps he was upside down), when he was attacked from behind, a larger one seizing the opportunity.

He struggled over, snatching Parshaara and driving it into dragon flesh as close as he could find it. That took care of one claw, but the other raked across his face, thankfully on the side already maimed. His cap fell away, blood leaking down to the empty eye socket. The dragon snapped down with teeth towards his neck, but even spinning as the world was, Ithilian could not miss this strike. Rage allowed him to push through, see clearly when it counted. Dragons did not work magic, and so this had come from another source. He'd seen no darkspawn about, so he was left to suspect one of their own. He'd made up his mind that the Warden was right. This was not the time, nor the place. He would not fall here. Not while there were still things within his power to set right.

The drake lunged down with an open mouth, right on top of Parshaara, the dagger sinking into the soft flesh of the throat, from which Ithilian twisted the blade and ripped upwards towards the brain. A long pair of claws sank into his side as he did so, and Ithilian roared in response, ending the beast's life and shoving it off of him, taking the claws with it. He sucked in a breath, turned to face the next dragon that would attack him, only to find it impaled by a crossbow bolt. He turned to see Varric giving a small salute, before turning and firing another bolt off to the left.

"Can do," the dwarf replied to the Chevalier, the majority of his cheer gone, which was not surprising considering the current state of the party. His eyes and hands were set to the task, unloading bolt after bolt into any dragonlings that approached.

Ithilian had shakily made his way to his feet, resisting the remaining effects of the spell. The dragonlings were being taken care of as best as they could be, at least on his side. Perhaps there were more elsewhere. Still, it seemed there were more pressing concerns. He looked to the state of their healer, cowering on her knees towards the rear, the dwarf keeping guard. It took all his attention to do so. The Keeper Ithilian had been raised under, Felaris, had employed Entropic magic on many occasions, it being his preferred school, and as such it did not take Ithilian long to recognize the effects. How many shemlen had he seen cower under the terror of their own nightmares?

He half-jogged, half stumbled until his stood in front of her, at which point he went to a knee, one hand clutching his side, while the other bloody hand took a firm grip of Nostariel's jaw, forcing her to look at him. He meant for his voice to be steady and clear, but there was no doubt that his anger seeped into it. "Warden!" he shouted to her, trying to command her attention. "Nostariel, listen to me. I have decided that I am not dying here. That was your doing. But so help me, if I bleed to death now, the Dread Wolf and I will hunt you to the ends of the earth!" He ended by backhanding her with his free hand, hard enough to be painful. He'd observed that the best method for helping those under Entropic magic was to simply shock them out. "Now get up!"

Setting

6 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

A sudden, stinging pain cleared some of the fog from Nostariel's mind, and the Warden blinked rapidly, trying to see properly. Ithilian's face, bloody and haggard but very much alive was the first thing she saw, and she quickly held up a hand to prevent another blow. "I... probably deserved that. Or at least needed it. Right." Pushing herself unsteadily to her feet, the elf tested her newly-regained senses on her surroundings, trying to figure out what was going on. Judging from the state of things, Ithilian wasn't the only injured party, as Lucien appeared to be so as well, even from this distance. Unless she was mistaken, he was also unarmed, and heading towards the dragon, which had taken flight for some reason. For a moment, she entertained the thought that he was currently as delusional as she had been, but then maybe not.

Ashton certainly was, if his current state was anything to go by. Rilien was still carving his way through a knot of dragonlings and a drake, if with a little more care than she would have expected. "Okay," she said, as much to herself as Ithilian. "I'm going to start healing, but I can't do anything about the entropic spells. Can you... will you go snap Ashton out of it, please? I'd prefer not to be shot." Calling the blue-green light of a group heal to her hands, she spared that idea the thought it deserved and winced. "Please don't break anything if you can avoid it." Where those two were involved, it was probably best to err on the side of caution, right?

Rilien, for his part, shook off the lingering effects of the weakness spell even as he was healed of what injuries he'd managed to accumulate, which wasn't many yet. Still, everything helped, even if he'd always be somewhat uncomfortable being healed by such means as these. The last dragonling in his way, he kicked several meters into the air, feeling its ribcage snap under the pressure, but he didn't waste the time necessary to end it any more quickly than that, instead darting off after the Chevalier and the dragon, which appeared to now be searching for the best angle from which to maul the man. Drawing up alongside the much taller man, Rilien wordlessly offered one of his Dalish knives, reaching into his boot to pull out a replacement for himself. Not nearly as long, and straight-bladed rather than curved, it nevertheless would prove a decent compliment due to the ice-enchanment on it.

Glad to see his own method of treatment had worked, Ithilian stood with the Warden and nodded his understanding of what she'd just asked him to do. Normally he would have avoided the human hunter entirely, but he supposed if he had to interact with him, this was his preferred method of doing so. Keeping his head down so as to avoid drawing attention, either from any dragons or from Ashton himself, the Dalish hunter made his way over to him, coming at him from the side, only coming to full height when he was within arm's reach. With his left hand he snatched the hunter's bow arm, pulling the weapon down and away from threatening anyone else, while his right hand cocked back. He slammed a fist across Ashton's jaw, probably not hard enough to break it. "Shem! Pull yourself together, or the next one will hurt much worse." Oh, and it would. "And don't whine to the Warden. She ordered it."

The screaming emptyness of nothing echoed through his mind. He was a child again, all alone, and all around him the faces of monsters stared down at him, featureless lips snarling in cruel delight of his suffering. Ashton couldn't move, and even if he could, where would he go? There was nothing, only darkness around him. He felt the life leave his legs as the trembled, his skin prickled no in excitement this time, but fear. His nightmares were of loneliness and of monsters, and it opressed him. Though, even in this nightmare, a fire still burned. The fear could not take that away from him. Ashton was not weak of mind, nor weak of will. He didn't have walls set up in his mind to protect him, he wore his emotions raw. A nightmare may have taken ahold of these emotions, but he could fight out of it. The hunter would have his hunt.

He tried to force his legs to move, if only to run. But they were stuck, unresponsive. His muscles strained in protest at the unwanted action. He wasn't going to win this battle physically, that much was blaringly obvious. But he needed to move, to get away. To run. Some part of him was disgusted by this, by his desire to run. It felt like all he'd done in his entire life, was run. He ran from home, he ran away then, and he'd try to run away now. Somewhere that spark lit something inside the hunter. No, not to run. He couldn't run. He didn't know why, but it didn't feel right. Something was keeping him tethered. He'd have to face the monsters, and this loneliness.

Loneliness... Was he truly alone any more? Wasn't there someone else? Weren't there others with him? Where were they now? They were somewhere in the darkness. He needed to go find them. If he was alone, then it was by his own choice. No longer, he needed to move. With that, his legs finally began to move of their own accord. At least they were, until a rough hook to the jaw brought him completely out of it. The shadows and monstrous faces melted away until Ithilian and he remained. The dragon still lived, and that brought back the earlier excitement, but this time tempered with a bit of anger. Was he truly so weak as to fall for something like that? Whatever the hell it was. His lip quivered in irritation as his eyes darted between the Dalish and the dragon.

Ashton's eye then went to the Dalish's one. "What are you still standing around for? There's prey to be hunted." He stated, what jovial tone usually in his tone freshly bled dry. With that, he darted past the Dalish, drawing an arrow and planned to enact the series of steps he had practiced before the whole nightmare deal. They'd deal with the dragon, then wonder what the hell happened, though Ashton already had a couple of suspicions. A conversation with Rilien was in the near future.

But for now, the dragon. He would not miss again.

Ithilian turned to watch him go, honestly a little disappointed. If the shem was still feeling any effects of the spell after the fight, the Dalish hunter would be more than willing to knock them out of his head. For now, he contented himself with adding arrows to the cause of helping bring down the dragon.

Meanwhile, Lucien was keeping a careful eye on the dragon, aided now by a powerful wave of energy that washed over him like warm ocean water, repairing his broken ribs and closing the wound created by the arrowhead. Nostariel. Clearly the Warden was back in working order, and for that, he was most grateful indeed. He was preoccupied enough that he almost didn't notice Rilien appear beside him, quiet and businesslike as ever. The offer was not one the Tranquil would make lightly, extra knife or not, and Lucien found himself honored by it, accepting the dagger with an incline of his head. "I daresay it's much larger than an ogre, but I think a similar principle applies, do you not?" he asked of his friend, testing the balance of the steel in his hand.

It was considerably lighter than the weapons he was used to hefting, though sturdy enough as far as daggers went, and he had no doubt that Rilien kept his steel deadly-sharp. A cry overhead alerted them to the impending landing of the dragon, and Lucien inhaled deeply, tightening his grip and readying his shield. This, despite the unfortunate circumstances which surrounded it, was still exactly where he wanted to be just now, and he flashed a half-cocked smile at the Tranquil. "What say you, Rilien? Once more, for old times' sake?" He referred to a type of strategy the two of them had often employed in tandem, and surely it would be a worthy trial to test it against such a creature as this.

Rilien's eyes tracked the dragon's progress, ducking slightly as it swooped by overhead, banking sharply and coming in to land. Tlting his head to one side, the Tranquil pondered the question. His answer, such as it was, was to disappear, sticking fast to the Chevalier's shadow, an invisible friend that flitted through the dark to emerge only when it became necessary. This was something at which they were long practiced, and so when Lucien moved forward to meet the dragon, Rilien followed, matching pace automatically so as to remain unseen, not even an odd flicker in the darkened alter-self the nobleman cast upon the stone.

There was something at once eerie and reassuring, knowing that your shadow was just as deadly as you were. On the one hand, he feared no attack from behind, but on the other... one learned to be perhaps too cautius when one knew what people like Rilien were capable of. He'd thought himself a wary man before he ever met the elf. Now, he was more inclined to laugh at the fool he'd been then, and all the different ways he could have gotten himself killed in his folly. Well, not today, at any rate. The dragon raked a forepaw horizontally over the ground, and the knight jumped, clearing the passing limb with surprising room to spare. Landing solidly, he slashed with the dagger, scoring a thin line in the exposed elbow-joint, but the creature recovered far too quickly for more than that, withdrawing the limb and snapping at him.

Lucien bashed it in the snout with his shield, fending off the sharpened ivory teeth. It was clearly cautious of staying too close to him for too long, perhaps because his last weapon was still stuck in the roof of its mouth. Either way, he pressed it to his advantage, managing to push the dragon back a step and onto the defensive as, bolstered by the confidence that he was well-protected from behind, Lucien went on the offensive.

With Lucien fully engaging the beast, it was left to Rilien only to wait, biding his time with a patience that perhaps represented a distinct advantage of his condition. Other people were of dispositions emotional enough that they would act as soon as they saw a friend in danger, or an opening to attack. The Tranquil knew it was best to trust that Lucien would take care of himself, and pass up inconsequantial opportunities to wait for the larger one, the one that would end things most fatally for the opponent.

He was back into the fight, and this time, Ashton would not let his prey escape. As soon as he pushed past Ithilian, he hid in the shadows once again. This time around though, instead of the protective feeling he normally got, the cloak of darkness felt heavy and oppressive. The memory of his waking nightmare was still fresh, but he wouldn't allow it to drive his hands in legs. As the dragon landed and resumed the assault on both Lucien and Rilien, it revealed an opening for him to take. He stopped his dead sprint and cut to the side, attempting to get behind the dragon. He knew the Chevalier and the Tranquil enough to know they could take whatever the dragon dished out. Even so, he wouldn't allow just them to have all the fun. This was just as much his hunt as it was theirs.

Ashton approached the dragon at an angle, the space between the length of its tail and its hind leg his target. Instead of pelting the spot with arrows though, he did something else. He jumped, kicking off some of its scales and bringing him along its back. He pointed his bow at his feet and drew, sending the arrow point blank into it's spine. At a range, the arrow wouldn't do near as much damage as it would if he was mere feet away. Trusting Lucien to take enough heat for him to finish his run, he began to move along the dragon's spine, firing as many arrows as fast as he could, adding a line of fletching to go along nicely with it's spiney scale.

The run took all of a few seconds, but the damage was done. As he approached the base of it's serpintine neck, he pegged it a trio of times before jumping off of it's neck and be subject to it bucking him off. He landed less than gracefully, sprawling out for a moment before snatching his bow up and flipping on to his back. While his run was done, the onslaught was not. Arrow after arrow flew over the heads of Lucien and Rilien, perhaps helping the duo in bringing the creature down. "When this is over... I'm taking one of its bones as a... trophy," Ashton stated between arrows.

Rapture's efforts proved quite fruitless, as she watched them, one-by-one, shake themselves out of the nightmarish, weakened stupor she'd deceptively cast over them, only briefly returning Rilien's baleful glare with one of her own coquettish smirks before she danced away from them, away from the dragons and dragonlings to gather her bearings. Her vision was already blinking out like extinguished lights, blown out candles. She would not be able to hold this husk as long as she hoped, but this was enough, she thought. Sparrow's bard-companion understood what she was capable of doing and of whom she was capable of hurting. Would he hurt the shell she inhabited to save his friends? A wracking cough spluttered from her chest, in which she hunched over, coughing into her hand until it passed. She admired the fine speckling of blood webbing constellations across her opened palms. Sparrow's hooting howls grew more fluent, louder and more insistent. She'd found a small chink in whatever barrier, in whatever corner of the Fade she'd been bound and she was hammering wildly at it, as if she still held her mace.

She traced Ithilian's movements with her narrowed eyes, watched as his fist collided with Ashton's jawline and couldn't help laugh. That one was interesting enough – though hardly manipulable given his temperament, she'd have no luck swaying him to any of his desires unless she promised to wipe nearly all humans off the planet, or perhaps offer revenge. Vengeance, it seemed, was one of the most potent things she could offer. Rapture licked her lips, then jumped once more into the fray, utilizing her ice-bolts and weaving around the adolescent-dragons, slipping between their clumsy, thick legs and hopping over their swinging tails. It was only when she reached Lucien and Rilien's flank that her footsteps slowed, suddenly wooden and awkward. Her limbs were going numb, spreading down her knees, ankles, elbows and fingers. The mass of ice she'd been holding slipped awkwardly from her bloody palms, crashing around her feet. With one final strain of exertion, as if she were gripping a craggy ledge, Rapture stumbled away from the fight and slipped behind a small nook of rocks where she wouldn't readily be crushed by any wayward dragons.

She still needed this body, after all. Having her be squished underneath such an unintelligent creature's foot would've been insulting. She slumped unceremoniously against the rocks, hardly feeling the boulder dig into her shoulders, her spine. Her back arched, sending her sprawling on the ground – and even then, Rapture was satisfied. She'd done more than she thought she could in such a short span of time. Her grip released, though she relished the brief glimpses of the cave fizz away in an array of wriggling worms. Sparrow had escaped her Fade-prison, and was pushing her way back, called by the sounds of battle, by the guilt of what she'd done in her absence. Her muscles quivered in protest, stuck in momentary stasis; elbows and legs propped up at weird angles, before they plopped back down. Sparrow was breathing now, could feel her chest rising and falling – could feel her fingers grating against the rocks, she was back.

Nostariel, occupied mostly with flinging ice at the dragon from behind the main line, noted Sparrow's erratic behavior with some confusion. It wasn't lost on her that the only other being around here capable of casting any kind of entropic magic would have to be him, but she did not want to jump to conclusions about what had happened, or almost happened. Instead, she flung a separate healing spell at the slender man, hoping that whatever was going on was something he would be able to resolve in time.

Rilien felt the shift in the magic surrounding his cohabitant with an imperceptible slackening of some tension across the line of his shoulders, and refocused quite quickly on the matters before him. Ashton's antics along the dragon's spine had not taken it down by any means, but they had clearly hurt it, and the same could be said of the magic, arrows, and crossbow bolts flying from beind. Lucien was actually forcing it to retreat with the aggression of his advance, and Rilien moved forward with him, still awaiting the perfect opportunity.

It came, as fate would have it, when a well-placed arrow struck the creature in the side of the head, embedding itself in the snout. The dragon roared and thrashed, lowering its head to its paw and forcing the head of the thing from its face. As though he'd known how to do it all his life, Rilien shifted, tapping Lucien on the shoulder with the pommel of his knife, signaling the impending maneuver. Lucien felt it, and smiled, readjusting himself so that he fell into a crouch, shield held just over his head, planting himself solidly upon the ground so as not to come off-balance. The Tranquil backed up a few paces, then darted forward, planting a foot first on the Chevalier's hunched back, and then landing square in the center of the shield.

Once he felt the burden of the elf's weight shift, Lucien propelled himself upwards with all the strength in his legs, boosting Rilien considerably higher than he would have been able to jump in his own, and the Tranquil, light on his feet as always, was free to steer his jump from there. With the dragon's muzzle lowered from its usual height, it was not too difficult to catch onto one of the spikes protruding from its crown, and this he did, swinging himself around so that he was astride the crest of its neck, driving his knife through the left eye, scaly lid and all. The beast thrashed, trying to dislodge him, but the arrows Ashton had buried at the base of its neck weakened it, and instead, Rilien's weight forced its head further downward, right into Lucien's range.

Nostariel, catching on, shifted tactics for a moment and cast elemental weapons, imbuing the dagger in the knight's hand with lightning effects, which would hopefully aid in the effort more than another couple shots of ice would. The crackling energy surrounded the blade, and Lucien wasted little time, throwing his torso into a shield bash which successfully stunned the dragon and allowed Rilien the opportunity to leap off, which he did, landing on the creature's now blind side and taking his knife with him, though not before twisting it in the eyesocket. The Chevalier had no desire to prolong the suffering the dragon was underging at the moment, and at first opportunity (namely, the dragon opening its mouth to snarl), he shoved his arm as far into the beast's gullet as far as it would go and, finding the soft palate, drove the knife upwards and into the brain from there, stilling it almost instantaneously.

Towards the rear of the group, Ithilian and Varric put the finishing touches on the battle, launching arrows and crossbow bolts into the last remaining dragonlings, both of them breathing a sigh when the large room suddenly fell quiet of the sounds of battle and death. Varric gave Bianca and loving pat, retracting the arms of the weapon and slinging it back across his back. After looking about to ensure there were no casualties among them, he gave a single laugh, as if he was having trouble believing what they'd just pulled off.

"I hope you all don't mind being in a story... because I'm telling this one to everyone."

Setting

6 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

The last few dragons and dragonlings fell to an efficient hail of arrows, but Rilien couldn't be bothered to even feign interest in that. Not now that the main threat was gone and he'd felt a substantial shift in the ambient magic around Sparrow. The Tranquil advanced to where the half-elf was still clutching at stones on the ground. Crouching, he brought his eyes to a level with where hers would be if she was looking at anything aside from the ground beneath her. His forearms hung loosely from his knees, and though he appeared just as unruffled as ever, he certainly did not feel so-- and a large part of himself hated that. "Sparrow," he said, loud enough to demand attention, but not so loud that everyone else had to hear. Much to his displeasure, his voice cracked slightly on the second syllable, like ill-maintained leather, a far cry from the usual velvet monotone or the silken slithers of song he preferred. Swallowing, he ignored it, shifting slightly in his spot.

Quietly, he took hold of one of her wrists, prizing it away from the stones she clutched, lest she tear her fingernails bloody. "Sparrow," he repeated, with more certainty this time, mouth turning down almost imperceptbly at the corners. He should not have let these things esclalate so far, and this, he did consider his fault. It became his fault when he'd tacitly offered his support months ago, said without words that all she needed to do was be as she wished, and he would take care of the rest. Rapture, demon that she was, would never understand that, logical as he preferred to be, there were still imperfections in his Tranquility, and this was what he wrought with them. She suffered, and he had allowed it, presuming that her strong will and desire to live her own way would eventually subdue the malicious presence, before things became a hindrance to others.

But why had he believed that? There was no logic in it; one did not throw fire at a house one wished to save from burning. One did not fight Desire with desire, whatever it may be. Her longing for freedom had likely built the bars of her cage. This, too, he should have acted against, somehow. Sooner, maybe. He should not be here, but back in his shop, working out the details of what was even now merely a rough sketch in his mind. He watched her drown when he should have been recusitating her, and for the first time in more years than he remembered properly, Rilien felt the coiling of a particular feeling deep in his stomach, reaching up his spine and playing havoc-riddled chords on his lungs.

Guilt. He felt guilty, and it ate at him with a fierceness he hadn't recollected.

On days like this, when Rapture had satisfied her curiosities, or nights (who could tell when you were traipsing down in the Deep Roads), Sparrow felt as if her bones were shrivelling in her body, encased by paralysed tendons and tissue, hardly responsive, skin pulled taut until her spine seemed as if it were splintering and grinding against their adjacent neighbours. Her breathing felt as if it were being syphoned through two leather sacks, hollowed and bereft of moisture, where two healthy lungs should've been; all dried and narrowed. Icy fingers trickled down her shoulder blades, digging their fingernails into the tenderest parts until she gained some sort of awareness of herself. Her lips felt as cold as the ice-bolts Nostariel had been throwing and she half expected hoarfrost to slip from them. Filigree's of numbness spirited over her extremities, spreading through her stupefied limbs. Nothing felt like it belonged to her. Her body was not her own, anymore.

Sparrow's arched back, nearly crackling at it's unusual angle, finally dropped back on the ground. Her hands continued to clutch at the rocks, fingernails scraping. The familiar voice caused her to flinch. She glanced up, just briefly, but she couldn't see anything except the outline of him, blocked by shadows and looming stalagmites. There was some blood, on the floor, but not a lot of it. She could feel it sticking to the back of her palate, nearly choking her. Her mouth had clamped shut, molars grinding against a pain she could not account for. The calling of her name – it hadn't been an angry sound; no, it was worse than that. Was it disappointment? She couldn't tell. Her thoughts swam in a murky lake, scattering the ripples in every direction. She couldn't tell whether or not her eyes were closed, or if they were opened. Darkness had fallen over her eyelids, clicking slits of gloomy light through it's pin-pricked holes.

When Rilien moved, Sparrow stopped. His hands were warm, ringing around her wrists. The rocks had fallen from her palms, clinking unceremoniously against her breastplate. She blinked her eyes opened, wide. Her dark eyes were hollow-looking, but dry. This time her name was said differently, succinctly more assured. She swallowed hard, desperately burying her own heart somewhere deep down. They would have to move on from this, even if Rilien had been aware of what had just occurred. Sweat dripped down the back of her neck. She did not trust her voice enough, felt it's hoarseness threatening to ruin her words – and what could she have said, what could she do to excuse what she'd nearly allowed to happen? Any excuses now would've been blatantly ignorant. Too human, perhaps. Only human – even, if she was only half. Too often it was used as an excuse for failure, used to offer comfort in the face of some manner of shortcoming. It was an insult. She'd failed, again.

Her eyes focused, then refocused, trailing up Rilien's features. His nose, his down-turned mouth. There had always been a risk, toying with her freedom and blithely believing that everything would turn out well if she really believed in herself. She was a marked risk – dangerous to her companions, dangerous to herself. Worse yet, Sparrow hadn't told anyone else save Ashton and Rilien (and in the most peculiar ways that involved ignoring the subject entirely). In an instant, in a hail of arrows, things weren't panning out. This was her fault. She hadn't been strong enough and she hated herself for it. So, Sparrow camouflaged her fears, her thoughts, her worries with courage, however feigned, and weakly smiled, forcing a chuckle that might've been scrapped from the rocks she'd held moments ago, “What's with that look? I—I'm fine.”

The Tranquil's features smoothed out, his eyes lowering to half-mast, and he released her wrists. "Is that so?" he replied, well aware that she was not telling him the truth and still just barely out of his usual mindset to be irritated about it. "Then you ought stand. We delay further progress by remaining here." Taking his own advice, Rilien rose easily to his feet, all stubborn traces of the weakness spell gone. It was perhaps unusually cold, even for him, that he did not offer to assist her, but if she did not want yet to acknowledge what had happened, he would not either. Still, he left one of his hanging sleeves in easy reach if she really needed the help, and stood so that any difficulty she'd have righting herself would not be obvious to the others.

"The matter might be left for now," he deadpanned, fixing her with a calculating stare, "but not forever."

Sparrow wasn't entirely sure if Rilien's easy reversal, and his ability to so completely repossess his imperturbable countenance, was comforting or disconcerting. Either way, she couldn't fault him for that. Her mouth formed a hard line, then simpered into her usual expression. There was something missing there, lacking its normal lustre. There was nothing amusing about what had just happened and no jokes sprung from her lips, nor any comment or apology. Quips, witticisms, or any sarcastic remarks said in the hopes of smoothing the wrinkles out of the damage she'd done, ignoring the nightmarish things that had come from her fingertips, clearly didn't belong in the conversation. She did not repeat herself – couldn't bring herself to say that she was fine when she was not, conjuring an assurance she did not feel. Her bloodstream ran cold, thick as molasses. When Rilien rose to his feet, Sparrow learned forward, forearms hanging loose across her knees.

He was right. Any delays would only bring up questions she didn't want to answer – they were here for a reason, anyway. Sparrow was not one to stubbornly refuse help (when it came to balancing herself, anyway) and her jellied legs hardly guaranteed that they wouldn't give out if she tried to stand on her own. Tentatively reaching her hand out, Sparrow gripped Rilien's sleeve and hauled herself up, tensing her shoulders. Everything felt new again. Her limbs were colt-born, clumsy. Her nose felt sensitive to the musty, coppery stench of the dragon's under dwelling; unpleasant, to say the least. It took her a moment to gather her wits about her, steadying herself on Rilien's shoulder before she tucked her hands back against her sides, reflecting for a moment, before ruefully rubbing her arms, her elbows, her wrists. The numbness was receding to whatever corner they'd materialized from.

She returned his stare, though her eyebrows scrunched up and she lowered her gaze, fixing it on her plated boots. “After this is done with. I just don't... want to bring it up down here,” Sparrow whispered softly, looking up. It was a silent request and a promise. Why ruin the entire adventure with such gloomy tidings? She would talk about it after they emerged from the Dead Roads. For now, though, she was back and she would contribute as she always did. Rilien simply nodded. It would do, and whatever trace of ruffled feathers remained smoothed out entirely, as though they'd never been present at all. Her fingers drifted over her hip, faltered when they didn't find what they'd been searching for – bloody she-bitch. A small sound escaped her lips. With another experimental step, Sparrow moved around Rilien and half-jogged, half-stumbled over to her prized possession, disrespectfully tossed over an outcrop of rocks. With the tenderness reserved only for pretty lasses, she clasped it into her hands and fastened it back where it belonged.

On the other side of the chamber, Nostariel was taking hurried steps towards the dragon's corpse and the majority of the rest of the group. She'd seen Rilien's beeline for Sparrow, and just sort of assumed he was doing whatever was necessary to figure things out. She didn't pretend to understand those two, nor whatever bound they and Ashton together. Well, maybe Sparrow and Ashton weren't too hard to figure out-- they both seemed to love fun and drink and so on. At any rate, whatever had happened there really wasn't any of her business, and in the end it had done no harm, so... as long as it wasn't going to be a problem, she was willing to let it go. Stepping up next to Ashton and Lucien, she took a closer look at the dragon and shook her head.

"I've seen a lot of things in the Deep Roads, but never did I expect a dragon would be among them."

Once the dragon had fallen, Ashton sidled up beside the loom Chevalier, looking down at their work. Well, his and Rilien's work if he was going to be brutally honest. The fact that his arrows only seemed in inconvience the creature while Lucien wrapped it's brains around his little knife. At the moment, he was feeling inferior to the man beside him. He wish he would have done more, been more involved in the hunt. He sighed, drew back his bow and let one last arrow thump into it's skull plate. It wasn't a killing blow, seeing as it was already dead but one could never be too careful. That and it made him feel a little better. "Next time, I get to kill it," Ashton mumbled as he knelt down by the creature and rubbed it's head, almost fondly.

He threw a glance over to Rilien, who was on his way to Sparrow. Ashton wisely allowed the Tranquil to persue that business by himself. He'd take a number and have his own little chat with the man later. Until then, he'd play everything off. The bruise arising on his chin was going to be hard to explain. He was coming too on his own, sure, but the Dalish' calloused knuckles seemed to expediate that process. It was going to be tough to play the incident like nothing happened, but then again, he was Ashton, the best of liars. It'd be no problem.

Ashton had sidled around the dragon until he hovered over one of it's arms. He lifted the apendage into the air and then allowed it fall back to the ground. Lighter than he'd imagined. If he had his guess, then the bones were hollow to aid in flight. He crossed his arms and bit into his thumb as he went through useful purposes of a dragon arm in his mind. He shrugged then rose, he'd have plenty of time to figure that out later. "What's not to expect? All kinds of monsters live in the deep roads, why not dragons too?" He simply said. The other option it had was to fly about outside, and people like him would hunt the creature down. Dragons were intelligent creatures, after all.

"How about you lovely? You alright? And you Ser Knight? Noticed you didn't ask it to yield this time," Ashton quipped as he took a seat on its shoulder. He then looked down at the corpse he sat on and back to Lucien. He was lost that goofy aspect and became somewhat serious as he spoke again, "By all rights, this is your kill. Maybe next time I'll have that honor. But dragons are few and far between, so can I ask for a favor? Can I have its arm? I have plans for it," He wasn't quite sure what those plans were, but he'd figure it out eventually.

"What creature of the sky would choose to live under the ground?" she answered by way of reply, shaking her head. Still, the point was fair enough. "I am... well, enough, all things considered." Turning back slightly and leaving Lucien to provide Ashton with whatever answer he chose, she located Ithilian and Varric. "And the two of you? Nothing broken, I hope?" The joke, subtle as it was, was made from weariness, mostly, giving it a kind of gallows necessity. She managed a half-smile, largely for the dwarf, who she suspected was more likely to care whether she did or not. Though, she did likely owe the Dalish her thanks for bringing her around, else her nightmare might well have made unfortunate reality of itself.

Ithilian's headscarf had been torn through by a dragon's claw, and was now rather useless; he shoved it in a pocket. Nostariel's healing spell had closed his wounds well enough. Now that the fight was over, his scowl had set back in, his eye drifting towards Sparrow and the Tranquil. He didn't manage a smile at Nostariel's words, and indeed Varric was the only one of the pair to even see the Warden's own smile. He dusted himself off. "I think I got lucky this time. That, or Bianca and I are just that good." He seemed relatively unperturbed by the implications that were becoming more clear now. Ithilian had yet to sheathe his bow, and at this point he probably wouldn't at all. He didn't know what was wrong with the half-elven mage, but there were only so many things it could be. The way things had worked in his former clan, most of them led to rather dire consequences for her. It was probably safe to assume that the Dalish hunter would be watchful of her, and more than willing to train an arrow on her should things get out of hand again.

Lucien, having retrieved his friend's dagger from the mouth of the dragon, was somewhat surprised to see that it hadn't suffered any damage, much unlike his scythe. Then again, it was considerably more well-made, and no portion of it was wooden, either. At Ashton's piece of commentary, he smiled, still coming down from the battle-high that the creature had provided him with. "Personally, I think she should have given me the opportunity to surrender. It's usually done for the benefit of a weaker opponent, after all." Still, the fact that they were alive and the dragon was not spoke at greater volume than he would have any desire to, regardless of the unstated nature of it.

Unlike most of the rest, Lucien was suffereing from no greater wariness than usual, and the Deep Roads seemed to bother him not at all, if his demeanor was anything to go by. It was much easier to kill Darkspawn than men, he thought, not as a matter of their strength, but as one of the state of mind required. Darkspawn were irrevocably Tainted; their deaths were mercies. People were a little different in this regard. Dragons... well, he'd be lying if he said he'd never wished to slay a dragon, but he could understand the nobility of the creature all the same, and would not have attacked it without cause. The archer's next query had him a bit perplexed, and his eyebrows decended his forehead as though with puzzlement. "'Twas the work of many, not one. I'd say you're welcome to it, my opinion notwithstanding. If it were somehow my decision to make, the answer would be the same." He shrugged, not having much use for any of the parts himself, though he presumed Rilien also might.

As for the matter of the fell magic which had somehow been cast upon them, well... he knew Rilien was much more talented with such things than he, and the Tranquil appeared to be doing something about the matter. Whatever his judgement was, Lucien trusted that it would be the right one. A distinction he had learned to make long ago due to his friend was that between one who had no qualms about killing and one who killed without reason. Though he was neither, the important thing was that was that Rilien was not the second, and this Sparrow lass seemed to be of some importance to him.

Even now, Sparrow felt awkward approaching the group. It'd been Rapture, after all, who'd been following them all along. Her hands busied themselves behind her head, scratching idly at the nape of her neck as she made her way over. Fancy those dragons, she could've said, but she hadn't really done anything besides nearly run them all down with spells she couldn't actually recall being able to perform. Even if it was uncharacteristic of her, and she might've been better off trading quips with Ashton, or clapping Lucien on the back for having performed so well, Sparrow remained quiet.

Perfectly content with that, Lucien glanced around. "Well, it seems we've found Bartrand his way around the block in the road. Perhaps we salvage what we can and return to tell him as much?" This was largely directed at Varric, though of course anyone was free to give their opinion on the matter.

The dwarf gave a nod of agreement. "Sounds like a plan. We'll see how much Bartrand doubts your abilities now."

"Can I stroke his beard with these claws?" Ashton posited, as he began work to saw off the dragon's arm. It would make a fine beard-comb yes, but an even better bow. Lucien snorted softly, shaking his head and moving to help. He'd give the dagger back to Ril as soon as the arm was gone. Varric shrugged in response. "As much as I'd like to see that, let's not and I'll say we did."

Setting

6 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

Varric was at the head of the triumphant returning party as they made their way back to the camp, and Bartrand. Even Ithilian had not elected to scout ahead of the group, but he still placed himself a short ways off to the side, and remained utterly silent. "Bartrand!" Varric called, getting his brother's attention. "We found a way around your damned cave-in!" The elder brother's response was simply to turn back to the rest of the group. "It's about time! Let's move out!"

They packed up quickly, hauling everything off along the path the party had cut for them, most of the hirelings stepping gingerly over the bodies of dismembered darkspawn, and staring in confused awe at the frozen and petrified ogre, which they likely assumed had been the work of their Warden guide, and Sandal made no attempt to correct them, instead looking around the caverns with innocent curiosity, Bodahn's hand on the boy's shoulder most of the way. When they arrived at the dragon's corpse, picked clean as it was by those of the party that had wanted some piece of it, even Bartrand looked a little taken aback, but he did well to contain it behind his usual stony glare. They did not linger long, and Varric's smug grin seemed to be the only thing Bartrand needed to satisfy his curiosity about what happened here.

Not long after the dragon's den they came upon an opening, a sight coming into view that caused both of the dwarves leading them to halt in their tracks. "Holy shit..." Varric said, hands going to his hips as he admired the surroundings. Bartrand raised his eyebrows. "I thought... an abandoned thaig, something old, but... what is this?" Something old was perhaps the best way to describe it, as the architecture they had stumbled across was unlike anything seen in Orzammar or even the other thaigs that had been taken by the darkspawn. Glowing blue lyrium crystals lined many of the walls, and some of the structures seem to glow a faint crimson color. Bartrand took a step forward, heading towards it.

"We heard old scavenger tales," he explained to the group. "After the Third Blight. A week below the surface, they said, but nobody believed them..." Varric shrugged, a faint smile on his face. "Looks like they were right." Bartrand turned to the rest of the group. "Make camp here! We need to look around."




A heavy clawed hand descended and perched on the top of Rilien's white mane. Next to the Tranquil stood the Archer, wearing the dragon's arm like some sort of extravagant fashion statement and tried his best to look regal as possible. He let the claw linger on Rilien's head for a moment before speaking in true Ashton style, "I've got to hand it to you Rilsie, you and Lucy make a good team. What with him throwing you at a dragon and what not. Wish the hunt was a bit more... pure though," He let the implication linger for a minute, manually tapping one of the dragon's claw on top of the Tranquil's head. Rilien endured all of this in a way that was by now quite easily guessed of him: in placid silence, and largely unmoving.

Then Ashton stopped and his tone grew serious. "There's only one person I know that could cast those kind of spells... Is she alright?" He asked, "I've noticed she's been acting different, but I didn't put it together until now. I'm worried," He said, looking down at the man waiting for the answer. He spoke softly and slowly so that the others wouldn't overhear, but at this point they had to have some suspicions. out of all of them, it was only Rilien and himself who knew Sparrow's plight, who knew of the demon pact. He'd like to keep it that way and keep her safe. He only wished that there was more that he could do...

"She can't, actually," was Rilien's initial reply, and he cast orange eyes askance at the archer. "Entropy is not part of Sparrow's skill-set." The emphasis he placed on the name was light, but by now, Ashton would be accustomed enough to his normal tone to pick up on the subtle difference. It was the most careful way Rilien had to describe exactly what had happened: Sparrow had not been in control of her own body, the demon had. He knew not how long she would maintain it this time, either.

"I expect that if she tried right now to reproduce the effects, she would be unsuccessful, but her behavior is erratic as it has ever been." And in that, he conveyed that the temporary possession was over, at least for now, but that it would perhaps be pertinent for the both of them to stay wary. If she interfered again, he was unsure that certain members of the rest of their party would be content to allow her to live. Rilien would not hesitate to slay anyone that attempted to put an end to her, not normally. But doing so here might well prevent them from reaching the surface alive and intact, a conundrum if ever there was one.

"Hmm. That's good," Ashton hummed contently, relinquishing the dragon's claw from atop the tranquil's snowy head. He had followed Rilien's words like a map, drawing all of the information he could from the change in tone from his emotionless voice. Something he had picked up a while ago now, everything the tranquil said had merit and held no wasted words. Ashton tossed a glance to wherever Sparrow was presently. Shrugging (the dragon arm rising and falling with the motion), he added "Perhaps next time it happens, can I get a simple 'hey Ash'?" The tranquil had an uncanny ability to sense the shifts in the veil, kinda like a warning light. He only wished the tranquil had the ability to tell him when it happened too.

Rilien appeared to consider this, then nodded. It seemed a reasonable-enough request, though there would be precious little either of them would be able to do if the events did repeat themselves. No, the answer most likely lay outside of Ashton's capabilities, and his as well, but those only for now. The matter would require more research, but the funds from this expedition would hopefully allow him the opportunity to procure several rare books he recalled from the Circle library in Orlais, old texts written in older languages which he had only begun to decipher when he was taken from that place. Still, if he remembered properly (and he did, always), then there was something in there worth examining further.

For her, he would, even if it would be easier to end her and the demon too.

Ashton then puckered his lips and racked his mind, searching to see if there was anything else he wanted to either tell or ask of him, but nothing immediately came to mind. They both would obviously be looking over Sparrow now that he current ordeal was over, so that didn't need mentioning. Despite their differences, Ashton believed that they were much alike in that regard. He didn't need words to confirm it. With that, Ashton nodded, "Alright then. Good talk Ril. I'm going to see if can't go lend a hand somewhere," he said, a wisp of a smile hiding behind a waving dragon claw.

"Do not lend it to Bartrand," Rilien advised sagely. "It would be a shame to be beaten to death with your own helping hand, though you might deserve it for the folly such a move would demonstrate." And that was most assuredly a joke, even if his face gave away absolutely nothing of the kind. "He'd have to reach it first," Ashton said, holding the arm over his head before dropping it back to his shoulders. That was a short joke if there ever was one. At this point, Ashton came to expect little gems of dry wit from the Tranquil.

As it would be, Sparrow waited for the opportune time to slither over to her secretively-whispering companions, ignoring the fact that she'd noticed them glancing in her direction only moments ago, and noticing, warily, that Rilien seemed to be in the process of leaving. However, she quickened her strides, snatched up Rilien's flowing sleeve and ducked underneath it, unceremoniously holding it aloft before gingerly placing it back at his side, unfettered by her, often unwanted, touch. Then, Sparrow slipped beside Ashton, hooking her arm around his, propping up his elbow with her free hand and moving it in front of her mouth so that his prize dragon-claw bobbed in front – and she had pseudo-fangs in the form of elongated talons, jauntily moving with her greeting of, “What long faces you've got. You've just slayed a dragon. A dragon. When we get back to Kirkwall, do you know how many lovely lasses you'll have flocking to your shop to see this thing?” The claw flapped indignantly with her hand-jerks, as if offended to be called a thing. She released her companion's arms, and elbow, before curiously poking at the claw's zeniths with her fingertips. Funny thing, how friends worked. They'd protect her even if it meant putting the others at risk, they'd defend her if the question ever arose, and she almost cursed those particular traits. She almost wanted them to end it here, and now, because it'd only be more difficult if things got worse. What would they do then, she wondered.

“Bet the rest of the journey down here won't be much more interesting. What beats a dragon? Asides from gryphon-riding Grey Wardens?” She added as an afterthought, glancing in Nostariel's direction with a smile. It was better not to mention what she'd done. It was better to pretend as if nothing had happened. The task itself, feigning ignorance, was surprisingly simple, so easy compared to spilling her heart out and crying and stomping her foot at the injustices of her predicament. It was easier this way, as always. Her burdens would remain on her shoulders until they were forcibly removed, until she had no other choice but to share it with her friends. She chuckled in her Fadespace, where she'd been locked up during the battle with the dragon (which she childishly regretted missing if only for the fact that she hadn't participated in bringing such a creature down), clearly amused, evidently delighted with herself. Her smile faltered a moment, then drew up again in full effect. The alcohol she'd drink after this merry escapade, as far as she was concerned, was more than a necessity. This had transformed itself into a nightmare — no, this went far beyond a nightmare, straight into something so awful that it could only be reality; the mind couldn't have conjured up this situation.

If things were reversed, she knew she'd do the same. Until her last breath, or the end of her days. She'd protect them, too.

"They won't have long to fawn over it, I've got plans for this baby," he said, twitching it to jingle the claws. He had big plans for it. "Might need to change the shop's name to reflect my grand accomplishments," he said with a reserved look and tone. He wasn't so far up his own ass to believe that it'd been solely his doing that had brought the dragon down, but it never hurt to make it seem that way. Beside, the others didn't seem like the bragging sort, and someone would have to spread the message, why not him? He grinned and plopped the dragon hand on top of her head, much like he did to the Tranquil not long ago. "What do you think, my fine, feathered, friend? The Dragon's Arrow? Wyrmhunt? Ashton's kickass shop of victuals?" The last was a playful joke, but the first two were honest ideas.

It was easier. To pretend nothing was wrong, to act like she was the same Sparrow through and through. He wished that he didn't have to pretend. People like them never got what they wanted though, so he'd bend along with the wind. He'd act like everything was good and dandy. He'd keep an ear to the ground, and play off everything with that goofy little grin and a stupid joke. He'd never let on how seriously worried he was about her. Why show it when there was nothing he could do about it? All he could do was wait and watch, and hope for a miracle.

"Tell ya what, I'll make you a necklace out of one of the claws."




Nostariel had chosen this moment to take something of a break, and was currently seated on the stone ground in front of a small fire she'd lit, warming her hands and trying not to let the faint echoes of her uncanny waking dream stir her any further. She was not a particularly stoic soul, however; she'd always felt with a kind of focused depth that belied her training. Mages often needed to be able to pay attention to one thing to the exclusion of all else, and when Nostariel felt something particularly strongly, she could often ignore broader implications or common sense in favor of that singularity of purpose. She supposed that, in the end, this was why she was unable to just let go of what haunted her. Or maybe that was just something that everyone struggled with, she honestly had no idea.

Sighing, the Warden crossed her legs and closed her eyes, trying to pretend for a moment that she was anywhere but in the Deep Roads. But of course, her imagination rarely did her any favors, and so she frowned tightly and ran a hand through her hair. Intimidating as the woman was, maybe she needed to seek out Amalia and ask just how it was that she'd managed such a preternatural calm all the time. Nostariel didn't wish to give up on feeling, but... a little of that surety was awfully tempting. If it was something inherent in the Qun itself, she may well have dismissed it far too soon.

Their arrival at this ancient thaig gave Ithilian some time to properly think things over, and in the end he came to a result that left him feeling angry with himself, and a little ashamed. It was no abnormal or abhorrent thing for someone to mourn the loss of a loved one, or in his case, his entire family, but he had allowed himself to give in to his worst fear: that were was no hope, and that there was nothing for him to hold on to here any longer. Grief and loss had done to him what no shem ever could. He wouldn't let it happen again. So long as he still drew breath, all was not lost.

He supposed the best place to start was with an apology. To that end, the Dalish elf made his way over to where Nostariel had lit her little fire, taking a crosslegged seat himself and for the moment, saying nothing. As the Warden had just proven to him, words were powerful tools when wielded correctly, and he wanted to be sure this was said correctly. "I must apologize for my words earlier," he began, his voice low so as to not echo about the caverns. "My... pain, has overcome me of late. It has caused me to say things and to do things that I now regret. You did not deserve the words I threw at you, and... I must admit I have wholly misjudged you. You do not outwardly convey the strength you possess, but it is there all the same, and I failed to see it before. I am sorry."

He gazed into the fire for a moment, before looking around him with something approaching disdain. "I should never have come here, to these Deep Roads. But I needed to go somewhere. I do not think I can return to Kirkwall just yet."

To say that Nostariel was surprised was an understatement; she'd hardly expected that anything she would have said would resonate at all with Ithilian; she'd simply had to say them, for the sake of those they journeyed with. But then, perhaps it was the simple fact that she knew pain a little like his, though she'd be the first to admit that for all she'd suffered, she could not imagine what it must be like to lose a child. The love of her life, yes. Her comrades and family, yes. But not a child. She wasn't sure what that would have done to her, honestly, and she hoped she'd never have to know. She digested his words for a moment, mulling over them carefully. In the end, she smiled, a little sadly, and nodded. "It's all right," she said, equally softly, though she was almost certain that Lucien at least was close enough to hear them. That was fine, though, she trusted his discretion, at least, and she was mentioning nothing he had not heard already. "I... could have been kinder in my speech as well."

She turned her eyes back to the fire then, head tilted slightly to one side. "So, don't go back yet." She suggested mildly, shrugging her shoulders. "For me, Kirkwall was a place I went because the Wardens put me there, but I think in a way, it's been what I needed. Maybe what you need isn't a reminder of all you still have to do. Maybe it'll never be the right time to go back, but you won't know unless you go away first. The things you want to do, the problems you want to solve... they'll still be there if ever you return, I'm sure." And that was the sad truth of it, really. Still, there was no point in losing hope when there was still effort to be expended in the attempt. That was something Tristan had always believed, and something she was slowly relearning. She'd never been able to give up completely, and that was perhaps why she still wore the crest and the armband, even on the days when she was such a wreck that she couldn't leave the Hanged Man. It was why she couldnt stop helping, even when she resented being asked.

"Where would you go instead, if you could go anywhere?" she asked, partly to keep the conversation going, partly from curiosity, and partly out of a hope that she might be assisting at least a little.

"Back home, I think," he said, unable to keep the longing from his voice. "To Ferelden, and the Brecilian Forest. My old life has been taken from me, but I have yet to let go of it. I think, if I am to move forward, I need to first return there, and find some way to put the past to rest. It needs to be my choice to leave that place, made by a clear mind, not one plagued by delirium and fresh grief."

It seemed as good a plan as any. The Blight had passed for more than a year now, and the darkspawn would be routed at this point, beginning to fall back into the Deep Roads, certainly not the organized horde they had been before. Much of the forest was no doubt ravaged, but the Brecilian had a way of dealing with intruders, and darkspawn were no exception. It could be wounded, yes, but never killed. His memories of the time were fragmented, disjointed, a massive slur of emotions, torment, grief and loss, and maybe he wouldn't be able to find an exact place where something had happened, the exact spot where he had hastily buried his child, but he knew that if he just returned there, he would be able to feel them again.

It remained to be seen if he would be able to let go, but it was a trial he would need to pass all the same if he wanted to move forward.

"Perhaps a clan has moved back into the area, or avoided the Blight," he speculated, but for some reason the thought didn't seem as appealing he thought it would. He would have been lying if he'd said the elves of the Alienage hadn't become at least a little important to him, and the thought of permanently leaving to join another clan did not sit well with him. There was also Amalia. He did not wish for their last conversation to be the one she remembered him by. He wanted to prove to them that he was more than that, prove it to Amalia, prove it to Nostariel, and prove it to all those struggling to live under the shadow of the shemlen in Kirkwall. Yes, he would return. He just needed time.

Lucien had been busying himself helping a few of the hands organize supplies for the further ventures they would doubtless be undertaking soon, sorting digging and appraisal tools, occasionally asking a question of the foreman with low tones. This kind of labor, he knew little about, and so he inquired and he learned until he could do the tasks properly himself. There was something... nice about that, simple and untainted with expectation of any kind. Perhaps that was why he did it.

Occasionally, bits and pieces of the fireside conversation drifted over to him, though he endeavored not to pay them much mind. He expected there was some need of reconciliation, there, after what had occurred before the dragon showed up. He hoped it went well; lingering bitterness was difficult to swallow on the best of days, and tended to fester in the heart if not excised properly. He was walking past the two with a few mallets and chisels in hand, intent on moving them to the next cart over, when he caught the Dalish man's last sentence. Aware that the conversation was about Ferelden if not much else, he knew he could provide something of an answer. "Your pardon," he broke in mildly, pausing in his steps, "but if you seek Dalish in Ferelden, I believe the Relaferin Clan intended to return to the Brecilian forest after the Blight was ended. They were near the Frostback Mountains a year and some months ago, and I do think they survived, for the most part."

He had run into them on his journey to Denerim, and though they had been at first reluctant to speak with him, circumstances had shoved aside any reticence that might have lingered. Funny thing about mortal danger; it tended to alleviate wariness for long enough to be dealt with, at the very least. In the end, it hadn't turned out poorly at all.

Relaferin. Ithilian, like many of the others in his clan, had always thought them a bit soft. Then again, they thought a majority of the clans had gone soft. And yet, apparently the Relaferin lived on, while the Mordallis had been caught by the Blight. He wasn't sure what he was supposed to feel at that. Anger? That another clan had survived the Blight without that same fatal losses his own had suffered? No, he did not feel anger. Perhaps it was enough for now to simply know that they were alive.

Ithilian peered up at the large shem, the firelight casting dancing shadows over the elf's disfigured features. "That is... good to know. Ma serannas." He supposed the thanks should have come with some barbed insult involving the word shem, riddled with suspicion as to why this human mercenary knew of them, and what his business with them had been, but at the moment, Ithilian was feeling more or less out of hate, at least to the point where he couldn't lash out at every single shem that spoke to him.

"Perhaps I will seek them out, then."

Setting

6 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

"I don't get it," Bartrand grunted, walking alongside his brother. "Nothing in this thaig makes sense." Varric was taking in the sights as they moved, scratching his stubbled face. "Tell me about it." They stopped at the base of a flight of stairs, the elder brother beginning to pace back and forth, thinking aloud. "We're well below the Deep Roads. Whatever dwarves lived here, they came long before the First Blight." He threw up his hands as if to point out how horribly off everything was. "But where are the statues of Paragons? I don't recognize these markings on the wall or anything in the rubble."

"Unlikely, I know," Varric offered, "but it's possible this thaig is from an age in which dwarves weren't mired in tradition." Bartrand nodded, seeming agreeable to the idea. "These dwarves might have been unique. If so, I hope they kept their valuables close at hand." They continued on, up the stairs and past where a few of the expedition were gathered, including the boy Sandal and the merchant Bodahn, the latter of which was still keeping a hand on his boy's shoulder as if to ensure he would remain in sight for the remainder of the trip. Sandal had wandered rather close to Rilien for much of the journey since the group had found him among the darkspawn, and he was close to the Tranquil now. Bodahn seemed to be content just being wherever Sandal was.

"I need to thank you again," Bodahn said to the Tranquil, for perhaps the third time, "I still can't believe you found him." Sandal offered a tentative "'Ello!" to Rilien as well, as he seemed wont to do when Bodahn began speaking to anyone. "I owe you a great debt," Bodahn continued, "I will repay it somehow--I swear my life on it!"

"Unnecessary," Rilien replied, shaking his head. He wasn't much in the habit of taking coin for things he had not agreed to do for coin, and if the distinction made sense only to him, well... it wouldn't be the only thing. He wasn't in need of anything, at least not anything Bodahn could provide him with, though there was the matter of Sandal. Blinking languidly, Rilien cast a glance in the boy's direction at his greeting, and nodded one in return. It was obvious that the lad was talented, but he did not imagine that the life of a travelling merchant gave him much opportunity to refine his craft, and that seemed suboptimal at best.

"What do you intend to do after the expedition concludes?" the Tranquil asked, in the same placid tones he used for everything. He, of course, had plans upon plans, for several contingencies, besides. It was simply the way his mind worked, and factoring in several new variables was yielding better results than even he had expected. Of course, there were a number of contingencies at work, but if it were the case that the dwarf and his son would not be leaving the vicinity of Kirkwall, all three of them might benefit in some measure.

"Depending on how the expedition pans out," Bodahn explained, "we'll probably remain in Kirkwall for a time. We've already been contacted by a number of individuals interested in my boy's enchanting services, some very high up in the city indeed. As for myself, I think some time settled down is much needed, after my years on the road. Yes, I think we'll stay around for a while."

Rilien let a few more steps pass in silence before he spoke, tilting his head to the side so as to glance between father and son. "I plan to purchase a storefront in Kirkwall. I enchant and fabricate alchemical mixtures, myself. I think that Sandal could make use of an opportunity to grow in his craft, and I expect that any such place as I buy could make good use of a person with the social skills to work the counter. Oftentimes, people are disinclined to speak with me. I would not object to you continuing to do your own business on the premises, either, if you should find that arrangement satisfactory. Any work Sandal does, he would be free to profit from. Likewise with yourself." He let the offer hang there, apparently not feeling the need to press for an answer at that moment.

Rilien, while quite sure that there were yet things he could teach Sandal, was also interested in what he might learn, but in the end, he would have enough things to occupy him even if they refused. Still, the idea of having someone else to run both aspects of such an enterprise should he need to be absent for days at a time was a good one, and might well help the lot of them maintain steady clientele, something he was certain would appeal to the dwarf's business sense. Even so, he was not one to insist.

Bodahn considered for a moment. "That sounds like a very interesting opportunity, if I do say so myself. We will certainly consider it, though of course such a decision is not to be made immediately. I would very much like to speak further about that upon our return to Kirkwall, once we know just what we'll find down here." The Tranquil nodded, content with the answer.




Eventually, the scouting party that had cleared their way here was gathered once more, Bartrand accompanying them this time as well. Though the entrance to the thaig had been fascinating and extremely confusing, a more organized push into the thaig was necessary in order to find something valuable. Thus the group pushed onwards, deeper into the thaig, Varric and his elder brother leading the way. "Hmm," Varric mused to the party. "Whatever's through here, it seems still intact. I wonder if we'll find anything..." Ithilian had his bow drawn already, experience teaching him that there was little point sheathing weapons when in the Deep Roads. He was thinking something more along the lines of I wonder if anything will find us, but refrained from putting words to it. Varric shrugged. "Hmph. I suppose we'll need to go down there to find out." That earned a small sigh from Nostariel, but she was otherwise silent on the matter.

Sparrow whistled soft and low, squinting her eyes. Her mace bounced leisurely across her shoulder, loosely held in her hand. How long have they been down here already? The thaig was an endless maze of twists and turns, thick with darkness. She would've been lying if she said she didn't miss the fresh air, or the scorching sun on her back. Everything felt heavy, as if a substantial cloud of smog was pressing against her shoulders. She jostled towards the front, idling beside Nostariel, but only remained still for a moment. Her confidence had always been staggeringly reckless, and so Sparrow was the first to step forward, heedless of danger, clutching perilously off Varric's words – they may find something down there, they might. Much in the same mindset as Sparrow, Ashton too missed the sun. Plus the grass, trees, birds. Really, he missed everything but dirt and rock. Still, he was right beside her as she recklessly strode forward. He wasn't a coward... Most of the time, but he needed somebody's bravery to latch on to and push himself forward. Rightly so that it had been Sparrow's. He covered her side with a drawn bow as they stepped forward into the forgotten thaig.

Lucien, for his part, seemed to bear the monotony of the landscape with an easy sort of nonchalance, and seemed content to linger somewhere in the middle of the group, which given his height did nothing to impede his monocular view of what was going on. From somewhere in the caravan or perhaps from Bodahn, he'd procured a one-handed axe to compliment his shield, which now hung from a loop in his belt, though the metal disc remained strapped to his left forearm. It wasn't what he'd prefer to be bringing into battle, but it would do nicely for present purposes. He'd returned Rilien's knife to the Tranquil, quite insistent that the man have it back. Lucien could use it well enough, but where Rilien was concerned, the blade was simply an extension of his arm. He'd rather walk into another fight with nothing but a shield to his name and a fully-armed Rilien, if it had come down to that. It had happened similarly before.

The group moved forward on their guard, but for the moment it appeared unnecessary, for nothing seemed to stir this far beneath the surface. And yet, despite how silent the walls were, the sounds of their feet echoing throughout the chambers they passed through, the entire thaig felt remarkably alive, like the stone itself had taken note of their trespass, and disapproved. Bartrand didn't notice, or didn't care, and led them onward, picking up the pace slightly as he went.

After some time they passed through a single heavy stone door and entered a large room glowing with red light seemingly emanating from the walls. The centerpiece of the room was a rectangular altar set upon a raised platform towards the rear, a set of stairs flanked by imposing columns guiding them to it. The party filtered into the room, Varric pushing forward towards the altar the quickest, Bartrand remaining by the door, taking in the ominous feeling the room naturally gave off.

Varric slowed to a stop before the altar once he'd reached the top, his head barely reaching over it enough to see what was placed upon it. "Are you... seeing what I'm seeing?" he asked of Nostariel next to him.

"I think so," the Warden murmured by way of reply, eyes fixed on the object on the altar. Was it just her, or was that malificient feeling in the room emanating from that... thing? She didn't know properly what to call it, but it seemed to be at once magnetic and repulsive to her, like something particularly grotesque from which she even so could not tear her gaze. The insidious feeling in the room seemed to thrum at her feet and creep in wispy tendrils up her spine, chilling her without cold.

"Lyrium," the Tranquil pronounced, eyes narrowing almost imperceptibly. He shook his head, just slightly, and glanced over the other faces in the room. "Be cautious with it." He, too, felt the faint unease it exuded, and knew that it was no natural lyrium. The normal substance, he worked with nearly daily, and it was nothing like that. Which certainly meant that some form of magic was at work here, and hardly the benevolent sort.

"Lyrium? Looks like treasure to me," came Sparrow's response, closely behind Rilien's shoulder. Even still, like she'd done when they peered into the thaig's spinning darkness, she nearly bounded up the staircase, up the platform, and finally idling next to the altar. She, too, could feel something tickling across her skin, sending unpleasant jolts of electricity down her forearms. There was a wrongness that she couldn't place her finger on - so, she chopped it down to a stomach ache, or Rapture's emphereal talons scrapping down her subconscious, salivating at the unusual find. Her fingers twitched impatiently at her sides, though she had enough sense not to try and pluck it from it's perch. What the hell was it, anyway? The chamber itself seemed as if it was breathing a heavy sigh at their impertenent existence. Unlike Rilien, Sparrow wasn't nearly as knowledgeable about unnatural substances. Whatever elements he was familiar with, she'd hardly touched on. His work-station remained his own.

"Doesn't look like any kind of lyrium I've ever seen," Varric said, shaking his head at the object. He then turned to where Bartrand stood, at the base of the steps. "Look at this, Bartrand. An idol made out of pure lyrium, I think. Could be worth a fortune." The elder brother just whistled in response. Varric turned back to the idol, snatching it off the altar without much heed to any caution. "Hm," he said, feeling the weight of it, "not bad. Let's take a look around, see if there's anything further in." He then promptly tossed the idol back to Bartrand, who caught it reflexively. Varric moved to carry on.

He'd taken about four steps when there was a solid thud behind him indicating that the stone door and only entrance into the room had shut. "What the?" Varric said, running down the steps to it and trying to open it, but it was no use. Bartrand was nowhere in sight. "Bartrand, are you there? The door's shut behind you!" There was the sound of a faint chuckle from beyond the door. "You always did notice everything, Varric."

It took Varric a second or two to comprehend, but when he did, he was furious, pounding on the stone with a fist. "Are you joking? You're going to screw over your own brother for a lousy idol?" Bartrand shot back. "It's not just the idol. The location of this thaig alone is worth a fortune, and I'm not splitting it with all of you." The sound of his voice grew steadily fainter. "Sorry, Brother." Varric pounded on the door a few more times. "Bartrand!" He eventually gave up, turning back to the party, fuming.

"I swear I will find that son of a bitch, sorry mother, and I'll kill him!" Ithilian was... hardly surprised. The way this trip was going so far, he was starting to think that seeking death had been entirely unnecessary. He nocked an arrow, imagining that things were bound to get even more ugly pretty soon. "The only way out now seems to be further in. Let's cut our way out of this place, and teach that dwarf the meaning of vengeance."

Nostariel lamented their fortunes, but she did so purely internally, her face setting itself into grim lines. It wasn't only their chances of survival that were reduced this was; she had the maps, after all, and if they managed to get far enough towards the surface, she should be able to figure out where they were. But if all the expedition's muscle was in here, she didn't much like the odds for anyone out there if any Darkspawn managed to flank. Perhaps best that the Roads were largely empty right now; give it another year, and matters would be considerably more difficult. Taking her staff from her back, the Warden clasped it loosely in a hand and planted the bottom end into the patch of earth at her feet. "We don't have much choice, do we?" she asked, largely rhetorically, before she pushed off using the metal pole of the staff and set forward.

"Treachery's like that," Lucien replied in what seemed a rather offhand manner, but if the look he gave the sealed door was any indication, he was just as upset as the rest of them, only... more quietly.

At least the Thaig had interesting things to look at, she supposed.

"Well, I never. A greedy drawf. How rare-- no offense of course," Ashton deadpanned, firing off a glance at Varric. The sarcasm dripping in his voice was almost tangible, and if it was, he'd most likely pack it away and save it for later. Better to strangle Bartrand with it. He let the bowstring in his fingers go slack as he approached the locked door. If the dwarf pounding on the door was any indication and cussing at his own brother, then it was in fact locked. Eyelids slid lazily over his tired oculars. He wondered whose oatmeal he pissed in to garner such horrid luck. Then his eyes widened as a bolt of realization struck him. He surged forward, lanky legs carried through the party and to the door, leaving him towering over the dwarf as he added his own knocking at the door.

"The bastard has my dragon bones! In the cart with the workers. I swear, if they say they killed it, I'll skin them, and make a bow out of their bones!" He said, punctuating with frantic thumps. He wasn't getting anywhere, and he knew it. The door was there a long time before him, and probably will still be there a long time after. Which satisfied that his punching the door wasn't getting him anywhere fast, he spun on his heels and immediately set out to find another exit. "Right. Let's go. I'm not gonna dawdle here while my dragon bones get hocked at the nearest pawn shop."

He ascended the stairs two at a time, and shot a look at the Dalish man. Caution had long since abandoned him, along with his dragon arm. "I couldn't agree more," he agreed with Ithilian.

Past the altar that the idol had been resting upon was an open door, the group's only remaining option. Ithilian and Varric led the way, taking the group into a series of long, stretching corridors. The lyrium down this far had turned from a glowing blue to a rather malevolent bright red, snaking up and around the walls like vines, exploding out of cracks in the walls and appearing to constrict the passageways like fingers wrapped tightly around a throat. As they moved on from the halls and into a series of more natural looking cave formations, Ithilian was having conflicted feelings. On the one hand, nothing had attacked them so far. On the other, he couldn't shake the feeling that they were being watched, or followed.

He found his feelings to be justified once the group wandered down into a spacious cave, a narrow path through the middle flanked by lyrium crystals sprouting from the ground as though they were trees. Rocks that were formerly just lying upon the ground rearranged themselves as they approached, glowing yellows cores igniting in their centers in the shape of ribcages as they formed themselves into rough approximations of bodies. Ithilian wondered if whatever spirits these were weren't just imitating those that they saw. It seemed the kind of thing a demon would do.

Though they did not immediately move to attack that did not stop Ithilian from raising his bow, the arrow aimed for center mass, that yellowish core of theirs. If there was a weak point in a creature otherwise made entirely of rock, it was that. "That is far enough," the center rock creature, of the five present, said, his voice deep and suitably gravely. It wasn't apparent what he spoke from, but the sound was there all the same. "We have watched you for a time, and you appear very capable. I would not see these creatures harmed without need." He must have spoken of the others flanking him, though they looked no less threatening than he, only slightly smaller.

"Well, would you look at that," Varric said, his tone remaining light. "We finally found something down here that didn't attack us on sight." The rock formation eyed the dwarf, if that was possible, for a moment, before responding, his tone remaining calm. "The others will not assault you, not without my permission." Varric seemed content to continue speaking about them as if they weren't there. "What are these things? They seem like rock wraiths, but..."

The rock wraith answered for him. "They hunger. The profane have lingered in this place for ages beyond memory, feeding on the magic stones until the need is all they know. I am not as they are. I am... a visitor." Ithilian's arrow did not waver. "Do not veil your words, demon." After waiting long enough to be sure the elf wasn't going to shoot him right then and there, the rock wraith spoke once more. "I would not see my feast end. I sense your desire. You seek to leave this place, but you will need my aid to do so."

No. Rilien was quite done with demons for the time being, and this one warranted absolutely none of his attention. It would just be another temptation for people who were not as he was, and frankly, he was not feeling at all charitable towards the notion of dealing with another possessed person at the moment. One was quite enough. He caught Lucien's eye, his own flicking subtly towards the other creatures, but turned his focus forward again as Varric began to speak. The Chevalier understood well enough what was meant, and rolled his shoulders, as if to loosen them, though his hand strayed yet not to his axe. The Warden was already shaking her head, looking as though she were about to deny its words, but this too was pointless. Why parley with a creature that would only attack once you had refused? It was entirely pointless, and he was not one to waste his time so.

As the last words were leaving it, the Tranquil moved, breaking into a dead run that had more the appearance of floating than anything, an impression only reinforced by the ease with which he left the ground, his feet passing over his head at about the same time as he passed over the demon's, the first of his blades finding the glowing ghost-light that formed what appeared to be its single eye. The perfect arc of his motion completed lightly, and he landed back-to-back with it, wrenching his second dagger backward, past the stones that comprised its torso and into the yellowish core of magic that served to hold it together.

The result was instantaneous; the light sputtered and died, the stones collapsing back into a heap upon the ground, and the other creatures sprang forth, free of whatever force had held them at bay. "I think not," he said flatly, mostly in response to its last assertion. Capable they were, and they would make it out of these roads quite independently of any such barbed, poisonous assistance. He stooped to gather his knives from amidst the rubble, pleased to discover that his aim had been true and they'd scraped no stone in the process.

At the same time that Rilien sprang into action like the predator he was, Ashton had taken his time to select the perfect arrow to ram up the demon's ass. As he went about this process, he was continually shaking his head, muttering under his breath No, nope, nope, hell no, the entire time. By the time Rilien had moved, Ashton had nocked his arrow and taken a step forward, taking aim at the foul creature. He would not have another Sparrow. No deal was to be made today, and he would see the demon fall for such an insult. Anger danced across his eyes as he awaited Rilien to finish his maneuver so that he would have a free shot. What would he do if another one of them fell to the allure of a demon? Though he tried to play it off, Sparrow's plight hurt him. He would not see the same thing done to Nostariel.

As the heels of Rilien's head cleared what he believed to be the face of the creature (and slamming his knife in it, good ol' Rilien) Ashton released his own arrow. It shot through the air, and stuck the front glowing mass of the demon, forcing it further into Rilien's other knife. One again, he realized just how like minded he and the tranquil were. Whether that spoke measures about Rilien or himself, he wasn't sure. Still, they weren't out of the pot yet. His next motion was as fluid as Rilien's, as only the mouthpiece had been destroyed, and left enough of it's ilk for everyone. He pivotted on his right foot, taking him in an arc ninety degrees, dropping his sight on the first Rock Wraith. Arrow drawn and bow taut, he took aim at the creature.

"Glad you stabbed it in its lying face Ril," Ashton said, releasing his arrow, "Let's clean up his friends and never talk about this, yeah?"

When Ashton and Rilien had turned to the large one at the center, Lucien had selected a target to one of the sides, pulling his axe from the loop at his belt and hurling it in one smooth motion. The weapon flew end over end, whistling through the air and embedding itself in the center of one of the other rock-constructions, but he was hardly going to wait to see if that was enough, and Lucien was off after it immediately thereafter, bearing down upon the creature with his right side, the shield connecting with a violent clang, surely sufficient to stun. It did the job, giving him enough time to take the axe by the haft, draw it up, and swing in a wood-chopping arc, landing it right in the same spot. That was enough, and like the other two, it lost that internal light and crumbled back into the loose collection of stones it had been at the start.

He had to admit, he was not used to demons, but if this was what they all were like, then he had difficulty understanding how they could hold such sway over people. Nothing it had said appealed to him in the least; he had every confidence that he and the others would find the surface again, aided or not. Perhaps others of its kind were more persuasive? He was admittedly curious, though he could not say that the feeling extended to wishing to meet more of them, particularly.

Ithilian put a well-placed shot into the core of the first wraith on the left, while Varric unleashed a trio of shots directly into the face of the one beside it, the pair of them crumbling into dust and rubble beside the others. "Right," Varric said lightly, "now that that's done with, let's get moving."

Setting

6 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

Perhaps the hunger demon thought the group would more seriously consider its offer, as it had failed to bring all of its followers to the fore to protect it. These profane, as they had been called, were encountered by the group almost immediately after moving on from the current room and into more stony corridors. They cut through these as they had the others, leaving a trail of dust and loose stone behind them. The halls eventually began to constrict slightly, narrowing in width as if they were inside a throat in the midst of being choked, trying to capture them inside.

Just as it seemed it would choke off into a dead end there was a sharp ninety degree turn into a winding staircase to led them upwards for the first time in a while. They ascended several floors worth until it ended, opening up into a large square chamber, the centerpiece of which was four strudy stone pillars wrapped in red lyrium twisting and constricting up their lengths. "I think..." Varric mused, taking a look around. Ethereal light shined through cracks in the wall on the far side. "this might be a vault of some kind." He took a few more paces in, the group behind him. "Which means that somewhere around here, the ancient dwarves may have stored their..."

He trailed off when a large pile of rocks against the right wall began to rearrange themselves, rolling on top of one another, stacking into legs and arms, the final product a hulking, ten foot monster of rock, apparently none too happy with their tresspassing judging by the stance it immediately presented towards Varric. "...valuables," Varric finished, slowing bringing Bianca in line with its head. "This should be good."

What followed was a lengthy struggle between man and earth during which Lucien did his best to maintain the creature's ire, while the two hunters and the dwarf pelted it from afar with arrows and bolts, Nostariel and Rilien and Sparrow filling supporting roles. Needless to say, it was a very tired group of adventurers that stepped over the rock guardian's crumbled form, across the threshold of what was indeed, as Varric had predicted, a vault.

"The rock wraiths are supposed to be dwarven legends," the younger Tethras brother complained, "They're not even supposed to be real!" He was halted when a golden vase of some kind flew towards him, and he caught it, spying the Dalish elf up ahead, standing at the base of a literal pile of treasure. Gold littered the floor in every direction, chests of it overflowing to spill onto the ground around them, relics the likes of which the world had never seen. "I suppose the rock wraiths don't really matter now, do they?" Varric said to himself, momentarily stunned by the bounty.

Lucien, a little worse for the wear having been essentially battered with rocks for the better part of what was almost an hour now, all told, had raised a speculative brow upon hearing the dwarf's skepticism. "We're in the middle of an abandoned, supposedly forever-lost Thaig, having just slain a dragon and refused a bargain with a demon that possessed no flesh, and you're incredulous about the stone construct?" The question itself was light, though perhaps not as much so as it would have been if his ribcage weren't still smarting from whatever strange energy attack the thing had used. He'd caught it full in the chest the first time, and though Nostariel's intervention was timely as always, it would probably take him a while to recover the lingering damage.

At that point, though, he was able to temporarily forget the residual pain when he walked up behind the dwarf, whistling a low note at the hoard. "There's a lesson in here somewhere for Bartrand," he said with a chuckle. The Empress's treasury would be hard-pressed to match some of the things in here, though it was doubtful they'd be able to carry it all, having just themselves and whatever their arms could manage. No need to be greedy, though; he'd live quite a while on even the smallest portion of such hard-won gains.

"Heh. Demons, darkspawn, and rock monsters, oh my," Ashton said between hunched pants. For all of the dancing and dodging the archer did, he didn't come away from the fighting without his share of wounds. He was nursing a wicked looking black eye, blood dribbled from one gash along the bridge of his nose, and he was favoring his right leg more than was necessarily healthy. However, he was alive, and his enemies dead. He'd count that as a victory in his book any day. "Lucien has a point. It's talk like that that summons up a flock of feral griffins to attack us," he joked, though he did venture a cautious glance up to the ceiling.

What grievances Ashton felt was soon melted away at the sight of the gleaming pile. Perched above the stocky dwarf, he leaned forward, using the top of the dwarf's head as a rail and peered into the mound of gold. "Right. Best investment ever. Clearly. Looks like I'm not going to lose my shop, so that loan shark can eat it. Here, hold this darling," He finished by handing his bow and quiver (of which a scant few arrows remained) to Nostariel and darted around the dwarf. There, he let gravity do its job and fell into the pile of gold.

While riches were riches, gold was still hard and it stung all of his hidden bruises when he collapsed. But really, he didn't care. Treasure was a hell of a pain killer. Once he was situated in the mound, he began to move his arms and legs, making what he would call: "Look Sparrow! A gold angel! The best of angels."

She, too, whistled low in her throat, though it tapered off into a soft hum that barely left her lips. Had she escaped the forgotten, restless thaig without any injuries, then her guilt, already gnawing at her insides like an incessant rat, would've been multiplied. The Maker – if he, or she, even existed – would have none of that, spattering large gashes across her exposed shoulder blades, where pieces of her armor had been crushed and thrown aside. She'd need a new set if she were ever to find herself wandering down in the Deep Roads again. Worse yet, there was something within her that had spoiled the grandeur of their discovery, of their very adventure, even managing to muddy the mystifying find of so many valuable objects piled atop one another, spilling over into riches she could have never imagined. She'd been one of the reasons why they had so many bruises, so many wounds. Her contribution to their pain was conclusively real, rubbing her raw. Lucien's conversation with Varric seemed to glide past her twitching ears, past her shoulders, belonging to someone else. She blinked once, then twice, watching as Ashton plopped his weapons into the dwarf's open arms, ambling around him so that he could fall unceremoniously into the hoard of treasure, bruises and all.

If she could cut that thing out of her, she would've in a heartbeat. Sparrow meandered a few paces to their right, crouching down so that she could snatch up a handful of coins, allowing them to spill through her fingers. Her eyes focused on their ridges. She wanted to deny her cowardice, bury it somewhere deeper, darker, but it was still difficult to look them in the eyes and play the part of the flighty little bird, unaware of what she'd done to them. Of what she'd continue doing to them if she kept silent. Were secrets that important? Would they forgive her if she were honest? It seemed an unfamiliar concept. She was a liar, or a skimmer of truths. The only one she'd ever been truly, fundamentally honest to was Amalia, and even then, she'd managed to ruin their friendship by running away. As if pretending to look at her reflection in a nearby goblet, trailing the nasty gash running down her left cheekbone, Sparrow twisted and turned it in her hands, occasionally watching her companions in its hazy, warped reflection. If she wanted to, with her share of this unforeseen bounty, she could finally move away from Rilien, distance herself from her friends, and stuff herself away like some kind of hermit. A short bark of laughter bubbled out, sorely bitter. She plopped down on her butt, and rested her elbows on her knees.

Finally, she could pay all of her dues.

Nostariel managed a weary chuckle upon observation of the archer's antics, though she might have winced at his actual impact, more from sympathy than anything. Though she'd stayed away from the melee, she'd still managed to catch a few bruises and scrapes from flying stones, and her left eyebrow was presently diagonally slashed by a cut that leaked blood at a slow, but steady rate. Fortunately, this largely went around her eye rather than into it, but the sticky feeling was uncomfortable now that she was able to notice it at all. She'd have cast a spell to heal it and a few for her companions besides, but she was simply all out of mana for the moment, so it would have to wait. The large piles of treasure were of some cursory interest, but more for the interesting pieces than the shiny ones. Among the bits of wealth strewn about the place lay a staff, the knotted wood of it seemingly interlaced with some kind of stonework, perhaps intended to reinforce the structure. The blade at the end was as yet new-looking, though surely it must have been ancient.

Seeing as her last had snapped under the weight of a crushing stone not ten minutes prior, Nostariel was willing to consider it a good stroke of luck, and crouched to pick up the new one, faintly surprised at the fine make of it despite the odd appearance. It should do quite nicely. As for the rest, well... she would take a portion for her service, but it was not as though any amount of coin or luck would save her from her fate; Grey Wardens had precious little need of such things, in the end.

Rilien, perhaps true to form was standing mildly off to one side, observing the assorted shenanigans with no visible reaction at all. Ashton's act, silly as it was, hardly surprised him, but neither did it produce any kind of scorn. The man was as he was, and Rilien did not mind. Lucien was beginning to remind him more of the man beside whom he'd trekked over more miles than he cared to remember, less solemn than he'd been since the night before Denerim. Hardly noticeable, was the change, and yet the Tranquil noticed all the same.

Sparrow... concerned him, as seemed to be the case too often recently. The thought had occurred to him that she would now be financially independent of his care, but he had not considered that an ill possibility until the demon proved that it could sieze control. It was not that he desired to be near it, merely that he thought things better arranged if he could at least maintain a watchful eye on her. He was... inclined towards her staying. Surely, the demon was the only reason. It was the only one that made any sense, anyway. "It would be prudent to gather what we can and make for the surface," he advised, "That journey will be some time yet, and what food we have will not last so many time enough to tarry overlong."

Nostariel nodded. "Rilien speaks truly. I think that door might put us out into a passage, and if so, I should be able to navigate us out from there, but I for one am eager to be free of these blighted places."

"Should be about a week back to the surface, if we're unlucky," Varric guessed as he perused some of the finer artifacts among the treasure trove. "If we're lucky, we'll stumble over Bartrand's corpse on the way."

The Chanter's Board has been updated. The Deep Roads Expedition has been completed.

Act One has been completed.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon

Earnings

0.00 INK

It was late morning, the sun ascended high enough into the sky that its light streamed in through the highly-placed windows of his small dwelling. From the exteriors, most of the houses in Lowtown were built this, perhaps to discourage theives from helping themselves to an easier entrance. Perhaps it even worked; the only kinds of nighttime intruders he'd ever needed to worry about were those who would not be dissuaded by something so small. Unlike other places in the area, the window was about as clean and bright as lye and elbow grease could make it, though the glass was of a fundamentally grainy sort and would never admit the full brightness of the hour. Nonetheless, the room was well-lit, and though the wood and walls were dark, it did not have the cling of despair and dinginess about it.

Aside from the desk and the armchairs near the fireplace, the place was dominated by laden bookshelves, and, presently at least, a moderately-sized easel, on which was propped a canvas. It was about the only thing Lucien had purchased with his expedition earnings so far, as he found he simply had need of nothing else. He would need a new weapon in time, and perhaps this time he would at least go to a proper smith to obtain it, but for now, that could wait. At this particular moment, the owner of the hole in the wall was standing at the easel, charcoal stick in one hand, which was for once bereft of a plated gauntlet. Actually, all of his plates were currently arranged on the armor shelf in his chamber, leaving him with little more than a ringmail shirt and some leather by way of protection. That even these remained was perhaps a bit odd, but he did not think it so.

Taking shape on the canvas was the figure of the dragon from the Deep Roads, its wings outstretched and jaw agape. At its heels and arrayed out in front of it could be seen figures with currently only vague resemblance to Rilien, Ashton, Ithilian, Nostariel, Sparrow, and Varric, each wielding his or her weapon of choice. With time, their expressions would be every bit as contentious, but for now, he was simply arranging their shapes properly.

Some ways down the street, Sophia Dumar was making her way towards the mercenary's house, for once wearing more armor than he was. She was garbed in her usual suit of ringmail under light plate, crimson skirt flowing down to her knees, golden hair tied back to keep it out of her way. Considering that this was the first time she'd been able to escape from the Viscount's Keep all week, she planned to take advantage of the day. One of the guardsmen had tipped her off of something to investigate near the entrance to the Alienage, and she planned to check it out. That, and Lucien seemed more comfortable speaking with people who looked more likely to enter a battle than a dinner party.

The past few months had taught her that nothing was ever so simple as she wished, nor even so simple as it seemed. No amount of desire on her part could make all issues into black and white, with the clear choice as to where she should stand. She did not want to cause conflict with the Qunari, but at the same time she could allow them to operate with impunity within the walls of what was soon to be her city, a territory which they had no authority over. They still showed no signs of leaving or preparing to leave, and though Sophia would have liked to believe otherwise, it was becoming apparent that they would not be leaving on their own. Saemus had been pleased at that, and Sophia had not the heart to bring up what had occurred with the Qunari mage and Sister Petrice, for fear her own doubts would be dredged up by the incident.

Nor had she been able to confront the sister. For one, Petrice was remarkably hard to find, even for one who spent as much time within the Chantry walls as Sophia did. And two... it was perhaps the first issue the Viscount's daughter preferred to ignore rather than face head on. Sophia was willing put faith in her one more time, faith enough to believe that she wouldn't be fool enough to try something like that again. For the moment, Sophia was dedicating herself to solving some of the city's problems that didn't involve the Qunari. It wasn't like there was too few to choose from.

But first she planned to speak to Lucien. It had taken longer than she would have liked to run into him at the Hanged Man, given that her father was placing more and more responsibilities on her of late, almost as though he were trying to take up all of her time... no doubt he didn't care for what she did when given free time. But nevertheless she made her way on occasion down to Lowtown, and eventually ran into the Orlesian man at the tavern long enough to express her relief that the expedition had made it back in one piece, and to arrange a meeting of sorts to continue the discussion they'd left off last time. The location had been set for his house, which she could locate now that she had the directions. Lowtown still turned her around on occasion, but she was getting the hang of it. Coming to a halt before the door she'd been directed to, Sophia knocked clearly three times.

The noise echoed softly in the cavernous chamber; for some reason, Kirkwallian houses seemed to be built with high ceilings more often than second floors, but he wasn't complaining. He rarely did, even when there were things to complain about. Why bother? His father had always put it with that common touch of his: fix it, or shut up about it and move on. Somewhat crude as far as advice went, maybe, but quite relevant all the same. "It's open, Sophia," he called, just loud enough to be heard through the door. He would have answered it himself, but he was trying to make it to a decent stopping point with the piece so as not to be working still when attempting to converse. Adding a few more soft strokes to the swish of Nostariel's hair, he stepped back, frowned, and sharpened the lines of Ithilian's profile a bit before he was satisfied enough to lay down the charcoal on the side table, until such time as he had a moment to work on it again.

Right on time, the small kettle over the fire in the brazier began to boil, and he crossed to that spot, unhooking it from the hearth and carefully tipping some of the water into a teapot made of Orlesian ceramic. It was one of the few items he'd brought with him when he left, largely for the sentimental value. Though not particularly feminine in design or color, it was clearly a delicate thing, and it had belonged to his mother. Spooning a measure of tea into the pot, he left it to steep and retrieved a pair of cups and saucers from the shelf, setting these down on a small tray, which sat on the end table between the two armchairs. It was at that point that he glanced up at his guest, smiling kindly. "How have you been?"

Sophia had stood in the entryway for a moment while Lucien moved to the teapot. Once he'd reached the end table between the armchairs she took the liberty of seating herself in one, unbuckling her sword and leaving it propped up near the door. Awkward thing to sit down with, Vesenia was. "Busy, but not in a bad way. Father has me taking up more of his duties lately, trying to prepare me, that or he's trying to keep me out of Lowtown. Both, probably." She glanced over towards Lucien's painting, smiling to herself.

"So the rumors are true, then? I heard the expedition ran into a dragon below the surface, but I must admit, I was skeptical. I suppose that makes us even, then? Now that we've both ran into dragons and lived to tell the tale?" She leaned her chin on a gloved hand, studying the work in progress. "And I had no idea you painted. It's coming along very nicely, I think."

"Well, considering the source of those rumors, I suspect a certain amount of skepticism is healthy," Lucien said, a wry twitch at the corner of his mouth. Varric certainly could spin a yarn; the man would make a small fortune if he ever took up his trade in Orlais. Though, he would perhaps not need it now, given their rather large recent windfall. "But yes, there was a dragon belowground, and a good number of its lesser kin. 'Twas quite the battle, even for as many as we were. I do believe Ashton took possession of one of its forelimbs afterward, for some reason or another." Judging from the smell, the tea was done, and he poured hers first, followed by a second for himself.

His eye was drawn to the canvas upon her mention of it, as if he were seeing it for the first time, and he shrugged, just slightly. "I have but the barest fraction of my mother's talent, I fear. But such a scene as that one deserved the memory, even if it is a humble one in the end," he deflected modestly. He hadn't yet decided whether or not to place himself in the image, and he was leaning towards the negative. It was very nicely composed as it was, and self-portraiture was... iffy at best, as far as he was inclined. He was quite certain she was here for reasons other than discussing his half-formed artwork, but he was disposed to allow Sophia to come to the topic in her own time. It wasn't something he was particularly looking forward to discussing, but he would. She deserved to know it, and he honestly had no better reason to keep it to himself than a certain kind of unbecoming reticence.

So he took his seat, lifted his teacup into one hand, and resolved to let the conversation move as she dictated it.

Sophia would have tried to counter Lucien's downplaying of his own skill, but she was used to his extreme modesty at this point, and knew there would be little point. "My own mother was a terrible painter, as my father tells me. She was more like me, apparently. Sparring with her brothers rather than learning to sew and dance, and perhaps a little short on patience." She wasn't sure why she told him that, as she didn't make a habit of talking about her mother, though she enjoyed it on the occasions she did. She was a remarkable woman that Sophia could only hope to live up to.

Turning away from the painting, Sophia took a sip of the tea before setting the cup lightly down. "I thought we might continue our previous conversation, now that you've returned," she said, delaying no further. "I suggested you might aid my family more directly, to which you warned me that there are things I should know first. I was wondering if I might know them now, since we aren't surrounded by patrons in the Hanged Man." She was confident that whatever it was, her offer would still stand, given what she had seen of Lucien's true nobility.

But then again, nothing was ever so simple as she wished.

Sighing slightly through his nose, Lucien set down his cup and leaned back, raking a hand through his hair with a half-sardonic, tight smile. "I suppose I rather left you bereft of explanation, didn't I?" A pause, then he shook his head, just slightly. "Very well. I shall attempt to rectify that." Propping his elbows on the armrests of the chair, he steepled his fingers together, then laced the last three of each hand together, tapping his squared chin with his extended index digits in thought. It was difficult to decide where to start. It had not been beyond him that he might need to explain this eventually, but no way he ever seemed to approach the conversation in his mind seemed to work. He always ended up saying too much or not enough.

Perhaps it would be best if she could help him decide where to begin. "How well do you know your ancient history, Sophia? Are you familiar with the founding of the Orlesian Empire?"

Sophia cringed slightly. "I'm afraid my history tutor was... none too fond of me. If you catch my meaning."

That earned her a chuckle. "I think I understand. Well, most of it isn't relevant anyway. Suffice to say that I'm unfortunate enough to be related by blood to the founder. Kordillus Drakon, he was called, and my father is the present Lord Drakon, much to the chagrin of many another courtier." He might have said more there, but it occurred to him that this was probably more important information than his rather calm delivery would suggest, so he gave it a moment to permeate. Truthfully, he was expecting a question or two here, to put it politely, perhaps even disbelief. As if to stave that off, he tilted his head, indicating the coat of arms on the wall to his left, over the mantle.

Just the way he said it left Sophia with a rather dumbfounded look on her face for a moment, before she realized that this really made a lot more sense than it seemed at first, and in the end wasn't all that surprising. It was in the way he carried himself, the way he spoke, really everything about him had screamed nobility to her, but if she was interpreting this right, then he was more along the lines of royalty than a more common noble birth.

Once she'd gotten her thoughts back together, she actually smiled slightly at the announcement. "So does that mean I should have been addressing you as 'my lord' all this time?" Of course there was more to this than simply his birth, as there needed to be some explanation as to why a descendant of the founder of the Orlesian Empire would be selling his blade in the poorer districts of Kirkwall.

Lucien grimaced, the expression slightly exaggerated for effect. "I certainly hope not. If you did, I'd have to call you 'my lady,' and stop speaking directly, and get offended whenever someone didn't bow deeply enough. It's incredibly inconvenient for maintaining friends." Lifting one shoulder in a slight shrug, he continued. "And really, the decorum and rigidity is more or less the reason I'm here anyway. The Orlesian court likes rules, and changing them without telling anyone. I... may have broken a few. Call it the indiscretion of youth, I suppose, though it sounds odd to say so with little more than two years between then and now." He'd changed a great deal over that small fraction of time, though, and just before.

"Empress Celene is my aunt, on my mother's side. She does the best she can, I think, but even someone as powerful as she is had to work within certain... constraints. The court isn't very amenable to being ignored, and she can't do everything herself. My father is military, as my family has always been. It's not the royal line anymore, I think due to a complicated incident involving an illegal regency back in the Steel Age, but that's not really important. I was raised in a way that, perhaps, you might understand-- there was a certain expectation about what my future was to be," he left out the part where that future involved his aunt's crown, "and I was raised to meet it. The trouble was, my father and his predecessors have never been embraced by the court; I do think the only reason his marriage to my mother was allowed was because everyone expected Aunt Celene to have children at some point. He doesn't much go in for the Game, and this has made him more foes than I can properly count." Ah, the complexities of politics. He had not missed them.

"Well... that complicates things nicely, doesn't it?" she asked rhetorically, taking another drink of the tea. He was related to the founder of the Empire and the current Empress. Indeed, she was starting to see how his service to her family would be making a statement to Orlais, whether she wanted to or not, though she didn't quite know just what that message would be. "So... how did you end up here in Kirkwall? As a Lowtown mercenary no less." She certainly could understand the upbringing he had, to a certain extent. Hers had not been military beyond the blade training she'd received as a teenager, but the lack of choice in regards to his future was something she could sympathize with.

"Too much pride and my father's own stubborn streak," he replied lightly, but then he paused, considering the answer in more seriousness. He had never particularly enjoyed conversations that were about himself, perhaps because the people who asked usually wanted something from him. He didn't think that was necessarily the case with Sophia, at least not in the same way, but even so, habit was habit, and hard to break for all that. He supposed he couldn't even blame the courtiers who had intended to manipulate him or people he knew. It was how their own houses survived another generation with their influence intact. "I was... an officer in the army, newly-knighted and rather reckless, all told. My sense of what was right or best didn't always mesh with command structure, and I had little patience for what I viewed as incompetence."

It normally hadn't been that much of an issue; his lord father had less patience for it than he did, and was the man primarily in charge or promotions in rank. Still, in a fighting force that large, some people were bound to slip through the cracks. "A number of us were sent out to deal with some bandits terrorizing the countryside, the usual sort of thing. I was second-in-command, and a number of the troops in that detachment were personal friends of mine. The bandits were much more numerous than we'd been led to believe, and we were outnumbered. The commander led us right into an ambush, despite several of us insisting that it might happen. In order to get out, he was going to cut and run... and a few of my comrades were going to be in the 'cut,' so to speak." His expression dropped into a frown, one that bordered on a scowl.

"So I overrode the chain of command, took a few of my best friends, and dug out the others the hard way. Not as simple as it should have been; the bandits were trained." Too trained, his tone implied easily enough. He'd nearly died several times, lost to the reckless abandon of a fight for his life and the lives of those he cared about. Something that could still happen from time to time. "I lost two to save ten, which was regrettable. We managed to get out, but the commander was obviously not pleased. I was just as angry, and we wound up having it out right there. Duels are not common in Orlais anymore, but still technically allowed under chivalric code. He wasn't as bad a warrior as he was a commander, though." Lucien's thumb slid under the black band of his eyepatch, and he pulled it away. The skin underneath was bisected by a jagged-looking scar, and though the iris of the eye was the same color as his other one, the pupil did not adjust much for the incoming light, a sure sign that it didn't work very well.

"Nearly lost me my eye, but I'd say what he lost was considerably more significant." His words were heavy with some unnamed weight, and he shook his head. "I didn't kill him; I think even then I knew a little better than that. But his sword-arm is gone, and he's been ejected from the army. Of course, what I failed to realize at the time was that his family has enough influence to stand against mine, and I was officially tried for insubordination, assault, and a number of other things, some of which I certainly deserved, and the murder of my two friends, which I like to think I didn't." Truly, that they had died at all was the part he regretted the most about the whole incident. "There was a lot of delay, and considerable politicking, and a few bards got involved, at which point the whole thing was more sensation than trial anymore. My aunt was forced to exile me, at least for the time being, and I left Orlais, travelled through Ferelden, fought in Denerim, and then made my way here. That's about the long and short of it, really."

Sophia knew she needed more experience, but now that Lucien had told his story, she wasn't so sure she was ready to pay the price to get it. Thus far she had only involved herself in sessions holding her father's court that had been glorified practice, and ventures into the civilized wilderness of Lowtown that were starting to seem more reckless than noble. She'd done a lot of uncomfortable fidgeting throughout the course of the story, and had just about finished the tea. She had a sudden urge at the end to inquire about Denerim, but under everything else it felt rather minor in comparison. She'd have to ask him later.

"I..." she began, before reconsidering. "That can't be an easy thing to share. I'm honored you feel comfortable enough to share it with me." She figured it had to have been something like exile. She didn't claim to know intricacies of Orlesian politics and how it differed from the routine in Kirkwall, but she could think of no other reason he would leave his country for Lowtown. "I can't imagine my words are worth much. Or anything, really. I've never really been in any situation like that. Never had to follow orders." Indeed, she was more looking to receive advice from him, rather than give it. Though she didn't imagine he needed it.

"So your service to my family would anger certain influential people, I take it?" She sighed. "Politics have a way of muddying things, don't they?" So rarely were things clear to her. The time she'd ridden out to save her brother had been an easy decision to make, but everything since then was growing more and more cloudy. Perhaps she had to simply go with what her heart told her, regardless of where that led.

"A lovely piece of understatement," the mercenary mused thoughfully, sliding his eyepatch back into place. The blurriness faded from his vision, the details of his home and the woman in front of him resolving into better focus. "But true enough. I'll have to disagree in one respect, however: words have great significance. Yours no less than any others. And yes, I'm afraid my direct vassalage would likely create political problems the like of which I do not desire to contemplate. It does not seem to me, however, that the continued anonymous help of a friend will do the same, if you are not averse to it."

She didn't like it, but she didn't see much that she could do about it. Even if it was somehow stressed that the decision had been hers and not her father's, the weight of her choice would probably fall on him regardless, and she had no desire to place more problems upon him, as he had enough to deal with already. As much as she wanted to take his side, she couldn't do it while her father would take the fall. She would not try to convince him of this, either. Sophia had already decided she would only be bringing her father good news.

"So long as the anonymous help can go both ways, then perhaps it is best. If you need of anything that the Keep can provide, please do not hesitate to ask. I can't help but notice that your... farming tool, is not in sight. If you would like to make use of the Keep's forge, or take something from the armory, just say the word."

He didn't bother to hide the glint of amusement in his eye, nor the wry smile. "Yes, sadly the farming tool broke off inside the maw of a dragon. It shall be difficult to replace." Then, more seriously: "But I shall not take up a sword until I've earned the right. I may perhaps ask after some kind of waraxe, however." He'd been planning to have one made by a smith, but the important part would be what he could pay Rilien to do with lyrium and that strange enchantment skill of his afterward.

"You have my thanks, Sophia, for listening. It is not the most comfortable story in the world."

She stood. "It helps to have someone to tell it to, I think. I'm glad I could do the listening for once." Sophia crossed the distance to where her sword was propped against the wall, sliding an arm and her head under the strap so that it rested across her back once more. "See you around, Lucien."

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

Nostariel straightened, wiping the thin sheen of sweat from her brow as the last of the hurlocks fell beneath Lucien's axe. She didn't know where he'd acquired the weapon, but it seemed to be serving him well, and for now at least, herself by mere extension. Releasing the spell that kept the edge of it aflame, she sighed wearily and walked a few more steps, turning from the encampment and climbing a nearby rise, to look out over the area and check for any more. The Wounded Coast really was beautiful; it was such a shame that it seemed perpetually infested with criminals and occasionally Darkspawn. Currently, she looked out from the peninsula and over the Waking Sea, across which she knew lay Ferelden, Ashton's homeland and one of many places she'd never been.

Giving into her weariness for the moment, she planted herself on a log and lay her staff across her knees, looking back over her shoulder to the mercenary. "You can return, if you like. I'm just going to rest a bit." She wasn't too tired to keep moving, but moments of respite were few and far between these days. Her life had gained a considerable amount of activity since she'd come to Kirkwall, and though she didn't resent it, all the adventures her new companions dragged her on combined with her duties as a Warden left her with less time to just relax than she'd grown accustomed to.

Nostariel turned back out to the sea, inhaling the salt air with a pensive look on her face. When she'd asked Lucien to help her with this particular nest of Darkspawn, she'd known he wouldn't refuse. She wasn't sure he even knew how to say no, how to stop helping people. It was as though the limits that kept ordinary people from spending all their energy on others just didn't exist for him. For the past year and a half, he'd spent countless nights sitting across from her in the Hanged Man, listening to her mope and complain and despair when any sane person would have either left or at least told her to get a grip. He probably should have, but she hadn't been ready to hear it, and it wasn't until, somewhere between Ashton and Ithilian, she'd managed to at least find a handle on her misery, that she'd realized Lucien had just as much to do with it.

She honestly kind of felt like she was taking advantage of his kindness, leeching from that implacable kindness and giving nothing in return, which was why she still felt vaguely guilty about asking him to be here. And yet, when she'd heard the nature of the task, he was the first person she'd thought to ask. Several people had become so ingrained in her life that she thought of them often and fondly, but he had done so quietly, so quietly in fact that she hadn't even noticed it until now. It was strange, and she thought it faintly perturbing. The Warden sighed again. She owed him, more than she cared to contemplate, and she couldn't decide whether it relieved her or scared her that she knew he'd never even think to collect.

Lucien ignored the implications that he was free to head back, seeing no particular hurry to do so, and paused for a moment to shake the worst of the dark blood off his axe, though there wasn't much that hadn't been burned away by Nostariel's fire. None of the Darkspawn were moving any longer, and he suspected that she would know much better than he if they were dead anyway, so he turned from the carnage and followed her up the hill. The view was a good one, and such vistas were common on the Coast. The sea lay spread before them like so much reflective silk, or so it seemed from a distance. Up close, it could be quite a bit more rough and dangerous than that, but then wasn't that true of most things he'd ever encountered?

With a short movement, he plunged the spear-tip of the axehead into the sand and tipped the whole thing just a bit so that it balanced on one side, firmly entrenched in the sand, then took a spot on the log beside Nostariel, reaching with a hand to his belt and removing the hip flask there. Silently, he handed it to her, still staring out at the ocean. It wasn't something he was doing in an attempt to enable her former habits or anything; quite the contrary, he only offered because he felt she was actually in a position to decline if that was best. It seemed to him that there had been a change in his friend, one for the better, and that was good. Sometimes, such simple positive things were the ones most worth lingering over for a while. "How have you been, Nostariel?" he asked at last, glancing over from the corner of his good eye.

She took the flask with a smile, unscrewing the cap and tipping it back, blinking in surprise when the taste was smooth and warm on her tongue, with a firey kick that she hadn't expected. Brandy, and the very, very good kind if her taste buds were telling her the truth. "Do you often need to take the edge off after helping people with their inane little worries?" she asked, her tone light. For all that, though, the question was a genuine one. She wondered if he was like her; if he grew weary of always doing the right thing the hard way, in the way that only those who'd been doing it for years could even understand. The Chantry could tell you that a good deed was never a burden, but those people lived in an idealized world where good deeds were alms for the poor and telling the truth instead of lies. Nostariel didn't live in that world, and neither did Lucien. His reply was nothing more than a smile and shake of his head.

In their world, doing the good deed often meant getting your hands dirty, staining your clothes and soul with blood. The ones on the clothes usually came out, but not so much with the others. You just sort of... learned to live with them, was all. But she was sure she hadn't been made for that. She'd probably have been better off in her Circle, reading her books and practicing her magic and doing her tiny good deeds without ever thinking to do otherwise. They would not have made her so tired, sometimes.

"I've been... okay," she said pensively, staring out over the sea and taking another sip of the brandy before she passed the flask back to him. There was a likely-looking pile of wood nearby on the sand, and she shrugged to herself and set it alight with a short spell, figuring she might as well expound on the warmth theme that the alcohol had started. "Which as I'm sure you know is quite surprising. I think... I'm almost ready to let him go. Not quite, but... almost, and it feels... nice, I guess." It occurred to her once more that when they were together, they only ever spoke of her, really, and that was a terrible and persistent oversight of hers. "How about you, Lucien?"

That was quite the development, though one that had been in the making for some time now. Still, the fact that he had expected it made it no less pleasant or momentous, and it was good to know. The return volley of the question actually surprised him somewhat, but he supposed it probably should not have. Generally, he was accustomed to giving off the impression, however true or false it may be, that he had no definitive crises remaining to him, that everything in his life was more or less settled and would remain as it was for the foreseeable future. It wasn't that he couldn't adapt, merely that he rarely saw the need, and had had the youthful hubris and dramatics excised from his demeanor some time ago, and that had perhaps been the worst of the growing he'd needed to do.

"I am... the same as always, more or less," he replied honestly. There was... something getting at him, gnawing like persistent hunger at the pit of one's stomach, but that was usually there, and felt acutely enough to bother with only sometimes. Perhaps though, if anyone could understand it, Nostariel would. "I am occasionally troubled, I think. I find that, despite having come to this place to begin anew, much of what I was lingers, and some of it I should rather be without." His persistent reservedness and formality came to mind; he was never unguarded, never open, except perhaps with Rilien. But then, the Bard was from the life he'd left, in a way, and maybe that just made understanding simpler. Maybe it was the knowledge that the Tranquil would never part with his secrets, as he'd never have a reason.

"It is difficult to trust, past a certain point, is it not? Perhaps my father has grown too strong in me, but though I feel comfortable enough with others relying upon me, I do not think it quite the same thing to allow them into my affairs." It was a problem rather universal with him; he'd never trusted the Red Iron, and though he did place his confidence in Nostariel and Sophia both to a point, it was not the point that perhaps one friend should really expect of another. Part of him still waited for the other shoe to fall, the knife in his back, even if he knew it would never appear.

Nostariel pondered this for a moment, looking out over the reflective waters with a pensive frown. In truth, she didn't really understand, at least not very well. Trust had never been the thing she couldn't give. In fact, she trusted and grew attached to people perhaps too quickly, and it was this arguably naive part of her nature that had allowed her to talk to a Templar in the first place, much less fall in love with him. But then, she could see in Lucien what he was confessing to know about himself, and maybe, to someone who'd lived a life like his (whatever that had been), it was the most natural course to take. "My teacher said once that the two most difficult things in life to say are 'I'm sorry' and 'please help me,'" she replied slowly. "I think she said that because those are two very different ways of humbling ourselves before others, of exposing our weakness and our fallability to them. I don't think you have a problem with apologizing; it seems to me like you're the kind of person who might do it too much, if you thought you'd made a mistake." At that, she smiled. It would certainly fit with his tendency towards extreme modesty. He couldn't disagree; his father and his aunt had both accused him of the same.

"But... and I don't know you so well that I could say for sure, but it seems like I've never heard you ask for anyone's help with anything. You're more likely to try and give it at first sign of need, regardless of the consequences to yourself." She thought of the Tal-Vashoth in the caves, and then of the dragon, which he'd charged without a single moment's hesitation. "I think I've only ever seen you accept help from Rilien, and even then, it was more an exchange than anything else." The Warden's eyebrows furrowed together, and she shook her head briefly. "Maybe I'm not helping very much, but at least, that's what I've seen. I guess maybe the difficulty you feel is partly because you're so used to being the person that others rely on, and for that, it makes little sense to expose your own vulnerability. I guess that might be my fault, in some part, and for that, I really am sorry. You were more patient with me than I rightly deserved, I think, but I am grateful. Most people would probably have stopped coming to see me, but I'm much better off now because you weren't one of them."

She was right, of course, but it left him with no more idea what to do about it than before. Perhaps he need not do anything. He could assist people without trusting them, anyway. It was simply... he missed the cameraderie he'd known in his Academie years, and then in the first few of his knighthood. Having people he could trust, fully and completely, to watch his back, to understand why he was as he was, and simply accept it for what it was. To understand that he never intended to require the same of them, that he was content to allow them to be as they were because they extended him the same courtesy. He wasn't the archetypal knight in shining armor; he really wasn't. He was human and flawed, and sometimes, he made awful mistakes, and... well, he paid the price for them. That was as it should be, but all the same, he wondered if maybe he was at fault for deceiving people into believing otherwise of him. He couldn't stop acting as he did, though; his conscience would not allow it, and maybe that was part of the conundrum.

His fellow Chevalier had grown up with him, and understood his faults, often more acutely than he did. What he was now could only be considered the product of those foibles, and yet he felt strangely alienated from them now, as though they were all the product of another life. Rolling his eye at himself, he took another swig from the flask and decided that he wouldn't be solving all of his problems today, anyway, and he might as well enjoy himself while he had pleasant company to do so in.

"Not at all," he replied to Nostariel, wondering if her words perhaps confirmed his hypothesis about how others percieved him. "You're a good person, Nostariel, and you deserved whatever small assistance I could offer you and more than that. Don't trouble yourself about it." He passed the brandy back over to her and relaxed, resolving to think about it some other day.

Nostariel hummed a note of conciliation. She had a feeling there was something there that she didn't quite understand, but he seemed inclined to leave it, and she wouldn't pry. "Thank you," she said quietly, and afterwards they lapsed into comfortable silence, neither feeling pressured to speak. It was a rare occurrence with her, and she took it for all it was worth. He was still giving her this particular gift, and she wasn't sure he knew just what a boon it was.

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon

Earnings

0.00 INK

"I'm telling you Ril, he'll be here... He said he'd be here, and he'd have no reason to lie right? So he has to be here... Eventually," While it might have sounded like Ashton was trying to comfort the tranquil, all he really was trying to do was calm himself. It'd been an hour since the designated time his contact told him to expect him in the Hanged Man. The stool he sat on might as well not even be underneath him, seeing as he spent most of his time hovering anxiously just over it, madly tapping his feet. His composure was sorely lacking compared to that of the Tranquil next to him, if by definition alone.

The contact Ashton spoke of was a fellow the archer met during his less-than-innocent first year or so in Kirkwall. A man called Garrath. A fine man if one was to look over his unsavory business practices. Which was the polite way to say that he was a smuggler. Obviously, the deal for the day wasn't a simple meet and greet, and Ashton was awaiting a package from the man. A couple of items for Ashton, a bit of information, and something for Rilien, really. A favor owed ensured that the man would play along with Ashton's request, but he was no fool. Things like this never often came free, so for that end, Ashton had a pouch with a couple of soveriegns in it to ensure that the deal went smoothly.

"Dammit Ril, have you seen him?" Ashton asked. The first order of business though, was waiting for the bloody man to get there.

Rilien, quite obviously not sharing in his companion's panic, raised a single brow, as if to inquire whether Ashton was really asking whether or not he'd seen his contact. "No," he replied simply, folding his arms into his sleeves. The only reason he was even here in the first place was because Ashton had vouched for the quality of this contact in procuring certain... delicate materials, which he was now more than wealthy enough to purchase on the black market. Knowledge ran at a steeper price than simple goods, but the expedition earnings had been greater than he'd estimated; enough to purchase a storefront in Hightown, of all places, one with a couple of bedrooms above it. He'd kept the Darktown hovel, though, because he preferred to sleep away from scheming nobles where possible. It was more an old force of habit than something that was necessary here, but he was not one to abandon caution at first sign of relief.

The two tomes he was in the market for were both of arcane nature, rare and likely of such a nature that they would have been illegal if anyone who worked for the Chantry could even read them. Fortunately, this was generally not the case, and those that could probably wouldn't ever be in possession of a copy; mages guarded some secrets from their captors yet still. He was hoping to be able to take advantage of that, while remaining well clear of templars, but if Ashton's man didn't come through, he might have to be a bit more... direct in his acquisition. Perhaps by robbing the Circle.

Ashton narrowed his eyes at the Tranquil, leveling the stare for a few moments before exhaling a defeated sigh. "Don't know why I didn't see that one coming," he muttered shaking his head. The mere thought of Rilien saying something else managed to elicit a chuckle out of the archer. Personally, Ashton was waiting on a few key items as well, though not nearly as rare as Rilien's. Well. One of them was, the other not nearly as so. The first item Ashton waited on was the dragonbone appendage that he had lost in the Deep Roads. As he'd thought, some of the helpers took the chance to run off and pawn his prized trophy as soon as it appeared Ashton wasn't coming out with them. It was the closest Ashton had ever come to beating a man to death. Luckily, he was a resourceful man, so he didn't have to resort to bodily violence like a barbarian.

The next item was just some book Ashton heard in passing. Supposedly it wasn't that rare, and it was just an oddity more than anything. He didn't consider himself a big reader, but with the large chunk of change he had recently come into contact with, he could afford to splurge on himself a little. Supposedly, it was a good book too. Ashton opened his mouth one more time, most likely in order to spout something stupid when the door opened. Obviously, Ashton's eyes darted to the door and stared down the entrant. Finally. It was his man, dressed in dark clothing and a rucksack thrown over his shoulder. The sack, Ashton noted, was a bit smaller than the dragonbone he expected, but he hoped there was a good explanation for that. For Garrath's sake he hoped there was.

He spun around on his stool and ordered three drinks. The bartender bartended the drinks to both Rilien, Ashton, and the empty chair next to him, in anticipation of Garrath. Meanwhile, Ashton whispered under his breath to Rilien, "Alright. Be calm Ril... Why in the hell would I say something like that?" He amended, slapping a palm against his forehead. Of course Rilien was going to be calm, he was a tranquil for the Maker's sake. They don't come any calmer. Indeed, Rilien was rather puzzled as well. It was almost like Ashton assumed he'd never carried out a drop in a public place before.The next couple of actions were smooth, again displaying Ashton's cunning-- or so he'd like people believe. Garrath sat down beside Ashton, dropped the rucksack to the ground and downed his drink. Meanwhile, Ashton counted off a sovereign for the man. Instead of taking it and leaving though, Garrath cough. Ashton, rolling his eyes, counted off two more before the man silently accepted the coins and left, leaving the rucksack under the Archer's chair.

A minute or so passed when Ashton finally ventured to pick up the rucksack and turned the contents out on the bar. Unlikely that anyone would care for a couple of moldy tomes anyway. "Alright Rilsie, take what's yours, and I'll take mine-- oh, what's this," Ashton said, picking up a handwritten note addressed to him.

What to Ashton were 'a couple of moldy tomes' were to Rilien just slightly less important than his own life, and he swiped both of them up off the counter in a whip-quick motion. The first was simple enough to confirm at a glance, and this went immediately into an oiled leather bag, crafted so as to be waterproof, a purchase the Tranquil had made from the hunter's store. He was passable enough with leatherwork, but he lacked Ashton's expertise with hide-type materials, and there was no reason not to buy the best quality he could find.

The second book required a small degree of inspection, and for this, the Tranquil flipped to the center of the tome, cradling the book on one hand so as not to crack the fragile spine, trailing a digit down the page to the right, apparently tracking the progress of his reading. Of course, the runes in which it was written were not recognizable as any commonly-spoken language, and would likely appear to most as incomprehensible gibberish, which was rather the point of it all. Nodding slightly to himself, he slid this one, too, into the bag, cinching it tightly with the provided notched strap.

"I see no half-rotted dragon's forearm," he pointed out, casting a speculative eye over the items arrayed on the counter. "That's what's this letter's for apparently..." Ashton said, crumpling and tossing it. "Seems that my friend was late because he oh so kindly broke into my shop and left my arm under the counter... After taking a flank steak and bottle of stout that was for dinner tonight," Ashton said, the irritation in his voice marred with relief. Now that there was one less thing to worry about, he grabbed the remaining tome on the bar and placed it in the rucksack. That was his, and after what he paid, so was the bloody sack. He then gripped his own drink and tilted it up in a toast. "Pleasure doing business with you, Ril," he said, downing it. "Expect a favor from me eventually," Ashton added, a mischievious twirl in his lips.

It was at about this time that Lucien entered the bar. If the scratch marks on his dark armor and the cut bisecting the eyebrow of his good eye were anything to go by, he'd just come from a job, and probably a dangerous one at that. The plate on his chest looked as though someone had tried to smash it in with a hammer, but had failed to hit with sufficient impact. In reality, it had been his reflexes that saved him from that one, causing him to jump back before the impact, minimizing its force. It had still knocked the breath out of him, and a quickhanded rogue had narrowly missed his eye with a knife. He probably owed Violette his life again for the first dodge, and Rilien for the fact that he'd sensed the sneaky fellow coming.

Lucien was essentially a private person, and rather reserved, but when he did make friends, he made the best in the world, he was quite certain of this.

Speaking of friends, he was pleasantly surprised to note the presence of Rilien in the pub, which he would not have expected, along with Ashton, which was a little less odd but welcome all the same. He couldn't say he knew much about the man, but he seemed a good sort, if one who might occasionally go out of his way to seem the not-so-good kind. Crossing to the bar, he gestured for a mead and sat on Rilien's other side, a small smile erasing the traces of fatigue from his face. Now he looked like he'd been in a fight, won it, and had a great deal of fun doing so, which wasn't too far from the truth. "Evening, gentlemen," he greeted, a light note of mirth infusing the second word. It was an allusion to the recent windfall all three of them had recieved, though of course none of them were any closer to being real Hightown sorts than they had been before.

"Milord," Rilien replied, inclining his head. He'd caught on to the jest, of course, and replied in kind. It was true that he did not often use Lucien's first name, much to the other man's displeasure, but he didn't usually use the title 'Lord' either. Mostly because they both agreed that when one was Orlesian, being one of those was not a compliment, nor any indication of worthiness. As it was usually actual respect that Rilien wished to convey to his friend, he tended to speak the title that Lucien had properly earned, not the one he'd been born with. Of course, as jesting was presently called for, that rule was quite suspended. It was not difficult for him to call up things to say that were not necessarily genuine and to apply these as though they were humor. Generally, he used what he once would have found at least a little bit amusing to do so, but the hollowed statements lacked actual humor, at least for him.

Sometimes, he even managed to miss it. Right now, that was not particularly the case, largely because there was no factor present to interfere with his Tranquility.

He was not surprised to see Lucien here, though the other man's state was a smidge more worn than usual. Likely, he'd just returned from some hired job or another. It was highly unlikey that he still needed to do such things for the coin, which meant he was probably engaging in such activity to keep himself busy, or for the satisfaction of that absurd honor complex of his. For Rilien at least, it was not difficult to tell that for any likely definition of "good," Lucien was among the best of men, and so it had always perplexed him to a degree that the fellow himself seemed not to see it thus, and continued to toil as though he could only become such through his labor. Then again, perhaps that was part of the point. Whatever the case, the Tranquil thought it largely a waste of time, and little more accomplished by it than edging the former Chevalier a bit closer to death each time.

Foolish.

"Ah Lucien, looking as healthy as ever," Ashton quipped, noting the man's worn appearance. Even with the haul they had gained from the expedition, the man was still out gallavanting about like the shining knight that he was. Something about fact felt like it should deign a certain order of respect, but Ashton saw it as a man who was all work and no play-- something he intended to fix right away. "Sit a spell, and do regale us of your current adventures." An eyebrow ascended Ashton's brow, surprised at himself. Since when did he gain such a noble sounding accent? He hadn't been a noble since his first birthday. He blamed the man, and partly Rilien for putting on such a mock regal atmosphere. He'd have to break that too, it seemed.

He raised up two fingers, indicating that he wanted two drinks, one finger for himself, and the other for Lucien. "Let me buy you a drink, I'm already throwing money away," he said, chuckling to himself. The bartender heeded the order, and two drinks were placed in front of Ashton and Lucien. "But really, I would like to know what kind of trouble you've been getting into," Ashton added, a bit more honestly. He was interested in the man, and his ideals. He had enough money to retire his adventuring lifestyle, but he didn't. He didn't know a lot about the man, only that he was the very image of a knight, minus an eye, and fought using a common farming implement. Peg it as innocent curiousity.

"My thanks," Lucien said, accepting the tankard and taking a short draught whilst considering the question. His current adventures? Wasting his life, he was certain his father would say. After all, why do the small good when you could do the large one? He supposed there was something to that, and undoubtedly Lord Drakon would have preferred that his son stay in Ferelden and accept what her newly-minted royal family was offering. But... it hadn't felt right, and though his gut feelings about things had landed him in hot water more often than not, he tended to feel better about things when he was heeding them, for whatever that was worth. He wasn't truly sure why Ashton wished to know, but he saw no harm in sharing this much, anyway. It wasn't like it couldn't be discovered by talking to the right people, and he wasn't at all ashamed of it.

"Well, it's nothing so grandiose as spelunking in forgotten Thaigs," he prefaced with a smile, taking another drink and lowering the tin vessel to the countertop, though his fingers lingered about the handle. "Dealing with bandits, mostly. Darkspawn sometimes. Occasionally I'm hired to escort a merchant's caravan somewhere, particularly if it contains vital things like crops or metals for the smithies. And as you may have been able to guess, not very many people ever accept the offer of peaceful surrender." The smile grew, and he pointed to the cut above his eyebrow. "This is from a run-in with the Coterie. They were trying to unify a few of the raider groups working off the Wounded Coast. It had been a while since I was on a ship properly, and admittedly I was careless with my balance." He almost hadn't gotten away from the knife because of it.

"How about yourselves, then?"

"Research," Rilien replied simply. He had the instinct that he would eventually be letting Lucien in on at least some of what was going on, as the man was out and about over the countryside far more often than most of the people he knew, and there were yet ingredients to be procured if his plans were to come to fruition. But this was not the time or the place for that. "He's not wrong," Ashton noted, taking a dip of his tankard. "Though I'm more in the business of finding what was lost, and a bit of... Light reading," Ashton said, nodding. That sounded about right. He let the moment pass by unmolested before he posed another question. "Well, as rivetting as this current conversation is... I believe I'll change the subject, if there's no objections," He never was one for dry conversation. He liked a bit of meat to it. "Pardon my frankness Lucien, but... I'll take it you you're still accepting jobs," Sure, he assumed that the Chevalier did, considering his current state. Though it was never polite to just assume.

"Riddle me this then, if you've come into possession of a large chunk of change, then why are you still mercenarying about?" He asked, shooting a curious eyeball Lucien's way.

"It's simple enough, really," Lucien replied with a shrug, taking a sip from the tankard. "While I find the ability to materially support myself convenient, I don't work for the money." He wasn't going to pontificate, or extol the virtues of doing good for its own sake-- to do so would largely defeat the purpose altogether. Besides, he'd had enough of people forcing upon him their ideas of what was right and what was not to last several lifetimes, and was not desirous of being that kind of person towards anyone. Honor was not a matter of word, but deed, and it could be lived just as successfully without anyone ever being the wiser. Of course, it was not that he would refuse to explain any further if asked, only that he did not volunteer the information without cause. "A real knight in shining armor type, huh? Tell me Luce, where does need for honor come from? Surely you didn't wake up one morning and decided to be a bastion of righteousness," Ashton asked. Feeling that the question felt a bit out of line, he tried to clean it up a little. "Not that I'm judging... Just curious is all. Not everyday you can quiz a fabled knight," He added with a smile and a draught of his drink.

"I'm nothing so grand as that," Lucien protested, though his tone was calm rather than offended or particularly urgent. "Just a mercenary at the moment, thank you." His smile was wry, and he dropped his chin into his hand, looking down the counter at both of them. Rilien was understandably silent; he'd never had much time for talk of things like honor, and given what he'd been through, Lucien supposed he couldn't blame the Tranquil for that. He couldn't pin down why Ashton was interesed at all; most people weren't. He certainly didn't go out of his way to make it verbally apparent that honor was his motive, unless it was required to clarify something or rationalize a decision.

"The need?" he echoed slowly, shaking his head slightly. "I don't think it's anything so necessary as a need. Plenty of people function without a shred of it." There was something slightly dark in the pronouncement, a shadow of memory that fell over him at the wrong time. He brushed it aside. "I act as I do because I believe it is right. There isn't much more to it than that, truly." He paused a moment, trying to think of a better way to explain it than what essentially amounted to 'just because.' "I suppose... the main argument that I've heard against adopting a code like mine is that it's impractical. That it will allow others some advantage over me, that it might result in my death." He shrugged.

"I'm not unrealistic. I know that acting as I choose to do may very well get me killed. But we all die, and the people who live lives like ours hardly get to decide when. It just seems... more important to know that if death comes, I'll face it in what I hope is the right, and not the wrong. It's the part I get to control, after all." He smiled then, more fully. "And of course, there's the part where doing the right thing tends to, you know, help people out and suchlike."

"Fair enough. Curiosity sated. But still, it doesn't seem very..." He paused for a minute, trying to find the best word to describe it, but it came quickly enough thanks to a glance at Rilien, "Efficent. But then again, I can't judge. I'm not nearly decent a man as you," He said, a hint of the rare serious tone straining his voice. "It's hard a thing to find, this honor of yours. I know nobles willing to throw everything they own away just to see another burn." Another drink of his tankard and he continued.

"You know what? You sound a lot like my uncle. A lot more serious though, and more likely to switch me rather than talk about it-- right, meandering off topic. Uncle. He was.. Old fashioned, living off the land, good ol' survivalist. Honest as you could get. He didn't cheat people, he didn't lie, and he didn't steal. A good man, if a bit liberal with the switch. Tried to beat some of that in me. He failed, if you couldn't tell," He said, chuckling. "What he did tell me though, was to respect the hunt. Respect the living creatures, give them quick, clean deaths. Only kill what you need, and don't waste what you have-- Tears me up thinking about that dragon rotting away in the Deep Roads. Other than that? I'm a scoundrel," He said, grinning.

"Are you now?" Lucien asked, sounding a tad skeptical. While it was true that Ashton acted much more the rake than most, the mercenary couldn't say with any certainty that the demeanor reflected what he was actually made of. Still, he let it sit at that, not particularly inclined to put the other man on the spot. "As for the dragon, well... I can't claim that it was particularly clean, but it was certainly a good fight, and that has a merit its own, I should think. Wouldn't have been much of a dragon if the likes of us could do it in so quickly as a deer, no?"

"Yep, I am. So hide your daughters, hide your wives," he said with a wink and a laugh, downing the rest of his tankard. Well, with his business concluded, he stood from his stool and shouldered his rucksack. He tossed a couple of silvers down for the drinks and leaned between Lucien and Rilien, a hand resting on eaches shoulder. "Well, it's been fun lads, but I must take my leave. Got to get back to my shop before the rot from the dragon limb sets in. Busy, busy busy. I'll see you soon-- probably. We have a funny way of running into each other," he said, parting with another wink and another laugh.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

It was perhaps three months after returning from the Deep Roads that Nostariel finally plucked up the courage to go and talk to Amalia. This was no small feat, she was quite sure. The woman was intimidating to the Warden in a way that most people were not, including people with much more imposing physical presences. She'd thought it might be something unique to the Qunari, something to do with that absolute certainty that drove them all along relentlessly and only infrequently with anything like mercy, but though the Arishok had been plenty daunting, it was not the same. She'd put it down to just being some strange, indefinable quality of Amalia's after that, but whatever it was, it had kept her lingering only occasionally at the edges of the Alienage, never quite sure she really wanted to go in.

Today, though, fuelled by yet another nightmare, she decided that it had to stop. Her torment was not over, and maybe it never would be, but she was tired of it, and tired of letting the burdens of it rest on other people, no matter how gracious they were about it. She was the only one who could control how much she let the past get to her, and she was done dreaming about that day. At the very least, she was not going to let it spill over into her waking hours, too. She was chained, and she would be better off if she learned how to bear those tethers as the Qunari did-- they would not be of the same kind, as she had no desire to join the Qun, but if she could have even a fragment of that steady, steely certainty that Amalia displayed, she would count herself lucky.

As usual, the woman was to be found beneath the tree, shrouded in so many garments that nothing of her was visible save her face and hair. The plain robes were shapeless, even ascetic, moreso than the Chantry's, even. Was that a conscious choice? She was given to understand that Seheron was a hot environment, and the majority of the kossith she'd seen went about with exposed upper bodies. She'd never thought about it before, but for some reason it struck her just then, and she filed the question away, perhaps for later asking, but most likely not. She wasn't sure she'd ever have the fortitude to ask someone so intimidating something so personal. Nevertheless, she was about to ask a favor with nothing to give in return, was this not worse? Swallowing the thought, she approached with more confidence than she felt. If nothing else, commanding had given her a brave face to use when things got bad.

"Excuse me, Amalia? I don't know if you remember me; we last met helping Feynriel." When she said it that way, it sounded even worse. She was going to ask someone she wasn't even sure she'd spoken to directly for a favor. Nostariel didn't know where her sanity had gone, but it clearly wasn't with her anymore. Still, she needed this, and asking Amalia was the only way she could immediately think of to obtain it. "May I ask you something?"

This morning, Amalia was beneath the tree, legs crossed in meditation, trying to quell the rising agitation stuck somewhere between her throat and her stomach. It was primarily directed at herself, which was unusual but not unheard-of. She was agitated because she knew that hope and belief were entirely useless, and yet she felt them anyway. Each time a new pair of footfalls entered the Alienage, she looked up, even if she recognized no similarity between the tread and the one she was waiting to hear. Hope. It was entirely useless, and distracting furthermore. Believing in anything other than the Qun was even worse, much less believing in a person. What was a person? A fallible, mortal thing with no permanence and no use aside from what it could do for the whole. A person was simply not the kind of entity that one should be attaching belief to.

She needed to accept that she had been wrong. It was not, however, as easy as she'd thought it would or should be, given the relative ease with which she'd learned from past mistakes. Trust nothing but the Qun. Be prepared for anything-- anyone-- else to betray you. Expect harm when nobody else would. Death is inevitable. Things of this nature. Grim things, but true things, and ones that assisted the practical endeavor of bare survival. Beyond that, her goals need only be dictated by the Qun, her lessons found in its script.

A new set of footsteps entered the Alienage. She knew they weren't the right ones, but as ever, she looked up anyway, mildly surprised to find that these at least belonged to someone she recognized that did not dwell here. The woman approached tentatvely, and for a moment, Amalia was almost certain that some of her underlying irritation had shown on her face. Smoothing her expression over at once, she sat passively until the elf was done speaking, then nodded shortly. "You are the Warden, Nostariel. I remember." The request was given politely, but somewhat weakly. Perhaps that was to be expected. She wasn't exactly in a hospitable mood at the moment, if indeed she ever was, and this probably registered on some unconscious level with other people even if she did nothing to show it.

Forcing her shoulders to relax, followed by the rest of her musculature, Amalia nodded curtly. "Speak, Warden, and I shall listen." She would promise nothing else.

Well, it wasn't exactly a ringing endorsement of her continued presence, but it was something, and Nostariel supposed she should be grateful she hadn't been dismissed out of hand. She couldn't pretend to understand the Qunari, but something told her that they weren't the sort to just shoo a person off if they had something to ask or say. At the very least, even the Arishok had been understanding on some level, allowing them to clarify their involvement with the Javaris situation and leave without protest. Certainly, they weren't the most hospitable people, but they certainly weren't Darkspawn, and probably actually fell short of some of what the Chantry had to offer.

Now there was a grim thought.

But she was wasting her opportunity to say something, and Amalia was still waiting for her to get to the point. Her patience was surely not limitless. "I realize I have no real right to ask you for something, but... I thought that maybe since you'd helped Feynriel without gain to yourself, you might be willing to do the same again." Granted, she honestly knew nothing of the woman's motivation for helping the lad; perhaps she'd only done it because Ithilian had asked? He seemed to have a more readily-accessible motivation for doing so, but she doubted Amalia would ever do anything without an actual reason. But maybe she presumed to know too much.

"I have been... troubled, of late, by dreams that I can't seem to escape. They're connected to some events in the past that I regret, and I can't seem to be rid of them. I thought that maybe there was something you did, to maintain peace of mind, and that perhaps I could learn to be as you are. If... if you don't mind, that is." In words, the whole thing came out a little more ludicrous than she'd been expecting, and Nostariel shifted her weight uncomfortably from one foot to another.

Amalia snorted. "Asking is not about rights, and life is not a mere exchange of debts and obligations. If I act, it will be because I deem the cause worthy or necessary." She grew weary of this strange human's-world treatment of favors and kindnesses. Even that they were called such. Did nobody understand that she did nothing she did not see the merit in? Her choices were not always easy, but the actions she took were always justified by something. Standing, the Qunari dusted off the front and back of her loose garments, apparently ignoring the other woman, at least for a moment. It was ironic, truly, that the Saarebas seemed to flock like sheep to the one wolf in the entire city who would not slay them for being what they were. She wondered if she managed to project some kind of strange benevolence she was not aware of. Had someone decided to point out this, one of the few idiosyncracies she had, to the world at large? Perhaps tattooed it across her face? If so, she owed someone a disembowelment.

Still, she was not without sympathy, not entirely. And the difficulty Nostariel admitted to was one she understood well, too well, in fact, for her to ignore it. Tilting her head downwards, she studied the Warden for several long moments, unblinking. Exhaling shortly, she pointed to the spot beneath the tree she'd previously occupied. "Sit. Before we begin, understand this: you will owe me nothing. But you will do everything I tell you to do, and if I don't answer your questions, you will accept that there is a reason for this. You will answer all of mine. Those are the terms."

Feeling a bit... chagrined, perhaps, Nostariel sat where she was instructed, leaning her staff up against the painted tree and making her best approximation of Amalia's flawless lotus position, though she was fairly certain there were significant differences. The Qunari's terms were uttered in short, clipped phrases, her tone none too kind, but Nostariel thought she might be able to see the reasoning behind them. It was like any other kind of instruction, really; the teacher had to be in control of the rate and amount of information dispensed. That much, the mage was quite used to. It was often the same in the Circle. If a newly-found apprentice went about casting powerful elemental magics at first, widespread destruction was likely to occur.

Granted, she wasn't exactly sure how knowing anything about peace of mind too soon could be a bad thing, but maybe it would simply slow her progress. So the elf nodded. "I understand, and I accept your terms. Thank you."

Amalia simply nodded, prodding Nostariel's knee with a foot. "Not like that. Loosen up; you're far too tense for this to help." Crouching in front of the Warden, she moved the latter's feet and legs at will, until they were properly folded. It was uncomfortable for someone who'd never sat so before, she knew, but the appropriate muscles had to stretch. Eventually, it would be simple, and much more stable and balanced than most people were even anchored to the ground. She tapped the elf's spine, to indicate that it needed to be straightened. "Your posture is important. Don't slouch; it's counterproductive. There are physical aspects to this as well as mental. The better the air can circulate in your lungs, the more centered you'll feel after a few hours meditating."

Let it never be said that she did anything halfway.

Resuming her own seat, Amalia placed herself knee-to-knee with Nostariel, then placed her hands loosely over her knees. "For now, grow accustomed to sitting like this. There will be movement in the future, but that is not necessary now. If you have your choice, assume this posture at all times. Otherwise, at least keep your back straight. There is no hunching over bar counters to be found here." Though she was not particularly acquainted with the Warden, she knew enough to understand this particular habit of hers, and also to suppose that a more straightforward manner would be useful here than with somebody else. She was given to understand that people tended to wear the kid gloves with this woman, but the Qunari did that for nobody, and she did not desire that Nostariel come to expect anything of the sort from her.

Nostariel's repositioned self was in a fair amount of discomfort, but she supposed that was to be expected. She didn't spend a lot of her time twisting herself into pretzel-shapes, after all, but apparently Amalia did. Though she didn't know much about the correspodence between good posture and breathing, she supposed it did seem a bit easier this way. Or maybe that was just her trying to reassure herself that she could focus on something other than the awkward contortion of her legs. The comment about bar-counters caught her off-guard, but for all that, it was true. She just wasn't sure how Amalia had come to know it. Another thing to tack onto the list of 'things she didn't understand about the Qunari.'

The woman's words were spoken plainly, with no subtle gentling or tactful avoidance, and honestly, she wasn't really used to that anymore. It had at first almost started the guilt stirring in the pit of her stomach, but then the other woman was speaking again, and she was too focused on listening to the instructions to bother with being guilty just yet. She might even get used to this sort of manner. The bluntness maybe wasn't something she'd think appropriate for every situation, but at least she knew she could expect to be told of things as they were, with no attempt to save her pride or her feelings. Exhausting, probably, but... nice, in a way.

"Does... does the Qun teach this?" she asked, genuinely curious. It seemed like an odd pasttime for most of the Qunari, but then again it might explain that quietly foreboding stoicism they had about them most of the time. Well, at least until somebody made them mad.

"Not to all of its followers," Amalia replied evenly. "Certain members of the priesthood have cause to learn, but it is not seen as particularly necessary for warriors. Our ferocity is to be contained, tempered, sharpened; theirs is to be held back only loosely, and loosed in waves. Some artisans use it, if they find that a centered state of mind is useful to their craft." She herself had only learned after a situation resembling Nostariel's own. Troubled by nightmares, she'd sought the counsel of the Ariqun, who had appointed from the ranks of the Tallis, the solvers, an instructor in these methods.

"No more speaking. Close your eyes, banish your thoughts. Your mind is to be empty, blank. Hissra find no purchase when there is nothing to hold."

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon

Earnings

0.00 INK

Sophia's last trip to the Hanged Man had ended with the dwarf Varric rather boldly pointing out that her sword could use a bit of enchantment. Now, she understood that Varric probably hadn't been versed on the history of that particular blade, given that it wasn't common knowledge (as in, only Sophia and the man who taught her to use it knew the blade's past), but she still had to struggle to keep the offense from her face. She cared for her mother's blade like she imagined she would her own children, were she ever to have any, and maybe it couldn't shoot lightning bolts from its edge, but it was the most balanced, precise, and deadly instrument she'd ever laid her hands on, and it was her own care of it that kept it that way.

Regardless, she indulged the dwarf's suggestion, and Varric went on to say that a friend of his had recently opened a shop in Hightown, with enchanting services that surpassed anything the Circle could come up with. Intrigued, Sophia wondered why she hadn't heard of this yet. It was true that she tended to close her ears to the majority of Hightown's gossip and local news, but something like this should not have escaped her attention. Perhaps she was forgetting one area of the city in order to involve herself more in the others. In any case, she decided to investigate during the next opportunity she had.

It happened to be a warm, sunny day when she next found herself free, and Sophia headed off towards the address Varric had given her, which directed her to the Merchant's Guild quarter of Hightown. Since she planned on having her armor enchanted rather than her sword, she carried the chainmail and light plate in a somewhat large sack over her shoulder, wearing instead a dress of a dark blue hue, belted loosely at the waist, with long, slightly flowing sleeves, the hem floating just above the ground without actually touching it.

There was indeed a new store-front, somewhere in that middling space between the Merchants' Guild and the more open-air stalls that characterized the Hightown Market proper. From the outside, it was discernible that the unit took up two floors, all of it recently repainted. The majority of the exterior was made of a light-colored stone, but the shutters were tinted a dark blue, as was the wooden sign hanging from a post protruding above the door, shaped like a shield over crossed swords and bearing a single word in gold block script: Enchantment.

Sophia was tempted to raise an eyebrow at the rather bland name for an enchantment services shop, but instead just adjusted the strap of her bag on her shoulder and pushed open the door. She was rather surprised that the first person she saw inside was none other than Lucien, sitting on a bench and sharpening the axe he'd selected from the armory. She then recognized his elven friend, Rilien if she remembered correctly, the Tranquil. So this was his shop. She probably should have expected it, given that Varric referred her here and that she knew all three of them had been on what had turned out to be a very successful expedition, but she couldn't keep the surprise off her face, and stood for a moment just smiling in the doorway.

She managed to take a step forward to allow the door to close behind her. "Why hello there! Our mutual friend Varric referred me here, but I admit I wasn't expecting to run into anyone I knew. Hello, Lucien. Hello, Rilien. I believe we've only met once before, the night before your expedition departed. I'm Sophia Dumar."

Rilien, who had been sorting ingredients on the wooden shelves attached to the back wall of the store, took a box full of runes from the top of a stack and handed them to Sandal, who was waiting patiently beside him. The lad had his own designated worktable, built much lower to the ground than the elf's. Closer to the front, Bodahn looked up from where he was organizing his own merchandise and smiled and bowed politely, but otherwise went back to what he was doing. Dusting his hands off, the Tranquil turned and faced the new arrival. He was not quite certain why she felt need to repeat information he was quite well-aware of, but perhaps she assumed he had forgotten. "I know," he replied simply. "Is there something I can do for you?"

Lucien, sitting at one of Rilien's workbenches, had initially looked up and acknowledged his friend with a smile and a gesture, but at Rilien's oh-so-typical response, he rolled his visible eye and shook his head. "What Rilien means to say, I think, is that it's nice to see you again and that from the looks of things, you may need some enchanting done, which he happens to be very good at," he said lightly, shooting a mirthful glance at the Tranquil. He happened to know that Ril was quite capable of manners, and vocal inflection as well, though he could understand his reasons for avoiding the latter around Kirkwall. It wouldn't do to be that different from the other Tranquil to be found around the Circle, say.

"That's quite alright," Sophia said easily, stepping forward to lift her bag onto a nearby table. "And yes, I'd be very interested in having some enchanting done. Varric said your work is better than even the Circle's, though I noted that his crossbow has remained untouched." Sophia was naturally not very fond of ranged weaponry, but even she had to admit that Varric's beloved Bianca was quite the piece of craftsmanship. She untied the knot cinching the bag closed, so that the chainmail could be seen beneath.

"I was wondering what kind of armor enchantments you might be able to apply. With all the danger I seem to throw myself in, it's finally crossed my mind to take a few more precautions. I'm sure my father would agree."

Rilien started removing pieces of chainmail and plate from the sack, reaching under the counter to produce several tools of varying familiarity. One looked like a small mallet, another a pair of tongs, but the third resembled nothing quite so much as a dowsing rod, or possibly a tuning fork. He struck the plates lightly with the mallet, which was actually made of hardened rubber, and passed the forked metal device over the lot of it, flicking it with his middle finger. The sound this produced was actually quite lovely, a high chime, though what it meant was a mystery to anyone but himself and perhaps Sandal, who stopped what he was doing to cock an ear at the noise. "It should stand up to any basic armor or defensive fortifications, and if I forgo using premade runes, I can work an elemental resistance of your choice into it as well. That would cost a considerable sum, as I'd have to procure raw lyrium for the purpose and the Templars do not readily part with it. I would not recommend anything stronger than that."

He replaced the tools beneath the counter, raising an eyebrow at the noblewoman.

Well, he didn't have the best over the counter manner, but he was efficient, wasn't he? Sophia thought for a moment about what would be most useful to her. "Could you reinforce the armor against piercing weapons? Arrows, specifically. The plate has gaps so as to not hinder my movement, but this in turn makes me more vulnerable to things like arrows and knives. A resistance to fire would also prove useful, I think. And the cost won't be a problem." There really wasn't a good way to say that she could essentially buy whatever she wanted, was there? If there was, it wasn't coming to her.

"I cannot make you invulnerable," he replied promptly, "But I will focus my attention on the weak points of the armor, and include protection against fire." And here, he shot the most subtle of glances towards Lucien, who had not yet at any point asked to have any of his items enchanted, despite the fact that he well knew there would be no fee for such a transaction. It rankled Rilien the tiniest bit, actually, but he would not bring the matter up at present. Naming Sophia a figure, he drew up a work order in precise handwriting and passed her a quill so that she might affix her signature to it. "It should be complete in three days."

"Excellent," Sophia said, scribbling her signature onto the work order. Once done, she turned to where Lucien sat, taking a moment as she had the first time she'd met the elf to note how they were a rather odd pair. "Any chance I could learn how the two of you met?" she asked with a small smile. "I've got some time before I'm expected back at the Keep."

At the query, Lucien diverted his attention from his task and back up to his two friends. The question was innocent enough, but that didn't mean the answer was. He wouldn't have even minded answering, really, it was just that a good portion of the information required wasn't really his to give away. Setting his axe down on the table, he glanced over at Rilien, as though seeking some form of confirmation, or in this case perhaps permission.

The tacit question was understood, and Rilien lifted both shoulders in a diffident motion. He didn't particularly know or place his trust in the Dumar heir, but despite what Lucien seemed to think, he really had no particular reason not to part with the story. "I was hired to kill him," he said flatly, indicating the former Chevalier with a tip of his head. "And his father. In their sleep, if possible." As this fully answered the letter of the question, if not perhaps its intent, he left it there, taking to stacking the plates and chain neatly on a nearby shelf with the sheaf of parchment laid atop the lot.

"Oh," Sophia said, a little shocked once again by the Tranquil's bluntness. She wondered if Lucien had simply gotten used to that over time. The explanation made a lot more sense now than it would have if she'd asked before the expedition, knowing more about who Lucien was, but it still caught her off guard. "Well... I'm glad you didn't. How does one turn from hired killer into good friend, I wonder?" She was starting to get the sense that there was more history here than she actually had time for, but it wasn't as if her father would be overly angry if she were a few minutes late.

Lucien sighed and picked up on the thread that Ril had so graciously left dangling there. "To be more... explanatory, perhaps, Rilien was once a Bard, in the Orlesian sense of the term. He was hired by the commanding officer I told you about, the one who is presently missing an arm. As he mentioned, it was supposed to be that he caught myself and my father by surprise, but things didn't quite work out that way, and the result was a match in my family's cellars, after which Ril agreed to part with the information on who'd hired him and why, and given that he was no longer hostile, there was no reason to harm him." The large man shrugged, rubbing absently at the back of his neck.

"Just as well, I suppose, as he's saved my hide more times since then than I can properly keep track of."

Rilien would have snorted derisively, because this particular rendition of events did merit some derision, even from him, but he was aware that it would not be entirely wise to do so in present company. So instead, he offered his corrections in as dull a monotone as ever. "Ser Lucien's modesty borders on deception," he contributed. "Put more plainly, he defeated me soundly and then offered me the terms he describes. I accepted from no goodwill, but a lack of other choices. Though of course, I have since realized that this was unncessary. He would not have slain me even if I'd remained silent." He still wasn't sure if he found that incredibly stupid or not. Either way, it seemed to have gotten him what he wanted in the end, though the whole mess that resulted probably indicated that the nobleman would have been better off if he'd just ignored his 'honor' and slain his would-be assassin, like other people did.

Lucien's mention of Rilien saving his hide since then indicated that they'd been on more adventures together than simply a botched assassination of one another, and she was tempted to inquire what exactly they'd experienced, but there was still a question that seemed more obvious to her, and one she was just as curious to have answered. As she was about to ask, she realized that this was something she had never really thought to question before. It had always seemed like just another part of the Circle of Magi. Wherever they were, there were likely a few Tranquil around. But here was a Tranquil, and he was very clearly not affiliated with the Circle.

"Before you became a Bard," she began to Rilien cautiously, as if bracing for another blunt response, "were you with the Circle of Magi?" She realized full well that the question was akin to simply saying you're a Tranquil, and waiting for an explanation, but she had to ask anyway. It was this particular wrinkle she had been most curious about when wondering how they'd met. His being a Bard and assassin was remarkable, yes, but it didn't explain how he'd come across the brand on his forehead.

"You assume that I was no longer with the Circle when I was a Bard," the Tranquil pointed out. Truthfully, the question lit a tiny flicker of rage in the center of his chest, but he had not been quelling such inconsequential emotions for years to have them show on his face at one woman's question. "Yes. I was a mage. Now, I am not." Not that he didn't desire otherwise, when he remembered how it felt to desire anything at all. When he did, it wasn't the warmth of love of friendship or the tickle of amusement that he missed. No, those were mundane, trite things, and occasionally to be found even in this state. What he missed was the ability to call the wrath of the elements to his very fingertips, to dip into the Fade and the minds of foes with all the ease of a child dunking his hand in a streambed.

That it made him bitter was a sign that he needed to resolve the matter with Sparrow sooner rather than later.

That flat way in which he said everything made it so hard to tell how exactly he had reacted. She almost thought he was angry with her, but what she knew about Tranquil told her that he wasn't capable of being angry with her, only answering her question. His eyes were cold, anything but friendly, but again, she shouldn't have expected them to be. In fact, she was surprised he even had enough free will to run his own shop such as it was. The Tranquil she had made during sparse visits to the Gallows and the Circle relied on direction from the others, on accomplishing whatever purpose they had been given. Surely there was more to it, and Sophia couldn't deny that she wanted to know.

"I'm sorry," she said, not actually sure if an apology was called for or not, "it's just... I never knew there were Tranquil that were not a part of a specific Circle of Magi. I was curious, was all." She glanced at Lucien, hoping to maybe read if she had overstepped her bounds or something, since he wasn't quite as difficult to read as a Tranquil was.

He smiled kindly. "Understandable, given the way the Chantry and the government tend to stay mostly separate here. This is not quite the case in Orlais, and Rilien can no more return there than I can, now. It seems unnecessary at best to ask the Circle here if they've need of another of his skill, when he's perfectly capable of plying his trade on his own." Well, that and the fact that he'd never go, and Lucien would never suggest it. But he supposed it was natural in the mindset of Kirkwall to assume that the only place the Tranquil were was the Gallows, be they enchanters or otherwise. The structures were a bit... looser, where they'd come from. The explanations beyond this grew more complicated, and tread on topics that he at least would not touch unless Ril did so first, so he left it at that.

"I see," Sophia said, though she really didn't. A great deal was still unexplained, such as why Rilien had been made Tranquil, when he'd been made Tranquil, and how exactly he'd come to be a Bard rather than under the guidance of Templars and other mages. The way Lucien had answered, however, seemed to leave out these details on purpose, and she decided to trust that it was for a reason. Rilien seemed no more willing to answer, remaining blank faced. Deciding now was probably a good time to depart and return to the Keep, Sophia picked up her now empty bag.

"I should really be going, I'm afraid. It was wonderful seeing you two again, and thank you for the enchantments, Rilien. I'll return in three days time."

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion

Earnings

0.00 INK



Sophia had nearly made it down the steps to exit the Viscount's Keep when the voice of her brother called out from behind her. "Off to play the hero again, are we sister?" She lurched to a halt, the pair of guards at the double doors suddenly unsure whether they should open them or not. Sophia spun about to face Saemus, who was coming down the stairs in a rather striking green doublet, his black hair combed back away from his face. Sophia herself had just suited up in her newly enchanted chainmail and plate, and was about to head back down to Lowtown. The day was wearing on, and his father had retired to attend to personal business, leaving any further court matters to the Seneschal, which freed Sophia to do as she pleased with the evening. Apparently her brother did not approve of her choice.

"Saemus, what are you talking about? I'm just going--" But he cut her off. "Down to Lowtown? Perhaps you'll come across another dragon to slay, write another chapter in the legend of Sophia Dumar?" She found herself a little stunned, but this wasn't the first time Saemus had done that to her. This was a rather typical way for him to respond to things he disagreed with. He'd pout for a time, often unnoticeably, stewing by himself, until at some point he could contain his displeasure no longer, and it spilled over the top in the form of venomous words, which were really the only kind of aggression he was capable of mustering.

"Oh!" he continued. "Or maybe another horde of heathen Qunari will attack you, and you can drive off the invaders! Or stop a giant spider-monster from terrorizing the poor people in Darktown!" Sophia weathered this by simply standing where she was, crossing her arms and holding his gaze. The pair of guards behind her shifted uncomfortably. Sophia was glad there weren't many people in hall, at least. "You could go find the leader of the Coterie, and drag him into the Gallows to let him rot for a few decades. Could I come with you? I could be your squire, polish your armor, sharpen your sword, and write down tales of your heroics. We could make a pilgrimage to the sacred ashes of Andraste. Ever since I heard about that one I've wanted to piss in that urn."

That managed to turn Sophia a little red in the face, and she currently regretted the day she put the idea into words. The Warden Queen of Ferelden had supposedly found the location of the Urn some time before the end of the Blight, and ever since Sophia had heard of the place she dreamed of seeing it. "... Are you quite finished, brother?" she asked softly, and to her relief, he spoke no more, allowing her a turn.

"I'm not sure I want to know where all of this is coming from," she continued, "but I can assure you that all I've been trying to do is to help the people in our city, regardless of their social status. Kirkwall is like two different cities at this point, and Lowtown currently needs any help they can get. I can't just stand idly by while--" He scoffed and interrupted her. "Oh, please, Sophia. Don't try to pass this off as some kind of selfless service to Kirkwall, not when everyone says otherwise. It's a reckless, selfish, glory-seeking habit."

She breathed deeply through her nose, trying to avoid raising her voice, and only making things worse. "I had hoped you would have learned by now that the nobles in Hightown do not constitute 'everyone' in Kirkwall. In case you were informed otherwise, the dragon that I played a part in defeating was terrorizing a mine with its kin." Saemus didn't seem impressed. "And the qunari you killed? I suppose you had a good reason for that, too? Apart from increasing the already high tension between them and the city?" Her eyes fell to the floor momentarily, and she ran a hand through thick golden hair. She really didn't want to have this conversation with him here of all places...

Sparrow had the perfect plan. In her own head, in her thoughts, there was nothing at all wrong with the idea of bumbling into the Viscount's Keep in order to ask him about his ledgers, of all those he'd allowed into Kirkwall when they'd all arrived in those ships. Surely, he'd be able to tell her whether or not two shifty characters – bloody bastards, those two rats, had moved through Kirkwall, or even settled down in its midst. She doubted the latter, for she hadn't seen even a glimpse of them. She wouldn't have missed them, either. She never would. Rapture's presence was sporadic, often melting into an ambient noise of displeasure, murmuring in her ear canals when she thought of doing something foolish. This particular plan fell under that category, but she'd made up her mind and she was fighting tooth and nail for control, pushing against the demon with all her might. If she could hunt down Arcadius and Silian, then she could finally exact her revenge and all of this would be over; in theory, anyway. No longer would she find herself suspicious of Rilien's kindness, or look upon Lucien's face and see him staring back. No longer would she find herself painting their faces on her friends, wondering whether or not they'd finally corner her, tear apart who she'd become and reveal a much weaker person; a cowering little girl whose fears rattled her bones.

In mid-stride, Sparrow opened the double-doors wide, nearly colliding with Sophia and a man whose eyes she shared, and effectively bustling the guardsmen aside. It took her a moment to recuperate from the shock of nearly bowling two people over, but she took it easily, quickly recovering with a brimming grin. “Oh, I didn't mean to intrude,” She began to say, rocking back on her heels. For a moment, Sparrow seemed poised to say more, but she held up her finger, waggled it and stepped backwards, past the double-doors, where she then closed them back on herself. The doors slowly reopened and she proceeded to lean her shoulders against them, peering out between the crack she'd made. The smile tugging at her lips, two-parts amused, and two-parts mischievous, only seemed to brighten, as if this was a chance meeting with someone she'd been looking for all along. Perhaps, this was more appropriate than her initial idea of storming the Keep until she happened upon the Viscount. What if he was away on an important errand? Far too busy to fetch up some documents. She didn't move away from the doors, only blinked up at Sophia and Saemus, hunched over. “Sophia, is it?” She greeted breezily, “It's what I remember the gallant knight saying, anyway. I like Sophie better.”

“I was hoping it'd be you.” The comment might have seemed odd coming from Sparrow, but she seemed nonplussed by its implications, only glancing briefly at Saemus to gauge what had been going on between them. By the looks of the man's creased eyebrows, broody eyes, and telltale frown, it might've been a disagreement. Rilien always told her it was best not to bury her nose where it didn't belong. Finally, the half-breed straightened her shoulders, stepped through the threshold and pulled one of the doors wide open, ignoring the gawping look the guard was shooting her. “Apologies, Serrah, but I need to borrow Sophie for a wee bit, if you wouldn't mind,” She swept her hand towards the door, arching her eyebrows. If Sophia needed saving from whatever she'd been talking about, then it would've been a perfect excuse, even though they hadn't planned on speaking at all – and she could ask her in the meantime, it wouldn't hurt. She seemed ready to depart the Keep anyway, with mail armour riddled around her joints. As if to accentuate the offer, Sparrow offered an upturned palm for the taking.

The half elf... man's, interruption was a welcome one for Sophia, even if she found everything about it to be entirely odd. She remembered him, even though they had only briefly met before, but even still she found the informal nature of his greeting to be a little surprising. Sophia, Saemus, and the pair of guards inside the door all turned their heads to watch the visitor retract from the doorway and then reappear, addressing the Viscount's daughter by her given name, and then by a nickname, one which Sophia was not particularly fond of herself. Sophie was too... girlish, and reminded her far too much of her childhood.

The guards, and Saemus, blinked in surprise at the rather bold entrance Sparrow made, but allowed Sophia to speak for herself. She was momentarily torn between addressing her brother and the visitor, but Saemus soon solved that problem by throwing up a hand in dismissal and departing towards the private quarters at a quick pace. Sophia thought to call after him for a moment, but knew it would be no good, so instead she sighed in displeasure and turned to Sparrow. The half-elf had his hand swept towards the open door, and Sophia shrugged before heading outside. It was true that she had been planning on leaving anyway, and if Sparrow had come seeking her specifically, maybe they were headed to similar places as well.

Once the pair of them were outside and the great doors shut behind them, Sophia began to lead the way down the steps. "It's... Sparrow, right? We met in the Hanged Man, I think. I was just headed there, myself. You needed something?"

Sparrow offered her another smile, retracting her hand back to her side. She'd half expected for the guards to silence her charade, berate her for interrupting their quarrel and appearing in quarters she didn't belong in, but was glad that Sophia seemed at least as inclined to leave as she'd expected. Her smile briefly faltered, then blossomed into a wry grin. Sophie is a lovely nickname, but I'll call you Sophia, if you'd prefer,” Sparrow added softly, clicking her tongue. She'd seen the odd scrunch of the armoured-woman's nose when she'd let the nickname slip – and as inept as she was at picking up subtle expressions, she wasn't entirely oblivious. She knew how it felt to be called a name that didn't suit who she'd become, like wearing ill-fitting boots. She hooked her thumbs in her belt, eyeing the ceiling. What might it have been like to grow up beneath those archways, running around marble pillars, scampering down carpeted stairwells?

His inexperience with royalty was plain as day to her, as most of the people around here would have trouble calling her by anything other than my lady, and here he was offering a choice between her first name and a nickname. "I do prefer Sophia, actually. Thank you for asking." In all honesty, it was quite refreshing for someone to come into the Keep and not act like she was worth more than them or something.

Sparrow followed Sophia down the steps, moving beside her. She barely avoided bumping into a passing man, murmuring a quick apology as she shifted to the side, then stepped back into place. “Sparrow, that's right. Barely properly introduced,” the half-breed put in, bobbing her head, “The Hanged Man? Perfect. I need to ask you some questions. The subject is a little fragile, and it might not be tasteful for any passing ears, if you get my meaning. I'll buy you a drink.” Searching for assailants with the obvious intent of hunting them down certainly wouldn't sit well with any snobbish, goody-goody nobles who believed justice was best dealt with patience and prisons. She wasn't looking for someone to plaster wanted posters around Kirkwall, either. If Sophia had access to Kirkwall's records, however, then she was the perfect person to come to. Perhaps, better to see her then to ask for an audience with the Viscount. From what she'd heard, he'd holed himself up, refusing to take any action at all.

Another fragile subject, huh? Sophia took a moment to wonder if there was an issue in Kirkwall that wasn't fragile. If it involved the words mage, templar, or qunari, then the answer was definitely no. Maker, even fighting those bandits for her brother hadn't been a straightforward issue. And speaking, Saemus was doing an excellent job remembering to be grateful for that little adventure, wasn't he? Sophia rolled her eyes to herself, pushing the thought of her brother from her mind.

The two of them made their way through Hightown and down the steps, making enough conversation so as to not allow the trip to become awkward. Sophia was more than familiar with the way down the Hanged Man by now, and swiftly cut through the Lowtown streets until she reached the destination, pulling open the door and leading the way inside. She spotted the dwarf, Varric, as she entered the main room, and waved to get his attention. Though they did not know each other very well, Varric easily understood the value of being friends with the future Viscount, and Sophia had learned the benefits of being friends with a man like Varric. She knew him enough to know he was good at heart, and that his connections (and words) had perhaps more influence over the people of Lowtown than she or her father did. "Hello, Varric," she said. He bowed rather low. "Good afternoon, my lady," Varric said with a trademark smirk. "And to you, Sparrow. What can I do for you today?"

"Could I borrow your room for a moment?" Sophia asked. "Sparrow has something to discuss with me. I had hoped to speak with you afterwards, as well." The dwarf nodded easily. "Of course. I'll make sure no one disturbs you."

That out of the way, Sophia gestured for Sparrow to follow and led the way up the stairs to the rooms, closing the door to Varric's room once both of them were inside. She pulled up a chair, indicating for Sparrow to do the same. "This should do, I think. The drink won't be necessary. Now, what can I help you with?"
In turn, as she was greeted, Sparrow bowed her head, and slipped a hand across an invisible plumed hat. The Dwarf had proven, over the years spent in Kirkwall's infamous tavern, to be not only useful, and efficient in gathering information, but to be one of her predominant drinking companions whenever she was out of sorts. He never failed to make her laugh, and even though she'd never shared her most intimate secrets, she'd always felt like he could see straight through her. However, it didn't make her feel uncomfortable. She always thought that he'd heard stranger tales, or stories that reflected her own (at least, ones that might make hers a little less shocking). When she straightened, Sophia had already asked whether or not they could borrow his room – which was met with an assertive yes. It didn't surprise her. Rubbing elbows with the Viscount's daughter, or anyone of any important birthright, was useful in its own right.

For someone who'd spent a hefty chunk of her time under the Hanged Man's bar stools, Sparrow hadn't made it any further than that, so anything in the rooms above the stairs was territory she'd yet to discover. She let her gaze roam across the various rooms until Sophia slipped into the one closest to the staircase, which she promptly ducked into. Unusual posters, and drawings hung in the far corner of the suite, though it was the chair Sophia motioned to that drew her attention. Sparrow swiftly plopped herself into it, crossing her leg over her knee. There were certain secrets she'd have to skip around. It wasn't entirely unlike her to skim around the truth, or offer half-truths in the place of complete honesty, and this particular instance wasn't any difference. If she'd taken anything to heart while staying with Rilien, it was the importance of tactful discretion and keeping her mouth shut. She shrugged her shoulders, sweeping her hands in front of her as if to say are you sure about that drink?

When it was obvious that she wouldn't take her up on the offer, Sparrow rested her elbow on her knee, leaning forward just enough so that she could support her chin in her upturned palm. She met the woman's gaze resolutely, only looking briefly away to gather her thoughts. “I'm looking for someone, or two someones, rather,” She began to say, then continued, “A few months after I came to Kirkwall, we started receiving refugees from Ferelden. If I'm correct, everything's been written down, catalogued in ledgers, or documents. Papers, or anything.” She laughed into her knuckles, though it lacked its usual warmth, “I'll admit that I was seeking an audience with your father, but he's been rather busy with other matters.” Everyone knew that the Viscount was tied up with the Arishok stationed in the docks. Those issues would always be at the forefront of his mind, tangling him into affairs that, to him, would be far more important than shuffling through old files. Her eyebrows drew together, expression growing grave. “I need to find them. Can you help me? Please.”

Sophia was glad Sparrow had run into her rather than try to gain an audience with her father. He was indeed quite preoccupied with larger issues, and would only have been aggravated by a request like this. In fact, the Seneschal likely would have either turned him away or heard the request himself, if he thought it important enough, but certainly this would never have made it before the Viscount. Kirkwall had taken in thousands of refugees since the beginning of the Blight, and although it was ended now, a vast majority of them either could not or chose not to leave, for whatever reason.

"That's true, the city guard took a full accounting of everyone who entered the city seeking refuge during the Blight. I'm afraid there's not much more information to be had than the names, though. If the names you're looking for are on the list, it would only mean that they are somewhere within the city walls." Almost certainly in Darktown, Sophia added mentally. Lowtown if they were lucky or extremely hard working. The undercity's population had exploded since the refugees started coming in, along with the crime.

"I can see if Bran or the city guard can take a look through it for you. Who are you looking for?" It wasn't that she wouldn't be willing to do it herself, it was just that her free time was precious to her, with the responsibilities her father was piling onto her. It seemed a simple enough task, but it also seemed tedious, and Sophia wanted to avoid spending a free afternoon poring over papers in the Gallows if at all possible.

Any attempts at trying to tame her eagerness curdled in her stomach. Sparrow leaned back in her chair, watching Sophia's facial expressions. She'd learnt a long time ago – that, even though your companions may be friends with your acquaintances, it didn't always mean you could trust them, or hope for anything unrealistic. She didn't know her very well, though she had a pretty face, and a genuineness that surprised her. Her ability to tell the difference between lies and truth, to read between the lines and extract what she needed out of lies and dishonesty had long been eroded away with her own inability to come clean. She could only read so much in someone's eyes, but it seemed as if Sophia honestly wanted to help her, if she had the time to do so. “I know who they are, I need only know if they're still residing in Kirkwall.”

Her fingers found themselves wrung together, white-knuckled and rosy, until she slipped them apart and sighed. Anxiety blossomed in her gut, feeding a desperation she never knew she possessed. “Arcadius Kassim and Silian Raunthil,” She said the names like curses, like things she whispered between her lips in the dead of night. She'd said them more times than she wished to count. To Rilien, in the middle of the night, when she had nightmares. To herself, when she scoured Kirkwall, foolishly willing them to appear in the alleyways so that she could kill them. Her eyebrows knit together, souring her usual cheeriness. Every memory that threatened to squirm out of the hole she'd dug was promptly smothered, hastily buried to keep herself from crumbling. “They're dangerous – parasites in your city, really. Worse than anything in Darktown.”

She paused briefly, pinching her nose between forefinger and thumb. “One of them even looks like Lucien.”

So he was looking for dangerous people, was he? That caught Sophia's attention. Worse than anything in Darktown was a pretty big statement, and though he hadn't yet stated why he was looking for these people, Sophia's instincts told her that this was something worth following up on. Sparrow didn't exactly strike her as the type to go catching dangerous criminals just because he could, which led her to believe there was obviously something personal going on here.

"Arcadius Kassim and Silian Raunthil," she repeated. "I'll make sure Bran puts someone on this, and I can let you know personally if their names turn up. If they're criminals, it's likely they would use a false name, but I'll have the city guard go through the lists all the same." Notably, Sophia did not ask the obvious question of why Sparrow would want to find them, but that was primarily because if they did have any success locating the two of them, they would be having this conversation again. That, and Sophia wasn't quite convinced this was entirely her business yet. If they were as much a danger to her city as Sparrow seemed to think, she would probably want to go after them with him, but as of now Sophia didn't feel it was appropriate to pry for more information.

Though, Sparrow would've been hard-pressed to admit it, there was still much of Papyrus inside her. She was still the same: stubborn. Hard-headed. Doubtful, lonely, afraid.She felt like she was protecting someone by seeking them out, by promising that she'd destroy them as soon as she hunted them down. Eyes, brilliantly brown, were beginning to water, until she dashed her knuckles into them, mashing any unspilled tears away as if she were tired, exhausted by the peculiar request she'd just made. She didn't apologize for her behaviour, only met Sophia's gaze once more, holding it steady. “Thank you, Sophia,” She breathed, leaning over so that she could touch the woman's arm, then, thinking better of it, pulled briskly way. Her movements were wooden, particularly odd given her eccentricity.

“We have history. They attacked me as a child, stole me away from my family.” One small truth, vague as it was, would be enough. The details were shady, at best. If Sophia wanted to know more, and if it came down to trading information for what she wanted, for what she needed, then she'd do her best to offer it. If not, then nothing needed to be said. "I want to prevent that from happening ever again."

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

The Qunari perched on the rooftop, a silent sentinel, and for the moment at least, completely still, poised at the corner of the building like a crouched gargoyle, hands gripping the stone ledge with the easy confidence of years of practice. Behind her, on the flat surface of the elevated platform, several human bodies lay in various states of unfortunate fate; some had clearly died much more swiftly than others, taken by the surprise of the Ben-Hassrath’s initial assault. One of several pockets of a particular nighttime gang terrorizing Lowtown. Such a thing would ordinarily be no business of hers, but she had it on good authority that they planned to expand their operations into the Alienage, tonight, in all likelihood.

That, she would not allow.

A breeze kicked up from over the ocean, but unlike on the Wounded Coast, it brought mostly the scent of fish and industry and human foundries. Sulfur, fish, sweat, cheap alcohol. It was the odor of Kirkwall, and she disliked how well she knew it. A flicker of movement below caught her attention, and Amalia shifted slightly, leaning out over the edge a bit and bracing herself with both arms and legs. Sure enough, there was another grouping of thugs below, these accompanied also by those hounds the Fereldan refugees seemed to favor. Mabari, she understood they were called, and smarter than the average beast. Smarter than any human who would trespass into the Alienage while she dwelled there, at any rate.

She had not lied to him; she could not protect them on her own. This did not mean she would not make the effort at all. The men below started to move, and the Qunari stirred, propelling herself to the adjacent rooftop with no noise. Clad in mottled dark blues and greys, she blended easily with the backdrop of the middle of the night; only the uninitiated believed that shadows were black, and these humans were clearly among them, making their dark shapes easy to trail after, even if they hadn’t been making more noise than any truly nocturnal creature had any right to.

From the Lowtown Market she stalked them, trailing behind them on rooftops, but the information had been good—they were unmistakably headed towards the Alienage, armed to the teeth and apparently somewhat intoxicated in several cases. Still, there were quite a number of them, and she would not be able to deal with them all before one of them managed to spot her. Even so, Amalia waited. If they did not set foot in the city-elves’ dwelling place, she would not touch them. The ones on the roof had died to keep her observations quiet, but she was not needlessly destructive.

They were rounding the final bend on their path, however, and as soon as the first had laid his foot on the steps leading down into the central common, Amalia let go of any remaining inclination to wait, reaching for the throwing needles at her thigh, loosing three before she capitalized on what remained of the advantage of surprise. Setting her jaw, the Qunari flicked her wrist, sliding the hidden blade there free of its home and leaping from the roof without so much as a whisper of sound. Flipping over once in her descent, she landed squarely on the shoulders of that first man, sliding the foot-and-a-half length of steel into his spinal cord before he had time to realize his knees were buckling under her weight.

Leaping from him before she could accompany his corpse in an ungainly tumble down the stairs, she landed in a crouch on the top stair, blade arm extended out to the side, and rose fluidly to a stand. ”You will leave this place in peace, or you will die,” she informed the rest flatly. There was silence for all of two seconds before they attacked.



Lucien was headed home perhaps a little later than he would normally have been, but apparently the client had been insistent that she could not show her face before the middle of the night, for fear of whomever was following her. He supposed he could understand that, but then in the end it had made precious little difference anyway, and the confrontation had been brief, but uncomfortable. One of the disadvantages of being willing to hear out absolutely anyone was that occasionally you were taken for a fool and someone tried to use you for petty revenge. It was only after he’d successfully explained to the jilted husband that he was not the second party to an affair that he’d been able to extricate himself from that mess, and now he was tired and really just wanted to sleep.

The universe seemed to have other ideas in mind, however, and it was some distance before he rounded the corner to his house that he heard the sounds of an armed confrontation, including shouting and the unmistakable clang of steel. If he wasn’t mistaken, there were hounds involved as well. Picking up his pace, the Chevalier jogged around the corner, a hand over his shoulder and on the haft of his axe, to be confronted by a most macabre sight.

A singular woman, slightly bent under the weight of exertion and what he presumed must be wounds, stood just in front of the steps descending into the Alienage, dripping blood from the end of a rather wicked-looking blade that seemed to be attached to her arm. She was also covered in it, but from the looks of things, not all of it was hers; perhaps not even most. Strewn about her in a rough half-circle were the unmoving bodies of several men, their dark clothes and the Mabari presence identifying them as members of the Dog Lords, a local gang. From the woman’s defensive stance, he suspected she was guarding the entrance to the elven slum, and though she was clearly human, he was almost certain he recognized her from the area. She held one hand to her side, glancing up at him as he appeared, but there was no readable emotion on her face.

The Dog Lords noted his presence as well, and it wasn’t more than a few heartbeats before half had split off to attack him. Lucien sighed through his nose. “Will you not leave without further death?” he asked, more than aware of the answer already. One of them spat at his feet and attacked, forcing him to take a step backwards and raise his axe to block.

Amalia had already given her warning, and she was ruthless. Taking advantage of their momentary distraction, she strafed forward and opened up a slash beneath one man’s chin, dropping him to the ground in a welling of blood. She kept her free hand clasped to her side, however, trying to stem the blood seeping from a wound there that one of them had inflicted as she tired. Hard to hit she may be, but the entire point of this endeavor was to hold a position, to not allow any of these basra beyond the spot in which she stood, and she was not accustomed to plying bulwark. That, indeed, seemed like something her happenstance ally would be better suited for, and she’d seen him doing just this on previous nights, close to here.

Ducking sideways to avoid a downward swing from a two-handed sword, she slipped in under her assailant’s guard, slamming her fluid-slick blade into his gut. He stumbled backwards with a choked cry, but she did not follow. That would place her amidst his comrades, and she could not afford to be so reckless. She played a delicate game of cat and mouse here, but with Darktown rats instead of mice. They were more than capable of shredding her if she did not remember her vulnerabilities.

Lucien fought his way steadily through his half of the Dog Lords, not so disadvantaged by open-field combat as the woman was, and certainly not injured at present. Making his way to her side, he glanced down out of the corner of his eye. “You seek to keep them out of the Alienage?” he asked, though the answer seemed obvious enough.

“Yes.” She wasn’t sure what reason this basra could have to care, but she knew his face by description, and what she’d heard was reason enough to trust his intent, for now.

After he took over as damage shield, Amalia was able to return to a much greater degree of efficacy, sliding effortlessly through the thick of the foes’ confused grouping, cutting them down from behind, and in the end, the Dog Lords had nothing more to show for their trouble than more dead members. The Qunari’s blade slid home with a muted click, and she turned to the armored human. “For what purpose do you assist me?” she asked, her tone steady despite her injuries.

Lucien regarded the woman with some concern. “There are few who would help these people, and I understand that one of those who did so with most vigor is no longer present.” Nostariel had told him of Ithilian’s desire to avenge the wrongs done the elves here, but he was fairly sure the man lingered in Kirkwall no longer, if the conversation he’d overheard in the Deep Roads was anything to go by. “You should get that wound treated; it looks bad. I know a healer, if you need one.”

Amalia ignored him, or at least the part of his answer that concerned her condition. She’d survived much worse than this; a few potions would do the trick just fine. “And what? You seek to replace him?” her tone was acidic, almost accusatory.

Lucien blinked in surprise; he hadn’t been expecting hostility. “Of course not,” he replied mildly. “but surely more than one person in the world can do the right thing? Was protecting them not your intent as well?” He replaced his axe on his back, as if to declare that his further intentions fell far short of hostility.

Amalia eased at this. “Indeed,” she replied, and it was answer to both questions. Straightening, she pulled a potion from her belt-pouch and downed it, rolling her shoulders as it took effect and closed off the wound in her side. “My suspicion is not unwarranted, but you are as the others say, basra.” It was not anyone who could show his face in the Arishok’s pavilion twice and come away unscathed both times, after all. “Your assistance is acknowledged.” She inclined her head as a means of thanks, and turned to depart.

Basra?” he echoed behind her, and she stopped. “You are of the Qun, then? I did not think there were any female Qunari in Kirkwall.” He had to admit to some level of curiosity about this; he had always thought that the Qunari did not allow their women to fight.

“I am Qunari,” she confirmed simply, half-turning again to regard him from the corner of an eye. “But I am not of the Antaam, the Arishok’s army. My role is different.”

”But you fight,” he pressed, interested in this detail he had not known before. “That was clearly not your first battle.”

She nodded, acknowledging the statement for what it was. “The body may face adversity that it can only answer with hostility, and the same is true of the soul,” she said cryptically. Studying the man for a moment, Amalia tilted her head to one side. It was something that had struck her during their joint confrontation—though he was of a size and stature with the average male kossith, he did not move like one. Something about his training must have resembled hers, where flexibility and movement were key, though she could not say exactly what it might have been. The ways of basra were often opaque to her.

“There are many ways to fight, and not all need be of the kind armies use. I think you know this.”

Lucien smiled, and nodded. He wasn’t sure what to make of her comment about bodies and souls, though it seemed true enough to him. Precisely how it was an answer to what had come before was a little more obscure, but that was all right. They were speaking from different places; common understandings were not always easy things, and he was simply glad she’d explained as much as she had.

“May I have your name? Or your role, rather?” he supposed that would be the more appropriate request, wouldn’t it?

Amalia considered this for a moment. “You may. I am Ben-Hassrath, or Amalia. What are you?”

He shrugged. “I’m not sure I could answer to your satisfaction,” he said honestly. “My given name is Lucien, but I suppose unless you’d be willing to let me borrow a Qunlat word for mercenary, I have no role anymore.” It was interesting, trying to explain himself in these terms, and he wasn’t sure they fit at all. Still, it was something he would admit to some curiosity about, one that had been kindled largely by his limited experience with the Qunari thus far.

“There isn’t one,” Amalia replied. “It wouldn’t suit you, anyway. If we had one, it would be pejorative.” Mercenaries were not the kinds of people who did what was necessary for no other reason or reward, as he had done.

Lucien chuckled softly. “I’ll take that as a compliment, I think. Well, I should be going. A good evening to you, Amalia.” With that, he inclined himself at the torso and left, heading back to his dwelling. She contemplated following; ally or potential future enemy, someone with his skill and demeanor bore watching, but she had a feeling the Arishok was already taking care of that, keeping tabs on anyone who had drawn his attention yet in this place. So she refrained, instead descending the steps to the Alienage, slipping inside the dwelling she shared with her Viddethari to more properly treat her wounds.

She wondered just how much longer she could exert herself for this entire district. She already had a role, and trying to take on two at once was not going to sustain either for very long. She was neither made nor trained to be Sataareth.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

"Better," Amalia conceded, blocking the incoming foot with the side of her arm. Twisting, she brought the limb around to grasp Aurora's extended foot by the ankle, then lifted it up and over her head, spinning a full circle beneath it and forcing the girl to choose between jumping off her other foot and rotating her own body horizontally in midair (which would make for a blind and tricky landing) or else drop like dead weight, in order to throw off her opponent instead. Both were good choices, provided they could be made quickly enough.

In the eight months or so that Imekari had been under her tutelage, she'd improved greatly, though in all honesty, one could do such exercises as these for half a decade and still hardly touch what there was to be learned. Their lessons, infrequent as they were, were not going to make the girl a master, but they would make her good enough, far better than most and quite capable of looking out for herself without needing to resort to magic. And that was all that mattered. In her year and a half in Kirkwall, Amalia had successfully avoided interacting with Templars in all but a few instances, but that was no excuse for ignorance about their practices, and thus she had learned what she needed to know. They called the Qunari by perjoratives like 'heathen' and 'barbarian,' and yet it was they who couldn't see sense enough to prevent their mages from turning into creatures little better than animals, then slaughtering them as though they were to be blamed for this event. Absurd.

The solution was obviously containment, though she and the rest of her people might disagree on just who could do it. Arveraad were certainly capable, but so was Aurora. Or she would be.

Aurora opted instead to drop all her weight to the ground. She was no bird, and so she tried to keep at least one of her feet on the ground at all times. Perhaps one day she'd become adept enough to pursue aerial acrobatics, but that day was not today. Dead weight it was. She fell backwards, dragging her foot along with her. If Amalia didn't let go, then she'd be pulled right along with her, and ther spar would quickly turn into a wrestling match in the dirt. She expected that Amalia would likely relinquish the hold and let her roll backward back to her feet. There she sighed and tilted her head, perhaps not as enthused about her own progress as Amalia was. "But not perfect," She corrected and stood.

"Perfect is a worthy goal," Amalia conceded, reqlinquishing the younger woman her limb so that she might regain her feet. The point was, after all, not to attack in all the ways she could, but to allow her pupil the opportunity to try breaking through her defense. Not that she was afraid of putting the girl on her rear, of course; she had done so many times before and would do so many more before their time together was ended. "But unattainable. The impotant part is in the striving."

Aurora made a mental note not to lead with any more kicks, and especially not high kicks. She rolled her shoulders and settled into the stance she had since adopted in Amalia's care. Her elbows were tucked in close to her centermass, arms bent at a forty-five degree angle, and her hands were open with the palms on the sides. She was relaxed, balanced, but structured as well Aurora shifted to her left, bringing her foot to the forefront and swapping foremost extended hand. "Again," she said, closing the distance between the two of them. The first punch she threw was a straight left aiming for Amalia's chest. Strengthen the body and strengthen the mind, Aurora had learned. A strong mind was the best defense against the lies whispered by the demons across the veil. While she was by no means perfect, she felt better about herself than she did a year ago. She was more sure of herself, and her ability to keep the fingers of the demons at bay.

Aurora would not be kept in a cage of iron and stone, but of strength and willpower. She would be collared, but it would be her hands that held the keys, no one elses.

The Qunari flowed out of the way of the punch, spinning sideways and aiming an open-handed strike for the mage's shoulder. "Where are your feet?" she asked rhetorically. "Keep your foundation firm, and none shall move you without your consent." As with most things Amalia said in this context, there was a mental meaning as well as a straightforward comment about physicality. This was her role; to deliver such reminders in a way that integrated them; body, mind, and soul, to be all the more effective and permanently remembered.

"But I must be flexible too, so I can bend without breaking. Rooted, but yielding," Aurora agreed with an addendum, and instead of merely ducking out of the way of the blow, she shifted her feet and followed Amalia's spin, deflecting the blow with her forearm. Her elbow never ventured far from her centerline, and she retained her balance throughout and ended up throwing her own closed fist strike at her belly. She was not a terrible student, and she learned the lessons quickly, committing them to heart, but she also came to her own conclusions. Simply memorizing what Amalia taught her was useless. She'd just be reciting words. She needed to learn, understand, and then make it hers. She needed to come up with her own way.

There was a gentle flicker of amusement in Amalia's eyes, and her lips curled up at one corner. It was not the sort of condescending thing one feels at the antics of a fool (she did not find fools amusing, after all), but rather the small satisfaction of a quandary finally making sense, or perhaps what gardeners felt with the first opening of petals in spring. "You've been thinking," she said simply, avoiding the blow headed for her midsection by dropping into a sweep, arcing her legs out to try and entangle them with Aurora's. It was a compliment, coming from the Qunari, though of course Amalia's compliments hardly ever sounded like them. More like observations, as it was rather difficult to find an instance in which she altered her tone from the faintly-disapporving neutrality her people seemed inclined towards.

Sometimes, she wondered if in communicating with others, the Qunari should start prefacing their sentences with their intent, as most people seemed incapable of the subtlety required to properly read into the words. Sarcasm: that sounds like a useful way to spend our words, speaking to those who will refuse to understand anyway. Still, at least the people she actually cared to converse with seemed to take her meaning mostly correctly in the majority of cases. And yet the most recent notable backfiring of this generality still bothered her.

"I needed to. I won't just suddenly have an epiphany and understand everything," Aurora answered. As Amalia dropped into her sweep, Aurora picked her foot up and batted her entangling legs away with her heel, and spun out of Amalia's front, instead coming in from an angle. "I need to think to understand," She said. As she did, her stance changed from the open palms to closed fists, one in front of the other. As she rushed Amalia, she launched a straight blast of fists, a barrage of quick rapid fire punches intended to overwhelm, stepping inside the guard all the while. The movement was clean and fluid, each punch rotating out for another, though her elbows kept close to her centerline. The straight blast was aimed downward at Amalia's chest. If Amalia didn't dodge or counter, then the flurry would rain down on her-- Aurora kept her strength in check just in the off-chance that Amalia wouldn't dodge.

Each of these, Amalia caught in a palm and delfected to the side, save the last, which she dodged instead, bending over backwards until her hands touched the ground behind her, kicking herself upwards into a deft flip, which reset the distance between them. Rather than retaliate, however, she remained still, the birdlike tilt to her head an indication that she was interested in hearing the rest uninterrupted.

"A thinking mind is a strong one. A strong mind is both a free one and a chained one," Aurora smiled. Chains of her own creation, one that she was free to create and lock herself. Aurora did catch the compliment however, she'd come to understand Amalia in the passing months. Though much of the woman was still a mystery, she'd begun to catch the smaller quirks of her person. The hidden compliments, the instances of warmth, to anyone else they might simply filter by.

"Then your thinking serves you well," Amalia replied with a nod. "Stretch to cool down, and tell me of your dreams." Taking her own advice, she moved into several flowing exercises designed to prevent muscles from cramping or locking up at inopportune moments, several of which she'd taught to Aurora as well. It was important to condition the whole body, and not simply the parts that did the attacking. Likewise, the opportunity could easily be taken to condition one's mind, to make oneself aware of the things that were still troublesome, and think through what the possible solutions to those troubles might be. For an ordinary person, this was important. For a mage like Imekari, Amalia suspected it may very well prove vital.

As instructed, Aurora stepped out of her stance and into the cooldown exercises, though she seemed less then enthused about them. It wasn't that she didn't see the value of easing her muscles into a resting state, she just found them to be immensely boring. She hated stretching. She did them without complaint however, as an admonishing remark from Amalia right now would probably spoil the whole session. When Amalia questioned her about her dreams, she was quiet as she thought. She had dreams, yes. Demons and such were the most prolific of them, but at this point they were to be expected. She figured Amalia was asking for something different. There were a couple of dreams between the usual ones.

She sighed as she opened her mouth to talk. "Aside from the normal ones, I dream of home, mostly. Back in Bastion, not the Circle-- that never was home. Sometimes I dream of my family, just sitting around, talking, and laughing. Sometimes even the horizon as the sun set. Sometimes I wish it could all go back to the way it was, you know? Before I was taken to the Circle," but it never would return back to normal. She'd always be a mage, no matter how much she wished otherwise-- even if she did wish otherwise. "It's been six-seven years the last time I even saw my family..." She said somberly.

"What stops you from making it so?" Amalia asked. It was not a derisive question, merely an honest query. "Is avoiding Templars in Antiva so much more difficult than avoiding Templars here?" As she saw it, if this was a time in Aurora's life that was impossible to return to (as most past times were), then it was simply another obstacle to be overcome. If, on the other hand, there might be a way to solve the problem without simply learning to avoid it, this was preferable. Amalia understood little of connection by blood; for the Qunari, your family was always the one you made, and never the one that you were born into. But this was not the case elewhere, she knew.

It wasn't that she hadn't thought about it before. Just uproot herself and leave for Bastion one day. In the years since her break from the Antivan Circle, Aurora had gotten good at staying below the notice of the Templars. It wouldn't take much for her to hope a boat and sail her way back home. The ability to go back home was in her hand. But the motivation was something else entirely. "I've thought about it you know?" she said. She thought about a lot of things. "Just leave and go back. I've thought about it a lot," She said, but there was something else that kept her chained in Kirkwall.

"It's just... It'd be too painful. I've changed. They've changed. They've probably moved on. Besides, it'd be too painful. Like ripping open old wounds, nothing good would come from it," She said, finishing up her stretches and taking a seat on the ground. "I don't even know if they live in the same house, they could've moved while I've been away. Even if they were there, then I don't know if I'd be able to leave it again. If the Templars found me again, then I'd just have to leave them again. It's easier this way, for me and them," That didn't make the pill any less bitter to swallow. It sounded like a lot of complaining to her, and she knew it. But she just didn't think she was strong enough for that.

Not now at least. There was always the possibility of finding them one day. She would never give up that hope, of seeing the Antivan horizon again, of seeing her familiy. She wasn't going to give up that dream. She'd have to become stronger, but she was getting stronger day by day... "One day though. I will find them again. It might not be soon, but one day when I'm stronger, I will find them," With that admission a sure smile crossed her lips. "How are your dreams Amalia?" She asked, turning the question on her.

"Hmph," the Qunari replied, dexterously untwisting herself from what appeared to be some kind of pretzel formation. "I," she replied, "am the instructor here, and not the pupil." This was not an arrangment in which they gave and took the same things. Nevertheless, she deigned to answer the question, after a fashion. "My dreams are as they have always been. I do not often change." Settling herself into a crosslegged position across from Aurora, she considered the implications of the other woman's statements.

"Easy and right are rarely correleated. But we do well to understand our limitations, and work to expand them." It sounded like a decent enough plan to her, if it was indeed this which Aurora wanted.

"It's something to think on and work towards," She agreed, laying back. Aurora was sad that she didn't manage to pry much more out of Amalia's dreams, but it wasn't entirely unexpected. She was still a mystery, after all, and just as difficult to figure out as a safe lock. Still, points for trying. "Easy and right, huh? If only. But then I guess that wouldn't make the successes all that sweeter," She smiled. Though with that bit of thought out of the way, Aurora pulled herself upright and cradled her hands in her lap.

"So what's my next lesson?"

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera

Earnings

0.00 INK

On days like this one, Sophia found herself wishing she'd never decided to get involved in the affairs of Lowtown.

There was a certain kind of peace that she remembered having when her feet never carried her down the steps to the lower city. She had just wandered her safe and privileged home, ears covered to the sounds around her, eyes cast ever upwards to avoid seeing what was beneath her. That was another time, of course. Now she not only saw what was under her boots, she descended into it on a daily basis, or as often as her responsibilities would allow her. Her ears were covered any longer, and this allowed her to hear everything that happened around. Not all of it was easy to hear.

One particular piece of news the other day had hit her like the time she'd been kicked by a horse when she was learning to ride. A name she had not expected to hear again, and certainly not within the walls of the city. Once she decided that she wasn't crazy and she had heard correctly, she'd gone to Varric, who seemed the most likely to be able to help her. Sadly, the dwarf could not, but he could point her to someone who was possibly more capable than he. Thus she found herself heading towards the Lowtown shop of Ashton Riviera, The Hunted Stag. She remembered him as the man she'd danced with the night before the expedition departed, and it wasn't too surprising that there was more to him than he'd let on. She'd done the same herself, of course. This time, of course, she'd be very straightforward with him. It probably helped that she hadn't consumed any wine today.

In her usual chain and plate, Sophia pushed open the door to his shop, doing her best to not let the smell of animal hides overwhelm her, though she probably did make a bit of a face at first. It was a rather modest place for a man who had no doubt received a large share of coin from the success of the expedition. Sophia found the man himself just inside, working on what appeared to be a large amount of... dragon bone? It made sense, given the tales of the group's battle with a dragon, but it was still rather startling to see.

"Hello," she said, giving a slight wave. "Ashton Riviera? I'm Sophia Dumar. We met at the Hanged Man a few months ago. Do you have a few minutes to talk?"

"Oh. Hi, welcome to the Hunted Stag," Ashton responded in monotone, but he was far too busy to notice that instead of his standard fare of Lowtown elves and humans, his customer today was was a highborn pretty lady decked out in plate metal and chain. Instead, his undivided attention focused solely on the hunk of bone he was working in his hands. The bone had been stripped of all flesh and meat that once filled out a dragon's arm, with the still usable bits of leather placed in a pile on the counter, while the undoubtedly rotted meat was disposed of elsewhere. He was currently in the process of bleaching it white with a bit of elbow grease and an old rag. He was nearly there by the looks of it.

Finally, the second part of the greeting filtered through his head and he took his eyes off of the bone, and a moment of remembrance flashed across his eyes. "Ah! Sophia, sweetheart. What brings you to my lowly shop?" He said, setting down the dragon bone on the counter beside him, next to a pile of recently acquired books, one of which was currently open. "Sorry I didn't notice it was you earlier. I was in the middle of polishing my bone-- er.. Dragon bone, that is... I didn't mean..." Ashton clarified. "Right! Now that that faux pas is out of the way... For you sweetheart, I've got all day to talk," He said, drawing his legs up so that he sat crosslegged on the counter, followed by perching his elbows on his knees so that his knuckles would hold his chin.

He looked genuinely intrigued about what the girl would say. He could smell an adventure a mile away, and this woman postively reeked of it. A girl after his own heart.

Sophia had taken a half step back, putting her weight on her back foot, and crossing her arms over her chest. She narrowed her gaze at the man slightly, but reminded herself that she wanted his help. Sophie was one thing, but sweetheart she didn't think she wanted to put up with, especially considering they'd only met once before. Between the two uses of the word, and his mention of polishing his bone, she strongly felt the urge to roll eyes, but refrained.

"I'm trying to find someone," she said, keeping her tone as it was before. "I overheard a name while in Lowtown the other day, and if it's the person I think it is, I want to speak with him. But considering his current circumstances, it's in his best interests to lay low while he's in the city. I would go to the city guard, but they're stretched thin as it is, and I consider this a personal matter, besides." She made sure to make eye contact. "So I'd appreciate it if we could keep this between the two of us for now."

Maybe this was a lot to ask of someone she didn't really know, but considering the way she'd been greeted, Sophia imagined her chances of getting him to cooperate weren't all that bad. "I've heard that you tend to keep an ear to the ground, so to speak. I don't yet have a great amount of experience with the people in Lowtown, nor am I able to speak to them without drawing attention, attention that would make my quarry disappear the moment he caught wind of it, I'm sure. So... think you might be willing to help? I would make sure you are compensated for your trouble, of course." Honestly, Sophia would prefer to keep this as a business discussion, since she couldn't say she trusted the man yet, and indeed, this problem was rather close to her heart. The details would come on a need to know basis.

"It's all the armor," Ashton mentioned, drawing attention to all the plate she was wearing. "Not many people walk around armed for bear. City guard and Lucien excluded. Tends to put the common folk on edge," He explained ever so helpfully. With that being said, he flashed her a smile and bent over backward so that he laid on his counter, reached behind it, and grabbed his quiver and bow before returning upright. "You've come to the right place Sweetheart. If the sign didn't give it away, I'm the best hunter in this here city. A person shouldn't be no more difficult than an animal," He said, uncrossing his legs and letting them swing freely over the counter.

Saying no to a pretty lady was never Ashton's style, and he'd been working on that bone ever since he got it back. A little diversion wouldn't hurt, and it might even be a little fun. As if he'd pass up the chance to spend an afternoon with a pretty lady anyway. "But, it'd be helpful if you told me this name first, and anything else about him or her that would prove helpful in this search of yours." He said, shouldering his quiver. If that wasn't answer enough, then the girl really needed to work on reading between the lines.

"The armor," Sophia agreed, "and introducing yourself as the daughter of Viscount Dumar. And believe me, I'm a terrible liar. The man we're looking for will only be found in the darker places of the city, places I couldn't blend into no matter how hard I tried." She shrugged. "That's if he's here at all. This is a rumor I'm following up on, not a sighting."

She took a few meandering steps forward, lowering her voice almost imperceptibly, as if she didn't even mean to do it. "The man's name is Dairren Quinn, he was the captain of the city guard here until about six years ago, when he was exiled by my father. The name I heard was Quill, which was what he used to call himself back before his days as guard captain. He's a criminal now, I think. And if he's back in Kirkwall, it can't mean anything good."

At least, that was what she wanted to say. Truthfully, she was very conflicted about it all, given that she'd trusted the man with her life back when he'd lived at the Keep. Sophia had always wanted another chance to speak with him, to get some answers, but the opportunity had never arisen. At least, not until now. "But first, I want to make a few things clear: one, this is the smartest man I've ever known. Finding him won't be a matter of simply asking around. And two, you're going to have to cut the sweetheart stuff. Sophia will do just fine." She felt she was being rather serious at the moment, but to be honest, hearing of Dairren Quinn again had her more than a little bothered.

"If it was easy, then there wouldn't be any point in the hunt, now would it swe-- Sophia? Any old fool can ask people where they can find their target. It's the mark of a true hunter to find their prey despite the odds," Ashton said, kicking off of the counter. "Well, let's be off then. Daylight's wasting, and trying to find someone at night is both dangerous and stupid. Shall we?" He said, motioning her toward the door. He ushered her out of the shop, locking the door behind him and walked a couple of paces into the street before turning to face Sophia.

If this man was truly a criminal like Sophia said, then he had the general idea of where to begin looking. "Darktown. You'll find all of your unsavory sorts there. Fugitives, refugees, outcasts, and even criminals. It'd be a great place to start, wouldn't you think-- hope you brought some coppers, we may have to grease some palms," He said, beginning to walk backwards in the direction of Darktown. "Or we could start where you heard this rumor. Or even elsewhere. This is your quest after all, I'm merely your guide through the darkness," he said with a wink and a laugh.

"It was near Darktown I heard it," she said. "Heard that he was recruiting. For what, I'm not sure I want to know, but he's charismatic, and I wouldn't be surprised if he gains a following. He knows the city inside and out." Darktown was... not a place she looked forward to going, nor did she imagine Bran or her father would approve. She was still getting the hang of Lowtown. "Lead the way. And watch out for the thieves, they seem to think I'm a good mark for some reason."

Ashton couldn't stifle the chuckle, so he didn't. "I'm telling you, it's the armor. It's all shiny and pretty, like a beacon. A big 'come rob me' beacon," his humor eased slightly as he spoke again, "The people in Darktown aren't as fortunate as me or you. They'd risk mugging a girl with a big ass sword on her back if there was a chance they could eat that night. It's... A desparate place," He was quiet for a bit after, allowing it to sink in just a bit. She was the Viscount's daughter yes, but did she truly see what was going on in her city past the gilded Hightown? He wouldn't pursue it, but the thought was there.

"So what'd this Quill do to you? Rob something? Besmirched the Viscount's good name? Civil disobiedence? General pain in the ass? Etc, etc?" He asked.

"He conspired with the Coterie from the position of guard captain, allowing them to expand throughout the city. If he's back and looking for manpower, it can't mean anything good for Kirkwall. That's more than enough reason for me to want him caught." That, of course, was the official reason. He'd been exiled and with good reason. Had her father not been merciful, he could have hanged him, but partially due to Sophia's influence, the Viscount let him live, and banished him from the city instead.

"I... I trusted him," Sophia continued, at first uncertain if she wanted to. "I would have put my life in his hands years ago. Growing up as I did, there were very few people I felt that way about. I guess I'd like to know why." There had always been something about him, his mannerisms around her, that made her feel comfortable, safe even. Perhaps that was just what he'd been hoping to do all along. Talking about it was starting to feel like a knife wound, however, so she shook her head, mostly to herself.

"I think that's all I want to say at the moment. I'm sure you understand. It's personal, but I can't do this on my own." Ashton was quiet for a moment as he digested the information. Then he said, "So the general pain in the ass kind? I know the type," not that he counted a Guard Captain with ties to the Coterie as one of his closest friends, but he'd had his toes dipped in the criminal underworld now and again. Still, he didn't prod further, feeling that his curiosity would be shut down, if not violently. He liked to press some buttons now and then, but he'd know a button too far if he ever saw one. "Fair enough," He said, "We're close to Darktown, best keep it to yourself anyway. Guard up now, it's quite dangerous. I'd think it'd tarnish milady's armor if she got blindsided," he winked. While sweetheart was out, milady was not.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

The Wounded Coast might not have been most peoples' idea of a good place to meet an old friend, but as had perhaps been long established, Amalia was not most people. Nor was Sparrow most 'old friends,' for that matter. So perhaps it was not so unexpected that when the Qunari had at last decided she was in the right state of mind to have this long-needed discussion of certain very pertinent matters, she had sent word to the half-elf through means of his much more stably-located companion, the enchanter who worked now out of the merchant's district in Hightown. She was quite sure that Rilien, as he was called, would convey the message to Sparrow that Amalia sought audience with him, and at this particular spot on the coast, no less. Here, the ocean met the shore, a cove of soft white sand hidden and defended on three sides by rocky inclines that would be tricky for the average person to navigate. In their childhoods, they had found many such places, secreted away after their hours of instruction to while away the afternoons which were theirs.

Though she was still robed, and armored beneath that, the Qunari had allowed herself the concession of removing both her boots and her gauntlets, setting them neatly on a sun-warmed rock some distance from her present location. This little strip of beach was occupied by several tide pools and many large planks of wood, arranged such that they had obviously once been the bare skeleton of some seafaring vessel. Many, many years ago, from the looks of things. Now, they formed a dozen proud, if decrepit, archways, braced against the west side of the cove.

Amalia walked parallel to the line between sand and water, close enough that occasionally a wave would wash over her bare feet, the sea's spray dampening the tan hem of her linen robe. It was nowhere near as hot or balmy as Par Vollen, here, nor so arid as Seheron tended to be, but it was the closest that this place ever came to reminding her of home. And here, with no humans or elves or dwarves about to prove the contrary, she could almost believe she was back there. At least, she could have if she ever bothered to entertain such useless fancy. Those had always been Venak hol's things, not hers. The breeze from the water rippled through the fabric she wore and tugged at her loose forelock, as though chiding her, in much the manner he would have, no less. Perhaps that was the true reason she'd chosen the spot: it reminded her of him, anyway, more even than it reminded her of home.

The two had not been so readily distinguished, once.

Rilien's straightforward message had been, most likely, repeated word-for-word, identical to what Amalia had told him to relay to her. The location hadn't surprised her in the slightest, and she was almost relieved that it hadn't been somewhere unfamiliar, some place unlike where she would've chosen. If she'd wanted to meet in Hightown, or somewhere busy, chaotic, full of snobby nobles, then she would've wondered whether or not her old friend had truly changed for the worst. She decided ahead of time that she wanted to head to the Wounded Coast before Amalia appeared, in the childish hopes of surprising her. Instead, Sparrow's withering enthusiasm seemed to sluggishly lead her over the hills, following a faint trail.

The way she walked had always been different from hers; she walked lightly, quietly, hardly leaving any evidence that she'd ever been there, and Sparrow walked with large, lumbering steps, leaving tracks like a receding tide-line. The blue undertones of the sky promised of pleasant weather, of a beautiful day spent by the beach. She'd chosen simple clothes that made it look as if she'd just hopped off the nearest shipyard; a fitted, cotton vest with leather trousers and a silken bandana wound across her head, slithering down the right side of her face. For this particular meeting, Sparrow needed no armor, even if it made her feel vulnerable. She'd never been one for being prepared, anyhow.

As she neared the meeting spot, Sparrow removed her shoes, held them aloft and dangled them over her shoulder. She could just see over the cliff-side, and spotted blonde hair blowing in the wind, gentle as blades of grass. Her breath hitched, stilling her movements. It was stifling how she could still do that to her, without so much as saying a thing. Sometimes, Sparrow could muster the courage to do things she never dreamt of doing. Her recklessness was boundless, and often bordered on stupidity, but at moments such as this, whatever bravery she'd scooped up in her hands sifted through her fingers like sand. Only she managed to do this to her. Her eyes, brimming with fire and seriousness and seawater, shook her foundations, and made her want to apologize for something, anything.

She might have been a mirage in the desert, weaving in the distance with all of her aliases and locked doors, but her old friend was as solid and real as the tiny particles of sand squished between her toes. She pressed her free hand to her chest, instilling a calm she didn't feel in her thumping heart, willing it to beat with the steadiness of the ocean. How dearly she wanted to snatch up her elbow, pull her along the beach, like she'd done so long ago – but things were different, and they'd changed more than she'd like to admit.

Sparrow breathed in through her nostrils, tasting both the cleanliness of the air, and the saltwater of the coastline. It was cooler than Par Vollen. Her memories, however skewed, had not eroded like the smooth rocks she'd spotted freckling the beach. She remembered every detail, as vividly as if they'd happened yesterday. Perhaps, it was what made it so painful. She couldn't deny abandoning her friend all those years ago, for reasons beyond selfishness, and she couldn't explain exactly why she'd done it, either. With one final shuddering breath, ruthlessly snatched away with the breeze, Sparrow took another step forward, then another, until she picked her way onto the beach. The secret alcove, hidden away from the world by jagged rocks and a skeletal shipwreck, reminded her of home, of secret hideaways and sharing their worries, dreams, ambitions. She walked slightly behind her old friend, off to the side, idling in the water; knee-deep.

“This may be the only place in the Free Marches that doesn't make me physically sick,” she mused softly, kicking up bits of sand, “Do you think they call it the Wounded Coast because of Kirkwall? Anything close to that place must be in a little pain, a little tainted.”

Amalia's pace hadn't changed when she sensed the arrival of her once-fellow, and indeed, to anyone else it might have seemed as though she hadn't acknowleged his presence at all. But she had; it was in the subtle relaxing of her posture, the way she walked now with looser, longer strides, though still atop the sand rather than sunk into it as he was wont to be. He was flighty, so flighty, and she'd had to admit to the possibility that he wouldn't show at all and her day would be spent by herself. It was not that solitude bothered her-- she'd been alone, in the poet's sense, almost her entire life. Ever since he'd departed, in fact. That she still was could not be counted as his fault, however. By now, she had chosen repeatedly to remain so, though she might have chosen otherwise. She told herself her burdens were best borne alone, that attachment to anything but the Qun diminished her judgement and her usefulness, but in truth she knew not whether it would because she'd never really tried to find out.

He spoke, and she stilled her feet at last, turning a bit to look at him out of the corner of her blue eye. Qunari were excellent with subtext, and Venak hol's, as always, didn't much stretch the limits of her comprehension. Whether it was because they had once been close or because he was unsubtle didn't much matter-- though he did seem to have picked some up, from somewhere. He must have, else surely he'd be dead or in the place they called the Gallows by now. I'm in a little pain, a little tainted, he said to her without speaking the words, and she answered without them also.

"I expect it is called this because it is frequently attacked from the outside, wounded by raiders, perhaps. I do not think they realize that it is the coast itself which brings the most ruin." She eyed the ship-skeleton with meaning. You know as well as I do that the world can only hurt us if we allow ourselves to be hurt. Why else would a being, any sentient person, refuse trust, friendship, cameraderie? Because it opened them to harm, and some were more wary of it than others. Amalia was wary of it as the prowling tigers of Par Vollen were of the spear-laden kossith who moved through its tropical landscapes.

In comparison, Sparrow had lived frivolously, flinging herself in every direction and choosing to lean on whichever sorry shoulder was closest – though, only sharing when it was necessary and only offering small, slivers of truths in place of its entirety. Perhaps, they hadn't strayed far from each other, after all. While Amalia willingly adopted a life of solitude, treading a path of isolation and tranquillity, she'd chosen a life in which masks were worn, falsifications embraced and well-intentioned fibs strewn out like grains of sand. Her friendships were based on unauthentic foundations. They might've been strong to withstand things like disloyalty, but conflict and declarations between companions and allies alike reaffirmed, strengthened and solidified their bonds. She wasn't sure whether or not she was prepared to make that leap. The burdens she shouldered were not carried for the Qun, or for any sort of justified reason, aside from the fact that she was terrified of being left alone once all of her dirty secrets were spoken aloud, as if she'd become a stain on their lives, doomed to be avoided.

Small, insignificant parts of Sparrow sang clearly, noisily, at the very thought of standing on an unfamiliar beach with his once-friend, and other darker parts urged her to throw her hands out wide, offer her everything she'd managed to scrounge up after running rampant in Kirkwall's streets. All of her secrets, all of her hideaways, everything she'd managed to discover since leaving the Qun, its people, and more importantly, her. Each and every question she'd ever thought since abandoning them bubbled to the surface, gurgling in her throat, battling to be voiced, but she only managed a slight inclination of her head so that she could better see Amalia's face. To trace the slope of her nose, and the foreign angles of her cheeks. While it was true that Sparrow had flown far from her nest, further still from her comfortable perch, her heart still basked on Par Vollen's dusty beaches, underneath a brilliant sun.

She blinked slowly, letting her eyes fall away from her, and roll skyward. The smile tugged at her lips, then arranged itself into a knowing smirk – of course, only those who allowed themselves to be hurt, truly hurt. Sparrow thought it was impossible not to let miniscule pieces of yourself slip out, as if they were seeping through imperceptible cracks. Her chest had been clamped shut for so long that she was having difficulties cracking it open, and feared Amalia suffered the same unbearable fate. Did it eat up at her? Did she wish that words came easily? Did she have secrets, as well? She hadn't understood, for the longest of times, why it was Amalia's voice that she could hear the clearest, even though she was nowhere in sight, but it all made sense now that she stood with her on the Wounded Coast. She'd seen her in all of her entirety, once. Her weaknesses, her past, her truths, every part of her. There was no need to lie, or fib, or skirt around anything to stave away humiliation. She already knew everything.

“And they've even got unwelcome guests they can't seem to rid themselves of. It's a mess, this place.” Too cowardly was she to say I'm possessed, I'm possessed, and it'd be better off if you ended it for me. Had she asked, she wouldn't have expected a reply, or an answer, or worse yet: compliance. She finally threw her hands out wide, approaching the skeletal remains of the ship, with its underbelly sticking out like wooden ribs, “I'd rather be home.” Home was an objective, undefined term. Where did any of them truly belong? She'd sought out the answer to that question for as long as she'd been alive, never truly finding it. If she didn't include her happy childhood shared with her once-friend, then Sparrow could readily admit that living alongside Rilien, with new friendships always weaselling their way in, was the closest thing to feeling like she was home. She frowned thoughtfully, clambered up onto the rotten bowsprit, and hooked her arm around the wooden woman's eroding shoulders. “But, you've made some friends, right?”

She needed to know.

Amalia had stopped short at the phrase unwelcome guests, watching Sparrow advance further forward with a hard, measuring stare. This was their entire story, encapsulated: Amalia tugging down the muffler that covered her face, watching with an expression her childhood friend could not see as he opened his arms to the world beyond, the places she could not, or perhaps simply would not, follow. He'd leave her behind, and she'd understand the necessity of it. She'd never like it, but she would understand, so truly and deeply that she'd wish she didn't. He'd leave, and she'd occasionally return to stand at the edge, staring at the marks he'd left in the sand as though some piece of him yet remained in them.
What would he say, if she told him that this was the harm that had stayed her hands, on the way to prying open that foolish thing she called a heart?

But surely it wasn't. One incident did not close someone to so much for such a long time. His leaving had been the first in a series of incidents that had bound that harbor shut with massive boom-chains, a gate to remain forever sealed. She made study of his open, slightly coltlike stride, and her eyes narrowed. She had played at words for too long not to guess what his meaning could possibly be, but she avoided voicing the conclusion, even in her own head, for what she would have to do in response was immediately clear. Instead, she allowed the words to be more literal, a reference to the presence of the Qunari in Kirkwall. "A mess that should be careful, else it finds itself unwittingly cleaned by those suited to the purpose." The Arishok grows impatient; with me, you must guard your words. Meanings stacked atop each other in haphazard piles, woven into the fabric of even the drollest utterances. He always had infused chaos into the order of her being. They complimented, simple as that.

So it shall be. It had become a part of her, it was her. She just hoped, as dearly as any old friend did, that the Qun's wishes were never burdened onto Amalia's shoulders, and that she never conferred any orders to do away with her, and that they'd somehow forgotten about her. As if her presence were little more than a passing breeze, leaving nothing but wayward memories and faint traces of her laughter. It was easier that way. Though Amalia's face was hidden from view, obscured by the muffler she'd pulled up over her lips, nose barely peeping above the fabric, Sparrow imagined that she was frowning. She, herself, had never hidden her face from anyone (though, she'd hidden her identity well enough), because if anything needed to be understood, then all one would need to do is look at it, clearly, unobstructed. Her expressions told many things all at once. Far too much, at times. She squinted her eyes, as if she were staring into the sun, eyebrows flagged in question.

Sparrow's fingers absently tugged at the fabric of her shirt, where her heart thumped beneath. Wherever they might have ended up, they'd still pulled and tugged and lugged their individual chains – quite simply, the ones they'd latched onto their chests, tangled around their hearts, because it was too difficult to live simply, seeking friendships when loneliness hounded their thoughts. She was lonely, often. She chased those sentiments away with liquor, poor company, good company and lending a helping hand where it was asked, or not asked. Her nosiness and curiosity constantly kept her out of her hovel, kept her from withering away in Darktown's despairing corners. Kirkwall, with all of its prospects of confinement and plausible death, could not clip her wings, or keep her grounded enough to present her from escaping once more. Words, words, more words with hidden meanings. They danced around each other, holding metaphors and whispered colloquy’s aloft, knowing everything and yet still belying an animus of altruism, of delicate intentions. Whilst she offered stability and tempered discipline, Sparrow could only swing her mace, sending vibrations through her structure. It would always be this way. “A mess I care not to defend,” She mused quietly, tipping her head.

The question went long without answer, and Amalia took the opportunity she gave herself to approach the dead ship, tilting her head to look up at his perch. Fitting, for a bird, but he'd never remain there for too much time. Friends? Had she? Amalia had to give the question some deliberation. Nostariel was a student. Aurora was... the same, and perhaps also an apprentice. Something not quite identical, but friend was not the proper word; their relationship was too sharply-defined for that muddlement.

That left one, and maybe she hadn't closed herself quite tightly enough, because she was... uncomfortable, thinking about him. A constricting feeling tightened about her lungs, and she pretended to take sudden interest in the curvature of the vessel's wooden bones. Leave it to Venak hol to disturb so much with such an innocent question. Amalia had not ever given much thought to what to call the strange cameraderie between herself and Sataareth; a name had been unnecessary. In retrospect, perhaps that was part of the problem-- without a name, it had no such boundaries, and she may have overstepped hers without understanding that she was doing so. If they had been... friends... they were not now.
"Perhaps," she said quietly, and the word was heavy with implications unvoiced. Her own foolishness was only now beginning to become clear in its fullest extent, but she still knew not whether she was more the fool for overreaching what may indeed have been a friendship or for allowing it in the first place. Had her life not taught her beyond the shadow of a doubt that such things were impossible for her to sustain? Whatever the case, it was abundantly clear that she, not for the first time, had allowed herself to come to harm.

"Nehraa meraas, in the end."[/color] She shook her head, then looked back up. "And of you? The Tranquil was protective." Indeed, it had not been until she stated exactly what her purpose was for desiring a meeting with Sparrow that he had even admitted that he would be able to deliver her any message whatsoever, though Amalia had had it on good authority that they cohabitated. She understood; Sparrow tended to inspire that in people.

Unwelcome guests, indeed. Sparrow did not hate the Qunari, nor even dislike their presence in Kirkwall, and certainly held no aversion towards their teachings, for she'd once believed in the Qun with all of her heart. She'd flown alongside it, allowing it to pass over her like sheets of rain until the it became little more than a torrential storm, stifling her breath, slapping down shackles she thought were too heavy to carry. Flighty birds were not meant to be caged, or told what to do. Respect, honour, dignity, and duty as strong and unyielding as iron. These traits, as she'd begun to see, were embodied in her once-fellow, down to her very core. It was admirable, to say the least, but even in her youth she'd felt as if she hadn't been born with the makings of a good follower, of a resolute kinsmen who breathed and lived within her blade, only to extend herself out as the Qun demanded. Though, she still felt threatened by the Qunari presence in Kirkwall. It signified everything she feared – her freedom being stripped away, her secrets finally executing fatal consequences in the form of stapled eyes and stitched lips, and losing everything she'd recklessly, foolishly fought for. They would kill her for abandoning them, and she'd very nearly deserve it.

The half-breed looked down from her spiny, wooden roost, taking note of Amalia's approach. Like two matches coming together, igniting into something all-too familiar. She moved like a phantom, barely disturbing the ground she trod upon, but still leaving footsteps in her wake – and she found herself oddly relieved, for it meant she was really here. Reality and the Fade had become something intangible, difficult to separate in the days she did not feel her fingers wiggling.

She'd been concentrating on the sound of her once-friend's voice, occasionally leaning forward to hear her better. At times, when she's not quite prepared to hear it again, Sparrow was surprised. It was sharper than she recalled, full of wisps of confidence, as if she knew exactly what she might do and where she might go. Her shoulder blades press together, hand retracting away from the mermaid's wooden collarbone. Again, Amalia wore that iron expression of hers, one of tight lips and lines, a face bound so tightly, so adept at saying nothing at all, while she admired the vessel and looked away from her. Sometimes, her once-friend moved like clockwork, gears all bunched up, mechanically staggered, slow and cautious. Her heart, even now, seemed closed off to her. She'd closed it herself, when she chose to leave.

Her head tilted once more, craning to see Amalia's face. “You have, then,” Sparrow exhaled, breathy and clearly relieved. Her guarded heart, speckled with ramparts and crocodile-infested moats, would always attract a friend, a companion, acquaintances and allies. She might have disagreed, but there was something about her that reeled people in. Her inner core professed safety to all those who stood in her presence, sang of loyalty, honesty, and a guiding hand perpetually toughened by gauntlets. Amalia would never be without a friend. The question had been silly, if not rhetorical. She'd wanted to hear her answer, or see that her worries had always been childish, selfish things. She could pretend. She was good at that. She was the best at that; she'd convinced herself that leaving hadn't effected anyone, she'd convinced herself that lying was the only option she'd ever had. Sparrow adjusted her position, her behind promptly scooted across the figurehead's shoulder, hand extended to the horizon, fingers played. Ketojan kadan, is fitting. A bridge between hearts. You might disagree, but I don't think your path is meant to be walked alone.”

To that, Amalia exhaled in a huff, a gentle testament to disagreement. He didn't understand, and that was fine. He wasn't meant to. There were secrets she had shared with none, of things that had passed years ago, things that even now kept her a safe distance from others. If she had anything to say of the matter, they always would. Sparrow had shown her that nothing was permanent, but he had convinced her that nobody was trustworthy. It was a lesson she'd taken to heart, the only thing he'd done to her that could ever be considered a beneficence, and even that coated with malice the like of which she'd not seen before or since. She was scarred, and they pulled in places, insistent reminders that what was made broken could not become whole again, not as it had been.

She reeled her hand in, and turned towards Amalia. Rilien? In more ways than one, the unwavering, ever-present bard, had pulled her from the darkness, dusting off loneliness from her shoulders without so much as asking why she was there in the first place, in exchange for nothing. It was a kindness, what he'd done for her. She'd never seen him as someone afflicted by the Rite of Tranquility, and he'd never seen her as a hapless orphan, drug out from the rain. It was a bond she was willing to protect with everything she had – she'd die for it, as well as for the others she'd manage to care for. The half-breed crouched down from her perch, gauged the distance to the ground, and finally hopped down, brushing errant shards of wood from her trousers. She threw her head back, and laughed, then thoughtfully scratched her chin, grinning. “I think I've found a reason to fight, people to fight for.”

This, the Qunari understood. To live always alone did not preclude doing service for others, nor even living for their sake. That much was the very essence of the Qun. Each individual lived and died for the whole, but they should never expect the whole to count them for anything. Nothing at all; they had to be disposable, else their loss would do damage. It was not the same, perhaps, as what Sparrow had found himself, but it was something. Similar, on some level, and she was glad he had found it. It was something worth having-- something to protect, to love, to defend with all the life in one's body. If that was some group of people for Venak hol, it would do. "Then you should count yourself lucky," she replied simply.

It was her turn to frown, mouth struggling to find any chipper expression, flipping through into something a little sadder. While Sparrow moved around things, as transparent and mellifluous as the briny water that lapped over their feet, Amalia had been molded, or guided, into being something similar to an anchor, willingly drowning and professing that loneliness was her only, ever-present companion. Her own word were empty, flighty things, twittering on branches before taking flight. They didn't mean anything, anymore. She'd lost the right to offer advice, or stolidly counter that she'd always be here for her, that she'd always be there to chase away her distrust. This woman – who exuded poise, and grace, and a centre that did not move unless she willed it – was still a prevalent force in her life, as absolute and real as the fragment of herself she'd intentionally buried.

She approached Amalia, tentatively, at first, and stopped short of her right side, fingers already snatching the corner of her muffler. Sparrow did not pull it down, nor make any movement that might've given away her intentions. Indeed, she'd had none, but it had always been a familiar action; one she'd done several times in her youth. The half-breed would always be on the brink of leaving everyone she's ever loved, suspended over a cliff side, wings held aloft. Incessantly claiming that the distance called to her like songbirds, and that she didn't truly belong anywhere. She might have found someone, or many someone's, to fight for, but it would always be in her nature to run away. Difficulties, internal or external, frightened her more than anything. Amalia knew that better than anyone, and yet here they were, standing along the Wounded Coast, with secrets shackled to their ankles.

Lucky? She mused, allowing the fabric to sift through her fingers, “Everything comes with a price, I suppose.”

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

And he'd almost forgotten the smell.

It made Ithilian's nose twitch at first, mouth settling into an ever comfortable scowl as the scents of industry, poverty and oppression floated to his nostrils. For the briefest of moments he wondered if he had simply stayed in Ferelden... but no, he never would have been able to live with himself. Not after being here, not after seeing. The Relaferin clan was doing well, all things considered, but the elves here were not. And while he would no doubt have been a very useful and productive member of a clan such as they, Amalia's words had hung over him every day he'd spent away. I am not you, and I will not be enough. The Relaferin had the Brecilian as their protection, for it was not so weak as to be killed by a Blight, but the elves cornered into the Kirkwall Alienage had no one but each other, no cover from the oncoming storms, no one to stand up for them save Amalia. He wondered briefly if any of them had died while he was gone, anything he could have prevented. If Amalia had died. He'd find out soon enough.

As Ithilian passed the shemlen hunter's shop, he gave no thought to catching the eye of a passing guard, surprised at the lone elf who held an uncovered, disfigured and mutilated head above the others. His armor was not nearly so ragged as it had been when he'd left; his padded coat had been made anew, the patches and holes gone, the studded leather chestplate over that largely clean of blade nicks and repaired arrow punctures. It was as if the man himself had the wear and tear of the road removed, though of course some of the scars were impossible to cleanse.

He'd made the right choice. Even if some had died, even if their hope had sagged. Even if Lia and the Qunari woman were lost to him, he'd made the right choice. Reborn was entirely the wrong word for it, but it was hard to deny just how much he had needed time alone, time away, to return of his own accord to the place where his life had fallen apart before his eyes, and to let go of it. He'd been able to find the correct place, though the exact patch of earth was difficult to find now that the bloodstains had vanished into the earth or been washed away by the rains. How long he had simply sat there and listened for them he could not know, and though he knew not what words were said, Ithilian knew that when he left that place, his goodbyes had been said. Years too late, but late was better than never.

Vir sulahn'nehn. Vir dirthera. Vir samahl la numin. Vir lath sa'vunin.

He wondered just who the funeral had been for.

The vhenadahl stood strong as ever, Ithilian was glad to see. It was late morning, and the majority of the Alienage's inhabitants were out and about, though a few of them stopped to take note of the elven warrior make his way down the steps, vallaslin etched into his neck. A few gave cautious greetings, some he suspected too intimidated to speak to him personally, the pillar of elven defiance that he was. That was all well; there was one specific person he meant to seek out before any others.

In contrast to Ithilian's rather renewed appearance, the Qunari that sat in the boughs of the great elven-tree was a considerably the worse for wear of late. Forced to take on Viddethari at a much faster rate than she had initially suspected, she was now making daily trips outside the Alienage to see various clusters of them at clockwork intervals. None of the old ones were yet ready to be free from her instruction, either; the Qun was not something one learned in the space of a single year, no matter how long it had seemed. With no Tamassran present, what should have been the duties of several fell to one: her. Her nights were little more restful-- the City Guard did not bother itself protecting the Alienage, and the Coterie seemed only to grow bolder by the day. Perhaps she simply grew more weary. Aurora and Nostariel, too, were not going to teach themselves, and she had all but halted her pursuit of craft to accomodate everything she had to do.

It was an effort that had left her with darkened wisteria-colored circles beneath her eyes and an uncommon hitch in her stride; the result of the fact that her potions could not quite heal her injuries fast enough to keep up with the new ones she tended to accrue. For neither did the demands of the Qun slow, and it was not only for the elves here that she fought. Not even, perhaps, mostly for them, though it would be impossible to know that given her relentless continuation of the same task.

She had not reached her limits quite yet, however. Even so, she quietly chose to avoid the searching young faces that wound 'round the base of the tree, seeking her without calling her name, for this or that bit of entertainment, perhaps. She simply could not accomodate their wishes right now, and so she lay betwixt the branches of the vhenadahl, and wondered how long it would be until she failed them somehow. Back propped against the trunk, she had one knee angled upwards, forming a triangle with the wood she sat upon, her other leg dangling freely from the side of the limb. She was silent, and none thought to look up for what they sought.

Head tipped back against the bark, she'd let her eyes fall closed for what seemed the scarcest moment when she heard the approach of someone new entering the Alienage. She felt compelled to look, as she had every time for nearly a year now, and part of her openly mocked the rest for continuing such a futile endeavor. Still, she had to look, because it might be danger, and she was the only one left who could deal with that. Slowly, her eyes cracked open to the leafy canopy, sunlight filtering in through the gaps in the light green of the leaves. Tilting her head sideways and down, she almost laughed at herself. Hissra. She was surely conjuring illusions, now. But she did not laugh, and for a long moment, she did not speak. Blinking once, twice, three times, she managed to ascertain that her visual faculties were indeed working, which perhaps warranted... something.

"You have been gone long, Ithilian."

It was not her usual place, nor did she seem entirely her usual self. Ithilian felt a pang of guilt for that, but what he had done simply could not have been rushed. What he did needed to be his choice, else he never would have been free of it. Amalia looked... tired was perhaps the wrong word, for it did not describe it adequately. He imagined he had looked similar in the days leading to the fall of his clan, when he had pushed himself beyond his typical capabilities for months on end, waiting for something, anything, to relieve the pressure and let him rest. Of course, it never came. If she would let him take the pressure off of her once more, he would be more than happy to do so.

"Some wounds take a long time to heal," he answered back from the base of the tree, peering up at her perch with his remaining eye. His hands rested on the belt tied over his coat, where Parshaara was contained. His elven blades were kept in a pair of sheaths on his back, his Dalish longbow sheathed upon his rear. The elf was a small arsenal of weaponry compared to those around him. Again he almost felt guilty for the renewal he had clearly gone through, when compared to the wear that showed upon her very face.

"Before I left, what I said... I was a fool. It took me far too long to see that. I had to leave, had to return to where I lost everything, and... let go. I am sorry I was not able to return sooner, but I knew that I would not be able to help these people if I could not first come to terms with myself." There. He'd wanted to say that for a long time. Honestly, he wasn't really sure what he wanted in return. He did not need approval, or forgiveness. Maybe he just wanted to say that he finally believed he could be enough.

Amalia was silent for a while, letting the words hang in the air as she studied him, cataloging the changes in his appearance and demeanor. Finally, she nodded simply and shifted, jumping down from the tree branch to stand on a level with him. Though she landed a little harder than she would have preferred, she stood straight, rolling her left shoulder. There was still a large, blue bruise there from a few days ago. "If you were unwise, you were not alone in it. I have lived only one way, learned to see only certain things. I overstepped myself. I shan't make the mistake again." Her glance flickered to Parshaara, and a crease appeared between her eyebrows, but when she spoke again, it was of something else.

"In the meantime, little has changed here. If there is anything in particular you would know, I am likely in a position to speak of it." Presumption was what had driven her astray in the first place, and she would not at present say anything else unless he asked.

Ithilian silently agreed with her. He could not be certain, but he suspected that she had almost begun to see him as one of her kind. Qunari. But the one thing that he said back in the Hanged Man that he agreed with was that he was no Qunari, and even if she saw fit to call him Sataareth, he did not want to be Qunari. He was a Dalish elf, one of the People, and always would be. The Keeper of Relaferin clan had offered him the chance to officially join them, even if he chose not to stay, but Ithilian had refused. He was not yet ready to belong to a clan again, but he knew that someday, that was what he wanted to have again. It would not be the same, never be the same, but it didn't need to be. It would be different, and beautiful in its own way. That was what he wanted.

For now, there was the business here to attend to. He felt awkward asking it at first, but he was glad for the chance to ask the question himself. "How is Lia?" He did not need to be Qunari, and she did not need to be an elf, for their interests to align, and for them to have the chance to remain... friends. If that was the appropriate word. Perhaps there wasn't an appropriate word for it. They simply were.

"Taking care of herself quite well," Amalia replied simply, having expected this question at least. "Her father is deceased; an illness took him a few months into the intervening year. She was... distraught, at first, but she manages now. Admirably, for one so young." She considered mentioning that nobody else had died in the past year, but it didn't seem particularly important. She would have said so if anyone had, of course, but honestly nothing was all that different besides the rising strength of the Coterie. Rumors placed some new figure behind that, but nothing was yet certain about the situation.

Though natural curiosity bid her ask some questions of her own, she knew well enough what it was to need closure, and she didn't have to understand the particulars to know that these were matters best left alone, unless he wished to speak of them. She'd buried enough ghosts of her own, though she expected he had not yet had cause to visit his own grave, as she once had. But that was not for thinking of in daylight, was it? "Two new families have moved in, and one left, I believe to join the Dalish on Sundermont. The rest yet remain."

Ithilian sniffed slightly in displeasure upon hearing that the Sabrae clan was still here at all. They should have moved on by now. Lack of halla or no, Kirkwall was no place for a group of free elves to linger near. As far as Lia went... the Gods had an interesting way of answering prayers that had never been spoken. He could not deny that he'd wanted to be a father again when he met her, that seeing the fire and strength within her had reminded him of his lost daughter and wife, but such thoughts were what led him into the height of his misery, and he would not follow that again. Lia was not his daughter, and would never be his daughter. He would look out for her as he would any of his clan, but if Amalia spoke true, and he knew she had, she was capable of caring for herself. She did not need him, and he would not impose himself upon her without her request.

"She's strong," he commented. "Stronger than most of the elves here. She belongs with the People someday. Not in this Alienage." Of course, it would be years before she would be able to make a choice such as that, and strength was little without cunning to match it. He would see to it that her strength did not get her into trouble.

"And you?" he asked, almost cautiously. He noted the bruises, the heavy landing, the hitch in her step speaking of the healing wounds she no doubt hid. "I would say you look well, but... I think I would be lying." He would understand if she did not wish to speak of anything, but perhaps it was a lack of speaking that had led them into difficulty. When so much went assumed and unsaid, the messages could easily be mistaken.

"None of them belong here," Amalia replied, tone laced lightly with irritation. Nobody belonged in such squalor. The Qun would not have tolerated it; that she did was wholly from necessity. Nevertheless, it was there she stopped on this particular subject, aware that she needn't make the point any sharper. It was evident enough. The query into her personal state, she found peculiar, more for the sheer novelty than anything. She rarely gave others cause to inquire so, though she was aware that she was not in the best shape, presently. The Qunari woman huffed a light breath, her mouth flashing upwards for the briefest moment.

"I have endured worse. I will endure this. I expect it will be easier, now." Though she had on several occasions found herself the unwitting recipient of that mercenary's assistance, more often than not, she'd been dealing with the Alienage's more violent problems on her own. That would be unlikely, in the future. These were his people, after all, if he'd returned, and she'd allow him to do what he would for them. The word Sataareth would not pass her lips, not anymore, but that wouldn't stop it from fitting.

Her eyes fell again on the dragon-bone blade, and she ventured the question. Well, statement, more precisely, but the question was implied. "You kept it. I don't understand."

Since they were speaking of it, Ithilian slid the blade out and looked at it himself. "Maybe it was something you said. About it not finding a purpose unless it was by my hand. You etched a single word into it, and I warped it into something that agreed with my misery. Maybe some part of me knew that was wrong." Honestly, he didn't really know. He'd been well into his ale by that time, and really the conversation with Amalia was all he remembered clearly. Everything after that was a blur of pain and dizziness.

"I didn't forget what you said, you know. Even drunk as I intended to be. Perhaps I'd had enough of who I was. But rather than let that simply be the end of it, I decided to start again, and make the sacrifice of my clan mean something. Also... I really wanted to set some darkspawn on fire." The good side of his lips curled upward slightly, but it lasted only a moment before returning.

"I... actually brought something for you," he said, reaching into a pocket, and growing slightly red on the good side of his face. "Near where my da'vhenan passed, an ironbark tree grew. The craftsman of the clan I found offered to make something of it, but I thought it better to do myself. I am no craftsman of great skill, but I felt I needed to." He pulled out what looked to be a necklace of some kind, a talisman of gleaming ironbark attached to a thin silver chain, light by the way he held it in his palm. The symbol was a strikingly simple swirl shaped as a teardrop, beginning at the top and curling around into the center.

"The symbol is that of Mythal, protector and mother, she who leads alongside Elgar'nan, the force of fatherhood and vengeance. It... may not have any practical purpose for you, but I would like you to have it all the same, if you wish." He held it out to her, palm upturned. Perhaps they could both carry favors from cultures they would never belong to.

For once, words were not ready to the Qunari's tongue, and indeed, it felt something like a lead weight in her mouth. Her first instinct had been to refuse; she would only be flying in the face of everything she'd ever learned of other people if she didn't. And yet, the symbolism was far from lost on her. She was Dalish no more than he was Qunari-- less, since she could do nothing regarding the circumstances of her birth. But the blade at his hip was proof, easily recognizable by one of her people, that he was the concern of a Qunari, whatever form that may take. Perhaps... perhaps it was acceptable for her to be of concern to him as well, if indeed that was what this meant. If it had been any of her folk, the interpretation would have been obvious; the Qunari did not give of the work of their hands without purpose. But here she was not so sure.

Warily, as though she expected the offer to be withdrawn at any moment (and part of her always would), she reached for the delicate object in his hand, taking it with a nearly reverential solemnity. Brushing her bare thumb over the wood, she contemplated the symbol for a moment. Protection, was it? It was more fitting than she would have guessed, truly. Perhaps she had not inadvertantly burned all of her bridges in her carelessness, after all. Inclining her head, she worked free the clasp and affixed the thin chain about her neck. "Then I shall keep a piece of your people as you have kept a piece of mine." This satisfied her; had she been living among the humans this long, she may have found herself considerably more frustrated ere now, but there was something heartening in watching a group of people care enough to look out for one another, as she was used to.

A small pause, then: "...I am glad of your return, Ithilian. Thank you."

"Glad to be back," Ithilian said, pleased with how that went, "though I can't say I missed the smell. Now, I'll need to find the hahren, and see if there's somewhere I might be able to rest my head. I'm sure they've given away my old house. I trust you'll come find me if I can assist with anything." He was rather looking forward to some rest. He... had not fared very well on the sea voyage back here. The Dalish did not handle the water easily.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel

Earnings

0.00 INK

Afternoon had long threaded into evening, but the Tranquil was heedless of the passage of time. He was not without such bodily needs as food and slumber, but he was quite able to ignore such needs for extended periods of time. He slept at regular intervals because his limbs and mind stopped functioning properly if he didn't, but he never felt fatigue. He ate, but he did not hunger. At least... not most of the time. Unfortunately, occurrences outside the realm of the ordinary for him were becoming increasingly common due to his cohabitation with a possessed individual, and he could not to deny to himself that he was avoiding Sparrow to some degree, pushing his hours at the shop back further and further past even a reasonable closing time. He'd flip the sign, lock the door, and light several lamps by which to continue some project or another, and he was now so far ahead in his orders that he had almost nothing to do. He supposed, when it came down to it, that he was displaying a reprehensible cowardice, but when her very presence brought him into the proper frame of mind to miss that which he would ever be without... he could not call it irrational.

Without any more pressing work to occupy his time, he was transcribing a list of ingredients from the book Ashton had helped him procure some weeks earlier. Many of them were rare, but there was only one that he thought he would have major difficulty finding. He'd need to do more research in order to locate possible sources, but there was a problem: it appeared on another list, one he was working on just as secretly. But that, should it become a problem, would be one best dealt with when he came to it.

Adding the last flourish to the list, Rilien replaced the quill on the worktable and rolled up the parchment. Tying it off with a string, he placed it on a shelf, and, bereft of anything else to occupy his time with, decided to clean his instruments. By now, he was very clearly wasting his time, but he had no desire to return to Darktown at this juncture. He supposed he could not remain here forever; Sparrow would show up eventually. But perhaps not until tomorrow.

Had Rilien been so lucky, but alas, Rapture was seeking him out. She'd taken control of the woman's body whilst she was lounging in the Hanged Man, impatiently biding her time in the dark quarters of her mind, until Sparrow had a few drinks swirling in her belly. It only took a few moments to wrestle with her subconscious, slithering in like an overpowering viper. The briefest gloss of her eyes, or the unnatural twitch of her fingers, told of something gone awry. The act in itself was becoming easier and easier to fulfil, which was surprisingly boring. The skittering sparks of indignation, and complete revulsion, were becoming as stagnant as a withering plant. She supposed she'd enjoyed their small, fruitless bouts. Nowadays, Sparrow's fiery willpower sizzled like a pile of sopping wet coals. She was a dead fish, hardly worth the effort of goading. Her efforts, instead, had directed themselves in her companion's direction, or Rilien, to be specific. Not only had he been avoiding Sparrow entirely – and she'd noticed, oh she'd noticed – but he'd taken to cooping himself up in his shop.

Which was where Rapture was heading. She very nearly skipped down the alleyways, unafraid of anything that might face her in its shadows. She'd already taken to slaughtering thugs, thieves, and petty gang-members whenever she grew bored, reminding Sparrow once she'd awoken that her hands were getting mighty bloody. Her inability to control herself kept her up at night, as if staying conscious would ward the insolent demon away. No amount of sleeplessness, of caution, could keep her in the shadows. If she wanted something badly enough, then she'd take it. Her desires were greater than Sparrow's wavering inclinations. Familiar faces were beginning to blur, dimming the line between friend and foe. Every single face became their faces, sneering and whispering and plotting. They'd hurt her again, she said. They'd do it while she slept, while she thought everything was safe, while she dropped her guard. Her greatest friend was beginning to look like them, and she was beginning to lose sight of what mission she'd undertaken to rid herself of all of those thoughts, to exterminate the source.

Rapture rounded another corner, walking languidly back into the streets. Her gait was purposeful, unusually sensual. She paused in front of a doorway, resting her hand on the copper handle before pushing it open – and of course, Rilien was there, hunched over his desk with an all-consuming focus. She did not stop. Footsteps, quiet as skittering mouse-pads, drew up behind the bard, until she settled her hands, so unlike her own feminine talons, around the man's shoulders, slipping them down across his collarbone. She knew as well as he that her advances, her unwelcome touches, brought something entirely uncomfortable – feelings, sentiments, slivers of what he'd lost. Her chin came to rest atop his head, and she blew fluffy strands of white from her lips. She wanted to pick apart his flaws, and pinch everything he wished he still had between her fingers until Rilien hurt so badly that he, too, crumbled under her words. Unfortunately, those inflicted with the Rite of Tranquillity were difficult, if not impossible, to overpower.

He hadn’t missed her approach—how could he? She was like a flashing dock-light, distractingly-bright and reeking of the Fade. It smelled like home, and he despised that about it. But when the moth refused to fly closer to the flame, the lantern grew inclinations of its own and came to him, lighting up the stubborn darkness of his world with that peculiar luminescence he’d once basked in. He’d been a creature of emotion himself, a flame burning ever brighter with brimming magic, a vessel for that uncanny light that was magic, and it had lit his eyes from behind, flashed somewhere in his capricious smile. He had been magic, then, and she reminded him of what it was like.

He didn’t tear his eyes from his task, knowing that to ignore her was perhaps his strongest recourse when he wasn’t willing to harm her host. He sat still, his only motions those familiar ones that came of oiling instruments to a shine. He did not so much as acknowledge her presence.

Once, that had been enough to stay her. Then, they’d both come to a most unfortunate realization: when the demon touched him, he felt. The Fade in that close a proximity lifted the Tranquil haze from his mind, and like a flame released, his emotions returned in full force to burn him from inside out. It had been a complete accident; he’d shown up at the Hanged Man one night when he felt her take over, as he often did, to make sure Sparrow would do nothing she would later regret. She’d brushed him, purely by accident, and he’d actually yelped as sensation overwhelmed him, for the first time in years. He’d come to a realization, then: he hadn’t remembered what it was like to feel, not at all. Not like that.

It was a tidbit of information she’d been steadily growing bolder and bolder in exploiting ever since. She. Rapture. The demon that held his friend.

She was not cowed by his steadfast refusal to see her today, and not-Sparrow’s hands trailed over his shoulders, whispering just a fraction beneath the fabric of his tunic to brush over the skin stretched across his collarbones, and Rilien tensed. He resisted this, despised it, not so much for the fact that it caused him to feel, but because the moment she decided she’d had her fun and released him was all the agony of the Rite, over and over again. Like a flame plunged into cold water, everything was simply… snuffed out, and pain replaced it until that, too, was numb, like a body slowly dying of hypothermia, only the victim was his soul. That was the part he reviled the most. She tortured him, and she knew it.

“She hates being around you, did you know that?” Rapture hissed between her teeth, tapping two fingers against Rilien's starburst tattoo. Her fingers dropped away, and she linked her arms around his neck, intertwining her hands. How long could he simply avoid the subject? It seemed peculiar, given his nature. Skirting around the issue, from what she'd witnessed so far, was not his style. The Fade hung around her like a heavy blanket, pooling around her feet. Her lips pursed, lidded eyes staring ahead. “Almost as much as you hate being around her. But, you know, you're starting to look like them. Her attackers. I keep painting their faces here,” She continued in a sing-song voice, thumbing his cheekbones, “and soon, she won't know the difference. How would you like that?”

With the uncanny calm of his Tranquility sloughed from him like an old skin, Rilien was acutely aware of every subtlety she was attempting to wring from him. His anger, his distress, and even indeed his bodily awareness of the proximity of another person, one he cared about. For indeed, he was also free to care. But he was not so easily divested of his own subtlety, nor his logic. Before he was Tranquil, he had been sly, and even now, he remembered the lessons he’d been taught by the Lady Montblanc, on manipulation and deceit. He’d not had to put them to use for a long time, but things like that didn’t leave you.

He knew that he had to turn the tables, put the demon on the defensive, or he would not have the time for the veritable coup de gras before she defeated Sparrow utterly. It was only himself-as-craftsman that could accomplish her ultimate demise, but Rilien-as-bard had more than a few tricks in the distraction and subterfuge categories. He was angry, enraged that this creature thought to toy with Sparrow’s mind as though it were nothing important at all, as though Sparrow were insignificant. He desired little more than to slit her throat, or perhaps to burn her if he could trust himself to remember how, but he could not. Not while she still wore her flesh.

Don’t get angry when you can get even instead. Of course, I probably don’t have to tell you that, do I, dearheart? the Bardmaster’s voice was as amused as ever in his recollection, and he allowed it to bring the slowest of smiles to his lips. Standing slowly, he turned to face not-Sparrow, his gaze boring into hers with a half-lidded languidity that did not belong to the Tranquil. Certainly, he was dealing with a different beast than he was accustomed, but she needed to learn that she was, too. Pausing for just a moment to remind her of the fact that he was, in fact, just a fraction taller and broader than she, Rilien hummed a note of mock concern in the back of his throat. “Am I?” he questioned, his voice bereft of its usual neutrality and infused with something throaty, like the purring of some great cat. It was all about keeping her unsure of his intentions, after all.

Indeed, to this effect, he reached up with one hand, crooking his index finger and using it to tilt her chin upwards by a small degree. “But Sparrow knows I’d never hurt her,” he continued, inclining himself slightly forward and down so that his breath fanned over her cheek. He held there, for three full seconds, letting her draw her own conclusions about his thoughts, their faces so close that their noses almost touched, but just as quickly, his intent look vanished, replaced by a quick, sanguine grin, and he pressed the pad of a callused thumb to her chin and used it in tandem with his gentle hold on her jaw to tilt her head just a little away from him, so that he was speaking nearly directly into her ear.

“It isn’t her I avoid, demon. It never was her. And if she didn’t know that before, she does now, because I can feel her in there. It isn’t her I hate. It’s you. And mark my words: I will find a way to expel you from her mind, and when I do, I will make you hurt, so badly that you’ll beg to die. When you do, I’ll let her kill you, in whatever slow, painful way she most… desires.” His hand slid down her throat, to rest gently about the base of her neck, just enough pressure on her windpipe to be suggestive of something much less comfortable.

”She is not a toy for your amusement, and neither am I. You should have picked easier targets, creature.”

This not-Sparrow smiled gleefully, aglow with cruelty, as if she'd won another small, insignificant battle. One that she'd willingly conjured every time, breathing life into old wounds, and rubbing them raw with salt and brine. It was a wicked thing to do, but it still served as one of her preferred pastimes. How she longed to pierce her talons through thisTranquil's tender neck, needle-pointing across his unmoving Adam’s apple – Sparrow's useless nails, sheared short for convenience, could do little more than scrape over, serving as a minor annoyance. She pulled her fingers away from his cheekbones, and roughly snatched up a handful of his hair, where she'd been leaning her chin. However, Rapture did not jerk her hand back as she'd intended, but allowed the strands to sift through her fingers, falling back into place as if she'd never grabbed it in the first place; eerily similar to how she toyed with his Fade-inflicted emotions. Important things he continued to lose each time they were in physical contact.

She took a step backwards, as if she were pulling the Fade-blanket off of him in one fell swoop. She wanted to sever that uncomfortable bond, and remind him that every time she was around, he'd have to suffer that same awareness of having something familiar being ripped away. Perhaps, each time, it felt as if the Rite of Tranquillity was being performed. The fire-hearted, brimstone breathing demon idled, adjusting her weight from foot-to-foot. Every ruin she created, every life she'd managed to extinguish in her short time occupying Sparrow's vessel had been a lesser feast. She was not finished. Her appetites could not be so easily sated, and until her residency became a little more permanent, then she'd continue pushing and pulling and manipulating Sparrow's thoughts until she simply stopped fighting. Until her heart, and her consciousness, grew sluggish and exhausted, far too tired to run a such a hopeless race. It would be difficult, but she'd always loved a challenge.

The Tranquil's lack of response was not disconcerting, nor surprising in the least. When did any Tranquil react with anything but empty-eyed, flat-lined frowns? Though, circumstances were profoundly different. The Fade still lingered, sticky and heavy. It did surprise her when she saw Rilien's shoulders inch backwards, followed by his entire body. He was standing up. Her eyes widened, pupils shrivelling down to pinpricks. There was a deliberate indifference snapping wildly in his eyes, lidded and impish. As if he was holding all the cards, and just as many secrets. This was not his accustomed apathy. The soul-gazing serenade of silence, of learned behaviour and automatic reactions, were absent, for once. He was taller than her, and he was looking down at her. The thought, in itself, professed weakness. She bristled irritably, straightening her shoulders. Already, Rapture could feel victory slipping away.

Each demon had their own dirty-laundry list of weaknesses. They kept them quiet, locked them up in steel boxes, and threw them out to see, never speaking of them again. Hers were obvious enough, if one was immune to her wiles. Her persuasions were two-fold, double-edged swords. The Tranquil's weighed words, enticingly evocative, slithered down her spine, snapping obnoxious synapses in her veins. They were alight, burning with need, want, desire, and lastly, hate. She wanted to snuff the light out of those eyes, ring out every breath, but even she could not wrestle that pleasure from Sparrow. A sharp intake of breath, two-pints surprise, and half anger, hissed from her half-parted lips when the Tranquil held her chin, crooked slightly to the side. Unbridled fury rose in her throat like bile, and retreated as soon as he leaned forward, barely a breath away. Helpless, helpless, helpless. When had she lost her footing? There was a gentleness in his touch, but the implication was clear. Rapture's mouth, still parted, produced a carnal sound, and before she'd had the chance to claim the Tranquil's lips, to utterly extinguish his threats, he'd tilted her head and moved to her ear.

His desire to destroy her far outweighed her own goals. The realization came quickly, with each enunciated word. Clenched muscles twitched along Rapture's jawline. He would expel her? She wanted to laugh, to snarl and bare her teeth, at such a preposterous idea. They'd struck a deal. Deals could not be broken, ripped, or annulled. Did he not know the rules? He was a mage, after all. But, it was Sparrow who'd given her pause, slamming her fists into the barrier, the little birds' cage, she'd created within her Fadespace. She'd heard, loud and clear. He was ruining things already, kicking down the blocks she'd been so painstakingly building. Her expression transformed itself into something else entirely, impetuously serious. “Threatening me, Dearheart?” She laughed gaudily, hands clasping his wrist, “I can ruin her. I can destroy her. I can do anything I desire, boy. And you'll be powerless to stop me. So, have her while you can.”

Rilien's nostrils flared, his jaw tightening with irritation. This was indeed a game that both of them played well, but he could at least be satisfied with this: she did not know. She didn't understand just how far he was willing to go to accomplish her separation from Sparrow, and frankly, he wasn't so sure about that either. What would he give up for that? The question lingered at the fringe of his thoughts, always, made salient by a possibility he could not quite bring himself to form into a coherent thought. There might well be something important, something vital, that he would have to sacrifice, and the potentiality of this, he could not ignore. Not completely. Perhaps it was better that neither of them knew-- it would make her complacent and him cautious. This was as it should be. The last phrase seemed to have extra meaning, and it wasn't long before he caught on.

Her eyes, once illuminated with unnatural reflections, dulled; pupils evening out. Sparrow's skin felt too-tight and uncomfortable as Rapture left her, only leaving a lingering sense of unease in her wake, dragging burning seashells and coals. Her lungs felt as if she didn't have enough air, wheezing wet and parched, all at once. The blood in her veins pounded through her head, erratic and out of tempo, like hard rain on a windowsill. Her hands fell away from his, and she leaned slightly forward, like a fallen pillar, into the pressure at her throat. She'd heard his threats, wished deeply that they weren't needed, that she hadn't been so weak in the first place. The reckless, unstoppable strength that was impacted into her very core felt like a long lost thing, drifting apart – it was drowning and she'd keep coming up for air, resuscitating it at the last second. But, this time, she was too tired. Her shoulders sagged, drew together, then rattled into a boxed-up sob.

It was painful. It was too much.

He felt her retreat, and Sparrow's return, as ripples in the movement of the Fade about him. This part was always the worst-- it did not vanish from him immediately, oh no, it seeped away slowly. The flame was snuffed, but the heat would recede, leaving him uncertain what to do in the meantime. The disappearance of that source, though, wracked him with a shudder, and he immediately drew his hand away from her throat. It was too familiar a touch. Taunting a foe was one thing. But this was no longer that.

The raw sound of a sob tore from Sparrow, and Rilien felt a surge of misery he had not been expecting. In this liminal state between what he was and what he could have been, were the world a more merciful place, he lamented her torment without truly being able to understand it. He'd looked demons in the face and laughed his defiance, but to keep fighting one after it had already nearly won... this was a kind of struggle he did not know. Could not know, any longer. He hesitated for a moment, unsure of what to do with himself, and knowing that his ability to do anything was fading fast. Deciding not to wait for that, Rilien stepped closer to Sparrow, twining his arms around her torso, just beneath her shoulders, and pulling her against him, stooping a little to prop his chin on her shoulder.

"I'm sorry," he said, with the uncomfortable certainty that it wasn't enough, not nearly enough. To his credit, the hug wasn't at all reserved or tentative on his part-- and he'd had to draw on his very early childhood for that, as he hadn't been properly hugged since. He could have said more, could have promised her that he'd do whatever he could to make it better, to fix this, because even through the fading haze of his feelings, he knew he wanted to, but he'd never been one for words when actions could do so much more, and so he stood there quietly instead, willing to move if she pushed him away but otherwise quite unruffled by remaining right where he was.

It had been long, so long, since anyone was last precious to him.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

The Chantry wasn't Nostariel's favorite place in the world, though she couldn't say she felt the same revulsion towards it as some did. He, after all, had been quite fond of the Chant, though not slavishly devoted. It was hard to look upon anything he'd liked and see ugliness, even if it was there. That was just the sort of person he'd been. A small pang of remembrance twinged in her chest, though it was soon soothed and gone. It was something that brought a smile to her face; she'd never forget him, and she'd always love him, but she was no longer consumed by his memory, mind, body, and soul. There was room in there for other things, now, and she had the very best of friends to thank for that. And maybe, just a little bit, she could thank herself, too. She was still alive, and still capable of giving more to this place before she inevitably left it as all people must. That was worth more than she'd thought, maybe.

The towering ceilings of the building still put her vaguely ill at ease, but she was bolstered by this new sense of self, and she'd made a point to wear her Warden's armor here, and to affix the red band of her officer's rank to her arm where it belonged. This part, she was still skeptical of, but today, her weakness would be her armor as well. She didn't bother to hide what she was, and indeed, her staff was strapped prominently to her back, her pale blonde hair presently fixed onto a tail atop her head, baring her pointed ears to even the most cursory scrutiny. She was twice, possibly thrice-damned, depending on who you spoke to, but she wasn't going to apologize for it.

She'd thought to meet Sophia in the Keep today, but the Seneschal, looking somewhat puzzled to see a Warden inquiring, had directed her to the Chantry instead. At present, her obvious oddity in such a place was going to do her a service, as it was bound to reach the Viscount's daughter that an armored elf woman (a mage, at that!) had just walked into the house of the Maker like she belonged there. And they'd let her, were they true to their faith. It would hopefully, however, save her the trouble of having to look for Sophia, as she honestly didn't know where the young woman would be.

Nostariel would have to wait for a moment, however, as the Viscount's daughter was not immediately present. One of the sisters had informed her of the Warden's arrival, of course, but Sophia took an extra moment to herself, kneeling as she was before a particularly beautifully carved statue of Andraste, up the stairs to Nostariel's right. She wiped a hand across her eyes, which Nostariel would likely be able to notice were slightly more red than usual, her overall appearance a tad more disheveled than her usual self, though she was good at hiding it at this point. She found herself wishing she was in armor again, her mother's sword comfortably seated upon her back.

Having collected herself as best she was able, Sophia rose to her feet slowly, taking a moment to brush off her skirts before she turned and strode towards the railing, spotting the armored elven Warden below, and waving to catch her attention. Her first attempt to speak went poorly, the woman's name catching in her throat, which she had foolishly neglected to clear, but the second try came out much better, if not sounding entirely like her. "Hello, Nostariel. Come join me? It's much more comfortable to speak up here, if that's what you'd like." That was true enough. The entryway had little more than wooden benches along the walls, and an empty expanse of stone flooring in between, whereas the upper levels had cushioned chairs and couches, a warm fire to sit next to.. and a much more private setting.

Sophia certainly trusted all of the Sisters enough to speak freely around them, but if the Warden had indeed come here to speak with her, it seemed best to arrange a private setting. And Sophia had no reason to suspect otherwise; she had not seen Nostariel within these walls before.

A wave and a call from above drew Nostariel's attention, and she glanced upward to catch sight of Sophia. Something seemed... off about her, but from this distance, it was impossible to put her finger on exactly what that might be, so the elf lifted a hand in acknowledgement and headed for the stairs. She supposed that what she had come to discuss could be done just as well publicly or privately, but perhaps it would be best not to make the nature of their work together and with Lucien the subject of gossip. Saying that one was trying to 'clean up Kirkwall' was all well and good, but few people had need of the less-glamorous details of the occupation. It was highly unlikely that anyone really wanted to know how many people their future Viscountess and her allies had to wade through to get there.

Ascending the stone staircase, Nostariel found herself in a much cozier sort of area. Here, the ceilings were not so high, nor the statues so... large and golden. It was a little ostentatious, all the wealth on clear display, between the rich red tapestries and the massive, aureate figure of Andraste looming over the whole thing. But then, she supposed that when your primary attendees and donors had quite a lot of wealth and splendor themselves, you had to make them feel humbled somehow. At any rate, the furnishings here were comfortable-looking, not so different from the ones she recalled being in the Circle library.

Sophia herself, however, was another matter. What from a distance was simply something vaguely off was up close evidently some form of distress. Her eyes were red-rimmed as though she'd been weeping (and Nostariel certainly knew what that looked like), and her overall appearance was less put-together than it had been on any other occasion the two had met. The Warden paused, unsure if their current relationship would make an inquiry too personal. She admittedly didn't know much about what nobility did in situations like this, so she consulted her only possible source for the proper etiquette: what would Lucien or Ashton do? If the answer seemed to be the same, it was probably the right one. That in mind, she ventured the question.

"Sophia? Are you... is something the matter? If you would prefer I leave for now and come back tomorrow, it can wait." She stopped just short of asking if there was anything she could do. Though that was her instinct, she wasn't quite sure it was her business.

Sophia actually smiled as she shook her head, and she wasn't really sure why. Words her father used to say more often came to mind, something about how her mother always had the most radiant of smiles, and how when she grew up, she was going to look just like her, be just as beautiful, and so she should smile just as much. There wasn't really much to smile about now, but she did it anyway. A Viscountess did not allow her personal issues to overwhelm her, especially not when speaking with guests.

"No, please stay," she said, taking a seat in a crimson colored armchair, not allowing her mood to affect her posture. "It's just some family issues," she explained, dabbing at her eyes again to prevent any more tears from coming out of them. "My brother is somewhat of a handful," she added, and that would probably be all the explanation she would offer. There was more to it than that, of course, but it had been another outburst from Saemus that had spilled it over the top, and in a moment of shameful weakness she allowed her stress to break through her walls, and fled the Keep for her sanctuary here, only to find that Andraste offered scant comfort to her. There was little to do but rebuild the walls, and act like they'd never collapsed in the first place.

"Talking will help, I think," she said, still trying to hold a smile, though it was a bit of a sad smile at this point. "How are you? It's been some time since last we spoke."

"I see," Nostariel said quietly, though really, she didn't. She had no idea what it was like to have a family, and she supposed it could be as stressful as calming, sometimes. Either way, it seemed as though Sophia was content to speak of other things for the moment, and if that was her wish, the Warden would respect it. Moving to sit in a different chair close by Sophia's, the elf settled herself gingerly in place before answering, tracing a finger along the pattern in the rich material.

"I am... doing rather well, actually. Darkspawn activity is starting to pick up again, but as of yet, it isn't anything that I can't handle on my own or with a little assistance." Her duties also seemed less laborious, perhaps, because she was trying, bit by bit, to embrace them rather than merely tolerating them. An incomplete process, but one that helped by degrees. "I came to tell you though... the Coterie's been growing recently, and Lucien tells me they've become a great deal bolder. More and more of his jobs involve dealing with them, and apparently the Alienage is threatened by them as well as Darktown, now." She had no particular explanation to give for the new rush of criminal activity, but there was always the possibility that they'd come under new management, and that was bound to cause a stir. A bad one for the rest of Kirkwall, if the 'management' happened to have a bit of wit about them.

"I've heard," Sophia said, and indeed, she suspected she knew more about it than most in the city. Probably a good thing, considering that it was soon to be her city. "The city guard has been... less than effective in combating them, I'm afraid. I'm beginning to suspect corruption, but proof is hard to come by. I've been looking into the matter myself. The Coterie's spread is alarming. With so many other issues plaguing the city, we can't afford organized crime to expand like this." She didn't know if her past acquiantance was to blame for this. He'd been exiled for conspiring with the criminals, it was true, but he had been gone from the city for at least six years now. It wasn't as if he could simply come back and assume the mantle of leadership for an organization as powerful as the Coterie... could he?

It was a troubling thought, to say the least, and made Sophia feel like discussing something else. "I'm glad to hear you're doing well. If the Darkspawn should become an issue, I'd be glad to lend a hand." She'd almost prefer fighting darkspawn, or so she thought. Sophia had never crossed blades with one before, but fighting a foe that was so undeniably evil would be refreshing for a change. She'd fought far too many people in Kirkwall already, people who turned to wickedness as a last resort. It was tough to see how she was doing good for the city sometimes.

"My own work increases by the day. It's been difficult of late to get out of the Keep during the day, and while I can leave for the nights, I find it often has unfavorable results." She was currently sporting several sore bruises and healing wounds in various places on her torso and back, times in which she'd let her technique get sloppy due to weariness. Lowtown was more dangerous at night, and after long days in the Keep, she was not at her best. It wouldn't keep her from trying on the nights she felt up to it, though. This would all make her stronger in the end, she thought. For the time in which she most needed strength.

"It... wears on me, but I can't not put forth the effort, not if I'm to rule these people. It's a price I'm willing to pay."

Nostariel's facial expression reflected some measure of concern. That line of thinking, while incredibly noble and worthy, could easily become a trap that would do much more harm than good. "Be careful," she advised gently. "I know a little bit about what it's like to take on too many responsbilities, or to be in charge of people's welfare. It's admirable of you to sacrifice so much for them, but you and I are just people in the end. We have our limits, and overstepping them won't help anyone, if it weakens us when they need us most." She frowned pensively, but then her face brightened a tad.

"If it's physical malady that ails you, I can always help with that, though. I'm trained in more than combat medicine, you know." Long-term healing wasn't exactly her speciality, but she knew enough to treat old wounds like cuts, bruises, and breaks, which were probably more the issue than long-term illness or something of that kind. For the maladies of the heart, there was no cure, and whatever incident with her family troubled Sophia was something that she would have to find her own ways to overcome. Of course, as she herself had learned, allies and friends could help with that, but not in the obvious way.

"I haven't fought alone in quite some time," Sophia was glad to announce. "Lucien's usually able to help. He's... much better at defending himself than I am," she said, with a small smile. It was true; Sophia was much more comfortable picking apart someone else's guard than erecting her own. She wondered what exactly the Warden had been through to give her experience such as she spoke of, but perhaps now was not the right time to ask. Though she was not greatly her elder of the likes of the Grand Cleric, Sophia had decided she would treat her advice much more seriously than she had initially thought to. It was clear that she meant well, and that in itself was a rare enough thing these days.

"I might take you up on that offer of healing, though, if you don't mind. I've been relying on potions thus far, but my last time out I was unfortunate enough to re-injure my side. The potions... haven't been quite enough." At first, she'd thought to be wary of the use of magic, but if there was any worthy use of magic, it was healing. And the woman was a Warden, and therefore worthy of her trust. The rib she'd cracked fighting the dragon had not been quite the same since, healing potions included, and if magic could make that issue go away, she'd take it.

"Of course," Nostariel acquiesced with an easy smile. She hadn't even thought about Sophia's potential aversion to magic actually, and the possibility of such a reaction had only hit her after she'd made the offer. Fortunately, it looked like that particular potential awkwardness had been avoided, and she strove to sidestep another. "Maybe it would be better to go elsewhere, then? I am given to understand that magic is not the most welcomed thing in a Chantry, and I'd not like to cast here if possible." Standing, she straightened some of the loose fabric of her armor, the embedded ring links chiming faintly with the motion. "Perhaps I could see the Keep?"

"Of course," Sophia said, standing as well. "A Grey Warden is always welcome in the Keep."

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

"Bwak, bwak," Ashton clucked behind Nostariel. It was his way of reminding her that her form was off. Specifically, she had her arm folded up like a chicken wing, making her hand, wrist, and forearm do all the work for her. "Use your back, not your arms. Any ol' fool can throw an arrow. It takes an archer to fire one," He noted rather sagely. However, the goofy grin splayed across his face destroyed any evidence of wisdom inside the man. He placed a hand on her shoulder and put the other in the small of her back, straightening her posture for her. As for any other aid, well, he was going to see how this particular arrow treated her.

Nostariel colored faintly at the admonishment, teasing as it was, and cleared her throat a tad awkwardly, trying to be pliant and unresisting as her form was adjusted. She hadn't really expected tutelage in long-range weapons to involve so much touching, though honestly maybe she should have. It wasn't the same thing as magic, after all. Shoring up her footing as best she could, she tucked the wayward elbow closer in, adjusting her draw so that her back and shoulders took most of the draw weight. It was getting tough to keep holding the draw though, and she needed to release the arrow at will before her muscles gave out and did that for her, only worse.

Sighting down the shaft, she inhaled and held, to prevent as much unnecessary movement as possible, holding the string to her cheekbone so that it just brushed the corner of her nose. Exhaling, she released, and thankfully she didn't accidentally jerk her bow-arm this time, so the arrow flew more or less straight, and in the direction she'd aimed it, impacting the outermost edge of the target with a solid thud. Blinking, the Warden lowered the bow and squinted slightly, double checking that she hadn't hallucinated that. "I hit it? I hit it!" She felt a bit like a child again, having conjured the ice to her hands successfully for the first time, and she threw a beaming smile at her instructor. It had taken her until the second lesson to manage it, but she'd actually hit the target.

It occurred to her that she was much happier about this than it probably warranted, but she found it hard to care.

Was a hug in order? Ashton believe that yes, a hug was very much in order. He wrapped Nostariel in an embrace from behind, repeating her own words back at her, "You hit it!" He then broke the embrace and quickly rushed past her, stopping partway to get a better look at the target. Pleased that neither of their eyes lied to them, he turned back to her with the biggest grin that his face could hold without splitting open. "You hit it," he said again, nearly skipping his way back, "See? I told you, I'll make an archer out of you yet. Before long I'll be worrying about my title as best damn archer in Kirkwall." There was a proud undertone lying beneath the veneer of his ordinary Ashton-brand silliness. He looked like he was nearly as happy as she was.

He did offer to teach her archery, after all, and he'll be damned if he didn't do just that. He wouldn't miss the chance to pass his craft on to her for the world-- hell, he wouldn't miss doing anything with her. Maybe he took with speed with which he learned for granted a bit. He was a natural with the bow and arrow, picking up the skill as soon as it was in his hands. "In his blood" his uncle had said. Personally, he though if he managed to learn to fling arrows, then certainly it couldn't be that hard for anyone else right? Still, he said he would and he was going to see it through to the very end. Before he was done, he'd see Nostariel rival the Starkhaven archers in her dreams. Ashton may not have had exceptionally high hopes for himself, but he had nothing but hope for the pretty little mage.

And that little nick on the outside of the target did nothing but reaffirm it.

Nostariel yelped as she was hugged from behind, but in the end, his excitement was infectious and simply compounded her own, and she wound up laughing as he half-skipped around, unladylike snorting and all. But that was okay-- it was completely worth the small sacrifice in dignity to feel such simple senses of accomplishment and happiness. It had been far too long, really, and it was nice to know that she was still even capable of such things. "I doubt you'll be entertaining any challenges from me," she said lightly, "but if you can say that you turned a mage into a decent archer, you'll have people lining up to learn from you." Actually... there might be a market for that sort of thing specifically... if mages could be less obvious about what they were, they were less likely to run into trouble with Templars, and to have other means of defending themselves. Not everyone could use a spell as openly as she could, after all.

But that was a thought for another time.

"Would you mind if we ended on a high note this time? I promise to put in the extra half-hour next lesson, if you don't mind." She wanted to remember the hit, rather than the next three dozen misses that would probably come afterward, so maybe she could internalize what had happened and try to recall it in the future. "There's a spot a little ways up the mountain that I'd like to visit. You can see the whole city from there." It had been a lovely day, and as the setting of the sun was drawing near, she wanted to end it in the nicest way she could think of, too. Since that no longer involved being too wasted to remember it, excellent scenery would have to do.

Ashton reigned in his excitement almost instantly, going from giddily skipping around like a fool to wise contemplation. Even so, if she looked closely, Nostariel could still see the cracks in his exterior. Hell, he was bursting at the seams, his eyes doing backflips in his skull and his mouth twitching like he had an affliction. Maybe he did, but to hell with that right now, he was happy for his pretty little student. "Hmm. Yes, yes, I believe that is wise," he said, taking on a false mentor-ish air. If he had a beard, it'd be a given that he'd be stroking it. Unfortunate genetics aside, the peach fuzz on his chin would have to do.

The act dropped as quickly as it came and a true smile returned to his face. "Who knows, next time you shoot one off, you might get closer," he posited. Chances were-- no, she wouldn't. Considering the time it took her to put the arrow into the wooden target to begin with, the next arrow would drift lazily off to the side. That'd only leave Ashton chuckling at her misfortune and try to point out what she did wrong again. Not the best way to put a period on her progress for the day. "Far more likely that you'd manage to bounce it off of a tree and hit me in the ass," He chewed on that thought for a moment before he added, "Actually, that'd be damn impressive, but for another reason entirely." But it was progress. For all of his embellishments and outright lies, he meant it when he said he'd turn her into an archer.

Maker willing though, they'd have plenty of time together to make it happen. There was no rush, and he liked her idea of the mountain spot. But him being who he was, he wasn't going to let it slide by without snarky comment. "A mountain spot? Damn, and here I forgot our picnic basket," He teased. He shrugged and raised a palm, indicating for her to lead the way. "After you, O' protege of mine," He said, his pearly whites holding back a chuckle. As they walked, Ashton strode a close clip beside her.

"You make fun, but that actually sounds like a fair idea," Nostariel posited thoughtfully. She'd heard picnics were enjoyable, though of course, she'd never been on one. Mages weren't allowed, and Wardens didn't have the time. Except now, she seemed to have all the time in the world. Aside from the occasional Darkspawn incursion, her Warden duties were quite light of late. She probably should have felt worse about that, but it was not as though she were wasting her efforts when there was a Blight going on or something-- chances were high that the Grey Wardens wouldn't have to deal with anything like that again in her lifetime. She might as well be glad of that and take advantage of the opportunities it presented.

"We should do that at some point, I think." They could invite Sparrow and Lucien and some of the others-- preferably nobody that would try to harm anyone else. Or... they could not. The thought startled her a bit, but she cleared her throat and shook her head. She certainly wasn't going to venture that out loud.

The spot she was seeking was a bit of a hike; she'd not found it on her own. Last she went to visit Feynriel, the half-elven boy had led her up here, a spot he'd been shown by Marethari where he could go when he wished to clear his head. The poor lad was still so troubled; she'd even started passing on what of Amalia's lessons in meditation she could, just to bring him some measure of peace. It looked to be working a little bit, but Nostariel would be the first to admit that she had not the flair for the teaching that the Qunari possessed. There was an odd kind of gruff charisma to the Ben-Hassrath, when one looked closely enough. With about fifteen minutes' walking, the two of them crested the incline, the space leveling out into a flat plain of about thirty feet in diameter, lined with trees on three sides and the fourth open to a sprawling view of Kirkwall and the Wounded Coast in the distance, as well as much of the surrounding countryside. This side dropped off into a sheer cliff face, quite hazardous if one went too close to the edge, but the vista was well worth the danger.

"Best view around, I'd wager," she said with a smile. She paused to settle herself on the soft grass, crossing her legs beneath her, then turned to her friend. "You know," she said lightly, "You and I have talked a lot about the past, but I'm kind of curious: where do you want to be in the future?" He seemed like the kind of person who could do just about whatever he wanted, especially given his windfall from the expedition a year ago. He wasn't shackled to any duty that she knew of, so what would he do with that freedom?

What was a hike for Nostariel, was nothing more than a frollick through the woods for Ashton. He danced through the trees easier than he did the people in Kirkwall. Trees didn't yell at him when he ran into them, after all. The air was fresh and crisp too, it didn't have the stale smell that wafted through Lowtown. "Desperation" Ashton called it. Like the breath of too many animals all in a cage together. He didn't entertain these thoughts presently, as per the norm for him. Bury all the bad thoughts on top of pleasant ones, kill all negativity with a sickening amount of positivity, and cover all wounds with copious amounts of bandages and try not to think about it. " 'Tis does sound nice. Though I suggest we bring a light wine, otherwise the picnic might suddenly turn into a camping trip. These trees all look the same when one is drunk," He said tightlipped. "Not that I know firsthand."

Fifteen minutes of frollicking and they'd found the clearing. Ashton was impressed with the mage, she didn't seem like the forager type. He clapped softly as he approached the edge of the cliff, and beheld the sight that was sprawling Kirkwall. Getting his fill of the visage he shrugged and turned back, taking a seat near Nostariel. She was right, of course, the view was amazing. Though... "Eh, I've seen better," he said with a coy smile and a wink.

The future. He never thought of that before. There had only been today for Ashton, and let tomorrow come as it may. It was one of the reasons why he had a debt racked up on his shop before the expedition. He lived for the present, with no mind for the future, or even the past. But now, here he was, the shop was his, all of his debt wiped away, a storeroom full of food, and a veriatble bed of gold to sleep on. The present didn't have anything new for him. If he wanted, he could just up and leave-- he wouldn't but the possibility always hung around. "For starters? Alive," He said, laying back on the grass. What else was there except for to be alive? Did anything else really matter? Something told him that "yes" there was something else, but for the life of him he couldn't tell what it was. Just another issue to bury, it seemed.

"I have my shop. I keep it supplied, I have a steady stream of customers. And I have that Dragon bow I'm working on. If you want to get literal, I see myself hanging the bow up in my shop, and then seeing you hit a bullseye," He said offhandedly. This was where his heart lay at the moment, the Dragonbone bow and her tutelege. Over the past couple of months, he had been working on it. As of late, he had it drying after letting it sit in a solution bath to make it easier to work with. But after the bow was completed and Nostariel was well on her way, he had no idea. In hindsight, it might not be much of a future, but it was more than he deserved.

Nostariel laughed at the mention of her hitting a bullseye. "I wouldn't have picked you for someone to plan that far ahead, Ash. Er... -ton." Was that okay? Was he a nickname person? She realized she had never actually heard anyone call him by one, but he seemed like someone that would have one. ...One that wasn't Cuthbert. Deciding to take in the view his way, she laid back as well, which turned out to feel surprisingly nice-- she hadn't realized that she was so sore along her back and shoulders, and pressing them into the soft grass was nice. She should probably do some stretching when she returned home, else Amalia would reprimand her for slacking off when she winced her way through their next lesson.

"Alive is good, though. I think that's about as far as my plans go, too. I'm not so ambitious as to suppose I'll be hitting exactly what I want to anytime soon. Excellent teacher or no."

It was Ash's turn to laugh. An excellent teacher? He definitely liked the sound of that, anything to further inflate his ego. But still, he couldn't take all the credit for himself. "It won't be too hard for an excellent student such as yourself. You have an archer inside you somewhere. I'm just drawing her out. Like with a horse and a carrot-- Not that I'm calling you a horse. But if you were one, I'm sure you'd be stunning. A white one, probably," He said, "Speaking of horses, doesn't that look like one," He added, pointing up into the sky at a cloud which may or may not have had a vague horse shape to it.

"Looks more like a hapless puppy to me," Nostariel replied with a hint of mischief, though she let the matter drop without further comment. The metaphor wasn't exactly the most flattering one she'd ever heard, but it was meant well, and she'd take it that way.

He let his words hang for a second, like the cloud drifting lazily across the sky. This was... Nice. A lot better than he expected sitting still would be. He didn't want to ruin it by saying anything else stupid. But, Ashton being Ashton, his mouth couldn't help itself. "Question for a question? Instead of the future... Do you still think about it? The past I mean, does your mind ever wander back there?" He asked uncharacteristically serious.

Nostariel was quiet for a few moments, watching the clouds pass by lazily overhead, lit from below with gold and red and violet and the other fantastical hues of dusk. She sensed there was something more to the question than simple curiosity, and she wanted to answer it as well as she could. In the end, though, the truth was simple. "Yes," she said quietly. "Of course it does. Everything that I've been through and done is part of me still, but... I was letting it cosume me whole, before. I guess..." she trailed off with a huffed breath, trying to find the right words. "It's still there, and ignoring it would be just as much of a mistake as assuming that it was all that mattered. I think... I've started to wonder about the future because that's the part of me that I get to decide, you know? I want to have a choice, even if it's a small one."

She shook her head back and forth on the ground, unsure if that made sense or not. It was a very recent train of thought, after all, and one she had not yet completed or shared with anyone else. Still, it seemed like the right sort of time and place for things like this.

If only he could be so lucky to face it like that. "I do," he lied. The question he asked didn't just come from nowhere. He found himself lingering on it more than normal. He'd been thinking on his own past, which frankly surprised him. Where he'd come from. his shortcomings, his successes, his failures, everything that made Ashton, well, Ashton. He thought he had all those issues well buried. Apparently he was wrong. He supposed he had the pretty little Warden to thank for that. It wasn't a place he liked to dwell, but it was one he felt himself drifting back to every now and then, when he wasn't paying attention. When those bouts set on, he'd just shift the subject and do something else.

"That's good. Keep working on that, and I'm positive you've got a bright future ahead of you," He smiled. "We all have our choices to make, after all." Too bad he wasted all of his. He wanted to tell her. He opened his mouth to speak, but he didn't, he couldn't find the words. Instead, "Wow, things managed to get rather sad, didn't they? I thought we were supposed to be celebrating! Your first step to becoming a real archer, maybe one day even better than me!" he insisted. She had enough problems of her own without adding his to the mix.

There was something he wasn't saying. She wasn't sure what, and she wasn't going to ask, but it made her a little sad. Still, she went along with the shift in topic and smiled. "Oh, naturally. Do watch out; I'd hate to embarrass you someday." The Warden waved a hand at the sky in a grandiose gesture, then dropped the arm. Doing her own part to turn the topic back to the lighthearted and good-natured, she folded her hands behind her head and stared at the clouds for a second.

"Those two look like a wolf and a rabbit staring at each other, don't you think?"

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Aurora Rose

Earnings

0.00 INK

It was a pretty day, and one of the days she managed to slip away from Amalia's studies. Fortune favored Aurora this day, seeing as her Qunari mentor wasn't in her usual spot under the vhenadahl. She might have shared a lot with the woman, but she didn't like the idea of having an observer hover over her shoulder as she worked. She looked around the Alienage, gauging the occupants and seeing if any would judge her for what she was about to do. None seemed to give the Shem girl a passing glance, so used to her always walking beneath Amalia's wing. That made slipping into the Alienage more more simplier. Though, the arm full of flowers and seeds did manage to garner some glances.

She stood at the base of the stairs leading into the Alienage for a moment, looking for a plot to begin planting her garden when one appeared to her. In the corner of two buildings, a bit of dry earth awaited to be fertilized and planted. A chesire grin splayed across her face as she took the first couple of steps to the beginning of her future garden. There, she set her plants and tools down and began to dig into the hard earth. It was difficult to pierce the baked upperlayer, but once beneath it the earth opened up to her. She was tempted to use her magic to aid her in this process, but decided against it. Novel, it might have been, but Aurora didn't want to rely on her magic. That was what Amalia was teaching her after all. So she deigned to to it with her own two hands, or not at all.

Before long, the roots of a purple orchid was set in the dirt, the purple flowering bud hanging lazily above the ground. The first of many plants to come, if Aurora had her way. Allowing herself a quick grin, she began to dig another hole beside it. That spot seemed like the perfect home for the yellow lily plant she had brought along.

Indeed, they never did seem to look up, and to be honest, Ithilian rather enjoyed the feeling of looking down. Prideful Dalish thorns wrapped about his heart, no doubt. He'd let them stay. The elf was perched a level higher in the vhenadahl than normal, about an hour into a break of rearranging the majority of the new home he'd been granted by the hahren. It was slightly smaller than the home he'd inhabited previously, which was good as far as Ithilian was concerned. He didn't need much space, as bigger homes were better suited to bigger families.

Aurora had checked for Amalia at the base of the tree, but notably had missed glancing upwards, and by the time Ithilian decided to descend the apostate was busy working a flower into the unforgiving soil beneath their feet. He landed lightly upon the spot where Amalia normally sat and began to walk slowly her direction, though he made no particular attempts to remain stealthy. It was not wise to sneak up on mages unless one was planning to kill them. An old Keeper had told him that once, in another life.

He was garbed simply today, a tan tunic with sleeves rolled up to the elbows and belted breeches, but the state of his head left him unmistakable for the Dalish in the Alienage, along with the patterned tattoo snaking up his left shoulder to his neck. The only weapon he carried on him was Parshaara, sheathed at his hip. Ithilian stopped once he was about ten feet from her, leaned up against the wall of the nearest house. "Claiming that spot of land, are you?" he asked. Some threats needed to be dealt with more gently than others. And some things needed to be examined first, to determine if they were threats at all.

The gravely voice almost made her pounce over her new garden, but luckily her skeleton stayed within her skin. Instead she just froze, her hands hovering over the newly planted lily. She considered the words for a second before nodding along, "I suppose I am," Aurora said, tilting her head. There was no room for a garden in her hovel of a house. It was all brick and mortar where she lived, hardly a place for a thriving garden or even a patch of grass for that matter. "You can spare a patch of dirt for the silly ideas of a silly girl, right?" she said, turning to face him. The light pink shirt she had on already had dirt caking around the edges.

Perhaps it was stupid to quarrel over a patch of dirt, as she called it, but Ithilian had heard Varric say something once on the expedition about giving a nug a muffin, and it was coming to mind at the moment. Aurora came and went for lessons from Amalia, but she did not live here, and harmless as she seemed, Ithilian would prefer to keep it that way. The last thing they needed was to be sheltering human apostates and risking the wrath of the Templars. "Hobby of yours?" he probed. There was undoubtedly a reason behind the sudden move to inhabit the Alienage with a larger flower population.

"You can say that," she said, turning back to the two flowers she had planted. Once again, her hand hovered under the lily, her palm lightly pressing up on the flower, turning it toward the sun. She tilted her head and moved her hand to the Orchid beside it, seeming to almost pet it. She loved flowers-- she always had. Ever since she was a little girl. It was in her chosen name, after all. Aurora Rose, she wouldn't have chose if it wasn't. "This wouldn't be my first garden, you know? I used to have one at home. A little garden right outside the door of our house, bustling with flowers of all colors and sizes. My own little slice of a rainbow, if you will," She said with a smile, as she turned back to Ithilian.

"I had another in the tower. Right there outside the window in my room. While the tower was dull and grey, my garden was a spot of color," she said nodding. It was what got her through most days, working on that little garden of hers. Tending flowers, watching them go from seeds to shoots, to beautiful flowers. Reds, yellows, oranges, violets, every hue of the rainbow, every hue of the sunset she remembered from home. It kept her sane in her time in the Circle.

Her eyes gazed past Ithilian and to the old tree behind him. The vhenadahl she'd heard it called. It was beautiful tree, ancient, towering, and unbending. The way it's roots had been colored on and drew on by the children. It really was beautiful, but like the tower she had been caged in for so long, everything around it was dull, brown, and almost depressing. It was written on the faces of some of the elves. Their home mirrored their lives. They lived under the heel of the humans, she could see that much. She wasn't blind. "Your people have a beautiful tree here," Aurora admitted. "But that's all your people have. They don't have flowers. They don't have color and brightness," she said shrugging. "I just thought that would try and help."

Once he'd determined that it was a hobby that drove her to plant flowers on the small amount of elven soil in Kirkwall, Ithilian had admittedly almost tuned out the remainder of the history. He really didn't want to hear about her other gardens, or her life in the Circle, or whatever she had done before that. When she moved on, however, he frowned. "The tree is all they've earned. They could have a forest if they were worthy of it."

He didn't begin to expect her to understand the ways in which most Dalish looked upon the city elves, but if Amalia saw fit to instruct her, perhaps he could offer some education as well. Some insight, if nothing else. "Most willingly submit to their fate. Some know they could have more, but are held back by circumstances. Only a few have the strength to resist. They are why I'm here... that, and the slim hopes that some of the others might open their eyes."

It was a little off the subject of the tree, but he couldn't help but feel that the conversation was not really about flowers and trees. "Nonetheless, there is too much dirt here, too much dust. The flowers are welcome. The thoughts I would prefer you keep to yourself."

"Ah," she said, smiling again, "But what is a flower but a thought? You care for it, nurture it, and in the end it grows into a beautiful thing so full of hope." With that, she turned back to her garden and began to work with green carnation she had brought along. She'd nurture these plants until they grew bright. She had a knack for such things, it seemed. Even though her eyes no longer occupied Ithilian, that didn't mean she would stop talking.

All the while, she never stopped smiling. She never could stop when she worked with flowers. "I understand, you know? More than you'd think. My idea of freedom was by far the most radical in the Tower. Most were more than content to just sit there, happily willing to serve pennance for a crime forced upon them by mere circumstance. I don't think any less of them for it nor do I think myself better for choosing to do what I did. Some submit because they know they do not possess the same strength that we do. This is not an easy life we lead," Aurora said, turning to look at Ithilian. It didn't matter if he agreed with her or not. She knew what she saw. She returned to her seeds without breaking the small smile hanging at her lips. It had been something she had thought about, during some of her mediations. Thanks to the nature of her mentor, she had been in close contact with the elves of the Alienage. She'd seen them, watched them, and something had occured to her.

They were just like the mages in the the Circle. Locked in a cage not of their own design, but forced upon them. They were just like she had been. Searching for something better, something more. She'd felt closer to these elves than she did the humans of Lowtown proper. She knew their everyday struggle, their search for identity. "There were only one kind of person in the tower," She said. There were no elves, no humans. Only mages. Her best of friends in the Circle had been an elf in fact. City elf, from the Antivan Alienage, stolen away when she was a young child.

"And waiting for them to change on their own does little good. You've got to show them. Open their eyes to something better," she said, holding out a bag of seeds.

Ithilian didn't like her smile any more than he liked her words. His eyes darted to the bag of seeds for a moment, but he made no move to take them, his arms remaining crossed as he leaned against the wall. "Do not think that because you have spent some months in an Alienage that you understand what it is to be born an elf. I do not claim to understand your plight, but I know that you and your kind are feared, and rightly so."

He kept his voice low. Even here, it would not be wise to allow their voices to carry the truth of her powers to ears that would prove a danger to them. She would be smart to remember that as well. "My people are spat upon because they are weak, and oppressed in order to keep them that way. My goal is not to free them, or lead them all from the city like so many cattle, but, as you say, to show them. I will show them what it is to be one of the People, and after they have seen, those who are worthy of claiming their freedom will do so. Elves who accept the place the shemlen have given them in society are no elves at all, and the Dalish have no use for them."

It was the way it had to be. He didn't care that there had only been one kind of person in her tower. The elves had been a better people before the influence of men, and such separation was what was required to return any fragment of that. There was simply no place for humans, or those who bred with humans, in an elven society. It was the reason that the Dalish clans avoided them so, and responded aggressively when pushed.

"No army of lyrium-addled soldiers hold them in their place," he added, turning to put his back up against the wall. "They've trained these city elves to do that to themselves."

Her smile finally dropped into a frown. Not from disapproval or Ithilian's cutting words. Words were only that, words. They held no power over her, nor would Ithilian's pessimism pollute her own mind. Instead, her smile broke in disappointment. Aurora had truly hoped that he'd put aside their difference, even if for a moment and take up the bag of seeds. Perhaps it was a bit much to hopeful, in her passing knowledge of the man, he truly wasn't the soft type. Or perhaps it was a matter of pride, digging around in the dirt with a mere human such as her. So be it, she wished him no ill will. It was his choice to decline, just as it had been hers to offer.

"It's true," she admitted, turning back to her garden, "I know nothing of being an elf," She said, pushing a seed into the dirt half the length of her finger. "But I do know a cage when I see one, no matter what the bars are made of, be it those soldiers or our own hearts," She said, tilting her head as she worked. "These people, they want to be free. I can see it in their eyes," she began. She wondered if he could. "The thing about cages though, is that they're difficult to break by yourself." So immensely difficult. If it wasn't due to her friend in the Circle, Aurora would possibly still be there.

She paused her planting and hesitated for a moment. She then turned to Ithilian again. This time no trace of her smile remained, only a solid porcelain mask she had learned from Amalia. Seemed that she had learned a lot from her in the short time they had been together... "It's why your people become Viddathari instead of returning to the Dalish," She said evenly, returning back to her seeds. She had learned with some of the elves under Amalia's tutelage. They were trading one cage for another, yes, but alway for one of their own design. Something she herself was doing, and she wasn't doing it by herself either. She planted another seed above the Orchid. Amalia was willing to teach and to lead, firmly, but always fairly. She had seen the way the Dalish treated poor Feynriel the scant few times she visited with Nostariel. "It's difficult to throw off your shackles if if you aren't first shown the key," She said, planting another seed above the marigold flower.

"What they become is their own choice to make," Ithilian responded flatly. "The Dalish will not regret the loss of something they never had to begin with." It wouldn't be difficult to tell that he'd become rather irritated. He'd come to determine her motive, and while he still hadn't quite done so, he was done speaking with this shem of things she could not comprehend. He pushed away from the wall, turning to leave. "Forgive me if I don't wish to hear more of your metaphors, shem. Plant your seeds and begone." It would take a good deal of control on his part not to dig them all up the second she departed.

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel

Earnings

0.00 INK

(And the two that always seem to be there for her)


"As I presently have things to do, it would be preferable if you continued your antics elsewhere," Rilien intoned, shutting the door of his shop on Ashton and Sparrow, but not before secreting a slip of paper from his sleeve into the archer's hand, a subtle handoff between rogues that looked like nothing more than an incidental movement. The parchment itself contained a short list of ingredients, of a caried but mostly mundane nature, the likes of which could possibly take one all over Kirkwall and the immediate surrounding area. Along with the list was a note, provided for context.

I need to be able to work, and she needs to be distracted. It would be convenient to me if these items were acquired at some stage in the near future. That was it; as usual, he was only oblique in his meaning, but direct if one knew how to interpret him. By this stage, Ashton surely would. Whether he took the opportunity offered or not didn't really matter to the Tranquil-- he just needed people out of his hair while he mixed some of the more complicated ingedients for the future concotion that, if all went well, would save his friend from that demon.

Ashton found himself intimately close to the door. Surprisingly, this time he was sober. "That's strange. Usually the one who's slamming the door in my face is the bartender over at the Hanged Man," He said tilting his quizzically. He then turned and looked at Sparrow, "I didn't know Tranquils could slam the door in someone's face. Huh, we must be better than I thought." Well at least he didn't leave them with nothing to do. Ashton skillfully drew the note from his sleeve and cast a quick glance over it. "Oh goody, looks like we're playing delivery while Rilsie plays with his toys. How exciting," He said. If it could be said that dry wit could drip...

But knowing the pair of them, they'd find exciting before long, damn the consequences. Ashton loved days like this, full of nothing to do but cause as much trouble as he possible could without getting run out of Kirkwall by an angry mob. The normal gauge would be getting sent to the dungeon, but that seemed a likely possibilty. Not like it happened before. Hell, he didn't know that it was possible to be drunk and orderly. "I do hope he's paying for the damages," He joked. It wasn't like his trousers were weighed down with gold after all. That would be his dresser at home. Have to weigh it down after all, else it might wander off on it's own. "And say some... Delivery fees?" He winked with a mischievous grin. Delivery fees, as in the amount they spend in the Hanged Man, as that's inevitably where this venture will take them eventually.

"So should we play as nice little fetch dogs and scrounge up what we can from this list? Maybe... Stir up a bit of trouble along the way?" Ashton suggested, grinning ear to ear. Today was going to be a fun day, he could already tell.
Sparrow was in motion, already sidestepping away from the doorway, as if anticipating Rilien's uncharacteristic (or inevitable, really) door slam. His moods had been awfully unpredictable because of her presence, or Rapture's rather. She understood the need for distance, for time spent alone. How could one explain having their emotions being ripped away time and time again; like a repeated torture that was listlessly lethargic and sluggish in its effects. She could never understand, but she did know what it was like not to have complete control over her own body, and how it felt every time she was returned to it. They'd both lost control of something important, and for now, there was nothing they could do to amend either problem.

“And he even threatened me,” She expressed, straightening her shoulders as if etiquette, manners, and practised posturing had suddenly become her own comportment, “If you don't fetch these things, then you'll not be seeing the Blooming Rose for some time.” Her impersonation faltered when she sidled backwards, catching her balance with a quick pinwheel of her arms.

She wanted to say slamming doors isn't all he's been doing lately, but she kept silent. There were so many questions as of late concerning the Tranquil – whether or not a cure was possible, at all, and why was the Fade affecting him so?

“What is it this time? Toads feet? Barnacles? Squid tentacles,” Sparrow questioned, wriggling her fingers in front of her mouth like those squiggly, sucking things they'd been sent out to search for one afternoon. They'd found them around the Wounded Coast. Small, stunted things that swam in maddeningly swift circles. He'd appeared as nonplussed by their sopping wet appearance as when he'd first sent them out. She dropped her fingers, clicked her tongue knowingly. They'd all managed to scrounge up quite a bit of coin from that skewed-adventure in the Deep Roads, where they'd been betrayed and left for dead by Varric's half-wit of a brother. Anyone who'd seen their abilities, and what they were capable of, before intentionally driving a dagger through each of their backs was clearly missing half their brain. Surprisingly, Sparrow had managed not to blow all of her coin as soon as she'd reached the surface, though Rapture's untimely visits might have had something to do with that. What need did demons have for wealth? She only desired a working vessel.

She linked her hands behind her head, elbows skyward. “Damage and delivery fees; hopefully with all limbs intact, or he'll be paying for those, too,” Sparrow quipped in response, eyebrows arched and dark eyes alight. It'd been so long since they'd ventured out on their own, so long since she'd done anything but hide away in Darktown. She'd been avoiding her companions in the hopes of keeping them out of the line of fire. Loneliness, she'd recently found, was just as powerful a foe as the beastly haunt glowering in her Fadespace. She regarded her companion with a smile, tilting her head – he was always as happy as a clam, eager to tramp up and down the streets of Kirkwall looking for trouble. Trouble wasn't how it started out, anyway, so it wasn't like they were actively searching for it. This time, maybe it was intentional. “Really. Who could refuse that?”




Thump-thump thump-thump

Was he dead? Oh Maker, he sure as hell felt dead. He'd never felt deader in his life. But the mere fact that he felt dead told him that he was not, in fact, dead. Of course he wasn't, that'd be too merciful for soiled soul, it'd be too kind. A long, pained groan escaped his mouth and out into the wild, wherever in the hell he was. He honestly couldn't be assed to care to open his eyes to take in his surroundings. They wouldn't. They were sealed shut, as if trying to drown outside world. Like a defense mechanism. Pretend it doesn't exist and it'll just go away. A shame that real life didn't work like that.

Thump-thump thump-thump

Oh Maker, there it was again. That bloody thumping. What the hell was that? Every beat of that damned drum brought him pain. If he ever found out what or who it was, he'd kill it. It sounded so close, almost like it was inside his head... Because it probably was inside his head. He had a raging headache. If he had his guess about it, a hangover. But not the ordinary sort of hangover. The hangover of the Gods, the king of hangovers, one that a mere mortal like him couldn't even deal with. It hurt, it hurt so bad. Everything hurt. He let loose another death wail, mixed in with a gargle, but that only made things worse as it left him in a wracking cough. After he was finished coughing up a lung, he bravely ventured to peel back an eyelid.

The light! It burned! His eyelid slammed shut in an effort to keep the foul light away from his cornea. The world was assaulting him, and there was nothing he could do about it. He was cold, he hurt, his head was on fire, he felt like he was thrashed by a couple of unruly Qunari, and he was pretty sure that he had to piss something fierce. What in the hell did he do last night? The last thing he remembered was... Sparrow.

"Heeey... Hey. Sparrow. Hey. Are you.. Hey. Are you alive. Sparrow? You there?" He asked. He didn't even know. What in the hell did they get in to last night?

Thump, ba-da-bump, thump, ba-da-bump

The incessant thumping of her heart continued playing xylophone-beats through her skull, only pausing momentarily, as if she'd clapped hands with another ringleader, successfully trading off all of her discomforts, pains, and baritone throbbings. Why had she even bothered pulling this stupid woman away from her debilitated bag-of-bones? Perhaps, it'd been unintentional. Like slipping into water from a slippery surface. She'd watched with mild displeasure as her careless vessel had so casually strayed away from her initial quest, which was to retrieve something for Rilien. Accompanying her was her equally foolish companion, and so she'd watched like a petulant mother, arms resolutely crossed. She'd pay for this later, she'd thought. The window-theatre from which she watched had become a blurry, woozy mess of hazy figures, dizzying objects and buildings she'd hardly been able to identify. Which direction had they even gone? Where were they now? For some reason, Rapture was unsure. She'd been as blind as Sparrow, though she'd somehow felt that they weren't in any familiar location.

And here she was, barely cracking her eyes open for fear that the looming lights would tear straight through her pupils, burning them to ash. It certainly felt like it was a possibility. An unwelcome, humiliated groan escaped her throat before she'd been able to drown it out in a long string of beratements. Humans were stupid. Elves were equally doltish. Is this what was considered a good time in this realm? Willingly drinking themselves silly, awaking in some unknown place and feeling as if ten elephants had waltzed across their body? Foolish, foolish creatures. She understood desire well enough, but desire in sobriety was far more satisfying. Alcohol, in her opinion, was a poor man's measure of entertaining oneself. Her eyes slowly peeped open, barely slits, encroached by the beaming sunlight. Were they indoors? Outdoors? On the suns blazing surface? For someone who'd dedicated her life on bestowing pain and agony on others, she'd never felt this terrible. In her own body, hangovers were quite impossible. Poisons had no effect. Any mortal means of noxious demise did not exist in their realm. Their genealogy prevented them from feeling these things, much like how Tranquil worked, but without the inability to feel emotions. Negativity outweighed any blockades.

She was on her back, hands folded across her chest and she was holding something. Rapture forced her eyes open, ignoring the brilliant flashes of lights assailing her corneas. She glanced down to the frilly object gripped in her hands. A dress? Hundreds of indignant questions arose, but she stifled them down, absently rubbing her thumb along the lacey designs trailing along the collar. Sparrow's clothes were in order, though haphazardly buttoned, hanging sideways and awfully disarranged. It made no sense. She licked her chapped lips, then coughed like a fish out of water. Her throat felt as if she'd spent the night guzzling goblets of sand. Eyeing the ceiling balefully, Rapture allowed her head to slump to the side, regarding her vessel's companion - the archer, the equally stupid one. Unanswered questions arose in her thoughts, but the pounding chased them all away, scattering them like skittering insects, or birds in the midst of flight. Cobwebs, disgruntled considerations and raw abhorrence took their place.

"Fools. One simple request from the bard and you both thoroughly fail. I question the wisdom of my choice," Came her response, dry as any desert. Her voice, as always, had changed. It was languidly frustrated, two-shades feminine. The effort of her words caused another round of wracking coughs, muffled into her knuckles. In a fit of rage, and one that could not be so easily satiated for fear of expiring the copse she inhabited, Rapture tossed the frilly dress over Ashton's gawping face. "Dolt. Where are we?"

"I guess that's a no... Shit," He swore. Great, now he had a demon riding along with him. That's a hell of a start to any morning, if it even was morning anymore. He'd knew about the demon, he was there when it stuck it's wretched hands into Sparrow's head. Rilien had told him about the growing boldness of the damned thing, thought it'd been rare when Ashton had seen it firsthand. He still remembered the waking nightmare it had put them under during the expedition. Needless to say, he was not a fan of the thing. He'd have to deal with it for now. Make sure it didn't cause too much trouble until Sparrow could fight her way back. He'd put it in a headlock if he had to, though the chances of doing that immediately were... Slim. It felt like his own head was in a vice.

It felt like Qunari were drumming a war song on his head, relentless and fierce. He pushed himself further against the ground, as if trying to dig his way out the misery. There was no escaping it, it was inside him. He'd been drunk before. He'd had his fair share of hangovers. This one was for the books... Hell, he wasn't even sure he was sober yet. Everything tasted like cotton. Thinking about cotton, something soft and feather graced the back of his head head, and he took the opportunity to open his eyes. Though hidden from the most of the light, what little slipped through the fabric still stung. It was a white fabric, and as Ashton lifted it slowly off of his head, he came to realize that it was actually a dress. Wait. A dress? "The hell did you get this?" he asked, forgotting for a moment that it wasn't Sparrow. He groaned loudly, bringing to minds the death throes of a horse three times his size. Whatever he ate last night was threatening to make a reappearance. It took all of his strength to force it back down his throat.

He was not a mighty man. He hefted himself up off the floor-- of which he finally realized he was laying face down on, and scrabbled toward the corner of whatever room they were in. Luckily, there was a bucket waiting for him them, into which he unleashed the contents of his stomach. It was a vile, nasty practice, but he felt better afterward. Still not good, but you can't void an empty stomach again. That's not to say it didn't stop the dry heaves. From his vantage point above the bucket, he finally got a good look of where they were at-- and a familiar sight it was.

"Daaaamiiit, not again," Ashton cursed, fighting back another dry heave. The dirty bricks, the chains from the walls and ceilings, the tiny window, and the entire wall of bars-- he was back in jail. "We're in the bloody jail. The hell I do this time?" He said, exasperated. He was locked in a jail cell with a demon possessing his friend. Who did he piss off last night to curse him like that. "Rilien's gonna strangle me," He murmured under his breath. He hoped he managed to get some of the tranquil's things. No telling where the list was now. It certainly wasn't in his pocket...

Because they weren't the same pockets. "What." He stated flatly. Instead of his usual attire of homemade leathers and furry furs, he was instead wearing the finery befitting a noble. Midnight blue svelt shirt, embroidored with gold inlay, and the collar was made of rabbit fur, finer than anything he'd ever worked with. Burgandy linen pants that still had the crease in them, and jet black boots to complete the ensamble. These weren't his clothes-- but he had to admit, he looked damn fine. Perhaps it was a good thing he was drunk. He'd piss himself if he knew the price now. And he couldn't have that, especially not in his new clothes.

"Listen, I think we uh... I think we fucked up. Real bad," He admitted. This was worse than usual. "Do you remember anything. This better not be your fault," He accused. He didn't know what he'd do if it was. Chances were, he'd find out if it was possible to rip a demon out down Sparrow's throat.

"Don't sound so disappointed," She chided, rolling her surreptitious eyes. There was nothing else she could do - she was stuck in this small, brick-built chamber, trapped along with some sodding wet pup who insisted on whining about his current condition. T'was his fault, after all. The consequences were hardly severe, only uncomfortable. Even as her stomach gave a contradictory growl, threatening to spill whatever Sparrow had eaten last night, Rapture merely swiped the back of her hand across her mouth, refusing the humiliation of retching in the corner like some ignoble creature. The action in itself, however well she might have felt afterwards, was far below her. She would not stoop, she would not wretch. Instead, Rapture turned on her side, facing a small porcelain basin. It was either a washpot or a chamberpot. Her mouth twisted upwards, mirroring her upraised eyebrows. There was something within that leer of hers, unfamiliar and foreign even though she should have been used to it by now, as if that reflection knew something she did not. As if Sparrow looked out of it from her Fadespace prison, clearly amused. Knowing that she might know something she did not set her teeth on edge, grinding harshly.

Those eyes of hers have a reddish tint that lies adjacent to the dark flecks surrounding her pinprick pupils, muddying the mucky waters. Sharp and menacing, sadistic. Dangerous, even in her vulnerable state. She could not stand over Ashton and throttle him even if she'd wanted to, and parts of her did, desperately. More than anything, it'd poke holes in Sparrow's heart. She'd sink further, and further, but those violent actions were beyond her. Her limbs would not obey her. They remained limp, devoid of strength. One hand remained draped over her eyes, fingers splayed across her cheek. The other traced lazy patterns across the cobblestones. She'd found a way to embrace the erratic drumming in her skull, forcing it into a voodoo-mantra; a seance of sorts. She almost smiled, willing herself to open a small tear, a tiny window-hole where she could watch Sparrow. Throughout the days she'd spent in the Fade, she'd begun building onto the dreaming prison, adding willowy trees and the ruins of Tevinter, mountains of books, and her father's old blades, her mother's leather satchel, and mirrored images of her assailants who'd waver in the shadows. They'd emerge from the darkest corners, creep through her windows, and extend their clawed hands. Then, Rapture blinked, and the images were gone.

It was a small comfort. Nausea assailed her, dragging her down into a wobbly sea that left her reeling. Had she been a weaker creature, then she would have joined Ashton in the corner, throwing up Sparrow's last meal, but she was not and would not allow him the satisfaction. Her refusal was resolute. She shrugged her shoulders, scrapping up any sliver of memory that would explain why Sparrow had brought some woman's frilly dress along with her. She came up with nothing and responded with silence. Surely, someone was missing their clothes, or at least had one dress missing from their closet. Had they decided to break into someone's home? Or had they visited the Blooming Rose? The possibilities were endless, and all she knew was that, for once, she'd had no part in their foolishness. Narrowed eyes analyzed her surroundings, dragging across the empty room. It was devoid of any comforts; no sheets, no pillows, no scrummy bed made out straw. Absolutely nothing. She scoffed harshly, pushing herself up onto her elbows. "Prison? Really." She mused softly, breathing the words through her teeth. This was an interesting turn of events, and one she hadn't been expecting or plotting in advance - but, if it worked in her favour and they hadn't actually procured any of Rilien's listed items, then she was happy as a clam.

"My fault?" She repeated sourly, scooting herself backwards so that she could lean against the brick wall. The effort sent another tremor scrambling through her stomach, roiling her innards. "T'was not I who went to the Hanged Man. T'was not I who drank myself stupid. Had it been I who'd been inhabiting this lousy vessel, then we would not find ourselves in this cell. You, and Sparrow, are to blame." Her accusations had some grain of truth, but she wouldn't have admitted to any folly such as this. Had she had any saliva in her mouth, then she would have spit it on the ground in disgust. Ashton's insistence that she had something to do with their misadventure was entirely offensive. Rapture laughed bitterly, mouth twisting into an unimpressed scowl. "I'm sure the bard will be pleased with your efforts, archer." She, too, wore a different outfit, altogether. Whatever clothes she'd been initially wearing had been tossed away somewhere else. Hers was an assortment of feminine clothes mixed with a sailor's portage; a corset over an embroidered vest, high-top boots with silken pantaloons, a gaudy bandana, and several golden bangles reserved for women who could afford them.

"We've stolen clothes. Why is this?"

Or they could have stolen clothes. Now that they demon mentioned it, he couldn't put it out of the realm of possibility. He was tight with his money, so much so that his wallet squeaked when he opened it, and he wondered if it carried over into plastered Ash... Plastered Ash was such a jackass. He certainly had the skills to steal clothes, and it wouldn't be the first thing he had stole in this city. He was keeping his outfit though. They fit him perfectly, and he looked great in them. "You're asking me? I don't even know why I do some of the things I do when I'm sober, much less drunk," He said, dry heaving into the bucket one more time. He tried not to think what the bucket was used for... He glanced at Sparrow's body, and noticed that she looked just as bad as he felt. He couldn't help but chuckle.

"Play your games, try to pretend that you're better than us, I know you feel just as bad as I do. Suck mortality, demon," he chuckled, followed by a series of loud dry heaves. Not that these in particular were necessary, he just wanted the demon to suffer. It picked the wrong time to wear Sparrow's skin. He hoped the sounds would be enough to put her over the edge-- if that didn't, the last was sure to do it. He didn't think his course of action through to the end, as something did manage to find it's way up his throat and into the bucket. And here he thought he couldn't get anymore empty. Still, this wasn't his first time. The same could not be said for the demon. He fell back, and felt the rough stones of the jail floor dig into his back. Maker, he hoped he didn't have to fester in here for long.

The demon's musings were shortlived, fleeting things. She didn't care whether or not they'd, in a drunken stupor, slaughtered an entire family of svelt-wearing nobles to acquire the clothes, nor was she bothered that Sparrow had managed to smuggle someone's dress, as well. The scenario was unlikely, in any case. Neither Sparrow, nor Ashton, seemed to be able to channel the apathetic nonchalance she wore so well. Inelegant fingertips fumbled with the vests fastenings, plucking absently at the lustrous buttons. She was not Pride. She cared little for appearances, unless they managed to aid her in acquiring what she desired, what she wished for. Her true form was a testament to that veritable truth; scaled body, clawed hands, knobby disfigurements. Even so, Rapture had managed, in the past, to attract careless mortals. This vessel was an unfortunate mess; weak handed, and hardly immune to circumstances like this. If she denied wanting to step into the mortal world permanently, then she would have been lying. It was every demon's wish, desire, wanton need. When Ashton continued wretching in the bucket, Rapture pressed a hand to her stomach, trying to settle her queasiness.

"Disgusting wretch," She hissed between firmly pressed lips, burping wetly, "Foul human. I hope you drown." Her vindication faltered briefly, eyebrows screwed up in concentration. She would not, she would not -- and then, Rapture skittered quickly across the chamber, emptying the contents of her stomach into the chamberpot. Thankfully, it had been cleaned. It seemed as though even Kirkwall had its standards of cleanliness when it came to prisons. Her back arched like a struck feline, ribcage seemingly bunching. The horrific act could not be described, nor understood. Her insides were turning against her, disobeying her with childish refute. She kept one arm slung around the chamberpot in a tense deathgrip, white-knuckled and trembling from the effort of keeping her face from smacking off the lid. Why the hell did they drink? Was this the entire point of it all? Finally, as if her stomach had relented its merciless assault on her throat, Rapture wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, breathing harshly through her nose. Her throat was rubbed raw, and she imagined something acidic sizzling somewhere behind her tonsils - this awareness, this discomfort was not something she'd wanted to experience.

She'd decided, then and there, that Sparrow had done this on purpose. And when one intentionally wronged her, then they'd suffer the consequences. Her eyeslashes dripped with fresh tears, speckling the now-dirtied basin. There was a slow unwinding of her intestines, and Rapture managed to fall backwards onto the floor, holding herself up with one elbow, remaining half-slumped. The pounding in her throat is explicitly apparent. She wet her lips, and squeezed her eyes shut. However much she willed away the sickness, Rapture felt its sharp talons dig into her shoulder, scrunching tiny fingers in her stomach. "Pathetic. Lord Riviera." Ashton chuckled. "Lord. I like that,"

"He is certainly not alone in his baseness," a different voice answered, the sheer flatness of it rendering it unique, unmistakable for anyone else. Rilien stepped out of a shadow and stood in front of the cell, arms folded into the sleeves of his emerald-colored tunic, the silk heavily embroidered with gold-threaded designs. There was a vaguley-illusory quality to it, as though it depicted something different depending on the angle at which it was observed. If Ashton and Sparrow were quite unaccustomed to such finery, he was anything but. In stark contrast to the incarcerated pair, Rilien was as immaculate as ever, not a single hair out of place and free of all dirt, which was rather stark in comparison to the vaguely-grimy dinge of the jail's stone hallways.

His eyes flickered over the pair, flitting from Ashton in all his inglorious sprawl to her, clearly attempting to clamp down on the contents of her stomach. Just how long he'd been standing there, as well as how he'd known to find them there in the first place, were questions that for now would be resolutely without answer. He intended to extract answers of his own, first, including why he'd had to go to the trouble of speaking with several officers of the peace and procuring a certain piece of paper. One he was quite certain they would be interested in.

From his sleeve, the Tranquil drew three objects. Scissored in the spaces between his fingers were the necks of two glass bottles and one large brass key, all of which he flashed in full view of the other two, dangling them in front of the bars. "I expect these might be of some assistance to your... ailments. In order to be completely certain, however, I would need to know how such conditions came about." He did not doubt that at this point, he knew more about their night than they did, but frankly, he was in a position to force the story from them, and he fully intended on doing so before allowing them any relief. He considered it a due measure of retribution for the fact that they obviously carried nothing he had asked for.

"Well," He began, forcing whatever was crawling it's way up his throat back down to the rippling abyss that was his stomach. "I think it began in something like that--" He said, pointing at the bottle in Rilien's hand before whatever had climbed his throat returned, this time with a righteous vengeance. He couldn't tame the beast this time, and he sat up and clutched the bucket as well. He was pretty sure that time he expelled his pickled liver. "Ughhh... And it ended.. In this cage," he managed. He couldn't even look at the bottles in Rilien's hand, they reminded him so much of the demons swimming around his own belly.

Had his mind not been pickled as well, there would be some questions of his own asked. Such as how long had the tranquil been there. How much of their night did he know-- certainly it was more than him. A complete stranger would know more than him. But alas, the only thing that Ashton could ask was "Why?" It was rhetorical of course. He damn well knew why. Because he was a silly, silly man whose limits knew no bounds. Damn his unbound soul. He laid there for a few moments, careful to avert the sights of the bottles away from his eyes. Finally, he had enough solid foundation to project his next sentence. "Well, the last thing I remember was heading in the general direction of the Hanged Man. I suppose we got there..." said.

"Hey Ril? Can you stand still. You're making everything worse," of course the Tranquil was still as a statue. It was Ashton that was moving. He had manage to catch a bout of the shakes. His own body was plotting against him now, probably in retribution for whatever he did to it last night. What did he do last night? Well. He didn't have a nice night's sleep in his own bed. That much was for damn certain.

With Rilien's untimely arrival, and one that Rapture hadn't been anticipating, or detected, in her debilitated state, the demon began pushing against her fleshy restraints. Kicking out like a wanton child with all ofher power, throwing herself back into the Fadespace and nearly colliding with Sparrow's barrier-prison. Every object within Sparrow's dreamscape shimmered like a mirage, crumbling into hazy pieces with each desperate collision. She did not want to face Rilien in her condition. She did not want to be seen weak or vulnerable. Cleverness was all and well, but there would be repercussions if she flaunted any chess pieces, at all. Her liquid arms, ethereal and impossibly elongated, pitched through the barrier, grappling onto Sparrow's shoulders. And for once, Sparrow smiled and nearly refused, pulling away from her - let her suffer the consequences, let her face discomfort. But, Rapture's insistence was too strong, far too wild to struggle against. The demon pulled Sparrow straight through, fingers wrapped around her tender neck. Like always, an iciness enveloped her body, as if she'd been thrown into water that was absurdly cold. Impossibly so.

A guppy-fished gasp escaped her lips, and Sparrow sat straight up, relinquishing her hold on the washbasin. Unlike Rapture, she'd felt this way before. On many occasions, actually. How many times had she found herself too drunk to walk home, and in need of assistance? How many times had she found herself retching into a bucket because her thoughts had taken a turn for the worst? Far too many. And so, feeling as badly as she did, it wasn't the end of the world. She'd felt worse before. Her body felt foreign to her, igniting twitches down her forearms, legs, and fingers, as if it'd begun to wake up from a horrible nightmare. Pinpricks and short spasms; slowly, ponderously becoming more aware of itself. Eyelids clicked open, and the pigment around her eyes darkened, losing its unnatural light. In spite of the bongo drums trouncing through her skull, and the caustic illness spreading through her midsection, Sparrow laughed loudly. Then, slumped onto her back, arms crossed over her chest.

"I bet she's never felt that before," She breathed, still a little short-winded, "Seems to me that we've found a weakness, getting piss drunk and all." Sparrow looked through her eyelashes regarding her upside down companion, who seemed disappointed by the turn of events. "Like he said. The Hanged Man. Drinking loads, stealing clothes. We didn't hurt anyone, did we?" She paused, waggling her fingers just below the peculiar vials Rilien was holding. It was just beyond her reach, so she pawed at them. She hoped they hadn't encountered anyone, and hurt them to steal their clothes. One could never be sure when they've traversed the bottom-of-the-barrel. The likelihood of she and Ashton carousing the streets and randomly accosting someone, particularly nobles, for their clothes seemed a ridiculous notion. It hadn't happened before, after all. There was another pause. "By the way... I'm sorry, Ash. She's a little unpleasant. S'pose we haven't talked much about that. I was hoping—," that she wouldn't appear, that she'd flit away like the night, that the talk would be unnecessary. Her selfishness, it seemed, far outweighed any of her other conventional senses. Her hopes were childish things. Soon enough, she'd have to talk about it, even if she didn't feel ready.

She'd have to trust her friends.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

Nostariel descended the steps to the Alienage with perhaps more care than was strictly called for. Then again, she was practicing with Ashton at least three times a week, and Amalia was worse. She was quite certain that her body was not meant to move in such ways, but the Qunari made the moving meditation forms look so effortless, no matter how impossible they were for anyone else. So she was maybe a little bit sore, but it wasn't so bad. She could feel different muscles, long-neglected, developing considerably, and she could already bend and fold in ways she would have laughed at trying before, so there was definitely something to this self-improvement journey she was on.

Speaking of journies, Amalia had recently informed her that Ithilian had returned from his, which was quite interesting. She hadn't been sure that he ever would, really, but then perhaps he'd found what he was looking for in Ferelden after all. She was a bit put-out by the fact that he hadn't seen fit to inform her of this himself, but then it was only a recent development, and he certainly had things to do. As did she strangely enough, and the Warden was no longer so easy to find as she once had been. Of course, anyone who wanted to could leave a message for her with the bartender, but she certainly spent more of her time out than in these days.

Waving over to Amalia and Aurora, who were apparently training at the moment, she decided she needed to talk to the other young mage at some point in the near future-- it seemed they were both carving out paths for themselves other than what their magic would suggest, and also that much of their help with this endeavor was coming from the same places. How strange, that a human and an elf, and apostate and a Warden, would both turn to a Qunari for the solace they could not quite find themselves. Naturally, she had Ashton too, but she couldn't deny that Amalia was definitely helping. She didn't linger to interrupt, though, knowing that it would not be appreciated by the demanding instructor of the pair, and instead cast her glance around for a different familiar face.

Huh. Not up the tree. That was a bit odd. Perhaps he was out today? She might have to go ask the hahren, or else wait until the Qunari wasn't busy anymore.

Ithilian had just finished rearranging his newly acquired home, and what little it currently possessed, into a manner that pleased him well enough. Of course, it was unlikely that any house surrounded on three sides by other houses and stuffed into the corner of a cramped Alienage would please him, but at least he'd gotten the furniture arranged in a sensible manner. As satisfied as he was going to be, the elf pushed his way back outside and sank into the wooden chair he'd situated near his front door, taking up a steadily shrinking hunk of wood in one hand, and a carving knife in the other. The last one hadn't really looked like a halla when it was complete. This one would be better.

If nothing else, it was something to do while he kept an eye on the Alienage's visitors, currently just Amalia's shem student. Or so he thought, before he looked up to see Nostariel peering up the vhenadahl at his usual spot. "Warden!" he called out, before resuming his carving. "I thought to find you in the Hanged Man yesterday, but you were not there." The way he said it implied that he was somewhat pleased by it. "I'm glad you came by." He stopped carving abruptly, looking up towards her. "Have you ever seen a halla before?"

A call drew her eyes some distance away, where she found the person she'd come looking for. At the mention of her absence from her usual spot, she smiled, a bit shyly, perhaps a smidgen embarrassed for reasons that were only partially clear to her. Jogging past Amalia and Aurora, she came to a stop in front of him, off slightly to one side so as not to be impolite for standing while the other was seated. The question, such as it was, caught her off-guard, and she had to think about it. "Not a live one, no," she replied at last, shaking her head. "There was a Dalish in the Wardens, my squad... Venlas. He was a very talented artist. He often drew the members of his family and their halla. But I've not had occasion to see one up close."

Though she'd been to visit Feynriel many times, the Sabrae clan no longer had their halla, apparently the primary reason why they were still stranded so close to Kirkwall. Sometimes, she wondered if there might not be some other reason, but if there ws, she knew it not.

Ithilian had no need to ask what had become of this Dalish. He'd joined the Grey Wardens, and died for a worthy cause. That was enough. "They're magnificent creatures. Not possessed of same kind of brute strength a horse can have, but graceful, elegant, noble. They stink less, too." It took him a moment to remember why he'd asked the question in the first place, but when he did, he raised the hunk of wood in explanation. "I'm hoping this will eventually look somewhat like one. My last attempt looked more like a horned mabari." The good side of his mouth twitched upward at that; it had actually been a rather funny looking creation. "I'd invite you inside, but I'm afraid there's only one chair in there, too."

He supposed there was more explanation in order, regarding his return in the first place. He himself had thought for a time that he would stay in Ferelden, rejoining the Dalish and leaving these city elves to their fate, but in the end he hadn't been able to do it. No doubt the way two of the Alienage's denizens would think of him influenced that choice. In all honesty, had he not met Lia and believed she could eventually have something better than a life under the heel of shemlen, he wouldn't have given a second thought to returning to Kirkwall. As much as he wanted these elves to become his people, many of them never would. They were afraid, and their fear held them in place. There was only so much he do by himself to alleviate that fear.

"It's been... an interesting year," he said at last. "I will always carry a piece of my former life with me, but I do not think it binds me any longer. I... said my goodbyes. I thought to stay with the Relaferin for a time, but they do not need me as the people here do. I may rejoin them someday, but for now my efforts will be directed here."

He was tempted to say that she looked better, but refrained. She seemed to be carrying herself somewhat different than when they'd first met, and expected he looked much the same. Both were able to stand taller once they'd finally shrugged the weights from their backs. "How has your own year treated you?" he asked, interested.

"Interesting might be the right word," she agreed, though the bright smile she assumed made it seem somehow inadequate to her purpose. She shrugged and chose to sit on the ground, assuming the usual lotus potision that Amalia used. It was actually much more comfortable than anything else once you could do it without pulling something. Her staff, she laid across her knees, still not anywhere near confident enough to carry around a bow as though she knew how to use it. "Different, certainly. I feel... better. Lighter." She hadn't yet been able to make peace with all her failings, nor say all the goodbyes she needed to, but she knew somehow that she wasn't ready for all of that yet. There would be more than one place to see, more than one farewell to utter into empty air, before she could call herself done with those.

It was a thought that she turned over for a moment, but then left be. It was for another time. "I'm glad to hear it, though. I think... the spirit of this place is a little steelier when you're in it." Her tone was almost teasing, for certainly there was a way in which the statement was an obvious one. He acted quite often as both blade and shield for the Alienage, but she referred more to the fact that those actions had some noticeable effect on the other elves here. Surely, that much at least was good for them.

"There's something coming, too," she said quietly, glancing down at her hands. "I'm not sure what, but sometimes I swear that if you look closely enough, it troubles Amalia, too. She won't speak of it to me, though. Whatever it is, it's good that they'll have you when it comes." She could not express her foreboding in the right way, and she ended up shrugging one shoulder. It might be nothing, in which case she could laugh at herself later, but... were such things ever really nothing here? Kirkwall drew trouble like a candle-flame drew moths.

Ithilian troubled Amalia, he knew that much, but he made no mention of it. "I'd be disappointed if there wasn't something coming, honestly. No society should be willing to simply exist as this one does. It won't last, and when it crumbles, I'll make sure the elves here have my protection." He meant Lia in particular, but that too he did not say. He had said his hello to her a few days ago, to which she'd simply behaved as though he'd left for a day rather than a year and some months. She didn't need him, he knew. She was quickly learning to take care of herself. Still, he could tell that she was very glad to have him back.

"The Alienage could stand to see you more often, you know," he suggested, almost gently, "and not only for your healing. They need to see strength, and you're one of the few elves in Kirkwall who has it. They would look up to you. I can protect them, but... I intimidate many of them. I'm afraid my face is not so pretty as yours." He shrugged. "They need examples to follow is all, and most of mine are... not ideal, for many of them."

She would likely make a fine Keeper as well, he imagined, but he'd keep that to himself. Her status as a Warden would prevent her from ever joining the Dalish even if she wished to, and it was speculation all the same. He'd given enough compliments to someone without vallaslin for one day. Wouldn't want it to become a habit.

Nostariel snorted softly at that, shaking her head. "A strange criterion for strength," she replied with some humor. Honestly, he probably wouldn't intimidate them so badly if he treated them more like he treated her. She'd been intimidated, too, upon first meeting him, but she wasn't sure if she should tell him that it was his attitude that did it, not his face. Regardless, he seemed to be aware that this was at least part of it, and so she let it slide without comment.

"I'm here more than I used to be," she pointed out. "Though admittedly my business is mostly with Amalia. If you think it would help, I suppose I could make an effort, but I'm not sure what I could do or say. I'm used to leading Wardens to battle and death-- it has been long since I've needed to know how to reassure those who are alive and in little danger of a sword to their bellies." It was most assuredly true that elves were second-class citizens in Kirkwall, but the abuses they suffered were not usually of such a blatant kind as she would know how to handle. She suspected what was called for here might be more like she would have been eventually expected to display with younger mages at the Circle. She'd never had much of a chance to do so, however, as she'd been scarcely more than a child herself when she'd left it.

Surely, though, something her mentor had taught her might remain, and if it would be of use to someone, she would do her best to draw upon it. For now, she stood, brushing the road-dust off her breeches. The afternoon drew long, and she was soon due for another lesson. Amalia had her up first thing in the morning, and Ashton's tutelage tended to comprise the transition to twilight. Learning to shoot with poor visibility, or something like that. "It's been good to see you, Ithilian. I'm sure we'll run into one another again. For now, stay well. Ah-- I have learned the words for this." She brightened; Nostariel had been studying the remnants of the Dalish language alongside Feynriel, who confessed to finding it much easier to learn with a friend. "Dareth shiral, lethallin." To her credit, her pronunciation wasn't bad at all. He nodded in return, smiling as best he was able to.

Raising a hand in farewell, she headed back for the entrance to the Alienage. Places to go, people to see, and for once, she was glad of it.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon

Earnings

0.00 INK

This morning, Lucien found himself heading towards Hightown once again, though this time, it was actually at his friend's request. Rilien was not one to ask for favors without great need, and so the mercenary had answered the summons the very next day, as soon as the morning had moved far enough into the hours of honest business. Which was perhaps why he was entering the Enchantment shop even as the day just began. Sandal and Bodahn were already present, and he returned warmly the greeting of the latter before settling himself onto his usual bench, leaning the axe at his back up against the nearby wall. Unusually, it did not seem that Rilien was yet in. Well, that was no particular matter; he would simply wait.

Rilien had been delayed in the receipt of several raw ingredients, and by the time he reached his shop, he was aware that it was beyond the appointed hour. Even so, he entered looking as unruffled as ever, though in truth his thoughts had been stirring uncomfortably of late, and the events of a week ago had yet to leave him. It was beginning to bother his usual quietude, and he did not truly understand what to do about it. Logically, the best person to ask about such matters was Lucien, who understood more of him than he himself did at times, and furthermore was not so mired in the situation as to be inherently biased. He would not run off to alert the Chantry authorities, but nor would he pull punches, as the expression went, if he saw something wrong with the matter. Well, aside from the obvious. It was a mark of uncommon trust that the Tranquil was not planning on withholding anything from him, either.

"Ser Lucien," he greeted, but he said no more for the moment, crossing to his work bench and depositing the large sack of ingredients there. Loosening the drawstring, Rilien began silently to file things away upon their proper shelves, a rare time-wasting tactic, as he attempted to decide how to put his predicament. It wasn't that he thought he was about to tell anything other than the truth, just that there was much to explain, and he sought still the optimum manner in which to do so. These things were usually so clear to him, but he found the waters... muddied by his own proximity to the issue. His eminent neutrality was threatened, and he found this unsatisfactory.

At last he'd finished, and with nothing else to occupy his hands, he at last turned to face his friend. "Upstairs, please," he said, casting a sidelong glance at the two dwarves, both currently busily occupied with their own business. Ascending the stone staircase himself, he emerged into a moderately-sized central room, at the center of which was a round table with four chairs arranged about it. Rilien selected one of these, and sat in silence until Lucien had done the same. He could only remain inefficient for so long, however, and he started in immediately. "You know that I currently share lodging with Sparrow. Slightly less than a year ago, she was possessed by a Desire Demon, and the problem grows only worse. I require assistance in obtaining ingredients for a potion which I believe will correct the problem." He disliked having to ask anyone for help, but perhaps Lucien least of all. By the Bard's reckoning, he was too deeply indebted to the man as it was.

Lucien followed without protest, taking a seat when indicated by his friend. There was something unusual going on with Rilien-- a tension and terseness to his movements that did not normally exist. If he'd ever met anyone that never lost the fluid grace of a predator, it was the Tranquil, and yet for all that he seemed right now to be without it. Perhaps he was simply overthinking things, but... the change in his nearly-changeless companion was unsettling. Here was a fellow who'd stared down fearsome Darkspawn, hostile nobility, and self-righteous officials with equal unflinching disdain, never once betraying even the slightest hint of anxiety. If indeed that was what this strangeness signified. Lucien had to admit, he really had no basis from which to judge what the source of this alteration could be.

Which was perhaps why he was lucky that Rilien was nothing if not direct. The statement of his problem was short, clipped, as efficient as ever, but it left the Chevalier with one widened eye and a long, heavy exhale. That, perhaps, could be enough to put anyone on edge. Sparrow was possessed? Lucien didn't know the lady very well at all, but it was obvious that Rilien did, and he supposed the differences in behavior would be simple enough to notice if you had something to work with. Actually, now that he mentioned it... "The Deep Roads. Those visions... that was her?" he asked without any particular inflection, just trying to gather all the information he could. The Tranquil nodded.

Leaning back, the Chevalier rubbed absently at one side of his jaw with a gauntleted hand, the slight rasp of stubble a sound he barely noticed. He'd never heard of any potion being able to cure a possession, but on that, he would defer entirely to Rilien's arcane knowledge. If he said it existed, it existed. Glancing over at his friend, Lucien nodded. "If you think there's anything I can help you find for it, just tell me what to look for." He did tend to get out and about in the surrounding area more than most, after all, and if he could get a list, he might be able to inquire with a few of his contacts in the supplying business. Not that they had anything illegal, but rarities... he might be able to purchase a few of those. It wasn't like he was using his recent windfall of funds for anything else, and unfortunately, there were people in the world that would refuse to sell to Rilien, be that because he was an elf or because he was a Tranquil. Lucien was neither.

There was still something bothering him, though. "Ril, don't take this the wrong way, but... it seems awfully unlike you to try solving the problem in such a manner." It was the most delicate way he could think to ask why the Tranquil simply hadn't killed her as soon as he'd discovered she was possessed. It might not have been something he cared about if it hadn't affected anything, but Sparrow had clearly put them all in very real danger down in the tunnels, and given that he'd had to stop the former Bard from killing people for less before, he was pleasantly surprised to find that he was choosing the harder, less efficient solution now. This was something that Lucien had always suspected the man was capable of-- he knew Ril felt things in there sometimes, regardless of how little or infrequently-- but this was something else entirely.

The agreement, he had expected. Counted on, actually; there was little chance he would be able to secure all of the ingredients he required on his own. Rolling one shoulder, he produced a list from his sleeve with the motion and spread the folded parchment on the table, smoothing it out with his fingers. Most of the things on it were simple enough, and would simply require journeying to the right locations, which he had included for reference. Much of this legwork, he would be doing himself, but assistance would be useful. The other items were quite rare, and included just in case Lucien happened to come across them. Sliding the list across the table, Rilien was loosening his jaw to express his thinks when the mercenary spoke first.

The question (or rather, the one implied in the statement) was a fair one, though perhaps only askable because the two had been acquainted as long as they had. In truth, Rilien wasn't even sure he could provide an answer to it. Was there a reason? Logically, yes, the danger Sparrow-- or rather, Rapture-- posed to himself and other denizens of the city that he held in sufficient regard was great, and had the demon been possessing nearly anyone else, his action would have been immediate and without mercy. This simple fact of reasoning should yield no different consequences in this situation, and yet it had. He had half an inkling as to the cause, and the instinct that he understood it all the more clearly when not fettered with his Tranquility, but at the moment, it was hard to put things into the words that would adequately explain them.

"I do not know," he confessed at last, and his brow furrowed at the admission. It was as close to the truth as he could muster. "You are correct, but I do not have the means to explain it. She is... I could not." There was simply no other way to put it.

Though it seemed to be causing his friend some distress-- regrettable, but in another sense, somewhat welcome-- the half-formed thought put a beatific smile on Lucien's face, one that carried a hint of an old mischief, from a time when his deeds burdened him less. His visible eye flicked down to the list for a moment, quickly reading the words there, and he nodded to himself more than Ril, picking up the parchment and tucking it into a pocket. He was admittedly quite interested to press this point further, though with Rilien, one had to be careful-- there was a certain point to which the Tranquil would indulge the queries of the curious, but unlike others of his kind, he possessed the presence of mind to stop talking before it was asked of him, and would refuse questions too personal or uncomfortable.

"It seems fairly simple to me, Ril. You care about her, about what happens to her. I'd wager she's not the only one you care about, either, but there are always special cases, aren't there?" he mused thoughtfully. Interesting, that such a statement recalled to his memory fine stands of white-blond hair in the wind and glittering silverite armor. How long had it been since they'd entered his thoughts-- since she had? Too long? Not long enough? It was hard to say. Regardless, the nature of such attachments was not always the same, but they were universally the ones that left the deepest impressions on the soul... and the largest scars on the heart. In a way, living as he did, without letting in enough light to bind himself in such ways again, was for the best. Rilien was all that remained to him of that life, the one person left that he trusted with everything, and the Tranquil's steadiness and reliability opened him to little risk.

"It's not a weakness, you know, to sacrifice logic occasionally. It's just another kind of strength." One that he was rapidly losing, and one that Rilien seemed to be gaining now in his stead. How very ironic.

"It is troublesome," Rilien countered flatly. This did not mean that he was presently too displeased with the notion, and he suspected Lucien would know that. On some level, the idea of feeling enough to actually have an opinion one way or another on the life or death of another was indeed concerning, but that in and of itself was another feeling. He would not deny that he was capable of caring about people, only that it was very difficult and usually not worth the effort. Lucien was his friend one way or another-- circumstance had forced his hand there, almost, but the Chevalier's easy acceptance of his idiosyncrasies had kept the bond in place, such as it was. Ashton... was similar, in his much louder, more obnoxious sort of way.

Nothing about Sparrow was so facile, which meant he understood it less. Regardless, it was as it was, and his oldest friend seemed to think it a good thing. He would reserve judgement on the matter for now, as it was also causing him a fair amount of strain, given the demon.

He desired the topic shifted, and so he did so-- as bluntly as he chose to do nearly everything else. "Your father still writes you," he observed. "Have the matters in Orlais shifted?"

As blunt and unyielding as ever. Well, no matter; Lucien was not one to dwell if the other person in the conversation was uncomfortable with a topic. So he indulged his friend and did not mention the abrupt change in topic. "Yes," he replied simply, "and no. As long as Lord Deschamps is still Judge Magister, I doubt it will. The Chantry's had him in their back pocket for years-- you know that better than I do. And naturally, I had to pick a fight with the superior officer whose brother works directly for the Lord High Seeker..." There was a poor joke in there somewhere, honestly. It seemed that, in addition to really knowing how to pick his few friends, Lucien had a knack for finding the most dangerous enemies.

It was an inherited trait, he was certain. Raking a hand through his shaggy hair, he blew a sigh from his nose and glanced askance at Rilien. "I'm still sorry about that, you know. I should have just left you to your business after the incident. Instead, I dragged you into the politics, and you had none of the protection I did." Oblivious to certain things as he'd been then, Lucien had simply assumed that the courts would do the just thing, and listen to what Rilien had to say. It had been hopelessly naive of him, and the Tranquil and his father had both tried to warn him about that. But he had been reckless, overconfident, and idealistic, so sure that what he was doing was the first step to fixing a major problem in Orlesian society-- as though he were the first person to notice it and try. As though history had not shown that people with ideas like that wound up dead. Fate had been kind enough to grant him birth into a family with influence enough to stay the harshest of judgements.

Rilien had received no such favors, and he'd always felt terrible for that.

"Your actions were irrational," Rilien agreed. At the time, though, he'd owed the man the debt of his life, and in the aftermath, he had again. At the very least, it seemed that the trouble Lucien dragged anyone into was trouble he would just as soon drag them out of again. Though the Tranquil found the idea of honor perplexing on good days and foolish on bad ones, he would not deny that one could reliably count on the Chevalier's adherence to it, and know without doubt that he'd sooner fall himself than see anyone die for his follies. "I did not understand them then." He met the other man's eyes for a split second, and the implication, at least between them, would be clear: but I think I begin to understand now.

"What's done is done. I do not long for that life, regardless. Nor should you." It hadn't suited either of them.

"Indeed not," Lucien agreed amicably, something just a little smugly-appeased in his tone.

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

Well, it wasn't much, but it was hers.

For Lowtown, the building was actually rather nice. Given her rooms in the Hanged Man, she'd elected not to purchase a building with living accomodations and instead used that money to invest in more supplies, a fresh coat of paint, and a small garden for herbs and flowers out front. Of course, those still had to be planted, and everything set up, but in a period of new beginnings, this renaissance of her life, the clinic had to be the icing on the proverbial cake. Nostariel stood, facing the edifice, now a cheerful light blue with clean white shutters and trim, hands on her hips and a smile on her face. It was a good day to be alive.

Lucien had been by a few hours ago, and while she felt a little bad taking advantage of his kindness to have him move all the really heavy things, it meant she had a lot less work to do now. Mostly unpacking boxes of new supplies, plus a few old things, and getting this little plot of soil planted. Having discovered through Amalia that the new garden in the Alienage was Aurora's project, she'd sent her fellow mage an invitation here, asking a favor for her assistance. Nostariel wasn't an awful gardener, but she wasn't exactly the best at it, either, and besides, she thought it would be a good chance for the two of them to catch up-- the Warden had been busy in the last few months preparing for this exact thing, and so it had been a while since she'd properly been able to chat with Aurora.

Another beautiful day, another perfect time to be outside. Aurora hoped that the string of great weather would hold for another week or so. She felt so much more alive when she could see the sun hovering high in the sky. The rays were rejuvenating, especially after a specifically rough training session with Amalia. The warmth on her bruises almost made her forget that they existed. She had a task today-- well, perhaps not a task. Maybe request was a better term. A flowery request from Nostariel. Apparently word about her green thumb circulated from mouth to mouth. Funny, she didn't figure either Amalia nor Ithilian for the gossipping type. The mental image of them two sitting in a corner and whispering into each other's ears was as ridiculous as it was hilarious. It was difficult to surpress the chuckle welling up in her throat.

Her route that day was a familiar one. She took a couple of streets toward the Alienage, careful to avoid the unsavory alleys-- the last thing she wanted was to beat some sense into the unsavory sort that preyed in those alleys. Her path was cut short today as she stopped in front of a calming blue building and stood beside it's beaming owner. "It's pretty, you know? Really sticks out in between all the browns and greys," Aurora said smiling. "Lowtown and the Alienage both need a good doctor too, and I couldn't think of anyone better," she said, beaming almost as much as Nostariel. "Did you paint it yourself?" she asked.

Nostariel turned to her friend, shaking her head minutely, though the smile never left her face. "I had a lot of help. Who needs a ladder when you have really tall friends?" She made a gesture above her head, standing on her toes for emphasis. "I thought the garden could use a different sort of touch, though. I'm glad you came, Aurora-- I can tell these plants apart, but I'm not really sure what to plant where." She glanced down to the little satchels of seeds and the preexisting sproutlings and flowers. The way the awning was constructed, there would be some areas of the plot in shade almost all the time, and others in nearly constant sun. She'd already marked those spots with lines in the dirt, as well as the half-and-half parts, but she didn't know what was best off where.

"How have you been, anyway? It's been what, two months?"

Aurora nodded and knelt by the seeds and sprouts, examining them. She picked up one of the flowers and gently turned it over in her hand, gauging it's species. "Two months? Wow, it feels shorter than that," she noted, tilting her head. Time hadn't exactly crawled for her, between Amalia's lessons and the care of her Alienage garden. Turns out, the Alienage isn't exactly the easiest place to grow flowers. What with all that hardpacked dirt and rolling dust, who knew? She had to transplant some soil from the nearby forest in order to make some of the flower grow. "I've been getting along, I suppose. I wish we could have more days like this, though," She said, sparing Nostariel a smile. "Though it's been easier than it was a couple of years ago," she said, alluding to the string of activities they both undertook in a short amount of time.

Nodding to herself, she began to seperate seeds and plants into groups and when she was finished, she turned back to Nostariel. She began to point at the groups systematically, "These ladies need a lot of sun in order to bloom their best. These girls are a little bit shy, and like the shade over too much sun. And these lovelies, they aren't picky, so long as they are watered well enough, so we can plant them anywhere you want. You should have a good selection of color with each of them, so you might have the prettiest building in Lowtown," She said smiling. "If you don't mind getting a bit dirty, we can go ahead and start planting. It's a beautiful day for yardwork," She finished.

"How have you been? Been busy much? I've heard you've been learning how to shoot a bow, how's that going?" Aurora asked.

Nostariel was tempted to remind her friend that she'd spent a good portion of her life covered in Darkspawn guts, and a little bit of soil was hardly going to be a bother. Nevertheless, she let it go and just shook her head, grabbing a couple of trowels from a pile of gardening tools she'd borrowed from one person or another, tossing one deftly to Aurora and taking up the other herself. "We should mix the flowers and the herbs, right? To prevent the soil from being depleted of one thing in particular?" she was pretty confident she'd heard that somewhere, so she further divided the groupings of plants into halves each, mixing the two kinds. As the garden area was split symmetrically on either side of the path to the door, this would allow for some visual symmetry as well, if they planned this right.

Picking the plot to the left, Nostariel started to turn the packed earth with the trowel, to prepare it for the seeds. "I've been rather well," she answered Aurora's inquiry. "And I'm not sure who you heard that from, but they were right. You know Ashton, don't you? Really tall fellow, usually smiling, a bit silly? He's teaching me. Slowly, though that part's my fault," she grinned, chuckling a little as she recalled her rather glacial progress. That said, she was learning, and she never went backwards, so that had to count for something. She was at least always hitting the target now, though not always near the center. "How about you? Amalia's as hard on you as ever, I'm sure." Then again, that was one of the reasons the Qunari was so good at teaching. It was definitely a different method, but no less effective.

She paused for a minute, deep in thought trying to recall the face to go along with the name. Remembering, she nodded in agreement, "I met him once, the night before you all headed into the Deep Roads. He's an odd fellow, if I remember correctly," She said. Aurora aided Nostariel in further splitting the herbs and flowers. Once that was done, she tied up her hair with a bit of green ribbon and she took her share of the plants and began working the right plot. With a flick of her wrist, the blade hidden hin her bracer swung out, and she began to perforate and aeroate the soil, so that it'd be easier to work with. Perhaps she may have taken Amalia's designation for the item as a tool a bit literal, but it worked for its purpose. Might as well use it for something, it hadn't had the need to taste blood in a long while. Which was fine by Aurora's standard.

Aurora threw her head back and chuckled at Nostariel's observation. "I have more bruises that you can't see," She revealed. "But they don't bother me anymore. I don't have as many as I used to, which means I must be learning something, right? I know enough that I can take down your average bandit with my hands alone," though her blade may have been clean, her knuckles were surely not. More than once she had to beat down a fool taking her some helpless girl. "But it's not about the fighting. It's what I'm learning in here that really matters," She said, tapping the side of her skull. "A strong body means nothing without a strong mind," She repeated.

"Is she just as tough on you?" Aurora asked curiously.

"Absolutely brutal," the Warden confirmed, though it was with good cheer. "At first, I was only going for meditation, you know, something to help me clear my head. But before I really knew what was happening, she had me doing all these stretches in really exact ways, and I realized that if I just sped them up, it was what fighting looked like. I don't think I'll ever be as much a specialist as either of you, but it's certainly useful... and keeping me in shape," she finished. And wasn't that the truth? The Wardens had never worked her this hard, but then, she had a feeling she could put up with a lot more now before she was ready to drop. If she'd known these things back then, then perhaps... but that was exactly the line of thought she wasn't allowed to go down until she was good and ready to confront it, and so she turned her thoughts back to the present: the garden, the smell of fresh earth, and her friends.

The Alienage is a much-changed place, these days. It's nice to see. The one in Starkhaven was not so well-protected." There were no Ithilians and Amalias to be found there, and no Auroras with their gardens or even Nostariels and brand-new healing clinics. She'd only visited once or twice, in vain hopes of identifying her parents, but she'd never stayed long, and had no luck at that.

Aurora nodded along though she cracked a smile at one part, "Yeah, well, at least she doesn't punch you," Though in her defense, she does try to punch back. It works out about as well as it sounds, but she tries, and that's what matters. When Nostariel brought up the Alienage, she paused for a moment as she thought it over. It was a better place now. It had a lionshare of guardians at heart, it no doubt it'd become a better place for it. "I want to say that it's even safer than the rest of Lowtown," She added. Ithilian hovering over her as she planted her garden came to mind, but he means well. She could see that much. He was doing a lot more good then he would if he wasn't that, that was clear.

"I've only ever visited the Antivan Alienage a couple of times, with a friend from the Tower. It... Wasn't a pretty place," A far cry from Kirkwall's. However, her friend had wanted to visit, and so they did. Somewhere along the line, she had managed to get the foul stench of leather stuck in her throat. Still, that was then, and this was now. The elves in Kirkwall were in a better place. There was a pause in the conversation, one that Aurora milked for a bit before she spoke back up. She figured she might as well put some distance between that thread and then one she was about to posit.

"So. Ithilian and Amalia, huh?"

Nostariel was initially confused by the abrupt change in topic, and tried to connect it to the previous one, with some limited success. It was the pause more than anything that eventually clued her in, though. "What about them? ...oh. Oh. Really? You think so?" Weren't Qunari supposed to avoid that kind of thing? She honestly had no idea. Having tilled her first line, Nostariel moved for the frist pouch of shade-loving seeds and pressed them into the earth, turning the soil over on top of them.

"Though... they are usually in each other's proximity, aren't they?" They had been the first time Nostariel met both of them, actually, though she hadn't taken them to be all that friendly, with each other or generally. She'd been... sort of wrong about the second part, so who knew?

"I know right? At any rate, they like each other more any one else," She agreed. Likewise, Aurora had begun to plant the seeds and sprout, though she had opted to start with the ones that liked the sun. She was going to spend as much time as possible under those rays. "He was gone for a year," She brought up. "Who's to say that when he come back, he didn't come back for the Alienage?" she said, further hinting at the possibilities. "But who can tell? He certainly doesn't like me. I think my ears are a little too round for his tastes. I don't think he'd tolerate me at all if it wasn't for Amalia," she said, throwing a wink in Nostariel's direction.

Nostariel laughed, sitting back on her legs to throw Aurora a glance. "Oh, I don't know. You might be stretching things a bit there. And well, I'm not so sure the ears point stands. Amalia's human, too. Well... assuming that's not mutually exclusive with being a Qunari." She shrugged delicately, conveying her lack of certainty on the matter. Either way, they were both intensely private people, so speculation was bound to remain so. "You know Sparrow, too, don't you? There was an incident last month where she and Ashton were married for a few hours. Thing is, they both didn't remember afterwards, and woke up in jail," the Warden's tone conveyed an even mix of amusement, indugence, and just the faintest hint of eyerolling exasperation. "I was looking after Sparrow the other night at the Hanged Man and she gave me the whole story." Among other revelations, like her gender.

Skipping right over the whole ridiculous story, Aurora managed to focus on only one word. "Her?! Sparrow's a woman?" she said, unable to keep the heartbreak out of her voice. She could lie and pretend like it didn't bother her, or she could fess up and admit that she may have had a crush on the fellow mage. She sat back on her heels and looked down but then she shrugged. "Maybe it's a good thing I never told him-- her that I might have, maybe, possibly... Had a crush on him-- her," She could see that her pronoun usage was going to be messed up for a while, concerning Sparrow. She sighed and looked over to Nostariel, "Sounds like my luck, really," she said, salvaging a smile. Getting married and winding up in a jail. Looks like she was right, that Ashton was the odd one.

"And they don't remember? How do you even do something like that? You'd imagine that getting married is the one thing you'd remember." She said chuckling. "Were huh? Suppose they fixed that then," even if Sparrow wasn't married, she still was a she.

Nostariel's facial expression had morphed into a sympathetic one, but returned to something more pleasant at the joke. The Warden shook her head good-naturedly. Actually, if she'd been the one with the crush, it wouldn't have mattered much that she had to swap pronouns, but it seemed Aurora was otherwise. Ah well. May as well kill the thing softly and with laughter. "Well, the way she tells it, the fixing was mostly due to Rilien, who somehow found out what had happened and showed up to the jail cell with their original marriage license in-hand. Of course, once that's destroyed, it's like the whole thing never happened. Can you imagine, though? Just waking up one morning to that? Must have been quite the adventure."

There was a small pause. "...perhaps one I won't be having." She might have said more, but it was at about this moment that the clinic recieved its first patient, a few hours before it was even supposed to open. Apparently, speaking about Ashton summoned him, for he limped up to her front door, looking somewhat doleful, as though perhaps someone had given him a swift kick in the ribs. Nostariel stood, brushing the garden dirt from her knees, but part of her (the part that was maybe just a bit upset with him over that incident she wasn't supposed to know about) wouldn't let the situation pass without comment.

"You know," she said, trying for conversational but ending up a bit more sympathetic than she would have liked. "I hear the City Guard takes domestic violence allegations very seriously. I am authorized to file one on behalf of my patients, if you would like."

Aurora couldn't let it slide with a straight face. In fact the laughter came so quick and so fierce that she had to double over in tears. She didn't know Nostariel had those kind of jokes in her. She was laughing so hard, she almost missed what Ashton responded with. "Hah. Hah," He monotoned with nary a smile on his face, "I forgot Sparrow was a better scrapper than I was. The hell do you even know about that anyway?" He asked, clearly distraught. He thought that was just gonna be between Ril, Sparrow, and himself. Aurora managed to collect herself just enough to answer that, "Oh... You know. A little birdy told us," Another laugh slipped through her throat, and she was as able to stifle this one as she was the last.

Ashton rolled his eyes and began to explain, "Well, we got into a... Debate. It got heated. Then it grew hands and handed me my ass. So. Doc. Can you see it in your kind soul to help a poor, poor man out?" He asked, putting on his very best pouty lips and puppy dog eyes. He could swear that he was feeling his cheek swell and his eye blacken. For his efforts, he was rewarded with another laughing fit from Aurora.

Nostariel sighed. She was hopeless, and she well knew it. "All right. Come in, then." Aurora managed to suck some air back into her lungs just long enough to add, "Go ahead, I'll finish up here," She said pointing at the seeds. Ashton raised an eyebrow and looked Nostariel quizzically. "You mean she's not gonna be my nurse?"

Nostariel frowned slightly, and with a swift motion, rapped him in the back of the head with her palm, careful to avoid any actual injured areas. "Thank you Aurora. And you keep that lacivious tongue still, Messere Riviera." The chiding was light, and delivered with humor, but there was a genuine sentiment in it-- Aurora had just heard that the person she had been nursing an affection for was not what she thought, she didn't need any of Ashton's (usually harmless) flirting.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon

Earnings

0.00 INK

"How dare you!" the guard captain shouted angrily as two of his own men seized him by the arms. "I am guard captain! I won't be treated like this!"

Jeven was an ugly man even on his best days, Sophia thought, and anger really did nothing to help that. His face was quite red, his beard coming in rather patchy, and a vein looked about to burst up the right side of his forehead. Honestly, she had to restrain herself from laughing. As the guard captain was dragged from his office, he caught sight of Sophia, his undoing, and his rage was only multiplied. "You meddling bitch, this was none of your affair! I'll see you hanged! Quartered! I don't care who your father is, this will not stand!" Well, that was a rather impressive threat. She looked forward to seeing him try. At this rate, criminal organizations were beginning to have to wait in line. She smiled back at Bran as he gave a rather cheery wave to her and Lucien beside her.

Sophia supposed it was disconcerting that the corruption had spread all the way to guard captain (again), but honestly, she couldn't find it in herself to feel trouble at the moment, not after the work she'd just done. A patrol saved, an ambush routed, evidence to implicate Jeven, and the Viscount's daughter had not a scratch on her to show for it. She was getting rather good at this. No doubt Rilien's enchantments had helped out on a number of occasions, as was Lucien, her immovable ally. She found it rather pleasing that her effectiveness on the field was increased drastically when fighting closely alongside others.

"Some time in the Gallows will do him good, I think," Sophia mused pleasantly, crossing her arms. Really, she doubted any amount of time in dungeons would truly change the man, but it couldn't hurt. The guard would have to find a new captain now, as well. She would have suggested a man with qualities such as Lucien's, but honestly, she expected the captain had to do as much paperwork as actual guard duty, and she really didn't know another man with qualities such as Lucien's. Surely the Maker would forgive her if she chose to hoard him for herself.

"Would you care for a drink?" she asked, turning to Lucien. "Solving crimes is rather tiring work. But... very invigorating as well. Strange, how hearing a man threaten to hang and quarter me can actually put me in a better mood."

"Well, if you haven't made enemies somewhere along the way, you haven't stood for anything, really," Lucien replied with a touch of sanguine humor. Tracking the man's departure with his single visible eye, he raised the accompanying brow at the offer, which was a little strange coming from Sophia, but inclined his head. "That seems appropriate. It's the kind of thing that warrants a little celebration, perhaps. Hanged Man, or...?" He allowed the question to trail off. He wasn't any more damaged than she was, and had no particular inclinations to make his way back to Lowtown yet, though naturally, any drinking establishment in Hightown would be unlikely to let him in. He was not nearly as famous as Sophia here, for his station or his deeds, and honestly, he preferred things that way. The trappings of such renown were not something he would ever seek for himself, though he would admit they had their uses.

Frankly, the less cause Varric Tethras had to talk about him, the better.

"Excellent," Sophia replied, before motioning for him to follow, "right this way." She strode her way out of the guard quarters, smiling and nodding politely to any guardsmen she passed. She wondered how many, if any of them, were in danger of being as Jeven was. With any luck, none. Under her watch, she'd have the city guard become an honorable and effective organization, fit to protect the entire city, not just the keep and town in which she lived.

Instead of heading for the double doors of the keep as Lucien might have expected Sophia instead turned up the stairs and towards her family's own quarters. The pair of guards posted gave her a quick nod, before sliding one door open enough for the pair of them to pass inside. Once through the doors, she wordlessly led the way towards her own rooms, making sure Lucien was still following her. She was only slightly afraid he would either refuse to follow her for some reason, or that her father would come by and come to exactly the wrong conclusion, so once she and Lucien had both passed through the door to her rooms and she had gently shut it, she went straight to the heart of the matter, walking swiftly to a nearby cabinet and retrieving a bottle of golden colored liquid.

"While I'm not in the habit of hoarding powerful alcoholic beverages in my own quarters, this particular one was a gift from our mutual dwarven friend. Golden Scythe 4:90 Black. Honestly, I don't rightly know what it is, but I think we should drink it! Some of it. Slowly." She realized she was acting slightly strange, but really, she didn't remember the last time she had been in this good a mood. So what if she was being a little giddy, didn't she deserve to have fun occasionally?

Lucien, still standing and looking perhaps a trifle more uncomfortable than usual, felt his mouth quirk at the none-too-subtle pun. He probably deserved that one. "I happen to know what that is, and 'slowly' should be the operative word if you wish to remember this tomorrow," he advised. Actually, given the infrequency of her imbibing, he might have cautioned against it altogether, but he didn't want to ruin her obvious good mood. He'd just have to make sure that things didn't go overboard too quickly, lest he find himself explaining to the Seneschal (or worse, the Viscount) why Sophia was quite intoxicated in the middle of the afternoon.

"Right," Sophia said, barreling onward. "There's a table over here..." she moved towards one of the walls and grabbed a small end table by the edges, grunting a little as she hefted it into a better spot. She thumped the bottle down on top of it. "And some chairs..." They were mismatched, but that was far from her mind at the moment. "And the glasses." The glasses were more like teacups, cute little things, but if it was as powerful as Lucien suggested, perhaps that was good.

"I'll let you do the pouring. I will be right back." And with that she slipped into a side room, shutting the door behind her. Shortly afterwards followed the sounds of mail and plate dropping unceremoniously to the ground, and a sword being hung up on the wall. She emerged perhaps a minute later wearing a simple sleeveless tunic of white linen, probably what she had been wearing under her mail, along with a pair of belted breeches and much softer-looking boots. She quite suddenly stopped and seemed to realize herself. "I'm sorry, I'm acting... very strange. I didn't mean to drag you in here like this, I just..." She turned a little red and awkwardly pushed some golden hairs away from her face. "Ugh. Now I need a drink."

Well, this certainly counted as the single oddest visit he'd ever paid to a lady's rooms, and that included the time he'd found himself in the Lady Fleche's by complete accident. He still wasn't sure what use one woman had for so many pairs of shoes, but then, perhaps he wasn't meant to know. Somewhere, his etiquette instructor, stifling old woman that she was, turned over in her grave. Repeatedly. And was probably shouting at him from beyond it, he thought, flinching when he heard metal hit stone. Was she...? Yes, yes she was. Oh.

Trying not to think about all the potentially horrible rumors that could start in such a fashion, Lucien decided to at least make himself useful and uncork the Scythe. A faint pop, and the air was permeated with the sharp smell of a very strong liquor. He could only imagine the thoughts running through Varric's head when he decided it would be a good idea to gift this to Sophia of all people. Likely, there had been a lot of laughter involved, presumably at somebody's expense. Shaking his head, he started off with a little less than two inches of the stuff in each vessel. Restoppering the deceptively-elegant glass bottle, he set it back down on the table, in enough time to turn around as the door opened again. It took perhaps two more seconds for the situation to get even more irregular, and he was torn between agreeing with the sentiment and trying to make things a bit less... strange.

Given who he was and his concern for her constitution if she tried to down the glass in one go, as usually accompanied such statements, he went for the latter, holding up a hand in the universal gesture for a slight pause. Clearing his throat softly, he went for somewhat-humorous honesty. "I assure you that you would have had to work much harder to drag me anywhere, my friend. Admittedly, I would perhaps be wise to fear for the state of my citizenship application should certain parties become aware of my presence here, but then I assume I would be granted at least the good word of a prominent noblewoman were such a situation to arise." He lowered the hand, only just refraining from using it to gesture to one of the chairs. One did not invite someone to sit in their own home, even if he thought she could use the stillness. Still, he did pull it out, because some habits were impossible to kill.

Making a clear effort to slow herself down, Sophia slid into the chair opposite of Lucien, taking her cup carefully into her hands and lifting it to her mouth. Rather than risk smelling it for long, she simply took a small sip and set the cup down. Almost immediately her face contorted rather comically, and she sputtered for a moment. Her eyes had almost immediately began to water. "That was... I don't even know..." One thing it did do was make her feel rather warm all of a sudden. Perhaps a single small cup of this would be more than enough.

Lucien bit back a chuckle, reaching into a pocket and tugging free a clean handkerchief, which he figured would be of assistance with the eye-watering, and handing it over. "I think 'awful' may be the word you're looking for. Or perhaps 'horrendous.' I do believe Elissa referred to it as 'putrid' at the coronation, but I think it may be more caustic than rotten, myself." He took a sip of his own, feeling the stuff burn all the way down. It was perhaps fortunate that his father favored alcohol in this vein-- he'd learned his rather unfortunate lessons about such liquids after a misadventure in a locked cabinet that a friend of his had made rather short work of.

It took Sophia a moment while she was dabbing her eyes to connect the words 'Elissa' and 'coronation', but when she did, her hands fell to her lap and she blinked at Lucien a few times, dumbfounded. "You've met Elissa Cousland? The Warden Queen? You were at the coronation?" Rather than give the man any time to explain, she simply launched into a series of questions she had always wanted to ask. "What was she like? Did you speak with her? I've always wanted to talk with her. The others were there, too, weren't they? All of her companions? Did you speak to any of them?"

Lucien held his tongue until it seemed that the questions had paused for a moment, half-smiling patiently. It was perhaps understandable for someone to be a bit starstruck by Elissa-- she was that kind of person, to say nothing of the incomparable litany of her deeds. "I've known her for quite a bit of our lives," he said at last. "I'm sure you know how it goes-- the families are allies, and from time to time, the official visits are more friendly than businesslike, and the relations and children get involved." He shrugged, then fell pensively silent, trying to decide which words he wanted. "She's... spirited. Always has been. The maturity was a bit late in coming, if I may say so, but then I certainly understand that. Resolved. Courageous, of course, but judicious. Quite willing to rely on her friends when she needs to."

He had met one or two of the companions, but given the rush of events leading up to the coronation, he couldn't really offer opinions on anyone besides Alistair, and the man was king, so perhaps he ought not.

Sophia had been about to explode in disbelief again when Lucien said he'd known her for much of his life, but instead fell into silence once he continued, paying a rather extreme amount of attention, hanging on his words. Once he was finished she leaned back in her chair. "She... sounds incredible. Ferelden's lucky to have her... as is King Alistair, I imagine." She smiled a bit at the thought. Her story was almost too incredible to believe, and yet none doubted it. Some of the smaller details, maybe, but not her accomplishments as a whole.

"She's been a bit of an inspiration to me, you see. Going from an unmarried noblewoman, dreaming of something larger than that, and ending up becoming the first Grey Warden to kill an Archdemon and live. And then immediately afterwards she becomes Queen of Ferelden by getting to marry the love of her life? I'd think it was strange if a girl didn't want to be just a little bit like her." She wasn't envious of Elissa Cousland's life, as she'd certainly had to endure a great deal of hardship, but the fact that she was able to achieve so much amidst such turmoil and chaos, personal and otherwise, was inspiring.

"I'd like to think if I can be even a quarter as worthy as she, I can keep this city from falling apart, keep my family from falling apart. Next to the problem of uniting a fractured nation against a Blight, my troubles seem suddenly much more bearable." She touched Lucien's hand briefly. "Especially when I have the right people with me." Sophia decided another sip was in order. It didn't go down much easier than the last, but at least she was ready for it this time.

"Sounds like you might need to work on finding some new people," Lucien replied with half a smile. Other than that, though, he took the implied compliment without comment, glancing into his cup before taking another swallow, this one a tad larger than the last. "Though..." he paused, grimacing just faintly at the afterburn or his thoughts, it was hard to tell. "It's not really a matter of worthiness, I think. I do not doubt that Elissa is an extraordinary person, and Ferelden would have been hard-pressed to pick a better woman for the job. Her qualities are quite suited to the tasks she has undertaken, and this coupled with her resolve to see them through produced the results we can all appreciate. It is well that she was there, but she is still a human being-- accomplishments of the like are not beyond the reach of others with the right hearts and the needed circumstances. Certainly not beyond your reach, with time." The assessment was delivered straightforwardly, with no hint of flattery.

Of course, one had to hope that the circumstances needed to make a hero like that would not appear in Kirkwall, but Lucien, despite all evidence to the contrary, was not a foolish man. Chances were good that they would need many such folk before the decade was done.

The sound of a clearing throat was perhaps the only indication he gave that he was slightly less than perfectly-poised at the moment, and he finally allowed himself to actually examine the room he was in. He was used to such places being decorated with numerous house crests and pieces of art with old ancestors and great historical scenes, but there was something of that missing here. He found it a bit curious; perhaps such items were simply not to Sophia's taste. Still, he thought it might not be too intrusive of him to ask, considering. "Well, you know something of my family," he began ruefully-- it was not, after all, the most pleasant knowledge to part with-- "Would you be averse to telling me of yours?"

Someday, Sophia would tell him how frustrated she was by his impenetrable humility and courtesy, but it would not be today. Perhaps she hadn't had enough to drink yet. With that in mind, she took another sip, feeling the burn of the liquid run through her innards. Her family wasn't her favorite subject in the world, since it always brought constant reminders of her duty, and the fact that being in the Viscount's family, as the eldest child no less, made it so difficult to find real friends. There were so few people who would meet her and learn who and what she was, and then want nothing from her. But Lucien was very right; he had opened up to her about his own family, something she believed was rather difficult for him. Of course she would do the same.

"Well, if you know some of Kirkwall's more recent history, you'll know I haven't always been the daughter of the Viscount. I was eleven when my father was appointed. He was... different, back then. I think he had hoped to remarry for a time, but no one captured his heart like my mother did." This was of course the difficult part. Her mother's death in childbirth was the root of all the strife within her family today. It would never be an easy subject to speak of.

"I remember very little of my mother. I'm told I've grown to look just like her. If you'll believe it, my mother wasn't a noblewoman. She actually shared leadership of a mercenary group out of Starkhaven, though money was not their primary focus, as I hear it told. She fought for those that could not fight for themselves. Eventually she traveled to Kirkwall, and met my father. I don't know many of the details... he speaks of her only rarely now."

Notably, she left out Saemus, as well as the man who had shared leadership with Vesenia until arriving in Kirkwall. While Saemus was merely being troublesome and willful at the moment, Dairren Quinn was another matter, one that she didn't fully understand herself. She never had, and that was why it had bothered her so deeply. A simple answer to the question of why would go a long way towards giving her peace of mind.

"Oh, I can believe that quite readily," he replied. He did not presume she had gotten her martial sensibilities from her father, as to his knowledge the Viscount was more diplomat than warrior. Of course, such things weren't really inherited, but the presence of someone with such a talent in one's early life did tend to put things in a certain perspective. "A shame, that stories of her life are not common. It can be quite cathartic, to share memories in such a way. I've always found it a comfort to know that for all she is gone, my mother will not be forgotten, and more than that can be remembered with happiness." He paused. "But I presume too much. People are complex, and there's no one way to handle loss, I suppose."

"And I'm afraid my father's way is not the healthiest," Sophia said sadly. Perhaps she would speak to him about it sometime, though she feared too much talk of the past would only serve to further depress her father. It was a risk Sophia wasn't sure she was willing to take.

"I should let you go," she said, once the last of her cup was drained. "I believe I've kidnapped you for long enough. Thank you for... well, for putting up with me." She smiled despite her minor embarrassment, certain that she was about to hit yet another wall of humility.

She was not wrong. "Your company is never an imposition, Sophia, and you are most welcome to mine, if you find value in it," he replied simply, draining the rest of his cup in one go and setting it down gently on the table. Rising, he bowed shallowly and turned to take his leave.

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel

Earnings

0.00 INK

"Yes," Rilien murmured lowly, just the faintest hint of sarcasm seeping into his tone, "it seems that logically, being as drunk as possible as often as you may would be an excellent method of keeping the demon detained." It was also a shortcut to organ failure and death, but he decorously refrianed from saying as much. Observant as he was, he had not missed the fact that his sudden appearance had triggered Rapture's retreat, and part of him was quite satisfied by this arrangement, though he kept the smug gleam from his eyes. She would know then, that she needed to be in much better condition to face him. Satisfactory-- he did not want her growing too familiar with his methods and habits, and the less time she was in his company, the better. The world was no doubt different filtered through the relatively innocent (in a specific sense of the word) Sparrow.

The bulb end of one of the bottles, he moved forward just enough to press into her palm, that she might take it. She knew a little better than Ashton what it was, anyway-- a remedy for just precisely the situation they now found themselves in. Invention was inspired by reality, and when one lived with Sparrow, one invented a curative for hangovers, or one endured her less than tidy mornings-after.

"Your tale is not yet finished," he observed, proffering the other bottle through the bars to Ashton. He still had the key, after all, and that was greater leverage than anything. "Attend to your fingers, Ashton." He glanced pointedly at the man's digits, one of which was now bearing something that had not been there the previous day.

“Well. Unless you've got better plans up those floppy-sleeves of yours,” Sparrow murmured, frowning thoughtfully. She continued opening and closing her hand, fingertips grazing the bottom of the vial. Of course, she'd had this concoction before. Perhaps, during the first week of her stay in Rilien's comfy, unassuming abode, he'd wisely contrived the ill-tasting sedative to keep her from pestering him while he tried to sleep. Inebriated-Sparrow often turned into a five-year old child who was wholly entertained at the prospects of removing warm bedsheets in one fell swoop, then throwing them over said victim's face while letting out an ear-splitting roar. He'd learnt quickly, that one. Even though she wouldn't say it out loud, and even if it was under awful circumstances, Sparrow was glad to see Rilien here. Ashton, too. She was a catalyst; they were her causation. She was a con artist of hidden feelings, late regrets and half-told stories; they were solid, mostly stable, and always there. The appreciation she felt could never be put into satisfying enough words. She spoke through her actions, anyway. It was always the littlest things.

Finally, Rilien moved forward and she felt the end of the bottle brush against her upturned palm. She plucked it away from his proffered hand, offered him a cheeky smile before she casually gulped it down. The taste wasn't very pleasant, but she knew well enough that she'd be feeling chipper in a matter of minutes. Already, there was a spreading warmth wriggling its fingers through her stomach, easing the tension in her abdomen and leeching away the acidic flavour roiling in her mouth. Sparrow let out a satisfied sigh, one of relief and abating sickness, and felt Rapture's disgust in her Fadespace. She balanced the empty vial in the hollow of her collar bone, finger poised on the semi-unfastened stopper. “You'll feel a lot better,” She cooed softly, eyeing Ashton sideways. He still looked a little worse for wear. Sparrow absently patted down her pockets, checking the inside of her vest for any signs of where they'd been, who'd they'd stolen from and whether or not they'd procured Rilien's list of goodies. She hoped they'd managed to grab something at least.

In answer, a series of gurgling, wordless, formless sounds escaped Ashton's mouth all on their own. It was the same tone as a death moan from a horse, and he felt little better. He reached for the outstretched bottle, but was momentarily confused. When were there three Rilien's? More importantly, which bottle should he reach for? The center? He reached out and slapped in that general vicinity, but evidently missed as he only swatted air. A muffled curse and he went for the right. Another swing and a miss, this time it managed to ellicit a fully fledged curse "Dammmit," He strung out and reached for the last one. Success!

He struggled with the stopper, but finally managed to get it off by ripping it out with his teeth, downing the entire connoction instantly. Maybe inhaling the substance wasn't the best idea. "Oh Maker, that tasted like ass," he gagged. Ah, but only gagged. He managed to keep it down, which meant it was doing its job. That was good. Maybe he'd survive after all. Still, the room shook, and he decided to not press his luck by jumping cartwheels anytime soon. He just sat still, and would until the bottle ran its entire course. The effects did manage to tone down the thumping in his ears, as now he could finally hear the words being thrown at him. "Fingers? Please tell me I still have them all," he said as he raised his hand.

The first order of business was to make sure all ten digits were intact. They were. He arched an eyebrow, wondering what Rilien meant. What secrets did these fingers hold? He turned the hand that Rilien pointed at over, trying to figure out what was so wrong that he had to bring it to attention. "I don't... Wait. Hello. what's this?" Ashton noted, finally finding the golden band looping around his finger. Funny, he didn't like to wear jewelry. That didn't explain what it was doing on his hand. "Heh, wonder who I married," He added sarcastically. More importantly, he wondered who he mugged.

Though the Tranquil was well-aware that Ashton was not being serious, the question nevertheless demanded an answer, one that he just so happened to have. Producing a folded and official-looking piece of parchment, he opened it crisply, scanning over the document with apparent disinterest. The bottom contained a telling seal, the generic mark pressed into the glob of red wax an imprecise echo of the sunburst adorning his brow. What unfortunate brother or sister of the Chantry had been convinced to officiate over the document's creation and the attendant ceremonies, he did not know. They had likely been quite unwittingly pressed into it, if the haste of the handwriitng was any indication. Glancing back at his two recovering companions, Rilien raised a single brow and began to read in his very best monotone.

"This document shall serve as official record of the lawful union of Messere Ashton Cuthbert Riviera and Messere Sparrow Kilaion, both men of the sovereign city of Kirkwall, here duly recognized. Undersigned, Brother Stefano, servant of the Maker and his bride Andraste, in the city aforementioned, within the Free Marches of Thedas, in this the thirty-third year of the ninth age." Rilien paused to let that sink in for a moment, then continued. "The signature and seal seem to be in order, and given the location I procured it from, the two of you gentlemen are apparently the most recent newlyweds in Kirkwall." It was quite hard to keep his voice level, actually, as amusement and irritation were both threatening to waver his steady tones, but he wasn't an expert actor for nothing, and remained as entirely nonplussed as ever.

"It seems I must offer my belated congratulations. Tell me, will Sparrow be moving into Lowtown accommodations, or should I expect another guest at my own home?"

"... What." Ashton said, simply dumbfounded. Surprisingly, the syllable was even more monotone than Rilien.

The ensuing laughter exploded from Sparrow's lips, rumbling through her chest, as if she were entirely sceptical of Rilien's statement. As if he'd just told them a particularly nasty joke whose punch-line was well-received. Though, Tranquil never joked. They did not jest, or cajole, or caper around the truth. Her laughter faltered, sidling into uncomfortable titters. Seeing as there was no further response from her companion, holding the documents just so that she could see the unamused light in his eyes, Sparrow's breezy smile curled into a deep frown, eyebrows knitting together. "You're not kidding. You're not, are you?” She protested sharply, shooting straight up. Her mind reeled in protest, begging her to lay back down and allow a bit more time to recover from her silly escapades, but she was on a mission and she needed to see the document for herself. When had all of this happened? For the life of her, she couldn't recall stumbling drunkenly into the Chantry. How had that even come about? They both adored buxom, lovely women. This made no sense!

Sparrow hurtled forward, catching herself on the bars before she could smash her face into them. With clumsy fingers, she managed to get a hold of the pristine piece of parchment, with its scrawled writing and official stamp of red wax – and it was then that her breath hitched, nose crinkling. There it was; a golden ring bound around her finger like a prison sentence, like an anchor thrown out across barnacles and ship-sinking reefs. “No, no, no!” She sputtered and shook out the document like an old, dirty shirt, flattening it out on her knee. “Blah blah blah, Brother Stefano... blah blah blah lawful union. This is real. By the Gods, useless Chantry twats. What were they thinking?” None of this made any sense. The Chantry looked down on same-gender unions (not that they would've known otherwise), unless said individuals were in a free-loving place like Antiva. They must have threatened them with something dreadful. What would Kirkwall's women think of her now, with a collar around her neck and a ring on her finger? The city wasn't very big. Rumours would spread like wildfire. They'd be ruined – Sparrow's hands caught hold of Rilien's robes, half to keep herself from sliding down the bars like a slug and half because she wanted to say, “If you knew, then why didn't you stop us? We're just a pair of drunks.”

The half-breed leaned her face against the bars, cheek promptly squished. “We're going to have to kill Brother Stefano. No one must know,” She deadpanned. Again, Sparrow's eyes went wide and glassy. "We, uh, didn't, did we? No, no, 'course not. Impossible."

Rilien, unfazed as ever, plucked the document back from his friend's grubby hands, refolding it properly and taking a step back from the bars. "Even I am not omnisicent, Sparrow. I was unappraised of the details until I conducted an investigation this morning." By investigation, of course, Rilien meant that he'd broken into the Chantry records room and stolen the required document, then bribed a prison guard to get in to "talk" to his friends. The key had been another pilfered item, but Rilien was nothing if not thorough-- he also had the arrest documents in his possession. Once he decided to let them out, nobody would be the wiser. "There is no need for an assassination. If there had been, I would have taken care of it." There was a faint note of chiding in his voice, as though he were the slightest bit offended that she thought he would leave a necessary murder uncommitted. There was also no need to cover one up; fortunately, killing at least was not on their list of deeds for the previous evening.

"Now, are your deficient memories yet recovered, or will you require further prompting?"

Ashton was still stuck back at the word union and anything after that fell on deaf ears. His mind was trying to register marriage, but it wasn't happening. He'd never-- well maybe-- he never thought about it, much less actually had the gall to go through it. "Married?" He repeated mutely. It still hadn't bored through his head. He wasn't marriage material, but then again, neither was Sparrow, but him especially. Finally, with time to process and mull over options, he returned to his conversation. "You understand what this means right?" He asked Sparrow, very nearly biting the ring off of his finger. "We must murder Rilien too. No one must know," He echoed.

"A shame really. I liked the fellow," Which was Ashton's way of saying it was a joke. Rilien had the key and the documents, he shouldn't bite the hand too hard, though letting it go completely unhampered wasn't in the cards. "I got nothing Rilsie. I think I pickled my innards-- so obviously we had some of the gutrot at the Hanged Man. Maybe if you'd stop dangling that key over our heads like a carrot and let us out, we can begin to find out what in the hell happened." He stated matter of factly. "I promise I won't make an attempt on your life," he said, holding both hands up out of the bars.

"Today," He added in a mutter for Sparrow.

Sparrow dramatically plopped forward, allowing the fabric of Rilien's robes to slip through her fingers. Though, she remained placated against the bars, hardly holding herself up, and bent at an odd angle that looked like she'd fall on her face at any moment. A limp noodle that felt as if she'd been given the most outrageous news ever. Elephant-sized mabari hounds were rampaging down Kirkwall's streets. Knight-Commander Meredith was getting married to First Enchanter Orsino. Varric suddenly, spontaneously threw out his beloved crossbow – they all didn't make any sense, but at least they were as shocking as finding out that she'd gotten married to one of her closest friends in the midst of a drunken misadventure. She adjusted her grip on the bars, slipping down a bit so that she was speaking directly into Rilien's chest, eye-level with his sternum. “But you know everything. Practically, anyway,” She groaned, eyebrows knitting. Another unintelligible lament of injustice gurgled from her throat, hardly anything more than noise. “No more, please. You're enjoying this, aren't you?”

She eyed him balefully through her long eyelashes, though the expression only lingered for a moment before it crackled away. Of course, this was entirely their own fault. Liquor was a troublesome friend who provided the worst ideas, shadowing their every step until they went through with it. Matrimony certainly wasn't, in anyone's mind, a means of having fun. Why did they even think of it? Sparrow gently knocked her forehead against her extended arm. No one. No one can know,” She repeated, as if it were a mantra to undo the undoable. It sounded like something more had happened. But, it wasn't like it could get any worse. What more had they done? What more could they have done? She wasn't sure if she wanted to know, but it seemed as if Rilien wouldn't stop baiting them with that metaphorical carrot until they knew the entire truth. It wouldn't make any difference, anyway. If this was some sort of sordid intervention to prevent them from getting arsed again, then their good friends words were in vain. Matrimony could be undone, could it not?

“Let ussss out, Ril. And erase this, this thing.” She whined, waving towards the document. She regarded her equally-hungover connubial partner, and a crack of a smile smoothed over her lips at the mention of offing Rilien for having bore witness to their humiliation. Future repercussions for teasing them so much would be had – perhaps, in the approach of giant five-year-old pranks. As an aside, Sparrow added, “I hope you wore the dress.” He would've looked nicer. "And I hope you tripped over the broom," He responded.

"Enjoying your plight, however much you have earned it, would be impossible," Rilien replied automatically, though they all knew that wasn't exactly true. Of course, only he would be able to say whether it was true in this case, and his phrasing did not make things particularly explicit. It was true that he could vanish their troubles in a simple moment, with nothing now but a gesture. But what they seemed to be missing was that he'd already put himself at considerable risk to erase this careless little mistake. Well, it shouldn't matter. He did nothing for thanks, did he? He worked for payment or because he felt the task necessary. Yet he was asking for no payment and annulling a reckless marriage was hardly necessary to him, so why...?

The thought was troubling enough that he now as well desired this charade to be over and done with, so he once again produced the parchment. "If you are sure. I will not do this again." Their actions and words all spoke to their certainty, so he waited for no confirmation at this point, simply tearing the document cleanly in half with the same minimum of ceremony as he always did. He handed one of the halves to each of them. Defaced so, the document was no longer valid, in the City of Kirkwall or anywhere else as far as he knew. They could dispose of the rest as they desired. Maybe if they chose to keep it, the pieces would serve as a reminder of what too much fun tended to get you.

He doubted this last thought very much.

With that, he produced the key. "The guard has been bribed, and I have already burned your arrest documents. There is no record of your time here, nor shall there be. We will meet no resistance on the way out, but if someone stops you, you were here as witnesses to a break-in at my shop last night." Fitting the thing into the door, he turned until there was a click, then stepped back, pulling the door open as he went. They had their freedom, even if their dignity was still utterly absent.

Ashton stared at his half of the paper for a moment. The sound of the parchment tearing in half ushered in a feeling of great relief, one that noticably set his posture at ease. He wasted no time in prancing past the threshold of the bar before coming to an abrupt stop. He whirled around and arched his back so that he was head height with Sparrow. As he waved his half of their paper, he stated, "This does not mean you get half my stuff."

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

Thunk.

Thunk.

Thunk.

Nostariel let out a breath and relaxed her arm, bringing the practice bow down and grinning over at her instructor. All three arrows, drawn and fired in quick succession, had hit the target in a close grouping, the last one actually a bull's-eye. She was making those with regularity now, though it was still easier when she had a couple seconds to concentrate, so now she was working on making it more automatic, by aiming and releasing in less than three seconds. Thankfully, none of these was ever a total miss anymore. A couple of years had made all the difference, it turned out. Well, a couple of years of careful teaching, at any rate. She was hardly ever sore anymore, and what stiffness she did manage to accrue was never long in staying, thanks to her other lessons. She felt like an entirely new person; it fit that she had new skills to go with it.

"What do you think, Ash? Not too bad, was it?" She asked. It was halfway from genuine curiosity, and half because, well... she rather liked earning his praise. Silly, maybe, but harmless, so she might as well.

On a stone not so far away, Ashton sat, using the his bow as a rest for his chin. And though he was facing Nostariel's direction, his eyes were turned inward to himself. When his name was called, he looked up and tore his thoughts away from whatever it was he was pondering. His own head tilted as he followed Nostariel's stance and arc, where the three arrows sat neatly in a cluster on the target. It was like this more often than not lately, she was getting better all on her own now. She hardly even needed his helpful words. He couldn't have been more proud and more relieved. Good to know that he didn't manage to screw her up. "It's great," he said, though the words took longer to form than usual. Something was on his mind, and it wasn't Nostariel's progress.

But just like that, the mood bounced as he donned the largest, smirkiest grin he could. With a flourish he stood up from his rock, one that he'd sat on as he watched her shoot. He took the the mandatory couple of steps toward the target-- but at this point it was just a formality. He knew the shots were all great, even without having to looking at them. "I'm telling you, you'll give me a run for my title any day now. At this point you don't even need me. You could put any Starkhaven archer to shame, and that's no boast," he said with all of his joviallity. Pride was beaming in his face, but it was always there when talk of Nostariel's training popped up.

Nostariel flushed at the words. Even if she didn't take them to be entirely true, they were quite kind, and frankly that was the point. Her smile, however, soon dimmed. She wasn't blind, and she'd learned better than most how to distinguish his actual happiness from the kind he had to flip on and off like one would a spell. It wasn't that he was being dishonest with her-- but she did think something else was going on, and it troubled her that he didn't seem inclined to let it show. Slinging the bow over her back, she approached him, clasping her hands in front of her and tilting her head to one side. "Something's wrong," she said quietly, aware that giving him the chance to deny it would most likely produce a denial. "Can I help?"

"And what makes you say that?" He said with a twirl of his brow and a twist of his lip. He locked his own hands behind his back and stood on the heels of his feet, putting on the best nonchalant air that he could. He must be slipping if he let it show.

She frowned, and though her arms came up to cross just beneath her chest, her eyes softened. "Because that's the smile you use when you're keeping something from someone," she answered simply. She wasn't going to say that she also knew he hadn't been paying much attention to her a few minutes ago, because that sounded rather odd and probably a little vain. Neither of which made it untrue, but truthfully, she was right about this as well. It was just one of those things you came to know after you spent enough time with someone. She bit her lip contemplatively, then shook her head. "Sorry. I'm being nosy, I know I am. If you don't want to talk about it, that's your business, and I won't bother you." It would smart a bit, undoubtedly, but he wasn't the only one who could hide things if he wanted. She'd always been a bit nosy, really, but it was worse with people she actually cared about. One had to understand a problem to fix it, right?

"Huh. I didn't know I had any other smile beside stupid," he said in a moment of self-recognition. He'd seen a couple of mirrors in his time, and stupid was the only adjective to describe that smile. Or silly. Either or, really. However, his shoulders did hitch slowly as weight was beginnig to fall on them. The look she was giving him definitely wasn't helping his own cause, and now she was making him feel guilty about keeping things hidden from her. Of course, he'd have to tell her soon, he just didn't want to. He sighed, and with the breath so too came off the fake smile, like a mask slipping off of his face. If he didn't manage to get around to it soon, it'd eat away at him and he'd never find any peace until he finally told her. Dammit though, he didn't want to.

"No, no, you're fine," he brushed off. He did his own share of prying-- and he did realize that he hadn't shared anything in return aside from an Orlesian wine. Still, even if he did admit what was going on through his mind, she couldn't help. He wished she could, but he couldn't do that to her. "I suppose I should tell you, hmm?" he said, rubbing his chin. "Shall we take a walk then? Mosey on to our little spot on the cliff?" he offered, extending a hand in the general direction.

Nostariel blinked, somewhat surprised. It was probably quite serious, if he was treating it this way. Chewing her lower lip for a moment, she nodded simply, striding to catch up and walk by his side. She hadn't missed how he referred to the place, and though the use of the plural like that would perhaps have otherwise made her smile a little to herself, whatever was hanging now over their heads effectively quashed that little bit of happiness. The hike was one they'd taken with some regularity, usually after her lessons were ended and in the warmer months, when some sun yet remained to them. They didn't always talk, but sometimes it was nice just to sit in silence.

They crested the hill after a few minutes of the not-so-nice kind of silence, and she settled herself down on the grass, crossing her legs beneath her, glancing up at him expectantly.

It was a few moments more before he managed to form the words in his head. A few moments more before they made their way to his mouth. All the while, he looked straight ahead over the cliffs. "So. I'm leaving. Tomorrow," he said matter-of-factly. Best to do it quick and get it out into the open instead of just letting it fester. The longer he waited the harder it would have been. But there it was. He was leaving. "I've been thinking about going on an extended hunting trip up north. You know, get away from everything for a while. Take a couple of breaths of fresh air, see the country side-- hopefully not get eaten by an animal." He could try to sugarcoat it all he wanted but the fact still stood. He was leaving. Tomorrow, with hardly a warning to anyone. Still it'd been a long time coming.

"You're... leaving?" whatever she'd thought he was going to say, it hadn't been that. She shouldn't be too surprised-- he was a hunter, after all, and he did take trips now and then to resupply, but this was unusual for several reasons. First, he hadn't told her about it until just now. Usually, she had a week's notice, or a month's, even. She'd sort of grown used to that. Secondly was the duration, though honestly she wasn't quite sure what that was. Long enough that he seemed this serious about it, anyway.

She didn't really know how to reply to that, and honestly she felt like a bit of her stomach had dropped out from underneath her, mostly from the suddenness of it. "H-how long is 'extended?'" she tried, finding that at least it was a logical question. More logical than the other one swimming around in her head, about what exactly it was he wanted to get away from. Those were dark thoughts, and she didn't like them.

"That's a good question," he said with a shrug. Even he wasn't quite sure how long it would be-- though he knew enough to try and give her a rough estimate. He rubbed his cheek and thought about it, trying to come to a decent answer and though there was none, he'd make one up. He couldn't just tell her until he got his head straightened out-- that may never happen. Until he had time to come to terms with himself was an even worse answer. Instead, he opted for something a bit more solid. "Through the winter months at least," he said. That was a good start, though what was noticably absent was how long at most and that was not an answer he was comfortable giving. He had no idea how long it would be at most... Maybe never-- though he hated himself for thinking about that. He hated himself for dropping this on her. He hated a lot of things about himself.

"I... see," she replied after an uncomfortable silence. The problem was, she really didn't. It was one thing to make such a journey-- she might not quite have comprehended the reason, but she would have understood the need for one, perhaps. But to not say anything until the evening before he left, and then only after she'd prodded for the answer? What would she have thought if he'd just up and disappeared? She knew exactly what she would have thought, and it would not have been pleasant. Then again, it still wasn't. She'd believed they were friends, close friends, even, but you didn't just up and skip town for several months without informing your close friends, if you did something like that at all!

She winced. That last was uncharitable. But she was finding it a little tough to be understanding, mostly do to the fact that, however irrationally, she was hurt. Sighing deeply, she leaned forwards, covering her face with both hands and pausing there for a moment, reassuring herself that this was not the same. She wasn't being left forever, not again. Besides, they weren't... it shouldn't feel the same. It shouldn't. And it didn't, not really, but it was too similar for her comfort, and it took her a few moments of controlled breathing, meditative muscle relaxation, to pull herself back from something unpleasant. If she hadn't been convinced already, that small gift alone, the absence of ungainly expression of her sorrow, would have assured her she was more indebted to Amalia than she could ever repay.

Dragging her hands the rest of the way down her face, she let them fall back in her lap. "Okay," she said, more to herself than him. "Okay." But there was one thing she needed. "Tell me... tell me you're coming back. It doesn't have to be true, but I need you to say it." She'd grown good at waiting-- if she had to, she knew she could wait until it wouldn't hurt (too much) to admit he'd been lying, if that was what it took. But apparently she wasn't as fine with being left behind as she thought she'd become.

That... Was not what he was expecting. He was expecting a why. Why was he running? Why was he leaving? Why was walling himself off with miles of forest in any direction. Those would have been easy to deal with. He could have just dodged those, maybe even lied-- and though it would have hurt to do so, it would have been easier. He was always good at running. But now, he couldn't lie. He couldn't dodge it. For all of his skills as a rogue, and as a hunter, he couldn't escape that single question. He might have been a failure, he might have even been a coward, but he was not going to lie to her. Even so, the answer took a long time to form on his tongue. He had always ran. He ran from Ferelden, and he didn't think he'd ever see it again-- never once had he returned anywhere.

"I..." he began, and though every fiber in his being told him to say he couldn't promise, he couldn't find the words. Instead, he said "... Will. I'll come back. I don't know when, but I will. I'll promise you that," He said. With that promise, he'd chained himself to Kirkwall, if only for just a little bit longer, for better or for worse. However, he didn't know if she'd like the man who'd come back. He'd lasted this long knowing no one else had to depend on him, but now that someone did... He just didn't know. He was... Scared. He just hoped he didn't make another mistake.

Nostariel let out a breath she hadn't known she'd been holding. Something tight in her chest eased, and she managed a smile without having to force it, as she'd feared she might. She wasn't oblivious, and she knew it had cost him something to make that promise. It made her feel guilty for forcing it from him, but in truth, she couldn't bring it to overpower the relief that it had been made, and she really didn't want to gain that power, either. Standing, she offered him a hand to do the same. Perhaps it was better if she tried to steer them away from the topic a bit. "Well, it's a bit of short notice, but if you want a proper seeing-off, I'm willing to bet there's enough people for a party at the Hanged Man? I'll be the sober friend."

Ashton sighed and shrugged, a whisper of a smile returning to his mouth. He took the offered hand and pulled himself to his feet, though he was careful to use his own power and not yank her down with him. It'd be unseemly after the talk they had. "I don't think this warrants a send-off party. I haven't even told anyone else," He said meekly. He was planning on pinning an arrow with a note on it to Rilien's door. That did not mean he didn't need a drink. Oh, he needed one. A tall, thick one, with plenty of bite. But, truth be told, he felt a little bit better having told her. Of course, now he's going to have to contend with these thoughts as he left and that was to be a battle all their own. But, it was a battle for tomorrow. For tonight? "How about a party for two? I'll be the drunk one this time," He said, drawing parallels from the last time they were together in the Hanged Man.

She scoffed slightly, but nodded all the same. "Oh, very well then. Have it your way. But to me, it's still a sending-off party." Her voice was colored with a touch of facetiousness, but it quickly disappeared as she settled on something. Shifting his hand so that it was in both of hers, she turned it over and lifted it, pressing her lips into his callused palm. She would have perhaps tried for his cheek, but he was far too tall for that to happen without his cooperation. "Thank you, Ash." She meant it, too; some part of her had assumed that she was the only one who hadn't known, but evidently, this was the furthest thing from the truth. It was also an odd reversal of the first time they'd met, and this was intentional on her part.

"Well, let's go then. It gets cold at night, now."

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Aurora Rose

Earnings

0.00 INK

(Of tying off loose ends and hunting bad men with friends...)


Revenge was never a dish best served cold – it was a writhing worm, continuously festering and growing larger still with time. This needed to be finished as soon as possible, so that Sparrow could finally wash her hands and free herself of the grime and dust that had gathered there since her childhood. Who else might have helped her? There was only one individual who hated humans just as much as she did. Had it dulled with time? She selfishly hoped it hadn't. Hoped feverishly that he thought the world was better off without such a destructive race gallivanting where they wished, but somehow knew that Amalia was not like them in the least. Sparrow had always thought that way, though she'd been susceptible as of late, befriending flat-ears without so much as a second thought. It hadn't even struck her as peculiar. They'd weaselled themselves under her arms, effortlessly, and shouldered themselves into her heart. And even still, she couldn't ask anyone else to come along with her, for then they'd know her dirty secrets, and her humiliating past. She wasn't ready for that, yet.

Sparrow quick-stepped down the alleyways, threading herself carefully, and occasionally checking over her shoulder to see if anyone else was following. Kirkwall was ever-known for its shady assailants, skulking in dark corners in wait for passer-biers. How many gangs were there now? Too many to count. Women wearing shawls in creme-coloured helmets, donning shields and calling themselves the Invisible Sisters, which was far too ridiculous, for they weren't even close to being invisible or undetectable – and they weren't the worst, since there were highwayman, men pretending to be guards and redwater whatever's. They posed little threat to her, or her companions, but she'd rather move undetected to her destination. Who knew whether or not Ithilian would blame her for bringing leech-like gang-bangers to his doorstep. She needed him in his best spirits to convince him to help her. It would be difficult enough spitting the words out, because she never asked for help, specifically from strangers she hardly knew, let alone her own friends.

Pebbles skittered into the gutter, kicked and scuffed away from the toe of her leather boot, as she picked her way down another stairwell, momentarily struck dumb as to what she'd say when she found him. Oh, can you help me find and slaughter two humans somewhere in Kirkwall? In the woods? They're garbage, anyway. It sounded stupid. Would he even ask why she'd request such a thing? He didn't seem the sort to pry into private matters unless it somehow mattered to him. If he outright denied her request, what would she do then. She supposed that she'd have to find them herself, though her tracking abilities were mediocre as best. Asking Rilien was out the question. Having to drag himself back and forth from Tranquility to feeling all of those emotions was cruel. Ashton was out of town, somewhere, and she wasn't exactly sure she wanted to explain her story, in its entirety, to someone she nearly saw everyday.

Finally, Sparrow entered the Alienage's clearing. She stared up at the enormous tree, bedecked with colourful patterns and terracotta pots holding lopsided candles and various feathers, and sighed. Had she been born in the Dalish clan like her mother, perhaps asking wouldn't be so difficult. All Dalish felt a kinship with one another. The want to help others was instinctual, but she hardly fit there, nor here, with her nominal pedigree. No doubt, Ithilian felt the same way towards her. Not quite disliking her, but finding no reason to like her, as well. He owed her nothing at all. And there he was, sitting on a rock. Sparrow cleared her throat, pushed the white locks from her eyes and approached him as she would a particularly skittish deer (for reasons she could not readily discern). As she drew nearer, subtlety sailed straight through the window.

“Ithilian,” She greeted with a slight inclination of her head, eyes already blazing with her unspoken question. She would not address him as a Qun today, for no Qun would aid her with this quest. To them, it would seem a selfish task that would be better left forgotten. “I need your help,” Sparrow began, fiddling with the gaudy bracelets dangling around her wrists. There was no easy way to say it, so she merely looked at him and added, “Tracking and killing someone. Someones, rather.”

Ithilian was in the process of getting reacquainted with the flute, which was more or less like catching up with an old hunting friend from his original Dalish clan. Awkward at first as each tried to discern where the other had been all these years, but then once the time had been summarized, they were able to go back to business as though nothing had changed. It was a rather small thing, sadly not carved by his own hand, but he knew it as though it had been. A few elven children had stopped to listen for a while, but he was not so compelling as Amalia was with her harp, or perhaps she was just better with children.

He was playing a slow tune, not a particularly cheery melody, but something more akin to a lament. His wife had taught him how to play it, but he was trying not to think of that particular fact at the moment, and simply listen to his own music, ensure that the sound was as he remembered it. He came to a close just as a visitor arrived, who he noted as the half-breed elf woman, Sparrow. The one with some form of history with Amalia, judging by their last meeting.

She was straight to the point, and that Ithilian could at least respect. Perhaps she was wise, too, if she chose to come to him for help with tracking and killing. Playing the flute reminded Ithilian of how many humans he'd killed with it. Well, not with the flute directly, but it was a preferred tactic of his to lure trespassing shemlen into a clearing with music, and then allow his brothers and sisters to put them down from afar. Indeed, they'd been separated for far too long.

"Tracking and killing are what I do, it's true," he said, one eye studying her to try and find more information than her words would give. "What I don't do is sell my skills for coin, however, so I'll need a reason why this is worth my time before I can say any more."

Playing the flute for the Alienage's oppressed children? Seemed like he'd taken a leaf out of Amalia's book, though Sparrow wondered just how soft he could be under all that bluster, under all that aggression and indifference she'd witnessed in the Deep Roads. She did not know him well – could not directly form any judgement beyond the small interactions she'd had with him when they'd first met, and when they'd slaughtered drakes and dragons in a deep, dark place she'd rather forget about. Initially, she was jealous of him. Jealous of the friendship he'd found in her once-friend. It hadn't seemed unfair that they lived in the same vicinity, and somehow, thisseemingly random person had seen the newer version of Amalia that she'd wanted to know and bonded with her in ways that seemed impossible to her now. She'd wanted to know every piece of her childhood friend: hidden troves, soliloquy thoughts and unspoken messages that shun as brightly as the moon, crisp and clear as daylight. Apparently, not forever because forever meant something that would remain solid and unchanged. They both moved on, and they'd changed, after all.

Sparrow glanced over Ithilian's shoulders, feeling a little foolish for blurting such a request in front of gawky-eyed fledgelings, who were openly listening in onto what she was saying. Not that she really blamed them. They didn't have much else to do beside huddling around scary-faced elders playing the flute, or else, listening to their actual elders who'd tell stories of a better life, and a better culture, lived somewhere faraway. She understood. She remembered. They would hope for the best, but most likely live the rest of their years in perpetual fear, hoping blithely that things would change – and people like Ithilian would try to make those changes. She wasn't so sure whether anything would make a difference. But, she wasn't here for that, anyway. She took a deep breath, and returned her gaze back to Ithilian. Sparrow didn't believe that this particular person, no matter how similar he and Amalia seemed, could read between the lines and know all of things she hadn't said, but managed to convey. Still, his steady gaze was a little off-putting (perhaps, another trait he'd managed to acquire from her).

What could she say? That she'd been brutalized in the woods as child by shemlen-defilers. That she was not who she said she was, and not what she seemed to be. That her parents were most likely in some travelling clan she refused to return to, and that they probably thought she perished. How much could she tell? It took her by surprise that he was unwilling to accept her offer – uninterested in killing humans just for the sake of killing humans. She knew Ithilian wasn't a monster, only a sentinel, a guardian, and a shepherd to his people, but even still, Sparrow believed that his hatred was a blinding thing that drove him forward like a blade in the night. Foolish thought. Amalia's influence, and the Qun's teachings, were unswervingly against anything as transparent as vengeance.

“I-I, they were...” she began, nearly mumbling, and tried pressing on a little louder, “I was separated from my clan, before Amalia. Long ago, after leaving Tevinter. And I was attacked.” Her eyebrows screwed up, knitting tightly and her hand busied itself in her hair. “A group of them, shemlen. They attacked me, and I-I found them. They're here in Kirkwall, somewhere. Maybe, in the woods,” she explained hoarsely, eyes swirling skyward, “They're parasites, cysts, pockmarks. They deserve—”

Judgement, justice. Most of all, death. It was difficult trying to explain what they'd done to her as a child. Harder still to convince someone that someone else deserved to die, that it would be better off for everyone if they ceased to exist. What if these children wandered too far from the nest? They were vulnerable, too. They could be hurt like she'd been hurt. And then, they'd run away from their once-friends, lose themselves, and become someone entirely different. They would run, never stopping to consider anyone else. Surely, he'd understand.

Meanwhile, not too far away, Aurora was busy working in her garden. Weeds were beginning to attack her precious plants, but they would not have her garden if she had anything to do with it. A rusty tin watering can waited beside her to finish her weeding. She had planned on watering soon after, but the arrival of Sparrow sought to change that plan. She (Aurora was still getting used to that) had gone to Ithilian, and she couldn't help herself. She ended up inadvertantly eavesdropping as she weeded. About midway, Aurora stood and pulled her gloves off, tossing them on top of the watering can. She then approached Sparrow from behind, patiently waiting until she was completely finished.

"I'll help," Aurora spoke first. Her plants could wait, they would be there when she returned. It was not in her character to ignore a friend in need, even if she wasn't specifically asked to help. She just hoped Sparrow wouldn't percieve it as Aurora inviting herself in on a private matter, leaving her mouth working itself for a few moments. She could have chosen better words, yes, but it wasn't like she could swallow them again. Finally, she put words in her mouth and added, "If you need me, that is," she said apologetically.

She'd drop everything to help a friend, she'd offer the same aid if it was Amalia, or Nostariel, or even Lucien. She had found friends in them, in a place long away from her home. They made it feel more like home than it was. And though she was averse to killing, the last being a bandit she had killed some odd years ago in anger, when Ketojan was being led out of Kirkwall, she'd follow Sparrow into this. Besides, the way she spoke of it, they deserved it anyway. Aurora was not their judge, that title belonged to Sparrow.

"Killing humans sounds like fun, does it not?" she added dryly for Ithilian, but she quickly reined in her tongue. It would do Sparrow no good if they bickered back and forth while hunting for these men. If anything, she hoped the comment would drive him into the request. She'd be remiss if she didn't admit that she knew nothing about tracking.

"Says the human," Ithilian said rather darkly. He wasn't armed at the moment, aside from the flute, but it was still quite possible that he looked no less menacing than usual. After Sparrow's explanation, he was no longer conflicted on whether or not to help, however. The descriptors Sparrow used sounded accurate. Parasites. Threats only if they were allowed to linger here. The Alienage itself had been pressed not as hard lately, thanks to the combined efforts of all those who sought to protect it, but that only stressed on Ithilian the need to not grow complacent. There was no reason to wait for danger to strike home when he was capable of meeting it on its own ground. Better that the elves never see the inside of Nostariel's clinic at all.

It still left the matter of how this was to be done, however. "I can find them and kill them," he said, "but the woods are not a small area, and you don't sound sure they're there at all. We may end up going out there and tracking down some shemlen hunter for hours. I'm not fond of wasting my time." He rose slowly to his feet, leaning back up against the great tree behind him, crossing his arms. "Do you have any more definite evidence of their location? I'm often needed here as well, and I can't commit unless I know this won't be a fruitless search."

She mentioned she'd been part of a clan. Were she still, he would not have hesitated. Were she even entirely elven, he also would not have questioned her like this. But she was not elven, nor was she Dalish. She was a half-breed, and cursed to receive perpetually unfair treatment from Ithilian. It was nothing she could change. He disagreed with whatever choice her elven parent had made, to try and raise a child split between worlds. A harsh view, no doubt, but one he knew to be necessary.

"I'll help." The voice, clear as jingling bells, came from behind her. She automatically pivoted on her heels, whipping around to face the newcomer, Aurora – and wondered absently how she hadn't noticed her while walking into the Alienage. Usually, her keen eyes were accustomed to spotting beautiful women, especially if they were preening weeds in a lovely garden. Had she always been there? Fading tendrils of electricity goose-pebbled her arms, flattened the raised hairs on her neck. She placed a hand on her chest, over her heart and exhaled dramatically. “Geez, Aurora. Quiet as a panther, you are.” Doubtlessly from Amalia's tutelage. There were few and far in-between that could walk as quietly as her once-friend, footsteps shushed and muffled. “I—”

It was peculiar. Sparrow still wasn't used to her companions offering their aid, even though Rilien, more often then not, worked behind the scenes to ensure she didn't get into too much trouble. He saw to so many things that she hardly noticed, at all. He did not ask, but simply did. The same thing could be said of the majority of her companions. She assumed that even Sophia could have brought her in, throwing her in a grimy cell, for a number of small crimes she'd committed during her lengthy stay in Kirkwall. By no means was Sparrow a slimy individual, sucking marrow from bones in Lowtown and awaiting poor, wealthy individuals in back-alleys to steal whatever coin they had – but, she'd done her fair share of stealing and squabbling when she needed to. No more, since their merry adventure in the Deep Roads, but she'd always been lucky. Someone wanted, after supposedly hearing her ridiculous request, wanted to help her, out of the goodness of their own heart? Had it been anyone besides Aurora, Sparrow would have scoffed.

When Aurora turned a dry, cutting remark at Ithilian, Sparrow winced. She hadn't meant that all humans were dirty shemlen. She hadn't meant that they all deserved the same sort of punishment, solely for being what they were born as. Those bitter thoughts were reserved for the Dalish who thought all humans were dreadful creatures bent on stealing away what little culture remained. She did not fit as nicely into those categories, and hardly believed herself to be this or that. Perhaps, this made her an impartial party: an outsider looking in on all their strife. She clinched her jaw, and awkwardly rubbed the back of her neck. Whatever animosity Aurora had with Ithilian, or vice versa, it clearly dealt with Ithilian's dislike for human beings, and her disagreement with his attitude. Hopefully, there would be no more hostilities, though she wondered just how far he'd be willing to go for just a short, sharp jibe.

Her musty-brown eyes radiated, once more, but quickly became subdued, and thoughtful when Ithilian reminded her how difficult it would be to find two travelling worms hiding in the woods, or even in the dark recesses of Kirkwall. There were so many variants. They could be living in moderate wealth, having moved up in the world of petty mercenary-work. Hadn't she done the same thing? Minus mercenary-work. Far too excited to elbow her way into the Alienage, and ask him for help, that she'd forgotten to retrieve information from the source: Sophia. But, at least Ithilian hadn't outright denied her request. Her heart soared with rekindled hope, shifting gears and alighting anew. “Not exactly,” She admitted, tapping her chin with two fingers. “But, I have a friend who has documents with their names on them. They came over with the last shipment of immigrants, from Ferelden. With addresses, whereabouts, where they'd plan to be.” It wasn't exactly true. She wasn't even sure whether or not their names were on the ledgers. If Ithilian wasn't on board to help her, she'd never find them on her own.

“You've agreed, then?” Sparrow questioned, easily rhetorical. Of course he had! For the Alienage. For all of the Elven children he strove to protect, he'd follow her until they were rightfully brought to justice. Buried somewhere, or left in the gutter. They hardly deserved anything but brutality. And they would be their death-bringers. “I'll come back once I've gotten the information. Very soon,” She added quickly, swinging her gaze back to Aurora. Better to be done with this conversation before Ithilian decided it wasn't worth the effort. She felt like she'd succeeded in something, as if she were finally moving forward to a brighter, better tomorrow. And as much as she wanted to thank Ithilian, Sparrow understood that his cooperation would not be for her benefit, and it hadn't been completed, as of yet. A wary, though thankful, smile stretched over her lips.

“Yes, I'd like that.” Sparrow paused, eyeing Aurora's mucky knees, dirt still clinging to them. “I'll help with your garden, while I explain some things.”

"I'd appreciate the pair of hands," Aurora began. "The weeds are trying to choke all of the flowers."

Setting

1 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera

Earnings

0.00 INK

A cracked ringing marked the entrance of a tall stranger into one of the Lowtown shops. Dust swirled around his fur boots as he took his first couple of steps into the shop and then looked at the bell that announced his presence. "... Gonna need a new one," the stranger remarked with a sigh. He wore fur fashioned from animal hunted in the wilds, though the quality was top notch. When someone had enough time on their hands as he did, they tend to do tiny things, anything to pass the time. Quality cross stitching with designs sewn into the leather, edges and insides lined with the fur of his hunts. Underneath it all was a cloth shirt tied together with leather. His hair had grown out, falling down past his shoulders and swept back with a leather strip tied into a bow. Noticebly, there was a scar cutting through the right side of his face, and it was still fresh. On his back hung a quiver bereft of arrows and a worn Oaken bow. At loop in his belt hung a wide blade, a machete he had brought along with him on his little trip. Considering the notches lain into the blade, it'd seen it's fair share of work.

"Home, huh? Just as cheery as I left it," Ashton deadpanned to himself, swatting at the dust he was stirring up. Leave Lowtown for a couple of months, and his shop gets taken over by the stuff. Typical. Ashton had grown since his leave. Not upward, as that was likely impossible. He was already lofty as it was, get any taller and he wouldn't be able to walk in a breeze without being blown down. He grew outward, in the only way one does when left to their own devices in the wilderness. No longer the walking stick he left, there was now some meat on those bones. Flimsy arms were now strong, a concave chest now bowed outward with muscle, and powerful legs provided a strong foundation. By no means was he Lucien, the man was still as wide as two of Ashtons, but he was doing fine for himself.

He walked across the aged planks, listening to their whines and squeals, so unused to contact for the past months. Sure, they always did that, but after not hearing them for a while, they just seemed so much more apparent. Hell, he didn't even know how long it had been since he'd last been in his shop. All he knew was that it was warm, then it was cold, then it got warm again. Those snowy months were terrible, especially since he had nothing to warm his belly. Something he was looking to rectify that very instant. He tossed what he had on his back onto the counter and reached behind it, retrieving a dusty bottle and a companion glass. He took a seat, pulled the cork out with his teeth, spitting it into some corner of the shop. He paused pouring the liquid into the glass as it was just dusty as a the bottle.

Eyelids fell halfway across his brown irises. That was no good. There was an easy solution, at least. He sat the glass back down on the counter and drank from the bottle straight. The resulting burn was just what he had been missing, and now that there was a fire back in his throat, the world seemed back in balance. He did nothing for the longest time, just sitting on his counter and knocking back the bottle, taking everything in around him. It was different, his shop. He had become so accustomed to the loneliness of the wilds, where the only sounds were the rustle of leaves, the drifting winds, and the calls of animals every now and then. Here there was still sounds of life all around him, but muted. Like it was repressed, nothing like the crisp air of the woods.

It called for another drink, as he knocked the bottle back once more. He really, really needed that. Though what else was he supposed to do? His first stop had been Nostariel's shop-- empty. Strange, considering it was in the middle of the day. His next destination had been the Hanged Man, and after a couple of drinks, he was satisfied that Nostariel was neither there. So here he was, in his shop, sitting and drinking alone. He could think of worse ways of spending the days, but he could imagine better too. He began to get antsy, just sitting on that counter, and with some exaggerated movement, leapt from the counter back to the floor, where he began to meander around his shop. Eventually, he found himself standing infront of the Dragonbone bow he had finished just a few months prior.

It too had a fine layer of dust, not that it surprised him. He really should have left someone the key so that his shop wouldn't look so... Dead when he returned. He blew a layer of dust off the bow, though some of it forced its way down his throat and sent him into a coughing fit. Something he remedied with a quick swig from the bottle. Once he was cured from his coughing fit, he lifted the bow from it's place and held it in his arm. He felt its perfect weight, the balance he had carved in it. It was, with a bit of arrogance, his finest work. He had surprised himself with its workmanship. He didn't think himself capable of such an artisan piece. Too fine for his own hands, that was for sure. It'd do nicely for his purpose. He sat the bow back down into his mountings and grinned.

The same cracked ringing marked the entrance of a guest in Ashton's shop, and in the doorway stood a petite, blonde, elven girl, with a bow slung over her shoulder, a half full quiver of well-made arrows to go with it. She was perhaps not the small blonde female elven archer that Ashton was hoping to see, but Lia certainly didn't know that. She looked over the state of Ashton's shop with an expression that was either amusement, or bewilderment. Upon noticing the man himself drinking straight from the bottle, she paused, keeping the door open with the toe of her boot.

"Should I... come back later?"

He turned toward the door and shrugged, "You don't have to, but I don't have any stock to sell-- unless you count all this dust stock. In which case, I've got plenty, sell it all to you for a copper. Can I help you sweetheart?" He asked. Obviously Ashton didn't remember the girl. A single instance of their meeting three odd years ago was a hard thing to remember-- even if she was pretty and blonde, though still far too young. He turned his back to her, sat on the counter, lifted his legs and then spun his way back, propping a hand under his chin and popping the mouth of the bottle back into his mouth. His eyes never left her as he eagerly awaited her answer. It'd been a long time since he spoke to another creature that didn't growl back. He hadn't realized it, but he missed conversations. Talking to birds could hardly be considered a conversation.

"Not here to buy," she said simply, making her way into the store proper, and letting the door close behind her. It was no wonder he didn't recognize her. She'd changed in appearance considerably over the past three years, growing up to a whopping five feet two inches, with some noticeable changes to her figure that had certainly not been present when she'd been twelve. But her face was still largely the same, and her hair still the same well-kept shoulder length that it had been before. She hardly recognized him, either, and for a moment thought he was a different man, but when he called her sweetheart in that way, she knew him to be the same.

"Seems rather dumb to buy the skins when I could hunt them myself," she said with a casual shrug, her tone taking just a hint of playfulness. "I'm looking for work, actually. Work outside the Alienage. This seemed like a good place to start, given my skillset. You... wouldn't happen to need any help around here, would you?" She had clearly taken note of all the dust everywhere, and while cleaning wasn't exactly what she had in mind in terms of help, if it would bring in coin, she wouldn't mind all that much.

"I need all the help I can get..." He muttered, but his flittering smile broke back onto his face. "A hireling, huh? Fair enough-- I'm off doing Maker knows what most days, someone to man-- er, woman, rather-- the store while I'm away doesn't sound half bad actually," Ashton said rubbing the whiskers on his face. "Just.. Don't expect to be swimming in wealth. Sovereigns don't rain in this line of work," he added. Hell, he had trouble staying afloat before he came into the sizable chuck of wealth thanks to the Expedition. That could be chalked up to his extracurriculars instead of actually doing his job of course... If the girl was even slightly more focused than he was, she'd be fine.

"Right, if I can have your name, you can start right now. This place needs a bit of... Dusting," An understatement.

"It's Lia," she said. "And if you ever need someone to go out and hunt more for you while you're... drinking, or doing Maker knows what, I can do that, too. Girls can do more than clean, you know." She seemed semi-serious, but something in her eyes gave away the fact that she wouldn't hold it against him that her first task was dusting. "And hey, maybe with me around, you can actually start making some money here. I don't expect to get rich or anything. I'm a city elf," she pointed out, as if that wasn't obvious. "A lot of people in the Alienage never even see sovereigns. I'd just be happy to bring in some outside coin is all."

She was relatively certain that if he was going to recognize her, he would have done so by now, so she pulled a small knife from her belt, with a handle carved from bone. Antlers, specifically. It was a pretty little blade, slightly curved. "He carved this for me after you killed that deer, by the way. He was really practical back then. I thought he might have tried to kill you, honestly. I'm glad he didn't. Wouldn't be able to make money off of you if he had."

"Hmm?" Ashton murmurred as she withdrew her knife. Deer? Him? What was she talking-- Oh. Oh. Oh no, "Ithilian?" he monotoned. "You're Ithilian's girl. Does he know you're here? More importantly, can he track you here? I just got back, I'd rather not flee back into the forest," Ashton said, putting a hand on his face. Maybe the man wouldn't murder him if he gave Lia a job. She needs employment. Maybe he's still a practical man. The memory came back to him. The incident in the forest with the contested deer. That's right, he remembered her now. She was younger back then, smaller. Though it wasn't her he was focused on. She was a good kid. It was her father that he was worried about. The time with Sparrow and Rilien in the Alienage came back-- and the way he butchered the Darkspawn in the Deep Roads. He... Preferred to not think about it.

"If he murders me, it's you I'm gonna haunt," he deadpanned.

She crossed her arms. "Pff, calm down. I'm not his girl. He's not my father. He just looks out for me. Which means you should probably be on your best behavior. But thankfully, he also listens to me. He'll be mad when he finds out about this, but I'll make sure he doesn't kill you. It's not like you're kidnapping me, after all." "He best not. It's hard to get paid when your employer is dead," Ashton said, plugging his mouth with the bottle. So this girl wasn't Ithilian's girl... It only took him what? Three and something years to figure that out? Not like Ashton had exchanged many words with the elf. He shrugged, feeling that the explanation was good enough-- or maybe it was the booze starting to take effect. Either way, Ashton pointed into a corner of the shop. "There should be a broom somewhere. See if we can't make this shop look presentable for today, and we'll set to replenish the stock tomorrow," he said.

She nodded, unloading her bow and quiver and placing them on the counter, before taking up the first broom she was able to find. She was relatively certain Ithilian would listen to her when she told him not to kill Ashton. She was here by choice, after all. If he wanted to be angry at anyone, he would have to be angry with her. And she knew by now that he really wasn't capable of that. He could pretend to for a while, but it always wore off when he stopped thinking about it.

Ashton watched the girl work for a while before an idea struck him. She lived in the Alienage, she was an elf (obviously) maybe she knew? "Hey Lia, you know the doctor set up nearby? Nostariel, the Warden elf? In the nice blue little building? You have any idea where she is? I checked by earlier and she wasn't around. See, she's a good friend of mine, and I promised her something," he said, sitting eagerly on the edge of the counter. He hoped she knew.

"Nostariel? Yeah, I saw her in the Alienage on my way out," Lia said as she swept. "There's something going on, but Ithilian wouldn't tell me anything about it. If you go looking for her, might want to avoid telling Ithilian about this little arrangement, yeah? Probably best if I do the explaining." He paused and nodded, "... Yeah, that's probably best," He agreed, hopping off the counter and shouldering his equipment. Six months of constantly wearing his bow and his machete made him feel naked without them. However, a bow would be little use without arrows, so he reached under the counter and retrieved another dusty bundle. He slipped them into his quiver and made his way to the door before stopping. "You're free after you're done. Lock up if you leave," Ashton said, tossing a key into her direction.

Setting

4 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

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"Look at you. Like fat Dathrasi you feed, and feed, and complain only when your meal is interrupted. You do not look up. You do not see that the grass is bare. All you leave in your wake is misery. You are blind; I will make you see!"



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The Deep Roads expedition made its members a potential fortune, though some of them chose not to accept more than was needed. Others used it to move up in the world, gaining a foothold in Hightown, and some passing interest from the Viscount himself. Their names were on many lips, but soon they passed beneath notice once more. There were still more pressing issues plagueing the city. Tensions between the mages and the templars had only risen in the intervening years, with a number of incidents flaring tempers on both sides. But despite the volatility of the issue, it seems to have been put on hold for the time being, in favor of seemingly more threatening matters.

The influx of desperate refugees created an impressive movement in the area of organized crime, none profiting so much as the ever potent Coterie. The corruption even spread so high as the captain of the city guard, and though that particular case was rooted out, still others threaten to rear their heads at the least opportune of moments. The forces trying to hold back this tide are spread dangerously thin as it is.

But perhaps most alarmingly is the fact that four years after their unexpected landing, the Qunari warriors and their Arishok had yet to depart Kirkwall. They continued to insist that they were waiting for their ship. They had been wrecked in a storm, but only fools couldn't see that there was a different kind of storm looming. Those who knew better, and were capable, would attempt to put a halt to the madness, before the Qun demanded something catastrophic...


The Chanter's Board has been updated. New quests are available.





Nostariel clenched the letter more tightly in her fist, worrying her lower lip with her teeth. It was the last one Feynriel had sent her, and he hadn’t yet responded to her reply. As it had been two weeks, she was worried about him. Though she was seldom able to visit anymore, and indeed tried not to, since he needed to grow accustomed to living with the Dalish alone, they communicated frequently via letters like this one, and he was always prompt. She suspected he wrote her more often than his own mother, and perhaps that was to be expected. She understood his struggles with his magic, with fitting in, in a way that Arianni, Maker bless her, could not.


Feynriel wrote:Nostariel,

Thanks for writing. I’m glad the Alienage is doing better. It never felt like home to me, but, well, the people there were good to me, as much as they could be.

My dreams are getting worse. I tried doing the thing that you said, about reminding myself of all the good things in my life, but the demons, they just talk louder, and it’s getting really hard to sleep. The Keeper says this is something I have to beat on my own, but I don’t know if I can. I don’t belong here, not really. I don’t belong anywhere. I feel so… I don’t know.

Anyway, I shouldn’t be bothering you. I guess sometimes it feels like you’re the only person who really understands. I hope you’re keeping well.

-Feynriel


Naturally, such tidings had bothered her greatly, and she’d written back at once, asking him if he’d like her to come and visit, see if they couldn’t work something out. But there’d been no reply at all, and now she was truly concerned. She wasn’t with him every day, so she couldn’t say for sure, but his predicament seemed to be more troublesome than what most mages had to put up with. If so, the Keeper just doing nothing about it was bound to become a problem, and she didn’t want to see anything happen to Feynriel. He was scarcely more than a child, perhaps sixteen this year, if she recalled correctly. She’d paid one of the Sabrae craftsmen to make him a staff of ironwood for the occasion, as it would have been about the time he took his Harrowing, were he in the Circle, the only rite of passage mage children received.

So today, she was going to see Arianni. She had no idea if the young man’s mother would know anything more than the Warden herself did, but if she did, Nostariel needed to know. If that didn’t work, she was going to trek to Sundemont. Today. Nodding resolutely, Nostariel donned her leathers, a set of light armor she’d had made a few months ago, after the fashion of some female mercenaries and hunters she’d seen. It wasn’t a lot of protection, but it was more than she’d had before, and still allowed her to cast unencumbered. Chestplate, laced braces for her upper arms, and another for her left forearm, to absorb any bowstring impact. Her shortbow was plain, but serviceable, and slung diagonally over her back, so she could wear it and her staff at once. Lacing her knee-high boots, she tapped the toes against the floor to test for snugness, then made her way out of the Hanged Man and around the winding alleyways of Lowtown until she reached the Alienage.

Arianni was standing outside her home, looking concerned, as though she were waiting for someone. Possibly coincidental, but it seemed a bit too unlikely. “Arianni?” the Warden asked cautiously. “Is everything all right?”

Across the Alienage from them, Ithilian sheathed the last of his weapons. It was still strange to wear Parshaara on his hip, and probably always would be, but it was only fitting. There was nothing that wasn't strange about his connection to the Qunari woman beside him. They'd been approached by the Dalish woman Arianni only a few minutes earlier, sought out to aid her in the cause of her son a second time. Apparently the Dalish hadn't been able to help him with his gift, or something of that nature. She had been quite closed off about it, only wanting to say more once they'd committed to assisting her.

Not knowing what to expect, Ithilian had decided to come prepared, armed with his bow, two short swords, and Parshaara, along with his remade set of armor. The headscarf had been replaced with a hood, but this was currently down around his shoulders. These people had seen his head uncovered before, and were no longer startled as they once were. Ithilian was not pleased about being kept in the dark when his help was requested, but she had mentioned Marethari, and his obligations to his people were more than enough to get him to lend his aid, especially when he was only requested to travel across the Alienage for what was needed.

As always, Amalia’s motives for acting as she did were less clear, though in this case, she would readily admit that she was going because she had been asked to go, and it was nothing more complicated than that. She, too, was bristling with weaponry, which was in truth but a small selection of what she now possessed. Her armor, dark with mottled blues, greys, and the occasional green, was fashioned from the hide of the dragon they’d slain, and she now wore its skin as though it were her own, darkened with pitch and giving her the appearance of a silhouette as much shadow as solid. Admittedly, it tended to unnerve, so most of the time, she disguised it with outerwear, but not today. A curious, bladed metal circle with three perpendicular handles hung from her back, joining the knife in each boot, her trigger-mechanism gauntlet, and the chain wound and hanging from her waist in arming her against whatever she may face. A leather bandoleer held an array of potions and poisons, but everything was muffled, designed so as not to clink together and give her away with sound.

The two of them reached Arianni shortly after Nostariel did, and the Qunari offered both a nod. She was unsurprised to see the Warden here, as she did bear more connection to the boy than either herself or Ithilian did, whatever his heritage may be. ”Perhaps she would be willing to share the details with all three of us,” Amalia suggested upon hearing the mage’s question. It seemed that something other than the distressed mother’s request had brought the Warden to this place, but it was unlikely Arianni would refuse another person willing to help her son for nothing in return.

Arriani looked skittish, about to respond to Nostariel when the others arrived as well. "Thank you for coming on such short notice," she said to Ithilian and Amalia, before looking to Nostariel. "I was about to seek you out as well, Warden. It's Feynriel. He's gone into a coma. Something to do with his magic, I don't know..." The trouble was obviously proving a little overwhelming with her, as it was something a mother without magic could do little to help with. This was so far beyond her.

"Keeper Marethari's coming to assist. She says she knows of a way to fix this. I hope she is right."

"Let's all hope," a voice agreed from behind the group. Before, when Ashton descended the stairs, he almost promptly turned around and left. The first person he noticed was, of course Nostariel. The second was Ithilian, which caused a hiccup in his step, and the third was the figure draped in the color of midnight who was the one that almost caused him to leave. Though, Nostariel was there. He wouldn't just leave, not after all he had traveled to get back. He had a promise to keep after all, and he never broke his promises. He'd take ten Ithilians to see Nostariel once. So he took one last long gulp of air and did what he did best. Firmly insert himself in the conversation, and to hell with the consequences.

He went so far as to wink at his pretty little Warden friend and added, "You're a hard one to track down-- and that's saying something coming from me," with that stupid little grin stuck firmly on his face. Oh good, he could still do that. He was worried that it may have gotten rusty.

Nostariel was a bit surprised by the appearance of Ithilian and Amalia, both looking fit to go off and fight a two-person war against… well, she knew not what, but she didn’t like its chances. They appeared to have business with Arianni as well, business which the woman seemed reluctant to speak of. The story soon revealed itself, however, and Nostariel’s face fell into a marked frown. Feynriel had fallen into dream and was unable to wake? That was not a problem she had ever heard of before, and started to confirm her suspicion that there was something special about the boy. She felt more the fool for not having detected it before, but she knew not what it could possibly be.

What scant information Arianni had wasn’t helpful in that regard, but the woman’s stress was evident. Nostariel placed a soothing hand on her arm, squeezing gently. If there were any people who could help Feynriel, it would be those who had helped him before, who understood his situation and sought to do right by him anyway. The hand fell away, however, and any words she might have spoken died in her throat at the sound of another voice, one she knew well, but had half-expected never to hear again. Her back had been turned to the entrance of the Alienage, but she wheeled to face it now, unable (or perhaps simply unwilling), to stop the broad grin from taking up residence on her face.

He’d kept his promise after all.

Of course, the reality of the situation hit her shortly thereafter, and her face fell into something much more neutral again, and she shot a glance at the other two out of the corner of her eye. “Well,” she said, “life keeps moving, and I with it. It’s… it’s really very good to see you again, Ash, but… we’re about to find ourselves in the middle of something that might be dangerous, and…” she wasn’t really sure how to finish the statement. She didn’t desire to be cold, and dismiss him due to being busy, but that was essentially what she had to do. Feynriel couldn’t wait, not any longer, and the Keeper would be here any moment.

Ashton chuckled, his shoulders bobbing along with him. What? Did she really expect him to not go on this adventure with her, despite the strange company she kept? "How very sagelike of you," he began, patting her on the shoulder, "Dangerous somethings? It's good to know nothing's changed while I was gone." After the past six months, he could deal with a little danger in the city. At least a bear wouldn't attempt to eat his face in Kirkwall... Of course, Ithilian was mere feet away. Best to not think of it, he told himself. Though he was loath to, he tore his eyes away from Nostariel and sat them upon the elven lady they had been speaking to before. "Ma'am, I'd like to aid your son as well." Nostariel had told him about Feynriel, the half-elven mage child. From the way she spoke of him, they were good friends-- though Ashton never met the boy personally. He doubted the Dalish would let him get anywhere near him.

Hey, any friend of Nostariel's is a friend of his.

"Thank the Creators for your kindness, all of you," Arianni said, while Ithilian had mysteriously crossed his arms and visibly resisted rolling his eye.

"Marethari's here. I hope this will all be over soon."

Setting

4 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

Marethari came alone, or at least she entered the Alienage alone, another thing that Ithilian felt an urge to grumble about. The Keeper could defend herself, of course, but Lowtown was a safe place for very few people, and none of those people were elves, certainly not elven mages. Surely bringing a few of the clan's hunters along could not have hurt. She was a stark contrast to Arianni's frantic lack of composure, coming down the stairs with slow, measured steps, taking in the sight for Ithilian had to assume was the first time. She paused at the base of the steps to gaze up to the heights of the vhenadahl, with an expression he couldn't place. Not sorrow but... pity? That such a beautiful thing should have to live in a place like this? If that was it, then Ithilian knew the feeling well.

The elves that recognized her for what she was stopped and gave respectful greetings, some bowing, others falling to a knee, a few children waving shyly at her. She moved elegantly to the base of the great tree, touching it for a moment with the palm of her hand. Ithilian knew not what connection her magical abilities gave her to the tree, but she did not seem rushed. He expected she would have been if the situation required extreme haste. When she was satisfied, she turned and made her way to the group standing before Arianni's house. The elven woman bowed before her Keeper briefly in greeting, before indicating that they should all head inside.

Arianni's home was as humble as any in the Alienage, the sparse interior decoration an indication that it had been hardly lived in over the past few years, as Feynriel and Arianni both had been spending most, or all, of their time among the Dalish outside the city. For the moment, Feynriel rested seemingly peacefully in the room that must have once been his. The group gathered in the living room around Marethari, awaiting her explanation.

"I apologize, Arianni. I did not wish to tell you by letter how grave your son's situation is. The magic he possesses makes him what the Tevinters called 'somniari,' a dreamer. Dreamers have the power to control the Beyond, what humans call 'the Fade.' Feynriel is the first in two ages to survive."

Ithilian kept his eyes fixed on the sleeping boy as he spoke. This was indeed the first time he'd seen Marethari since departing her clan years ago, so he wasn't sure what to expect. He had been... quite different then. At least, he liked to think so. "Controlling the Beyond? What does that entail?" He had no familiarity with magic, other than the knowledge that it was dangerous, and needed to be taught carefully to avoid needless destruction.

"Dreamers are unique for their ability to enter the Fade at will," Marethari explained, "without the aid of lyrium. In the Fade, they can shape dreams, and even affect the world beyond the Veil. Tevinter somniari used to enter the minds of sleepers, and slay them in their dreams."

"And you know how we can help him?" Arianni asked. Marethari nodded uneasily. "The elves of the Dales were experts in the somniari arts. They could even help those with no power enter the Fade. I have done my best to recreate the ritual. We will use Feynriel's childhood home as a focus to draw him back through the Veil."

Going into the Fade. Ithilian crossed his arms and sighed quietly, but made no complaint. He would certainly be willing to trust Marethari's knowledge of the magical art, moreso than anyone else, and if she had chosen to take Feynriel into her clan, then it was Ithilian's responsbility to assist him, regardless of what he might think of the boy's race. "Still looking to come along, shem?" He said rather harmlessly towards Ashton. He certainly couldn't deny that he'd prefer it if the human weren't here.

Nostariel’s jaw was tight as she took in the sight of the poor child laying there. She’d not heard of somniari before, but… the consequences weren’t hard to figure out. If someone like that, someone like Feynriel, ever became possessed by a demon… the Warden shuddered. It couldn’t happen. What they’d deal with in the aftermath would be something no amount of Templars in Kirkwall could fix. A demon with the ability to manipulate the Fade, to bend reality itself? No wonder they plagued him so often. His very existence was like dangling a fresh kill in front of a starving wolf.

I’m so sorry, Feynriel. I should have come sooner. But I promise you, I will save you. No matter what I have to face to do it. She was done being too late, or not strong enough. Turning from the youth to the Keeper, Nostariel nodded. “I’m going. It’s been a while since I’ve walked the Fade, but it’s not wholly unfamiliar.” The last time she’d been in there while awake was her Harrowing, and it had been aptly-named, but that was still one more time than any of the others had.

A cocky smirk spread across the lone shem's face. Once inside Arianni's house, Ashton had posted up against the wall, away from the elves and the the one dressed in midnight (which he had come to recognize as Amalia, Sparrow's... Friend? Acqauintance? Anyway, he vaguely remembered the woman) and generally stayed out of their way. He was certainly the fish out of water. "Dreamwalking? We certainly live charmed lives, but you'll find I don't scare easily," He said, pushing himself off of the wall and putting himself back into the gathering proper.

Even six months away, he still remembered Nostariel's mannerisms. He could see the worry hitched in her shoulders and written plain as day on her face. He placed a gentle hand on her shoulder and nodded, first looking at Nostariel, and then Arianni, "We'll pull him out." His tone was sure and as optimistic as ever. Like diving into the dreams of a mage wasn't as dangerous as it sounded, and just another chore that needed done.

The Fade, was it? More smoke and mirrors, and hissra. Amalia knew well enough the power illusions could hold, however, and she did not envy the boy his torment. If this, to enter the realm where nothing was real and everything was dangerous, was the way to save him, then she would do it. She knew not the consequences of doing otherwise as well as the mages in the room would, but even she could understand that a Saarebas of such a sort possessed would be a problem. The thought of possession brought her thoughts around to Venak hol, and if anything, this solidified her resolve. She would not allow this boy to become like him, tormented unendingly by a creature who could make the impermissible seem reasonable, even enticing.

”It would appear that we must make ready to face what he does, then,” she pointed out flatly. She did not suppose for a moment that the matter would be as simple as tracking him down in the dream. There were bound to be such creatures about, and, illusion or not, they would not be simple to deal with. Of late, nothing had been simple at all, much as she might have desired otherwise.

Ithilian nodded as well, seeing as the others were all in agreement. "Let's have it done, then." Arianni smiled at the resolve of them all. "I told you their courage was legendary!" Marethari nodded her approval, but did not seem as heartened as the boy's mother. "Now, Arianni, please excuse us. We must prepare." Arianni jumped slightly, as if she suddenly realized she was trespassing in her own home. "Oh, of course," she said, taking her leave.

When she was beyond the range of voices, Marethari sighed. "There is more I must tell you that is not for her ears. Feynriel... he cannot become an abomination. The destruction he would cause is unimaginable. If you cannot save him from the demons, you must kill him yourself. A death in the Fade will make him as the Circle's Tranquil are. He will be no threat after."

Ithilian nodded his understanding. "If it must be done, we'll handle it. I won't allow him to endanger the Alienage." Marethari nodded approval, knowing she could count on Ithilian to do what needed to be done.

Nostariel had spared a smile for Ashton, but it quickly fell away, and what Marethari had to say thereafter was… discouraging, to say the least. ”It won’t come to that,” she said firmly. She would save him. She would. She must. On some level, she knew that she was making this into more than it was, that she should be thinking about the consequences. But despite herself, all she could really consider was that this was another opportunity for her to save someone… or let the worst of ends meet them. And this time, she couldn’t let herself fail.

"I wish you luck," Marethari said to the four of them. "Be strong. All will face temptation in the Fade. Now, let us begin."




The Fade felt... surprisingly natural. Perhaps that was what the ritual was meant to do. But dreams, after all, felt normal until the dreamer awoke, so maybe only afterward would Ithilian recognize the strange nature of the place he currently inhabited. Apart from being in the Fade, he did not recognize his surroundings. He had thought to see the interior of Arianni's home, only different, but this was not there, nor anywhere in the Alienage. They were surrounded by cold stone, statues of the Tevinter slaves hung from the pillars, giant bronze peons covering their faces.

It was definitely somewhere in Kirkwall, then. No other city made such a point of how the low were trod upon than Kirkwall. But this specific location must have had some significance for Feynriel, else why would they be here? "What is this place? Is this the Gallows?" He had yet to see the inside of it, though he imagined Feynriel hadnt either. Maybe it was simply what he thought the Gallows would look like.

Ashton's first instinct was to look at his hands. A light orange-greenish hue overlayed his vision, giving everything a sickly kind of look about it. What else he noticed was the faint blur surrounding everything from the edges of his hands, to the tiles at his feet. It was almost dizzying in effect, but fortunately, nature sought to give him impeccable equilibrium. He wouldn't fall down in heap because of his eyes. His next instict was to take in the visions from around them-- which was something to be expected in the nightmares of a mageling. The Gallows were unique in their oppressiveness, and made quite the metaphor for newly minted mages. He took a couple of steadying steps forward, pulling away from the party and taking in his surroundings.

"No doubt about it. These are the Gallows, I can't think of anywhere else statues cheery as these would be. Depressing that his nightmares would-- Umph!" He wasn't able to finish his sentence. A book had come from somewhere inside the dream and rammed itself into his belly, doubling him over and then passing over him unimpeded. Ashton took the moment to go to his knee to avoid getting attacked by another dream book, and to catch his breath. Once the initial wave of pain was gone he spoke again, though irritation twinged in his voices. "Dangerous flying books I do not remember. Pretty sure that the Templars would throw a fit over that," He said, retreating back to the party with sharper eyes this time around.

Amalia raised a speculative brow as the unwary man was hit in the abdomen by a flying book. She might have smiled, even, but truthfully, nothing about this place was inclining her to it. She had a strange feeling of vertigo, like this place could at any moment turn upside down and that would make as much sense as anything. Being someone quite grounded in reality and even science, she detested it on principle. Magic was not something she ever desired to be involved with, but she had committed herself to this course of action, and she would see it through to its end, no matter how bitter that turned out to be.

She would not, however, stand around and waste time in this place. The blurs at the edges of everything, the nonsensical floating furniture… all more illusion designed to pollute the mind, doubtless designed to ensnare, to placate them with muted colors and sleepy surroundings. She would not be lulled. This was not the world, this was not of the Qun. Her truth lay long and far outside such farcical fantasy. “Let us proceed. It does not matter where we are, only where the boy is.” As good as her word, she strode forward, down the strange hallway that lay before them.

Amalia’s irritation was palpable, and any amusement that Nostariel would have felt at her friend’s not-so-cordial run-in with the floating books swiftly dissolved. She supposed she could understand the Qunari’s reluctance to be here—the Fade could be… unsettling, especially for those unused to it. She supposed that Amalia must dream as every human and elf did, but that didn’t mean she dreamed quite like this. Nodding quickly, the elf scurried after the Qunari’s longer strides, past several alcoves and other rooms… she supposed it might be a representation of the Templar quarters, from the décor, but it was as Amalia said: it didn’t really matter where they were, only that Feynriel was here. Her Harrowing, she remembered, had taken her to a dark tunnel. She probably should have thought about that a little more before she decided to become a Grey Warden, really.

They passed rooms asking to be explored, peculiar puzzles begging to be solved, and time-wasting endeavors various and sundry, all strangely tempting. Perhaps this part was the realm of a demon of Sloth, then. It would explain the faint sleepiness she could feel, the vague inclination to take a short break, that Feynriel could wait just a little longer…

Nostariel slammed the door on the thought with an exercise of willpower. There was no way she was making that boy wait any longer than he already had. The hallway, which had seemed to stretch before them, led at last out into what appeared to be a replica of the Gallows courtyard. It was empty, but as they descended, she spotted an approaching figure. Dark in color, it had the typical amorphous shape of a shade, its single glowing eye sitting where the head would be on a more human creature. It floated towards them languidly, with undulations of its dark form.

“Careful,” she warned, “We have company, and it’s not Feynriel.”

"Well... it's rare to see--"

“No,” Amalia answered the Warden tersely, eyeing the approaching creature and drawing something from her boot, “We do not.” She threw the knife with a lash of her hand, burying it in the demon’s eye. Assuming arrows would work just as well in the Fade as they did in reality, Ithilian's bow was in his hand the moment he saw Amalia move to attack, the arrow released and thudding into the demon's chest. Another followed side-by-side Ithilian's, pinning the demon likewise in the chest, though opposite side of Amalia. Ashton lowered his bow and spared an eyebrow raising glance for the nearby elf. Apparently, they had the same idea.

Nostariel blinked, then shrugged, finishing the creature with a spike of ice. It would have been rather unimpressive to hit slightly off center mass next to these particular archers, after all. "Well... I suppose he didn't have anything good to say anyway. Perhaps we should try the stairs."

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon

Earnings

0.00 INK

A summons from a Templar was not something Rilien was particularly inclined to answer, but in this case, he decided he could make an exception, as it was old business. Emeric had sent for the Tranquil, telling him that he’d made some headway on the case that began three years ago with the mysterious disappearance of a Circle mage and a wealthy Orlesian’s wife. Giving the matter some due consideration, Rilien had sent two written requests of his own: one to Lucien, whom he felt would be both willing and able to assist in the matter-- as Sparrow was currently absent and he did not think he wished to conduct such delicate work with Rapture-- and the other to the mage-girl, Aurora, who had comprised the final point of their trio last time.

He wasn’t really sure why he’d done that; perhaps he simply believed that she would want to see the matter to its conclusion, as he did. Regardless, the missives, written in his blunt, terse manner, had requested their presence in the Gallows, today, in about fifteen minutes from now, to speak with Emeric and learn what he had uncovered. There was likely to be bloody work involved, but then, Rilien’s life had scarcely ever been anything but bloody work.

He himself was a bit early, and lingered for a time at the Lowtown entrance to the Gallows, aware that this was most likely the route by which both of the other parties would come… if they came at all. Ser Lucien would. The mage, he knew too little about to discern for certain. It was irrelevant. Two people, the two of them specifically, would be adequate to the task if need be. Leaning against the archway that led into the mages’ prison, he crossed his arms over his chest (the unusually-warm spring day had prompted him to forgo his normal sleeves in favor of a tunic with none at all and leather forearm bracers edged with steel) and waited with utmost patience for them to appear.

Lucien was hardly surprised that Rilien’s letter was as terse and short as it turned out to be. Actually, he was rather pleased that his Tranquil friend had thought of him upon the prospect of needing to accomplish something. That he’d asked him for assistance. Rilien was brutally practical, and capable of a great deal himself, so he wasn’t likely to ask for help unless he felt he would truly need it, making such occurrences in Lucien’s experience quite rare. It was nice to be able to do something definitive for him—was that not the point of having friends, in a sense?

It was with this thought in mind that Lucien made his way, fully-armored in dark grey and armed with his massive axe, to the entrance to the Gallows, spotting the Tranquil from quite a distance, leaning upon the stone archway that marked the entrance, just in front of one of those rather macabre bronze statues. Truly, it was a wonder they even still remained, but it was not lost on him that they were very effective psychological warfare against those held here. A shame, that they felt the need to use it at all; was psychological pressure on mages not something best avoided? The logic puzzled him, but now was not the time for contemplation of it.

Approaching his friend, Lucien smiled and dipped his head. “Ril. It’s good to see you. You’re looking well.” Actually, minus the fact that his hair was a great deal shorter, he resembled the fugitive Bard Lucien had crossed Ferelden with now more than ever, as his finer clothes were replaced with more practical ones for warm seasons. It was an interesting alteration, as the tattoo would make him more recognizable to certain parties, given its origin. Perhaps he was no longer concerned with being found. If so, it was a positive development, indeed.

“Now, are we expecting anyone else? Sparrow or Ashton, perhaps?”

"Aurora, actually," she announced. "It's nice to see you again, Lucien," She said with a genuine smile. Today, Aurora wore a cream colored tunic with extremely short sleeves, and a lowcut neckline showing Ketojan's amulet. Amalia's gift embraced her right arm, while a woven bracelet sat on her left. She had her crimson head of hair pulled back into a tight ponytail. Her pants were tucked into thick soled shoes, in case things got heavy. In any case, the girl looked like the personification of spring itself. "Rilien," She stated plainly for the Tranquil. It'd been a while since she'd seen the tranquil last, as they haven't had much contact outside of their first task-- the one that today's meeting was supposedly about.

She just wished that that meeting didn't have to be in the Gallows. Under the bronze slave statues at that. The imagery and the metaphor at hand was beating her upside the head, and unsurprisingly, she didn't like it. "I do wish we could have met elsewhere though," She said, pointing an accusing finger at the suspect statues. She hoped the Templar would be here soon (a phrase she never thought would come to mind), so that she wouldn't have to linger in the Gallows for long. Amalia's training or not, she shouldn't be there. It wasn't wise.

“As are you,” Rilien replied to Lucien. Then again, he could not really recall a time when Lucien had not been a picture of health and vitality. Trial and tribulation did less to wear on his spirit or his body than those of anyone else the Tranquil had met, and that was rather saying something. Even he grew weary, but if Lucien did, he was very expert indeed about keeping this fact hidden. Even so, something seemed particularly effulgent about him lately, and perhaps it was only that he felt he once more had some purpose to work towards. A notion he once would have found ridiculous, but now understood to some degree.

”There is… one other, but I do not know if she will put in an appearance. We will wait a bit longer yet.” Of course, as he said this, Aurora appeared, which was rather convenient, all things considered. She offered both of them greetings, the one for Lucien considerably more friendly than he would have expected. Then again, she shouldn’t be surprised—Lucien had an undeniable way with people, such that nearly everyone he met became his friend. That he had worked this peculiar magic on a Tranquil was evidence enough of its effectiveness.

”I believe we would all prefer to be elsewhere,” he said, as much agreement as she was going to get, ”but it was not my decision to make.” Someone of his… sort protesting something as inconsequential as a location was bound to raise the wrong eyebrows. Gesturing for them both to follow, the elf led them further into the Gallows, to where Emeric stood, looking about anxiously. As he spotted them, though, his expression eased, though he did not smile. He had to crane a bit to look Lucien in the face, but he did not seem intimidated by this fact.

He seemed to recognize both Rilien and Aurora, though, and when he spoke, it was in friendly-enough tones. “It’s good of you to come,” he said. “I’ve spent the past few years looking into the disappearances of Mharen, Ninette, and the other women. I believe I finally have a suspect, a man named Gascard DuPuis.”

“And why do you need us?” Rilien asked benignly. ”To track him?”

“No, I know where DuPuis is. I just can’t get to him.” He sounded somewhat disgusted at that, but Rilien only blinked. “When I became convinced of his guilt, I went to the City Guard and demanded that they do something. The house was raided, but they found nothing. Meredith forbade me from continuing my investigation, but she didn’t say I couldn’t seek outside help.”

”What makes you so certain that this DuPuis is the murderer?” Rilien crossed his arms again, cocking his head to one side.

“He’s a reclusive nobleman who rarely leaves his estate,” Emeric replied. ”He knew two of the missing women, and made inquiries about the others. It cannot be a coincidence.”

Lucien smiled broadly at the appearance of Aurora. “And you as well,” he replied. ”I did not realize that you were acquainted with Ril here.” The Tranquil was no danger to mages, of course, but that didn’t mean he’d have a long list of apostate acquaintances. He’d said once that he unnerved the magical the most, as he was often a vision of their worst nightmares come true. He followed docilely after the elf, nodding once to Emeric but refraining from speaking, at least initially. So it was a murder case. How unusual.

…Reclusive Orlesian nobleman. Lucien tried very hard not to roll his eye. Well, he supposed the stereotype could have been worse, and he doubted that this Emeric had selected him as the suspect for that reason, even if the evidence was rather thin. “Is there nothing else linking him to the crimes?” the Chevalier asked reasonably. ”Surely, the City Guard would have found something when they searched his home?”

At this, Emeric looked irritated. "The guards who searched Gascard’s place were incompetent. They didn’t know what they were looking for.” He paused, and shook his head with a grimace. “They even said that the remains you brought me could have just been scavengers looking for jewelry, that there was no way to know if they belonged to the murdered women or not.” It was clear that his frustration with the lack of progress was getting to him.

On some level, Lucien could sympathize. Stereotypes aside, he'd encountered more than one noble who was very good at hiding things they did not wish discovered. Emeric seemed to really believe what he was saying, and though the mercenary was strauck with more than a little trepidation at the illegality of what they were going to do, he resolved to himself that if they didn't find anything, he'd make sure they left without breaking anything... and then purchase the DuPuis estate a new set of front door locks. All the cloak-and-dagger sat ill with his nature, but he knew that sometimes, it was necessary, and making sure that the man wasn’t actually responsible for the deaths of those women seemed a little more important than preserving the privacy of his home. Pursing his lips together, he made no attempt to mask his unease. He’d let the others ask the rest of the questions, if there were any to be had.

"They really thought that a hand-- with Ninette's wedding ring at that, could possibly not belong to her? Mhm..." Was all she could say without being forwardly rude. Why couldn't the city guard take the place of the Templars. Hiding from them would be a breeze in comparison. Alas, that was not the case, and she had to be careful around Emeric. Good man or not, he was still a Templar, and he'd throw her into the Gallows without a second's hesitation. Still, despite her caution, she was not the one to let loose ends like these stay loose. She wanted to see this to it's conclusion, for Ninette's sake.

However, she was still much of the same mind as Lucien. A reclusive Orlesian nobleman was hardly damning evidence and Lucien was right, there was no link that Aurora could see. The man who had dropped Ninette's ring had left a Pride demon in his wake. That was not something a simple mage could do by himself, so the man had to be powerful-- though she kept her peace about her thoughts. No need to bring up mages in front of the Templar, she could speak frankly after they left the shadow of the Gallows and not a minute before. A lead was better than no lead though and she felt a visit to this Gascard was in her immediate future.

Aurora couldn't help but press a finger to her lips and bring up the obvious question, "What would you have us do, then?" she asked, though she had an inkling of an idea. While playing the thief-in-the-night was more of Amalia's thing, Aurora could manage well enough.

"I knew I could count on you," Emeric said, inclining his head at Aurora. He seemed immensely relieved, at least for him. "You'll need to go to Gascard DuPuis's estate after nightfall. Please figure out what DuPuis is hiding. If he's innocent, find evidence to prove me wrong. It's just that simple." He crossed his arm over his chest and rocked back on his heels. "Do you know how to find the place?" It was probably safe to assume that a bunch of commoners like them wouldn't have reason to know one mansion from another, but as it happened, he was incorrect.

"I know which it is," Rilien replied, and Emeric nodded. "Then I wish you luck." The Tranquil nodded, and the three of them departed the Gallows. Halfway between there and Lowtown, the Tranquil pulled both aside, arranging his body language to have the look of someone casually conversing. "I will observe the location this afternoon. If you wish to participate, meet me in the Hightown Markets one hour before midnight."

Lucien may still have been a little reluctant, but if so, he did not show it obviously, instead choosing to trust the suspicions of those who knew the case better than he. “I’ll be there, Ril.” he nodded firmly and turned to Aurora. “Shall I accompany you home? I do believe we occupy the same neighborhood.” He meant, of course, to use such an opportunity to inquire how she’d been since he’d last seen her, as it had been… a year, at least. He’d dropped by Nostariel’s clinic at one point with some supplies and seen her tending the garden in front, but they’d not spoken beyond a simple exchange of greetings. "Of course, I'd like that, Ser Chevalier," she said with a smile and a proffered arm for him to take.

He chuckled lightly at the odd reversal, but went along with it, accepting the arm with a false flourish. “And they told me chivalry was dead,” he said with mirth, but nevertheless, they started off towards the residential area of Lowtown. It was a bit of an odd picture, perhaps, the very tall man and relatively short woman strolling along as though through someplace much more scenic than the markets, but there was surely no harm in it. “You’ve changed,” he remarked offhandedly. “I never thought you uncertain, but unless I am very much mistaken, you have grown assured, with time. More confident.” He referred, of course, to a certain steady, quiet sort of confidence, rather than one that yelled its defiance at the world. That sort was necessary from time to time, but sometimes made things worse rather than better.

It was a nice thing to see, considering that there’d always been the possibility that she could end up dead, in the Circle and incredibly unhappy, or given over to her temper and volatile.

"That noticeable?" She asked rhetorically. She was quiet for a bit, taking the time to formulate a proper answer to the unasked question. Or rather, there was no question, and she only wished to explain. Out all of the people in Kirkwall, it was Lucien and Nostariel who provided the most pleasant of conversations, maybe she wished to continue it. "I never was uncertain," She began in agreement. Perhaps it was arrogance or cockiness, but she the times in which she was unsure were rare. When she was, however, they were a big deal-- perhaps the defining moments in her character. It stemmed from those moments of uncertainity that she turned to Amalia for aid.

"But I wasn't in control," she revealed, grabbing Ketojan's amulet. She had ran on more emotions than was strictly healthy for a mage back then, something Lucien had been privvy to. She was impetuous, brash, and though she'd be remiss in admitting that she still wasn't, those emotions didn't make choices for her now. "If had I managed to completely lose it, then something else would have stepped in and took it." She said, craning her head to look at the man. She was, of course, talking about possession. Anger, pride, desire, hunger, all conduits that could have easily wrest control from her in a moment of weakness.

Then she shrugged. "So instead, I took control. I needed to be in control if I ever wanted to truly be free." There is freedom in chains, she had learned, though chains need not bind.

”An interesting perspective,” the knight replied thoughtfully. ”And I think perhaps a true one. If nothing else, a bit of control is convenient for avoiding some eyes, I expect.” It certainly wasn’t the temperamental mages that avoided being hauled into the Circle, anyway. The two of them turned a corner, bringing them within sight of the line of houses that marked the first of the residences in this area. When he’d first arrived here, they’d seemed to him slovenly things, ill-kept and sagging. To an extent, they still were, but perhaps his eye was adjusting a bit, because, though it was still impossible to see home when he looked here, he did manage to at least have a sense of place that had not existed for a while.

He recognized the amulet, and smiled. A most curious incident it had been, and not one he cared to repeat, but if one didn’t learn to see the good in the bad around here, one eventually drowned in it. At the very least, he’d helped a bit, and made himself a curious sort of friend. He had quite a number of those, now that he got to thinking about it. ”I never meet boring people,” he observed. ”Sometimes that feels like a trial all its own, but I don’t suppose I’d change it, even if I could. Now, which of our lovely… dwellings is yours?”

"The small one. Confidence, sadly, does not pay the rent," she said.

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon

Earnings

0.00 INK

As promised, Rilien was waiting for his two companions behind a pillar in the Hightown Market, which he stepped from behind as soon as they became visible. Little had changed from earlier that day, save that he now had a pair of elbow-blades strapped to his arms. Nodding to them both, he did not waste his time or his breath in explaining things they already knew, instead gesturing for them to follow him as he wound his way past the Chantry and up a staircase, to the Hightown Estates district. All was quiet here, as it was long past the time of night when any self-respecting lordling would be abed and asleep. The rest would be at the Blooming Rose, like as not, and occupied for some time yet, hence the window he had chosen. Whichever type Gascard was (and ‘recluse’ suggested the former), he would not bother them if they remained discreet.

There were no guards posted out front, as clearly the man assumed that none would be so bold as to simply walk into his house through the front door. It was, however, the best way to get in, as the windows Rilien could open without noise were not on the first floor, and there were no cellars he could reach through Darktown. Taking a knee, the Tranquil drew a thin piece of steel from his belt and slid it into the large lock on the door. Placing his ear close to the mechanism, he fiddled delicately for a few seconds, then pulled away as the lock gave with a soft click.

”I know little of what waits inside,” he said simply. ”Remain cautious, and if I ask you to hide, hide.” He said this not because he thought that either of them was much the hiding from danger sort, but because he would be the most likely to notice incoming people first, given his training and history of subterfuge. Pushing on the door, the Tranquil opened it silently, slipping in and allowing the others to follow.

The inside of the DuPuis estate resembled similar buildings in Kirkwall. A large front room, tiled in slate, led to a double staircase, at the top of which were several doors. A door flanked each side of the entrance as well. A long table stood at the end of the room, against the sides of the staircases, what looked to be several pieces of paper strewn about its surface. They were no more than a few steps into the place, however, when shades suddenly sprang from the floor on each side, a few more spilling out from the doors, among these a pair of firey rage demons. Rilien didn’t hesitate, darting forward to slash at the first shade in range with his right blade, opening up a long, diagonal rent in the creature. That left five, plus the two demons.

If he’d entertained any doubts that Gascard was up to something untoward, those had disappeared.

Lucien was willing enough to defer to his friend’s judgement on exactly when remaining undetected was best, but he cracked a smile anyway, rather unsure that he would be able to hide himself, all things considered. He supposed he might be able to stand behind some drapes if it was really necessary, but you didn’t grow to six feet and four and expect to go unseen anywhere.

It was actually a little odd, watching Rilien work; he supposed this must be quite a bit like what he’d used to do, back when he was still a Bard. The stealth, the lockpicking—and that had looked like a much more formidable lock than it apparently was—the seeking information that someone was unwilling to part with. It was a bit of a study in how to do such things, maybe, and he supposed if there was anyone to learn these matters from, it would be the absolutely precise Tranquil.

Rilien’s mechanical expertise granted them access, and Lucien stepped in just behind the elf, hand going to the haft of his axe mostly on reflex. It was a good reflex to have, though, as when the creatures sprang from the ground and burst out of the doors, he was half-ready, bringing his axe round and over his shoulder to slam into the ground, the tremor effect rocking the floor beneath them and drawing the attention of the majority of the remaining foes. As it should be—Rilien could take good advantage of being unseen, and Aurora unaccosted. A satisfied hm escaped him; he did not much care for subterfuge, but an honest fight was something he took to with relish.

The first sweeping blow of his axe knocked several back into a cluster and outright slew one of the shades, forcing it to disappear from this plane and go he knew not where. Importantly, it was no longer here. The rage demons were a bit tougher, but that was to be expected.

The shudder in the veil clued Aurora in that this would be no ordinary cloak and dagger affair, and the appearance of demons only proved that she was right. Eyes went wide as shade demons poured from the floor, though she quickly settled into her trained stance, raising her hands, palms upward and brushing what surprise she might have had away. Instead, the only thing that was left was the disciplined mage. She had yet to face a real fight with her new training-- wayward bandits in Lowtown not counting. They were certainly no demons.

Unlike their Tranquil friend, Aurora chose to let the first shade come to her. She planted her feet and patiently awaited its arrival. Thanks to Lucien's tremor, she had enough time to bite off a single comment. "Imagine this is evidence enough?" She said, stepping back out of the range of its claws. At least this wasn't another Pride demon. Just as fast she stepped back, she stepped forward again slamming an uncountable amount of punches into a localized area within the demon's main trunk. While she was no mighty warrior in the same vein of Lucien, she more than made up for it in raw speed. Feeling the fade-skin under her hands weaken, she stopped, and flicked her wrist extending her wristblade, which she then plunged into the weakened spot and ripped out sideways.

To finish, she wheeled her arms back, drawing the blade back into her wrist, and thrust forward with both, connecting simultaneously, and throwing the demon back across the veil. To be quite honest, the attack was almost carthartic. With her foe slain, she turned toward the grouping of shades and rage demons, noting the tight cluster. An idea formed, though she'd need help in order to perform it. "Hey Luce, how about a boost?" She called, dipping into her reserves of magic. There were no Templars here, only demons-- and even then, not for long.

”With pleasure,” the mercenary replied, taking advantage of the momentary stunning of his foes to wheel around with far too much grace for someone of his size. ”Hold on,” was the only warning Aurora would receive that the Chevalier did not intend to cease pivoting, and there was a dull thunk as his forearm connected with hers, his grip immediately tightening around her bracer just below the elbow. Using his axe as a counterbalance in his other hand, he kept spinning, taking the lightweight Aurora off her feet, gathering enough centripetal force so that, with a full-body toss and a grunt of effort, he launched her high into the air, right over the still-reeling cluster of shades and one rage demon.

Righting himself, he shook off the slight dizziness and regained a two-handed grip on his axe, though he did not move to interfere with whatever she had planned.

The immediacy was surprising, though she adapted well enough. She grabbed ahold with her other hand, and when he let go, so did she. Aurora did not expect to go so high, and she had almost forgotten the plan she had formulated. Almost. The demons would never be so fortunate. She was sent into a mid-air forward roll, and though everything happened so fast, she managed to jerk her magic to the forefront of her mind. It was a familiar feeling, though one she had not felt in a while, to bare witness to such power. She minded herself with it though, and too much attachment to the power would spell disaster.

Halfway in her forward roll, sparking lightning began to wreath around her, crackling upon contact with the air. Fire would do no good against rage demons, and ice nor stone would be as widely effective. Besides, lightning was an old friend, and it was nice to welcome him back. Once she had completed the roll, she straightened herself and began to descend on the middle-most shade. The lightning that had wreathed her tucked now focused solely in her legs and feet. Like a lightning bolt, she fell from the air and dove into the shade, sending arcs of lightning flickering across the ground to all those surrounding it, both damaging and stunning the demons.

She had landed squarely on the demon, driving it into the ground and using its body as a conduit for the magical lightning. Stunned as it was, it took little effort to drive her wristblade into the area where it's face should have been. It wavered for only a moment, and then it too was banished across the veil, leaving Aurora to drop the foot or so back to the floor, where then she begun to slowly stand again. Concentrated lightning magic now popped menacingly in her hands.

The chain lightning had bounced from it initial target to the two remaining shades and the rage demon in the group, weakening all three. Grinning like a madman, Lucien obligingly swung for the one currently positioned behind Aurora, the force of the horizontal blow enough to be felt as a passing breeze by both she and the two standing foes. It would not be felt by the one it was aimed for, as instead, the axeblade cleaved through the elongated neck of the creature, slicing it neatly in two. That shade disappeared. “Do remind me not to upset you in the future,” Lucien quipped, though the humor was evident in his tone. It was an interesting mix of elements, that style she used, but it did seem quite effective, to take advantage of her talents in such a seamless fashion. He wondered if it was something she’d come to on her own.

She rolled her shoulders and darted in tune with Lucien's axe, arriving at the last shade at the same time he cleaved through the second. Though stunned, it still tried to lash out with its claws. An action that would soon prove to be a mistake. Aurora dodged under the first swipe, but came back up before the second. A step forward brought her inside its guard where she then caught its elongated arm between her own. She held it in a vice between her hand and the dragonhide bracer where she slowly began to turn it. Once she was satisfied with the leverage applied to it, she reeled back her hand and sent a fist into the weakened joint, shocking and breaking the appendage.

Now it was feeling the pain-- though it didn't have the time to cry out. A flurry of lightning augmented punched landed in it's chest, and in finishing blow, she drove her wristblade in deep using the metal to focus the lightning into it's body. Like the others before it, it too vanished into a puff of smoke. That left only the remaining rage demon. "I'm hard to upset," she called, "Control, remember? Just... Don't be a demon," Aurora said with a grin.

"I think I can manage that," Lucien replied, tossing his axe to land casually on the line of his shoulders and turning, in sync with Aurora to face the remaining rage demon. The creature seemed to be disinclined to attack, however, perhaps some combination of the smiling Chevalier and the lightning-infused mage quelling the permanence of its violence, and indeed, with nothing but a cloud of ash in its wake, it disappeared back into the floor, and did not reemerge. Lucien blinked, raising both brows and tossing a sidelong look at Aurora. "I guess it didn't want to invoke your wrath, being a demon and all." She chuckled and added "Do you blame it?" Carthartic indeed.

With the tactical combination of the warrior and the mage, the rogue found himself with only one other foe to contend with: this the second of the rage demons. It suited him well enough, though it was made trickier by the fact that he tended to fight at very close proximity, and to touch such a creature was to be burned. He could ignore pain if he must, but injury was something he would rather avoid.

It sank beneath the ground, reappearing behind him, and Rilien whirled, blocking the first attempt at a lashing tendril of fire with the blade on his left elbow. This was a task better suited for his knives, however, and he drew the right one of these, the faint touch of frost along the blade an indication of just how he’d chosen to enchant it. He did impeccable work for his clients, and what he did for himself was hardly any different in this respect. The blade slid through the creature’s arm, hypercooling the lava-flesh as it went, and the limb fell, turning to dust and disappearing before it hit the ground. Several more attacks followed, but Rilien nimbly ducked each, receiving little more than a singe on the side of his jaw when he didn’t move quite far enough.

The miscalculation was unfortunate, but produced no unbearable sensations of pain, and he retaliated at once, burying the ice-enchanted blade into the roof of the rage demon’s mouth. Almost immediately, the thing ceased moving, the bright reds and oranges of its molten skin dulling to brown, cracks spiderwebbing from its head down and over its back and chest, and when the Tranquil withdrew the blade, the rest of it went the way of its arm, dissolving until nothing remained. Sheathing the knife behind him, Rilien straightened. From the looks of things, the other two had the rest of the matter well in hand. It was going to take more than a few low-level servitors to stop the likes of them.

Setting

4 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

They had two paths to choose from, and they chose the door on the right first, the Warden leading the way in their search for Feynriel. When she opened the door, however, her companions presence in the Fade wavered momentarily, before they were soon blocked from the dream entirely. They had not been removed from the Fade, merely pushed out of this scene Feynriel's mind had constructed. Perhaps he felt the most comfortable with her out of the four of them (certainly not an unlikely possibility), and chose to only allow her to see this. Perhaps more strange, however, was that Nostariel took on the appearance of Feynriel's mother, Arianni, as the door closed behind her.

"That's it, Feynriel. Hard on the downstroke, then lift. Good!" his father said, looking over a young Feynriel's shoulder as he learned to write. Feynriel set the quill down, satisfied with himself.

"I'll have you scribing all my letters soon," Vincento continued. "If I'd known you were such a bright lad, I'd have brought you into the business years ago." Feynriel glowed at the compliment. "Does that mean I can come with you to Antiva, Father?" he asked. "Mother said maybe this summer... right, Mother?"

Nostariel glanced back at the doorway, but it seemed to be blocking the other three, and she frowned. Well, it was Feynriel’s dream; there wasn’t anything she could do about that. She happened to glance down at her own hands, noting that though perhaps the same size, they were certainly not hers. These were softer hands, and lacked some of the small nick-scars hers had acquired over a lifetime of wielding the power of the elements. She didn’t know who she was, but here at least, she was not Nostariel.

Noting the presence of Vincento, she had a decent guess, but chose to leave it aside, approaching the scene with cautious steps. There was little doubt that whatever had taken the form of the young man’s father did not mean him well, and she had to stop this. Now, before he inadvertently made a deal that would destroy him. “No, Feynriel. You mustn’t trust him. Remember what you told me? Your father never wanted anything to do with you. That’s not him.”

Feynriel seemed inclined to believe his mother. "Why are you lying to me?" He questioned Vincento. He shook his head in frustration. "Don't listen, Son. She's always been ashamed of you. She wanted you gone so she could go back to the Dalish. I'm the one who loves you." Feynriel looked like he wanted to believe him at this point, but couldn't.

"But... why can't I remember you?" he asked. "Why... that's right! I spent my whole childhood waiting for you." Vincento threw an arm up, growing angry. "Your mother never allowed--" but Feynriel cut him off. "My mother loves me! She showed me the letters she wrote you. You never wrote back. And it was Mother who taught me to write, not you! I've never met you before! Who are you?"

The illusion broken, Vincento began to glow with arcane magic. "Don't... question..." A flash of light later, and he had transformed into the Desire demon masquerading as Feynriel's father. "... me." Feynriel yelped in terror, turning to run, and when he reached the wall he disappeared from the Fade here. Nostariel had returned to her self, and her companions appeared behind her. From the lack of surprise registering on Ithilian's face, he had been able to witness what had just occurred, but not do anything to take part.

"You!" the desire demon said, pointing an accusing finger at Nostariel. "You turned him against me."

"Did I?" Nostariel asked mildly, but her glare was withering. "I was only trying to help, honest." Her jaw tightened, and she drew her bow from its place on her back, nocking an arrow to the string. "Take away my pets, and I'll take away yours. How loyal are these friends you drag into the fade?" She puzzled, clear in her intent to find out.

The desire demon then morphed in front of them once more, although this time it wasn't Feynriel's father. The girl that now stood before them was hardly out of her teens. She was an elf, her petite ears sloping into a fine point, protuding from under the cover of soft chestnut hair. Her features were delicate, her mouth and nose small though pretty. Her large round eyes were hazel with flakes ago. And though this was the form the demon had taken, she would be recognized by none, save Ashton.

The hunter was taken aback, taking multiple steps away from the demon. His face dropped and what color he retained in the Fade quickly drained. His words were quiet, surprised. "Y-you? What kind of game are you playing demon? Where... Where did you see that face?" He asked stuttering. Clearly distraught over the sudden change in appearance. It wasn't a face he ever expected to see again.

"Ah, so you do remember her. I thought you might have forgotten. But no... You can't forget, can you?" She said, taking a calculated step forward, which in turn sent Ashton a step back. "She's in every one of your dreams, is she not? every one of your nightmares. No matter how hard you try, you can't ever wash her face out your mind, can you? She sits there, like a devil on your shoulder, reminding you of your weakness, of your cowardice." No, he couldn't forget that face. No matter how many drinks he had, no matter how many shots of whiskey, not even all of the alcohol in Kirkwall could kill that memory. He'd never forget the ghost that stood in front of him.

"It's your fault, you know? That she's not a free as you are, as your friends are. All it would have taken was a simple action on your part, and she would have lived, and not only in your nightmares. It's your fault. She repeated, her delicate features turning angry. That anger twisted the knife further into his heart and his world was giving away from under him. "You were a selfish coward, and you couldn't help her because of your fear. Instead of helping her, you ran. But that's all you're good for, isn't it? Running? You're still a coward, aren't you? You still try to run, even now. Run as far and as fast as you can, it never helps does it? She still haunts you, doesn't she? You can't run from her, and you can't run from yourself."

"I wonder where she is now? Does she still yet live? In some Magister's tower tending to his every whim perhaps? I wonder, does she curse your face every time she closes her eyes? Is she haunted by you, by the man who could have saved her from that life? Or maybe not. Maybe she's dead. Maybe her breath was wrung out of her long ago like some discarded wash cloth. It'd be kinder if it was, she wouldn't have to suffer. It matters not, it's all your fault. You brought her into that hell," the girl said, crossing her arms and narrowing her eyes.

Every word crashed on Ashton's ears, driving him deeper and deeper into the pit of despair he had dug. He was silently shaking his head. He wanted it to not be true, he wanted to believe that all of her words were lies. But he couldn't. He knew they were the truth. "Wherever she's at, whatever she's doing, whether she lives or she doesn't. You can try to blame anyone else but yourself, but it's on your head, and your head alone. You had the power to save her, and yet you turned your back on her. That guilt you feel? You deserve every ounce of it that weighs down upon your shoulders, you pitiful coward. In a breath, you've doomed her, and damned your soul."

Ashton couldn't handle it anymore. He couldn't handle the ghost of his past standing there and throwing all his failures back into face. He had to get out. He had to leave. It began slowly, a couple of steps backward. "Look. The coward runs even now. It really is pitiful, attempting to escape the hell he's dug for himself," the girl taunted. That was it, Ashton turned and ran, and never looked back.

The demon’s shift was abrupt, and its words cutting. She would have expected more enticement, more false promises from it, but if its goal was indeed to rid Feynriel’s dream of those who sought to help him, then it was effective indeed. She tried to say something, to make her mouth move, but no words would come out. In all the time she had known him, all the confessions, small and large, she’d made in his company, she’d had not the faintest inkling that something of this nature lay on his shoulders. It made her feel like a failure of a friend, and more than that… she just felt… apart. Like maybe there was some reason she didn’t know. Like maybe he’d concealed it on purpose. How many times could he have mentioned this? And he never had. Perhaps she wasn’t the kind of person he could say things like that to. Maybe nobody was.

Her eyes tracked him as he left, but she made no move to stop him, setting her jaw and scowling. Swallowing thickly, her expression practically dared the demon to try something like that with her. For one reason or another, however, she was not the next of its targets.

Ithilian didn't know the man's story, but whatever it was, whatever the human's weakness was, Ithilian would not be surprised. It was but one more reason to hate a race he'd long since condemned, and if he ever learned the entire story, he had no doubt it would only reinforce his view. He thought Nostariel seemed bothered by his disappearance from the Fade, but it occurred to Ithilian that this may have been a necessary evil. Whatever the shem had done to this elven girl he did not know, surely the Warden wouldn't allow it happen to her now that she'd seen.

"And you desire much, brave hunter, do you not?" the demon said, wandering before Ithilian and drawing his eye. "You believe yourself to be free of your past, to have let go of what you loved. But what if I told you that you could have all of it back?" And as she'd done for Ashton, the demon changed before his eyes.

There were many faces he could not remember from his old clan, many names he held onto without knowing any longer what it was like to look upon them, but this face he would never forget, no matter how hard he tried. The exquisite violet of her eyes, the way her thick dark brown curls spilled over her shoulders and down her back. Her body was rolling muscle beneath her Dalish leathers, able to match him and more on any hunt, any run.

"You weren't strong enough to save her," the demon said in Adahlen's voice, causing Ithilian to visibly strain. It had been so long since he'd heard that sweet sound... he gritted his teeth, setting his jaw square and refusing to look away from her. "But if you only let me, I could bring her back to you." She took slow, cautious steps towards him, reaching out to touch his cheek with the back of her hand. He did not move, clearly using every ounce of his being to remain still. She continued forward, draping her arms around his shoulders and planting her lips against the base of his neck. The smell of her was almost overwhelming, as if it were amplified here in the Fade, only for him. But still he did not move.

"And not only her, but everything that you lost..." Ithilian knew what came next, but it made it no easier when it did. A second pair of arms, smaller and lighter, wrapped themselves around his torso, and he would not look at her. Tears fell freely from his remaining eye. She had her mother's hair, her mother's grace, but her eyes were bright emerald. He could not look into those eyes.

Only after what seemed to be an eternity did they relent, the demon banishing the illusions and returning to her true self, backing up to their former distance. She seemed irked by his decision, but not upset. "Have it your way. Unlike them, your regret will never leave you."

The demon considered Nostariel for a long moment, her lips turning up in a smirk that would have been almost pitying if there wasn’t so much contempt in it. “Oh, how many faces I could show you. His,” she shifted, until her form was that of a vivacious youth made of stocky muscle and tightly-coiled ginger curls, eyes so bright and blue they could have belonged to an ocean lit from below by the sun itself. They were crinkled with the force of the easy, pristine smile on his face, its gleam brighter even then the immaculately-polished armor. Tristan had not really been a conventionally handsome fellow, but his smile was lovely and catching, and his eyes were perhaps the most lovely color she had ever laid eyes upon, as though the splendor of his spirit shone right out through them. She swallowed quickly and looked down at her feet. He was dead. There was no bringing him back. She had… she had accepted that. He’d known the risks, taken them alongside her, with her, for her, and she for him. But he was no more, and she had to live with that, was living with it. As he’d have wanted her to.

“No?” the demon asked in his gentle baritone. “Then what about these?” She morphed, and suddenly, she was a lanky Dalish youth with intricate tattoos themed around the sun. Scarcely more than a child, there was something in his eyes older than most ever became, something almost ancient. “The boy who just wanted to go home?” Another shift, and now she wore the face of a dwarf, a middle-aged woman with a cockeyed grin and a noticeably-missing eyetooth. “The braveheart, who threw her life away for yours? No?” Nostariel’s breathing was increasing in pace, shallow and uneven.

“How about the rival? Who jumped in front of an arrow for you?” A woman, this time a redheaded human, grim and stern looking, wearing a pair of knives. “Or the silly little sot with his boyish crush?” Another elf, this one clearly city-born, who hadn’t lost his wide-eyed naivete, not even on the day he’d died. “Well, Captain? What will it be? Will you abandon them all, fail them again? Surely, the third time is one too many, even for you. Or can you tolerate more failure than anyone has a right to, hm? I could save them, one and all. All I’d need… is you.”

She would be lying if she said it wasn’t tempting. The opportunity to wipe her ledger of all her failures, to just go back to when she’d been innocent herself, their blood no longer on her hands. Then she’d not have had to spend years drowning herself in ale and the stench of misery. She could… what? Save them? No, no she’d already lost them. She couldn’t lose another. ”You’re right,” she said. “I can’t… won’t fail them again. But the only way to fail them now would be to waste the life they gave me as a demon’s thrall. Give me Feynriel, or get out.”

The demon sighed as if put-upon, looking at the shaking Warden with disdain. “How very dull you are. Perhaps there is yet one who will see reason.” Caress turned last of all to Amalia.

The Desire demon shifted again, growing taller, leaner, its shape resolving into that of a man built like a predatory cat: smooth, coiled musculature, beneath skin with more than a hint of sun. His features were sharp, aquiline, and easily describable as handsome, breathtakingly so, if one were inclined to poetry. His pitch-dark hair fell to his shoulders, and he wore a confident, subtle smile. His attire was much like Amalia’s: dark, fitted to his skin, with the crest of the Qunari emblazoned in deep red over his chest. ”And you, Ben-Hassrath?” He questioned, void-dark eyes glittering with some strange mirth. “Poor, scarred, damaged thing. Even the Ariqun doesn’t believe in you, not anymore. All you ever wanted was for things to go back to the way they used to be, before you clawed your way out of your own grave and dragged your forever-mangled self back to your precious people. But they never reverted, did they? Because the most important parts were gone.” His face softened, regarding her with something like pity, and for all either of them seemed to notice or care, there was nobody else in the room at all.

Amalia reached up, tugging her muffler down with one hand. The expression on her face was unreadable, but she stared intently at the figure, her own musculature tense. The demon took this as a cue to continue speaking. “So loyal you are, Amalia. You always have been; I would know better than any of them. Look at what you have endured for your Qun, what your loyalty has put you through. And how does it repay you? By sending you to this cesspool to watch the humans rot. You and I could have had so much more, you know. We still could. Come with me, kadan, and I will make it right again. You know I have the power.”

The smile that bloomed over Amalia’s face was bitter, acidic. Nehraa maraas, hissra. Parshaara— ashkost kata, bas. You are grasping at straws indeed if that is the only face you could think to show me.”

"And yet it is the one you wanted to s—" the voice was cut off by motion, Amalia swinging the ringblade from her back and around in one hand, its movement constant but unpredictable. “It is not for illusions to claim to know my mind,” she hissed viciously. In fact, it was perhaps the angriest Amalia had been, visibly, in more than half a decade. The strange weapon whirled, slicing into the tough leather armor upon the man’s chest, bisecting the emblem there. Jumping back, he lost his shape, resolving once more into the demon, who bore a matching injury across her abdomen. It seemed that even hissra could bleed.

And if it could bleed, Amalia could kill it. Though... she was far from alone, and, completing the blow, she spun away, vacating the spot for whomever next wished to strike.

They had all given each other the chance to resist their own illusions, and now that Amalia had had enough of the demon, Ithilian took it as his cue to slay her and allow them to move on. His short swords were out in a flash as he darted forward in place of the backstepping Amalia, immediately pressing the attack while the demon was still reeling from her injury. Both his blades sank into her midsection and he let them stay there, letting go and drawing Parshaara as well, which he plunged up under her chin. He ripped the blade loose and sheathed, grabbing his two other blades as the demon fell backwards to the ground with a satisfying thud.

Ithilian turned to the others, satisfied that it was now the three strongest of them who remained. "More yet to go. Let's get on with it." If there was a time and place to discuss what they'd seen of each other, it was certainly not here.

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon

Earnings

0.00 INK

The battle over for now, Rilien cast his eyes over the room. That they hadn’t woken the occupant of the house or even some staff with all the noise of a fight was incredibly suspicious, and they had certainly stumbled upon something worth taking note of here. What that something was remained to be seen.

Drifting to the table in the room, essentially the only object of interest, the Tranquil spotted an already-opened letter laying out, and picked it up.

Gascard,

Thank you kindly for your last shipment. It arrived in almost perfect condition. The requested payment is on the way. Please use the artifact with care. The creatures can be difficult to control, even for an experienced mage.

A pleasure doing business,
Your Friend


“It appears that he is involved with illegal magic,” Rilien noted mildly, passing the document to Aurora. Of course, idle speculation about what he’d exchanged for such an ‘artifact’ was pointless. “We should move on.” After satisfying himself that there was nothing else worth note on the table, the Tranquil took to the stairs. He sensed no more magic on this level, so it seemed pointless to linger. At this point, it seemed that whatever mystery the man was hiding was likely of an arcane nature, at least.

A door at the top of the stairs led into what seemed to be a dining room, as there were a few tables set up inside and a fireplace against one wall. Like the room before it, however, it was entirely unoccupied. Rilien scanned the walls, running his bare fingers along the stone, searching for any strange depressions or loose building material that might signify the presence of another, more clandestine, room. He pressed his ear to the wall at varied intervals, but from the way he kept moving, he hadn’t found anything in particular yet. Perhaps the next clue would be, as they usually were, more mundane, but of course Lucien and Aurora were competent people with minds of their own, and he did not doubt that they would discover any such things.

Content to leave Rilien to what he was doing (and maybe it was just his upbringing, but a secret room seemed like a distinct possibility), Lucien cast his eye over the rest of the room. It was rather sparsely decorated, all things considered—it actually reminded him just a little of his father’s house. All the furniture was top-quality, or close enough, but there wasn’t much in the way of homey touches. That had always been his mother’s purview, and she expressed it best with the art on the walls and the fabric on the floors, both of which were quite missing here.

Shaking his head to clear it of the cobwebs of nostalgia, he caught sight of a loose parchment on one of the tables. “Another letter, perhaps?” he murmured allowed, crossing to pick it up in a few long strides. It was indeed a letter, though perhaps not from the same person. This one was actually signed, and by no less a person than the First Enchanter of the Starkhaven Circle, by the look of things. He scanned over the letter once, than read it aloud to the others.

Messere DuPuis,

This is in regards to your inquiry about the missing mages. I would like to remind you that the duty of seeking out missing mages, if there were any to begin with, would fall to the Templars of Starkhaven, not a minor nobleman from Kirkwall.

I would also like to take this opportunity to remind you that the Circle of Magi, as a whole, does not welcome casual inquiries about the mages in its care.

Thank you,
First Enchanter Raddick.


The mercenary’s brows drew together, his head tilting to one side. “I may be wrong, but that does not sound like the inquiry of a man responsible for such a disappearance. But a mage from the Starkhaven Circle? Mharen was from the Gallows, yes?” He had no idea if the two were connected, but it seemed too much a coincidence to be unrelated.

"And Ninette's husband never mentioned anything magical in her nature..." Aurora posited. She had wandered around, but nowhere near as methodical Rilien was, nor did she have quick enough eyes to spot the next letter before Lucien. When he had found it, she meandered toward his direction and read it as he did, mostly out of curiosity. Once finished, she crossed her arms and placed a finger on her lips, taking a thoughtful stance. "Thought we would at least find some answers, not more questions," she said sighing. Well, there was only one way to get to the bottom of it all.

"We need to find Gascard, he has to be able to decipher some of this riddle."

Rilien’s brows drew together faintly, and he blinked slowly. He’d inquired about missing mages? Peculiar. There wasn’t a ready explanation for it, though it was quite irregular, as the letter would suggest. Having determined that there was nothing particularly clandestine about the room, his eyes alighted on the only door leading out that they hadn’t used, and this one he opened, revealing a narrow hallway, that would probably only fit them in a single file. At the end was another room with a fire going, still quite empty and silent.

Aurora followed a step behind the Tranquil, filing into the next room. The fireplace was the first thing she noticed, with a live fire still going. Aurora paused in step for a moment to watch the flames dance before nodding towards it, "A fire. Either he's still here, or he's not too far away." Though if he did still remain, she didn't understand how he wasn't alerted to their presence already. They were hardly quiet during the fight in the foyer. She hummed to herself and left the fireplace, further examining the room. What came next was perhaps the most suspicious of everything they had found.

"Is... That blood?" Aurora asked, pointing to a table holding vials containing crimson liquid. She slowly moved across the room and picked one of the vials up, and turned it over on it's side. She watched with morbid curiosity as the contents proved to be viscous as it slid down the side of the vial. Aurora had handled phylactories in her time, she knew what blood looked like. That was certainly it. "This doesn't sit well with me," she mentioned, setting the vial down. Only two uses of vials like those came to mind. The first, of course, were phylactories. The second was a bit more grim than that.

"Blood magic?" she asked.

”I sincerely hope not,” Lucien replied, though he didn’t look terribly hopeful about it, really. That was just realism. Gascard was clearly a mage, and more importantly, willing to use shades and demons to do his work. There was a lot that Lucien had tolerance for, and admittedly, he could stretch it far enough to include demons if he really must (which he did, given Sparrow), but this wasn’t looking good at all.

The other accessible door in the hallway led up several stairs, and to yet another note, this one an official apology from Knight-Commander Meredith Stannard to DuPuis for the raid on his estate. Apparently, Emeric had been reprimanded, which seemed to mesh with what he’d told them. “Not just anyone gets an apology from the Knight-Commander,” he said, trying (and largely succeeding) to keep a note of contempt from his tone. Meredith was not the Orlesian one of the same, and he wasn’t going to treat her as if she were. But certain things were true, and one of them was that the Chantry did not easily admit wrongs. “This man’s family has influence.” Adding this note to the pile of them, the group continued.

The next room was another simple one, containing several single beds, a shelving unit, and a small trunk. It was unlocked, and Rilien crouched beside it, opening the lid. Inside were several pieces of fabric in bright colors, of serviceable but not exquisite quality. Notably, however, was one particular feature of them. "Interesting," the Tranquil intoned, "that a reclusive nobleman should own women's clothing." Not actually unheard of, for reasons ranging from the mundane to the odd, but incriminating when combined with some of the other things they'd found. Raising one of the gowns in a hand, Rilien stopped it a few inches from his nose and sniffed. "Lavender, vanilla... lillies." Women's perfume, though the lily was fresher, as though from the flowers themselves. Most peculiar indeed.

"Help me, please! He's gone mad!" The shout came from further down the hall, and the Tranquil was on his feet immediately. It was time to find Gascard.

He'd have to beat Aurora first. Using the time the Tranquil took to get back to his feet, she was already out the door and in the hall. At the last door, she barreled through and came upon the owner of the cries, a woman forced to her knees with a man dressed in finery standing over her. The blade at Aurora's wrist extended automatically, as she took on a lowered predatory stance. The man had a staff on his back. Without a doubt, they had found Gascard DuPuis. "You're not... You're not him!" Gascard stammered, seeming surprised. It seemed that the red-haired mage was not the one he expected. "Obviously not," Aurora said, taking a couple of steps forward.

"Shit. I... know what this looks like, but I didn't hurt her!" he pleaded. So she was kneeling down because she was tired, that was good to know. Aurora was beginning to think something horrible was happening. "Let her go. Now," Aurora said, cautiously, keeping a hostile tone out of her voice. She didn't want to frighten the man. Fear made people do brash things. She didn't want to woman to suffer for it. "If I let her go, you'll kill me!" Gascard responded. "I don't know why you're here, but there's a killer out there, and I think he's playing us both!"

"Just... just let me explain!"

Lucien and Rilien entered the room shortly after Aurora, and the Chevalier took in the scene with a calm eye. This looked quite bad indeed, but if they were to get to the bottom of things, they would at least need DuPuis’s side of the story. Nobody should be judged without the opportunity to make a case for himself. No matter how bad a situation looked. Circumstances, he well knew, could be rather deceptive. “Do not panic,” he said, like the mage doing his best to keep his tone level, but authoritative as well. It wouldn’t do them any good if the fellow assumed he could walk all over them or lie weakly. “Tell us what you have to say, but leave her unharmed.”

Gascard took a deep breath and began. “Several years ago, my sister was murdered. The bastard’s now in Kirkwall, killing people. The same way he killed my sister.” Okay, that could potentially explain a few things, but not all of them, by far, most notably what this woman was doing here, on his floor. ”It starts with a bouquet of white lilies. He sends them to each new victim. Alessa was going to be next.”

Lillies? That might explain why Rilien had smelled them earlier. Where exactly his friend had come across a perfumer’s nose, Lucien wasn’t sure exactly, but then Bards often knew a little of everything—the strangest things could make one’s job easier, perhaps. DuPuis looked down at the woman behind him—a slightly older lady, from the looks of it, though perhaps upper-middle-class, from her general state. “I took her so he’d have to come to me. I was finally going to face my sister’s killer, but then you showed up…”

”He’s lying!” The woman—Alessa, apparently—cried. “He hurt me!”

At this, the nobleman seemed to grow frustrated, turning to face the woman. “I’ve explained this. I needed your blood to track you, in case he took you. It was for your protection.” Blood magic and protection weren’t really two concepts that dovetailed very well in Lucien’s mind, and yet, Gascard was explaining nearly everything they’d found without needing to be asked. Save the demonic servitors and the letter related to them, actually, which still didn’t look very good for him, if perhaps for unrelated reasons. Whether to believe what he was saying was another matter.

At this point, Alessa had apparently lost her ability to cope with the situation. Even as Gascard knelt—and Lucien was about to tell him to back off—she scrambled away from him and behind the three intruders. “Don’t touch me!”

DuPuis sighed. “She’ll go straight to the City Guard. They’ll ruin everything.”

Rilien watched the woman depart without much interest. It made little difference to him what she told the City Guard. “You are a Blood Mage,” he said, evenly as ever. It couldn’t be a question, but it wasn’t an accusation, either, as even that implied an amount of uncertainty. When he spoke, there was none at all.

Apparently, Gascard recognized this, for he made no attempt whatsoever to deny it. “And you’re a Tranquil,” he replied impatiently, as though meeting the obvious with the obvious. “Yes, I’ve used Blood Magic and lyrium to augment my powers. I’m not proud of what I’ve done, but I had to. He took my sister from me.”

“And the reason you have not told the city guard. You wish to kill this man yourself.” Still not a question, and still not treated as one. “Yes. I don’t want him arrested. This isn’t about justice. I need to be the one to bleed him dry.” A pause, and then he shrugged. “Besides, they probably wouldn’t even hear me out.”

There was another pause, this time on Rilien’s part, and then, in his usual indelicate way, he cut to the chase. “Who is it?”

Gascard’s face grew dark, his scowl prominent. “A powerful and experienced Blood Mage. I believe he uses the women for some kind of ritual. His victims are all attractive, healthy women with few social ties.” He sounded absolutely certain. Rilien fell silent, glancing at his two companions. There was a choice to be made here, and he was not going to make it without at least some input from them.

A blood mage, using people for rituals? If he’d not had a steely constitution, it probably would have made him sick to even consider. There was something immediately not right about this situation though, and that was the fact that DuPuis had clearly given up on justice and was seeking simple, bloody vengeance instead. “I am truly sorry for what you have suffered,” he started, “And what your sister and those other women have suffered. But I cannot allow you to pursue this course of action. Please, step aside and allow the City Guard, or the Templars, or even us, to handle it.” The loss was not a hard one to imagine—members of his family had been murdered as well, albeit by methods more mundane. But vengeance was not the solution, and he would not allow this man to leave, only to pick out the wrong target and kill an innocent. Even killing the guilty one might be too much, given his reasons.

Lucien's words were a comfort to Aurora, as she was much of the same mind. On principle, she didn't like blood mages. In fact, anything to do with the darker side of magic made her nose turn up in disgust. Magic, even on it's best days, was not wholly harmless, much less blood magic. As far as she saw it, the man in front of them was a timebomb, ticking away until the desire for more power consumed him. And he was on a quest for vengence as well? That was dangerously narrow path he walked. Her whole life was torn apart by magic, and it'd do the same to him.

She sighed, allowing the wrist blade to slink back into her brace. "He's right. Your vision is clouded and your judgement rash because of your vengence," she began, raising from her predatory crouch. "You took a woman hostage in order to catch this blood mage-- make no mistake, that is not a rational decision. This vendetta makes you just as dangerous as he." She said, crossing her arms-- Perhaps she had taken on more of her mentor's habits than she initially thought. "I'm sorry for what's happened to you too, but your current path isn't going to bring anyone back. Like my friend said, let the guard or even us handle it," she finished, though she conspiciously left Templars out of it. She supposed they could do something too...

Rilien was going to suggest that they simply kill DuPuis, as he had very little credence in the idea that the man would leave the investigation to anyone else, but apparently, he didn’t even need to say it—the man was going to make it immediately obvious on his own. Gascard scowled, reaching for the staff at his back. “If you will not step aside, I will walk over you. Nobody will stop me from taking my revenge!”

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

Now without the fourth member of their group, they passed through the other door, Feynriel's dream once again wiping out the others aside from Nostariel, whose features this time took on the form of the elven First Enchanter, Orsino. Before Nostariel was a gathering of Dalish, the Sabrae clan, with Marethari in the center of them all, presenting Feynriel to the group.

"My people, I present to you... our hope." She held out her arms, and Feynriel came forward. "His features may mark him as human, but in his heart beats the blood of the Dales! He came to us to learn his heritage, to release the power from a lineage as ancient as our race." Feynriel seemed overwhelmed.

"I... I don't know what to say..."

Apparently, she had swapped forms yet again, and this time she was fairly sure she was… male. Choosing not to ponder the intricacies of that situation, Nostariel focused her attention on the scene before her. Oh, Feynriel… you really do just want a home, don’t you? It was incredibly sad, in its way, and she understood it well. Enough to know that this wasn’t the way to get it. “Feynriel, wait. Don't say anything. It’s a trick.”

Feynriel seemed surprised to see Orsino of all people here. "First Enchanter? What are you doing here? Mother told me the Dalish are honorable! Why would the Keeper lie?"

This was going to be a bit harder. Feynriel had been living with the Dalish for years now, and though it was far from perfect, it was still probably better than the Circle, which was apparently what she got to represent in this phantasm. Thinking quickly, she echoed something he’d expressed to her once, something that ironically, she’d always tried to dissuade him from thinking. “Think about this, Feynriel. Why would she entrust her people to a human?” It almost hurt to say it; she was playing right into his insecurities and she knew that well… but insecurity, if not modesty, was one of the better ways to combat Pride.

"You are one of us, Feynriel," the Keeper argued. "Your magic will restore our greatness." But now Feynriel looked confused, Nostariel's words striking a chord. "But... you told me this magic was outlawed for a reason. Even the Dalish don't practice it anymore."

Now Marethari appeared to be growing angry, a sure sign that the illusion was cracking. "The first enchanter is trying to keep you from realizing your greatness, Feynriel." But now Feynriel had seen through the trap. "No, he's trying to keep me from temptation, just like you were. You're not the Keeper! Begone, fiend!"

Marethari, or rather the demon posing as her, did not wait for Feynriel to run this time, instead simply banishing him with a wave of her hand, before snarling at Nostariel. "You! Why did you interfere?" She then rose into the air, arcane energy swirled around the Templar's courtyard, and a massive pride demon dropped to the ground in her place. "With my power joined to his, Feynriel would have changed the world!" Ithilian and Amalia reappeared as well, once Nostariel had returned to herself again.

"Yes, precisely as you dictated. Waste not your words on me, demon. I am not here to bargain." Nostariel was clearly rather upset by the whole situation, having to enter and then help shatter Feynriel's illusions. It wasn't an easy thing, to overcome such temptation, and to have to do it with others to bear witness was worse. At least they were almost done. She could nearly feel it, the most malevolent powers losing their grip on this dream.

"Perhaps you will not bargain, but your friend here is of a different mind, is he not?" the demon looked to Ithilian, at Nostariel's left. The elf scowled, crossing his arms. "What could I possibly want from you, demon?"

"Everything," he replied, waiting for a brief moment for Ithilian's reaction. Upon receiving none, he continued. "The Dalish have been spit upon, subjugated, oppressed for centuries, and you have been forced to watch those you love come of age in an atmosphere of hatred and death. As you are, there is little you can do but hold the tide back, but with a friend like me on your side, we could bring about something incredible, a change in the circumstances of the Dalish, of all elves, like the world has never seen."

Ithilian remained silent, staring down the creature that was easily twice his height and more, but he said nothing, and so the demon pressed on. "Think of the young girl you look after, and the two possible worlds that await her. The first is a filthy, dust-covered hellhole that she currently inhabits, her burgeoning prowess responded to with only fear and anger. The humans spit on her, or desire to take her as their own, for their putrid purposes. The other... it's a world even the Dalish can hardly remember, one where humans are nothing but the faintest shadow of a thought on the horizon, where life runs into eternity, a place of peace, prosperity, cooperation, and beauty... a world where the Dalish hold power, where they are no longer chained. With our combined might, that world will be closer than you would ever expect. Without me... there will never be a better future for you and those you care about."

“Ithilian…” Nostariel’s tone was much softer, almost hesitant. ”It’s lying to you. It can’t give you that.” Frankly, she wasn’t sure anything could. “You saw what that girl turned into, three years ago. That’s all that happens.” Just an abomination and more death. Maybe, if he was lucky, the possession would be for him as it was for Sparrow, but that was the most anyone could hope for, and in the end, even that would resolve itself the same way as that poor child had: a monster that was more demon than whatever it had been before, destructive but hardly powerful enough to change anything so drastically as it promised.

Try as he might... he couldn't seem to remember that girl. His mind was unable to move from the vision of the future, a place where they didn't have to breathe dust and inhale smoke and death every time they stepped out of their front doors. Closer, was all he had said. Ithilian knew what it meant. He'd die, but he'd always known he would die, it was just a matter of using the remainder of his life to do some good for his people, for the people he cared about. He would do anything to make that vision come even a step closer...

Amalia scoffed, a half-disgusted sound that she didn’t quite succeed in keeping below her breath. There were many things she could say, and many things she wanted to, but as she had once told Aurora, it was not her place to shatter the illusions of others. That was something they had to do on their own. It wouldn’t be of any good, in the end, if someone other than Ithilian refused this for him.

She was, however, disquiet about it, the words halfway to her tongue anyway. A reminder, a scolding, a plea, even. But she had not the right to argue with him about his decisions, because they were not of a kind. Was this not the barrier that not stood, at his behest and with her compliance, between them? I overstepped myself. I shan’t do so again. That had been her statement, and she would not make a lie of it. So she swallowed her words, and grew further apprehensive that she didn’t trust him to succeed. At least, not enough to stop her from reaching back for the ringblade again. She could tell herself it was because she desired to slay this demon like the rest. But the brutal honesty Amalia displayed before others carried no more softly to her ways of thinking, and she would not do herself the discredit of delusion. It was exactly why she was so clearheaded now, even when these hissra thought to cloud her with promptings of what could never be.

Silence had never felt so stifling, nor waiting such a trial.

"I'd put the future of my people above anything," Ithilian finally said. "Even if it means my life. You know that."

The pride demon grinned wickedly at Ithilian's choice. "Excellent. Help me with these, and then we'll be on our way." He leapt forward quickly, bringing both massive fists down, attempting to squash both Nostariel and Amalia, while Ithilian leapt away, drawing his bow and taking aim at his former allies.

Nostariel leapt out of the way of the crashing fist, pulling her own bow from her back. “You vile…” she spat, unable to finish the sentence in a way that would adequately express her disgust for the demon. Running off to one side of the room, she decided to draw the creature to herself, and leave Amalia to deal with Ithilian. She hadn’t been able to change his mind, but the Qunari hadn’t even tried. Honestly, the Warden really wasn’t sure what to make of that, but then, she seemed to defy anyone else’s understanding more often than not. That, and… Nostariel didn’t really think she could bear to hurt a friend. That she was going to burden someone else with such a task was not at all good, but it was all she really could do. Against this… creature, she would have absolutely no reservations whatsoever.

The first arrow she nocked to her bowstring was coated rapidly in a layer of frost, cool air billowing from it and downwards, toward her feet. It was definitely a big-enough target. Releasing the string, she watched as the arrow sailed a bit too far right, hitting the demon in its shoulder rather than at center mass, as she’d intended. The arrow exploded on impact, a sheet of ice, equivalent to a point-blank Winter’s Grasp, spreading outwards over the pride-thing’s flesh. This clearly surprised it, but with a great heave of its thick arm, it cracked the majority of the ice, allowing it slightly-restricted but otherwise normal, movement.

Next arrow. Focusing, Nostariel gathered the energy from the Fade around her and focused it into the arrowhead, which glowed an angry cherry red. Nock, draw, aim, release. The string snapped against her leather bracer, and this arrow was a bit high, but this time to her benefit rather than her detriment. Hitting the demon’s collarbone, it burst into a ball of fire, scorching down its chest and up the lower half of its face. The swing it aimed for her took her legs out from underneath her, though, and Nostariel found herself looking up at the not-sky, the breath knocked from her lungs.

At least she’d managed to draw its attention. She really hoped she wasn’t about to get shot for her trouble.

Hmph. This crude-fisted creature thought to hit her with that attempt? Amalia jumped back, springing off her hands for another good five feet of distance, landing in an easy crouch and taking her circular blade into the hand that was not bracing her against the floor. While Nostariel lined up her first shot, the Qunari darted forward, swinging the implement in rapid succession to leave several cutting welts over the still-grounded arm. Admittedly, it was not nearly so surprising as a new coat of ice, and perhaps this alone was sufficient to draw its ire in the Warden’s direction, instead. She pursued.

Unopposed, Ithilian was allowed to aim carefully, though both targets were moving erratically, and would likely make a fatal shot not a possibility. His mind may have not been entirely his own, though certainly a good portion of him still remained, and in that moment, it fell to him to make a choice of which target to attack first. The arrow moved back and forth once between Nostariel and Amalia. For whatever reason, it stopped on the Qunari, and he released, drawing back a second arrow immediately.

Amalia hissed as a sharp pain blossomed in her side, an arrow thudding into one of the less-protected joints of her armor, the one where the back was buckled to the chestguard, about halfway down her ribcage. Gritting her teeth, she left the demon to Nostariel, and turned to face Ithilian. There were no words for the keen sense of betrayal she felt, but her face conveyed only irritation and not even the vaguest sense of surprise, as though she’d been expecting it all along. Some part of her certainly had—for longer than she cared to think about. She threw her ringblade like a discus in an attempt to interrupt his aim, then reached for her chain, the weighted end just beginning to swing as she flickered from view.

If history was to repeat itself, it would not end in the same way.

Ithilian got off his second arrow just before the ringblade smashed into his bow, deflecting it enough so that his armor was not cut through by the uncommon weapon. It had sliced almost clean through the bow, however, and so he discarded it, drawing his short swords instead, lowering himself and remaining light on his feet, moving slightly in the direction of the pride demon. Parshaara remained notably sheathed at his hip.

The invisible Amalia tracked Ithilian’s movement, the part of her that was discipline and control clamping down on what might have otherwise been a surprisingly-miserable train of thought. A Ben-Hassrath had to accept that they might be called upon to hunt anyone, at any time. It was never an easy lesson to swallow, but she’d learned it all the same. Spinning the chain around several times, she let fly, anticipating his continued movement in the direction he was heading, but the act of aggression revealed her again, and she resolved into visibility, ripping the arrow out of her side and tossing it away with a terse ‘tch.’

Nostariel barely rolled in time to avoid the enormous fist that came crashing down into the spot she’d once occupied, and she scrambled to her feet with rather less grace than Amalia had taught her, desperation making her perhaps a bit forgetful of how to do these things properly. At least she hadn’t been shot yet; that dubious honor appeared to belong entirely to the Qunari. There wasn’t much time to think about it, though. In fact, there wasn’t time to think about anything at all, for she found herself, delayed in her stand, immediately enveloped in a crushing prison spell, the sickly-green sphere encasing her before she could think to escape it, closing over her head like some bubble of liquid.

Someone had once told her that the dread of pain was worse than pain itself. That person had obviously never been caught in one of these. It was like gravity itself rebelled against her, forcing her to her knees—or it would have, if she could move at all. Instead, it felt like she was caught in a vise, utterly unable to do anything about the increasing pressure on her arms, her legs, her head.

It was as the first bone in her left arm snapped that she felt the flames ignite.

Their experience with each other meant that Ithilian knew how this attack would go, but she was still lightning quick, and near impossible to put eyes on. The chain came from his side and clanged loudly on one of his swords before twisting around his left arm several times, constricting it painfully and preventing much motion on his left side. That would work against him defensively, of course, so he resolved to go on the attack instead, yanking backwards hard with his ensnared arm, trying to pull her towards him, before he moved to where she had appeared, slashing out with several swipes of his still unrestricted arm.

Ithilian’s superior strength was enough to yank Amalia forward a few steps, right into the path of his free blade. She caught one of the strikes on the arm, the blade finding yet another joint in the dragon’s hide near her elbow, and a third hit to the opposite side of her abdomen, this one slightly lower, near her waist. The all-too-familiar sensation of bleeding was ignored in the same way her conscience presently was, and she stepped forward rather than trying to retreat, attempting to drive the heel of one gauntlet-enclosed hand up and under his chin, then dropping into a low sweep, that intended to knock him off his feet and onto the ground. The necessary rotations of her abdomen pulled at the wounds, increasing the bleeding and slowing her somewhat.

Ithilian's current tactics weren't incorporating a good deal of defense, and so he continued attempting slashes even as her hand struck up under the chin, and he felt fractures crack his jaw. The stun was enough to let the sweep connect as well, and his feet were taken out from under him. He hit the ground hard on his side, responding by trying to take the Qunari woman down with him, attempting to stab into the back of her calf with his right blade.

The armor protection there stopped the hit from severing the muscle entirely, but not from doing hefty damage, and Amalia stumbled uncharacteristically, regaining her balance only by shifting her weight almost entirely to her other leg. Even so, the hit one shook, visibly unable to support more than a little burden. She didn’t like her chances in a grapple, but with her ability to maneuver hobbled so, she was left with few other choices. Invisibility would help, but only for a little while, and he would regain his feet and be faster than her as well as stronger if she didn’t keep him down.

Surrendering to gravity, Amalia tipped herself forward, falling in a controlled motion, leading with the left elbow, which was aimed squarely for the arm he was still attacking with. Her right hand yet held the chain, which would hopefully keep him from rolling too far away from the hit.

Nostariel couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. All she knew was pressure and heat and pain, building to a pitch so feverish she was praying to gods she was almost sure didn’t exist for deliverance. She was also screaming, but just as nothing from outside entered the sphere, nothing from within it—no blackening flames or shrieking sound. After what seemed like an eternity, she was released. Curiously, only the break in her arm, the first one, remained, as though the rest had been merely an illusion, but she was dazed, and with only one good arm, no longer able to fire. At least, not for the moment. The Pride demon looked faintly amused, as though her pain pleased it, but she was far too addled at the moment to remember her healing, or much at all really. Except… what? Something, something important. But what?

The blow was enough to disarm Ithilian, and though his left hand still clutched his other short sword, he could do next to nothing with it that would be of any danger to Amalia. He certainly made no effort to roll away from her or create more distance, instead choosing to fight unarmed, striking first with a headbutt, before pushing forcefully with his right arm to try and roll himself over her and into an attacking position, or at the very least side by side. Several punches from his right would follow.

Amalia muttered something under her breath in Qunlat when his head cracked against hers, dazing her for long enough that his pin attempt was quite-nearly successful and she found herself on her back, at a marked disadvantage. Well, at least being punched wasn’t going to kill her quickly. “Nostariel!” she shouted, taking a punch with an uncomfortable grunt and raising the hand that still clutched the chain in an attempt to leverage him off by applying its pressure to the throat. “If I kill him here, is he Tranquil on the other side?” She had to know. She had to.

The sound of a voice she knew stirred something within Nostariel. It was enough to bring her from her daze, whatever it was, and she glanced over to see Amalia and Ithilian in a tangle of limbs, definitely not of the kind Aurora had hypothesized. It took a second to register why the question would matter, but then it hit her like a ton of bricks, and she answered quickly: “No! He’ll just be ejected from the dream! Nothing permanent!” Speaking of which… Nostariel reached for her magic and sent a healing spell to both herself and the Qunari, knitting her arm together and following up with two brutal blasts of fire for the Pride Demon’s face. It was only a matter of time now, before this creature fell to her. She wasn’t going to give it another opportunity to crush her.

Amalia took that as all the confirmation she needed. Parshaara, then,” she snarled venomously, “Lose your resolve elsewhere.” A flick of her wrist, and the retractable blade inside her gauntlet slid outwards. She drove it upwards, towards his heart, then changed her mind at the last second and angled it for the throat. It was something she’d seen him do countless times, to people he thought unworthy of living. She didn’t quite echo the sentiment, but she was dangerously close.

Perhaps unwittingly, unconsciously, however, she closed her eyes and turned her head when she knew the course was inevitable.

Blood spilled quite normally in the Fade, and it did so from Ithilian's throat. When it was done, there was little point continuing his struggle, and so his last prepared blow never came at all, hanging in midair for a moment before his arm fell to his side. He pushed himself away from her as well he could, before slumping over in a kneeling position, motionless.

Nostariel’s fireballs lashed the pride demon repeatedly, each sending it staggering a little further back than the last, but she did not let up. She was not, as a rule, an angry person, but what was being done to them here, done to Feynriel here, deserved any rage she could muster. She didn’t let up, either, advancing forward with more lit in each hand as soon as they went out, burning through her mana at a pace with the speed she burned through the demon. It began to let out horrid screeches as the tongues of fire ate through its thick hide, and she was relentless enough that she did not give it even a moment to thrash outward, a moment to charge another of those spells, nothing. She would give it exactly what it deserved from her: a death, and not one whit more.

At last, the creature toppled over onto its back and moved no more, and Nostariel straightened, panting, only to see Ithilian roll off Amalia, who bore a bloodstained blade from somewhere in her armor. It was something the Warden would never have thought to see, and for they who were both so devoted to their causes, and disposed to violent means, that was rather saying something. It was a little bit devastating, when she considered what the aftermath of it might be. She’d seen the way the Qunari treated those who they felt betrayed them—she’d been that treatment, actually.

“…Amalia?” she asked cautiously, taking a few heavy steps towards the prone woman.

Amalia rolled to her feet, gathering her chain in silence and replacing it at her waist. Trotting on her still-tender leg to her ringblade, she picked that up, too, replacing it at her back. She eyed Ithilian’s broken bow for a moment, but in the end simply turned back towards Nostariel, expression so perfectly blank it could only be hiding something else. “Come, Nostariel. We must still save the boy.” She faced the exit and walked unerringly towards it, not once glancing backwards.

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

The two women followed the stairs back down to the courtyard area, and, much to Nostariel's relief, there was Feynriel, looking relatively unharmed. At their approach, he turned to look at them both, clearly enough himself to recognize their faces. "I'm not sure if this is real," he confessed, "but if so, it is the second time I owe you both my life." Though he was mostly speaking to Nostariel, it was clear that he recognized Amalia as the one who'd thrown herself in front of a slaver's spell for the both of them.

Nostariel smiled faintly. She was tired, and sick of this place, but seeing him here, standing unharmed... that made this ordeal worthwhile. "Feynriel. I'm so glad you're all right." Whether the same could be said for Ashton and Ithilian, or even Amalia, remained to be seen, but he was alive and well, and that... she couldn't measure her relief.

He nodded, echoing the expression, then glanced around him, as one studying something. "The Fade feels different now. I feel the stiches, seams holding it together. I feel I could wake at any moment now." He sounded vaguely awed by that fact, and she could not help but be so herself. These things were not things she could see, for all her years learning to manipulate magic. There must really be something special about him, as Marethari had suggested. It filled her at once with equal measures of pride and sadness. In such a state, he would be always alone, as he'd never wanted to be, singled out not only for his heritage, but for his power. He would always be in danger, and she thought that perhaps he knew this.

"What will you do now, once you wake?"

He contemplated this for a few moments, his expression turning downcast as he came to the same realization she had. "The Dalish do not have what I need," he replied. "Perhaps Tevinter. If these powers could be trained, it would be there." This gave Nostariel pause.

"Tevinter?" she echoed. "Tevinter is a dangerous place for people like us, Feynriel. You have no guarantee that any of the mages there would be willing to train you, and even if they were... they may very well use you for their own ends." As much affection as she felt for the boy, she did not believe him terribly strong of will. This journey he wished to undertake would either bring that out in him... or it would destroy him.

He seemed certain, however. "I know," he said, more firmly, "but only if I let them. And I won't. I've learned that much already." He paused, looking down for a moment, his brows drawn together with worry. "My mother would not look kindly on such a journey. Can you give her my farewell?" He looked earnestly between them, settling his eyes on the Warden, and she nodded, stepping forward and pulling him (he was already taller than she was; when had that happened?) into a brief embrace.

"I will," she promised quietly. "May you find always what you need, Feynriel." Stepping back, she patted his cheek just once, then folded her hands behind her back.

He sounded relieved when he spoke again, as though something had been lifted from him. "Perhaps... there is a way out of this, after all." turning away from them, he stared hard at the air on front of him, an intent look of concentration on his face. "I can do this." With a wave of his hand, the Veil shimmered, and he looked back just once, over his shoulder. "Thank you, Nostariel. For everything. Goodbye." With that, he turned and disappeared, walking out of the Fade as though it held no reality for him at all.

Amalia would have advised against going to Tevinter, had she been of a mind to say anything at all. But she was not. This was not her business. None of it was, and none of it ever had been. Why was she even here? Nothing here was any of her concern, of the Qun’s concern. Her reasons for acting on this boy’s behalf the first time had been simple: there had been no discernible reason not to. But why bother? Why not be exactly as Sophia had assumed of her, concerned ever and only with her own? None of these people were her own. Aurora was not her own, either. She was floundering, and this place, this rotting pit of a city, was making her forget.

She didn’t need to see in other ways. The Qun was the only thing in her life that had ever been constant, and it had never let her down. It would be better to stop pretending that anything not of it would ever share in that quality. What kind of stupid creature was she, that she was able to continually believe that the next time would be different from the last? She let the Warden and the boy do all the talking, and remained, quiet as a shadow, in the background, tipping her head just faintly when acknowledged. Beyond that, it was simply a matter of waiting for this all to end.

She’d had enough.




When the two remaining members of the party awoke, it was to find Arianni hovering anxiously. Seeking to placate her worry as much as possible, Nostariel stood at once. "Feynriel has mastered his powers," she told the woman with a soft smile. This caused Arianni's eyes to wide, a hand lifting to hover over her heart.

"Then he lives? You saved him? I cannot thank you enough!" She turned to her former Keeper. "Keeper Marethari, may I return with you to the Sunderlands? I would like to ask my son's forgiveness." The Keeper seemed torn between being pleased and ever so slightly amused. "Of course. It was you who chose to stay away."

Unfortunately, it was here that Nostariel had to interrupt. "I'm sorry, Arianni. Feynriel decided that he must go elsewhere to train. None in Kirkwall can help someone like him. He asked me to say his farewells." She would have preferred it if he'd at least stayed to give them on his own, but she understood his need to leave as he had. What he'd detemined to do took a great deal of resolution, and if the pain of parting would have provided him temptation to stay, it might have been too much to overcome, and he needed that training.

Arianni took this about as well as she would have expected, which was to say not terribly well. "My son! No! I must find him before he leaves!" Marethari, though, seemed to be in agreement with Nostariel, giving the Warden a nod before addressing the distressed mother. "It is wise for him to seek guidance. Kirkwall cannot provide what he needs." To Nostariel and Amalia, she continued. "I truly did not think it was possible to do what you did. You are rare souls, indeed."

Ithilian had stayed to see the end of the venture, sitting with arms crossed in a corner of the room, but he couldn't help but feel Marethari's words were not for him. Only when he woke did he realize the stupidity of his decision. And still... ill-advised or no, he couldn't seem to make himself fault his motives. The actual decision had been unwise, of course, and it had been the demon's influence that had prevented him from seeing that, but... he would still do anything for his people. That had not changed, nor would it ever.

He suspected neither Nostariel nor Amalia would have any desire to speak with him, but he would stay to at least give them the opportunity. The Warden no doubt wished to chase after her shemlen friend, and Amalia... well, he'd thought they had been on the path to mending the damage he'd done years ago, but it seemed he'd undone that tonight.

Amalia stayed exactly as long as was required to ascertain that the task was indeed complete. She met the Keeper’s eyes, once, and nodded in acknowledgement of the thanks, but she looked at nobody else. As soon as the matter was concluded, she simply walked out the door, jaw tight and face still unnaturally blank. She was going to spend some time in the compound. While she did not generally prefer to be there, she was certainly allowed, and it would grant her the opportunity to be… away. From the evidence of her own folly more than anything else. She paused, just once, to glance at the large, painted tree that stood in the Alienage’s center, but then shook her head and continued onward, up the stairs and out of sight.

Nostariel watched Amalia depart, worry evident in her expression, then turned to Ithilian. Marethari and Arianni were still talking, so it was doubtful they were also listening. “Are you all right?” she asked him, resisting the urge to lay a hand on his shoulder. Contact probably wouldn’t be appreciated right now. She wasn’t really sure what she expected the answer to the question to be, but honestly, she doubted anyone came out of that unscathed. They’d fought each other in the Fade, regardless of the whys or wherefores, and the Warden doubted very much that either one of them was truly unaffected by that. She wasn’t, and his aggression hadn’t even been directed at her.

She would find Ashton, eventually, and see what she could do for him, but Ithilian was her friend, too, and what he’d undergone was in its own way no less trying, she suspected. Falling victim to a demon was not an experience she’d had so directly, but nothing that usually resulted in abominations could leave a person free of injury.

Ithilian leaned forward in his seat, placing his elbows on his knees. "I don't know why the demon seemed so compelling. It seems so stupid to think it would remain true to its offer now, but in that moment..." He shook his head. "I am no mage, the Fade was no place for me. It is good that Amalia was there. She did what she had to." The things he left unsaid told the rest of the story, really. He regretted his choice only because the demon would not have granted him what he sought, not because of the motive. And Amalia... if their friendship had only ever been an alliance of convenience, born because they both sought to protect the same plot of land... he didn't know what to think.

“Demons are supposed to be convincing,” Nostariel assured him sadly. ”They can see into our minds, every insecurity and hangup we have. The Desire Demon… it had its pick with me, certainly. It chose wrongly, but on another day, it might not have.” It was an unfortunate truth. Caress had given her a chance to rectify her mistakes, something she wanted more than anything else, yes, but also something she was now taking steps toward on her own. If it had chosen to show her what she wanted, but felt she would never obtain… she knew not how that would have ended.

“It might not be my place to say, but… I don’t think she wanted to. And I don’t think she would have, if my answer had been different.” Amalia was incredibly hard to read, but Nostariel knew her better than she had before, and the Qunari was not as cold as she behaved most of the time. One only had to watch her with children long enough to understand that. Still, she sighed and shrugged. Though she didn’t want to see her two companions fall out over this, that wasn’t really anything she got a say in, so she left it be.

The Chanter's Board has been updated. Night Terrors has been completed.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

It was late into the evening when Nostariel, having checked Ashton’s shop and the Hanged Man both, found herself climbing the hill towards what she’d come to think of as their spot, the one they often occupied after her archery lessons. That had been about half a year ago, and yet she still visited quite frequently, when she was seeking a moment of peace after a long day at the clinic. It was quite the hike for something like that, but entirely worth it, if you asked the Warden. The sun was falling past the horizon now, the last sliver of it just disappearing from the sky. Soon enough, Kirkwall and the area around it would be plunged into darkness, and she with it. The stars, though, were usually enough to remind her that she wasn’t in the Deep Roads anymore, and she loved them for it.

When she arrived, he was there, and from the line of bottles beside him, he’d been present for quite a while. That many in, he’d not likely be in a fit state for much, but then, she knew that from experience, and she wasn’t going to judge him for it. Whatever the demon had shown him had hurt him, deeply, and she could sympathize with that, too.

She stood for a moment, unsure how to break into the situation without feeling much like an ogre in a room full of fine ceramics. Just this morning, she’d been delighted to see him, and she thought it fair to say that he’d been rather happy to see her, too. Now, she wasn’t sure how he’d react to the intrusion. Nostariel fiddled absently with the hem of her shirt, studying her returned friend and deciding that he looked rather different, but still unmistakably like Ashton. Like Ashton, who’d not stood by like a nervous fool when she was at her lowest. She couldn’t do that, either.

Taking a breath, she stepped forward, enough to be easily noticeable, and settled herself a few feet from him, looking out at the same vista she’d gazed at regularly for at least a year. How strange, that time kept moving even when she was unaware of it. “You don’t have to talk about it, if you don’t want to,” she said quietly. ”But, if you do, I’m here.” It sounded kind of pathetic, even to her own ears, but what else was she supposed to say? She had no idea what that face, those words, had meant to him, and she couldn’t tell him it was all okay when he so honestly seemed to believe that it wasn’t.

A fire popped in front of him, and he sat crosslegged staring intently into it. Behind him, not too far away, a series of white-fletched arrows protruded from a tree. In his lap sat the bow he had spent the better part of the past three years working on. Even in the dim light, it was a work of marvel, perhaps even more so, as the firelight danced around it. White as the whitest snow, trimmed with a deep walnut colored wood, bone and wood meshed into one and created a weapon as beautiful as it was deadly. Inside the bleached bone arc, there were carvings, though in the light they were hard to make out. Besides, the bow was not the intended object, but rather, the man sat holding it.

His usual silly grin and playful eyes had long since melted away into the fire, leaving the real face of the man in it's wake. Sullen brown eyes reflected the sparks of the fire, the light hitting the new scar on his cheek just so to make it seem wider than it really was. Ashton had heard Nostariel's approach long ago-- he expected it even. He had spent his time in deep thought, thinking about what would he say, how he would say it, and to just wrangle his feelings into a coherent phrasing. But now, the pitter-patter of her feet sent his thoughts scurrying, and he forgot everything he had been thinking about. But still, he didn't move, he didn't try to run, to brush her off, or even turn away from her. He just... waited.

Maker knows he made her wait.

And she spoke. Six months away, and he never forgot that voice. What thoughts he had left grazing in that mind of his, her words sent them into a spiral. At first, He didn't know what to say back. What could he say back? "Oh gee, thanks"? No, that wasn't good enough. He couldn't just hide it from her anymore, not after that demon made it so public. The guilt he felt was entirely deserved. It wasn't something he should have kept from her. Not after what she told him. He should have came clean then. "Don't... don't say that. It's not about what I want. What I want doesn't matter anymore," It was what she wanted, but he couldn't with that sentence just sitting there. Finally, he lifted his eyes from the fire and met hers. "You told me what haunted to you, and you didn't have to... Just." He trailed off. His eyes dropped to the fire again, as if the effort of holding her had gaze drained him.

"Please... Just ask. You deserve that much," Ashton said.

That drew her brows together, but she wasn’t here to argue the finer points of what mattered to whom, she was here to listen if he needed it. And from the sounds of things, he rather needed it. Still, Nostariel was silent for a while, trying to decide what she properly wanted to ask. She had a feeling the story he told would be neither short nor pleasant, but that was all right. Hers hadn’t been, either. Those were the ones that needed the listening the most. Slowly, she nodded.

“All right. When we were in the Fade, the Desire Demon showed us something, and the words it spoke were cruel. That… doesn’t usually happen, but it always shows people what they want. I suppose that can only mean that you wanted someone to be cruel to you. But why?” He wasn’t cruel to other people—she’d never known him to do something with ill intentions, so it was hard to picture him so deeply acknowledging that he deserved something of such a kind.

There it was. The question that cut the frail string that was all but holding him together. He inhaled and answered simply, "Because I deserve it." It was a grim sentence, though he felt nothing from it. It was entirely true, after all. He deserved it all, the stinging words, the truth it spoke, but most of all he deserved judgement. "Every thing that creature said was true, demon or not. Every bit. I deserve that punishment, and more. So much more. It's all because of me that that girl couldn't live her life. I stole that from her." He said, sighing. He was dancing around the issue. He still hadn't told her why. He didn't dive into the issues like she had

So he closed his eyes and breathed out. He'd tell her, he decided, and let her judge him. He could never find that girl again, tell her he was sorry, and let her decide his fate. No, instead, he'd let Nostariel do it. He'd tell her his story, and let come what may. "I told you I came from Ferelden. I didn't tell you what I did when I arrived here." His humorous tone usually told with stories like these was nowhere to be found. He didn't think about the words coming out of his mouth, he just let them fall. It's not like he could hold back what he was saying anyway. "I was a smuggler, to put it kindly. There were many refugees from Ferelden, but none of them were getting into Kirkwall by the time I arrived. I had to sell my skills in order to get a pass through," He said, picking up a stick and prodding the fire.

Once the cinders were well stoked, he continued, "It started simply enough, I suppose. Hop aboard a marked ship and guide it to a port. We'd meet people there and they'd unload the goods or take the ship off of our hands, and then we'd vanish into the night, like nothing happened. Before I knew it, we began jumping ships. Three of us would board one in the middle of the night, take out the crew, and then... steal the goods." By now, his hand had dropped the stick and went to one of the bottles to his side. He then uncorked it, chucking the cork over the cliff, and took a drink. He took a moment before starting back where he left off. "It was like any other operation, I suppose. Three of us hopped into a row boat and rowed out into port. Once we were close enough, we jumped out and boarded the . We cleared the top deck in less then ten minutes. Quick, clean, easy-- supposedly." Ashton said, now holding his head with a hand.

He felt... numb? He'd played the scene over many, many times in his head before, but not once had he ever put it to words. It was a strange sensation, spilling all of this. He usually kept it all behind a wall of his usual mannerisms. A drink here, and terrible joke there, some flirting with nameless women, anything to take his mind off of it. But now here he was, neck deep in the waters. But, he'd rather tell no one but Nostariel. He sighed and continued. Ashton wouldn't leave it half told. "I went below deck to check the cargo and make sure no one slipped away to stab us in the back later. I found the cargo alright." And this was the hard part. He hesitated for a moment before he spoke. "It was slaves-- elven slaves, bound for Tevinter. The entire deck, filled with cages and chains. They were packed in like animals, old, young, women, children alike. I just stopped and stared. I couldn't believe it. I saw the keys to the cages on a nail in the wall, but I didn't reach for them. I was.. Afraid I guess." He said.

"The people I worked for, they could have had me killed, easy. Burned my home to the ground, and then paid off the guard to look the other way, if I did anything other than what I was supposed to. The elves screamed for my help, begged and pleaded, but I couldn't. I was selfish, afraid for myself. I didn't even think about the elves. I tried to turn around but this one girl. The same one you saw on the demon's face. She stared at me. I-- I don't know if it was hate, fear, sorrow, or even pity. She stared at me and I stared back. I can see her now, pleading with me with-- with those eyes so that she could be free," His voice had cracked, and it was getting harder and harder to talk. But her had to tell her, he just had to. He couldn't just quit and give up now.

"So.. I-- I turned around. I left them there. We sailed the ship back to port, and that was it. I never saw them again..." He finished, visibly shaken. He shook his head and then covered his eyes with his hand. "The keys were right there... I could-could have saved them, I could have saved them all. But I was weak, I was a coward, and I ran. That's all I ever do," he said, with a cold, heartless laugh. "I ran from the blight, I ran from my home, I ran from them, and now I've run from you. I failed them, I failed Sparrow, I failed Feynriel, and now I'm failing you. I'm-- I'm sorry," The cold laughter had morphed into tears. He couldn't hold them back anymore. There was no way he could keep them pinned back now.

"I'm so sorry," He pleaded. He had told his story, and whatever it had cost him was worth it. He needed to be judged. Whatever Nostariel said, whatever she thought of him...

He deserved it.

Nostariel could hardly believe what she was hearing. It seemed so completely at odds with her impression of Ashton that it almost didn’t register properly, like it was a bad joke. ‘Oh, and then there was my stint as a smuggler, right after I left the Templars.’ Well, it wasn’t the smuggling part that was hard to believe—she’d been allowed into Kirkwall because of the Wardens, but she held no illusions they would have taken her otherwise. An elf? Surely not. And she’d known how many struggled to find a place here only to give up and return home. She’d known someone without much coin like Ash would have to find some work to get in, and truly, smuggling was far from the worst thing that anyone had done for that privilege.

But… to turn his back on people who were suffering, for his own sake? It was hard to accept. Then again, what else could he have done? They were on a ship, close quarters, with other smugglers who would not be keen to let the people escape… but no. There was no doubt. He still should have done something. Fear was paralytic, and she could understand that, but it didn’t make what had happened right. It didn’t make not helping those people right.

Nostariel turned the thoughts over in her head for a long while, staring into the fire. By now, night was fully upon them, the only light in the clearing from the fire and the stars overhead. He had apologized to her, and she didn’t really understand that, except that maybe he was putting their voices on her tongue, asking for her to forgive him or not, as them, or maybe just as herself. She wasn’t sure that either of those things was something she could do. She was no goddess, no arbiter of absolute right and wrong. She didn’t know the answers. All she knew was what he’d done—to them, yes, but also since. She’d been beside him on numerous occasions when he risked his life, and saved hers, and did what he felt was right or necessary. Was it enough? The answer was another one of the things she didn’t know. She was uncertain, and the world was an uncertain place. Those driven forward by obvious goals to which they adhered—Lucien, Amalia, Ithilian—those people were the exceptions that proved the rule.

Everyone else swam in grey areas, trying to orient themselves in the world the best they could. Even those three must doubt, sometimes. Everyone doubted. Everyone could be pushed to uncertainty and confusion sometimes, and nobody made the right choices all the time.

“I can’t forgive you,” she said, then rushed to correct herself. “I mean, I don’t have the ability, not that I wouldn’t if I could. You’ve never wronged me, and whatever else you think, you’re not failing me. I don’t… I don’t have the answers. I don’t know what to say or how to make it better, if that’s even possible. But… regardless of their magnitude, everyone in the world makes mistakes, some of us pretty often.” It was a really sorry attempt at humor, but she was choosing to pretend she didn’t notice that he was crying. It wasn’t like drawing attention to it would help, and she didn’t know what else to do. “I guess… yes. What you did… it was wrong. And you know that. Something I’ve learned is that repeating it over and over again doesn’t change it. Nothing we do can bring those people back. I can’t get my friends back, or Tristan. They’re all dead, and those people are lost to you just as much as if they were. You and I… we can either beat ourselves over and over with that knowledge, and our part in it, or we can do better. We can make ourselves better, and swear to never repeat our mistakes. It won’t erase them, but at least it will make them mean something.”

Her words hurt, but there were truth in them. She could not give the forgiveness he sought. No one but those that he wronged could. He saw that now. Maybe he always knew that. But he was reaching out for branches now, something to pull him out of the quicksand he found himself in. His hand shifted from his face and to his forehead, dragging his hair out of her eyes and using it for support. She was right. How far had she come, since they both sat in the Hanged Man talking about their pasts over a bottle of wine. Nostariel had been a mess of tears back then, struggling with her past, and now here they sat again. Their roles reversed. It was Ashton who was the one in tears, and Nostariel who was listening. He sighed, he'd messed up. He kept messing up. He just couldn't seem to do anything right. It needed to stop. Nostariel was right.

"At least forgive me for leaving you?" He asked, the most recent of his mistakes. "I ran, and I make no excuse for it. I left you, and I'm sorry. I just felt.. I don't know what I felt. It's hard to put to words... It's like, I don't deserve to be happy. Not after what I did, you know?" He had taken what happiness the girl could have had, so why could he be happy? He didn't deserve to be happy. He certainly didn't deserve someone like Nostariel.

Nostariel shook her head. “Of course I forgive you. There’s nothing to forgive, really. You went on a bit of a hunting trip, and you promised me you’d come back. Here you are. It’s that simple.” Granted, the rest was a lot more complicated, but not that. Seeking to draw him away from his melancholy for a moment, she shifted, standing smoothly and pulling an arrow from her quiver. “Would you like to see something interesting? I’ll never beat your shot, but…” She trailed off, and figured she might as well. Nocking the string to her bow, she drew back, aiming up and over, an arc through the sky at nothing in particular, and released. Watching it, she waited for the moment when it crested its arc and began to fall, then triggered the spell. Midair, the arrow burst into a shower of tiny, glittering ice crystals, raining down over the field and reflecting the firelight.

”It might be a bit impractical, since it always destroys the arrow, but I think I know this fellow who can make me more. Lovely person, he is. Always has a smile for me on a bad day, and a shoulder on a really bad day. It might not be a lot, but he helped me. Without him, I might still be drowning in a bottle somewhere. Personally, I’m rather glad I met him.” She smiled slowly, replacing her bow at her back and offering him her hand. ”I hope I can return the favor, someday.”

A smile crept it's way back into his face. It was a light, fragile one, but it was there where one hadn't been moments ago. Her arrow, the words she had spoken. It's what he needed to hear. He felt relieved, that she didn't blame him. He still felt it was wrong, but he'd make it up to her... He promised himself that he would. He was quiet as he reached for her hand, taking it in his and kissing it. He then gently released and reached another bottle, and attempted to pry the cork of. However, it was proving to be more stubborn than he was in the mood for. Instead of setting it down and reaching for another though, he bashed the top against a rock. His mind was clouded, and he didn't think. What resulted was the shattering glass cutting his hand. Though if he felt the pain, he didn't show it, only looking at the bottle that was now in pieces. "Huh. Didn't work how I expected it to," He said, reaching for another.

Once it was in his grip, he reached for the top again-- though this time he hesitated. He was in deep thought for moments before he chuckled, this time light and airy. "This fellow, he sounds like an interesting sort. I think I'd like to meet him one day." He said. It wasn't the man that he could meet today, nor the man he meet tomorrow. But it was a man he'd like to meet. "You're right, of course. Sitting here, feeling sorry for myself, for my actions," for those people, "It's just causing more damage." He sighed and lowered the bottle, eyes rising from the fire and meeting Nostariel's again. "I've watched you, you know? You're not the same Nostariel who slept and drank in the Hanged Man every night. You've gotten better, stronger for it. I was... Am proud of you. You're so much stronger than I am."

That was it. He turned the bottle over in his hand before chucking it over the cliffside, "I suppose it never did anyone any good anyway," he said with a smile and soft chuckle. He then wiped the blood on his hand off and spoke again, "You return that favor everyday I'm with you. You're the only thing that makes all this worth it."

"I think it's about time I learn from you."


That… hadn’t exactly been her intention in offering her hand, but she decided to go with it, rather glad it would be hard to see her blush in the dark. She winced when he broke the bottle over his hand and sighed. He was a much more coherent drinker than she’d been, but she was willing to bet he was just as drunk. Catching the offending arm, she murmured a quick heal spell, watching as the flesh knit back together. ”Well, alcohol’s a disinfectant, anyway,” she replied drily. It was one less thing on his list of potential problems. She’d always thought of her healing magic as more necessary than handy, but that didn’t mean it lacked small applications.

What he was saying, she thought, was incredibly sweet, and suddenly her throat didn’t quite seem to work properly anymore, and she had to swallow past the thickness in it, the redness of her face spreading up her ears and down her neck. He was drunk, he was drunk, he was drunk and sad, she couldn’t take this too seriously. Clearing her throat a smidge awkwardly, she released the now-healed hand and sat back. ”Well, lesson one is I really have no idea what I’m doing,” she confessed. She’d sought out ways to improve herself hoping to find the answers along the way, and while she had some, she was far from a sage on the subject of forgiving oneself. “We’ll just have to make it up as we go along.”

"Should I take notes?" He said, laughing. He'd needed that as well. He still hurt, but at least the wound was reopened. Now, maybe, it could heal properly. One could only hope. He sat in quiet for a moment, just enjoying her company. Enjoying the sounds of nature, the sound of her breath and his breath. Finally, his gaze dropped, though it wasn't the same as before. This time he was looking at something, something in his lap. "You know, while I was gone on my hunting trip every night was quiet. I almost went crazy-- maybe I did, who knows. I thought I could escape, but it only left me alone in my thoughts. For half a year I've been by myself. I've realized that, I don't like to be alone. For half a year, I've only thought about one thing."

He was quiet again, this time his fingers tapping against the bone of the bow. He then gripped it with both hands and looked back up to Nostariel. "Here, it's yours," He said, holding the bow out for her.

Nostariel’s eyes were wide as saucers, and she shook her head immediately. She recalled when that bow had been the arm of a dragon. “I couldn’t possibly!” she exclaimed, “Something like that… I’m a hobbyist, at best. That belongs in the possession of someone much better at shooting than me.” It was also the work of his hands, and while she was immensely flattered, she also wasn’t sure he was really sober enough to be giving away such a thing. Or that she’d be able to draw it if he was.

He laughed again then rephrased his last sentence, "You misunderstand. It's yours. Me using it would be the same as me using your staff. I made it for you. From the beginning, that was my intention. My hands don't deserve something like this, but yours... Yours are perfect. I've asked Rilien to work an ice enchantment into the bone." He said, but he drew the bow back all the same. A flutter of a smile later and he seemed to waver. It seemed that he was actually... timid.

Being the fool in the crowd never worried Ashton, nor did playing one in front of individuals. He had no shame to speak of, and shyness was just a word. But now with the bow in hand, he looked every part of the timid child he played. He hesitated for a moment before he sighed. "I'll prove it to you," With that, he thrust the bow into the firelight so that it better illuminated the arc of the bone. In the light, the carvings were revealed before Nostariel. "I learned how to scrimshaw, just for you."

The carvings were scenes from the Tale of Ewan. The scrimshaw was flawless in form, rendered from the most important parts of the book and handled with the utmost of care. The stories collided and meshed into the next, weaving an ornate fabric work of the story all the down the bow. And above where the hand was supposed to rest, a phrase carved in careful calligraphy. "Dreams are never silly. Believe in them." "This bow isn't meant for my hands. I haven't named it yet, because it's yours to name," He said.

He hoped with all his heart she liked it, more than he hoped for anything in the world.

Nostariel was rendered effectively speechless, struck as dumb as the day she’d been born who-knew-where, to who-knew-whom, some odd number of years ago. She took the object from his hands almost reverently, tracing her fingers over the carvings. Perfect. He’d said her hands were, but if his could make something like this, than he was the perfect one, not her. The carvings ran from Ewan’s early days as a page, to his meeting of the enigmatic Piper, to his slaying of the great Dragon of the Fells. Nostariel was a little chagrined to find the moisture gathering behind her eyes, but she hadn’t cried from happiness in… well, ever. What an odd feeling.

Laying the bow to the side with the utmost care, she dove forward, wrapping both arms around Ashton in a tight hug. ”Thank you. Thank you so much. I can’t imagine anything more perfect.” Well, not in the way of gifts, anyhow.

And just like that, everything melted away. His past, his mistakes, her sad history, for a moment he forgot it all. He felt whole. It was funny, he'd never felt whole, just as if there was something missing in the pit of his being. There was nothing but them. He returned the embrace and hoped she would never let go. She spoke one last time, and he laughed again, a joyful, real laugh. Then he whispered something into her ear, before pulling away and looking at her, a smile on his lips.

"I can."

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

Amalia spent a night and half another day in the compound, mostly making herself useful by handling a few small tasks the warriors were unsuited for, and otherwise attempting to regain her equilibrium. For as long as she’d been alive, moving amongst her own people had been the best kind of meditation there was. The Qunari acted as if all had one mind, one soul, and one body. The separation between individuals was hardly present, not even conceptually. Everyone did what needed to be done, what must be done, with no hesitation or thought for personal feelings or inclinations. They had their bonds, of course, and their emotions. Nobody was without them. But such things were simply pale imitations, ghosts of the bond that drew them all together as a singularity.

For the first time, it brought her no solace. She could not help but feel as one apart, even though her mechanical movements integrated her inexorably into the whole. She walked betwixt her people, and it brought her nothing but a vague sense of unease, of dissonance. Perhaps it was because she moved with the Antaam, and not the rest. Yes… surely, that was the only reason.

Whatever it was, she found it deeply unsettling, and returned to her dwelling shortly thereafter. The viddathari were slightly more comfortable company, but all the same she made it clear that she was not going to be doing any teaching that day. Nor, in fact, was she planning on venturing out of the house at all. On anyone else, it might have been considered sulking, but Amalia did not sulk. And indeed, she was productive with her time, cleaning and sharpening every instrument of death she owned— and there were quite a number. These each found their way onto a hook in the wall of the room she’d claimed as hers, a small one at the end of the short hallway. There was a hard sleeping pallet in one corner, with a pile of blankets, as the occasional cold snap did not sit well with one so used to deserts and humid jungle.

Pushed against the opposite wall was a worktable, accented with various dried plants hanging in bundles from the ceiling. The only other pieces of furniture were a pair of stools and a shelving unit. It was clear to look at from the outside that despite the number of people she found herself surrounded by on a daily basis, her existence was quite solitary.

For once free of her armor, Amalia had donned only her robes and a pair of gloves, and was presently working on mashing several substances together with a mortar and pestle—one of the viddathari was suffering from a number of poisonous insect bites, and required a poultice. The repetitive motion helped keep her mind away from other things. She could feel her chains tugging at her again, the ones she’d told the Imekari about. Perhaps she should send her a letter, explain that no more lessons would be forthcoming? No… such a thing bore saying in person, to she and the Warden. She found, to her irritation but not her surprise, that she didn’t want to say them at all.

Ithilian had spent the majority of the day after the Fade business in the woods. Lia had insisted on joining him, and he found he was unable to refuse her. He suspected she meant to tell him something, but he couldn't keep the sour mood from his face, and it must have convinced her to keep it to herself, whatever it was. They hunted mostly in silence, which was honestly more effective, and brought back a large deer quicker than Ithilian would have liked.

Amalia's decision to remain indoors (he had asked around some of the children he knew to be her students and learned where she'd gone) had spared them the inevitable awkwardness of seeing one another, at least for the time being. Ithilian didn't really want to know what that was like, speaking to someone who had killed you in a dream, someone you thought you might have cared about more than was possible for not being an elf. Lia stopped him once they reached his home.

"I'll take care of the deer, you go... fix whatever's making you like this." He looked down at her, unsure whether or not to be annoyed that she would prod him like that, or happy that she would be able to read him like that. "Really, you're no fun at all like this. Go on, shoo. I've got this. We'll have a nice dinner when you get back." He didn't really know what else to do, so the corner of his mouth quirked up slightly, and he gave her a rough rub on the head, the way he used to do for his daughter. "If I don't come back, it's because the Qunari woman's murdered me," he said, quite honestly. Lia responded with a laugh, though.

"Hah! I bet she would beat you in a fight. Good luck!"

Once she could no longer see his face, Ithilian scowled, stepping quickly past the vhenadahl, though he pulled off his leather chestguard and ringmail shirt there and left them. It wasn't like anyone in the Alienage would steal from him. When he arrived in front of Amalia's door, he paused, a closed fist hanging in the air, but then he went through with it, hitting the door with three soft thuds.

"Amalia. The air in this city is thick enough without this hanging over it."

The door was answered, not by Amalia, but one of her viddathari, a solemn-eyed boy of perhaps fourteen, the pointed ears marking him as a native denizen of the Alienage. He regarded Ithilian steadily for a moment, bereft of the usual touch of fear or awe that the other elves showed him, then pushed the door open widely enough for him to step through. “She’s in the back,” the lad said, and then his eyes narrowed. “She hasn’t been speaking very much, though. You might not get her to talk to you.” He pointed to the hallway, then gestured left to indicate which door the man would want.

Amalia did not initially look up as he entered. Instead, she finished her crushing with a dull scrape of granite, then scooped the contents of the stone bowl onto what was clearly meant to be a bandage of some kind. The cloth was far from pristine, but she’d boiled it beforehand, so it was clean regardless. ”There is something you require of me, basra?” she asked flatly, setting the bowl aside for cleaning. She’d told her students not to let anyone in today; apparently, one of them thought he understood what she required more than she did. That would be a matter for some discussion later.

He knew what the word meant. Perhaps it was somewhat of a parallel to him referring to her as a shem. Something of that nature. It wasn't unexpected. He'd tried to kill her, after all. He wasn't sure what the best course of action here was. Should he shoot back at her? Should he beg her forgiveness? He didn't want to be enemies with her, that much he knew.

"I've never required anything of you, nor you me," he said. "I was deceived by a demon. I cannot deny my pride, certainly not now. What the demon promised in the dream seemed possible, it seemed real. I've wanted to see a place like that my entire life." He didn't really know what to do with himself; he was just sort of standing there in her doorway. He was distinctly aware of young ears listening in.

"I'm not infallible," he said, struggling to keep frustration from his voice. "No one ever trained me to resist demons. I... shit..." He ran a hand through his hair in frustration, resisting the urge to hit something inanimate. "I don't know what I'm supposed to say here. All I know is that this feels wrong. Everything." He gave up on words, leaning up against the wall and scowling at the floor like it had threatened him.

Amalia could not help but think he had misread her somewhat. Normally, she would not bother to correct something of that nature, but… here, she was driven to it. She looked up at last, and her eyes were hard, though given his own posture, he wouldn’t know. “It was never your motive I faulted,” she said simply. “You think I have somehow missed what you want? A world where your people can reclaim what is theirs? I’ve known that much for quite some time.” She paused, arranging the words as she wanted them. She was not one to spare feelings, not her own or anyone else’s, but she also did not desire to be ill understood. It was a delicate balance, one she was not certain she had mastered. ”I was displeased because you thought you had to turn to a hissra to get it. I had thought you began to understand what I have always believed—that you, not an illusion, will be enough to do what you need to.”

Speaking so plainly was clearly a bit odd for her, and her expression switched abruptly, this time to one of perplexity. She had intended not to speak at all, to say nothing and allow the volumes to be communicated in her silence, but that was unfair. ”And I was angry because you believed it when it told you that killing myself and the Warden would bring you what you wanted. Angry because you did not hesitate.” She was still angry about it, actually, but conveying this was unnecessary. The circumstances of the discussion made this obvious enough. ”I had believed you different. Someone who would not turn his back on the people who trusted him. I have believed so exactly thrice, and all three times, I have been mistaken. So perhaps I am as much to blame as you are.”

She stood, mouth dropping into a pronounced frown. Pacing the small room in a rare show of agitation, she completed two crossings of the space before she spoke again. “And then I gave it some thought, and perhaps I should be thanking you. I realized that what happened was inevitable. I thought about what you wanted, and I understood that, in order to obtain it, you would have to eliminate me eventually. I was not born with your history, your heritage, your morphology. I would be an obstacle to a world made for elves, because I am not one. Sooner or later, in that world’s advent, I must die. Unless you’d think to emulate the vile Tevinters and keep others as pets.”

Of course, then she’d given it yet more thought, and realized that in that, she may well be exactly the same. The Qun demanded its own expansion, its spread to all the corners of the world, and resistance was to be quashed. Either through death, or through assimilation. It was then, for the only time she could recall, that her step, perfectly in time with the heartbeat of her people, had faltered. And why? It had stood up against so much more than the life of one person before. Yet she’d raised her head, looked around, and been disquiet with what her eyes had shown her. She had learned, then, that part of herself still harbored hissra of her own, and the knowledge had terrified her. Her dauntless soul had wavered, and she’d almost been able to swear that every one of those soldiers had known it. So she’d fled it.

“And after that, I realized something I hadn’t known. In this, I am not like you. If the Ariqun appeared before me today and told me to slay you, to slay Imekari, to slay the Warden, I could not.” Her utter confusion was writ large over her face, and she stopped pacing, glancing across the room at him. The Qun had been the only constant in her life for so very long, the only thing that never wavered, the only thing that made her strong. But now she felt that it was tenuous in her hands, and she was absolutely afraid of that. She’d been taught that when things like this occurred, when she began to feel the urge to put individuals over the whole, she was being tempted, held under the sway of an illusion. So why did she feel as though the veil had been lifted instead?

“It feels wrong for me as well. And I do not understand it. Nothing I have ever been taught grants me understanding. Even knowing where you stand, what you would and will do, it persists.” Her tone had shifted, apprehension and wonder warring for control of it.

It was quite honestly too much. Ithilian ended up sliding to the floor, propping his head on one hand. Was he so weak? He didn't think so, and yet when it came down to it, he seemed to always think himself inadequate of the goal he'd been striving for. It just seemed so... impossible, especially when simply exacting small revenges was so much easier, so much more achievable. He was simply one man. He wasn't a leader of his kind, he wasn't an inspiration, he was just a killer and a hunter. He could feed them and kill their enemies, but he never truly believed he could inspire them to anything.

And Amalia... she was right. The reason he'd turned his arrow on her and not on Nostariel had nothing to do with how he felt about them. In the end, his instincts had come down to the determination that Nostariel was elven, and Amalia was not. Qunari or human it made no difference, the anatomy was still the same. The human race would still have the same effect on the elven one regardless. In Ithilian's version of a perfect future, Amalia could not exist, or at the very least, she needed to be far, far away. And in the Qun's version of a perfect future... well, it wasn't something that Ithilian wanted for elves. He'd always been a firm believer in isolationism as the only way to restore what the elves had lost. The Qun would not bring any of that back. It would rewrite it and destroy it altogether. So... where the hell did that leave them?

"I don't know what to do anymore," he admitted, shrugging weakly. He'd proven it time and time again: he was not as strong as everyone thought he was. He could not live up to expectations. He was weak. She was a fool to ever believe in him, wasn't she? "All I've ever done is fight for my people's future. I've left pieces of myself along the way. I've betrayed the trust of friends, and lost others entirely. And I have so little to show for it." He was now quite clearly on the brink of striking something.

”For all that many things are certain, few are ever simple,” she said heavily, taking a couple of steps forward and dropping into a crouch in front of him, so as to be on a level and capable of eye contact. There was something she wanted to say here, but she was not quite sure what it was. She was too perplexed about too many things to render any judgements today, even if she had been inclined to do so. ”You complicate my life, Ithilian. There’s little point in denying that. But I do not know what to make of that complication, and so for now, I won’t do anything.” There were far too many things she had yet to work through for her to yet contemplate burning this bridge, she had determined that much at the very least.

”For the moment, I invite you to do as I am going to: to live with your eyes open, see what you might, and then determine what it is that you want to do about it. I will expect only one thing of you in the meantime: that, if you determine that it has become your task to be rid of me, you do me the courtesy of informing me beforehand. I will not stay if I risk a knife in my back again. It is not… I am too weak to endure that.” The emphasis on the word was only very slight, but it was accompanied by an expression, too fleeting to read. ”Perhaps, when we are done, we will both have more to show for it than our scars.”

"I'm..." he started, but he hesitated, because the words seemed downright treasonous coming out of him. "I'm tired of the things I feel like I have to do for the Dalish. I never wanted you or anyone I care about to get hurt, but it seems like everything I do leads to that just the same." He stood, needing to get out, needing to think. There was a lot to absorb.

"I need some time to think about this, as you said. Maybe something to kill. Not you, of course, we already know who wins that fight." There was a hint of dark humor in his voice, but he suspected that now was not the time. "After all, it's clear that I need you here. Even if it complicates things." He didn't know what else to say. There wasn't anything that could be decided on the spot. At the moment, it didn't seem like there was a right decision to be made. Maybe that would change once he cleared his head.

Amalia stood as Ithilian did, nodding to his words. It would seem from the look of things that she had regained some of her lost equilibrium, for she no longer seemed upset or particularly puzzled. Even such small determinations as the one she had come to could do that. Mer— Very well. I understand. If you should wish to share your determination with me, you know where I might be found.” It was certainly not a process she desired to rush, and she didn’t want him to rush his, either. Things this important deserved time and care.

As soon as he’d left, Amalia collapsed into her chair, staring vacantly at her forward wall. Just where had her precious certainty gone, and why now? It was, perhaps, the hardest question she’d ever had to ask herself.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion

Earnings

0.00 INK



"My lady," Bran said pleadingly, "I know it is your way to take struggles like this upon your shoulders, but the city guard can handle this. It just isn't wise to risk yourself like this, not when the guard is capable of solving this issue without you putting your life in danger."

Sophia smiled slightly as she knelt down to lace up her boots. "Unwise? I don't believe there ever was a wiser choice than this." 1t0mIfpVc

"I agree, it is most noble of you to make these sacrifices on behalf of the city guard, but I must repeat myself: the risk is not worth the reward."

"And there we'll have to disagree," she responded, sliding Vesenia over her shoulder and buckling the sheath across her chest. She gave Bran a knowing look. "Really, Bran, how many times have we had this conversation? You know how it ends, don't you?" She slipped her hands into her leather gauntlets and, now fully geared, crossed her arms and gave Bran a half-smile.

"I do," he admitted. "I warn you of the dangers, you ignore them, and then you return to us bleeding." She laughed at that, even if she knew it to be the truth. "Maybe so, but a leader that does not bleed with her people is no leader at all, is she?" Bran sighed, lowering his voice now. "It's a good thing the leader doesn't bleed in equal measure as the people. I'm afraid you wouldn't have any left."

"Sadly true. Which is why I have to go."

"You're impossible, you know that?"

"It serves me well. I'll see you soon, Bran." She strode confidently from her quarters, a pair of guardsmen joining her. It was true, she had to admit, this was probably something she needn't involve herself in, but when the Viscount's daughter overheard trouble from a guardsmen, especially when she'd been itching to get out of the Keep for about a week now, it was too difficult for her to resist. And so here she was, about to ride out to the Wounded Coast and investigate why a patrol of guards hadn't returned from their route today.

She stopped when she saw Sparrow standing in the entrance to the Keep. She'd almost forgotten that she'd summoned the half-elf to deliver her update on the whereabouts of those men she was looking for. As much as she wanted to drop everything and help the woman (Sophia was also still getting used to that), she had already committed herself to this, and couldn't stop now, especially since time was of the essence.

"Sparrow!" she called. "You'll have to forgive me, some trouble's come up on the Wounded Coast and I've decided to see to the situation myself. We'll have to arrange another meeting time. Is that alright?"

Sparrow tip-tapped her feet against the cobblestones, creating a significantly more annoying tune whenever the guards shot glares in her direction. She only shrugged her shoulders, levelling her own lidded gaze, partly because it seemed to cause them some sort of personal affront – were all guardsmen so testy? Or did her presence somehow threaten them? Patience had never been a virtue of hers. Beams of sunlight kissed their shiny pauldrons, reflected from their breastplates like old lighthouse beacons leading other grumpy-faced back into port, and she'd actually left her sturdy set of armour back in Rilien's homestead (because homestead sounded so much better than hovel). Instead, she'd opted for a slender-fitting set of leathers, coalesced with shiny, freshly-washed vestments that might have belonged to a freebooter. Slightly better than running around in noble's wear, but not by much.

Her mace still swung neatly at her hip, looking awfully large without her bulky plate mail. Had it been anyone else, they might have arrested her for looking far too peculiar. Thankfully, they were awfully familiar with her by now. She yawned theatrically, stretching her arms above her head. In the midst of her stretch, Sparrow spotted Sophia approaching from the top of the stairwell, and deftly dropped her hands, rubbing absently at the corners of her eyes. “Sophia,” She greeted merrily, nearly bounding up the remaining stairs to meet her. Her mouth opened to say more, but was promptly shut when her well-to-do companion announced that she had other matters to attend to. It made sense, after all. A quick glimpse was all it took to see that she was geared to leave the city – or else, did she always don her armour? Disappointment weighed briefly in her stomach, anchoring her in place.

“Ah!” Sparrow suddenly chirped, nodding her head sagely. She was familiar enough with the Wounded Coast, having met with Amalia there on occasion and wandering there when she had to clear her head and her heart. “Why don't I accompany you, then? Four hands are always better than two.”

Sophia's first instinct was to refuse, considering that the task she'd taken upon herself was likely dangerous, and she wouldn't want to bring that danger upon someone who didn't understand what they were getting into. But after a moment of thought, she figured Sparrow knew exactly what she was signing up for by offering to help. Sophia was as armed and armored as she'd ever been, she had a pair of city guards flanking her, and was moving with a sense of urgency that implied impending danger. Sophia noted the mace hanging at Sparrow's hip.

"In that case, we can talk about it on the way," she said happily, continuing on down the stairs to the bottom and signaling for Sparrow to follow her. Really, she imagined even Bran would approve of this. While Sophia would have liked to believe she could place utter faith in the guard, her past experience told her otherwise. Friends outside the sphere of traditional authority had to be more reliable, and Sophia found that she had not enough in this regard. She felt that Sparrow could possibly fill that area, based on what she knew of her personality so far. She seemed bold, and while she didn't strike her as someone who had the utmost respect for authority, Sophia thought she could sense a good heart in her. If she was freely offering her services like this, it only added to that belief.

"A patrol didn't report back on time. Normally I'd let the guard handle it, but their route of the Wounded Coast has been hit by bandits pretty regularly, enough for me to think there's some kind of organization to it. We're going to put a stop to it, whatever it is." They pushed their way through the front doors and off to the side, towards the stables, where horses were already brought out and waiting. Sophia whistled loudly, gesturing to one of the stablehands. "One more for my friend here, please!" She then turned to the half-elf.

"Do you ride, Sparrow?"

Sparrow waited, eyebrows flagged expectantly. Had she been refused, she would have simply offered her services once more, perhaps a little more adamantly, until Sophia finally caved in. She could be persuasive if she wanted to, or just insufferably irritating – both of which usually worked to swaying someone to her way of thinking. Who wouldn't accept another willing hand, a steady sword, or specifically a heavy-handed mace that could crush skulls and ribs alike? Not many, she thought. When Sophia inclined her head, Sparrow threw her a lopsided grin and mock-saluted the guards flanking their dear lady. Thinking better of it, the half-elf dropped her waggling fingers and joined Sophia at her side. Usually, guardsmen were busy chasing her fading trail down dark alleyways for causing trouble, and now she'd be fighting alongside them, however temporarily.

“That's great!” She approved, tromping down the stairs two at a time. Two birds, one stone. Though, she might have offered her services even if she hadn't had business with Sophia. Sticking her nose in other peoples business, when she was around to be nosey, was commonplace, and as Rilien usually said, would get her in more trouble than she warranted – but Sophia was a beautiful lady who she hadn't yet seen swing a sword, who could walk away? She could wear all the world's emotions on her face and still not mean any of them, but this time, her smile was genuine, clearly appreciative. She could not profess to know Sophia as well as she did her other companions, but anyone who was willing to help her, without much to go on, couldn't be ill-intentioned. Sophia was, in truest form, a knight. Perhaps, a little like Lucien.

She nodded. The Wounded Coast was renown for its dangers. If there weren't bandits plaguing the roads, then there were rogue Qunari – those who'd willingly left the Qun's teachings, otherwise known as Tal-Vashoth, creeping in the underbrush. Their motivations, even still, were unknown beyond escaping their chosen vocations in their strict society. She'd questioned on more than one occasion whether or not she fit in that category. Had she not done the same thing? She'd just chosen not to do away with her life as a mercenary, hiding in the mountains like a snake. Unorganized, pathless. Sparrow pitied them. She'd found her own path through her many travels, paving a road she couldn't have ever thought possible. But, perhaps, it had been because she was not truly Qunari, nor elven, nor human. “That is worrisome,” She added, rolling her eyes skywards. Organized bandits in groups capable of taking on skilled, experienced warriors? There were few capable of such a feat. Could they be...

A horse? Sparrow's ears twitched, lowering restlessly. The whistle caught her off-guard, but what had surprised her most was when the stablehand trotted back from the stables, guiding a large beast in his wake. Horses were treacherous creatures, always snorting and pawing at the ground. Probably whispering to each other in horse-language, plotting to toss you off like a sack of potatoes, straight off a cliff. “Oh, uh...” she began, idling slightly away from the horse, who'd pushed its muzzle towards her face, “Riding. I've never really, honestly. Uh, but it can't be that hard, can it?” Fingers, unusually unsure, snatched up the reigns, dropped them and moved towards the saddle. The horn on the saddle looked useless to her, but the dangling-metal contraptions hanging on the bottom looked promising. She paused momentarily, and regarded the other guards, and Sophia, as well. Perhaps, it might be easier watching someone else mount, and she could (attempt to) follow suit.

Sophia's own horse, a white destrier equally as beautiful as he was powerful, was trotted out to meet her. He had been a birthday gift for her upon her twentieth birthday, and was certainly one of her truest friends. She stroked his silvery mane affectionately once before lifting her right boot up into the stirrup, taking a grip on the pommel and rising, swinging her right leg over and settling easily into the saddle. She turned him around to face Sparrow, smiling gently at her hesitation.

"Aiden can hold two, if you're uncomfortable. I don't mind," she said, removing her foot from the stirrup and offering Sparrow a hand if she wished to climb up. Instantly learning to ride a horse was no easy task, and they wouldn't be traveling slowly, that much was certain.

After fiddling with the reigns and the metal-contraptions for a moment, and even attempting to swing her leg the wrong way onto the horses saddle, only hopping along with the bemused creature, Sparrow halted her clumsy attempts. It would do her no good if they started galloping and she was left hanging from the stirrups, banging her head on the ground. She certainly wouldn't know how to stop the horse if it misbehaved. She gave the horse an uneasy pat on the muzzle, handed the reigns off to one of the burly, smarmy-mouthed guards and turned on her heels.

Surely, Sophia wouldn't think ill of her not knowing how to ride. She'd only been around the deer-like variety as a child, and the Qunari had no need for valiant steeds. Too proud to let another creature bear it's burdens. Sparrow circled around Sophia's horse (who seemed a little more experienced) and snatched up the proffered hand, and with a little difficulty, managed to swing behind her. For once, she wasn't exactly sure where to rest her hands, so she settled them onto her knees and laughed. “Thank you. Hrm. Perhaps, you can give me riding lessons one day. I can't remain useless on horses.”

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera

Earnings

0.00 INK

It was a beautiful day, and it seemed such a waste to just sit inside and watch the store. Especially now that he had an employee. So obviously, being the managerial type, Ashton stuck Lia at the counter while he went outside. Not that he went far from the shop. He still had his own chores to do around the shop, and he was currently right in the middle of one. He no longer felt the Hunted Stag fit his shop, and he had since took that sign down. So he sat in a chair beside the door to the shop, old sign laying up against the leg of his chair, new sign in his lap. His hands were busily carving something away into the wood, and his entire concentrative powers were being brought to bear.

That didn't stop him from noticing that it had still been a slow day. That was to be expected, he had only opened his shop back up.. What? A couple of days ago? And his-- their-- stock was hardly complete. He had hinted to Lia that she should spread word about the grand reopening of his shop. The way he spoke of it was like it wasn't some hole in the wall. It still struck him sometimes that he had someone working for him. In fact, Lia had been quite the boon. She was quite the accomplished hunter in his eyes, managing to bring in a fat buck the very next day he hired her. He had taken the opportunity to skin and process it, allowing Lia to play the part of assistant. He needed something to do to take his mind off of recent activities. Ashton did note that the girl was well versed in the second, least thought about aspect of hunting as well-- the cleaning.

Between them, they had managed a soft opening of sorts. It'd still be a few weeks before they were back to power, and the leather skinned from the buck still needed time to cure and dry. Still, he couldn't complain. He even had to admit it felt nice to be back home, in some place familiar instead of having to fight tooth and nail to survive in the wilderness. The best part about it was the complete absence of bear signs. Speaking of signs, he looked up from the pile of wood shavings and tossed his glance about himself. It really was a beautiful day. He felt like nothing could go wrong.

The door to Ashton's shop swung open from the inside, the young elven girl propping it open with a wooden chair, which she took a seat in. She shrugged at Ashton. "Not much to do in there. I'll go back if someone shows up." She kicked her legs out in front of her and slid her hands behind her head, sighing contentedly as she took in the day. There was always a certain smell that hung over Lowtown, but today it seemed somewhat thinner than usual. It wasn't so sweet as the forest was, of course, but the improvement was serving to lift her spirits.

"You could call it..." Lia mused, quirking her mouth sideways in thought. "Hrm. Something with dragons, maybe? Since you've made things with dragonbone. Not many get to do that. Seems like a--" but she cut herself off, swiftly removing her hands from her head, her eyes getting a little wide as she caught sight of something behind Ashton.

Ithilian moved slowly today, not possessed of the same overbearing hate he'd had when throttling information out of Vincento years ago, and most of his other ventures into the rest of Lowtown. He was calm and largely emotionless, though just the way he walked seemed to give away the fact that something heavy hung over him, like a little storm cloud was disrupting the otherwise clear skies around him. He looked about to go on a hunt, armed with various knives, his bow in its sheath behind him, a full quiver of arrows hung from his hip.

"Go back inside, Lia. I need to speak to Ashton alone." She sat up straighter. "Ithilian..." But he waved her off, not looking like he wanted an argument with her. "Go on, I'm not going to kill him, we're just going to talk for a little while." She rolled her eyes, before picking up the chair and sulking back inside the shop. closing the door softly behind her. Ithilian came to a stop before the seated hunter, crossing his arms and lowering his voice.

"Unless that's what you desire?" Demons may have been false about granting desires, but they always offered them truly, and Ithilian had seen his.

Looks like he was wrong about the day not going completely tits up. Ashton sighed and dropped the sign into his lap. He'd figure that he wouldn't be be able to get anymore carving done without getting stabbed in the face with the chisel. He really didn't need this right now-- in fact he could have done without it for the rest of his life. He propped his hands up behind his head and pushed off with a foot, leaving the chair on two legs and him posted up against the wall of his shop. "Five years ago, I wouldn't have stopped you-- Though I'd appreciate if you didn't pretend to know what I desire now," He said without even shifting. He'd had enough of playing the coward.

He shrugged and continued, "Did you come by for a reason, or to just offer the sweet release of death? 'Cause I can do without that last part, thanks," he said, a false smile creeping into lips. He certainly was not in the mood to put up with some condescending, murderous elf. Not after what he'd been through lately.

"Good," Ithilian said. "misery directed at the past will only taint your future." The way he said it implied he knew it for himself. Ashton had likely not heard that he'd joined the Deep Roads Expedition specifically to seek death after claiming some pitiful vengeance, but he'd seen the way Ithilian had cleaved the darkspawn apart, no thought given to his own preservation, only the pain and suffering he inflicted upon his enemies. The look in his eyes had been that of a man with nothing left to lose but his hate. At least, so he had thought, before he realized how much he had to gain still.

"I'm here for Lia," he said. His tone remained civil, certainly, if not entirely friendly. Honestly, he'd expected he would approach this conversation with significantly more anger, but recent events had beaten on his established prejudices so much that he was willing to give the man a chance. Live with his eyes open. He wanted Ashton to show him that he was worthy of an ounce of Ithilian's trust, rather than simply deny it from him from the start simply by being what he was. Thinking back... he'd never been betrayed by a shemlen, but only because he'd never trusted one long enough to allow him or her to do so. Amalia was the only non-elf he had ever placed any amount of faith in... and she had yet to let him down in the slightest, despite the sheer magnitude of the ways in which he had already failed her.

"I'm here because there are very few things in this world that mean anything to me at this point in my life, and she is right at the top of that list. I'm not her father; I won't dictate what she does with her life unless I believe she is placing herself in danger that she doesn't yet understand." It was quite possible that Ithilian had never been as serious about anything in his entire life. "But she didn't see what I saw in that dream. I would like to know what that was. I don't need details, just the truth. This city has never been a safe place for our kind, and I need to know if I can trust you to protect her in the event that anything should happen."

Ashton sighed and pushed himself off the wall, setting his feet evenly on the ground. Truth be told, Ashton expected the conversation to be a bit more angry as well. The man did not like him, and that much was blindingly clear. When Ithilian said Lia's name, Ashton couldn't help but look toward the door, as if to make sure the girl went inside, before returning the gaze. He listened to the civil words of the man and nodded along. He could understand where the man was coming from, the contents of his own nightmare were suspect in their own right. As Ithilian neared the end of his speech, Ashton interlocked his fingers and placed them on the sign, with him staring down at it.

Deserved or not, it was still hard to speak of it, with the pain still so fresh in his mind. He couldn't keep hiding it forever, and he couldn't keep on running like he did. So he sighed and tried to put the words together that would both ease Ithilian's mind, and not send him for his throat. "I accidently let some of your people become slaves," wasn't going to work with this man. He needed to be subtle if he wanted to keep his throat intact. After a while collecting his thoughts, he spoke. "A mistake I never intend on making again," He answered, looking back up to Ithilian. "I screwed up a lot, okay? And I'm tired of it."

"It'll take a while before I can trust myself again, but I will promise you this. The only place that girl will be safer, is in your own hands. I won't ever make that mistake again," Ashton said, nodding resolutely. He wouldn't allow it. Nostariel had shown him that he could heal, and become stronger for it, and while his path was just starting, he had a great trailblazer by his side. "One thing, though," Ashton said, bringing a singular digit up. "Nostariel told me what happened when I left."

He needed to know, so he asked her. He couldn't hope to bury his head in the sand and forget about what happened in the Fade. She had told him enough. Now it was Ashton's turn to return Ithilian's look. Now Ithilian had to show him he could be trusted. "She thinks of you as a friend you know?" He said. Maybe it was because they were both elves, maybe they shared some kind of loss, Ashton didn't know-- he didn't want to know. The man's personal business was his own. That's why Ashton didn't ask why. "I need to know that you won't put her in danger again," Ashton emphasized. Danger was a fact of life for the Warden, hell for all of them it seemed like. It just never came from inside.

"I did what I did for Lia," he explained simply. "A demon convinced me to turn on the two greatest allies I have because I wanted to give her a world where she wouldn't be in danger every time she left home." He sighed. He had hoped the man would come clean completely, but this would have to do, he supposed.

"A mistake I never intend on making again," he said, mirroring the man's words. "Really, can either of us promise more? It's clear at this point that neither of us is infallible. I never harmed Nostariel, no more than you did. I took my action against a closer friend, and I have paid the price. You gave up on any chance you had at defending her when you fled from the dream."

His arms fell to his side, and he shrugged. "So maybe we'll learn some trust for each other as we learn to trust ourselves? Stranger things have happened. I expect that if Nostariel comes to harm at my hands, you'll put an arrow through my eye. You should expect that if Lia comes to harm at your hands, I'll put a sword through your throat. Neither of us will let either of those things happen. Does that sound agreeable?" He extended a hand to the human hunter. "I'd expect nothing less," Ashton said, standing and taking the Dalish warrior's hand.

"Good," Ithilian replied. "Now, if you don't need Lia for the rest of the day, I meant to go on a hunt." At that, the girl herself pushed the door open and looked at Ashton pleadingly. "Gods, yes. Can I leave, Ashton? I really need to kill something after listening to that." Ithilian breathed deeply through his nose, and sighed. Ashton's eyes dropped. Of course, why didn't he expect her to listen in. It's what he would have done if he was that age. Instead of fighting it, he sighed and just smiled. "You act like you were doing anything anyway, go on, get out of here," he said, shooing her off. "I'll finish this sign. What was it you said? Dragon something?" He said, taking his seat back on his chair, and resumed carving.

"Yeah, Dragon..." she disappeared inside the shop, returning with her bow and arrows. "... something. You'll figure it out, I'm sure."

Ithilian gave Ashton a single nod before turning and departing, the little huntress at his side.

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon

Earnings

0.00 INK

As one should have perhaps expected of a bloodmage, Gascard drew his staff and promptly summoned a demon. Several, actually: no less than four Desire Demons emerged from the ground beneath his feet, and Rilien had to actively work to stop himself from simply leaping forward and tearing into the nearest one with his blades. He was... especially unfond of those particular demons, but the number present was enough to demand some tactical thinking, and if there was anything Rilien could do well, it was thinking tactically. Also fortunately, he knew something of the skills of both of the individuals he was working with, Lucien considerably more than Aurora, for obvious reasons. Less fortunate was the fact that Gascard's next move was to draw a dagger from his belt and stab himself in the hand. Why it was always the hands, Rilien really didn't know. Scarring too badly there could lead to permanent dexterity reduction... and that spell was blood control. He recognized it well, and its target was the Chevalier.

Apparently deciding that the elf was the next-largest threat, Gascard sent all four of the demons (and attempted to force Lucien) after him, whilst the mage himself took up his staff against Aurora, casting a Hex of Torment upon the young woman, to plague her with phantom pains.

The spell was immediate and devastating. Pain snaked it's fingers into Aurora's mind and gripped tight, doubling her over. It balled her up and sent her crouch, her hands reaching for her temples. A pretty poor showing for all she learned in three years. It was so sudden though, and she was so unprepared. Now that the spell had been active for a few moments, and her reflexes now had time to kick in, she began to rise again, tearing one hand from her face, leaving the other covering the side of her face. Through the gaps in her fingers, she stared down Gascard and she began to shake her head. She looked almost... Disappointed. She took a singular step forward and broke free of the spell.

She was embarrassed that it even effected her in the first place. "Illusions. There is no pain, only what our minds imagine. But in the end, I know what's real and what's not," she said, taking her hand from her face, and pushing ahead one more step. "Vengeance clouds your mind. What you think gives you purpose and drive only holds you back and chains you down. The power you think you possess, through either your veins or even through them," She then pointed toward the demons that were currently assaulting her friends, and then dismissed them entirely. Four Desire demons against a Tranquil and a Chevalier. She pitied the Demons' odds. There were no tempting either of them.

"It's all an illusion," she finished, drawing both arms out to her side. She then clenched her fists tightly, drawing the stone tiles from the floor. The tiles lifted into the air and plastered themselves to Aurora's arms, going all the way to her shoulders, connecting at her back, but nowhere else. Her body and her legs were left bare. She then settled into her stance, pulling her arms up in front of her. Her face was a porcelain, emotionless mask.

"I, on the contrary, am not."

There was hardly time to lament that yet another person had chosen the bloody way out, as Lucien swiftly found his limbs locked up and unresponsive. He felt as though he were being tugged at like a puppet, the strings buried somewhere underneath his skin. For all his experience in battle, he had never been under the sway of blood magic before, and it took him a moment to realize that this must surely be what the strange feeling was. It was as though something else, something other sat quietly, insidiously, inside his limbs, and that thing woke like a sleeping bronto, stirring and moving him in ways he did not will. His first, visceral reaction was to fight it, and for several long moments, there was only an internal struggle that left him entirely immobilized, vulnerable.

He could see the fight moving before him, the quartet of demons setting upon Rilien, and the contortion of Aurora’s face as she was assailed by some pain whose cause he could not discern. That he was so useless in this moment struck something in the very core of his being, tearing past all the layers of defense and affectations, though few, to hit a pealing note against his innermost convictions, and he would not be useless.

With an exertion as much of the will as of the body, Lucien heaved, breaking the invisible chains that bound him down with an unheard snap, his hand flying to his axe and swinging it in a devastating downward arc, smashing right through the skull of the nearest Desure Demon. He felt as though he’d just run a marathon in full plate, his breaths coming in great heaves to and from the bellows of his lungs. “Aurora,” he entreated. “If you can avoid it, please don’t kill him.” It was not an order—he wasn’t in the business of giving those, not anymore. It was an appeal to her better nature, a request from someone who’d just fallen victim to the worst part of Gascard’s. But those women—DuPuis had information that could help the investigation, could see to it that no more were victimized in the same way, and they owed it to those victims to bring that information, whole and intact, to the attention of people who could do something about it.

Rilien, faced with an oncoming tide of demons, leaped into the fray, unwilling to waste his time with constraint any longer. He expected Lucien to be right there beside him—this was a pattern he’d grown used to, grown, even, to trust, but a sidelong glance over his shoulder confirmed that the Chevalier had not followed. In fact, he was standing, unmoving and still, as a stature might, a monument carved to the foolish daring that belonged to knights. The flare of magic was enough evidence for the Tranquil; his erstwhile companion was overtaken by a blood control spell. Such things were not easily broken, and the last time he’d been put under one himself was a number of years ago. He had perfect logic and experience with magic to aid him in escaping. Lucien did not.

His divided attention cost him, and Rilien found one of his forearms bathed in flame when he moved too slowly. He drew it back, laying the flat of the ice-knife against it. The hissing was harbinger of a sharp pain, but the ice soon numbed the limb anyway, and he refocused on the task at hand, darting forward and puncturing one just below the clavicle with his other knife, this one crackling with electricity. Wrenching downwards, he disemboweled the armorless creature, whatever mind magic she was attempting to work on the elf and the soldier utterly ineffective on one whose mind had been stilled by the Rite of Tranquility.

"I didn't plan on it," Aurora replied, slowly circling the blood mage. "He might not be in one piece though..." She added, rolling out of the way of an Arcane spell. She jumped back to her feet and went straight, looking to close the distance. They could both sit around and throw spells at each other until one hit, or she can get close and finish it. She would have to fight through the Mind Blast first, as Gascard recovered from the miss quicker than she expected. Again, she was assualted by illusory magic, but unlike the other, this one had force behind it. It took her off her feet and blew her backwards, sliding on her back.

Aurora was just as quick, bringing her feet up and over, flipping back to a standing position, with her hand down in a three point stance. Fine, if he wanted to throw spell, so be it. She leveraged one rock encased arm back, reaching into the fade as she did, and flicked it forward sending out a blast of ice. She followed close behind. He conjured a arcane shield, fizzling out the ice and sent another spell forward from his staff. This time she fell to a knee but recovered. She felt the strength drain from her body as the Hex worked its way to her core. But Aurora wouldn't be stopped, not by some illusion.

Lucien smiled at that, a grim warrior’s smile. He’d not killed people into pieces before as well—it was a distinction that he understood was sometimes necessary. Some men just didn’t deserve to be able to hold weapons anymore, much less the swords of a Chevalier. Or staves, he supposed, if they were mages. He had no doubt that there were those who bore the power they’d been given well, just as much as there were those who did not deserve it.

Rilien having disemboweled one of the remaining demons left them down to two in total, and Lucien faced one of them squarely, raising his axe to strike, except—her image wavered, replaced quickly with a very familiar one. It flickered through a few, actually—a redheaded woman with a handsome face and an infectious smile, a more solemn, feminine blonde lady, also in armor, his mother again, his father… then him. In the end, Lucien was looking at himself.

Only, it wasn’t really himself at all. This Lucien bore no eyepatch, no scar, and the eye that should have been damaged wasn’t at all. His armor was the full Chevalier battle regalia, a brilliant crimson in color, but the cloak he wore over his own back was the jet black one trimmed in gold, that belonged only to the Lord General of the Orlesian Army. A circlet over his brow was one he recognized—it had once belonged to him, the tangible mark of his status as heir. The faces he’d seen before stood arrayed behind him, along with all his friends from the Academy, even the dead ones. “Well, well. Now this is interesting,” his own voice spoke to him. “You do not have small aspirations, do you?”

His brows drew together at the words. “Not that I blame you of course. Few are in a position to do so much good as the future Emperor of Orlais, after all. Yes, thinking about it, about all the people you could save, all the downtrodden you could lift on these shoulders of yours, it makes perfect sense. And it is all yours by right, anyway. They took it from you unfairly, branded you traitor, insubordinate, heretical for your choice to help a soulless husk instead of the divine providence of the Chantry. Three worse things to be, there are not.”

The Chevalier snorted. “In Orlais? There are many worse things to be. An elf, a mage, and unfashionable, for a start.” The words were harsh, but he did not yet heft his axe to attack, either.

“Maybe so,” the other Lucien conceded, “But you could change that, couldn’t you? With you leading them, your people would come to accept the others among them peacefully. Your country would have a Golden Age the like of which your ancestor could only dream of. I could help you; I could give you all of this.”

Lucien’s smile softened, and his answer was touched by a weighty melancholy. “A demon, give me a world without subjugation? No, I really don’t think you could. And I wouldn’t want you to.” If people didn’t build that world themselves, if it was nothing more than an elaborate working of magic, then it would have no strength and no permanence. He aspired even higher than a Fade-creature could climb, it seemed. Raising his axe, Lucien brought it down on his double, cleaving through the armor as though it were mere flesh—which it was. The creature fell, vanishing, and he straightened. That had been… peculiar, to say the least.

The last demon understood well enough that one could not tempt a Tranquil with a possessed friend, and she didn’t even try. If Rilien was in the business of giving credit, she would have received a small amount of it for that. As it was, he ducked backwards to avoid a strike of her claws, then darted rapidly to the side, a fireball exploding in his wake. Two more followed, driving him further backwards, but none of them hit. He was peripherally aware of Aurora’s fight with the blood mage and Lucien’s odd mirror image, but if Rilien could be said to trust anyone to overcome the mirages of his own desire, it was Lucien. The man was not the kind to accept what he wanted being handed to him on a platter. For whatever convoluted reason, he felt the need to earn things.

Then again, that was the only reason Rilien trusted him at all, so he supposed there must be some merit to it. You don’t have to take me on faith. I’ll prove myself to you, and then there won’t have to be anything standing between us. That’s what friends do. If he’d bothered to ask Rilien if he even wanted to be friends, the answer would have disappointed him, and yet here they were. Results spoke for themselves, perhaps.

Rolling back into a crouch, Rilien sprang forward with coiled force, catching the demon off-guard and forcing her to abort the next spell, lest it hit far too close to spare her, either. Another relatively intelligent move that would count for absolutely nothing in the end. The Tranquil’s feet were soft as cat’s paws on the ground, but the force with which he streaked past the demon, flaying into her exposed side with the electrically-enchanted knife, could not be denied, and it carried her right off her feet, and she slammed against the ground, breathless. The last thing in her field of vision was the utterly stoic face of the white-haired elf, and then there was a sharp pain in her chest, and she was no more.

"Are we done?" Aurora asked. Over on her side of the room, she was sitting victoriously on the unconscious form of Gascard. Around them both lay the scattered remains of Aurora's partial rock armor, and nearby that the splintered staff Gascard had wielded. Aurora even looked the part of a battered mage, her cheek bruised and in the process of swelling, her breaths came out in ragged pants, and even her arms seemed leadened, even at a distance. No matter how much she despised blood magic, that did not mean it wasn't effective. She'd never actually felt the blood coursing through her veins til then, and then it only furthered her displeasure of the school.

However, whatever effort she had put in, she still heard the desire demon's entreaty to Lucien. True, it was none of her business, but she could help but feel curious. If either of them get a moment of down time, she decided to ask him about it. But not right now, not with a blood mage sitting under her. Now that the demons were taken care of as well, she hoped off the prone body (slowly, she was still sore) and flagged Lucien down. "If you will? I don't think I can carry him out of this room," She said, pointing at him.

"Let's... Take him to the guard. Templars tend to get righteous about blood magic," She mentioned.

Lucien glanced over at Aurora and chuckled. “So it’s to be one piece, after all. Probably for the best—I have a hard time imagining the Guard would take too well to separate bits.” The same could not be said for the man’s staff, which was also likely better than the alternative. Obligingly, he lifted the nobleman’s unconscious form, placing him over an armored shoulder with a distinct air of respect. Not for the man himself, of course—he didn’t really deserve it. But he wasn’t going to mistreat someone who’d been knocked out. That was far beneath all of them.

With nothing more for them here, the odd trio headed for the guard barracks, which at this time of night were long closed to the public. There was still an outpost, though, from which the Night Watch issued and to which they returned, and they managed to wake up the guard on Hightown duty and explain the situation as well as they could. It took a while… a really long while, actually, and by the time they managed to convince the people they were dealing with that yes, Gascard DuPuis was a blood mage, here were some correspondences and vials of blood to prove it, but no, he was not the serial murderer they were looking for, they were dragged up to the barracks anyway, to repeat everything to the Guard-Captain. Fortunately, the woman was acquainted with Lucien for his role in exposing the corruption of her predecessor, and much more willing to take his word for it.

DuPuis was taken into custody, and the group let out around midmorning. “We should go inform Emeric,” Lucien suggested. Granted, they’d begun this ordeal almost twelve hours ago, more, if one counted the initial meeting, but he wouldn’t be happy with leaving the rest undone, and he sensed that the others were of a mind with him on this, so they all headed back for the Gallows.

…Only to find that, once again, things were not so simple as they should be. They were greeted by a young woman, her strawberry-blonde hair shopped quite short, wearing the armor of a Templar recruit. “Maria, Lucien, and Rilien, right? Emeric left not long ago. He said you’d agreed to meet tonight.” The mercenary was quite certain they’d agreed on no such thing, but then perhaps one of the other had made the arrangements beforehand?

“Did we?” he asked the other two, but the Templar broke in again. “Don’t you remember sending this message?” She handed him a piece of paper, which did indeed appear to be a summons, requesting a meeting with Emeric at a spot in the Lowtown Foundry District. The place where the first body parts had been found, if he was not mistaken.

“I think,” he said cautiously, handing the paper to both of the others in turn, “We might have a problem.”

After confirming that the letter had not been written by any of them, the three took off after Emeric, probably quite a sight hastening through lowtown and to the Foundry District. It was harder to pick an odder three people than a mountain of muscle in armor, a light, fleet girl with bright red hair and a Chantry-branded elf who made no noise. The truth was even stranger than the appearance, in this case, but of course none of them were the type to spare a thought for that. They caught their Templar detective just outside of the Foundry District, explaining that the letter had likely been a trap, and a relieved, if slightly confused, Emeric headed back to the Gallows, promising not to leave at their behests again unless the inquiry was made in person. He promised, however, to continue his investigation, using the leads they’d pried out of Gascard DuPuis.

The group split thereafter, all of them quite fatigued from the long hours spent fighting, and then explaining why they were carrying an unconscious nobleman into the guard outpost. Rilien headed back to his shop, and the rooms he kept above it. A bit of silver in his belt-pouch for his trouble. They knew not who was responsible for the crimes, but they had quite a bit more to go on than before. Until Emeric contacted them again, it was no longer any of his business to deal with, anyway.

The Chanter's Board has been updated. Prime Suspect has been completed.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion

Earnings

0.00 INK

Sophia led the small company out to the Wounded Coast at a gallop, her golden, braided hair gently bobbing behind her. The day was clear and calm, at least, the conditions good enough that a conversation with the woman accompanying her wouldn't be too difficult to have. It was a relatively straight road, so it wasn't as though she needed to put much effort into the riding until they reached the coast.

"I've had the guard looking over the refugee records, as you requested," Sophia informed her. "We had no luck finding either Arcadius Kassim or Silian Raunthil, I'm afraid. It's likely that if they came to Kirkwall, they used false names. However, you said one of them looks similar to Lucien. I suggested the guards keep an eye out for any man with that description, apart from the one residing in Lowtown, of course."

She slowed Aidan to a trot as they rounded a bend, before picking up speed again. The ground beneath the destrier's hooves was slowly shifting from dirt to sand. "Nothing turned up for a while, but recently they've reported sightings of a man with a similar appearance entering the northern edge of the woods outside Kirkwall." It was frustrating that the guard wasn't really in a position to do anything about it, but with Sparrow's help, Sophia could probably change that herself.

"The guard has been spread too thin combating the Coterie and keeping order in the city itself to be able to organize a force for clearing bandits out of the woods, but we've suspected they've had hideouts there for some time now. This only confirms that. If you want to head out that way and search for them sometime, I'd be happy to assist. If they're as dangerous as you say, I'm sure four hands would be better than two." She smiled lightly back at the half-elf.

The Wounded Coast was beautiful as ever. It seemed to be the only place untouched by progress, unwaveringly wild against everything that surrounded it and equally bountiful by feral-men who wished to absorb all of its ruthless, slack-shouldered freedoms. Whoever shirked their civilized lives in Kirkwall usually wound up somewhere on the beaches or in the darkest parts of the mountains. Living alongside whatever other creatures that called this place their home must of had its own allure, and one that she herself had felt – a siren's pull that captivated, enthralled and enticed. Few could deny it.

The ride itself was a lot quicker than Sparrow thought it would be, racing recklessly down dusty pathways and thorny underbrush. In the beginning of the journey, she'd attempted to somehow steady herself on the horse's rump, but to no avail, ended up wrapping her arms around Sophia's midsection. More out of fear that she'd tumble off and be trampled by all of the other trailing riders than anything else. She was grateful that she hadn't had to suffer the jarring ride by her lonesome. She nodded appreciatively, straining her ears. The clopping of hooves was louder than she'd ever imagined. Even still, Sparrow made a sound of surprise and replied, “Lucien lives in Lowtown? I hadn't, I wouldn't have thought. But, you're right. They'd be stupid to keep their own names.”

Didn't this render her search fruitless, unless one of her guards managed to bump into one of them? They were a dangerous lot doing who knows what in Kirkwall. Once a criminal, always a criminal. She didn't doubt for a second that they'd simply decided to live a quiet, peaceful life. They were her monstrous bogeyman, and they'd most likely strike again. Even if she was wrong and they'd suddenly taken the Chantry's robes to atone for what they'd done, she needed her own justifications to continue hunting them down. To terminate everything they'd done to her. Sparrow's eyes trailed the changing terrain. She listened intently, leaning forward when she needed to and retracting a few inches away when she felt she wouldn't slip off Sophia's spirited destrier.

“Apologies if I've been taking advantage of any men you need. Maker knows it's been hectic in Kirkwall.” Maker knows. Sparrow still wasn't sure why she ever used the name. She wasn't a follower of the Chantry, and hardly believed in any other religious entity. Far too young to take what her parents believed into consideration and far too stubborn to believed in anything other than shackless, unburdened wrists, she'd realized sooner rather than later that she was better off not getting her hopes up in anything. Sophia's uncomplicated offer to aid her in her task took her off-guard, but she laughed, tipping her head to the side like a colourful bird.

“Only a fool would refuse.”

"It's their job to track down dangerous criminals that threaten the city. Even if you want to bring them to justice for something they did to you personally, it would still be a boon to the city to remove the threat they pose." She slowed the party to a canter as they entered slightly narrower terrain. She turned back to one of the guardsmen. "This was our missing patrol's route, yes?"

Somehow, Sparrow was pleased that Sophia hadn't thought her objective as a petty, selfish vendetta. Too often she'd thought the same, wondering why she hadn't been able to forget it and move forward with her life. The Qun had taught her that holding old grudges was like dipping your hand into scalding water, indefinitely. It was an effortless choice, and one that they repeatedly managed to make. Her weaknesses were far greater than anything she'd been taught as a fledgeling. She'd been holding her hand in those particular waters for as long as she could remember.

"Yes, m'lady," one of them replied, his voice slightly muffled by the full face helmet. "The route leads off the left at the next crossroads." Sophia nodded. "Very well, let's find them then." She'd been curious about Sparrow's mention of the Maker, actually. Some elves had adopted the Chantry, certainly, but not a majority of them by any means. She wondered if her companion was merely using his name out of habit, and many often did, herself included. It was not always an indication of faith, but certainly Sophia would have welcomed it if Sparrow was Andrastian.

"And yes, Lucien lives in Lowtown. I believe he's able to do much more for the benefit of the people from there. It's a rather small place, but of course Lucien is nothing if not mod--" She was cut off when Aidan suddely reared up on his hind legs, startled. A ball of fire had flown in their direction, smashing against the rocks in front of them, just missing. Only through her trained control over her mount was Sophia able to bring him back down, and still it had been a challenge.

Modest-man, old chevalier, friend of Rilien and justice-bringer of Lowtown. All of those titles certainly fit Lucien. She did not presume to know him very well, but she'd asked Rilien enough questions to know men like him. They were the likes of guardians, valiantly saving the day, slaying dragons and sweeping damsels off their feet without wanting anything in return. Did men like that even exist? It was hard to believe. He still looked like someone she vehemently hated. Someone she had nightmares about. Lucien did not deserve her wariness, nor her obvious avoidance. It was all she could offer until she buried her attackers. Perhaps, then, she'd explain why she acted so strange around him. She opened her mouth to reply, but was interrupted when Aidan suddenly reared, driving a strangled yelp from her lips and forcing her to tighten her grip around Sophia.

"On foot!" Sophia commanded. "Find cover." She pulled her foot from the stirrup and swung it over Aidan's neck, a slightly awkward dismount, but she had to account for the possibility that Sparrow was still right behind her. She dropped down into the sand before giving Aidan a swift rap on his hind quarters, telling him to get to a clear distance. He led the other horses back up the way they'd come, out of the reach of danger.

The ball of fire exploded into a shower of sparks, hardly a couple of feet in front of them. Sparrow whipped around, trying to detect where it'd come from without slipping off Aiden's rump. Thankfully, Sophia managed to calm him down. She, too, dismounted as gracefully as she could. Once her feet touched the ground, Sparrow took a few staggering steps backwards, watching as the horse bolted to safety. Everyone, it seemed, had already dismounted, searching for their assailants. It was an ambush. Perhaps, to be expected. Arrows hissed overhead, slamming into the sand and sailing over her shoulders. Unfortunately, she'd decided not to wear her armour, riddled with its own set of enchantments. The only means of defence she had was to desperately pivot her body out of harms way, open palm conjuring brief spurts of arcane-energy to know the away.

Arrows began to tear through the air around them, one of which seeming to hit Sophia in the arm before being turned aside by Rilien's armor enchantment, the shot merely glancing instead. She drew her sword from her back and moved forward, staying low and pushing down to the low ground, where a group of guardsmen were taking cover behind a line of rocks high enough to defend them. Just as she arrived, one of them lifted his head high enough to get a view of their enemy, only to take an arrow through the visor for his trouble. Looking around, a few more had fallen to the arrows or the mage, but there were still five of them left, enough to make a fighting force now that Sophia had brought some help.

"It's Harley, isn't it?" Sophia asked of the one with the Lieutenant's gear. Her eyes widened in shock at seeing the backup. "Lady Sophia? The Maker himself must have sent you. This is a disaster here. My first 'routine' assignment."

"I wanted to lead the party personally when I heard a patrol had gone missing," Sophia said, "I'm glad we got here in time to be of use." She shook her head in frustration. "Bollocks... Bedden must not have made it back. But, you came anyway. Can't look back now. We're up against Evets Marauders."

It would do Sophia no good if she took an arrow just now. Being slain by wretched bandits in the Wounded Coast would be a pitiful end. Especially if she hadn't really accomplished anything yet. Watching Sophia hunker down, sword clasped in hand, Sparrow couldn't help think that she was a warrior worth following. Certainly, a leader worth looking up to. Precious few had the ability to command, lead, and inspire. She crouched lower, sidling to Sophia's right. The guardsmen looked a little worse for wear, like they'd been stuck behind the outcrop for awhile. Her mace had already found its way into her calloused fingers, curled tightly – a familiar companion, always ready for bloodletting. She did not know who Evets Marauders were, but still bobbed her head, listening.

There was a name Sophia recognized. "Are you certain?" She nodded. "Fell Orden's up there. And Viktor Longdeath's handiwork you've already seen. We tried two sorties up the path, but it's trapped to oblivion. Now I'd be thankful just to get out of here alive." A call came from up on the ridge behind them, the mage Fell Orden lobbing a taunt down at them. "No fair, guard dog. You've brought friends."

"Shut your mouth!" Harley shouted back. Sophia turned to Sparrow to better explain what they were up against. "This group's been robbing and raping for Maker knows how long now, based out of the forests. Fell Orden's the mage, but Viktor Longdeath is a deadeye shot with that longbow. One of them even took to calling herself Little Sophie. Think I made an impression on them."

“Cocky bastard,” She whispered, very nearly peeking over the large rock like the unfortunate guardsmen had. Several arrows spat down, clattering and shattering against their craggy shield. Suddenly, throttling that arrogant mage seemed like a good idea – and thankfully, there was only one to be seen. Robbing and raping. A muscle jumped in her jaw, which was now clenched. Molars grinding against adjacent molars. Then, they were exactly like them. People that were more or less like slime, puddles of mud, writhing worm-sacks. They deserved no mercy. “Disgusting. We have to make sure this is the last of all that,” Sparrow rasped, eyeing her steadily. The look disintegrated. “You should have told them that you prefer Sophia.”

Harley banged her sword against her shield to get the blood pumping, ready for a fight. "With you here now, I think we can take them. I'm with you... but the men might be too rattled to join us. We've been trapped here for hours." Sophia looked to them, and though she couldn't see their faces behind their helmets, their body language spoke volumes. They thought they were going to die here. She wondered how many of them had gone up against a mage before. She herself hadn't either, but after fighting a dragon, a little fireball didn't seem so ominous. Perhaps she could still give them some hope.

"Listen to me," she said, at the very least getting their attention. They certainly weren't going to ignore the daughter of the Viscount. "Our enemies today are just men, made of flesh and blood, just like us. Men that would take advantage of your fear to pick you off one by one. But together, we can make them know fear, when they see us move as one to storm their position, with courage in our hearts and fire in our eyes. They will be powerless to stop us when their one weapon, fear, is taken away from them. Show them what strength the noble men and women of Kirkwall still have in them. On me!"

"You'll make a brilliant leader someday, my lady," Harley said, smiling despite the situation. "Let's go wipe these bastards out!" They rose as one with shields up and swords drawn, charging out to attack the marauders' position.

This warrior-woman would lead Kirkwall places, she was sure. Harley had said it well enough. Sparrow only grinned, surveying the visored-faces once more. They seemed rejuvenated by the speech. The heavy blanket of impending death had been ripped off and replaced with hope. Sparrow, too, rose alongside the guardsmen, brandishing her mace. Never had she feared death. It rode beside her like a shadow, promising the end of all things. If she died here, or anywhere else, then so be it. Perhaps that, most of all, had been ingrained into her. So it shall be, meravas. With the flush of battle creasing across her cheeks, it's easier to tell that her eyes were encircled with dark, tired coils. Something else seemed off. Her eyes shun brilliantly, several shades lighter than they usually were – she was Sparrow, but she was not. She was Rapture, but she was not. Sometimes, as of recent, they seemed to bleed together in times of duress.

Sparrow was already lurching down one of the pathways with a couple guardsmen, crying out something indecipherable. Her free hand flicked down to her waist, procuring a thin little knife between her fingertips and snapping it forward, like Rilien had shown her, into one of the traps, successfully clamping it shut like the jaws of a great metal-beast. She continued waving her hands in front of her, deflecting arrows in sweeps of brilliant blue while she barrelled forward. For years, she'd trained herself using maces and learned how to deal with things without magic. It was painful for her to learn. Magic was everything – she breathed it, it soared from her like caged birds being released. In battle, Sparrow was reckless. She did not think of who was in her company, nor did it occur to her what Sophia might think. They were friends, were they not? Friends accepted. Friends understood. Finally, Sparrow's mace drew backwards, slamming into the shoulder of a man knocking an arrow.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon

Earnings

0.00 INK

Lucien frowned at the plant currently sitting on his end table, crossing his arms and staring at it for a moment as though by doing so he could will it back to healthy vitality. He’d found the embrium on a recent foray to the Wounded Coast, half-overturned and a little bit trampled. With nothing else to do, particularly, at the time, he’d uprooted it the rest of the way as gently as he could and taken it back to his house, where it now sat in a pot, surrounded by soil, and looking every bit as wilted as it had two weeks ago. At least he hadn’t killed it outright, he supposed, but it probably wouldn’t last much longer at this rate, and he didn’t desire to kill it from neglect. He’d thought plants should be relatively simple: a little water, a little sunshine, and it would be right as rain in no time. His mother had gardened, actually, and been quite good at it—apparently, it was a talent learned rather than inherited.

Sighing slightly, he shook his head and picked up the small vessel, carefully supporting the weak stalk so that the slightly-wilted flower wouldn’t cause it to break. He’d seen the garden in front of Nostariel’s clinic, and she’d informed him that the person mostly responsible for the copious flowers and herbs in it was Aurora. As things stood, he knew where to find the mage, and so it was perhaps time to ask a favor.

He might have looked a little silly: a very large, very armored man carrying a potted flower through the streets of Lowtown as though it were something quite a bit more precious than a half-dead embrium, and indeed, more than one guard gave him looks of confusion or even suspicion. This, however, had been happening with some frequency of late, and he wasn’t sure why. Usually, they would squint at him a little, shake their heads, and move away, but occasionally, one tried very unsuccessfully to get surreptitiously closer to him, until he very politely asked if there was something he could do to help them. That usually ended with a negation, and the guard would walk off. It was certainly odd, but then, Lucien was rather accustomed to scrutiny. He’d thought he escaped it for the most part when he came here, but perhaps it was returning for some reason. He knew not why, but didn’t let it trouble him overmuch.

Silly or not, he eventually reached the door of the small one, raising his hand to knock, then stepping back a little so as not to crowd the doorway just by dent of his size. There was a pleasant little flower-box on the windowsill, and all of those looked much healthier than his, so he took himself to be in the right place.

Aurora had been sitting in her tiny two room... well, house would be overstating what she lived in. Hovel was the better word for what she lived in. Not that she minded it all. It was less to clean, and certainly harder to find by those who wished to find her. Surely she could have been worse off, not living in a house for one, living in the Circle for the second. Besides, it was here, and she had made it her own-- with the help of Amalia, though. She didn't supply the single rose on her nightstand, that had been Aurora. However, the reinforced doors, the hidden locks, and the escape route built into her wardrobe and out of her back wall had been. She would like to see the Templars try to catch her.

Such a small house left her bereft of things to do. There were only so many ways you could rearrange funiture until that became tiresome. So it was with a bored countenance she sat on her bed, crosslegged, and deep in meditation. Even after so many years, she still disliked meditation. Aurora was more of a girl of action than one of thought-- though Amalia had insisted that she do it nonetheless early in her tenure, and by now it had become a tolerated routine of hers. Any moment she found herself doing nothing, she'd dip into those thoughts and reaffirm her beliefs, playing out arguments against herself, and generally keeping her mind in motion though her body might not be. The mind was just as much of a muscle as the ones in her arms, and it needed its exercise as well.

The knock at her door came as a surprise. No one ever visited her, and few knew where she lived. She could count the people that did on both hands-- and maybe a foot if she was generous. Aurora opened her eyes and stared at the door, tilting her head in anticipation. No shouts or demands told her that it the person on the otherside weren't Templars-- not that she expected any. She'd be a fool to completely disregard their existence after all. Figuring she kept the person waiting long enough, she swung her feet off of her bed and strode first to the window, and then quickened to the door. A couple of locks later, she swung it wide and beheld the sight of Lucien looming above her door. Looming might have been farfetched, but the man couldn't have had more than a couple of inches clearance.

"Lucien! What brings you my way?" She asked, though she'd be remiss if she didn't admit that the company was welcome.

Lucien smiled, a tad sheepishly, as he was aware that his unannounced presence may be a bit of an inconvenience. It didn’t seem so, at present, but he still probably should have asked beforehand. “Good afternoon, Aurora. I, well…” he held out the wilting embrium in his hands as though it explained everything, then shook his head. “I found this on the Wounded Coast. Dying, you understand. I’d heard they had medicinal properties of some kind, and I didn’t just want to let it die, but… I am no gardener by any stretch. Nostariel may have mentioned that you, on the other hand, are quite gifted with plants. I was hoping to ask a favor of you.”

It was a little bit difficult to admit that he’d saved the thing out of sentiment, because he was not, generally, a particularly sentimental fellow. Of course, he wasn’t one of those that felt that men shouldn’t allow their emotions any weight at all, he just… well, saving dying flowers because you feel sorry for them is not something that you tell people you do if you want them to take you seriously. He could practically see his father dragging a hand down his face in the back of his mind. Then again, maybe this was just that part of him that his mother had always tried to nurture.

“If there’s anything you could do, I would appreciate it.”

Her eyes fell to the plant in his hands, and she gave it a quick once over as Lucien was speaking. "It's an embrium. They're supposed to be quite beautiful," Supposed to be, anyway. This one looked to be on its last legs, and even Aurora didn't know if she could revive it. Far be it for her to turn down the challenge, and to turn down a friend at that. She nodded and swung her door wide, "Come in, I'll see what I can do." With the mountainous presence of Lucien in her home, the hovel seemed to halve in size. Aurora skittered around Lucien and found a chair for him to sit in (perhaps the lone chair she owned) and pulled it up across from her bed, if he chose to sit down.

"I suppose we'll run through the list. What shape was it in when you found it, where, what kind of soil are you using, how much are you watering it, is it in the sun, all that, you know?" she said, counting off the items with her fingers. Once she ran through it, she dropped her hands and sat on her bed, prosing another, unaffiliated question. "And what made you bring it to me? You could have easily gotten another flower from a florist in High Town," she asked, somewhat curious. He didn't seem like the man who'd take home stray flowers.

That was… a lot of questions. Lucien blinked, settling carefully into the chair his host had so graciously provided, and gave the matter some thought. “When I found it, it was overturned. I suppose about half the roots had been torn out, though I honestly couldn’t tell you if that was the fault of my altercation or a previous one.” He hadn’t had much time to observe the surroundings before the bandits set upon him. He supposed it was actually sort of a good thing that he just seemed to trigger every ambush about—it saved him the difficult task of finding people who did not desire to be found. “’Twas on the Wounded Coast, further back from the ocean, along one of the pathways.” He hadn’t supposed the soil would matter much; dirt was dirt, wasn’t it? Though… his home did smell different from, say, Ferelden. Maybe there was more to it than he thought.

“I took some of the soil from near the spot, but the rest I picked up on a job near Sundermont the other day. I water it once a day, though… I did forget once,” he admitted with a small frown. “I thought a little extra the next day would make up for it, but apparently not. It’s in my house, so it gets full sun for… half the day?” He was pretty sure that covered everything she’d asked, though he’d not have thought there were so many factors to be considered for one simple plant. It was probably quite fortunate that he’d come here. He might know absolutely nothing about horticulture, but he was willing to learn.

The following question struck him a bit oddly. Why was he trying to fix it instead of purchasing something else? He would have thought that much was obvious. “I… don’t conventionally discard things just because they require work,” he pointed out. “When one tears a hole in a shirt, does one buy a new one or make a simple repair? When I removed this plant from its environment, I decided I would do my best to return it to vitality. Certainly, it’s not so important as a person or a hound or what-have-you, but it deserves at least as much effort as I’m willing to put into my equipment, don’t you think?”

Aurora nodded along with Lucien and when he came stop, she spoke again, "True, true. I just didn't imagine you much of a gardener, Lucien." She then stood again and went to the flower on Lucien's knee to examine it again, this time more closely. She gently examined its leaves, its blooms, the roots, and even the dirt it was in. Feeling satified with her inspection, she took a step back and began to count off the issues. "Well first of all, being knocked around is hardly good for it, but there's nothing you could do about that." She said sighing. Imagining a battle being fought over top the pretty flower hurt her in the soul.

She raised her eyebrow at the next piece of information and then nodded, "Thought as much. The soil you're using is all wrong. In fact, soil is wrong," She explained. "See, it's a member of the Orchid family-- specifically an epiphytes. It can't grow in the dirt from Sundermount. It has to attach to something in order to grow properly. I suggest placing it on a platform made out of cork and then covering it with sand," she finished, moving on to the next subject.

"As for watering, well, once everyday is overdoing it. The embrium needs watering every five to twelve days-- however, you have to make sure that the plant is evenly moist and not outright wet, else you'll drown the poor thing. You also need to fertilize it every month or so. Otherwise, the sun should be fine, though you should open a window every now and then to allow the air to circulate," she said, winding the planting spiel down. Once done, she meandered over to her bed and took another seat. Now that the technicalities were out of the way, she could talk about the plant itself.

"Did you know..." She began, like all good trivia facts do, "That the embrium cured an Orlesian princess?" she asked. While it wasn't a princess officially, merely a daughter of a Lord, princess sounded so much better in a story setting.

Well. He’d known he was doing something wrong, but he hadn’t really expected that he was doing everything wrong. “You didn’t imagine incorrectly, it seems,” he pointed out, nodding along with the directions. It all sounded entirely possible, even for someone as completely incompetent at this endeavor as he was. Actually, he was rather looking forward to the attempt. Gaining new skills was something Lucien considered to be entirely worthwhile, and it would seem that he’d get a few from something as innocuous as attempting to keep this plant alive.

“That was something I’d heard, yes,” he replied with a smile. “Though if you attempted to call her a princess on Orlais, you would offend a good two-thirds of the nobility. They don’t use any titles other than Lord, Lady, Empress, and the currently-unused Emperor. It… well, it was supposed to keep the infighting down to a manageable level, but I daresay anyone with a lick of sense would still consider it excess.”

He paused a moment, and then exhaled a sigh from his nose. “I suppose you… heard, then, what the demon said to me? I’m sorry if it seems like I was keeping something from you—please understand that I have ever considered it less important than what people do know of me.” Honestly, he would have been just as content if it remained a secret for good, but fate seemed to be conspiring against him in this regard.

"Lucien, I'm a runaway mage, I don't get to judge others for keeping secrets." Aurora stated plainly. "Though 'Future Emperor of Orlais' wasn't something I admit to expecting," she added using air quotes. "Almost makes mine seem pitiful in comparison." She said with a cheery smile. Royalty or not, Lucien was still Lucien, and no amount of titles would change that. He was his own person, and if he chose the life of a Lowtown mercenary over that, then what right did a mage playing at normality have to say against it. Then her smile turned into a frown. She felt a bit guilty about accidently overhearing something that wasn't meant for her ears. If Lucien wanted her to know, then he would have been the one to told her.

“Not pitiful at all,” he countered. “I earned my exile by my own folly. Yours was thrust upon you as a result of no choice you made. It is true that there are those that would prefer me dead, but for all I am remaining undetected, at least I am not hiding from a group of people specifically trained to find and neutralize me.” Though, honestly, he wondered for how much longer that would be the case. He knew that his anonymity here was a gift, but it was not without an expiration date. He just didn’t know when that would be. Until then, he was considerably safer than she was. At least nobody would think less of him for using what skills he had to protect himself. As some saw it, Aurora’s skills were her very problem. He would argue that he could kill people just as simply as she could. People walked around with deadly weapons all the time—hers just couldn’t be taken away from her.

Well… not without extreme measures. Rilien’s face appeared in his mind, and he frowned. No, he did not desire that for anyone else. Then again, he could hardly claim to be an expert on such matters. “And either way, neither of us is allowed to see our families or our homelands. Seems very similar to me, if it does not offend you to say so.”

"Mine is a personal exile," she stated, lively mood twisted downward. "I'm lucky, I suppose, that if the people who were hunting me, found me, wouldn't kill me. Nor would they Tranquil me, either. I passed my Harrowing, and the Antivan Circle does not tranquil its mages who do. No, they would just shove me back into the cage." she stated plainly before shrugging. "I don't return home for fear of what I'll bring them," she said before shaking her head.

She stood up and went to her window, leaning on the side and looking out. It was nearing sundown, but the tall buildings obscured it. Again, Aurora sighed. What she wouldn't give to see that sunset one more time. To be back on the Antivan coast and just watch the waves crash against the shore. That brought a thought on, and one she chewed on for a little bit before she spoke. "I told you that Aurora was an alias, right? I never told you my real name? Aren't you a little bit curious?" She asked.

Lucien tilted his head to one side, regarding the mage with a mild expression. “I do recall speaking something of names before,” he began by way of reply. “The ones we give ourselves are just as important as those bestowed upon us. If you wish to be Aurora Rose to me, then that it what you shall be.” He smiled slightly, then shrugged. “If you wish to be something else, you need only say so. I have been told I am rather good at keeping secrets.” He certainly wouldn’t divulge them—his sense of honor would not allow that.

"You know, a little curiosity never hurt anyone," she said laughing. Aurora Rose was just an alias, a mage who ran away from a Circle, and then learned self-restraint under a Qunari Ben-Hassrath. Aurora wasn't the same person she was ten years ago. Back then she was just a little girl who had a little bit of magic power. Never did she think that her life would turn this way. She was now leaning against the wall and shrugged as well. "As am I, you know? I have to be, considering everything. If the future Emperor of Orlais wishes to stay anonymous, then his identity is safe with me. However, I feel guilty about knowing who you really are, and you not knowing me." She said, teasing him to show a little bit of that curiosity.

Lucien chuckled. “I wish you wouldn't call me that. It sounds so... stifling. Besides, I doubt it's even true anymore." He shrugged then. “I'm a human being, Aurora, just a man like any other. Of course I'm a bit curious. But I do not want you to tell me because you feel you must. These things shouldn't work like that. Your secret is yours to keep or dispense as you see fit, and I've no wish to pry it from you."

Aurora sighed and then shook her head, "You really aren't any fun, you know that?" Teasing him didn't work how she imagined it to, and now it felt like she was pulling something out of him, instead of him trying to pull the information out of her. However, she supposed that was as good as she was going to get. And now after attempting to tease Lucien with it, she had only managed to get herself worked up over it. She frowned one last time and then shrugged, "Fine. Fine, if you really want to know, then it's..." She paused and then approached closer to Lucien, and whispered into his ear.

Lucien had to admit that he wasn't quite sure this level of cloak-and-dagger was necessary, but it was her secret, and if she was more comfortable relaying it sotto voce, he wasn't going to say anything against it. “'Tis a lovely name," he said with a nod, “and so very Antivan." There was a note of humor to the observation. “Of course, I expect that's part of the reason you had to change it at all." A bit sad, that she'd had to give up that small acknowledgement of her roots, along with her accent. He still kept a bit of his, and of course, a name hardly got more Orlesian than the one he kept. Perhaps one day, she would be able to take it up again, if she so desired. Then again, maybe she would simply find that she'd done what he always hoped to: grown into the one she had.

"Io sono Antivan, è da aspettarselo," she deadpanned with a grin. It was odd feeling Antivan pass by her lips again, though not unwelcome. It turns out that it's very difficult to forget your first tongue. She... missed it.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion

Earnings

0.00 INK



Being the clearly visible leader she wanted to be, Sophia went first up the central path, feeling Sparrow branch off to her right, and Harley take the left, each of them supported by a few guardsmen. The bandits were thicker in the middle, several of them meeting her almost immediately as she entered. She met the first as he came, driving his longsword away from her throat and whipping Vesenia around and down, slicing into the back of his legs, throwing her knee guard up to catch him in the jaw as he fell to his knees. She felt the jawbone crack under the force, and he sprawled onto his back.

Her guardsmen rushed ahead to intercept the others before they could swarm her, tying them up effectively enough for Sophia to push on, but not before she was met with another fireball, this one better aimed. She dove to the side, covering her head, as it exploded where her feet had been moments ago, chunks of smoking rock raining down around her. She turned back over to see the young female bandit she'd heard about almost gleefully charging to attack her. Sophia blocked Sophie's strike into the sand from where she lay on the ground, before putting the sole of her boot into her attacker's gut, knocking her back a few paces and giving Sophia time to get back to her feet. She hoped Sparrow would be quick to get around the flank and handle that mage; he'd likely account for her movement much better the second time around.

The hapless bandit who'd been trying to knock his arrow collapsed in a heap, screeching like an injured dog. His shoulder had been crunched into his collarbone, jutting out in awkward angles. Sparrow hadn't held back at all, utilizing her fierce momentum to throw herself into another enemy, shoulder first. She felt the weight of the dagger in her hand, calloused grip tightening around the warm metal, dropped subtly from her sleeve. Effectively driving him backwards, Sparrow suddenly whipped to his right, dipping low to avoid having her own guts spilled over her shiny new boots. The blade pivoted in her palm, twisted up and under the man's boiled leathers and sunk into his belly. She'd already moved on before his innards slapped down his legs, before he'd even slumped down.

Occasionally, Sparrow glanced up the middle section where Sophia had charged, quickly gauging the distance between them. It would be more effective if she kept pace with her. Her mace swung once more, two-handed, and blood spattered the sands in thick rivulets, as if she were painting a Wounded canvas. She imagined the bandit's face crumbling. Bones shattering like old, fragile tea cups. Her fingers twitched, muscles contracting. Electrical itches rippled down her forearms, her elbows, her hands. She was there, scrabbling just beneath the surface, and screaming to be heard. Another bandit scrambled over the rocks, propelling himself off and sweeping his sword overhead in a downward swing. Her breath hitched, nostrils flaring. Sparrow managed to compose herself in time to bring her mace to her front, and they collided, meeting face-to-face. The clang of metal echoed in her ears, along with the grating of the sword nipping closer.

It will be fine, she lied to herself, while Rapture hissed and spat and threw her head back to laugh at such weak, pathetic words. Who would they comfort? For she was growing closer, almost close enough to through herself from the edge of their Fadespace. Her breathing calms, and her head feels dull and heavy, arms leaden. She sucked in a deep breath and shoved harder, hands summoning a much larger burst of energy. It crackled in the air, brightened considerably and ignited the man's vulnerable face. The smell of sizzling flesh and burnt hair assailed her nose. He clawing at his face, shlepping thick patches off. As she sidestepped around him, hurriedly avoiding his maddening screams and raking fingers, Sparrow moved ahead. Hadn't been for her momentary lapse, she might have been able to avoid a stray arrow, sailing through the air like a wingless, much more dangerous hawk. It sunk into her shoulder, sending her to the ground.

Whatever Little Sophie's intent was on building her bandit career by making fun of the name of the Viscount's daughter, she would never find out, as Sophia quickly overwhelmed her with fast and heavy strikes, swiftly removing her sword from her hands before plunging her bastard sword into the bandit woman's midsection. Looking up, she quite certainly saw her half elf friend using unconventional means of defense against arrow attacks, and the revelation that the woman who'd ridden on her horse to the Wounded Coast was a mage of all things was enough to give her pause, quite nearly knocking the breath out of her.

Her breath was quite literally knocked out of her when one of Viktor Longdeath's arrows hit her squarely in the stomach, sending her back a few paces and huffing for breath. A bandit attacked her from behind, having slipped by one of the other guards, but she turned and slipped Vesenia up under his axe, before throwing a kick to the man's groin, and plunging her sword cleanly through the lightly armored back, dropping him. Turning back again, she pushed forward, staying low, intent on not letting that murderer hit her again. The newly arisen issue of the fact that they had an apostate on their side would have to wait. Staying alive would take enough focus for now.

She reached their rear ranks just as Harley broke through from the left, engaging some of Viktor's own goons. Longdeath himself drew back and fired once more at Sophia, but a timely sidestep combined with the kicking in of the armor enchantment helped the arrow skim harmlessly off the edge of her breastplate. The bandit archer managed to pull a knife by the time Sophia reached him, but he was renowned for his arrow work, not his fist fighting. He'd be wishing he'd put the arrow through her skull soon enough.

Sophia caught his arm as he lunged for her throat, twisting it aside painfully to the left, while she plunged Vesenia up under his ribcage. Not one to waste more time than was necessary, she pulled the blade free and spun about in a whirl of golden hair and crimson skirts, her bloodied blade whistling sharply through the air until it cut clean through his neck, dropping the archer to the ground a head short. She glanced around. Most of Harley's men had made it, though she noted that one had fallen behind her, and one of Sophia's own guards had been killed coming up the main path behind her. She resisted the urge to sigh. Deaths made it seem otherwise, but with the odds these men and women had before, this was a victory. The majority of them would be going home, and that was certainly something that would not have happened had she not happened along.

There was a shaky, hardly audible, broken-record sound ringing in her ears, and it took her a moment to realize that she was the one making it. Sparrow released the breath she'd been holding. Her hands instinctively sought out the cause of her pain, which was blossoming in her shoulder. Fingertips snagged against the wooden shaft, then fell away. She could not simply pull it out. Instead, Sparrow teetered on the backs of her heels, pushing herself back to her feet. It took her a few breaths to conjure enough energy to raise an arcane shield around her own body, kindling visible warmth. Unfortunately, she was still quite useless when it came to healing. It was out of the question, and lay far beyond her capabilities. To anyone who asked, Sparrow was not a mage. She was, simply, Sparrow.

Finally, the half-breed broke through the left-sided ranks and reached who she presumed to be as Fell Orden. If the glowing balls of orange juggled in his palms were anything to go by. His name was ridiculous. She hardly swallowed the comment. He seemed to have taken notice of her, hands already swathed in growing flames. To this, Sparrow's teeth flashed in a grin. She did not shy away from mages, did not shrink back from the Fade's stink. Even if she were a mage, by anyone's standards, she still considered herself an opportunistic soldier, a warrior and one who almost always relied on brute force, rather than unconventional means. She leaned to the side, once, twice, then charged forward just as the fireball left Fell Orden's hands. Mages, it mostly seemed, were always vulnerable in close range. The fireball sizzled small hairs at the crown of her head as she ducked beneath it, hardly slowing to allow him to throw another. The man's eyes widened—

Her mace, riddled with blue flame, smashed into his ribcage. Soft, silky robes would do nothing to protect him. It ripped away in a blistering wave of black. She'd like to imagine that each and every bone were pulverized, sending splinters into his major organs. Especially for what he'd done to the others, even if he hadn't been the one to orchestrate everything—it didn't really matter. They were all scum if they preyed on other people. She spat distastefully on the ground, circling around Fell Orden's remains. Something was peeking out of his pocket. She hunkered down on her haunches, poking and prodding until she finally pulled it out. A letter? Creme-coloured. Nice paper, by all accords. For reasons unbeknownst to her, Sparrow mimicked another trick she'd seen Rilien perform by slipping the letter into another secret compartment on her person.

Fell Orden's fireballs had stopped, which meant Sparrow must have succeeded in getting around the right flank. Lowering her sword to the sand, but certainly not sheathing it, Sophia looked for the apostate, suddenly quite uncomfortable with the situation. It was reminiscent of when she'd learned that Aurora had been an apostate, years ago. But back then, it hadn't been the right situation to be able to do anything about it. The timing wasn't much better on this one, but she had the guard on her side, and seemingly no excuse to simply let Sparrow go free.

Other than the fact that she had just helped her rid the Free Marches of these despicable bandits, but Sophia was trying not to think of that right now.

One moment, Sparrow was looking at Fell Orden. Then, everything had gone black. Rapture had crept in, reaching her ethereal talons into her arm-holes. She took every piece of Sparrow into herself, shaking her legs into unwilling trousers. Her eyes changed completely, hardening into two sanguine orbs. And she laughed, throwing back her head in victory. “Now, this. This is quaint,” it sounded awfully like Sparrow, but there were higher, unfamiliar tones. The Fade grew heavier around them, drawing up like a foul wind and pooling around her feet like lewd blankets slipping from her shoulders. Finally, Rapture-Sparrow turned on her heels, and faced Sophia, ignoring all the others. “Little Sophia come to play the hero on unfamiliar grounds. Oh, and that unease. Tensing up your shoulders like that. You should see that crease,” She teased lightly, softly, then added in a far more sinister tone, tapping her chest, “This, is mine. Not yours. Not the Circle's.”

Everything about this mission to the coast had felt so right moments ago, but now, as Sophia was looking at a woman who she'd been ready to call friend, clearly controlled by something both otherworldly and malevolent, it felt wholly wrong. Harley and guards looked unsure, no doubt mirroring what Sophia was trying to keep from her face, and utterly failing. She had liked Sparrow, enjoyed her company, valued her assistance. She'd seen her for being a mage, but this was something else entirely. Was she only just possessed, in the course of the battle? Had she been an abomination from the beginning?

Abomination. Sophia knew full well what the Templars had to do when faced with one. She'd always imagined them as malformed horrors, twisted creatures, only mockeries of the person they had formerly been, but this woman still looked very much like Sparrow, apart from the eyes. But the way she moved, the way she spoke, only too clearly gave her away. Sophia didn't want to kill Sparrow, but this... this wasn't Sparrow, not anymore. Could control be returned? Sophia had never heard of a possessed mage returning to their former selves. She had thought that once a mage was possessed, whatever was left of them was gone. Was this not a mercy, then? To kill this demon using her friend's body like some costume, a means by which to experience mortality?

She would have to. The right thing to do was never easy, and this certainly fit into that category. Sophia raised her blade slowly towards the demon. Harley and... four guards remained to her. None of them had any experience fighting abominations, undoubtedly. No more than she had. They were with her, though, clearly. The demon's calling out of her tenseness was only too accurate; she felt none of the calm she could usually maintain in a fight, and little of the confidence. Even if she could best the demon, she wasn't sure she could make the killing blow.

The arrow still embedded in her armor twinged painfully when she took up a battle-ready stance, but there was no time to remove it properly. For now, she snapped off the majority of the shaft, trying to hold back a wince as she did. It would ensure it didn't get in the way of her arms or blade during combat. Dropping the feathered shaft to the sand, she looked to the enemy before her. "Relinquish your hold on her, demon, or we will force you out," she said, keeping her unease from her voice at least, if not her body language.

If the demon failed to comply, they would have no choice but to attack.

Now, this was precious. She ignored Sparrow's willful attempts to batter at her Fadecage. This was her time, her hour, her minutes. With gleeful anticipation, Rapture wondered how much damage she could do before releasing her grip. The demon appeared somewhat shocked by Sophia's righteous demand, mouth forming a melodramatic “o”. Simply asking a demon to leave its hard-earned residence like that. How many times had that been done before? Her shoulders slumped, raising slightly to indicate that this conversation bored her. “You'll have to do better than that,” She teased, coyly fluttering her eyelashes. A light laugh escaped her, airy and breathless. Living and breathing and stretching her arms over her head as if she'd always been born in Sparrow's body, Rapture nearly sighed in content. Every single demon dreamed of overtaking someone's fleshy husk, whether it was for ill-intentioned purposes or to simply have something that had been denied to them.

Abomination, abomination. How insufferably rude,” Rapture whined, soft and low, as she toyed with the arrow still jutting from her shoulder. Her slender fingers tip-tapped across the wood, and sifted through the colourful feathers like hands running through her lover's hair. Every movement bespoke of lewdness. Her eyes roved across the ranks, daring them to make their first move. Each soldier had its own set of weaknesses, bubbling to the surface like emerging paper-boats flowing down a river, and she was like a child meticulously plucking them from the waters. Reading secrets and desires had always been a forte, but this was different. She would not have time to manipulate them with words. Already, Rapture spotted hands hesitatingly raising their blades, or nervously reaching for their scabbards. Fear resonated through them, thrumming like individual heartbeats. She licked her lips.

“Demon? I am fear. I am doubt. I am promises wrapped in silk. I am more, and you, dear, are less,” Rapture hissed, lidded eyes widening ever so slightly. Her hand wrapped around the arrow's shaft. She had an unexplainable need to terrorize, to completely deny Sparrow of what she wanted to do—which was to run far, far away. In one sudden, incisive motion, Rapture wrenched the arrow free from her shoulder and casually tossed it over her shoulder, hardly indicating that it had hurt at all. Pain, after all, was just another sort of pleasure. She assessed Sophia as well, with a hard, scrutinizing glare before spitting at her feet. “You'll regret hesitating so, Little Sophia.”

With this, Rapture hurtled forward, hands free of the burdensome mace Sparrow was so keen on carrying around. It clattered to the ground behind her, left laying across Fell Orden's rumpled body. Pure, rough energy rippled around her. This woman would not choose Sparrow's prison. The demon held her in an ethereal cage, a cell made up of Fade-magic. Filled with locked doors just as real as any material one, and she could not escape because it was inside of her. The greatest of prisons were often the ones created in the mind. What could the Circle do beyond shutting out her abilities? Just like what they'd done to Rilien. It was a cruelty that even she could recognize. They imprisoned themselves so, while demanding freedom. Before reaching the first of Sophia's band of soldiers, Rapture spun around, her hands sweeping out in an arc, wielding dangerous Force Magic. It was her next round of movements, swift and assured, that devastated.

Draining life from her enemies, drawing their strengths and vitality into herself. She cast the spell to the two guardsmen hunkered in front of Sophia, offering her a slight inclination of her head, and a gaudy wink. Her fingers waggled, then swept in front of her once more. Their eyes met, and Rapture's wrist flicked towards Harley, launching a thin, finger-proportioned ice-needle towards the vulnerable flesh of her neck. She did not turn, but only lifted her shoulders again, dropping them in a shrug. She revelled in their fears, in their pained shrieks. “Open those pretty little eyes of yours, darling. You cannot command me, when you've nothing to offer.”

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion

Earnings

0.00 INK

Her reward for offering the demon a chance to end this peacefully had been only death. The guards in front of Sophia fell to their knees, losing the strength to stand, subject to unbearable amounts of pain as their very life force was drained from them, only strengthening the demon. Sophia thought to try and do something for them, anything, but then her enemy had thrown a precise and deadly needle to slice open Harley's throat, and her blood spilled out onto the sand in front of her. She dropped her weapons, hands going to her throat, but there would be no stopping her death. The Lieutenant collapsed onto her knees, a gurgling sound rattling from her throat and she fell backwards onto the sand, eyes staring blankly up at the sky.

Sophia should have just attacked, forced the demon on the defensive, fought the way she knew how. Instead she'd tried to save whatever was left of her friend, only to find that it had made the situation worse. Two of her allies were removed from the fight, and another was dead, all because of her hesitance. The demon's words cut through her. Uncertainty, doubt, hesitance, weakness, fear... all the things this demon represented Sophia felt coiling through her insides, poisoning her with every second she spent waiting. But she would not run, she would not falter.

"I can only offer you death now, demon," she said evenly. The Viscount's daughter threw herself into motion, kicking up sand behind her as she rushed forward past the weakened guards. There were still two allies on her side, and these took up arms at Sophia's side, the three of them rushing Sparrow. There was little defence against her magical attacks, so their only option was attack. Sophia dashed to close the distance between her and the demon, launching two swift horizontal slashes in broad strokes out in front of her, while her allies moved around the sides, to surround the demon.

Rapture reeled backwards, and spun again, weaving her arms in intricate circles. Her slender wrist came to her mouth and slipped back down, hands drawing together and pulling apart to reveal a thin rapier fabricated from her own blood. It had been ages since she'd been able to use blood magic—remnant abilities from an old body she'd taken and lost after he'd tragically plunged off the side of a cliff. Blood bonds and demons simply weren't matched for each other. He'd been too weak to hold her, and too stubborn to admit that the power she offered was something he could have only dreamed of. If one's desires were too weak, then perhaps, you were better off dead. She had no regrets, after all. Rivulets ran down her forearm, and dripped off her elbow as if admonishing what she'd done. Sparrow's clear revulsion made her smile.

She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, eyeing Sophia like a coiled snake, swaying slightly on her heels. The feeling of euphoria was immediate; it felt as if she was truly limitless, as if she could do anything. This body was her own, for the time being. She could feel the sheer power of her blood, singing siren songs and trumpeting in pleasure. It was as if she had been sleeping and the whole world had suddenly come alive; and in the most literal ways, perhaps this was truest of all. Every single sense seemed sharper and more distinct; she could taste the metallic tang of her blood in the air, smell it, feel it pulsing loudly. Rapture breathed in and out, in controlled bursts. “And death to your new companion, as well? Oh, Maker no. Mercy please,” She coaxed, lowering her eyelids.

Instead of remaining still, Rapture whipped her blade out, spattering the ground with ruby-red constellations and hurtled towards them. She looked as if she were about to collide with Sophia, but quickly sidestepped away from her, and her flurrying sweeps, slamming the pommel of her makeshift blade into the guardsman's head. Miasmic energy collected in her open palm, commanded forward with a sharp, crisp demand of, “Sleep!” It shot from her fingers just as Sophia's second assault caught her sanguine blade, sailing over her shoulder towards the other guardsman. She strained and pushed, locked together. Perhaps, if she were busy dealing with her unconscious guards—

Startlingly quick, Rapture felt something pulling at her, tugging her ferociously in all directions. The Fade became heavier, more tangent. Desperation tugged at her smug expression, until it completely collapsed. She'd lost to her. Fragments of confusion coloured her vision as her gossamer hull retreated from Sparrow's bodies, as if a much larger person had merely plucked her out of an unruly set of boots. Sparrow was quick enough to mewl her dismay, “No, no, no, no. This was, this wasn't supposed to happen. I-I didn't mean—” She sobbed, shoulders working to somehow hold this blade she did not entirely understand. Its firm shape wavered and became distorted, held together like a child holding a wet sand fortress. Her mucky-coloured eyes lost their glimmer, faded back to their original hue. “Sophia. Sophia!

“I didn't mean to.”

Sophia had been about to strike another blow, but the cry of her name, in such dismay, was enough to stay her blade. She felt instantly that it was the wrong choice, that she should strike the woman down now and be done with it. It was only the two of them now. Harley was dead and all of the guardsmen with her had been incapacitated, but thankfully left alive. In all honesty, the fact that Rapture hadn't immediately killed them, but instead simply subdued most of them, gave Sophia pause, but this made her wonder if this was some kind of trick. Demons were deceptive above all. How was she to know this wasn't some ruse to get her to lower her guard?

"Didn't mean to?" she said, holding her blade steady. "I'm supposed to just turn the other way and forgive you for murdering that woman there because you didn't mean to? You were dishonest with me, you have been from the start. I..." Sophia wanted to be angry, she truly did, but she was just starting to feel upset instead. Why did this woman have to be a mage? Why did she have to be possessed? Her intentions were so clearly pure of heart, but the results had been so disastrous all the same.

"You have to know better than this, Sparrow!" Sophia said, her blade lowering ever so slightly. "I am hesitant to let apostates walk freely. The Chantry's laws, and those of the Templar Order, dictate that all magic must be accounted for by the Circle of Magi, and as the future Viscountess of this city, I must follow its laws. Only in the most extreme of circumstances will I allow an apostate to walk free. But I could never let an abomination do the same, and still live with myself."

Her eyes wavered from Sparrow. She could do this if the demon had still been in control, but with Sparrow returned like this, she didn't think she had it in her. But she would not falter. She lowered her sword more, her voice unconsciously taking on a pleading tone. Pleading for her not to resist, to let Sophia do what she had to do protect the city. Still, she couldn't meet Sparrow's eyes.

"I can't let you leave, Sparrow. Not knowing what you are."

“I made a mistake!” Sparrow bellowed, murky eyes swimming. She couldn't condone what she had done, but didn't Sophia understand that it was beyond her control? But, that might have been the point. No amount of explaining could weasel her way out of this situation—she'd done what she was always afraid of doing. This was her waking nightmare, pressed firmly into reality. She'd never wanted to kill anyone on her side. Her allies were her companions. Whether or not they'd known each other for two minutes or years, Sparrow considered all of her acquaintances chummy, elbow-rubbing friends, and now, she'd just slaughtered a handful of them. It was impossible to take that back. She swallowed thickly, blade-tip drooping.

All of Sophia's warmth was replaced by her defensive stance. Blade still held at the ready, hardly dipping any lower. Like birds screeching out in dismay, ruffling their feathers at the sight of shackles and chains, Sparrow's hard-earned freedom begged her legs to turn and flee. If she did not run, then she'd be lead away to... the Circle? Or execution. She wasn't entirely sure, and her irresolution caused her to hesitate. There was no way she'd turn her blade on a friend, even if it was the only means of escaping another hopeless situation. Perhaps, Rilien had been correct. It was safer for her to remain in one place, far from anyone she may injure. Gallivanting the streets of Kirkwall was just asking for trouble. “I made... a mistake. If I could trade places—” Her voice broke, creaking on the words she could not utter. Would she trade her life for strangers? Strangers she considered friends. Even so, no.

“You don't understand.” Bile rose in her throat, threatening to spill from her lips. All mages shared a common enemy within themselves. Shadows stood vigilant in the Fade, waiting for any sign of weakness, for any chink in their armour to infiltrate and take advantage of. No one else understood the enticement of having someone shoulder all of their burdens, heft them across their shoulders and promise that they'll protect them no matter what, forever and always. It would always be easier to open up their arms and listen. Demons paraded around in the guise of once-friends, whispering in soft tones and making promises that preyed on their individual weaknesses. She'd said yes and now, she was paying the price for it. “Apostate. The Chantry's laws and the Templar Order,” Sparrow solemnly echoed, knuckling at her eyes with her free hand. “I thought you were different.”

I can't let you leave. Those words said volumes. Sophia was already slapping chains to her wrists, appealing to her guilt to waddle along straight to the Gallows. How she wanted to comply. How she wanted to face what she'd done, what she'd been doing to her friends, to strangers, to anyone who'd come in contact with her. And all in one motion, Sparrow's spine arched straight, tearful eyes hardening and shifting colours, before she hurtled forward and closed the short distance between them. Instead of using the stiff sanguine-blade, Sparrow-Rapture's hand thrust out from her side, slapping over Sophia's forehead. She tried, desperately, to control her arm and yank it back, but Rapture only crowed at her. Just like in the Deep Roads, Rapture mustered the last remaining grip on Sparrow's body, and her magic, and cast her into her own waking nightmare.

And Sparrow stumbled backwards, unable to take it away. Unable to keep Sophia from snapping out at her, either. She'd seen, through hazy eyes, in another plane, what the spell had done to her companions. She didn't have time to wait around. It was a useless endeavour. She made a small sound in the back of her throat, and screamed in frustration. Half-stumbling over to one of the unconscious guardsman, Sparrow shook and slapped him. She turned to run as soon as his eyelids fluttered.

I'm sorry, for once, would do her no good.

Sophia's focus had wavered so much, her resolve melted away into nothingness, that she was horrendously slow to react to the demon's return. Her blade had only made it halfway back to her guard when Sparrow, or whatever she was, reached her and placed a hand on her head. The very fabric of her reality twisted and wavered as a splitting pain tore through her mind, and she felt instantly nauseous, the coast tearing itself apart in front of her. She wavered for a mere moment before her legs gave out from under her and she crashed heavily to the sand on her back, eyes firmly shut.

She found herself in her father's room, where she so rarely visited these days. By helping to take over the responsibilities of his public life, she rarely played a part in the Viscount's private life anymore. It was night, a cold wind playing across the bare skin of her shoulders and arms. She felt entirely naked, but looked down to see that it wasn't so. She was garbed as finely as any Hightown noblewoman ever had been, her dress the color of gold. How strange she felt when unarmored lately. She wished that were not so, that she didn't need to leave her front door prepared for battle every day. It was meaningless now.

Her father was dressed all in black, standing quietly on the balcony outside. The view from the Viscount's Keep was breathtaking, standing tall over Hightown itself, Lowtown so far below and away that one couldn't possibly see the state of it, shrouded in darkness and smoke as it was. She took slow, measured steps out to him. She always felt like she had to approach the Viscount with caution now, like he was some ancient vase precariously perched on a column, with one wrong touch plunging it to shatter on the hard floor below. She came to a stop by his side, placing her hands on the railing rather than his shoulder. He didn't like it when she touched him, he'd started slapping her hands away a few years ago.

The city, as always, was burning. The riots, the chaos, it had started a lifetime ago, and Kirkwall now consumed itself from the inside out. Man, elf, dwarf, Qunari, all had turned on each other, and the city burned. They'd been locked in the Keep, for their own protection, for weeks now, surviving on the castle's ever-dwindling food stores. Her father looked skinnier than ever. Sophia wished there was something she could do for him, but everything she had ever tried had failed. He didn't look at her, the words he spoke hardly leaving his throat. They cut through her as surely as any sword would, however.

"I thought you could have been as strong as she was. She could have saved everyone. If only you hadn't been born with my weakness, but instead her strength..." And he threw himself from the balcony. She screamed, reached out, but he was gone, leaving her to stand alone on the edge, and she watched him fall. Only when he passed from her sight did she turn away.

She turned to run from this horrid place, to leave, to go anywhere where less would be placed upon her shoulders, where less would be demanded of her. But she hadn't made it halfway across her father's room when the door burst open, and Saemus was there, and his eyes were alight with rage and hate. "You killed him," he said, as if it were that simple. A knife gleamed in his hands, and she raised her own, trying to calm him.

"Saemus, no, I tried, you have to believe me. I did everything I could." She wanted to scream at him, tell him how he'd done absolutely nothing to take the weight off their father's shoulders, but despite all that he was still her brother, and she loved him. He wouldn't hear it, though, and he advanced, forcing her to back up while she begged him to see reason. Saemus had never seen reason. Sophia was halted unexpectedly by the wall behind her, and Saemus reached her, plunging the knife into her abdomen once, twice, a third time.

She slid slowly down the wall to the floor, coughing and sputtering blood, while Saemus tossed down the knife to clatter against the floor, taking his leave of the room, abandoning her to bleed on her own. There was little else she could think to do. She'd become pale as a ghost, her shallow breaths all that sustained her, when a man crouched before her. She'd always thought he'd had cold eyes for everyone else, but for her they were warm. She wanted so badly to hate him, for a reason she couldn't even remember. She tried to lift her arm and touch his face, but even that much movement was beyond her.

"I just wished you had known," he said, gently touching his hand to her cheek. "They were never yours to die for." He stood and moved to the balcony to watch the city burn, while Sophia's head finally lolled to the side, and her eyes closed.


Sophia gasped awake, the sudden lights and senses assaulting her powerfully. She coughed several times, the effort feeling like it would crack open her skull. Leather boots staggered through the sand towards her, before a figure fell to their knees beside her.

"My lady," gasped one of the guards, clearly struggling himself, "are you wounded? Can you hear me?" Sophia coughed several more times, before nodding weakly. There was a sharp whistle from the guard, and it simulated the effect of an arrow passing through her ears. Hooves galloped towards them in the distance. "We need to return to Kirkwall, my lady. Before more bandits arrive. We are in no fit state to fight."

For once, Sophia agreed with that sentiment. The surviving guards painfully pushed themselves to their feet and heaved themselves back upon their horses, departing for Kirkwall.

The Chanter's Board has been updated. Raiders on the Cliffs has been completed.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon

Earnings

0.00 INK

With a polite nod to the cluster of Sisters enjoying the weather just outside the Chantry doors, Lucien passed within. His mother perhaps would have sighed at him and shaken her head with the knowledge that he was not there to pray, but in the end, she would have indulged his desire to be outside instead and handed him a blank tablet to draw on. She’d have made them lunch, a skill she herself possessed, set everything down on their grounds and made an afternoon of it with him, her too-small, too-slight child who would rather study the world and recreate it on canvas than destroy it in the heedless stampeding of youth. It was a quality she’d always had time for, though his father was another matter entirely.

He wasn’t exactly sure what prompted the thought, but memories of home had been assailing him more often recently, as perhaps his sense of nostalgia for it sharpened to a more acute point. It was not a complaint that he would voice aloud, but homesickness did strike him, at times quite brutally, and he supposed that was really his own fault, for refusing, on some level, to put his roots down here. He still felt like a transient, and as on campaign, that mindset could only be sustained for so long before it began to wear.

Not, of course, that he had come here with the intent of conquering anything, save perhaps his own shortcomings. Glancing up at the massive golden statue of Andraste, he shook his head slightly at his own train of thought and refocused on the reason he was here at all.

Rumor had reached him that, a few days prior, Sophia and some guards had run into serious trouble when attempting to clear out some particularly-notorious bandits on the Wounded Coast. He’d not been able to pin down any of the specific details, but apparently, bandits had not been the only casualties. It rather warranted a visit, he thought, to see how she was doing. He could not tell if she’d been injured herself from the general nature of rumor. By some accounts, she was fine, by others, she’d limped out of there with a dozen wounds and all alone. Unlikely, if the story had spread, but concerning all the same.

Some of his worry was unwarranted however, as the Seneschal had informed him that she was in fact well enough that she was presently not in the Keep, but here in the Chantry. Taking his best guess as to where, he followed the stairs upwards to the more quiet areas of the building. She was easy enough to spot, knelt and bowed slightly forward at prayer. Loath to disturb her, Lucien stopped a respectful distance away and folded his arms behind his back. He could wait.

Sophia did not immediately notice Lucien's presence, respectfully quiet as he was, and absorbed in her thoughts as she was. The Chantry had served as her sanctuary for the past few days, and she tried to firmly restrict her activities here to prayer, and not contemplation. Her thoughts seemed as likely to attack her as help her sort out her troubles, and indeed, she hadn't achieved anything remotely close to peace of mind since her recent encounter with the demon possessing Sparrow.

She looked very little like herself this afternoon, though it was probable that she looked better than the previous two days. The demon's mental assault seemingly had carried after effects of the physical variety, and she'd felt extremely sick the first day afterward, eating hardly anything and spending the majority of the day in bed. The rumors had no doubt spread among the guard, and thus soon the rest of the city, about how she'd quite nearly collapsed after returning to the city, though the only visible wound she'd suffered was a single arrow to the abdomen, which had been healed quickly enough through alchemy. Today she appeared slightly thinner than usual, and still a little pale, and her hair was hastily done up in a messy bun just to keep it out of the way, though even this effort was starting to unravel. The most obvious sign of distress would of course be the tears, which she quickly wiped away with the sleeve of her dress when she realized someone was in the room with her.

She blinked once or twice before actually seeing Lucien, and when she did, her face lightened up with what was probably not happiness, but closer to relief. "Lucien," she said slightly hoarsely, having not spoken to many people recently. She rose to her feet and walked towards him rather quickly, almost as if she meant to hug him, but then seemed to think otherwise, standing awkwardly in front of him for a moment before moving to take a seat, indicating he could do the same if he wished. She cleared her throat quietly.

"I'd been meaning to meet with you, I just... haven't been well the past few days, and... planned on composing myself a little first. It doesn't matter, though, I'm glad you're here. Has any of what happened spread through the city?"

The state she was in spoke volumes about what must have transpired, though he felt he lacked the lexicon to put it all together. Probably for the best—he had no wish to know everything she’d rather keep to herself. Everyone was entitled to a little privacy, especially when they were so clearly troubled by something. Still… that didn’t mean he didn’t want to help. Removing the double-headed axe from his back, he propped it against one of the chairs and sank into the same, regarding her with obvious concern. The news that she had thought to seek him out wasn’t particularly surprising; he’d grown rather used to doing jobs at her request, and often at her side as well. He couldn’t help but think he should have been there for this last one as well.

“Only a little,” he said quietly. “And of course, reports vary. All I really know is that you ran into some trouble in an incident with bandits a few days ago, on the coast. Beyond that, the stories diverge. I’d thought to inquire after your health…” he let the sentence trail off into a frown, which finished it about as well as any words would have. She did not look well, but if he had his guess, the primary injury was not a physical one. His tone invited her to elaborate if she wished, but if she would rather keep the conversation to business, he would understand.

"I had arranged a meeting with Sparrow," Sophia explained, and the words alone seemed to reduce the tension in her a little. Maker knew she didn't feel comfortable speaking about this with anyone in the Keep. "To help her find a pair of criminals in the city. But that was the same day we heard reports of a missing patrol on the coast, and I decided to take some guards with me and investigate. You remember Sparrow, right?" She nodded at Lucien, assuming he did. "She decided to come along and help. I saw no reason not to let her join me. The actual mission went quite well... we found a guard lieutenant under siege by Evets Marauders, I rallied them, and we defeated the bandits, only..." She trailed off for a moment here. She was leaned forward in the chair, her elbows propped upon her knees, and she brushed loose strands of golden hair back behind her ear.

"I saw Sparrow using magic during the fight. I had no idea she was an apostate, the entire time I'd known her. I didn't mean her any harm at first, but... either she was possessed during the battle, or she had been possessed earlier. The demon took control of her. I... I tried to kill her. The remaining guards and I. We had to, she was an abomination, I didn't even know if she could regain control." She had regained control, only for a moment. If only she hadn't, Sophia could have fought to the end, and none... or less, of her current doubts and uncertainties would be plaguing her. But of course it hadn't worked out like that...

"She killed a guard lieutenant, subdued the others, and then seemed to regain control of herself. I... I hesitated. I didn't want to hurt her. But then the demon returned. I was caught off guard, she got in close, used some kind of magic on me. I collapsed, and had... visions. It was..." She blinked furiously for a moment, before stopping to wipe another pair of tears from her face. She didn't know if she was capable of talking about the nightmare. If there was any point in talking about it. It was just a nightmare, wasn't it? And yet it gave strength to all the doubts she'd been pushing back the last few years.

"She escaped," was all she ended up saying, sniffing.

As soon as the mention of Sparrow made it out into the open, Lucien could picture where this story was going, and he pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and first two fingers, as though a headache were forming there. “Maker…” he murmured under his breath. It seemed appropriate, given where he was and what he was hearing. He’d never known that Sparrow and Sophia were more than passing aware of the other’s existence, let alone to the point where the half-elven woman would invite herself along to help with one of the lady’s missions. They’d both been at the expedition party, but he recalled no conversations between them, and the only other time he'd seen them in one room, Sparrow had left after the briefest of exchanges. If he had… he would have said something. Maybe not the whole truth—he did not desire that Sparrow should die for what the foul thing under her skin did. But enough that Sophia would have known that it was not an offer to accept.

He had to own up to this. He couldn’t just omit that he knew this, that he’d let it pass. He believed in Rilien, and saw trying to save Sparrow as the right course of action, but that was not a decision he got to make for anyone else, least of all someone who’d suffered at her hands. “Those of us who ventured into the Deep Roads were subjected to something similar,” he said plainly. “The spell… I believe it is called Waking Nightmare.” She certainly didn’t need to tell him the content of her terrors in order for him to understand. He’d shaken his off, but put that down to the simple urgency of the situation. He didn’t suppose it would have been any more pleasant for Sophia than it had been for Nostariel or Ashton. “I did not know she was responsible at the time, but I did find out later. Rilien… he is set on saving her, and I’ve done what I can to help thus far.”

He paused, expecting there would be questions here, probably difficult ones. Letting his arm fall away from his face, he resolved to answer them, no matter how uncomfortable it doubtless was. With what she’d endured, she had every right to demand an accounting of his inaction. And though he had a choice about whether to give that accounting, for him it was no choice at all.

Several things went through her head at the admittance that Lucien too had been subjected to this magic, none of which helped to make her feel any better. She didn't think she'd expected him to make her feel better, or for anything to do that, for that matter, but at least getting it off her chest had been something she felt was necessary. She didn't expect him to make things somehow worse.

Her immediate thought was to wonder why he hadn't thought to warn her, but it occurred to her that he would be unaware of their meetings, of the growing friendship Sophia had allowed herself to have with the woman. He could not have known how close Sparrow had been to Sophia on those several occasions. No, that wasn't his fault. What she could blame him for, was inaction. Once he'd learned of her possession, he and his friend Rilien, they had done nothing to contain her, and the threat she posed upon the city. Now, as a result of that, someone had died, someone that very easily could have been Sophia herself.

Her gaze was accusatory only for the briefest of moments, before she realized she wasn't capable of it, not right now, and she looked away, dabbing at her eyes again. She'd known Lucien long enough to know that, while he didn't share her beliefs on some things, he wouldn't have done this if he hadn't thought it right, and the best course of action. She had reason to doubt her own course of action, as well. Had her threatening stance towards Sparrow encouraged the emergence of the demon? If she had been more willing to make peace with her, could it have been avoided? There were too many unknowns to condemn anyone for this.

"Do you really think she can be saved? I've... never heard of a mage returning from possession before." Granted, she still thought the best place for Sparrow, if she could be saved, was the Circle of Magi, but at least their desire to see her live was something they shared, and so it was this that Sophia chose to focus on. She wouldn't allow herself to go down the other paths that presented themselves here. Their ends were... too painful to think about.

Momentarily or not, he felt lanced by the implications in the glare, and dropped his eye for a moment, sighing through his nose. It was hard to answer that, and if anything, that actual question she asked was even more difficult. He was not an expert on magic; most of what he knew was second-hand information from Rilien, and though he’d asked the Tranquil a number of questions on the subject, in an attempt to understand what being a mage was like, he had a feeling he’d barely even scraped the surface of everything it meant. It was certainly far too complex for him to conveniently label with words like good, bad, uncontrolled, or the like. “He’s mostly been able to contain her damage for a while,” the chevalier said, partially in answer. “But I believe the issue… grows.”

He considered it a moment, then shook his head. “I truly do not know. The complexities of magic are far from my expertise. But Rilien is asking for very specific things. I believe he intends to force the demon out with some sort of alchemy. If there is anyone who would know something like that, it’s him. It seems the events near their end, for better or worse. I can only think that the chance to prevent further death is the one worth taking.” Until now, the demon had not been responsible for any fatalities that he’d known about, and perhaps that had deceived him into believing that it never would be, that it was only a matter of time before she was right again. He was almost certain that Rilien would not detach himself from Sparrow’s side once he heard what happened.

“I cannot determine with any surety, but I suspect that the fact that the rest of those present yet live means that Sparrow still fights her circumstances, and it seems… cruel to commend her to the grave alongside the demon.” Not that there was necessarily any difference in the eyes of some. “I confess I have no established doctrine to turn to with which to support that feeling. It is not a popular view regarding those possessed. All I can do is what I take to be right. I will certainly make no attempt to stop you from doing the same.”

Sophia stood, pacing slowly around to the back of the chair, leaning against it, weighing Lucien's words in her mind. "I had thought to go to the Templars with her description, ask them to search for her, before you came. I might have gone there today. But I don't think I want to now." The words felt like a sin beneath this roof, but she couldn't stop herself from saying them. Maybe her dream had been right, and she was weaker than she thought. But on the Coast, when she had been trying to get Sparrow to simply lay down her life, that Sophia might be able to rid the world of the demon, and in so doing kill her... the moment she'd seen Sparrow resist, and regain control of herself, she'd known she couldn't kill her. Monsters and horrors she could fight, she could release from their torment, but what had happened to Sparrow was something else. She was dangerous, it was true, but if she could still be saved, and no other lives could be lost...

Was it the right thing to do, or the weak thing? She could not know, so she had to simply trust her heart, and trust Lucien's.

"I think... if there's any way that I can, I'd like to help. If this can be resolved quickly and quietly, with no further death, I would like to save Sparrow. Do you think you could ask Rilien if there's anything I can do?" She'd gotten the sense that the Tranquil was either not fond of her, or not comfortable with her, not in the same way he was with Lucien. He was... hard to read. If he didn't trust her enough to allow her to help, she would be able to live with it. She just wanted him, and Sparrow, to know that the offer had been made, and that she was willing to contribute the effort as well.

“Of course I will,” Lucien said with a nod. “I doubt very much that he will turn down assistance freely-offered. He’s rather pragmatic in that way, which I suppose comes with the territory.” He did not make an attempt to hide his relief, though it was subtle all the same. More a relaxing of his posture than anything, and a nearly imperceptible easing of his facial expression. He had been truthful—he would not have stopped her from going to the Templars. But he wouldn’t have liked it much, and likely would have felt it necessary to give at least Rilien some form of forewarning. Whether this would have made any difference in the end, he didn’t know and didn’t care to contemplate. The important point was that she’d chosen differently. He was the smallest bit tempted to assert that it was very much like he’d heard people describe her mother, that willingness to take the hard way if it seemed like the right way, but he refrained, unsure if such commentary would be welcome, especially from him.

Instead, he chose to shift the tenor of the conversation a bit. “You mentioned earlier that you were planning on finding me for some reason. Is there something I can do to help you?” He felt rather the opposite of helpful at the moment, and it was not a feeling he enjoyed in the slightest.

She'd actually meant to find him specifically so she could air her feelings on what had happened, and hear his thoughts, and she'd done that. She was most glad for it, too. Without him, she'd have undoubtedly gone on to make what she now viewed as the wrong choice. But, as it happened, there was another reason she needed to speak with him.

"Yes, there is," she said, forcing herself to come around to the topic. It was quite a long way from where they'd just been. "As it happens, I'm turning twenty-five at the end of next week. My father is insisting on organizing a rather elaborate celebration for the occasion. I've tried arguing with him on it, but this seems to be one of the few things he's holding steady on." Lucien would no doubt understand her aversion to a grand spectacle meant purely for her, given the nature of those who would undoubtedly be in attendance. The nobles were so much fun.

"Normally I'd never consider dragging you to such an awful event, but I've heard some... disturbing things, coming from the guard. It hasn't been a very publicly advertised event, as it's been by invitation only, but there's been talk that an assassination of some kind is being planned. Either for myself, or my father, or both of us, I don't know. I suspect one of the attendees might be the one behind it, though I know not who. As we both know, the city guard hasn't always been the most incorruptible force in the city, so I can't feel as though I can fully trust them." Her hair was bothering her again, so he brushed it aside. She'd really need to just redo it soon.

"I'd feel much more comfortable if you were to be there," she said. "I'd also like you to speak with the Warden Nostariel, and Ashton Riviera, and see if they might be able to attend as well. And if Rilien isn't busy, I would like to have someone there with... some experience in matters such as these." It occurred to her that Rilien could very likely be busy preparing for whatever he had in mind for Sparrow. Perhaps Lucien knew someone else trustworthy.

Lucien grimaced immediately upon the mention of a large social gathering, though he did not seem surprised to learn that her birthday was approaching. The expression only soured further when assassins came up, and his jaw tightened. Ordinarily, he would stay as far away from such an event as possible, as keeping company among nobles, some of them Orlesian in descent, greatly increased his chances of being recognized by people who had reason to attempt an assassination on him. But it was immediately obvious to him that it was a risk he was simply going to have to take—he wasn’t going to be elsewhere when her life was so obviously in danger, not if he could avoid it. He raised a brow, trying to ease out the evidence of his displeasure, quiet as it was. “I don’t suppose I can get away attending in full armor, can I?” he asked, and it was light enough to almost constitute a joke.

Truthfully, that would have made things easier, but the guards would be posted around the events, and to be most effective, he needed to be in them. Of course, that would probably mean no (obvious) weapons and little in the way of protection. He’d be the shield, if it came to that, and he hoped it didn’t. It was, however, a distinct possibility. “I can certainly pass the invitation on to them, and if Rilien is busy, I think I know someone else who can move just as subtly, if I can secure her agreement. Do you have any idea who might wish to perpetrate such an act? …I realize that may be like asking you to list every noble you know, if your family is anything like mine.” That was a joke, if a true one, and he smiled a bit.

Her smile was slightly more full, and it was a beautiful thing, given how she'd been emotionally when he had found her here. "There's several families and individuals that could gain a great deal if my father and I were killed," she said, the smile fading. "I can go over them later, when the others are with us. If... any of them need more suitable attire, I can have something arranged. I'm afraid armor, either of the leather or plate variety, will not be acceptable. There's... also one other thing I should say..."

She bit her lip, knowing he wouldn't like this. Sophia could tell he wasn't overly comfortable with attending this at all, that he was doing it for her, specifically. But she was going to ask him all the same. Today seemed like a good day for bigger steps.

"It's... expected, that I have an escort. Father lined up the usual suitors, most of them sons of noblemen in Hightown, but I'm pretty sure I've turned them all away at some point over the last... eight or nine years. I'd prefer it if you could fill that role instead. I don't trust any of them. I trust you." That, and it was tactically beneficial. He'd have a perfectly useable excuse to be by her side, and near her family, at all times. The tactical benefits, however, were obviously not the reason she was suggesting it, judging by the current reddened state of her cheeks.

The tactical implications were immediately evident to the soldier in him, but even he was not so oblivious as to fail to notice the fact that she was blushing. He was, however, oblivious enough to assume that it was the nature of the request itself that caused it, and not the fact that she was making it of him. Propping an elbow on the armrest of his chair, he caught his jaw on the heel of his hand, clearly considering the thought. The reasoning was solid, even if it would further increase his chances of running into someone he shouldn’t, and the opportunity to both preserve decorum and remain close enough to she and her family to be useful if someone did strike was undeniably appealing.

Lucien opted to take it on the chin, so to speak. It made him uncomfortable, but she was worth it, end of story. “I cannot imagine the alternative selection would much please your father,” he said, though the smile he flashed robbed the comment of its seriousness. Sophia was of a steel-strong will, and he expected that the Viscount had grown somewhat accustomed to it by now. He, as said inappropriate escort, would likely catch some ire from various corners, but it was nothing he couldn’t deal with. “But you make it very difficult to refuse. If it is what you think best, then,” he swallowed, a bit thickly, “I suppose I’d better refresh my knowledge of Marcher custom.”

"Thank you," she said, smiling again. She'd expected the bit about her father not approving. That was no matter; she'd speak with him, and he'd see her way sooner or later. The acceptance was a bit more... businesslike, than she would have hoped, but she didn't really want to try and go over what that could have possibly meant. He'd agreed to it, and that was the important part.

"For everything, that is. I needed this today, I think. My thoughts have had a way of turning against me lately, but I'm very certain that you've helped with that." Truly, she felt much better already. She was going to help with Sparrow's situation, put personal effort towards making it right, and she had friends that she could trust to stand by her when doubt struck. There was little else she could ask for.

His expression softened, and he nodded once. “I’m glad to be of help, truly. It brings me no joy to see you under so much strain. If ever I can help in such a manner again, well… the things you ask of me need not be always of the kind where we’re risking our lives.” He stood, replacing his axe at his back and rolling his shoulders, easing away any remaining tension. “I will go find Ashton and Nostariel, and see what I can do about a fifth. I hope you’ll get some rest in the meantime—that many nobles in one room is bound to be taxing, assassination attempts or no.”

The Chanter's Board has been updated. New quests are available.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

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Well, he was certainly in a predictament now. Ashton looked to his left, and then to his right, eyeing the rows of buildings on either side of him. Well, at least he had the best view of Kirkwall from his position. He was a good climber, he used to climb all the trees at home, and when he was off on his trips. Hell, he slept a couple of weeks in some branches due to an unfortunate accident with a bear. He'd never had a problem with getting back down. Of course, trees were not buildings, and trees weren't as tall as his shop. He leaned over the lip of his own particular building and peered down at the street far below. Yep it was indeed a long fall down, just as he had feared. His saving grace was that he wasn't afraid of heights. Now that would have made the incident unbearable.

He stepped away from the lip and turned around, glaring at the sign and streamers at his feet. It was all their fault Ashton was way in the hell up there, on top of his building. He had anticipated kicking off the grand reopening of his shop right, with a new sign and sparkly streamers. They had just managed to refill their stock, so they could roll out the merchandise in full force. Ashton had volunteered to scale the building to reattach the sign and to hang up the streamers, but somewhere between then and now, he'd lost track of his altitude-- so absorbed in the act of climbing that he was. For a moment, he had forgotten he was back in Kirkwall, and not clinging to some tree in some uncharted wilderness.

He sighed and spun around on his heel, coming back to face the sheer drop once again. Instead of looking over though, he resigned himself to his fate and took a seat, swinging his legs off the side. He'd wait until he grew the nerve to actually descend it. He had plenty of time to do so. Unfortunately, he had plenty of time. For all he knew he would be trying to work up the nerve for hours. When he woke up that morning, Ashton certainly didn't envision this future...

Nostariel, burdened down with a large, misshapen bundle, found that the trek from her shop to Ashton’s was much longer than usual thus encumbered. From time to time, the diminutive Warden would sway slightly in her step as though drunk, but it was obvious from her clear-eyed expression and the bright smile on her face that she was anything but. She giggled to herself every once in a while, this usually coinciding with a more awkward than graceful step, but it certainly didn’t bother her any.

Some days, she really did feel the need to thank the Maker for her friends and fellow Wardens. After Ashton had gifted her with the bow (which she’d named Oathkeeper, from a desire that it help her keep her promises to herself and others), she’d actively sought to repay him somehow, and now she thought she’d finally managed it. What she’d found was something she thought he’d like, and it had been her Commander, on a visit to check in with her, that had ultimately provided the suggestion, though he hadn’t known it at the time. Stroud was a good man, if a bit uncompromising at times, and what had started as a simple favor was now rather a stroke of brilliance, if she did say so herself.

And well, there wasn’t much of an occasion, but she figured she could claim it to be a shop-warming gift, as apparently his oh-so-grand re-opening was today. Honestly, it didn’t look too grand as she approached, given the dearth of customers, and she decided she’d have to at least purchase a new quiver to match Oathkeeper, if only so he’d sell something today. Hopefully, the present would put him in a better mood.

Upon her initial approach, she didn’t spot him, and supposed he must be inside, until she noticed an irregularity in the shadow cast by his roof. Glancing up, Nostariel squinted against the noontime sun, unable to lift a hand to shield her eyes, lest her blanket-draped bundle fall to the ground. She certainly didn’t want that. “Ash?” she inquired, half-incredulously. “What are you doing on the roof?” She was grinning despite herself. She had no idea how he’d gotten up there, but it looked kind of hard to get down.

"Something incredibly stupid, no doubt," Ashton answered with an exaggerated sigh. And now Nostariel has caught him in the middle of his stupidity, wonderful. "See, I started to climb... But then I forgot to stop. I thought I was climbing a tree for a moment." At least if he fell, she was there to mend his broken and mangled body-- it still wasn't his first choice of how to descend. He then began to swing his legs back and forth like a child would, tilting his head side to side as he did. He still hadn't managed to work up the nerve to attempt a descent, not quite yet.

"So... What brings you my way," He said, humor in his tone, completely ignoring that he was stuck some distance in the air.

“Oh. Um… all right then,” Nostariel replied, unsure if there was any way she could even help him. Aside from healing whatever he managed to break if he jumped or something. The bundle in her arms was growing more difficult to keep a hold of, though, and his question directed her back to the reason for being here in the first place.

“Well, today’s your re-opening and all… I thought I should get you something.” Actually, the opportunity had fallen (almost literally) into her lap, and she’d really just needed to find an excuse for it. A shop opening seemed like the best one she was going to get, since she had no idea when his birthday was, and the major holidays of Kirkwall and Ferelden alike were stacked towards the back end of the year, at which point it would be far too late. Something shifted, and she staggered to the side. “Thing is, my Commander was in town a few days ago, and he passed on news that an old comrade of mine had gone to his Calling.” Her tone softened a bit, and she glanced down at the ground for a moment. Siegfried had been a hard man, Anders to his bones and more gruff than just about anyone she’d ever met, but his training had made her a stronger person, she was certain. He was the one who’d taken a soft Circle mage and made her into a Captain of the Grey.

“Which… probably seems like it’s completely irrelevant and slightly depressing, but it’s not. Rather, it is a bit depressing, but not irrelevant.” If she’d had a free hand, she would have run it down her face. This was not going how she expected it to. Sighing, she tried again. “Siegfried wasn’t Ferelden, but he always had a way with animals. He bred Mabari for the Wardens, and one of the bitches had a litter just before he went. Stroud—that’s my Commander—he said Siegfried left me one of the pups, if I wanted it. I don’t—there’s no way I could keep her in the Hanged Man, but… I couldn’t say no.” Bracing her bundle on her upraised leg, she moved a hand to pull the blanket aside, which produced yet more squirming from the puppy she was holding as it tried to lick the elf’s face.

A soft grey in color, she was stippled with spots of darker grey. Anyone with any interest in hounds would know she was a bit smaller than the average pup, but if the enthusiasm with which she cleaned the Warden’s cheek was anything to go by, she made up for it in gusto. She’d also… mostly… understood the need to remain hidden and still, evidence to support the glimmer of intelligence in her huge black eyes. “I don’t really know anything about dogs, but I thought maybe you wouldn’t mind a hunting partner, you know?” She wasn’t sure how she’d figured, but a hound seemed like something that would suit Ashton very well indeed.

Right, that changed everything. Now he had to get down. And fast too. Ashton swung his legs over the lip, careful not to over extend himself so that he fell. It'd be hard to accept a gift if he was nothing but an Ashton flavored splatter on the street. Not to mention how much that would hurt. Still, he had went up there for a job, and he needed to get it down first before he had gift-giving time with Nostariel. So obviously, the solution was to kick the streamers over the edge of the building-- hoping they caught somewhere and unfurled. Which they did, but it certainly wasn't a pretty sight. Streamers of varying height waved helplessly in the wind, but objective complete. Now came the hard part.

He had to descend without falling. He grabbed the sign and just hefted it over, calling out, "Watch your lovely heads!" The sign fell to the ground, clapping upon contact but otherwise unharmed. Now it was his turn. He approached the edge and slowly lifted himself down. "If I fall, just... Tell Lia the shop is hers," he said as he began his descent. It was slow going, as he made sure every handhold and foothold could support him. It took twice as long to climb down as it took him to climb up, and even then he was only about midway. Why did he have to be so silly, he thought to himself, steadily descending. Another couple of minutes passed and he was becoming overzealous, increasing his pace. What happened next should have surprised no one.

Ashton missed. He reached for a handhold that was not there, and his foot was already moving in anticipation. Now with half of his tether to the building missing, it put all of his lengthy weight to his two remaining grips to the building. He was no Lucien, and the strength he had in his arms was laughable in comparison. His arm gave out, his foot along with it, and he began to fall back. As he fell he began to scream. Even when he landed on his back a foot or so later he was still screaming. It was only when he realized that he was still alive that he stopped. Instead he just looked up into the sky with a embarrassed look on his face.

"See? Something incredibily stupid..." he monotoned as the pup sauntered over to his face and stared at him. "Well, hello there sweetheart. Looks like you're going to have to put up with me for a while," he said, to which the puppy replied by licking his face. "She smells like Ferelden," Ashton told Nostariel. Now he a was a bit homesick...

She honestly thought he was maybe being a little overdramatic, but indulged him with a friendly salute anyway, setting the puppy down to let her sniff around of she wanted. She wouldn’t go far, even unimprinted as she still was. Despite that, she watched his progress with a bit of worry, breathing a sigh of relief when he was close enough to the ground that a fall no longer risked serious injury… or not? He seemed to think otherwise.

For a moment, Nostariel wasn’t really sure what to do—he wasn’t actually harmed, by the looks of it, but he seemed to believe otherwise. The realization of the truth was a bit long in coming, but it did arrive, the dog venturing over to him and hazarding her opinion on the whole matter. It was actually kind of adorable… and more than a bit funny, too. Nostariel’s laughter started as quiet, breathy chuckles, but eventually progressed to ill-contained giggling, and she followed in the Mabari’s tracks, looking down at him with the spark of amusement. “You’d drown in an inch of water, with theatrics like that,” she told him, offering a hand up. “Maybe I should tell Lia the store’s hers, just in case.”

Her face grew serious, though, as she picked up on the note of painful nostalgia in his tone. “I’m sorry, I didn’t think—” and that was rather the problem, wasn’t it? “If it’s too much to be reminded of…”

"What? No, stop that," He said using Nostariel's help to rise to his feet. As he did, he managed to scoop up the pup, rolling her over in his arm and scratching her belly. "You're not getting her back, ever," Ashton said trying to inject some humor into the situation he'd accidently brought down. He then held the pup up to his face and rubbed his nose against hers, at which point she began licking him again. She was quite friendly. "Ferelden was my home once, but now it's Kirkwall. I have to rebuild here-- It's simple as that," Ashton said. Then the puppy yawned and Ashton could hardly contain himself from breaking down from the adorable.

"Best. Gift. Ever. I've always wanted a puppy," He said, pulling Nostariel in for a hug.

The three-way hug between herself, someone almost a foot taller than her and a furry puppy was probably one of the stranger experiences she’d had in recent memory, but it was also one of the most pleasant, so there was no way she was going to mention it and ruin the moment. Instead, she wedged herself in there gamely, wrapping one arm around Ashton’s waist and placing her opposite hand on the puppy’s head. “I’m glad,” she replied honestly. When she thought about it, he’d given her so much—Oathkeeper was only the tip of the iceberg. She was elated that she’d guessed rightly about the fact that hounds suited him.

“So?” she asked expectantly. “What’s her name?”

"Serah Princess Von Snufflynose," He stated without hesitation. "Snuffy for short."

"So long as you clean it up when Snuffy poops in the shop, I guess she's alright," came Lia's input from the now open door of the shop. "But that's what I pay you for, sweetheart," Ashton teased, at which Snuffy barked in agreement. Lia rolled her eyes, and went back inside.

Setting

5 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

Sophia's birthday was still a week out when she called for a meeting of those she had wanted Lucien to contact. Varric's room in the Hanged Man was to be the setting. She'd had him move in some more reasonably sized chairs for them in the event that they wanted them, but the table was still a bit too low to actually be used. It didn't really matter. The point was that she needed a place to speak privately with them, and despite appearances, a backroom of the Hanged Man was one of the better places in Kirkwall to discuss in peace.

As far as she knew, all of Lucien's meetings had gone well enough, and all of the people she'd asked for would be in attendance at the party. There was still the matter of this other woman Lucien had decided to request the aid of. Sophia was uneasy allowing anyone she didn't trust to enter in on this agreement, but if Lucien trusted whoever it was, that would be enough for Sophia. The fact that her father's life was potentially on the line as well as her own was entirely why she was so nervous about this going well. The waking nightmare continued to plague her, long after the demon's magic had faded.

Sophia looked much better by now, if still a little harried. She was in armor again, hair loosely tied back, as she wasn't expecting any combat simply walking to Lowtown. Still, she was apparently making enemies as well as friends by attempting to do what was best for the city, so it couldn't hurt. The weight of it had grown comfortable. She'd been eating regularly again for the past few days, and the majority of her paleness had passed. She was her usual self again, if a little more stressed than normal.

She waited patiently at the head of Varric's table for the others to arrive. They'd only know what they were being invited to, and the reason they were there. She'd purposely saved the rest for this meeting, so that it could all be gone over once, when they were together, and could more effectively prepare. She glanced to the sword next to her, sheathed and propped up against the wall. She certainly wouldn't be able to bring that with her to the Keep's ballroom. Nor would she be able to wear the armor...

Well, she could, but she'd certainly look like quite the fool.

Lucien wound his way through Lowtown, the taciturn Qunari woman beside him. He’d expected to have to work a little harder to convince her to do this, but she had simply sat quietly for a moment after he outlined the specifications of the task to her, then nodded simply. “I will do it, if she allows it.” He’d been quite tempted to ask after how the two were acquainted, as he had no knowledge of the connection, but he chose not to. With this one, silence was often the better choice, or at least the welcomed one. It was a drastic reversal from most of the people he’d known, but comfortable enough for him, as his father had been the same, and his mother as well. It was the other side of things that was harder to navigate.

As she’d promised, Amalia had met him at his dwelling a few minutes ago, and now both progressed to the Hanged Man, both armored and armed to the teeth. Well, actually, he just had his axe and a belt-knife, but he was pretty sure the four visible knives on the Qunari were not the only ones she was carrying. Rilien was like that, too, and it was actually somewhat reassuring to note, given the job he was asking her to do. He wasn’t honestly sure if she’d accepted from the nature of the task itself, some lingering feeling of debt to him for the incident a year ago, or something else, but given that Ril was otherwise occupied, he knew of nobody more suited to it.

They entered the Hanged Man, and, as she was obviously unfamiliar, he led the way to the back room. As it was, his bulk initially obscured her from view, meaning that she was not visible until she had entered. “Good morning, Sophia,” he greeted amicably, “You look well.” Unspoken was the obvious: she looked a great deal better than when he had last seen her. That would have to be conveyed in his small smile.

Amalia stepped cautiously into the room, clearly scanning it for security, sizing up potential exits. She took up a position on the wall near the door, but still close enough to the main part of the room to clearly be a part of the conversation. Propping the flat of one foot against the wall, she refrained from crossing her arms over her chest, as she was not here with hostile intentions and for once desired not to be perceived as such. Instead, she inclined her head slightly at the Viscount’s eldest child. “Sophia,” she offered mildly, by way of greeting.

Sophia was a bit stunned at first when the Qunari woman she'd met while battling dragons walked through the door. She was actually tempted to laugh, just at the sheer ridiculousness. Or perhaps it was strangely fitting. That the Qunari would be protecting her and her father from the nobles, who seemed so greatly to desire the heathens gone from the city.

"Hello, Amalia," she said, unsure whether to smile or frown. She ended up doing neither. She'd want to speak with Amalia in private, and that could be done once the others had left, after she'd delivered her information. She trusted Lucien's choice, and she'd seen the woman in action herself, so her assistance would not be turned aside, but there a few things she needed to be certain that Amalia understood.

"And thank you, Lucien," she said, offering him a smile and a nod.

Judging from the sounds outside her room, Varric’s was already filling up. With no particular need to arm herself for a ten-foot walk, Nostariel shrugged to herself and grabbed Oathkeeper anyway, Slinging the bow and a quiver over her shoulder. One could never be too careful in the Hanged Man—it tended to attract half the grudge matches in Kirkwall, and they didn’t always stay between the participants. Disabling and rearming her ward, the mage entered the room shortly after Amalia, recognizing the Qunari woman immediately and offering a bright smile. Sophia and Lucien were both already also here. Not quite as cautious as the trained assassin in the room, Nostariel took a seat, laying her arms on the low table.

“Morning, everyone. It’s good to see you.” it had been a bit since she’d interacted with any of them, and she’d not seen Amalia since the Fade incident. That she was here was surely a good sign of… something, though Nostariel wasn’t exactly sure how she’d been brought into this adventure, so to speak.

Next on the list was Ashton and his plus one, Snuffy. Ever since Nostariel gave him the little puppy, had had been glued to her for the following couple of weeks. He hardly went anywhere without her, and fortunately she seemed to begin imprinting on him so she tended to follow him around when he wasn't doing anything important. Surely the scraps of deer he'd been sneaking her had nothing to do with that. He was currently in route to the Hanged Man, at the behest of Lucien. He thought it a huge tease inviting him to the Hanged Man, since he had decided to cut way back on his alcohol consumption. A blackout ending in marriage, and a grim heartfelt talk-to-talk tended to ward one off from the stuff.

Ashton himself was lightly armed, though he still wore his leathers-- but that was hardly surprising. He wore those every day. He'd left the shop in Lia's care, and with it his bow and quiver. He did have a skinning knife hidden away in his boots, but it was suicide to walk around Lowtown without some form of weaponry. It was moments before his legs brought him to the door of the hanged man, which he pushed past and into the establishment proper. He got a couple of strange looks, due in part to the dog in his arms, but nothing was said. Hell, a little bit of dog could only help the swill they called drink. Ashton danced past the patrons and headed to the back hall, and angled himself toward Varric's room. Upon his entrance he recongized several familiar faces.

And they were all armed for bear. He stood in the door way for a moment, looking from person to person and suddenly feeling under-dressed. "So... Where's the fight at? Wish someone would have told me we were marching into battle. I would have grabbed something more substantial than a piddly little knife," Ashton said, chuckling, though Snuffy whined. The idea of a fight didn't much appeal to her. Still, he took a seat at the table beside Nostariel, and leaned back, propping his feet on the table and letting Snuffy play in his lap.

"No fight," Sophia said, not in the best state of mind for any kind of humor, but her tone wasn't harsh or anything. "I just wanted to gather everyone and help you all know what to expect at the party." She raised an eyebrow slightly at the mabari puppy in his arms, but did not press him on it. The dog certainly wouldn't be allowed among the guests.

"I'll get to it, then," Sophia said, shifting slightly uncomfortably. The possible candidates who wanted her or her father's death were very many, especially when so many of them were so adept at hiding their motives, and their goals. It had taken her quite some time just to try and pick out a few who would be the most likely, as well as those who were simply the most prominent nobles at the celebration.

"You'll all be allowed entrance into the grand ballroom of the Viscount's Keep with the other guests. I can instruct the guards to allow you to pass with weapons, but they'll need to be hidden. I don't want armed guests, especially if you're to be moving among them. The guards on the perimeter and near my family will be enough, and I hardly trust them as it is." Even the captain had been corruptible, as she and Lucien had found out recently. How many of the lower ranking guardsmen were just as susceptible, she could not say.

"The party will consist of a feast, several speeches, I'm sure, gift giving... you need not bring a gift, I certainly won't mind. I would have preferred not to have the party at all, but Father insists." She shook her head. She had no doubt that some of them would still bring her some kind of gift. Well... it would be sort of expected of Lucien, given how he was arriving with her. "It will be pretty unorganized, but a group dance will end the festivities. Until then, we'll simply have to put up with the city's nobles."

No easy task, certainly. Sophia was not fond of some of them, as she was about to go over. "Lucien will be arriving with me as my escort, and stay with me throughout the party. Nostariel, Ashton, I'd like you to mainly move through the guests, keep an eye out for anything suspicious, and perhaps talk to a few of them, see if you can find anything out. Amalia can keep watch over things from a distance, and intervene if she sees anything."

Ashton nudged Nostariel's arm at the mention of a group dance, but otherwise kept silently until the end. Even then, he prolonged the silence a bit further to ensure that no one else had any other, more pertinant questions before asking his. "Are you always so particular over your birthdays? And should we be looking for anything specific?" Surely if she displayed such decorum with other matters, she was bound to be a barrel of fun-- He decided not to press too hard though, as clearly she wasn't in the mood for it. Besides, everyone was armed but him. He would definitely like to leave in the same shape he arrived.

"Oh, and would you like anything particular for your birthday?" Ashton added. A hint would be nice, though he could always figure something out. He did think he was good at giving gifts, after all.

Sophia couldn't help but sigh at the man. "You're all going out of your way for me as it is. That in of itself is a gift. I don't need anything more than that, really." Really, she trusted Ashton to have a good heart, but his occasional inability to take things seriously was trying sometimes. "There's several people I'd like you to talk with at some point, to see what you can get out of them."

"First would be the Arren family, particularly Jorah Arren and his son, Jamie. The Arren family was one of the ones closely considered to inherit the Keep, but my father received it instead, and it surprised many. They remain one of the most powerful and influential families in the city. They've never been very supportive of my father's rule, but Jorah has tried on several occasions to bind our families by trying to match me with Jamie. I have resisted this notion, as you can see." She wondered what he'd think when Lucien of all people walked in with her. Jamie had always been the most charming of her suitors, but he was a fool to think charm was what she was searching for.

"The Lady Miranda Threnhold is the second. If you recognize the name, you'll know that she's the only living member of the Threnhold family left. Her father was the Viscount of Kirkwall until he crossed the Templar Order. Miranda is his daughter. In all the time I've known her, she's shrewd, cold, and intelligent, and she's none too subtle about her dislike for me and my family. I don't know if she feels that she should be Viscountess now or not, but she's certainly smart enough to be able to put together a plan for it. I had thought assassination to be a place she wouldn't go, but I may very well be wrong." She was still quite wealthy, as she had been too young to be implicated in her father's revolt, and considering that she'd hadn't committed any crime, there was little reason to not allow her to inherit what her father left behind. Apart from the leadership of Kirkwall, of course.

"The wealthiest family in the city is without a doubt the Tarkins. I believe only the twins will be in attendance, that's Damian and Dorian. They're... well, I hesitate to use the word brute, but they both fit the description rather well. Their family's made their fortune by running a number of the trading vessels that come in and out of the docks, but on several occasions the guard has nearly connected them with the Coterie. No proof, though, so there's nothing to be done. Both Damian and Dorian were suitors of mine, for about a day each, actually, which is a day more than I needed to decide against them. I don't think they hold allegiance with anyone but themselves, but I'd thought them content with their fortunes. I'd thought responsibility of rule was something they'd wanted to avoid." She could easily be mistaken about that, however. They were as private as they were brutish when confronted, and she rarely met in person with the patriarch of the family. Motives were hard to determine through letters.

"Last... the Natlas will be in attendance. They've risen to power quickly in the last decade or so, mostly through their strong ties with the Templar Order. It's no secret that Knight-Commander Meredith has as much influence over this city as my father does, and the Natla family is one that she respects. Two of their sons and one daughter have joined the order, and risen quite high in rank, I believe. Meric and his wife Falda should be among the guests, and I believe their daughter Joanna will be there as well. She's the Templar daughter. Normally, I wouldn't consider them a threat, but I fear the sheer amount of influence they've gained among the other nobles, and the pull they have with the Order, may have gone to their heads. I hope they won't try anything rash." That, and Sophia really didn't know them that well. As much time as she spent in the Chantry, she spent little among Templars, and though she respected them from afar, she knew not all of them were possessed of a level head. They were only human, after all.

Nostariel wasn’t sure she really understood what it was like to have such powerful enemies. Darkspawn didn’t usually try to stab you in the back, and at least most Templars were fairly forthright about their intentions. She was certain that dealing with all of this politicking on a regular basis would drive her mad or into seclusion. She felt her respect for Sophia, already rather considerable, ratchet up a couple of notches. It took a lot to speak so calmly about people who might want to kill you. The Warden did not desire to ever find out if she had it. Leaning back in her chair, she blinked a few times, trying to think of a useful question. “These people… I’ll do what I can to talk to them, but I’m not sure how willing most of them will be to exchange words with an elf.” she smiled, a tinge brittle. She would not be a Warden there, or at least not immediately recognizable as such. That left her options for social status very limited.

“I’ll admit, I don’t much fancy the thought of having to get through everyone there to find the ones I’m after. Is there a way to recognize the people from a distance? Distinguishing characteristics?” she supposed the twins would look alike (and she imagined large), but the others… there was no way to tell thus far.

"The twins will be easy enough to spot," Sophia said. They were indeed quite powerfully built. Perhaps together they'd be a match for Lucien hand-to-hand, but even then, she doubted that. "Miranda's also quite hard to mistake. Tall, dark haired, very beautiful, and likely alone. The Natlas... I expected Joanna will be in Templar attire of some kind, and she'll likely remain near her parents. Jamie... will likely be the best dressed in the room. He's around my height, rather boyish appearance, short light brown hair, green eyes. Keep an eye on me long enough, and you'll see him at some point, I've no doubt."

"Good thing I'm a people person, I suppose," Ashton added, scratching behind Snuffy's ears. "Though we'll see if they'll want to talk to a Lowtown shopkeep." Well, he wouldn't have to admit to working in Lowtown. He could always call himself an aspiring entrepreneur specializing in the distrubition of various sundry household wares. That sounded a lot better, and it necessarily wasn't a lie either. Him. An entrepreneur. It brought a smile to his face, his aunt would be so proud of him. He nodded and said, "Know what? I can make it work. I'll get the information out of them. I'm just that damn lovable."

"I think you would be surprised," Sophia said. "A good deal of Hightown has heard of the exploits of an expedition to the Deep Roads recently. I'm sure they'd be interested to meet some of its members." Nostariel's point about being an elf was unfortunately a solid one, however. Sophia wasn't sure how well some of them would react to an elf being at the party, and not as a servant. The Tarkins were the most worrisome in this regard, if she recalled correctly.

"And if any of you need assistance finding something to wear, I can have something arranged with a tailor in Hightown. Armor will sadly not be permissible in the ballroom." Nostariel raised a small hand with a sheepish smile. She'd never owned more than a few sets of robes in her life, and now some leathers. Nothing that at all suited such an occasion as this. Still, she was sure they could arrange it later. For now, it looked like the meeting was wrapping up, and she stood, scooping up Oathkeeper and her quiver. There were likely preparations for all of them to make, and she personally had an appointment with some Darkspawn this afternoon, the thought of which took her to the door with a polite farewell.

Ashton thought on it a bit and then waved Sophia's offer away. "I've got something," he explained. He had it, he might as well use it. Though he'll make a point about not getting married this time. With that, he stood slowly-- so as to not awake the puppy in his lap, and made his way out of the room behind Nostariel. He had to make sure Lia hadn't burned down his shop yet.

Lucien was next to take his leave, but something stopped him just on the threshold of the door. He couldn’t believe he’d almost forgotten to ask… again. It seemed certain finer points of social nicety escaped him after so long away from court. Pausing, he turned back and addressed Sophia. “If I may ask,” he inquired, tone caught somewhere between amusement and something that might have been a touch of embarrassment, “what color do you plan on wearing?” It was not, exactly, the kind of question one business associate asked of another, and to be honest, he’d never had cause to ask it of a friend, either, not in this context. But if he was going to do this, well… he wanted to do it properly. The escort bit and all.

"A dark red, I think," Sophia replied with a hint of a smile. It was her favorite color, after all, and if she couldn't wear it on her birthday, then truly there was something wrong with the world.

“Ah. Thank you.” Lucien replied, inclining his head and taking his leave. That left only Amalia, and the Qunari had shown no inclination to move yet. She was not a fool—she knew her presence here was unexpected, and likely not particularly welcome. She had a feeling she was going to receive either an interrogation (though it would hardly deserve such a word) or a list of house rules. Don’t kill the basra, things like that. It was not as though she was not capable of discretion, but Sophia had no particular reason to know that. The woman likely understood Amalia even less than Amalia understood her. That she remained was a testament, however subtle, to the fact that she was willing to change that, just a bit, or at least set it aside for the moment.

Rather than begin the conversation with any of these observations, however, she offered the closest thing to an olive branch she possessed. “I understand that such occasions often call for music. I play the harp, if it please you to keep me away from the delicate sensibilities of your guests.”

"Erm... yes, that might be best," Sophia said rather awkwardly. "The nobles have a special brand of delicate sensibilities, I'm afraid." She wondered for a moment how best to say what she wanted to say... or rather what to say at all. It occurred to her that she really had no idea why Amalia was offering to help, but she wasn't sure she needed to know. If there was one thing she thought was apparent about her, it was that she was driven. If she'd taken this upon herself, she was going to see it through.

"The nobles are... also the most desirous of seeing the Qunari leave the city, as well. I'm very thankful for your offer of assistance, but if this party is as eventful as I'm hoping it won't be, a Qunari presence could be harmful to the current state in the city." She swallowed, seeing how they were on two sides of that issue. "It would also be preferable if no one ended up dead after this is over," she continued. "Of course, I would ask no one to take a chance with my father's life to try and keep an assassin alive, but if possible, I'd like there to be a minimum of bloodshed. Even to protect the Viscount, a Qunari taking the life of a noble would not go over well, and beyond that, I'd like to speak with whoever wants me or my father dead." She was certain Amalia would understand. Perhaps she wasn't experienced with their politics and way of living at the noble tier, but she was clearly a very intelligent woman.

Amalia nodded. It was not as though she was incapable of maiming without killing, and she did not plan on announcing her status as a Qunari to everyone at the event. If all went even moderately well, nobody would be the wiser. “I understand,” she said neutrally. “Discretion and judgement are often required of me, and unlike your large friend, I am rather capable of telling lies when I need to. You need not fear for the lives of your guests unless those of your family are threatened by them. I will watch, and I will wait. If things move as you wish, that is all I will do.”

"Thank you," Sophia said, quite simply. She didn't need to ask why she was helping. That she wanted to was more than enough for Sophia.

Setting

5 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

Sophia had spent roughly the last half hour trying to figure out which method of movement in a small space was most effective to hold back nervousness. She was starting to think she was better off just sitting down. There'd be more than enough standing and talking to go around tonight, perhaps it was best to save herself.

She was just outside of her own quarters in the Keep, having prepared herself far earlier than was necessary, simply because she hadn't known what else to do with the time while she waited. She could hear the guests, undoubtedly half of Hightown, being ushered through the doors to the grand ballroom beyond. They undoubtedly would not stand the indignity of being patted down for weapons on their way in, and the guards were only confiscating visible weapons, while informing them that any kind of weapon bearing in the ballroom would be strictly forbidden. Sophia had heard that they'd already taken possession of several swords worn by noblemen, hoping to look more dashing when armed. Perhaps they thought to show Sophia that they too had no fear of battle. She had, after all, yet to announce any kind of plans for selecting a suitor.

It was one of the greater mysteries of the night. For all they knew, she would be arriving alone, as she seemingly preferred to do. No doubt the appearance of Lucien beside her would come as something of a shock to them. They likely wouldn't even know who he was, and Sophia had decided that any inquiries as to his identity would be his alone to answer how he saw fit. She knew who he really was, more than just his title, and why she wanted him next to her. That was all that mattered. If the nobles wanted more from him, they would have to pry it out of him. Sophia had no doubt that they would try.

Lucien would be permitted access to the family private quarters in order to meet with Sophia for their entrance together. Ashton and Nostariel would have to arrive with the other guests, where they woud likely be guided to a pair of seats at the round tables for the feast that was to open the night. She hoped they'd be seated fortunately next to, or at least near, some of the families that Sophia had requested they find at some point. It seemed unlikely that they'd be able to determine without a doubt if one or more of them were guilty of plotting to assassinate her and her father, but at least they would have a chance of discerning motives. Amalia would undoubtedly be able to enter among the other musicians, though Sophia had to admit she was wondering what the Qunari woman would wear, if she'd even make an attempt at dressing differently. Nostariel and Sophia had worked together a few days prior at getting her into something suitable, and Sophia had thought the Warden had looked quite stunning when they were done, but for Amalia she quite simply had no idea.

Sophia herself had dressed for the occasion, and managed to remove all traces of the ill effects from the nightmare spell. From head to toe she was garbed in crimson trimmed with gold, her dress leaving her shoulders and arms bare, the cut rather low across her back. The skirt flowed down to barely skim the floor as she walked. Her eyes were the only differing color, small pools of sapphire amidst the warm glow of her skin, offsetting the small ruby pendant that was draped around her neck. Her hair for the evening had been tied back in an elegant Orelsian braid that ran straight down her back to rest between her shoulder blades. While fashionable, it also served to keep her hair out of her face in the event that things became more hectic.

Not that she had much to defend herself with, anyway. She had a small knife sheathed on her right thigh, but reaching it under the skirts would be a bit of a challenge. If she had to defend herself, it would likely have to be with her ability in hand-to-hand combat, which was limited at best, especially in an outfit such as this. She told herself for the hundredth time that there was a chance that nothing would happen, that this would just be a night she and Lucien could spend awkwardly dodging nobles. Considering that that outcome was what Sophia was actually hoping for, the odds of her enjoying this birthday didn't seem too high.

Nostariel brushed her hand down the front of her dress—her gown, oh Maker what was she doing in a gown?—for what must have been the umpteenth time, trying to ignore the fact that the calluses on her fingers caught a bit on the light silk of the garment. It looked fine, she was sure: though the seamstress had sniffed and fussed quite a bit over having to make a dress for a twiggy little elf, of all things, she’d seemed to be good at her work, and honestly her demeanor seemed more irritable generally than particularly concerned about the shape of the Warden’s ears. It had been a tedious set of hours, passed slightly easier due to Sophia’s company, and by the end of it, she’d been convinced that she’d have to be folded and sewn into the garment. For all the tailor’s complaining about her thinness, she certainly hadn’t left any fabric to spare on the bodice. Or maybe that was just this whalebone corset.

Who could wear things like this on a regular basis, anyway? Last Nostariel had checked, breathing was not optional. Apparently, it was also not fashionable. The Warden had done her own hair, braiding it up and around her crown and gathering the rest of the length in a pile on top, curling the ends with a steel rod she heated with magic. One of the girls in the Circle had invented this trick, and used to practice on the rest of them all the time. Of all the magic she’d learned, she’d never thought to have a use for this, but then, she was done assuming life wouldn’t take her truly strange places.

Nostariel didn’t have a lot of pride, but she was not going to be the waifish elven chit, the sore thumb that stuck out and didn’t fit with the grace and elegance of the occasion. She’d even pestered (well, asked; she never had to pester) Lucien for a basic curriculum on etiquette and dancing, and she bet he was better at it than the rest of Kirkwall combined, plain armor and humility or no. Okay, so maybe she had some pride, but to her credit, it was mainly in her friends. She wasn’t going to let them down. She contemplated darkening her eyelids with charcoal, but decided against it. She didn’t want it getting in her eye at an inopportune moment. She felt no need to carry a weapon in particular, given her magic, but she wasn’t the only one she had to think about, and so a knife was secreted on the inside of her left shin.

The gown—she still wasn’t used to that thought—was, at her request, a deep shade of Warden blue, cast off her shoulders in a shallow boatneck. The sleeves were long, belled things, trimmed in glimmering silver. There were no gems or metals involved, but she had managed to locate some jewelry for the occasion: a modest silver locket and teardrop-shaped sapphires for her ears. She wasn’t just going to hope nobody noticed their length. She had nothing to be ashamed of. A long coat covered the arrangement until she got to the Keep—she had no wish to be mugged on her way out of Lowtown, after all. Other than the small package tucked under one elbow, she carried nothing. At the entrance, the package was taken to a long table by a servant, an elven man whose eyes widened with obvious shock to see one of his own kind among the guests. The coat, she shed and had to remind herself to hand off rather than hang up.

She was ushered to a spot surprisingly near the middle, at least once she confirmed that she was, in fact, Nostariel Turtega, the Warden captain. They’d looked fairly disbelieving at that, but she was unrelenting, producing an insignia to the effect, and eventually they led her to her spot. Well… at least nobody had called her knife-ear yet, though the number of odd looks she was getting was disconcerting. She had to remind herself that it could just be from the strangeness of it, and not any particular disdain, though she could feel the back of her neck burning anyway. She was really beginning to wish that she’d been allowed to attend in armor.

A pair of hands descended gently upon her shoulders, and a lanky figure leaned over to whisper into her ear. "You, my pretty little Warden, are the single beautiful dove in a room full of strutting peacocks," Ashton said, reeling back and returning to his height, a light smile at his lips. Nostariel was, even more than he could have imagined, beautiful. Even despite the fact that she looked like she was absolutely about to crawl out of her skin and hide under the table. He then did an extravagant bow and took a seat next to her. Now he wasn't a hundred percent certain that the seat was his, considering he had been positioned a bit further down. Too far from Nostariel for his tastes. So he took the risk and swapped seats. Formality had always been a pain in the ass for him anyway.

Surprisingly, Ashton looked just as noble as anyone else in the room and not like he was raised in the wilderness by a wolf. No instead of the usual (finely) homespun fabrics and leathers, the only thing homemade he was was the antlered knife hidden in his boot. It was an outfit he wore exactly once, and its origins were still entirely unknown to him. Did he steal it, or did he buy it? Only Sparrow and himself knew, and they were too smashed to remember. He'd remember this time though. The svelte midnight blue suit was still as magnificent as the day he found it, the golden inlay sparkling in the light. The collar was of fine rabbit's fur, fluffled up for effect, and his pants were a deep burgandy color with a crease down the legs. Jet black boots finished the outfit with style. He even had his hair fixed, darkened with oil, slicked back and tied out of his face with a black ribbon. He looked like the noble he was born as. He even looked comfortable in it.

He was still Ashton of course, for all intents and purposes. He had entered the Keep as if he owned it, his step swelling with the swagger of someone vastly more important than himself. His back was straight as an arrow, looming the entirety of his substantial height and he kept his gaze swung forward with a self-important smile on his face. If he was to play the noble's game, then he was going to play it right. His words were formal and stilted when he needed to speak, taking a couple of cues from his encounters with Lucien. If someone accused him of not being part of the nobility, that someone would be accused of lying.

"You do look beautiful," he repeated, "We'll do fine. Maybe nothing'll happen and we can just enjoy ourselves." It was a hopeful thought. Maybe everything would go off without a hitch and they could spend the party mingling. He'd be lying if he said he didn't look forward to the prospect of playing nobility. Then his eyes shone with a spark of rememberance "Oh, right, before I forget," he said, reaching into his shirt and digging around for a minute. When his hand returned, it was clutching a wooden box which he explained with a wink, "I didn't want to crush it." He then opened it and revealed a blue morning glory flower. "For your hair, milady." he said with a smile.

Nostariel flushed a rather amusing shade of red, pursing her lips in an attempt to keep from smiling like a silly girl, and raised a brow. “Why thank you, Messere…” she plucked the embellished name card from the seat next to hers, that Ash now occupied. “Lord DeLauncet.” Hm; must be one of the younger members of that family, to be stuck all the way down here. She lost her battle then, and grinned at him. “You’re probably going to offend half of the room, you know,” she added, but she didn’t bother to hide that she was glad to see him. A familiar face in this tide of nobility and privilege was a welcome sight, especially this particular familiar face.

The flower was a lovely thing, and she picked it up carefully between her index finger and thumb, brushing the other hand’s little finger over the soft petals. “I do hope this wasn’t stolen from the clinic’s garden, Messere.” Nevertheless, she tucked it into her hair, above one of her ears. There. It was almost easy to forget why they were supposed to be playing at nobility at all, really.

The musician that entered through the servant’s entrance was scarcely recognizable as Amalia at all. The Qunari woman had removed her hair from its usual braid, gathering it instead in a lustrous golden ponytail that still draped past her waist to mid-thigh, even pulled over her left shoulder as it was. Her clothing was rather simple by comparison to most of that present, though well-made, and loose enough to obscure the second skin of her armor: a dark green tunic with long sleeves, ebon breeches tucked neatly into well-shined mahogany boots which reached her knees. Over one shoulder, she wore a stylish half-length mantle in the style of bards everywhere, the gold cord at the neck of it its only real adornment. It and her hair did the job of hiding the pale scars just visible above her collar about as effectively as she could hope. All in all, she looked like any rakishly-charming Antivan troubadour, save perhaps the solemnity of her eyes. Her harp was slung across her back, and she carried a box on one hip, which she placed on the gift table near the musicians’ setup.

A much larger item caught her eye, a curious flicker playing across her face when she noted that it was the same thing she’d seen Lucien carrying earlier. She had no idea what it was, though if pressed, she might be able to give a general guess. Shaking her head minutely, she hopped up onto the stage in a single catlike bound, startling an already-nervous youth trying to tune his fiddle. Raising a brow, the Qunari quirked a lip coolly, inclining her head just slightly and taking one of the chairs, crossing her legs up and underneath her to begin the fine process of attenuating her own instrument, which, along with the six knives and twelve needles currently secreted about her person, had been recently polished to a shine, the fine golden wood reflecting the lights from the crystalline candle-holding chandelier above their heads. She’d already checked to make sure nobody was perched in it, but made a note to continue doing so throughout the night. If she were to sabotage the event, that would be one of the three most preferred locations from which to do so.

Lucien was not the kind of man who could wear faces that were not his own. He lacked the conceptual apparatus required for true subterfuge, and though he could keep his feelings from his face if he really needed to, it was a skill he rarely practiced, and his aptitude was limited. He was, however, more than a simple mercenary, however much he might desire otherwise. It had perhaps seldom been more bleedingly-obvious than it was right now. The embroidered tunic he wore was predominantly the deepest black in color, the intricately-wrought details in dark red the feature that saved it from appearing like mourning attire. It fit fashionably snug across the lines of his broad shoulders and chest, cutting a sharp, clean silhouette that spoke somehow of military discipline despite its elegance. The accompanying trousers matched, the red stripe carrying the theme through to the knee-height boots capping his shins. He’d trimmed and neatly tailed his hair, and taken a straight-razor to his face, at least.

Though the fabrics themselves were impeccably-tailored to him, he was quite certain he hadn’t felt this uncomfortable in years. The familiar weight of his armor was gone, and what small weapons he’d managed to tuck into his boots seemed hardly adequate to the task of protecting a life—or more than one, certainly. But he would do as he always had, and get along in whatever circumstances happened to present him with. Hefting the cloth-wrapped present, he handled it with surprising care all the way from Lowtown, where he was almost sure he’d seen Amalia, (though dressed like that, he wasn’t sure it could be her) to the Keep, where he’d managed to find someone to take it in to sit with the others and make his way to the family quarters, where he’d been invited to await the leisure of the evening’s Lady. Not that he thought she was taking anything with particular degrees of leisure of course.

Reaching the appointed door, which was open, he nevertheless knocked on the frame, clearing his throat softly. “Your Excellency, Lady Sophia, Lord Saemus.” he bowed cordially at the waist. The Viscount was more-or-less facing him, but the other two were turned away, and so he let the acknowledgement also serve as announcement of his presence. He was unsure how he would be received by the other members of Sophia’s family, but he’d decided to do this properly, and so he would.

The Viscount and his family had either disagreed on a coordination of color, or they had simply preferred to dress on their own, for as a group they did not match very well at all. Marlowe himself wore dark grey trimmed in gold, with white stripes lining the sides of his dark pants as opposed to Lucien's red. Sleek black boots came up to knee height, and his hands were covered by short black leather gloves. His son was closer to the rear of the immediate room, dressed in a sapphire blue that matched his eyes. It was a rather flamboyant ensemble, his pants a crisp and clean white, his own boots a light tan in color. His black hair was slicked back away from his face quite symmetrically, framing a typically sulky expression. Either Saemus' own company had not yet arrived, or he had elected to avoid selecting a companion altogether.

The Viscount had been carefully adjusting the unusually thin crown of his office upon his bald head when Lucien entered. Sophia turned abruptly at the knock and smiled in greeting, but it was the Viscount who was first to speak. "Ah, Lucien, it is good to make your acquaintance. Sophia's told us nothing but good things about you; a lovely change of pace, I think." He strode forward to close the distance between them and offer his hand for a shake. Sophia made her way over to him as well, taking in the way he'd dressed with obvious approval. Saemus took in the sight of the man with a glimmer of recognition, clearly remembering the one time previous in which they'd encountered each other, on the Wounded Coast years ago, but otherwise left the greeting to his other family members.

"Before we begin this in earnest," the Viscount continued, "I'd like you to know that Sophia's told me everything, and though it took some convincing, she's won me over. If you wish to be of royal blood tonight, you may do so, but if you wish to be simply a mercenary from Lowtown, I would not object. Nor would I have any right to complain about my daughter's choice." The look in his eye, and the smile he gave, was very knowing. He had, after all, married a lowborn mercenary himself.

"A person's actions determine their worth in my eyes, not the social status of their parents. If it makes my daughter happy to have you at her side, then I say there's no finer choice in Kirkwall." Sophia moved to stand next to him, trying to have her smile be reassuring. The look in her eyes, however, conveyed that the issue of Lucien's birth was the only issue that she had informed her father of. Truly, she hadn't wanted to do anything to damage the mood he seemed to be in lately, as it had been quite some time since he'd seemed so adamant about anything. Worrying him about his daughter's safety at her own birthday party was not something she wanted.

Well. That was considerably more than he’d expected out of this, but he supposed it made some sense. He’d done some looking, and knew a fair bit about this family’s history, and they were less disposed than most to the proclivities of other nobles to remain very insular. Grasping the Viscount’s hand firmly, Lucien shook gladly, offering a gracious nod to Saemus as well. “My sincere thanks, then,” he replied with audible relief. It was clear that Marlowe and Saemus did not know his actual reason for being here, but in the end, that didn’t really matter. “If I am to be thrown to the wolves today, I would much prefer to know that those at my back have no desire to share in the evisceration.” His tone was light, his smile slightly crooked—he had a feeling the other two men would understand how he felt, both being used to (and likely weary of) such situations themselves. “If it is all the same to you, I think I shall simply be a chevalier this evening.” He still had his commission, as his father had refused to strip him of it, and most of that knightly order were of noble birth, so it should be acceptable with a minimum of sensation.

Of course, even a minimum of sensation was bound to be quite a lot. Well, he’d deal with that as he must. He was not the most comfortable with these situations, but he wasn’t without a certain amount of poise and social grace. It would be managed. If Kirkwallian nobility were a pack of wolves, Orlesian ones were a den of wyverns. Perhaps dragons.

Last of all, he turned to Sophia. The gentleman’s imperative was to keep his eye where it belonged, and he did, but he wasn’t blind. Brushing his fingers lightly along her palm, he brought her hand up and bowed over it, just barely grazing her knuckles with his lips. “You are beautiful, my lady,” he said gravely, though a slight smile played over his face, “And you look quite exquisite, as well.” It was of course, traditional to pay a compliment of some kind, but he would not deny that the one he had chosen was specific. Simple, perhaps, but he had no wish to make his words empty, or gild a sentiment with too many decorations. Extending one arm, he offered it to Sophia, but waited for Marlowe to precede them from the room, as was his imperative as Viscount.

Sophia blushed madly, the fluttery feeling in her stomach arguing that this quite possibly wouldn't be as bad as she thought. She easily slid one arm under Lucien's, the other coming to gently rest somewhere on his forearm. The Viscount smiled with seemingly great amusement at how his daughter reacted to Lucien's compliment, and the touch of his lips on her fingers, which of course only made it worse. She'd received it countless times over from so many other men in Hightown, but it had been a long time indeed since the words had actually had any effect on her.

"Well," the Viscount offered, taking his lead in front of them, Saemus dutifully falling in behind, "shall we?"

Setting

5 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

Sophia thought the idea of the Viscount and his family entering the grand ballroom to music was slightly overdramatic, but her father was obviously feeling a flair for such things today, and seemed to be enjoying himself, so she couldn't seem to think of a reason to complain. The nobles who were attending the feast had all been seated at this point, though a few were still standing and getting themselves properly arranged, but all eyes of course snapped in their direction when the Viscount led his daughter into the ballroom, on the powerful arm of her handsome mystery suitor.

The smiles were genuine on some, Sophia could immediately tell, but of course there were many others who were here for purposes other than celebrating her birthday. Her eyes quickly scanned the room for those she'd asked the others to seek out. The Tarkin twins were the first she noticed, dressed mostly in black, of course looking similar enough that it was practically impossible to tell them apart. It was as if they wanted to look like the muscle of some criminal organization. They wholly dominated their section of the table, near the Viscount's family, but thankfully on the side that Saemus would be sitting. Not that they'd have much to say to her anyway, they were just here to look after family interests.

The Natlas she spotted second, and they were furthest away from Sophia's seat, Joanna's bright blue eyes seemingly genuine. Her auburn hair fell in thick curls down to her shoulders, and Sophia was actually inclined to believe the girl was happy to be here. Her parents seemed only to give the obligatory greeting, clearly more interested in trying to discern who Sophia was entering with.

In worse positioning than she expected was Miranda Threnhold, positioned at one of the tables closer to the edge of them all rather than right in the middle, but Sophia supposed the woman would have it no other way. She could more easily see everyone from the sides than from the thick of things. She was garbed in a ravishing gown of dark velvety green with a typically plunging neckline. Her smile looked uncomfortable on her face, knowing that it didn't belong there, and her eyes were attempting to bore into Lucien, watching them all the way up to their seats...

Where Sophia found Jamie Arren and his father. Not in their seats, but it appeared as though they'd be sitting directly next to the Viscount's family. Jamie had dressed splendidly in crimson and gold as if to match Sophia, and though he was dashing as ever, she was currently of a mind to think of him as having the looks of a darkspawn compared to Lucien.

Ashton took the namecard into his hands and examined it before looking back to Nostariel and cracking a wide smile. Without looking, he crumpled it up and chucked over his shoulder, asking, "What DeLauncet? All I see is Riviera and Turtega." He sure as hell wasn't going to move all the way down at the ass end of the table. He didn't care if he did offend the nobilty, if fate willing this would be the last night he'd have to deal with them in person. There was no way he'd going to spend the entirety of the feast stuck down by the minor nobles and their inane talking and positioning. If he wanted to be a minor noble, he'd go back to Highever. Besides, now he was closer to Miranda-- and he was nothing if not dutiful.

Amalia’s attention was drawn to one of the further tables, and she idly plucked at the strings of the harp whilst listening carefully. “I believe you refer to this Comte De Launcet,” a voice put in from behind Ashton. It belonged to a man who was very clearly displeased with the situation, the irritation drawing his Orlesian accent to further prominence. “I do not know who you think you are, serah, but you are most certainly not entitled to that place at the table. I suggest you leave.” The man’s wife stood behind him, her displeasure more subtle. Her place, at least, had been preserved from Ashton’s rearrangements, though of course that was not satisfactory on its own. Frankly, the Qunari didn’t understand why there was all this fuss over something as simple as table arrangements. Basra titles seemed to have no effect on their usefulness, so using them as a system of arrangement was illogical at best.

Well, that was fast. Ashton thought he'd have at least a minute or so to prepare the lie he was going to tell the man. Looks like he had to come up with it as he went. Oh well, if it was easy, then it wouldn't have been fun. He liked playing these games. "My sincerest apologies Serah De Launcet," He began, settling into a fine, foppish Ferelden noble. It must have been in his blood, always trying to get out somehow. Maker he hoped he didn't end up like his father. "Lord Ashton Riviera, Serah," He introduced himself with a bow. However, Ashton still didn't make a move to leave.

"Seneschal Bran has seemed to have made a grave error, I fear. See, I was to be Warden Turtega's escort to this fine gather of Kirkwallian nobility-- Exqusite suit, if I may say so Serah, and breathtaking dress Milady," He added quickly, bowing as Mrs. De Launcet. "But as you can plainly see, my name is on neither side of her, nor is it in front of her. What sort of poor escort would I be if didn't escort the Captain of the Grey, after all she has done to protect our fine city?! No Serah, my honor just would not allow me to leave her side," Ashton explained. Every word that came out of his mouth was sure without a bit of hesitation and overflowing with confidence. "Surely you would not cast dishonor upon the Grey Warden's head and mine for something so trivial as a chair," he explained.

That was a rather quick stream of lies, Amalia noted, and though De Launcet’s quiet fury seemed to diffuse a little, he was not appearing as a man who was about to back down. “I’m sure the Lady Captain’s service has been exemplary,” the nobleman replied, inclining his head to Nostariel as Amalia was fairly certain he now must, “but you are not the only one with someone to escort this evening. If indeed the Seneschal made some kind of mistake, why should it be something that my wife and I would have to suffer? Especially if you find it trivial, Messere.” The Qunari’s brows rose in unison. Though the voices were still relatively quiet, people were beginning to take notice. Ashton or Nostariel would have to think a little faster if they wanted to avoid a full-blown spectacle.

Nostariel frowned slightly when she noticed the situation turn a bit more sour than she’d expected. She was opening her mouth to speak when the man to her left, an aged gentleman with silvery hair and an old soldier’s bearing, put his knife back on the table with a bit more clatter than was strictly decorous. “Some of us know how to properly respect a Grey Warden,” he growled at De Launcet. “Young man, you may have my seat, and my lady, you may have my thanks, for doing what so many are afraid to in order that this lot can argue about chairs.” He cast a last glare at the De Launcets, and proceeded down to the end of the table, where Ashton had been originally placed.

"Thank you Serah, I'm glad that someone else understands the worth of this Warden," Ashton said genuinely and bowed as the man took his leave. To him, that particular Warden was a priceless friend. And not all of the nobles were uptight fops, it seemed. It made Ashton feel a little guilty taking the man's seat, but it was far too late for him to do anything about it. So with that, Ashton stood and took his place on the other side of Nostariel. On the opposite side of the table and down a couple of seats, Ashton spied what he thought was the Miranda Sophia had spoken about, whom he believed he caught the eye of. He nodded with a flourish and added, "Milady," for her benefit.

The woman in question was currently doing her best to ignore the young noble trying desperately to tell her about something that was undoubtedly of great importance to him. He was a rather thin fellow, and not among the better dressed men in the room, though not for lack of trying. He seemed to simply be of one of the lesser families, hoping to make the rather large catch that was Miranda Threnhold. He may as well have been trying to catch the sun itself, though she was not nearly so warm. When her eyes caught Ashton's she gave a slight nod to the man pestering her, taking a sip of wine through cherry colored lips as she did.

Nostariel, meanwhile, was looking at her plate as though it had grown an extra head. She knew how to do this, she did, she just… had to remember. What had Lucien said? Utensils from the outside in, but was the one on top the dessert fork or the salad fork? She supposed that she could just forgo dessert and salad, so she’d never have to know. It was probably the best plan she had—there was going to be plenty of food without either of those courses, anyway. Holding the polished silver instruments as he’d demonstrated, she picked carefully at the main course, which was some kind of bird in some kind or sauce. Connoisseur, she was not. Well, here goes nothing, she thought, trying to project an image of confidence while pretending to be interested in something De Launcet was saying.

Ashton himself managed to hide his arm under the table and pull back his sleeve, revealing notes printed in utilitarian handwriting-- Rilien's more than likely. Nostariel had her Orlesian contact, and he had his. Ashton glanced at his cheat sheet quickly and then replaced the sleeve. Just like that, he picked up the correct fork and began to pick at his food. It was trying to eat while the man sitting beside Miranda was yammering about something with bees and charity. Something about using his bees to pollinate the farmers' farms for free, and then going back to sell their honey. It was incredibily droll, even for him-- so he thought he was a good idea to steer the subject toward something more exciting.

"Bees are really hard to handle if you don't know what you're doing," the man said, offering Ashton the perfect spot to chime in. "I'm sure they are Serah..." Ashton said, pausing for a second to read his namecard, "Wallander. All of that buzzing and stinging-- Almost makes slaying a dragon seem trivial." Ashton said, a sly smile teasing across his face. With that little line, he hoped to turn the conversation to himself, impress Miranda, and maybe stick it to the De Launcets while he was at it.

Oh. Well, she supposed that one way to get Miranda’s attention would be to mention something impressive. Of course, Ash launching into the story with very little provocation might come off a bit… obvious, but she supposed she could help with that. “A dragon?” she echoed, as though she had no idea what he was talking about. “It does sound like there’s a story there, Messere Riviera. Would you be so kind as to regale us?” she cast her glance around to include Wallander, Miranda, and both De Launcets, as well as a few other people in the proximity.

Now he had a rapt audience. Where others may have faltered under the scrutiny, Ashton flourished. He laughed as Nostariel asked him about it-- knowing full well she was there too. If they wanted a story, then he'd weave a grand story, not the less exciting truth of how six of them managed to slay a dragon, him only playing a small part of the whole. "Well, Miss Turtega, I suppose I should start with the whys. One doesn't just happen upon a dragon," He explained. "I'm sure you all are familiar with the Deep Roads expedition led by the Tethras brothers," Bloody Bartrand still left a bad taste in his mouth, though more than once he'd heard Varric tell a story about this particular, well, story. "Well, yours truly was the one who backed the expedition, so like any good business man, I went along to ensure my investment."

At that, he turned to Nostariel and shook his head, "We could have used you down there Miss Turtega, Darkspawn were everywhere. But we managed to hold our own against the foul beasts, myself taking out a good number of them, and traveled all the way to the heart of the deep roads. The thin hallway we were navigating suddenly opened into the Antechamber," He said, leaning into the table for effect. Now this was the good part. "It was deathly quiet, nothing stirring but our breaths. I myself had thought the chamber empty for ages since, it's emptiness so oppressive. It was heavy on our shoulder and our hearts. We advanced slowly, not knowing what to expect. We managed to get to the middle of the chamber when one of my companions thought he heard a noise. We stopped dead and listened. He was right."

At that, he paused, drawing upon a dramatic silence, looking at those enthralled in his story before continuing. "It started small. A breeze of wind, which was odd considering how far underground we were. The sounds of pebbles dancing on the ground and then... A breath. Not one of ours, it was far to loud to be made from a man, elf, or dwarf, but we could see nothing. At least, not until we looked up. That's when our eyes met it. A giant reptillian creature crimson in color and long in the tooth, staring at us. With it now revealed to us it screeched loudly, causing us to clutch our ears. It then swooped down over us and blocked our escape. We had two choices... Fight, or die."

At this point, the nobleman who'd been trying to speak with was looking a little floored by Ashton's story, though Miranda herself was harder to place. The look on her face was somewhere between amusement and annoyance, though that could have been left over from the previous storyteller.




Sophia found herself blushing despite all efforts when Lucien moved to pull her chair back for her, and she slid gracefully down into her seat, smiling out at the assembled group, something that turned out to be less difficult than she expected. Lucien was seated to her right, between her and Jorah Arren's son, while her father's seat was to her left, with Saemus past him. The Viscount clapped his hands together once when everything was settled, his voice ringing out clearly through the hall.

"My lords and ladies, thank you for attending this, the celebration of my daughter's twenty-fifth birthday." After this, he considered going on, but instead waved his hand in dismissal. "Plenty of words to come, but I'm sure you're all famished for something to eat. Let's commence the feast."

The first courses were brought out, and Jamie wasted no time before leaning over slightly and speaking to Lucien. "Everyone's been talking about you. Rather, we weren't even sure there would be a you, but here you are. So, what's the secret?" Sophia couldn't quite make out his words, but she was quite certain she didn't want to.

Lucien’s brow furrowed as he collected his utensils for the first course, which appeared to consist of a light fondue. From the smell of it, the cheese was Orlesian, which would have ordinarily been enough to make him twitch a smile, but he was presently occupied trying to decide how to answer this inquiry. It seemed borderline rude to him, but part of the point was to get this man talking, so he would simply have to put up with it. “It appears that I am, indeed, present,” he agreed dryly, then fixed his single visible eye on the man. “As for the question, I am afraid you may have to specify,” he continued. “To what secret do you refer?” He, unlike the other, spoke loudly enough for at least Sophia to hear him, though it was rather difficult to tell if he was doing that on purpose. He was, of course.

He was also fairly sure that he knew to what Lord Arren was referring to, but if he was going to say something so ungentlemanly, he was going to say it out loud.

"Our parents have been trying to match us since we were children," Jamie explained. "I'm quite certain I've never done anything to offend the lady, but tonight might be the only time I've seen her honestly blush like that." He left the rest unsaid, slowly starting into the first course.

Of course it would be an indirect inquiry, but he shouldn’t have expected anything else. Well, it could be honest enough, he supposed, and he lamented a bit that Rilien wasn’t here to tell him if it was. He could read certain details of posture and body language well enough, but in truth, he was not the most accurate at determining when he was being deceived or misdirected. “In that regard, milord, I am as baffled as you are,” he replied. It was certainly truthful enough. He supposed there was a reason Sophia had turned this man aside, but even if he’d known it, he likely would not have divulged. “I expect that it is more a question for the lady than for myself.”

Having made it rather clear that he had nothing to say on the matter, Lucien tried to move the conversation elsewhere. “You are the Arren heir, are you not? That name comes up often in the records of Kirkwall’s peerage.” Also true, and of some interest, if it was taken as a historical inquiry. It probably wouldn’t be—such open-ended questions were usually interpreted as invitations to boasting and so forth, but that might actually be more useful, for Lucien’s purposes.

Seeing as Lucien was handling himself quite well with Jamie, Sophia saw no reason to intervene, especially once she caught onto the thread of the conversation from hearing Lucien's side of it, and a few words of Jamie's. "I am, I am," he said, taking the change in subjects easily. "We've quite the history in the city. Came quite close to the throne not long ago, but those were different days. I've no doubt Lady Sophia will make a fine Viscountess. And what of yourself? You seem like a military man, if I might be so bold. What brought you from Orlais?"

Lucien half-smiled. It probably wasn’t too hard to place him among his countrymen—some of the tonality of them still lingered in his voice, though it had long smoothed out with practice. “An apt deduction,” he said good-naturedly. “Properly speaking, I’m a chevalier. I’ve spent a number of years traveling, however, lending my assistance in what small ways I am able. Kirkwall seems to have become my destination, for the moment. It is a city with a most unique character, the like of which I’d not encountered before. In Orlais, we are often mired in tradition. This place… seems to be much more inclined to change.”

"That it does," he said. "I'd have joined the military myself, but all we seem to have here is the city guard and the Templar Order, and I'm afraid neither suits me very well." At this point, his father next to him leaned over and said something to him. "Of course," he replied, before turning back to Lucien. "I'm afraid I need to start making the rounds," he said, as indeed some of the other guests were already standing to find others to speak with. "I hope you enjoy the party, Ser..."

“As do we all, I'm sure," Lucien said with understanding, and then inclined his head. “And please, call me Lucien." The less he had to give out his last name, the better. Just in case.

Jamie nodded his head. "Lucien, then. Call me Jamie, if you will. Take care of her, now." He smiled charmingly to Sophia, whose returned smile was polite, before he took his leave. Sophia leaned over to Lucien.

"He's always seemed harmless to me, but I suppose that's why I expect him to be harmful," she said.

He quirked a brow. “Spoken quite like an Orlesian, Sophia," he murmured in return. He did give it some thought, however, and shook his head. “Far be it from me to say for sure, but I believe he is still of the opinion that his best chance to advance his status is by being your ally rather than your enemy." Perhaps her husband, though he didn't say that part out loud.

Setting

5 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

The Lady De Launcet was clearly entranced with the story, and seemed disappointed when Ashton paused. “And zen, Messere? What ‘appened?” She was leaning forward in her chair, peering down the table at Ashton, clearly enthralled with the adventure. Nostariel wondered if it was an Orlesian thing. Was that wrong of her to think? But they had an entire institution of Bards, who in addition to being hired killers, had to know stories, epic poems, and songs, so maybe it wasn’t mistaken. Either way, she smiled a little to herself. Ash was clearly in his element, and she more than happy to just let him have at it.

"Well I died, obviously," Ashton said, chuckling to himself. Obviously not, unless he was a ghost and didn't know it. Still, the fact that he'd managed to hook someone in was more than enough to please his ego, which was rapidly rising as the story carried on. He felt he was playing their games perfectly, and that he was winning. "No, nothing so simple I'm afraid. Certainly felt like I did afterward though. See, I'm not in the mind of dying anywhere else besides my bed in the arms of a girl I love. Neither were my companions I feel," He said, glancing at Nostariel. "So we did the only thing we could do. We took our weapons and prepared for a war."

"And a war it was. The creature was huge, nearly sixteen foot tall. Turns out, all the dragons that are left are huge. Maybe due to less competition for food and such," He waved off. He wasn't a dragonkeeper after all, just a dragonslayer. "Don't get me wrong, I was terrified, but I'd be damned if I was going to die in a hole," Not completely the truth. He was more excited than anything, and was one of the three who initially charged the dragon, Rilien and Lucien being the other two. "My companions were terrified as if they faced something out of their nightmares, so it came down to me mostly to slay the beast."

"Once upon a time, I was perhaps the best hunter that Kirkwall had ever seen-- if you'll pardon my embellishment," He added with a wink. He was aiming for being affable, not a conceited jackass. There were plenty of those around. "So while terrified, I was excited at the prospect of hunting a dragon. So with that, a nocked my first arrow of many, and we began our dance." He had led them along long enough, now to get into the spectactular action bits. His words flew from his mouth as he "recounted" the tale, full of near misses and suspense-- as all good stories have. He wove a daring tale of both viciousness and of attrition, with him giving back as much as he took. His story finally wound down with him and the dragon both heavily injured, and facing each other.

"So there we were, staring each other down. I was down to one arrow, a specialized one that exploded on impact. I couldn't miss, to do so would have spelled disaster for me and my friends. I circled the beast, staring over the number of arrows decorating his hide, doing my best to ignore the racking pain in my bones and head. We had enough in us for one last attempt on each other's life. It was quiet for a second, our breaths in perfect unison. A moment felt like a year, and then all that broke when the dragon lunged and I released. The arrow struck the beast in the mouth, driving it's teeth into it's head. It did little against it's momentum though, so the beast crashed on top of me, it's claws raking my face... And that's how I got this scar." He said, tying a neat little bow on the tale.

After that, he shrugged. "The rest you should know. We found our treasure and we became even richer. I took a bone of the dragon and made it into a trophy, I do so love a happy ending, don't you all agree?"

Most of the nobles seemed at least somewhat floored by Ashton's story, but Miranda was apparently quite hard to please, and responding by a rather exaggerated raising of her eyebrows. She'd been about to respond when the Viscount spoke about behind the group, redirecting her attention away.




Sophia was relieved that the feast had concluded without incident, either of the violent kind or of the awkward kind with any of her allies, though she had taken notice of a small disturbance near where Ashton and Nostariel sat together. She would have preferred they split up to cover more ground among the nobles, but she could understand them being uncomfortable in what was undoubtedly an unkind environment to them.

She hadn't eaten all that much of her food, as her appetite had been rather small with all her nerves taken into account. The Viscount seemed to be enjoying himself, though, and had partaken in a good deal of wine, though he clearly still had his senses about him. Sophia had barely sipped at that, knowing the lack of food would cause it to hit her harder than usual, and definitely wanting to keep her own senses tonight.

Her father finally chose the necessary time to rise and call the group to some semblance of order. "Before I allow you all to descend into chaos, I do believe there are a number of gifts over there to be opened. Shall we, then? One at a time, please." Sophia reddened, and smiled despite herself. This was the ridiculous part of the night, when all of these nobles came forth with gifts that she could quite easily acquire herself, sometimes things that she already had acquired for herself. Wealth such as theirs made the act of giving gifts largely irrelevant unless you knew some way to make it meaningful. The majority of them knew her not very well on a personal level, and typically could only provide her with generic gifts. Before long, she already had several new lovely pairs of shoes, bracelets, earrings, necklaces, dresses, riding boots...

And then Amalia was next in line. It really hadn't occurred to her that Amalia would consider getting her a gift, but there she was. It had taken Sophia a moment to recognize her at all from the last time she'd seen her, and to be quite honest, she'd actually forgotten the Qunari woman was here. That probably meant she was doing her job quite well. In any case, Sophia found herself interested, and honestly a little nervous, to see what she would present. Some of the nobles were giving her slightly confused looks. None of the other musicians had brought the Viscount's daughter a gift.

Amalia was aware of the strange looks she was getting, but paid them about as much attention as she would the air. When it was her turn to approach Sophia, she did, a wooden box in hand. The thing itself was made of a fine, dark wood found only in the jungles of Par Vollen, though it might be hard to tell as much. It was polished to a lacquered shine and had once contained some of Amalia’s rarer ingredients, meaning it smelled faintly of incense and eucalyptus. Approaching the Viscount’s daughter, she inclined her head slightly and handed over the box, which was heavy enough to suggest that there was something inside.

The Qunari, however, took her leave with no more explanation than that. Inside the box was a finely-woven sash, thick and colored with bright red and purple dyes that the Ben-Hassrath had extracted from local flora. Several loops were clearly designed to hold small weapons or potion bottles, and each of these presently held the slender neck of a blown-glass vessel, the liquids inside all different colors. Each was labeled with something—Deathroot, Deep Mushroom, Nightshade, even one called Saa-qamek. The paper slip on top of the lot read simply Antidotes, not poisons. By the time she would have been able to read everything, though, the woman had slipped back into the crowd, fading from sight as though she’d never been there at all, and making her way back to the stage.

Well, leave it to the Qunari to have the first gift to surprise her, simply for its sheer practicality, though she supposed she should have expected that of the woman. Smiling, she closed the box again and set it on the table in front of her, though not before giving Lucien more than enough time to read what the message had said, so that he might know its use as well. When she looked up she was hardly surprised to see the Qunari gone, and after a few more of the nobles went, it was the Warden's turn, and Sophia gave her a warm smile as the one elf who wasn't a servant here made her way forward.

When it was Nostariel’s turn to approach, she did so almost warily. She’d seen some of the fine things that Sophia had received, and realistically, she couldn’t afford anything of the sort. The package in her hands was small and rectangular, wrapped in plain brown paper and tied with twine. There was a small note on it—which she rather thought gave everything away. To Sophia, Because the world should have a proper accounting of what you do for it. Warm regards, Nostariel. The package, she handed forward with a small smile, then stepped back a bit. With the exception of Amalia, most of the nobles had lingered, so she did too.

The wrapping fell away to reveal a thick book, the binding actually set in a mix of inlaid wood and enough leather for flexibility. The pattern of the inlay was in a swirling design resembling pale flowers scattered about, and she’d included a red-dyed feather quill and a bottle of deep blue ink, the good sort. She had a friend who knew of such things, so she’d managed to secure some without exorbitant fees. The pages were thick, cream-colored, and entirely blank, save the very first page, where the Warden’s note was repeated in lovely calligrapher’s handwriting. She’d learned not only her letters at the Circle, but how to write them elegantly as well. “It isn’t much,” she admitted, “But I find writing meditative, and I think perhaps Varric should not have sole authorship of stories about you. If you keep your own records, it may keep him honest.” The Warden smiled at the thought. Any attempt at keeping Varric Tethras ‘honest’ was probably a futile endeavor.

It was such a simple thing, and yet Sophia regarded it with a great deal of care, moreso than she gave anything else she'd received thus far. It... was actually something she had always meant to do, but never really got around to, for lack of time or lack of will or simply lack of energy, but she had always wanted to keep her own journal. Speaking her thoughts to Lucien had done a great deal to ease her mind, and while of course an empty book could not counsel her, any outlet for her thoughts was a way to prevent them from overwhelming her, wasn't it? That, and... she'd heard that her mother had been fond of writing as well, though she had never laid eyes on such works. There were some thing her father guarded very closely, even from her. She looked back up at the Warden and gave her a heartfelt smile.

"Thank you, Nostariel, really. This is very thoughtful of you." She didn't feel like she could thank her well enough at the moment, but hopefully her eyes spoke clearer words than she. She would make time for this.

“Oh, you’re absolutely welcome,” Nostariel returned warmly, echoing the smile. She’d been a little afraid it was too small a thing, or too plain, but Sophia seemed to really like it, and that was nice. She dipped a little curtsy and shuffled herself off to the side so the next person in line could step up.

Then it was Ashton's turn. With the same zeal he had presented for the entire night, he strode up to Sophia with a pair of gifts. Perhaps the second was the make up for the first's size. In fact, the first wrapped gift was a couple of inches in width and length with the other being a squarelike but long in length. Ashton didn't see the point in buying gifts when the best ones were made. That and he was miserly tight with his acquired wealth. He stooped low for Sophia to accept the top gift first to which he told her, "It's for that weapon of yours. Tie it off on the pommel and it'll bring you good luck."

Inside the package was a rabbits foot, attached to a lanyard of leather. It wasn't some hastily crafted artifact either. The fur was thick and fluffy of a white color with a black spot near the toes. The part where the rest of the rabbit had been cut off was capped off by finely smelted silver and engraved with Sophia's name. Even the lanyard was an extravagant affair, black and white leather strands braided to make one. It was the finest rabbit's foot ever witnessed. Next came the larger present. This too was homemade, though took considerably longer than the rabbits food. Under the sleeves of paper hid a carving of the Viscount's keep. Again, it displayed the craftsman ship Ashton had came to expect of himself. He was not a lazy man, and when he set his mind to it his hands could truly craft amazing pieces. The sculpture was a near identical match to the real one, with chiseled windows, the double doors leading into the keep and even the long flight of stairs leading up to it.

"Don't forget your friends when you own that, yeah?" Ashton said, winking.

Sophia laughed pleasantly upon seeing the rabbit's foot, imagining how it would look in battle tied around the pommel of Vesenia. Perhaps not as intimidating as could be, but Sophia had never thought herself a particularly intimidating foe, and being quite honest, a little luck now and then certainly couldn't hurt her. The second gift was cause for her to widen her eyes in shock. Now there was something very few, if any, of these nobles could do. They probably couldn't even buy something like this. The attention to detail was just...

"This is incredible," she said, finding the approximate location of her room and unable to remove the smile from her face. "Thank you, Ashton." A few more after him, and there was no one but Lucien remaining. Her escort was sadly forced to wait until the end, but Sophia had picked out which one was undoubtedly his by now, and found herself extremely interested to find out what it was. Also quite nervous, but in an entirely good way. It was getting a little difficult to remember why all of this was supposed to be a serious night.

Lucien thought his friends were acquitting themselves rather well in the gifts department, though none lost their distinctive character in doing so. It was something that at once warmed him and made him a little nervous. Amalia’s gift was consummately practical, but that she had given it at all said something, he thought. Nostariel’s was sweet and thoughtful, and of course Ashton’s was entirely Ashton—an interesting mix of humor and skill. His apprehension for the possible reception of his own gift did not show, but it was stirring.

Still, his turn came, last of all, and he walked to the table to retrieve it, a four-sided shape of about four feet in height and three in width, covered over with a large cloth. He set it down on the floor so that it was facing only Sophia and her family, aware that if it was ill-received, it would be better if others did not see. Wordlessly, he pulled aside the fabric and draped it over his arm, using his other to hold the object upright.

The cloth covering was, in fact, hiding from sight a large rectangle of canvas, but far from a blank one. Indeed, it had been covered in paint with painstaking expertise, the kind born of long hours of practice and the patient instructor of a master of the craft. For Lucien, the master had been his mother, and he thought that, perhaps, he may have done her proud with this effort. He’d spared no expense on the pigments themselves, and the colors were rich and vibrant, but it was what they depicted that truly caught the eye. The image was dynamic, vivacious, and almost seemed to be of a living being, frozen in time. The woman at the center was arrestingly-beautiful, her features—long, golden hair, striking blue eyes, and the proud carriage of her posture—very similar in kind to Sophia’s, in fact, though this figure was somewhat older and more seasoned-looking than the Viscount’s daughter. She stood proudly, bedecked in simple, but well-maintained armor, the only hint of her allegiance the symbol of the Aegis mercenary company, in the form of a white band around one arm, the crest on it replicated to exacting detail.

In one hand, she held the reins of a white destrier, the creature standing sideways behind her, its head turned forward and almost drawn even with hers. In her other hand was a naked sword, the gleaming steel, like the armor she wore, simple but elegantly so, with no doubt as to the deadliness of the implement. She and the beast alike both looked somewhere into the distance, but her observation was far from passive. Perhaps it was something in the cast of her face, or the lines of her posture, or perhaps simply the fire evident in her eyes, but it was easy to tell that this was a woman who put her heart into even the most basic of things. She had been described so to him, after all.

All in all, it wasn’t really a typical pose for portraiture, but then, he had been repeatedly assured that Vesenia Dumar had not been a typical woman. “I… had to take a few artistic liberties,” Lucien admitted, glancing down at his work with the ghost of a frown etched over his face, “But I thought… it was rather a shame that nobody had ever painted her. I suppose perhaps even I haven’t. I admit, it was much easier to paint what I thought you might be in a decade or so…” A few of the details were different, of course, but those were pure extrapolation, based on what he’d been able to discover about Vesenia’s personality. “I realize that this may be a little… untoward, and if you don’t like it, I do understand, and apologize.” Part of him definitely felt he’d overstepped some personal boundary here, but trying to find a gift for Sophia had proven impossible. There was nothing useful he could purchase her that she didn’t have more than enough funds to acquire on her own, and as far as craft went, he had only the one skill. Perhaps it would have been better to paint something else, but… this had been his first thought, and had survived though he’d discarded many others.

Sophia was entirely floored by Lucien's gift, but though she felt nothing but awe at his skill and the lengths to which he probably went to create this, she couldn't help but immediately think of her father, and her feelings turned to worry, over what his reaction would be to this gift. He made no immediate reaction at first, studying every inch of it as if searching for something in it, some imperfection perhaps. His brow began to furrow the longer he looked, and then eventually he began to blink rather rapidly, before standing slowly.

"If you'll excuse me..." he said shakily, before he turned and started to make his way from the ballroom. Sophia bit her lip as she watched him go, but decided against following him. She couldn't possibly know what he was feeling, but she was certain any sort of outside interference would not be welcome at the moment. It occurred to her for a moment that someone should follow him for his safety, given the threats, but he would have the guards with him if he went far enough, and they would have to do. Instead Sophia stood and went to Lucien, stopping close enough that they might speak without the others hearing. Lucien looked clearly torn at presenting the gift, but Sophia wouldn't have it. She put one hand against his chest.

"Lucien, it's beautiful, don't... I think he liked it, really, I just think he was surprised by it, is all. Really, I love it."

Lucien swallowed tightly and replaced the fabric over the canvas, then gently used his own hand to remove Sophia’s, smiling joylessly as he released it at her side. “Be that as it may, Sophia, I have clearly overstepped myself. I had no right to go digging in your family history, and I should have known better. I’m deeply sorry, and I shall not repeat the error.” The last few words had moved from a stricken murmur back into something approaching his usual polite courtesy, but it was hard to mistake the guilt still lingering there. He had never intended to cause anyone distress, and furthermore his actions had made their job here harder, by separating the potential targets. Fool—this was what he got for his sentimentality. He should have seen it coming; had Sophia not explicitly warned him that her mother was a sensitive subject for her father? He was a damned fool.

His face closed off, and he carefully set the covered painting against the table again. Though he was tempted to take it away, it was Sophia’s now, and she could do whatever she pleased with it. A few nearby people had noticed the strangely-quiet exchange, but none commented on it, in particular, unsure what exactly had caused their Viscount to react thus. Mercifully, most of the party simply continued on around them, and the mingling was soon to be back in full swing.

He was enough out of sorts that he did not notice Amalia duck behind the stage, flickering and disappearing from view to follow the Viscount. If he ran into trouble, she would be there to deal with it.

Sophia felt more than a little helpless, because he was probably right. His was the last of the gifts, and many of the guests had gone back to speaking amongst themselves once the Viscount had departed, a number of them whispering things that Sophia was very certain she didn't want to hear.

She huffed out a frustrated breath. She wouldn't have her father and Lucien crushed by this, but for the life of her, she didn't know what to say to fix it. She opened her mouth to say something to him, but the words just died in her throat.

Setting

5 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

After all of the gift giving, and after the tables were moved by the servants, then came the time for the guests to mingle between themselves. The remaining musicians began to play their instruments, beginning a smooth melody so that the guests could dance if they so choose. So of course Ashton decided to take opportunity to dance. He extended a hand to Nostariel and nodded toward the quickly filling dance area. "If you would be so kind as to honor me with a dance, Miss Turtega," Ashton said, bowing and taking her hand. The last time they had danced had been before the Expedition, in the Hanged Man. Sophia and Lucien had been there as well, come to think of it.

Nostariel was fairly certain something strange had happened when Lucien presented his gift to Sophia, but she didn’t know what was going on, and thus she was helpless to do anything about it. She just had to assume that some combination of Lucien’s goodness and Sophia’s willpower would see matters through, whatever had transpired. There was no mistaking the fact that they were an eye-catching pair, and she honestly rather hoped they’d be so even when the night was done. Still, there was little denying that she at least wasn’t having nearly as bad a time as she’d expected to have.

They still needed to question the suspects, but… she smiled brightly, dipping into a curtsy. “I’d be delighted, Messere Riviera,” she responded with humor, letting him sweep her out onto the dance floor. She was getting better at this bit, she knew she was, and it had nothing to do with the fact that she sometimes practiced by herself in her room just in case. Nothing at all.

Once they were out on the floor and thus safe from most ears, she spoke in low tones. “If you want to try following up with Miranda, I’ll see what the twins are up to. Once we’re done here, of course.” She honestly wasn’t so fond of the idea of spending any time with men who looked like thugs, but she’d stared worse than they dead in the face before. She could handle it if she had to, and she didn’t want the hard bit to fall to Lucien and Sophia just now. Ash had already sort-of made inroads with Miranda, and a charming fellow was just going to do better than a small elf with a woman like that.

"Sounds like a fine plan," Ashton answered. Of course he wished he didn't have to do anything else but dance with Nostariel. However, he was brought here to do a job, and he'd see it done. He never went back on his word, as he'd revealed many times over his tenure in Kirkwall. Still, it didn't hurt to enjoy himself before he began to work. He spun around once and then brought her in close, and whispered something into her ear. "If they give you trouble, you just need to call and I'll tackle one," Pulling back with a grin on his face. And he would too.

It hadn't escaped him how stilted Lucien and Sophia had become, and he too wondered what had happened. All things considered, both of them seemed to fit each other rather well. He had a mind to ask either of them what happened when he wasn't watching when it was all done, but that was for a later time. He had a job to do right now. Another couple of turns and a dip later, the first song had ended and another was beginning. At that he let go of Nostariel and bowed low, kissing her knuckles. "Milady, I fear I must be off," he said with a flourish and turning toward Miranda.

From where they had been dancing in the middle of the clearing to Miranda, Ashton had to dodge all shapes and sizes of nobles. Once a rather homely lady had asked him to dance. In reality, she yanked his arm and dragged him back into the clearing. He didn't have much choice in the matter, and just kept his lips shut and pursed as she danced with him. He was a lot more stilted and stuffy than he had been with Nostariel, and as soon as he was able, he bolted. The thought of blending into the shadows was an appealing one, but perhaps uncalled for in this situation. Nonetheless, he finally managed to reach Miranda after a bit. However, he didn't ask her to dance, nor did he offer the first words.

Threnhold's daughter was lingering near the edge of the space cleared for dancing, almost as if daring someone to try and ask her. Her eyes flickered over Ashton as though he was little more than the puppy he'd so recently received. And perhaps fittingly, Miranda Threnhold was not a woman who enjoyed the sight of puppies. Her voice still carried a tone of disinterest when he arrived before her.

"So how much of that story was true, Messere Riviera?"

Ashton smiled and shrugged, offering a simple, "More than you'd think, less than you'd hope, I'm afraid," as answer. She was the hard to get one. Cold, intelligent, a real harpy of a woman from what Sophia had said. But she was still a woman, and though he'd been out of the game for a while now, still thought himself somewhat of a decent player. This would not be so easy with Ms. Threnhold, but then again, it would be no fun if it was. "There was an Expedition, and there was a dragon that died. Anything in between though... It was fine story, wouldn't you say?" Ashton said.

"Certainly more entertaining than the bees," Miranda admitted, "though I can't seem to shake the feeling that you prevented him from wasting my time, only so you could waste my time yourself. That was the purpose of the story, yes? To get my attention? You even had your Warden friend playing along. Do you intend to do anything with my attention, now that you have it?"

"Milady, your attention is yours to do what you will with. The fact that you're still entertaining me says that you must find something about me intriguing or curious," Ashton said beneath an implacable smile. He then he laughed and shrugged. "Perhaps that was the initial goal. Perhaps I had simply grown tired as you with the man's preaching. I will say that nearing the middle, it was just as much about fluffing my own ego. A rapt audience does strange things to a man, Milady," He said.

"So tell me, Milady. Am I wasting my time wasting yours? For if I am, I shall go scurry back into the hole I came out of," He still didn't move to ask her to dance. He had an idea of what the woman was about. She was the type who liked to feel in control. He'd give her all the control she wanted, and then some.

"For a Lowtown shopkeep, you seem to have learned to speak as the nobles do quite well," she said, eyes floating over the dance floor. "Use as many words as possible to say as little as you possibly can... but, you're one of the few people who isn't a regular guest at these sorts of things, so I'm willing to give you a chance."

Her eyes alone flicked in his direction. "It's not immediately occurring to me what I can gain from you. Enlighten me, or get on with the scurrying."

"Oh, it's in my blood, I suppose." Which it honestly might have been. Funny, he didn't think noble mannerisms were hereditary. He could feel his uncle frown at him from a thousand miles away. It was almost enough to send shivers down his back and shield his buttocks from the switch. His smile then fluttered for a moment before dropping entirely, Ashton finally taking ahold of an elusive serious air. His tone shifted from foppish to businesslike as he spoke, "I offer you an ally," He stated simply, "I believe our interests are aligned," he said, taking a quick glance in Sophia's direction.

That got a tilt of her head towards him, and she followed his gaze to the Viscount's daughter. Her voice lowered quite significantly. "It's possible that you're entirely smarter than you look," she conceded. "It's also possible that I'm not as stupid as my father was. There's a line here that is not to be crossed. Do you know where it lies?"

"I believe I do, but I have no intention of crossing it. Not yet," He replied in the same lowered tone. Now he was getting somewhere, but the game wasn't won yet. At best, she had proved herself worthy of suspicion, but otherwise nothing. "The Templar Order holds too much power and the Qunari are a blight upon our city. I offer you nothing more than my services, should you find yourself in need. I only ask that you remember me," Ashton responded.

"Perhaps we can do business after all," Miranda said, apparently pleased. It was hard to tell if it was possible for her to be pleased, but it was obvious that her disposition towards him could have been much worse. "A reckoning is coming for them, and there's little I need to do but wait. It's entirely possible that someone else will do the dirtier work in the meantime. If not, and things settle once more, then I expect we'll be in touch." Her smile was a wicked thing as she twisted away from him.

"Enjoy the rest of the evening, Messere Riviera."

Well now he felt dirty, but at least he managed to pry some information out of her. So, yeah. He considered that a win.




Nostariel laughed, clearly in good cheer despite her impending encounter with what may turn out to be the two least-pleasant individuals at this gathering. Just walking on over there probably wasn’t done, however, and so she watched the nobles for a moment, making rounds as they were, and integrated herself into the pattern. It was kind of like two circles moving in opposite directions, and she tried her best to put herself on a trajectory with the Tarkins, though it was proving difficult when a few people gave her disdainful looks, taking one look at her obviously-displayed ears and assuming she didn’t belong there. After the third such rebuff, she felt a hand at her elbow.

“My Lady Warden,” a voice rasped, and it turned out to be the elderly gentleman from earlier, “If there’s someone you need to talk to for some reason, I would be happy to help you.” She looked at him for a moment, startled, but he simply smiled crookedly at her and stood up a little straighter, offering her his arm. Relaxing a little bit, she eased her hand onto his forearm lightly.

“Please, serah. It’s just Nostariel. I’m afraid I do not know what to call you.” He dipped his head and patted her hand in a paternal manner. “A lovely name, for a lovely lass. My name is Geoffrey Morstan, and unfortunately, I’m part of this rabble.” He waved his free hand in a truncated gesture, and she grinned. “Now, my dear, who are you really here to see? Besides your strapping lad, of course.”

Nostariel blushed slightly, the embarrassment rather conflicted with her surprise. “Don’t give me that look, lass. No Warden worth her salt would spend any time here she didn’t have to, and I suspect that you are more than worth yours.” The mage smiled, and shook her head. “With compliments like that, Serah Geoffrey, I expect you must have been everyone’s favorite nobleman once.” He was definitely her favorite nobleman now, Lucien excepted. Well, and Ash, if he counted. She didn’t tend to think of him as such, though.

He laughed, and she used the opportunity to glance over at the twins, hoping he’d follow it. He did, and frowned. “Bad news, Nostariel. But then, they’re no Darkspawn, are they? Come on, then.” It was immensely reassuring to have an ally at her side, and it seemed that nobody was keen to rebuff her with Lord Morstan present. Part of her wondered who he was, to have that kind of respect. Perhaps a former Guard-Captain? He had the right kind of bearing—a soldier’s bearing, like he belonged outside with a sword and shield over his back. The two of them wound a casual circle through the crowd, eventually meandering into the place the twins occupied.

“Gentlemen,” Nostariel greeted, dipping into her umpteenth curtsy of the night from her spot on Geoffrey’s arm.

The Tarkin twins immediate reaction was clearly to be confused; they had just been approached by a Hightown lord, and yet it was the elven woman on his arm that was addressing them. It was entirely unclear which one was Damian and which one was Dorian, even to someone who had known them for quite some time.

"Lord Morstan," the one on the left greeted tersely. They spared the occasional glance for Nostariel, but obviously they weren't sure why she was there. It was well known that Geoffrey Morstan was happily married and had been for many years, and it seemed very strange to them indeed for him to arrive at such an event as the birthday of the Viscount's daughter with what could only be an elven mistress on his arm.

"Something we can do for you, Lord?"

So she wouldn’t have been able to get anywhere on her own, then. Well, good thing she didn’t have to. Lord Morstan, apparently respected enough to at least earn himself a greeting, tucked her arm in a little closer to himself in a subtle gesture of reassurance, and made the necessary introductions. “You know how it goes, milords.” he gestured with his free hand at the general throng behind him. “My lady and I were hoping to catch a reprieve by speaking with someone who knew of something that wasn’t what colors the Empress favored last month. And ah, forgive me. This is Captain Nostariel Turtega, of the Grey Wardens.” Nostariel smiled and dipped her head, but otherwise rectified her initial mistake by allowing her new ally to smooth the creases where necessary first. Morstan had a reputation as a practical man, and he was using it here. He also had his own business interests in the city, apparently.

“My contacts are quite sure that the two of you are doing rather well. How do you find the climate for trade, these days? I’m told there may be a new demand for Rivaini furs before winter sets in.” Nostariel occupied her time trying to watch the Tarkins' body language and faces for anything telltale. She honestly didn't think she was going to find it amidst nobles who wore a thousand faces for as many occasions, but one never knew.

Perhaps the most interesting reaction to be had was when Nostariel was introduced as a Captain of the Grey, and the twins shared a look. It was unclear what it implied, as indeed their faces didn't seem capable of a great deal of expression. It was quite possible that neither of them had even known elves could be Grey Wardens, or perhaps even women. Certainly not elven women, then? Regardless, they seemed to slightly change their disposition towards her, giving nods of greeting to Nostariel and introducing themselves.

"Apologies, Grey Warden," the one on the left said, as terse as before, "I am Damian Tarkin, and this is my brother Dorian. Our lord father could not be in attendance tonight, but he sent us to carry his good wishes to the lady Sophia." They seemed to have done little of that so far, but that was probably true for a majority of the nobles here.

"We've heard that ourselves," Dorian said, to Geoffrey. "Things have been busier than ever on the Docks. Our lord father has been involved in a number of recovery efforts in Ferelden. King Alistair pays handsomely for the much needed resources." And surely the handsome pay was the reason for such endeavors, though the reputation benefits of helping those in need was always a plus.

At least they were willing to talk to her, now. That was probably as much as she was going to get, and so when she saw the faintest glimmer of an opportunity, she took it. She wasn’t sure there’d ever be a better one, given their short answers and taciturn natures. “I confess to little knowledge of trade,” she said modestly, “But if much of your business is conducted near the Docks, does the presence of the Qunari not trouble you at all? It seems like the kind of thing that would make the workers apprehensive, if nothing else, and they are not mercantile sorts, themselves.” It was the closest she could get to asking for their opinion on the current administration without it coming out of nowhere, and she didn’t want to be obvious about it.

"It does," Damian conceded. "I believe everyone in this room knows that the horn heads hurt trade, and hurting trade hurts the city." Of course, it would probably hurt their family more than the city itself, given the Tarkin family reliance on trade. "Our lord father has been one of the many petitioning the Viscount to take firmer action against them," Dorian continued for his brother. "He prefers to ignore the problem, sadly."

It was certainly a potential motive, and one that most would not share to the same degree. But… she couldn’t fault them simply for having one. Perhaps they were stoic enough to take the blows on the chin and pull through. Some people surely were. They certainly seemed to have the requisite stoniness, though that could also work to their benefit if they did want to hurt someone… the whole thing was making her head hurt. Either unfortunately or very, very fortunately, the general flow of the crowd was about to carry them away from the Tarkins. Morstan inclined his head and offered a farewell. Nostariel curtseyed. “A pleasure, messeres.” And then they were both away again.

“Did you get what you needed?” The elderly gentleman asked, and Nostariel bit her lip. “Honestly,” she replied, “I’m not sure.” She’d have to ask Amalia to watch them carefully when she passed the musicians, and probably keep an eye one them herself.




Sophia floundered as if she were in the middle of the sea and had suddenly forgotten how to swim. The idea of drowning seemed oddly appropriate as well, as seemingly everywhere she looked there were noblemen and women glancing their direction, wondering what had just transpired, and of course further adding to the mystery of this man Sophia had arrived on the arm of.

She couldn't help but feel as if the man beside her had suddenly grown much colder, and her brow creased in worry, though she attempted to hide it. That silly fluttery feeling had been suffocated by anxiety, and she suddenly found herself wishing she was wearing something else, something heavier and harder to pierce, something that covered her skin, that would let her breathe, for Andraste's sake. They were supposed to be performing a task here, after all, and here she was letting herself feel like a princess for once, hoping to be swept away to a place where everything would just be all right.

Sophia kept herself on Lucien's arm, primarily because that much at least would be expected of them, though at this point she was wary of driving him away further. He already thought he'd overstepped himself. He probably thought the Viscount would soon demand he remove himself from his daughter's company entirely. Sophia herself didn't know exactly what his reaction would be when he returned, but she was certain that she didn't want Lucien to go, in any shape or form. She wanted to go back to how things had felt at the beginning of the night.

"Lucien, this will be alright," she said, though she wondered how much the words were for herself as well. "He'll come back soon, and we'll be fine. I think he was moved, really. You haven't overstepped any--"

"Sophia!" came the pleasant greeting of Joanna Natla from directly in front of them. She was not in fact, in any form of Templar attire, but instead a modest but finely tailored red gown, with the only sign of her religious affiliation being the small Chantry amulet hung around her neck. "You look very beautiful tonight, my lady."

Sophia smiled in return, and though it felt forced she had learned quite some time ago how to make it look natural. "You as well, Joanna. Thank you so much for coming tonight. Were your parents able to make it?" They had spoken on a number of occasions, and while Sophia would not have considered herself particularly good friends with Joanna, she had certainly always been the most pleasant member of the family to speak with. Joanna nodded, turning and pointing to where her parents currently spoke with Seneschal Bran.

"Yes, they're right over there. Oh, forgive me," she said, curtsying to Lucien, "I forget myself. I am Joanna Natla, my parents are Meric and Falda Natla. We've been very excited to meet you."

It would be fine, of course, though he wasn’t sure if he could agree with the rest of the statement. It was less the incident itself and more what it had reminded him of that troubled him, now, and that was something to which Sophia’s well-meant reassurance did not apply. Still, he nodded in acknowledgement of it, still firmly refusing to allow his mood to make him unmannered. He was saved from the necessity of any further response by the appearance of an auburn-haired woman in front of them, and his decorous smile was every bit as practiced and every bit as false as Sophia’s, though he reminded himself that this guest had done nothing to deserve it.

“There is nothing to forgive, milady,” Lucien replied to Joanna, bowing in return, “I am Lucien, if it please you, and it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance. I can only hope to justify the anticipation in some small measure.” He wondered if she’d been sent to bring them within the orbit of her parents… it would be a bit presumptuous, considering it was Sophia’s party to host, but not something worth comment, really. Perhaps she simply wished to speak to Sophia herself. She seemed rather genuine.

"We'd heard you ran into trouble not too long ago, on the Coast," Joanna said, returning her attention to Sophia. "I'd thought to come check on you, but my duties have kept me busy as of late." At this, Sophia seemed to remember something.

"Oh, that's right, weren't you promoted to Knight-Lieutenant recently?" At this, the woman nodded proudly. "I was. Finally got even with my brother, I'd been waiting so long to shut him up. He thinks he'll make Knight-Captain before year's end, but he's a fool, I'm afraid."

Sophia laughed softly, starting to wonder why she'd questioned their position in the first place. Joanna had never seemed even unfriendly to her, and though her parents were significantly less social, the only ambition they'd ever had had been to rise through the ranks of the Chantry and the Templar Order, not Kirkwall high society. So unless they were extremely good actors, Sophia believed she could remove them from the list.

"I believe we need to continue making the rounds, but it was wonderful to see you again, Joanna," Sophia said, and the auburn-haired woman curtsied in response, allowing them to be on their way. She whispered up into Lucien's ear as best she could. "I don't believe we've anything to fear from them."

He really didn’t think so either, and said as much in a low murmur. He’d spotted Nostariel on the arm of an older gentleman, speaking to what had to be the Tarkin twins, and Ashton appeared to be somewhat engaged with Miranda Threnhold. He wondered if they’d had any more luck than he hand Sophia had. The conversations with the other two possible suspects had been brief, but he felt that he’d gained nothing of use from them. Jamie hadn’t raised any red flags, but he was easily charismatic enough to avoid doing so if he wished. Joanna seemed even less likely to have anything against Sophia, and he had to remind himself that here, climbing in favor with the Chantry was separate from trying to garner rank in nobility. Granted, the Knight-Commander’s level of influence on the city only grew, and it may not always be so, but for now at least it maintained some semblance of that distinction.

Setting

5 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK



Unfortunately for Lucien, he had not been at all wrong when he suspected it was only a matter of time before he was recognized. Even more unfortunately, it did not happen quietly. He was accompanying Sophia on the rounds, being flawlessly polite and about as charming as he could tolerate at the moment, when they quite by accident came within sight of the Orlesian ambassador, a man only relatively recently given the position, and one Lucien immediately recognized as Lord Laurent Vermire. Just entering his fifties, Vermire was nevertheless surrounded by a crowd of younger individuals, whom he apparently held in rapt attention with some tale or another. He’d always had a certain affinity for audiences, a talent which made him a wise selection for ambassador.

Less suitable was his flair for the dramatic, and Lucien winced when he heard his name spoken from at least fifteen feet away. “Lord Drakon? Lord Lucien Drakon?” The man in question sighed through his nose and leaned down to speak quietly to Sophia.

“If you’ll excuse me for just one moment, I should go make sure this doesn’t get out of hand.” He crossed the intervening distance, waving the ambassador to his company. The man, smelling gossip from a mile away, made his excuses to his entourage and made his way over. “Milord! It’s been such a very long—” His voice was still louder than it should be, but Lucien cut him off by putting a finger to his lips in the universal gesture for silence.

“Laurent,” Lucien opted for informality. The man had considered himself a friend of the family, and was one of the few noblemen that his father could properly stand, so he’d have to hope that an appeal to that alliance was enough. “I am not here as Lord Drakon,” There was a moment of silence in which Vermire processed this, and then his eyes widened. It was undoubtedly juicy gossip indeed, and Lucien was well aware that asking him to share it with nobody was going to be difficult.

“Then what are you doing here, lad?” the man asked in an urgent whisper that Lucien personally thought was not really necessary. Lucien, not wanting to lie to the man, gave him the truth, or at least part of it. “I’m here because the Lady Sophia asked me to be. It’s not something I can tell you about. Please, Laurent. I’m just Lucien the chevalier this evening.” The look on his face was imploring and a little desperate, but it must have moved the ambassador somewhat, for he looked mollified and nodded.

“All right, milord. I’ll keep mum if that’s what you really want. But, you and I are going to have a drink and talk about how you ended up in Kirkwall, yes?” Satisfied that his secret was safe at least for the night, Lucien nodded gravely and laid a hand on the man’s shoulder. “Of course. Thank you, Lord Vermire.” The other man waved him off with a nonchalant gesture, something he’d not have dared to do were they in Celene’s ballroom, but Lucien chose to be relieved rather than offended by that. It could be so much worse… he only hoped wine did not loosen Laurent’s tongue all that much this evening. The two men parted, and Lucien made his way back to Sophia, appearing unruffled again, and reintegrating himself into the ongoing conversation. It was good to know these small points of etiquette were good for something.

The ongoing conversation, as it happened, was with Nostariel and Ashton, who had made their way over to Sophia's vicinity to share what they'd learned of the other guests.

"I don't think we have to worry about the Natlas," Sophia murmured, a little dismayed that she had ever suspected them in the first place. "Lucien spoke with Jamie Arren earlier, but he's not so great a fool to admit to something like that in any way, if he is plotting anything. We saw you speaking with the others. How did it go?"

The Warden spoke first, her expression grim. “The twins are very hard to read, but they’re also quite dissatisfied with your father’s policies on the Qunari. It’s hurting their business, probably a great deal. They also don’t seem the sorts of people averse to using violence to get what they want, though I have no idea how far that extends. I’m lucky they talked to me at all.” If Geoffrey hadn’t been there, she doubted they would have done more than glare, but without letting him in on what she was trying to do, even he was of limited help. She glanced at Ashton, hoping he’d been more successful than she had.

And successful he was, though he still felt criminally dirty about it. Ashton's expression was even, neither the grimness that shown on Nostariel's face nor the usual jolliness on his, but somewhere in the middle. "You don't have to worry about Miranda tonight but..." He said, putting emphasis on the word. "Maybe it's best you watch her like a hawk. I think she has something in store for you if you manage to survive long enough." He said before quickly raising a finger to add something, "I think I've managed to make an inroad as well. If she plans something, she may call upon my... ahem... services. If she does you'll be the first to know," he told Sophia, smiling.

At that, Ashton turned to Nostariel and grinned, shrugging as he did, "See? I told you, people love me... Of course, I need to take a bath now... But that's beside the point," He said, shivering. She offered a small smile in reply, shaking her head, but the situation was perhaps a bit too serious to respond to the quip in a like fashion.

Nostariel's report on the twins was unsurprising to Sophia, but still concerning all the same. Ashton's however, reminded her why exactly she'd asked him to come, apart from trusting him. That he'd managed to get that much out of Miranda was quite impressive. So, she was no threat tonight, but potentially a threat down the line. She supposed she must have been getting pretty low if that was considered good news. Still, it narrowed the suspects to the Tarkin twins and the Arrens.

"I've never trusted either the Tarkins or the Arrens in the slightest," Sophia admitted, frowning in thought. "But we should watch them both. There's not much left of the party. My father should return soon, and when he does we'll no doubt get on with the dance, as I think a number of these people wouldn't mind heading home soon. Someone should inform Amalia who to watch for..."

As she said the words, Sophia noticed her father making his way back into the ballroom. For all intents and purposes, he looked as though nothing had happened earlier, but he was more experienced at wearing faces than Sophia was, so she was quite certain he was still struggling with what he'd seen. She was thankful that he was at least able to return, though, and he looked quite composed.

The dance itself was not to be a particularly organized affair. It would start with just Lucien and Sophia, but shortly after they began others would join in. The dance itself was simple, the only slightly complex part being the shifting of partners that occurred when the dancers wished. Sophia expected quite a few would request to dance with her for a few moments. Eventually she would dance with her father, and then be returned to Lucien, at which point the dance would end shortly thereafter. In all, Sophia was looking forward to getting it over with.

Once the Viscount had informed the musicians, the current dancers politely cleared the floor, and present a path for Sophia and Lucien. The Viscount's daughter smiled slightly to Lucien. "Shall we?"

As if on cue (which it very well might have been, considering who it was), the harpist, mysteriously reappeared on the stage, strummed the first note of a song. It was anyone’s guess where she’d learned such a traditional human thing to be playing, but then perhaps only to the people who understood how mentally far from “human” she considered herself. Or had. The tune was striking for its elegant simplicity, though it was not by any means too informal for the situation. Amalia, though, was not terribly focused on its playing, and the sounds flowed from the instrument as though it was the most natural, automatic thing in the world. Her eyes subtly lingered on those she’d been told to watch for, and those she’d been told to watch over.

At the first peal of the instrument, the chevalier returned the gentle expression, though it may not quite have reached all the way to his eye. “With pleasure,” he answered, taking up her hand and guiding her to the now-empty dance floor. He’d lost nothing of these skills, and what at the Hanged Man may have been a bit relaxed was here quite precise. The waltz was a deceptively simple series of movements, but the two of them were both long-accustomed to it, and succeeded in making it look as easy as simply walking. After waiting the traditional amount of time, the floor was taken up as well by other dancers, the collective whirling colors and swishing of skirts evocative of gardens and stained-glass windows.

The twins did not take up the dance, perhaps because no one wanted to dance with them, but that was beside the point. They stood side by side dutifully watching the floor. Jamie Arren had taken up the hand of a beautiful young girl to start, while his father watched with seeming disinterest from the ring surrounding them.

They really were quite good at this, Nostariel thought. Lucien and Sophia dancing. It was incredibly graceful, though something in it made it obvious to her at least that they both often navigated skirmishes and battlefields and the like. Maybe it was just because the skills required were similar? She didn’t like her own chances in a fight if that were true, and she’d survived thus far, so maybe not. Either way, others were slowly beginning to filter onto the floor, and she made a mental note to try and secure a dance with Serah Arren, at least, assuming he would deign to do so. She honestly probably had the best shot at disabling him if someone needed to, given that her strength was in something nobody could take away.

Well, nobody besides a Templar. And as far as she knew, there was only one of those in attendance this evening. Turning to Ashton, she raised a brow, some measure of her humor returned. They had an abbreviated list of suspects, some truly lovely music, and time to kill, after all. “Well?” she asked lightly, “Are you going to dance with me, or must I find someone else to do so?”

"Oh my pretty little Nostariel, with me, you'll never need anyone else ever again," Ashton said with a smile stretching from ear to ear. With that, he gently took her hand and led her into the circle. And just like that, they began another dance. It was just like they were back at the Hanged Man three some odd years ago, though he was a measure more sober than the last time. At that memory, Ashton chuckled and said, "Want to know a secret?" Whether she did or not, he went on to tell her anyway. "I still don't know what I'm doing... And twirl," He said, twirling her about. Once again, he started chuckling again.

"Life tends to take us to strange places, doesn't it?"




After handing Sophia away to the next of what was sure to be a long list of dance partners, Lucien found himself scarcely without a partner for more than thirty seconds at a time. Perhaps to be expected: he was a new curiosity at this stage, and though more than a few people were quite eager to question him about where he’d come from, not many of them pushed the inquiries beyond his polite deflections. If there was one aspect of this game that he managed well, it was turning the conversation away from himself and toward others, most of whom were quite happy to talk about themselves. They were by and large a flurry of names and faces that he did his damnedest to remember. Nostariel and Joanna were both comparatively a relief, and he had a good chuckle when some accident of positioning found Ashton spun into him at one point. With a roll of his eye and a passing reference to the damsel in distress joke he’d made in the Deep Roads, Lucien managed to maneuver the hunter back into the arms of a shy-looking lady that had been eyeing the Ferelden man for a solid ten minutes, at least.

Upon his leave, Ashton muttered something about the Chevalier leaving his heart in ashes, and took up his next partner. She was a quiet thing, and Ashton had to work to make her open up. But once he succeeded, he found that the words tumbled out of her mouth like a waterfall, and they were mostly about himself. Apparently, word had gotten around the party that he had slayed a dragon, and the already fuzzy details he had given had grown all that much more fuzzy. Extremely fuzzy, in fact. Somewhere along the lines, he had worked his way up from a sixteen foot dragon, to a thirty foot magical one, who demanded that he sing it a song. It was almost too preposterious for him. He had to politely decline and slip away to his next partner. His next partners were Miranda Threnhold, though neither spoke of earlier business, the whole affair being rather terse, and then Joanna Natla, who he found was quite the charming lass, Templar or no. Finally, he'd managed to end up with the birthday girl herself, Sophia.

Nostariel got a pretty good idea of who on the guest list didn’t hate elves or Wardens that much simply by discovering who would willingly accept her when she was passed to them, and who would definitely not. More than once, she had to awkwardly walk to the edge of the dancing, slightly flushed with embarrassment, but she was encouraged by the fact that it didn’t always happen. Jaime Arren, Geoffrey Morstan, a few other nobles, and of course Lucien all had no problem whatsoever with her, or at least didn’t seem to, and for that she was quite grateful. The extra practice that she wasn’t going to admit to served her well, and not once did she trip or step on someone’s foot, which was perhaps more than she’d have been able to say for herself before. All the while, she kept an eye out, glance flickering often back to where the twins stood. She almost considered trying to get them out on the floor as well, but discarded the idea immediately. She had a feeling they wouldn’t go for it, and the small tactical advantage gained would probably not be worth the loss of her dignity, her toes, or her dinner.

Sophia had been trying to allow herself to believe the night would pass without incident, and as she was requested for a dance again and again, she started to believe it more and more. She shared a few words with Ashton when it was their turn to dance together, but she was sensing the dance was eventually coming to a close, as there were only a few left she needed to dance with. She'd been about to slip towards her father when instead Jamie Arren crossed their path, deftly requesting the Lady's hand for a brief dance.

They locked their fingers gently together, Sophia draping her arm over his shoulder as she'd been taught, while Jamie's other hand came to rest at the small of her back. His precision rivaled that of Lucien, but she was still of the opinion that Lucien had the edge. "You've had a good night thus far, I hope?" he asked, almost delicately. She nodded, though she wasn't sure she'd call the entire night a success. "I'll admit, I may have hoped for a slightly better result, but this could have turned out much worse, as well."

"Listen, Sophia," he said, growing rather more solemn than she was used to seeing him. "I know... things haven't always been the best between us. Our parents have always tried to force us together, and we both resisted at first. You obviously never stopped resisting..." he trailed off for a moment then, and she narrowed her eyebrows at him, unsure what he was trying to say. "I just wanted to say that I want you to be happy. I really do. I know that our families aren't on the best of terms. If you always think of me as some kind of arrogant, greedy nobleman, I won't hold it against you. If Lucien makes you happy, then I say go for him. You deserve that much."

She was thoroughly confused at this point, because this wasn't what she expected from Jamie. She'd always seen him as pursuing her simply because it was in the interests of his family, but... maybe she'd blinded herself? It was possible that he really had cared for her, maybe not at first, but eventually. She didn't know what to say, but there wasn't time to say anything, as he was steering her gently towards her father. "My lord, she's all yours," he said, joviality creeping back into his voice as he rather dramatically spun her into Marlowe's arms.

"You look like you've seen a ghost, Sophia," he said gently, and their own dance was much slower than Jamie's had been. Sophia ventured a rather risky return. "If you don't mind me saying, Father... so did you. Are you alright?" She thought for a moment the question had been wholly unwise, but then her father smiled. A sad smile, but a smile all the same. "Don't worry about me, it was just... a little overwhelming, is all. Your Lucien's... quite the painter."

"So... we can keep it then?" Sophia asked, as though the painting might have been some wounded animal they'd found and nursed back to health. "Of course. I think... perhaps we might wait on selecting a place to hang it up, though. I need some time to think about this."

"Of course... well, shall we end the night?" She felt a smile creeping back onto her face, as fragile a smile as she'd ever had, but there it was, cautiously seeking the light of day. Her father nodded, and brought her round to Lucien. The Viscount smiled when he handed his daughter back to her escort, though no words were spoken.

Sophia exhaled deeply, tension leaving her muscles. In all, the rush of getting through it all without any incident was leaving her feeling rather numb. "I... think we might have made it."

Lucien, on the other hand, looked very concerned almost immediately upon drawing into range of Sophia. His glance was most uncharacteristically fixed not on Sophia’s face, but presently on the side of her abdomen. He refused to move her anywhere for the moment, but disguised his words by shaking himself slightly and leaning forwards to speak in her ear. “Do not look,” he said lowly, urgently. If they could conceal their knowledge for long enough, they may be able to get a read on what was going on. “But there is a small laceration on your left side. You’re bleeding.” Truthfully, he was much more concerned about the possibility of poison than the blood.

“Are you feeling at all strange? Any tingling, numbness, pain?” He was no alchemist, but he did know a few things about poison, unfortunately. Ideally, they needed to get Amalia or Nostariel over here as quickly as possible, and he made eye contact with the Warden over Sophia’s shoulder, his expression flashing briefly to one of concern. Hopefully, that would be enough to summon her, and quickly.

"Wait, what?" Sophia said, and she immediately looked down at her left side, and there it was, a little cut, hardly deep at all, but enough to draw blood, which blended in rather neatly with the color of her gown. She blinked up at Lucien's question. She didn't quite understand it at first.

"I think... so. I feel..." And then the numbness went away entirely, a visceral and intense pain spreading quickly from her stomach to the rest of her body, causing her to immediately scream out quite loudly and lurch forward into Lucien. The cry of pain drew the eyes of literally every person in the room, a number of which came closer to see what was happening. Even the twins looked rather shocked at what was happening. Amidst the growing muttering that the guests were making, came shouts from the Viscount, working his way through the crowd to try and reach his daughter again, wondering what was wrong.

Lucien moved forward automatically to support Sophia, resisting the urge to look around the crowd for the likely culprit. The important thing was to find out what this was and treat it. The others were clever enough to figure out what was going on. More-or-less carrying Sophia to a chair, he did have one thing to ask: “Excellency! Who handed her to you?” he demanded over the excitement of the crowd. He was sure her father hadn’t done anything to her, and she’d been with Ashton at some point before that, but he’d lost track of her location for a while, and it must have been somewhere between the two that it happened. Crouching beside Sophia, he held one of her hands and drew a long dagger from his boot with the other, jaw tight. If he didn’t feel the need to remain… but those were unworthy thoughts, and he pushed them aside.

Nostariel had been fortunate enough to catch Lucien’s urgent look, and passed it to Ashton quickly, hurrying forward as a rapid walk to where he and Sophia stood—not quickly enough to get there before Sophia screamed and chaos erupted. The Warden found herself caught up in a panicked crowd, shoved around due to her small size, and she was not going to have that. Gathering the force of magic to her, she took a move from Aurora’s repertoire and encased her body in stone, the cracking sound of the magic sufficient to draw the attention of those nearby. “Out. Of. My. Way!” She yelled the last, shoving aside those few that dared remain in the path of magic and barreling through the crowd. They parted like butter for a hot knife, though she supposed the chaos in her wake must be worse than what she’d entered.

It hardly mattered. She had to save Sophia, and if there was something Nostariel was good at, it was healing magic. Running the last few steps to the chair Lucien had placed her in, Nostariel wasted no time letting the rock armor clatter to the floor and checking Sophia’s wound. Shallow, but if she was in this much pain, then obviously poison or acid was involved. Her skin wasn’t being corroded, so poison it was. “Hold on, Sophia. You’re going to be okay, I promise.” And it was a promise she would keep.

Ashton looked back at Nostariel and nodded, adding "Go! Go!" before wading into the crowd. The hunter's instinct kicked in and he immediately headed in the Viscount's direction. If he was right, then the assassin wouldn't stop just with Sophia. He had to find the culprit before it was too late. He ran through a list in his head, trying to remember who he had handed her off to after their dance. It had to have been after him, since she was perfectly fine when she was in his arms. They had just angled her toward her father but then someone had gotten between them... "Jamie! Jamie Arren! Where is he?" He called. He couldn't see nothing but a blur of faces in the chaos. He looked up toward the stage where Amalia was, hoping she might have some sort of clue for him.

Amalia had arrived at the same conclusion as Ashton, having witnessed the dance herself. She was even pretty sure she knew when the poison had been delivered, but she would know more once they found him and she could identify the what and the how. From her vantage point onstage, she could see a bit more than Ashton, but he was much closer than she was. “Hard right!” she replied, taking a running jump off the stage and landing lightly in the crowd, driving in that direction herself. Ashton was still closer, but hopefully he wouldn’t have to deal with the situation alone for long.

Ashton listened, immediately jerking to the right and shoving a noble to the ground. Bloody peacocks all in the way, he shoved another one down before he came upon Jamie, his back turned to him. Indeed, why would he be looking at Ash when the Viscount stood to his front. Action kicked in and he darted forward, gaining enough momentum to jump and tackle Jamie to the ground. The ensuing scuffle was a ball of confusion between both Ashton and Arren struggling. Some time in the midst of the scuffle, Jamie had wormed his way on to his back and swung out with his hand. Nothing if not the dextrous hunter, Ashton sucking in his gut just as the passing hand, and hidden blade strapped to it, sailed past, cutting a button off of his shirt as it went. He was not, however, prepared for the backswing...

…which never came. Amalia caught the limb with the hidden blade attached, almost casually wrenching it around until it broke, the delicate bones of the wrist unable to withstand the pressure the Qunari was applying. The distraction caused by the combination of the pain and Ashton’s presence was sufficient for her to remove the blade with deft fingers, raising the flat of it to her nose and inhaling slightly. “Crow,” she observed conversationally. That meant primarily deathroot and toxin extract. This one also smelled a bit of powdered gurdon root, which would have slowed the metabolism and delayed the effects of the poison. It was a fairly decent mixture, though not lethal on its own, suggesting that Sophia had not been the primary target.

“Lucien! A swallow from the bottle marked ‘deathroot’ will suffice.” She assumed Nostariel would be too busy trying to purge the poison magically, which would work, but probably not as quickly if she didn’t know what she was fighting. Dropping Jamie’s broken wrist, she nodded to Ashton. “If you will restrain him, I will find the Viscount.” She presumed the man was still trying to make progress towards his daughter. At that, Ashton rolled the man back over and put an elbow to the back of his neck, very roughly.

Lucien understood what Amalia was referring to immediately, as Sophia had shown him the contents of the Qunari woman’s box. Though he was loath to leave Sophia in this much pain, he saw the wisdom in the advice, and trusted the Warden to do what she needed to. Hastening to the table with the gifts, he found the box quickly and extracted the bottle in question from the woven sash, returning to his friends and uncorking the stopper. “Sophia, can you hear me?” he wasn’t sure if she was still in too much pain to really register what was going on around her. “You need to drink this.”

By this point Sophia was perhaps only half conscious, mostly limp in the chair she'd been set down in and groaning occasionally. She was damp with sweat and her eyes had lolled mostly shut, but she did manage to nod weakly at the sound of Lucien's voice. After a swallow of the antidote, she exhaled deeply, and fell unconscious.

"Bastard!" Jamie was yelling from where he'd been pinned on the ground. "You don't know anything! Nothing of what the Viscount's done!" The young man's own father was trying to figure out what was going on, clearly left out of the loop of whatever his son had planned, and no doubt the guards would come to collect him as well soon enough. The Viscount looked appalled, and outraged, moving to stand in front of Jamie.

"What have you done, Jamie?" He looked to his daughter, but she seemed to be very well cared for at the moment, and he seemed more interested in getting to the bottom of this.

"Dairren Quinn sends his regards, Viscount," Jamie spat. "He knows what you've done. You can't run from it forever!" At this, the Viscount paled, his face turned to stone, his eyes displaying no outrage, but only outright hate. "Get him out of here," he commanded. "Everyone, return to your homes. The night is concluded."

The Chanter's Board has been updated. A Celebration of Things to Come has been completed.

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

It was a few days after the events of the party before Nostariel decided it was probably okay to go check up on Sophia—the woman was doubtless wholly or almost wholly physically recovered by this point, but the rest may well be another matter. That someone she’d known since childhood had poisoned her and tried to kill her father, well… Nostariel couldn’t rightly imagine it. She thought that maybe Sophia could use a bit of a reminder of the good things in her life, and though the Warden was sure she was far from the best of people to provide that encouragement, she felt that she should at least try, after everything that had happened. With that in mind, she’d cleaned herself up a bit from her last shift with the sick, donning a fresh white tunic and some plain tan breeches, a blue sash tied ‘round her waist. She rarely wore anything but her leather boots on her feet anymore, and today was no exception. No reason to go to the Keep armed and dangerous; it may not be as secure as she’d once thought, but this was a social call.

She had the vague sense that Ashton wasn’t quite satisfied leaving things as they had ended, either, so she poked her head into his shop on her way up from the Hanged Man. The new bell on the door chimed merrily, and she stepped inside the shop with light treads, smiling at the girl behind the counter. “Good afternoon, Lia.” she greeted, then turned to the store’s proprietor. “Ash, I’m thinking of paying a visit to the Keep, to check on Sophia. Would you like to come as well?”

Ashton himself seemed to be in the midst of preparing to depart. No longer in the puffy noble's outfit he was before, but in a dull tan tunic with the sleeves rolled to his elbow and tucked into his belt, homespun leather breeches, and a pair of rough worn leather boots. His hair had managed to return to the fluffy wildness and he was in the middle of sticking a knife in the front of his belt loop. The light clothing he wore revealed the muscles that were not there before. The strong arms now supported him as he leaned on his counter staring at Nostariel, "It's a good thing you came when you did, I was just on my way over there myself."

After that he nodded his consent and then turned to Lia, "Shop's in your hands, try not to run it into the ground? Oh, and don't antagonise Snuffy-- Snuffy, that goes the same for you, don't antagonise Lia," He said turning from one to the other. Snuffy for her part looked outright offended that she would ever do anything so beneath her. She pouted and then looked away from Ashton. He dropped his eyes and sighed turning to Nostariel, "Let's... Just go."

Lia frowned down at the adorable little mabari. "Maybe once you learn how to hunt you'll be a little less useless around here. Wait, what was that? No antagonizing? Oh, okay. You heard him, Snuffy. Truce."

Nostariel snickered at the surprisingly-quaint picture the three of them made, but then nodded and preceded Ash out of the shop, lifting a hand in parting to Lia. And Snuffy, of course. The afternoon was balmy, but not as hot as it had been recently, and naturally, moving about in lighter clothing was much better for the temperature than trying to navigate the streets in full sun and full armor. Nostariel dropped back to walk beside Ashton rather than in front of him, though she had to take almost two strides for every one of his. It wasn’t so bad. She hooked her arm around his and smiled up at him. And why not? It was a nice day, and she was with a friend, on her way to see another, and nobody she loved was recently-dead.

Given the life she’d had, that was more than enough reason to smile about things. Their feet carried them up the stairs from Lowtown into the Hightown markets, and she steadfastly ignored the few obvious glares that asked her what right she had, to be happy and bright in their part of Kirkwall. It wasn’t like the majority of the people cared enough to make their displeasure known, anyway.

The Keep itself was as looming as ever, but it didn’t feel entirely unwelcoming, either. The guards didn’t stop them as they passed inside, which she would soon learn was because Sophia was holding open court today, in place of her father. A strange thing to be doing so soon after you’d been injured, but then Nostariel thought she might understand. Throwing oneself into one’s work was a way to forget the less-savory things for a while, and sometimes, distraction was all you could ask for. She hoped it wasn’t quite as bad for Sophia as all that, but then she would readily admit that she didn’t know how the noblewoman had taken what happened—they’d all been cleared out shortly after Ashton and Amalia had incapacitated Jamie.

It appeared to be a rather slow day at court, though, because she and Ashton were only waiting about fifteen minutes before they were ushered into the throne room. It was a little intimidating, the enormous backing behind that mighty chair, but Nostariel could see it, so very easily: Sophia seated, the iron crown of the office on her brow, straight-backed and refusing to slump with the weight of it. It… suited her, if it suited anyone. Of course, the image she was actually seeing was a bit different from the one in her mind—no crown, for a start. But it was saliently similar.

She wasn’t sure if she should feel pride for Sophia, or pity.

The sight of familiar faces made Sophia expect for the briefest of moments to see Lucien as well, but of course she was kidding herself. She had yet to see the chevalier again since the party, and was beginning to think she would have to go find him herself. She rationalized it a hundred ways, and it still hurt like lingering pains of the poison that had coursed through her veins a few nights ago. Whatever the outcome, it still seemed as though either she had pushed him away, or he had pushed himself away. The latter seemed more likely, as she couldn't determine what she had done wrong if the fault lay with her. And the latter hurt more, because she didn't know how to make him stop.

The work had served to take her mind off of it all, and it doubled to take some stress off of her father. He had been nigh unapproachable since he'd heard the name Dairren Quinn mentioned by Jamie Arren, and Sophia had really had no choice but to take over his duties for the past few days. Mercifully, they had been light, and Bran had been around to assist when he was needed for advice, which really wasn't all that often. Really, the greatest trouble she'd had was finding some way to sit comfortably in this throne and still look respectable.

She smiled in greeting at Nostariel and Ashton, though it was a slightly sad one, and she requested that Bran leave them to speak in private. He bowed and did so, at which point Sophia immediately stood and took a few wondrous steps around, if only to stretch her legs. She wasn't dressed quite like she had on her birthday, but still looked rather radiant, the combined efforts of Nostariel's magic and Amalia's antidote causing the poison to have only slight after-effects, which had since worn off entirely. Her hair was loosely tied together at the neck level, the tail of which she was currently fiddling with as she moved.

"It's good to see you two again," she said. "I've been... waiting for Father to calm before trying to figure out what he wants to do. That... may not be soon. Have you spoken with Lucien at all?" The way the question was asked gave away that she had not herself, as well as her worry over that fact. She wore false faces with the nobles, but with friends, she could hide nothing.

Ashton was surprised that he'd managed to get so close to Sophia with a knife plainly visible on his person. Upon further inspection though, perhaps not unwarranted. The guards had to have known about him, the man who had tackled the Dumars' would be assassin, effectively doing their jobs for them. If that was the explanation, then it also explained why some of the guards averted their gaze upon his arrival. A mere civilian upstaging the guards was no small embarrassment. However, whatever ill-placed pride he might have felt, it didn't show on his face. For him, there was nothing to be proud of.

"It's good to see that you're okay too, Sophie," Ashton said with a smile. "You looked... Odd in that chair. Eh, maybe you'll grow into it," He teased half-heartedly. Usually, he'd be filled with the need to sit upon the now vacated throne, just to say that he did, but the need wasn't there now. In fact, Ashton seemed a bit more serious than normal. Perhaps something told him now was not the time for his brand of lunacy. However, Standing still wasn't one of Ashton's strong suit, so he was still fidgetting, "I have not, unfortunately." He answered, shrugging. He had been meaning to, but work at the shop and fending off questions from Lia had kept him busy of late.

“Nor have I,” Nostariel admitted gently, and the more she thought about it, the more unusual it really was. Lucien was always around, either at the Hanged Man or dropping by the clinic to help her carry and shelve new shipments—it was almost as if the man didn’t spend any time by himself, because she was pretty sure he still did mercenary work with great regularity. Who wouldn’t want to hire someone who doesn’t try to gouge his prices and somehow managed to come out of everything alive? So the fact that he’d all but disappeared was actually quite alarming.

She… wasn’t so sure she should mention that, though. Maybe it was time to steer the topic in a slightly more positive direction. “We came by to see you, which I’m sure was kind of obvious,” she ventured with some hesitation. “It’s nothing terribly important, really, but, um… I just thought you should know that, despite what ended up happening, I think you’re remarkable. I couldn’t help but think the whole time I was there that I had no idea what I’d have to do if my presence was regularly required at such events.” She was talking too fast now, and maybe holding Ash’s arm a bit too tightly, but she wasn’t exactly the kind of person who was incredibly comfortable saying things like this, so she barreled forward anyway.

“All the talking, and the not knowing who hates you… it’s not something I can handle. At least the Darkspawn have clear intentions. So, I mean… I guess what I’m trying to say is that what you do is much harder than you make it look, and I think you’re doing a wonderful job. And I’m glad to call you my friend. That is—if I may call you that?” It was true that they’d come from vastly different places, and for many years, that had felt like a wall that she couldn’t (or perhaps didn’t want to) breach. But maybe there was something about kneeling beside someone, trying to stave off the poison leeching into their blood, that made you realize what mattered and what didn’t.

Sophia found Nostariel really quite adorable at the moment, and really the two in front of her as a pair, what with how she was latched onto his arm like that, and despite her previous mood, she found herself smiling broadly at the elven woman. "Of course you can," she said easily. "It's... something that takes a lot of time to get used to. One who's forced to come of age in water will learn how to swim, I suppose you could say. I don't think I could do many of the things you've done, Nostariel. I've never even seen darkspawn before." She didn't know the full extent of what Nostariel had done in her life for the Grey Wardens, but she couldn't help but admire them, each and every one.

"You are all remarkable, and I knew from the start, without a doubt, that I was right to trust my life, and the lives of my father and brother, to you." She didn't know if Nostariel was attached too tightly to Ashton to let go, but she offered the Warden a hug of thanks all the same. Nostariel did relinquish her grip for long enough to return it, squeezing briefly in a gesture of comfort before letting go and stepping back. “Then I’ll handle the Darkspawn, and you can have the nobles, and we’ll both just be glad we’ve got the other, shall we?” She flashed a bright smile, but then fell silent, allowing Ash to address whatever matter he’d come here to deal with.

It was all very adorable and touching, enough so that Ashton kept his wagging tongue in his head. He nodded along with Nostariel's sentiments, though he didn't put them to words. Hers were all that were needed. He was saddened when it came his turn to speak-- and it wasn't near about as sweet as Nostariel's speech. It wasn't a direction he wanted to steer the conversation, but he felt that he must. No more running for him after all, he'd own up to each and everyone of his mistakes. "I agree with everything she said," He started, sighing, "But I came for a... different reason."

"I wanted to apologize."

"Apologize?" Sophia said, confused. "You saved my father's life. What could you have to apologize for?"

"If I hadn't been so lax in the task you asked for, then you or your father wouldn't need saving," Ashton said, rubbing his face. He still remembered that day years ago when Sophia came to him and asked a favor. Keep an eye open for a man named Dairren Quinn. Hearing that name the night of the party surprised him, almost as much as it bound to have surprised the Viscount and Sophia. He had heard nothing about the man from any of his Low and Darktown contacts, but he still felt that it was mostly his fault. If he had been a little bit more diligent, a little bit more cautious, then maybe...

"Look, if I had done my job right, then Quinn wouldn't even had got as close as he did at your party-- for that I'm sorry," He said, but despite his acknowledgement of his failure, he didn't seem withdrawn, in fact, the man seemed more determined than before, the same seriousness that descended upon him the night the assassin struck. "And if I have my way about it, it'll be the last time I'll have to apologize for it. I'll scour Lowtown and Darktown, I'll set my contacts on high alert. I will find that man, and when I do, you and I are going to have a little discussion with him. I'll promise you that," Ashton said resolutely.

The man had evaded the hunter long enough, and had dared to use an assassin to attack his friend. He would find this Dairren, no matter how intelligent he may have been, no matter how slippery he was, Ashton was moreso, and now he was pissed.

"Ashton," she began. He didn't understand, not really. Even Sophia didn't understand the man fully, but she knew far more about him than most. "it's all right. No harm was done. Dairren was not only the Captain of Guards in this city, he was a master of spies. There is no one who knows the city like he does. If he wishes not to be found, there might be little we can do about it. We'll foil his plans, whatever they are, and when he does finally show himself, we'll catch him, and get answers."

"He's a fox for the hound," Ashton added simply, as if it was fact.

She couldn't tell him if he could have stopped the assassination attempt from ever occurring, and she wouldn't lie to him and tell him that there was nothing he could have done. They knew of his intent now, though, and they would do everything in their power to stop him in the future, which was the one thing they still had power to change.

"I'm glad you both came by," she said, giving them a close-lipped smile.

"Well, I guess that's it then, Nostariel?" He finished, turning to the girl on his arm.

The Warden nodded, returning Sophia’s smile. “And we’re always around if you need us,” she said firmly, “but we shouldn’t keep you from your duties. Do remember to take a break every now and then, though. Healer’s orders.”

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon

Earnings

0.00 INK

Two more days passed before Sophia worked up the required mix of courage, frustration, and nerve to go find Lucien herself. It had been another long day performing the majority of her father's duties, and so it was until after the city had grown somewhat dark that she was able to slip out of the Viscount's Keep. She'd considered wearing armor, but felt it was hardly necessary, or helpful, for the sort of danger she was going into anyway. This was the kind where the wounds could cut through her regardless of what she tried to protect herself with. Instead she chose a white blouse with sleeves rolled up to the elbows, a pair of dark blue belted trousers, and low-heeled leather boots. Her hair was bound as it had been a few days ago, tied together at the base of her neck, the ponytail resting forward on the right side of her chest.

She made good time to Lowtown, deciding to try the Hanged Man first, but after a search, she learned from a patron that the man she was seeking had already departed for home, and so it was there she went next, heading a little further into the district, the route she'd come to know rather well. She'd become quite comfortable working her way through Lowtown over the past few years, doing Maker-knows what with those she'd come to be so close to.

With measured breaths she made her way before Lucien's humble home and stood at the door. She wanted to remember how the beginning of her birthday night went, how it felt, but all she could seem to remember was how cold it had seemed after Lucien had convinced himself of his wrongness. They put on false faces for the crowd of nobles, but for the rest of the night, she'd felt like he was wearing one for her, too. No armor had a chance at stopping that.

She knocked gently on the door, not saying anything, mostly because she didn't trust her voice at the moment, but also because she was worried he wouldn't open.

For a man of Lucien’s size and dubiously-acquired tolerance, becoming intoxicated was rather a challenge. He’d never been one to back down from a challenge, and by the time he left the Hanged Man, he thought he’d probably succeeded. He wasn’t a complete fool—well, okay, that was a lie, he was a complete and utter fool—but regardless, he hadn’t taken himself under so badly that he could no longer think, speak, or walk properly, just enough that his thoughts detached from his emotions a bit and his vision fuzzed very slightly at the edges. Compared to the entirely self-imposed torment he’d been lingering in for the past almost-week, this was damn near pleasant.

He’d arrived home, and gotten halfway through unstrapping his armor before he abandoned the effort, piling the plates in a corner to deal with later. His attention had been drawn by the still mostly-blank canvas on the easel at the back of his room, and he’d ventured over there and stared hard at it for some indeterminate amount of time, his eye growing flinty-hard and the tension coiling again beneath his skin until he’d sighed and forced himself to relax, taking off the strip of fabric that covered his bad eye and trying again. He still saw nothing he could keep, and so he’d spent a half hour of constant activity moving it and the easel into the second bedroom of the house—shack, if that—where he kept the rest of his completed works. As though he’d ever been suited for it. The sketches and smaller bits on his walls, the faces of friends, architectural drawings of Kirkwall and an old rendering of home, followed, pressed neatly enough into a folded bit of heavy paper.

It left his walls bare of anything but the old coat of arms and his weapon rack, which at present he found far more fitting. Still in his chainmail (and why not? It wasn’t like he was ever comfortable without it anymore), he lit himself a fire, uncorked a bottle of wine his father had sent him, and slumped in one of his armchairs, moving the end table around so as to prop his feet on it, and stared with both eyes into the fire. The oddness of using each at the same time was further contemplated by the alcohol, and it seemed to vaguely shimmer in front of him. It might be interesting enough to keep him from thinking about much for a while, but he honestly doubted it. Tipping the wine into a glass—one of two, because he’d forgotten himself so much he’d grown used to having guests of all things—he set the bottle down and quaffed half the glass in one go. A shame, really. This was the good stuff, and he should be savoring it. Today wasn’t really a savoring day, however.

A knock sounded at the door, and he sighed, dragging a hand down his face. Who’d want to see him at this time of night? Doubtlessly, one of the people that considered him a friend, without knowing nearly enough about what that meant. Maybe he’d be as damned lucky as he always seemed to be, and it would be a business contact instead. Or an assassin. A fight would be nice. “It’s not locked,” he informed the person on the other end, his diction clear save for the slight predominance of his accent. “If you really want in, I’m not stopping you.” He stared at the glass in his hand for a moment, and muttered darkly into it. “Yet.”

Sophia was slightly scared by the reply, but pushed the door open all the same. She found Lucien sitting and staring into his fire, still drinking, although she'd heard from the patrons that he'd been at the Hanged Man earlier. She took a slow half step inside and stopped, quite suddenly forgetting why she was here, what she'd planned on saying first to him.

"... Lucien?" was all she ended up saying, and she felt stupid for it, like she'd opened her guard for a blow.

Well, that made it official. He was the unluckiest man under the blue sky of Thedas. He closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them again, he fixed them on Sophia, the look they conveyed easily-describable as stricken. Why did she have to be here now? He was trying not to think about how hard it was going to be to do what he felt he must, and then the predominant object of those thoughts he’d tried to escape for just one night showed up on his doorstep. Someone, somewhere in the universe, really despised him, indeed. He tried for a wan smile, but failed rather miserably and just sighed instead. “Unfortunately, yes,” he responded dryly, but then shook his head a bit.

“My apologies. My words were perhaps more brusque than they should have been. I'm not sure I'm in much of a state to be using them, this evening.” He had much more than that to apologize for—he just wasn’t sure he had the strength to do it tonight. And she’d probably come here because she had something to say, and he wasn’t quite rude enough to send her away before she’d said it, drunk or no. “Wine?” he offered. “It’s the first bottle my father’s sent me in a year. Apparently the family vineyards are doing quite well.” He sounded like he wasn’t quite sure if he wanted to sound bitter or nostalgic about that, so his tone occupied some nebulous in-between that wasn’t quite either.

The blow did not come, and so Sophia slid the door closed behind her, slowly moving forward to take a seat in the other armchair present. She certainly did not sink into it, and indeed, she was uncomfortable with how tense she was in Lucien's own home, where he'd first told her of his past in Orlais. The wine seemed like quite a good idea, and she accepted a glass, drinking slightly more deeply than normal, feeling a warmness rush through her. It was a pitiful imitation.

She felt like she was trying to carry something extremely fragile, while also precariously balancing on something. There was the issue she wanted to get around to, but she didn't think bluntness was wise right now. "I've recovered quite well from the poison. That's... probably your doing, in a way, since you brought Amalia." Well, that had felt stupid. She was obviously fine if she was making walks down into Lowtown and holding her father's court all day. She wanted to say something about her father, but the only thing that came to mind was that he was furious about the result of the night, and that he didn't want to hang up the painting yet.

In the end, the wine was probably enough to push her to the question. "Are you well, Lucien? I hadn't heard anything from you since the party. I was... worried." About too many things to go into detail on.

Lucien flinched. He should have been by to check on her long before this point. He’d wanted to, with an urgency that he’d channeled into irritation and mostly let off on bandits and a gang of raiders. They hadn’t been hard jobs to take, and even less to complete. He’d almost forgotten to ask them to surrender, and admittedly, he’d probably been a bit glad that they hadn’t. Whatever else he was or wasn’t, he was very good at killing things—too good at it, actually. That would probably never change. And it was exactly the thing he hated most about himself.

The question produced a mirthless smile. If he’d been in range of a mirror, it might have shocked him how much it echoed the one he’d seen many a time on his father’s face. He knew he was quite similar to the old man, and probably never more than at the moment. For once in his sodding life, he wanted to lie, but even when he tried to form the words, they caught in his throat, so instead he tipped back the rest of the wineglass to buy himself time and then filled it again. “I’m still alive. I’m always still alive, and that’s really the problem, isn’t it?” The last part of the sentence was murmured, and mostly to himself, but it was heavy with guilt.

It wasn’t that he wanted to die or anything—he’d never been suicidal. He just… the things he’d done, he shouldn’t still be alive. Something along the way should have killed him, but nothing ever had. He stared morosely at the deep red liquid in the glass. Red like her dress, like her blood. Red like a chevalier’s armor. It was an unpleasant thought, and he suddenly rather wished he’d requested this year’s white instead.

"I... don't understand," Sophia said truly. He was pained, she could see it clearly, and it seemed like he was just doing it to himself. It was as frustrating as anything she'd ever felt. Did he know that when he struck himself, that others took the blow as well? Of course he did. So then, he thought to avoid her entirely? Make her no longer care, so that he could dwindle away in peace, without hurting anyone? It was far, far too late for that now, whether he liked it or not. Years too late.

"Can you please just talk to me?" she asked. "I can't help if I don't know what's wrong. And I will help. You've known me long enough to know that." She didn't understand what had changed, and that was killing her. Everything had been going so well, she'd finally thought she'd been breaking through to him somewhat, and then suddenly he completely shuts everyone and everything out. Why? Because he overstepped himself? Because he had finally cared, beyond just doing what was right?

“I am afraid that that is precisely the problem, Sophia,” he said softly. Emptying the glass again, he set it down this time and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, his posture unusually slumped over. “You will help, and then I will inevitably do something stupid, and you will suffer for it. It might even kill you, and I couldn’t…” he trailed off, clearing his throat uncomfortably. Maybe if he just laid it out, she would understand. The chances weren’t great, because he knew what kind of person she was, and she was likely to argue, but at least it would make his reasons for his recent behavior clear. He couldn’t bear the thought of being thought just a cold, unfeeling person without regard for others. Especially not by her.

“You’ve seen the way I live. I expect you understand that it presents me with a number of difficulties. I tell no lies to men who want me dead, I give no platitudes to institutions I do not trust. I am a man with more enemies than I know how to count, and I was thus before I’d even properly earned them. I am, as more than one friend has been kind enough to tell me, a sodding idiot, if you’ll forgive the language for proper quotation. But I’m still alive.” He glanced down at his hands, lacing his fingers before seeming to think better of it and pressing the tips together instead. “That’s not to say that what I do has never produced negative consequences. They are just rarely ever mine to bear.”

He swallowed thickly. “I find, in fact, that it is the people around me who suffer for my honor, my kindnesses. People believe in me—not my ideas, or anything abstract like that, but me, and then they die, or lose everything that made their lives worthwhile. My mother was killed by poison meant for me. I told you already that two of my friends died for following me in my insubordination, because I asked them to. I did not tell you that one of them had been my best friend since childhood and my most ardent supporter, nor that the other one was one of the women who taught me to fight when my father gave up on the effort. I told you that Rilien tried to assassinate me. What I didn’t tell you was that he testified at my trial, confessing that he was a Bard and naming the man who’d hired him, because I asked him to. And that brought him nothing but his own trial and a death sentence. He can no longer set foot in the country to which he was born and raised, because any citizen therein is authorized and encouraged to kill him on sight. And that’s my fault.

When people believe in me or help me or trust me, rather than simply asking things of me, they suffer for it. What happened at your party reminded me of one thing and taught me another: it reminded me that my interference is not good for people, and it taught me that I am not willing to expose you to those consequences. I was entirely useless to help you, despite that being my reason for attending in the first place. I don’t… I can’t…”
the stream of words died, leaving only the unfortunate taste of guilt in his mouth. His father had taught him that leaders had to be willing to make sacrifices, give up the lives of those they led. His life had taught him that he couldn’t be a leader, if that was what it took.

Now she wondered if she ever really wanted to hear it in the first place. Now that he'd opened everything to her, she wondered if it would have been easier to think of him as cold and closed off, impossible to reach. But she'd finally reached him, only to find that the truth was, as she should have expected, more painful than the unknown. That he'd closed himself off to protect her. In that case... he was a fool to open himself up in the first place, wasn't he?

"So what do you intend to do?" she asked. "Act like nothing in the past year happened? Ask me to try and pretend like you're just one of my future subjects, capable of only serving me? Are you going to leave?" She was dreading the last one, that he would decide it was best if he left entirely, went far, far away, somewhere where his enemies reaching him wouldn't have consequences for those he cared for.

"You know it's too late, right?" she asked, finding a little bit of fire where she'd thought there was none. She'd seen it in her mother's eyes for the first time when Lucien had painted her, and she knew that this was what she would do. Pursue what she felt. Let the consequences come. Fight them off. Maybe she would die for it, but she would not let fear of pain prevent her from living how she wanted. She would not let her circumstances, and his circumstances, drag them into the dirt and convince them to be miserable just so they could live. Neither of them could change who they were, or what they felt. If they had to suffer for that, so be it.

"Maybe you never should have opened up to me, never should have helped me when I was doubting. Maybe the things I should ask of you should always be the kind where we risk our lives. Maybe I should just let you go, so that you can suffer the consequences of your goodness on your own, without letting anyone share your burden because they care for you." She was certain all of those things would make it easier on the both of them, but both of them had been brought up to believe that the easy thing was not always the right thing. Sophia could not let him suffer alone just because of who he was.

"Maybe you are a sodding idiot, but I want you to be my sodding idiot."

Lucien was silent for a long while after that, clearly contemplating what she’d said. Leaving probably would be for the best, but it would be far from easy. He’d made friends here, and a life, but he wondered yet if they were enough to keep him from uprooting himself and departing when the time came. He’d proven to himself that he was more than capable of living a life on the road, with no roots at all. He could be as transient as the wind itself if he wanted—the challenge would be in the initial departure. Before, he hadn’t had a choice. Now, well, he wasn’t sure he had one, but it felt as though he should.

Frankly, he’d been expecting more or less half of what she’d said. A friend had told him something similar, once, and it had assuaged his guilt for a while. But as he’d learned quite recently, it had failed to heal those wounds over entirely, and this city seemed to be tearing them open afresh. Or maybe it was just him. He liked having friends, people who knew more of him than a name and a job, and he’d thought that here might be different, that it might be all right to keep them. And in truth, he still desired to believe that it was possible, that he might be a stronger person, a wiser one, than he had been back then. But the temptation to remove himself would always be present, and he honestly didn’t know if ever he would succumb to it.

Taking a deep breath, he met her eyes. “Maybe…” he replied, “I already am.” She was right—in a way. If he’d wanted to prevent this, these were things he should have realized a number of years ago, not just now. And he doubted that any of his friends would be so willing to pretend those bonds hadn’t been formed. Maybe the solution was to put down more roots, or, more aptly, take on a few more chains, tether himself here so he need not fear leaving. It felt a little too simple, and he knew it would not be an easy thing to do. But it would be no harder than leaving her behind. “I’m not… I lack certainty about what is right here, Sophia, and I can’t promise that I’ll never second-guess myself, especially not at first. If I am to stay, there are a number of things I’ll have to figure out before I’ll feel that the choice was rightly-made. I still don’t want to risk any more than I absolutely must.”

Plans, hasty but gaining solidity, sketched themselves before him in his mind, and he nodded slowly. “I… ask that you be patient with me. I can’t change who I am overnight, and these things will perhaps always worry me. But I will try to overcome them. And I will try to remember that I am surrounded with the best of people, and some of the most capable I’ve ever met. If I should forget… I’d ask that you remind me.” He smiled, and this time, it was genuine again, if small. Perhaps it wasn’t simply a matter of risk their lives or leave them. Maybe he just needed to work harder to protect them, call on parts of himself that he hadn’t seen the need for since he left Orlais. “I can’t promise that tomorrow, things will be as they were. But I can promise that I will get there again, however long it takes.”

Sophia smiled at him, hers a little bigger than his. It wasn't the overwhelming feeling she'd wanted, the one she'd dreamed of, but she was beginning to think that wasn't something that was real. The real joy was something that had to be worked towards, each and every day, together, and he was willing to attempt it with her. It would be a long, hard road, and they would struggle, but they would struggle no matter which road they took in life, because people like them were incapable of making things easy on themselves. The important part was that they used the strengths of each other to bolster their own when they were feeling weak. Sophia was happy beyond words that she could help him see that tonight.

"Of course," she said. "Take however long you need, Lucien. I'm not going anywhere." And neither was he. The thought widened her smile.

She always got them to see her way in the end.

Setting

4 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel

Earnings

0.00 INK



Sparrow exhaled sharply through her nose, mussing up her fingers through thick snowy locks. She was on her way to the Alienage, seeking out Ithilian and Aurora. She'd included Rilien, as well. It seemed foolish to hide anything from him, though he didn't seem overly bothered that she hadn't immediately come to him in the first place, which was strangely relieving. She'd also told him about her run-in with Rapture on the Wounded Coast, and what had happened with Sophia and her fellow guardsmen. Tearfully, regretfully. In the means of sulking in the corner of their home, knees drawn up to her chest. Initially, she'd wanted to lie to him, tell him that nothing at all happened in the hills, but he'd had that look in his eyes. An all-knowing speculation full of patience, understanding and tolerance that always left Sparrow bewildered. She remembered, shamefully, how her fever-head ached and how her throat felt as if it'd been stuffed with cotton, hollow-framed and solemn once more. He did not question her foolishness, only sat quietly by her side.

Now, they were two riff-raff denizens who the Templars would gladly drag back down to the Circle if caught or found. Her, perhaps, more so for what she'd done. She would have been considered a runaway apostate, a malificarum, and demon. Already, she'd spotted freshly inked, crisp posters with her description plastered against wooden doorways. The Hanged Man's barkeep had tactfully ripped them down, offering her homage in the backrooms should she need somewhere to clear her head. Varric, too, was keeping his mouth shut when it came to her whereabouts, deftly sending inquisitors in the wrong direction. She was thankful, but her guilt was beginning to eat her up, gnawing at her insides like incessant rats. Her frequent bouts of silence betrayed her doubt. Each time she unfolded the letter, already fraying at the corners from fiddling with it so much, Sparrow remembered. Vivid snapshots of just how little control she'd had over herself, like smears on a glass frame.

Her ship was bound to be shipwrecked, smashed up against the rocks. It was a matter of time, she'd said. Rilien disagreed. He would not allow it. And Sparrow believed him wholeheartedly, bellying a reliance that she could not entirely understand or accept. But, if the time came, she refused to drown everyone with her. Pulling them to the depths would be the end of her. It was enough that she'd entirely ruined her relationship with Sophia. Dallying anywhere near the Viscount's quarters was out of the question. Redemption, in Sophia's eyes, would only come in the form of slinking into the Gallows, offering herself up for whatever punishment they'd hand down to her. Would her death be enough? Perhaps. Her freedom and life were important. She could not offer either, even as an apology to someone she considered her friend. She understood, best of all, that Sophia's reaction was justified. She understood that no amount of explaining would change her mind. Weaknesses were weaknesses. Those who did not entirely make sense of magic could never possibly sympathize.

She was not an apostate, nor a mage, nor born with anything she ever needed to hide.

Sparrow's fingers tangled for a moment before she dropped them back to her sides, busying themselves with her leather satchel. She wanted to make sure she had everything she needed. This was a hunt, in all technicalities. She'd been up early, pacing back and forth like a perturbed kitten—because, she was terrified and angry and afraid of facing them again. Everything in her body screamed that she wanted to get this done and that it would have some positive effect on her life. It did not, however, stop her from rattling on to her companion, trying to will some of the Tranquil's unruffled calm into herself. It was impossible. Fearful crackles of adrenaline coursed down her spine, readying herself for something that was to come. Perhaps, today, or tomorrow, depending on if Ithilian could find them as easily as she believed he could. “What if they've heard word and left already?” She seethed, arms crossed. “No, no, they wouldn't.”

Once they entered the Alienage, Sparrow pulled out the letter from her small space of her breastplate, reaching over the lip. She wore it, more often than not, in Kirkwall—for who could recognize her if she was wearing an iron visor, plopped down to obscure her face? Her armour concealed her gender, as well. Though, with Kirkwall's blistering heat, it was difficult not to feel as if she were boiling up in a tin can, or an open soup-pot. She spotted Ithilian and Aurora across the way, and threw her arm out in a wide wave, letter held aloft. “Yo-ho!” The half-elf greeted, bumping Rilien's elbow with her own as if to get them moving along quicker. “I've good news, I hope. Er, rather. A better idea of their whereabouts.” In long strides, Sparrow halted in front of Ithilian and dropped the letter in his lap, staring expectantly. It had their names written in it, but the locations were generalized. She was no good with riddles.

Rilien had watched her eat herself from the inside out for a number of days, but it had finally reached the point where he’d simply appeared in front of her pacing form one evening and pointed to the sofa in their shared living space. She’d sat, with great reluctance, and then he’d sat beside her, close enough to brush her leg with his, because as much as he hated the feeling of freezing and drowning again when it was all over, she needed someone to feel with her, for her, and even his logic had informed him of this conclusion. He knew the story—what about her life did he not know? He had contacts, ears to the ground, scruffy little children he paid handsomely to listen, beggars and thieves to sneak into shadowed corners and earn their keep doing less dangerous things than begging and thieving.

The thing had made an appearance on the Wounded Coast, and taken its first innocent (or relatively innocent—Rilien was not fool enough to assign that adjective fully to anyone in this forsaken place) victim. In front of the Viscount’s daughter, known to have sympathies in the general direction of the Chantry and the Templars. The eventual description, the story in its fullest form, had not, however, issued from her, but a guard who had been half-delirious at the time, and given only the vaguest, most confused of descriptions. Rilien used his network, and some of the members of Varric’s, to further muddle the story, until some versions of the demon were twelve-foot-tall monstrosities with sickly green skin. Certainly not something anyone would find near Sparrow.

But these—subtle misdirections and delicately-spun lies—were not what Sparrow had needed then, and she also did not need to know that he understood just as much of it as she did. Perhaps more. So instead, he listened wordlessly as she relayed the tale, and he felt. Predominant was a hot rage at the thing, though there was some irritation at Sparrow for using her magic in front of Sophia Dumar in the first place. He was also… moved. Sympathy was not something he’d often known before, but he couldn’t think to call it by any other name. Sitting there had also reminded him of how tired he was. The first stage of brewing the potion that he required to fix this had started about a week ago, and he was searching for the key ingredient in the meantime. There were a couple of potential sites near Kirkwall, but he needed to survey them from a closer location to discern if there was enough magic in any of them to potentially contain what he was looking for. The Tranquil was, to put it another way, not sleeping very much anymore.

Still, as he accompanied her to the Alienage, there was no tell of it save the soft bruising under his eyes, mostly covered with some alchemical concoction or another. The heat of summer drew near, but if the sun beating down on his white head bothered him at all, Rilien made no sign of it. He ignored the urge to twitch when her elbow knocked his—she had a tendency to forget what even such incidental things caused—and he did not quicken his footsteps visibly, but kept pace all the same, all the way to the great tree in the middle of the place.

He recognized both of the people beneath it, though he would not have expected either to be involved had Sparrow not told him that they were. He said nothing. He was here to kill whatever needed killing; the talking could be left to those more disposed to it.

Ithilian had been in the middle of his first conversation with Aurora in which he hadn't been actively trying to remove her from the Alienage. It was a rather frightening thing to witness, but at least it had been she who had approached him, while he'd sat playing the flute near the vhenadahl. Conversations with Amalia were still... a little tense, so he'd been giving her a good deal of space for the most part, but at the moment she was not present in the Alienage.

The conversation, mostly one-sided as it had been, was interrupted when Sparrow returned to the Alienage, this time with a folded paper in hand, and a Tranquil in tow. He hadn't expected her to disappear forever, certainly. As someone who fully understood the idea of vengeance, Ithilian knew just how powerful it could be. She would not simply stop because of difficulties, of course, not if these men had wronged her as she implied. He would have sought their deaths, certainly.

Ithilian glanced at the letter she'd plopped into his lap, before cracking it open, his eyes darting across the contents. "... A request for an unspecified shipment of six units, to be delivered to 'the seventh, below the west chain.' The exchange is to be this evening. Signed, Arcadius Kassim and Silian Raunthil." He knew the forest well enough, but that didn't sound a forest location. He shrugged, looking up at the pair, glancing once at Aurora. "Location sound familiar to any of you?"

She watched Ithilian expectantly, nearly echoing the same words under her breath. Her lips made to move, before clamping shut. Maker knew she'd read the damn thing into oblivion, memorizing every word under hazy lamplight, and pausing every time her eyes roved over their names. She whispered them like curses, willing death and justice and pain upon them. Silianand Arcadius—they could not give her innocence back. Their price would be death, in whatever way she could make worse. They did not deserve mercy, nor would she grant them quick deaths. She doubted that Ithilian would have anything to say to the idea of drawing out their deaths, but she did not think Aurora would think it right. She shrugged her shoulders, eyeing the sky as if to conjured up the location in her mind. The seventh, below the west chain? What the hell did that mean?

Aurora chewed her lip for a moment running the description through her mind. It was certainly cryptic, but unsurpising considering who it had signed it. However, she was quick one and thinking about it logically should reveal the answer. "No, but it sounds like it has to be somewhere in the city," She began. Certainly not in the forest as she was expecting to head first. The shipment though, the fact that something was being shipped meant something. "If a shipment is being delivered, then perhaps... The docks?" she asked. It'd be a lot easier to smuggle something out by boat than by cart. "The seventh pier maybe?" She offered. "Underneath the western boom chain," Rilien finished, "I know where that is."

"Then there's a meeting to be interrupted, and scum to be killed," Ithilian said. Really, he felt rather good about this now. Perhaps he was trying to live without needless hate now, with his eyes open, but this wasn't needless, and sinking blades into the flesh of the lowest of individuals was something that he had always found rewarding. Aurora turned her nose up, but said nothing. Killing still sat ill with her, but this was not her choice. Ithilian was right, in any case. They were scum, and if not dealt with would only continue to do what they did.

Bolstered by Rilien's composed presence, shadowing her movements like her thick-plated armour, Sparrow felt as if she could carry this thing out. She did not need her companion to say a word. Her nervousness ebbed and flowed in turbulent waves, retreating a little further each time. He, as well as her like-minded acquaintance and generous mage-friend, would help her see this through. Honestly, she couldn't say enough to thank them. Words could do no justice. Actions would prove just how much she was indebted to them—and should they refuse her future attempts to pay them back, Sparrow would stubbornly persist until they took back all of their rebuffs and reluctantly accepted whatever help she had in mind. Her dogged determination would win, in the end.

The lack of animosity between her temporary hunting-partners was welcome, indeed. Had there been anything between them, Sparrow might not have noticed, anyway. From her harried, and often blurry recollection, nothing bad had happened between Aurora and Rilien (though he probably wouldn't have told her if something had), and she wasn't exactly sure if Rilien and Ithilian had even spoken more than a few words to each other, if any at all. Either way, everyone seemed rather content, if not entirely nonplussed by the company they stood in. Sparrow was pleased. She offered Rilien a half-smile, smoothing her hands across her chest-plate. Hopefully, nothing would go wrong and they could be done with this quickly. Though, not too quickly. As much as she wanted to be relieved of the heaviness weighing on her shoulders, Sparrow wanted them to suffer as much as she had suffered. It was a selfish thing to want, and perhaps a little cruel. But, it was not a feeling she could readily dismiss.

Sparrow instinctively peered across the Alienage, through the great tree's foliage, in the vague hopes of spotting her once-friend. It might have been true that she hadn't sought her out for this particular mission, but she still wanted her to know that she was finally burying important parts of her past. That, finally, some of her hurts might be put to rest. And, finally, that she might be allowed to stop running. She would be allowed to rest, finally. The aching bitterness consumed her; it was an ugly, crushing feeling that she believed she shared with Ithilian. It swallowed every particle, deep down into her core. Painted things she'd once seen as beautiful into a horrifically abstract canvas, splattered with things she'd rather forget. She felt it was her right to hunt them down, and make them pay, dearly, for everything they'd done. Surely, she hadn't been the only one.

“The docks,” Sparrow repeated, clapping a fist into her palm. “Makes sense, if no one's spotted them anywhere else.” Hiding like bilge rats, scampering over the wooden decks of a ship. It made her sick how they could have been so close to her, and her being completely unaware of their whereabouts. How long had they been drifting in and out of Kirkwall? How long had they been living in the same city? An involuntary shiver pebbled her spine and forearms, hidden beneath her sweltry iron plates. When Rilien conceded knowledge of the riddle-place in the letter, Sparrow turned towards him and nodded vigorously, wooden and jittery with something. Not quite excited and not quite terrified. “Lead on, then. I can discuss some things on the way.”

Namely, how they fought, how they weaselled around the battlefield. It was true that they might've changed, but she would always remember how they'd faced the band of Qunari. They were dirty fighters, and rather good. If not for the Qunari's numbers, and the mercenaries' genuine surprise, it might not have gone in her favour. “Arcadius looks a tad like Lucien. You'll likely recognize him first. He uses a long blade, curved slightly and he's quick. And Silian, I've seen him use magic. Dirty magic—blood, I think. He could move corpses. Neither will fight fair, but it's to be expected. Scum fight like scum.” She felt foolish for warning them, but they needed to be prepared either way.

Ithilian silently took in the warnings, and nodded. The mage would likely not be his business, if he could help it. He could shoot him down from afar, or sink blades into his flesh, but he knew not how to defend against magic other than to get the hell out of the way. Perhaps Aurora would be more willing to handle him. As for this Arcadius, Ithilian could cross blades with him, but if this was Sparrow's vengeance, undoubtedly Sparrow had something in mind. More importantly, it was her vengeance, and as such it should be her to claim it, if she truly desired to when the time came upon her. If she decided against it, he'd be more than happy to slice under their throats, but he knew nothing of these men other than what he'd been told. They would undoubtedly bring assistance, if they were not fools. Ithilian would be more than capable of handling these, when the fight came.

It seemed… wrong, that a man like that should wear a face like Lucien’s. Then again, Rilien was probably more nonplussed by something Rapture had told him once: that she was overlaying the face of a tormentor on his, trying to make Sparrow believe that he was one of them. He assumed it much be the blood mage, for attempting to force his structure to mimic that of his chevalier ally was quite like attempting to make a circle into a square. It didn’t matter, he told himself, they were going to die anyway. He was not overly concerned with who did what damage to which, but he would accept instruction, if Sparrow gave it. Even if part of him wanted to gut the one that was supposed to be a bit like him. Just to prove that it wasn’t. She had told him to lead on, so he did, padding up the Alienage steps on silent feet. Whatever awaited them, it would soon be theirs to deal with.

Setting

4 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel

Earnings

0.00 INK

Sparrow followed Rilien, with her companions, through the dusky city, occasionally glancing at the Gallows sitting on the horizon, looming like a foreboding giant. Twisted statues, immense gates and ever-vigilant Templars watching like slavering shrikes. She wondered if it'd been done on purpose, building the archways in such a way that they'd be visible from all angles and levels of Kirkwall. If it wasn't for its grisly history, she might have thought it looked impressive. A castle in its own rights, barring away all signs of hope and freedom. It reminded her of Sophia. Certainly, not the brutality. But, the sense of justice that wafted down in waves. The docks came quickly, billowing the scent of rotten fish, sweaty bodies and who-knows-what-else. It was fetid, filled with bilge from the docked ships and whatever else Kirkwall felt free to dump here. Trash, old garbage, dead fish, dead people. She still enjoyed hanging around the sailors, opening up caskets filled with aged rum and clanking wooden cups together to celebrate another long haul she hadn't been present to enjoy—but, they still shared with her because she sang for them and made them laugh.

There would be no laughing on this occasion, and she hoped she didn't see anyone she recognized. Sparrow adjusted the straps of her chest plate, rearranged the weight distribution. Tightened and loosened the straps, fiddled with the fastenings. She was not as silent as Ithilian, nor Rilien. Her footsteps were clattering things, iron slapping against broken cobblestones. She kicked up pebbles until they skirted off the edge, plopped in the briny water. All clenched knuckles, mace-handed and frustratingly tense, Sparrow wondered if her companions, her hunting partners, were any amount of nervous she was. It didn't seem likely. Courage was a difficult thing to conjure. Every step closer seemed like a tangible thing that was making her shrink backwards, becoming younger and younger. More vulnerable, with fragmented bones, bruised lips and clouded lungs. Resisting the innate urge to step closer to Rilien, Sparrow removed her helmet and tucked it under her armpit. She wanted them to recognize her. She wanted them to know who was seeking their end.

She did not ask whether or not they were close. Exchanging a look with Rilien revealed that they were nearly there, rounding another corner until they descended a grimy set of staircases. It was surprisingly out of the way—and she wondered whether or not she even knew of this location's existence. No, she'd never been here. If she had... perhaps, she would have managed to kill them long ago. Sparrow chewed her lip, descending the last step. The metal plates of her amour, creaking at the joints, seemed to gain the attention of a few sailors. Sifting through wooden boxes on the decks of a discernibly large ship, hardly lifting their heads to identify who was making such a goddamn racket. The larger buildings and lower docking created a makeshift grotto, hiding it from view unless you tallied down the fishy stairwell. Few and far in-between, exempting Rilien, were willing to drift too far from the main docks, and for good reason, unless they wanted all of their coin pinched from their pockets.

Worse yet, being thrown into the water for trespassing on shady transactions. Sparrow squinted her dark eyes, noting oddly-shaped boxes at the end of the docks, slightly larger than the others, with rusty bars and emaciated forms hunkered in the middle. Her mouth went dry, and her breath hitched. Slaves—elves, humans. The closest sailor waved his hand at them, clearly confused as to why they were here. His crooked teeth flashed, pulling back into an ugly grimace. “Oi', bugger off.” The second sailor, long-haired and unkempt, clapped him on the back and whispered something into his ear. The exchange only lasted a moment. Crooked-teeth regarded them once more, eyes trailing to the human girl. “Eh, less 'ave got business, innit?Three elves. It seemed peculiar that a woman would be leading unchained (and armed) slaves to the docks, where they'd been waiting for another shipment.

But, Fell Orden had told them that Little Sophie was a fiery lass.

If Rilien had been asked, he would have advised a much stealthier approach, for himself and the Dalish hunter if nobody else. The less their enemies knew of them, the better, but he was not asked, and Sparrow was not subtle, so in the open they all remained, conspicuous as that made them. Some of the men down on this dock knew him by sight, but these were none of them. He had no business in flesh, nor with those who traded in it. He may spare few thoughts to morality and suchlike, but even he was not cruel enough to bind someone in chains and sell them like one would a chicken or a goat.

He studied the arrangement of the gazes, reading from the motion of eyes what these men thought of their arrival. Though he walked slightly to the front, most looked at Aurora, the only human in the group, then the other three, then back to the redheaded mage. Rilien adjusted his gait slightly so as to fall into step beside her. “They assume that you are in charge,” he told her, curiously without seeming to move his lips at all. His voice was pitched low enough to be only audible to the three nearest him, so effectively, nobody else would know he'd said anything at all. “If you can act it, we may be able to sight our true targets before the killing begins.” He did not desire that they should wade their way through a small sea of blood and allow the actual intended recipients of Sparrow’s vengeance to escape in the meantime. A slaver was almost always a coward, and a coward would not remain after witnessing what damage such a small group was capable of inflicting.

It was likely not possible for Ithilian to appear as a slave, or to even get him to attempt to. He too would have preferred a more subtle approach, at least to open up the conflict, as his longbow and quiver of arrows were currently feeling suspiciously like unnecessary weight behind him. His right hand rested on one of his blades, the left itching to pull Parshaara and teach these slavers what agony felt like. He preferred a bloody fight to something quick and clean, especially against types like these, but it would have been ideal to at least start the fight with the upper hand. But, perhaps it could still be done.

The Tranquil's words reached his ears, and he frowned. Drawing them out could be difficult, if they were the cowardly type. Surely Aurora would have some experience with putting on a false face, if she had survived as an apostate for this long, but assuming the identity of a slaver was no easy task. Explaining why she was flanked by three armed and armored elves (or two and a half, perhaps) was even more difficult. Honestly, Ithilian had little expectation for the fight to be put off for long, but he was certainly willing to give it a shot. It would be a waste if they came here and spilled all this blood, and never found the particular pair of throats she was looking to slit.

Well, not that much of a waste. Killing any of these men would be a good use of his time.

What? He thought she was in charge? She was by far the smallest and most unarmed (to the naked eye) one among them, and she was the one in charge? Not only were the business they were in deplorable, but they were dumb as rocks too. Aurora had her head tilted when Rilien spoke to her, to which she rolled her eyes. If they believed that she was in charge, then everything else should be simple. "Fine," she said, less than enthused. Like or not, it was probably all going to end the same. In blood and destruction. At least this way they could see who they need to kill before things got inevitably violent.

It was hard enough to understand the slack-jaw with his lip in the way, and it caused her to issue a loud, exaggerated sigh. "Yes, yes, business. Glad to know that you can see," Aurora began, taking on an aloof tone. Truth be told, it wasn't that hard, "Now, am I to believe that I have to do this business with you? Or are you gonna go get your boss for me before I leave? I doubt he'll be happy, considering." Aurora crossed her arms and nodded to her three companions. As far as elves go, they didn't get much more healthy and interesting as those three.

Crook-teeth squinted at her, beady eyes roving down her shirt-front until he seemed to remember himself. He clicked his tongue and shrugged his shoulders, leaning heavily over the wooden railing to better inspect the three armed elves flanking her heels—slave-guardians, perhaps? Ambitious owners had been known to teach their slaves to kill for them, but three seemed like overkill. Especially for a woman who was said to have been able to hold her own against much larger men. Fell Orden's claims may have been embellished. He certainly did not know what she looked like, either. The silence grew between them, prickly and uncomfortable, until Little Sophie stepped ahead of her slaves and told them, quite clearly, that they'd better fetch their captains or they wouldn't be too happy with their inactivity. He chuckled awkwardly, flapping his hand at his companion to go bloody well fetch them.

Oi, oi. Missus, they be comin' alright.” Crook-teeth drawled, bobbing his head back and forth. He hawked harshly and spat into the briny waters, eyeing Ithilian and Rilien. They might'en reward him for his diligence, too. They were a little early, but they never knew when to expect shipments these days. It was getting more and more difficult to shepherd them through Kirkwall without being seen—and the vagrant clans were getting wise to their schemes, hiding away their children like angry, circle-forming buffalos. His cheeky grin displayed piano-key teeth, pulled into something that he might have thought was coquettish, but only appeared lewd and vulgar. “Dressed mighty nice fer' dirty knife-ears, I say, messere Sophie. Look healthy, too. Dona' skimp on meals, get my saying—

Sparrow seemed petrified in place, hardly moving from Aurora's side. Fear charged through her veins like a wild chariot, rearing its head only long enough for her to feel like she was shrinking backwards or being pulled between the slats of wood beneath their feet. It was unreasonable, and alarmingly stupid. She'd been waiting for this moment for ages. Every cutthroat, bloodthirsty thought had been cultivated in her dreams. She had been adamant, desperate for them to understand. The passion in the few short sentences she'd first uttered to Ithilian seemed foolish now. All of her doubts pricked numbing talons into her shoulder blades, bellying a gutlessness she could not comprehend. Her mouth went dry, for she knew not what to say to these dirty, disgusting wretches. Everything in her body urged her to simply do away with them and recklessly tromp through the ship until they found them—though, that plan was as unwise as simply walking down into this hidden harbour (which had also been her idea).

Thankfully, Rilien leaned into Aurora, quietly suggesting that she'd better take the reins and impersonate whomever they believed she was. The stagnant feeling in her stomach abated, if only a little. The tight knots wringing braids with her innards loosened. She wasn't required to do anything but stand there, masquerading as a slave. As long as she kept her mouth promptly closed, they wouldn't have any trouble right away. It was difficult enough while emaciated forms crooked forward like weeping willows, fingers wrung around the bars, and shallow faces watching them as they conversed with their captors. She felt ill. The temperature felt as if it'd dropped dramatically. Her flattened ears picked up advancing sounds of someone climbing wooden stairs. Thok, thok, thok.

Sparrow recognized him immediately, gracefully stepping onto the deck. He wore thick boots, loudly clopping as he strode over to the railing to join the ugly sailor. He nearly floated. Thick ringlets fell across his forehead, contouring cloudy eyes, awfully amused by their appearance. The expression faltered completely when he looked down at them—and Silian whipped towards Crook-teeth, scowling fiercely. “Idiot! That isn't Sophie. Get Arcadius, now. Send the boys up, as well.” He nearly slapped his head as Crook-teeth scampered away from him, as if he'd been struck. Like an exasperated mother who'd caught her children in the cookie jar, Silian turned towards them and combed slender fingers through his hair. He looked sallower then before, obviously having lost weight with age. “Tch. We were expecting a group of much more vulnerable... I see neither Fell, nor Victor here. But, instead, a lofty group of elves with a woman. Armed to the teeth, no less. Now, if you're adventurers, I'd suggest moving on your way. Forget you've seen this, or I may rip out your skull and beat you with it.

The threat flew straight over her head. Sparrow cradled her discomfort, willed it to disappear. So, Arcadius was here, as well. Cotton lungs clenched. Her lip trembled, but she still managed to sputter, “You.” The mace was in her hand, though she had no recollection of reaching for it, white-knuckled and at the ready. Drums barrelled through her head, drowning out the sound of the tide slapping against the pier. Sailors were already stomping back onto the deck—armed with shiny blades still stained with blood.

Silian swung his lidded gaze onto her, eyebrows knitting. There was a tense moment of silence, before he laughed sharply, twisting the staff from his back and tapping it across the railing. “Me. And who are you?

Perhaps, that was worse.

It did look a little bit like him. Rilien was not vain, despite was his appearance might suggest, and on a clinical level, he understood that it would not have been terribly difficult for a demon to make him look like this man—their hair shared a hue, their faces a fine-boned angularity. They were even of a height. Something twinged distantly in the back of his mind, a feeling of disgust, he thought. It took no more than the space of a blink after Silian had finished talking for Rilien to dart forward, drawing his enchanted knives from the sheaths on his back. The sailors were slower to react to the sudden burst of violent action than they should have been, but someone else could take advantage of that if they wished—he had only one target in mind.

Sparrow was clearly not in the right state of mind for this, but she would never forgive herself if these two men got away. He would make sure she did not have to fight that battle with her own mind, and trust that she would come around in enough time to do what she was really here to do. Ducking and weaving around sailors hastily-drawing their weapons, the Tranquil sprinted up the gangplank, throwing himself to the side in just enough time to avoid a burst of flame from the mage atop the deck, rolling back to his feet undaunted and leaping forward.

Silian’s own reflexes spared him from being unceremoniously skewered, and he took only a slice to the outside of his arm for the trouble. Taking no time to lament the loss of the clean kill, Rilien decided to settle for the dirty one. Lacking much of a conscience, he was not at all concerned by the thought of inflicting pain on this man, however unnecessary.

The mage, though, only smiled, as if the Tranquil had done him some great favor, and Rilien’s sixth sense lit up with a very different kind of magic—insidious and creeping, as though it lingered under their skins and threatened to sever everything from within. The dripping line of blood on the bandit’s arm rose into the air, and he hooked his fingers, driving it at the elf like a lash. Dropping into a crouch, the intended target ignored the crack overhead as it snapped, whiplike, into the space he’d just occupied, and pressed forward, hooking his right-hand blade out in an attempt to hamstring the man, who just laughed when it instead met a wall of hardened red, blocking access to the spot at which he’d been aiming. His control was formidable, and Rilien knew this would not be a simple matter of a few hits.

Ithilian liked the Tranquil's initiative. He'd been wondering if seeing one of the two targets would be an acceptable time to begin, but Sparrow herself seemed to be in no clear head to be making these decisions. Rilien, on the other hand, had just decided for them all that the battle was to begin, which Ithilian really had no problems with. Arcadius was supposedly on his way, and it would be easier to kill them in groups rather than all at once.

Leaving the blood mage to the Tranquil, Ithilian drew his blades and darted forward after the other elf did so. He didn't think starting a fire here would be wise, and so Parshaara remained in its sheath. The surprise of seeing Rilien simply charge into battle with one of their leaders was enough of a distraction for Ithilian to get his first kill free, by plunging his right hand blade through the belly of the nearest slaver up to the hilt, before raising a shoe to the man's chest and kicking him off of it, to fall backwards into the water with a heavy splash.

The second one came at him from the right, swiping quickly with a small hand axe that Ithilian sidestepped left out of the way of, flipping his right hand blade over in his hand. He stepped forward and plunged down, stabbing the short sword into the back of the man's knee, a light pop accompanying the sound of splitting flesh as the blade punched out of the kneecap, and the slaver went down to a knee in agony. He ripped the blade free and spun, flipping the sword back over in his hand and landing a clean, swift slice at the base of the slaver's neck, the weapon cutting clean through and shortening him by a head.

Really, Aurora would love to see the man try to beat her with her own skull. She was not impressed by the boast, and even less so when he revealed his control of blood magic. In fact, Aurora seemed a mite bit disappointed, going so far as to tiredly sigh. "It's always blood magic. This is why we get sent to the circle," Aurora monotoned, seeming less willing to plunge headlong into the fray. Blood magic, she had yet to meet a mage outside the circle who either didn't practice the art, or didn't want to kill them. Most of the time, it was both. Funny, the ones who turned to blood magic were always the weaker willed ones, who believed it would give them strength. It was a topic for thought, but for later, she was there to help, and help she would. Seeing how she was the least imposing member of their elven band, it left it with very few glances in her direction. Why would they, when the tranquil and dalish were right in the middle of showing off their own brand of ferocity?

She gave Sparrow one last glance before walking into the fray. Most of the commotion was centered on both Rilien and Ithilian, so it was with impunity that Aurora waltz up behind the nearest slaver, grabbed him by the collar, and dragged him to the ground. She shifted her hand from his collar to the side of his head, steadying it while she rained down a number of quick punches to the top of his crown. When she was done, the slaver was out cold. Her actions did not go unnoticed, as another slaver watched this petite girl effortlessly dispatch his coworker. Unfortunately, this one had a whip. The air in front of her nose cracked as the whip cut through the air, and she threw herself back.

That would be problematic. Whips weren't deadly... but they hurt.

Setting

4 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel

Earnings

0.00 INK

It was difficult for Sparrow to shake herself off and join in the fray, though she did catch Aurora's sideways glance and swallowed dryly, rummaging within herself for a sense of courage she did not currently feel. Her legs felt like jelly, sticking to the wooden boards as if she'd been frozen there—just another statue to add to the Gallows. But her friends were engaged with the sailors, and more importantly, Silian. Her clammy hands shifted as she hurtled forward, sidestepping around Aurora and bodily throwing herself into the whip-wielding sailor, clipping him violently with her huddled shoulder. It was enough to send him tumbling backwards, skidding on his rear. She did not stop. She did not slow her maddening pace. There was a wildness flashing in her murky eyes, reflecting Silian's sanguine whip and the back of Rilien's shoulders. Graceless and audaciously reckless as she might have been, Sparrow did not pause to consider her actions when she threw herself to the side, swinging her flanged mace as if it were a slender, precise blade. She aimed for the back of his legs, intending to break every bone.

Fortune favoured the wicked. Sparrow's mace rebounded off Silian's crimson shield, swept up with the flick of his slender wrist, and swung her in the opposite direction. He smiled coyly, fluttering long eyelashes in her direction, but kept the majority of his attention directed at her Tranquil-companion, crackling his whip with waggling fingers. Wide, animated eyes orchestrated her frustrations. Her teeth chattered, clenching and unclenching. Every injustice roared through her head like clamouring lions, toppling over one another, unrestrained and unbound. Her breath hitched, struggling to wheeze out of her lungs. Rapture was unusually quiet, hidden in the darkest parts of her Fadespace—watching and waiting and engrossing herself with her fingernails, though she could feel a certain unease from her. It only fed the flames broiling in her stomach, spilling over into her thoughts. She was not thinking. But, Rilien was like the tide to her hurricane, weaving around the trouncing cracks of the whip, calm and collected as always.

Sparrow found the scream settled under her chin, curdling there like rotten teeth. It bubbled out of her mouth, filtered through her bitterness. She charged again, swinging her mace in a wide arc. Silian, once more, slapped her away with his own blood. Her momentum carried her towards the railing and one of her hands instinctively shot out, preventing herself from tumbling overboard. Her scream, it seemed, reminded him of something. Another smile tugged at his lips, and his tired eyes beamed in recognition. He lowered his voice, but it still seemed like he was dropping plates when he said, “Ah, you. Little girl in the woods. It was hard to recognize you like that, all dolled up in steel.” The sanguine-whip slapped the air, attempting to keep Rilien at bay. He did not even turn to look at her. “A dime a dozen. It's hard to keep them all straight when you've been in the business this long.” The loud, agonized cry bunched itself in her chest, replaced by another sharp intake of breath.

To him, she'd been nothing. To him, she'd been just another. Forgettable, hardly worth remembering. She wanted, with a desperation she could not justify, for him to regret everything he'd done as he died. She wanted him to die brutally, without an ounce of mercy. She wanted him to beg and cry and wail like a broken, doe-eyed mother who'd just lost her child. Even now, Silian seemed to be pleasantly surprised, rather than terrified that he may die. Sparrow pushed away from the railing, gripping her mace, two-handed, and swung once more. This time, Silian's whip crackled towards her, slicing a fine line down across her neck and face, stopping short below her left eye. Had she not understood what blood magic was, then she would have asserted that hardening blood was impossible—that slicing someone's face with their own blood was a joke. It hurt her enough to ruin her forward push. Momentarily blinded by her blood, or speckles of his, Sparrow collided into another sailor, bringing him down with her.

Her fingers, free of her mace, frantically grappled onto the first thing she managed to touch. Someone's scalp. Grimy, dirty hair with a tousled bandana. Sparrow wrenched backwards, straddling the man and jerking his head up with her, only long enough to slam it back down against the wooden slats. She felt as if she'd been ripped inside out, inverted and uncomfortable. Her fear radiated under her skin, rippling away with all of her anger. Stretched thin and wounded. And like a coward, Sparrow pictured Silian's face on the sailors, slamming his head again and again.

Rilien’s next attempt to move forward was diverted sideways with another crack of the whip, which forced him to dodge. Unlike the regular variety of such a weapon, this one was controlled only by the mind of the wielder, the kinetic motions only necessary for the psychological effect of moving that mind along its proper paths. He felt a measure of disdain that this man needed that much. But perhaps he didn’t. Perhaps it was only for show. That he was capable of manipulating a weapon and a shield of blood at the same time spoke to a great deal of skill, not nearly as subtle as most Magisters would claim, but suited for a violent occupation such as this. Those with feelings to speak of might have felt daunted. Rilien could not recall what it was to be daunted.

Sparrow entered the fray then, her in articulate, almost animal rage met time and again by Silian’s amusement and his shield both. And still, he devoted the attentions of his offensive arm to the Tranquil rather than the mace-bearer, who in her fury seemed once again to have forgotten her own magic. It seemed that he recognized her after all, but only as one face in a long chain of them, and truthfully, Rilien had expected nothing else. He wondered distantly, ducking around another lash with dexterous ease, whether it was a blow to her pride to realize as much. It shouldn’t be—the recognition of this one wasn’t worth that.

Sparrow was beaten back and turned to the side, and Rilien took his opportunity—or that’s what he would have said he was doing. It was hard to tell, but his feet may have been driven forth just as much by his desire to remove the blood mage’s attention from his friend as from any particular strategic advantage presented at the moment. It worked, however, and Silian found himself with a new, deeper gash to his side for his trouble. Only the need to remain out of reach of the whip, lest it bind him, prevented Rilien from disemboweling the man for truth. The mage pressed a hand to the wound, and it came back covered in ichor. “My, my; that silly little girl has quite the voracious hound, doesn’t she?” A flare of magic, and the wound ceased bleeding, at least for the moment. But a blood mage was not a healer, and both of them knew it was a temporary solution at best.

This time, the whip caught him off guard, going low rater than high, and instead of lashing him across the back or the face as Silian had seemed to be initially intending, it slithered around one of Rilien’s ankles, wrenching abruptly upward and hanging the Tranquil upside-down in the air for the space of a breath, before it snapped out and down, slamming him bodily against the deck of the ship. He felt a crack as his nose broke, blood gushing from the wound and over his mouth and chin, but though the rest of the force had been bruising, it was insufficient to break any of his sturdier bones.

…At least until the motion was repeated, and then he felt one of his ribs give under the pressure, snapping uncomfortably. The third time, Rilien did not allow the motion to complete, slicing through the blood-whip with enchanted steel at the apex of his upward arc, something which flung him further into the air and gave him ample time to adjust for his landing. Thudding to his feet on the wooden floorboards of the boat, he wasted no time, and the point at which elegance was required was long over. As Silian had done, Rilien went for the unexpected, lowering his shoulder and taking the other man into a grapple on the ground. The shield was useless at such range, and before the mage could so much as protest, Rilien had staked one of his shoulders to the ground, this with the ice-blade, which had the added effect of freezing most of the blood, rendering it unusable for the foul magic.

Silian didn’t look so amused now, but Rilien didn’t really care. He wasn’t interested in things like vengeance or admonishing this man for what he’d done. Words were often useless, and this was one of those times. The slaver knew why they were here, and he knew what fate awaited him. Discussing it would only grant him the chance to think of something to prolong his life, and that was simply unacceptable. The Tranquil did manage to muster a glare from somewhere in his old repertoire, however, and a tiny, wicked little twist to his mouth. Instilling a little fear seemed appropriate enough—though whether either expression of mood was genuine or merely affected was hard to tell. He’d been trained that way.

And just like he’d been trained, his other blade started at Silian’s left ear, biting deep and sliding with both precision and no haste along the line where neck met jaw, finishing its elegant sweep at the lobe of his opposite ear. There was no mistaking that the blood that welled from this wound took his life with it, and Rilien stood, his face once more smooth and impassive, even given the break in his nose and the crimson trail now winding erratically down his throat. Flicking his knife to clear it of blood as much as could be done, he planted a foot in Silian’s shoulder and used that as leverage to work his other free. Now… how did the others fare?

It wasn't long before some other company arrived, and Ithilian turned to see three more enemies approaching from the rear, slipping out of shadows to try and help their soon-to-be-slain leaders. Seeing as the mage was in the capable hands of two of his allies, he rushed to meet these newcomers, and prevent them from reaching the others. He was certain that if they knew just what kind of teeth they were walking into, they'd turn right around and run the other way, but sadly all they seemed to see was two and a half elves and a small woman, and it would be the last mistake they'd ever make.

Aurora had taken the opportunity given to her by Sparrow and rushed forward. She took advantage of the sailor sitting on his rear and ran through him, bringing up a knee and smashing it into his face. As his head ripped back and smacked against the ground, Aurora straddled him, picking his head up by the back and hammered two blows home into the center of his skull, knocking him out as well. With two of the sailors dealt with on her end, she stood and took a step toward the blood mage currently engaged with the pair consisting of Sparrow and her Tranquil friend. Blood magic was dirty business, and one she hoped to scrub away personally. She saw it as a weakness of character to resort to such dark magic, seeing it as a lack of willpower to resist the allure of false power. Unfortunately, the pair would have to deal with Silian himself, as another three sailors stepped from the shadows to aid their comrades.

Eyes fluttered to Silian and then back to the trio, and with a grumble she too turned to face the new arrivals. While she was unsure of Sparrow's emotional state, she could be perfectly sure of Rilien's, and trusted the tranquil enough to do what must be done. So she followed in Ithilian's wake toward the next couple of sailors. While she'd been careful about ending any lives thus far, she felt that streak was soon to be broken in the Dalish's company. So be it, they were wicked men, they would all be dealt with sooner or later. At some time between the beginning of her run and the confrontation itself, she had called a layer of stoneskin across her arms, leaving her body stone-free to allow for better dexterity.

The first sailor that turned to her wielded a huge meat hook. The sight of the weapon sent a shudder down her spine and she hoped that he had only found it laying around on the docks. She didn't like the idea of a slaver handling a hook on a daily basis. He brought the hook down hard, looking to skewer her through the shoulder, but she was faster than he was with such an unconventional weapon. Instead of flesh the hook buried into stone, though the point did manage to touch flesh. It stung, but beat the alternative, and now the hook was stuck as well. With that in mind, Aurora hauled it back, overextending the Sailor and leaving his flanks wide open.

The young mage seemed willing to take the blows and allow Ithilian to deal them, which he was more than content with. After all, she had arms currently made of rock, and he had no problems with killing these people. Instead of immediately going for the exposed flank Ithilian struck upward with a blade into the hook-wielder's elbow, stabbing through it and pulling the arm away, removing him from his weapon. With that done he impaled the slaver through the middle with his other blade, his withdrawal accompanied by a headbutt to send the man to the ground, while Ithilian slipped around to take out the next aggressor.

The mage spent the next moment fishing the hook out of her armor, and by the time she managed to free it, the next sailor was upon her. This one was wielding a mace-- that would be a bit more difficult to dodge. She couldn't just hold up her armor and hope to take the hit, it would splinter both the rock and her arm in one fell swoop. So instead of doing just that, she moved inside his guard. past the handle of the flail. She took the opportunity to slam a rocky fist into his sternum, taking the breath out of his lungs and hunkering him forward. She was still worried about the backswing from the flail, and needed to neutralize it before it slammed into her back, snapping her like a twig. She reacted on instinct, swinging the meat hook up and around, hooking the elbow around the back of the man's neck. Next, she just dropped and yanked the hook at the same time, throwing her feet out from under her and bringing the man completely parallel with the ground. The sound of the flail head slamming into the ground was a comforting one, and now she could only hope Ithilian was kind enough to not bathe her in his blood.

By the time the enemy was bent over for Ithilian's attack, he was already in motion towards him, eyeing the head that was held down by the hook Aurora had commandeered. He launched a knee forward directly up into the slaver's forehead, cracking his head back with a snap and shatter of skull, and ripping the hook clean from Aurora's hand. The man toppled away onto his back and Ithilian's momentum carried him forward on top of him, where he sank both blades into the man's chest, for good measure.

The last chose to attack the murderous Dalish rather than the sitting mage, and Ithilian pulled his blades free in time to cross them and catch the down swipe from the third slaver's sword. This was followed up with a swift kick to the man's groin, and a rough shove in Aurora's direction, that she might do with him as she wished.

She was just returning to her feet when the last of the sailors was unceremoniously launched in her direction. She didn't even have the time to dust herself off before she was forced to react. She took a step forward, past the man with her stone encased arm extended. The rough appendage caught him in the center of the chest, and with a mighty heave, she used the heavy weight of her arm to force him off of his feet and planted him into the ground. She then raised her fist, the stone exterior peeling away in the middle of flight, so that the fist that struck the sailor's nose was made of flesh instead of stone. For extra insurance, she dropped another fist on the man's head, this time in the forehead to make sure that he was well and truly knocked out.

Now that all that had been settled, she finally found the opportunity to dust herself off and shake the pain from her hand. Her eyes then picked up where they left Rilien and Sparrow, seeing that they too had finished their own fight. With that, she nodded and shrugged, "So much for beating us with our skulls."

Sparrow pushed away from the sailor, fingers sticky with clumps of matted hair and blood. The man below her gurgled unintelligibly, fingers twitching until he exhaled, finally lying still. Her own breath came in sharp, uncontrolled rasps. If she looked back, she would be lost. If she hesitated now, then she'd only live to regret her own weaknesses. Sparrow bent to retrieve her weapon and took the time to look around her, to see how the others had fared. Her flanged mace thumped against the wooden planks, loosely held in her fingers. Honestly, she shouldn't have been surprised. Her companions were far stronger than they looked—though, if anyone had thought Ithilian weak, she would have laughed at them. Even Aurora seemed nonplussed by the onslaught of sailors, grimly wiping herself off. Flecks of pebbles skittered from her slender fingers, and Ithilian seemed to be just as happy to dispose of these disgusting cretins.

Uncertain, trembling fingers wiped at her face, smearing blood across her cheek and forehead. The ugly gash on her face only paused its bleeding for a moment, weeping back down her chin as soon as her hand withdrew. A dull, throbbing pain ignited its way down her jawline, drumming down her neck with each heartbeat. It didn't matter. The only thing that really mattered was making their way through the ship to find, and brutally kill, Arcadius before he managed to flee their wrath. She whipped her gaze around to her Tranquil-friend, who was finishing Silian off with a brutal slash to his face. Appreciation, and sickening fascination, swelled inside of her chest, infected her with a disturbing sense of satisfaction. She was truly happy that Rilien hadn't spared him any pain. She was happy and it made her feel sick. He stared ahead of him, expression blank and blanched as the vellum pages of a newbound book. If it hadn't been for the blood painting his face, running thickly from his nose, Sparrow might have thought he'd come out unscathed.

Her eyebrows screwed up, drawing tightly. Apologies bundled themselves in her parched throat, bubbling around words that would not puzzle back his nose in place or heal his broken ribs. She feebly wished that her magical repertoire came with some sort of healing ability—for if she tried to lay her hands on his face and weave cartilage and bone back into place, she might settle them in the wrong places and cause even more damage. It was the reason why she resonated so clearly with the more offensive aspects of magic. She could break and destroy and make a mess of things, but she was rubbish at fixing them. Sparrow took a few steps forward, closing the distance between them. Her hands trembled almost imperceptibly, drawing up to touch two fingers to his cheek. Sallow, selfish little girl in the woods, the creature whispered from her Fadespace, ever-smiling and dipping into her reservoir of guilt. “I'm sorry—I,” She sputtered, dropping her hand away, “I lost myself.”

Sparrow glanced at Aurora and Ithilian. This was not a game. She wanted to scream until her throat was raw, and cry as she hadn't since she was a small child—hadn't since that one day in Rilien's home. Her home. Her gaze rested on the magelet, requesting aid without opening her mouth. She knew that Aurora was capable of healing, but even she'd admitted that it wasn't her strongest suits. If she could not, then she would seek out Nostariel's aid. Rilien would probably refuse, saying that he could deal with it himself as soon as everything was finished. An old stubbornness, or an unwillingness to rely on others, seemed to be the cause, as always. Sparrow turned away and headed for the ship's staircases, door still hanging wide open. “Let's finish this, then.”

She would lead them down this time.

She would not hesitate.

Setting

4 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel

Earnings

0.00 INK

Rilien cocked his head to one side, blinking. “You need not apologize,” he informed Sparrow quietly, allowing the touch even though—or perhaps because—it allowed him to feel and understand feelings better. Though his face changed little, something about him softened. Perhaps it was his stance, or the hard look to his eye, but it was perceptible all the same. “Pain is fleeting, irrelevant. You matter more.” And that was the truth of it, even if he had difficulty understanding why. Almost everything he knew pertained to looking out for himself, ensuring his own survival, seizing personal advantage. He found the knowledge less and less pertinent as time moved on.

He didn’t like the look on her face, but stepped away from the contact before he could do something emotional and pointless like say as much. By that point, the others were done with the fight below and ascending the gangplank anyway. Rilien sheathed his knives momentarily, wiping the blood on his face away with a sleeve, glancing at the smear for a second before dismissing it. From a pouch at his belt, he withdrew a potion, a pearlescent red that marked its potency. His other hand went to his nose, and with a sure motion, he set the bones there properly in place, betraying no hint of the pain he professed to be in, then downed the concoction.

The cartilage in his face knit back together, a bit tender and not quite as perfectly straight as it used to be, but a slightly-crooked nose was not a problem as far as he was concerned. If it should truly become an issue, he could re-break it and set it more precisely with tools. His rib mended as well, and he replaced the empty container and stopper up one of his sleeves. The ship contained one obvious door, that doubtless led down to the captain’s quarters, cargo hold, and everything else stored in the bowels of such a transport. He indicated it with a glance, but he would let Sparrow lead the way down, now that she seemed to be in a more fit state for it.

You matter more. Sparrow wasn't sure what bothered her more—the fact that he was not upset with her selfish behaviour, or the fact that her apologies did little to stopper her guilt. The stabbing reminders and drawn out internal wounds were beginning to pull at her, plucking away her warmth. She was beginning to tire. If all of this could be over quickly, then she could begin to heal and continue throwing out apologies, tripping over herself to pay them back for all of their efforts. This meant more to her than they'd ever know. Words would never suffice. She swallowed thickly, wiping the sweat from her eyes. Someday, she'd begin to thaw. Someday, she'd be able to live with the dull ache and know, with replete certainty, that it would never happen again. Looking back on the events, Sparrow's memories could be filled with the vibrant, vivid recollection of Rilien's blade carvings its way through Silian's face. As if he were little more than a side of ham. Yes, it would do. Releasing would-be slaves, once they were done dealing with Arcadius, was only the icing on the cake. Ithilian and Aurora, no doubt, would agree with her.

She kept her footfalls to an acceptable din, silently descending into the ship's belly. This time, Sparrow did not plunge down the short staircase, rigid and graceless as a ball-jointed puppet, though she desperately wanted to. Hardly accustomed to stealth or even attempting at not being heard, Sparrow's eyes scrunched up in concentration, nose crinkling against the reek of unwashed bodies and urine. If fear had a smell, it was palpable enough to feel. The hairs on the back of her neck rose up, goosepebbling her copper skin. She rounded a sharp corner, peeking her head into an empty room. It was likely that whatever holding-space the other shipment had been contained in hadn't been washed since. Disgust roiled in her stomach, snatching up the reigns to her anger. The ship was badly lit. Lanterns peppered the hallways, hanging in rusted tins with white candles dripping hot wax on the floorboards. She imagined shadow-hands plucking at her from the darkness, trying to frighten her into turning back the way she'd come.

Pulling back from the musty chamber, with calloused fingers pinching the bridge of her nose (and failing miserably at keeping the stench away), Sparrow led them down another long hallway. Her sense of direction left little to be desired. Occasionally, she prodded doorways open with the toe of her boot, stuck her head into promising chambers, only to lead them back out again. But, it wasn't her fault. Every open doorway looked the same. Every hallway looked the same under the flickering glow of the lamplight’s, throwing stretched shadows across the walls. They must've been going in the right direction, because at the end of this particular corridor was another chamber, lit from the inside—door held slightly aloft, like he expected guests. Who else would have remained in the ship? They'd confronted no other sailors. No other grimy, bilge-rats hiding in dark corners while they trekked down. Her head throbbed again and she winced, inhaling a sharp breath through her nose.

Everyone behind her embodied everything she'd ever needed. Steady, even, smooth, strength, reasonable—calm in the most horrific situations while she flowed around them like an erratic tide, clinging onto their rock faces. Even Ithilian with all of his anger and injustices and bubbling indignities radiated these qualities. She took a few tentative steps forward, until she faced the door. Her eyes diverted from the crooked knob, fell to the floor and back up again. Like a little girl peeping in on someone, Sparrow gently pushed the door open, pulse quickening. Her throat tightened, voice threading away. He was there, sitting at an old oaken desk with his feet propped up on a stack of papers. Documents, information on his kidnapees, no doubt. An old, familiar sword was balanced across his knee, while he held a plumed pen in his hand, absently tapping his chin.

Awfully rude, I'd say. Gentlemen, messere...” The man, with Lucien's likeness, trailed off, as if to invite introductions. He gave them no time to respond, gesturing offhandedly with his pen. There was no indication that he was worried, no hasty movement to defend himself. Whatever intentions the group may have had coming in, Arcadius acted as if he was savvy to nothing that had occurred on the upper decks. “I wasn't expecting any visitors today.

Sparrow's lips set into a hard, thin line. She managed to find her voice in time, scuffling out of her stupor and feigned a dry laugh. Cold, brittle and bristling with embellished satisfaction. This was her victory. “Papyrus.” It almost felt as if she were talking about someone else. As if Papyrus was separate from Sparrow. Perhaps, they would always remain that way. A small measure of gratification came with the widening of the man's bright eye. The other was still covered by a patch. Had she known Lucien sooner, she may have found the coincidences amusing. “I'm afraid you won't be having any more visitors. We'll be your last.”

Arcadius shifted his weight and let his feet drop down from the desk. He leaned forward, and eyed her companions. The pen twirled between his fingers, half-resting on the pile of papers. “Hardly fair. Where's your honour? Or have you become one of the unsavory types all these years past? Unlikely, I think. I could have fled, but I did not. Surely, that warrants for something. I'd make a wager, but I've nothing to offer.” A strained smile appeared, then fell away. His gaze flickered to Ithilian and Rilien. “Allow me to walk free and I'll close the trade, never to violate your shores again. You could kill me, but I assure you, it will continue without me. It always does.

If he was searching for mercy in the heart of Ithilian, he was looking in a very poor place. The Dalish elf held both his blades comfortably in hand, lowered as he propped himself up against the wall, eyeing the meat before him as it tried to negotiate its way out of a painful death. This was a despicable creature, trying to act like honor meant anything to him. No man who sold others into lives of servitude could speak of honor truly. Why it was dishonorable for them to allow him to leave simply because he'd been stupid enough to stay rather than flee was not apparent to Ithilian.

And beyond that, this was not his to decide. He would certainly not override any of Sparrow's wishes, and she clearly seemed to wish the man's death. Again, Ithilian was not coming up with a single reason why it would be wise to allow him to live. Honor was not his greatest attribute, either. He did what he felt was needed, and he did what he felt was best. "I can kill you," he agreed, "and I can kill whoever comes to carry on your work. You seek mercy from the wrong blades."

Aurora had crossed her arms as her three companions shuffled into the room in front of her, leaving her to slowly walk out from behind them. She settled into an open space on the other side of Ithilian, and nodded as the elf spoke. Neither was it her choice to decide what to do with the man, that honor belonged to Sparrow and to Sparrow alone. She could do nothing more besides lend her strength and lend her mind. And her mind was much of the same as Ithilian's. The man who wore Lucien's face attempted to feign honor, but his words were transparent and meant nothing to her ears. Slavers did not have honor and deserved none. Slavers bought and sold life and broke many more in the act. She felt it was an insult to Lucien that he was forced to share a likeness with this man. If it was Aurora's choice, the man would have already been dead.

"It will always continue, whether you leave here dead or alive. Scum has a habit of rising to the top like that," Aurora said in a placid tone. The student was becoming much like the mentor, in that if she was in this position some years before, she would have flew into a rage and denied Sparrow her choice. Now she was in control, the man had nowhere to go. He was trapped, merely waiting on Sparrow's judgement. She then disregarded the man and turned to Ithilian, saying, "I'll help if you do. They deserve about as much mercy as they give." Rilien said nothing, dignifying the man with no response at all. Instead, his eyes remained fixed unerringly on Sparrow's back. He could read the tension there, but he was waiting to see what became of it.

“Hear that? I don't think you'll find any quarter with these ones, either. Not too fond of scum-buckets like you.” Sparrow forced a smile on her face, hoping that it would send a chill of fear down his spine. Mortality had a tendency of doing that, especially if you felt like there was nowhere to go. Hopefully, he'd be reflecting on his lack of options. There was nowhere to run. He'd already blown his chance—seemed as if he'd grown foolish and stupid over the years. Had she been in a better mood, Sparrow would have swivelled around and enlisted her own two hands in the effort to eradicate any future-interlopers from trespassing on their shores. Prancing down the Wounded Coast hand-in-hand didn't sound too bad. Though, Ithilian didn't seem like the touchy-feely sort. Now, Aurora...

Whatever distraction she was trying to conjure up to steel her nerves only managed to stay with her for a few seconds. Arcadius was itching in his seat, finally realizing that he'd made a mistake. They weren't going to give him any leeway or accept any kind of barter that involved him walking out with his life—unfortunate for him, but satisfying enough to her. Sparrow leaned her mace in the doorway and extracted a thin blade from her boot, turning it over in her palm. She distinctly remembered asking Rilien if he'd ever intentionally drawn out someone's death. Made them suffer for what they'd done, if he'd known ahead of time. She knew well enough that he'd killed many in his previous line of work, though perhaps not brutally. Not like she'd seen on the upper deck, slicing open Silian's face like he was chopping up a thick ham for dinner. Did he make them suffer? Did he make them beg? And if so, how? The particulars were always matter-of-fact and he'd never questioned why she was asking.

His blades were far more intricate than her own. Slightly edged, graceful and well-crafted. Sparrow looked back over her shoulder and arched her eyebrows at Ithilian, motioning idly towards Arcadius. “He needs to be disarmed and detained. If you'd like the honour.” She spoke as if Arcadius was not in the room. It was a gentle offer, almost as if she was offering Ithilian the greatest seat in the room. If he refused, then she'd have to try and disarm him herself. His swordsmanship, from her childhood memories, were not to be laughed at. It was troubling in such small quarters, but she didn't doubt her companions. Either way, Sparrow preferred carrying out what came after. The look in her eyes was one of frigid determination, hardened and tempered. Resolute in the actions she would carry out. She would not falter. She would not hesitate.

Sparrow turned towards Rilien, holding her rusty dagger aloft. “I was thinking, Ril. Could I borrow yours for—” Her words were interrupted by a loud crash, belonging to the wooden desk Arcadius was sitting at. He'd managed to flip it over, spilling all of the papers, quills and bottles of ink across the floor. The expression on his face was not one of breezy indifference anymore, but one that belonged to all men who knew that they were going to die. Desperate and wild, puffing and panting with the effort of keeping his wits about him. He knew, better than anyone, that losing his head in the next few seconds would only give them the upper hand. Three against one hardly did him any favours. Either way, he refused to be cut apart by some little bitch. One dark eye flicked across their faces, calculating. He'd only have one opening. Swinging the broadsword to his front, Arcadius roared indignantly and feigned to attack Sparrow, who brought up her dagger in response, before veering up towards Aurora. Woman. He would attack the weakest.

Cleaving her companion would be a bitter price to pay for revenge.

He'd have to try harder in order to kill the little mage, Aurora was far from the weakest in the room. She wasn't oblivious, she had no delusions about her stature. She looked like a fragile woman wading into waters far over her head. And there was some truth in that line of thought, she was nowhere near the sturdiness Ithilian and Sparrow possessed, but that did not make her weak. What she had was in her head, an intellect and a ground bestowed upon her by a Qunari friend. She would not be swept aside so easily.

She knew better to entirely discount Arcadius. He was trapped, and like the animal he was he'd prove to be much more dangerous in this state. The crashing desk came as little surprise, setting Aurora down into a defensive stance, and he acted like she thought he would, throwing himself first at Sparrow. It would be simple, Sparrow would deflect the blow, and then the rest of them could take advantage. Quick and easy. At least it would have been if she'd managed to see what came next. For all of her confidence, it seemed like she underestimated the swordsman. The blade she first thought intended for Sparrow instead dipped and came up for her.

Still, if he thought such a tactic would be enough to kill her, he was sorely mistaken. Right at the moment it was clear the blade was meant for her, Aurora threw herself out of the way, and rolled sideways across the ground. However, she was too late to completely escape the sword, as a crimson line bit deep into the bone along the length of her upper arm. Quick thinking caused her to freeze the wound close, but this needed to end fast, and she'd need to attend to it more closely if she didn't want to lose a large chunk of it. Still, either way, she felt a scar brewing in the frozen limb.

Aurora rolled up to her feet, sliding back into the far wall and once she was stable enough to raise her hand with the uninjured arm, she fired a stonefist at the slaver, giving him a surprise of her own. Aurora was no mere girl, petite and fragile. She was a mage, with her feet grounded deep. It'd take a lot more than a common bandit to break her.

Arcadius did not seem to account for the possibility of the girl being a mage, and the stonefist took him in the chest, knocking him back and directly towards Ithilian's blades. Normally, Ithilian would have simply speared through the back and pierced the heart, or attacked the head, either slipping a blade around the open his throat, or more brutally punch a sword point down through either the skull or the base of the neck. He was still tempted to simply dispatch the bandit and be done with it, but Sparrow had requested otherwise, and this was her vengeance he was exacting.

Ithilian had been taught to show no mercy to his enemies, and also to never take them lightly. He had used some brutal tactics in his lifetime, but the only time he had ever toyed with the suffering of an opponent had been when he was at his lowest, in the Deep Roads, when he'd sought to inflict as much pain as possible upon the darkspawn there. He knew more than anything else that he didn't want to return to that state of mind, and he wondered if Sparrow was somewhat close to that herself. It was troubling, but if it was the case, he wasn't certain the deed would fall to him to help her, as Nostariel and Amalia had helped him. It seemed like something a closer friend should handle.

For the moment, though, he knew her mindset, or at least something close to it, and he knew what kind of reaction she might have if her vengeance was denied to her. He ducked low and slashed with both blades, biting deep into the back of his legs, forcing him to his knees. Ithilian gave him a kick to the back to force him down on his face, before darting around to the side and stabbing down hard where the man's sword hand lay, spearing through it and into the wood of the ship, separating him from his weapon and holding him to the floor. He looked up at Sparrow with a rather hard gaze in his remaining eye.

"Have your vengeance, if you want it," he said. The tattoo for Elgar'nan at the base of his neck almost seemed to itch.

The Lady Montblanc had called it the red smile—a method of execution that involved slitting the throat directly under the chin, from ear to ear, hence producing a gout of blood and being moderately curved after the fashion of a mouth. It was efficient, though he’d made Silian’s slower, deeper than was strictly required. It was unusual for him, to do something like that, but then everything about this situation was rather unusual. That made it no less necessary.

He could not say if vengeance was the kind of thing that would cleanse Sparrow of these old sorrows. In truth, Rilien doubted it. But if there was even a small chance that it would work, then it was an opportunity he needed to do his part of give her. As usual, she didn’t even need to complete her sentence for him to know what she was saying, and even as Aurora and Ithilian reacted, Rilien drew his blade with a slow, ringing hiss, stepping up to Sparrow’s side, even as she recovered from the feint. He knew quite well that the two who had attacked were capable of bringing a single man down, though the mage-girl would require medical attention, he was sure. He had potions enough for that, but first, something else must be done.

It was the first time since that hostile takeover by Rapture some years ago in his shop that he’d willingly initiated contact with anyone, least of all her, but he did it now, flipping the blade so that he held the flat of it, cold to the touch with the ice enchantment he’d placed on the hardy steel. A gift, from a Dalish weaponsmith, to an erstwhile traveller, goaded into an act of selflessness by another who performed them as easily as breathing. And now it would be used to kill a man who wore a very similar face, by a woman who’d been stolen from another clan. He was not oblivious to the fact that the world worked in strange ways sometimes, patterns and eddies in the fabric of it entrapping them all.

So he reached for Sparrow’s hand, uncurled the tense fist it had become with his own, more dexterous fingers, and folded them closed again over the hilt. Would she give this one a red smile to match his friend’s, or would she be slower about it, more brutal even than he had been, than the Dalish hunter was, staking Arcadius’s hand to the floor of his ship? Who could say? He cared not for the answer. He cared only for her. So he tilted his head to one side, studying her profile, then released her hand, dagger now held safely, and stepped back.

Her vengeance was hers, if she wanted it, and he would still be there when it was done.

Sparrow hadn't been quick enough to react when Arcadius feigned to her right, aiming instead for Aurora—she only had time to swing her dagger in front of her, hoping to catch his broadsword before it cleaved her head from her shoulders, and stumbled backwards when nothing connected. Thankfully, Aurora had been swifter, sending a stoney fist into his chest. She bet that he hadn't expected that. The ill-fated way his momentum carried him into another deadly foe must've been quite a shock, as well. She watched with sick fascination as Ithilian's twin-blades bit into his calves, sending Arcadius to his knees. Watched as Ithilian swiftly dove to the side, sinking his blade into the swordman's hand and successfully pinning him into the floorboards. There was blood. Too much blood. It poured from his wounds, pooling around his legs. He thrashed like a beached fish, flopping onto his back, spluttering and hissing and yowling.

It's beautiful, she thought, it's beautiful but. Her hand dropped back down to her side, fingers clutched into a tight fist. This was it. This was the only chance she'd ever have to feel better. To erase something she never thought she could. Foolish as it may have been, Sparrow believed that it would lessen her burdens. Her shoulders would feel lighter. She could finally shed off all of her bitterness, shake them off like a dusty coat—maybe, just maybe. Her childish thoughts always won out. Even if she went back with Rilien, hollow and empty and full of uncertainties, she'd know that at least a couple of her ghosts would be gone forever. The memories would remain, but they'd never be able to touch her. They'd never be able to reach her again. It became a silent countdown, a deliberate search for blood owed.

She met Ithilian's gaze and nodded numbly, mouthing soft words of gratitude. The lump in her throat only seemed to expand, making it hard to say anything intelligent. All she wanted was—what, exactly? Movement to her right caught her attention, dragging her eyes away from the writhing body below her. He wasn't going anywhere. Someone caught hold of her hand and she froze. She was caught off guard. He didn't instigate physical contact often. Unravelling her fingers from their tight, wrecking-ball of a fist, one-by-one, until he pressed the pommel of his curved dagger into her palm. Sparrow did not pretend to know the significance of the act, nor the similar antiquities of the blade. Her eyes burned. Rilien didn't say a word. He never needed to. The sturdy, unwavering look told her enough, belying concern and support to whatever she decided to do to this man.

No one would try to stop her.

Sparrow swept down over Arcadius, pinning his free arm with her knee. He bucked underneath her, desperately trying to throw her off. She only plopped down on his chest, slender fingers snaking around his neck and digging into the popping tendons. She applied pressure, and briefly loosened her grip when his bloodshot eye began rolling backwards. Instead, Sparrow smacked him in the face to keep him lucid. To keep him from falling unconscious. “You don't get to sleep through this,” She snarled sharply, free-hand dropping back to his neck to keep him still. Positioning the curved blade at the crook of his collarbone, Sparrow pressed it down as Arcadius screeched bitch bitch you bitch. Slowly, inch by inch. “For them,” she whispered. She jerked the blade out, raw and chilly in her hand, and placed it flat against his cheekbone. It jumped up against his ear as he whipped back and forth, though responded by bearing down on his head with her forearm, looming over him.

She was free to do as she wished. She'd spoken of this technique before. Discussed it at length. It was brutal, savage, and entirely appropriate. He deserved no less—didn't he? Arcadius' shirt was already black with blood. But, she felt disgusting. Sticky and crusted. Was it worth it? The questioning disturbed her.

“For her. For me.”

The blade skittered down his jawline as she shied backwards, shoulders straightening. It idled above his thumping heart. All of the acrid morning-fantasies that involved opening him up from his gut, spilling his innards and holding him together only long enough to shred his face up fled from her. But, Sparrow did not shush him like a wayward mother—as she might have had it been any other enemy—remaining silent as blade sunk into his chest, gradually sucking through flesh. Blood dribbled from the corner of his lips, drawn into a toothy grimace. He gurgled, unintelligible. With another quick, crisp jerk, Sparrow hauled the blade downwards, opening up a long laceration. There was no need for sawing. Rilien's blade was sharp enough. Almost as if it were made for this. Mercy? Mercy this. Discarding the blade from his chest, Sparrow made the final push into his chest, pumping arcane energy into her fingers to push aside his ribs and close around his heart.

She squeezed and he died. It took her a moment to realize what she'd done. It took her even longer to remove her hand from his chest and lean away from him, shoulders slumping. Her expression crumpled. Beginning, middle, end. She wasn't sure where she fit, exactly. Still, Sparrow looked up, expecting no one to be there but herself. To be alone with her grief and her savagery. She was surprised when she was not.

The Chanter's Board has been updated. Burying the Hatchet has been completed.

Setting

1 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Aurora Rose

Earnings

0.00 INK

Another beautiful day. Aurora absolutely loved the spring months in Kirkwall, where there were hardly a cloud in the sky most days. Even when it rained, it was a short shower that brought along the smells of earth with it. Aurora loved that smell, it reminded her of home. A lot has been doing that lately, it seemed. She couldn't even tend to her flowers without being reminded. That was why she had taken leave of Lowtown and instead spent her afternoon taking a walk around Hightown. Her family hadn't been poor from what she remembered, but they didn't have near the excess the nobles had here had. They were... comfortable was probably the best word for it. They had what they needed and little bit extra, and that was fine. They had each other.

And there she was making herself melancholy again. She had come to Hightown to escape the homesickness, not wallow around in it. There was only one cure that could take her mind off of it. Aurora came to a sudden halt in the street she was walking down and angled herself toward the shopping district. She might not be able to buy anything, but window shopping was free, fortunately. Might as well replace the homesickness with the sadness that came with not affording the most precious shoes she could find. Not that she was a fanatic shoe girl-- she preferred pretty shirts to be honest.

Speaking of pretty shirts, she was wearing one today, a honey-colored thing with flared sleeves, baring the new scar running up her arm like a badge of honor. Despite living in abject anonymity, she still wore bright colors. That was something she couldn't change. She just couldn't bear to hide away in the dull browns and grays everyone else wore. Something she got from her mother, she had always worn bright clothing too. Thinking about it now, Aurora and her mother were the same in most regards. She found herself wondering how she was doing, and if she ever thought about her. And there she was again, her mind drifting back home. Her step kicked as her pace quickened toward the Markets. She needed to drown those thoughts out with items she couldn't possibly have. She flung her scarf around her neck and forged ahead.

Nothing made her realize how poor she was faster than a trip through Hightown's Market District. She could barely aford a thread from the clothes much less the clothes themselves. Most of her income came from odd jobs she did around the city, and when those odd jobs stopped coming in, her food supply became all that much more meager. She picked up a scarlet shirt and held it up to better examine it. It was a pretty thing, and it looked like it'd fit just right. It was the same color as her hair and scarf though, so maybe she was risking tackiness with it. Like she could afford it, but she could dream. She folded it neatly and put it back down, continuing to browse the shops' wares.

Maybe she should open a flower shop, she told herself, looking down at another shirt with a big bright sunflower stitched to the breast. She thought Lucien may have said something to that effect... or perhaps it was Nostariel. Thinking about it now, it wasn't a terribly bad idea. Maker knows Lowtown could use a bit more color in it. She could collect the wild flowers found around Sundermount and the Wounded Coast-- maybe sell a couple of herbs and spices with it. Of course, she'd need the money to buy a shop, and then she'd need to maintain it. Not to mention that a mage owning a store isn't the brightest idea ever. Though nobody accused her of being bright.

It was something to speak about. Maybe she'd bring it up with Nostariel next time they talked, or maybe even Lucien. She'd mention it to Amalia, but she doubted that the woman's frank words would be much for conversation. Not that Aurora minded, that was just how she was. She owed the woman a lot more than that, considering she was where she was today thanks in large part to her. She moved on to the next stall, this one containing shoes of all sizes. She stopped at a pair of fine leather boots, which she picked up. She raised an eyebrow and, oddly enough, took a sniff. Antivan leather, just like she thought. Just like her mother had. She quietly paused and set them down and moving along. Oh, how she wished she could afford them, just to have something.

She had begun to realize how much of a product of her experiences she was. Every hurdle, every obstacle, every detour, and every path made her who she was. It wasn't just Amalia, but everything she had been a part of. The Circle, the friend she made there, her escape, the exodus to Kirkwall, and everything she had been witness to here, everything she did added just a little bit more to her character. She was confident because of what she had survived, and she was confident because of what she was sure she could survive. Her certainty was not her, it was drawn from everything else that she was. Didn't Amalia say something similar about herself and her Qun? It felt like the day Aurora asked Amalia to teach her was lifetimes ago, and she had grown so fast since then. There had been many paths she could have taken since then, yet there had always been one choice. She felt like she was truly beginning to understand.

And she'd managed to keep her humor too! The Qunari were a dry bunch, and Amalia the driest. She was unsure if she even heard the woman laugh. She loved the woman as a friend, but she was so... efficient. She supposed that the Qun preached efficiency, but a chuckle every now and then wouldn't hurt. Though at this point if Aurora heard her laugh, she was quite certain that she would just die from shock. "Hey! Are you going to buy something or not!" she heard someone yell in her direction. At first, she glanced around to confirm that it was her that was being yelled at, and then looked down.

She had managed to meander her way over to the accessories. Earrings, rings, necklaces, hats, and even a couple of scarves-- though she was just fine with the one she had. "I'm just browsing. Have to inspect before I buy, you know?" Hah, her, buy jewelry. That was rich, richer than she'd ever be, but she wasn't about to let the shopkeep know that. He just grunted and let it go, and Aurora moved along. She had all the jewelry she needed anyway, Ketojan's amulet sat hidden underneath the folds of her scarf. That single piece was worth more than anything on the table, it was priceless, the remains of the Qunari mage who chose his own path.

Saarebas. That's what the others had called him, and even her. Dangerous thing in Qunlat, as Amalia told her. Thinking about it, she got a kick of the idea. Her a dangerous thing. If pride wasn't so dangerous, she would have been proud of the title. She was only dangerous to those who left her no choice-- it wasn't like she waded eagerly into a fight-- incident with Arvaarad not withstanding. She wasn't just going to allow the Kossith to take back the mage, not if Ketojan didn't have a choice. To others, the difference might have made little sense, considering Ketojan then immediately followed his Qun. However, he had chosen to, he had followed his own path. Death by choice, and death by force were two separate things. Aurora believed in the power of choice, in it's freedom, though some choices lead to chains.

Some chains did not have to bind. One could be restricted, but be free in that restriction. It was a difficult concept to grasp, and it had been for Aurora, but once she had, she had made it hers. She was bound by her own hands, by her own choice. And she had found freedom in it. She had chosen her path, and it was one she walked gladly. They had been many, but there had only been one choice. Hers. She wondered if Sophia learned that. Aurora shifted in the Market place and looked up to the Viscount's keep.

She would be lying if she said she liked the girl. She had her chains as well, and they were pulled by the Chantry. She very well remembered the trap that her faith had led them to. All to provoke the Qunari. Aurora was free, but was Sophia? She didn't like to think about it, as she turned away and moved to another stall, this one holding various sundry items. Perfumes, colognes, soaps, candles, and the like. She took a big whiff and was assaulted by a bouquet of smells. She'd be better off rolling around in a flower patch, at least that wouldn't choke her.

It'd been a long time since then. The next couple of years passing quickly. Her tutelage under Amalia was in full swing, and she learned how to better defend herself without using magic. Firing off lightning bolts wasn't an intelligent tactic if she wasn't currently being hunted. Aurora had also gone back to her roots, in a sense and began to garden again. It all made her think how it managed to all lead up to this.

Aurora wondered what Millian would think about all of this? Her thoughts turned to her elven friend, back at the Antivan Circle. It's been so long since she last saw Milly, though her face was still fresh in her mind. All of their faces were, her mother, her father, siblings, even Milly. She missed them all. There she was again, thinking about this, and this time she couldn't get herself to stop. She looked up from whatever it was she was looking at and simply stared off as she reminisced. She could almost hear Milly's voice in her head.

"Rosabella? Rosabella DiMerenda? That... That sounded a lot more real than she thought. It sent her head into a confused tilt as she wondered where that came from. She'd been missing them recently, yes, but to hear it so... So clearly? It was strange. "Little Rosy!" Okay... Aurora wasn't imagining it. She turned around in order to desperately search for the voice, but instead, the voice managed to find her. With an unexpected tackle, Aurora was dropped to the ground as the owner of the voice clutched her tightly, threatening to never let go. Not that Aurora would have minded. "Ooof... Milly?" She asked. Elven honeyed eyes looked back at her, with her lips stretching from ear to ear.

She had no words, so she did the only thing she could in the situation. Returned the hug just as hard, not even caring about the scene they were currently creating. But they could only lay on the ground for so long, so Aurora stood, dragging Milly up with her, and moving the pair to a more secluded and private spot. The obvious question came first. "Millian Randrel... Milly, what are you doing here? I mean it's great to see you and all, but what?" Aurora asked, equal parts confused, glad, and worried. "You ask me that like you can. What are you doing here? Did you not see the gigantic Circle they've got? Honestly Rosy, why not just hide in the basement of the thing?" Well, Aurora wasn't expecting that admonishment for the day. She wasn't expecting the elf either. It was safe to say all of her expectations for the day had been shattered.

"It's... The last place they'd expect? Look, I'm really careful! They haven't found me yet," Aurora tried to explain, but Milly had crossed her arms and set her foot to tapping. Good to know she'd gotten more motherly since they'd parted ways. Fortunately, Milly didn't keep it for long and it sent her into a fit of giggles, "That's what I thought too. Really, who would knowingly come to a city whose Circle is literally called 'The Gallows'. I also might have tracked you down. A little," Milly could see the word "how" forming on Aurora's lips, so she continued, not allowing her to speak yet. "Rosy, you're not very inconspicuous. Red hair, red scarf, green eyes, bright clothing. Things sailors notice. And if I know you as much as I do then it was easy for me."

They were quiet for the next couple of moments, just staring at each other and taking the moment in. It was years since the pair had been together last. Suddenly, Aurora hugged Milly again, "It's been a long time, Milly," She said, relenting her grip. Millian smiled and nodded, "It has... Hey, you wouldn't happen to have a place to sleep, would you Rosy? It's been a long trip, and one I'll tell you about... Later." She said, causing Aurora to laugh. "Yes, I do. Come on, I'll take you home... And Milly? It's Aurora now," She said, revealing her alias. Millian just laughed and shook her head.

"Whatever you say Rosy."

Setting

5 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

Lucien was a little dismayed that he’d had to cut the interviews short for the day, but one did not simply refuse a summons from the Viscount of Kirkwall. Considering how his last encounter with the man had ended, the chevalier was honestly not particularly looking forward to it, but he was far from a coward, and more than willing to accept the consequences of his actions, however uncomfortable those may be. He reminded himself that whatever could be faulted, it wasn’t his intentions, and sometimes, that simply had to be enough.

The nature of the missive had not made obvious the circumstances of the visit, and so as usual, Lucien prepared himself for potential violence, donning his armor in full when he returned to his home with his notes on the candidates. It was a trying process, trying to sort through the sheer number of applicants he’d received to pick both the most skilled and also the most conscientious, but certainly, meeting all of them in an informal setting was helping him do that. There were so many looking for work these days, he was hardly surprised that an opportunity like the one he was presenting drew so much attention. He’d originally planned to spend the rest of the day working on the building he’d procured with some of his expedition earnings, but alas, maintenance would have to wait.

Strapping his axe to his back and his dagger to his belt, the mercenary locked up his house behind him and began the journey up to Hightown. It seemed a relatively quiet day, a bit overcast and generally pleasant as far as temperature was concerned, but he thought he could smell a storm coming in over the Waking Sea. This was good news, actually—it had been a rather dry season so far… Such commonplace musings took him to the steps of the Keep, and by the time he entered, he was spotted by a sharp-eyed guard and ushered upstairs, to the Viscount’s office. The room was already quite occupied; he smiled at Sophia, and bowed to Marlowe, offering Bran a friendly nod.

The fact that Sophia stood in full armor with Vesenia already across her back implied that these summons were not related to what had occurred on the occasion of Sophia's twenty-fifth birthday. Sophia returned the smile, but it was somewhat strained, evidence that her thoughts were currently preoccupied by whatever was going on. The seneschal was currently in the midst of a conversation with the Viscount, and Sophia quietly listened from the side, arms crossed.

"The compound was not meant to be permanent," Bran said, making note of Lucien's entrance and returning the nod. "There are concerns the Qunari influence is... no longer contained." At that, the Viscount looked up from the letters dropped upon his desk.

"Was it ever? Kirkwall has tension enough between templar and mage, but these Qunari..." He stood, pacing around behind Bran to the front of the desk. "They sit like gargoyles, waiting for Maker-knows-what, and everyone goes mad around them. Over four years I have stood between fanatics. And now this." He looked down to the sheet of paper isolated from the others.

“Your Excellency sent for me?” Lucien offered, dropping back on formality without much of a notion on how else to proceed. He wasn't entirely sure he was meant to be hearing ths conversation, but he'd been summoned, so... Marlowe Dumar regarded Lucien evenly, seeming more or less unaffected by his arrival. It was entirely possible that the trouble today warranted ignoring earlier awkwardness entirely. These were matters that affected the entire city, after all, not merely a few lives. The Viscount looked to Bran. "Leave us." He nodded, exiting the room and closing the doors behind him, as the Viscount crossed his arms and let his gaze fall to the floor.

"Meredith at my throat, Orsino at my heels, and a city scared of heretical giants. Balance has held because the Qunari ask for nothing. Even the space in Lowtown was a 'gift' to contain them." He turned to face Lucien. "But now the Arishok has requested you. By name." His tone changed to almost sound accusing, though not quite. "What did you do?"

"Father..." came Sophia's first words, from his side, "Lucien and I encountered the Arishok once, several years ago. I believe Lucien impressed him, actually. It might be why he's been requested." Her words implied that she had never actually told her father what occurred the night Sister Petrice had lured them into an ambush. He appeared startled to hear that his daughter had already met the Arishok, but then perhaps realized he shouldn't have been so surprised, and sighed instead.

"I suppose it doesn't matter. I just need them quiet. It seems you are meant to have influence in this city, Lucien, regardless of how humble you choose to make your station." He moved back around the desk. "Speak to the Arishok. Give him what he needs to keep the peace. My daughter will be accompanying you." Not included in his words but obviously intended were the words let nothing happen to her. Judging by his tone, he'd been persuaded into this by her, which was unsurprising.

Lucien was quick to pick up on the fact that this was news to the Viscount, though he managed to refrain from the questioning look he wished to send in Sophia’s direction. If she hadn’t told her father what happened, what were the chances she’d told the Grand Cleric? He chose not to dwell on the point; it was probably too late now—they’d just have to do what they could with whatever came about because of it.

He honestly wasn’t sure what the Arishok could want with him. Sophia apparently believed that he’d done something right as far as the Qunari were concerned, but he hadn’t thought that had earned him any more than the ability to twice walk into and out of that compound without being attacked. He would consider Amalia a friend of his, to a point, but she didn’t seem to have much of anything to do with the army on the docks, so that wasn’t it, either. Regardless, it was clear what he had to do, and he inclined his head. “As you say.” And as you imply. He raised a brow at Sophia, as if to ask if she were coming, then turned and took his leave. He, of course, had fewer reservations than the Viscount did about her presence. She was quite capable of taking care of herself in most any situation, and should she find herself in trouble anyway, well… that was what friends were for. He was trying to extend this reasoning to matters outside of diplomacy and battle, but that was harder, though he did not fail for lack of trying.

And speaking of friends… “I haven’t the faintest guess what the Arishok wants,” he told her as they descended the Keep stairs, “But something tells me a friend or two wouldn’t go amiss. Shall we see if Nostariel is occupied this afternoon?”

"I was going to suggest that myself," Sophia said, keeping step with Lucien. It was troubling, to say the least. The Arishok had asked for nothing in the entire time he'd been stranded in Kirkwall, so whatever this was, she was inclined to believe it was serious. She supposed a day like this had been coming for some time now, but it seemed as though it was finally here. "Father wants us to appease him. Whatever is required to return him to dormancy. I'm not so sure appeasement is best, myself, but I suppose we'll have to speak to him before we can decide anything." Her father had meant to distract her with some more menial duties while Lucien went to the Docks without her, but she was having none of that. Any matters regarding the Arishok were of utmost importance to the city, and she wouldn't be left out.




Nostariel shook her head a little; that gash was bad. She could only assume he’d been out with Amalia again, doing… whatever it was that they did. Lots of fighting, obviously, but she didn’t usually pry far enough to ask just who was at the other end of all those knives. They were probably quite dead now, at any rate, knowing the efficiency of those two. “Pardon me a moment,” she told Aurora and her friend, apparently named Milly, and set to work on Ithilian, peeling away a few layers of ringmail and leather to get at the wound itself. The magic lit in her free hand, which she passed over the cut a few times, slowly knitting the flesh closed and chasing out any possibility of infection.

“I’m honestly not surprised they try to get you from behind,” she remarked conversationally. “You’re rather daunting coming at somebody.” She certainly wouldn’t want to be at the wrong end of such a charge.

Still, she didn’t mind at all. The clinic was a good thing to have, and she enjoyed her work here, but… honestly most of the time she was dealing with sicknesses that would go away on their own or minor injuries that only required a poultice or suchlike. It wasn’t as though she liked it when people were hurt in battle, least of all her friends, but it did make her feel a little more useful. It was funny, in a way: though she’d once wanted nothing more than the quiet life, her time in Kirkwall seemed to have lit in her a certain light of adventure, something which she would have thought she’d had her fill of along ago.

"Who's to say they didn't try and just failed? Man has a habit of killing everyone everywhere when he has the mind to," Aurora said, backing away from Nostariel and taking a seat near the wall. Milly on the other hand still stood close to Nostariel and watched as she worked. She spared a glance at Aurora, wondering what led her and the man to meet, before returning to watching Nostariel work. If Aurora knew the girl, and she did, she was still analyzing Nostariel's methods, comparing them to hers, and keeping mental notes about the whole thing. That was why Milly always did better at the Circle than Aurora. Dilligence and hard work beat out knack and natural talent every day.

The silence on the trip down to Lowtown was comfortable, or maybe that was just wishful thinking on his part. Still, much as he enjoyed pleasant conversation, small talk had never really been his preference, and he didn’t think it was Sophia’s either. Though… actually, there might be something worth saying. “Have you seen Nostariel’s clinic, yet?” he inquired mildly. “It sits somewhere between my house and the Alienage, I believe so that everyone feels comfortable venturing to it. It’s quite a bit brighter than most of the surroundings, actually.”

"I haven't yet," Sophia said, a little sad about the fact. She knew where it was, but had yet to actually see it, and had thankfully not had the need. She'd been keeping in touch with Nostariel, of course, but she sadly did not always have time to leave the Keep for social purposes. It was easier to have her guests occasionally come to her. She looked forward to seeing it, nevertheless, as well as the Warden herself.

Lucien was proud of his friend for using her skills in such a way, and almost certain that the general health of the area was better for it. Even if she didn’t have the resources to heal every single ailment with magic, she also had an assortment of alchemical means at her disposal, courtesy of a conversation he’d had with Rilien and also from Amalia of all people, who he supposed must send her students there whenever they were ill or injured. Many of the people in the area had had some hand in bringing the place about, and in that way, it truly felt like a slice of community in what was otherwise a divided place. Even the location was aptly-chosen. The Warden certainly knew something of healing, in more than one sense of the word. For that, he was more than happy to carry crates of supplies back and forth as often as she liked.

They arrived at the cheerful blue-and-white building shortly thereafter, the garden in front of it coming into bloom very nicely this year from the look of it. He thought of the now-healthy singular plant in his own residence and smiled. No doubt Aurora found some satisfaction helping with the gardening. Lucien pushed open the door and gestured for Sophia to precede him inside. Seeing that Nostariel was evidently occupied, his eye fell instead on the other two present, and then flicked back to Sophia. Ah. He had not counted on her being here, at the present moment. This might be a little less friendly than he was anticipating.

Aurora's eyes were the first to turn toward the new entrants, the first sight being Lucien striding through the door. The mercenary was met with a warm smile as Aurora stood to go greet the man. The next person through the door halted that plan, as Aurora turned quickly away and sat back down, hoping Sophia didn't see. A stupid, foolish hope, but she really really didn't want to start anything today. Not inside Nostariel's clinic, and not with Milly standing right there. Why did they have to run into each other today of all days? Milly herself only spared a glance for the pair entering and returned her stalwart stare to Nostariel's hands. If one apostate wasn't bad enough, two would be a nightmare.

She'd grown since the last time her and Sophia had met. Aurora had a better grasp on her emotions, she knew where she stood, and she had a set of principles. She was not so foolish as to fly into a rage at the mere sight of the woman, though it did manage to make things immediately uncomfortable. Aurora would set her mind to be as cordial as possible, but Sophia had to put in her share of work too. It could be worse, right? Sophia could be an actual Templar. And she was with Lucien too, maybe that'd help. Still, Aurora was trying her best to pretend she didn't see Sophia.

Ithilian did not have much to say to anyone. He liked seeing Nostariel on occasion, but he had been rather annoyed with himself for taking this injury. A foolish mistake, and one that had left him in a rather sour mood, and that was to say more sour than usual. Working with Amalia had become... slightly uneasy, feeling more strained by some unseen force, a vast departure from the silent acceptance they had made of each other before he'd gone and ruined it all. But, he supposed it could be far worse, and they could be not working together at all. He would be wise to see that in of itself as a victory. As for Aurora, she insisted on pressing her company upon him, and he had long since learned to simply weather it until it passed. This time she brought an elf with her, which was marginally more interesting, though the girl wasn't very talkative thus far. She had no vallaslin, but she didn't smell like the city yet. The Circle, then, if she was Aurora's friend. The apostates would do well not to hide in groups. They'd only draw more attention that way.

The two new arrivals were humans, one of them significantly more interesting to Ithilian than the other. Len'alas was as dirty as ever, he could see, and now that he knew what her title was, it was all the more amusing. The other was the one who had contacted the Dalish of a time, he who had directed him to seek the Relaferin when Ithilian had been with him in the Deep Roads. He was of Lowtown, Ithilian knew, and he also knew Amalia to interact with him on occasion. He was worthy of Ithilian's curiosity, at least.

Sophia had nearly forgotten how tolerant the majority of her friends were of apostates, and she found it slightly unpleasant to be reminded. It rather spoiled seeing Nostariel's clinic for the first time, and the happy greeting for Nostariel she imagined vanished quite quickly. It was a reunion with more than one person she wasn't keen on seeing, and to add that on top of stress already heaped on today wasn't ideal. The fact that Sophia hadn't heard about Aurora in the span between when they had last met was one point in her favor, though. She was obviously doing reasonably well at keeping her head down, and not getting herself into an excess of trouble. She noted that Nostariel was currently performing healing on the Dalish elf she'd met alongside Amalia several years ago, and despite the wound, he looked no worse for wear. She gave him a nod, which he did not deign to return. She bit her lip uncertainly, unsure where, or if, she should begin while these others were in earshot.

"Hello, Nostariel," she said, giving a somewhat forced smile and nodding her head. "Lucien and I were on our way to the Qunari compound. The Arishok's asked for him by name. We were wondering if you would be willing to join us."

If Nostariel noticed the sudden influx of awkwardness in the room, she did not acknowledge it, instead glancing up from her work to smile brightly at both Sophia and Lucien. She finished with Ithilian’s wound and stepped back, dusting her hands off on each other mostly out of habit. She hadn’t actually gotten anything on them. “Lucien, Sophia. It is good to see you.” Greetings accomplished or neglected as they chose, however, Sophia was quick to get to the heart of the matter, and Nostariel blinked in surprise.

“The Qunari?” she echoed, glancing at Ithilian. She wasn’t really sure why—he obviously wasn’t one. Maybe she just associated him that strongly with Amalia. One hardly found occasion to speak of one without also mentioning the other, after all. Aurora was her student, as was Nostariel herself, after a fashion, but Ithilian was something else. She wasn’t sure there was a word for it. Maybe the Qunari had one. “Well, yes. I suppose I’d be willing to come, though I think perhaps one of the others might be more helpful than I. Maybe they would also be willing to accompany us?” Anything involving the Qunari involved the city at large, and that included the parts of it she tried to look after as best she could. Given what little she knew of the Qun, the Arishok had summoned Lucien for a purpose, and that meant there was probably going to be fighting involved, warrior that he was.

Milly had turned around and mouthed the word Qunari to Aurora, whose response was to simply shrug. She'd yet introduce her to Amalia after all, but it was on her list. If the clinic hadn't been on her way to the Alienage, she would have went to her first. Milly watched the conversation unfold before her with mounting curiousity, and when there was enough silence for her to speak, she did. "I would really like to see these Qunari. I would love to accompany you, if you'll have me," She said respectfully. These were Rosy's friends, after all, and not hers. Yet, she'd hoped to change that soon. They all seemed like nice people so far.

Selective memory wasn't one of Aurora's perks, she remembered the last time she was put face to face in front of a Kossith, and though she had a much better handle on herself nowadays, still didn't think it was wise to put herself in that position again. However, Milly really seemed to want to see these Qunari, and Aurora didn't have the heart to try and dissuade her. Fine, she'd have to learn about the other part of the city anyway, and what better way than to throw her in the Qunari compound-- with trusted friends at her side of course. She'd have to learn the politics of the city eventually, and Aurora believed Milly had enough sense to not go waving the apostate flag at the first opportunity. The girl was smarter than she'd ever be.

"I'll follow to the gate, but I'm staying outside," She said, the last part mostly directed for Sophia's benefit. She was there for that incident, after all. Milly gave her a questioning look, one which Aurora simply waved off. They'd discuss that in private. "You can just tell me what happened."

Ithilian wasn't sure his presence would be helpful in any way to the len'alas, but thankfully, he didn't much care what helped her, so he was able to factor that out of his decision. Nostariel had sort of invited everyone in the room along, though he suspected from the look on Sophia's face that she didn't think it was the Warden's place to do so. Regardless, he'd wanted to see the inside of the Qunari compound for some time now. He wouldn't impose himself on their business, merely take a look around. He suspected that was something the Qunari wanted to avoid, but he meant them no harm if they meant him none. "I should like to silently observe. I will not get in your way."

Sophia strongly resisted the urge to sigh. She'd come seeking one person, and it looked as though she would be leaving with four. This was a problem, considering that she hardly knew these people, and could certainly not trust them. Dealing with the Arishok was always a delicate matter, and there weren't many people she thought would be able to handle it that well. That Aurora was waiting outside was a given, there was no way Sophia would let her of all people go before the Arishok at her side, considering how their last meeting with the militant Qunari had gone. As for her friend, and for the Dalish man... it seemed like senseless curiosity was winning the day here. "There's no guarantee they'll even let anyone other than Lucien in," she said, "And if they do, I'd like to ask that Lucien do the speaking. He was the one summoned, after all. We will not be welcome there for long, I'm certain of that much."

Setting

5 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

It was with rather a larger group than he’d intended that Lucien eventually found his way to the Qunari Compound, but he did have to draw something of a line when they reached the gate, requesting that no more than three people total accompany him inside. Though he may not always seem it, he was versed enough in diplomacy to understand that it was better not to approach this situation as though looking for a fight. In fact, he rather hoped to avoid one. Since Aurora had already declared her intent to remain without, this left them with one too many individuals, at least until Nostariel mildly volunteered to stay with Aurora. In truth, Lucien would have preferred her company to that of the young woman he did not know, but he wasn’t going to complain. Chances were, the Arishok wouldn’t take much interest in his company anyway.

The four of them were allowed in immediately—without even the need to explain themselves, as was usually required. Apparently, they were expected by the whole compound. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that—it certainly indicated that something of relative importance was happening, which could be either god or bad. Still, it didn’t change his approach any, and when he came to stand before the Arishok, it was with customary politeness but no excess of deference. Inclining his head, he spoke first. “You sent for me, Arishok?”

The Arishok sat atop a small seat at the height of the staircase before them as ever, surrounded by painted warriors who looked utterly bored, despite how much they tried to hide it. They had been here a very long time, among the screaming gulls and the salty smell of the sea, among the lowest of the humans in Lowtown. Smuggling and sometimes even slavery exchanges happened only a few buildings down from where they were camped, and indeed, Ithilian could see this place as nothing other than a military encampment, filled with soldiers awaiting orders. They had waited a long time for them. He did not know what kept them here, but he could feel the way they despised their surroundings. These were a strong people barely contained from destroying this city utterly. He wondered what their thoughts were on the Alienage, and if they would view it any differently than the rest of this place. He would have asked this Arishok such a question, but he had agreed not to speak unless directed otherwise, and the Qunari war leader looked to be in no mood for probing questions. Unless that was just the face he always wore.

"Lucien Drakon," Arishok began in his low rumble of a voice, fixing dark eyes on the man. "Last we met, I did not know your name, did not care to. You have done a great deal over the past few years. The Qunari have not. Our fortunes remain the same." He shifted slightly in the seat, casting brief glances to those that accompanied the mercenary this day, but paying them no mind in the end. "I offer a courtesy. Someone has stolen what he thinks is the formula for gaatlok. You will want to hunt him."

Sophia was unsure what gaatlok was, but if they supposedly wanted to hunt him, it couldn't be anything good. She leaned over to Lucien and spoke in low tones. "Gaatlok? What is that?"

The Qunari were restless, that much was obvious to see. A restless army, trapped in their garrison, was hardly something one wanted on their doorstep. It was almost as volatile a solution as the substance someone had tried to steal, and it made him immediately wary. In the matter of martial strength, someone like him could not afford doubt in his own ability, but there was no mistaking that this was still a daunting reality. The Qunari were too much like him in their militant upbringings for him to assume they would be content doing nothing for much longer.

“Your explosive powder?” he replied, answering Sophia’s question at the same time. He was immediately reminded of Javaris Tintop the dwarf, and the mission he’d undertaken in the company of Nostariel and Ashton several years ago. But… “You said this party believes they have stolen the formula for gaatlok. What have they actually stolen?” You will want to hunt him sounded quite ominous, indeed. The Arishok did not seem one disposed to overstatement.

"The stolen formula was a decoy, Saar-qamek--a poison gas, not explosives," the Arishok answered simply. "A small amount is dangerous enough to your kind. But if made in quantity, perhaps by someone intending to sell it... would he be cautious, or would he assume success, and make enough to threaten a district?" He leaned back slightly. "A courtesy, Lucien. You will want to hunt him."

Lucien nodded gravely. “I most certainly will,” he replied just as solemnly. “My thanks, Arishok.”

"Panahedan, Lucien," the Arishok said, nodding. "I do not hope you die."

Whatever Milly was expecting, it certainly wasn't this. The Qunari were military, they had the same walk and look about them as the Templars back at the Circle, that much was evident. However, somehow these people were even more disciplined. She was more than a little bit intimidated, even if she stood beside both the large mercenary known as Lucien Drakon (a familiar name, but one she was currently unconcerned with) and the Dalish Ithilian. At some point she had taken a step back to allow the men to stand in front of her. It was her own fault of course. She was curious. But she couldn't help but partially blame Rosy for this. She let this happen.

When the conversation turned into talk about a poison gas, Milly's eyes fell even further. What exactly did she step into? Was Kirkwall always this dangerous with threats of poison and danger lingering around every corner? And Lucien, taking it all in stride. Did he really encounter these things often enough to simply just bear it? Her thoughts then turned to Rosy, waiting just outside the gate. Just how did she manage to survive in such a city? She found herself massaging her temples as she was led out, asking the three strangers around her, "Are things always so exciting?"

The Chevalier turned to the other three, and gestured to indicate that they should leave. He was pretty sure he had a decent read on the Arishok by this point, and he’d told them about all he was going to. Lucien had a fair idea about where to start in this hunt, anyway. Once they were back outside and reunited with Aurora and Nostariel, he spoke first to Milly, and then to the group at large. “Only about once a week or so," he said, a knowing lightness to his tone, but it disappeared shortly thereafter. "Nostariel and I once met a dwarf who was very interested in obtaining this gaatlok. I think we might be best served starting with Javaris, and I suppose we’ll most likely find him either at his shop in Lowtown or underground.”

To perhaps explain to his friend why this old story was relevant, Lucien explained the mix-up regarding the gaatlok and the saa-qamek, ending with a small pause, and then: “This is a fair bit more dangerous than I was expecting it to be, and I would understand of there are those among you who do not wish to undertake the task. If so, please do not feel obligated to remain.” He looked particularly at Aurora’s friend as he said this, knowing that she was probably far from used to the lifestyle that the rest of them kept.

Milly met Lucien's look and held for a time before shifting gaze on Aurora. The woman stood straight with her arms crossed and with nary a doubt written on her face. Little Rosy wasn't so little anymore, Milly knew her friend was going to go with them. Not only that, but Aurora had the confidence that said she knew what she was doing, and it wasn't some fancy. She could read it plain as any book, this wouldn't have been the first time Aurora had done anything like this, and most likely not the last time. Milly wouldn't be able to talk her out of it, even if she tried. So she nodded along, "I'll stay. I'll keep out of the way though, but if you need me, I'm here."

Apparently, the answer wasn't the one Aurora wanted to hear, but she couldn't decide Milly's path for her. Only she could do that. So she reluctantly allowed it. The girl needed to learn how life was in Kirkwall, but this was getting to be too much. True, she couldn't want for any more strong companions, but Aurora was still worried. "Fine. But if things get too dangerous..." Aurora's statement was finished by Milly herself, "I'll get out. I know my limits, Rosy. Unlike someone I know."

Still six strong, the party headed back up the stairs to the rest of Lowtown, Lucien and Nostariel leading the way to where they had encountered Javaris Tintop at his shop severa years ago. Sophia followed, silently stewing about the fact that she had two apostates following her. They hadn't come right out and said it, but the fact that Milly was volunteering to stay after she knew how much danger they could potentially be going into echoed back quite similarly to when Sophia had first met Aurora battling thugs in Lowtown's nighttime streets. That she stayed implied she knew how to handle herself, but she did not appear to be a warrior of any kind, and this girl didn't even have the same level of agility Aurora had acquired. If she wasn't a mage, Sophia would be shocked.

Naturally, she began to ask herself why she was keeping silent, and the best reason she could think of was because they really didn't have time for it right now, or the luxury of turning down allies when they knew what they could be walking into. The Dalish elf seemed willing enough to help now, and that was undoubtedly because poison gas in enough quantities to threaten a district could easily do a great deal of harm to the Alienage, if set off in the wrong place. That, and... she knew anything she tried would not go over well. Both Lucien and Nostariel were friends of Aurora's, she had figured that out by now, and undoubtedly wouldn't take kindly to her trying to get her and her friend thrown back into the Circle.

They did not find Javaris at his storefront, which was unsurprising. In fact, the entire space that had once belonged to the dwarf was cleared out, and no one had yet filled it, implying that whatever Tintop had done he'd done recently. They tried heading down deeper into the city next, going for Darktown, at which point Sophia felt even stranger than normal in her shining mail and plate, though she probably didn't make quite as much of an impression as Lucien did. She hadn't visited Darktown very much at all, and found herself resisting the urge to plug her nose. This place was putrid.

Eventually the group came across some luck, and heard the calling of a woman in light armor, shouting about the sale price of the assets of Javaris Tintop. They approached, immediately getting the woman's attention. Judging by the weapons present, she was most likely Coterie. Sophia might have punched her, but she imagined it would be difficult for her to swing her sword down here and not hit someone with ties to the Coterie. She kept a civil tone instead. "You're selling the assets of Javaris Tintop?"

"We are. Limited districts, limited contracts. Keeps territory clear and separate from the start." Sophia ground her teeth, wondering if this criminal knew who she was. If only the guard had the strength to come down here and wipe the lot of them out... "He had a meager lot, but he's skipped with dues outstanding, so up it goes."

Nostariel really wasn’t surprised to hear that Javaris had had Coterie ties. Anyone who thought acquiring and pandering explosive, weaponized powder was a good idea probably didn’t have the conscience required to form compunctions about working with criminals. Honestly… she couldn’t even judge that harshly. Morality was grey in Darktown, and even sometimes in Lowtown, where bare survival was far from guaranteed without some means of employment. She’d fixed up more than a few shady individuals, but she couldn’t afford the luxury of asking, she really couldn’t. If people needed her help, she gave it. That was just the way of things, and it was better than the alternative.

She was put slightly on-edge by the tension radiating through the group, but soothed a little by the fact that Lucien at least didn’t seem to be paying it any mind. Even Ithilian was more or less ignoring it, which was somewhat unusual but welcomed. Still, her hands fidgeted a bit at her sides, as though she wanted to be doing something with them, though she knew not what. When an opportunity was given to speak, she jumped on it. “Do you know where he’s gone?” she asked raising an eyebrow. ”It’s rather important that we find him.”

"The members of our little fellowship expect privacy," she explained, before shrugging. "But... he skipped out on paying me, too. Javaris left in a hurry. I'd put him at Smuggler's Cut, if he's avoiding patrols. It empties at a cave outside town. When you find him, tell him not to come back, will you?"

Smuggler’s Cut… she recalled something about a location by that name. Perhaps Ashton had mentioned it once, in passing, or maybe it was a patient. Either way, she knew where it was, and how to get there. Nodding, she led the group down into a subterranean passage, taking care to warn them that this was not likely to be clear of all interlopers, in case it happened that they didn’t know that already. She would much rather give an unneeded warning than fail to give one that would have done some good.

Her boots produced a squishing sound when she jumped off the ladder and onto the ground, but thankfully nothing seeped in past them. They were treated leather—not much ever got in there, something she occasionally remembered to be grateful for. The lighting was dim at best down here, and so Nostariel lit a couple of little dancing lights in her palm, casting out a much greater radius of illumination than they would have had already. It might have been better to put Ithilian at the head of the group, to watch for traps, but Amalia had taught her to step lightly and keep an eye out, and besides that, Ithilian didn’t know where they were going, so it would have to be her.

The corridor was dank, and smelled uncomfortably of a mix of rot and feces, but at least the floor was mostly dry. Waterproof boots or no, she didn’t enjoy the thought of sloshing around in sewage that should have been elsewhere. These were the dreariest parts of the city, occupied only by the witless or those with no other choice—fugitives, criminals, and the occasional apostate somehow incapable of blending in above. Hopefully, they wouldn’t run into any of those people here, as it was bound to be unpleasant if they did. Their path took them around winding turns and the occasional double-back, but for the most part, there was only one workable passage, and though she supposed Lucien, Ithilian, or even Sophia could have broken apart some of these other doors if it had really been necessary, that they still stood meant Javaris hadn’t used them, so Nostariel kept on.

She was about to be very surprised that they’d made it out without running across anything more dangerous than a couple of skeletons when she caught a small sound. Immediately reaching for her bow, her suspicion was rewarded when a wave of thugs, all of them dwarves and most bearing the facial tattoos of the Casteless, appeared out of what seemed to be thin air. There looked to be about a dozen, most wielding daggers, though a few had two-handed hammers in hand, these ones charging out as the rogues revealed themselves. The passage they were in was very tight, and Nostariel immediately dropped back, charging her first arrow with fire and watching as it thudded into a leather-clad chest, bursting into flame and knocking several of the incoming enemies back. Hopefully, it would buy them a bit of time to get into a better formation.

Well, he’d certainly been in nicer places, but if this was the way to get to Javaris, then it was the way they’d simply have to take. Lucien carefully removed his axe from his back as they walked, not inclined to have to reach for it more quickly in quarters tight enough that he could accidentally hit someone with it. He carried it by his side for the majority of the journey, unburdened by its weight.

When Nostariel reacted to the ambush, Lucien responded in kind, sliding with surprising smoothness to replace her at the front of their formation. There was room for another one or two people as well, but he chose to take point, stepping into a hammer-blow that would have otherwise dented his armor and swinging broadly with the flat of his axe, smashing it into the exposed temple of the scarred warrior who’d struck him. Their numbers weren’t particularly concerning, but the unnatural confinement of the space might prove difficult. “I’m guessing there is no surrender forthcoming,” he said, almost wearily, and since his response was a globule of spit near one of his feet, he took himself to be correct. Very well then—a fight it would be.

Sophia had her blade drawn as well, and it rested against her shoulder for the majority of the trek, though she occasionally was forced to lower it to avoid the tip scraping along the ceiling. The only time that was comparable to the filth she was in now had been her task escorting Ketojan to the coast, and she was really trying to avoid drawing more parallels to that night. At least it was day time, and she was much less tired this time around. Still, any fighting in here would leave her not looking so shiny afterwards.

The mere thought of course was enough to conjure up a fight, as a small host of dwarves ambushed them, luckily only from the front. This would be a bit of an adjustment, fighting a group of people all shorter than she was, but she'd been taught well, and could adapt. She dug her heels in beside Lucien, the two warriors of the party holding the front. She kicked away the first knife-wielder before he could get into range, and an arrow whistled over her shoulder from behind, striking one of them in the throat, where he spun and eventually collapsed. That could only have belonged to the Dalish. At least he was a good shot.

Ah, it wouldn't have been right if they managed to do this without some kind of trouble popping up from around a corner. Aurora glared at the incoming warriors and shook her head, instead turning back and looking at Milly. "Stay to the back where they won't get to you. If we get hurt, we're going to need you," She said, bestoying some use onto Milly. Aurora didn't want her to think she was excluding her and being over protective-- even if she was. She never faced anything like this before, and for Aurora it had nearly become her day-to-day.

Not that Milly minded. "R-right," She was glad to be put out of the reach danger and fell futher back away from the fight, still close enough to launch a healing spell if she had need. In fact, she was beginning to think following along with Rosy was a bad idea. The cave was putrid, their task dangerous, and now there was a clatter of steel. If this was Rosy's way of showing her around town, then there were an indefinite number of better ways she could have better gone about it. So she huffed her cheeks out and watched, in case she was needed.

Meanwhile, Aurora waited behind Lucien and Sophia, between Nostariel and Ithilian. She had neither armor nor arrows, she for a time she was just there. She'd bide her time, and wait for an opportunity to strike, quick and fast just like Amalia had taught her. No reason to jump into the fight ahead when it was bound to find her eventually. And when it did, she'd have a surprise for these dwarves.

Setting

5 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

Unfortunately, the dwarves were more able to maneuver in this hallway, due to their smaller size. Stocky or not, their weapons were generally smaller and so more of them could swing properly without hitting one another. Nostariel would prefer that they not swing at all, quite honestly. Thinking fast, she charged an arrow with a mind blast of all things and shot it in the direction of the main cluster of dwarves. It buried itself into the ground, the resulting wave of telekinetic force issuing around it in a small, but serviceable radius. Several of the dwarves were thrown from their feet, and even those who managed to stay upright were staggering, no longer wielding their weapons with anything resembling efficiency of coordination. The Warden smiled, just a bit. At this point, the rest was basically a forgone conclusion, and only a matter of time.

A clump of the disoriented foes stumbled in his general direction, and Lucien cleaved the first with a mighty vertical blow, one that sent shockwaves through the ground and tripped up a few more, the closest of which he held down with a foot and grimly drove the small spear-point at the tip of his axe straight down into. The metal came back coated in blood—he had not missed the heart. He had no idea when whatever that arrow had done to their heads would wear off, but he didn’t want to risk it being sooner than he could get through the rest, so he decided to take advantage of the fact that he had allies.

In a maneuver that would have been much easier with his scythe but still worked acceptably with the axe, he swept his weapon outward, catching a cluster of three with the pole rather than the head of it and twisting his body so as to yank them all forward and form what was essentially a row of targets who couldn’t move much. Leaning in the opposite direction himself, he exposed the triplicate of thugs to the rear ranks, and whatever any of those three could think of to do with them.

Ithilian was the one to take the free kills, and kills they would be, regardless of how lethal anyone else intended to be or not be towards these scum. In an extremely indelicate introduction to the underworld of Kirkwall for Milly, Ithilian loosed the first arrow to punch through the first dwarf's open mouth, the second making a more resounding crack through a skull and into the brain, and the third going cleanly through the last dwarf's eye. Each fell heavily on their back in a row with a pleasing thud of leather and mail.

Two more came Sophia's way from Nostariel's magical arrow, the first of which had no means to defend himself against her pommel strike, which came down hard on his light leather helm, enough to take him out entirely. The second began to regain his faculties, raising knives, but Sophia easily had the advantage of range with her hand and a half sword, able to catch him in the middle and bring him down before he closed the distance. The close quarters proved slightly awkward afterward, as she struggled momentarily to remove the blade from the thug. A third charged forth with a warhammer, swinging downwards. Sophia got her guard up in time to catch it at the height of the blow, but the dwarf was more than strong enough for such a weapon, the force of the clash of weapons shaking her slightly. Fortunately, her blade bit into the wood of the shaft enough to hold his weapon aloft with her guard, leaving him open for an ally to strike. That said nothing about the fourth Carta member coming up behind the hammer-wielder swiftly, with a pair of knives of his own.

He'd have to cut through the redhead first. Aurora had taken the sudden confusion for her own advantage, and with the incredibly large targets both Sophia and Lucien were painting made her more subtle approach all that much more effective. She'd slipped around Sophia when her blade caught the hammer of the dwarf and deposited herself right into the path of the knife wielding one. Not one to stay still for very long, lest give the advantage back to the enemy, she didn't decide to stop and face off with the dwarf, and instead she kept moving forward. Her knee rose and she put a little effort into her other foot, taking her off the ground and slamming her knee into the face of the dwarf, snapping his nose like twigs.

When both mage and dwarf fell back down, Aurora knelt on his ribcage, effectively pinning him. There was still a little bit of fight left in the dwarf, of which Aurora effectively drained by throwing three punches in rapid succession to his face. Perhaps a bit more than was strictly necessary, but dwarves' heads were harder than the average human. She then pounced off of the dwarf's chest and and dropped into a crouch. That only left one more-- the one Sophia was currently dealing with. In an effort to end the fight sooner rather than later, Aurora spun with her foot outstretched, sweeping the feet from under the roguish fellow, and allowed Sophia to do what she would with him.

The weight released and the dwarf fell sideways, crashing heavily to the ground and providing relief for Sophia's arms. She gave the last enemy a swift kick in the face to put him out cold, only then realizing it had been Aurora who had taken him to the ground. She hadn't even noticed the woman slip up in the confusion, but now she found herself face to face with her again. Rather than speak, she simply nodded, and the group moved on, the end nearly in sight.

Milly's eyes widened as the group in front of her effortlessly dealt with the twelve or so dwarves running at them. Who were these people, and how did Rosy meet them? More importantly, where did Rosy learn to fight like that? She was a mage, Milly was expecting a magical display, but no. Rosy dismantled her own opponent without using so much as a drop of mana. And the way she slipped through the battle like a ghost-- she didn't learn that in the Circle. It brought certain questions to mind, like what had she been doing since her time out of the circle. She was just as dangerous as any one of the warriors or the dalish. Milly followed the group speechlessly, and once Aurora had to pause to close her mouth for her.

The tunnel came out on a sandy area near the coast line, though not so far out as the one Petrice had led her to. Really, she wished she could stop equating these two missions, it was beginning to drive her mad. The sun was beginning to lower somewhat, and they would probably only have a few hours before night fell. Before them was a single dwarf, and this one not in armor, but the finer clothes of a merchant. Javaris obviously put some care into his appearance, but he looked understandably ragged at this point. His eyes widened when he saw that it was six strangers (and two less so) approaching him rather than the Carta thugs he had hired for protection. He began to back up, looking ready to bolt, and Sophia noticed the Dalish man on her right knocking an arrow in preparation.

Lucien held up both hands, his axe safely replaced at his back, and spoke quickly, but calmly. “Javaris. We’re not here on behalf of the Coterie. We’re not going to tell them where you are. We just need to know if you know anything about a stolen Qunari formula.” He trusted that his company was intimidating enough, and tried to lessen the impact of his own presence by remaining nonhostile. He wasn’t so sure this was where they needed to be after all—the dwarf looked far too panicked for someone who believed he had successfully stolen his future fortune.

Javaris looked confused for a moment, but stopped his retreat, and Ithilian lowered his weapon, though he was not so kind as Lucien, and left the arrow nocked. "What?" Tintop asked. "You mean... she didn't hire you? Oh, I thought for sure you were going to come and take my head back to that sodding elf." The string on Ithilian's bow tightened a tensed a little, and the glare Javaris received was enough to make him swallow. "So... who are you working for, then?"

"The Arishok advised us to track you down," Sophia answered, having sheathed her own sword, and crossing her arms. "Who's this elf you're talking about?" The dwarf looked rather disturbed to hear the news. "Wait... you're tracking for the Qunari?" He sighed. "Then she did it. That elf got them after me for nothing! Bitch-born!"

"Speak sense, durgen'len, and do it quickly," Ithilian advised. Javaris nodded, scrambling a bit. "Right, look, I'm minding my business, same old, and out of the blue some elf tries to kill me. Says she's got the Qunari powder and I'm her cover. I slipped her, hired some bodyguards, and ran for it. And now you're here. Great."

Sophia placed her hands on her hips, and shrugged. "If you're innocent, why not explain this to the Arishok?" But Javaris shook his head. "Let's break this down. An elf with explosives wants me dead. The Qunari may think I'm a thief and also want me dead. Either option seem promising? Didn't think so. You wanna get to the end of this, go for it. I had a man follow her, she's in Lowtown, the southeast district, between the stairs to the docks and the Alienage. I would simply like to leave, if you'd be so kind."

Nostariel sighed quietly, shaking her head. “Go ahead and go then, Javaris. Please try to take care of yourself.” And maybe not by selling illegal goods this time. Still, she left that part unsaid. Dusk was nearing already, and they had to make it to Lowtown in enough time to stop this woman from spreading the poison to the entire southeast district. It was bad enough that anyone had this poison, but that was a densely populated area, and quite close to many of the residences of the people here, to say nothing of their friends and countless other individuals. “We need to go, too—quickly.”

"Right, got me a rosy future to plan out," Javaris said, turning towards the caves, "Think I'll start by selling some boots." He began to grumble to himself. "Sodding bunch of... take a long breath on a short shaft you... blasted nug-humpers..."

Doubting that any of her companions saw need for further delay, Nostariel turned and hastened to go back through the passage they had just emerged from. Time was of the essence; they could not possibly afford to delay. Once back in Darktown, they blew past the Coterie representative without a word, reaching the nearest staircase to Lowtown, which took them out a little north of where they wanted to be. The air was much fresher here, but there was something acrid in it, something she would usually only expect to smell at the Foundry district. That couldn’t be good.

A few more minutes of quick walking, and the smell was growing stronger. She finally located an alley she thought might be promising, but before the group could get any further, they were stopped by a member of the City Guard. He was in the process of speaking to an already growing crowd of civilians. "All of you, I can't fight the damned air! You want to live, stay out!"

Sophia tried to get a better look at what was going on, but the guard was stopping them just before a corner of a multiple story building, and she couldn't see past it. "We're here to help, guardsman." The guard's eyes widened upon seeing her. "Wait, Lady Sophia? Maker, please, the street is death. There was a cloud that drove people mad, and now a seeping mist that slowly kills. All I can do is warn people. If someone like you dies on my watch..." Sophia shook her head. "Then it would be my risk, and you would not be to blame."

She turned back to the rest of the group. "There's little time. We need to stop this, now. The poison is saar-qamek. Amalia should have at least some amount of antidote with her. The poison won't bring us down immediately. If someone goes to get Amalia, the rest of us can get a handle on this, and cure the poison afterward." She had a bit of antidote herself, but there was really only enough for herself, and it was all the way up in the Keep. Stupid of her, to not bring it when it would be useful...

Well, this day was getting better and better, now they got to go dive head first into a poison mist that could most likely kill them. Aurora was neither enthused, nor impressed by the way she stood. In fact, she seemed apprehensive, but she did what she had to do. This was her home now, and she'd fight to protect it. Upon Sophia's suggestion, Aurora turned to Milly and spoke, "I need you to go get Amalia for us. Tell her about the poison, and help her with whatever she needs. You'll probably save our lives." Aurora could see the no creeping into Milly's eyes, which caused her to put a hand on the elf's shoulder. "We can handle this, but we will need Amalia. I need you to do this. She's in the Alienage, ask for her by name. The elves will point you in her direction. She's a human of the Qun,"

That brought a flicker of confusion into Milly's eyes, but Rosy was right. She wouldn't be able to help them here. She'd watched them all fight in the tunnels, she'd just slow them down-- maybe even put Aurora in danger by worrying. They were right, what she couldn't do by helping here, she could help by finding this Amalia. "Okay, I'll find her. But you can't die while I'm gone, understand me? I just found you," She said, stepping backwards. "Believe me, I don't plan on it," Aurora said with a smile. And with that, Milly turned around and ran, heading back toward the Alienage.

"This... Isn't going to be pretty, is it?" Aurora asked rhetorically, lifting her crimson scarf up from under her chin and wrapping it around her nose and mouth. Maybe it'd help, but it most likely won't. No harm in trying though.

Setting

5 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

Night had settled at this point, but the majority of this section of Lowtown was lit by a dull green glow of fumes, spreading ever so slowly. Speed would be the party's only defense against the poison gas, but even that would only get them so far. They needed to locate the source of the gas, and put it out, by whatever means necessary. Immediately after they'd dove into the fumes Sophia felt an itching sensation at the back of her throat, and then in her chest, disagreeing with what she was breathing. It was difficult, but not impossible, to get a breath, though of course the more air she took in, the more poison. Combining that with the likelihood of being forced into fighting someone, and their lifespans were currently shrinking considerably if Aurora's friend couldn't bring Amalia after this was done.

They entered a square courtyard leading into what looked like a residential complex of some sort, loosely organized housing rising up several stories around them, the gas slipping down a number of side alleys and back streets. Sophia was about to direct the group to explore these when she noticed an armored elven woman brandishing a greatsword similar to her own stepping out onto one of the second story balconies, flanked by a half dozen mercenaries, just out of reach of the poison. "Is that..." she said, eyed the brave visitors into the poisoned areas. "the Viscount's daughter, Sophia Dumar! You have enemies."

Of course she did. Someone had nearly killed her on her own birthday, and tried to kill her father as well. Someone in her position couldn't possibly avoid having enemies. "I'm glad it's you, really. These poor people. You are a much better target!" Ithilian had begun to move sideways. "There is no time for this. Someone needs to deal with her. The rest of us will find the source of this and stop it." At that, Sophia nodded to him. "I can handle her." She'd probably need some help with the bodyguards, but splitting into two and three seemed doable here.

Nostariel really had no idea what was going on. Why would someone who stole a toxin from the Qunari be particularly interested in hurting Sophia? There wasn’t really any time to wrap her head around it, however, as Ithilian was right—they needed to find whatever was emitting this gas and stop it, and the woman herself didn’t seem to be holding any kind of device, nor was the poison issuing from behind her. Glancing around quickly, Nostariel picked the opposite side from Ithilian and darted off, hoping they could cover more ground that way. It already hurt to breathe, and there was no telling how long it would take the stuff to work fully on them. Nostariel was willing to bet she and Aurora would be the first to drop, however, given their smaller size.

Lucien, on the other hand, didn’t move. The saar-qamek burned in his lungs, an uncanny sensation that was also most unpleasant, but he gripped the haft of his axe anyway, seeing Nostariel and Ithilian edging away from the corner of his eye. He suspected that this was a few too many people for Sophia to safely handle on her own, given the toxic substance they were inhaling, so he would remain as well. He firmly believed that Amalia would be here when she needed to be, if in fact Milly reached her on time, and it wasn’t hard to locate the Qunari woman if you really needed to.

“What on Thedas could possibly make you think this was a good idea?” he asked, genuinely flabbergasted. “Did someone put you up to this?” His second hand gripped the axe, and he held it level in front of him, in case she decided to act rather than speak. Still, he owed the Arishok an answer if he could give one, and he wasn’t going to just attack without trying to figure this out first. Who knew; doing so might reveal something important.

As she initially expected, the scarf did nothing to block the poisonous gas from seeping into her lungs, and by the time her throat began to rub raw she let the piece of cloth fall back to around her neck. It was a nice thought, but thoroughly ineffective. As Ithilian began to ease sideways, Aurora did the same in her own direction. Sure could sit there and wonder why the woman would want this, yes, but that wouldn't solve the problem any faster. They needed to act, and fast, before the whole district died, and not only themselves. It was only when Nostariel darted off that Aurora followed suit in a wholly different direction. She wouldn't drop from this gas, she'd made a promise, after all.

"Qunari take my people!" the irate elven woman explained. "My siblings forget their culture, then go to the Qun for purpose. We're losing them twice! So I get some help from your people. We'll take the Qunari thunder, make some accidents, make them hated!"

"Who?" Sophia repeated Lucien's question. "Who put you up to this?" But the elf only smiled knowingly. "It can still work. They are hidden in your city. They'll enrage the faithful, and make sure the Qunari are blamed! Me, I'm finished, just need a few more bodies. A few more..." She and her guards pulled plague masks over their heads, before jumping down into the street to engage Sophia and Lucien.

The elf made a beeline for Sophia, the more valuable target of the two, though considering Lucien's situation, probably not by much. Still, she was the more widely known person in Kirkwall, and would make the prettier corpse for the populace to be angry about, and revolt against the Qunari. Seriously, if she made any more connections... but perhaps there was a reason for that. Enrage the faithful... this was all too disturbingly similar to Petrice's previous plot to be coincidence. Whatever was infecting the Chantry here in Kirkwall, Sophia would root it out and remove it. Right after she killed this crazed elf here...

Sadly, it wouldn't be so simply, as the elf was good with a blade, and she wasn't subjected to the pain of taking in a breath with that mask on. They traded blows as the mercenaries with her attempted to swarm Lucien, but she knew full well that he could handle himself. She had her hands full as it was. The elf was quick with her strikes, and Sophia found herself driven back a few paces, her parrying ability put to the test. She was immediately short of breath, unable to take a good one without increasing pain in her chest.

After a quick high strike, the elf woman threw a low kick that took out one of Sophia's legs, bringing her to a knee. She attempted to bring her sword down to plunge through the back of Sophia's neck, but the Viscount's daughter performed a quick sideways roll, returning to her feet and landing a quick slash to the elf's side, opening a wound and forcing her to regroup. Sophia did not intend to allow her the chance, pushing forward with a flurry of blows, trying to drive her to the nearby wall and prevent her from retreating any further.

Six against one was just Lucien’s kind of unfair. Naturally, he offered them the opportunity to leave, and naturally, they refused, so it was down to business immediately afterwards. He found he didn’t mind—he rarely did, but it seemed unfair somehow not to warn them about what they were getting themselves into. These allies of his were formidable, and he was certainly no slouch either.

A sword clanged off his axe, and another two rebounded off his armor, which was rather unfortunate for the men holding them, because, burning lungs or no, he scythed through the trio in one broad swing, leaving each with a nasty gash at about chest level. That forced the leather clad ones to retreat a bit, and two men in full plate stepped up instead. The first was even bigger than he was, by what must have been an accident of heritage, and the other was a woman only slightly shorter than Sophia. The big man bore down on him, but Lucien didn’t bother rising to the bait of a strength contest—that would only leave him open for attack by the other five, particularly the woman, who was circling a bit to his side. Instead, he slid smoothly out from under the hammerblow and jammed the pommel of his axe up into the other fellow’s chin, the force of it producing a familiar cracking as his jaw shattered.

That left him reeling, and gave Lucien enough time to turn into the woman’s sword, which caught a weaker joint in his armor and left a thin ribbon of blood trailing out of his abdomen, just beneath and to the side of his ribcage. Getting the hit cost her dearly, however, and when he proved undaunted by such a strike, she wisely tried to backpedal away from him… and then his axe parted her head from her shoulders. The body collapsed, and he grimaced as two of the rogues and their uninjured companion—a light skirmisher from the look of it—closed back in. One went down when a vertical slice bit deep into the space between shoulder and neck, collapsing his collarbone and tearing through the muscles, leaving him screaming and collapsed.

He was planning on ending that more mercifully, but a rogue’s dagger at his back forced him to change his mind. Had it not been for the fact that Rilien was a far superior assassin who’d attempted something similar, Lucien would have met his end right there. Instead, he leaned sideways, the knife aimed for the base of his skull whistling past his ear instead. Gripping his axe near the head, he jammed the haft back and caught the fellow in the stomach, spinning and slamming a heavy fist into his nose, breaking it with enough force that it was quite likely not even Nostariel would be able to put it back together rightly. The axe slid through his fingers until he was holding it properly again, and the spear-tip drove down into the screaming man’s throat, silencing him permanently.

The arrow, he had not expected. It was the third injured rogue, who’d apparently decided it was a better idea not to engage a knight in melee combat. Wise, and for that, Lucien was unlucky enough to find an arrowhead buried in the palm of his hand, of all places. Gritting his teeth, he swung the axe one-handed and cleaved open the chest of the remaining melee fighter, then dropped it and drew the long knife from his belt. Much easier to handle with only one good hand, but thankfully not a sword. He still did not plan on allowing himself one of those.

His lungs burned and his vision was becoming blurry, but he was still singularly-focused on the task at hand, and the archer stood no chance, drawing his own knife and striking frantically, only to be batted away by the chevalier’s plate gauntlet. His own dagger punched through the layers of leather and light ringmail, burying itself in the brigand’s heart. Breathing heavily, Lucien sheathed the knife and snapped off the shaft of the arrow. He… might need someone else to dig the metal head out of his hand, as it was barbed and he didn’t want to lose the use of the appendage.

Sophia had her, driving her all the way to the wall, but just as she reached it, an arrow from an archer Lucien was not yet able to engage found a spot on the left side of her back, and she immediately tightened up, the way her breath immediately caught giving her some indication that the arrowhead had nicked a lung. That was bad. Her next planned attack against the elf woman came out woefully weakened, and the woman turned it aside, taking both their swordpoints to the ground. She followed with a pommel strike up into Sophia's forehead, sending flashing lights exploding into her field of vision.

A rough grip closed around her arm and Sophia was pulled hard into the wall she'd been attempting to drive the elf into, her back hitting it hard enough to summon what would have been a small fit of coughing if she hadn't desperately contained it. The shaft of the arrow pushed into her back further into her back before the force itself snapped it, the pain garnering a gasp from Sophia. The elf's first strike came hard and horizontally, Sophia's block not quite strong enough to stop it fully, and the edge bit into her left side with the sound of metal slicing on metal and into flesh beneath, sending several lines of crimson tumbling down over her silver ringmail. She found her own sword placed precariously with the tip down between her legs, no good for a traditional strike, but it did give her an opportunity of sorts...

She picked it up only enough to plunge it down again, stabbing it down cleanly through the the elven woman's leather boot, all the way until she felt the steel hit dirt, and a red splotch began to spread beneath her feet. The elf snarled and roughly withdrew her blade from Sophia's side, though the Viscount's daughter already launched her next attack, throwing her own pommel strike up under her jaw, knocking the elf back a few steps and giving Sophia room to breathe. She pushed away while she could, attempting a sideways swing, but the elf had the same idea, flowing into a spin, and the two blades each bit into their targets' sides simultaneously, and while Sophia's hit with more force, the elf's hit the wound she'd already opened.

Both withdrew at once, taking a step back and collecting themselves, each dripping blood to the streets by this point. The elf made the next attack, attempting a lunge this time, but her speed was inhibited by the wound in her foot, and Sophia saw the chance. She knew this needed to end now, as the longer it went, the more the odds stacked against her, both considering the poison in her lungs, and her heavily bleeding wound. She dipped the point of her sword down and parried the lunge to the side at the correct moment, when the elf's momentum was carrying her forward without a chance to alter her course. The stab deflected aside, she lunged forward herself, bringing the point up to spear the elf through the middle. She heard the woman cough several times under her mask, before she withdrew the bloody sword, and she collapsed to the ground on her back.

She turned to see Lucien having defeated the others, though he was injured himself. The tip of her sword fell to the ground, her left hand rising to try and stem the bleeding from her side. Her breathing was heavily strained, both from exertion and from the effects of the poison. "We need to... find Nostariel," she said, a cough and several breaths interrupting the sentence.

It was with considerably more care than he would usually use for such an action that Lucien bent and retrieved his axe, strapping it back into place as well as he could with only one fully-functional hand. Sophia was just as injured as he was, perhaps even moreso, and he nodded to her statement. He didn’t have any potions on his person, as most of the time, he honestly didn’t need them. The poison might be killing them faster, but that didn’t mean their wounds could go untreated forever, either. Casting a glance around, he didn’t see anything in particular, but there were sounds of a commotion coming from somewhere to their left. “That way—it sounds like they might be engaged.” He slide the knife back out of its sheath and held it loosely in his uninjured hand, preceding his friend in the direction he’d indicated.

Setting

6 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

Nostariel’s path took her down a side alley, and it didn’t take her long to spot a barrel with a strange twist mechanism on the top, gushing green gas at an alarming rate. That could only be the source. Unfortunately, the way forward to it was blocked by a group of three people, ordinary Kirkwallers by the look of it, but there was a strange, fevered flush to their skin, and their eyes were glassy. She hoped that could be reversed… probably better to assume it could, and try to get past them without killing them. Remembering her new trick, Nostariel drew an arrow back to her cheek, sighting down the shaft and putting the mind-magic into it, then firing the arrow into a nearby doorframe. She didn’t want to break it by hitting stone walls or floors, after all.

By this time, her breathing was labored and heavy in her chest, damp as though she had some kind of liquid in her lungs. It was incredibly uncomfortable, and she had to resist the urge to cough. Moving forward as quickly as she could after her arrow, she throat-punched one of the disoriented humans, dropping him like a rock to the ground. She had a repertoire not near as impressive as Amalia’s or even Aurora’s, but the Qunari had not let her get by learning to meditate only, and now, when she didn’t want to hurt any of these people permanently, she was incredibly grateful for that.

The next two were harder, but she did manage to trip one up by sweeping her bow into the back of his knees, and his head met the stone beneath them with an uncomfortable thud. Not dead, but definitely concussed. She flinched, but there was no time. The last had recovered from her disorientation and swung what seemed to be a chisel at Nostariel, forcing the elf to take a few steps back and brace with the leather guard that encased her forearm. She cast a misdirection hex, but that only made the woman run off as though to attack someone else, and she couldn’t have that. Forcing her feet to pick up to a running pace, Nostariel tackled the woman from behind, twining an arm around her neck and holding her there until she passed out.

Unfortunately, the physical strain of such activity caused her to erupt into a coughing fit, and she spat a suspiciously-red spatter onto the ground. That wasn’t good… and it wouldn’t do her much more to heal the internal damage if she kept breathing this poison. Nonetheless, she tried, stumbling over to the barrel and turning the odd handle. It closed with a click, cutting off the flow of the gas. Thank the Maker…

Now, to find the others.

Ithilian drew one blade as he darted into a side alley. He didn't dare draw Parshaara, at the risk that this gas was flammable, but one of his own would suffice. He made sure to leave the blade in his left hand, keeping his right free. These would be civilians in a blind rage, and likely not difficult to defeat, at least in small numbers, and at least while he could breathe without choking on something, which would only be a short time now.

An empty handed woman screamed and ran at him, trying to claw him with her fingernails, but Ithilian vaulted left of her, placing his right hand on her shoulder and running off the left wall over a table, out of her reach. He landed smoothly and continued running, though a single cough sent a wave of pain through his lungs, and he grimaced. He ran past what looked to be a small inn, but just as he did the door swung open, and there was no time to sidestep. He slammed into it with his shoulder leading the way, sending two raging patrons to the ground along with him, rolling to the dusty street.

They were men, both armed and well built, and while he was willing to make a minor effort to avoid casualties in this situation, he wasn't patient enough to deal with armed individuals by knocking them out. One of them already had a hand on his jacket as he scrambled to his feet, a knife in the other hand. A punch to the jaw, followed by a knee to the head, severed his grip, and Ithilian finished the deal by plunging his blade cleanly down into the man's chest. This was shortly followed by the second man's mace coming down hard on Ithilian's shoulder with a resounding crack.

He snarled. Hit from behind again. He would do well to learn from some of these mistakes. The mace had hit on the right side, so he turned against it, throwing a reverse elbow strike with his left to the man's temple, knocking him back. He followed by turning and leaping forward at him, sinking a blade down into his chest, before ripping it free and plunging it up through the base of the chin into the brain, ending it quickly. His right arm wasn't working as well after that, and he imagined some heavy damage had been done to the collarbone. Thankfully, there was a barrel leaking the poison here, and he smacked the handle to shut it, stopping the flow. There were others, of course, and he darted off to find them, ignoring the hitching of his breath as best he could.

It took Aurora a little longer to find her barrel. Lowtown streets were normal for her, but when it was awash with a green fog and your vision flickered every few moments, it tended to be a disorienting affair. Fortunately, she followed the gas as it became denser and eventaully she stumbled over the source. A barrel-like mechanism spewing the green poisonous mist from a spout on the top. She began to wonder how could a barrel contain so much gas as to choke an entire city, but pushed it out. She didn't have time to ponder on such things, she needed to shut it off, and quick. Aurora dashed toward the barrel and almost made it when she was interrupted by an arrow. She managed to dodge well enough that it only left a thin red line across her cheek, but the statement was made. She'd have to fight her way to the barrel.

Now that Sophia was a safe distance away so as to not be hounded by threats of being dragged back to the Circle, Aurora summoned her stone armor around her, this time engulfing her core and arms instead of her hands. A good thing to, as an arrow embedded itself where her heart would have been without it. It still bit deep into the flesh beneath, but it luckily nonfatal. She glanced at the arrow and tried not to think what would have happened if she had been a couple of seconds slower, instead following the trajectory of the arrow. Walking out between a pair of buildings were a trio of thugs, each donning a plague masks. They would be hers by the end of the fight. No use in huffing any more poison if she could help.

The rock armor on her chest, compounded with the poison swirling around in her lungs, affected her breathing. Her throat was sore and raw, and even her lungs began to itch. But she didn't need to breathe. She didn't wait for the thugs to rush her, and did that job for them. She blocked an arrow aimed at her face with the rock on her arm and before the archer was able to get another shot off she was there. The rock of her shoulder rammed into his belly, taking him down with her. With Aurora leaning over the thug. Instead of two to the face like normal in an effort to not break the plague mask, she rammed another fist into his belly, discouraging any further hostility.

A flicker to the right of her, and she rolled off the man-- taking his mask with her. A chain smashed heavily into the thug's chest and where she was only moments ago. Good to see these thugs still respected their comrades. When she got back to her feet, she was already wearing the mask and found herself standing off against two thugs, one with a chain and another with a spear. She cursed, which was muffled by her mask, she didn't have time for this. She dashed forward again, and instead of leading off with a shoulder, she led with a cone of cold, catching the thugs by surprise. By the time they stopped wheeling from the jagged icicles tearing at their faces, Aurora had already delivered a number of punches into the midsection of the spearman.

It gave ample opportunity for other thug to swing his chain downward upon Aurora. Instead of it knocking her out, she took a step backward and let it wrap around her arm. Now that she had leverage, she yanked the chain, pulling the thug forward, and as he fell, Aurora dropped an elbow on the back of his head, finishing it. Now that the way was cleared, she twisted the mechanism and shut off the gas. However, before she left to find the others, she collected the plague masks off the other two. She was still coughing inside hers, and whatever damage was done was done-- but it should help to keep her alive longer than inhaling more of the putrid gas.

She sort of lost track of the twists and turns she took, doing the rather counterproductive thing and wading into thicker patches of gas where she found them, and by the time she managed to locate the last barrel—nestled at the back of a dead-end alley, of course—Nostariel’s breathing was ragged, though at least she was mostly too weak to cough now. That had to be… something, at least. More stumbling than walking by this point, she headed towards it, reaching it after what seemed like an age, attempting to twist the handle… only to discover that it refused to cooperate.

Was it just the weakness in her limbs from the poison working through her, or was it really stuck? Reaching out with both hands, she tried again, still to no avail. She could hear the sound of footsteps approaching from behind her, and she sincerely hoped it wasn’t more crazed people. She wasn’t strong enough to both deal with them and close this barrel. Come on, you stupid thing… Even her thoughts grew sluggish now, it seemed.

The footsteps behind Nostariel weren't of the crazed civilians, or rather, not the one she expected. There had to be something said about willingly wading into a mist of poison fog that brought on the questioning of one's sanity. Instead, it was Aurora and she found herself pleasantly surprised that instead of more thugs at the next barrel, it was only Nostariel. The mere sight of the woman managed to quicken her already sluggish gait and once she got close enough to where she didn't need to shout, Aurora spoke up, "It's me. Take this." It was all the words she could muster without falling into a deep wheeze. In her hand held one of the scavenged plague masks. Nostariel reached a fumbling hand to take it and fasten it to her face, nodding her thanks but unable to waste breath speaking for the moment.

Ithilian spotted an archer taking aim at someone, and didn't waste the time to check who it was, running up behind him and sticking his blade into his back, the point of it erupting out of his chest. He fell as Ithilian withdrew the sword, and he found that it was none other than Nostariel and Aurora being targeted. He jogged, favoring his right arm, over to meet them, sheathing his blade as Aurora offered him a mask she had pulled off one of the enemies. Gratefully he accepted, throwing it over his face to stop any more poison from entering his lungs. The barrel appeared to be jammed by something. He cursed under the mask. They really didn't have time for this. On top of it all, he heard the approaching footsteps of three thugs entering their dead end alley, and Ithilian re-drew his left hand blade. He doubted they had another fight in them, but obviously that was what was in store for them. Aurora turned just as wearily to face them as well, wondering just how far her limits would let her go.

The shadow ran along the edge of the roof, mismatched eyes almost backlit by the sparse illumination to be had in the poisoned alleys of Lowtown. She reached the edge of her last roof just as the trio of armed men entered the narrow alley occupied by the unfortunate three fighters, and though Sophia and Lucien were on their way, they would not be fast enough. Amalia never even broke her stride, leaping fluidly from the roof like something more feline than human, the polished steel blade in her gauntlet hissing as it slid free of the dragonskin. That Milly had caught her sleeping and relatively unprepared for the task at hand was evident only in one fact: her hair streamed behind her freely as she fell like a pennant in the breeze, as she’d judged there was not time to bind it before she grabbed her supplies and left.

Just as well—she appeared to be right on time. Her passage through the air was almost entirely silent, and she flipped once, landing solidly on the shoulders of the last man in line, burying the blade smoothly into the back of his neck, her momentum sufficient to sever his spine entirely. He didn’t even have time to scream, and she hopped off him as he collapsed, catching his body before it thudded to the ground and lowering it carefully so as to maintain the element of surprise. Quick as a flash, she buried the blade in the next one’s back, sliding it out again and letting that one fall, impaled through the heart and choking off some form of surprise at his sudden expiration.

That drew the final one’s attention, and he turned, but a poisoned needle embedded itself in either of his eyes, and he fell, too, leaving all three collapsed on the ground. Amalia stepped over the corpses without any concern for them, advancing on the group of three just now closing off the final barrel of poison. “This is far from the most intelligent thing any of you have ever done,” she said flatly, her voice partially muffled by the curious mask she wore. It encased the lower half of her face, and appeared to be made from equal parts leather and metal, though it conformed to her visage much better than the beaked ones did. From the belt of her blackened armor, she produced three small vials of something bright and green, holding the necks between her fingers. “Drink. And next time, send someone I know. I almost killed the girl when she woke me.” Apparently nobody had warned Milly that Amalia was rather dangerous in her own right, for the young woman had simply tried to shake the Qunari awake. Not that she'd been sleeping anymore, with all the noise the intruder made.

Seeing that the poison was now dissipating from the area, she raised an arm in the air and made the universal beckoning motion. Milly would see it from where Amalia had left her with the rest of the antidote and some more traditional restorative potions.

With the timely appearance of Amalia, the other three were able to unjam the barrel leaking poison using what looked to be a handle of some sort found nearby. When it was clear the poison was finally starting to dissipate, Ithilian discarded it, removing the mask and accepting Amalia's antidote wordlessly, not really having the breath for a retort. Perhaps it had not been wise, but if they hadn't acted when they did, the poison could have easily consumed the district, or spread into the Alienage, and Ithilian simply wasn't willing to let that happen.

The party regrouped and spent a moment healing themselves of the most pressing injuries. The district saved, they returned the way they came. The Arishok could wait until the morning, and it seemed only Sophia and Lucien would be paying him a visit to inform him of what occurred. For the moment, they all needed a good rest.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon

Earnings

0.00 INK

Even with Nostariel's healing abilities, one night of rest proved woefully inadequate to rid Sophia of her injuries, but with any luck, all she would need to do today was make an appearance, and speak with the Arishok. Lucien would likely do most of the speaking, but she wanted to at least be there to hear the words from the Qunari's lips firsthand. That, and the compound was a heavily fortified, dangerous place, and she would rather Lucien not walk in there alone. The others had elected not to return when they delivered the news of what had occurred the previous night, so it would be just Sophia and Lucien speaking with the Arishok today. Frankly, she preferred it this way. She would have welcomed Nostariel's company as well, but the elf wasn't that comfortable in diplomatic situations, and she'd already pushed herself quite far for them the night before. As had they all.

It was with the sun that Sophia rose from sleep, intensely sore from the previous day's efforts. She ate a meager breakfast before making herself look presentable, donning armor that she'd had cleaned and repaired over night. She would owe the Keep's smith for this one. The mail was seamless again, and some of the plate had needed replaced after the crazed elven woman's sword had cracked and torn its way through it. The rest was polished to a shine again, and the Viscount's daughter looked hardly worse for wear as the double doors of the Keep were opened before her.

The morning was warm, a sign of the coming summer, and the walk down to Lowtown was comfortable. The first of the day's merchants were setting up shop by the time she reached the winding streets of the lower city, but she paid them no mind, moving with a purpose towards Lucien's home. Knowing him, he would be ready to depart the moment she arrived. It was easiest to meet him as his home, seeing as it was on the way down to the Docks from Hightown. Arriving before the door, she knocked, though it was probably open, and she called through the door. "Ready when you are, Lucien."

Being up in time for muster was not a habit one broke even when one didn’t have to muster anymore, or at least, Lucien had always found this to be the case. The predawn hours were just receding when his eyes cracked open, and he was unpleasantly reminded of the previous day’s injuries when his off-hand twinged uncomfortably. The flesh had been knit back together, and all the muscles and fibers of it as well, but it itched, and probably would for at least the next day, or so Nostariel had told him. Considering what they’d all been through, it could have been much worse than an itch and a red mark, though, so he wasn’t going to complain.

And today, he had to go see the Arishok. He’d done a bit of thinking on the incident, and perhaps he needed to ask Sophia something, too, about why she had not reported the Ketojan incident to her father. The way that woman was talking about the “faithful” just smacked of some kind of organized conspiracy, but then people like Lucien were raised to see organized conspiracies in everything, so there was a chance—however small—that he was mistaken. How much weight did one give the words of someone so obviously unhinged?

Yet, he reflected as he dressed, sliding the length of his chainmail into place over his linen tunic, it was a very real possibility, and one that he felt obligated to warn the Arishok about. There was no mistaking the fact that the Qunari were restless and ill-at-ease, but… lying or trying to smooth things over when the information was so pertinent would likely earn worse than simply telling the truth and all of it. This was his estimation of the Arishok, and of the Qunari in general. That it was also the way he would have preferred things in this situation was interesting, but ultimately irrelevant. Telling them the truth was the right thing to do, so he would do it.

Sighing, Lucien fitted the last of his plates on and was just tying the black strip of cloth over his bad eye when there was a knock at the door, followed by Sophia’s voice. Half-smiling, he took up his axe and strapped it to his back, then opened the portal and nodded mildly. “I suppose, then, that there is no time like the present,” he replied, and the two of them headed for the compound. Once again, it seemed that they were expected, though whether this was because the Arishok’s information was just that good or because the Qunari liked to be prepared for as many things as possible, he honestly could not say. Still, it certainly expedited the process, and when they were once again before the Qunari leader, Lucien also chose the virtue of expediency, explaining in brief but precise terms what had happened, and what the actual thief had said when questioned.

"So, I was wrong about our thief," the Arishok said, once Lucien completed his recounting. "They say we were careless with our trap, that this is our fault. But even without the saar-qamek, there would have been death. This elf was determined to lay blame at our feet." He sighed heavily. "I admire conviction with a focus, but your kind are truly committed to weakness."

"The root of her anger was the loss of her people's culture when they claimed yours, Arishok," Sophia said, though she was unsure if it was wise for her to speak much here. Being a leader of these people "committed to weakness", after all. "We accept those who submit to the Qun," Arishok explained. "The weak naturally seek the strong." He shook his head, dismissing the line of thought. "It doesn't matter. We did not come equipped to indoctrinate. I am here to satisfy a demand you cannot understand."

"Respectfully, Arishok..." Sophia said, wondering if her frustration at his people was getting the better of her, "it has been several years." He did not seem to take that very well. "It will take as long as needed. No ship is coming. There is no rescue from duty to the Qun. I am stuck here."

No ship? So... they had lied to her father, lied to all of them. They weren't here to convert them to their religion, but they did not seem to be here to fight them. No ship was coming for them, they were stuck here, but they had some kind of duty to perform? All that remained to be seen was what they were here for then, what strange demand of their religion they needed to fulfill. "Arishok... we were told that a ship was coming, that your people would be leaving of their own accord at some point. Now you're telling me this is not the case?"

His lips curled into something of a snarl. "The basra that rule this cesspit can rot. Filth stole from us. Not now, not the saar-qamek. Years ago. A simple act of greed has bound me. We are all denied Par Vollen until I alone recover what was lost under my command." He rose to his full, towering height, only emphasized by the fact that he stood above them atop a flight of stairs. "That is why this elf and her shadows are unimportant. That is why I do not simply walk from this pustule of a city!" He took several steps closer to them, to the edge of the stairs.

"Fixing your mess is not the demand of the Qun! And you should all be grateful!" A sudden silence set in over the compound, and the two guards flanking the Arishok on either side turned their heads slightly, but otherwise made no move. The Arishok breathed several heavy breaths through his nostrils, before turning and lowering himself to his seat once more. "Thank you, humans," he said, much quieter, "for your service. Leave." His tone clearly implied they were welcome to say nothing else, and Sophia was able to take the hint. She turned and walked swiftly out, her frustration quite evident, and only when she and Lucien were free of the compound did she slow to a stop. She wanted to say something, but she wasn't sure what it was, so for the moment she simply paced about back and forth.

“The status quo will not remain as it is for very much longer,” Lucien said quietly, but the words bore the weight of certainty. “The Arishok is not a man of idleness… to stagnate so is not something he will tolerate for much longer. I do not know what he will do when that time is up, but I do not expect that we will like it.” It seemed that something had been stolen from the Qunari, several years ago, though he knew not what it was. But if it condemned one of the three leaders of their society to remain outside the borders of his own homeland in his own exile… perhaps Lucien was sympathizing more than he should. But to feel that useless was something he knew well, and something he hated with just as much virulence. He did not want to imagine what would've become of him if he’d been forced to stew in his failure for three years. Instead, he’d been able to keep himself busy, but that option seemed unavailable to the Qunari.

Sophia appeared almost as agitated, though naturally there was less yelling involved. He’d simply weathered the Arishok’s words, but this bore slightly different consideration. “I find pacing generally unhelpful,” he offered, trying to keep his voice lighter, “because it never really gets one anywhere. Perhaps you would care to walk? If you would like to bring this information to your father, or perhaps the Grand Cleric… but I also would not find the Coast objectionable, if you would rather leave that be for the moment.” It might do her some good to vent her worries at someone, though he found himself rather hoping it would be less an impassioned lecture and more an instance of confidence. The former had a way of unsettling one a little.

Sophia managed to stop pacing and exhale at Lucien's suggestion, even managing to crack a bit of a smile. He typically had that effect on her. "Yes... the coast might be nice." She didn't want to go and immediately tell her father of this latest development from the Arishok just yet. He'd received a brief summary of what had occurred the night before, but to know that the Qunari were simply unable to leave because of some demand of their Qun was most unsettling, especially since they were so unwilling to ask for help in getting what they needed. It seemed like pride, of all things, and she found it rather annoying.

As for the Grand Cleric... Sophia had found her doubts piling up about her faith and trust in the Chantry, and yet she felt more certain about some things than ever. She wasn't quite ready to accept that this madness of the night before had been something organized by the Chantry, especially not that it was something the Grand Cleric knew about. It seemed like these hidden fanatics than anything, completely misguided in their faith, turning to violent means because of it. They were infecting the Chantry from the inside, and it was painful to watch.

"We can't help the Qunari unless they allow themselves to be helped," Sophia said as they made their way from the docks and towards the gates out to the coast. "The Arishok clearly despises being in the city as much as the fanatics hate having him here, so why not cooperate to get what we both want?" Why was it that he alone needed to recover what he'd lost? If it would secure their return home, Sophia didn't doubt all of Hightown would stoop to help them, if they only just knew how.

"The city does not have the strength to defend against him if he should decide to become aggressive," she said, sadly. "These fanatics will only get Kirkwall burned to the ground if they have their way."

“I’m paraphrasing Nostariel here,” Lucien admitted, “Who was in turn, I suppose, paraphrasing a teacher of hers, but she told me once that the two hardest things to say are ‘I’m sorry’ and ‘please help me.’ I think perhaps for the Arishok, his position of leadership makes saying either of those things impossible.” That, and the fact that his personality seemed very disinclined. Was that because he was the Arishok, or had he been made Arishok because his demeanor was such? It was difficult to say, and in the end, it probably didn’t matter. “The Qunari do not strike me as a people who abide weakness, and asking the leaders of a culture he clearly does not respect for assistance in carrying out a duty that he alone is meant to accomplish would look very much like weakness. As far as I can tell, being Arishok is not like being Viscount, nor much like being a prince. It’s more like… being a knight, only worse. It’s his very identity, which I suspect makes bending its parameters, showing weakness in its undertaking, very difficult indeed. It would be not only a political failing, but a deep personal one, a failure to be what he is.” He shrugged, shaking his head a little. It was certainly a bit irrational not to ask for help, but he certainly couldn’t judge too harshly for that much. He’d been irrational in his adherence to his own principles far more than once.

Granted, there was so much at stake here… it was daunting to think about anyway, and the more they dug into this, the more a violent end began to look inevitable. Certainly not something to be trying to hurry along. Their best hope was that the Arishok would find whatever he was seeking and be able to leave on his own before things came to that, but if he hadn’t in almost four years, asking him to manage it in the next few months was probably unreasonable. There was no stopping fanatics, he knew that much already. Well, unless you killed them, he supposed, but then there was always the danger of martyrdom, which would only make matters worse in the end.

The two of them passed out of town and onto the sandy coast. There was something about looking at the ocean that made everything seem a little better. This was, after all, the same Waking Sea one could spot from the right tower in the palace at Val Royeaux. He wondered for a moment after his friends, and his father, how they would handle a situation like this. Something told him the Arishok and his father would get along about as well as a human and a Qunari could, but would that make any of it any better? He didn’t know—there were just too many factors in this situation to consider it all properly.

Sophia knew that actually understanding what the Arishok was going through would be more difficult for her. Lucien seemed to have some idea from his own personal experience. Sophia had never been a part of a military, so perhaps there was some kind of insight she was lacking here. Another reason why she wanted to have Lucien around, then. She'd add it to the list.

She found the coast relaxing, especially since she wasn't battling bandit clans or highwaymen today, though she supposed the day was still young. It was a departure from the bustling struggle of Lowtown or the towering structures of Hightown, walls closing in around her everywhere. Out here, walking the road simply because it was there before her, she wondered what it would be like to lead a simpler life. Her most important decision would be who was walking it beside her, wouldn't it? She supposed it was just as important already, but if she were someone else, the stakes would simply be her own happiness, not the fates of so many. They were pointless thoughts, really. She was here and couldn't change who she was. She had control over who was beside her, though, and she knew she'd already made the right choice there.

"What have you been up to lately?" she asked him, desiring a change of topic away from the Qunari and the politics.

Lucien smiled, accepting the change in topic with ease. The new one was something he was rather enthusiastic about, after all. “Kirkwall has no standing army,” he started, which may actually be a rather odd place to begin, but, well, his thoughts weren’t always entirely conventional, he supposed. “Which is understandable, given its political structure and whatnot. But this also makes it a thriving environment for mercenaries, which is why it’s always surprised me that only the Red Iron seems large enough to properly qualify as a company. They’re good enough at what they do, but Mirren can be somewhat… unscrupulous.” He smiled, though, because of course the part where he did something to help with that issue was yet forthcoming. It was a plan he’d only begun to sketch after Sophia’s party, but one that he was pleased to say he was already making progress on.

“I may be a mercenary now, but as you know, I was a soldier first, and in command at that. I suppose it seems rather… wasteful, after a fashion, not to put those skills to use as well. I’ve used some of my earnings from the Deep Roads to purchase a building dockside, which I’m slowly converting into a barracks.” It was a long process, but he was employing a couple of carpenters he knew personally, and they were only too happy to teach him what he needed to know to help them with that. “I’m conducting interviews to find the men and women I need from among the presently unemployed, but unfortunately, I’m a bit pickier than Mirren. Still, within a year, I hope to have enough people together to petition the Viscount for a charter to operate a full mercenary company in Kirkwall. We would, of course, be first and foremost at your disposal.”

The smile widened; though it was in his nature to want to serve as he had before, that was simply not possible here. Political considerations were major roadblocks to taking up direct employment under the Viscount or his daughter, but this…. this was a workaround. Besides that, he could take on larger-scale assignments, and many more of the smaller ones he did on his own now. He had no desire to step on the City Guard’s toes, but there were places too dangerous or out of the way for the City Guard to patrol, and for these, he would train his people, as he’d been trained. He would take no one who didn’t find defending the Alienage and Darktown just as important as winning glory or the favor of Hightown nobility, and for that, his numbers would undoubtedly suffer. But he’d learned time and again that a few excellent people were worth more than dozens of decent ones. It would work, if he handled it properly.

She hadn't been sure where he was going when he first started, but as Lucien explained, Sophia found her smile widening. It was good to see him so enthusiastic about something he was doing for himself, and she knew what it meant for him. He had been a commander in Orlais, and men and women had died under his command, which was something Sophia couldn't understand yet. It was one thing to try and protect someone and fail doing so, but to ask someone to do something for you, and for them to die as a result... it would be something else entirely. That he was trusting himself with something like that again she found quite heartwarming, considering that she had played some small part in getting him back to this point.

"That's wonderful," she said, sincerely. She couldn't help but still be a little disappointed she couldn't have him all to herself, but this really seemed like the best solution for everyone. She would still be able to call on him regularly, and her father would certainly be able to get him whatever he needed to get the company up and running. And a mercenary company led by a man like Lucien would be one of the best things to happen to the city in years. It was true, he'd likely have difficulty drawing a large number of people to him, giving how rare men and women like him were, but before long they would be one of the greatest forces for helping the city in Kirkwall. "I think that's a brilliant idea, Lucien. You'll be perfect for that. I'm happy for you, truly."

The chevalier hummed a note in the back of his throat, grateful for the support. It was true that this was not going to be the easiest of transitions for him, to go back to command and risk lives other than his own, but these people that he hired—he would make sure they knew what they were getting into, and he would protect them. Together, they would help protect Kirkwall and he might be able to feel the comforting weight of self-chosen chains again, giving him the same steadiness as roots at the foot of a tree. No matter how tall and mighty one grew, one must always be grounded. “It is not what I would have wanted for myself, once, but if I build it with my own hands, of my own will, and beside my friends, it may just be better. You will deserve no small part of the credit when it is done, Sophia. My thanks, truly.”

The Chanter's Board has been updated. Blackpowder Courtesy has been completed.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel

Earnings

0.00 INK



She never seemed to have taken much to the quarters above his shop in Hightown, and preferred still the ramshackle hovel in Darktown, one of very few that actually wasn’t in danger of falling over, due to the structural work he’d put into it over the years. Rilien was the kind of person who picked up skills as he went along, learning anything and everything that was useful for him to know. With the life he’d lived, this was a very wide range of things, indeed, and he was used to being almost entirely self-sufficient. Living in a proper city meant that he didn’t have to be, but he was certainly able to, should that become necessary. If he had any pride, he might have been proud of that. As things were, it was simply another fact.

So he glided through the dusty streets of Darktown, carrying himself down the familiar path that led to one of his dual residences, the one that she still occupied. Though he stood out rather like a bright gemstone in the mud, given his clothing and general cleanliness, any criminal worth his salt knew better than to try anything, as the gleaming blades at his back were ample deterrent.

His key unlocked the door, though he could have picked it faster, and he stepped inside. It was still mostly clean, as he paid regular visits to the place for this purpose, though his off-shot room was beginning to show signs of disuse anyway. Sparrow’s on the other hand, was just as vivaciously messy as it had always been, clear evidence that a life was being lived in here, and lived loudly. There seemed hardly another way to describe it, even if the vibrancy of her colors seemed to have dimmed a bit recently.

He would be hard-pressed to admit that he was here to check on her rather than the house, but all the same it was her room he went to first, knocking on the doorframe, as the door itself was cracked somewhat ajar.

Her recent actions had taken a toll on her, though she was hard-pressed to admit it. Admitting any sort of weakness was still beyond her stubborn reach, idling just beneath her chin whenever she felt like a scream would bubble out. Thankfully, it was really only Rilien who witnessed her outbursts. She wasn't sure what she'd do if everyone saw those parts of her. Unbrazen, cowardly and wholly selfish—that wasn't a side of her that she wanted everyone to know about. The kind of person that locked themselves away instead of facing what they'd done. It wasn't just about her brutal revenge, already lapping bitter on her tongue. The slight against Sophia and her men had begun to weigh heavy on her, anxiously batting around her skull. How many more people would she hurt? She was changing. That much she knew. Sparrow preferred to hide out in Darktown, especially if the Wounded Coast was possibly being patrolled by Kirkwall's finest. Perhaps, even occupied by her once-friend. She was not ready to see her yet. After killing Arcadius, and gathering herself up off the floor, she'd asked Ithilian to pass along a message for her.

After all these years, she'd finally buried a small part of her past. Even if Papyrus went with it. Amalia would understand the gravity of his words should he so choose to pass it along. Telling her herself seemed impossible. She would know the difference—whether or not she'd killed them honourably, or done it like a monster. Years had not tarnished her ability to see straight through her. Sparrow sighed softly, inspecting the broken shards of a vase she'd recently broken. Her room was a mess. Far messier than it usually was, with broken furniture and smashed goblets strewn across the floorboards. Lately, visits had become sparse and wandering Kirkwall felt like a daunting task. The house had been hush-quiet. Aside from the occasionally thumps and crashes, as a result of Sparrow's disgusted fits. She wondered if it was on purpose. Whether Rilien had known how she would react and given her the needed time and space. It was most likely true.

Her feet ached, throbbing dully. They were bereft of her boots and thinly sliced from walking on the broken shards, but nonetheless crusted and smeared a few shades darker. Old wounds. Perhaps, from a couple of days ago. Dipping her legs in the sea might have sounded a grand idea if she had the heart to leave her room. She'd donned a loose vest with a pair of cotton trousers. Slightly ripped and speckled red at the knees. The armour she'd worn to the hidden harbour had been haphazardly thrown in the corner, tossed atop a glittering pile of goodies she'd snatched from the Deep Roads. Like the dragons they'd fought in those dark halls, Sparrow liked to hoard things. She wasn't sure what she was expecting. This was the complete opposite of salvation. Freedom did not look like this, she was sure.

She hardly heard the door open. Nor did she hear anyone approaching until a steady knock on the door frame sounded, startling her enough for her to drop the chipped vase. It tumbled onto her bed, which was also in complete disarray and hurtled off the sheets, crashing at her feet. Honestly, it made no difference. It only added to the mess, but she still shot up and towards the door. “Y-Yes?” Sparrow called, reaching the door in time to slip through and jerk it closed. Suspicious? Perhaps. Might not have been any stranger than she usually was. She hoped for the latter. Pressing her shoulders into the door, Sparrow arched her eyebrows. Heavy bags rung around her eyes bellied anexhaustion she could not quite feel. Rilien—of course. “Ah. Another mission? Errand, perhaps? Forgot something in your desk?" Her expression, silly and sly, waned and died as she slowly eased around him. She took up a half-empty bottle of wine and raised it up. “Drink?”

Rilien impassively took in the details of the room as she opened the door: rumpled bedclothes, broken objects scattered about, the occasional jagged edge of pottery bearing an unmistakable red smear. Sparrow’s feet. Clearly, allowing her to try and sort through her thoughts on her own was not getting her anywhere. His eyes trailed back to meet her own, just as blank as always, or was that some hint of something in there? He wouldn’t know, even if he looked in a mirror. Wasn’t he the mirror, after all? People seemed always to see things in him that he did not. Lucien saw someone worthy of being called a friend. Ashton saw humor and easy camaraderie. Sparrow… he honestly didn’t know what she saw in him anymore. She was too far confused about what she saw in herself, maybe, and this translated to the mirror that he was.

Rilien saw nothing, felt nothing. Brief flickers of light on the walls of a cave maybe, the shadows of emotions that other people felt, as though occasionally what they saw bled into him, like color into a pristine canvas. He was blank—they dyed him with their hues. He didn’t mind—he couldn’t mind. This was how he rationalized those ghosts of feelings poking at his established equanimity. They were not his, they belonged to others, and everything he had was pale and borrowed. She was the most colorful of all, even when they clashed, like sky-blue and burnt orange and too-deep purple.

She was holding a wine bottle aloft, and his nose wrinkled slightly at the smell of it. “Not me,” he said tonelessly. That peculiar subtle shrugging motion, and suddenly, the bulb of a potion bottle was in his hand. Red, with that pearly sheen only he produced. He held it aloft, so that it was a foot in front of her eyes, blocking her view of his face. “But you will. When was the last time you ate an actual meal?” He wasn’t going to ask her, not about the thing that hung over her. Her business was hers, to keep to herself or share as she chose. He would demand no confidence, require no further closeness than this: that she at least tried to heed him on matters of her health, which even he somehow managed to care about more than she ever seemed to.

This was how it had always been: Sparrow found the trouble, and Rilien made it disappear. The debt collectors had vanished with a weighty purse from his hand to theirs, the irate husbands or lovers of the women she flirted with in the taverns went home after trying uselessly to gather information from a man who might as well have been a wall. If they didn’t, they left after he reminded them that the knives on his back had a purpose. Her physical wounds were matters for his tinctures—even Rapture would soon understand that there was no problem Sparrow could ever have that Rilien would not vanish like smoke and… mirrors. But he couldn’t tell her that, not yet. She couldn’t know until it was certain, that he would be able to solve this dilemma, too. No matter the toll—for cost had never been an object.

He did not understand why it was so. This was certainly not a level of trouble he went to for everyone. Sometimes, he suspected that she must remind him of someone, but if so, he had forgotten whom. Such things were too sentimental for his consummate logic, anyway, and when they threatened, he made them disappear as well.

She would speak, and he would listen. He demanded nothing, but accepted whatever she desired to give, or-- sometimes more accurately-- bombard him with. He weathered her strange moods with all the certainty of an island in a storm. If she spoke of nothing, he would listen. If she spoke of what mattered, of what had put her in this state, well, he would listen to that as well. They both knew it; there was no need to say as much.

Had anyone told Sparrow that Rilien did not actually feel—she would have been doubled-over in hysterics, because she'd never seen Rilien as the Tranquil. The sunburst swell on his forehead meant little to her. She may have been a hungry-eyed hurricane, sweeping in to destroy and disrupt and shake apart the very foundations of her own emotions, but Rilien had the ability to see straight through you and pull out all of your best parts. Meticulously sorting through her flaws and smoothing them out into beautiful gems, eroding all of the grit away. He could always look through her, and still, Sparrow wondered if he saw into her soul, or if he saw something else. She'd never been sure what he thought about himself, but she never believed that he was an empty husk in need of filling. Nor a colourless canvas, stretched perfectly over a wooden frame. Sparrow never believed he was an empty drawer being filled with vibrant things, either. He was a window. He was the night sky, holding everything inside of it.

She asked for more then she gave. She'd always had. And Rilien dealt out pieces of himself in paper parcels, uncomplaining. Only the most selfless souls could utilize themselves in such a way. Had it been anyone else afflicted by the Rite of Tranquility, would she have been spared from a lengthy jaunt to the Gallows? She did not think so. Not many people in Kirkwall would be willing to deal with her ludicrous conceits. Nor her outrageous tendency to nearly get herself killed, captured or tossed away. Trouble dogged her footsteps everywhere she went, with black lips, a lolling tongue and a wet nose planted firmly on the ground she chooses to walk upon. Never had he questioned her poor decision-making skills, nor prevented her from doing something she'd set her mind to, even if it was detrimental to her health. Stubbornness usually won out, unless Rilien had that look in his eye.

The tallest tales could not overrule his simple request. There was no stitch in his brows. No telltale sign of annoyance fluttering in those eyes, like two sky-lit orbs on the brink of frosting. Even still, it was if he was saying that there was hope for the hopeless. He was worried in his own way—but he could not tell her, could not convey anything beyond the dangling bauble filled with some sickly liquid swaying in front of her face like a pendulum. Sparrow's nose crinkled and she nearly jerked backwards, catching the edge of their table. She sighed softly, knitting her eyebrows together. The wine bottle thumped onto the table. When had she eaten? Good question, really. She wasn't sure she knew. Empty pangs hollowed out her belly, pushing away her hunger like finicky infant. Finally, Sparrow plucked the bottle from his fingers. She turned it over in her hand, inspecting the sloshing liquid with squinted eyes. Rilien's potions neverfailed. But, they usually tasted terrible.

Under Rilien's unwavering scrutiny, Sparrow finally swilled down the potion and placed it next to the wine bottle, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. “I'm sure I've eaten something lately. If not, I'd be half-dead, wouldn't I? Or chewing up leather boots. Furniture. Your hidden goodies.” Obviously, she'd been sulking in her room, feeding herself with negative thoughts and worries. All of her uncertainties pooled around her feet, sapping the cheerfulness out of her words. It nipped at her ankles, pricked her spine and slowly, ever so slowly, squirmed into the spaces of her skull. Grew thousands of spiders, laid eggs, bore its fangs and tore in. She took a breath. Then, another. Her smile grew heavy, twisted into crestfallen frown. Childishly, Sparrow wished Rilien had a potion up his sleeve to remove those sickly portions from her. It was stupid.

If a blank stare could display skepticism, Rilien’s did. He could see it in the obvious changes in her physiology—Sparrow had grown thinner with the passing of years, when that thing resided in her body like something too big in a skin too small, sucking what little life and nourishment was left to the perpetually impoverished, but the sunken-eyed look she had now, the hollowness to her cheeks, that was newer, and temporary, if he could have his way. Somehow, Rilien usually found a method to get what he wanted. It was perhaps a side-effect of the single-minded dedication with which he undertook the things he deemed worthy of the doing. Loyalty was not a trait he would associate with himself, really, (because loyalty was what you had when you remembered you could chose otherwise) but he did have a certain measure of… devotion. That was the word. Once he found something to work to or for or with, he was devoted to it. There were simply no other options anymore.

He was still waiting for her to get around to what she really needed to say, but he did not expect that she wanted to say it, so he might be waiting a while, yet. But he had all the time in the world, and much more patience than she had ever displayed in his company. A hurricane on a stone, she was… but with time, the lashing forces could shape the stone, too. She’d changed him, he knew it. He just wasn’t sure it was for the better.

His telescope eyes saw everything—heard and knew everything. Mirrors and smoke. Windows and clear, blue skies. Picking apart her flaws and laying them out on the table like gambled-coins, offering the juiciest pieces because even your flaws were important. He knew that. He understood, even when she did not. Sparrow seemed to deflate, body weathering storms like a creaky, pock-holed boat. She plopped down in one of the wooden chairs surrounding the table. “I thought I'd be happy. Free from this,” she swung her hand in an arc, eyeing nothing in particular, “This feeling. This hate.” Her eyes drew up from Rilien's feet, and met his eyes. “Why do I feel like this? I know better. For as long as I could remember, I was waiting and waiting. I was prepared and I had friends with me. I'd imagined it in my head. Over and over again. But, I still... it wasn't like I'd planned.” She leaned forward, pressing her hands to her face. Snowy hair fell over her fingers.

“I feel wounded.”

In a rare display of solidarity, perhaps, Rilien sat as well, propping an ankle on the opposite knee and laying his hands calmly on the table. He felt no need to fidget—his stillness was nearly supernatural, really, as though he were an ice-sculpture rather than a person. He cocked his head faintly to one side as she explained. It seemed that her vengeance had brought her no absolution, no redemption, though he wasn’t sure what there was to redeem. As he understood it, she had been a child when those man had taken her from her home. What was a child to do against such forces? Where was the blame in simply being young and weak? This loathing, he did not understand it, for he supposed it was directed just as much at herself as it was towards these men. And that was simply illogical.

When he opened his mouth, however, it was not to express this, but to provide an answer more direct. “It hurts to grow,” he said simply. And that was what she was being forced to do. To let go of the things that held her back was causing her pain, but to change at all carried a risk: a risk of pain. But greater than that was the risk of failure. If she did not let go, she would fail to change, and it would destroy her. It might be strange for him to think so, but he understood better than most. He was growing, too, in ways that he did not fully understand. He didn’t even know what he was letting go of to do it, only that it was causing him to hurt, on some level.

“And it hurts more if you rush. Come. You must eat—I believe the Hanged Man serves dinner soon.” She needed to see the light of day again. Time alone with one’s own thoughts could be useful and productive, but she wasn’t pondering, she was stewing, and it wasn’t helping anything. She also needed to eat, and in this way, he could facilitate both without having to take his eye off her. It went without saying that he would be funding this little expedition, of course. It always did.

It took Sparrow a moment to respond, because she wasn't really sure what he meant. It didn't feel like she was growing. Not in the right directions. Always in opposing corners, stretched out across a thin pane of dirt. These were one of the moments where Rilien surprised her by saying things she could not understand—with her unappreciated, flash flood ability to feel and hurt and wound herself in the most self-deprecating ways. This Tranquil understood feeling far better than she did. While Sparrow floundered with her emotions, swallowing mouthfuls of anxiety and bending under the colossal weight of despair, Rilien navigated the waters as a sailor would. He may not have been able to properly express himself, but his wisdom persisted. He remembered whatever he'd forgotten and patiently expressed his opinions, opening doors and shutting out the ones that would not help her. To grow. Was she growing? In which direction?

She stood and pushed herself away from the table, moving inelegantly by Rilien's side. Hollow cheeked, sunken eyed and sallow complected, Sparrow agreed that it might be better to leave the house and go to the Hanged Man. She'd be better off leaving her worries locked in her room, however temporarily. She did not look into those eyes that cupped oceans, that saw through all of her insecurities and dared her to keep moving forward. For long enough, she'd been cowardly. For long enough, she'd been running away from everything that threatened her. Freedom, at once point in her life, had been the most important thing to her. Something that needed to be hoarded and violently defended. Naturally, Sparrow had changed over the years. It was no longer an end-all, or be-all. She'd settled down in a place that did not think highly of liberty. Slavery emerged within Kirkwall, and blossomed, until its reluctant demise. Misery took roots in the Gallows, twining around broken-backed statues. It was the last place she'd imagine herself living.

Dipping low, Sparrow hunched her shoulders and leaned across Rilien until her forehead touched his shoulder. Her hand gripped his collar, twining the fabric of his robe between her fingers. Selfish creatures often asked selfish things. That day spent on the Wounded Coast, she'd asked Amalia, through the means of an unspoken request riddled in hidden meanings, to kill her if she got out of hand, if there were no longer familiar parts of her left. If she became more of a monster, and less of the once-friend she'd known in days gone past. Losing who she was. If Rapture won—she did not want to live. Either way, Amalia would know what to do when the time came. She would not ask Rilien the same. Instead, Sparrow closed her eyes and swallowed thickly. “You'll always be right here, right? Even when I've changed. Even if you don't recognize me anymore.” The sound of her voice wavered, surprising her with its frailty. “Even if you hate every part that's left.”

She did not wait for an answer, pulling away from him and straightening her shoulders. The remnants of gloom slipped from her like an unruly coat, shrugged from her shoulders and replaced by an artificial guise of complacency. Sparrow gestured towards the door and trudged towards her room, glancing over her shoulder. “Good idea. I'll have to change—they'll think I'm drunk already.” Which was probably true. She needed to find her boots, anyway.

It was harder every time. Always, insistently like being pulled up for air, harsh and ragged in his lungs, only until she tugged him, he never knew the pain of drowning. Just submersion, cold and numbing, where all sensation was dulled under still water. Colors were a bit less vivid, sounds more muted, only the color and the sound was his emotion and his conscience. But then, like an unwitting guardian of some kind, she’d yank him up above the surface with a touch, and he remembered that he’d forgotten what it was like to breathe. It took all he had not to stiffen, nor to acknowledge the peculiar warmth that came over him, and the sadness that lay under everything. Because he knew it wouldn’t last. These moments were tastes of life, but he could not keep them. Could not keep her.

But she could keep him, if she wanted. That was the nature of him—unwavering, growing only a little where others changed constantly. He only molded at the pace of the stone in the ocean, and only the most relentless tides achieved it. “I cannot hate, and I cannot forget,” he reminded her gently, the slightest hint of real warmth in his tone. Was there a you implied at the end of each of those clauses? Right now, he wouldn't mind if there were. She wouldn’t look at him, but that was all right. He had no expectations of her—he never had. “I’m not going anywhere.” Loyalty was for people who chose constantly, who reaffirmed. Rilien only chose once, and after that, reconsideration was unnecessary. There were no other choices. This—whatever it was—was all there would be. He’d not wanted it, exactly, but he’d never want anything else. This was the nature of devotion.

She let him go, and he was submerged again, but that was all right.

Wasn’t it?

Setting

4 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon

Earnings

0.00 INK

It was time.

Rilien checked once more on the bright orange brew simmering away on his fireplace, the flames carefully stoked to just the right level to keep it beneath a boil, but always on the precipice. When he was not able to tend it himself, Sandal did. He would trust nobody else with the precision required, but the last ingredient had to be acquired and added today. Just as well—he’d finally found the thing he sought yesterday, on a foray into Sundermont. The Dalish may be possessive of the mountain, but they did not seem inclined to stop him from whatever he was doing, as he never ventured near their camp. Of course, he’d only allowed himself to be seen at all because there would be no hiding his companions today, and he did not desire to be held from his goal by their suspicion. He’d murder his way through them, if he absolutely had to, but it was not something he desired.

A week prior, he’d sent exactly three messages, to the three people who would help him in this, to tell them to meet him at the gate to the city on this exact day, in precisely one half an hour from now. He had told them only that Sparrow’s tincture was near on completion, and that the one ingredient he still required would have to be obtained through violent means. Rilien assumed that this would be enough to cause them to come prepared.

Sheathing his knives at his back, Rilien tied his elbow-blades to his waist, and reaffirmed that his bandolier was still full of restoratives. They were employing no mages on this venture; any healing would have to be his doing. Casting a citrine glance around the shop, he confirmed that everything was as he needed to leave it, nodded his farewell to Sandal, and slipped out the door, melding into the Hightown crowd without ever losing his distinctiveness. He arrived at the gate he’d indicated exactly five minutes before he’d asked the others to be there, and though his face did not betray anything other than the placid smoothness it usually consisted in, there was a certain rigidity to his musculature that was not usually present. This was it. The culmination of years of research and gathering, of greasing dirty palms and leaning on the most shining of knights, a polar contrast, but a balance he needed to strike to gain what he sought.

As with all the trouble he earned himself, it came back to her, but there was no mistaking that this also was a task of its own merit. What he’d patched together from incomplete theories and the conjectures of people centuries-dead was something that one of them had quite managed, but the final piece, this last part—this, he was confident in. He had no care for glory or reputation, but he knew what this would mean. A way to undo a possession. Something like that would not go without repercussions, though what they would be, even he could not fully predict.

He did not bother to present the illusion of relaxation, standing rigidly at his full height, arms crossed over his chest, and watched warily for the approach of the three figures he had summoned.

One of these messages found its way into Ashton's shop. Whoever delivered it was obviously a very skilled courier, or maybe he'd become rusty when he wasn't looking. It was most likely the former-- Ashton never got rusty. The delivery didn't even disturb Snuffy, and her nose and ears were ten times better than Ashton's own. It'd just suddenly... appeared on his counter one morning, with only his name on the envelope. The sender was bleedingly obvious, as there was only one person he knew who possessed such dry and utilitarian handwriting. The contents put a hard look in his eyes, and once he'd committed it to memory, burned it. He'd rather not have it fall into one of his customer's hands or even Lia's. The contents were between him and Ril.

On the day they were supposed to meet, Ashton spent the day preparing. He stuffed his quiver to bursting with an assortment of arrows, sharpened the machete he carried around with him, and tested his bow string once more. As the time drew near, he donned his fur and leathers and tied his hair off. He bid Lia to keep a close eye on the shop and instructed Snuffy to stay. He'd also asked them very nicely to try to not kill each other. Hell, if they did, then who would watch his shop while he was gone? He promised Snuffy that she could go next time.

He arrived shortly after Ril, who certainly didn't look very Ril-ish. To say that he was tense was putting it kindly, and Ashton found himself surprised. Rilien wasn't the kind he'd expected to ever be tense, Tranquil or no. Ashton rolled his shoulders as he approached, readjusting how his quiver hung from his shoulders. Life had been quiet for Ashton since Sophia's party, but that could not be said for the rest of his friends-- Rilien and Sparrow in particular. He's said nothing about it though, but he was there-- always there if he needed to be. He was done running, after all. All they needed to do was ask, and he'd meet them out in front of Kirkwall's gate, ready to go.

"So, this is it huh?" He said, standing alongside Rilien.

The Tranquil flicked a glance up at his friend, and nodded slowly. “Yes. We succeed or fail by the success or failure of this hunt.” It was why he’d chosen not to go it alone—though he did not lack for assurance in his own skills, he wanted to leave nothing to chance. Simply-put, Lucien and Ashton were the first people that came to mind when he’d considered who he might ask to help him. Lucien had stopped by to see him a few weeks prior and told him that Sophia was also interested in helping, and the elf was too much a pragmatist to decline the additional assistance. Any more people, though, and he would have considered their chances of failure increased for the presence of too many and not too few, so that was where his missives had ended. And Sparrow herself… she still couldn’t know. Not yet. There was no telling what that thing would do to interfere if he gave up the secret too soon.

It was finally that day, then. Neither the wording of Rilien’s missive nor his precise script had given it away, but Lucien could not help but feel that this was incredibly important to his friend, more than he’d ever let on. It wasn’t something he’d ever bother him about, of course, but all the same, he would be glad when it was all done. He did not want for faith in his friends, in the end, and if Rilien thought it would work, it would work, meaning that the only trick was to get everything together. That was something the mercenary was more than willing to help with.

He left his work on refurbishing the barracks to his carpenters for the day, returning to his home to gather what little he needed. He understood that the group was to be small, but strong, and to this end, he chose to carry a few potions with him, in case anything went awry. No doubt Rilien had that well in-hand, but one never knew what could happen. If their party should end up separated for some reason, he wanted to make sure they’d live long enough to find each other again. Truthfully, he didn’t know what to expect, beyond a fight. The letter had been vague on the matter at best, and he could only assume his comrade would explain when all were present.

He reached the city gate to find the elf and his hunter friend already in discussion about the matter, and he contributed his own comment as a form of greeting. “Then we’ll just have to succeed, won’t we?” Rilien inclined his head. That was true enough.

Of the four of them, Sophia was undoubtedly the least certain that this was a good idea. What she was sure about was that she wanted to help Sparrow, but she had very little experience with either magic or demons, so the way of assisting would have to be left to others. In this case, Rilien. She did not know what Lucien's Tranquil friend had to connect him with Sparrow, but if he was working to reverse possession, he was trying to accomplish something no one had ever done before. That was a long way to go for one person. What she knew of Tranquil argued that he simply wouldn't see the purpose in doing that, but then again, Rilien was no ordinary Tranquil. Still, there had been little done as of yet to build any amount of trust between them, so Sophia found herself slightly on edge when his missive was delivered to her.

Thankfully she was not required in the Keep on the day in question, and was able to depart armed and armored. This time she wore the sash Amalia had gifted her with tied around her waist, though she was quite certain now that she actually wore it there wouldn't be the faintest hint of poison to threaten her. Apart from this she was clad as always when expecting trouble, with leather, mail, plate, and Vesenia sheathed across her back. Upon arriving at the city gate it was Lucien she spotted first simply due to his greater height and size, and she locked on to him to find Ashton and Rilien as well, in the midst of a conversation. In all, she was comfortable with the group, and it was only the Tranquil she had yet to see in any kind of action.

"I trust when you tell us to come prepared for a fight that we won't be ambushing a supply caravan or something," she said upon coming to stand before the party. Evil wasn't washed out with more evil, of course, and while she wanted to help Sparrow, she wouldn't be willing to make others suffer for it needlessly. That said, she had a feeling Lucien wouldn't either, and that any doubts she had were unfounded.

The last member of their odd little party arrived, and presented Rilien with the opportunity to explain what he would not write, which he took. Gesturing them forward, he began to walk, taking them outside the bounds of Kirkwall and towards Sundermont. He would lead them all around rather than through the Encampment, of course; it was not lost on him that he was accompanied by only humans at this point, and that such would be unwelcome. “No,” he replied to Sophia, not the faintest hint of offense or irritation seeping into his tone, “we will not. We seek the final ingredient for a tincture I am making, and for this, I have determined we need a perversion of the Fade, a creature of twisted magic.” He paused for a moment, trying to find a way to explain it that would make sense to those unfamiliar with such lore.

“I presume that you are at least familiar with the concept of an Arcane Horror, the possessed corpse of a magister?” He asked it with a faint questioning inflection, but as he’d said all he really needed to about them, he continued anyway. If they hadn’t been familiar before, they were familiar enough now. “What we hunt is similar, but worse. A particularly-powerful variety of the same, because the corpse has been possessed by a greater Pride demon. An ancient thing, and one that preys on those unwary enough to cross its path. This is what we must destroy, and I have detected the presence of one in a cave on the western side of Sundermont.” There was going to be a fair amount of climbing involved, but he at least was quite unconcerned about this.

He had found the cave he wanted, but he had not ventured in alone, not desiring that the being should know of his intent to kill it, lest it attempt to thwart him before he was ready for it. The temptation had been great—it was as though something within the cave was calling to him, pulling at the part of him that could still sense magic at work. It would likely not leave any of them unaffected, but he had been quite sure in his decision not to bring any mages, as whatever it was could only be worse for those already connected to the Fade. It would still probably be trying for them, but as to the nature of the trial, he could only speculate. Rilien maintained his silence thereafter, that they might ask any questions they had as they threaded their way up the mountain.

Lucien had only one: “This creature,” he asked, not familiar enough with magic for the right words to present themselves immediately. “What should we expect of it, once we’ve entered its domain?” He didn’t sound particularly worried. Rather, his tone was one of tempered curiosity, as one might expect of someone trying to assess the conditions under which he would do battle. In truth, he wasn’t certain what he thought the answer was going to be, and that in and of itself was a trifle unnerving. He’d seen and faced many things, but not a creature the like of which his friend seemed to be describing. Sophia, as well, was curious of this. Considering how her last encounter with a demon had gone, a little knowledge beforehand of what to expect would be welcome. "And do you want us to kill it in any specific way? Too many arrows damage the hide after all," Ashton posited. Though, he wasn't too worried about its hide getting damaged.

Rilien was a while in the answer. The truth was, he didn’t know much about what to expect either. “It’s magic,” he replied tonelessly. “Old magic. And I believe it has resided in this location for some time. Expect the environment itself to be against you.” Against all of them. He could offer nothing more specific than that. To him, it didn’t matter anyway. “It need not be killed in any particular fashion. I need only its ashes.” There was an oh-so-subtle emphasis on the last word, but whether this was an attempt to pun on the asker’s name or a more violent sentiment was entirely unclear. "Heh. Easy then," Ashton said. Intended or not, he was going to take the pun as it came.

After that, the inquiries seemed exhausted, and that was truthfully likely because there wasn’t enough information to ask more. Rilien wasn’t exactly happy about that, but then he was never exactly happy about anything, so he didn’t let it bother him. They hiked for about another half-hour, some of the inclines quite steep, as he was avoiding the usual Dalish paths through this region, but eventually they came to it: a cave, close to the summit of Sundermont. They’d passed an altar and an ancient burial ground on the way here, but there was no way of telling whether rather of these sites was connected to the presence of the creature here. Upon approach, the strange cloak of sensation settled over him again, pricking his skin with needle-like feelings of… something. Anticipation, maybe, but it also felt like memory. He stood very still for a long moment, peering into the depths, but they were inscrutable, and he was conscious of the others waiting for him to do something.

Shaking the feeling off with no physical movement, he glanced back over his shoulder. “Be… cautious.” He did not know quite why he spoke the words; it was not customary for him to deliver needless warnings, and at least two of the people here would know that quite well. All the same, he could not quite rid himself of a small doubt—somehow, without word or true understanding, he knew that this was a place that he should not enter. It was perhaps fortunate that he did not allow himself to care about such trivial things as inclinations. If he were here for himself only, he might have turned away. But he was not, and this was not a choice, only a demand of his own making. He would heed it.

The others behind him, he entered the cave.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel

Earnings

0.00 INK

Passing over the threshold of the cave was like… actually, he knew of nothing to compare it to at all. He might have said it was a little bit like being tugged at by Rapture, except whatever that demon managed was a pale imitation of this. He felt it as soon as he stepped inside, but it took him another ten feet to recognize it. When he did, Rilien stopped dead, stick-still as a statue, and raised one of his hands in front of his face in the dim light. For several seconds, he only stood there, staring like he wanted to burn a hole through his own palm with his mind, but then his eyes went wide and his face, normally as composed as any porcelain mask, broke into an honest-to-gods grin, flash of teeth and all. “It’s… back,” he whispered, almost reverentially. He looked between all three of the faces, turning smartly on his heel and still grinning like a fool. “It’s back! My magic, my feelings, everything. The Fade here is so strong, it’s like… it’s like I was never Tranquil at all!”

His tone was suffused with so many emotions, it was rather like he was feeling everything at once. Bewilderment, mystification, and utter joy danced across his features in quick succession, and then, because he knew he could, Rilien lit a flame in his hand, and it glinted in the darkness, the hue of it almost as brilliant as his eyes, which were of such a similar color. He felt… he didn’t really know, but he felt. And it was nothing like the painful experiences Rapture gave him, experiences that were still diluted and always, always temporary. He had his magic back. He was a whole person again, not just a hollowed-out shell of a man that could only do trivial things with potions and knives. He was powerful again, as he had been before, and he could feel it thrumming in his very bones.

Before anyone had the chance to properly react to this, however, he watched their images waver, and his satisfied expression turned to one of confusion, something he could see echoed in them. “Wait… what? Where are you—” but then they were all gone, and he could neither see nor hear them anymore. Brows furrowed, Rilien turned back towards the passage they’d all been in. He didn’t know what had happened, exactly, but there was definitely magic involved, and if he wanted to fix it, he had to keep moving forward.




When Sophia could once again sense anything, all she would be able to detect would be the sound of her own breathing. Unbeknownst to her, she was in the southeast corner of the tunnel system, in a chamberlike opening small enough that she could reach out to either side of her and just brush the walls with her fingertips. All that was around her was utter darkness, and indeed, even were she to raise a hand to her face, she would see naught at all. It was chilly in here, cold enough to prickle exposed skin with gooseflesh, and the air seemed to move in odd ways, as though phantom fingers pulled too softly at the strands of her hair, the loose fabric of her sash, sliding over her face like tiny spider-legs that did not last. Forward was the only way to go, as any other direction greeted her only with sharp-jagged stone, but the passage was no less narrow, and twisted about in strange ways that would trip her up if she were not careful. The ground was uneven, peppered with loose stones and the occasional root of some deep-dwelling plant, but of other life, there was as yet no sign.

One moment, Sophia was gaping at the suddenly emotive Rilien, happily displaying his renewed connection to the Fade, and the next, he was gone, replaced by darkness. Everything was replaced by darkness, for that matter, and all sound ceased as well. She looked around, trying to see something, but for all her efforts, it was as though her eyes had been plucked from her skull. "What just happened?" she asked, unaware that she was alone. There was of course no reply. "Lucien, are you there? Ashton? Rilien?" The incredible amount of nothingness that she heard was unnerving, and when her own voice died out as well, the darkness truly set in. "Maker..." Seeing as she was alone now in a foreign environment, she drew her sword quickly, but she couldn't even see Vesenia in this darkness. No light was present to glimmer off the length of steel.

When all that remained was the sound of her quickening breathing, she felt the shifting of the air, cold fingers sliding delicately across her face. She shuddered, turning away from it, but it seemed to adapt to her movements, playing at her skirt, wrapping slowly around her throat, slipping under her armor and chilling her until she felt as though she'd be able to see her breath in front of her, but again, there was nothing to see. She knelt down, feeling pitifully more secure when she was a smaller target, and this caused her to shift the angle of her blade sideways enough so that the point of it tinked against the wall. That was something. A boundary to go off of. She stood, putting her left hand against the wall, glad for the stability of that, at least.

Oh, but Bran would be most angry with her if he could see her now, risking her life for an apostate mage. What would that do to her image if everyone knew, he would say. The devout Sophia Dumar, knowingly helping an abomination of all things. But it wasn't the abomination Sophia was helping, it was Sparrow. She wondered if the same thing had happened to the others, if they were elsewhere, trapped in darkness and alone. Who knew how far in these caves went? Perhaps it was a labyrinth of passageways and tunnels. Perhaps it didn't matter. She would find them. She had to.

"Blessed are they who stand before the corrupt and the wicked," Sophia said, the words running through her like a powerful drink, steadying her nerves, "and do not falter." She moved the sword over to the left side of the passageway, mostly unsurprised when it hit the other wall. It was narrow in here, more narrow than she would prefer for using her sword. There was a knife in her boot as well, but she could adapt still. Putting her hand against the left wall Sophia moved forward slowly. In the darkness she could not see her footing. The ground was not the easiest to follow, dotted with stones and roots, but she picked up her feet higher than normal and slowly set them down. Her progress was not quick, but it was there all the same.

"Blessed are the righteous, the lights in the shadow," she said, and pushed on. She wished she herself was a light.

As Sophia proceeded further down her narrow, twisting corridor, seemingly-disembodied sounds slowly started to surround her. At first, it was just a light rasp, or a scuff from behind, but gradually, these sourceless whispers increased in volume, until it sounded indeed like something followed her, and the air currents that teased her grew warmer, mimicking the acute and uncanny sensation of someone, or something, breathing down her neck, humid and sticky. There was a rustling at her feet, but it was the one ahead, scarcely discernible from the others, that was attached to the real threat: a massive blight wolf, twice as big as its natural cousins and no more noisy for all that, snarled suddenly and leaped for her. Unlike the rest of the ‘creatures’ that lurked around this or that corner, this one’s teeth were real—and fearsome.

"And she will know no fear of death," Sophia continued, trying to make her voice a little louder, but it seemed like the silence was trying to drown her out, and it was doing a damn fine job, too. "For the Maker shall be her beacon and her shield, her foundation and her--" The word 'sword' turned into more of a sworaaah as several things changed around her. One, she felt something damp and warm at the base of her neck, like there was something immediately behind her exhaling directly onto her skin. She turned around quickly, leveling her sword in the direction and the place something should have been, but there was nothing. She exhaled shakily, the silence overwhelming again now that she had stopped speaking, and she felt her hands shaking a little. Why was this getting to her like this? She had been through worse and came out fine, hadn't she? She was starting to think not.

It wasn't often that Sophia felt fear, but it settled now in her stomach like a sickness, spreading until her joints felt like they were locking her in place, and she was paralyzed. She knew she wasn't, though, because she was shaking slightly at the knees and elbows, the comfortable weight of her sword suddenly feeling much heavier than it should have. The thoughts raced through her head rapidly, before she could stop them. She couldn't die down here, not like this. No one would find her body, no one even knew where she went, because even she didn't know where she was going when she left. It was that Tranquil's fault, he had led them here. He'd taken his power back and somehow cast them into this. No, that wasn't fair, Lucien trusted him, and he didn't trust needlessly.

Her throat was starting to constrict of its own accord, making it somewhat hard to breathe, and she felt like she'd aged backwards ten years or so, until she was just a foolish girl fumbling with a blade, wanting to be a hero like in the stories. As great as Andraste, she'd be. As dead, too. Whispers surrounded her, like the treasonous thoughts coming out of her mind, and she couldn't take it anymore. She turned and she ran, continuing on the way she'd been going, her hand along the wall. The act of running let her fears run rampant, and they only pushed her on more frantically. She had to get out, she had to find some way out of here... and then her foot caught on a root. It twisted her ankle painfully and she went down hard on her stomach, the sword clattering noisily beneath her.

Again there was nothing but her breathing, and she was still for a moment, before she worked to get her boot out of the snare. It came easily enough, and she pushed herself to her feet, testing the weight on her ankle carefully. Tender, but it would be alright. There was little time to think about it, however, as a rustling down near her feet drew her attention. It was like snakes had wrapped themselves around her calves, and were now uncoiling, slithering away. She yelped, the fear cutting back into her, and tried to shake them off, before she realized that they were not at all the most pressing threat.

The growl came from her left, but she hardly even had time to turn before the blight wolf had leaped upon her. Claws sank into her shoulder and easily pushed her roughly back to the ground, this time face up. If she'd had time to think about it, she might have been glad for not being able to see, as the beast was monstrous. As it was, she discarded her sword, knowing it would be useless for the moment, and threw her arms up to protect her face and throat. The wolf clamped down on her left, teeth going right through leather, mail and flesh to the bone, and it shook her violently, leaving Sophia with little to do but hang on. Blood dripped down hot onto her face, eventually forcing her to realize that she had to do something, or else she would just die. She reached desperately with her free right arm down to her boot, yanked the knife free, and plunged it up into the wolf's belly. It noticed that, taking off into the blackness to regroup, unfortunately yanking Sophia's knife from her hand and taking it with it.

It didn't have to go very far for Sophia to lose track of it, considering her lack of sight, and she had no great affinity for her other senses, certainly not while her left arm was throbbing in pain, and her heart was pounding seemingly in her ears. The knife was gone, but her sword was still here... somewhere. She'd probably only have a few moment before it attacked again, and without a weapon of any kind she was as good as dead. She rolled over and pushed herself to her knees, clutching her useless left arm to her chest and trying not to move it too much. She was relatively certain she'd dislocated her shoulder, and she could still feel blood trickling down through her mail around her shoulder and most of her forearm.

With her right hand she searched around for the sword, padding fingers lightly over the loose rock, stone and roots of the tunnel floor. A certain level of panic began to set in when she couldn't immediately find it, and the whispers resumed, the air once again possessed of an antagonistic quality, like it was attempting to learn the shape of its prey by simply touching. It stirred at the hem of her skirt, slid cold fingers gently down her cheek, threaded them into her no longer orderly golden hair, circling about her ears and whispering of death, a dark song that she couldn't quite hear. It settled a chill into her wounds, the blood on her skin now feeling as cold as a mountain stream, and she actually made an effort to breathe louder, trying to drown out her impending death by hearing only sounds that meant she was still alive.

She heard the blight wolf's growl just as she found the hilt of her sword, and with one hand she swung in a broad horizontal slash, the action entirely a reflex, and driven entirely by a desire to simply not die. She heard the growl, and had the means to fight it. The strike scraped along the wall on her left, with enough force to send several sparks careening off the edge of the blade and into the air, and these Sophia could see. Little embers in the darkness, their light reflected back off the flat of her sword. In such a perfect dark, even the tiniest light was like a lantern lit before her eyes, and she watched as if in slow motion as her fire-birthing steel bit into the corrupted flesh of the blight wolf, lunging for her from darkness into light. A spray of black blood shot out of the base of the wolf's neck, and the snapping jaws never found their mark. The wolf was sent tumbling off to the side against the wall, and the world resumed its natural pace.

The wolf disappeared back into the blackness as the sparks faded, but Sophia had seen the light, and could not forget it. Teeth closed around her right calf and sank deep, and Sophia flipped the sword quickly over, stabbing it down where the creature's neck should have been. Vesenia pierced through the beast easily, and it grew still, though the teeth did not remove themselves, and when Sophia removed the blade she found herself momentarily unable to stand, and fell back awkwardly against the other wall, grimacing against the pain in her lower leg. She worked to lean forward enough to sheath her blade again, before reaching down to her leg and prying the dead wolf's jaws away from her, slipping her leg out as soon as she was able.

She sat still for a moment, realizing that the whispers had receded, the trailing fingers gone from her face. She pushed herself up, limping heavily from the injuries to her right leg, and still cradling her left arm to her chest, but she continued on the way she'd been going. There would be a way back to the others. The Maker would continue to show her the way.

"Maker, though darkness comes upon me, I shall embrace the light. I shall weather the storm. I shall endure. What you have created, no one can tear asunder. Though all before me is shadow, yet shall the Maker be my guide. I shall not be left to wander the drifting roads of the Beyond. For there is no darkness in the Maker's Light, and nothing that He has wrought shall be lost."

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon

Earnings

0.00 INK

Lucien, on the other hand, could see considerably better—the dim light in the northeastern passage he now occupied was about the same as had been present in the entryway, casting long, gloomy shadows off the jagged edges of the walls. This chamber appeared to belong to a ruin of some kind, from whatever bygone age had taken Arlathan with it. For these were surely elven ruins, but from a time when the People were far more glorious than they were today. The warrior would discover himself immobile, his limbs and joints locked uncomfortably in place, and indeed, some invisible force pinned him to a wall about ten feet up, at the very back of the chamber. If he strained his ears, he could hear the sounds of battle, as though through walls of thick stone. The clang of steel on steel, muted cries, desperate and overrun. With time, he would recognize them as belonging to those with whom he had entered, and they called for him.

Lucien was dazed, what had been a rather mild confusion at the start suddenly amplified enough that he could hardly see straight. The shadows flickered oddly off the walls, and for a moment, his befuddlement seized on them, as though seeking ardently for something to understand, but… there wasn’t anything, was there? Why did his mind feel so clouded? He tried to bring a hand to his face, only to fail utterly in the endeavor, his body refusing to respond properly to his commands. He looked around, and the strangeness of what he was seeing registered with a start—the perspective was so strange because he was taller than usual. Far taller, and… somehow held against a wall? What in Thedas was going on? He felt a keen sense of urgency to remove himself from his situation, something that he would ordinarily have taken the time to patiently assess first.

Somehow, though, patience seemed rather beyond him at this point, and he tried again to move, tugging hard against the restraints he could feel but not see. There was still no give to them, though at least this time, his body felt like his rather than someone else’s. It was responding as it should, if not perhaps to the degree he’d come to expect of his own strength.

A small noise drew his attention, and he stilled in his movements, trying to quiet the sound of his own breathing so he could hear it. Was it possible that there were enemies approaching? He dare not hope that it was the others, not at this point. Straining his ears, he could just make out a faint ringing, one he knew very well indeed. That was the sound of clashing blades. Sophia, then, or Rilien, perhaps, engaged with a foe? He tried pulling again, still nothing. Blast it all—he had to help! His friends were in danger, he couldn’t just—

The sound of a scream cut through him like a knife, and Lucien’s singular visible eye went wide, a layer of panic he had never had to deal with before driving him to a desperate urgency. Not this again, anything but this again. It was how he’d failed so many times before, and he couldn’t fail again. If there were any gods left in the world at all, Maker or no, surely they could not be so cruel as to allow him to suffer this again. No, perhaps they could, but no benevolent god could let them suffer. Once, he’d been punished for his naivete. Then, for his arrogance. The third time had been for his belief in others. But this… what could he possibly have done that warranted this? Why must it always be others who paid for these things, whatever they were?

With all the strength he had and then some, Lucien pulled, and the force holding him in place snapped, sending him tumbling gracelessly to the floor ten feet below. He landed in an awkward sprawl, his armor digging uncomfortably into his body in several places and knocking the wind out of him, but he was so panicked he scarcely noticed. He had to get to them, had to help. Assuming that they aren’t already gone. The thought, which should have been easily brushed aside, was crushing in its weight, and bowed his shoulders, bit his fists tightened and he grasped the haft of his axe, starting forward. There was no telling what was ahead and he had to be prepared—what? The chevalier felt the weight of the weapon in his hand, the familiar heft of it, but he didn’t see it. To his eyes, he was holding nothing at all. He swallowed uncomfortably, but the sounds of battle persisted, and drove him forward. They were still fighting. Someone was still alive. Whomever it was, he had to help them. He could not stop now.

As Lucien moved through the passage towards whatever end it would take him to, the sounds of battle seemed to grow no closer, as though, for all his effort, he were not really moving at all. What did increase was the frequency and urgency of the shouting—he could now clearly realize that the voices belonged to his three friends, trying with little success to coordinate with each other as they were overrun by what sounded like an entire hoard of undead, their rasping, nonsensical voices only adding to the pitched fervor of the din. There was more steel-on-steel, then a desperate cry from the only feminine voice in the trio, presumably as one of her comrades fell. More hoarse shouting, something that sounded suspiciously like his name, too soft to be discerned for certain, and then… utter silence. It was only then that the passage opened up into a miniature room, the ceiling suddenly vaulting, and there were two additional passages out, suggesting that he had come upon a crossroads of sorts.

Before he could so much as properly process them, however, something massive shifted to his left, a loud hiss the only herald of the incoming attack by a corrupted snake at least four feet wide and twenty-five long. Its fangs dripped with venom, either one almost a match in length for a typical dagger, and there was no mistaking that while his plate might turn them aside, his mail would be easily punctured if it got hold of him.

Lucien’s pace had picked up to a dead sprint the moment the voices grew more frantic, and the fact that they were now silent seemed only to push him harder, and despite his armor, he was running breakneck when he emerged into the merged tunnel. It’s not too late yet, I still have potions, I just have to— The thought was unfortunately cut off by movement to his left, and reflex threw him to his side in just enough time to avoid the driving of a great snake’s fangs. He did not miss the way the venom spattered onto the floor, ichor-black and insidious.

All he could think, however, was that he didn’t have time for this. Fear was coiled unpleasantly in the pit of his stomach. It was not an entirely foreign sensation to the knight, and indeed, he felt fear often enough, it was simply that he never allowed that uncertainty to daunt him. At its core, fear was uncertainty. If one could be certain, one had no need to be afraid. But here… there was no certainty left. He wasn’t stupid—he knew that what he was hearing might not be real, but he also knew that it might be, and that uncertainty was driving him mad. He had not the patience to stand here and fight this creature while his friends may be dying without him, while she might be dying without him, and he sworn—if only to himself—to protect her from situations just like this one. While they might be dying, and he dared call himself their friend.

But he had no choice. The serpent, massive as it was, was surprisingly-quick, and he only just managed to bring up the axe he couldn’t see to block its next pass at him. It struck with as much force as a dragon of comparable size, and perhaps that was something the knowing of which he’d really been taking for granted. So much could kill him—kill them—and every day he risked it all the same. What was he thinking? Was any of this really worth dying for? He’d die for it, he still knew that, but was honor really worth anyone else’s life? He didn’t know, and his uncertainty was just more fear, winding around his heart and lungs with cold, squeezing fingers.

He hadn’t noticed the snake winding itself apart, and so when the tail of it struck him from behind, Lucien was pitched forward, hitting the rough ground hard, his temple unluckily striking a jagged stone. The cut was less worrisome than the blurring of his vision—he only had the one good eye, and though he’d long learned to compensate for the altered depth perception, he really, really needed the one he had. He rolled onto his back in just enough time to avoid the first rapid strike, but she snake drew back again, and there was just no way he was escaping it—the dripping fangs latched onto his left shoulder and arm, one stopped by his pauldron, but the other biting deep into the muscle stretching from the back of his neck to his shoulder-joint. It punched right through the ringmail there and out the other end before the creature withdrew. He could feel the venom working already, making his joints slow and unresponsive to his mental commands.

It reared back to bite again, apparently intent on nothing less than his death, and Lucien had no choice but to act in desperation, using his better arm to lay his axe across his chest. With touch, he identified the location of the axehead, and he took hold of one end of it, leveraging the other one to face directly up. When the snake dove in, he shoved with his remaining strength, catching the creature in the hinge of its jaw, holding this out at what length he could muster. The snake’s own momentum took care of the rest, and the axe bit through its flesh and his hand at the same time, only the gauntlet he wore saving him from losing the top half of his palm and everything after.

The corrupted snake fell to the side, writhing uncomfortably as it bled from the mouth, and Lucien knew this was not yet concluded. He was probably going to die—the venom in his bloodstream would make sure of that, but strangely, even that sort of certainty brought an end to his tentative fear. All he wanted now was to make sure he didn’t die without slaying his foe. He had nary a good hand or arm left, but with shaking limbs, he managed to climb to his feet one last time, mouth set in a grim line. His axe was sort of visible again—or rather, the blood coating it was, and he picked it up by the handle, treading wearily over to the serpent. Ignoring the screaming protestations of his muscles, he hefted it over his head, hoping his grip was good enough, and let it fall, the momentum of the strike doing most of the work for him. With a sick, wet thunk, it embedded itself between the creature’s eyes, and it fell still.

Letting go of the haft of the axe, Lucien staggered backwards a few steps, then fell to his knees when his legs would support him no longer. He could feel the full-body paralysis coming on now, and the rest of him toppled over as well, sprawling him on his back, more or less. At least he couldn’t feel the pain of that. It was funny, actually: he’d always assumed he’d die in battle somewhere, but his father had been adamant that it would be poison that got him, in the end. Poison always took the members of his family, after all. It had taken his mother. But… battle had taken his friends. Then, as now. It wasn’t really… satisfying, that they both got to be correct, but it seemed right, somehow. It was… good to know that he would die having done what his principles demanded of him, but even now, he couldn’t shake the dissatisfaction of it—that he’d failed to save them first. A dozen thoughts and feelings flitted over his mind, but he was far too tired to sort them out at the moment…

Lucien’s eyes fell closed, and his breathing became shallow. He hoped he was wrong.

He hoped they would live.

Sophia wasn't sure how much time passed before she could finally see something again, but while it felt like an eternity, it was probably only a matter of minutes at most. Her eyes locked onto the dim light in the distance of one of the tunnels, and she set her path straight for it, walking as quickly as she could. She would have attempted jogging or outright running, but the footing in here was unsure, and she didn't want to risk another fall like the one before, not with her arm as mangled as it was. She had poison antidotes on her, but as far as she knew, she wasn't poisoned. Lucien and Rilien had carried the restoratives. Hopefully she could find one of them, and hopefully they didn't require them themselves.

Simply being able to see again was an immense relief, and she once again felt like she had entered a normal environment, unaffected by magic. It was still here, no doubt, but she had escaped it for the time being. She chose to believe that this was due to her strength rather than any kind of mercy in her foe. She staggered on through confusing passageways, sometimes believing she'd backtracked somehow, but she kept her hands against the wall all the time, and never stumbled back into the darkness, so she had to assume this was the right way.

She knew that it was when she came upon the snake. It was massive, and thankfully dead already, with Lucien's axe buried in its face. Lucien! He lay on his back in the room, clearly heavily injured. "No..." she whispered, the word all she was capable of, as her throat immediately tightened upon seeing him flat on his back and largely motionless. Under his chestplate, she couldn't even see if he was breathing. She limped as quickly as she could to his side and fell to her knees, trying to get a sense of his wounds. The snake was obviously venomous, and had clearly gotten a good bite in on him. One of the antidotes Amalia had gifted her with was meant for posionous bites of all kinds, so that was likely her best bet.

She reached across her body to pull out the bottle, holding it carefully in her left hand and twisting off the lid with slightly shaking hands. She held the antidote like it was the ashes of Andraste herself. "Lucien," she said, unaware if he was still conscious at all, "I'm here. You need to drink this." It was awkward at best with only one functioning arm, but she managed to get enough of it down his throat to stop the poison. Now... he had healing potions on him somewhere. She searched briefly, finding four of them in his bag, for which she was most grateful of. She uncorked the first. "And this... We're going to be alright, Lucien. All of us." She had no idea where the other two were, but she'd found Lucien. She could find them, too. With Lucien's help.

When she could see his wounds beginning to heal, she took a second healing potion for herself, sighing in relief when the pain eased from her forearm and the wounds in her shoulder and calf. Unfortunately, it could not fix the dislocation. She'd need Lucien's help with that when he was capable. Her job done, she slumped down onto her rear beside Lucien, watching to make sure he would be okay, beginning to feel the effects of her own blood loss. At this point, she needed him as much as anyone in the city. They would all leave this place, whole and well.

Thankfully, by the time that Sophia found him, Lucien was still conscious, if only just. Indeed, he registered the sound of her voice without really recognizing that it was hers, and none of the words were very intelligible to him, more like murmurs so quiet he couldn’t honestly make them out. Fortunately for him, he did understand what he was being asked to do—or rather, when the antidote followed by the potion was tipped down his throat, he knew enough to swallow. The first had a bitter, acrid taste, and the second was sour and pungent, but then the latter at least was a taste he recognized.

Both went to work in quite short order, and he groaned uncomfortably as feeling returned to his limbs before they were actually patched up, reminding him of the sorry shape he was in. But this, too, faded, and he could feel the wounds on his hand, shoulder, and temple closing up, leaving only the stains where his blood had started to dry and one very notable puncture in his mail. He drew his breaths more deeply, the sound of them ragged, then coughed uncomfortably, pushing himself into a sitting position with one arm and bringing the other to his face, as though to stave off a massive headache, or perhaps a large hangover. It was about as pleasant as one, but he was alive, and he wasn’t sure he’d been expecting that.

Cracking his eye open, he blinked away the blurriness still present, feeling much more like himself when the world resolved into focus around him. What had… he had the distinct feeling he wasn’t supposed to be here anymore. He’d thought—the thought aborted, conclusion reached quickly enough, and he cut his glance to the side, to where Sophia was still kneeling. Wait—“Sophia.” That, he remembered. The hand that had been at his head made as if to reach for her, but he aborted the motion halfway through, looking dimly surprised at himself. “I thought—the sounds of battle, of dying. I thought you were…” He couldn’t finish the sentence. It sounded more blasphemy in his mind then anything he’d ever heard leveled against Andraste.

He shook his head. “Thank the Maker you aren’t.” He wasn’t much for doing that, generally speaking, but she certainly wasn’t safe by anything he’d done, and it seemed strange to thank her for surviving, though he might have, had he thought to. Assessing her condition quickly, he noted that one of her shoulders appeared to be dislocated and made an odd sound, something like a half-choked hiss, perhaps sympathetic in nature. “I can fix that?” he offered, though it came out more like a question than anything.

"Battle?" Sophia said, confused. "No, there was no battle. I was alone, in a different part of this cave. In total darkness. A blight wolf nearly killed me, but... I'm still here." It was the short version of what she'd gone through, but it was accurate enough. When he offered to help fix her arm, she looked down at it, still cradled carefully against her chest. "It's dislocated, I think." Fixing that was a matter of getting it popped back into place, and to that end Lucien carefully placed his hands near her elbow. Pulling was what was required next, and eventually the shoulder clicked back into place, causing Sophia to grit her teeth from the pain, and blink a few tears from her eyes. "Ohh... that's better, thank you. Do you know what happened? Rilien had just... gotten his magic back, and then..."

Lucien shook his head, honest confusion openly displayed on his face. “I’m… not honestly sure. I’ve heard of certain demonic or magical abilities that allow for teleportation, but I’ve never had it done to me before, if that’s even what it was. There was also some force restraining me in the passage I went to, and for a while there, my axe was invisible.” He pointed at the instrument in question, still sticking out of the serpent’s cranium at a forty-five degree angle or so, but then his voice grew quieter, more subdued. “It produced your voices. Ashton’s, Rilien’s, yours. The sound of an armed clash. I heard… I heard you die.”

Setting his jaw against the words that wanted to follow, Lucien gingerly drew his feet underneath him, pushing himself into a stand slowly, so as not to inadvertently set off any lingering bouts of dizziness. It was painful to contemplate, and he didn’t have time for it right now. At least he knew she was safe, and that the battle he’d heard had been a lie, but Ril and Ashton were still out there somewhere, and though he wasn’t really sure what state his best friend or the hunter were in, it was imperative that they be found. He offered Sophia a hand up, then walked over and dug his axe out of the crushed snake skull, throwing it back over a shoulder. “Are you all right to continue? I’d… rather not linger any longer than necessary.” He managed a rueful smile, feeling much more on-balance now that she was here and his fears were given the lie, at least in part. She took his hand and stood, nodding. It was rather unsettling what kind of power this demon could have even at range. She wondered what it would be able to do when they met it in person.

Whatever it was, it wouldn't be enough to stop them, not if they were together.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel

Earnings

0.00 INK

Ashton’s chamber, in the northwest, was not so dark as Sophia’s, but it was quiet. Eerily quiet, as though a wool blanket was pressed over his ears and mouth, settled heavily about his shoulders. The room itself was dome-shaped, with a high ceiling and low lighting that seemed to flicker not at all, giving everything a stark, flat appearance and reemphasizing one painfully obvious point: he was alone. The walls were bare, the ground cleared of even the simplest of grasses, as though he stood in a tomb. His feet would make no sound on the ground, his voice would issue nothing into the air. It was as though everything but stone simply didn’t exist, even him. And it seemed so timeless, eternal and unchanging, as though, perhaps, nothing else ever had existed, and nothing else ever would.

What? Well, that's what he thought he said, and he could feel the vibrations in his throat to make the noise, but his ears heard nothing. In fact, they heard nothing at all. Not a whisper, not his feet scuffling against the ground, not even his hitched breath. It was completely, utterly, and totally silent. If that wasn't the worst of it, the fact that he was alone didn't help the fact. His next reaction was to look at his side for the people he entered the cave with, but likewise they were gone. There was only silence and himself under the dome. He spun around wildly trying to find anything, anyone, fast enough that the force threw himself into the ground.

Stones rose up to meet his knees as he silently bashed them against the ground. It made nothing of a sound, even the shouts of pain died in his throat. He shouted Rilien's name in an effort to pierce the quiet veil, but nothing. He acutely aware that he was alone. Wherever Rilien, Lucien, and Sophia were, they were not here. He needed to find them, to cast off the silence. He pounded the ground with his fist, and when no thump was forthcoming only the pain in his hand he stopped. That was something, at least. He pinched the side of his cheek, confirming that he could, indeed, still feel. Good, that was good. It wasn't perfect, but it was progress. He couldn't hear, but he could feel. Collecting the rest of his senses, he inhaled deeply, noting the scent of moist stones, dust, and other smells of the wild.

Right. He could feel and smell, he was not completely without his senses. But the silence and loneliness was so overpowering, he could feel himself losing his mind. He tried to make a quip to himself, but likewise his voice fell on deaf ears and his face darkened. He needed to find someone-- anyone. To that end, Ashton threw himself to his feet and took out his bow and an arrow. He nocked it in one fluid movement, sourly missing the twang of the string. He inhaled deeply one last time, closing his eyes as he did. As he exhaled, any evidence of the everpresent smile on his face died, leaving only the skeletal remains of the hunter. The spark in his eyes died, and his brows furrowed, his shoulders hitched.

This soundless environment made hunting ten-times more difficult. He relied on his ears as much as his eyes, but now he couldn't hear his quarry sneak up behind him, he couldn't determine the direction of anything. He was, effectively, running off of instinct. He had hoped to never be put in this position again, thrust into the wilderness with no one at his side. Except this time it was worse. He had no idea where his friends were nor even if they still lived-- he forced that thought out of his mind. Thought like that would throw him into the pits of insanity faster than any silence would. So he did just that, he forced everything out of his mind but his sight. He looked forward, darting toward the exit. He kept his bow half-taut part for the sense of resistance it provided, and part for defense.

He needed to find someone.

With Ashton’s tread, the stone gradually grew less perfect around him, and in places, sand could be seen seeping in from the long seam between wall and ceiling, suggesting that wherever he was, the ground above his head was sandy in texture. It covered over the grey stone in apparently random piles, though it also made no noise. It was hard to tell if he was deafened, or if everything in his proximity was muted. Either way, the sand grew thicker as he walked, until he was forced to tread over it as he made his way further into the corridor. With time, the tunnel grew wider as it merged with another, but the way forward seemed to be more or less the same, unless he happened to want to double back and see what had been in the southwest.

Unfortunately, that no longer seems to be an option, anyway. What had appeared at first as an innocent patch of sand like any of the others proved to be anything but, and before he’d had time to properly react, the hunter was sunk up to his knees in the stuff, and would only sink further still as time elapsed.

The sand dripping from the ceiling worried him. It told him that the foundations around him were not as stable as they could be. Add into the mix the silence, and the entire roof could cave away and crush him before he knew what happened. Therefore it was the ceiling and walls that drew most of his attention. He felt the floor beneath his feet slowly shift into more of a sandy texture. Still, he was more worried about the ceiling breaking and crushing him then the floor giving out from under him. He could feel the floor, he couldn't feel the ceiling.

His ears had long since turned red from him rubbing them on his shoulders, in an effort to force them to work. It was an unconscious habit, anything to bring about his hearing once again. However, his hearing wasn't something that would be brought back by sheer force. That revealed a nagging worry somewhere in the recesses of his mind. What if he doesn't get his hearing back? What if he would be totally deaf for the rest of his life? He had sat about his task with a certain zeal to force past these thoughts. What if that was it? What if he couldn't hear Nostariel's laugh again? Snuffy's bark? How would he carry on a loud conversation with Sparrow in the Hanged Man? What if every night was silent for the rest of his life?

He was panicking. Ashton could feel his heartbeat strumming in his chest, threatening to burst out. His feet had quickened, forcing him down the cave faster than he would have normally. He needed to find someone, Rilien, Lucien, Sophia, anyone. Even an enemy to fight in the dead of his silence would have been kinder than to be left to his own mind. The last person he wanted to be alone with was himself. His erratic pace sent him right over a patch of soft sand. He stopped immediately, the sand sucking his boots into their depths. The stop was abrupt enough to topple him over, but he managed to catch himself with a hand before the sand sunk his entire person in seconds rather than minutes. He ripped his hand out of the sand's maw and forced himself upright, but the damage was done. Sand was up to his knees.

A steady stream of curses fell from Ashton's lips but fell on deaf ears. He began to tug at his feet to rip them free, but for all his resistance, he just sank deeper and deeper into the sand. The panic from later only intensified as he was slowly being engulfed not by the roof, as he initially feared, but the floor. Well, if the sand kept eating him like it was, he wouldn't have to worry about his nights being a silent affair. A grim thought that managed to chill Ashton right to the spine. This was what he was afraid of, this was his fear. He was not some great knight, he couldn't brush off the mantle of death so easily as Lucien could.

It wasn't even the death that frightened him the most. It was the silence afterward. To be totally, utterly alone in death. He'd never be able to set one last eye on any of his friends. Hell, he wouldn't even go out in a glorious bang, but a mewling whimper. It was no enemy, no animal, nor heroic action that did Ashton in, but Andraste bleeding sand. Rage backed with fear set Ashton back to thrashing, trying to force his way out of the sand with brute force. He knew better, he knew a calmer head would prevail in this situation, but in this situation, he just didn't care. He was afraid, he was angry, and he wanted out. He wanted to hear, he wanted to survive dammit.




Rilien knew he had to find them. Honestly, though, he knew he would, and he wasn’t all that worried about it. He hadn’t felt this good since… well, he didn’t really remember. The last time he’d had his magic, he’d been barely a teenager, and he’d already been damn good. He was beyond ecstatic to realize that this hadn’t changed since he’d lost it, and already, his dimly-lit path was illuminated by the cavorting shapes of bright orange-yellow flames, orbiting around his head in the form of sun-bright sparrows, because… well, he felt like it. He’d never had a particular fondness for birds before, he didn’t think, but he looked at these ones and could only smile.

Light steps carried him along his path, and though he was alone, any anxiety this may have produced was nothing next to his present state of euphoria, and lacked the force to cut through that set of sensations. He was even humming to himself, some ditty or another he’d picked up during bard training, a cheerful one about a gentleman pirate and a stolen flagship. It was tied to an actual historical incident, but if there was anyone Orlesians liked laughing at more than Fereldans, it was the Orlesians of the distant past.

There was a noise ahead, and Rilien tensed a moment, stilling in his motions and peering through the gloom. Oh, look, a rage demon! How fun! Nothing else was quite that loud and obnoxious, and he grinned broadly as it approached, halfway to a grip on his knives before he snorted at his own folly. Why bother, when the answer was right at his fingertips? Calling the magic to himself, he watched with delight as the arcing electricity travelled over the surface of his skin without harming him, blue-white ripples of unadulterated power. It stirred something, settled somewhere between his sinew and bone, like there was a song alive inside his body, and he could have laughed with the thrill of it, so he did, whipping forward and shooting the electricity off on a direct line for the rage demon.

The creature took the hit full-on, momentarily stunned, but then roared its defiance and continued forward. But he was made for this, and no simple demon was going to deter him. It couldn’t even speak, not properly, and he disdained it as he’d always disdained them. Oh, his pride had been great, but it had also been… something else. Something that meant he could look at a demon of the same nature and mock it mercilessly. This one, so much baser and dumber than that, lunged for him, and he sidestepped, sweeping a hand out and catching it in the radius of a cone of cold. The arc of ice immobilized it, and then Rilien called up the concussive force of his own school of specialization, and slammed a wall of invisible energy into the thing. Ice cracked and spiderwebbed, but it was the demon that shattered, bursting into little pieces and disappearing from this plane.

Straightening, Rilien dusted his hands off, still on the battle-high and entirely satisfied with the way things were going right now. All he had to do was find the other three, his two friends and the friend of a friend, and then they could deal with this so-called horror and go save Sparrow from that nasty bitch, Rapture. He rather liked the idea of that—it had a nice heroic ring to it, didn’t it? This time, he’d succeed. The last time, he’d been a stupid boy in an oppressive Circle that tried to tell him what to do and who to be, and he’d been too late. But not anymore—he’d made a respectable sort of living for himself, and he’d done it all with little help and a lot of hindrance. Even as a Tranquil, he didn’t care what anyone thought he was supposed to be. Well… maybe it was impossible to care, if you were Tranquil. Had he cared? He thought he had, about some things, but it was hard to remember, exactly. All he could remember was how much he didn’t want to go back.

Shaking his head to himself, he kept on, eventually reaching what looked like a central chamber of some sort. Three passages branched off: one left, one right, and one straight ahead. He was tempted to the one dead in front, but that one was practically demanding that he take it, and he was far too contrary to answer a demand just because it was made. No… he’d go…left. Left sounded good.




The leftward tunnel was a bit odd, actually—Rilien couldn’t seem to hear anything, or make any noise. He found this to be relatively unimportant, all things considered. Probably just a magical effect of this particular part of the tunnel system. If the being had been here for as long as he hypothesized, it had likely worked tis magic into the very stone and soil of the place. It would have had enough time, and perhaps enough boredom as well. He had a feeling that he was going the wrong way, but stubborn as he was, he felt somewhat validated by this. It was hard to trust such gut-level reactions in a place full of magic. He could very well be under some kind of sensory influence right now. Demons were certainly strong enough for that, and they tended to possess mages so as to become stronger still, to gain that mastery that they envied most.

Alas, Aston’s thrashing did not catch his ears, but eventually it did catch his eye, and Rilien’s brows shot up, clearly surprised at his friend’s predicament. He actually wasn’t sure if he was more surprised that there was quicksand down here or that Ashton, usually relatively sure on his feet, had managed somehow to walk right into it. Still, that was quite enough thinking for the moment, and Rilien acted quickly, reaching back for a dagger and using it to slice off first one silk sleeve, then the other. He tied them together in a firm sailor’s knot, then added the belt-sash around his waist as well.

This gave him a fairly serviceable length of silk, and a strong material it was. Waving to catch Ashton’s attention, Ril hurled one end of the makeshift rope out into the sand-pit, getting it as close to the archer as he could.

Ashton was sunken down to his waist by the time Rilien arrived, and still so focused on escaping that the man hardly noticed the... Tranquil? That spark in his eye before they lost contact was certainly not Tranquil like, even for Rilien. It was only when a length of silk fell in front of his face. He paused his struggling for a moment to look at the silk confusedly. He followed the silk up until it reached the owner. If either of them could hear, they'd hear Ashton yell praise to the Maker, as well as a peppering of obscenities. He shouldered his bow and lunged for the silk.

Once in his hands, he wrapped it a number of times around his arms and used the other to idicate that he should begin pulling. The exact wording in his mouth was something along the lines of pull like hell. At least he wasn't alone any more. That managed to allievate a great deal of his worries. Now that dying alone weren't in the cards, he calmed down enough to think things through. The best thing for him to do would be to stay still, and let Ril slip him from the sand, instead of trying to brute force his way out. He could still feel the suction in his feet, and straightened his toes in order to facilitate the slipping.

He just really hoped Rilien was strong enough to yank his lanky ass out of the sand.

Rilien produced a grin from somewhere at Ashton’s obliviousness. Granted, the situation itself wasn’t all that funny, exactly, but there was a certain kind of gallows humor to it, maybe. Now… the only question was whether or not he’d be strong enough to manage this. He rather wished Lucien were here, as he did not doubt his friend’s ability to haul Ashton out of the sand, only his own. Setting his feet as firmly against the stone as he could, Rilien pulled, setting his teeth and backing up slowly, inch by hard-won inch. The progress was slow, but he could feel a little bit of give, and he hoped it was the sand rather than the archer’s joint-sockets. Hard to tell, with no sound.

All at once though, something gave, and he had to assume that was definitely the sand. The change was abrupt enough that Rilien fell backwards, righting himself almost immediately with a look of irritation, which swiftly morphed back into a wry smile when he noted that Ashton no longer stood half-submerged in quicksand. Tugging on the makeshift rope to indicate the other man should let go of it, he looped it twice around his waist and tied it off. Might as well keep it for now—who knew what they would run into later?

Ah, so he wouldn't die. That was splendid. Whatever panic was left quickly morphed into elation. While Ashton's voice was useless, body language wasn't. As soon as he popped up to his feet he began a jig of sorts. Of course, the jig made him accutely aware of how much sand had gotten, well, everywhere. Sand on his legs, sand in his boots, and sand in his ass. Every step, every movement, it just ground deeper and deeper until there'd be nothing left. Of course, at least he was alive to feel the grinding.

The jig quickly ended and he enveloped new-Ril into a mighty hug and lifted him off of the ground. Once he hug was done, Ashton settled down to brass tacks. He was still deaf, and from Rilien's reactions gathered he was much in the same position. That means it wasn't just him, but whether or not they'd both be permanently disabled remained to be seen. But Rilien seemed calm enough, and that calmness helped calm Ashton. He looked down the tunnel from whence he came, and in the direction Rilien came before he shrugged. Catching Rilien's attention, Ashton pointed down the path he had just come and shook his head no. He then raised two fingers-- two choices. With that, he pointed down the southwest passage and the passage Rilien came from.

He could decide their direction, and Ash would let Rilien lead off this time.

Setting

4 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon

Earnings

0.00 INK

As it happened, Rilien and Ashton managed to emerge back into the large, centralized chamber the Tranquil had earlier occupied at almost precisely the same time as Lucien and Sophia did so from the other side. They looked a little worse for wear than the pair of rogues, and Rilien blinked in surprise. They’d faced enemies already? Probably things with teeth judging from the state of the chevalier’s armor. His semi-permanent smile dropped into a look of worry, and at about the moment Ashton found himself able to hear and generate sound, Rilien spoke. “Ser Lucien? Sophia? What happened?” There was obvious concern there, and the elf drew three potions from his bandolier, approaching the other two and handing a pair to Sophia and the other one to his friend. “Just in case,” he explained, then turned and handed Ash another two.

Well, if they’d come from the right, and he and Ashton had emerged from the left… it looked like they’d have to go straight forward after all. Rilien’s bird-shaped magelights led the way, followed shortly thereafter by the man himself, who, despite a slight dose of worry, was still more pleased to be here, like this, than anything. Joy was… incredible. Did other people get this all the time, all these little bursts of relief and happiness to be near people that they liked? Satisfaction from helping them in small ways, resolve from having such folk at their backs and a goal in front of them? It was all almost overwhelming really.

The passage before them wasn’t terribly unique or interesting, save that the shadows on the wall seemed to move independently of the light Rilien was casting, contorting into horrific shapes and seeming almost alive. The Tranquil paid them no heed, though he did wonder if he could call himself that anymore. Was this change permanent? The thought that it might not be sent a cold sliver of fear licking at the base of his spine, and even this was so new he scarcely understood it. These ashes… they were the key ingredient in more than one brew, but… there would only be enough for one. He’d never really given it much thought before, never considered the other option, but… he could. He could fix himself forever, have these feelings, his magic, back, and never need to give them up again.

All he had to give in return was the chance to free Sparrow from a demon she’d invited into her soul.

The emotions this thought produced were far too complex to decipher, and he pushed the thoughts aside for a moment. Now wasn’t the time, was it? Was there ever a time for a decision like that one? Rilien had once been a very self-interested individual, and he essentially still was. He did what was required to keep himself alive and whole, and the times he didn’t were the incidents that resulted in him becoming Tranquil in the first place, in losing everything he’d ever been. The only one after that had resulted in his death sentence, something that he thankfully managed to escape. No, he did much better when he thought first of himself—the consequences of doing otherwise were always steep.

His feet were silent over the stone of the cave floor, and when he looked up, he could see the pitch of the ceiling increasing. He could also feel something getting closer, something that put a feeling of unease in the pit of his stomach and sat there, like a fat cormorant, mocking him. You don’t know what you want, now that you can want anything at all. And he didn’t, it was true. He knew this was a decision he’d have to make. He knew which one the others would want him to make. But he had yet to decide what he was going to do.

“We’re close,” he said, more to stave off his uncomfortable train of thought than anything, though he supposed it would also be good if they were aware of what they approached. He made no move to draw a weapon. Everything he’d ever needed was at his fingertips. Knives and blades were the tools of the Tranquil, the one who couldn’t even dream. A lesser being than he.

The tunnel opened into a roughly circular chamber, the vaulted ceiling of it indicating that they must surely be directly under the mountain now. At the far end directly in front of them sat an ancient altar, to one of the old elven gods or another, but the design appeared to have Tevinter-like influences as well, a most curious fact that Rilien nevertheless ignored. Standing in front of the altar was the target: clad in the remnants of robes of red silk and dark velvet, the creature’s flesh was twisted and warped, but it still appeared more human than the average arcane horror. Perhaps the strength of the demon inside had prevented the corpse from rotting overmuch. Perhaps it was the blood magic of the magister. Initially facing away from them, the creature turned, staring across the chamber with eyes like burning coals in deep sockets. “I am Abraxas,” it intoned. “What mortal fools dare appear before me?”

Rilien just barely suppressed the urge to snicker. He always had thought these things took themselves far too seriously. Ashton lacked no such compunction, chuckling at the demon's superior dialect. He lifted a finger from his bowstring, arrow still kept in place with the others, and pointed at Rilien. "I think he just called you a mortal," Ashton pointed out in a mock air of seriousness. Sure, the whole episode may have been deathly serious, but with what he was just put through, he was going to make a joke dammit. Maker, he loved the sound of his own voice. Not to mention that there friends around him now? He was estatic comparably. "Ugh," Rilien replied with an affectation of disgust. "How dare he? I'm not mortal, I'm Orlesian!" Granted, those were two entirely differently-applicable adjectives, but to hear some of the courtiers talk, completely contradictory all the same. Either way, Ashton liked this Rilien.

Lucien, having known Rilien only as the Tranquil fellow he’d always been, was rather more surprised. Granted, he didn’t think amusement was really the proper reaction to all of this, but it was certainly quite a bit better than blind panic, as he’d been experiencing earlier, and it was some combination of this perhaps unbecoming humor and his simple relief to be alive and beside friends that had him smiling as well. Well. Perhaps it was also the fact that Rilien’s joke was very on-point. Nevertheless, he hefted his axe anyway, raising a brow. “Whenever you two are quite ready?” he inquired, tones laced equally with mild admonishment and good-natured levity. Let this creature come. It would find them harder targets than it seemed to think, mortal and foolish though they might be.

Rilien sighed. He supposed the chevalier had a point. How ever ridiculous it might be, this thing calling itself Abraxas was not going to kill itself, now was it? “Yes, yes, very well. Have it your way, Ser Lucien.” Rilien flicked his eyes overhead, and the two flame-sparrows wheeled, diving at the creature in twin resounding explosions. Modified fireball spell, and damn if this didn’t feel good. For all the showiness, however, it wasn’t a very heavy attack, more a signal than anything else, and when the smoke cleared, Abraxas appeared mostly unharmed, moving his hands in a familiar conjuration pattern.

“Hex of Torment—move.” His warning delivered, Rilien himself darted forward. The spell was designed to simply cause severe pain, and cloud the mind with it. Not something one wanted to be on the receiving end of, certainly. The hex landed, catching one of his legs in its radius and Rilien went down when it suddenly seemed not to want to support his weight anymore. Though he might have been aware of its coming, that did not equate to quite being prepared, and he swore under his breath in his mother tongue when he rolled to his feet, only to feel as though his bones were splintering. Merde,” he spat, throwing a bolt of lightning at Abraxas in retaliation.

The attack blasted violently off of the demon, but seemed to do little to deter him, and Sophia darted in behind it, not even close to being in a laughing mood about any of this. It was quite a turn of events that Rilien seemed to have regained his magic and his emotions, but there was quite the Arcane Horror to deal with here, and Sophia did not intend to take the foe lightly. Abraxas, as he named himself, seemed a largely motionless foe, not doing a great deal of maneuvering about the room, preferring to take and receive attacks from his central location. From what she knew of these magister-demons, however, they were very poor at melee, but incredibly strong magically. If she or Lucien could get in close, under whatever guard it was able to put up, it looked frail enough.

She reached it from the demon's left side and threw a downward slash at what appeared to be an unprotected flank, but Abraxas reacted with a wall of rock appearing in front of her, and her sword clanged harmlessly away. He turned swiftly, casting a hand out, sending a stonefist spell into her, catching her across most of her torso and taking her off her feet. She hit the ground hard and rolled over backwards away from him, her wind gone, but all serious damage was avoided. A lightning bolt of his own was lined up immediately afterwards, and Sophia dove sideways just as it cracked down beside her, kicking up a large burst of dirt and rock. Impressive magic indeed.

It seemed the action was kicking off without him, and with the obligatory banter out of the way, he turned his attention to the task at hand: The arcane horror. There was something to be said about Ashton's knack for finding the dark secrets of magics, from being in one mage's dream, to hunting down an ancient demon. Not to mention his friends consisted both of a Tranquil bard and a possessed... Sparrow. Well, with the death of this being, there would be one less item on that list. He drew his string taut and lifted the bow, firing the arrow in a singular fluid motion. Not that it counted for much, as the arrow was intercepted midair by a stone fist-- shattering the shaft and continuing unimpeded at the Archer. A tumble to the side ensured that he wouldn't be clocked in the head by a rock.

Like Sophia before him, the horror followed up with a lightning bolt. Ashton responded by drawing a specific arrow from his quiver, one with a smoky colored fletching. Instead of aiming this one at the horror, Ash dipped down and aimed at his fit, letting it go. The arrow followed a short trip into the rock at his feet and was immediately enveloped by a gray smokescreen. The lightning bolt entered the expanding screen, but considering the lack of pained howls or the thump of a body hitting the ground, the bolt must have missed, with Ashton vanishing from the fray proper.

Lucien, not quite able to get out of the way quickly enough, was caught in the initial Hex of Torment, his muscles locking him in place reflexively as phantom pain seemed to tear open his flesh to the bone—though of course, nothing of the sort was actually happening. He’d been hit by magic like this before, but it was clear that whatever mage had hit him so wasn’t nearly so dangerous as this creature. He watched Rilien trade lightning bolts with it, and its command of stone seemed to shield it from most of the attacks Sophia and Ashton leveled. Forcing himself forward, Lucien did his best to endure the lingering aftershocks of the hex and push forward, perhaps not with his usual alacrity but just as inexorably for all that.

He noted with some surprise a blooming burst of heat at his side, and looked down from the corner of his eye to see that the head of his axe was on fire. Courtesy of Rilien’s regained magic, no doubt. He wasn’t exactly sure how to feel about this overall—he had become friends with the Tranquil, after all. The person Rilien had been before his Rite was a near-stranger to Lucien, but he wasn’t about to overthink the boon he was currently granted. As he advanced, a stonefist flew straight for him, and Lucien twisted to the side, so that it glanced off his shoulder rather than pummeling him directly in the chest, which might have taken him off his feet.

Once he was within melee range, though, the advantage was his again, and he cleaved downward with a mighty swing. A hastily-cast misdirection hex swerved his aim sideways, and where he’d meant to cleave the arcane horror in twain, he instead caught it between shoulder and neck, the axe-blade crushing as much as it sliced. Knowing he’d probably miss if he tried to strike again, he moved instead, dragging the creature with him to present its back in Sophia’s general direction.

Somewhere off to the side the shadows shuttered and shifted, dancing around behind the horror. Ashton had used his smokescreen to fall back into the shadows and step into a more preferable position. Currently, that would be the one behind the creature. Ashton had decided to forgo his plinking arrows and drew his heavy machete. It was sharp enough to cut the limbs of tree off, it wasn't that much of a difference between the fleshy kinds of limbs. While Lucien was connected to the horror via big fiery axe, Ashton stepped out of the shadows and approached the exposed back. Eyebrows were raised by the fire that was now engulfing his machete. It wasn't too much of a surprise, most of his friends were mages. It's just something he didn't expect from Ril. Still, he was thankful for the gift, and swung his machete, looking to lop off an arm or something.

Sophia didn't take her beloved sword being lit on fire with quite as much ease, and it had certainly never happened in a fight for her before. She knew the source had to be either the horror or Rilien, and considering how it wasn't actively trying to cook her, she assumed Rilien was the source. After forcing herself to move again, she found that Lucien had managed to land a strike to the thing's shoulder, and turn it such that she had an opportunity. As she advanced, she found Ashton at her side doing the same, his own machete engulfed in flames as well. Whatever they did, it would need to do quite a bit of damage, as Abraxas undoubtedly wouldn't take kindly to it. She ducked in on Ashton's right, leveling her sword forward and attempting to skewer the arcane horror through the back.

The triple barrage of hits had clearly done the creature quite a bit of damage, and its reaction was violent. Gathering a cone of raw force about itself, it pushed outward, the powerful magic sending all three of its assailants sprawling, pinning them to the floor much as Lucien had been pinned when he entered the tunnel systems. Knowing that he couldn’t allow it to follow-up on his prone allies, Rilien charged in, launching a quartet of orange fireballs at the mostly stationary target. They didn’t seem to do very much damage, and he determined that the arcane horror must be particularly resistant to magic, something that irked him considerably.

So he needed to get in its face. He was perhaps three steps from it when he met the same solid wall, though he managed to land on his feet when it sent him flying. “Stop,” it entreated, its voice much less sonorous and demanding than before. “I gave you your magic back, and I can take it away.” Rilien froze to the spot, looking torn. “If you kill me, it will all disappear. You’ll be nothing but a hollow shell of a person again. Do you mean to tell me you want that?”

It was impossible to say that he did. That statement would have been the most outrageous lie he’d ever told, and for a Bard, that was saying something. Rilien swallowed thickly, and a gleam of triumph appeared in the dead magister’s burning eyes. “I thought not. These people don’t understand. They can’t. They’ve never felt the power that you have. They are ignorant of its sublime qualities, of the feeling of having the natural forces of the world at your command. They would urge you to give it up without knowing what they ask of you. I will make no such demands.” Abraxas paused, to let that seep in. Rilien glanced to each of the others, held immobile by the demonic magic. It was true, and that was the worst part about it. Everything it was saying was true.

“They’d ask you to go back, to being less. Less than they, and much less than you are in this moment. Your power is feared, as it was feared then, and those men took it from you, condemned you for trying to save an innocent girl. They who call themselves your friends, your allies, would ask you to give it up all on your own. I would rather let you all leave, never to return. This is my place, my domain; can you really blame me for seeking it out? For desiring that something be mine, a place where I can exercise my power freely?

Rilien’s callused hands curled into fists. “Don’t compare me to yourself,” he hissed, eyes flashing in the uneven lighting. “I am no demon. I dealt with no demons.” But still, he…

“And yet you were condemned. And they would have you be condemned again, for the sake of what? One foolish enough to actually deal with demons. Why does she deserve to have her magic, her freedom, when you have neither? What makes her worthy of what you may never have?” Abraxas ventured a few steps closer. The arm that Lucien and Ashton had mangled hung only from a few sinews and some bone, and blood dripped freely from the wound Sophia had dealt it, but it appeared not at all concerned with the disintegrating state of its body. It was intently focused on him, and he could feel how right it was. In what just world was he Tranquil where Sparrow went free? In what world could anyone ask him to go back to that, a state he had earned foolishly trying to act for the sake of someone other than himself? And here he was again, acting in her name, to save her, and it was going to damn him twice.

But it had still been the wrong thing to say. Another feeling welled to the surface, smothering his anger in the gentle way a spring rain smothers a fire. He’d been nothing but fire, once, and a little bit of brimstone, but that had changed. He had changed, and there was no going back.

It hurts to grow. Hadn’t he said that to her, bare and without irony? It was true, and yet… all he wanted right now was to go back. Back to what he had been. But this… this reckless boy who thought only of himself and took what he wanted, who laughed at demons and marched only to his own tune… he didn’t exist anymore. He couldn’t.

“Nothing in particular,” he admitted, and he could see the welling of satisfaction in Abraxas’s face. “But I…” His left hand fisted in the fabric of his shirt, at the center of his chest. His heart hurt. He was sure, that as far back as his memory of feeling extended, he’d never felt anything like that before. “I won’t be able to love her tomorrow. But I love her right now, and that’s enough. That’s why this me will choose her.” A sardonic smile overtook his face, and Rilien drew his knives, launching himself at Abraxas with all the sudden brutality that had been trained into him. He was leaving it behind, he was giving it up, and it killed him. But it would have rent him just as surely to do otherwise. He could be Tranquil again, and then he wouldn’t feel any of it, good or bad. This ache in his heart would go away, and he would lose his laughter and his anger and his power and his fire, and everything that he was or could be. He’d empty out like a cracked earthenware vessel, but it would be all right. Once he returned, he wouldn’t miss it, not any of it. He’d not be able to.

Rilien mourned what he’d had for only a little while, and then his knives slid, twin motions, into Abraxas’s throat, and he ripped them out to either side, decapitating the creature and causing its body to fall to the floor. Rilien felt himself being submerged in icy water, and then nothing at all. Blinking dully, he did not see the light recede from his eyes, nor feel his face smooth into its customary porcelain neutrality, but it did. The binding spell on his allies snapped, and he looked over at them mildly. “I no longer have the means to burn it. One of you will need to set him on fire with your weapon before the spell vanishes.” It likely wouldn’t be long.

Sophia rose from the ground where the demon's spell had pinned her on her back, looking at Rilien with no small amount of shock. What she'd just seen... Rilien had regained his feelings, regained everything, and then willingly thrown it away again because of love for Sparrow. It was... confusing, to say the least. As far as she knew, Rilien had been Tranquil for quite some time, and had met Sparrow as such, meaning that his feelings for her had developed while being Tranquil. Otherwise he would not have done all this for her, right? That was the best explanation she could give for it. Either way, she didn't feel like it was her place to comment on what she'd just seen, but she had no problem putting this arcane horror to the torch. Before the fire spell wore off on her sword she placed it to the corpse's body and held it until it caught, sending the body up in flames. She took a few steps back, planting the tip of her sword in the ground as the flames left the steel.

Lucien rose as the spell over his body released, more than a little surprised by what he had witnessed. Rilien… he’d always known his friend wasn’t quite like other Tranquil, that on some tragically-stunted level, he could feel, but he never would have imagined… he couldn’t imagine what it must be like to give up so much out of what appeared to be nothing but love. For surely, that had to be the only reason. Justice would have served the one who’d done nothing wrong to earn his condition, and Abraxas seemed to imply that of the two, Rilien was less responsible for his own Tranquility than Sparrow was for her possession. Lucien had seen it—had known that his friend cared for her, but he would not have expected it to manifest itself so strongly. The chevalier was not shocked that his friend had done the right thing… only at how much he was willing to pay to do it. To give up not only the power that had been his from birth, but even the ability to feel the full depth of the emotion that made him act in the first place…

Seeing that Sophia was taking care of the fire, Lucien replaced his axe at his back and approached the Tranquil. That he’d already faded back into this state was heartbreaking in its own way, and it was all the knight could really offer to place a hand on the elf’s shoulder and squeeze in reassurance that was no longer needed or perhaps even desired. “You humble me, Rilien,” he said slowly, and very much honestly. Lucien hoped he never had to find out if he could go so far for the sake of another. “It is not the first time, and I doubt it shall be the last.” He didn’t deserve this. It was so far unfair to make these demands of him, but he’d answered them with so little hesitation, discarding his very self for this. No… not his whole self, but what he could have been, maybe.

He’d thought he understood sacrifice. Seeing this, he was no longer so sure he ever would.

“I should not,” Rilien replied steadily. “I suffer no pain for what I have done.” It wasn’t quite the truth, in just the same way that Rilien wasn’t quite Tranquil, but the acute agony of it, that unsubtle heartache and the warmth that lay beneath it, all of these were gone from him now, and only memories of them remained. Perhaps it was better that way.

The body burned, and once it was ashes, Rilien moved carefully to the head of it, taking an empty glass flask from his bandolier and borrowing Ashton’s machete to crack open the skull like a coconut, at which point he scooped the ash inside it into the vessel, corking it carefully closed and replacing it. It had to be the burnt brain matter, which was the reason why there wasn’t plenty here for more than one potion. They’d have only a single chance to get this right.

He just hoped, in his distant, detached sort of way, that she was up to it.

Setting

5 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon

Earnings

0.00 INK

The trek back to the city took the same circuitous route that had been necessary to get there, and by the time they crossed the threshold of the limits of Kirkwall, the sun was just starting to set. Rilien had no desire to delay this moment one day longer, and it seemed his companions were of a mind with him as well. Sending Ashton to fetch Sparrow, he led the other two back to his shop, where Bodahn and Sandal were just closing up for the day. As he’d requested, Sandal had kept the fire at a low burn, and when he removed the lid over the small cauldron he was using for the brew, the pungent smell of brimstone nearly overwhelmed the front of the shop.

Removing an obsidian rod from his wall (he couldn’t risk tainting the mixture with steel), Rilien upended the glass vessel of ashes into the mixture, watching with a calculating stare as it changed colors from a bright orange to a fluorescent purple in hue when he stirred. The smell dulled, receding until it was just mildly irritating rather than overwhelming. Bodahn and Sandal offered their farewells and took their leave just as Ashton returned with Sparrow. This was for the best—they were going to be releasing a demon into the shop, and he didn’t want either of them to be caught in that particular kind of crossfire. Carefully, Rilien poured the admixture into a glass vessel, dropping a measured spoonful of lyrium dust into it and swirling several times.

He realized that Sparrow still had no idea why she was here, and chose to at last rectify the situation now. The words he selected were as blunt as ever, but it might be possible for the others to detect a hint of kindness to them, if they were listening for it. “Sparrow,” he said, and held out the glass. “I have found a way to exorcise the demon from you. You will need to drink this, and when she appears, you must slay her.” The last part, he said aloud so that the others would understand. He had done all of this, given up as much as he had, not so that the demon could be merely slain, but so that she could do the slaying. Of course, if things got dire, he would prevent no interference. If they became bad enough, he would personally interfere, even. But he wanted the chance to go first to her, because it was she who had suffered most for Rapture’s presence. For all the unhelpful emotions the creature had forced him to endure and remember, for all that she disturbed the peacefulness of his equilibrium, for all that she had attacked and even killed an innocent person, she had still hurt nobody more than the one whose body she occupied. He’d seen it, and he would see it no longer.

She would suffer no more, not from this. It was the least he could do. It was the only thing he could do. On the abstract level, Rilien knew he could not be the kind of friend that other people could be. His emotional handicap prevented those warm feelings from seeping through, and he was poor at delivering comfort or reassurance with his presence. All he could give her was this: the promise that he would chase away her troubles by whatever means he could, always. This, then, was a promise long in the fulfilling, but fulfilled all the same. The rest was up to her.

Sophia was aware that their last meeting had ended in a fight and a very unfavorable result for them both, so it was with warmness tempered with caution that she gave Sparrow a smile of greeting. It wasn't the right time to explain, certainly, but at least her presence her would speak to the fact that she wanted to help the woman be free of the demon that plagued her. Whatever their differences were, Sophia couldn't wish anything bad on her. The demon wouldn't leave the shop, Sophia would see to that, but she was more than willing to let Sparrow defeat it herself. She deserved this chance, regardless of how foolish she'd been to say yes to it in the first place.

Ashton had sat down on the nearest table, leaning his bow and quiver next to it. His machete he drove into the wooden edge. Had it been anyone but Rilien, that stunt would have drawn a glare and an angry word, but not from Rilien. Not anymore. Perhaps earlier, when he had full control of his facilities, he might have provoked a response. It was taken from him as fast as it was given, but Ashton noticed. He also noticed how he willingly gave himself away to save Sparrow from the demon. The cost of Sparrow's freedom was a steep one for Rilien, one that Ashton would never tell Sparrow. The girl's been through enough. "The bitch has nowhere to go between us," Ashton said, crossing his legs, "We're all behind you."

When Ashton had come to retrieve her, she'd noticed a couple things. He looked tired. Secretive, as well. While the twinkle in his eyes dampened her suspicions, Sparrow was perceptive enough to pick up little clues. There were barely perceptible indications that Rilien's ambiguous absence hadn't involved merrily parading through daisy-gardens and raspberry fields, and somehow, her wily companion had been involved. She knew not of where they'd gone, what they were searching for, what they'd face, or why she was even accompanying Ashton to Rilien's shop. She frowned at his appearance, but only slapped him on the back and joked the entire way about this buxom lass she'd met at the Hanged Man—anything to keep the silence at bay, or the itching questions from scaling the walls of her throat. She never doubted her friends, nor their intentions. If they wanted her to meet them anywhere, then she would always be there. They shone as bright as flames in her darkness, blazing a trail of concern and hope. While she said she was wounded, they proclaimed that she was not broken.

Winding their way through the near-empty streets, Sparrow felt an uncomfortable pull in the opposite direction. It was as if she expected something she was not aware of. It prickled at the nape of her neck with grizzled teeth and scaly lips, threading the hairs up and goosepebbling her flesh. She sensed impending danger, and could not shake the feeling. She looked around, blinking into the alleys as they passed. It made no sense, really. The only one with her was Ashton. Rapture felt threatened. The demon residing within her Fadespace curled into a tight ball, coiling like a hissing snake backed into a corner. She was murmuring incoherently, feverish as an old woman rocking in a wicker chair. Piecing out her thoughts was akin to dousing her hand into a pit of hot coals, so Sparrow ignored the distressed creature, burying her discomfort with exaggerated, gawky hand gestures and jokes that hardly coaxed the dread from her dull eyes.

She still appeared as if she had not been eating correctly. Previously-muscled shoulders looked far more slender than before, and her frailty showcased itself in her bird bones, stubbornly jutting from unfamiliar faces. Hollowed out and gutted, Sparrow had begun to feel like she was withering away. Rapture's continuous gnawing, linked with her guilt, had begun to rend and tear her barriers, destroying the body the demon so sought to control. She clapped Ashton gently on the back, slender fingers like dainty willow-branches. Less out of comradeship, and more out of some instinctual need to feel like someone was actually walking at her side. She was not just imagining things, conjuring up fancies in place of her horrors. She stepped into Rilien's shop and instinctively halted. Everyone—everyone was here, even Sophia. Rilien had been secretive enough only to send Ashton to her, requesting her presence. No other questions were answered.

A lump formed in her throat, stonewalling emotions that tried to crawl up. Where Sophia may have felt awkwardness at how their last encounter had transpired, Sparrow only felt a relentless sadness. She mourned her actions, however insuppressible they had been. Never had she committed a crime that had taken such a toll on her—stealing from rich nobleman did not count, nor did breaking into their quarters in order to snatch up silk-drawers and pantaloons for an impromptu drunk-wedding (she'd soon as forget the dress, unless Ashton was wearing it). Constantly affected by a plethora of circumstances, some intentional, while others were slip-ups and blunders, Sparrow could not easily forget the ways she was altered and used, nor could Sophia, she believed. The person she was now ghosted along who she really was, hardly living at all. While Sparrow struggled to stay whole and keep together, slumping against her companions for support and leaning her sickness into their shoulders, they held her anyway.

“Sophia—” Sparrow began to say, whirling her gaze around the room. They looked somewhat haunted, as if they'd witnessed something disturbing. She found that she had that effect on people, as of late, but it seemed different this time. A flood-geyser of questions rake through her mind, but they are easily quelled. Rapture's noises are louder now, desperate and frantic and distracting. She took a step further into the shop. “Lucien, Ashton... Rilien.” Each name said like a prayer, fluttering from her lips, soft as silk. Her body tilted and creaked, bereft of its usual bounce. Even still, Sparrow returned Sophia's smile with one of her own, though hers was rough and lined with sharp cheekbones, sunken eyes and the childish gloom of someone who wanted to be forgiven, but believed it impossible. It was Rilien who finally explained why she was there in the first place, and her heart clenched, like Rapture had begun to squeeze it. Without hesitation, Sparrow took the glass from Rilien's hand and nodded woodenly.

If she feared it, then surely it would work. She glanced over her shoulder, in Ashton's direction, and gave him an ashen smile, quickly downing the vial as if she were at the Hanged Man, drinking with her companions and cajoling while Rilien played his instrument in the background. It burned her throat, threading its way down the entire way to her stomach—ugly and bitter and tasting of nothing she'd drunk before. In one moment, Sparrow felt light and airy, then uncomfortable and dizzy. The dizziness swirled into a red-hot pain gnashing its teeth at the base of her spine, all the way up into her shoulder blades, which forced her backwards, where she planted her hand onto the table Ashton had sunk his machete. The clear, roaring no no nos bugled through her throbbing skull. She felt warmth threading ghostly fingers in her belly, followed by an icy numbness clawing at her innards. Sensations swirled together until she felt like she was being ripped apart from the inside out.

Sparrow hadn't realized that she had her eyes clamped firmly shut. Hadn't realized she was holding her breath, caught in a half-gasp as she fought the bucking awareness that her limbs were twitching and trembling with the effort of keeping her standing in place. Something was being forcefully pulled from her. The painful, shrieking yanking only ceased when her shoulders sagged. Her skin sizzled and steamed, billowing puffs of sweaty smoulder. Crooked fingers slithered from her forehead, made from the same fogginess. It began congregating in front of her in thick smears, forming slender legs and horned elbows. Crimson scales shone brilliantly, catching the light seeping from the windows. Beautiful and dangerous—covered in sanguine patches, draconian features and a tipped smile that looked irritated and pleased all at once, Rapture crossed her arms over her bare chest, eyeing them languidly. Sparrow finally exhaled, breathless and horrified.

It was also Rapture who spoke first, cocking her head sidelong. For all of her twisted heart, she'd finally acquired what she so wished—life away from the Fade, in her own body, damned thrice by the Maker. “Oh, I've an audience, as well.” Her glee soured, but she kept her smile civil. She was not a fighter. Muscling her way out of the shop was out of the question. There were no other mages in the shop, only a righteous knight, a fool in foppish rangers-wear and the warrior-woman she'd accosted on the Wounded Coast. Not to mention the not-so Tranquil bard, resolute in his unfeeling hatred. The phantom tendrils did linger. She was no fool, unlike the Pride demon they'd dispatched of in the mountains. The demoness could still rifle through their thoughts.

What she found there surprised her. “Poor mechanical man. Little dearheart. To be toyed with so—but, it felt good. Not that you'd remember, after all. He was a beast. You'd wonder why he lived alone in those hills.” She spoke easily, as if they were friendly acquaintances. Her brusque movements sizzled the last remnants of steam from her own body, but she still reached a clawed finger towards him in a come-hither motion. She glimpsed in Sparrow's direction and tutted softly, turning back towards Rilien. Her vessel had worsened in health, unable to accept her greatness. Useless to her, really. “Would you like to feel again, dearheart? To feel powerful and whole? I'd not need to manipulate you so. You could love, dance. Offer more, take more. Live normally.”

To be toyed with. Sparrow, exhausted and still catching her breath, huffed a curt, “What're you talking about, she-bitch?” Her fingers had begun to have feeling in them again, chasing the numbness away. They were clenched at her sides, barely containing the anger restrained in her white knuckles.

In which the demoness responded with arched eyebrows, and a coy smirk. “You've not told her. Oh, that's tragic.”

The Fade was pulling again, which made this harder than it needed to be. Where such an offer, spoken with no magic to back it, would not have fazed him, to have again that tantalizing taste of what he could be was at once agony and temptation incarnate. How many more times would he be forced to suffer so, to breathe again when he’d resigned himself to drowning? To feel the stinging, burning pain of life when all he needed was the half-lived existence he had now? He didn’t require his emotions, didn’t need his magic, but the desire for them was so much stronger than he’d dared contemplate. Layers upon layers—every single experience came back to him, every time his Tranquility had been brushed aside as though it were the real veil on the truth of things.

A flicker of pain crossed his features, but he suppressed it quickly, narrowing his eyes and folding his arms into his sleeves. For a long moment, he stared at Rapture flatly, as though thinking about something ponderous, but in the end, he merely rotated his head a little, to glance at Sparrow from the corner of an eye. “I did not bring her here so she could repeat her lies. Slay her, Sparrow. You must.” He hadn’t told her—he’d never tell her, especially not now, when it might make her too guilty to do what needed to be done.

It was Sparrow who next moved, bullying free from her stupor and wrapping her arm around Rapture's slender neck. It fit finely in the crook of her elbow, squeezed tight against the jumping tendons of her vocal chords. The crooked finger, held towards her friend, immediately retracted, seeking purchase against her attackers unmoving arm; ineffectually scrapping and tearing and gnashing little cuts from her black talons. Sparrow would not move, despite her weakened state. Fury drove her actions, boiled her insides until she felt as if she would bubble over. How could this demon spit such lies? How could she still torment him in front of her, thinking there would be no consequences? Given their height difference, Sparrow only needed to drag Rapture backwards, tucking her against her chest to achieve a stronger hold. The cat-calling voice in the back of her skull, itching at all of her vulnerable places, was finally quiet. No longer would she be huddling there, either, cowardly in her inertia.

The sight of her friends bolstered her actions, however brutal they may have seemed. She had not brought her mace, for it had become too great a burden to carry. It reminded her of a strength she had begun to lose, and of one that she would not easily regain—heavy as a sack full of bones, and equally sobering. With her hands, there was no need for weapons. It may have been fitting to sink Rilien's blade into her heart, though. The idea flit through her eyes, sooty and infuriated, only momentarily, before Sparrow backed into the table and jerked the thrashing demon with her. Whatever needed saying would be said after this was finished and done, because she'd caught the quick quiver of something playing across Rilien's features, as well as the haunted looks on her companion's faces. There was an inkling of truth in Rapture's words, but she refused to hear it from her contemptuous mouth. Her grip tightened, twisted and became iron. The demon, unused to mortal means of respiration, spluttered and coughed, unable to voice her seductions.

She was useless without her words, without her voice. Sparrow held on as if her life depended on it, and perhaps, it did. Her mouth curled into a snarl, then tempered into a strained line, eyebrows knit across her forehead. This was necessary. This was all she dreamed of since allowing herself to be taken. Rapture's thrashing had become desperate, kicking things. Her legs caught against one of the chairs wooden legs, and upended it across the floor. It took all of her withering energy to keep herself on her feet. Errant claws and fists caught against her face and neck, but she resolutely ignored. She was drowning and Sparrow was keeping her under, plunged in nonexistent waters. The wild threshing ceases when Sparrow is on the ground, still holding Rapture until the solid-form begins to hiss and char, flaking and dissolving in her arms.

This, this I leave you. The croaky voice was nothing like the one that provoked her, threading nightmares through her dreams and painted ugly faces on those she loved. It was weak and small; something like the little girl in the woods. The remnants of Rapture's charred body sizzled straight through Sparrow's forearm, leaving an ugly blistering. Slightly scaled, twisted and spiderwebbed. It was all she could do to scramble backwards, ruefully kicking the thing away. She cradled her arm and laughed, disbelievingly. Mirthful would've been a far cry of what it sounded like. Her hand fell away from her arm, and busied itself through her hair. The ferocious light in her eyes had already faded, though she stared at the floorboards, as if there were buried answers in the knots. “There. It's done. It's done, finally—” She murmured, perhaps more to herself than anyone in the room. She did not move from the floor, only adjusted her position and bowed her head.

“I need to know what she meant. Only then, I think. Only then can I move forward. Make amends.”

To Sophia, to Rilien, to Ashton, to Lucien, to all of her friends.

The Chanter's Board has been updated. Devotion has been completed.

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

"Despite your efforts," the Viscount said to Sophia, tiredly rubbing his fingers against his forehead, "this situation only continues to escalate."

The afternoon was growing old by this point, and Sophia had so far been spending the day resting, something she hardly ever thought to do lately. It had seemed like the situation with the Qunari had been pushed aside somewhat after ending the threat to Lowtown, but it seemed now as though she was mistaken. It was probably foolish of her to be so optimistic. The fanatics among her beloved Chantry simply wouldn't let this go. They refused to see that there were other possibilities that did not involve bloodshed. A bloody solution would only result in their own blood being spilled... surely they could see that? "What has happened now, Father?" Sophia asked. She worked to keep her own tiredness from her tone, but it slipped in anyway.

Her father didn't like to see that, of course, but he had finally come to accept that his daughter had grown into a very capable woman, and that few other people had the drive and the ability that was needed to keep the peace. Dangerous as her work was, Sophia and her friends were the best group in the city at getting things done, and that was what was needed now, tired or no. "A Qunari delegate and entourage paid me a visit," he explained. "It was civil, tentative, even hopeful. They left my chambers with precision, but were not reported by the outer guard. They are missing almost literally from my doorstep."

Well, that was bad news. She could only imagine the Arishok's reaction. An attempt to establish better relations, this time arranged by the Qunari and not the Viscount or his daughter, and how do they respond? By making them disappear, of course. This... this was very bad. It smelled of war in the making, and they simply couldn't afford war, not now. "Maker..." Sophia whispered to herself, though the Maker didn't seem to be doing all that much in the matter of the Qunari. "I can fix this. I'll get them back to the compound safely, Father."

"Please be careful, Sophia. We've been trying to turn this stampede for some time now, but someone is pushing very hard." Sophia nodded. She was already thinking of who she would want to help her on this. Lucien, of course, and Nostariel, if she was available. Perhaps some cooperation with the Qunari would be wise as well, considering that she knew one who had helped her before for a good cause. "Speak with Bran," the Viscount continued. "And spread this only to those you can trust. This must be resolved quietly."

She knew that as well, and so she departed to find Seneschal Bran awaiting her outside the Viscount's office. He looked reluctant to speak with her, which she found somewhat odd. Still, he put on a smile, if a forced one. "Good day, Sophia. I understand you're to be tracking down the Qunari entourage. I... would prefer that we do not do this at all, but your father has given me orders." That struck her as odd. "What do you mean? You would prefer them not to be found?"

"I must always think of what is best for the Viscount and his family, Sophia. Bringing attention to this incident... well, it benefits no one." She knew he meant only to ensure their well-being by saying such a thing, but she found herself disappointed in them. "Bran, they were abducted. How could we just let this happen?" He crossed his arms. "Please, Sophia, if you would keep your voice low. The Qunari are... neutral hostiles at best. There is no relationship to salvage by overextending ourselves on their behalf."

"So because there is no relationship at the moment, we should make no efforts to improve it?" She would have argued with him more on the point, but they had more important things to discuss. "Regardless, I'm going to find them, and ensure they return safely to their compound. How were they even abducted? I should think any attempt would have resulted in a bloodbath." At that, Bran grimaced slightly. "Unfortunately, they were not at their best. Their swords were tied into their sheaths... as I advised."

He shrugged, but Sophia could not blame him for it, as his reasoning showed. "It seemed a respectful compromise. Even I know you cannot separate a Qunari from his weapon." It would explain a good deal, though every Qunari warrior accompanying the Arishok was quite physically impressive. Whoever had pulled this off clearly had some amount of power, and undoubtedly help from the inside. The guard would never have screwed up this colossally. Unless they were involved, of course. "We should start with the city guard. They must have been involved, for this to have happened."

"Agreed," Bran said. "Not coincidentally, a number of recent recruits have failed to report. I would start with one of them. Although, where you find a swordsman so eager to sell his honor and duty, I'm sure I don't know." Well, that was an easy one. "The Hanged Man, then." He nodded. "Surely this hasn't gone without notice. There is always a weak link. Good luck, Sophia. And please, be careful." She could only hear be careful so many times before it gave her a desire to go and do something reckless. Sophia left Bran and returned to her own quarters. She suspected she'd need her armor before this was resolved.




Lucien had never stained and sealed a floor before, but he supposed that there truly must be a first time for everything. He already knew much more about carpentry than he ever had before, and he couldn’t help but be grateful for the new skills. Whether or not they would ever be of use to him again was irrelevant—the fact was that he was gaining them, and this was worth it own labor. So, stain brush in one hand and clean linen rag in the other, Lucien set about the task of coloring and sealing the floor of what would soon be the barracks of his mercenary company. There was something quite satisfying in thinking that—in knowing that perhaps, he could do something just as worthwhile here as he’d done at home.

Not that he thought what he’d been doing so far was unworthy, it just… it wasn’t on the scale to which he’d grown accustomed. In every nation, there were a certain number of people upon whom history itself could very well depend, and though perhaps he’d not quite yet reached that status in Orlais, he was certainly groomed for it, and to be acting again on a larger scale like that at once daunted and encouraged him. There was a lot of good a whole company could do, and at last the interviews had started to take a good turn. He’d be starting with ten men and women. Not a lot, but a considerable number more than he’d been willing to count on. With time, those ten would be the foundation for the rest. Lucien had learned patience, a hard, but invaluable lesson, and now he was putting it to use.

A couple of hours saw the task done, and the mercenary straightened, swiping his forehead with the back of his hand. His mail and plate lay a short distance off, in one of the side rooms, and for the moment, he wore nothing more complicated than a dark blue tunic, some tan breeches, and dark leather boots. He took a few seconds to retie the tail at the base of his neck and surveyed his work with a sense of satisfaction. The place was coming together nicely: all of the rough carpentry had been completed in the last couple of days, and with the floors and the walls now both clean and ready to go, it only remained to move furniture and people into the space. The façade of the building was now a deep red stone, and a sign hung out in front of the space, advertising the Argent Lion mercenary company, which he’d been advised would be much better shortened to the ‘Lions’ or perhaps even ‘Lionhearts.’ He wasn’t all that picky, truth be told, but he had taken the color from his own family device, only this silver beast rampaged on a field of maroon, a tribute to the dark red of the Viscount’s own house, and a nice contrast with the silver. Lucien was enough an artist to appreciate the significance of color, and the sign was something he’d painted himself.

Speaking of the Viscount’s house, a knock sounded on his brand-new door, and when he bade the visitor enter, he was pleasantly surprised to see that it was Sophia. He smiled, cleaning his hands off on a clean corner of the cloth, and ushered her in. The floor was dry enough as it was. “Apologies,” he said mildly, “but the furniture will not be in for another few days. I’ve nowhere to offer you a seat.” Then again, he doubted she'd come all the way out here just to see him. That would be rather… well, rather nice, honestly, but perhaps not something either of them had the time for. “Something I can do for you, Sophia?”

The effort Lucien was putting into this place was making it look fantastic already, and it made Sophia smile. She could imagine what it would look like when it was completed and occupied, and of course it would only look better than she expected. There was a kind of extraordinary care that went into everything he did, as though the floor of the building was no less important than the work that had gone into painting her mother's face for the first time. And she liked the name, too. The lion suited Lucien very well.

"It's coming along beautifully," she said, taking a good look around, though the fact that she was fully armed and armored again implied that she was here for more than checking up on his work, and her face darkened somewhat. "I'm afraid something's happened at the Keep... a possible complication to our relations with the Qunari." She wondered if he was just as tired of holding this line as she was, considering how she enlisted his aid in almost every matter involving the Arishok and his warriors now. There was sadly no time for rest.

"A delegate and his entourage disappeared from the steps of the Keep shortly after meeting my father, and no one seems to know where they've gone. The city guard couldn't possibly have let this happen without some knowledge, so the plan is currently to search for a loose tongue, at the Hanged Man perhaps. I was hoping I could perhaps pull you away from here... and maybe we could beat up some corrupt guardsmen?" She imagined there would at least be some resistance, if they were being paid to look the other way. In a place like the Hanged Man, things could escalate quickly.

“Mm…” Lucien murmured, looking faintly troubled for a moment before he rearranged his face into a small, slightly sardonic smile. Nodding, he took the few steps to his mail and slid the shirt of it on as he spoke. Not a trace of the large puncture in it remained, though in all likelihood, his actual flesh would bear the serpent’s scar for the rest of his life. It was a toll he’d paid many a time, and one he’d gladly pay again. “Of course I’ll help,” he said without hesitation, buckling his chestplate into place deftly. “The work here will keep, and this is surely more important anyway.”

Yet another instance of corruption within the guard, perhaps. He supposed he could only hope that this one was not so pervasive as the last, though the sigh exhaled through his nose was evidence that he would stake nothing on such an optimistic thought. The kidnapping of a delegate and his entourage required no small amount of planning, and not insignificant manpower. It was, he supposed as he pulled a leather strap to tighten his gauntlet into place, hardly prudent to assume that the Chantry had nothing to do with it, either. Everything in Kirkwall seemed to run in the same circular patterns, as though sometimes, all that they and their friends achieved was to begin a new rotation of the same by bringing the old one to a close.

He still could not shake the suspicion that eventually, these circles would break apart, and throw them all onto a path from which there was no escaping. He did not know where it would lead, but he had a few good guesses, and he would hold off that seemingly-inevitable fracture for as long as he possibly could. Peace was worth preserving, even if war always loomed on the horizon. Never mind that this peace was already as tense and tenuous as they came—that only made the job they did, standing in the middle and trying to maintain a precarious balance, all that much more important. “I admit, I haven’t beaten anyone up in a good week, at least. I was going to go clear out a cave on the Coast just to stave off the boredom, but this will serve just as well.” It was a joke, but only kind of. Perhaps it was a bit unusual to spend one’s free days running bandits out of their warrens, but… Lucien was a bit unusual himself, so it ought be expected by this point.

"Some extra friends couldn't hurt," Sophia said. "I imagine the trail won't lead to a pretty place. Perhaps Nostariel will be able to join us." And perhaps they wouldn't find three extra people to come along this time. "I'd also thought this might be something Amalia would be interested in. She's certainly discreet, and I think her insight into the Qunari will be most useful."

The early mornings at Nostariel’s clinic were usually occupied by families or children who were sick, and these could generally be sent on their way with a potion or tonic of some kind. Nostariel’s came generally from either Rilien (through Lucien), or, more often, Amalia, so either way, they were essentially the best a person could get in Kirkwall, no matter what Lady Elegant likes to say about her elfroot brews. The clinic itself held odd, sometimes varying hours, but it was almost always open in the morning, so predictably by early afternoon, her work had trickled off considerably. She’d had a pair of dockworkers show up with broken limbs from a bad accident with a shipping crate around lunch, but since then, nothing at all. The Warden took the opportunity to catch up on her paperwork and invoices, which always gave her a headache but were necessary all the same.

She wasn’t even running a business, per se, and she still had this much to do with shipments and licenses and the rather complicated matter of the lease she had on this building. It was technically hers, but the previous owner had wanted smaller payments for some reason, and she supposed that was his right as seller. For Nostariel, it was just one more thing to administrate, for someone who’d never really had to deal with this side of leadership in her lifetime. Grey Wardens didn’t have a whole lot of parchment documentation. Just one more reason to respect people like Sophia and Lucien, she supposed.

Of course, it was common superstition that thinking of people summoned them, and she couldn’t help but smile to herself when they both happened to walk right in through her front door just then, as though she really had bidden them. From the state of their dress and the looks on their faces, though, this was not a friendly visit. The smile dropped off her face as they explained their presence, and the elf toyed with one of the spiraling silver drops hanging from the lobe an ear, nodding when all was said. “Sounds serious,” she said gravely, then took her bow and quiver from where they lay against her wall and slung them over her back. She went without the staff now, mostly, preferring to channel her healing through her hands. She laced up her only leather bracer and accompanied the two out of the clinic, flipping the sign therein to ‘closed’ and braiding her hair as she went. “Have you considered speaking with Amalia?” She was aware that both knew the Qunari woman, but she could not testify as to the relationships they held.

"I have," Sophia answered. "I think she'd be a great help here." She would also likely have some idea how the Qunari, and more important the Arishok himself, were going to react to all of this, and how best to maintain the peace. She knew the Qun and what it demanded of them. If there was a way to avoid having it demand bloodshed, Sophia wanted to find it.

Setting

5 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

Today, Amalia’s pupil had been invited into her home, or more accurately, the too-small Alienage shack she shared with too many Viddathari. There was a purpose to this, as there was a purpose to everything else, but in this case, the reasoning was quite simple: she wished to speak to Imekari about things that were best not heard by general ears. Already wearing most of her armor, Amalia was bristling with as many sharp and pointy objects as usual, but today she also carried her familiar weighted chain, tied about her waist in such a way as to be releasable with a single unhooking. Presently, she was wrapping her forearms in white bandaging, which served several purposes: first and foremost, it added additional bracing and protection to her joints, and she had every intention of being in excellent shape well into her twilight years, so it was best to take precautions now. Second, it was doing quite a lot to hide the variety of scars crisscrossing the tanned skin of her arms. She might not have cared overmuch about the aesthetics of it, but questions on the matter, she would rather avoid.

Thirdly, it was convenient to have an extra layer in between her skin and her gauntlet, which she slid on afterwards, checking that the trigger mechanism was in place before buckling deftly with one hand. “One of my Viddathari was in Hightown this morning and heard two of the City guard talking about it,” she was explaining. “The Arishok will not be pleased to learn that his delegation has been snatched from the front doors of this city’s governing family, and I think you understand how ill this place could afford open warfare. I intend to find them, and discover what happened to them, before he has time to make the declaration.” Amalia paused in the act of wrapping her long scarf about her neck.

“I find that such a task would also suit well for assessment purposes, if you are willing to assist.” Of course, if Aurora had no wish to go, Amalia would not force the issue. The girl was not Qunari, and thus she was not obligated. Amalia, on the other hand, had to do this thing. That she also happened to want to was something that she did not dwell on. It faintly disturbed her that it was not duty that moved her to such swift action, but rather a swift and intense dislike for the images her imagination conjured of Kirkwall on fire in the wake of what the Antaam could—and would, if this was not resolved—do. She did not desire for this place to burn. More importantly, she did not desire to sort through the wreckage of it only to find their bodies therein. Dangerous thoughts, and ones she did not linger over. “Will you come?” The Qunari pushed open the door and stepped outside into the afternoon sun, holding it for long enough for Aurora to step out as well, then shut it firmly behind them both.

"Wait. Assessment? I'm being tested?" Aurora asked. She'd found a perch on a corner of one of Amalia's tables or desks. Honestly, the whole place looked more like a school than a home... And just like that being tested didn't seem all that strange. Aurora tilted her head and chuckled. She thought she was done with tests when she left the Circle. And in three years, Aurora still felt like a student when she was around Amalia. An unruly student, sure. Some things don't change. Assessment or not, Aurora felt like this was the woman's way of asking for her help, and after all she'd done for her saying no was out of the question. "I thought that still being alive was enough of a pass," Aurora quipped with a smile. She then hopped off the desk and nodded.

Aurora crossed her arms as she headed out the door with Amalia, saying "I never was good with tests," as they exited. "But Milly did kick me out of the house for the afternoon though. 'Decorating' she said," Aurora said with air quotes. She'd invited Milly to come along with her to visit Amalia. Milly had only laughed and firmly said no. Not that she was surprised. The last time she brought her out to meet her friends, she got roped into a dangerous quest that almost killed all of them. That's all Aurora heard the following week. Perhaps it was a good thing Milly didn't frolick the streets with her-- she did tend to be danger prone.

"So where should we start?" Aurora asked. The importance of the task didn't escape her. Even with the low profile she tried to keep, Aurora could feel the tense air and hear the mutterings on the streets. Kirkwall could not afford a war with the Qunari. These people were soldiers through and through. Disciplined with a single purpose and a single role. They did not need to provoke these people. They needed to find this delegation, the quicker the better.

“It is not an ordinary test,” Amalia replied coolly. “Do not trouble yourself over it. Act as you have learned to, with mind, soul, and body in harmony, and it shall pose you no great difficulty. Nothing shall.” The Qunari frowned a little; it was undoubtedly good advice, but of a sort that she was finding it increasingly hard to follow herself. She knew not yet which part of her betrayed her ease and certainty, but she had a niggling suspicion that it was not her body, and perhaps not even her mind. Had it not always been so? The pain her mind and body suffered was always irrelevant, would always be irrelevant. She had learned to endure it. The worst of her scars were elsewhere, on her heart, she believed the humans often called it. There was scarcely a difference between that and the Qunari soul. Ironic, considering the meaning of her title. Heart of the Many.

As for where to start, well… that looked quite likely. Across the way, Nostariel, Lucien, and Sophia approached, and Amalia had a feeling she knew why they were here. Pursing her lips, the Ben-Hassrath approached them, Aurora in tow. For a moment, she regarded them steadily, the differing hues of her eyes lending the slightest bit of surrealism to the inspection. “The Arishok must know,” she said decisively. “I think it will be better coming from you than me, but he will not be pleased. I will accompany you to convey this, and then to solve the problem.” She did not pretend she didn’t know why they were here, but she could not deny that it presented a decent opportunity. She had been about to approach Lucien and Nostariel about the matter anyway, as she knew all three of the people before her had dealings with the leader of the Antaam before. From humans and elves, this proclamation would be ill-received, but their honesty would do them credit, which may save them. From her, it would be another maddening detail to add to the litany of reasons Kirkwall must be conquered, and she did not think his task would keep him from his nature much longer. The Arishok was born and raised to make war, and when everything was laid out before them, that was what he would do.

“That makes sense, yes. Better to get out in front of this,” Lucien mused, but he turned to Sophia all the same, as if to defer to her decision in this matter. Curious. Amalia chose not to comment upon it.

Sophia was surprised to find Aurora here, and more surprised to find her approaching with Amalia. Apparently the Qunari woman already knew of what had occurred, and assumed correctly that it was the reason for their visit to the Alienage. She never wasted time, did she? Still, Sophia was curious as to the relationship these two had. As far as she knew, Qunari view on mages was... not the same as Aurora's had been, the last time she'd expressed them in front of Sophia. They didn't seem like a natural fit for friendship, or a teaching relationship... though come to think of it, some of the moves Aurora had displayed in combat without using magic were awfully reminiscent of Amalia's techniques. Perhaps they'd known each other for longer than Sophia thought.

Either way, it was interesting. She had decided that Amalia was someone trustworthy, someone who had goals that were not undesirable. Sophia got the sense that some of the Qunari warriors were hoping for a way for their Qun to demand the city's destruction, but Amalia had already proven she wished for no war. After thinking on it, the idea of Amalia rubbing off on the once hot-headed Aurora was an agreeable thought. More than anything, mages needed good teachers. That was the primary strength of the Circle, not the effective jailing of people like Aurora by the Templars. If all mages were guaranteed to be taught well as they increased in power, maybe the Circle wouldn't be needed, but for now, there were too many cases like Sparrow: willful and perhaps slightly foolish people, making mistakes even with good intentions, and causing others around them to suffer for it.

"I had hoped for him to know when we delivered his people to safety," Sophia said, "but if you believe it best we inform him now, then that's what we'll do." Maybe delaying with the truth would have been unwise. Sophia would have preferred to get right to the search rather than waste time traveling down to the Docks and speak with the Arishok (and potentially face his wrath if he was angered). But she'd come seeking Amalia for precisely this reason: Sophia did not understand how the Arishok functioned, or the Qun that guided him. Amalia did. Sophia said nothing of Aurora accompanying them. If Amalia did not take issue with that, or if she had intended it, then Sophia would not intervene. Not yet, at least.

The party of five left the vhenadahl and the Alienage behind, finding the stairways down to the Docks and the Qunari compound. The guard at the gate recognized them easily enough, considering that one among them was actually Qunari, and three of the others had made visits here with increasing frequency. All five passed through the gate, however, after they stated they had important information for the Arishok to hear. The leader of the Qunari warriors himself was in the middle of a discussion with one of his higher ranking subordinates, but when his eyes caught the visitors entering his compound and approaching him, he waved for his fellow Qunari to step aside. "What do you want?" he asked plainly, impatience in his tone. He did not show any particular regard for the Ben-Hassrath. "I have no interest in adding to my distractions."

To perhaps solidify the sentiment she had expressed at the beginning of this endeavor, Amalia did not answer the Arishok’s question, and for a moment, her silence was almost conspicuous. In truth, the priesthood and the army didn’t always have that much to do with each other, and she obviously wasn’t here in her official capacity at the moment. Her job was to take care of it, and then they could talk about it. But it was important that these people had the opportunity to tell him the truth first. That had nothing to do with her, really. Indeed, though she was certainly looking at the Arishok, she was clearly not going to speak, and in the beat of slightly-awkward silence that followed the terse question, Lucien decided to intervene.

“We came to inform you that the delegation you recently sent to the Keep has disappeared, but it seems you are already aware?” The present level of frustration here was much higher than what seemed to be the Qunari’s resting rate of it, so to speak, that passive hatred he seemed to have for his position here, and the city itself. It was probably best not to only add to the distractions, as he’d said. “We will find them, but it seemed best to inform you first, in the event that we should not.” He wasn’t exactly sure what the Qun would demand here—perhaps they had to be retrieved by the Arishok’s own men? Whatever thing the Arishok was after in Kirkwall apparently had to be retrieved by him personally, so there were definitely restrictions of that general nature in the Qunari ideology somewhere.

The Arishok studied Lucien and the four accompanying for a very long moment, his face hard as stone. "Anyone else, and those words would have been their last." Sophia couldn't help but tense at that. He seemed relatively unsurprised at hearing of the abduction of his delegation. If the Arishok himself were searching for ways around his Qun just as the fanatics were searching for ways to force him to it, they were truly in peril. The warriors surrounding him looked far less passive than usual. This was bad.

The Arishok leaned forward. "You are handling this, then? Not your buffoon of a Viscount?" That caused Sophia to take a step forward on Lucien's right, her brow narrowing to a hard crease. Did he really mean to insult her father in front of her? She meant him no harm, but a little respect, and some reassurance that he felt the same, would not hurt at all.

Lucien as a rule did not at all enjoy interrupting people, nor that close cousin of such rudeness that was preventing them from speaking in the first place. This was, however, a delicate situation—it took only one look at the situation here to tell someone that, and right now, arguing over the Viscount’s relative merits as leader of this city was not going to accomplish anything but making the Arishok angrier. He did not touch her, but his tone was the verbal equivalent of an arm-bar, or perhaps a hand on her shoulder. Soft enough to be nonthreatening, but firm in its insistence. “Sophia.” Please don’t make this worse than it already is. To the Arishok, he added but two more. “We are.”

Anyone else, and those words would have been... well, certainly not their last, but they probably would have been largely ignored. Given the way she'd conditioned herself to protect her family at all costs, above anything else, simply letting this go was extremely difficult for her, but the look in Lucien's eye was enough to melt her anger. Lucien had said what was needed, so Sophia simply took a step back again, avoiding eye contact with the Arishok, as she certainly couldn't contain the glare. The Arishok made no indication that he even witnessed this exchange.

"Then I will wait. But know this: the provocations we have suffered have worked. If this is not resolved, I can fulfill my duty to the Qun with far less annoyance by sifting through rubble."

That seemed to be the conclusion of the conversation, and Nostariel wondered if she was the only one currently more scared than angry. Not necessarily for herself—she’d faced numerous rather horrible things in the past, and probably would in the future, but as a healer, she knew well what the threat in the Arishok’s words really meant. War wasn’t just death and rubble, it was dying, a long process of grievous wounds and sheer exhaustion and crippled children and many other things that did not bear thinking about. That was the dark promise in his voice, and that should have scared all of them, she thought.

Nevertheless, she made no comment as they exited from the compound, the gate closing firmly behind them. Instead, she simply threaded her way through the streets to the Hanged Man, where she’d gathered they were to be looking for an insider to this particular kidnapping, someone most likely in the City Guard. It was alarming that such people could be bought, but maybe not all that surprising in the end. The tavern itself seemed rather busy today, with an above-average number of patrons present, or had it simply always been so and she’d never lifted her head up enough to notice? She couldn’t really tell for sure.

There was no one dressed in a guard uniform in here, but that was unsurprising, as they'd be off duty if they were in the Hanged Man anyway. "Might be best to split up, try and listen in." There was no guarantee they'd even find what they were looking for in here but, well... Sophia had found that a common attribute of criminals was often stupidity. Hopefully that would hold true here.

Setting

6 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

The Hanged Man was busier this evening than it usually was, and Sophia wondered if there was a reason for that. Also, the fact that she knew how busy this place was on a typical evening troubled her slightly, but she supposed there was nothing wrong with that. This place was just as respectable as any Hightown establishment... meaning that under the gilded surface, all these places were dens of scum and lowlife, with the occasional jewel of an individual mixed in. What they were looking for tonight, however, was not a jewel, but quite the opposite.

They spread out, filtering among the patrons and opening their ears, though most of what they would hear was absolute drivel and contained no useful information about missing Qunari or corrupt guardsmen. Sophia found herself working towards the bar along with Nostariel, where she soon spotted a taller figure among the group, and she smiled upon realizing that it was Ashton. Turning her back to the bar, Sophia leaned up against it when she had reached his side, surveying the patrons at the tables. No small amount of the them were armed, but that was to be expected anywhere in Lowtown, particularly after sundown.

"Hello, Ashton," she greeted pleasantly, doing her best to shrug off any negative attitude left over from her encounter with the Arishok. "You wouldn't have by chance overhead anyone mentioning they're a guardsman in here, have you?"

"Wondered when you two would make your way to me," Ashton said swiveling around in his seat. On his face he wore a large smile, as he ever did, but what was missing was the noticeable blush that all the other patrons were wearing. Because unlike them, Ashton wasn't drinking. Instead the tankard held some kind of juice. He wasn't told, and he didn't ask. It was probably better that way. Probably wasn't much better for him in the long run. "I seen you all come in. I mean, I seen you all come in. I pity the poor bastard you're hunting for," The Chevalier was impossible to miss, after all. Amalia and Aurora less so, but he even managed to pick them out.

Ashton ran a hand through his hair, tugging at the bow sitting at the base of his neck. At the mention of the guardsman Ashton chuckled and leaned his head a little to the side. "Only every other minute. The poor sod you're looking for is over there, the one waving the bottle around and buying drinks for the entire bar," At that Ashton frowned and looked wistful for a moment. "Which has been no fun since I quit drinking," Ashton, shaking his head. He then chuckled it off and held out his tankard in offering for Nostariel. "Drink? It's... Well, I'm not sure what it is actually," He said, smile dropping as he peered into the tankard, sloshing the liquid around.

Nostariel smiled, a touch wryly. She definitely knew how he was feeling on that. She’d quit drinking herself, and sometimes, she wondered if he might be putting himself through the same from some kind of solidarity. She hoped not; either way, it was nice not to be the only one. The glance she gave the tankard was speculative, accompanied by a raised brow, but in the end she shrugged and lifted it gently from his hand. “Don’t mind if I do,” the Warden replied, taking a sip and using the opportunity to survey the guard they were looking for surreptitiously. She had the uncomfortable feeling that this bit wasn’t really going to end well. Living in a bar for more than four years had given her a sort of sense for when things were tense, and that fellow, despite all the drinking he was doing and facilitating, was taut as a bowstring. Handing the tin tankard back to Ash, she touched his elbow in thanks and followed Sophia over in the fellow’s general direction.

“Careful,” she advised the Viscount’s daughter in a low voice. “Some of these would love an excuse to start something in here.” Of course, a barfight would hardly be worse than anything else they ever did, but they could still get ugly, even with friends, because in the end, you were mostly hurting people who were just a little too intoxicated to know better, and she’d feel bad about that, if it happened. The one Ash had pointed them to was situated at a corner of the bar, flanked by a few other patrons all too happy to take advantage of his generous offer for free alcohol. She wondered if maybe the sudden windfall of funds had come from being paid off to not notice a few Qunari disappearing—the thought turned her mouth down into a frown.

Honestly, Sophia was a little less concerned, but she'd try to keep that to herself. It was a selfish desire and not at all like her, but the Arishok had her feeling like hitting something, and a corrupt guardsman would do just fine. No one would die, obviously. It wasn't like that Dalish elf was here, and the rest of them were capable of holding their own while not murdering enemies. Well, perhaps Nostariel would be less comfortable in the midst of a fist fight... but she wouldn't be alone. Either way, if this man had been buying rounds for most of the bar, he probably assumed he had a good deal of friends here. There were only six of them, and those numbers would probably go underestimated. Very few of these people had seen them in action before.

Sophia tried to catch the eyes of the others, to let them know they'd potentially found who they were looking for, before speaking from behind the man at the bar. "I hear you've been buying quite a few drinks, guardsman. Is that something the Keep's covering, I wonder?" He didn't even turn to face her, which was perhaps a boon to them. The city guard would recognize the Viscount's daughter, of course, especially in her armor. "Tonight, I'm paid and blessed, and all I had to do was turn my head. What say you, lovely? Care to fetch us another round? To all my..." He turned, blinking a few times at her. "...friends. Shit."

Sophia had her arms crossed by this point, not amused with being mistaken for a serving girl. The redheaded guardsman seemed rather threatened by the glare. "Hey, don't do anything rash now. I know important people. We're going to show this city what to do with heathen oxmen, since you and your father won't." Oh, the stupidity of these people. Sometimes, Sophia wondered how they all still managed to keep themselves alive. Surprisingly, Sophia managed to keep her anger in check for the moment, trying to appeal to him instead. "Relax, guardsman. I just want to know who paid you to take a Qunari delegate."

"Look... I made a good wage for looking away while someone tamed a horn-head. So what? Don't you want them gone, too?" She most certainly did, but that wasn't the point. Right now, trying to get rid of them would only serve to let them kill everyone in the city. "Just give me a name, please. This doesn't have to get ugly." But he seemed to think otherwise, and now that she noticed it, there were a good deal of eyes on them, and the room was significantly quieter than it was when they'd walked in. The guardsman didn't look to be budging, so Sophia turned to the bartender behind the counter.

"I apologize in advance for this. The Keep will pay for everything that's about to be broken." She then turned abruptly, throwing a heavy punch into the corrupt man's jaw, sending him reeling backwards and nearly going to the ground. Unsurprisingly, the Hanged Man erupted.

But Maker, that felt good.

Amalia had split off from the group, taking Aurora with her to prowl the edges of the room, though she let the other woman do all the questioning. Nobody seemed to really know who here was a guard and who wasn’t, though that was like as not because of the fact that all these humans were too drunk to remember much of anything at the moment. It was enough to wrinkle Amalia’s nose with a fair amount of disgust—she’d never liked such places. With time, however, she caught sight of Nostariel and Sophia heading purposefully towards a certain cluster of people, and cleared her throat to halt Aurora’s current conversation, nodding over at their two allies. That was what they wanted, and she wasn’t fool enough to suppose that their target was simply going to give up all the information they required.

She was thinking she might have to expedite matter by becoming a bit rough when Sophia apparently decided that nothing more subtle than a strike to the face was required. The Qunari and her student were only about halfway across the room by this point, and the entire bar erupted shortly thereafter, making it rather impossible to simply walk up to the others. Amalia rolled her eyes as she caught a clumsily-thrown punch, deftly twisting the arm in question back behind its owner and slamming his head into a nearby table, whereupon he promptly fell unconscious. “Waste of time,” she muttered under her breath. Glancing over at Aurora, she raised a brow, jerking her head at the crowd of exactly a half-dozen burly men that approached the two females. Imekari. Show me.” It did not need to be said what, exactly, she was asking to see. Aurora knew her well enough to decipher this.

What would a trip to the local dive be without a massive bar fight? Far too quiet for them. Aurora wouldn't minded if at least one of these excursions went smoothly for them. But what was happening was happening, and no amount of internal griping was going stop it. When the bar turned into a brawl, Aurora caught the first elbow intended for her face. While Amalia slammed hers down into the table nearby, Aurora drove two swift fists under the armpit of her own malcontent. He dropped like a rock, deciding that the floor would be much more kinder than the redheaded spitfire. With the three words leaving Amalia's mouth, Aurora turned to her for a moment and nodded. If this was part of her assessment, then it was part of her assessment. She just wished that it wasn't in the Hanged Man of all places.

Right, six big and probably inebriated men. Nothing they couldn't handle. They'd all dealt with worse-- much worse. It did raise the question of why the gang decided to descend upon them of all people. The way they just dropped two men probably had something to do with that. Aurora sighed and began to close the distance between them. If they were going to make their way to them in any event, it'd be better to bring the fight to them and gain the upperhand in the beginning. There was a chair on route to the thugs, and Aurora utilized it. Jumping up onto the chair, she then bounced her way to a nearby table top, and then bounded toward the men.

Practiced strength was put behind the lunge, so instead of slamming directly into them, she'd float over their heads. She even pulled her legs in closer to avoid kicking on of them in the head and snapping their neck. She landed a couple of paces behind of them. Taking a hard step backward, she used that momentum to drive the point of her elbow square into the spine of the man, throwing him to the ground. Now with Aurora positioned in the middle of the crowd of thugs, she turned and this time sent both of her elbows out, driving these into the bellies of the men on either side, putting them on their knees. But these were big men, it'd take more than that to finish them. Still, Aurora was far from done.

Lucien, meanwhile, was currently looking down in some surprise at the fist that had planted itself against his chestplate. He wasn’t sure exactly what had made punching a man in armor seem like a good idea, but the fellow who’d done so was clearly regretting it now—his knuckles had split and were bleeding quite profusely. It could be worse; he could have broken them. Holding both hands up in the air by his shoulders as though in surrender, the Chevalier sighed. “Gentlemen,” he said, addressing himself to those in his immediate proximity, “I assure you that you do not want to do this.”

He was answered, predictably enough, by a flying chair, which one of them had seen fit to pluck from its perfectly innocent spot on the ground and hurl for his head with extreme (and, he liked to think, unwarranted) prejudice. Moving one of his lofted limbs, he caught the thing by a leg and set it carefully back down again, using his other arm to block an incoming fist, which banged off his gauntlet with a muffled hiss from the person who’d thrown it. Shaking his head, Lucien kicked the nearest one in the chest, sending him sprawling backwards into a knot of other people, a few of whom turned on him and engaged a few of his friends for good measure. That should keep them occupied for a while, at least. In the meantime, he had four others to deal with, one of whom was a bit smarter than his barehanded compatriots and had broken a pair of legs off another chair, handing one to his nearest ally and keeping the other.

Well, he supposed he really had no choice, did he?

Nostariel was, thankfully, prepared for this eventuality, and had coated herself in rock armor as soon as Sophia punched the guard, but that was not to say she was all that comfortable at the moment. She didn’t really want to cast any magic on these people, but she only knew very basic things about fighting with one’s own hands, and those had been picked up only recently. Still, it wasn’t like she was just going to stand around and wait to be hit, so when she saw one of the hangers-on attempting to sneak around to Sophia’s back, Nostariel planted herself there instead, swinging a stony arm around and into the woman’s shouderblades. It knocked her forward, but she retaliated with a low, sweeping kick, which thudded into the Warden’s armored leg with just enough force to upset her balance a bit, sending her stumbling to the right a few steps.

Grimacing, Nostariel reacted by targeting the immediate area with a Mind Blast, a small spell that would simply daze those hit by it for a while. Everyone except Sophia within about ten feet started staggering around, which would hopefully give the noblewoman an opportunity to dispatch with no small number of them. The Warden did not, however, see the one that had managed to shake off the effects approaching her from the left.

Too bad he'd never get to her. A shadow passed over Nostariel, and the man was taken to the ground with an elbow drop from the hunter. Back where Ashton had been only moments ago, a man sat with his face buried in the bar, a dented tin tankard not too far. There was a joke about hard liquor in there somewhere, but Ashton's moment of acrobatics had taken its place instead. At some point between Sophia's hard hook and Nostariel's Mind Blast, Ashton had dealt with a barfly via tankard, mounted the bar, and, well... flew. He stood rolling his shoulder in its socket, having tweaked it in his descent. Still, he was well enough to pass Nostariel a wink...

... At least before got socked in the mouth. An uppity bastard had happened to break through Nostariel's Mind Blast just in time to land a punch on the archer. Leaned backward with the sucker punch, he reached out and snatched the collar of the offender and his newest, most hated man. Trading blow for blow, Ashton drove his fist directly into his nose, and followed up with another for interrupting him, and another one just because. He passed another look toward Nostariel, though there was no wink in this one. Do you believe that? it screamed. Though not for long, as another man tackled him and carried him off further into the brawl.

Sophia was trained in combat with the blade, taught to move with speed, precision, balance, and grace. As far as fist fighting went... she knew how to defend herself, but all of this was really just natural talent at work. Soldiers were taught unarmed techniques so that they would be prepared, but Sophia had never been a soldier. Thus, watching her slug the corrupt guardsman was not at all like watching her work with a blade. For one, her punches were rather wild, sloppily aimed, and now that she no longer had the element of surprise, they didn't have as much weight behind them as the others could get. Also, she tried to commonly fight with a cool head, but this barfight was serving as a way for her to... express her emotions.

She drove the guardsman all the way to the wall near the door, hammering him with punches wherever he didn't guard, and her flurry left him with little to do but block and bide his time. Just as his back rammed up against the hinges of the door she felt Nostariel's mind blast spell go off, and just in time too, as she felt a dazed individual stumble into her back, his planned attack temporarily thwarted. She turned to deal with him, throwing a knee into his gut to double him over, then seizing two fistfuls of hair and kneeing him again, this time in the forehead, sending him sprawling backwards, clutching at his skull. She'd no sooner completed this than the guardsman, on the edges of the radius of Nostariel's spell, rudely grabbed Sophia's braid and yanked it backwards.

"Ow!" He had some nerve, didn't he? No fear of the Viscount's daughter herself. Important friends indeed, if he thought himself safe from Sophia and her friends. She managed to turn her head with the following punch somewhat, but it still caught her across the cheekbone, dazing her slightly. The next move was for him to push the pair of them back into the barfight proper, away from the wall to closer to where many more of his friends were. Sophia was driven back, despite landing a few hasty punches to his ribs and jaw, but she felt a few punches on her own person, to the side and back. The armor dulled off most of that, but she then felt the effects of being rammed backwards into a table, a jarring pain in her lower back followed by the whole thing tipping over, sending the pair of them to the ground amidst the chaos.

It wasn't pretty in the slightest, but she was going to beat the living daylights out of this man if it was the last thing she did.

Setting

6 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

Using the advantage her student was providing, Amalia entered the fray by sliding in under one man’s legs, using the momentum to grab hold of one with a hand, jamming the heel of her hand into the back of the same knee then wrenching forward as she rose, taking him to the floor with a smooth, efficient movement and angling him so the back of his head cracked against a wooden bench as he collapsed. Spinning, she ducked under the punch the next one aimed for her, jumping and using her torque to carry her into a roundhouse kick, the side of her foot slamming into that one’s jaw and dazing him. Grabbing one of his hands, Amalia casually snapped one of his little fingers, causing a roar of pain. So then she broke the next one in the succession, which was enough to bring the drunkard to his knees. She left him there, nursing his hand. He wouldn’t bother her further.

That left one, and she slid with liquid grace and silence to Aurora’s side, holding a fork of all things in her hand. This, she passed to her student. “Anything can be a weapon,” she explained, revealing the fact that she personally was now holding a spoon. “High, or low?” Amalia would take the other.

A fork? It may have been the oddest choice of weapon she'd come across, but she said nothing. Aurora knew better than to say no to Amalia. Ben-Hassrath did not take no for an answer. Didn't mean she liked using a weapon of any kind, even if it was a fork. "Low," She answered, already with an idea on how to best utilize the piece of silverware. "Though I'd rather not use a weapon at all," She said, reversing her grip on it all the same. With that, she took her first step toward the last man.

“Your preferences are irrelevant,” Amalia replied matter-of-factly. “You must not think always in one way.” Nevertheless, she nodded succinctly and switched her grip on the spoon, holding it so that the actual scoop-end rested against her palm and the handle protruded several inches from between her first and second fingers. High it was. Part of what she was trying to teach Aurora was that there were always options, and the best skill one could pick up was the ability to assess the relative merit of them all. Amalia could kill with her bare hands, yes, but there was also a greater chance that an enemy knew how to defend against such conventional methods.

"Many paths," Aurora replied, nodding in agreement. This was a lesson she knew. There were many paths, though one destination. It was among her first, though flavored differently. However, it wasn't the lesson she was having issues with. The lesson she knew was sound, just as sound as all of Amalia's teachings. She was not so cocky as to try to beat her hands against a brick wall while a hammer lay nearby. That wasn't it, instead there was a principle she had set up for herself. "Weapons fail. I can't," She said with one last waylong glance behind her.

And she was off. A series of steps closed the distance quickly. Aurora was angled off to the side of the man, and he held out an arm to attempt a clothesline on the smaller woman. However, there was nothing there to clothesline as she had thrown her feet out in front of her and slid. Fortunately, the floor was wet enough with beer and spirits as to provide little friction, and she slid right by the man. As she passed by his leg, the fork shot out and buried itself deep into the back of his knee. The other hand whipped around and gripped his shin tight, pulling and using the leverage to drive the fork in deeper and buckling the knee.

Amalia, flowing with this decision of her pupil’s, was quite ready, and took the opportunity to leap atop the man’s chest, using the handle of the spoon and the force she was capable of applying to it to press sideways into his throat, the metal digging uncomfortably into the flesh there and cutting off the airflow to his trachea. He struggled for a few moments, but given her positioning, his flailing was ineffective, and he passed out within a minute, at which point Amalia promptly removed the implement and threw it hard enough to clock the nearest fistfighting patron in the side of the head, where the corner of the handle left a bloody gash. It distracted him for long enough for someone else to knock him out, and the Qunari straightened, stepping off the other one’s chest. The confrontation seemed to be winding down at this point. Canting her head slightly to the side, she gestured towards where Sophia was still beating on the guardsman, and indicated that they should both head in that direction.

Lucien, now holding both chair legs, glanced down at the small heap of unconscious people with some amount of consternation. This was… certainly not as difficult as the hand-to-hand exercises he’d had at the Academie, but then… he probably shouldn’t have expected it to be. Shaking his head to himself, he waded through the crowd, mostly avoiding the pockets of infighting unless someone decided to split off and go after him, which only happened about twice before the crack of a chair limb ended the ambition. He managed to reach the group containing Nostariel, Sophia, and the bulk of the guardsman’s friends as the last few were regaining coherency, and he threw one of the chair legs at one going for the Warden’s back. He’d never been the best with ranged weaponry, but honestly, in this case, all that was necessary was a lot of force, and that, he could most certainly do.

The blow caught the woman in the temple, and the punch Lucien landed on her jaw took care of the rest. People who went after his friends tended to earn less mercy than others did, and this was something he knew quite well about himself. The next person to attack him, he picked up by an arm and a leg, and swung into a third, this one making for the spot where Sophia appeared to be venting her frustrations on the guardsman, or at least what he assumed was the guardsman. He doubted a random patron would have earned so much ire. Once he was done with his human bludgeon, he threw him into a nearby table, scattering a great deal of dishware and several tankards in the process.

Nostariel soon found herself the target of an array of thrown objects, including but not limited to plates, bowls, half-full tankards, and once notably someone’s coinpurse. That one actually caught her in the head and hurt pretty considerably, probably leaving a bruise near her temple. Well. That was just unfair. Her coinpurse was much lighter than that. Maybe one of these people was actually a slumming nobleman? Her lips pursed, and she retaliated with much the same, grabbing several bits and pieces off the bar and tossing with more precision but less force than Lucien, and perhaps smiling a little with the absurdity of it all. Her rock armor was keeping her from being seriously damaged, but when she tossed a stonefist into the fray, the same could not be said of her assailant, who flew with a hard thud into the wall.

“Hmph. Teach you to pick a fight with a Warden,” she sniffed, the words mostly grumbled, at least before a swung candlestick caught her in the back. Frowning, she did actually punch this time, hitting the man in the stomach and doubling him over before she clasped her hands together and brought them down on the back of his head, sending him to her feet. Amalia had taught her a trick or two, and while there was no way she’d ever have been able to set the Qunari woman up thus, at least it worked on the kind of people it had been meant to combat.

Sophia started out on her back, shielding herself from blows to the head, but the others were doing a wonderful job pacifying the other rowdy brawlers, and Sophia's anger wouldn't stand for being pummeled like this, so with a heave she shoved him off of her turning the tables and beating down on him. It wasn't long before his face was red from the blood leaking out of his nose, which she had managed to break with one of her strikes, but still he didn't yield. He continued to try and retaliate, though Sophia had the advantage of being armored. The body shots he landed felt like little more than soft thumps.

She became a little too predictable, however, trying to hold him down with her left arm while striking relentlessly with her right, so on the umpteenth punch he lashed out with his left, catching her heavily across the same cheek. The room spun around as her head turned, and she fell away from him, blinking several times, before she realized her hand was brushing up against the leg of a stool. Closing her fingers around it, she rose back to her knees and swung just as the guardsman was trying to rise. The wood smacked harshly across his face, sending a spat of blood down onto the floor and knocking him temporarily senseless. In that time, Sophia pushed him over, before straddling him across the chest, using her legs to pin his arms down. She threw in another punch for good measure.

"What... what do you want?" he squealed, blinking past all the blood on his face. "I just did what he said. It was more coin than I'd ever seen." Good, he was speaking now, but he still hadn't given her what she needed. "And who is this he you're talking about? Who paid you?" He coughed several times as Sophia looked down on him with no small amount of disgust.

"Templar. It was a templar. I didn't get his name." A... templar. Brilliant. She supposed it shouldn't have surprised her. The templars had both the faith and the muscle to think this was a good idea. "Go on," she said, icily. He swallowed.

"We met near the chantry. He... he said taking these Qunari was serving the Maker." His eyes were pleading. "I swear, he even had the seal of the grand cleric! True is true!" The grand cleric... there was no lie in the man's eyes. He was fearful, obviously, but not so stupid as to continue to lie to them, after seeing a bar full of his former friends getting beaten to a pulp. Sophia removed her weight from him. "Get out. I never want to see your face again, understand? I have no patience for the corrupt."

He didn't argue with that, bolting rather quickly from the Hanged Man. That this troubled Sophia was obvious. The grand cleric was a wise woman, she had always thought of her as such, and if anything, Sophia had thought her a cautious woman as well. Too cautious, and too smart, to try something like this. Sophia would not believe that Elthina was a part of this kidnapping of Qunari... but that was where the trail currently led, and she had no choice but to follow it. It was starting to get frustrating. She'd felt like hitting someone... but now that she had, she only felt like hitting more. She turned to the others, somewhat ragged looking from the fight.

"We're going to the Chantry. Follow me." She departed without another word.

Nostariel certainly wasn’t going to argue with that. The look on Sophia’s face was positively thunderous, and the Warden supposed she could understand why. It was probably a lot like being pulled weightily in two different directions. On the one hand, her success or failure here may well float or sink her father and his office, because the Qunari would likely have no mercy at all if they failed to find this delegation. On the other… someone from the Chantry seemed to be doing this, someone powerful or crafty enough to gain the seal of the Grand Cleric. Nostariel didn’t know much of the woman, but as far as she could tell, one did not make it to a position like that by being this stupid and reckless, so there was something fishy going on. She just wasn’t sure what.

She used the palm of her hand to press a healing spell into Ash’s chest on her way out, smiling at him and shaking her head, gusting a long-suffering sigh just for effect, but there was no time to sit around and chat, much as she would have enjoyed it. She determined that none of the others were particularly injured, and raised glowing fingertips to her own temple, easing the bruise there and trekking after Sophia, who was most certainly a woman on a mission at this point. "You're welcome. Now run along and have fun with the others," Ashton bidded, shooing Nostariel off in between a chuckle. He simply watched as they passed out of the door of the Hanged Man.

Though the streets were well-known to be dangerous, even in the evening like this, nobody dared try and jump them, which was probably as much an effect of the presence of Lucien and Amalia as it was the sheer number of them, or the purpose with which their leader strode. Whatever the case, Nostariel was grateful. They had a job to do, and distractions of that nature would only sidetrack them and wear them out when they still needed their energy. The stairs were climbed in silence, save for the clinking of armor or the scuffing of boots, though she suspected the Qunari made much less noise than the rest of them. Passing the blush-colored lanterns arrayed in front of the Blooming Rose, they came shortly thereafter to the Chantry. She’d always thought it passing strange that the two buildings were located so close to one another, but then, it wasn’t like she had any business at either. More steps leading up to the front of the house of worship, and there they were, arrayed in front of the golden doors, the light wood and metal catching the rays of the setting sun.

“Um…” Nostariel hazarded cautiously, unsure how the observation would be received, “are you sure we should all go in? We look awfully… dangerous, and some of us might not be all that welcome…” Granted, it wasn’t immediately obvious that Amalia was a Qunari or Aurora an apostate, but there was no doubt that some of them weren’t exactly Chantry types, and a few of them smelled notably of the Hanged Man’s gutrot, which was probably not exactly the best way to walk into a holy place.

"I can vouch for you all if need be," Sophia answered simply. "I'm going in. You can follow me if you want." She pulled open the right of the double doors, slipping inside.

Amalia certainly wasn’t going to be left behind while the search continued, and while she understood Nostariel’s point, it was not as though she had any plans to deface anything in the Chantry, nor was she inclined to loudly proclaim the merits of the Qun, as she understood Sophia’s brother sometimes was. A curious case that one—though he should rightly be her student, he was not, though she understood he spent more time than his family liked with the warriors. Still, he had not converted yet, and that he spoke for them even so was mildly unsavory. Regardless, it was not him that had disappeared the delegation from the Viscount’s doorstep, and so she put the thoughts from her mind, for the moment assured in her subtlety.

Aurora was less subtle, but Amalia knew she would not be making the same mistake she’d made in the Saarebas incident, given how that had turned out. It was a different person that walked at the Qunari’s side now, one that the Ben-Hassrath had decided she might even have some measure of pride in. It was… an odd feeling, but she didn’t find that she disliked it. Amalia slid in the door behind Lucien, who propped it open behind him after following Sophia in. There was no telling what they’d find in here, but a name was surfacing in his memory, and he fervently wished that he was wrong.

Setting

5 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

It seemed a little ridiculous that they were going off of the evidence provided by a drunk, terrified guardsman who had only been paid to look the other way, but somehow Sophia had known that she would end up here, in the Chantry. She'd learned that many members of her faith were not perfect, and that some of them even harbored selfish desires or corrupt influences, but never had she thought it would go up as high as the grand cleric. Elthina was... well, she would never say the woman was a mother to her, but she came about as close as was possible. No other person had guided Sophia's growth into adulthood as much as she had. The idea that she might actually be behind these fanatics was troubling. Sophia hated doubt. It was about as difficult to make go away as the Qunari were.

As she entered the main hall with the others behind her, Sophia reminded herself that they were here to speak to Elthina about the missing Qunari, not outright accuse her of ordering them kidnapped. Her frustration was threatening to get the better of her, but she would have to choose words carefully here. She wasn't interested in damaging her relationships here if the evidence was proven wrong, which she was hopeful that it would. She approached the first kneeling sister they came across, who rose to greet them with a short bow.

"Sister," Sophia said, bowing herself slightly. "I need to speak with the Grand Cleric. Can you summon her for me? It concerns the Qunari." The sister gave a slight oh, before heading off, up the stairs and out of sight, leaving the five of them temporarily alone while they waited.

The unease was coming off Sophia in waves, really, and Nostariel was growing just as uncomfortable with it. The problem was, this was, in a way, what she’d wanted the other woman to do when they’d first met—question the things which she held most dearly. All the same, watching her doubt now, this way… that wasn’t what she’d wanted, and she sincerely hoped that nobody wanted that for the noblewoman. She was a good person; stubborn in some ways, yes, but then so were they all, and so it was the Warden who ironically found herself seeking to bolster Sophia’s confidence. Stepping up to the other woman’s side, Nostariel reached up to lay a hand on her shoulder. “I don’t know the Grand Cleric very well,” she offered quietly, “But even I believe there’s another explanation for this. Do not despair just yet—we’ll get to the bottom of things.” The elf smiled, dropping her hand to her side again and falling silent.

Much to the disappointment (or perhaps it should have been relief) of Sophia it was not Grand Cleric Elthina that at last arrived to speak with them, but a different familiar face, one that Sophia had not looked forward to speaking with again. Sister Petrice was garbed in Chantry robes as they had seen her before in Lowtown, but if Sophia was any judge, the years in between had been... somewhat harsh on her. She looked somewhat thinner, the stress beginning to show on her face. Sophia wondered how different she had looked then. So much had happened in that time interval.

"Lady Sophia," Petrice greeted, taking note of those that accompanied the Viscount's daughter and choosing to stand a good fifteen feet or more away from them. "Sister Petrice..." Sophia returned evenly, very much aware in this moment of what this woman before her had tried to do, and what Sophia should have done in the aftermath of that. Hindsight would do her little good now, though.

"Mother Petrice, actually. Time has changed all of us." Sophia took a few wandering steps towards the Mother, and to her credit, she did not back down. "Grand Cleric Elthina is unavailable for an audience at the moment, but I am authorized to speak on her behalf. What is it you want?" Sophia was tempted to roll her eyes. She should have just walked in and found her, spoken with Elthina and gotten to the bottom of this. Instead she was left to speak with Petrice of all people.

"Mother Petrice?" Aurora asked skeptically. She was surprised they let snakes get that high. Still, it explained where the the Grand Cleric's seal came from and answered a lot of other questions in the process. Aurora rubbed her face harshly, clearly displeased with how things were falling into place. Had she met the woman some years earlier, she would have went directly to the throat. Fortunately for the Mother time had indeed changed them all, with Aurora learning discipline along with all that combat. "Where are the Qunari-- and save the righteousness for someone who will listen," She said solidly. The last thing she wanted was this woman preaching at her. Sophia was not the only one who understood what the woman had attempted.

Petrice actually seemed not to recognize Aurora at first, but after studying the woman a little, the spark of recognition flickered in her eyes. Aurora would have been a body of lesser importance at the scene of the ambush years before, but just as dead, certainly. She breathed out through the nose at Aurora's directness. "I feel I should explain. I was naive when last we met. I did not want you dead, any of you," she gestured to Sophia, Lucien, and Aurora, "but I felt a death was necessary. You were simply the ones who came along. I... apologize if that is too fine a point for you to understand."

Sophia could have struck her, but it seemed the robe she wore would protect her from that. How this foul, wicked woman had come to wear them Sophia could not fathom, but this would be done right, or it would not be done at all. "The Grand Cleric's authority has been abused by a Templar, Mother Petrice," Sophia said, attempting to remain civil. Aurora had come right out and asked it, but Petrice was clearly not going to simply divulge something like that, if she were as involved in this incident as she had been in the last. "Either an order was not understood correctly, or someone within the Chantry is taking matters regarding the Qunari into their own hands."

"I assure you," Petrice responded, continuing to play her own game, "the Templars would never embarrass the Chantry, at risk of the Knight-Commander's wrath." Sophia was growing very tired of this. "Petrice... we know you're involved in this. I would like to know if Her Grace is aware as well." She feared the answer to this question, but even though Petrice did not outright answer it, her words put Sophia slightly more at ease.

"The Grand Cleric trusts her stewards to enact the wishes of the Maker," she said, holding Sophia's currently icy gaze.

“Translation: no, she is not,” Lucien said, more for the need to say it out loud than because he thought anyone here would have failed to grasp the point. He wasn’t much for talk of necessary deaths and sacrifice, and the point was not too fine for him to understand, but wrong either way. Be it their deaths specifically or deaths in general, what this woman had been attempting to do was simply inexcusable. He crossed his arms over his armored chest. Though he did not feel so keenly as a few of the others a temptation to go for his own weapons—more death would not make this right, either—he still allowed an undertone of anger to seep into his voice, the edge of it keen but almost below notice.

Strangely, Amalia seemed most willing to engage Petrice on her own level. “And provoking with human deaths did not work as planned, so perhaps such elements of the faithful think to provoke with Qunari deaths instead. It is not a bad plan, if what is desired is violence.” The Qunari canted her head to one side, touching her lower lip with two fingers in a gesture of contemplation. “Suppose that some conspirator in this plan had sudden reason to be concerned that her part in a plot her superiors would condemn could very easily come to light. Were she confronted with this matter, what do you suppose she would say regarding the location of this Qunari delegation?” If there was one thing Amalia could do, it was speak double, communicate without actually confirming anything, and this foul basra vashedan seemed inclined to keep at it regardless of how directly she was confronted.

"Stubborn," Petrice muttered under her breath. "Allow me to offer you something, then. The Templar you all seek is a radical who has grown... unreliable. Confronting him may do us all a favor." Sophia crossed her arms, not glad to have this woman dictating the rules of the game they were playing, but they had little choice. With her lay the information, so it was her they would need to follow. "And this Templar is?"

"My former bodyguard, Ser Varnell. Assume what you wish, but I offer him to you as... reconciliation." Sophia vaguely remembered Varnell, the brutish looking man who had silently accompanied Petrice as she went about her business last time. Apprehending him would be a good start, but it would take quite a bit more than that for Petrice to be reconciled, in Sophia's eyes. "Meet me at this address in Darktown in two hours," she said, scribbling down the location and handing it to Sophia. "I invite you all. Come see the unrest the Qunari have inspired." With that she took her leave, disappearing back up the steps and into the private areas of the Chantry.

Aurora stared daggers into Petrice's back as she took her leave, and only once she was sure the woman was gone she spoke. "Idiot. They're the ones inspiring the unrest. Does she really believe that provoking the Qunari will end well?" she said. Still, she had no sway in the Chantry nor the city. The only thing she could do is watch the storm brew on the horizon. She then shook her head and continued, "Are we even sure this meeting isn't another set up? Mother or not, I don't trust her," She asked. The last time they met the woman elsewhere-- well, they all knew how that ended up. Aurora did not want to walk down this road another time.

Nostariel shook her head, dislodging a few blonde hairs which she subsequently had to tuck back into place. “At this point? It’s probably too late anyway. A trap it may be, but do we have any choice but springing it? The Arishok will not take kindly to our leaving this be now.” Frankly, she didn’t really want to, either. So much was at stake, though honestly if Petrice was inviting them to this event, she probably assumed that things were going to work in her favor no matter what they did. Nostariel chewed at her lip and sighed. All the machinations were a bit too complicated for her taste. She wasn’t stupid, but she’d never learned all this double-talk and scheming, and it didn’t really make sense to her that anyone wanted the Qunari to retaliate against Kirkwall.

“The Warden is correct, on all counts,” Amalia put in, her customary frown firmly in place over her features. She stared at the staircase Petrice had climbed with a look of vague irritation, but it morphed quickly into nonchalance. “She is a fool if she believes that this will save her life. The Qun will demand her death sooner or later.” It may well demand that Amalia be the one to deliver it, but this much, she kept to herself. She probably shouldn’t have said as much as she had, but some part of her did not want these people to be unprepared for what must come. Locking eyes with each of the others in turn, she spun on her heel and made to exit the Chantry. There was no point in lingering any longer, and being a bit early to this… exhibition of idiocy was not going to hurt.




As much as Sophia didn't want another all night adventure, it seemed to be shaping up that way. They headed straight for Darktown and the address they were given, taking far less than two hours to get there. Really, there didn't seem to be any point in waiting for Petrice's specific time. They didn't need to play into her game any more than was necessary, after all. The thought that Petrice expected that crossed her mind, but Sophia decided it simply wasn't worth the effort to think about. What they were going to walk into was likely not going to change, regardless of what they tried. They'd just have to make the best of it, as they always did.

No one accosted them on their way to Darktown, nor in Darktown itself, though the Viscount's daughter could always feel the eyes down that low. Especially at night, the criminals and the murderers and the scum that wanted to avoid the reach of the city guard came out in great droves, and it took a party as fearsome as their own to keep them at bay. The address was an unmarked door into what was no doubt a lovely interior, and they found no Mother Petrice awaiting them on the outside, which was undoubtedly wise for her own safety. Sophia would have been concerned for how the Mother was going to get here without being accosted as it had occurred in Lowtown before, but frankly she was having trouble caring all that much.

Rather quickly they decided not to bother waiting for Petrice, and entered through the doorway on their own, passing into a dimly lit tunnel. "Lovely place for a meeting," Sophia commented with no humor whatsoever. As they moved further in, the sound of a single loud voice reached her ears, occasionally punctuated by quite a few voices cheering. Perhaps they weren't too late after all.

What they came upon was a crowd of individuals, all of them armed and almost none of them armored, watching a brawny Templar on a raised platform. Varnell stood with blade and shield in hand before four Qunari warriors tied to posts behind him, their hands bound behind their backs. Only four? Sophia feared for what had already happened to the rest, surely there had not been just four. "Like any beast," Varnell was saying to the crowd, "remove the fangs and it is lost. They are weak before the faithful of the Maker. The only certainty in their precious Qun is death before the righteous." He smacked one in the gut, the Qunari grimacing only slightly before setting his face back to stone, glaring coldly down at the Templar. There were enough other Templars and armed men around to cut the throats of these four in an instant if this wasn't handled properly, but Sophia wasn't exactly sure how that was possible at the moment.

The moment they came upon the door and the Chantry woman was not present, Amalia drew one of the knives at her back, holding it steadily in her left hand even as she flickered for a moment, then disappeared from view. She had no intention to play by anyone else’s rules, to borrow a metaphor from people more causal about such matters than she. Her task, her duty, was to retrieve these warriors, as many of them as possible alive and in one piece. It was this alone that prevented her from assassinating the Templar who stood there in his vainglory and demeaned her people, demeaned these brothers of the Qun. She may entertain her doubts, but not about this. This was unforgivable, and she did not intend to forgive it.

She had learned patience, however, and she would wait for the right moment to move. Most of these people were simple civilians, probably no good at using those weapons in their hands, but Templars were trained warriors, and she knew the first thing they would do if they were provoked was turn and slit the throats of the Arishok’s delegation. Strafing soundlessly to one side of the room, the Ben-Hassrath awaited the proper moment to move, and was considering the possibility that there would be no proper moment when the woman arrived, striding in behind the others as though she belonged there. Here, in Darktown, among filth and rubble? Amalia could not help but agree.

There was the firm belief in the Maker that Sophia had, and then there was outright zealotry as demonstrated here. Aurora was horrified by what she saw, and her heart gripped her mind tight and beckoned her to say something or to do something. But she was not the same girl that allowed her heart to make rash decisions. Her heart wasn't in control, she was. So she pushed away the horror and shoved it down a pit, taking complete control once again. The momentary wide-eyed gape she had was quickly covered by a placid mask. This would take finesse, not hotheaded reaction, as Amalia had taught her.

As Amalia came to mind, Aurora became acutely aware of Ben-Hassrath flickering from view. It drew nothing but a glance and a nod. It was her role to see that these Qunari we unharmed, and Aurora would see to it that she helped as much as possible. For now, that meant waiting and watching, and not doing something that could jeopardize Qunari lives.

"Ser Varnell!" Mother Petrice said loudly, storming up from behind Sophia, Aurora, Lucien and Nostariel. The Templar she'd called upon turned away from his captives and raised his hands in greeting, somewhat mockingly. Most of his fellow Templars remained very close to the Qunari prisoners, however.

"Take a knee, faithful," Varnell said, "the Chantry blesses us." Petrice seemed mildly affronted by the statement, while Sophia found herself more than mildly disgusted with the entire situation. "You claim a blessing," Petrice said, "when you have used the authority of the Grand Cleric so openly? You have brought wrath down upon you. I'm sure you recognize Lady Sophia, and her most capable of friends." So much for any chance at this being resolved without violence. Petrice had some of the fanatics already drawing weapons, seeing the wrath that had been brought down upon them. If a fight started... there was no way they'd get all the Qunari out alive. There were too many of them to cut through, and the Qunari were bound and unarmed.

"The Qunari have allies, Templar. How will you answer their allegations?" Sophia would not have called herself an ally of the Qunari, not in the slightest. But these people were actively trying to get the entire city burned to the ground. She drew her sword, and it fortunately had the effect of pulling the Templars slightly away from their prisoners.

Setting

5 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

All of the talking was a complete waste of time as far as Amalia was concerned, but she planned on taking full advantage of the fact that these people were too stupid to be efficient. While the Templar made his grandiose gestures and the woman priest made a show of being uninvolved with the entire mess—probably cutting her ties since the entire thing was about to, as the human idiom went, go south—she crept behind their lines, steps carefully placed over dirt and wood so as to leave as little in the way of mark or sound as possible. Once she was behind the first of the delegation, she used the voices around her to mask her own, and stood on her toes to speak as close to the kossith’s ear as possible. Kost, Karashok. With one of her hands, she held his together, as a signal that he should do so as well, not an attempt to bind. Her knife slid easily through the rope binding his wrists, and she pressed the hilt of it into his hands, letting go and drawing another, to repeat the process with the other three.

Amalia was almost through the last of the ropes when things got out of hand, and it was by sheer dent of bad luck that the order to kill the captives came just then, and indeed the still-bound Ashaad was the first to fall, a human’s knife drawn across his throat before she could cut him free. That was as much a signal for battle to begin as anything, and Amalia’s face contorted into something like a snarl for just a moment, before she tugged the chain from around her waist and swung it around the offender’s neck, yanking backwards with enough force to bring him to the floor, the bloody knife clattering from his hand and across the dirt. This of course made her fully visible, but at that point, it was far too late to stop the battle anyway.

By this point, the other three kossith had given up the ruse, and they were not nearly so defenseless as their would-be murderers assumed, the studied strength of trained combatants easily turning aside the half-panicked fury of civilians with poor arms. Even if all they had to defend themselves with at present were knives. What had happened to the weapons they’d been made to tie inside their sheaths was another matter, and one that no doubt would require some solving of its own, but for the moment, they needed to survive. She largely left them to their own devices on this—she was neither trained nor intended to fight as part of an army line, and they would not know how to accommodate her. Instead, Amalia reverted to hand-to-hand, sidestepping an incoming charge and flipping the offender over her hip in an expert toss, landing the fanatical woman flat on her back and breathless. The Qunari stomped hard on her ribcage, feeling a definite crack beneath her foot. A person unaccustomed to pain and battle would not simply get up after that, but to make sure of things, she grabbed the woman’s knife and tossed it, pinning another man to the wall by the edge of his rough leather jerkin.

Lucien, meanwhile, had stepped in front of Varnell, who in his haste had moved to kill another of the captives, and found himself on the receiving end of a righteous smite for his efforts. Setting his jaw, the chevalier swung his axe stubbornly, smashing it directly into the sword of Andraste in the man’s breastplate. The force of the blow dented it a bit, and sent the Templar reeling backwards, but the follow-up caught Varnell’s shield instead, and was deflected. The man used the opening in Lucien’s defense to catch him with his longsword, driving it up for the chevalier’s armpit, where his armor would be jointed and weaker, but Lucien drove his elbow down in enough time to catch it, forcing the sword away. Stepping into Varnell’s guard, Lucien forewent more traditional maneuvers and simply grabbed the edge of his collar, yanking down on the rim of his chestplate to force the man’s face down into his armored knee.

The blow broke the templar’s nose and split open the skin of his forehead, but he’d live, and Lucien let go, raising a foot and kicking at the dented chestplate with enough force to send Varnell into the wall about five feet to the left. Shaking his head, he was about to turn to deal with the next fanatic (in a gentler fashion) when he observed that one of the Qunari had already done it for him, smashing the pommel of a dagger into the woman’s skull. The chevalier actually wasn’t sure if he’d crushed her head or simply rendered her unconscious. Perhaps, for the moment, it was better not to know.

They were misguided, stupid people, but they were mostly just irresponsible and foolish, which meant that Nostariel didn’t particularly want to kill them. Perhaps ironically for a healer, her skill set wasn’t really geared towards fighting without slaying—there was no need to show mercy to a Darkspawn, after all. Still… she’d do what she could. From behind the others, she started tossing ice spells, aiming to stick as many of the hostiles to walls and floors as possible, but she’d want to stay well-away from the Templars. A smite or two, and she’d be hurting quite badly. Her plan was effective for a while, until one of the Templars in fact took notice of what she was doing and made right for her. A mage, helping Qunari. It was probably a field day for a fanatic like this one had to be, and Nostariel did not relish the thought of how bad this was going to be.

Drawing Oathkeeper and an arrow, she charged the projectile not with elemental magic, but a misdirection hex, firing it into the middle of a throng of people including Templars and civilians alike, all of whom started swinging their weapons much more erratically than they had been before, which should hopefully help her friends out a bit. That didn’t do much to help her against the woman who seemed hell-bent on reaching her, however, and Nostariel was forced to duck quickly under a swing of her two-handed blade, trying to get an ice spell off just enough to damage her opponent.

Before she could, however, she felt the characteristic mana drain of a templar’s more famed abilities. It was a bit like having all her energy sucked right out of her skin, and her knees were shaking by the time it was done. Stumbling backwards, the Warden felt her back hit the wall at about the same time as the woman raised her blade for a mighty downward cleave. Out of other options, Nostariel was forced to rely on her ability to dodge, and hoped fervently that all those strange stretches and exercises that Amalia put her through would pay off. Counting off the seconds in her head, she watched keenly for the moment the Templar was committed to her strike, then threw herself to the side, tucking into a neat little roll that—miraculously, really—took her right back to the balls of her feet like it was supposed to. She blinked in surprise, and noted that her assailant’s sword was now partially embedded into the wall. It had worked. Imagine that!

It probably wasn’t exactly the best time to be smiling, but she couldn’t help herself, and when she felt a little of her mana return to her, Nostariel formed it into more frosty crystals, and used these to freeze the blade to the wall, and then the woman’s hands to the pommel as well. That ought to hold her for a while.

Her eyes closed in anticipation of what would happen next. Aurora didn't see the blade pass through the Kossith's throat, but she did see the poor man fall to the ground. She glared with venomous intent at the cause, and felt a queer moment of satisfaction when he was forced to the ground by his throat. People like these, this is what angered her the most. Blind and arrogant belief that they are indisputedly right, with no thought as the pain their selfishness caused. Whether or not that meant locking innocent men and women up in circle by mere misfortune of birth or coldly murdering someone of a different faith. Still, Aurora didn't allow the anger to well up inside, as that anger would be just as dangerous to her as their blind belief. Instead, she turned toward the things she could control. The placid mask found it's way to her face once more as she looked upon the work that needed to be done.

The civilians with weapons were the least of the problem, just sheep lead astray by a false shepherd wearing Andraste's sword. Chances were they didn't even know how to fully utilize the weapons in their hands, but it would still serve her to keep them in mind. Overconfidence could be just as deadly as any blade, and if she completely forgot about them, then she would surely be reminded with a dagger in her back. Even so, they were not the biggest threat. That were the Templars still remaining among the crowd, and not just because she was a mage. They weren't some random townsperson with a rusted dagger, they were soldiers. Organized, disciplined, and conditioned soldiers. She would need to enlist some help if they were to fall. "Sophia," She called, "We take out the Templars, we take out their backbone and the people will disperse. Help me," She asked, looking up at the woman at her side.

Sophia had never expected to hear the words "take out the Templars" from one of her allies, nor had she expected to also think it was a wise idea, but here she was, fighting alongside the same apostate yet again, and fighting none other than the Templars. What had the city come to? Aurora was right, of course. The Templars were both the most skilled and the bravest among their enemy here, and were also the adhesive holding this mob together. With them gone, the others would disperse. Hopefully. Fanaticism was a dangerous thing. When Nostariel's misdirection hex hit the group, she nodded to Aurora, knowing it to be the best time. She would have warned the woman not to try using any of her magic, but unlike when they'd met years ago, Sophia actually thought Aurora was level headed enough now to know better. She was different, that much was for sure.

There were four other Templars besides Varnell, who Lucien was currently dealing with, she could see. The Viscount's daughter moved in on the first, easily sidestepping the unnaturally wild swing from the misdirection hex and throwing a slash to the man's side. He twisted to get his shield in the way, the blow clanging heavily off the steel. She allowed the good fortune to continue her way as he attempted a lunge, the blade missing her torso by inches forced by the hex, before she allowed one hand to leave her sword, taking a hold of his wrist. His arm caught, he attempted a shield bash, but she expected this, shifting sideways and sweeping a foot under his boots, taking his feet out from under him and planting him face first in the dirt. From there, a kick to the head was enough to put him out. These men and women were misguided, not evil, and apart from that, they were Templars. Hopefully the Maker would forgive her for doing this.

The next one she found was a woman wielding dual hand axes, and she was already spattered with blood. Further ahead, Sophia could see that another of the Qunari had fallen, undoubtedly to the bite of her axes. Sophia blocked the shaft of the axe swing to her right, ducking down under the one that followed, before swiping for the midriff, but the quality Templar armor got in the way. There weren't many weak points. She attacked again, her axe strikes swift and precise. One managed to catch her in the upper left arm, but that was preferable to the neck. Maybe Aurora could help. Sophia blocked a strike and pushed in close, temporarily tying up the Templar and hopefully exposing her back by making her hold still for a second. She got a knee to the gut for her trouble, but hopefully Aurora could capitalize.

With the way Sophia marched ahead with a purpose, Aurora took it in the affirmative. While Sophia went after her first, Aurora split off a bit and faced off with one of her own. The sight of an unarmed woman half his height did nothing to strike fear into the hardened heart of the Templar. And why would it? He was a big lummox of a man, giving Lucien a fair contest in a game of size. Not only that, but the man wielded a warhammer that could crush her into a fine powder if she allowed it to hit her. Fortunately, she wasn't about to give him that chace. The hammer crashed downward where she stood moments after she darted out of the way. She could feel the drain of her mana as the smite passed by her. She'd spun to his side and found herself with a problem. He was garbed in the thick armor of the Templars, while her hands were only implements of flesh.

Fortunately, she had more than just hands on her side. Her wrist flicked and the hidden blade made its appearance. A simple glint in the fire light, Aurora struck, aiming for his hands instead of his exposed sides. She wanted to disarm and disable, not kill. Killing still sat ill with her, even if these men would kill her without a moment's hesitation. She had to prove to them, she had to prove to herself, that she was better than that. That she was far beyond the notion of petty revenge. The blade bit past his gauntlet like there was nothing there, a testament to its creator. His hand dropped from the shaft and swung outward in an attempt to backhand the flighty little girl. But Aurora was faster and more agile than the mountain of muscle could ever be. She dove under his swing, and stabbed again, catching the blade in the heel of his palm.

With both hands now free of the warhammar, it clunked clumsily to the ground. It didn't mean the Templar was defeated. Now relieved of his burden, he turned all his might on Aurora. For all of her agility and dexterity, she could not escape his might. Arms wrapped around her as she felt herself being lifted off of her feet in a bear hug. Bones threatened to snap in her body if she didn't do something fast, so she began to worm an arm free. Once it was, she shoved a hand under his helmet and threw it off. With his head now exposed she began to pummel him with her fist. It took a while but she felt the grip relax. With one final headbutt, she rode the man all the way to the ground. Not content with allowing him to get up and harass her further, she delivered two more punches to his head before pausing and delivering a third just to be sure.

Now that she was free, she stood and hunched over in pain. Aurora felt three inches thinner and she could taste her stomach in her mouth. Her ribs would kill her in the morning. But there was no time to worry about that, as Sophia seemed to have gotten tangled up with another Templar. Aurora stumbled in that direction, thankful that this one had her back toward her. This one didn't prove to be as much of a challenge as the last, as Aurora just reached up and grabbed the collar of her armor. As she yanked backward Aurora jammed a foot in the back of her knee, ensuring that the Templar toppled. With her now on her back, and Aurora hovering over, Aurora delivered a number of swift punches to the head, putting her out for the fight.

There was a moment to catch her strained breath, and enough time to give Sophia a smile before she was assaulted again. This time she found herself a victim of her own tactic as an arm reached around her throat and lifted. Aurora had been aware enough to throw up her bracer to stop a sword from slitting her throat to the spine. Still though, she felt the breath quickly leaving her lungs, so she did what she could. She gripped his arm tight with her other hand and sprang upward, bashing her head against his chin. She felt the grip free and the sword tear away. She was only on her feet for a moment as she then dropped to the ground immediately after.

The blow from the last Templar had knocked the wind out of Sophia, else she would have warned the apostate of the Templar hunter coming up behind her. They were skilled in stealth, but thankfully Aurora had managed to slip away, dropping down to let Sophia attack. She did so, pushing back to her feet and leaping over the prone form of the mage, stabbing down with her sword. The attack was parried aside, but she followed with a swift elbow to the jaw, spinning around his retaliatory strike, and finding a soft spot for her blade to cut into at the back of his knee. The slice took him down a level, and a quick pair of pommel strikes to the back of the head put out the lights.

With the Templars down, it was clear the fight was lost, and most of the rest that were still conscious seemed to come to their senses. In the end, nobody was dead save for two of the original four kossith, as they had followed her lead in checking their blows. Amalia wasn’t honestly sure how she felt about that. For her, in this company, it had been a reflex, an automatic determination she hadn’t even thought about. She’d just… they were only fools. They would probably die anyway, when the Arishok marched the army up the stairs of Kirkwall and took the Keep, but… she sighed through her nose and stepped aside to allow a fear-blind human to run past her. Glancing over at the two kossith men, she jerked her head to the side. “The Arishok will want your reports.” she said flatly, and the one on the left nodded.

“And we will give them. Thank you, Ben-Hassrath. Kabethari. He nodded shortly, a gesture which she returned, and then he and his companion departed, doubtless for the compound, though not before each moved around to a spot behind the posts they’d been tied to and picked up a pair of weapons. One would belong to each of them, and the extra pair their fallen compatriots. They relinquished her knives back to her, and she slid these into sheaths crossed at the small of her back.

“The Arishok will hear their words first,” she informed the rest of the party. “You may wish to take the opportunity to inform the Viscount of this occurrence.”

Setting

5 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

When the Viscount heard their report of what had occurred, dreary eyed and clearly exhausted, he was not pleased in the slightest. "Madness. Madness!"

The Keep was still for the most part at this time of night, as most of the city slept at the moment, save for some of the rowdier bars and brothels. Sophia wanted to sleep, too, but she was determined to deliver a better report of the occurrences tonight than she had last time Petrice and these fanatics had been involved. Ignoring the issue wasn't going to make it go away, no matter how uncomfortable or doubtful it made her feel. "The fanatics we've been struggling against were responsible, Father. A Mother Petrice was involved, though it was actually she who led us to the captives. I don't believe the Grand Cleric had any part in this." For that, she was most relieved. Petrice she had no problem seeing as evil. Elthina... she could not.

"Chantry involvement," he father muttered, "even if they are fringe elements. It could not be worse." He sighed, clearly trying to find some light in all this. "But you defeated them? All of them?" Sophia shifted her weight onto the other foot. "We did not kill them, but the rally was disbanded. If they're fool enough to try something like this again, we'll stop them again." And honestly, they probably would. Being beaten in a fight did not often stop fanatics. Killing them would have been wrong, but when she thought about it, if they tried again and succeeded in causing the war they sought, many more lives would be lost than just theirs. But she couldn't allow herself to think in hypotheticals.

"Then that, at least, is something. Not that it matters now. You said two of them survived the ordeal? Then there's no hope of keeping this from the Arishok, I suppose. Is there a chance he will refrain from violence still?"

Lucien answered first, his tone resigned. “If there is, I think it a long shot,” he said, sighing through his nose. Those delegates had been killed—the Arishok wasn’t going to care if it was two or four. The best option they had was trying to get him to acknowledge the difference between a fringe element and the majority. And for a man who saw the whole of this society as polluted already, that might honestly be too fine a point for him to bother with. In some ways, Lucien could understand this. In others, he desperately wished it were otherwise. The longer this dragged on, the more certain he was that no matter what they did, people were going to die for this. Lots of people. It was becoming far too blurred to even place the blame in one spot particularly. The whole thing was a confluence of unfortunate circumstances and obstinate thinking. Perhaps it could have been avoided, if things had been different sooner. But probably not now.

Amalia, who stood, arms crossed and against a wall, stepped forward, dropping her limbs so that they hung loosely at her sides. It would be a mistake to assume that this meant she was relaxed, however, and if the imposing nature of her black armor was not sufficient to convey that, the stern look on her face might do it. “There may be one chance remaining to you,” she said, though for once, her tone did not ring of its usual dead certainty. “I will see what I can do, but if you, and these fanatics more importantly, do not recognize it when you see it, there will be no stopping him. Lives will end, and those in this room will not necessarily be spared, whatever his estimation of them.” The pronouncement was grim, and she schooled her face into neutrality. She felt… she wasn’t exactly sure how she felt. By and large, these were worthy people, and she did not desire that they would die. But if what she had in mind did not work, then there would be nothing she could do.

“You will want to pay the Arishok a visit. Even redundant knowledge can change thinking when it comes from the right source.” It was her way of saying that they needed to deliver their information themselves, as well as letting it reach him through the survivors. “In the meantime… I do not suggest optimism.”

Sophia wondered where Amalia would land if all of this came down on their heads, and the Qunari chose to become hostile. Unlike any of those in the compound, Amalia was actually trying to keep the peace, actively assisting in pacifying the Qunari and the fanatics rather than hoping for a way around it all. Sophia had no wish to be on opposite sides of a conflict with Amalia, and not only because she was relatively certain she wouldn't survive the encounter. Despite her coldness, Amalia seemed like a good person to Sophia, and she'd done much to help her in the past. As for the lives in the room... well, they'd have to go through Sophia first if they wanted to harm any of them.

"We'd best be off to the docks, then," Sophia said. If his delegates had returned, the Arishok would likely be awake to receive them, and while it might not be wise to speak to him at this hour of night, delaying with this news was a worse choice.




The walk to the dockside compound seemed longer than usual to Amalia’s way of percieving, but perhaps that was because she was thinking so rapidly during the course of it. She kept her own counsel, but there was no mistaking the fact that the contingencies and possibilities were running through her analytical with dizzying celerity. There was so much that must be done, and she was not yet convinced of the utility of any of it. Her steps, always light, were leaden with the weight of her thoughts. No matter how she tried, she could not shake from her mind the image of the vhenadahl on fire, of the Alienage burning. If she did nothing, she could allow it to come to pass. It would. She knew her acquaintances, her… friends was such a strange word—were strong, but she also knew the strength of the Antaam, and between a small but tough group of humans and elves and the might of the Qunari strongarm, well… she’d never been one to lie to herself.

Would the battle-lines have to be drawn this way? The demands of the Qun were at once situational and absolute. Answering these demands would make the Arishok and his army into antagonists, more than they already were, and when the time came to stand against them or allow them to pass, she knew not one who would willingly step aside. The lines would be drawn, and what she saw, at night when she could not control her thoughts, would come to pass. She knew it more surely than they did, because they did not understand the Qun, and therefore they did not understand the Arishok. They thought he had choices, but there was only one choice, and if the path to war continued to be laid out before him in such a fashion, he would step forward onto it, without a heartbeat’s worth of hesitation. There was bad blood on the ground, and it was beginning to stink.

Amalia paused when they at last reached the compound itself, because Imekari was there, waiting for them as she’d said she would be. Amalia felt a small flutter of pride, swelling somewhere between her lungs. How far this one had come, of the strength of her own will and volition. There was something, then, that must be said. Before she reached the gate guard, the Qunari stopped in front of the little mage and spoke. “If you enter this place, it is not as my student, and it is not as Imekari. You go as Saarebas, and as Ash-Talan, one who seeks the truth. You have passed your test, Aurora, and the rest, you must discover on your own.” Amalia’s mouth formed a half smile, but her eyes were solemn with a weight she did not quite understand when she placed a hand on the younger woman’s shoulder. Like most of her kind, the Qunari did not touch people often, and never without meaning.

She was about asleep, even positioned as she was. Aurora had taken up a perch on a nearby crate across from the Qunari compound as she waited for the rest of her companions. She sat cross-legged with her chin cradled in her hands, patiently dozing. Going with the others to visit the Viscount would have been far too strange for her to handle. She was an apostate, she did not make visits to the Viscount. So instead she had decided to make a stop at home first, pleading with Milly to do something about her aching ribs. While the woman was (politely) a little miffed, she did what she could in such a short amount of time. That something being a number of bandages wrapped around her chest, easily visible at her neckline.

Once the others arrived, Aurora sprang from the crate-- which had been a mistake, as the sudden movement sent shocks of pain all over her chest. If she was this sore now, then tomorrow would be worse. Getting out of bed the next day would be by far the hardest thing she'd have to do this week-- aside from hearing Milly dote on her. Still, Aurora recovered quickly enough and before long she found herself in front of Amalia. Then something happened that she wasn't expecting. Amalia was never one of the most touchy people she'd met. Whenever she did touch her, it was usually in the form of a punch or a kick, but never had she had a hand on her shoulder.

"Saarebas... Ash-Talan," she repeated, hand reaching up to Ketojan's amulet. It'd been a while since she last heard Saarebas, but she'd never forget its meaning. She smiled as she nodded. Something which is dangerous. "And the seeker of the truth. Thank you, Amalia," Aurora said in earnest. It was a reminder of what she was. Of what she stood to lose if she grew weak. It was also a warning, a warning her enemies would do well to heed. Though part of her wanted to ask what was the truth she was seeking, but she knew that the answer would have to come from her, and not Amalia.

Amalia was all business again in the following moment, however, and her hand returned to her side, whereupon she approached the guard and gained them access. Flicking her glance to Lucien, she gestured that he should go first. He had greater success than most speaking to the Arishok, and this was not news that could come from her.

When the group arrived before the Arishok once more, it was clear that he was expecting them. The two surviving delegates were not present, but the Arishok still had a number of guards around him, and even while the rest of the city slept, the compound seemed quite awake. It wasn't surprising for a military camp, which was exactly what the Qunari had turned this place into. He rested his hands lightly on his knees as they approached, Lucien at the fore.

"So, you could not rescue all of the delegates, but you dealt with those responsible. How do you explain what was done to them?" Despite surviving, the two Qunari that had returned were heavily injured, both from the fight and from before, when they had been helpless at the hands of the fanatics.

Lucien grimaced, but as usual, there was nothing for it but the truth. “Fanatics,” he said, his expression grave. “They used your delegate to incite others of their kind. I think it perhaps obvious from the state we found them in that it was not a merciful process.” Behind him, Amalia shifted slightly, moving her weight from her left foot to her right. She looked faintly ill at ease, but perhaps that was understandable, given what they’d seen, and what she knew would come next.

"I accept that," the Arishok said simply, keeping a stony facial expression as ever. Sophia's confusion at the easiness of his acceptance must have shown on her face, for he soon added on to his answer. "I have seen every vice and weakness of your kind, and how few of you take responsibility. Your Viscount remains a fool, but you are not." The shock of hearing her father insulted was not so great the second time around, so Sophia was able to contain her displeasure to disgruntled exhale from her nostrils.

"Panahedan, then. I will keep one good thought about your kind."

As soon as the group (sans Amalia, who had remained behind) was clear of the compound and the door shut behind them, Nostariel released a long sigh. She rather wished she had her staff to lean on right now—the day had been long, and she was tired. But there was more work yet ahead of them, if that was anything to go by. “Did that… sound like a goodbye to anyone else?” Surely, he would have phrased things differently if he’d ever intended to see them again. He certainly had before. But there was something so… final about that pronouncement, as though the course was already set and there was nothing more to be done about it. If so, they would really just have to trust in Amalia, and hope that whatever she planned would be sufficient to change things. Nostariel wasn’t sure that was fair to expect of anyone, but if there was any person out there who could make someone think differently than they had before, it was Amalia. The Warden was certain she’d had that effect on everyone here, and some people not here besides.

If it was a goodbye, maybe it meant he'd be leaving and taking all of his warriors with him. The thought was almost laughable for how hopeful it seemed. No, they wouldn't be so lucky. Luck had always been against them, if it had existed at all. Their efforts seemed to only delay the inevitable at this point, but if it could be delayed, then every effort to do so needed to be made. For the moment, Sophia had something she wanted to ask Aurora.

"Aurora," she said tentatively, "If it's alright with you, do you think we might speak privately some time? Not at the Keep, of course." Considering what her stance towards the apostate had been years ago, and what it still lingered on now, that was probably a good deal to ask, but they'd already been able to trust each other enough to fight together, so surely simply speaking would not be so difficult? "About... What exactly?" Aurora asked almost defensively. She'd like to know a bit of what Sophia had planned before meeting with her alone. It might have been a long time ago, but this still was the same woman who wanted to put her in the circle once upon a time.

"I have no intention of trying to imprison you, if that's what you're wondering," Sophia said, her tiredness filtering into her words a little. It was very late, but she didn't know when the next time she'd see the apostate was. "I'm just... curious about a few things, is all. You may decide where we meet, if you like." Aurora nodded, grateful that it didn't involve the circle. "I see," she began, pausing in order to weigh her options. After a bit, she turned toward Lucien and asked, "Do you mind if we borrow your house?" He was the most levelheaded of them all, and if the conversation took a wrong turn, she felt like he could handle it. That, and Aurora really didn't want Sophia to know where she and Milly lived. Lucien, of course, didn't mind in the slightest, and said as much.

The Chanter's Board has been updated. Offered and Lost has been completed.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

The very next evening, Amalia was standing in front of a broken shard of mirror that she’d borrowed from one of the viddathari. She had no cause for such items herself, and had not properly seen her reflection in years. It was not something she chose to dwell upon or really wanted to see, but she needed to at present. The small pot of red warpaint on the table in front of her might have given the reason why, and indeed, she was quite focused on the angles of the various intersecting triangles on her face, over her cheeks, forehead, and chin. The design was incredibly intricate, but different in kind from what the warriors wore on their bodies. Frankly, all the red made her single blue eye look a little strange, but she was not concerned with aesthetics in the conventional sense. These were marks of merit, and so they were beautiful. Marks of shame were ugly. That was all.

Lowering the brush back into the clay pot, she sighed. If only it were all so simple. Shaking her head, the Qunari closed the lid on the vessel and replaced it upon her shelf, leaving her muffler on the hook it hung from, but arming herself with her usual repertoire. There were no robes to disguise her armor today, and no scarf to conceal her face. The ones she was meant to slay would know exactly who slew them. And he would know what had become of her. The normally-composed woman took a moment to shudder, to acknowledge that the dark feeling brewing in the pit of her stomach was real, but then she pushed it aside. Petty grievances could not get in the way… and that was why she could not do this alone.

She made eye contact with nobody as she crossed the Alienage to Ithilian’s home, and nobody was foolish enough to interrupt her progress. Despite her fearsome visage, the knock she leveled against his door was almost tentative in nature. So much was unspoken between them, and most of it she would not know how to describe even if she did feel inclined to speak. If she did this, her past and her present would intersect in ways she could not fully predict, and even that assumed that he would be willing to risk this much, to incur a non-trivial chance of being apprehended, to say nothing of the risk of death that the mission itself entailed.

But she could not, would not, ask it of anyone else.

"She's a bit of a pompous princess sometimes," Lia said, her bare feet kicked up lazily on the table, "but she's not all that bad anymore. We have an understanding, you see." Ithilian looked up from his fletching, setting one completed arrow aside and starting on another. Lia was skilfully slicing away at a block of wood with a small knife, eyes narrowed and focused on the task at hand. He'd gone and shown her the basics of woodcarving, the modest skills he'd learned, and in a few short months she was better at it than he was. Already he could see the shape of the mabari's head and snout, that proud nobility of a warhound with a bit of a spoiled streak. Not unlike the city's future Viscountess, no? Perhaps he was overly harsh on her. Her actions were often quite selfless, he heard, even if he thought her somewhat dim.

"And what is this understanding?" he asked her, picking an arrowhead out of the pile and fitting it onto the shaft. Smithwork was not often of the greatest quality in Lowtown, so the arrowheads were commonly not up to his usual standard, and the number of arrows he still had from his days with the Dalish were dwindling.

"She doesn't mess with me, I don't mess with her," Lia said, slicing a bit off the ear to make it look more natural. "We learned pretty quick that we can both make life a living hell for someone that gets on our bad side, so we've got a truce. Sometimes negotiations break down, and we'll have a week long war or something, but they never last long. I'm as good at the puppy eyes as she is. Better, even. She's no puppy anymore." The corner of Ithilian's mouth quirked upward, and she noticed, spreading into a grin herself. That smile she had...

"And you've never had any trouble while you're there? Even when the shop is left to you?" She shrugged. "Most people are nice enough to me. Snuffy's usually around, and no one in their right mind would mess with a mabari, especially when she gets bigger. And besides, I can take care of myself. I learned from none other than my uncle Ithilian."

Uncle. She'd taken to calling him that recently, and while it had given him pause at first, he no longer minded, and actually felt a strange feeling in his chest whenever she did, like someone had flicked a finger against his heart or something. It was as close of a familial relationship with her as he was willing to acknowledge. She too, loved her own father well enough to respect his memory and not substitute Ithilian for him, and as for him... there was no replacement for what he had lost, no matter how close she came.

A soft knock on the door stirred him from his thoughts. It was likely one of the neighbors. They usually tended to be shy when speaking with Ithilian, as he was not the most personable of men around those he wasn't very familiar with. "See who that is?" he asked Lia, and she flipped her feet from the table, standing smoothly and skipping over to the door, pulling it open. "Oh. Hi, Amalia!" He frowned. He could usually tell when it was she that was coming to visit. Rising and setting down the arrow on the table, he came to stand behind Lia.

"Check out what Ithilian's teaching me," she said, holding up the half-finished Snuffy carving for the Qunari woman to see. Ithilian took a moment to take in her appearance, without robes and already in armor, her face left entirely unconcealed, as his was tonight. Even her face was painted, which Ithilian had yet to see done. There was something very unique about the visit tonight, he could tell, and judging by the blades, it would not end peacefully for someone. "You should go home, Lia," he said softly, without giving room for argument. She knew that tone by now, and obeyed, giving Amalia a wave as she went.

Ithilian was momentarily unsure what to say. "You look..." That sentence didn't make it far, and he quickly forgot what he'd planned to say about her appearance. "Ah. Come in." He wasn't exactly prepared to receive visitors, but he didn't expect she would mind. She wasn't the type to concern herself over such things.

Amalia was brought from her grim thoughts long enough to acknowledge Lia, and something like a breathy snort passed through her nose upon sight of the carving. “I believe I know this creature,” she said, tapping the whittled nose with an index finger. It was a motion more delicate than she seemed dressed for, and indeed, she appeared to remember herself shortly thereafter, and dropped the hand back to her side. “It is skilled work,” she finished simply, and nodded to the girl as she departed. She was not here to speak of idle things tonight, even if… even if she might have liked to. Even if her opportunities to do so were rapidly-dwindling. She felt like she was losing something she’d never truly held, but what else could she do? She would leave something behind either way, she knew, and her choice was between what she’d never grasped in the first place and the only anchor she’d had through more storms than she could count.

Ithilian’s aborted sentence drew her brows together for just a moment, but then she smoothed them out and shrugged. She looked like a Qunari—human or not, it would be impossible to even glance at her now and see anything else. That was the intent of it. Perhaps it didn’t really need saying. “I… did not mean to interrupt,” she offered, looking about the house but neither commenting nor passing particular judgement upon the matter of its appearance. It served its purpose, as all such dwellings did. It had not the architecture of Par Vollen or Seheron, but that was no fault of its occupant. Ithilian took a seat in the chair he'd been occupying before, waving a hand in dismissal. "That's fine... the girl stays up too late anyway." Maybe if she went back home she'd get bored enough to get a good night's sleep.

Searching for the words for a moment, Amalia wet her lower lip with her tongue and picked a wall to lean up against. “I have a favor to ask of you. But I do not want you to accept without understanding the parameters.” There was a time, she thought, where perhaps either of them would have agreed to such a thing, no questions asked, but she did not think this was the case right now. Perhaps that was fortunate. It was, she was learning, almost as difficult to bear that kind of trust as it was to part with it. The Qunari’s eyes fell shut, and she arranged the words the way she wanted them before she allowed herself to speak again. “The Arishok is angry. If the people of this city do not capitulate soon and leave him to his task, he will slay them, and he will not spare this place. There is a chance, however, that I can prevent this. I mean to show them that Hightown is not safe from the wrath of my people, and in doing so, I plan to scare them into compliance, if indeed that is possible.”

The generalities done, she moved into the specifics. “A few days ago, an envoy from the Tevinter Imperium arrived. There are a senior magister, a junior magister, about ten guards, and some two dozen slaves. The Qun demands the death of the senior magister, and his guard. I intend to set free the slaves that will leave, as well. But you must understand: these are diplomatic guests of Kirkwallian nobility. If I am discovered, the Antaam will not save me, nor you. This will have been me—and you, if you are with me—acting alone, and we will neither ask nor receive any mercy for it.”

Ithilian had been hearing some other troubling things of late. A number of elves were taking an increased interest in the Qunari on the docks, some of them even considering converting. They had heard that the Qunari did not subjugate the elves like the humans did. If Ithilian understood them as he did... well, they seemed to subjugate everyone equally. Somehow they seemed to find some kind of freedom in this. Personally, Ithilian had felt more free these past few weeks than he had his entire life, and while he was not at his happiest, he felt as though he had some breathing room to choose what he wanted now. If that was going on in her head, too... well, he'd never been able to see in there too well.

There was nothing usual about her request tonight. The way she looked was different, the way she was behaving was different... bits of her unease filtered through, and that Ithilian was able to pick up on. As far as the request went, Tevinter magisters weren't exactly common in the Free Marches anymore, and killing one would not be easy, especially if they were detected at some point. But the motives here... preventing war, protecting the Alienage, freeing slaves, slaughtering magisters, all right under the noses of Kirkwall's arrogant and pompous ruling class... there was nothing that Ithilian disagreed with here. Helping her never seemed to be unwise. He'd never been able to see it before, not until he'd opened his eyes. Even half blind he could see more clearly now than ever before.

"Then I am with you," he said simply, pushing himself back to his feet. It was a simple choice.

Amalia nodded, releasing a breath she had not known she’d been holding, but the worst of it was not yet done. “There is one last thing,” she said, staring resolutely at the floor, arms crossed almost protectively over herself. “The other… the remaining magister. He must not die. So spoke the Ariqun. This is why I need you—if he discovers our presence, he will confront us, and I do not know how I will react if this occurs. I may well attempt to slay him, but it must not happen.” She swallowed tightly, and forced her eyes back up to his. “Not by my hand, and not by yours—not tonight.” The hands gripping her biceps tightened for a moment, and there was a certain troubled cast to her brow, but she would say no more than that, not now. If she went into the details, they would only muddy the clarity of the situation. One of the Magisters was to die, the other must live to carry the message. It was likely a test, as well—the Ariqun no doubt wanted to know how she would react. So she was taking precautions.

The Qunari was quite aware of how strange it was, to be asking Ithilian to prevent a Magister’s death, but it absolutely must be prevented. That black feeling deep in her guts was growing in strength, and unless she did this now, tonight, she was unlikely to be able to keep it from overtaking her, whatever it may be. There were some things for which even death was inadequate punishment, but the desire for his ending was bound up with shame and revulsion and, perhaps more than anything, fear. Amalia was afraid, and it had been so infrequent in her life thus far that she had no idea what it would make her do.

He'd actually almost asked if there was a reason not to just kill everyone, but honestly he'd figured she wouldn't have asked for his help if that were the case. He wasn't the best at choosing targets selectively, especially when all the targets undoubtedly deserved to die. There was something very strange about how she delivered this to him. If this was simply some magister, surely she would be able to control herself when confronted, and yet she claimed she needed him of all people to stop her. It was in the way she stood, for once seemingly without confidence, and that was a trait she had never lacked for. It was... concerning, and it showed slightly on his face.

"You know this magister at all?" he asked, turning away to grab his gear, starting with the headscarf. The action had two purposes. One, he obviously needed to be armed and ready in a few minutes, and two, he still felt tentative about showing outright concern of that kind, for some reason that was far beyond him. There was just... danger in it, though he did not know how it would manifest itself.

It was probably obvious, wasn’t it? Perhaps she should have expected that this would come back and explode in her face at some point, but she had counted on being more… centered, when it finally came to pass. As things stood, this confrontation—and she knew there would be one, with more certainty than she knew most anything anymore—could not have occurred at a worse time. Already, she was the victim of her own doubt, of that gripping uncertainty that had made itself apparent now for reasons she still did not fully understand, and to have her own worst failing paraded in front of her again at a time like this… she was only glad of the long years she’d spent learning to keep the worst of her feelings from her face, lest her dread manifest more obviously.

“Not as well as I should have, and more than I care to,” she replied at last. It was an inadequate answer, if a true one, and she felt… discontent with that. But it was not a story she could tell now, not one she had the time for, or the strength for. “If we are done and you still have questions, I will answer them. But not now.” It was the best she could do, even if some part of her hoped he simply wouldn’t find a reason to ask. It was a boundary they hadn’t really negotiated before, this one of history. She wasn’t sure how to go about it, either.

But right now, there was a magister to slay, and people to free. The rest would come about in its time, if it really needed to. Two shadows slipped out of the Alienage, and in the dark, it wasn’t so obvious that they were as different as they thought themselves.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

The mansion in which Gaius Leviticus was staying with his retinue was a large one, and it was clear from the well-maintained stonework that he had the funds required to maintain an estate used only infrequently. By the time they reached it, all in Hightown was dark and quiet, but Amalia did not take this to mean they could simply walk in the front door. There were bound to be guards posted, and even though those were to die as well, it would be better if they could conduct as much of this as possible without alerting the entire household. It was also true that she wanted their method of entry to be inscrutable—she did not desire that the fear they spread here be only fear of insufficiently-locked doors or open windows. The basra needed to understand that nothing and nobody was safe if they antagonized the Qunari, and few had antagonized them so egregiously as the Magister within.

Amalia and Ithilian, having scaled the outer wall surrounding the estate with little trouble, now had their backs pressed to it, the natural shadow falling over their bodies and making them inscrutable, blended into the stone and the dark. “Do you see the lit window?” Amalia asked, referring to one on the third floor of the mansion. It was one of only a few illuminated glass panes, but the direction of her gaze would make it obvious to which she referred. “The room we want is to the right. The lit one is the study—I expect Leviticus is in there now, but the desk faces the outside, so it’s better to enter from the door behind.” It went without saying that they would have to be careful in their ascent, to avoid drawing his attention.

Studying the edifice itself, she decided that the best approach would be to simply climb the outside, which they should be able to do without earning themselves any notice. The first story or so was smooth stone, with no handholds to speak of and no windows on this side, which meant that her best bet would be to ascend by jumping to catch a second-floor windowsill. “If you can boost me, I can climb and then let you use the chain." It wasn't exactly inflected as a question, but she did pause for input regardless.

"Sounds easy enough," Ithilian said, at the moment not enjoying the shape of the longbow slung over his shoulders. It was too useful a tool to pass up on, certainly, but made squeezing down low or into tight places rather awkward. Ithilian was a trained hunter and naturally moved both swiftly and quietly, but he hadn't yet learned how to move throughout urban environments like he could in the forest or the wilderness. It was unnatural and took some time getting used to. The last few years had helped him, certainly, but Amalia was still far beyond him in matters of stealth.

They'd seen a few patrols on the way in, but they were scattered and mostly easy to predict. When they were clear, Ithilian moved forward, looking around often to check for signs of guards, before he arrived under the windowsill, turning to offer Amalia her boost up.

Amalia did not waste time. From a stand, she lunged into a moderate run, placing her foot in Ithilian’s laced hands and springing, aided by the extra force he provided. This, she remembered, was why Ben-Hassrath so often worked in teams. She caught the ledge of a second-story window with her fingertips, bracing her feet against the unyielding stone and leveraging herself up with an easy, trained grace. She was perched on the sill shortly thereafter, and conveniently, there was a decorative ridge of stone between the second and third floors, which she could use for the barest of workable handholds on her way up. She might have had to use her chain as a grappling hook, otherwise, and that was unfavorable for the noise it would produce.

Once she was atop the sill she wanted, Amalia tested the window, finding it unlocked. That didn’t sit well with her, and she grimaced. This had all been a little too simple—the small number of guards out front, the regularity of the patrols… either this Leviticus was so lax with his security that he should have died long before she killed him, or else something suspicious was going on. The trouble was, she had no way of knowing. On any other day, she might have simply assumed that a careless servant had left the window unlatched, perhaps because the room was seldom used anyway. Today, though… she felt even less like taking chances than she usually would.

Still, there was little else for it but to go in, and she drew a single-edged knife, placing the dull edge between her teeth and biting down firm enough to hold, but not so much so that she risked cutting her mouth rather than letting it go. There was a way to be sensible about such things, and if Amalia could choose only one positive attribute to have for the rest of her life, she would choose sense. The ‘rest of her life’ would be longer, that way. Pushing the window open slowly, so as not to cause it to squeak, she stepped cautiously into the darkness of the room, listening carefully for anything that might betray a presence in the inky dark. She heard nothing, though a faint sense of unease pervaded, and she unlooped the chain from her waist with perhaps more haste than was strictly necessary and eased it down, hand-over-hand so as to prevent any unnecessary clanking. She had to lean halfway out the window to get the right length, but she knew how to brace her feet to make this possible. With a terse beckoning gesture from the fingers of her left hand, she bid him climb—as quickly and quietly as possible.

Ithilian noticed the window being unlocked as well, though he had spent most of Amalia's climb watching for the seemingly nonexistant guards. Even most shemlen were not this unwary, and they should have been trying harder, if they knew the situation. To say that the Qunari had no love for the Tevinter Imperium was a slight understatement, and if this magister was demanded dead by the Qun, surely he would be aware of that. And surely he would expect them to try, upon coming to a city currently housing a good deal of their military forces. And while he would have liked to believe the easy entrance was due to Amalia's skill and planning, Ithilian tried to remain a realistic elf.

Taking the offered chain, Ithilian did not put his feet against the wall to brace himself, but rather simply pulled himself up with his upper body strength, one arm length at a time. Scaling the building by walking up it would have been most awkward, and he didn't feel comfortable in his ability to do it as silently as Amalia had. The chain was little different from a vine up to a tree branch, though, and he scaled it efficiently and effectively. By the time he reached the top and climbed through the window, however, he heard a voice. "Patrol's coming again," he said quietly, urging her to reel in the chain before it was seen. He remained crouched down inside the window, looking about carefully as she had no doubt already done, but there was no threat in here as of yet.

She didn’t need to be told twice, and Amalia wound up the chain as fast as silence would allow, hooking it back onto her belt and calmly removing the dagger from her mouth. Huntress she was not, at least not in the conventional sense. But she had been assassinating people for a very long time, indeed, and perhaps a bit perversely, the familiar motions of a task like this were helping her keep her nerves in check. She was not an optimist by a long shot, and she knew that this was going to go badly eventually, but for now it was enough that she had some time remaining to her before that happened. Creeping across the floor of this unknown room, she used the dim light that filtered in through the (now once again shut) window, testing each of her steps before placing the full weight of her person onto each subsequent tread, in case there was something on the floor that she wouldn’t expect.

Thankfully, there was not, and they made it to the other end of the room without incident. Staring hard at the light coming from beneath the door, she determined that no feet were passing by, but she pressed her ear to the wood anyway, stilling her breathing for several moments. No steps, receding or otherwise, but it may not stay that way. Turning the knob fully before she pushed, Amalia cracked the door open, and, upon discovering that the hallway was, in fact, completely bereft of life, she moved it wider, inclining her head leftwards and motioning for Ithilian to close the door behind him and keep a watch.

The room immediately next to the one they had entered was as occupied as it had been last night—she could make out the flicker of candle-light from underneath it, as well as something faintly bluish and most likely magical. Her reconnaissance had informed her that this was Leviticus’s private study—the target was just beyond this door. That he was awake was irritating, but not insurmountable, as far as obstacles went. The same ear-to-the-door trick revealed a loud shuffling of parchment, followed by a muffled curse in a masculine tone. If he’d just dropped something, he was probably standing… and stooping to retrieve it. It was take this advantage now, or risk standing out here for too long to wait for another. “Ithilian,” she hissed, reversing her grip on the dagger and placing her palm on the door. This one gave without the need to turn a handle at all—it had been faintly cracked, and swung inward at the insistence of her hand. Ithilian had moved to the other side of the door, his bow in hand an arrow half pulled back already. He assumed Amalia would move in close, and targets were often silenced quicker with an arrow to the throat or head than they were by sprinting across a room to end them with a blade.

Amalia was tense as a coiled spring, ready to leap, but the motion was uncomfortably stilled halfway across the room, as soon as her harried mind caught up with her trained body and she recognized just who she was looking at. He sat casually on the chair that went with the desk, one ankle crossed over the opposite knee, the spilled stack of parchments unattended on the floor to his left. Pitch-dark hair fell to his shoulders, kept back from the patrician lines of his alabaster-pale face. There was a glint of amusement in the likewise-black eyes, and indeed, it was reflected in his half-coy, half-arrogant smile, a close-lipped expression that she knew well enough to revile. His robes were deep crimson, and from the look on his face, he was mocking her with the choice and knew that she knew it.

“Well, well. And here I’d thought you’d died. Imagine my surprise when my men found that empty hole in the earth. You’ll have to tell me how you did that sometime, Ben-Hassrath. He sounded… delighted, even, though there was an undertone of malicious amusement to it. The smile grew, just fractionally. “Ah, but I forget my manners… it’s Amalia now, isn’t it? I’m so pleased.”

Amalia, still frozen, swallowed thickly. She’d run so many possible scenarios for this moment through her head over the past decade, but half of them were moot because she couldn’t kill him, and the other half because she couldn’t seem to make herself move. The fingers closed over her knife felt numb, because she knew it was a useless thing, here. Just like her armor was a useless thing. Just like the paint she hid her face behind was a useless thing. He knew everything there was to know about her, every way she could be hurt, and she’d somehow managed to forget that, to focus so hard on erecting her petty defenses, her disguises, and think herself safe.

The fear crawling from her belly up past her lungs and coldly into her throat was telling her a different story.

Her lack of response earned a chuckle, of false good nature, and the man’s chill black eyes swept to Ithilian. “And what’s this? Making friends, are we, dear one? I do hope he’s better than the last; we both know how well that turned out for you. Welcome, ser elf, to the humble abode of my master, Gaius Leviticus. I am Marcus Alesius. I’m curious: did our little Amalia tell you just what you were getting yourself into?”

Ithilian had pulled up and drawn the arrow fully back, aimed directly for the man's forehead, and it was only Amalia's inability to move that had stopped him from loosing. She didn't seem to have been hit with any kind of spell, so he had to assume she was merely petrified at seeing this particular man in front of them. That he assumed that only a spell of some kind would stop her from moving him spoke to how swift she was, and decisive as well. He become so used to the certainty in her motions that when it was suddenly and clearly stolen away, it was rather unnerving.

There was so much here that he was on the edge of knowing, and there was that danger again, that hesitance to involve himself with this knowledge, for fear of what consequences it would bring. Their lives had always been unspoken between each other, and indeed he still had not told her hardly anything of his past, even after returning from Ferelden. She knew he had lost a great deal, but that was always enough. No more needed to be said. They worked well together, and there was an unspoken desire to prevent anything from getting in the way of that. It was as though working together had brought forth a desire, in both of them, to try being a new person.

Ithilian did not lower his weapon, even though he knew he was not allowed to kill this magister. He felt as though he was mere moments from learning things Amalia had never wished him to know, and for any of it to come from this shem and not her own lips was wrong. If she'd wished for him to know of this friend she had, she would have told him. If she'd wished to truly tell him "what he was getting himself into", she would have already done so. The man he'd seen in the Fade when the demon had tried to reach her flashed in his memory. In fact, apart from the difference in attire, he had looked remarkably similar to this man, but he allowed himself to draw no conclusions.

"She does nothing without reason," he said evenly. "I believe in her." It was the least he could do, after all his errors. Had she not been one of the ones to make him believe in himself? "Amalia?" They needed to do something. They could not kill this man, and he was more than capable of making this entire plan fall apart in a matter of moments. But she was the lead here, not him.

Amalia was actually shaking faintly, and it was clear from the thousand-yard stare she had that she wasn’t in the room with them, at least not mentally. The fingers of her freehand clenched and unclenched, almost rhythmically, like the way her blood pounded in her ears. How long had it been since she was so thoroughly in the grip of memory? She could feel the shackles she’d never quite managed to unlock pulling at her, biting into her wrists with a familiar kind of pain. All pain was familiar.

Ithilian’s words seemed only to add to Marcus’s enjoyment of the situation, and his smile split into a grin. “Believe in her? That’s rich. Even she doesn’t believe in her, am I right, kadan?” The word hit her like a smack in the face, and though she’d heard everything else, and registered something fighting the fear, it was only this which brought her back to the present. He mocked her, with a studied deliberateness that had only ever belonged to him, using freely the one word she never could, so casually, like it meant nothing. Like everything she fought against, every nightmare that drew her awake in a cold sweat, every doubt and uncomfortable prick of memory could be so easily swept aside.

And that just made her angry. Seeming to regain some of herself, Amalia adjusted her grip on the knife. Glancing over her shoulder, she nodded faintly, as if to confirm that she had heard, that she was back. “You know you are,” she replied, still blunt to a fault, even when it was her own weakness she exposed. “But that doesn’t matter. I have other people to believe in, now. And you will not stop me from doing this.” Marcus looked nonplussed, though perhaps not entirely surprised.

“Stop you? Why in Thedas would I want to stop you? I made you, kadan, and now you are going to serve me a very nice purpose indeed. I know your people too well—I knew the Ariqun would send you, and I knew you would come tonight. I even lessened the guard for you and left the most likely window unlocked. Leviticus has the remainder of his guard with him at my suggestion. Everything is perfectly in place—all you have to do is kill him.” Marcus shrugged, chuckling at the look of obvious suspicion that crossed her face. “His death will make me a powerful man, and you know how much I do love that. Besides, you don’t have a choice. You’ll want to hurry, though—I do believe he’s about to sacrifice about twenty slaves to summon enough servitors to kill you.” Amalia’s eyes went wide, and she turned immediately to flee the room.

“You’ll see me again, kadan. I look forward to it. And oh—you’ll want the ballroom!”

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

Ithilian found it surprisingly reassuring to know that he was being leaned on here, that she was willing to put her faith in him even after all he'd done to ruin it, all the selfish things and rash decisions. He'd seen how she was doubting recently, and now it was clear as day. The idea that it was somehow his doing that enabled Amalia to get control of herself and keep moving was... well, he didn't know how to describe it. Being able to help someone else did a great deal to make him believe he was still capable of salvaging something of who he was. Even if that just meant being able to trust her. He was still hardly able to trust himself with most things, but it was the belief of others towards him that pushed him towards certainty. He would do everything he could to do the same for her.

Seeing as he was not bound the Qun as his partner was, it was significantly more difficult for Ithilian to simply leave this despicable shem to his devices, especially with the knowledge that what they were about to do was going to help him greatly. His statement that there wasn't a choice here didn't hit Ithilian quite as hard, because at the moment the right thing to do seemed to be just killing every evil man in the building, and he was clearly included in that. But alas, Amalia was the lead here, and there were slaves that would be murdered if they didn't depart immediately. So all Ithilian could do was fix the man with a glare as he lowered his bow and ran after Amalia.

She didn’t know exactly where the ballroom was in relation to the rest of the building, but generally speaking, the dwellings of wealthy humans were built in similar fashions everywhere, and it wasn’t hard to guess that it would be near the front, probably surrounded by balustrade staircases and luxuriant chandeliers. Amalia had climbed enough buildings, journeyed to enough places, that she had something of an appreciation for architecture, if perhaps a more austere than usual view on what was good and what wasn’t, but such considerations were the furthest thing from her mind at present. They raced through the side hallway, and it seemed past a certain point that they could almost feel the hostile magic thickening about them to an almost choking degree, as though dark miasma were in the air. She said nothing of it aloud, too sharply-focused on keeping her progress as efficient as possible, but she could already smell blood, and that meant nothing good.

Then again, when had a magister ever been good news for anyone? They even despised each other, as Marcus was only too happy to confess. Her stride hitched, but she recovered, throwing open a side door and plunging down this new passage. They could hear sounds now, muffled shouting and something akin to a faint whistling, as though air were being moved about too quickly. A second knife joined the first, and Amalia forcibly removed every thought that didn’t have to do with killing Leviticus and his guards. Such a useful skill, even if she’d have preferred never to have had the need to learn.

The door through which they would pass to the ballroom itself was thrown wide open, and indeed everything else seemed to be oriented around it, as though they were expected to have entered it here. Crossing the threshold triggered a magical trap, one that she should have known to look for, and the resulting explosion threw her forward and down the grand staircase, where she struggled to get her feet underneath her before hitting the white-and-grey marble of the main floor itself. She was partially successful, coming up more or less in a somersault, and her armor had protected her from the worst of the damage, though she’d cracked her head on the hard stone, and the grey spots were not quick in receding from her vision. An amateur’s mistake… one she would have scolded herself for had she not been too busy taking in the fact that too much of the marble was pink.

She’d lost track of Ithilian, unsure whether he’d been caught in the blast or not, but she knew he could take care of himself, and the twinge of concern was suppressed by a mounting dread, as her eyes followed the odd coloration until it darkened into red, and up and over the bodies of ten dead slaves, a mixed bag of humans and elves, all wearing the red smiles of professionally-cut throats. It would have been merciful, if they weren’t so obviously bruised and cut beforehand. Their blood lay in rapidly-chilling pools beneath them—each was suspended, upside down, shackled by both ankles and hooked onto a point of the massive gold and crystal chandelier above their heads. Around the perimeter of the room, the other ten were chained to various places on the wall, gagged presumably for silence. At the center of the floor, right beneath the light fixture, was what appeared to be a circle, hastily carved in the marble, the divots and depressions in the stone filling with the crimson essence of the slain.

A man who was obviously the Magister—perhaps no older than forty-five, and dressed much more richly than even Marcus had been in a black-and silver robe trimmed with ermine and sable, had just sliced into his own arm and dribbled the blood onto the circle—a summoning, designed to give hissra physical form in this world—and Amalia knew what was coming. The whistling, which had increased in pitch until it was disorienting, grew louder and more shrill, ending in a crack and a fierce, bone-chilling howl of wind as the veil between this world and the Fade was rent asunder, letting out a half-dozen shades and a pride demon, towering and fierce. The effort appeared to have cost Leviticus greatly, and Amalia did not waste time, hurling the knife in her left hand until it buried itself in his throat, dropping him to the ground. He’d clearly been expecting to be allowed to talk first—something she’d never understood. There was nothing to be said, because for this, there simply were no words.

The sudden and brutal execution of their employer did not seem to shake the guards much, and they made for her with grim certainty, though the shades headed for the remaining slaves. Amalia knew she couldn’t do everything at once, and even with help, the chances here were not good. Practicality demanded that she and Ithilian form up, cut through the guards and the Pride demon, and be glad the shades would be occupied for a while. But she could not. Their broken bodies and the fear in their eyes was too much—she could not let them die. But she could not save them.

“Ithilian, the slaves!” Chances were good that more than one of them would die anyway—there were six shades and ten pitiful, chained beings, and only one person who might be able to free them. Whatever would be the case, it left her with humans and a Pride demon to deal with. The first pair lunged, and Amalia flipped backwards to avoid both the low and high slash, catching one hard in the jaw with her heel in the process. This was difficult, but acceptable. If there was one thing she could do, it was endure. They’d named her for it, after all.

Ithilian had tried to stay on Amalia's heels, but as soon as they passed through the door to the ballroom an explosion went off in between them, blasting Amalia forward. Rather than be blown backwards, Ithilian was simply halted as if he'd run headlong into a castle wall, his feet leaving him and causing him to fall harshly on his rear, though he'd been far enough away from the explosion to avoid most actual damage. Shaking himself off, he pushed back to his feet, relieved to see that Amalia was doing the same.

It was too late for half of them, as the blood mage had already done his work, and the veil was torn to bits before them, a group of shades and a pride demon pouring through. Amalia was quick to put a knife into the throat of the magister, and Ithilian added the arrow currently knocked, the projectile thrumming into the robed man quite close to the heart. It wouldn't matter, anyway, Amalia's attack had been enough to do him in, but in the event he didn't die immediately, Ithilian didn't want him casting any extra spells. They had their hands full as it was.

The guards and the shades seemed quite capable of working together to slay them, which was truly unfortunate, as Ithilian had hoped the Fade-beasts would simply attack anything nearby, and potentially help them. That was foolishly optimistic, of course. The shades seemed eager to feast on the remaining chained slaves, while the guards and the Pride demon charged for Amalia. When Amalia suggested he save the slaves, Ithilian did not hesitate, but the doubting side of him did question whether she alone would be able to survive against the guards and the Pride demon while he dealt with the shades one by one. In the end, there was simply no time to think about it, as the slaves would die if he hesitated, and then his efforts would be pointless.

He nocked another arrow swiftly, stiking the eye-hole of a guard trying to line up a shot on Amalia, before quickly sheathing his bow and taking off for the nearest Shade, who glided somewhat inefficiently toward the first slave. Drawing both his short blades, he leaped into the air and punged them down into the creature's back, its howling filling his ears as it sank down into the floor. Hardly slowing, he drew back up, swinging hard for the chains above the first slave's head. It was a human male, but there was simply no time to discriminate here, and if there had been, he would have liked to think he'd have saved the nearest ones all the same.

"Run!" he commanded the man, still bound at the wrists but no longer chained to the wall, and he took off, ducking his head low and making for the doors. A scream on the opposite wall marked the first death. More would follow, but for now, he would save the next slave, an aging elven woman. A shade was currently attempting to descend upon her, and Ithilian would not reach her in time. Acting quickly, he sheathed one blade and drew Parshaara, flipping the blade over in his hand and hurling it end over end until it stuck into the Shade's forehead, setting the demon alight. It soon dissipated, the dagger clattering to the ground. He struck the chains from this next one and hurried on, ignoring the death cry of another slave he couldn't reach.

The Qunari blade proved efficient and effective against the shades, and Ithilian cut through two more in quick succession, freeing three more slaves on the wall, making that all of them on this side. Looking across the ballroom-battlefield, he noticed the two remaining shades wafting in his direction, the dead bodies of the slaves on the wall behind them. He'd saved half of these ones, and a quarter of the total. For one man, perhaps it could have been a success, but Ithilian could not see it as such. He put a pair of arrows into each of the shades, dropping them, before he could finally do what he'd wished to: help Amalia.

The extra arrow was most welcome, but there was no time for a casual toss of a thanks over one shoulder: Amalia was faced with the choice to fight or die. Not the first time it had been laid before her, and certainly not the last. She would choose as she always had. No matter how little certainty she could grasp, she had only once wanted to die, and though she could not say it had taught her the value of life, she did know that she’d have to suffer much worse than this before she’d even contemplate just giving up. The soldier she’d dazed, now one of five, fell onto his back, and an aptly-placed needle took care of him, as well as the one beside him, but the pride demon was coming now with the remaining three, and there was only time to guard against one of those things.

She quite reasonably chose the demon, throwing herself away from the incoming fist, which slammed into the marble floor, cracking the stained stone under the force of the blow. She clenched her jaw against what followed: she’d had to step into range of one of the Tevinter bodyguards in order to get away from the creature, and sure enough, his mace slammed into her abdomen, an uncomfortable crunch informing her that several of her ribs had been broken in. Amalia drew in a breath, and it bubbled in her lungs. Turning away from the mace, she lashed out with the knife still left to her, sinking it in between the boiled leather plates that covered his chest. He dropped, and instead of recovering the knife, she simply drew two more.

The next attack from the demon landed close enough that she staggered when the floor shook, the grey spots that hadn’t yet cleared from her vision blinding her to the remaining pair of soldiers as they rushed her. She blocked the sword-blow on instinct, but the other rammed his shoulder into the already tender area where her bones had broken, and she blacked out for several seconds, during which she was carried to the ground. The sword sank instead into one of her legs, effectively hamstringing her, and the other swung a flail right for her face. She rolled half over, but the sword still in her leg prevented her from getting away entirely, and what would have been an ineffective blow at the floor caught her in the left arm instead, right where her elbow was, and the blunt weapon smashed the joint completely. What might have been a cry of pain became a wracking cough, and she tasted blood in her mouth as she sword was at last withdrawn, its wielder eager to be the one to deal the killing blow on a hated Qunari.

It was only that which saved her life. With her leg free, she was more mobile, and while she was not sturdy, Amalia was nothing if not strong in motion. With only her good arm for support, she kicked out half-blindly with her uninjured leg, catching the flail-holder in the kneecap and staggering him for just long enough to push herself into a one-handed backflip, landing in an awkward crouch as the sword clanged into the ground where her heart had been before. Blood ran freely from her mangled arm and leg, to say nothing of that which dripped from between her lips and down her chin to spot the floor. She was breathing harshly, but it did not stop her from parting with the knife in her right hand, burying it in the forehead of the swordsman with a solid thwack. He fell backwards as the flail-wielder swung again, and she rolled to the side, ignoring the protests of her body to do it. With her right hand, she gripped her left forearm and triggered the release of the hidden blade, bracing the damaged limb with the hale one as she drove up on her good leg, shoving the sharpened silverite into the last soldier’s eye.

She’d been expecting another swing from the demon to do her in at any moment, but for some reason, the blow had not come. That reason was obvious enough when she looked at it—it was currently smoking, having been smote in the chest with a massive fireball. Her peripheral vision may have been shot, but she turned her head to look at the top of the staircase, and found Marcus smiling down at her in that infuriating way he had. “Come now, kadan. We both know you’re not going to die yet. Do get on with it, hm?” He turned on his heel and left as quickly as he’d come, and any response she might have made to that was stymied by another fit of coughing, and she fumbled with furiously-shaking hands for her belt, withdrawing a potion and downing it in several swift swallows, groaning softly when she felt the bones in her ribcage rearrange, the fragments trying to stitch themselves together. It was far from complete, but he was right. She wasn’t going to die… yet.

The demon, too, was recovering, and Amalia withdrew the last weapon she had: a single-edged hand axe, retracting the blade in her gauntlet. This had been intended only for the removal of heads, but it was a perfectly serviceable weapon in its own right, and she’d have to use it now.

The pride demon was the only enemy that remained to them, as Amalia had done her work well, but even with the magister's assist, Ithilian doubted Amalia would beat it on her own. He sheathed the dagger and drew his other short sword, taking off at it at a run, and it turned towards him, as if it meant to speak. Oh, if only it knew the misery the last pride demon had wrought upon him, how it had nearly destroyed what little he didn't even know he held dear. Ithilian would not give this demon the chance.

He took flight just as the thing opened its mouth, flipping both blades backwards and sinking them into the chest. His feet found purchase on the creature's thighs, and in one motion he withdrew the swords and pushed up hard from his lower body, getting more height just as the pride demon swiped at his chest. Ithilian sunk his right blade into the left shoulder, kicking off of the demon's face to swing around onto its back, where the other blade found its mark. It roared in frustration at this point, trying to reach behind it and stumbling about, but Ithilian kept his balance, withdrawing a blade and leaning back just in time to dodge another flying fist, before slamming it back down.

The next one connected, however, catching him across most of the upper body, and only his grip on one of his blades kept him on the demon's back. He lost hold of the other one, leaving it wobbling back and forth where it pierced the hide. Drawing Parshaara, Ithilian left his other sword behind as well and jumped higher and forward, taking the knife in both hands and slamming it down on top of the Pride demon's head, the enchantment causing the entire head to burst into flame, overwhelming the demon with agony.

Ithilian was forced to step back away from the fire, at which point it managed to grab him, a firm grip squeezing and crushing around his middle, but it did not hold long, choosing to simply throw him across the room rather than try to crush the life out of him before it fell from the wounds. Ithilian sailed helplessly across the length of the ballroom to smash against the wall where he'd freed five slaves, and he fell motionlessly to the ground, face down. The demon staggered about momentarily, before he fell heavily forward, crashing to the floor. Two elven blades protuded from its back, while a Qunari-made dagger remained in the skull.

Amalia’s face was set in a grim scowl as she stepped forward to finish the work, a brutal downward swing of the axe crashing into the back of the creature’s neck, and it faded away, leaving two pieces of steel and one bone-dagger behind it. It was at about this time that the outdoor patrol finally arrived, but at that point she was having no more of this, and each of the shortswords was soon sprouting from a man’s chest, the other two dropping from poisoned needles. After making sure that Ithilian was able to get up and walk under his own steam, she silently handed him a potion, took another for herself, and put the axe to its intended task, hacking through each of eleven necks with no relish but simple efficiency.

Marcus never did reappear, but the knowledge that he was right there troubled her, and though she did not lose focus again as she had in the study, she knew quite well that half a dozen men of this caliber would not have nearly killed her on an ordinary day, demon notwithstanding. She was shaken deeply, and it shamed her. From the armory, she retrieved eleven spears, and the rest was gruesome but not trying: eleven heads were staked on spears in front of the Chantry—a dead diplomatic guest and his entire retinue, save one. A message that someone in this city could kill or spare life at will. Only the slow would not guess that the Qunari were responsible, but only the truly foolish would dare accuse them of it with no evidence. It was a missive plain as daylight, but an open secret it would remain. Hopefully, it would frighten the fanatics badly enough to cow them—such folk were not known for their courage. If it simply fed the flames, then… she didn’t know.

The Arishok would not care. He might even prefer it that her warning went unheeded—it would just be more proof that they had to be forced into compliance. But Amalia didn’t want that. She wanted… she didn’t know what she wanted, but it was not that. Having not said a word to him throughout the entire process, she at last turned to Ithilian. “I will spend tomorrow on the Coast. Tonight, I will spend alone.” She fixed her eyes on the stones beneath their feet, then shook her head faintly. It was as close as she could give to an invitation, to join her and to ask. Part of her almost hoped that he would, just so she could tell someone. The other part was terrified of the possibility. Either way, she could not speak of it now, not here and in the dark. “Thank you, for all you have done.” She nodded succinctly and turned on her heel, disappearing into the shadow of the nearest building.

When the sun rose on Kirkwall’s Chantry courtyard that morning, it illuminated the grim sight of ten-and-one human heads, eyes glazed over in death, the shafts of the spears the deep, Qunari red of drying blood.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

Amalia’s black armor was piled neatly in the sand, close to a small campfire constructed from driftwood and lit with flint and a flammable oil she’d extracted from some local plants. There was something to be said for the slow burn of it, and if she could only make it a bit more viscous, she might be able to light a weapon on fire for her own use. A strange thing to be thinking about at a time like this, but if it wasn’t something practical, her mind would drift instead to that which she didn’t want to remember. A weakness, and one that was forever countermanded. She’d never be able to forget, not if she lived a hundred more years.

The sun was rising over the sea, shading the blue waters with oranges and reds and blush-pinks, but she stared at it only incidentally, not really seeing it. The morning was already quite warm, but the ocean’s breeze tugged at the sleeveless linen of her tunic, tickling over her bare arms and leaving faint gooseflesh on the interrupted dusky tan of Rivaini skin. With her boots similarly discarded some distance back, she was bare from her knees down, the same mixture of white lines, reddish discolored splotches and the occasional small circle of raised scar tissue marring the smooth contours of muscle and tendon. She sat on a large, flat stone, not ten feet from the lapping waves. High tide would come in soon. When she closed her eyes, it was almost Seheron, or the very edge of Par Vollen, when jungle gave way to white sand and turquoise water. The salt smell of the air was the same, the way it played over her limbs a reminder of sensations she’d allowed herself to feel all the time, when she was unblemished.

But people did not display openly what they were ashamed of, and Amalia was no exception.

She’d scrubbed clean her face of the red paint, and her hands of the Tevinters’ blood, yet she still felt dirty. Not because she’d killed those men—she was no saint, that she could feel much empathy for her victims anymore. She was a killer, born and bred to the task, but she was still thankful that it was not all she was. Sighing, Amalia looked to her left, where a jagged cliff face led up to a bluff, which overlooked the water at a much higher vantage point. With a small wince for the residual pain in her ribcage, she stood smoothly, treading over to the foot of the bluff and looking up the sheer stone. Eyes narrowed with determination, she took hold of a protruding bit of rock first with one hand, then the other, and afterwards curled her toes against more, scaling the wall as she had a thousand others, in childhood and beyond, her progress painfully slow due to lingering injury. Or perhaps just lingering guilt.

When she at last pulled herself up onto the bluff, she approached the edge of it and looked down at the water. Here, the waves beat against stone, slowly wearing it smooth with years of persistence. Amalia had the absurd thought that she sympathized with the rocks, then shook her head, reaching up to flick back a piece of her forelock that the wind plastered to her nose. “It’s heavy,” she murmured to no one, and indeed, her shoulders were slumped with it—the weight of doubt, the weight of living. But the wind and the water had no answer for her, and even the memories of a time before shame and burdens lifted her no higher. She was not a bird; she could not fly. Her life had been learning to keep her feet upon the ground where they belonged. Discipline, strength, and dedication she had been taught. She had forged these things into armor, and in such raiment, she could muster the lightness for no flights of fancy. Sparrow had flown away, and part of Amalia had always felt betrayed by that. The other part had only been jealous.

There is only one choice.

She knew this. She made it every day, with every action and thought, and in this… she was what? Free? Certain? Maybe once. No longer. Not when she watched other people make other choices every day. Not when she had grown to respect them, care for them, as much as she had. Her choice would break Sparrow’s wings and shackle her to the ground. Her choice would collar Aurora and Nostariel—the burdens on their shoulders would be literal. Her choice would deny Ithilian everything he seemed to want, everything he strove for. Choosing as she had would break them all, like glass dashed against stones. But choosing as she had was for so long the only reason she could function. The Qun had given her everything—and it had been her only anchor in a storm the like of which she had only experienced once. Sparrow’s betrayal had been the first, but not the most difficult.

If she gave it up… how could she? It was the only thing she had. Everything else was just hissra—just temporary illusion. He had proven it so. She was not meant to fly, not like they could. He’d proven that, too. She couldn’t believe he still had so much hold on her, after all this time…

Gritting her teeth furiously, Amalia backed up a dozen paces, intending to just climb down the bluff and try again to divert her thoughts from this useless circle, or perhaps to arrange how she was ever going to explain it to Ithilian if he chose to ask, but she stopped, one of her hands curling into a fist, and looked down at it. Pursing her lips, she abruptly turned on her heel and bounced into a sprint, gathering her legs underneath her and launching herself out over the rocks. Her momentum tore at her clothes and her hair, plastering it back against her head, and the sudden exertion had pulled at her sore muscles, but she didn’t care. Because she wanted to know. Needed to know, if only for one foolish, weak moment, what it must feel like to fly.

But then gravity took over, as it always must, and she tipped herself down into a swan dive, breaking the water of the ocean only a little as she hit it. The sea was chill, not warm as it was on the island, but it was not unbearably so, and she opened her eyes underwater, looking about her at the stones and the sandy bottom and the colorful explosion of a small reef, and she wondered why she’d never seen things like this before. She knew every medical and venomous use of urchins and coral and sea-plants and fish, but she’d never noticed how brightly-hued it all was, how beautiful, for its own sake.

Her head broke the surface, and Amalia gulped in air. She’d never thought much about how sweet it tasted, outside of the city like this. With sure strokes, she swam for the shore, stepping out onto the beach and retaking her seat on the stone, which was warm beneath her. Without her harp, she found herself bereft of something idle to do with her hands, so she shook her hair out and combed through it until the tangles were gone, trying not to think of anything at all but the sun on her head and her back, the free movement of air over her skin, and the fact that she was alive. She knew not what to make of it all, and none of her burdens lifted, none of her questions resolved. But the sun was warm and the air fresh, and that felt a little further away because of it.

Ithilian never expected Amalia to ask him to join her, and she did not surprise him. They never seemed to ask things like that of each other. It was always a request to deal with gangs encroaching on the Alienage, or assistance dealing with slavers and Tevinter magisters, the kind of day where their lives were on the line, not their happiness. The rest just sort of... happened. Even after every misstep they took in their efforts to work together effectively, they still found their way back into close proximity. And to think, he had once called her shem, as if it were the shape of one's ears alone that defined one as such. He'd been such a fool, for so long.

The Dalish hunter walked alone out to the coast. Amalia did nothing without purpose, and she would not have told him where she intended on going if she was not open to the idea of him joining her. His motivation was largely made up of concern for her. Her physical wounds, grievous as they had been, were well taken care of, and she would recover quickly, so it was not that which concerned Ithilian. It was the way she'd frozen in the face of a man last night, the way nothing about her had been calm and collected the entire time, at least by her standards. A stranger would still have thought her manner cold, but to Ithilian, who had spent so much of the past few years near her, the differences were obvious.

The road was calm and quiet, and as he neared the coast, Ithilian removed his shoes and placed them in his pack. The sand between his toes was no forest floor, but it was not the streets of a misery ridden city, either. He wore no weapons apart from Parshaara sheathed at his belt. He was dressed lightly, with nothing covering his face, his dark hair pushed back away from his forehead to rest at the base of his neck. Lia had thankfully not been awake when he'd departed, else she probably would have demanded to go with him, and he was terrible at refusing her. This time, though, he would have. This was something for Ithilian and Amalia alone. Perhaps it was a chance to say something that had needed to be said for some time now, though what that thing was, Ithilian did not know.

He found her dripping from the water of the sea, raking fingers through her hair, the motion reminding him strongly of... no, he would not say that. He shrugged out of his pack, setting it down against a nearby rock, which he then seated himself against as well, perhaps five feet from her. He said nothing at first, simply taking in the view, the smell of the salt sea, the warm morning greeting them and letting them know that they had indeed survived the ordeal last night. "If you don't wish to speak..." he said finally, "we don't need to." They'd spent many hours as such, just silent, under the leaves of the vhenadahl, or even side by side. But he sensed there was something she needed to figure out, and that she had wordlessly asked him to come here that he might help her do so. So much always went unsaid between them, and maybe that had become the problem.

Amalia exhaled through her nose, shaking her head faintly. “I don’t particularly wish to,” she confirmed quietly, “but I must. What happened yesterday was inexcusable. I was unfocused and unreliable, and while it cannot be justified, it demands explanation. He knows where I am, now, and he may well return because of that.” It was an outside chance, but still a chance. There was no mistaking that it would be difficult to offer that explanation, however—it was a story she’d told in full only once, and that through the medium of a written report to the Ariqun. She’d never been forced to speak the words, and though he would not force her, she would certainly make herself do it.

But… how to explain? There were implications beyond the actions, but they were not always easily understood by those who did not possess a Qunari’s worldview. Shooting him a sidelong glance, she let her hands fall from the curtain of her hair and flattened them against the warm stone. Even the fingers were scarred—dexterous digits that managed to look as though they belonged to someone clumsy, with dozens of tiny nicks along them. “May I ask,” she started, folding her legs beneath her, “how it is that you earned the scars on your face?”

Now that the subject turned to it, and now that he studied her more, he began to notice that her scars far outnumbered his, and Ithilian had a great deal. Without the robes, or the full body's worth of armor to cover her... he did not want to imagine what she'd been through to get all of those, though he had a feeling he was going to find out soon, regardless. Whatever it was... for her to have hidden them for so long and every day, she must have been somehow ashamed of them, which implied they were not earned in a manner similar to his. The scars they'd earned together while defending those who couldn't defend themselves were nothing to be ashamed of, nothing to be hidden. Ithilian remembered the way his face had been marred fondly, actually. It had been a turning point in his life, as it was for every Dalish hunter. He only hid it often because the appearance was often seen as grotesque.

"It was a bear," he said, the left corner of his mouth quirking upward. "A mother of two cubs. Every Dalish hunter must prove themselves in the forest, on their own merits, and return with the pelt of a predator, before they can be considered an adult, and be marked with the vallaslin." He unbuttoned the collar of the tunic he wore that she might see his, though she had laid eyes on it many times before. "It was the first time I'd hunted dangerous prey on my own. I was fourteen. I found the cubs alone, and thought myself blessed by Andruil, that she had granted me an easy kill." Even if Ithilian was a fool recently, he had never been so great a fool as when he was a teenager, and the thought threatened to give him a smile.

"I wounded a cub, but no sooner had I than the mother surprised me from the side. Even for so great a bear, she was remarkably quiet. Her first swipe was what gave me these marks, and took my eye from me." He'd been certain in that moment that he was going to die, that his arrogance would kill him as his punishment for taking the gods so lightly, for simply assuming that they favored him. "She taught me the true face of Mythal, the mother and protector, before she died. It was the first time I had been humbled in my life." It was certainly not the last, and in his opinion, it had been the least of the corrections he'd received. The other three all came from people he'd known in his thirty-eight years, people who had made him into a far better person than he ever could have been on his own. His eyes fell to the medallion he'd made for her, that symbol of Mythal. It had been well-bestowed, he believed.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

The smile on Amalia’s face was slight, but it was present. Wasn’t that just the way of it? The world had a way of punishing anyone for presuming too much. Still, it was… good. That he could look upon the scars he’d earned and know they were his for his merit. “You shouldn’t cover them, then,” she said matter-of-factly. “The marks we bear for our courage and skill are beautiful, and should serve as example to everyone else.” she nodded, as much to herself as to him, and then tipped her head back a little, so that she was looking up into the calm azure of the sky.

“Mine are hidden because they are not so. Even if nobody else were to ever know, I would know, and that is enough. I was given them because I was a fool, and I was weak. That man, Marcus… they are his doing, most of them. Once, I knew him as Ben-Hassrath. He was viddathari, a convert to the Qun. We take all who wish to come—and in doing so, there is always risk. But it is rarely something a magister’s apprentice is willing to undertake, for the danger.” She wondered how many other spies lay in their ranks through similar means, even as she was capable of blending with a human population if this was required of her. One would have to be a much better actor to pretend to be a Qunari, though—and he was certainly a superb actor.

“We are assigned our roles at the age of twelve, and then we are trained for them. I was fifteen, about halfway through my own, when Marcus converted. He hid his magic from the Tamassran, and he was deemed suitable for the same role as I, but even at twenty, he would require training for it. We apprenticed under the same master of the role, and when that was done, we were made partners.” It was commonly-done, really, since there were some situations only male Ben-Hassrath were allowed to handle, and others that only a female could. That they were both anatomically human only made them more suited to working together, as they’d be appropriate for the same assignments.

“I’d known him for five years when it happened. We were sent on a routine assignment: cross into Tevinter, retrieve a batch of new viddathari, and transport them via ship to Par Vollen. I was given the list of Qunari contacts in Tevinter, and he the information on our planned route. We made it to Seheron before it happened.” Amalia swallowed past a tight lump in her throat. “I trusted him, so when he wanted me to take point, even though it was usually his task, I agreed without questioning it. I didn’t even put two and two together when the ambush came from behind, not until all the viddathari were dead and he cast a spell right at me. No… not even then. I suppose I didn’t realize what was really going on until I woke up in his dungeon.”

Her eyes shifted, as though she were looking at something far in the distance, and she laid them on the horizon dead ahead, her voice dry and almost mechanical in its lack of emotiveness. “It was like looking upon a different person, to see him then. I was chained to some kind of… table, I suppose. I could feel old wounds, untreated, and I was half-dazed with blood loss, and he walked in, right as the rain itself, garbed in magister’s robes and with a dozen men behind him. He wanted the list I had—the Qunari in Tevinter and how to contact them.” She shuddered involuntarily, despite the growing warmth of the day.

“War had always been just another fact of life for me. It happened, and I played my part in it. It was not until I was a prisoner that I realized I understood nothing of it at all.” Bringing her knees to her chest, Amalia wrapped her arms about them, and her stare descended to the smooth stone surface in front of her.

“You’d never think so, but healing magic is the most insidious of them all. Marcus had a team of healers, all specialized to repair flesh without dulling pain, to heal the deep tissue but let anything scar on the surface. I’d chewed halfway through my own tongue before the blood gave me away and they healed it back, as though the effort not to speak was nothing. As though all the times I should have died were nothing. I lost six months of my life to this weakness, this trust I should not have had.” Her bones had been broken, her flesh cut and burned and frozen. Marcus had tested new spells on her. She’d come to envy the ones who were outright killed for Tevinter magic, something she still hated about herself.

“Sometimes my torture was public. It is difficult to capture Qunari of rank like mine—I was a curiosity. I think the worst of it was the time I was burned at the stake when the mages ate dinner. They almost forgot to heal me quickly enough, so I had thought I might finally die.” And that was really the worst thing—having any hope, however pathetic and unworthy, and then having it torn away. Almost as bad but bearable were the eyes on her, completely dispassionate and uncaring for her situation. She was a living, breathing person, but to those people, she had just been another object. Not even the Qun, with its demands against individuality, was so cruel as that.

“I knew that my only chance was to convince them that I’d died. Qunari prefer to burn their dead when possible, so I knew he’d bury me.” To disrespect her corpse, even. “So over those months, when I was left alone, I learned to control certain things—heart rate, breathing… and then I used it to appear dead. I was lucky that they didn’t bother to check too thoroughly, and they buried me outside his master’s estate. Shallowly. I dug myself out, and got back to Par Vollen. My viddathari would never get that chance.”

It was clearly painful for her to speak of this out loud, and Ithilian found it painful to listen to, for the images that appeared in his mind, at the suffering that some men found acceptable and even pleasurable to inflict upon others. Upon her. He wished they had been permitted to kill that man the night before. How he could still live after doing that to another... someone he'd worked with for five years. Some people were truly cold, and truly despicable. And some people said that Amalia was cold, or that she was harsh. Ithilian could see how much she cared. It was written all over her skin.

"I do not think you should be ashamed of your willingness to believe in others," he said, cautiously, as for once she seemed to be in a fragile state before him, and he strongly desired not to do any more harm to her, as he had done before. "Those viddathari didn't get their chance, but you lived through it, and you gave others in this city a chance. You gave me a chance." He wondered how much she knew of what she had truly done for him, how it had merely taken some time for her words to get through, and a little help. It would be unfair to credit her entirely for saving him from himself, when Nostariel had been the one to hit the issue home, quite literally.

"I never intended to return from the Deep Roads," he said quietly. This was his shame, that he had been made to see was so foolish by these two who had humbled him more than the bear, or even the Gods, ever had a chance to. "I came to the city out of grief and a desire for something to focus my anger on, something to have some form of vengeance against. When we saved Lia, I was reminded of everything I had lost... my wife, my daughter, my clan, everything that I had ever lived for. I meant to slaughter darkspawn until I could stand no longer, and then die and selfishly join them again. But you helped me to see that there was more I could live for, and that I was capable of living again. Despite my weakness, my selfishness, my uncontrolled anger and my rampant hate, you still believed there was some good I could do."

He leaned back against the rock, looking out at the sea momentarily, doing his best to control himself. This was so much more difficult now that he cared again, now that he'd given himself something to care about. But if he had nothing to care for, then there was no point in living. "I've tried my best to continue living for those I care about, and even though I made great errors along the way, you still believed in me. I still have trouble thinking that I deserve any such belief, but I try to be worthy of it all the same." He didn't remember the last time he'd felt so strongly about something. It had been so long since he'd been willing to express his thoughts in such a way, and it surprised him how much he wanted to get this out. He wanted so badly for her to understand what she'd done for him.

"I have only ever known one other soul who could make me forget my hate. And it is because of the strength of your belief. If you bear those scars for your belief in others, then I do not think they are anything to be ashamed of." He swallowed, trying to keep his voice from thickening. "I know not how many lives you have saved, but I know that you have surely saved mine."

Her belief in others? She supposed that was their source, in a way, but she had always seen them as proof of her inability to do her duty, to save the viddathari she had been tasked with protecting. She had never given Marcus the information he desired, and she had suffered for it. That she had endured that suffering was the only good aspect to what had happened, and it was that one that had earned her the name. But the Ariqun knew, somehow, that she was not yet past her failure. It was still a shackle, not quite beaten into the armor that protected her—the armor that seemed to work less and less with each passing day. Marcus had cracked it open, mocked her for her trust in him, for the fact that it was so nearly complete. He wore the color of her people and spoke his flawless Qunlat to her so as to leave scars on her mind as well as her body. And he’d saved her life the night before, holding back the pride demon for long enough to let her get to her feet, long enough for Ithilian to reach it. She was beholden to him, now, in a way. She wanted nothing more than to let him go, to let that entire part of her life fade into painful memory, but it would seem that neither the Qun nor the Magister would allow this.

And yet… she slid down the rock to sit immediately beside Ithilian, and she didn’t bother asking herself why. She could sense his emotional distress, as great as her own, if for different reasons. She’d always presumed that he understood much of loss, and that like her, what he had lost held him back. There had always been that knowledge, that intuition, somewhere in the back of her mind, that they were so much the same. Once, she had thought that this made him more like a Qunari, and she’d called him like one. He’d disabused her of that notion, and for a while after, she’d supposed she must only be mistaken. At last she thought she might understand completely—he wasn’t like the rest of her people, he was just like her.

She leaned just a fraction, so that their shoulders had a solid contact. “Once,” she said softly, voice rasping with the trace of a whisper, “I held to the Qun like you held to your hate. It was the only thing that made sense in the world. I was twice-betrayed, and I had failed as well. But the Qun leaves room for redemption. When I was alone for hours I could not count, in the cell or in meditation, the thoughts of old pain would haunt me, and I recited it, to remind me of what I still had. I felt… like there was no hope left in the world anymore, but some part of me would not accept the fact that all there was left for me to do was die. I am glad that you found this in yourself, as well.” Glad was such an inadequate word, but it was the only one she had. This was not a language she spoke often.

“By the time I met you, I was certain that I would never believe in anything—anyone—else again. There would be the Qun, and my place in it, and nothing more. But I… I cannot help what I see. I believe in you because there is something strong in you, something I have always hoped I might one day find in myself. There are no absolutes to guide you as I had, and yet…” she shook her head. It wasn’t something she could explain. Maybe she’d never have the words. “But even when I should have doubted you, I don’t think I ever did, really. When you left, I wanted to think you Sparrow, forever fled to easier nesting. When you attacked me in the boy’s dream, I wanted to think you Marcus, who would trample over such small things as my trust for what he wanted. But though the thoughts entered my head, they would not stay. You are not them, and I still believe in you.”

Amalia swallowed, shutting her eyes against the hot sting in the back of them. “You say I saved you, but you should know that you’ve surely done the same for me. I don’t have all my answers yet, but believing in you has taught me that believing in people is still possible, that it can end in something good. I might… I might yet be able to believe in myself because of that.” She leaned her head back against the stone and snorted softly, something that might have been a laugh if she knew how. “The Qun slips through my fingers like sand which was once stone, and I don’t know whether to thank you for that, or throttle you… kadan.” The fact that she was smiling, however sardonically, was evidence enough that the threat was not serious. That last word had slipped out so naturally that she couldn’t even be bothered to be surprised by it. If anyone had ever deserved the name, it was surely him.

Ithilian attempted to smile fully, but it appeared as a sort of contorted half grin, and miserably failed to convey how he felt. "Same to you, lethallan." He looked out at the water, and for once, felt at peace.

The Chanter's Board has been updated. The Nature of Scars has been completed.

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

Nostariel sat inside the Hanged Man, completely sober and drinking only some form of fruit extract, as the water was still, she thought, quite unpalatable, and she didn’t even want to think about where the milk had been. She’d heard through the grapevine (and in this case, the grapevine was simply Ashton) that Sparrow wanted to meet the two of them today for some reason. Having also heard that her fellow mage was demon-free, she supposed it must be for a celebration of some kind, though frankly she thought a party of three was a little small for such a venture, especially when two of them didn’t drink anymore. Perhaps it was something else then, though the Warden had no idea what.

Either way, here she was, planted in her usual spot, but with only the barest traces of the ponderous melancholy that had once anchored her to the spot. It was getting close to that time of year again, and she knew there would be a few days in there where she was almost as bad as she’d used to be, but hopefully, this time it would only be for a little while. Much as she didn’t want to fall behind, the occasional step backwards was part of moving forward, wasn’t it?

"We really should start going to a better bar," Ashton said, brushing his hands softly against Nostariel's shoulders as he slipped by. A commotion near her ankles revealed that he had brought Snuffy along with him on this trip. They had entered as Nostariel was pensively staring into her mug, or maybe quizzical was the better word. Honestly, he'd caught himself with much of the same stare on his face when he gazed into his own. Now that he was sober, he actually had the ability to question what it was he was shoving down his throat. It was a question he was positive he didn't want to know the answer to, and one he was sure would haunt him if he found out. It was better to not think of it, as he took a seat and ordered another one of whatever Nostariel was drinking.

Snuffy, now larger than the little pup Ashton first got her as, hopped up on a chair beside Ashton and looked every bit the Princess Ashton had named her as. Head held high, chest puffed out, she didn't even pant, as that would break her regality. As his drink arrived and barring a curious look at Snuffy (one which was fixed by an extra silver piece or two) nodded thanks and continued, "It's not like we don't have options. I mean, neither of us are broke anymore. Surely we could find a nice Hightown establishment that doesn't have mandatory weekend barfights," And maybe one that didn't allow dogs into their establishment. He loved Snuffy to death, but as an experiment, a bar that allowed dogs onto the premises wasn't exactly the highest class of experience. Still, he'd never for the life of him admit that in front of Snuffy. He could swear that the dog was smarter than he was.

Small talk is all it was though, he couldn't deny that the hole-in-the-wall didn't have its charm, even if he had to wipe that charm off after he left. And the shock of actually drinking something nice for once might very well kill him faster than the stuff he was already drinking. He folded his fingers together and created a hammock upon which his chin rested as he looked at Nostariel, "Soooo... How's life?" He asked with a comically large smile.

Nostariel beamed at the combination of Ash-and-Snuffy as they broke into her otherwise ordinary afternoon and summarily brightened the entire thing. He had a way of doing that, she decided, and of course, the Warden’s favorite dog could only help. Obligingly scratching the Mabari beneath the ears and moving down under her chin with muttered endearments, she dropped a playful kiss on the canine’s forehead and laughed when she chuffed in response. Glancing up at the hunter, she couldn’t force the smile off her face, and to her credit, she didn’t even try. “Oh?” she replied with traces of amusement. “And what respectable Hightown establishment would serve an elf like me and a no-good rogue like you, hm? I think I like my hole-in-the-wall just fine, don’t I, Snuffy?” She looped an arm around the Mabari’s rapidly-thickening neck and propped her pointed chin on the furred head.

“I don’t go to bars to be reminded of the reasons why I’m not wearing a dress and living in a mansion, thanks.” Though her nose wrinkled with faint distaste, her eyes were still clearly of a good humor. She considered the question perhaps more than its flippant nature really warranted, then shrugged, still leaning on the dog. “I feel… selfish, saying that life is good. But for now, at least, it really is.” Time would change that, like time changed everything. The anniversary was coming up, and who knew when this Qunari business would at last overwhelm them, but between now and then, Nosatriel was resolved to enjoy her simple contentment as much as she could.

“Any idea what Sparrow wants? I admit, I was a bit surprised when she asked to meet us here. You don’t think anything’s wrong, do you?” Poor Sparrow had just been freed of that demon; surely she did not need to be troubled again so soon with other difficulties. She deserved to be able to have a chance to make peace with herself and the ones she’d hurt, to start healing as everyone inevitably must attempt to do. Nostariel knew a thing or two about healing, and the process would be long, but… if Sparrow could achieve it, things might at last be right in her world again. And that was worth just about anything.

Looking at herself in a mirror hadn't ever been a nasty habit of hers, but Sparrow couldn't help but pluck handfuls of cloth in her slender hands, inspecting the way they fell around her shoulders. Her lack of musculature made it impossible to keep her trousers snug on her hips, forcing her to continuously tug them up while she walked or sew them two-fingers inwards—and with her horrible seamstress abilities, it made for ugly clothes and ruined garments. Bearing her armour for the first time had been even more disappointing. It bounced and chafed her joints, like she'd become a bumbling fledgling trying on something that did not quite belong to her. Too skinny to trundle around in ill-fitting armour, and too stubborn to leave the house looking like a scraggy, rawboned little girl, Sparrow needed to do something. Startling observations like that caused her to look closer at herself. She impulsively enlisted the aid of her two friends, hastily sending letters to meet her at the Hanged Man. They might have a better idea of what to do with her. Rilien did not seem to understand her grievances, and simply suggested buying clothes that fit her, whilst feeding her spoonfuls of Maker-knows-what.

She fiddled with her trousers, sighing softly as she buckled a worn leather belt around her waist. Hipbones swung out like ivory tusks, no longer hidden by her masculinity. She didn't quite look like she was wearing a nightdress, but she nearly did. It was enough to give her pause. She fixed the collar of her shirt and tried to tighten the drawstrings. Robust shoulders had long wilted away to slender things, hardly worthy of manly veneer. No point in squandering her time anymore than she already had. She'd forgotten that Ashton had already seen what she looked like, but Nostariel certainly hadn't. She sighed again, low and soft, before pulling on her boots and slipping outside. It took her a little longer than expected to reach the Hanged Man because she'd been dragging her feet, swilling words in her head like the scummy-ale they served inside. Sparrow hesitated at the door and backtracked a few paces. Nostariel had never been one to judge others, nor laugh. Her weaknesses were her own, and she'd have to own up to them eventually—and she'd faced worse odds. Clothes were clothes, after all.

Sparrow swung into the Hanged Man like she always did. Or always had, before becoming Rapture's puppet-play thing. Her smile was genuine enough, even if it looked odd on all of those sharp angles, sticking out in her cheekbones and chin. If it was possible for her to appear more slender than she'd been under the guise of a man, she'd certainly proved it possible now. However, if anyone thought she looked like a man, they wouldn't now. Perhaps this, most of all, was the most disconcerting. Her identity was important enough to keep—important enough to protect, even if everyone knew contrary. All of her barriers were built around those lies; around falsehoods and tenderly built ideas of what she perceived strength to be like. She'd lost that with Rapture, along with much more. Her friends were kind enough not to seek retribution for her behaviour, though she'd been receptive enough to face what she'd done. She wanted to get better. She wanted nothing more. Sparrow spotted Ashton and Nostariel sitting in their usual spot and purposefully strode in their direction, unburdened by any sycophant-weight preying on her thoughts.

It was only then that she noticed the Mabari-hound obediently sitting in one of the wooden chairs, as if she'd been schooled by some sort of noble handmaid. She paused in her steps, faltered momentarily, then childishly hopped behind the mannerly pup to scratch it behind the years. “What—I never knew! You got yourself a Mabari-hound...” She cheeped excitedly, before tempering down her tone and clearing her throat. Snuffy's very existence had been a mystery since her possession for she'd rarely left her quarters in Darktown, nor sought out Ashton's companionship for fear of losing herself. Come to think of it, she hadn't really known what any of her friends were doing. It was something that needed rectifying. Slowly removing her hands from Snuffy's head, she smoothed out the many wrinkles of her flag-like shirt and plopped down beside Ashton.

Suppose you two are wondering why I've asked you here.”

"Well, now I expect you to make regular visits to the shop. Then Snuffy won't be a stranger any more. And don't think about missing a week, I will hunt you down. You know I will," Ashton said, making a show of pointing at her. Afterward an easy smile settled on his lips as he shrugged noncommittedly. "Nah, just a little bit curious," He said, using his fingers to indicate how much a "little" was, "But then again, I can't say that I'm worried. Whenever you're around, I can expect copious amounts of fun times... Let's just not black out this time, yeah?" He said with a chuckle that quickly turned nervous. In that moment, he shot a glance at Nostariel that was somehow apologetic, ashamed, and embarrassed all at the same time. Damn his tongue being faster than his head.

Nostariel sighed and rolled her eyes, but whatever initial displeasure she'd felt with the whole incident seemed to have faded into mostly-good humor with time. Maker knew her friends were odd people that did strange things sometimes-- there was little point in getting upset over that.

So instead she smiled at Sparrow over Snuffy's head. "Well, don't keep us in suspense," she replied, trying not to mother when she noticed the rather frighteningly-emaciated conditions of her friend. She knew the last months-- years really-- had been bad for Sparrow, but she seemed to have lost her concept of how bad, if the shadow of worry behind her eyes was anything to go by. "What can we humble Wardens and hunters and hounds do for our gallant friend?"

Sparrow paused momentarily, before reaching over Ashton to scratch the Mabari-hound behind the ears. She quickly retracted when he recounted their harried tale. It was a slip of the tongue, clearly. Her grin was strangely sheepish. She hardly remembered what had happened, nor would she ever admit to wearing that accursed dress—she still secretly hoped she'd been the one wearing the silk fineries, and he'd been the one skirting around in frilly laces. While Rapture preyed on her weaknesses, Sparrow drowned them out with alcohol. It hadn't been her finest moment, but Ashton was there to support her, anyway. Thankfully, she'd been a little better. She even waved away the goblet the barman slipped over, wordlessly denouncing her nasty habits. Quite unlike her. Her stomach couldn't handle it, empty as it was. Her tolerance, it seemed, had all but slipped down the gutter. Rilien said it would take her awhile to feel normal again, but perhaps it was for the best.

“Don't worry—I'm in the business of remembering nowadays,” She affirmed, skating her fingertips over her the rim of her goblet. It was a genuine enough statement. After being freed from her unwelcome guest, and realizing what her companions had gone through to help her, Sparrow felt true liberation for the first time in her life. Nothing came without a price, though. Her friends had sacrificed much—Rilien, most of all. All of her lapses and mistakes had perched under her chin like contained howls, eating her away much like that leech-creature had. It was also her friends who had taken the reins away from her, belying a concern she did not believe she deserved. Who would stick their hand in the burning coals, only to pull one out from the fire? They would. They'd proven it over and over again. Mending her wounds, and trying to bandage theirs, was her only mean of rectifying all of her wrongs. It was enough for now. She took a deep breath and plucked at her dragging sleeves. “Nothing fits me anymore. I mean, I don't own anything that fits. And I thought that I ought to, I don't know. I look different.”

She threw up her hands, unable to chew the words out. Wardens and hunters and hounds did not dally around with skeletons, trying to dress them appropriately. It was difficult enough admitting that she wasn't happy with what she saw in the mirror, let alone leaving her hovel long enough to request aid. She knew how she looked. Sparrow mussed her fingers through her hair and leaned forward miserably, head plopping down across her forearms. “I look like I'm wearing Rilien's robes. My armour doesn't fit. I need help.”

Nostariel was pretty sure that ‘eat more’ wasn’t really the right thing to say here, though it seemed pretty obvious to her that it needed to happen. Sparrow was looking rather unhealthy, but… she bet it didn’t help to feel like she was swallowed by her own garments in the meantime. Still, she hadn’t really picked the vivacious half-elf as someone with any amount of vanity, so there were obviously other issues at work here. Sparrow needed to feel good about herself. Herself. That might be the operative thing, here. She couldn’t exactly pass for a man anymore, even if she wasn’t all that girly, either.

Well, there were a lot of things going on underneath this, maybe, and there was obviously still the matter of her health to consider, but all those issues would take time to work through, to sort out. Maybe a nice little dose of confidence would be the best place to start, rather than a way to end. Leaning forward onto the table, Nostariel propped her chin in a hand, sending Ashton a conspiratorial glance and smiling widely. “Well, that’s easily-enough remedied,” she said lightly. “We just need to find you clothes that fit properly. Would you like a dress? I think you’d look lovely in a dress, but if you’d rather not, there are tailors who make trousers and tunics for women.” Nostariel wasn’t exactly an expert on clothes, being a Warden and thereafter having most of her things made for her. She suspected Ash knew just as much, if not more, about women’s clothing than she did, but maybe between them, they could give Sparrow a hand.

Shrugging, she stood and tugged on Sparrow’s elbow, trying not to wince when this only reminded her of how bony she was. Nostariel had always been small and slight, but there was a difference between that and looking half-starved. Yes, a good dose of confidence was definitely in order… and then a large meal. “No time like the present, is there? Let’s make a day of it, the four of us.” Snuffy, of course, would always be included. "Shopping!?" Ashton exclaimed, flailing his arms about.

Sparrow's mouth gawped open. A dress? It sounded as absurd as her and Ashton's impromptu wedding. Had she ever worn one? Suppose she hadn't. Qunari were clearly unfashionable, and those who dwelt in Ferelden and Kirkwall seemed to prefer dressing reasonably, rather than frivolously. Not that she was in the habit of noticing. The finest clothes she'd ever glimpsed had been the ones Ashton had stolen from whatever poor nobleman's quarters they'd stumbled into—and even then, Sparrow was clueless as to how the pieces fit together. Running into money in the Deep Roads only garnished a short period where she bought and wore gaudy clothes found in the richer parts of Kirkwall, which were politely, albeit casually, jilted and dismissed by Rilien. They would attract unwanted attention, he said. He knew better than her, so she'd stashed the peacock-emblazoned garments in her hoard-corner. Now, they didn't fit her either.

She smiled when Nostariel leaned forward, propping up her elbows. Smoothly assuring her that they would find something proper for her to wear. Dresses, trousers, tunics made for women. The subject was still tender, but she'd have to come to terms with it eventually, as unusual as it sounded in her head. Coming to terms with herself, more like. It felt like something else she'd been desperately running from, and something else she needed to face. Piecing out the reasons always seemed ridiculous. Who would want to live the way she'd managed to live? Her lies were heavy things, bearing down her ankles and tugging at her throat. They'd protected her before, hadn't they? “I've never worn a dress,” She mused, meek for the first time in ages. Her armour shielded her from more than blades, it seemed. She was only relieved she'd sought them out for this. There was no laughter. No mockery or jeering. Amalia wouldn't have laughed, either. She was not ready to see her yet. “I think I'd like that.” "Shopping!" Ashton repeated in the affirmative, nearly launching out of his chair.

Sparrow responded in kind, slipping from the stool and leaving her goblet untouched. Steps forward were better than steps backwards, in any shape, any form.

Setting

5 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

"Give me one reason why I shouldn't nail you to the wall right now," Ashton threatened, and quite unlike him he meant it. The man he was speaking to was the same man he had contacted to acquire some books for Rilien. Instead of bringing Ashton any illicit goods, he had brought a message and found himself pinned to a wall with a machete at his throat for his efforts. "Because I'm the messenger! Nothing more. Look, Ash--" He was cut off by the blade of the machete pressing deeper into his throat. "You don't get to call me that," He spat. Garrath's mouth worked in an effort to backpedal, but nothing came. Instead, he just continued, "If I had a choice, I wouldn't drag you back into this. Look, I'd leave you the hell alone if it was me, but this comes from the top."

That managed to relieve the pressure on his throat, but Ashton still gripped his collar tightly, "What do the Redwater Teeth want with me? Don't they have enough flunkies like you to do their dirty work?" Ashton asked venomously. If Garrath was insulted by his words, he didn't show. For the man's credit, it did seem like he really didn't want to do this to Ashton. "No one else was a good as we were. The guys they got running the operations now would drown if they fell in the water. There's this ship coming in and Leech really wants it bad. He doesn't want to leave anything to chance." Garrath said as Ashton released his grip on his collar. "So he calls on the best?" Ashton replied with hostile sarcasm.

He made his way back to the counter and leaned heavily upon it. He was glad that Lia and Snuffy both were gone for this. Ashton had sent them both out when Garrath arrived, as whenever the man came unbidden, good news was rarely the reason. And he was right. How right he had been. "Would they really burn down Nostariel's clinic?" He asked with a sickened look on his face. "You know Leech," Garrath replied darkly. Had it been a threat against his own shop, he would have refused outright. He could survive without his shop. But Nostariel? Leech really knew how to go for the weakpoints of a man.

"Look, if I had a choice--" Garrath was interrupted again. "You wouldn't have asked me. Yeah, you said that already," Ashton said, turning around to level a hard stare into the man. "Did you even fight for me?" Garrath's silence was all the answer he needed. Ashton chuckled mirthlessly and turned away again, looking back down at the counter. "Honor among thieves isn't what it used to be."

There was an uneasy silence hanging in the air for more than a minute, Ashton staring holes into the counter and Garrath wordlessly watching. Finally, with an uncharacteristic sigh, Ashton answered, "Do I even have a choice?" He asked. "Seems not," came the reply. Another elongated silence puncuated by a sigh, and Ashton put his back into the counter. "Fine. But I have demands," He said, his face hard like rock. He held up the first finger and spoke, "First, your ass is coming with me on this." Garrath nodded, he expected that. Ashton then held up finger number two, "Second, I get to pick out my own crew for this job, people I can trust completely and utterly, and people I know won't stab me in the back." That as well was nodded to. Then came the last finger, "Third, after this, if I ever see you or Leech again, or you make any more threats against Nostariel or my friends-- I'm killing every single one of you bastards. Now get the hell out of my shop."




A couple of weeks later her found himself in the Hanged Man with his assembled team of Nostariel, Lucien, Sparrow, and Rilien. None of them knew exactly what he had planned for them, but that was not because he didn't trust them. In fact, that was why they found themselves assembled in front of him, because he trusted them absolutely. Garrath had went ahead and reserved one of the back rooms for them, one with a large table, and the man himself was leaning in the corner, silently inspecting the men and women Ashton had enlisted. The man himself sat on top of the table cross-legged, face pressed up against his fists. Suffice it to say, he did not look happy about what he was about to say. In fact, he had spent the previous weeks working out how to say what he wanted to say.

For a while, he didn't say anything. It wasn't until Garrath cleared his throat that he finally did. The words did not come easily, nor did they come quickly. It felt like they were being ripped from his throat by some unknown entity. "I bet you all have... Questions. I'll see if I can't answer as many as I can now," He said in an odd formal manner that didn't mesh well with who he was at heart. "The thing is... I need your help. There's these people," Ashton spared a glance backward to Garrath at this, but the man said nothing in return, "Who want me to do something. But, I can't do it by myself. That's why you all are here."

He was dancing around the issue, but he would need to dive into it sooner or later. He decided to just go for broke and do it sooner. It wouldn't do to keep them in the dark. He couldn't do that to them. "See, the something they want from me is that they want me to steal a boat for them. It's filled to the brim with relics and artifacts that would fetch a high price in any market, and they want to make sure it gets delivered to them. Fortunately, they chose me to do it," He said, his tone indictitive that he did not feel very fortunate.

Ashton sighed but continued to push forward. "What I'm asking you to do is very, very dangerous. If you don't want any part of it, then you can stand up and leave right now. I wouldn't blame you a bit for it. Hell, if I was able to, I would, but I'm just not able," Ashton said. "The boat isn't Kirkwallian, so don't worry about that. The cargo it's transporting is on its way to the Tevinter Imperium, so don't feel guilty about stealing it. And you're getting paid for this," Garrath clarified. It didn't make much of a difference for Ashton, he was still being dragged back into something he had left a long time ago.

"Anyone want out?" Ashton asked.

Lucien was frowning, clearly less-than-pleased with what he was hearing. He sat back in his chair, crossing his arms over his broad chest, and canted his head to one side, patrician features arranged into something oddly like a look his father would have worn. A bit of disapproval, a bit of exasperation, but underneath it, a certain kind of steely resolve to get at the heart of things. “Tevinter is not synonymous with the Black City,” he pointed out steadily. “Not everything within it was evil. I would feel much better about this if I knew who was sailing this ship, what it was carrying, and why.” From the way Ashton kept shooting glances at his heretofore-unknown acquaintance, he wasn’t exactly doing this of his own free will, which meant that Lucien’s trust in his character could only reassure him so far. Good men could be made to do awful things, given the right circumstances.

"Pirates, raiders, opportunistic vultures who stole everything they own. These people raided towns all along the Waking Sea. Killing these people would be a service to everyone who lives on the coast. Don't fret about getting your hands dirty," Garrath replied, approaching closer to the table. Ashton nodded along, hoping to appease Lucien. Of course it would take conviencing for the honorable Chevalier, Ashton had expected no less. "Garrath might be a bastard, but he's never lied to me. If we get on the ship and they surrender, we won't kill them. I'll promise you that," Ashton replied. Garrath nodded his appreciation and continued, "As Riviera said, the ship's loaded with plunder stolen from the coastal cities. My employer would like to see that wealth in his pocket instead of some blackmarket magister's," He answered.

“Are you sure you don’t want us to pay a visit to your… employers, instead?” Lucien asked. The people assembled here were more than capable of dealing with the average gang of ne’er-do-wells, though he wasn’t entirely sure that was what was going on. Either way, he needed more information before he decided how he personally was going to handle this. He was honest enough about who he was that he did not think Ashton would have invited him here if what they were being asked to do was truly vile, but… the lines that Lucien drew and the ones other people thought he drew were often different.

Lucien's statement made Ashton geniunely laugh, and he nodded his agreement, "You weren't the only one with that idea Luce. It was the first thing I thought about doing. Turns out these people are hard as hell to find. Probably why they're all still alive... You know what they say about roaches," Ashton added ponderously. "I couldn't even beat it out of Garrath," He revealed, leaving Garrath nodding. "He couldn't. Even I can't find them most of the time. I get all of my orders and targets from dead drops across the city." With that being said, Ashton's face drew serious once more, "Lucien, you don't have to do this, you owe me no favors." The last thing he wanted to do was to force someone else into his mess.

Lucien appeared to consider it, one of his hands moving upwards to rub absently at the beard that presently coated his jaw. It was short enough that really it was just particularly-thick stubble, but the gesture didn’t depend on that. Glancing for a short moment at Rilien, he threw another idea out there, one that he’d never have thought to use before meeting the Bard. “Well… why not both? We board the ship and take the plundered goods, and that makes sense—I’d prefer fewer raiders in the area, anyway. But if this employer of yours really wants it in his pocket, I see no reason we can’t follow it there. Well… perhaps I can’t, as such,” he gestured at himself, intending to convey the fact that he was not particularly oriented towards sneaking about. “But surely yourselves and Ril here are more than capable, should he agree to it. Follow the money, I believe the expression goes.”

“I have done tasks of this nature before,” Rilien put in, his usual deadened monotone only reinforcing the point. He well knew how to find people who didn’t want to be found, but bait—like the cargo from this ship—would make that task considerably easier. “I do not think Lucien’s idea preposterous.” Actually, he’d just been thinking it himself when the chevalier spoke it aloud. That was a bit odd, really, as usually their methods of approaching such issues were very different. Still… perhaps if anyone else knew his mind, it was his friend. Or perhaps the need to help another friend was simply enough that both of them automatically sought the best solution. Rilien had efficiency in mind—doubtless, Lucien wanted to stop the largest amount of illegal activity possible. In this case, the goals dovetailed.

Nostariel was silent for a moment, contemplating the possibilities. She did like Lucien’s idea, more because it felt like something good to do, instead of just… ending one group of criminals to enrich another group of criminals. It was perhaps she alone of all those assembled who understood just how hard it must be for Ash right now, to be forced back into this world that he hated and had left as soon as he could. And surely, he must have been forced—there was no way that man who had confessed his misgivings and his crimes to her a year ago would ever volunteer again to cast his lot with such folk. It was that knowledge, the knowledge that there must be a reason for this, that allowed her to say what she did, in the end. “Whatever you decide,” she said, a layer of steel in her tone that hadn’t been there for a long time, “I’m with you.”

Sparrow needed absolutely no convincing when Ashton tasked her to join him at the Hanged Man, along with some other friendly faces that made her feel warm and fuzzy on the inside—albeit, she still felt a little sheepish when she glanced in the Chevalier's direction. She hadn't apologized for her awkward behaviour, and simply hoped her willing presence meant that she would not skirt around him like he bore the plague. If Ashton needed anything from her, then she would willingly oblige. He'd been there in her darkest moments, in the vilest circumstances. The remnants of such times hung onto her like an emaciated veil, showing on her bones in the means of billowing clothes and ill-fitting armour. Her mace swung at her hip like a long lost friend, denouncing any such weakness. Certainly, there was something to be said of her willingness to carry out such a task. She'd been a petty thief at one point in her life; running from the Qunari only to end up pinching and pilfering to keep her stomach from bending in on itself, but she hadn't thought of it as entirely wrong. She'd never wondered whether or not those pockets belonged to nobleman, or poor folk like herself.

Her eyebrows peaked when Lucien spoke, though she remained mild-mannered enough not to interrupt him. Friends bent the rules for friends, didn't they? She'd always thought that morals only remained steadfast as long as your friends were out of danger, and by the look on Ashton's face, there was something much, much darker going on. He was in trouble. He needed them. If he'd thought that he could do this on his own, he wouldn't have bothered asking them here. Perception came difficult to her, and she certainly couldn't read the situation as easily as Nostariel, but even Sparrow knew that this was not what Ashton wanted to do. Humour had no seat at their table. He was being forced, however subtly. To be honest, she'd never seen him this upset. It told her volumes—there was much she didn't know about her friend, and it sat ill with her. Either way, Sparrow would always be here to do whatever needed being done. She, too, nodded her head and made no move to vacate the table.

She cast a sideways look at the Chevalier, then quickly averted her gaze. “Of course. We're your friends. Whatever needs doing. But, I wouldn't say Luce's idea is bad, either.” Doing something for the sake of doing something good? She was growing, indeed.

Garrath chuckled behind Ashton, though it was of the dry and mirthless type, "I wouldn't worry about following anything. Leech is to meet us once we've acquired the ship, along with a number of enforcers. How many you say he could fit in that boat of his Riviera?" Garrath asked. Ashton asnwered like teeth were being pulled from his jaw, "About two dozen. Conservatively. If we attack him, then it'll be a hell of a fight in cramped quarters. He wants us to do his dirty work for him, so that he can reap the reward without all the nasty business," But Ashton liked the idea of hunting the man down.

As an afterword, he added, "But it shouldn't stop us from finding out where the bastard puts his head down at night... Surely he isn't so protected everywhere?" He posited with a tight-lipped grin. He left the implication in the air without further words, but Garrath had something to add, "What you do afterward is your business. I'm just here to make sure he gets the boat. It's your funeral." Ashton leveled one last glare at Garrath before he leaned over, an action which also drew the man behind him closer. Now was time to plan.

Lucien could accept this. For any action, it only made sense to take the path one thought was right, and stopping these raiders seemed right to him. The chance of being able to undo another criminal enterprise afterwards, well… he would be taking it, unless there should be some better reason not to. He’d not put his friends in danger if they were unwilling to be, of course, but if they were willing… a difficult fight wasn’t exactly a deterrent for the chevalier, nor, perhaps, for the rest of them, either. With a nod, he chose to allow Ashton to lay out the plan sans any further interruptions from him.

"Well, to start we're going to need two rowboats..." Ashton didn't know what was worse, that he was being sucked back down into the underworld, or that still felt so comfortable drawing up these plans.

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon

Earnings

0.00 INK

The news reached her shortly after rising from bed, having just escaped from a rather awful nightmare, a recurring one involving horned Qunari, with slight variation each time. Apparently, the heads of eleven individuals were found outside of the Chantry this morning, impaled on spears and arranged around the holy building in a clear message of warning. They were identified as the Tevinter magister visiting the city from the Imperium, and his entire retinue of guards.

Sophia felt no particular love for Tevinter, and of course knew their magic-run leadership to be capable of despicable acts, but this was not good news, no matter how evil those men may have been. Even though they'd brought their own trained guardsmen, they could easily have been seen as under Kirkwall's protection, considering that they were in supposedly the most secure place in the city, that being the wealthy reaches of Hightown. Now they were all dead, and the Qunari were obviously guilty of the act. They were ancient enemies of the Imperium, and the show of force was clearly not without purpose. Sophia was quite certain of who had personally carried out the deed. Amalia had warned them, after all, that there was something she was planning to do, and that they needed to recognize it when it happened. Qunari warriors from the Arishok's army would have had difficulty reaching Hightown without being spotted. Yes, this had certainly been her doing. It was... not particularly subtle, but maybe that was needed. Reasoning with them clearly wasn't working, and while frightening religious fanatics was quite difficult, it was worth a shot.

There was little for her to do about it, at any rate. The heads were taken down, but of course word spread quite well, and Sophia had other plans for the day. She was meeting Aurora at Lucien's place around lunch time, though she imagined it would be a little more than a social chat. The two weren't exactly friends, and while they'd managed to work together towards a common goal recently, to say there was a solid amount of trust between them would have been a lie. And while Sophia was certain there were quite a few things they didn't agree on, she was relatively certain neither of them desired to be enemies. Sophia knew she didn't, not now, when there was so much else arrayed against her and the few trying to keep the city from falling apart.

Sophia left the Keep as noon approached, dressed in comfortable clothes. She had no wish to present an armed and armored appearance when trying to make friends. It was Spring, and a warm day, and Sophia tried to look more cheery than the metaphorical gathering storm clouds would demand, dressed in a two-layered sleeveless yellow blouse, with white trousers tucked into a worn pair of comfortable leather boots. The Orlesian braid had become basically an every day thing for her, and today was no exception, her golden hair twisting elegantly through itself to rest between her shoulder blades. She wasn't armed, not even tucking a knife into her belt or her boot. There were few places she felt more safe than with Lucien, after all.

Her walk to Lucien's house was uninterrupted and actually somewhat pleasant, and she found the door unlocked.

Lucien, it turned out, had spent much of the morning cooking. Well, not cooking, precisely. Baking might have been the word, if he felt comfortable assigning that level of skill to it. He’d over the years learned essentially most domestic skills, because he needed to be able to take care of himself without servants anymore, but baking was something he’d not tried since his mother was alive, and the knowledge was a little rusty. Well… very rusty—the first attempt had resulted in charred lumps of something, and the second had been salty enough that he flinched. This time, he’d remembered to taste the dough beforehand, and not leave them in the small oven for too long. Honestly, that was probably the doing of the baker’s twelve-year-old daughter than anything, and he’d been happy to let her boss him around until they passed her inspection. Her mother had laughed at him for that, but he didn’t mind. It was nice to see them smiling again—he’d once been hired (but not paid, given their status as refugees) to deal with the gang that had taken the little girl’s father.

Anna, the mother, was apparently content to view this as the paying of a debt, though he never would have called it that. Really, he was probably imposing, using so many of her ingredients to so little success, but in the end, she laughed him and his platter of pastries out the door with assurances that no, he did not need to clean up, she could take care of that herself, and get out of her kitchen before he burned it down. That, he was only too willing to do, and he shook his head to himself. Well, at least he’d succeeded in the end. Talent or no, persistence could get you places, he supposed.

He left the door unlocked on his way into his house, setting the pastries on the end table between the two chairs, then hooked the kettle to the fire to make more tea. He had a feeling this wasn’t going to be the most cordial meeting in the world, but he wanted to do what he could to make sure it went as well as possible. Getting bossed around by a little girl and laughed at by her mother was actually quite a bit more fun than he was expecting. They were good people, the sort he’d never have been able to meet if he’d spent his entire life like he misspent his youth. He smiled at that, glancing up at the sketches he’d replaced upon his walls. He’d have to add a few more, maybe. Right now, he had several of his friends in town, including the carpenters helping him with the barracks, the stonemason who’d done his fireplace, Rilien, Nostariel, Ashton, Aurora, Amalia, and of course Sophia as well. They were beside a few of his friends, living and dead, from the Academie, and his parents, who shared a frame. He never wanted to forget what he had.

By the time Sophia arrived, the tea was done and steeping in his mother’s pot, and he’d pulled a fresh canvas onto the easel standing at the back of the room. He’d be here if he was needed, but he’d be happier if he wasn’t. “Good afternoon, Sophia,” he greeted warmly, gesturing freely for her to make herself comfortable. His ringmail clinked faintly as he straightened and turned. “Aurora doesn’t seem to be here yet, but I expect she’ll be along presently.” She lived quite close to him, after all, though he wasn’t sure she’d appreciate him saying that, and so he did not.

Sophia returned the greeting in kind, taking a seat at the table and taking a moment to admire his work. She would have been lying if she said the sight of her own face on a canvas, even a simple sketch, didn't cause little flutters in her. Maybe it was due to the hand that had drawn her. In any case, she hadn't come solely to admire art, and figured some food might help, which Lucien had been thoughtful enough to provide for them. "Thank you for letting us use your home, by the way," she added. A neutral meeting place was a wise decision, and this was a rather comfortable setting, all things considered.

Well, she wasn't exactly looking forward to this herself either. Aurora walked slow, measured steps toward Lucien's house. Had she managed her regular gait, she would have already arrived, but as things stood she was taking things nice and slow. It gave her enough time to organize her thoughts, steel her resolve, and prepare her words. At least it was a pleasant day for a walk-- albeit a very short one. Lucien's house was hardly a stone's throw away from her own. Their own, apparently. Aurora found herself with a new roommate as of recently, and to say that Milly wasn't dictating her house would have been a lie. Aurora let her. The girl was stowed away in the Antivan circle for most of her life, the chance to actually decorate a house herself didn't come very often for that girl. She only wished that Milly's color palette wasn't so loud. Aurora liked bright colors, but trying to sleep under a coat of orange paint was a mite bit difficult.

Turns out, Aurora just so happened to forget to tell Milly where she was going today. Telling the girl that she was off to visit the Viscount's daughter, the same one who had wanted her in the Circle not too long ago, wasn't probably the best choice. Surely it would have been met with some resistance. Still, this needed to be done, and they needed to be on the same page. Kirkwall was becoming more chaotic as the days passed, it would be better if they saw eye-to-eye instead of wondering if the other was an enemy. Before she knew it, she found herself in front of Lucien's house. She raised a fist in order to knock, but hesitated for a moment. Nodding to herself, the beat against the door twice and waited for the portal to open.

“You are more than welcome, of course,” Lucien replied with a nod. He certainly didn’t want Aurora to feel forced to expose her own location, and an apostate waltzing into the Viscount’s Keep or the Chantry didn’t seem the wisest course, either. Given the rumors he’d heard about the business there that morning, it was quite for the best that they’d not chosen Hightown at all, really—there was bound to be an uproar about what the Qunari had done. What Amalia had done, for those in the know. He wasn’t really sure how he felt about those actions, but that was a question for another time. For now, he was happy to offer up his home and a smidgen of his labor for a good cause.

A pair of knocks sounded from the door, and he moved to open it, swinging the wooden portal open to admit the second party in this discussion. “Ah, good to see you, Aurora,” he said, standing aside to allow her in and gesturing for the other armchair, the one he usually occupied. As there were only the two, it would be hers for the duration of the talk. “Please, help yourself to anything I have. I’ll be just over here if you need something.” He gestured to the canvas, and, true to his word, headed over towards it, leaving the two women to discuss whatever they felt they needed to.

Aurora nodded her thanks and stepped through the door. The first thing she saw was Sophia sitting in her own chair, with another empty one nearby. She assumed that one would be hers for the duration of the meeting. The next thing she saw was her portrait sitting on Lucien's wall. It caused her to pause and stare at it for a minute, summarily tugging at the length of her hair. Uncanny, Lucien was becoming quite the artist. She quickly shook her head and tilted it toward the empty chair. Right, she remembered what she came here for-- though she would find time to talk to Lucien about his painting skills.

She stepped around the chairs and took a seat in hers, drawing her legs up to sit cross-legged in the chair. There was a certain air of Amalia in the action, though Aurora herself hadn't noticed it. It was like the Qunari was beginning to seep into her unconsciousness. It wasn't a terrible thing. Aurora then rubbed her hands together and then sat them in her lap, turning her attentions wholly and fully on Sophia. Verdant eyes lingered on the woman for a time, sizing the woman up before she finally spoke. "You start, this was your idea after all," She said, allowing the woman to kick off the discussion. For all of her prepration, she had no idea where to begin.

"Hello to you too, Aurora," Sophia said, a little tiredly, but she hadn't expected a much warmer greeting than that. Courtesy was clearly not the apostate's strong suit. It wasn't lost upon her that Aurora's posture was rather reminiscent of Amalia, and that was in fact the first thing Sophia wanted to ask her about. She crossed one leg over the other and folded her hands on the top knee. "First, I just want you to know that I don't intend on trying to convince you of anything. We both know how this will turn out if we start debating magic. I'd just like to learn a little about what you've been doing since we met years ago."

She adjusted her seat slightly, taking a sip of the tea she poured for herself. "I've worked with Amalia a few times, going back a couple of years, and I noticed that you two are quite acquainted. Has she been... teaching you?" It would surprise Sophia, but it was the only explanation she could think for what she'd seen. They didn't exactly seem to have a purely friendship based relationship, and Sophia would have thought the Qunari stance on magic would have turned Aurora away from her, and yet they'd seemed rather close earlier.

Aurora couldn't hide the tilt of her head. She thought it was common knowledge by now. Then she began to think about it. Everyone who she thought she knew was closer to her than Sophia was. She'd have no reason to know that she'd been under Amalia's tutlege, and Ben-Hassrath does not tell anyone anything she deemed unimportant. That left Aurora nodding in the affirmative. "For some time now, actually. I asked for help, and she accepted. It's not been easy, but it has been worth it," she said. "I'm where I'm at now because of her," She admitted.

Now it was her turn. "I've noticed you've been more... lenient to me," And Milly, but she was not going to bring her up in the off chance Sophia hadn't put two and two together yet, "In regards to my lot in life. You said that you couldn't look past the affairs of apostates last time we met. What's changed?" Where the statement could very well been made out to be hostile, Aurora did a good job of keeping her tone leveled and in check in order for it to sound like a genuine question. In truth, Aurora was curious. Aurora fully expected an attempt to get her thrown back into the Circle if they ever met again. Fortunately, that didn't seem to be the case.

Well, Amalia would certainly have a firm teaching style, wouldn't she? If Aurora had been learning from her for years, that would explain a lot. Like how she seemed to be so much more in control of herself lately than when they'd first met, not nearly so prone to outbursts of emotion. It was very reassuring, and at least some measure of proof that Sophia had done the right thing in coming to try and make amends with Aurora.

Her question was fair, as indeed a good deal had changed for Sophia as well, to mature her, to rid her of her idea that everything was always going to be as simple as she wanted to believe. "I used to want to believe that everything was going to be black and white, that the right choice was always going to be as clear as day for me, and that all I'd need to do was make the better one. Actually applying myself here in Lowtown for years has taught me that things are rarely, if ever, that simple. I may not be willing to agree with your decision to flee the Circle, but I can see that you've clearly found your own way here, and that you're smart enough and good enough at heart not to endanger anyone around you."

Several times she'd gone out of her way, as Amalia had, to ensure that the right thing was done, even when it did not exactly serve a personal gain for her. If that wasn't a sign of a good heart, Sophia didn't know what was. "Not every mage is able to make such wise decisions. I have personally seen how apostates, when left without guidance, can be lured by false promises of demons, and become threats to everyone around them." She felt it was best not to mention Sparrow by name here, as the less people that knew about what she'd been through, the better.

"I believe the strength of the Circle is that mages are given the access to proper teaching that is needed, and oftentimes unavailable otherwise. I do not doubt that conditions for the mages, particularly here in Kirkwall, are not as they should be, nor are their personal freedoms. It may not be worth anything to you, but I would like you to know that when I take my father's place, I will work to rectify that." There could be cooperation between mages and templars. Sophia would find that way, when the power fell into her hands.

Aurora had her arms crossed and her lips drawn in a tight line-- giving her an even more Amalia-esque appearance. She nodded along with Sophia had to say, and even found herself agreeing with the woman. "I have seen mages give in to those illusions as well," she said, though she was not so comfortable to reveal that it was a run-in with one of these mages that pushed her to ask for help. She could still remember that poor girl morph into a hideous abomination almost like it was the other day. That had been her wake up call. The incident with the Qunari only reinforced the fact that she still had a lot more to learn. Even now, after she had passed Amalia's test, she was not done learning. Only now she had the strength to learn on her own.

"Mages need to be taught," Aurora agreed, but she continued, "But neither do they deserve to be locked up for the rest of their lives just because of what they are." Personally, she found the idea that the Kirkwall Circle of Magi is named the Gallows insulting. It was a prison, and the people of Kirkwall acknowledge this. As long as it's not them locked up in the Circle though, it's fine. Out of sight, out of mind. Still, this was not Sophia's fault, and she would not take it out on her. "I'm not saying spring every mage out of the Circle-- far from it. Many of them are not ready-- Even I wasn't when I escaped," She readily admitted. Aurora was an impetuous, headstrong girl with a delusion of freedom.

Even as she spoke, she did not shift under Sophia's gaze, nor did she figet. "There must be a better way. One thing Amalia has taught me is that while there is only one destination, there are many roads toward that destination. Mages can be dangerous if not taught well, but if given the opportunity, they can learn to suppress the whispers and false promises. They can be stronger than the demons they fight," She said with a resolute nod. Chained, but not collared, with the keys of their own accord. Then she smiled suddenly, "There is always only one choice. Yours. Black, white, right, wrong, it doesn't matter. It's how you choose that does."

Sophia wasn't so sure about that, but she did not disagree with the apostate, nor did she have any desire to argue semantics. As unhealthy for Kirkwall as the issues between mages and templars had become, the threat of the Arishok and his army had to come first for now. They may well all have equality in their graves otherwise.

"I'd like to be friends if possible, Aurora. If not that, then I want you to know that I bear you no ill will. There's more than enough evil people in this city for me to be enemies with. I don't need to start adding good people to that list, too."

"That sounds... Nice," Aurora said, her features warming. Why should she have the woman as an enemy if she could have her as a friend? It'd be nice to not have to worry about getting thrown in the Circle by the woman as well. Then her eyes drifted down to the table between then, and her eyebrows arched. "When'd Lucien learn to bake?" she asked, taking one of the pastries.

Though the knight had remained respectfully out of the conversation, hearing as little as possible by focusing on what he was doing, he did note the mention of his own name, and turned halfway to face them before replying, his tone more than a little wry. "This morning, believe it or not."

Setting

5 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

With a full moon hanging low in the night sky, they began. Ashton had traded in his light brown hide leathers for something he thought he'd never wear ever again. A pitch black leather suit hung tightly on his shoulders now-- and to be quite honest it seemed too small for him now. Oh, there was a smirk of satisfaction when he discovered that. It was a far better methaphor than he could ever possibly come up with on his own. Still, the fact that he had it laying around worried him, he should have burned it long ago. It was there though, and he was wearing it now. Afterward, though, they would all have a big bonfire on top of Leech's corpse, and then he'd burn it then. That sounded like fun. Rilien could bring the marshmallows, and they could all sing campfire songs. But first, they'd have to deal with the pirates.

Like he had said, they'd gotten a hold of two rowboats, and they were presently rowing their way toward the ship. Three to a boat, Ashton, Nostariel, and Sparrow in one, with Garrath, Rilien, and Lucien in the other. However, Ashton found himself wishing he had put Lucien in his boat. He never remembered rowing being so taxing. It felt like his arms were about to row right out of their sockets. But he needed someone like Lucien, and Rilien too in the boat with Garrath. If he tried something, he knew those two would be uncompromising in their resolve. Still didn't hurt to wish.

"And one, and two, and one, and two, and damn... Better workout than anything Amalia puts you through, yeah? Sparrow? You aren't dead yet, are you?" Ashton asked in a hushed tone. The ship was still only silhouette on the horizon, but it paid to be cautious, even from this distance. They were even rowing by moonlight with no other illumination to speak of.

Nostariel could have laughed. Now there was an errant thought. Still, she understood the need for silence, and even tried to row more quietly on the oar she shared with Sparrow. "You’d have to work much harder than this to put me through more than Amalia does,” she said in a sotto voce, but there was a smile in the words, some genuine affection for the Qunari woman. The Warden had never thought it likely that she would get along with someone like that, but as she’d slowly discovered, it wasn’t actually hard at all. Beneath her gruffness and efficiency, Amalia was a good person. More brusque and uncompromising than most, but she seemed to care very deeply for the things she chose to concern herself with, and never put half-effort into anything. Those were admirable qualities… even if they were part of the reason Nostariel was so sore after every session.

Fortunately, Nostariel and Ashton had done a brilliant job outfitting her emaciated-form. She donned a new set of leathers, fitted with shiny buckles and a brocaded vest that somehow made her look lean instead of sickly. It seemed to accent her femininity, as well. Oiled buckskin boots, featherlight dark green trousers and a pauldron of Ashton's making finished the look. Far more ranger in appearance and far less warrior-like than she would have liked but she could not deny the lovely make. They'd chosen well. It was comfortable to move around in. She appeared noticeably smaller, but she didn't mind. As long as she could swing her mace, then all was well. Sweat still beaded her forehead. Her arms were growing leaden, heavy with the burden of rowing. She managed a chortled grunt, followed by, “Not yet.”

Her eyebrows inclined. She did not know the extent of Nostariel's relationship with her once-friend. Only that she'd seen them together on several occasions when Sparrow grew homesick enough to spy on Amalia. Shamefully flitting from one building to another like she had something to hide. The Alienage held no place for her kind—those lying in the middle, those who had no clear-cut path, but she still appeared. Sometimes, she busied herself in Aurora's ever-growing garden just to be in close proximity. Her curiosity ebbed and flowed, gnashing its teeth whenever it was ignored. She'd wanted to ask about it before, but believed that she hadn't deserved the answers. What right did she have now to intrude into her once-friend's affairs? A small laugh escaped her lips. “She sounds like she hasn't changed a bit.”

In the other boat, looking a lot better than Ashton was, Garrath looked at the two in his boat. A man of clear military caliber and a Tranquil-- Ashton had strange friends indeed. "You two know the plan right? Get it done quickly and get it done quietly... If you can," He said, sparing a glance at Lucien. They needed muscle... But maybe Ashton found too much.

Rilien fixed the man with a look that somehow, despite its bland nature, managed to convey that yes, he knew exactly what he was doing. "Is repeating the plan in very nonspecific ways multiple times usually required for understanding?” he asked tonelessly. He did not feel that the repetition was necessary—the plan was relatively simple as far as such things went, and he had grasped it the first time it was explained. Despite having the appearance of a common mercenary or solider, Lucien was also well-spoken, and clearly not stupid enough to require such measures either. This left Rilien to conclude that this Garrath was nervous about their chances of success. He need not have been, but the Tranquil would not stoop to correct this misapprehension. He was not in the business of idle reassurances.

Lucien did not sigh or otherwise express any frustration with Garrath’s obvious skepticism regarding his suitability for this task—indeed, he knew quite well that he was not the typical choice for such assignments, but he had been asked by a friend to be here, and the cause itself was one worth undertaking. No matter how suited or not, he was in this wholly. “I understand your concern,” he replied in a low voice, “But I shall be as discreet as I am able. If I fail, well… it will only be an opportunity for the rest of you, I suppose.”

As the pair of boats crept closer to the ship lingering in the horizon, their paddlestrokes became smooth at the behest of both Ashton and Garrath. If they were to make too much noise upon approach, whatever sleep-deprived guard would come to investigate, and that would blow the whole stealth thing. Better to be slow and sure over quick and reckless. For now, Ashton had too much sense in his head to believe that everything would go swimmingly quiet. That's why he brought Lucien, for when things inevitably got loud. The boat containing Ashton's team rowed up to the broadside. Wordlessly, Ashton indicated that they were going to scale the side of the ship. With all the agility expected out of him, he sprung out of the boat and gripped the inside of one of the portholes.

Still fighting the feeling that this was still far too comfortable for him, Ashton swung out, keeping grip with a single hand and foot. He held out that hand in benefit for both Nostariel and Sparrow. What kind of gentleman would he be if he didn't lend the women a hand? A damn poor one. That, and he was sure that neither of them had this kind of experience before. Scaling galleons isn't something one did on their weekends, after all.

Nostariel took the proffered hand with gratitude, having been quite uncertain how she was going to manage this ship-scaling otherwise. It wasn’t exactly something she’d needed to do before. A bit awkwardly, she used the leverage Ash provided to swing up, catching onto the deck railing with her bare, callused hands and pulling herself up and over on arm strength alone, something she would not have been able to manage a year ago. Sticking to the shadowy parts of the deck, she awaited the others, trying to mute the sound of her breathing so as not to alert anyone else, though she offered Sparrow a further hand up and over the railing when the other woman’s turn came to make the climb. On the other side, she could see Rilien making the last few movements in the same ascent with no assistance and little discernible effort. Then again, he probably wouldn’t have looked like he was exerting any even if he were.

How many ships had Sparrow scaled before? Several. In Kirkwall, of course. But they'd been at port and she'd been drunk, lollygagging over the side of old skiffers and occasionally stumbling into the briny, dirty waters. This was different. The sea-sawing rowboat, as well as the stubbornly swaying galleon, proved much trickier to navigate, and so Sparrow watched Nostariel appreciatively from behind as she followed Ashton aboard. She, too, placed her hands and feet in the appropriate places, and snatched up the proffered hands to swing herself onto the decks as quietly as she could muster, nodding appreciatively. Had they not been there, she might have taken a noisy dunk. She flashed Nostariel and Ashton a cheeky grin, ducking down and keeping her breathing in check. Maker knew she was not the stealthiest person, but she'd try her best.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the boat, Garrath was already out of the rowboat and ascending the side of the ship. Unlike Ashton, he had no affinity for his friends-- even though they certainly looked capable. Once hanging onto the railing, he scanned the deck quickly before dropping back down below. Only a single lantern cast illumination on the deck, and revealed that there were only three pirates dozing on deck. The rest were probably in the hold below sleeping. This was acceptable. With that done, Garrath turned to the rest of his team and relayed the information, concluding with Garrath pointing at Lucien to go first. Ashton had insisted on the man going first, for some reason.

Despite all insistence to the contrary, the knight wasn’t an idiot, and had forgone most of his armor for this assignment. He had no particular desire to be half-drowned should he happen to fall in the water. As a result, he was weighted down only by a chainmail shirt and leather gauntlets and greaves, as well as a leather chestplate. He’d even swapped out his usual massive axe for two smaller ones, hanging from either side of a thick leather belt. Still heavier than anything anyone else was wearing, but then, he had the physical strength to compensate. Rilien was much faster up the side of the ship than he, but Lucien managed all right. When they had all reached the deck, Ashton's acquaintance gestured for him to go first, and he supposed there was some merit in that—his habits were not unknown to anyone who’d worked with him at all before, including Ashton himself.

Stepping out into the light of the sole lantern illuminating the deck, he cleared his throat, with a bit of exaggeration so as to draw attention to himself. “Much as it pains me to say this: gentlemen, this is a robbery. If you would be so kind as to put down your weapons, nobody need be hurt.” Sometimes, he wondered why he still bothered to say this—nobody ever surrendered. Still, better it be completely unnecessary a thousand times than forgotten the one time it would have saved a life.

The answer was as obvious as the moon in the sky. Upon Lucien's sudden appearence, all three pairs of eyes awakened immediately and turned in the Chevalier's direction. It gave Ashton the perfect distraction to hoist himself the rest of the way onto the railing, where he now sat nonchalantly, bow and arrow sitting across his lap. Just like Lucien, Ashton hoped that the pirates would heed his advice. He didn't want to fight, he just wanted the boat so he could find Leech and put all this nasty business behind him, where it should have stayed. Things never went their way though, as the pirates loosened their weapons and began to lurch toward Lucien-- they probably didn't want to shake his hand. Ashton's first arrow struck the pirate near the bow, dropping him where he stood.

They never did surrender, and one of them had an arrow blooming from his throat for the trouble. Lucien’s hand slid an axe each from the loops on his belt, and the first one cleaved vertically into a fellow’s shoulder, biting easily past the light leathers he wore and dropping him to the deck in a rapidly-forming pool of his own blood. The second was a bit more savvy, and the chevalier had to step out of the way of a two-handed blow with a one-handed mace. The would-be overkill had the unfortunate effect of throwing the wielder off-balance, and it was all too easy to stick a foot out and trip him, sinking the opposite axe into the back of his neck and severing his spinal cord. That one dropped next to his friend, and Lucien’s grim expression only darkened a bit further, helped along by the sudden clangor of a bell sounding from the crow’s nest.

The rest of the crew had been alerted to their presence, and it wasn’t long before the muffled thumping of footsteps could be heard from below, interspersed with the occasional ragged oath. In various states of wakefulness and dress, no less than a dozen more men and women emerged onto the deck, not a one of them looking inclined to simply leave. If this was how it was going to be, then there was nothing else for it. Joylessly, Lucien spun one of his axes by the haft and stepped forward to meet the incoming tide of people.

The first half-dozen to emerge all sustained heavy fire damage courtesy of Nostariel’s well-placed arrow, but none of them fell, and the Warden backed herself up a safe distance, to pick her targets carefully, mostly concentrating on taking out any who threatened to sneak up on or overwhelm her friends. Rilien, on the other hand, was much more direct, and stepped into the path of an opponent attempting to flank Lucien, striking quickly with his ice-blade, the gleaming metal cutting a broad sweep across the brigand’s chest. Fortunately for the smuggler, he was reactive enough to jump backwards, avoiding the exposure of his innards to the outside world. The fool had not donned any armor for the occasion, and it would be perhaps the last mistake he ever got to make.

The Tranquil went low next, the hit from his lightning-enchanted dagger blocked by the longsword the pirate was carrying. Of course, the electricity conducted right up the blade, shocking him, though not so much that he lost his grip. The momentary lapse was all Rilien required, however, and he surged upwards with fluidity and force, burying the other blade in the juncture between throat and chin, spearing upwards into what doubtlessly passed for the man’s brain. An arrow flying by over his shoulder thudded into the abdomen of a woman trying to take advantage of his distraction, the sheet of ice that encased her center mass marking it as one of the Warden’s. Rilien did not waste the opportunity, dropping onto his hands and sweeping his legs out to tangle with hers, taking her to the deck with a dull snap—she had been unfortunate enough to land awkwardly on her wrist, and hissed when it broke. Scrambling backwards, she tried to kick out at him, but Rilien simply jumped over her legs to land solidly on her ribcage, feeling a few more dull breaks beneath his boots. Dispassionately, he swiped a red smile across her neck, adding more ice to her corpse.

Rising, he found himself with no more foes in his immediate vicinity, and scanned the deck for anyone not directly engaged with one of his allies.

“So much for being quiet,” Sparrow muttered, loosening her trusty mace from its leather-holding. The straps fell away, leisurely tugged off with graceless fingers, until she held the thing in her hands—like she was holding it for the first time. It still felt heavy, but it was accompanied by an excitement she'd thought was long-buried. No longer did she tremble. No longer did she shy away from battle, anxiously looking back on what happened when he blood ran hot. Rapture was no longer there, hunched and watching from the shadows for any inkling of vulnerability. Chinks in her armour that were not physically apparent. She adjusted her grip, allowing the mace to swing to her side like a pendulum and grinned wildly, murky eyes alight. Surely, they hadn't expected dirty pirates to lay down their weapons and surrender. Ashton, no doubt, expected how their welcome would go, but he'd given them a chance to walk away.

As Lucien and Ashton dispatched of the three lollygaggers on the deck, with a well-aimed arrow and skillful blade work, Sparrow's ears twitched at the sound of a bell. She craned her neck, glimpsing a silhouette hunkered down in the crow's nest. No doubt calling others, and as if on cue, footsteps advanced from below. Those who finally appeared were hardly dressed for combat, but still looked as if they would put up a fight. Half-dressed, bootless, with unbuttoned shirts and trousers put on backwards. It might've been funny if it weren't for the fact that they were ready for such confrontations, and the pirates obviously were not. Did they know that? Were they afraid? She pursed her lips and swung her mace in a wide circle, threatening anyone who dared to step in close. One man may have underestimated her meagre size, grimacing and brandishing his own weapon of choice: a scimitar. Perhaps, it was fortunate she wore leathers as opposed to her full-set of steel plates—she was much, much faster than before.

She dashed to the man's left and abruptly knelt down, faintly hearing the sword hiss overhead. She swung her mace into his exposed calf, bracing herself against the arm-prickling recoil. The splintering crack left him sprawling on the ground, bereft of the blade he'd been so confidently holding. He was screaming, unable to figure out what to do with his awkwardly-splayed limb. As Rilien had taught her, Sparrow ended his screams by smashing his face in. Her means were not delicate, nor were they gentle or quick. However, even she did not relish in suffering. Laughter bubbled in her chest, but did not escape her lips. Killing was not something she enjoyed, either. Nonetheless, feeling her bones and muscles move underneath her skin filled her with feeling. Something in between exhilaration and freedom. Her body was her own. She wheeled on her heels, dancing away from the body, and turning to face whoever else dared to face her.

"Wasn't really expecting it," Ashton answered Sparrow. He still leaned back against the railing and plugged a raider exiting the hold. Honestly, the only thing he was worried about was getting to the ship in one place. His team were all great fighters in their own right, and a crew of pirates were no match for them. However, that advantage wasn't held when they were in piddly little rowboats. If the pirates had seen them on approach, then it would've been over for them. It wouldn't take much for them to point an arrow at them and pick them off at a distance. Not to mention the ballistae they no doubt had pointing out of the murderholes. He'd said nothing on the trip because, well, why worry everyone?

He did turn an annoyed eye upward to the form huddled in the crow's nest. That had been something he'd forgotten. Always take the lookout down first-- He should have done that while Lucien was giving his little surrender speech. Even though, the annoyance only lasted for a moment before it dissolved. He was losing his touch-- and that meant he was putting this part of his life behind him. Silver linings. Speaking of, he was having a good laugh at the next pirate's expense. He had to drop his bow and switch to the machete, but it was all worth it, as the pirate was brandishing a cutlass in nothing but his smallclothes.

he was fast enough to move out of the way of the initial slash, which managed to bury the blade into the wooden railing. Ashton kicked the blade's grip, smashing the pirates hand and making him lose hold. Now completely unarmed and nearly naked, the pirate stood in front of Ashton. The archer merely rolled his eyes and flipped the blade in his hand, smacking the pirate across the mouth with the flat of it. He couldn't just kill a man who was both unarmed and indecent-- Lucien must've been rubbing off of him. A hard thump off to his side caught his attention before he could engage another.

A pirate-- more dressed than the ones around him and with an arrow to the face, laid broken on his face. Ashton followed the direction he fell and noted the crow's nest as the only logical explanation. A quick glance at Garrath and his hypothesis was proved. A twinkle of victory dance in his eyes as his own bow dropped to his side.

His friends were certainly efficient, and Lucien found that he only had to dispatch one more pirate—this one with a sideways blow to the temple designed to stun and not kill—before it was seemingly over. The rest of the pirates stopped advancing, not that he could blame them. A good half of those left jumped over the port side of the ship and began swimming frantically for shore. He was inclined to remind them that the nearest shore was in the opposite direction, but there wasn’t really an opportunity of the clatter the others were making as they threw down their weapons and backed away from them, hands in the air to placate their assailants. From his own good faith, Lucien reaffixed his axes to his belt. He wouldn’t necessarily need them to hurt or kill somebody, but it was the symbolism that counted here. Almost despite himself, he was smiling as he turned to Ashton and the others. “What now?” he asked the other man mildly.

""Uh... well, maybe... we should-- Alright look," Ashton said pointing over the starboard side and into the water, "Is it that their captain?" Sure enough, in the direction Ashton pointed, a finely dress man in a magnificent hat was swimming his poor ass off. "Let them go? I really don't know, I never expected a surrender. This never happens," He said with a simple shrug.

Setting

5 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

Never in his days in Kirkwall had he imagined a bunch of vagabonds would attempt to appeal to his sense of mercy. The bands that roved the darkened streets were not the surrendering type, but apparently these pirates were. It was all a little off for Ashton as he expected this to go more along the lines of the usual manner, killing the raiders down to the last man. Fortunately for them, there wasn't a callous organ in his body and the idea of just executing them left a horrid taste in his mouth. So finding the mercy in his heart, he allowed them to follow their captain to shore. Well, not exactly follow, Ashton pointed out the correct direction of the shore before they jumped ship. Such as the gentleman he was.

Some splashes later and the ship was under their total control. Without words, Garrath ascended to the helm while Ashton lit some of the lanterns on deck. "Now that the ugly business is done, with considerably less ugly than I imagined mind you," He said, turning back and waving a finger in the general direction of someone. "It's smooth sailing from here on out," He punned with a giggle. With enough of the lanterns lit for people to see on deck without tripping over each other, or Maker forbid, falling off, Ashton returned to the group with a chest puffed out and a mock air of superiority.

"Alright my lovely crew. As your dashing, and not to mention handsome, captain, I ask that you get this ship ship-shape and ready to sail," A beat passed and he exaled all the hot air and donned his usual good natured smile, adding a magic word to the bravado, "Please?" Before they dispersed, Ashton laid a gentle hand on Nostariel's shoulder and pointed toward the nearby open hatch. "Except you, I've got a special job for you. We're going to check the decks below for any stowaways. Don't want to have any unexpected surprises, do we?" He said before admitting, "And I want to see what they got in stock. What can I say? I'm a curious man."

With that, he flashed her a bright smile and began walking backwards toward the hatch, beckoning Nostariel to follow. "Come along my pretty little firstmate, we must inspect our haul!"

Rilien could have done without all the showboating, but he felt that to say so was just on the wrong side of too much humor for him to be displaying. Not that he found puns particularly entertaining, but he did know that Ashton would probably appreciate it, a bit. Still, it was too far beneath his dignity, and so he refrained. Instead, he simply blinked at the set of orders, such as they were, and then promptly turned on his heel to make sure that the rigging was in working order. He didn’t know that much about sailing, but the basics were far from lost on him. Someone who’d done as much reading as he had tended to know a little bit about just about anything. He would not be surprised if the workings of ships were stored somewhere in Lucien’s repertoire of practical skills, and as for Sparrow—he honestly was not sure. He would not put it past her to have been on a ship or two in her life, obviously, but whether or not she’d bothered to learn anything about them was another matter.

Rilien, as it turned out, wasn’t too far wrong, though Lucien was far from an expert sailor of any kind. He knew how to haul an anchor and cut a jib, so to speak, but beyond the actual steering and the repositioning of sails, that was about it. He had little knowledge of how the rigging was supposed to look, only what generally attached to what and the names sailors gave to the various bits and bobs around the deck. Still, it should be enough, and he stood still a moment, getting a read on the general direction of the wind, then nodded to himself, adjusting a few things with the sails accordingly. It seemed to have some effect, as the white cloth filled to bulging with the breeze, and the ship started to move in the direction he’d intended. He hoped he wouldn’t have to do anything more complicated than that, though.




Nostariel tilted her head to one side, then nodded. "That makes sense,” she agreed, though a smile flitted over her face for a moment. "Curious, or sticky-fingered?” she asked with a hint of amusement. Not that she thought him a thief on a regular basis, of course, but this was a ship going from one set of raiders to another. Liberating some of the cargo would be as much a public service as anything, when looked at a certain way. Probably not Lucien’s way, she decided. Perhaps it was better to leave everything as it was, but that obviously did not preclude finding out just what everything was.

She followed him down the dimly-lit stairway to the first underdeck, which was considerably darker still. In the interests of not falling on her face, she lit a spell in one hand, the light easily enough to see by in a ten-foot radius or so. "What do we have then, captain?” she asked, attempting to peer round his shoulder and get a better look. Or more accurately, looking around his arm. He was a much taller person than she.

"Crates. A whole lotta crates. Real exciting," Ashton answered in deadpan, shifting to allow Nostariel a better view. Crates were everywhere, stacked up against the hull of the ship and taking up a bulk of the deck. There was a chaotic organization to it all, with just enough room for both Ashton and Nostariel to manuever comfortably, if only for the viture that neither possessed much girth. Ashton's tone then shifted into something a little more giddy, "But I do love opening presents!" He moved to the first crate and slid his machete under the lid, popping it off with little issue.

Within the crate, furniture finer than he could imagine awaited him. Probably because his imagination could come up with something better than nice chairs and tables. Dejected, Ashton replaced the lid and shook his head. "Unless you want to redecorate, let's keep looking," Ashton said, moving to the next crate. A slide and a pop, and the lid came off just as easily as the last. The contents of this crate proved to be better than the last. "We've struck gold," Ashton grinned, and pulled out a gold circlet studded with a blue gem. He looked at the piece and shrugged, "Looks like something you'd find in the Chantry," He looked back into the crate and sure enough it looked to be items pilfered from a religious hub.

"The Maker's not going to be too happy with them," Ashton, moving back toward Nostariel. In single swift movement, he placed the tiara upon the warden's head and taking a step back. He took on a thoughtful expression as he inspected Nostariel's new headgear and nodded sagely. "Just as I thought, you look as pretty as ever."

Nostariel snorted, shaking her head. A hand reached up and closed over the circlet, and she removed it from her head with a rueful smile. "I was never much of a Chantry girl,” she confessed, though he likely had guessed that much already, "But even I would be very uncomfortable wearing something intended for a statue of Andraste or something like that.” Believer or no, she wasn’t a heretic, and she certainly didn’t want to be taken for one. That could only end poorly, no matter what protection her status as a Warden offered.

The two moved deeper into the bowels of the ship, walking side-by-side through lines of crates, which Ash would occasionally open with the machete. Nostariel mostly kept the light going, looking for anything interesting or out of place. At least, that had been her plan until she quite literally tripped over something on the ground. Windmilling her arms, she just managed to grab hold of Ashton’s arm to stop herself from faceplanting into the deck. How very graceful of her.

Once she’d regained her balance, she turned around to take a look at what had tripped her In the first place. It was a massive tome of some sort. Stooping to pick it up, she found it very heavy—the pages must have been made of some particularly sturdy parchment. Hauling it upwards, she set it down on a crate and examined it more closely. The cover was predominantly blue, but there were other colors in some kind of design on it, as well as a white band with a ruby clasp holding it shut. There was something familiar about the color of that diamond-cut gem, like the hue of fresh blood. Unfortunate, that this was the first comparison that came to mind.

"I wonder what this is…” she murmured, undoing the clasp with the ease of one used to rummaging around in libraries containing many similarly-ancient things. She was surprised to find that the script was I none of the languages she knew, though it did indeed appear to be old, especially if the smell was anything to go by. Despite that, it was in very good condition. Peering closer at the characters, she sucked in a breath, realizing that while she didn’t know how to read them, she had seen them before, inside Amalia’s house, on the labels of the bottles that contained her ingredients. Qunlat.

"This is Qunari,” she said, shooting Ashton a glance over her shoulder. "And it looks important.” Carefully, she closed the book and refastened the clasp. She couldn't read it anyway, and she certainly didn’t want to risk anything happening to the book—it could be valuable to the Qunari, and that meant they should do everything they could to treat it well. "We can’t let Leech have this.”

"Then we won't," Ashton said reassuringly, hovering over Nostariel's shoulder. He had examined the book along with her, but all the so-called words look like incomprehensible scribbles. But if Nostariel thought it was important, than he was willing to protect it with his life if need be. He took his leave of Nostariel for a moment, heading a ways back down the old and peeking into one of the crates. An uttered curse and he moved to the one beside it, mumbling to himself, "I know it's in one of these things. I just saw-- Ah!" Upon the exclaimation he dove headfirst into the crate and retrieved a rucksack, and a fine one at that. For all of Ashton's skill in leather making, he couldn't come near the craftsmanship of the one held in his hand. Whatever he put in it, would certainly be protected from the elements. It almost felt like a betrayal just holding it, but necessity demanded that he simply deal with it.

He returned to Nostariel with the mouth of the bag open, allowing her to carefully deposit the book. He tightened the mouth and threw it over his shoulder. With that dealt with, he looked up and noticed that they were nearing the stern of the ship, and a set of stairs leading to the last deck lay just ahead of them. On either side of the stairs were a number of hammocks-- undoubtably the crew quarters. Among the hammocks, articles of clothing still remained, causing him to remember the incident with the pirate in his smallclothes. A chuckle escaped him as he moved past them and stood above the stairs.

He nodded approvingly as he looked back over the deck. "So far so good, no nasty surprises. Just expensive goods, like Garrath told us. One more deck and we're done. Simple," Ashton said with a smile. He then turned and descended the stairs. Just as fast as a flame getting snuffed out, so did things suddenly not become simple. Ashton stared in slackjaw silence at what he saw. A barrage of emotions assaulted him, shutting him down completely until he felt nothing but a cold numbness. He could do nothing but stare.

Crates didn't occupy the last deck, cages did. There were rows of cages, but it wasn't the cages that froze Ashton to the spot, but rather the contents. People, emaciated elves, stood in the cages. Fearful eyes cast their haunting cages at Ashton, wondering what fate this stranger brought them. They were quiet, just as quiet as Ashton was. Their fear reflected in his eyes. Not again. Maker, not again. He traveled back through time, back to the last job he ever pulled off. He never forgot their faces, he never would. Their faces, their fear, mirrored that of these elves perfectly. Ashton turned mechanically toward Nostariel, mouth open and eyes the size of saucers. His mouth worked in trying to find words, but none came. There were no words that could describe what was happening..

Nostariel managed to keep more of her composure, but that was hardly surprising—this was not a scene from her very nightmares, ripped from her mind and made real once again. This was not to say, however, that she was unaffected by it. Indeed, her stomach turned a lurching flip, and her hands curled into fists at her side. Quickly, she looked around the room, but there was no obvious key hanging anywhere—the captain had probably taken it with him when he jumped overboard. She had the vicious thought that she hoped he drowned, before shaking it off. Being angry wasn’t going to solve anything.

Instead, she stepped forward, taking one of the half-rusted padlocks in hand. "Lucien was right,” she said softly, turning to look at Ashton over her shoulder. "We can’t just give these people to Leech. It’s not right—you know that.” And she knew he knew it. Nostariel still recalled vividly the look on his face when he’d recounted this story to her—told of a different time, and a different man. She had faith that the person he was now would not allow this to happen, no matter how much harder that made things. "Help me free them. Please.”

Under her hands, the lock heated until red with it, then rapidly iced over and chilled, leaving it brittle and bearkable. But she had nothing with which to do the breaking, unlike Ashton. The machete should work just fine for such a purpose. She knew it was important to him to do this job and not earn the ire of whomever he was working for, but he had to know that this was too wrong not to fix. She believed in him, she did. Surely all of those considerations were gone now, in the face of what they were seeing. This was an opportunity for him to prove to himself that he was a better person than he had been, the kind of person she knew he was. All that remained was for him to take it.

Ashton's face was an empty vessel, at least until Nostariel spoke again. So shocked was he by the specter of his past haunting his present, he didn't realize that these people were suffering far more than he was. He slapped himself hard enough to leave a mark and moved forward, machete at the ready. A flash of uncharacteristic rage flickered across his face as he made one comment to Nostariel. "I'm going to kill that bastard," He said with uncharacteristic darkness. There was no lightness in his tone, no flicker of hyperbole, not even a hint that it was a jest. It was the truth, he would kill Leech, and his entire bandit outfit for this.

The machete slipped in behind the lock, and Ashton applied the necessary leverage to shatter the lock into pieces. He swung the door wide and pointed upward toward the upper decks. "Go up a deck, grab as much stuff as you can carry, and tell the people on the top deck to help you. We have two rowboats to get you back to the mainland," Ashton spoke, disregarding everything but these people's safety. They needed the plunder more than Leech did, and besides-- what would a dead man need with treasure? He shifted downt to the next cage and as Nostariel gave the same treatment to that lock, Ashton spoke to her.

"Thank you for that... Kick in the ass. I needed it. I'm sorry I left for a minute, I was just-- Look," Ashton said, sighing. Well, they weren't giving this ship to Leech now, so he might as well tell her. "They threatened to burn down your clinic if I didn't do this job," He revealed through an imperceptive sigh. "I wasn't about to let them lay a finger on you, or anything you've built. I still don't plan to," He said before he began to softly ram his head into the steel bars.

All the locks were broken, all the people in the cages fled to the upper decks, and Ashton’s confession fell at first into complete silence, interrupted only by the dull thudding of his head into the rusty iron bars of the door he still held. Nostariel reached up, sliding a hand over the bars so he couldn’t repeat the motion and hurt himself, but for a moment, she didn’t say anything. She was the reason he’d agreed to do this? The Warden honestly wasn’t sure how to feel about that. On one level, of course, it was incredibly self-sacrificing of him, to undertake this venture back into a part of his life that he hated, and all on her behalf. That part was a little overwhelming, really, and something fluttered with uncomfortable nervousness in the pit of her stomach.

On the other hand… she couldn’t help but think it was a little unnecessary. She wasn’t helpless—it would not have been the first time she’d fended off some people less than happy with the fact that she offered such a vital service for free, that those with sick relatives no longer had to take out exorbitant, gouged loans to afford an apothecary’s goods. And besides that, she had many friends who would be willing to help, himself included. A Captain of the Grey was not afraid of street thugs, no matter how formidable they took themselves to be. She had slain Darkspawn in the Deep Roads—scarcely any horror people could visit upon one another compared to that.

Still, she smothered the flash of irritation, remembering how tentative Ash had been regarding the suggestion of simply taking Leech down instead. He knew more of the gang leader than she did, and it seemed that he warranted more caution than the average such person. He was trying to look out for her, and she was not blind to what he’d been willing to give up to do it. "Ashton,” she said seriously, tilting her head back a bit to look him dead in the eye. "Don’t ever do something like that without telling me again. Please.” She would have been devastated to learn that this was all done for her if things had gone worse. What if someone had been seriously injured? What if they hadn’t gone down to these decks and discovered those people? She’d have felt responsible, and she didn’t want either of them to shoulder something like that.

She paused, and her expression softened. Her free hand reached up and gently touched his cheek. "And thank you. For being willing to do it.” She half-smiled, tracing the line of his scar with a fingertip. "Now. I think we have some gang members to deal with. Let’s go find the others.” Dropping both her hands, Nostariel glanced around to make sure they hadn’t missed anything, then turned to head for the upper deck.

"Let's," Ashton agreed, feeling a weight on his shoulders shift. Neither was it lighter or heavier, just... Different. "I won't," He promised.

Setting

5 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

They were headed for shore, perhaps halfway there, when the first of the emaciated people made his way to the surface, clothed in scarcely more than thin rags and carrying an armful of what looked to be vaguely Chantry-themed gold. He got one look at Lucien, Rilien, Sparrow, and Garrath and froze, something like a deer in the face of a predator. Lucien himself held his hands up as disarmingly as possible, slowly winding a sail-rope around a hook designed for the purpose and stepping forward very slowly. “Th-the one downstairs!” the man started, pointing back towards the door he’d emerged from as if that explained everything. It perhaps explained enough. “H-he said to take what we could carry, and you would get us b-boats.”

Lucien swiftly did the mental exercise and determined what must have happened belowdecks. “Then we’ll get you a boat,” he said simply, moving to the side of the ship and grabbing the mooring rope for one of the rowboats they’d used to get here, now tied to the deck rail. “You’ll want to wrap all of that up in one bundle, if possible.” It would be much easier to drop into the boat, that way.

Several more people followed, and Lucien and the others helped them lower themselves and what they carried out into the rowboats, this time pointing out the direction of the docks and telling them where it was best for them to go ashore. He wasn’t sure how well the Alienage would handle the influx of newcomers, especially not in such bad condition, but that was a matter to deal with later. Right now, getting them into the city and away from their captivity was the important thing. Hopefully whatever valuables they’d grabbed would sell moderately well, and they could at least keep themselves for a while. He’d have to be sure to check with Nostariel and Amalia about it later…

Speaking of, the Warden and Ashton both emerged onto the upper deck just as he tossed the mooring rope for the second boat down to the people on it, and it too took off for the Kirkwallian shore. Straightening from his lean, Lucien fixed both with his single visible eye, and quirked the eyebrow over it, though the rest of his expression was grave. “I take it,” he said quietly, “that our plans have changed.”

Sparrow may have been a smidgen less useful than Lucien when it came to adopting chores aboard the vessel they'd so peculiarly-commandeered. Honestly, she'd expected much more blood. A lot more screaming and stubbornness. She'd encountered plenty of sailors, but never any pirates—and all of those stories she'd heard of fearless, merciless pirates going down with their ships, rather than surrender to a bunch of dirty landlubbers, had become unfounded in a matter of days. She couldn't help but feel disappointed. Instead of aiding Lucien with the rigging or bugging Nostariel and Ashton in the ship's bowels, Sparrow occupied her time by subtly harassing the nervous, tittering navigator and climbing the rigging like she'd been born to sail the seas. Frankly, the lack of female sailors kept her in foul spirits.

She shouldn't have been surprised to see so many slaves aboard the vessel. Where there were pirates and greedy dogs, dark dealings often followed, or so she'd been told. The ship somewhat reminded her of the one she'd recently taken under her wing; the one that belonged to the man-who-looked-like-Lucien. Speaking of which, she'd never apologized to him about that. Her outright avoidance must have made him uncomfortable. Another day, another conversation. She stood beside her companions, Garrath aside, and watched as the skeletal-figured forms halted their ascent. She, herself, no longer cut as an imposing a figure as she would have liked, but the first to emerge still jerked to a halt at the sight of them. It was what they held in their arms that was most curious. Chantry-treasure; or at least, something that looked like it belonged in the Chantry. Valuable, from the looks of it. She licked her lips and sighed halfheartedly, “Chantry goods. They would sell for a pretty penny.” She looked over her shoulder at Rilien and added, “Ashton's changed, hasn't he?” Rilien only blinked-- the question was not his to answer.

Perhaps. Perhaps not.

Either way, Sparrow approved. There were women in their midst, but they shied away from her, gripping the bundles all the tighter to their chests. Entirely nonplussed, Sparrow made light conversation, casually complimenting them on their pretty eyes and hair and gentle fingers while moving what they could not carry. This, she thought, may have been what it was like to feel like a hero. Battling evildoers until they surrendered and mercifully allowing them to live. Freeing slaves and saving women and children, and then showering them with riches and giving them a place they might call home. Sparrow wouldn't have thought herself capable of performing such feats. Not willingly, anyway. Perhaps, she was the one who was changing. She clapped her hands together and watched as rowboats paddled back towards Kirkwall. Towards the Alienage. She wondered how Amalia and Aurora would fare with all of the new faces. Surely, Nostariel would be busy patching up whoever needed medical attention...

It was Lucien's voice that brought her attention back to everyone else still standing on the decks. She turned and leaned her back and elbows against one of the cannons, eyeing them. Whatever else needed to be done, she'd be there. As well as everyone else, she guessed. By the severity of Lucien's voice, she wondered what Ashton and Nostariel may have had in mind.

"Marginally," Ashton responded, though the word didn't match the gesture. He held his hands near two feet apart to indicate how marginally he meant. His hands then drifted to his lower back, where he pushed, popping his spine. He then looked out over the water towards line, gazing towards the last direction he'd seen the rowboats head. "Half of Leech's prize are on those rowboats, so chances are he isn't going to be too thrilled with that. We might have to move up the whole 'kill Leech' plan," He said all rather nonchalantly, though a smile never did find its way to his face.

Garrath himself was entirely quiet on the matter, listening intently with his arms cross and jaw set. It was as if he was bracing himself for something he knew that was coming. Hands clenched his elbows and his shoulders were squared, waiting for whatever was coming. "Oh, and before I forget," Ashton said, and the reason Garrath seemed braced became clearly apparent. Ashton rounded on his heel and smashed a heavy fist into Garrath's jaw, putting him on the ground instantly. He didn't make much of a movement to return to his feet, he just sat on the deck and waited for Ashton to vent. "I told you I was done with this! And what do you do? You don't bring me back to just steal a ship-- No, you pick one with slaves on it!" Ashton yelled, pushing his hair out of his face.

Garrath just nodded and wiped the blood that was pooling in the corner of his mouth. "Saw that coming," He accepted, but before Ashton could continue to vent or throw another punch, he continued, "But I did not see the slaves coming. This was supposed to be a simple grab-and-go." He looked around at the others gathered and finished on Ashton. "If I'd known, then I wouldn't have asked you. You think I like dealing in flesh?" Garrath asked back before shaking his head. "But if it wasn't you, could you honestly say that whoever would have replaced you would have set them free?" He asked.

Ashton winced. No, he knew the people who dealt with this line of work. None of them were as merciful or as soft as he was. Garrath had the closest thing he'd seen to a soul amongst the thieves he knew. "Then you won't mind helping us take down Leech," Ashton not so much as asked, but rather commanded. You've got me into this mess, you're going to be there when I get out, Ashton thought to himself as he held out a hand for Garrath to take. "I don't have much of a choice, do I?" He asked rhetorically, taking the offered hand back to his feet.

A look of confliction graced Ashton's face as he looked to his friends. While Garrath did not have a choice, they deserved one, but with Ashton giving the slaves the rowboats to escape he seemed to have chose for them. "I... Guess you guys don't either," Ashton said meekly. He was ashamed that he had not thought about their feelings on the matter. If there was another set of iron bars in front of him, he'd set about banging his head again. Seeing as they were absent for the time being, he just hid his forehead with his hand. "I'm sorry... For everything. For dragging you all back into my past. You all deserve better than that," He said. The fact that he knew each of them would willingly help him only made it worse.

"I'll make this up to you all, I promise," He said. He had to try and make it right. That was the only thing he could do anymore.

"Unnecessary,” Rilien replied, referring to both the apology itself, as well as the promise to repay them. He had taken this job with the implicit understanding that he would not be monetarily compensated for it—he saw no reason to change his tune now. If they had to kill slavers and thugs, well… Rilien was certainly not going to weep over such deaths. Even had he been capable of the necessary remorse, he would have been too busy disliking the people he was killing to feel sorry for them. As it was, this was merely another obstacle in the way of the mission’s completion. Like all the others, it would be surmounted, probably with a lot of blood involved.

"Rilien’s right,” Nostariel added, faintly surprised that she had cause to agree with the Tranquil on anything, but definitely with him on this one all the same. "We’re your friends. That's why we’re here, and I’m sure none of us object to doing the right thing and dealing with this Leech and his gang.” She couldn’t imagine anyone here having a problem with what they were going to do, not even the recently-hit Garrath. She might have been a bit less sympathetic towards him than she could be, but she did not think him a monster, not by a long shot. A little inconvenience was a small price to pay for the help they’d be giving their friend and the city. It was simply inconceivable that someone should refuse to do it. Lucien nodded as well-- it was obvious what they had to do here, and it was really what he'd been inclined to do from the start. It certainly didn't demand any apologies. As always, Sparrow agreed. Dealing with scumbags had become a bit of a hobby of hers (and Garrath needed a good punch in the chompers). Whatever still needed doing—needed to be done promptly. If it helped Ashton get out of all of these shady dealings, as well, then it was well worth it. She flashed him a grin, shrugged her shoulders and said, “Until the end.” She would not forget, regardless of their friendship, that she owed him much.

"Well, that's settled then. Still wish I had options," Ashton said, shooting a glare at Garrath, who in turn took a tentative step back. He had already taken one hook, he wasn't about to risk another. All enthusiam that he might had feigned had been drained out of him, and now he viewed the job as just that. A job that needed to be done. He shook his head and pointed at the helm, "Take us to the meeting spot while he hatch out a plan of attack," He told Garrath. He nodded and turned, taking his place back at the helm, grateful to be out of Ashton's reach.

Once he was sure Garrath was steering them in a direction other than backward, he turned back to his friends and shrugged slightly. "I'm not going to lie and sugarcoat it, this is probably going to be difficult. Like I said before, two dozen of his best buddies, and in tight quarters to boot. Not to mention the bastard is a blood mage," He mentioned offhandedly before pausing. He paused for a beat, letting what he just said filter through his own ears. A moment later was accompanied by a mouthed curse and and closing of his eyes. "I might have accidently forgot that part-- why the hell is it always a blood mage? Why not a normal one?" Ashton asked Nostariel, before scanning the rest of them.

He rolled his eyes at himself and drove forward, tucking that bit of information away for later. "Anyway," he exaggerated the word's length as he continued, "it's going to be a party, is what I'm saying. Maybe we can use the quarters to our advantage, but still. I don't like those odds," Ashton said, crossing his arms and migrating toward the railing, upon which he said. "We should even them up, yes?" He said thoughtfully. "Any suggestions?" He asked curiously.

Rilien considered it, folding his arms into his sleeves and staring straight ahead at some point over the horizon. "Sabotage,” he offered after a bit of deliberation. "Poison or acid or a smokescreen, if they are available. The close quarters will make it difficult to escape any such effects, and we can wait until the resultant fumes have mostly dissipated before entering. Anyone with the ability to hit multiple targets at once should take the first round of attacks, then step aside and allow shorter-range combatants to actually enter first.”

Nostariel wasn’t the most fond of using poison or acid, but she could see the merit in the plan. "So… that would probably be Rilien and Ash with the chemicals, then myself and Sparrow with mass-targeted offensive magic. I suspect after that, we let Lucien in and follow him.” She smiled a bit apologetically at her knight friend, but he was by far the most durable of the lot of them, even if he wasn’t wearing full plate at the moment. The plan thus far would require a lot of stealth of the first two, a lot of speed and judgement from the second, and a lot of courage from Lucien. Those traits, she thought, were at least playing to their strengths. "Once things actually get down to it, though, I don’t think there’s a lot of planning we can do. We’ll have to work together as well as we can and react to what the situation gives us.”

Lucien waved off Nostariel’s glance—apologies were not necessary. He knew there were advantages to being as large and strong as he was, and subtlety was not one of them. Being able to get in the way of a lot of people simultaneously was. He could hardly expect to be asked to play to his weaknesses rather than his strengths, and he preferred to be useful, regardless. Rilien’s strategy was sound, and though quite a bit depended on his ability to do what was being asked of him, he wasn’t worried about it any more than he needed to be. He was good at what he did, and he knew that much. He’d simply have to dig in his heels and do it. As a military commander, he had drilled strategies akin to this one before, though they were not usually so heavily-reliant on subterfuge. Still, one worked with the resources that one had, and it just so happened that this was the way the personnel was arranged.

“It’s fine by me,” he said simply. “Just point me where you want me to block, and I’ll block.”

Ashton chewed his lip for a moment before shrugging, "Sounds like more of a plan than we usually have. This whole "ambush" thing is a new experience," Ashton said with the intended air quotations. He then paused and reflected on what he had just said, flipping his hand through the air as he did. "Well. Not new. I can't wake up in the morning without walking into one. It's new being the ambusher rather than the ambushee," And just like that, the word ambush was beginning to lose all meaning on account of how many times he used it.

"So that settles it then. After we're done, we can sing sea shanties all the way home. Does anyone know the "Drunken Sailor?" Ashton asked enthusiastically.

Setting

5 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

The water was dark, the prow of the boat slicing cleanly and quietly through the few waves present at sea this close to shore. The motion of the ship was a smooth rocking under his feet, and it hardly registered consciously to Lucien. Perhaps, had he been a different man with a different life, a life as his should probably have been, he would have been unused to the feeling, and disturbed even by this much. But while knights could choose to remain land-bound and mounted whenever possible, mercenaries had to be adaptable, and both willing and able to grow accustomed to new things. It was not his first time on the ocean, and he doubted it would be his last. He bore it no great love, but he was not averse, either. As he had learned to do with both people and circumstances, he simply accepted this for what it was, appreciating what it had to offer, which in this case was a certain meditative rolling, conducive to the flow of his thoughts.

It was not meant to be, however, because it wasn’t long before they would have made it into the port that he spotted a light in this distance—another ship, from the way it bobbed slightly up and down, as the lights on their deck were undoubtedly also doing. There was no reason for a trade vessel to be leaving safe harbor at this time of night, and certainly not to be making for the only other boat on the water, so he was left with one conclusion.

“I think,” he said, loud enough for those about the deck to hear, “that our duplicity may have been discovered.” Perhaps one of those they’d allowed to escape had intentionally misconstrued the terms of his or her surrender and informed Leech of the goings-on. If so, it was but one more consequence to accept, and he would do so without complaint. Though not, in the end, without concern. Hopefully, it had been deemed more important to pursue the rogue ship than to attempt to recover the people coming ashore and making for the Alienage.

Lucien's call drew Ashton's attention, and the pitter-patter of his feet echoed over the deck until he stood ontop of the railing, arm intertwined in the rigging. Leaning forward it took him no time to locate the ship Lucien spoke of. This surprise evoked little more than a harumph out of the hunter. "Hmm, I do believe you are correct, Ser Chevalier. Least it simplifies the issue of finding," Ashton said with a chuckle. "He's got nowhere to go. Let's get ready ladies and gents! We've got visitors, and I aim to give 'em the best boarding party they ever had!" He said, dismounting the railing and loosing his bow. Now there was only the small matter of finding his perch, and being the professional hunter he was, he already had three in mind.

Everyone was more or less ready by the time the second boat, superior to the one they sailed, slid up beside theirs with all the sleekness of a mink, the boarding planks clattering onto their deck seconds later. Lucien moved to block one of these ingresses, as one holding a more conventional chokepoint would do on land. He had promised to block, after all. Unfortunately, there were two planks, even he could not be in two places at once.

Not only was he a marvelous hunter, but Ashton seemed to have picked up a taste for tactics hanging around his friends. While Lucien created a chokepoint with that large body of his, Ashton had set up on the stairs leading to the helm giving him a clear shot at the other. The men who streamed across the pair of planks wore darkened pitch armor glinting in the moonlight, their faces obscured by black cloth. These men were Leech's handpicked enforcers, while the maleficarum probably waited from somewhere from inside the other boat. Smart, that one. That was the first thing Ashton noted, his eyes immediately set about looking for the elf. Still, he knew the bastard was on the boat, men like him didn't simply watch from the shore, their ego wouldn't allow. If it meant that Ashton would have to go into his own boat to kill him, then so be it. But first, his lackeys.

An arrow whistled through the air, and a splash bespoke of his aim. Another followed soon after, but they boarded faster than he could drop them. If they weren't culled fast enough, then they'd overrun over the ship. Another arrow glided through the air, though this one wasn't from Ashton's bow. A glance behind him revealed Garrath reaching for another arrow. The two locked eyes for a moment before he shrugged, "I needed a promotion anyway." Chuckling, Ashton turned back toward the gangplank, a fresh arrow nocked in his bow.

It was evident that a body was needed to actually block the way on the second gangplank, and though Rilien was no Lucien, the fact that two archers would be doing the majority of the work between them was enough that it should not be a problem for him to provide the body in question. Indeed, he flickered into visibility behind one of those enforcers that had made it past the barrage of arrows, his knife planted firmly into her back. The area around the wound was already freezing when he withdrew the implement, spinning it around into a backhand grip and using it to slash across the chest of the next marauder as he whirled to face them. The arrow-fire was still steady, and this meant that only the occasional combatant made it to the Tranquil on the other side. He “held” his end with far less solidity than Lucien did, preferring instead to preserve his motion, ducking and weaving beneath bodies and wooden shafts, slicing whenever he spotted this or that bit of exposed or poorly-protected skin.

Nostariel had taken up a spot at the aft of the ship, high enough to see over Lucien’s head from somewhat to the left. From there, she assisted him as best she could, firing magically-charged and mundane arrows alike into the line of enforcers trying to make it past the leather-armored knight. He was a bit less sturdy than usual, perhaps, given the absence of metal, but all the same, she was confident that they could handle this. An arrow sailed over his shoulder, thudding into an enforcer’s chest, and tipping his balance just enough to send him off the boarding plank. Things seemed to be going well… until she caught the telltale glimmer of Tevinter Fire.

"Pitch!” she shouted, referring to the tarlike substance that was most often set on fire and catapulted onto enemy ships. This boat, being a trade vessel, had no such things, smugglers or not. Standing from her crouch, Nostariel lit an arrow with the best ice spell she had and aimed high, firing the arrow from the bow in a powerful arc. It landed wide of where she’d wanted it, but still extinguished a few of the catapult fires, buying them some time to prepare for the incoming onslaught.

Never one for finesse, even in a weaker state, Sparrow curled white-knuckled fingers around the hilt of her mace and willed it to be lighter (something she would never admit aloud), imbuing it with arcane energy. She whirled it in a tight circle, clicking her tongue appreciatively. Had she any sense, she would have simply asked Rilien to enchant the damn thing—but stubborn is as stubborn goes, and her pride simply wouldn't survive uttering the words. As discussed, Sparrow watched Lucien break off towards the choke point and Nostariel gracefully take the upper levels, raining down arrows as Ashton did, as well. It was the most organized thing she'd ever been a part of, so much that she felt lost. She was a creature of disrepair and spontaneity. She'd been prepared to take the second gangplank, but Rilien had already beaten her to it. Already gracefully weaving between the bodies, slipping unseen knives through exposed ribs and lungs and tender parts that left them flopping down at his feet like fish.

No use getting in their way. “Mind if I join you, lady-lass?” She shouted over her shoulder, mouth split in a smile. Sparrow climbed the staircase Nostariel had taken, and took her place at her side, conjuring concentrated balls of energy and tossing them to those who still attempted to scramble aboard. Some cried out and pitched off the plank, splashing between the two ships. Other times, Sparrow sorely missed—unused to solely using magic and not simply bashing her way through things like a brute. It was the best that she could do. Pitch—not good. Not good at all if it hit any of them. She, too, crouched down to avoid the onslaught of incoming arrows, where archers had finally gathered enough wits to shoot back at them. Peeping up from her hiding-space, she wrestled down the innate urge to simply begin slinging fireballs across the way, and concentrated on applying arcane shields on her companions. Sinking back down, Sparrow exhaled sharply through her nose. Anything these days, particularly of the magical flavor, took its toll on her. She felt old, but at least she could do something.

Some of the archers seemed to have added two and two, and began dipping their arrows into the pitch before firing them. The result was a number of flaming arrows streaming through the darkened sky. These particular arrows did not have a particular target in mind, aiming only to set fire to the boat under their feets. Ashton glanced upward and became acutely aware of the sail above their heads on fire. It began as a small ember, but eventually that ember would grow into something far more fierce before it was over. Adding the pitch and other flaming arrows into the equations, he predicted a swift change of scenery in their near future.

As if to enforce the point, one of the catapults launched its contents right where Ashton was standing. Quick thinking and even quicker feet had Ashton up by the helm, and closer to Nostariel and Sparrow. Ashton had tripped on the last step, leaving him sitting in front of the burning pitch. He watched as the fire spread from the tar and into the wood proper. No doubt the side of the ship was in much of the same state, a ship-swap. Standing and slipping his bow over his head, he waved for Nostariel to descend the other flight of steps. "They want to sink this ship? Let them. We'll just take theirs in return. Go!" Ashton said between coughs. The fumes were starting to sink into his lungs.

Nostariel didn’t need to be told twice: the ship was catching fire, and they needed to abandon it. She didn’t exactly feel attached, though taking the fight to the other boat would put her in a bit of a bind—the quarters would be much closer, and that was where she tended not to do as well as she would have liked. Then again, it was where Sparrow seemed to thrive, so perhaps as she’d provided her fellow mage with cover fire here, Sparrow would be willing to act as shield over there. Either way, she descended the steps quickly, and was halfway across the nearest gangplank before she realized that she no longer knew where Ashton was.

At the first oily whiff of fire, and Ashton's persuasive idea, Sparrow nearly got herself killed by springing up from her hiding place. Fiery arrows whizzed overhead, thudding into the wooden railings. She swore she felt the crackling bite of flames kiss her cheeks, but it could have just been the ship catching fire. Pitch, arrows, wood—not a good mix, especially since the ground beneath their feet had no resistances to such things. Her arcane arts were useless in protecting them while she dodged arrows, nor could she properly aim any ice-spells at the already growing patches of fire. She followed close on Nostariel's heels, shirking away from the spitting beams. Everything seemed as if it were on the brink of bursting into fractured-slivers and dangerous obstacles. She glanced over her shoulder, expecting to see Ashton bounding down the stairs, as well, but stopped short of the gangplank. Just about to call to him, Ashton beat her to it, already backing up against the railing. Scheming some sort of grand escape, no doubt. Heroes, after all, never died. She turned away and crossed to the other ship.

A part of the mast had fallen and barred Ashton's forward progress. It would be a trivial matter for him to clamber over, had the beam not also been engulfed in flame. He found himself alone at the aft of the ship, both avenues of escape either blocked, on fire, or a combination of the two. He spent the first couple of moments moving from one set of stairs to the other like a confused mouse until he finally figured out that escape wouldn't come from eithe direction. "I'll be fine, go on over to the other ship, I'll meet you over there!" He called over the flames for anyone who was listening.

Of course, saying and doing are two completely different things. He'd have to find a way around the fire first or jump into the water below. He backed up to the railing behind him and glanced down at the fall below. Whistling to himself, he decided that that way wasn't going to do. That and he'd be easy prey for any opportune archer who saw him flailing about the ocean. The boat creaked as the fire steadily spread. Death by arrow, death by drowning, or death by fire-- which one did he feel the most comfortable with? Honestly? None of them.

His vision darted across the side of the ship before it came dancing back. The bow of the hostile ship waited just beyond the railing. He moved towards it, leaning forward and gauging the distance. It was long shot, but it was possible. He did have long legs after all, maybe it was about time he put them to use. He had to lean backward to dodge an arrow threatening to peel his gourd, but that was the only option that didn't involve certain death. Though, there was always the chance of death, but he wisely decided to think against possiblities of that type.

Taking as many steps back as he dared, he fell into a dead sprint and hit the railing, launching off with a foot. He sailed through air and then... Missed.

Setting

5 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

Perhaps fortunately for her peace of mind, Nostariel did not see the spectacularly-failed attempt at a leap, as she was caught up trying to stay alive. The men and women on these boats were a mix of poorly-armored, roughspun deckhands and what seemed to be the most elite fighters Leech had at his disposal. The boarding party they’d just dealt with had clearly comprised the middle. Coming across the gangplank, Nostariel was nearly beheaded, but she managed to lean back just in time to earn herself a nasty gash to the cheek instead. Too close to draw an arrow, she blasted the woman responsible with raw fire instead, sending her smoking over the side of the boat, probably to drown. Part of her winced, but there was simply no time to consider much of anything for long.

Lacking any significant melee capability, Nostariel knew that she had to get out of the way of the others, and quickly. Pursing her lips, she caught sight of some loose, low-hanging rigging rope, and decided that it was her best option. Channeling a much clumsier, less able version of everyone’s favorite Qunari, she ran for it, ducking past a few bewildered crewmen and shouldering her bow before using her momentum to leap as high as she could, catching the dangling rope with both hands and climbing it as several cutlasses made hasty swipes for her feet. Another occasion on which she owed her life to Amalia; she’d never have been able to support her own weight like this a few years ago. Now though, she managed to get herself partway up the rigging, bracing her feet in it as well as she could and drawing her bow again, nocking an arrow to the string and icing the projectile over. That, she fired into a knot of people making for Sparrow.

Rilien played a more flexible go-between, given that Sparrow was being attacked on one side of the boat and Lucien the other. Without the convenience of a chokepoint, both of them had their work cut out for them. Crouched behind an assassin of some kind, he used the strength in his legs to help drive his blade up into the back of the man’s neck, severing his spinal cord and ending his life, whirling in place to deflect an awkward scimitar strike with the other. Metal connected with metal, but the lightning woven into the silverite of his own traveled up the steel of the tall woman’s, and she hissed with her surprise, dropping her weapon and her only chance of survival. Swinging his body back the other way, Rilien laid open two wide slashes, one across her abdomen, and the other over her throat. A spray of arterial blood barely missed him, and he flowed smoothly to the next. It seemed Leech himself had yet to make an appearance.

She played a much poorer shield than Lucien, but that did not stop her from barreling after the deckhands who swung their blades after Nostariel—who'd impressively vaulted over their heads, dangling above them like one of those nice lasses she'd seen at the Blooming Rose. The circumstance, as it was, did not allow her to admire the woman's agility. She bullied her way into the fray, catching a man in the face with her bony elbow and allowing the momentum to catch another with her leather-clad fist. What she lacked in efficiency, discipline and a man's prowess, Sparrow made up for in pure reckless abandon, roaring like a wild-thing breaking out of a cage. It only took her a moment to snatch up her mace, and swing it in a heavy-handed arc, catching someone's shoulder and careening off into a cheek. She spun in a tight circle, avoiding a downward slash and followed up with the flanged underbelly of her mace, smashing it, two-handed, into the man's exposed chin. Teeth, lips, nose crushed inwards, spluttering florid red across her own face.

Damned thing was stuck. She grunted with the effort, trying to pull her mace from the mess-of-the-man's-skull. She poised her foot on the deckhands shoulder and tugged harder. It finally gave, but she heard a strangled cry. Someone behind her, intent on striking her down, thudded down at her feet. An arrow protruded from the back of his head. Straight through his eye socket, in all specificness. Fortunately for her, Sparrow's blind spots were covered by keen eyes, and a wicked hand. She spun the mace in a tight, controlled circle, spattering the remaining bits across the deck. Rilien always said that a weapon was best used in a clean state. She took up a defensive stance, eying the remaining deckhands she'd initially assaulted. Bloody-nose, and the one she'd elbowed. Both men, thankfully. Fighting women was still a sore subject. Bloody-nose howled or gurgled, rather, towards her, ambling to her right and wildly swinging that scimitar of his. The maneuver was laughably easy to parry, but she overcompensated. Underestimated, rather, that he would have been able to lock her mace in a standstill.

His friend, the one who smelt like dirty socks and onions, pounced to her left, driving a dagger into her hip. She didn't believe in the Maker. Not like people usually did. Lady luck, perhaps. Her boniness, probably. She felt it slip in and out just as easily, like a knife through butter. Like her fingers through water. She did not remember howling. She did not remember yanking herself away from bloody-nose, and wrestling the knife-wielder in a wild attempt to disengage herself. She remembered the body-quaking crash as they collided with the floorboards, in a tumble of arms and legs. She did not remember Ashton meeting them on the ship, either.

Lucien’s maneuvering was much less dramatic, by design: he simply moved himself across the gangplank from one ship to the other, this made easier by the fact that he was much more sure of step than the half-panicked enforcers, who were by now coming to the realization that despite the low number of their foes, they were by and large quite outclassed. He had no doubt that for thugs, they were quite stout and survivable. But they were still only thugs, self-trained, sloppy, and subject to the mental weaknesses of glory-seeking, overestimation of their own abilities, and—when these faded—fear enough to paralyze. He took what pity he could on them and chose to use the flat side of his axe to simply shove them into the water when he could. They’d chosen the wrong profession and the wrong employer, but that itself was not inherently worthy of death. Not if there was another way.

Sometimes, however, there was not. No sooner had he made it to Leech’s own boat than he was immediately set upon by three remarkably-similar-looking men; triplets, if he had to guess. Each was large, broad, and bald, though they’d all chosen different weapon arrangements: one held a longsword and shield, one a pair of cudgels, and another a bastardsword, similar in intent if not in quality to Sophia’s Vesenia. He didn’t wield it half as well as she did either, and Lucien simply turned into his blow, the blade turning on the hardened leather of his chestplate. He’d have been better off stabbing, but it wasn’t a mistake he’d have much time to contemplate. Lucien hooked his axe behind the man’s knees and pulled, sending him to the deck and smashing the butt end of the haft into his forehead with a grisly crunch, but the time he took to do it forced him to take a shield bash from the next right in the shoulder.

The man’s size was comparable to his own, and his strength close as well—the joint dislocated. With a grunt, he swung his heavy weapon one handed, cracking up and into the man’s chest cavity, but the force of his opponent falling backwards and the weapon’s own weight tore it from his grip, and his hand went immediately to his injured shoulder, and he leaned back under the horizontal swing of the first cudgel, his heels meeting a bit of air and forcing him onto the balls of his feet if he wished to stay on board the boat. Understandably, the third of the triplets was in a rage at the deaths of his brothers, and quite intent on his vengeance. The second cudgel smashed uncomfortably into the chevalier’s ribs, cracking one of them. It’d have broken several more if Lucien hadn’t known how to move after such a hit, but even so… he wasn’t in the best of positions. Gritting his teeth, he popped his shoulder back into the socket, diving to the deck as the cudgels came in for another attempt. His ribcage protested the motion, but he came up on his feet, and no longer in danger of going overboard. The nearest weapon was the longsword the second had been holding, but Lucien wasn’t going to take it, so he grabbed the shield instead, bringing it up just in time to meet the double downward sweep of the clubs.

The wooden shield groaned under the blow, but it had done what it needed to. As the blows, the force excessive and therefore rebounding much harder than was safe for the wielder, ricocheted off the wood, Lucien put his back into it and smashed the man in the face, dropping him to the deck and then rolling him overboard with a foot. Perhaps he’d survive. The knight hoped so—drowning was not a very good way to die. Picking his axe back up, he waded deeper into the battle, glad of the overhead support from Nostariel and the flitting form of Rilien, coming and going as was necessary to assist both himself and Sparrow, who for now held the other end of the boat. The numbers of thugs and deckhands both were thinning rapidly—if Leech planned on surviving this, he had to show himself while he still had men left, and that wouldn’t be much longer now.

Like a mirror image of Ashton, Garrath danced across the gangplank behind Lucien. The man had a great way of pushing across to the other boat, making more than enough room for the man to follow. However, unlike Lucien, every arrow Garrath fired was one aimed to kill or maim. The less that remained of this lot, the better. He jumped onto the deck and put distance between him and his foes-- it was better he was far from that scrap. However, the fight would soon find him either way as he soon found out. Standing unprotected in the middle of the deck was stupid and he knew it, but he didn't have a choice. For this, he recieved a flaming arrow to the shoulder. Flesh sizzled under his muted show, and he quickly ripped the arrowhead out. The bit of cloth tied to the arrow to act as the flames wick saw to it that the arrow didn't dig far, but the pain and burning was still there. One good thing about the flaming arrow though-- it managed to cauterize the wound. At least he wouldn't bleed out.

He flipped the arrow around and nocked it into his own bow, returning it to the sender. It was the only arrow he could manage on the deck as a thug drew in to engage in close combat. Garrath responded to the challenge by swinging his bow at the man-- the light timber shattering on the man's thick padded leathers. As far as he could tell, the only damage it'd done was to evoke a grunt and piss him off a little bit. Garrath managed to roll under the large sword, drawing his own scimitar as he rose. Damn that Ashton, he thought as he plunged forward edge first.

He had just dodged another slash from the thug when something began to feel off. Nausea wracked his belly and a splitting headache worked it's way through the back of his skull. He barely had the sense to fend off another strike when he vomitted. "What the hell?" He asked as his hand went to his mouth. It was blood, he had just spat up his own blood. He pushed himself backward away from the thug, stopping only to vomit again. He quickly turned and looked toward the aft. Standing at the entrance to the Captain's Quarters was Leech, ribbons of crimson dripping from his hand. Blood magic. Leech had finally made an appearance. The bloodied hand clenched, and Garrath found himself expelling more of his own blood. "This isn't good," He muttered, weakly fending off another attack.

It felt like his blood was boiling, straining to escape his veins and burst out of any possible rupture in his skin. Lucien was not entirely free of those, not after all they’d been through this night, and in the end, what Leech’s spell did was simply make him bleed more and faster. It was far from pleasant, but it wasn’t intolerable. Very little was intolerable for someone who bet his survival on his fortitude so often. Even so, his movements were slower, and a quick rogue darted in under his guard and slid a knife between a pair of his ribs, at the place the boiled leather plates of his armor joined together. Grunting with the effort it took, Lucien hauled his axe backwards, slamming the pommel into the back of the woman’s head and taking her to the ground with it. It would be better, perhaps, just to leave the knife be for now—lest the blood mage’s work cause him to lose too much of his own to remain standing. If he fell, there was no guarantee he’d be able to get back up again.

She finally bounced back from her initial tussle, wiping her eyes with the sleeve of her shirt. Dirty, spattered with blood; dry and wet alike. And already panting like a beaten dog. But, it was she who walked away alive and breathing—not that trout-lipped bastard blubbering on the ground, holding his pudgy fingers against the wound she'd opened across his throat. Hidden blades, as Rilien had taught her, often decided whether one would live or die. So did striking a man in his precious bits. Fighting fairly, with honor and propriety, had never served her well, and so she'd live to see another day. She stumbled sideways, catching Garrath's shoulder before steadying herself. He was on the ground, vomiting and she could not understand why. Vomiting blood, all over her boots. Repulsion would have been her reaction, had it not been for the searing pain cutting through her abdomen like a coal-hot blade. It felt like her intestines were falling out. Her hand fumbled across her belly, just to be sure. A savage snarl ripped from her lips as she stepped in front of Garrath, sinking her knife into the crewman's bulging eye just as he was about to strike down. “W—What's happening?” As if Garrath had an answer. Dribbles of blood poured from the corner of her lips, at the same time blood began pooling under her leathers, blossoming like ruby wildflowers.

Nostariel could do little against the hemorrhage spell, and in fact, it nearly caused her to lose her grip on the rigging, and she was forced to stop shooting, doubled over in pain and leaking too much blood from her nose and mouth especially. She was familiar with the spell, and knew it meant that Leech was somewhere nearby, though she was having trouble holding her head up long enough to tell just where at the moment, dizzy as she was. She did manage to fire off a group heal, which should help mitigate the damage, but their biggest mercy right now was that spells like this took a lot out of the caster, and they could not last forever. Rilien was of a similar mind, though he was perhaps a bit better at ignoring the discomfort of his body than most of them were. It hurt, there was no mistaking that, but of anxiety about his lack of control or fear of what might happen if the spell continued, he simply had none. Though his blood trickled down his face and poured from his wounds, he still swung his knives, still fought through the thinning tide of thugs, attempting with what force he could muster to reach the mage before he bled out instead.

Leech looked between the assembled fools bleeding on his deck with a look of utmost distaste and disgust. He counted off their number-- noting a particular archer was missing-- and simply shook his head. Of all his men, to think these few could cause him so much damage. Were they simply that good, or was he simply surrounded by idiots? Possibly a combination of the two. He rolled his eyes as he waved the few remaining men that were still alive off. He'd finish them himself. His hand flexed, drawing more of his own blood to further fuel the spell. The blood mage took his time to pick his first target, lifting his bladed staff over his head and resting in on his shoulder.

His eyes fell upon the woman nearest to him, the elf with the shorn ears. Her, he'd start with her. He simply strolled toward her-- keeping out of the way of the elf with the sunburst. There was still a lot of fight in him, he'd have to be dealt with last. There weren't any urgency to his steps, they were already in his web. The only thing he had to do was deal with the little flies. "You've all cost me a lot of money, you know," He said with an indifferent tone, "Though, it'll cost you all a lot more in the end."

He stood over Sparrow, and considered her words before revealing his bloodied hand to her, "Does this solve the mystery? The blood coarsing through your system? I control it, I tell it what to do. It's mine." He tilted his head before shrugging speaking again, "Don't worry, it won't kill you. You don't have that much time, I'm afraid," He said, lifting the bladed staff above his head. In a moment, his hands tensed about the bring the blade down before something stopped him. He stood motionless for a time and a silence echoed around the ship. In the next moment, the staff slipped out of his hand and stuck harmlessly in the deck as his entire body went limp.

The white fletched arrow sticking from the center of his forehead told the tale. He was not the only to fall either. A number of his thugs fell in quick succession until only a handful remained. Each with a white fletched arrow in his head, and those that remained without an arrow threw their weapons down. The man who paid them was dead, and they weren't about to follow suit. At the other end of the ship near the bow, the hatch leading into the lower deck was open and standing halfway out was a battered Ashton, his entire quiver emptied.

The man stood injured and bruised. He had a black eye, a cut along his jaw, his entire shoulder was moist from a wound in his shoulder, and his fingers dripped blood. He breathed heavily and winced with every exhale, a sure sign of a couple of broken ribs. The holds had not been as empty as he would have liked, apparently. He scanned the deck, counting off to make sure that all of his friends were still alive, if not up and about. Satisfied that everyone who had thrown their lot in with him was still alive. His mouth worked, trying to find the words that would fill it, but for once in his life none were coming to him. Instead, he simply shut his lips and leaned back, taking a deep breath into his lungs.

It was over.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

Image



It's been a long night, for all of them. Ashton didn't think it was fair to say that the night had only been long for him. He wasn't the only one there, after all. After the battle was over and done with, Ashton had to haul himself out of the lower deck-- at which point he may or may not have spent a couple of moments simply laying on the deck before rising. He had helped clear the deck of the bodies, more than happy to let the ones he left under decks sit. He tossed Leech's body over the side with little more fanfare than he would a simply chore. Throughout it all he kept his tongue about him, still tired from the brawl below decks. Once the deck was clear and Garrath managed to pull himself to the helm, Ashton took a spot furthest away, near the bow where he simply collapsed and leaned against the railing.

What else needed to be said? The deed was done, their cargo liberated, and the day won. Night-- technically speaking he supposed. He leaned forward and shoved the rucksack over some, so the blasted Qunari book would stop poking his spine. Despite all the good done that night, he still didn't feel all that good. He didn't know what he expected. A weight off of his shoulders, a pit in his belly filled, but he felt neither. The only thing he felt was the aches and pain in his body, and tiredness from missing a night of sleep.

Nostariel was weary, too, and not just from the fighting. It was the aftermath of it that had drained her most—patching up the injuries, nursing what potions alone would not quite suffice to heal. It wasn’t that she minded, and indeed, she’d had a lot of practice by this point, but the extra drain on her reserves of magic was just enough to let it hit her how tired she was. The task now was mostly just to steer the boat into harbor, and she chose to leave that to those that knew anything at all about ships. She was not one of them.

Instead of uselessly standing about wringing her hands while Lucien, Garrath, Rilien, and Sparrow did most of the work, she chose to join Ash up at the prow of the ship. It wasn’t lost on her that he wasn’t his usual self, and she thought she could understand why. Sometimes things simply had to be done, but their completion brought no joy—only a certain sense of finality. She knew that a similar task lay ahead of her, but it wasn’t something she wanted to think about right now. Instead, she lowered herself to sit beside him, close enough that the knee of her crossed leg hit his. She stared out at the dark water, or what of it was visible beyond the halo of the ship lights. "You’re out of the business, now. For good, if you want to be.” She thought it might help to remind him of what had really come of this. She had the sense that this had been something hanging over his head for a while—surely, that it no longer was counted for something important. "A free man, I believe they call people like you.”

She smiled, turning her head a bit to glance over at him. She was happy for him, but in some ways, the words reminded her that she would always be bound to something. Even if she should ever leave the Wardens, cease to take their orders and assume their missions for her own, she would never cease to be a Warden the way he had just ceased to be a smuggler. It made her feel a little envious, and that made her ashamed. But more than any of it, she was glad for him. He could do whatever he wanted, now.

It was the little touch to his knee that brought a tiny smile to his drawn face. It was the little things like that that mattered. He twitched his own leg just enough to rub back against her knee. "I thought the same thing a couple of days ago," Ashton confided, reaching up and grabbing the edge of the railing. "I'd like nothing else than to wash my hand of the business and be done with it," He said. Maybe she was right now. The only one with any hold over him was floating dead in the water, and he trusted Garrath had enough sense to not come knocking. Even so, even though he desparately wanted to believe it, he knew he couldn't just be free of it just like that.

"Free," Ashton said with air quotations, followed by a hollow chuckle. He'd never be free of it, he couldn't simply forget. Even if he could, he wasn't sure he would want to. Sometimes, one needed to remember their mistakes in order to never repeat him. If he was truly free, then he was a poor example of a free man. "Out of the business," He repeated to her, "But not free." He let those words hang in the air for a moment, to allow for her to digest him. When he did finally move again, it was to point straight ahead, toward the horizon. "The sun should be coming up soon," He said, letting his hand drop where it was. It landed on his knee and then bounced onto her own where he left it.

He tilted his head and squinted his eyes, and sure enough a vague color of amber slowly began to rise in the indicated direction. It wasn't the first sunrise he'd ever seen, nor would it be his last if he had anything to say about it. It was however the first one he'd watched with her. Sunset yes, sunrise no. "During my little er... Sojourn, I watched many a sun rise over that horizon. Thought to myself it's just another day every time I did," He said simply.

Then he laughed again and swung his head toward Nostariel, hovering perhaps a little closer than was necessary. "I'm not kidding myself. What I did here means nothing to those people I left on the boat all those years ago. I can't be free from that. That's my burden to carry until the day I die," Even though he said the words, he seemed to be unaffected by them, like had long accepted the consequences for his actions. He wasn't looking for absolution anymore, for he'd find none. He just had to live with it for just another day.

"Yes,” she agreed softly, reaching a hand over to lay over the top of the one on his knee and tangling her fingers with his. "It is. And nobody else can carry it for you. But that doesn’t mean that what you did here today, for these people, was any less good. We have no hope of changing what was, but we can still affect what will be. That’s the part of you that’s been freed, now.” She’d never meant to imply that he could simply forget everything that had happened to him. She’d like him less if he was the kind of person that could, honestly. "There’s a difference between forgetting and letting go.” It was a subtle difference, perhaps even a nuanced one. But it was also one that she was learning to appreciate.

Such nearness as existed now between them would once have unnerved her, but it didn’t anymore. Instead, she enjoyed it, sighing an exhale, and letting herself lean her side against his. She felt heavy with her fatigue, but it didn’t seem so weighty, with her cheek pressed into his arm. She wasn’t nearly tall enough to properly reach his shoulder, but this was comfortable enough.

A glimmer of Ashton's good humor returned at that and he found himself smiling despite himself. "That's why I have you, to remind me in case I forget," He said gently with a chuckle. He withdrew his hand from Nostariel's and instead draped it over her shoulders. He then drew her in closer, ignoring the dull ache he still felt in his ribs. "Give me a couple of days to rest and heal, I'm sure I'll be feeling a lot more free. Right now I just feel all tired," He said. Even as the words drifted out of his mouth. Despite it all, he was beginning to feel a little bit more free every moment he spent with her.

"What? You aren't going to ask how I saved all of your lives?" He teased with that grin of his. "Surely you must have seen the grand spectacle that was me missing the entire boat." He said with barely contained laughter. He could properly laugh, what with his ribs being in the shape they were in.

"You know,” she replied with a touch of wry amusement, settling into his side with a sort of languid comfort that only came with extreme fatigue, "I didn’t actually see you go overboard. I was rather preoccupied at the time—and I’m glad I was. I think I might have done something stupid, like let the others know where you were, or, you know… dive in after you. I don’t swim very well, and I expect that would have made things worse rather than better.” She liked to think she wouldn’t have been quite that silly, but she knew that some part of her was very irrational when it came to the possibility of losing him like she’d lost so many other people she’d cared about.

He obviously wanted her to ask, though, and she would admit to at least a little bit of curiosity, though she could guess how it must have gone. Regardless, she decided to indulge him. It wasn’t like it troubled her to ask, after all—and he did like to spin a good story, especially the ones about himself. She remembered Sophia’s party and his recounting of the dragon incident with a smile. "All right, Messere—regale me. However did you manage to get back up onto the boat after your unceremonious departure?”

Ashton had chosen to wisely ignore the first part. He could stand to bear her throwing herself into the water after him so he simply didn't. He just filed away a mental note to never fall into the water when she was around. Instead, he chuckled at her prodding and then cut the laugh short. "Oh, it's the not being able to laugh properly that hurts the most," He said with a whimsical grin. Switching back to the story, he took on the same tone as Nostariel did and recounted his misguided adventure. "Well my pretty little Nostariel, it should be obvious. I climbed," He said teasing. He then paused for a moment to collect the next couple of words he was about to use and then continue. "Never in my days had I imagined that something called a murderhole would save my life. But there it is. I was falling but managed to grab one, nearly jerking my shoulder out of its socket when I did."

He forgot to mention that his arm actually did come out of its socket and he had to pop it back in, but he believed it best to leave that part out. No use in making her worry over something that had happened earlier. For a minute he began to question if telling the whole story was even worth it. But he was already too far in, his boot already scrubbing the back of his tongue. He'd have to tell her now. "I climbed in and found out that I wasn't as alone as I would have enjoyed. The lower decks were filled with the thugs, and I had to fight my way up," He said. And they didn't let him go by easily. His usual smile wavered for a moment as he spoke, "There were... A lot of them. None of them too keen to let me see the sky again," He said, his tone slowly draining humor.

He was alone down there, no one up top even knowing he had missed the boat, knowing that he'd found himself stuck in its bowels. And he felt that loneliness. It was just him and a bunch of Leech's very best and very pissed friends. There were a couple of moments he could have very well died down there. A blade coming too close to his throat, a spear meant for his heart, the punch he'd taken to the face. But he fought, tooth and nail to get back to the top. He fought until his nails began to bleed and then he fought some more. "I almost died a couple of times," He said with the levity normally reserved for his quips.

Then he chuckled again, this time life filling his voice. "But I couldn't do that. Nope. See, there's this girl right? She would miss me something awful if I did something stupid like die. I couldn't do that to her," He said, the whismy draining as he spoke until only the honest truth remained. Nostariel had already lost so much, he wasn't about to be added to that pile. He wouldn't do that to her. Not ever. He had a promise to keep, even if it wasn't one spoken aloud.

It was so easy to become desensitized to their own mortality, really. Even she, who healed them so often, who saw the worse of the cuts and the breaks and the blood, could still manage to look at them, at her friends, and believe that there was not force in Thedas that could kill them, could bring them low. They were something else to her, in the midst of a battle, that cacophony of clashes and light-show of flashing steel and magic. Something far beyond flesh and blood. She’d always wondered if perhaps she hadn’t read too many heroic stories when she was young, for she tended always to want to fit them into those paradigms, and occasionally—not often, but sometimes—they disappeared into them. She looked, and saw something immortal. She saw it in Ithilian and Amalia, a matched pair of blades unbreakable, and in Lucien, the unfaltering aegis. In Sophia, a flickering flame against the dark, and Aurora, unbending determination. In Rilien, so pale and perfectly-composed he could have been a ghost. Even in Sparrow, clawing up through the bog she’d sunk into—and never once had it crossed Nostariel’s mind that she would fail.

But she saw it most of all in him. Perhaps it was because she was always so near. She knew there was much more to all of them than that, that there was faltering and breaking and misstepping done and still to come, but it was these timeless features of them that endured. Something in their strength of character that weathered any and all storms sent their way. She’d never met anyone like them, like him.

Being reminded that they bled like everyone else was important. It was one of the reasons she took to her work with as much deliberateness if she did. Should she forget that they were made of nothing more sturdy than flesh, she might well make the same mistake a third time, and lose them. So… she was not horrified by his accounting of what had occurred. It did not frighten her. She simply listened, and was reminded. It might even be a good thing, though of course she did not see him being injured as a good thing, not really.

At the end of the story, she pulled away a bit, enough so that she could look up at his face without breaking her neck. "I really would, you know,” she said softly. Sometimes with the way he said things, it was hard to tell how much he actually meant and how much was just sort of an indulgence of things she’d said. Something about Ash that bothered her sometimes was that he didn’t seem to fully understand just how much he mattered to her. He might joke about it, but he tended to value himself below other people, and she knew a lot of that had to do with what he felt he deserved for what he’d done. She wanted him to want to keep going and see everything through for his own sake, not just hers. Nostariel knew too well what it was like to have a single lens of focus through which to view the world. She’d once done what she did for one reason only, and when that had been lost to her, she’d seen little point in doing or being anything. She didn’t want that for him, nor for herself again. It wasn’t healthy to live only for others.

"But that’s not the reason it would be stupid.” She wondered if he understood what she was trying to say.

A light smile crossed his lips as he averted his gaze and nodded. Right again she was. She always had the habit of putting him back on the right path. No matter how far he strayed she was always there to rope him back in heading toward the sun. He joked, he laughed, he hardly took anything serious. He played the part of the fool just to hide how empty he really felt. But then there she was, sitting next to him. She probably didn't know it, but she was steadily filling that pit up inside him. He didn't feel quite so empty when she was around.

"Then it's a good thing I didn't," He said. It was hard trying to live for himself, but slowly he'd learn. There was nothing stopping him now. He'd proved to himself that if faced with the same choices of his past he'd choose a different one. He wasn't the same man who had ran away all those years. There had been hesitation this time, yes, but next time there would be none. He looked over the railing and saw the sun rising against a caramel colored sky and he could do nothing else but smile. He pointed toward the sun and then turned back to her, something more lighting in his eyes.

"It's not just another day. It's another day I'm alive."

The Chanter's Board has been updated. Trouble on the Water has been completed.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion

Earnings

0.00 INK

"Lady Dumar, it is an honor to see you again! A beautiful day, is it not?"

Sophia provided the shopkeeper with a warm smile. "Please, Jean Luc, you've been here since I was just a girl. It's Sophia to you. And it is a wonderful day, I agree." Jean Luc's stall in the Hightown market had always been one of her favorite places to visit growing up. He imported the finest of fabrics from Orlais and places far beyond the Free Marches, most of which was expertly converted into dresses for the noblewomen, or robes for the Circle, though Sophia had no illusions about where the majority of his profits came from.

"Of course, my lady. Please, browse as long as you like." It was a warm day, quite nearly cloudless, and Sophia had made the decision to relieve some stress by perusing the market in Hightown, something she had failed to do quite as often of late. It was a colorful place, both literally and in terms of the people it brought together. The Free Marches were a melting pot of many cultures from around Thedas, and here it was often on display. Sophia actually wore one of Jean Luc's dresses today, a deep royal blue in color trimmed in silver, cinched around the waist with a silver cord, the skirt falling just below knee length, the ensemble completed by simple band bracelets and knee-high leather boots.

"This one's lovely," she commented, touching her hand down on a deep shade of crimson, slightly darker than her house color. It actually reminded her of the dress she wore on the night of her birthday. She was temporarily saddened by the memory of how that night had turned out, but pushed it from her mind. She had already moved on from that, together with her friends. "I think I'd like to have something made of this. Do you think you could hold on to it for me?" She could see a familiar face approaching from the corner of her eye. Jean Luc smiled and agreed easily. The Viscount's Keep always threw in a little extra for Sophia's purchases, after all.

“As lovely as you, Miss Sophia.”

Careful not to let Sophie slip, even if it did sit so well on her tongue. Guttersnipes like Sparrow did not belong in Hightown, or in any place with so many expensive items on display. Bad habits and all that, even if she was still very well off from their journey in the Deep Roads. She preferred the dirty, unorganized hovel in Lowtown, with Rilien's starkly contrasting corner. Her distrust for humans, in particular, had gotten a little better over the years, but too many of them, and Sparrow's skin felt like it was crawling. There were far too many eyes following her footsteps, probably wondering why some Alienage rat-girl was wandering around their streets, wearing clothes unfitting such a person. Her toothy grin, flashed in all directions, disengaged their rude stares. Set them go their way again.

Her clothes were primarily layered, though in a fashion that accentuated her form. Obviously, they had been prepared ahead of time, with a little thought behind them. A loose-fitting, sleeveless tunic with laces around her collarbone, colored a dark green, and tighter fitting bodice holding down what goods she actually had. Brown leather pants, tucked into darker boots. Ranger clothes, is what they appeared to be—probably showcasing more of Ashton's influence than anything. With her slender shoulders, and effeminate features, Sparrow looked far younger than she used to, and gentler. Everything looked tailored to fit her properly, and that, perhaps, most of all, confused the Hightown denizens. How could an Alienage-girl afford such clothes? It made her smile, impish in her delight. Had it not been for the seriousness at hand, Sparrow may have made a joke of it, flourishing her clothes like a proper noble-lady, or man. Whichever they thought she was.

Sparrow swept in front of Jean Luc's stall, inspecting his wares with a critical eye. Her fingers brushed down the fabric Sophia had been holding and trailed away, tipping back towards her face, until they rested on her lips, tapping. It just occurred to her that she had never seen Sophia in anything other than armor, not that she didn't look lovely in that, as well. Brazen women clad in steel plates, fighting off bad men and monsters in the name of justice had a soft spot reserved in her heart (as well as most of the women she encountered in Kirkwall, but that was another matter altogether). She looked away from the fabric, settled her eyes on Sophia and squinted at the silver trimming of her dress. A true lady looked like this, after all. She shouldn't have been so surprised. “I was looking for you. Turned away from the gates, understandably.” There were still grieving families, and guardsmen who did not want to see her face, however different it looked.

“Care to take a walk with me?”

"I'd love to," Sophia answered, smiling broadly. "I'd thought it was you, but I couldn't be sure. You look... well, you look wonderful." Sophia had yet to see Sparrow dressed this well before, and she didn't doubt for a second that this was not entirely the half-elf's doing. She'd known the woman long enough to know that she had never really given much thought to her appearance, always choosing substance over style. She wondered if Rilien had anything to do with it. He certainly had an immaculate sense of style. It was undoubtedly for the best, as well. While she was free of the demon now, it was not so long ago that things were different, and she had been forced to do some terrible things. The fact that she was almost unrecognizable from the Sparrow that once was had to help with that.

They made an odd pairing, Sophia didn't doubt. The Viscount's daughter, heir to the city, a noblewoman all her life, standing next to a half elf who had come to the city as a refugee. But if the nobles wanted to talk about who Sophia chose to spend her time with, they could all they liked. There was nothing wrong with a human woman from Hightown visiting with an elf, and the more people who realized that, the better.

"Where are we headed today?" She hoped it wasn't anywhere too low in the city. She was a little over dressed for Lowtown, and a little under-armored for anywhere lower than that.

Sparrow returned the smile with one of her own, crooked and pleased with the response. Jean Luc might have been confused with Miss Sophia's poor choice of friends, but she did not care. Perhaps, she mused, it made it all that more entertaining. Never in her life would she have thought that she'd ever have such high-esteemed companions, nor did she think that they'd come in friendly-flavors, without pomp and prejudice tailing them like silk-skirt filigrees. She was a fortunate one, indeed. She casually adjusted the collar of her shirt and offered her elbow, as observed by far more cultivated gentleman such as Lucien (though, Rilien had always been a top-candidate in manners when he actually wanted to). Anyone, in her opinion, served as a better example aside from herself, all peacocking aside. It didn't hurt that she looked far more adjusted than before. They may have passed off as two ladies, albeit her ears were a dead giveaway, shopping in the wealthiest district, sans gaudy hand-flapping.

As soon as they left Jean Luc's stall, and they were far enough out of his, or anyone else' earshot, Sparrow's smile simpered mischievously. She did have a place in mind. Possibly unsuitable for any other lady, but she understood that this woman was made of a different fashion altogether. Warrior-women hardly scoffed at adventures, after all. “Where to, indeed.” She cooed softly, rubbing head chin between thumb and forefinger. “It's a surprise, I'm afraid. A good place for a long talk. Have no fear, though, I'm quite sure the view will make up for it.” Sparrow had a pathological need to fix things that were broken. This often included relationships that she'd been at the fault of damaging in the first place, and whether or not Sophia thought it necessary, she wanted to patch things up as best she could. Her friends had taught her important lessons about herself, and others. Overcoming her mistakes, earning forgiveness, and relying on others, were taught to her here, in Kirkwall, of all places. This was an important step she wanted to make, to mend her burnt bridges.

She led them up a staircase, beneath crimson parapets and fluttering banners. Deeper into Hightown and past all of the merchants and their stalls, far past any patrolling guardsmen, as well. She only slowed her pace when she reached the higher estates, built into one of Hightown's furthest corners. She'd noticed, quite a time ago, that they were reworking some of the buildings, constructing lavish balconies and elaborate pillars. Wooden scaffoldings and stable platforms were erected around one particular mansion, though they weren't very high and led onto a much smaller building—but, from their vantage point, the surrounding buildings almost looked like stepping stones. Days earlier, Sparrow happened onto the site, clambered up onto the rooftops and saw something truly breathtaking. It made up for all of Kirkwall's ugliness, in truth. She turned towards Sophia, glanced down at her dress and arched her eyebrows, meeting her eyes. “You're not afraid of heights, are you?” She laughed, scratching the back of her neck. “Might have been prudent to ask beforehand.”

"Hardly," Sophia answered, taking in the surroundings. "Growing up in the Keep would have been a miserable experience otherwise." Most of the rooms around the perimeter of the castle had a good view of the city, and were all located a rather impressive distance from the ground. Her own room had one of the finest, and while it took her at least a year to get used to standing out on the balcony without clinging to the wall, she had since become quite comfortable with the presence of heights. She'd even been a bit of a clutz in her earlier years, but one of her teachers had managed to work that out of her when she learned to use a blade.

"This used to be the mansion of Lord and Lady Rousseau," she commented, remembering the way the place had formerly looked. "I used to come through this way on my way to sword practice, since it's so secluded. I learned the sword without my father's permission, you see." It was somewhat awkward to speak of those days, what with Dairren Quinn's recent interference in her life, but there was no need to think of that now. "They moved back to Val Chevin a few months ago. I'm not actually sure who lives here now." It was obviously someone extremely wealthy, to have bought the place and immediately began extensive renovations of the exterior. For some reason, she rather liked that she was entirely unaware of who lived in the mansion now. It was evidence that she had better things to concern her thoughts with than the comings and goings of various noblemen and women. Or perhaps it meant she wasn't paying close enough attention to the influential citizens in her city. She preferred to go with the former.

"It's a climb, then, is it? I suppose there's no harm in that." At least the dress she wore wouldn't be tangling about her ankles, and there were no sleeves to get in the way, either. The boots would serve well enough. "But you'll have to promise to never tell Jean Luc I went climbing scaffoldings in one of his dresses. He's rather sensitive about such things."

Sparrow's grin only widened. She was impressed. She joined her hands in front of her, cracking her knuckles and rolling her shoulders. Women, in all shades and flavors, who were not afraid to get their hands and knees and shins dirty climbing up buildings, or swinging swords for that matter, were wonderful creatures, indeed. She would have been disappointed had Sophia said anything different (though being afraid of heights was understandable, on its own). Lucien was a lucky fellow. On more than one occasion, Sparrow wanted to ask what, exactly, their relationship was, but thought it best just to see how things panned out between them—besides, she hardly spoke more than two words to the honorable man, and pried information out of Ashton whenever they bumped into each other. It seemed like love, or something like it, was blossoming wherever she looked.

“I bet you were a handful,” she teased, testing her weight on a couple handholds. All of the guards held her in high esteem. Surely, she'd run them ragged back in her youth, scampering the hallways in search of a good adventure. Sparrow could picture it, anyway. Who was the greater troublemaker out of the siblings, she wondered. Growing up without any responsibilities, save following what the Qun authorized, Sparrow could never understand having strict obligations weighing down on such young shoulders. They made a stranger pair still, had people known where they came from. One dreamt of flying through meadows and nearly did at times, while another was confined to her Keep, inching closer and closer to the balcony's edge. She imagined that she gave her handmaidens gray hair, prematurely, but it was difficult imagining her being anything but demure in her plates of armor. In this light, things were different.

“Ah. Lord and Lady Rousseau,” she repeated slowly, as if memorizing the names. Names were handy, after all, if said to the right people—something she'd learned when she first landed in Kirkwall, with little but a few coins, and a knuckle of bread to her name. She pulled herself onto the first platform and twisted sideways, kicking her legs over the lip, so that she was peeking down at Sophia. “He didn't believe a lady should know how to defend herself?” She inquired, nose crinkling. The idea, in her eyes, was beyond absurd. Whether or not someone had breasts, or lacy gowns, she had been conditioned to believe that they had to learn how to defend themselves. Qunari women, in particular, were brawny creatures, rippling with muscle. Even if their chosen roles did not involve battle-warring and swinging blades, axes, broad-weapons, they were built larger. Much larger, and much more intimidating. It was difficult imagining that women in this society thought differently. She laughed, scooting back to offer her hand, “I'm sure he was glad that you did. Though, I'd imagine he wasn't much pleased when he found out.”

Her other hand flapped near her face, where she pressed a finger to her lips. “Your secret is safe with me, milady.”

"No, he was not pleased at all," Sophia, somewhat more seriously. Sparrow didn't know the half of it, but Sophia decided to leave it at that. This was an enjoyable conversation, and bringing up the fact that her sword teacher was expelled for corruption and collaboration with the Coterie would... well, it would lessen that. She accepted the offered hand, pulling herself up onto the platform with Sparrow.

"It's not that he didn't think I should be able to defend myself. My father has always been a diplomat rather than a warrior, you see." She brushed her hands off, looking around for the logical next step to climb up. "I think he feared that learning the sword would teach me to solve my problems with it. If I didn't learn the sword, I know I wouldn't be taking trips to Lowtown and Darktown and the Coast to risk my life directly for my friends and for the city. He believes a leader must think differently than that in order to best serve their people." Rather than wait for Sparrow to go first, she took the next step herself, pulling herself up another level.

"But if I didn't learn the sword, well... I wouldn't be me, I suppose. I wanted to help with my own two hands, and that required skill with a blade. For when words fail, I tell Father. I try to live by that."

The Viscount must not have been pleased with anything that deviated from what a proper lady must learn, and swordsmanship must have been at the top of the list of things he did not want his daughter learning. She often wondered how, exactly, noblewomen and noblemen lived. How they grew up, what they learned was proper and not-so-proper, and what paths they were taught to walk down. Having Sophia as a friend was as much of a learning experience, as it was a pleasure. She mistook Sophia's seriousness for a particularly nasty punishment the Viscount must have handed down, and bubbled with laughter, eyeing her between lidded eyes. Punishments were different in the Qun, as well, though she supposed that all parents had to have a stern hand, sometimes.

“And now, you've got both skills—how to talk your way out of slippery situations, or fight your way out if you have to. I'd say, you have the best of both worlds,” Sparrow conceded, clicking her tongue agreeably. Had she Sophia's ability to coerce others into not wanting to chop her head off, she may have saved herself quite a few bruises in the past. Even Rilien could somehow manage his way around a conversation without setting someone off. Staying blades, unfortunately, had never been one of her strongest suits. She was a born fighter. Clawing and tearing and kicking her way through life, only to continue dining on freedom. It was worth it, she thought. “I know nothing of leaders, but I'd rather follow someone who's willing to swing a blade for her friends, as well as make the right decision when one comes up.”

She made sure to look away while she climbed (though she may have peeked had it been months ago). Sparrow followed as soon as she reached the upper level, mimicking her handholds until she could swing herself onto the second platform, as well. For a lady wearing a dress, Sophia sure was nimble. They were making progress, and only had to pull themselves up over the lip of the building to get to the makeshift staircase, leading towards the horizon. “A lady after my own heart,” she tittered playfully, batting her eyelashes. Her smile became more subdued, curiously titling. “Have you ever wanted to run away before? Not that I suppose you ever would. But, I'd imagine that with all of the responsibilities, all of the duties. Lessons, manners, messere, sir, things like that would feel heavy. I just can't imagine knowing where you'll end up, supposing you do take your father's place as lady-Viscount.” She only assumed as much. What little she'd seen of her brother didn't make him seem like a likely candidate.

Sophia was very much used to the views of the city that the Viscount's Keep could provide her with, to the point where many of them had somewhat lost their grandeur over the years, but this was something different altogether. This was more... all-encompassing. It was all somehow more impressive when viewed from such an exposed position, with no guardrail of a balcony to reel her in, no windows to separate her from the world outside. It was breathtaking, really... and a little scary, now that she was taking it in. She imagined the disapproving looks she'd get from Bran or her father for this, and smiled.

Sparrow's question made the smile wither slightly, but from thought more than sadness. She was right in that actually running away was not something that Sophia had ever considered as a possibility. But had she wanted to? "Honestly... I think about it more every year. I couldn't imagine wanting to be anywhere else when I was a young girl, but as I came to understand, I think I started to resent not having a choice as to what I was going to do with my life." Her mother had a choice. That was always the first place her mind took her when she brought up this topic in her head. Her mother was no noblewoman born into wealth and power, but simply someone who'd had the opportunity to pick their own path.

"But I suppose the choice I have then is whether or not to accept that." For some reason, it sounded like something Amalia would say. Of course Sophia had a choice. She could run away, and abandon everyone who was depending on her to safeguard this place's future, to sacrifice so that they might all live better lives. But it was not in Sophia to be selfish, and thus there had only been one option to choose. "And it isn't so bad. I've always had the best of people to lean on when things get difficult."

Sparrow studied Sophia's face as she posed her questions, eying her with a little twinkle in her eye. Studying her in more ways than one, perhaps. She was always surveying for imperceptible quirks, shifts in someone's composure. Testing the waters, with people she infrequently touched, was her only way of opening herself up, allowing trust to leak out like a rusty faucet. Her friendship-making skills were complex, and often inappropriate, but she hoped her efforts weren't in vain. She stepped to Sophia's right, clapped her gently on the shoulder and swept her opposite hand across the horizon. The sun was winking in the distance, casting a mirror-like effect on the ocean. It was beautiful, indeed. This was what reminded her most of freedom. “Someday, I hope to be counted among them, as well. I've much to make up for, after all.” Her laugh broke up the seriousness of her words, and the smile that accompanied it teemed with playfulness.

“For what it's worth, you'd make a wonderful Viscountess.”

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

There were far more children in the Alienage than she could ever remember there being. Amalia did not, perhaps, seem at first glance the kind of person who liked children, but in fact she found them in most cases to be considerably less odious than adults. Children still had, no matter how dire their circumstances, a kind of way of looking at things that suggested that not all in them that was good or curious or creative had yet been snuffed. It was a quality she liked, and as for the rest, well… they did not look at her with the same mistrust as their parents tended to, nor did they know enough to be put off by her brusque mannerisms. They were dauntless, brave because they did not know what to fear.

She appeared much different from usual—though her garments were still more practical than aesthetically-pleasing, she now dressed in a way that could be considered more appropriate for both season and setting. There were no sleeves on her tunic, exposing the crisscross patterns of pale scarring on dark arms. Her face was uncovered, and her hair confined only to a tail rather than the severe plait she conventionally used. She was even barefoot, but the thing that had not changed was the only thing the young ones really cared about anyway, and that was the music. Her harp was currently in the hands of a boy of perhaps ten, one of the newcomers to the Alienage, and though she occasionally stepped in to correct an overzealous comment from one of her other “pupils,” what was really happening was that the children that had lived here for longer were teaching him the basics of how to play it, as she had taught them.

It was easier for him to forget that he did not belong here when he was just one of them. When they grinned at him with gap-teeth and one particularly-bossy little girl moved his hands into place lower on the strings with an emphatic That’s how you do it.” Her lips quirked up into the ghost of a smile, but she said nothing, allowing them to guide one another as far as they could, and her face remained impassive even when one or another would look over at her, as though for guidance or approval. They were not dissuaded by this, as most had grown used to it by now. She was hard to please, but she was also difficult to upset. It seemed to work somehow, at least in the sense that they strove to do well enough to earn the occasional word of praise or gentle ruffling of hair.

It wasn’t that she could get used to it—it was that she already was.

Her lips were fettered in a rusty smile, slightly hollow but getting better everyday. Some may have said she looked like a husk of who she was, but those who knew her could see her eyes, alight and free at last. Free of the warped creature whispering in her ear canals, gnawing on her thoughts like an old bone. She was feeling better, braver even. Her cheeks were not so sallow anymore, but her bones still showed signs of bird-like angles. Rilien had her on a strict routine of eating and eating and eating—no liquor, for now. She, too, had grown in different directions. Her feverish wanderlust led her here of all places, in Kirkwall, in a place whose chains hung the heaviest and whose dangers often proved fatal. Visiting Amalia had been on her to-do list. Actually making her way to the Alienage had proven far harder than facing any creature, or any demon she'd encountered thus far. She was afraid.

Sparrow pressed her back against the ramshackle building. In truth, before Rapture had taken a semi-permanent residence in her chest-cavity, she'd begun visiting the Alienage on a more frequent basis. Partly to see Aurora, partly to see what Amalia was up to, and the other half was reserved for strict play-time. Romping with the children proved an enjoyable pastime, and she was hardly grown herself. Her immaturity, and inability to take anything seriously, made the Alienage feel like home. She'd ask them questions about Amalia, in exchange for grandiose tales of her embellished adventures. Sometimes, she would bring them tokens from her tales. A tooth there, a shell from the Wounded Coast, or shiny baubles she may have procured from passing merchants. Always telling them to keep them in their hidey-holes, for fear of the squash-nosed baddies clomping around in their armored-suits. As of late, Sparrow hadn't been brave enough to face even them.

She brushed her palms over the brick slabs, breathed in deeply through her nose. Amalia appeared so different these days, uncovered in more ways than one. Vulnerable, perhaps. Like someone was able to peel away her layers, helping her step through a brighter, kinder threshold. It had not been her. She had not been there to see it happen. Had she ever been this way, with the Qunari and their oppressive teachings? As children, even. Had she ever been this comfortable? She itched at her arms, willed her fear into a malleable thing. She'd wear it as a crown, if she had to. Her clothes were fitted, at least. Thanks to Nostariel and Ashton, Sparrow now had an arsenal of garments that suited her smaller stature, and still somehow concealing just how thin she'd become. It did little to conceal how weak she felt, however. No longer could she call herself a warrior. Not by Qun standards, and not by her own.

Another soft sigh escaped her. Dragging herself back to Rilien's shop, blubbering about how she hadn't made it again would only earn her a stern, leveled stare. There was only so much cowardice she could take before plopping herself down in the Hanged Man, so she pushed away from the building and slowly walked around towards the looming tree. Tree of the People, they called it. Suiting name, really. It was far too beautiful to be surrounded by such squalor, but it signified something far more important than Kirkwall would ever understand. Her fingers, clammy and sweaty, trembled through her hairline, brushing snowy strands from her face. All of the carefully constructed words seemed jumbled in her brain, sticking to the roof of her tongue. She'd never been good at words. Never very good at apologizing either. Instead, Sparrow took a seat close enough to inspect what the boy, and the children, were doing. Far enough not to interrupt them, or spout something stupid in front of Amalia. She settled for a hoarse, “You look well.”

Stupid.

While it was true that Amalia was always aware of her surroundings, had been trained to be so from a very tender age, it was also the case that here, she was relaxed. Moreso than she allowed herself to be elsewhere. She was not the only vigilant guardian of this place, and the other of note was someone she trusted more than she truly understood. It was well, though, there was no mistaking that. That weight, the weight of living, did not seem so heavy, when he was near. When she was here. But even in her relaxation, she was attentive, and there were people she knew so well that their treads would always gain her notice at once, like she was magnetized to their very presence. She’d looked at those people, knew them—how they moved, how they worked. How the muscles and sinews were put together over bones, how their mindsets and their histories inscribed themselves into motion.

Some were just distinctive. Others, she knew because she had to, because wariness made forgetting impossible. Still others, she was sensitized to from some measure of respect, of regard, of interest. Sparrow’s was some strange combination of all three: a clomping, graceless thing that did not remind one at all of birds. And yet—this was the one she’d met who flew in the only sense that mattered. Flew away, in fact. Though she did not at first make sign of it, Amalia knew that it was he and no other who approached. She remembered those steps leaving craters in sand.

When he spoke, though, she listened, and then she looked, raising mismatched eyes and flicking them over to where he sat, sharing in the shade of the tree. He was welcome to it—she had no reason to hoard this small piece of tranquility. She pondered the words for a moment, not finding them as stupid as he had, because she supposed they might almost be true. She could not look lovely, not anymore, and she had no reason to care about that. But she supposed she could look well, and that if ever she had, now might just be the time. “I feel well,” she said simply. “But that is not why you have come.” It was as factual and straightforward as anything she ever said, but she forced it no further. Sparrow had to come to things in his own time, or the words would be mangled on the way out of his mouth, and she did not think that either of them much desired that.

Sparrow didn't like to think of it as abandonment. She hadn't abandoned her. How could she? Amalia had always been the only reason she stuck around so long in the first place, but the Qunari were sticklers for regulations, hounding her footsteps like nagging old women and making sure she knew her place as well as the crinkles on her palms. There was no doubt that they had saved her from a fate worse than death and given her a reason to live, but they'd also slapped on a new, shiny pair of chains. Clipped her wings, decided who she would become from the moment she set foot on their lands. She knuckled her nose, resting her hand across her chin. In this light, Amalia is brave and proud and strong. She wonders, halfheartedly, if she is made up of the trappings of a ghost, loudly wandering in wherever she pleases, and leaving just as easily, as if she hadn't even been there at all. She is nowhere near as strong.

Her fingers fell away, trailing the curve of her jawline. Lacking in all of its masculinity, Sparrow wondered what Amalia thought of her now, or if the illusion still held true. Did she still mirror how she wanted to be seen, or did Amalia see an empty copse of who she was, bereft of the strength that made up the carefully cultivated persona she so wanted to become, to embody. Was she a flowerless garden with dying weeds, or a bird in flight, never looking over its shoulder to ponder what she was leaving behind? Not even once. She didn't look over at her, not directly. Instead, Sparrow focused on her boots, and then her bare feet. Her toes, relaxed. Just as she was, she supposed. Within the Qun, one had to always be prepared for the worst, and expect danger in the most unexpected places. Her toes, she thought, might have always been curled, as if ready for a mile-long sprint into battle, or through a grove of wheat-grass. Perhaps, it was people, rather than time, that had changed them both.

She tightened her fists into the folds of her trousers, gripped the fabric tightly and slowly, slowly released. She felt Amalia turn towards her. A small, imperceptible shift between them, as if a scale was tipping in her direction, and still, Sparrow felt like she was unable to meet with her, partway. She had always been teetering on the brink, threatening to collapse the whole thing by leaving the scale altogether, and she had always been resolute in her vigilance, standing like a statue weighing it down until she touched bottom. Cowardice has many stripes, and she often wondered just how many she'd scrubbed off over the years. Apparently, not enough. Her eyes rolled skyward. The leaves almost looked like translucent pieces of parchment, absorbing the sun's orange-red-yellows. Occasionally, spattering down tubes of sunlight, warming the right side of her face. Tipping her head slightly backwards, Sparrow leaned until the brightness temporarily blinded her, then tilted farther. She looked at her, really looked, and for a brief moment, she thought that she was a little afraid of her. Of what she might say, of what she might think.

The transition was abrupt enough to startle her out of her stupor, and Sparrow blinked at her before her words actually sunk in. She was well, she felt well. She supposed that she was happy for her. She'd found something important to her, after all. Important enough to rearrange her entire world, pushing out the pieces that she once thought impossible to move. The Qun, it seemed, had a lesser hold on her once-friend. She was less, and she was more. Lovely, beautiful, star-laced, cloudy-eyed, ocean-tipped—she'd once called her many things, in their youth, and would never deny that they still held true. Perhaps, more so now. Those words, however, were reserved for those she held close to her heart, and she'd strayed further than she ever expected to. She kept her head tipped, meeting those mismatched eyes of hers with her own. Straight to the point, as always. Her frankness had not dulled over the years. It was as sharp as ever, cutting through her facade like a blade.

“You're right. You've always been right, you know,” she admitted, leveled and bare. She searched those eyes for something. Forgiveness, perhaps. But only found age-old patience, polished and refined for slow speakers, for people who bore their feelings like cataclysmic storms. “I'm selfish. I run, I ran. That's what I did, for as long as I can remember.” Running from her past, running from her family, running from responsibilities, and running from heartache. Kirkwall, she supposed, was what happened when she was too tired of running and when her legs refused to budge anymore. Rilien and the others, she knew, showed her the way towards, instead of away. She no longer headed in the opposite direction, passing everyone by. She no longer left letters that never mended hearts, no longer left tracks in the sand to remember her by. No longer left without saying a word, expecting someone important to understand. She ached more acutely than before, but it was different. She was different.

She opened her mouth, drew in a quick breath, plodded on. “I'm hopeless, and I expect forgiveness. I expect a lot from everyone, and I've come here to, to be rebuked or forgiven. I want to apologize, but you know I've never been good at those, either.” There's a consistency in the way her heart drummed in her throat, tightening and loosening all at once. Cords were coming apart, somewhere, she was sure of it. “I came here, I came to tell you that it's impossible. I tried to stay away, because what right do I,” she bit off hoarsely, hunching forward like a leaf curling in on itself, “I hate this. This distance I've made. I hate that you've moved on, and I am apart. I always wanted you to look at me, to look for me. I wanted to talk to you, as we were. I'm selfish. I'm not well.” The bitter bark of laughter never found its way out, but her frown twitched, sharp edged. Even after all these years, it still hurt.

“Would you have run with me, had I asked?”

Amalia sighed, nothing more than a slight quickening in the exhale from her nose, but unmistakably a sigh all the same. She rolled back a little bit, moving fluidly until her back came to rest against the painted bark of the tree. It was an interesting sensation, to lean on something, especially when one was used to meeting nothing but open air when one had the inclination to try. But the tree was there, rough and abrasive through the fabric of her tunic, and she seemed to sink into it a little, until the abrasion was no longer irritating but simply a fact, accepted like any other and not much bother. She had once thought that she had eased against Sparrow’s leaving this way, taking the little metal spike that had driven itself into her chest, melting it down and hammering it into her armor, that emotional plate-mail that kept her defended from future attacks of the same sort. It was how one lived longest: by turning one’s weakness into one’s strength. By never repeating the same mistake twice.

But for all that, she’d managed to do so. Amalia had found some measure of peace with this, and was to whatever extent she could be willing to leave the past in the past and see what she might do with the future, but Sparrow seemed insistent on being that spike, again, driving himself into that vulnerable little chink in the armor that Amalia had opened up in hopes of bettering herself. And here he was, asking questions about what might have been, calling himself selfish and implacable. About that, she could only suppose that he was correct. She had not sought to trouble him by reminding him of what had been. This was why she had not sought him out. He was making a new person of himself, and she’d never had the desire to hamper that. She swore that somewhere, she could hear a chain rattling, but at least it was rusty, now.

“Does it matter?” she asked flatly, her eyes narrowing slightly. “You did not. And I did not. What happened after changed us both. Why is it of concern to you what might have been? Should I ask next where we would have gone, who we would have become, if things had happened that way? We are not those people. That opportunity passed us by. You have become what you are, and I have become what I am. We change still. Should that not be of more interest to you than something that never was and never can be?” She did not understand this fascination with it. “If you hate that we are distant now, make an effort to know me now. Do not speak of then. Speak of this, or of tomorrow, I care not. If you wish me to see you differently, be different. It is not enough to say. You must do.” Perhaps that was harsh, but Amalia was not exactly known for being gentle, and she was the one who had been wronged here. It was not Sparrow who had been left behind.

If all he wished to speak of was what had been or might have been, then Amalia was uninterested. Those reflections had been the ruminations of enough sleepless nights already. She was done wondering if it was some fault of hers that all the people she ever cared about betrayed her. And she was done assuming that it would always work out that way. These were well-traveled paths that she would not walk down again. It was time to seek new ones. She’d break them herself if she had to.

Sparrow watched her press back against the tree, eyes rolling over her shoulder, until she had to readjust herself. Her hair hung in front of her eyes, like snowy tufts, obscuring what she did not want to see. There was a tiredness there, belied in the soft sigh that escaped her lips—exhaustion, annoyance, something like that. It was difficult to piece out, to pluck out the parts that hurt the least. Amalia wore her pain like a suit of armor, smoothing out the plates until they were strong and smooth and always adding more, until it stood like a brick wall. Impenetrable, fortified against future dents. Sparrow wore her lies like a suit of armor, sliding off the metal bits whenever she went to bed. Flesh could not lie. Sinew, muscles and tendons were the greatest truths, beating honesty within her heartbeats. If she refused to speak, in any state of vulnerability, then she could dust off the blackened untruths and pass them off as something palatable. This reaction, perhaps most of all, slid across her neck, tightening like a noose. Amalia always had the awful habit of reaching straight through, instead of taking what was offered from her hands.

Friends were made up of the family you chose. Love was never made of clean pieces. It could piece you back together, however it wished, and leave you with only stories to tell. She was not entirely sure where she'd heard those particular bits, but she expected something different from this encounter. She never wanted to be one of the stories one told, or a thorn that nosed itself between someone's ribs. Somehow, she'd become both. An old wound, reopening. An old scar, still puckered and always a bitter reminder. She was a betrayal, she knew. Months, weeks, days, she'd agonized over the details until she was sure how everything would pan out. But, like always, Sparrow forgot to factor in just how factual, just how brutally honest Amalia was. Her childish expectations floundered, flopped and were speared in place. Of course, it was foolish to wonder how things might have been, where they might have ended up, but it was the only way of rationalizing what she'd done wrong. She could only see so far ahead of her, before everything: the world, her world, tumbled into darkness.

Her hunched shoulders straightened. Muscles bunched in her neck, straining into back. Does it matter? No, she supposed. Wondering what might have been felt like it would have justified leaving in the first place, as if Amalia's choice would have decided whether or not she would have accepted her shackles, head bowed. Those were questions that would never have any answers, for she hadn't asked all those years ago, hadn't given her the choice. If she had asked her, she wondered, would she have left, anyway? She did not know, and as Amalia said, what use was there in wondering? What was done, was done. No amount of reminiscing would return them to that day. Her response came in crestfallen eyebrows, mouth straightening into a line. “I did not mean—” she sputtered, hands braced in her lap, “I did not mean it that way.” This was what she had wanted, after all. Had she not come here expecting no different? Utmost honesty shearing back the brambles sticking to her heart, stripping down her cloak-of-lies and revealing a simple solution. Let go, breathe in. Make a choice, now.

Sparrow was spineless, spiteful, and unrelentingly sporadic. Changes were being made, but not quickly. Her pace was slower, much slower. She did not have her own safe haven, in the Alienage, beneath a beautiful tree, surrounded by a past that still eluded her. She did not have children to teach, or someone like Ithilian guarding her sanctuary. She did not have the kind of tranquility that eased the mind and calmed the soul. But, she did have friends with the kind of loyalty that continued surprising her. “I want to know you, as you are now. I want you to know me, as I am now.” It was the truth, mostly. She could not ask for things to be as they were, for even she was not that thoughtless. They were no longer children. She could not retrieve things she'd long since trampled on, and could not expect Amalia to do the impossible—could not bear squeezing her heart any further. She stared at her fingers, studied her nails. Dirty, like they'd been all those years ago. She opened her palms and squeezed them shut. “I profess, that I do not know where to go from here. I always thought that this would be easier, becoming friends again.”

Amalia was quiet for a moment, curling her toes into the cracked stone beneath her feet. Could she have friends? She had one friend, she knew that much. And perhaps Aurora, Nostariel, and even Lucien might be her friends, if she thought about it a little. The word meant something different than the one she’d grown up knowing. Vulnerability was not something she usually allowed in herself, and to an extent, she knew that she was beyond changing in this respect. No matter how much she had grown, or altered, she would never be open with herself, though she would always give things freely enough. If that was a paradox, it was one she lived. Sparrow was almost the opposite conundrum—he gave the feelings and tender words Amalia did not, but he did not always part with the truth of things as he saw them. It was up to other people to dig if they wanted to find that. Expressive, but fundamentally, as he’d said, selfish. It was a dangerous kind of person to know, in one sense.

Than again… she blinked slowly, tipping her head back so that she regarded the light-stippled canopy of the tree, but then cast her eyes to the side, back to him. He was being honest now, that much was not lost on her. “The things worth doing are seldom easy, and never entirely without risk,” she pointed out. “There are no landmarks one must pass to become a friend, it seems. You will do as you do, and I will be as I am, and we shall see what comes of that.” There was no list of instructions, no tome she could crack open, to tell him what to do to achieve what he wanted. Even if there were, she probably would not have shared it. It would likely defeat the purpose. “Perhaps… I make ventures to your area of residence once a week, to teach. Afterwards, I could visit you.” It was not a grandiose proclamation, nor even an especially startling offer, but it was what she had to give.

Sparrow always wanted more, but she nodded grimly, allowing her smile to soften the edges of her face. For now, it would do. For now, she could wait for Amalia's visits, after her lessons were finished. Anyone willing to trudge through Darktown on their own accord demanded respect, and she felt fortunate that she was being allowed this little thing. This chance to make amends in any way she could, and she would try, spilling herself out until Amalia said that it was enough. Meravas—so shall it be, perhaps now, was best understood. She had always been this way. Even the Qun had recognized it, plucked it out from the array of brokenness and wrapped it around her shoulders. They were alike, in some ways. A soft sigh escaped her lips, and a musing that sounded like, “Then that is enough. Asit tal-eb.”

She swung her legs up, pulling them beneath her. The half-elf leaned towards Amalia, palms face down on the roots of the tree. Her once-friend had grown in all directions. Much stronger, much more self-assured than she could ever wish to be. Taller, as well. She remembered being the taller one, in their youth. She brushed errant strands of blonde hair from her face, studied her mismatched eyes briefly before planting a kiss on her forehead. Quick as a serpent coiling back in on itself, Sparrow hopped down from her perch, arms quickly pinwheeling to make up for her hasty retreat. It would be enough, for now. Perhaps, later, they could speak as they once did. Looking up at the stars, naming them what they wanted and making wishes on those who fell. She could still hear the children tittering as she left, wondering aloud, as children often did, whether or not she was a man or woman.

Setting

4 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

For what was probably the fourth time, Nostariel wiped down the counter at the front of the clinic. The medicines had been alphabetized twice, every last particle of dust mercilessly swept from any and all surfaces, and she’d washed the floor as well. At this point, it wasn’t just that she wanted it to be clean when she came back—it was that she was nervous enough that she needed to give herself something to do with her hands. It wasn’t exactly that she anticipated refusal on the part of those she’d asked here, more that when they agreed, she’d be pulling back the curtain on the part of her life that shamed her the most to people she held in very high esteem. The highest she knew, really. There were others she held in the same esteem, that she would have asked as readily, but the task was of a very particular kind, and she knew that there would be few suited for or willing to deal with it.

Closing her eyes and stilling her movement, Nostariel took a deep breath, and exhaled it in the form of a sigh. There was no use in fretting. She’d been feeling the strain as the days grew closer, and their faces had been more frequent in her dreams as they always were at this time of year, and it was, as it had always been, enough to disturb some of the measure of peace she’d been able to find for herself. There were still things undone, tasks incomplete, and until she finished them, she would never truly be able to let that part of her life go. She no longer blamed herself as much as she once had, but that didn’t change what she had to do to find closure with it.

Folding the cleaning cloth neatly, she added it to the stack of linens that she’d need to wash before she departed and nodded to herself. It was about the appointed time—she wouldn’t be waiting much longer.

The clinic was not far at all from the Alienage, so it was unsurprising that Ithilian was the first to arrive. His days had become busy of late, what with the stream of elven refugees that had poured into the Alienage without warning not long ago. They had made accomodations for them as best they could, and all of the children had been taken in and given priority, but sadly there simply wasn't room for everyone, and some of them chose to test their luck in Lowtown and Darktown rather than remain. Ithilian hoped he would not have to kill them at a later date, for whatever reason.

The work was never ending, but Ithilian was still more than willing to make time to see Nostariel, who had asked him for help and requested his presence at her clinic at this hour. He arrived armed, as it was quite common that when his help was requested, some form of killing would need to be done. He was not particularly sure how he should have felt about that. It was simply what he excelled at; he could choose to use his skills to further whatever goals he desired. In this case, helping a valued friend and ally.

He entered the clinic with his head uncovered, as had become the norm for him. Amalia had convinced him that the scars were not worth hiding, and he had not covered his face since then. Amalia seemed to have taken his words to heart as well. He was unsure if he was comfortable describing what her company meant to him. To have it healed again, to have a bond that was only growing in strength. Things could have turned out much differently at any number of points. But they had not.

"Good morning," he said, mustering up his ability to speak pleasantly. As far as Ithilian understood, there would be others arriving, so he pulled up a chair and took a seat, setting his bow across his lap.

Lucien felt better in full plate than he did in the lighter leather armor he’d worn for the mission aboard the boat, but it would have been stupid of him to wear too much metal then. Now, however, he had the intention of keeping his feet on land for a while, and he could conceive of no likely scenario in which what Nostariel planned to ask of him would involve more short jaunts on the ocean, so plate it was. Adjusting the straps that held his axe to his back, he bid farewell to the small refugee family that was currently residing in his spare room and headed over to the clinic. It was perhaps not something he would have ordinarily done, as Lucien was a man who rather valued his space to think and work, but between the fact that most days he spent either at the barracks or out on jobs and the fact that they had literally nowhere else to go, he’d decided that clearing out his half-done art and stowing it in his own sleeping area was a tiny sacrifice to make. He found he didn’t mind the company—the family’s young son had a wicked sense of humor, and they were generally pleasant to be around.

He wondered how the rest were faring—it was not like there had been much time to take down names and faces when they were all climbing onto rowboats. He had a sneaking suspicion that Amalia had directed those three to him; perhaps they had mentioned someone of suspicious size and she’d put the pieces together. If so, he’d have to thank her for the forethought.

He wasn't sure exactly what Nostariel planned on asking him, only that she had been somewhat solemn in requesting his presence, and therefore it was probably not anything so simple as his services in moving large objects from one place to another. That was fine by him—he always had the time for a friend. Or at least, he tried to be that kind of person. Tugging open the door, he noted that she was in fact already present, and so was Ithilian. Lucien had never actually had more than a snippet of conversation with the man, but for all that, he knew a fair amount about him. They shared several mutual friends and acquaintances, after all. “Hello Nostariel, Ithilian,” he offered cordially, choosing to stand rather than sit, mainly because he’d been sitting for half the morning already, at a worktable.

He took a little longer than those who had arrived before him, but he had a good reason for his tardiness. Ashton spent the better part of his morning breaking in a new hire, an adolescent elf who was rooming with the resident Chevalier. While Ashton didn't make it readily apparent to the boy he knew who his roommate was, there were only so many people who fit Lucien's description, and literally none that would share a house with an elven family. Truth be told, Ashton felt a little guilty about that, but considering the alternative he could live with a smidge more guilt. He would mention it to Lucien, and explain he'd keep an eye on the boy as well. He was responsible for the recent influx of refugees, the least he could do was see to it they were okay.

Ashton wasn't expecting a new hire when he walked through the doors of the Dragon's Hideout, but there he was, face down into the floorboards and little Lia sitting on his back. At some point the boy, named Callan, had entered and tried to make off with a bit of merchandise, but not before Lia wrestled him to the ground. Even Snuffy did her part, planting herself right in front of the boy's head and growled whenever he attempted to move. He was then explained the situation, and Ashton, the good samaritan he was, offered the boy a job on the spot. He'd spent the rest of the morning training the boy, and when he had to leave and meet Nostariel, he left the boy in Lia's capable, though young hands. He wasn't really worried about her-- With all the time she spent with Ithilian, he'd put money on her before Callan.

Unlike those who'd beat him to the clinic, Ashton came far less armed. He wore only a soft shirt and tan pants, and carried only his machete. Even Snuffy was brought along, as she walked beside him. He entered the clinic and found himself woefully underdressed, with Lucien sporting his full plate and Ithilian his many pointy... instruments. He spared a glance for Snuffy before he spoke, "Uh... Did I miss part of the message? Are we killing something?" He felt terribly inadequate as he stood in front of these warriors.

“I’m afraid so,” Nostariel replied, her voice heavy with some old weight. It hadn’t been so in quite some time, but this time of year always did that to her. It was a persistent reminder. She at last took an actual seat and leaned forward so that her elbows hit her knees and her arms dangled in the empty space in front of them, one hand clasping the opposite wrist. “Though… that’s not really the point. Perhaps it’s best if I explain everything from the beginning.” Well… everything would take rather a long time, but she could give them the important parts, anyway.

“Almost five years ago now, before I was posted in Kirkwall, I led a small squad of Wardens into the Deep Roads. It was the same year the Blight descended upon Ferelden, but of course, that happened so quickly, and the word didn’t reach us in time, so we had no way to know…” She paused, running a hand down her face and sitting back in her chair. Lucien knew this story already, and she knew that by now, the other two had been able to guess at parts of it, but the telling wasn’t really any easier yet. She hoped that, when this task was over, it would be, just a little. She never wanted it to be simple, but if she could get through it without this crushing feeling of shame… that might be better.

“There were so many, and so close to the surface. I sent our runner for reinforcements, but there was no way they’d arrive in enough time. We had to hold the entrance, and we were overwhelmed. My squad… all of them died. I only had time to burn the bodies before I left, but they never had real funerals. Not ones that I was present for. I need… I need to go back down into the Roads. I want to see if there’s anything of them still down there, and if there is, I want to retrieve it. And I want… I want to send them off properly… in the ways they deserved.” She looked down at her hands. “It’s not… it’s a big risk, for something that probably doesn't matter. They’re dead; they have been for half a decade. It might be foolish to risk our lives to give a funeral, to collect trinkets that might not even be there in the first place, but… it’s something I’d like to do. Something I must do. And that’s why I’m asking the three of you.” She wouldn’t hold it against them if they didn’t come, but there were only two more people she’d ever ask, and she didn’t want to drag both the Alienage’s protectors away, nor remove Aurora from her friend. It was not even an option to ask the Viscount’s daughter into the Deep Roads, so it was these three or nobody at all.

And she wanted them there, she knew. They were her friends. And if anyone could help her bear her shame here, reach her closure and lay her memories to rest, then it was they.

Ithilian slowly released a long breath through his nostrils as Nostariel explained. What was perhaps most unfortunate was that Nostariel had not had the chance deal with this any earlier, thus forcing her to simply carry the weight in the meantime. Even when they had traveled to the Deep Roads before there would have been no time, as the dwarves leading them had no time or patience for delays and detours. Ithilian knew what that weight could do to a mind if it was given even an inch of room to work. It wormed its way through the thickest walls on silent nights, when the images of the real world were replaced by the ones the mind conjured of its own accord. It could only be ignored for so long. Replacing the shame with the distraction of toil was only a temporary solution.

"It does matter, and it is not foolish," he said, with a high degree of certainty in his voice. "I know the Deep Roads are not the Brecilian Forest, but returning to the site of those I lost was one of the things I needed most to... fix myself." The danger would be far greater, that much was certain, but they had survived the Deep Roads before even with the odds arrayed against them. They could do so again, and if the memory of that place haunted Nostariel as much as Ithilian's own demons had troubled him, she would remember the area like she had been there yesterday.

"A small, experienced group such as ourselves can move quickly and without an excess of noise, though your nature as a Warden may attract some unwanted attention." He leaned forward in his chair, running a hand through his hair. "I'll need a few days to prepare. Time enough to make arrangements in the Alienage, and with Amalia. We've been under some extra strain of late, as I'm sure you are aware." The unscarred corner of his lips quirked upward. "But you have my assistance. If this is something you must do, then I will help you see it done." She was far too valuable an ally, and far too important a friend, for him to refuse.

Lucien nodded his agreement. “If this is important to you, then it is important to me,” he said firmly. “I can be ready in a day or two as well.” His preparations need only involve making sure the carpenters continued without him while he was gone, and seeing to it that Callan, his mother Desne, and his sister Sylwyn were sufficiently supplied for the interval. He’d have to leave the woman the key to his home and hope that she was around when he needed it again, he supposed. All easily-enough done, and precious little worry to him. He knew quite well how keenly Nostariel had been feeling this pain, and for how long. He also hadn’t missed that it still burdened her, and if this was the way she could lift it, then it wasn’t much to ask of them. They did generally wade into life-threatening danger on a regular basis, after all; doing the same thing for a friend was just having a better reason than usual.

Nostariel could only offer a smile to the both of them, relieved and heartened that she was surrounded with people who understood, who would be willing to take this risk for her. “I think three days is perfectly reasonable. Thank you both; it means more than I can properly say.” They left to prepare, and she was left only with an oddly-silent Ash. Blinking, Nostariel quelled her anxiety. He was usually the first (or second) person to jump in whenever someone asked for help—she was a bit surprised that it was not so here, but… she’d really not considered that he’d refuse. Perhaps… but no. She’d let him speak before she assumed anything.

As Ithilian and Lucien filtered out of the Clinic, Ashton turned to watch. Once the sound of the door shutting filled the room, only then did Ashton move to speak. "Ithilian's right, you know?" he said, still watching the door. A moment passed and then he turned to Nostariel, a gentle smile gracing his lips. "We all deserve some sort of closure, Maker knows I did, and Maker knows you do too." This story was a new one for Asthon, but he had his suspicions. She had been through so much, she deserved something. "It's not foolishness wanting that," He said. As he spoke, Snuffy had taken her leave from Ashton's ankles and instead went to Nostariel's where she whined softly.

"You already know my answer-- you should have known before you've even asked. If you didn't... well sweatheart, I'm disappointed in you," He said, taking a mock frown on to his face. The frown only lasted a second before it faded into the gentle smile again. His answer was, and always would be for her, a resounding yes. He would help her with anything she desired, she needn't even ask. She'd been there for him, it was only right that he would be there for her. Taking his first steps toward her, he let his arms drop to his side, revealing a slight pep to his step.

Yes, the Deep Roads weren't necessarily a place he wanted to see again, but if it was for her, he'd brave them time and time again should she ask. Darkspawn, dragons, demons, it didn't matter what they fought, so long as they fought them together. "I wouldn't be too worried. With Ithilian, Lucien, and yours truly in tow, there's not much that stands a chance," He said in a reassuring tone. It'd be just like last time, minus Rilien and Sparrow. And even then, they weren't going too deep into the Deep Roads to warrant the entire crew.

As he pulled up to Nostariel, he knelt down in front of her and cupped her face with his hand. His own smile faded for a second as he searched for the words, and returned when he had found them. "I can't help you carry this burden. You taught me that we can only do that ourselves," he began, his smile then growing wide, "But, I can carry you if need be. If you ever need someone to lean against, I'll be right there beside you," He said chuckling.

"Now, let me see that big smile," he said, standing again. Snuffy barked excitedly in agreement, adding her own sentiments to Ashton's. "Three days should be more than enough," He'd had left right that very instant if she wanted, but considering the other half of their entourage had things to tie up, he could wait a couple of more days. "I'll gather the supplies we'll need. It's a trek to the Deep Roads, and nobody else has the best damn shop in all of Kirkwall, so obviously it falls to me."

Nostariel gave the smile, shaking her head a little. “I didn’t doubt you,” she said, “but it’s impolite to assume, no?” He had a point, though—they were long beyond hesitance at this point, and even if her errand was something less than strictly necessary, she had the kind of friends who would understand. That was good, and it had happened almost when she wasn’t looking. It sometimes mystified her, how most of the meetings she’d had here had been mere happenstance, and turned into things with meaning through chance and work in equal measures. She couldn’t say she was glad for everything they’d endured in the past few years and would endure in the future, but she wouldn’t wish it upon anyone, but…

Watching the ways the fires of trial had forged them all into different people had given her hope, something she’d been sorely lacking after her last Warden-related venture into the Roads. That hope was now like her armor, and she would need it to face that place again. But she had the confidence that she could, and that itself was a gift she could not put a value on. A gift they had given her. And one that she had finally allowed herself to accept.

“All right,” she replied with a firm nod. “Three days, and I’ll count on you for the provisions.” A pause. “Thank you, Ash. Really.”

Setting

4 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

Three days from the initial request found Nostariel and her friends on the path to the Deep Roads. It was a full day of travel, and not a particularly pleasant one. It had started raining in the morning, and varied between damp drizzle and full-on downpour for the entirety of the afternoon. The four of them were all seasoned travelers and hardy people, so it slowed their progress less than it would with others, but she would not deny that by the time they camped, she was soaked to the bone and chilled. Luckily, the rain abated enough for a fire, which put some of the heat back in her small frame and stopped the shivering, at least.

The next morning saw them back on the move, the weather still overcast but not precipitating, and it was under a grey sky around midday that they came upon the entrance she was looking for. It was hardly impressive, really: from here, it looked simply like a crevasse in the ground, less notable than some of the caves on the Wounded Coast, even. But it was big enough for Darkspawn to fit through, and that was the important thing. They’d all fit, too, though it might be a tight squeeze for Lucien in all his armor.

“There are Darkspawn inside,” she said, then frowned. “Obviously. But they’re close. They can sense me by now, but I doubt they’re expecting four. Try not to land blind.” Getting down there would essentially involve lowering themselves into the crevasse and hanging by their arms long enough to get their bearings before dropping to the ground below. It was a bit of a climb to get out again, but actually a little easier than getting in, because the walls had handholds that one could use from that direction. Shifting a few things around on her shoulders, she tucked the bundle of camp supplies she held under an arm, keeping the strap on her shoulder but freeing up her quiver and bow for easy reach. It would be a bit stupid strategically for her to go in first, and she could only suppose that either Lucien or Ithilian would choose to do that.

Believing himself best suited for the task of going first, Ithilian stepped up to the crevasse and peered down into the depths. "I'll scout it out." Of the party, he seemed the logical choice. Lucien was perhaps a little too heavily armored to be the first to clamber or drop down into the unknown. Ashton would be able to handle it fine, but was inexperienced in melee combat compared to Ithilian. Nostariel was the force that would be keeping the group alive if things got ugly. Thus it fell to Ithilian to take the risk.

He lowered himself in slowly, not drawing any of his weapons so that he could better grapple against the wall. His blades could be drawn quickly enough if they needed to be. He wedged himself between the walls, sliding his back down until the crevasse reached a width at which this method became illogical. At that point, he reached across and snagged a handhold glancing down below. The drop was short, short enough that he could clearly see the ground. The problem was that seeing did not guarantee a safe landing. The parts of the Deep Roads untouched by dwarves were always jagged and uneven surfaces. The darkspawn were accustomed to navigating their own homes, whereas outsiders often were not. Steady footing would be difficult to obtain.

He could hear them already, both moving and speaking to one another in their guttural drawl, at least four or five from what he could tell. They could undoubtedly sense Nostariel above, and Ithilian could tell it was making them agitated. They could not sense him, however. He lowered himself down until he could go no lower, and then dropped, watching the ground carefully as he fell. The landing was uneven, but he managed to avoid twisting an ankle. Shadows concealed the area well enough for his light landing to go unnoticed, and this allowed him to survey the enemy party before engaging. There were three genlocks and four hurlocks, one of which was an emissary, another that was clearly an Alpha, judging by his superior armor and hefty battleaxe. A good target to knock off first, then. Ithilian drew his bow and nocked an arrow in a single fluid motion, leaning out from around the side of the rock to aim at the warrior. The arrow thwacked into the eye socket of the hurlock's helmet, dropping him like so much tainted meat. That, of course, drew the agression of the others.

But not before another Hurlock fell beside the Emissary, an arrow sticking out of his throat. The wince Ashton gave was nearly audible, but not so much as the whispered curse, "Dammit, was aiming for it's head," He admitted. Ashton had given Ithilian a few seconds head start before he followed down after him. Sure, the elf could scout it out, and Ashton would help. One didn't simply just go into the Deep Roads alone, no matter how deadly the elf was. Beside, they were all going to be down there sooner than later-- so why not sooner?

Fortunately for him, his height and build lent itself to slipping down the crack with relative ease. It was no tree he was climbing down, but the process was similar in nature. He too managed to land safely at the bottom, though he ended up in a three-point stance. The ground was not so level as he would have liked it, but such was life. He did at least land without much noise-- what kind of hunter would he be if he made any noise what-so-ever? He slipped in behind Ithilian, and managed to let loose an arrow just before the others were completely alerted. it left something to be desired for his aim, his arrow hitting lower than initially expected, but a hit was a hit in the end.

"Think they know we're here?" Ashton asked in deadpan, over the hissing and growling Darkspawn.

If they didn’t before, they certainly knew it when Lucien landed, because he wasn’t terribly quiet about it. Therein lay the disadvantage of full plate, unfortunately, but thankfully it didn’t make a difference anyhow. He hit the ground harder than either of the more rougish members of the party, but he was smart enough to take the impact on bent knees, and though there was a clang as the head of his axe hit the stone wall, it was in his hands soon enough, and he chose to simply step into the open rather than taking refuge behind something, bringing the weapon up and around over his shoulder into a vertical blow with enough force to cleave the nearest darkspawn from skull to chest cavity. Using his leg to shove it off, he transitioned smoothly into a pivot, carrying the chopping blade into a sweeping horizontal motion that knocked one of the genlocks into another. The one he’d actually hit died, but the other managed to regain its feet.

Nostariel was the last to drop, and she wasn’t particularly graceful about it, landing somewhat awkwardly and with a hiss on her ankle, which turned uncomfortably, but it wasn’t sprained, so she was fine. Lucien and some overturned pillars were more than enough cover from which to shoot behind, and between three archers and one axe-swinging knight, a handful of darkspawn were hardly ample challenge. The emissary, however, was cleverer than his partners, and instead of trying to attack them directly, he aimed what looked like a stonefist at the ceiling of the cavern.

The Warden’s eyes tracked the shot—the parts of the Deep Roads that had gone this long without dwarven maintenance were known for being unstable, and this wasn’t even one of the entrances her organization used on a regular basis, so nobody else had come to survey it either, but surely it wouldn't… she yelped as a large stone landed not a foot from her, between herself and Ithilian on her other side. “Look out!” she shouted, just in time for a series of resounding cracks to signal that more large chunks of ceiling were going to follow those that had already come. Grabbing the nearest person—Ash, in this case—by the arm, she pulled him along with her as she headed for a side tunnel, which would hopefully avoid the largest part of the collapse. The dust that was accumulating from the collapse was making it hard to see where the other two were. Nostariel could only hope that they were all right.

While the roof was caving in on them, Ithilian seized the opportunity to rush forward and draw his steel. It had been the plan from the beginning; the group had more than enough ranged strength with both Ashton and Nostariel present, but while Lucien was quite a wall on his own, one man could often be overwhelmed without a partner to work with. To that end, Ithilian took his blades into hand and moved forward behind the chevalier. The emissary caught his movement and fired off a chain lightning spell that narrowly passed over his left shoulder, exploding one of the falling rocks behind him. It was all the mistake Ithilian would need, as he closed the gap and plunged his right blade into the gut of the mage. Unlike his previous trip to the Deep Roads, he saw no reason to prolong the creature's pain. He brought the left blade up and quickly removed the emissary's head.

Lucien having completed the dirty work of finishing off the last of the scouting party, Ithilian turned to survey the damage the cave in had done. It seemed they were completely cut off from the Warden and Ashton. Ithilian wiped his blades clean on the darkspawn and retrieved his arrow from the eye of the hurlock alpha before going to inspect the rock. The collapse had been rather complete, and there wasn't even any way to see if the other two were hurt, or even alive. For the moment, the elf would assume they were. Both had quick reflexes, after all. "This is unfortunate," Ithilian said, though he did not sound too perturbed. "It seems we have been separated from our guide." Ithilian didn't have the best sense of direction when underground, nor did he know exactly where Nostariel had been taking them.

"I don't think we'll be clearing this anytime soon, however. Perhaps we should push on, try to reconnect with them if we can locate a crossroads." He'd never truly worked with Lucien, not as a pair, but the man was obviously capable enough for them to operate effectively. He was perhaps a little loud for Ithilian's tastes, but it could be managed. He could not deny that he had also been hoping to ask the man a few questions, if the opportunity arose.

Lucien didn’t bother to replace his axe as such, instead hefting it over a shoulder for the moment and giving the new wall of rubble an appraising look. He was quite sure that Ithilian’s assessment was correct—there was no apparent way to breach this, especially not without risking further structural damage. So he nodded thoughtfully and sighed through his nose. “With any luck, there will be another exit on the way as well, but if we find Nostariel again, I suppose she would know the nearest one anyway.” He assumed she was careful enough to have several such routes planned in case of, well, something like this.

This was something of a double-edged sword. On the one hand, Darkspawn would have no way to sense them coming without the presence of their Warden friend. Unfortunately, that meant neither would they have much advance warning, and it might also attract more Darkspawn to the others than they were properly equipped to deal with. All he could do was hope for the best and try to find them as soon as possible. Well, at least there was only one way to go from here—it made the decision rather easier. He wondered for a moment if this was how Amalia saw all choices: move forward, or do not. He might just have to ask, next time he ran into her.

“Would you prefer to scout ahead, or simply take what comes? There won’t be any avoiding most of it, I expect.” Still, he’d not protest either way—and shrugged slightly to indicate as much. He was well aware that stealth was not a strength of his, whereas it was clearly a strength of Ithilian’s.

On the other side of the cave-in, Ashton whistled to himself. "That's unfortunate," he said, nodding sagely. He was taking the whole splitting up with the team thing surprisingly well, but when the other half of the team consisted of both Lucien and Ithilian, there really wasn't a whole lot to worry about. He stepped away from pile of rocks and made his way back toward Nostariel, producing an arrow and spinning it between his fingers as he did. "You know, I wouldn't be surprised to find out that they've done cleared out the whole Deep Roads while we were gone," Ashton said, stopping the arrow's twirl as he did. He then nocked it and left it at that, should he need it in an emergency. Danger lurked around every corner in the Deep Roads.

However, the tone in his voice and the content of his words implied a certain optimism. He knew they were alive, and he knew they'd meet up again. Neither would he allow something as mundane as rocks or a couple of 'Spawn to do them in. It'd take a lot more than that. "Well, we've only got one way to go now." Forward.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

It was uncanny.

Nostariel could sense Darkspawn—it was, after all, the Deep Roads—but none of them were close enough to even register as individuals, and no parts of the roiling mass of them seemed to be getting any closer. And yet… there was a rare sense of foreboding down here. She had not felt this way in a very long time, and she supposed it must be the memories. She hadn’t even been into the Roads since she had guided the Expedition, and those had been entirely different tunnels than these. It made sense on some level that she should hate this area more than the others, because the last time she’d been in it, she’d lost all nine of her squadmates, some of them her dear friends. All of them had taught her something, and all of them had meant more to her than perhaps they should have. Her own commander had oftentimes accused her of being too soft for the life she led.

Pursing her lips, she kept her bow in one hand, the other free and primed to reach for her quiver if necessary. It was a little strange, that this had become her instinct now, rather than to instinctively go for her staff or her magic. The former, she hardly carried anymore, but to the clinic. The latter was still her primary strength, obviously, but no longer was it her only recourse. The thought reassured her—even if she simply ran out of magic, as she had on that day five years ago… she was not helpless. Not anymore. Maybe they’d even be proud of her for that.

Her steps were light as she could make them, but she had not her partner’s skill in stealth and subterfuge. Fortunately, there wasn’t much to worry about in the Deep Roads but Darkspawn. What else would want to be here? Even raving lunatics were not so desperate, nor demons. She figured it was safe enough to speak, given the fact that nothing seemed to be coming for them. “I’m not sure they’ll even run into any,” she murmured thoughtfully. “We may not, either—nothing approaches.”

Nostariel didn’t properly understand it, but she wasn’t going to question it. If it changed, she would know, and for now, she only needed to keep moving forward, though admittedly that was closer to the Darkspawn in question. She might have said something else, but then a glimmer of steel caught her eye, and she cast a small light to better see it. There, wedged in between an outcropping of rock and the wall of the cavern, was a rusted roundshield. She might not have thought anything of it, save that she could just make out a hint of blue inlay on its face. Hastening to the spot, she tried to lift the shield, only to find it firmly lodged in place. Looking back over her shoulder, she locked eyes with Ash. “Could you help me with this? I think I recognize it…”

Without any questions, Ashton quivered his arrow and looped his shoulder through the bow. With a subtle hiss of steel, Ashton's machete stood in his hand instead. He slipped the blade between the outcrop and the wall, right next to the shield, and spoke, "We'll pull on three," He said, as he set his feet beneath him. The count came quick and on three, pulled on his machete hard. He could feel the metal bend with the force, but so could he feel the rocks shift, and just like that, the shield popped free, though not without a bit of sound. He cautiously threw glances around them, even though he knew Nostariel could feel if the Darkspawn were creeping behind him. It wasn't so easy to quell years of instinct in a moment.

In the end, his eyes went back to the shield. He asked, "Did you know it's owner?" He asked in a rare bit of solemnity.

She turned the shield around in her hands so that the face of it was upwards, and brushed a hand over the disc. The metal had once been valuable, high-quality silverite from dwarven mines, its owner had informed her with pride. The real mastery in it, though, was the fact that some of the metal had been colored to a deep blue, twining with the silver to frame the device of a lioness rampaging. It was similar but not identical to the Wardens’ griffin, and it was in Warden colors. She smiled slightly, recalling a multitude of blond braids and a gap-toothed, half-cocked grin. “You would have liked Rudna,” she said by way of reply. “And she you, I think. She was from Orzammar, smith caste. She made her own equipment, just the way she liked it, and she made sure to maintain everyone else’s, too. She even learned to work ironbark, though she never did quit complaining about it.”

Surprisingly, the leather strap that had held the shield onto the wielder’s arm was still intact, and Nostariel used these to sling the thing over her back. It was a bit heavier than she was used to, but she wasn’t just going to leave it there. “If you see anything else that doesn’t seem to belong, please let me know. I know it doesn’t make much of a difference, but I’d like to salvage their things, if I could.” There would be nothing else to mark their graves, after all. She’d burned the bodies on her way out, to prevent them from being twisted by the Darkspawn’s foul purposes, fed on or worse.

With the request, Ashton nodded and switched weapons again. He dialed up his eyes, making sure to not let a thing escape them. It was the least he could do, out of the two of them he could say that his eyes were the keener of the two pairs. Hers were getting there, but lacked the years his possessed. He followed as she led further down the Deep Roads. For the hunter who was more comfortable in the forests above, the Deep Roads were like dreary maze. He never forgotten the stint he'd spent under ground during the expedition, and here he felt the same oppressive atmosphere and claustrophobia he'd felt then. But just like then, he kept himself on a tight leash with a sharp mind.

It was thanks to that sharp mind that he'd managed to catch something she'd missed. "Hold on a moment," He called, his eyes plastered to the ground. He shouldered his bow for the second time and took a knee, reaching down to the ground. He swiped away a layer of surface dirt and picked up what seemed to be a set of ironwood beads. He turned them over in his hands, knocking away what lingering dirt he could before presenting them to her. "These looked like they belonged to an elf?" He said, the tone on the last word turning the statement into a question.

She’d not expected to see them. Actually, she was rather surprised they hadn’t been burned with his corpse. He’d certainly never been the sort to part with them willingly. “Lleyrn,” she supplied. “Lleyrn Nal. He was Dalish—these were his mother’s. The Darkspawn got her when he was still young. It was the reason he became a Warden.” He’d had one of those thousand-yard stares, like something ancient was just looking right through you when you happened to meet his eyes. Nostariel worried the beads between her fingers for a moment, before placing them in a pocket. “The Wardens don’t get many volunteers… and we rarely turn them away when we do.” That she was a willing volunteer and a mage was probably the only reason they’d even taken her—it had been Tristan that they wanted.

Shaking her head slightly, she sighed and they continued forward. Ashton’s eyes managed to pick out a sheathed knife, no more than a boot-dagger but the curve to it and the ivory handle marked it as belonging to Shella, the member of Notariel’s squad that had liked her the least. Perhaps because she felt the captaincy had been hers by right—she was lieutenant when the previous one died. But she’d still gotten in the way of that Hurlock arrow, and entirely on purpose. Nostariel also found the ring of a small cask, which actually produced a soft chuckle. There was no guarantee that it belonged to Irvin, but the guess was a fair one. That man could have out-drunk Rudna, and actually had on a few occasions. Human or not, the smith had always been fond of him, calling him “dwarf-hearted.” She assumed it wasn’t just the alcohol tolerance.

Glad as she was to have the tokens in her possession, she could not shake the unease that grew as they continued down the path. Something was ahead, and it was foreboding. She could feel the Darkspawn as individuals, now, but still they drew no nearer. There were a lot, but the worst part was that one felt… different from the rest, in a way she could not explain. All Darkspawn were twisted, but this… she swallowed. They were headed straight for it, whatever it was. Stowing the cask ring, Nostariel drew an arrow. “There’s something ahead,” she told Ashton. “Something… big, I think, and… worse, than the others.” She had no concrete way to explain it other than that.

Ashton strained his neck as he tried to peer down the tunnel, but despite his efforts, he couldn't simply make the rock walls bleed away and reveal what sat behind them. Considering he was the hunter, and perhaps the only other person who could match him in the art of stealth took the other route, he offered his services. "I'll go ahead and check it out-- you stay here," He said, eyes looking between her and the path ahead. "They can sense you, but won't see me coming," He added with smile. As he usually did, he took an arrow and nocked it to his bow with a wink.

"I'll be right back," He promised, and slipped off down the tunnel. No sound came from his worn leather boots, and he made sure to keep to the shadows when all possible. He was as quick about it as he could be and before long he came to an opening in the tunnel. From what he could tell, the opening led into a larger area. He sidled up to the entrance, his back pushed hard against the rock next to the opening. He took a quick breath and poked his head out. Whatever he expected, it wasn't this. Blood drained from his face as he turned as white as a sheet. No thoughts came to his mind, nor did words but two.

"Oh shit."

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon

Earnings

0.00 INK

As it turned out, there wasn't much in the way of darkspawn for Ithilian and Lucien to avoid. A lone scouting party had chanced across them and met a quick end, but apart from that, there was little to oppose them but the uneven footing. He'd started out scouting ahead, but after some time navigating the tunnels, Ithilian had taken to falling back with Lucien. The tunnels all seemed to be leading them in the same general direction, so he could only hope that they eventually led them back across the path of Nostariel and Ashton. He also hoped the ease of their passage didn't mean the other two were being swarmed. If they were, there was little he could do about it but push forward and hope to find them anyway.

"The Alienage received a rather large influx of new residents recently," he said somewhat quietly, and somewhat out of the blue. "Almost more than we were equipped to handle, actually. Most of them had the same story, something about a slave transport, and a rescue orchestrated by, among others, a large Orlesian man with one covered eye. Do you make a habit of freeing slaves, chevalier?" The influx of bodies had undoubtedly put an extra strain on he and Amalia, but Ithilian approved wholeheartedly. He had not even heard about the presence of elven slaves in the area, otherwise he would have taken the fight to the slavers himself.

Though the walk had been mostly silent thus far, Lucien did not mind when that changed. Actually, the comment brought a small smile to him, being rather unsurprised to be described in such a way. Usually, the height, the accent, and the eyepatch were predominant in first impressions of him, from what he could gather. “Ah, yes. My apologies for the lack of warning, but I do not believe any of us were expecting to run into slavers. It was initially an unrelated matter, but I was glad to help where I could. We all were, of that I’m quite certain.” He took the question about his habits to have perhaps a degree of humor, as it was hard to call any such thing a ‘habit,’ but he answered with sincerity anyway.

“It’s a bit specific, but I suppose I’ve been able to do so more than once, yes. Though… admittedly not so many, usually.” He ran into the occasional slave or prisoner in his line of work, and it wasn’t as though he’d ever just leave anyone there to rot in a cage while he walked away free as he’d walked in. The thought alone sat uncomfortably ill with him, like he’d eaten something spoiled. “I’d prefer it if I’d never needed to, but… the world does not change by wishing, no?”

"No, it does not," Ithilian agreed. He led on in silence a while longer, and was actually a bit relieved when he heard the telltale sounds of a darkspawn up ahead. He held up a hand to Lucien to indicate that he should stop, before lowering it several times, suggesting he crouch down, if he were so willing. The Dalish hunter did so as well, moving behind a large rock that obscured him effectively from the road ahead. A pair of lightly armored hurlocks came into view up ahead, armed with bows and clearly on a patrol of the area, searching for their unwanted guests. The sight of a darkspawn was enough to confirm to Ithilian that not all of them had gone Nostariel's way.

His initial thought was to draw an arrow and rid the world of these vermin. He drew the string back softly, aiming for the nearest one's head... but something stayed his hand. The passage was narrow, and the crisscrossing one would allow the survivor of the attack to disappear swiftly. They weren't immediately in front of Ithilian, either, but some distance away, and they didn't appear to be heading their way, or heading anywhere in any particular sort of hurry. Years ago, he would have dropped the first and charged the second without a moment's hesitation, damning the consequences and doing whatever he could to make their ends as painful as possible.

Now, though... he let the tension out of the bowstring, leaving the arrow nocked. The pair of scouts continued on their way, out of sight, and not in the direction Ithilian had been planning on heading. They would not be warning other darkspawn of their presence anytime soon. He waited until he could hear them no longer, and then stood. "Not so long ago, I would have been reluctant to speak with you at all. Hate is easy to grab hold of, and a double edged sword." He tipped his head sideways to indicate that they should move on. "Some friends of mine have convinced me to try living a little differently. For the most part, I've found myself pleasantly surprised."

He peered around the corner to make sure the two darkspawn were gone, then moved on. "We can't wish change upon the world, and we cannot wish away the changes it has on us, for better or worse. I think, for once, this is going to be better for me."

Lucien moved behind an outcropping of rocks, locking his limbs in a somewhat bent position to prevent any of the plates of his armor from clinking together. He stood with his back pressed to the wall, shielded from sight by the crumbled structural damage, though this also meant he couldn’t see the Darkspawn. He could, however, see Ithilian, and he watched his ally to determine what he should do. His hand drifted slightly towards the haft of the axe, but he lowered it again when he realized that a fight was apparently unnecessary. As soon as the all clear was given, he emerged from the spot, glancing around. No more ‘Spawn for now, apparently.

They continued down the pathway for a time, and when Ithilian spoke again, Lucien was mildly surprised to hear it. Not, perhaps, for the content of the words, but the fact that they were being said. He pondered the sentiment a while, and then nodded. “That is not the easiest of transitions to make, but a worthwhile one. Or at least, I have found it so as well. It was not so long ago that I probably would not have spoken to you, either. I was… much more arrogant, then, and rather insufferable. It was hard to see past my own nose, and that was when I had both eyes with which to make the attempt. The rude awakenings seem to be the most effective, for me.” Lucien didn’t allow himself to be frustrated by that, anymore—he was just glad that he had changed. While he was far from the person he wanted to be even now, at least he knew that there was a difference between the two. And he was certainly closer than he used to be.

So they were both reformed men, then. Ithilian didn't find it too hard to believe. Very rarely did anyone make the right choices the first time around, it seemed. And not all were as lucky as they were. For many, the damage would be irreversible by the time they realized any damage had been done at all.

"The last time we were down here together," Ithilian said, "you told me of the location of a Dalish clan in Ferelden, the Relaferin. I suppose I have you to thank as well for my change, at least in part. My time with them was extremely useful. How is it that you knew of them? Dalish don't often allow outsiders among them, particularly shemlen." If he had done something to gain their respect, then it was possible Ithilian had entirely misjudged Lucien from the very beginning.

Lucien smiled at that, shaking his head faintly as if he’d just remembered something fondly. And he did, after a fashion. “Ah, so you found them, then. As for how I found them… I think we tend to be willing to put differences aside when survival is at stake, no? Rilien and I had just left Orlais and were crossing Ferelden while the Blight was still active. On our way into the Frostbacks, we stumbled upon a Darkspawn ambush, though not for us.” He remembered the ensuing argument with some odd sort of amusement, largely because arguing with a Tranquil was a very strange sort of experience.

“In what was perhaps one of my more indiscreet moments, I tried to flank the ambush. Rilien made sure I didn’t get killed. Even so… it was a bit of an ugly fight. I didn’t know there was a second wave of Darkspawn until I was in the middle of it. Fortunately, the clan was much more tactical than I was and rallied well enough to break through both waves.” He’d been in something of a bad way after that, actually, and for a while, it was uncertain whether he’d managed to contract the Taint or not. All in all, not one of his smarter decisions, but then… right and smart did not always correlate, as his former Bard friend had always been quick to remind him. “My injuries delayed me a bit, though, and they were kind enough to let us stay in the meantime. Are they all well? I remember that the ambush destroyed the majority of the aravels, and I’m not sure if the mountains had the right supplies to rebuild them.”

Indeed, Ithilian felt as if he was seeing the man truly for the first time today. It made him wonder how much else his hate had hidden from his sight. More than the loss of the eye had, no doubt. "They are well, yes," he answered, glad to say it. "By the time I left them, they had moved back down into the woods and rebuilt the aravels. If they are still there now, I cannot say. I would have joined them, actually, if I hadn't had things to make right in Kirkwall. They're good people."

His words became somewhat tinged with a heaviness. "My own clan was further east at the time. I was the only survivor of the Blight among them. Going there again... helped me on my way to making peace with that. My clan was not fortunate enough to come across someone of your caliber... until now, that is."

The chevalier’s face pulled into a frown at the thought, and he shook his head. There was definitely an oversight there—the feuding civil government had honestly cared very little for the fate of the smallfolk, and even less for the elves, of course. He doubted Ithilian’s was the only such story, but that made it no more fortunate. “I am truly sorry to hear that,” he said, sighing through his nose. He paused a moment, almost certain he’d heard something, but after several seconds, it turned out to be nothing in particular, and the scenery wasn’t much changing either. He as well could only hope that Nostariel and Ashton were not being overwhelmed elsewhere—he was fairly certain that she’d told him the Roads were only supposed to be this deserted for the first couple of years after a Blight. He wasn’t sure how the Spawn built their numbers back up so quickly, but then again… perhaps some things were better unknown.

Picking up his walking pace again, Lucien turned back to Ithilian. “You know,” he said at last, “I’m willing to help, where it’s needed. I’ve not been much to the Alienage, given the fact that it has two very capable guardians already… and I know my presence is not exactly reassuring to some. But if there’s some way I can assist even so, especially given all the new residents, I would like to know what it is. Just… if you happen to think of anything.” He was stopped from saying anything further, though, because he heard something again, and this time he knew he wasn’t just imagining it. Removing the axe from his back, he raised an eyebrow, as if to ask if Ithilian wanted to go investigate. He had learned his lesson from that ambush, after all—where possible, utilize the scout, even if there are only two people on the journey.

Ithilian could indeed think of one thing, but it would have to wait, as he was starting to sense the threat as well. He adjusted his grip on the bowstring and the arrow and moved forward cautiously, to the edge of the corner they were approaching. The sounds and the smell beyond were unmistakably darkspawn, and more powerful than anything he had encountered before, even during the Blight. He peeked around the corner, cautiously. What he saw was something he had always blocked from his mind, but also something he had always known to be true.

"There will be no getting around this," he whispered back to Lucien. That was when he caught sight of Ashton. "But at least we're not alone."

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel

Earnings

0.00 INK



Rilien read over the parchment, noting that Emeric had sent the missive both to Sparrow (at the Darktown address, he presumed, though he lived above his shop, most of the time), and Aurora. That one probably would have had to go through someone, as he doubted very much an apostate wanted to be on record. Everyone knew where Sparrow lived—he gathered that very few knew where Aurora was located. He, of course, was one of the easiest people to find in Kirkwall, unless he desired to be otherwise. As there was no particular reason for him to hide, Rilien did not.

Folding the letter along its former creases, he tucked it away into his shirt. Another woman had gone missing from the Circle, but the Templar’s vigilance on the matter had allowed for quick access to her phylactery—it had ben traced to Darktown. The Templars had to go through official channels to get men down there, channels which were apparently being curiously slow, on both ends, from Orsino’s office and Meredith’s. One might have wondered why, but Circle politics did not concern the Tranquil. At least not until someone paid him to make it otherwise. Emeric was not, but this was a task Rilien was intent on seeing to completion, if only because he had started it.

The location was enclosed with the letter, and he supposed the others would meet him there with all due speed. Which was why, after taking a selection of weaponry and potions from the shop, he headed immediately for the nearest entrance to Darktown, which happened to be down a steam-release hatch and into the sewers. It was unsavory, but he paid it no mind—the waterproofing job on his boots was adequate to the task of keeping out anything potentially infectious. He’d lived in the place long enough to grow accustomed to the smell, anyway.

Rilien found himself outside a door. It looked like every other door in Darktown, save that he’d never had cause to go beyond this one before. It doubtless led, as many did, to a warren of tunnels and passageways, but that was of little consequence. He paused, however, before opening it. It would make sense to give the other two a bit more time to appear before forging ahead by himself. Given what they’d encountered thus far in their search, ill magic was almost guaranteed to come into play at some point. Allies would not go awry.

Sparrow did not pore over her missive as Rilien might have done, nor did study the lilting handwriting to identify its penman. Her fingers skittered over the parchment's edges, and she brought it briefly to her nose, before shoving it into her back pocket in a crumpled mess. Hardly anyone sent her messages in Darktown save for Rilien with his cryptic letters, always folded in unusual ways and annotating puzzling directions to meet him somewhere (always, always far too cryptic, in her opinion). Other than that, the Blooming Rose seemed dogged in their pursuits to have Sparrow make an appearance, sending papers smelling distinctly of roses, heavy perfumes and sweat. They, too, had found out that she was no longer a male, and had never been one in the first place. Curious things were difficult to conceal when you no longer looked as masculine as you would have liked—young boy, pseudo-girl seemed more appropriate. Either way, the brothel wanted oddities, and she would have fit in nicely. Not that she'd ever accept, but it was an option.

She sighed softly, tugging her boots on while rocking back on her disheveled bed. Whatever needed being done was, peculiarly, in Darktown. No use dragging her feet when the location was close enough to spit at. Though, Sparrow questioned why she was being called upon. She'd never been a good candidate for someone to rely on, nor anyone shining with goodness. Saving kittens from trees and swindling no-gooders all the way to the Gallows was not something she'd even consider, but somehow, Emeric thought differently. Missing mages from the drab-inner workings of the Circle, no less. It served them right, but the news did not sit well in her stomach. The Templars seemed nonplussed by her disappearance, hardly moving from their snail-crawl of a pace, unless it involved apprehending said mage and throwing her atop Meredith's blade, or whichever punishment they preferred to deal out when it came to unruly apostates. It sickened her to no end.

Gathering up her things—her mace, fitted leathers and cotton hood, Sparrow looked once over her shoulder, murmured something soft under her breath and slammed the door shut behind her. They would be dealing with dark things, no doubt. Though, Sparrow still childishly hoped that the Templars were the cause of this. Her anger could have been justified, backed by generations of wrong-doings. She would have no qualms fighting them. It hardly worked that way, and if they faced more mages, turned down darkened paths by years of oppression, she would have no other choice than to strike them down. Quickly, efficiently, before anything else could crop up. She promised she would never succumb to any creature again. She zigzagged through dark alleys, only slowing her sauntering gait to greet hunched-over figures, shouting dealers and small children squealing to be lifted up, and swung around like birds. This place was her home. Perhaps, as much as the Alienage was Amalia's home. Two sides of the same coin, she'd thought. Though, Sparrow belonged nowhere, drifting between the thin line of elves and humans.

No one could successfully creep up on Rilien, though Sparrow always tried. Her tiptoeing had always been louder to sensitive, trained ears, bordering on the clik-clak's of armored heels and horse-hooves. She paused briefly, straightened her shoulders and resisted the urge to plow into Rilien's back by settling her hand on his elbow, tugging him back from the doorway. “You weren't thinking of going on ahead without us, were you?” She inquired, eyebrows knitting. The mock-sobriety crinkled out of her face, replaced by a seedy smile. “I'm still not sure how you made it here before me, but I shouldn't be surprised, I suppose. So, what have we here, at this door?” Her hand fell away from his elbow, and perched above the chipped door handle.

With the tape firmly bound to her fingers, Aurora began to flex her hand, balling both into fists and then relaxing them, putting the digits through the paces. Pleased with the mobility the bandages provided, she looked up to her nurse with a smile. "Hey, you're not bad at this," She told Milly. The elf simply shook her head and went about cleaning up the excess, sliding her medical kit underneath her bed. Well, bed was optimistic, in reality it was more of a cot held together with Milly's hopes and prayers. She wasn't too enthused about the missive Aurora had recieved, because usually when letters like that arrived, she returned home with bruises and cuts that she had to heal. More often than not, they were found on her knuckles.

The chilly air did not escape Aurora, and she tilted her head in puzzlement. "I'm going to be alright. I always am," Aurora said, fishing out a heavy boot from under her own bed. She learned the foolishness of trying to kick something solid without a thick piece of leather between her fragile toes and her target. Fortunately, there was enough time this go around to actually prepare for what was to come. Thus the taped fingers.

Milly's hazel's eyes stared at her in response. "What if you're not?" Came the accusation. Aurora was silent for a moment, unwilling to answer it so quickly. She'd grown accustomed to living on her own for so long, only having herself to depend upon. She had made friends within the city, yes, and she trusted them with every ounce of her soul-- But at the end, there was her, and only her. Others could guide her, aid her, but it was her to walk in her own shoes. No one else could do that for her. It was this she found her problem.

She never worried for herself, but the feeling of having another worry for her was alien. Maybe Amalia and Nostariel worried for her at times, but then again it was never so... overt as Milly was making it. "What if you're not?" Milly repeated, "What else do I have in this city? You're the only reason I'm here." With those words came a wave of guilt. Living on her own had made Aurora selfish-- or perhaps she had always been selfish. Either way, she could see the weight weighing on Milly's shoulders. But what was she to do? She wasn't the kind of person to leave things like this half-done. She needed to see it through.

Aurora stood up and marched across the room, wrapping Milly in a wide hug. When she pulled back, she gave her the biggest smile she could manage. "You worry too much," She said, dismissing Milly's arguments entirely. "I'll be alright, so don't you worry about me leaving anytime soon. I'll be right back, I promise," She said, slipping quickly out of the house.

As soon as she was outside, the smile from her face dropped just as fast. Herself and her own problems she could deal with, but Milly's worry was something she couldn't get a handle on. Illusion or not, it was hard to get it out of her mind. With her thoughts weighing her down, she took her time heading toward Darktown. When she arrived, she noticed that Sparrow and Rilien had both beaten her there and both were staring at a door-- Sparrow's hand hovering above the handle. With a flick of her wrist, she summoned the blade hidden within her bracer. Her head tilted curiously and she asked, "Is it locked? I can help with that."

Is it locked? Sparrow chuffed in amusement, wrinkling her nose. Her fingers touched the top of the handle, retracted a few inches and came to rest atop Rilien's snowy hair—so soft for a man's, as she'd so often noted. He wouldn't have cared even if she ruffled it, but she merely left them there, as if she'd placed her hand on a horse's muzzle, stilling it from tromping ahead without them. “The beauty arrives, diligent as ever,”[/i] she greeted with a twinkle in her murky eyes, shrugging her shoulders, [color=#1589FF]“We aren't even sure whether or not it's locked, to be honest. I just kept our hot-headed friend from dashing off ahead.” Nothing could be further from the truth, because Rilien was capable of anything but hot-headedness. Treating him so, as she would any other, made her feel like their relationship hadn't changed in the slightest. He was still the Tranquil, not-so-Tranquil, and she was still Sparrow, the woman who sometimes hid beneath her own flesh. She nodded and stepped back, allowing Aurora to move closer to the door, and finally releasing Rilien with a cheeky grin splayed across her lips.

"It is not,” Rilien replied simply. He’d stopped at Sparrow’s approach, and then it had seemed only pertinent to wait for Aurora as well. The deduction was not hard—it was they who had begun this, and so it fell to them to finish it. Lucien was out of town at the moment, besides. Perhaps he would have been here, otherwise. Whatever the case, Rilien would fight outside the other man’s looming shadow today. His eyes flickered just briefly upwards as if to chastise the roughened hand that rested atop his crown, but of course he did no such thing. "But it is trapped.” He pointed, and indeed, right before the tip of his finger was a wire, so thin as to be almost invisible.

Simply cutting it would set off the trap. The work was a bit more delicate than that. Removing several tools and a drop-shaped weight from a pouch at his belt, he stepped forward and out from underneath Sparrow’s hand. His movements were deft and quick—the trap was of a fairly standard assemblage, even if it was at what he considered to be an inappropriate height for a tripwire. Within a few seconds, he was pulling back, and he used a foot to push the door open. They were met with, unsurprisingly, a passageway, this one quite apparently empty. He blinked at it for a moment before he started forward. It would make the most sense for him to lead, as he had a trained eye for traps.

Indeed, there were several more. "Someone does not wish to be caught unawares,”[/b] he observed after disabling the third consecutive pressure plate. This one was right at the top of some wooden stairs, and they appeared to lead down into an area occupied by a sort of living space, dominated by several bookshelves, a fireplace, and above it, the portrait of a middle-aged woman. He felt something shift in the Fade, and His hands were at the hilts of his knives by way of warning when several demons appeared, spawning from the ground itself. Sentinels—it seemed they were in the right place.

There were two rage demons, a desire demon, and a handful of shades. Vaulting off the staircase and onto the ground below, Rilien brought a knife down into the single eye of one of the shades, banishing it immediately. Three more of them headed for the stairs, and he found himself immediately juggling the two rage demons.

Sparrow's mouth curled at the edges, though she only shrugged her shoulders. Her hand barely touched the doorknob, so she wasn't exactly sure why Rilien had been lingering there in the first place, but something was obviously wrong with the door, no doubt. If it was locked, broken, or otherwise fabled with tricky traps, Sparrow would not have been surprised. Nothing was easy when it came to the things they were tasked with. Especially if it involved any building residing in Darktown, let alone one she was not familiar with. This door—and whatever it led to—was an enigma, slowly piquing her interest the longer they stood there. Her hand remained on Rilien's head, nestled in his unsuspectingly soft hair, until he nonchalantly ducked under it. So unusually, and almost unsettllingly, soft for a man. She clicked her tongue in disappointment and settled the offending fingers across the pommel of her mace. “Sharpest eyes in all of Kirkwall,” she cooed softly and sidled closer to Aurora.

The last time she stepped into a ramshackle building, Sparrow hadn't seen the traps littering the floor, stupidly stepped into them and caused all sorts of misfortune. It ultimately led to years of misery, as well. She would not repeat the same mistake twice. Never again, she'd promised. She squinted at her companion. Traps had never stopped, or even slowed, his progress. Her fingers were hardly nimble, even with his careful, steady instructions. His patience with her lack of progress, even as a Tranquil, was uncanny. The most basic of mechanisms were impossible puzzles she could not complete, and she had no desire to practice. Sitting still for long periods of time rattled her nerves. Why learn something new when you could smash the obstacle to pieces? Or otherwise freeze, set to flame, or bash with rocks? Her eyes slowly trickled away from his hands, moving like clockwork. She'd never have thought that Aurora had a knack for locks, and just as she was about to inquire, the door creaked open as Rilien toed it open.

Her gaze swung back. An empty passageway. It wasn't what she was expecting. Sparrow was about to step in front of Rilien, taking the lead like she normally did, but was beat by him moving under the threshold first, which might have been for the best. Her pride prickled at the thought. Nothing special about the room that she could see, but Rilien was already bending down. Fiddling with things she could not see. Even when she focused her eyes and blurred her vision to see only movement or misshapen tiles, Sparrow saw nothing unusual. “It'd make it easier if they just stationed thugs,” she sighed, scratching the back of her head. Thugs could be beaten, bought off, or worse. Traps usually elicited terrible outcomes, by means of shadowy entities, harmful poisons, and arrows thundering past your ears. None of those enticed her. She only hoped that Rilien could spot and disarm each one. She followed him up the stairs, idling so he could deal with the plate, and then stopping short of the odd-looking painting above the fireplaces mantel. Calloused fingers trailed the lower edges of the frame, searching for a name. All artists wrote their names on their work, right?

Her fingers retracted. She, too, felt the eerie shift. Like stepping into an uncomfortably cold chamber, bare feet and all. Sparrow had enough sense to disentangle the mace from her hip, and cast a lingering shroud of arcane energy over Rilien, before slipping around Aurora and swinging her blunted weapon through the shade that appeared behind her. It disappeared, leaving a trail of dust in its wake. She whipped around, turning to face the desire demon, closest to their right.

The shift in the air was not lost on Aurora. In fact, she honestly sighed at the arrival of demons. "How much you want to bet there's a bloodmage at the end of this?" Aurora muttered without an ounce of humor. It was stunts like these that ensured that they'd never be able to walk free as mages. Aurora threw a quick glance around them, surveying the field and then slipping it into her memory. She then tilted her body to the side, opposite of Sparrow, and brought her hand around-- hidden blade unsheathing itself in midflight. The steel sunk cleaning into the eye of the shade that had appeared there-- and ensuring that it didn't catch Sparrow off-guard as she dealt with the one behind her.

The shade melted into dust as it was banished back into the fade, and that left one more out of the group that had approached them. With Sparrow dealing with the desire demon, she took it upon herself to pick up the nuisance. She brought her hands back around to her front and dipped into the fade herself, summoning energy to her hands. Strands of her cardinal hair pricked and lifted from her shoulders as a static charge gathered around her. In a moment, the charge was dispelled through her hands in an arc of lightning, striking the shade and branching off into the other demons around them.

She managed to catch a glimpse of her fingers-- noting the tape still intact despite the magical assault. It seemed that Milly was right on with their placement, though there was a moment of guilt. She ran past the guilt, and into a dead sprint toward the stunned shade. Midstride, she drew back her offhand, and encased it in a spear of ice. The uppercut that ensued pieced through what Aurora would call the closest thing it had to a head, and to make doubly sure, stung it a couple of times with her wristblade in the midsection. Her ice-blade melted away with the shade and she turned to clean up the rest of them-- keeping her allies close in mind in case they needed her aid.

"There always is,” Rilien replied, just as humorlessly. In truth, he’d been rather expecting that since the first murder. He was, of course, well aware of the possibility of a more mundane serial killer, but one of those would not likely have targeted two mages in his schemes—they were harder to get to, and riskier to take, with the Templars constantly sniffing around. Unless, of course, one was somehow prepared to deal with that… or had help on the inside. That suggested either apostate or Templar, and the constant presence of shades and demons at every stage of this venture pointed to the former.

The rage demon on his left went in with a sweep aimed from his midsection, but Rilien leapt backwards, the magma-covered limb missing his tunic by a hairsbreadth. He threw the ice-enchanted knife in his hand, hitting center mass on the creature, and its molten carapace began to harden around the spot, stiffening it and limiting the movement of its torso. The other one, not so inhibited, lurched forward before he could press the advantage, and managed to collide bodily with him before he could twist out of the tight quarters between the demons and the wall. He hissed reflexively, a soft sound, as the heat from it nearly scorched the right side of his rib cage, but fortunately for him, silk did not burn easily, and so the heat itself was the primary problem.

Rilien rolled his entire body with the hit, allowing the momentum to carry his upper half backwards, and then he converted the rest into enough torque to flip his feet over his head, and landed in a three-point crouch, reversing his direction and pushing forward, driving the blade of his remaining knife up through what passed for the creature’s lower jaw. It emerged from the upper one, and he twisted and yanked it out, dropping the creature and then darting to the side to latch onto his other knife, still lodged in the second rage demon, and drag it sideways through its body, opening up a large wound before he pulled it free. A couple more quick strokes to the hardened portion of its body effectively dismantled it, and it too returned from whence it had come.

The Tranquil straightened, shaking a bit of excess fluid from the daggers, and turned to the others, who also appeared to be finishing up. "I would suppose there is something in this room that we were not meant to see.” What exactly that was would only become evident if they looked.

Did they always have to deal with shady bloodmages? She wished that these were Knight-Commander Meredith's lackeys. How satisfying it would have been to see her fingers muddled in this particular pie, but alas they had to deal with their own kind (and she did think of them as her own kind, because mages needed to stick together as best they could without setting each other on fire). Had they been dealing with commonplace thugs, or sticky-fingered, ass-backwards bandits, Sparrow may have been less disappointed. The Fade felt uncomfortably close, like a wool blanket being thrown over her head. Itchy and far too warm. It spread through her fingers, gripped her knuckles and tightened what-little muscle she still had on her upper arms. Her biceps, her shoulders; aflame with budding energy. If she were a stronger person, she would have sworn off magic altogether—because it had hurt more people than she could count on her fingers, and doing something else she'd only regret later was the last thing she wanted to do. However uncomfortable it was, magic still had its uses.

Sifts of ash blew behind her, billowing where Aurora had gracefully stepped in. She flashed a grin over her shoulder and quickly turned away, recklessly dashing towards the Desire Demon. Its arms were spread wide, fingers poised and searching, as if it were welcoming a lover to its barely-concealed breasts. Sparrow would have none of that—not this time, nor ever again. No tricks, no rose-rimmed promises could cause her to sink so low. Her answer was a resolute no, coming in the form of a wildly arcing mace; two-handed, swung over her head. The demon was smart enough to jerk backwards, pulling her arms to her chest. Her whispers abruptly cut off, and replaced by a grim-faced, screeching hiss. She did not slow. She did not temper her aggression. Instead, she allowed her momentum to carry her to the demon's right side, where she twisted her body to challenge the creature once more and slammed the back of her fist, bristling with arcane energy, into the demon's unprotected face. Whatever it had been expecting hadn't been that. It lay sprawled on the ground, holding its nose in its claws.

Desire Demons, as a rule, hardly ever fought unless it was absolutely necessary. Why fight if they could simply weasel their way past someone's defences? Sparrow shook the numbness from her hand, and approached with the mace leaning against her shoulder; striding purposefully. Bags of gold—women, all the women—atonement and forgiveness and identity pooled from the creature's purple lips, in many different voices. All familiar and all so pronouncedly false. She focused energy through her mace until it shimmered and wavered, somewhere between the physical realm and the Fade, hefted it into both hands, drew it back over her head and hurled it down. What remained was little more than dust and ashes, crinkling away like burnt parchment. She kicked up puffs of the stuff and whirled around to face her companions, and see how they fared. Perhaps, she shouldn't have been too surprised. Each person she'd met in Kirkwall had faced unbeatable odds, she was sure. Shades, demons, destitute bloodmages, beefy Qunari and bandits alike. She wiped the sweat from her brow, tied the mace back to her hip and squinted at the corners of the chamber. Most likely, it'd be Aurora or Rilien picking up what she could not.

“Nothing looks out of place,” she murmured, approaching a nearby wall. She never liked puzzles, let alone secret passageways or anything that wasn't an open doorway. Sparrow knuckled her nose, awkwardly shifting from foot to foot. Aurora had gotten considerably better in combat since last they fought together (and Rilien was as efficient, as usual). She still hit things hard, but her strength wasn't what it used to be. “You should teach me that some time,” Sparrow ventured, flicking her arm out as if she had an ice-blade, "I've never seen anyone use their magic that way." Truthfully, she'd only seen magic used a handful of times. And usually, only in the means of healing. She continued moving around the room, occasionally scuffing her boot and crouching down to look at things. Dirt specks, upturned chair, page from a book. Nothing useful.

Setting

4 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

Now, an ordinary Darkspawn did not merit a reaction of this kind, and Nostariel found that her suspicions about something worse being the cause of this were quite confirmed. She’d been a bit concerned about it, and in the end had simply followed Ashton to where he was hidden. Peeking carefully around him, her eyes grew round and wide at the sight before her. There were at least thirty Darkspawn there, of various kinds, but the worst part was the reddened heap of flesh and slime and Taint that was attached to one of the walls of the cavern. She had to swallow several times, because her mouth had gone dry.

She’d only ever fought one Broodmother before, and that was in a strike squad of thirty Wardens, who’d known where the thing was ahead of time. This was… much more dire than that, though a look to her side did allow her to catch sight of Ithilian, and she waved frantically to catch his attention, still hidden behind the rock formation. She mimed the action of drawing a bow with one hand, then held a palm out flat and moved it up and down a few times, trying to communicate that they needed to pick off as many from a distance as possible. Chewing her lip for a moment, she also made a motion for a large size, trying to refer to the Broodmother, then made a swooping motion with one of her hands, waggling her fingers when they went vertical. How was one supposed to convey that the thing had tentacles which came up from the ground?

Whether or not any of this was communicated properly, they were running out of time. They wouldn’t stay unnoticed forever, especially not her, and the Warden unslung her bow from her back. If she could start this off with an explosion and kick up some debris, chances were good most of the guards would make for her and Ash, which should allow Ithilian and Lucien at least some opportunity to get at the Broodmother. It would be important not to just allow it… her… to be able to pick them off from afar, she remembered that much. Sliding an arrow from her quiver, she nocked it and pulled back, infusing the fireball spell into it and arcing it up, not particularly caring where in the throng of them it hit.

The explosion did indeed generate cover, and the sounds of Spawn armor clinking and their gurgling growls were evidence that many of them were indeed headed their way. “Okay, now we back up and let them come to us,” she said hastily, and did just that, putting another arrow to the string and waiting for the first pursuer to emerge from the dust cloud.

With Nostariel making the leading attack, the entirety of the darkspawn group's attention was shifted in the direction of Ashton and herself, leaving Ithilian and Lucien with an opening. The natural instinct to protect friends would lead them to attack the many spawn rather than the Broodmother, but that wasn't the wisest course here. While they were all distracted with the horde, the Broodmother could attack from a distance, and make it much easier for them to be overwhelmed. She needed to be dealt with, or at least occupied, while the masses were wiped out.

"Do what you can to the Broodmother," Ithilian suggested, drawing an arrow back and peering through the debris. "I'll cover the others." Lucien was the natural choice to take a target head on, while Ithilian could do massive amounts of damage to an unprepared enemy. These darkspawn, all with their backs turned, were just such an enemy. He loosed the first arrow into the spinal column of a hurlock, drawing a second. Ithilian knew exactly what a Broodmother was capable of, having inquired against his better judgment about the fates of those taken by darkspawn. Whoever this thing had once been, he would see to it that they put them to rest here.

And he was fairly certain that he now knew where Darkspawn came from. Some things were better left unknown, indeed. He did not particularly relish the thought of trying to fight the thing, especially not alone, but he’d never said no to a challenge that he could recall. Even if the challenge was faintly sickening him to think about. Perhaps it was best if he simply didn’t think about it too much. Nodding to indicate that he had heard and consented to Ithilian’s strategy, Lucien peeled off from the other side and tried to approach the massive Darkspawn creature from the flank. Not being privy to any of Nostariel’s improvised sign-language, he had little idea of what to expect, and approached as cautiously as one could, while still intending to get up-close and kill something.

It was perhaps the only reason he was able to jump back in time to avoid being skewered by one of the tentacles that emerged from the ground, shooting straight up vertically and barely missing his chin. Assuming that it was somehow connected to the similarly-colored creature he was going for, Lucien swung his axe in a broad horizontal sweep, biting deep into the appendage. Another two swings had it retracting with something like a hiss, and he was back in his way to the creature itself.

The ground beneath his feet was vaguely… squishy, and he had the sudden thought that it was perhaps fortunate that he had a strong stomach, lest he might lose the last thing he’d eaten considering the implications of this twisted parody of motherhood and the environment it was nested in. At least they’d come upon it, which gave them the opportunity to destroy it. He could only hope that would stave off a future Darkspawn problem in the general Kirkwall area.

The wet squelch his axe made as it hit the Broodmother’s side was not particularly encouraging, and for a moment, he wondered if he’d actually cut the thing at all, but upon withdrawing the weapon to swing again, he was able to see that he had, if not as much as such a blow would usually occasion. Looking at the thing, he imagined it could hemorrhage quite a lot of fluid before it even started to weaken in any considerable—

A tentacle erupted in his blind spot, and before he had time to react to the sound of it, which was a sort of damp sucking rather than the sound of stone being moved, it had seized him around the middle and was pulling. Lucien dug in as well as he could, stabbing the short spear point of his axe down into the fleshy flooring and gritting his teeth as he tried to maintain his footing, but the thing was unnaturally strong, and the ground slick. The spear-point actually snapped off, and with that, the majority of his hold was gone, and he flung against the far wall with a great clanking of armor. At least he’d managed to maintain his hold on the axe, and he was on his feet again quickly, blinking spots from his eyes and slowly forcing his lungs to expand. Having the wind knocked out of oneself was not a frequent experience for someone so steady on his feet, but that Darkspawn was definitely bigger than he was.

This time, his sortie forward was blocked by no fewer than five of the undulating appendages, and he was at least grimly relieved that he seemed to be holding its attention.

When Nostariel fired her first arrow, Ashton added his own behind it. "Yes ma'am," he added with a wink-- though his smile absent, traded in for a suitably focused frown. He slipped into harmony with the pretty little warden at his side, producing a steady and constant stream of arrows pestering the darkspawn. Unfortunately, he traded in precision for speed, looking to harass and maim if not outright kill. "Body shots," He reminded his once-student. For more area to hit, and less of a chance to miss. Damn fine archers they may have been, but they were simply mortal.

He followed Nostariel's suggestion to the letter, backing up as he fired, and he noted the walls at their sides. A bottleneck he noted to himself. Nostariel made a fine hunter, he thought, as he added another arrow to the fray. He'd also caught sight of Ithilian on the other end of the cave picking 'Spawn off from behind. So for him, it made all the sense in the world for him to pucker his lips and let loose a high-pitched whistle to attempt to draw even more attention, or even regain the attentions of the 'Spawn that decided that there were other-- better targets.

The pair of archers continued to back up as quickly as possible while still drawing the Darkspawn attention to themselves, which was working quite effectively. In fact, if they hadn’t had Ithilian’s assistance from behind, it probably would have been too effective. As the corridor narrowed, however, it became clear that they just couldn’t fire quite fast enough. “Cover me, Ash,” Notariel said shortly, ducking around behind him to build a spell. It wasn’t one she was terribly practiced with, but they were going to need it, and having so many enemies densely packed into one area provided the perfect opportunity. She hoped his melee wasn’t as rusty was hers, because there was no getting around the fact that this took half a minute, at least.

Slinging her bow over her shoulder, she drew her hands together, concentrating as much magic as she could between her palms. Fire was not really her best element, but it was easier than lightning, and those were her two options, so fire it would be. Dipping deep into the Fade, she weakened the Veil just over the heads of the Darkspawn and summoned the crashing spheres of flame, her face set into an expression of deep concentration. She had to, by the very nature of the spell, stop paying such close attention to what was going on around her, but she was rewarded for it when the first of the flames descended, smashing into a knot of ‘Spawn about three quarters of the way back. Several more followed, the radius close enough to where they stood that their faces and exposed flesh were awash in hot air, but that was it. It shouldn’t be far enough back to bother Ithilian, either, but unfortunately that also meant it would be no help at all for whatever Lucien was doing.

The firestorm wreaking its particular brand of havoc, Nostariel returned to firing bare arrows from behind Ash, needing time before enough of her mana returned to her to do anything more significant than a simple healing spell. One of those, she was smart enough to always keep in reserve, these days. The lack of such foresight had once cost her dearly, and she never intended to let that happen again.

The rearmost of the darkspawn were able to halt their advance rather than throw themselves into the firestorm Nostariel had created, but they found a different kind of storm awaiting them when they turned back. Ithilian had both blades in hand when he charged into them from behind, spearing one of them with each hand with his first attack, one through the stomach, the other through the lower back. The force was enough to lift them entirely off the ground before Ithilian planted them back down on it. He withdrew the swords and turned to deal with the others.

Unfortunately, he only managed to cleave through two more before the long reach of the broodmother found him. A tentacle burst forth from the ground in front of him, knocking both he and the darkspawn nearest to him off balance momentarily. It wasn't long enough to halt him entirely, though, and the appendage soon found twin blades repeatedly slicing sideways across it, until it vanished back down into the earth. The second one, however, came from behind, sliding under his arms and wrapping tightly around his chest. He barely had enough time to stab down at it before he was thrown bodily in the direction of the broodmother herself.

He slammed shoulder first into the chest of the great darkspawn, sending his swords clattering to the ground. Thankfully, events progressed a little too quickly for him to think about how disgusting his predicament was. The broodmother caught him before he could fall with a meaty hand, grabbing him and pulling him towards her face. It looked like she was preparing for some kind of roar, or perhaps to just bite his head off, but Ithilian had quite frankly had enough. He pulled Parshaara from its sheath on his chest and tried to stab it into the broodmother's head. Her skull was a little too thick for that, sadly, but the enchantment took effect, igniting a burst of flame around the darkspawn's face. She howled from the pain and dropped Ithilian back to the earth. Sheathing the dagger, he retrieved his swords and fell back away from it several paces. This was not going to be a battle he would be able to forget any time soon.

It had taken Lucien considerable time to hack his way through the wall of tentacles before him, especially whilst trying to avoid being tossed about by any of them, and about midway through, he had the thought that smaller, lighter weapons would have been better for this part, but he was glad of the axe because the main body of the creature was going to need a considerable amount of seeing-to. By the time the last fell away and he was able to discern what was going on more than three feet in front of him, Ithilian was already stabbing downwards, and he was almost positive he recognized one of Rilien’s finer enchantments at work in the flames, though perhaps he only thought so because he knew so few enchanters.

As the rogue went down, the knight stepped up, so to speak, lifting his axe up and over his head in a woodsman’s cleave with as much force behind it as he could muster without risking overextension, and this time, the damage was not negligible, carving into the quivering flesh of the creature and causing no small amount of blood to spurt from either side of the axehead, though not with nearly enough force to pose a risk of hitting himself or his comrade and tainting them. That earned him a reaction, and two tentacles at once grabbed for him. He twisted out of the way for the first, but the second caught him by the ankle and yanked his feet out from underneath him. He landed hard on his dominant shoulder with a grunt.

“Tenacious,” he muttered beneath his breath, finding his feet with a little more difficulty than last time. He wasn’t exactly meant to be tossed around, but he didn’t always fight men these days, and some things were quite capable of it. Normally, a challenge would have been something he welcomed, but… in the end, this was executioner’s work, and he could find nothing to relish in it. It was simply grim business, and he would rather have done with it and begone from here. Of course, that was not happening until Nostariel was well ready, but he certainly took none of the joy from this that he had from the dragon.

With his bow in one hand, Ashton slid the machete he carried on his back out of its sheath, and gave a fierce chop to the nearest darkspawn. The blade was a viciously sharp as he kept it, and the Genlock's skin and bone offered no resistance, at least not until it reached the top of its ribcage. Placing a foot square on the dead thing's chest, he pushed, and threw the lifeless corpse back into its companions. Their and Ithilian's combined assault saw to it that the Darkspawn threat dwindled down to a mere trickle-- enough so that he could force their way through.

"Keep close!" He spared for Nostariel before shutting his mouth anew. It would do no good if he contracted the taint now of all places. The machete came across this time, burying itself in a genlock's stocky torso, and this one too was thrown off. Another had its hands lopped off before its skull was split. Once a sword was falling far too fast for him to react, and he blinked in the moment of expected pain, only to feel a weight on his shoulder. Initially he believed shock was in play, but he opened his eyes to realize the blade was just sitting on his shoulder before lazily falling backward. Its owner had a newly minted arrow in its forehead. He gave a silent thanks for Nostariel, and made a mental note to give her a hug afterward.

On the otherside, Ashton quickly dropped out from Nostariel's front and spun around, putting his back against hers. Displaying acrobatics and foresight more common from their tranquil friend, Ashton's machete arced over Nostariel's head in his spin, cleaving the tentacle that'd popped up behind them in two. Closing his eyes and throwing his face to the side, he escaped the worst of the resulting blood spatter, though thick globules rolled down his cheeks. He forced his mouth shut even hard, and bit his lips together for good measure. Though he didn't speak, his meaning was clear. He'd have her back, while she focused on the Broodmother. Predatory eyes searched for where the next attack would come from, and his stance as protective as ever.

Nostariel took the cue for what it was. They needed to end this, and quickly. She was basically out of magic, but arrows alone weren’t going to do anything to this creature. So, with trepidation and a tightening feeling in her throat, she drew back her bow, charged the arrow, and let it fly. Thankfully, the head was well-enough made, and the shot well-enough placed, that it managed to pierce skin, giving it the hold that it really needed to do the actual damage, which was the equivalent of a point-blank fireball. She’d aimed for the side Lucien wasn’t on, and though Ithilian may well have bee able to feel the heat, it would not have done him any harm.

The result was more than she’d dared hope for; the left side of the broodmother was blackened and charred, the burns slowly oozing some fluid or another, and stretching from where the thing was attached to the wall all the way forward to its middle. “That’s all I’ve got!” she shouted, warning the two men closest that the rest of the work was, unfortunately, theirs for the completion.

The executioner's work seemed to be falling to Ithilian, and he did his best not to hesitate. The broodmother had largely forgotten about him once the Chevalier's axe bit into it, and Nostariel's fire magic did its work. This left the elf free of the annoying, wretched tentacles, free to maneuver into position for what needed to be done. It was not with a battle cry that he charged the creature once more, but rather with a set jaw and lips closed into a hard line, the look in his eyes cold and unflinching. He could not flinch when fighting monstrosities such as this.

While the creature was still reeling from the previous blows, Ithilian flipped his blades backwards in his hands and leapt as high as he could at it, bursting through the lingering smoke of the fireball, plunging both swords into the upper chest area of the broodmother, near the throat. It recoiled and went to grab at him, but he'd already moved on up, his feet finding purchase somewhere amidst the folds of skin while he tore out the first blade, and struck higher. He managed to stab somewhere into its face, but one blow was not nearly enough for Ithilian's liking. There would be no doubt that this thing was as dead as dead could be. He would see to it.

He brought his other blade up, alternating which sword he plunged in and which one he pulled free. With a blank face he stabbed through the eyes, forehead, mouth, throat... each brought a new splash of blood on him, until he was spattered with blood from head to toe. Finally, when the broodmother failed to react to at least three stabs in a row, Ithilian halted, breathing heavily through his nose, still wary of opening his mouth. Certain it was dead, he withdrew both of his blades and jumped backwards away from it, stumbling slightly when he hit the ground and going to one knee. He remained in a kneeling position, wiping the blood from his face with his sleeve.

Ithilian hoped that whatever person that thing had once been, they did not suffer overmuch.

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel

Earnings

0.00 INK

"Hmm? Oh that? It's, uh, it's nothing. Really," She said, trying to downplay it. "It's not that different from enchanting weapons with an element, just using your hand instead-- Bad idea with fire though. It leaves a nasty burn," She said with a nervous giggle. There had been an incident back when she was training with Amalia, and it taught her that magical fire was still just as hot as real fire. Even the ice was chilly, but a quick summon and dispel saw to it that frostbite never sat in. Still, she responded with a smile and nod. "Any time, there's a lot you can do with magic if you just open your mind," Not that she had much of an opportunity to experiment, what with the Templars breathing down her neck in the streets.

It didn't take long to find something strange. Aurora found herself standing in the middle of a room that really wasn't a room at all. There stood bookshelves, dressers, a table and chairs and even a fine bed off in the corner. It had the makings for a master bedroom-- had the room itself not been the usual grey Darktown squalor. It was... odd to say the least. Loose papers and book spread haphazardly from the small table, books were stacked in an ordered chaos upon the shelves, and even the covers of the bed were thrown into disarray. The strangest part wasn't the pale facsimile of a room though, but the "shrine" looking over it all. And make no mistake, it was a shrine.

Candles sat lit on either side of a portrait of a woman. Chalices of gold and silver occupied a nook beneath the portrait, smoking with what smelled like incense. And the portrait, with its gold painted frame, was of an older female. Strands of gray fell from her head, but she still possessed a dignified presence. Once, Aurora would have thought the woman was beautiful, but with the surrounding area bearing a hostile air, the image only further added to the creepy atmosphere.

"Uh... I think I found something," she called out to the others, taking a few cautionary steps away from the painting. As she did, she backed into the table. The table shook, sending a single piece of parchment out onto the floor. Aurora stooped down and took the paper, reading what was on it. A few words into it revealed the paper as something more and so she began to read it aloud. "Today is our anniversary. Had hoped to complete my work before now, but one piece is missing. I'm so sorry love. Please wait a little long. I haven't forgotten my promise. When I see it, I'll know. I would know that face anywhere."

She turned her eyes back to the painting and then to Sparrow, silently mouthing a single word to her. What?

“Nothing?” Sparrow gushed, flicking her hands as if to dismiss her modesty. “The Templars are lucky you aren't retaliating with abilities like those.” She might have enjoyed it if she did given their circumstance in Kirkwall. Aurora—the great vigilante, sweeping up the streets of all of those sodding wretches, stomping around in their heavy plates of armor. Mages were forced to hide away like unwanted stowaways, skittering for a safe place to stay. There was much she'd like to change in the city, but for a poor pauper (not so poor since adventuring in the Deep Roads) keeping her head low in Darktown, Sparrow could only hope that the world would come to its senses and see how wrong they were about them. She could not profess to belonging, in any case. She sat somewhere in the middle, grinding her teeth at the injustice of it all. Perhaps, someday, she'd approach her little magelet-friend and inquire. See if anything could be done, and if there was nothing to accomplish, to still count on her as an ally in any future-event. She could never understand being hunted down, nor could she understand having her freedom ripped away by someone else made up only of flesh-and-blood. Good note to jot down. Certain elements were fine, but: fire bad. “Maybe after we're finished with all of this mess—”

She continued sweeping the room, switching positions every now and again. Rocking back on her heels to stare at the ceiling for any indication of a secret shutter door leading to an attic—or something else underneath the nearby carpet; a latch, perhaps. Nothing. She grumbled softly, scratching her chin between forefinger and thumb. Her imagination, if anything, hampered her ability to find anything useful. And her patience was whittling down to nothing. Barely stifling a loud, obnoxious yawn, Sparrow extended her arms above her head and stretched her muscles out. She dropped her hands back down, glanced over her shoulder at Rilien and opened her mouth to question whether or not he'd found something on his hand. A trap, a clue, something to look at. It was then that she noticed that Aurora had moved into another room. Edging closer to Rilien, she kicked a broken, lop-sided chair that stood in her way and posted herself halfway into the next room. I think I found something. Finally! It beat sitting around, twiddling her fingers. She motioned to her silent-companion to follow her (which he would have done anyway but she liked to pretend she was doing something useful) into another chamber, following Aurora's voice.

The stupid grin quickly died on her lips, replaced by something closer to revulsion. This room felt off, as best she could describe. As if it were caught halfway between a dungeon, and a comfortable, snobby house. If someone were to move their things into a cave, she thought it would have a similar effect. Her eyes were immediately drawn to the large painting hanging above the fireplace mantle, surrounded by candles. Unsurprisingly, Sparrow did not recognize the woman's face; graceful, somewhat pretty and noble-looking. The atmosphere cast an ugly shadow across the bridge of her nose, until she was sure the thing was staring straight through them. She was not easy to scare, and she would never admit to it, but if someone were to offer, she'd gladly leave the place. Unfortunately, they still had no answers. This place, if anything, only posed more questions. Questions she wasn't sure she'd like to know. “Eh, is this a shrine?” She said, wrinkling her nose. When Aurora began to read the letter, she scooped up handfuls of paper, sifted through them and tossed them back on the ground. Pieces of many books, it seemed. One piece? Sparrow repeated, circling around Aurora to get a better look at the letter.

“Anniversary. Shrine, promise,” she checked her fingers off, motioning to the fireplace, “Dead person, obviously. But, wait a little longer? He's delusional. We're dealing with a delusional person.”

"It would have to be someone delusional to assume that he or she could continue to kidnap mages from the Circle without it coming to someone’s attention,” Rilien pointed out in his usual dry fashion. He could not, of course, be disturbed by the feel of the room or any such ridiculous notion, though he could sense residual Fade in it, like someone had been doing spells at length and over a period of a very long time nearby. Whatever this place was, it had been in use for a considerable amount of time, and there were Fade-beasts about.

"I believe we will find our answers in the next room,” he said simply, as that was where he sensed most of it to be coming from. "And most likely yet more demons.” It was a safe bet, considering what they’d run into so far. Another piece of parchment, this one written in a surer, more rounded hand than the shaky and spidery letters the others had been looking at. Rilien tucked it up his sleeve. He could give it some examining later, for now, the thing they needed to be doing was looking for that woman. He doubted very much that she was still alive, but if they could find an actual corpse this time, it may well give them something more for Emeric. Perhaps they would even be fortunate enough to find the killer.

As things turned out, the next room contained both a corpse and a killer. Rilien was relatively certain there were words spoken, and in fact, he would likely be able to repeat them back to anyone who asked for them, but they were, in point of fact, simply the ravings of a mad man. No more evidence was necessary for this than the thing he had created. He counted himself rather fortunate for his Tranquility, in some abstract sense, because it meant he was incapable of feeling the revulsion that he was fairly certain must be turning the stomachs of the other two. The moving cadaver, stitched together at the joints and animated by some fell, tainted magic, took a few lurching steps towards them and then stumbled. A step forward and a deft motion caught it, and he lowered the misbegotten creature to the ground with a measure of care perhaps unexpected in him.

It attempted to speak, but the words were incomprehensible, and he closed its eyes as the stolen life it had been granted left its body. It was his concern no longer—he now knew what had become of several years’ worth of missing women, and how they were connected to the shrine in the previous room. When a pride demon erupted from the ground on the other side of the room, he went for it, leaving whichever of the others wanted to slay the puppeteer to do so. He had not thoughts of revenge or anger, but he knew at least that Sparrow certainly would, and probably Aurora as well. Since it made no difference to him, he accounted for their likely preferences and took the lumbering Fade-creature, leaving the mage alone.

"Necromancy?!" Aurora exclaimed, her voice stained with shock and disgust. She expected blood magic, she expected rituals, what she didn't expect was it all being done for love as the madman put. Power yes, but never love. What he had created was an affront to nature far beyond simple blood magic. He'd desecrated the bodies of who knew how many other woman, and desecrated the memory of whoever it was he was trying to bring back. Anger was an emotion Aurora had long since tried to seal away. Anger caused her to be reckless, and it threatened to drive her further into the fade, and into the clutches of the demons that waited there. But she found the rage hard to contain, and she was on the verge of attacking the man when Rilien moved first.

It wasn't to kill the man, like she expected, but to catch the creature he had created. In that moment, Rilien displayed a level of tenderness unusual to a tranquil, but also allowed her to regain a hold on herself. Anger, love, hate, if she let herself fall too deeply into any one of those, she could very well become the creature that stood before them-- for no simple man could do what he'd done. She caught herself, closed her eyes, and let all of her emotions flow out of her mouth and nose with her breath. What remained was the Aurora she'd worked so hard to become, and the Aurora Amalia had spent so many years teaching.

On the other side of the room, the fade ripped open and a Pride Demon stepped through, and Rilien, ever efficient, darted off to take on the monster himself. Aurora placed a hand on Sparrow's shoulder and pointed at Rilien as she ran, and she spoke with a certain level of calm, "Go help him, I'll deal with this monster."

He. It must have been a he. It may have been all of her biases piled on top of one another, screaming of the injustices men had done to people like her—like he'd done to these vulnerable women, snatching them off the streets like discarded goods. She was never good at sorting out gray areas, or thinking clearly when she ought to, so Sparrow only grit her teeth against the correction and nodded her head. Delusional, alright. Her skin itched and she had the eery feeling they were being watched. A quick scan around the spacious chamber found nothing to be worried about, which only made her feel worse. There was no one else in the room. Ironic, how she'd feel so strange in a building built in squalor. Sans expensive furniture and creepy love-letters scattered around an equally unsettling portrait. Darktown was her home and still, Sparrow knew little of it's inhabitants (though in this case, she didn't think she'd mind not knowing). This person, toiling away at whatever-he-was-working-on, had been here for a good length of time. What else was she unaware of?

In the next room. The words brought her back from her thoughts, anchored her in place. She wasn't sure whether or not she wanted to go into the next room, for fear of what she might see. She, too, could feel something from the next side-chamber, pulsing louder and louder. Like a cloud of energy expanding towards them, stifling the air with Fade-stench. She'd spent far too long lingering in places she never wished to be, trapped in Fade-spaces that confined and restricted her. Her fingers fumbled for her mace, and unwound the leather straps. She needed something solid in her hand—a weapon, a means of protecting herself from everything that frightened her. A small, whispery part of her wondered if Rilien could feel the discomfort raking its teeth across his bones; being so close to the Fade as they were. Wondered if he felt eyes peering from the dark corners of the chamber. Wondered if feelings and colors dripped into the monochrome portrait that made up his world. Was it heavy enough? Her grip tightened, white-knuckled and already growing numb. She persevered after him and fell short of the door, coming to a jolting halt.

What had she been expecting? Certainly not this.Not this. The perversion was overwhelming. She felt heartsick and mortified and disgusted all at once. It came in a startling wave, rushing over her until her ears and cheeks felt hot with flushed, unbridled anger. Sparrow did not share Rilien's detached Tranquility. She did not have any of Aurora's discipline (possibly handed down from her once-friend), either. She felt things in loud proportions, and echoed her response in equally bright colors, painting the walls in large, relentless sweeps. Her responses were not always beautiful or smart or well-thought out. Her sense of control was dubious, at best. But, this was revolting. What he'd done to these poor women; to these vulnerable, shambling puzzle-pieces that made up something monstrously heartbreaking. This was the ugliest use of magic she'd ever seen. She wished it'd been something that made sense, something as simple, as barbaric as blood magic. At least, she could understand that. This wasn't love. Her breath hitched and tangled in her throat, constricting like a coiled serpent. Necromancy. She did not know what the word meant, but if it described a patchwork woman stumbling towards them with milky eyes, searching; then that was it.

She took another step forward, finally entering the room, and tensed the muscles in her shoulders. Her eyes were glued to the second figure in the room, rambling like a madman. With dulled senses, Sparrow hadn't even noticed Rilien moving up beside and in front of her, preventing the handmade-woman from falling on her face and gently laying her down, as he would. As she'd come to expect over the years of knowing him—it never occurred to her that someone who'd undergone the Rite of Tranquility behaved in such a peculiar way. Her heart bloomed, retracted and grew colder as she drew nearer to the blabbering man, cursing them for interfering. Fury threatened to overtake her better sense of judgment, slowly sifting out from her mouth in heated, hitched breaths. This was one horror she was sure they would not forget. It was Aurora's hand, pulling her away from her outrage, that softened the creases in her forehead. “Make him pay,” Sparrow replied thickly, turning away from him, and joining Rilien, instead. For once, she needed someone to lead.

And though Rilien had generally preferred to do his work in silence and from shadow, he knew a thing or two about leading, thanks to his strangely-forged friendship with someone who did it for a living. He and Sparrow were nearly matched in terms of physique, save that she was far too thin and he had never lost his musculature, but the basic principles of durability and damage-dealing were more or less similar. That meant they would be best served by splitting the pride demon’s attention and confounding it, something which it was trying to do to him.

The words it whispered to him were louder than he remembered them being, almost as if he were somehow more susceptible to them now, less… Tranquil. It was perhaps an unsettling thought, but the truly unfortunate thing was that he felt vaguely unsettled by it. He had never been perfectly Tranquil. This was something he used to his advantage. But he was unmistakably very close, and for the whispers to be this hard to ignore… well, pride always had been his sin, before. Before he was wiped of them all and made into this. His steps faltered a moment, a hitching irregularity almost tripping him up, but in the end, just because something was said at greater volume did not make it more appealing, and he set his jaw, sweeping low with his knife and slicing deep into the creature’s hamstring.

Without pause, he turned on a hairpin and reversed his direction, jumping as high as he could without any sort of assistance and plunging both daggers into the middle of the demon’s back, his feet finding no purchase on its flesh but his arms and weapons holding him firmly in place nonetheless. With some effort, he yanked out one of the daggers and raised it, sinking it in again higher up, then repeating the process with the other side. At this point, the thing had chosen to stop paying attention to whatever Sparrow was doing and kill him first, which was precisely the intention. It would give her time to kill it, as there was no doubt that repeated stabbing from the man climbing it like a wall of ice or stone was weakening it.

Pride. She'd never had much use for that. Desire and wants and needs had always been a different story. She never had pride in herself—not until she hurtled into Kirkwall, meeting her companions in much of the same manner. It was a different sort of pride, she thought. She felt fortunate to have them with her. Fortunate to have met them, and continue to stand by their sides. The Pride Demon's whispers were laughably weak in comparison. Her eyes trailed back to Rilien, focusing on his side profile. After they'd banished Rapture, she'd asked Ashton what Rilien had been like, with all of his powers and feelings regained, and learned that he'd been confident, reckless, and even jubilant. She'd tried picturing a smile on his face, eyes alight with wonder. Like someone who was busy taking in a beautiful sight for the first time, drinking it up. Selfishly grateful for being spared of her foolish possession, Sparrow had small parts of her that were beginning to blossom, growing out into something new, that made her wonder what kind of life Rilien would have led had he not sacrificed so much. For her.

Sparrow braced herself, as she did in every fight, and tensed the muscles in her shoulders, gripping her mace all the tighter. She waited until he advanced, moving along at a respectable distance—and nearly hurtled to his side when he faltered in his steps, thinking the Pride Demon had cast some sort of spell she'd missed. Only a breaths second passed and Rilien jerked back into motion, as if he had reset himself, and Sparrow grimaced, eying him with concern. She watched him duck beneath the demon's spitting strike and weave his knife through the thing's leg before following up herself, moving to the creature's forefront with her mace lagging slightly behind, shoulders running parallel. Even now, Rilien's agility surprised her. Leaping onto the Pride Demon's back from such a precarious position, and sinking his blades into the creature's back, holding on with nothing but his blades. It reminded her of Amalia. Pure, raw power. Grace, as well. She whispered under her breath, conjuring arcane energy into her forearms, straight through to the tip of her mace; connecting them as one.

The distance closed between them and with the Pride Demon scrapping at his back trying to dislodge Rilien, Sparrow had no problems with her questionable accuracy. She squared her shoulders and shouted as she swung the beefy end of her mace against the creature's face, rolling up on her toes with the explosive impact. Spikes, teeth and spit splattered away from them, and its jaw hinged slack. It's beady eyes widened, as if it were about to retaliate, but they only stared straight ahead. Its flailing arms flopped down on the ground, away from Rilien's relentless assault and it leaned heavily on its knuckles for a few seconds before giving away and thudding on its belly. Sparrow hopped away before being showered with ash, breathless and red-faced. The anger she'd felt before felt like a dull ache, smoldering like a doused-out flame. Perhaps, he had the effect on her. She turned to see how Aurora fared.

Sticking out in stark contrast with Sparrow's ferocity, Aurora faced her own opponent with the utmost level of calm. Like an oiled spring, she darted forward toward the necromancer, her eyes steady and her breathing collected. She was herself, not diluted by feelings of anger, of rage, of vengence. The fact of the matter was that the Necromancer was something that should not exist, and she would be the instrument to ensure that he no longer would. It was mages such as him, using their connection with the fade to further their own goals, and not the goals of the whole. It was people like him that saw to it they were kept under lock and key in Towers.

But she wasn't angry. No, she felt the opposite. She felt pity. This man was so deluded by his love, so blinded by illusions of his own make that he slaughtered women to see that illusion become reality. But it was never to be, what was would always be what was. There was no use in living for what was they had to live for what will be. The Necromancer lived for what was once his love... Aurora lived for the future where she will be free, along with Milly and every other mage locked away in their cages. The Necromancer attempted to summon a shambling corpse to block her path, but the undead creature was dispelled as fast is it was summoned as a hidden blade bit deep into it's exposed spinal cord.

Another corpse was summoned, and that one was incinerated before its toes even felt solid ground. Aurora's path would not be halted. She ground to a halt as the Necromancer shrouded himself in the fade, drawing a ward around his shoulders. Likewise, Aurora dipped into the fade with every fiber of her being, ignoring the whispers of the power that it promised. Illusions, worthless illusions-- power was something that was earned and not given. She whipped both hands forward and a thunderstorm erupted from her finger tips, tearing the tape wrapped around them off and charring the ends of her fingernails. She easily overwhelmed the ward, and showing an amount of control, she cut the lightning before she fried the necromancer. She hadn't killed since her emotions took over in the warrens of Darktown, as they guided Ketojan out of the city.

For him, she grabbed the edge of his collar and pulled down, while she thrust upward with the open palm of her other hand, slamming it against his chin. Dazed, she then pulled, and threw him into the ground behind her-- where she planted a hard knee into his back. She leaned over so he wouldn't strain to hear her "You won't drag me down with you," She said, pulling back, and stepping off the man. She then looked up to Rilien and nodded. She might not bloody her hands, but she wouldn't stop anyone else from bloodying theirs. There were many paths, but only one choice. If not by them, then the necromancer would find his end, elsewhere.

Rilien had no qualms about doing someone else’s killing, and he certainly did not need permission. As he’d managed to leap clear of the falling pride demon, he now collected his weaponry and advanced on the pinned necromancer. His fingers threaded through the man’s greasy head of hair, and he tugged upwards to expose his throat, across which he drew the blade that crackled with electricity. All the tension in the mage’s body slackened, and the Tranquil let go, sheathing both daggers and folding his hands into his sleeves. "Emeric will want to know what we found,” was all he said, and then the turned to lead the way out.

The Chanter's Board has been updated. All That Remains has been completed.

Setting

4 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

After checking to make sure that everyone was, indeed, all right, Nostariel confirmed that there were no more Darkspawn lingering about in this part of the tunnel, then started the unenviable work of piling the bodies together. She chose a spot illuminated by sunlight, because there was a hole in the cave roof there, and that would help things considerably for what she was about to do. The Warden enlisted the help of the others for this, and with all four of them working at it, it didn’t take too long before the corpses were stacked. As soon as that was done, Nostariel collected together the various objects she and Ashton had managed to find in the passage and arrayed them around the pile of putrid bodies.

“The Darkspawn are sometimes cannibalistic,” she explained, “And there have been occasional incidents of particularly strong emissaries being able to puppet the corpses. This is not a luxury Wardens always get, but when we can… it’s better to burn them.” Stepping back several feet from the pile, she lit the magic in each hand, yellow-orange flames licking harmlessly at her fingers. Bringing them together, she lit the pile, keeping up a constant stream of flames until it caught properly on the bodies. It was a most unpleasant smell, and the smoke was thick and greasy, but most of it filtered upwards to the crack in the ceiling, leaving their airways mercifully clear.

There were no standard funeral rites for Grey Wardens. Most of them didn’t really get proper funerals. Either they fell in battle, or they fell to the Calling, which was the same thing. Nostariel was never sure which she would prefer, and honestly, she tried not to think about it. All life ended, but you couldn’t really live if you were obsessed with the way you drew closer to death. But these people at least, her squad… they would have a funeral. If only because she was here to remember them, now. To assume this last piece of the burden she bore for their deaths. For a long moment, she stared at the flames, and surprised herself by being tearless, and oddly reflective rather than overcome with grief. Perhaps she’d just drowned in it for too long already.

“The thing about being a Warden is,” she started suddenly, if quietly. “You don’t have the privilege of holding on to whatever you used to be. So a mage with no memory of her family can stand next to a prince or a refugee or someone who used to be a criminal, and it can’t matter. Because you have to rely on each other to survive, and because everyone looks the same to a Darkspawn. I think… we all tried to keep pieces of what we were before, and those didn’t really leave us, but they kind of… faded. We stopped thinking in terms of the dwarven smith and the woman who used to be a bandit and just saw our brothers and sisters.“

She paused for a moment, her lips thinning as the remaining shining parts of Rudna’s shield blackened with the flames. Take nothing with you, leave nothing behind. It went for leaving the world, as well as any given campsite. “And you have to see them, because the rest of the world rarely does.” It was no secret that the Wardens, respected as they were in some places, were by and large ignored whenever there wasn’t an active Blight. All things considered, she’d happily be ignored forever if that was the correspondence, but she felt that it made what little she was doing here all the more important.

That was something Ithilian had always found to be remarkably admirable about the Wardens, and it was the reason the Dalish as a whole typically respected them and gave them their hospitality while others were turned away. Individuals were judged on their merits in the Wardens, on their ability to serve a greater good for the entire world, not on their race or their allegiance to any one faction or nation. So few seemed to care for anything other than themselves. These Wardens were some of those few. Perhaps they hadn't had a choice before their Joining, but they had given their lives for that higher cause all the same. Ithilian had nothing but respect for them.

It was traditional for the Dalish to plant a tree over the burial mounds of the honored dead, but the Deep Roads were no place to plant trees. He felt he should do something to commemorate the fallen friends of Nostariel, though, so Ithilian slowly sank down to his knees, folding his hands neatly in his lap and bowing his head. Then, quietly at first, he began to sing. He had no bard's voice, but he was surprisingly low in tone, a rather soothing sound. The words were in elvish, and he doubted how much the others would understand, but perhaps they would not need to.

"Hahren na melana sahlin,
emma ir abelas,
souver'inan isala hamin,
vhenan him dor'felas,
in uthenera na revas.

Vir sulahn'nehn,
vir dirthera,
vir samahl la numin,
vir lath sa'vunin."


He stood slowly, pausing to clear his throat. Ithilian had not sung a song of any kind in quite some time. Too long, really. It was a shame that the first words sung again were that of a funeral dirge. He supposed he would have to change that. He could already imagine Lia's reddening face while he sang to her. The thought nearly brought a smile to his face, but he did not wish to disrespect the dead he had just commemorated, so with a straight face he nodded his condolences to Nostariel instead.

Lucien watched the roiling smoke coil upwards towards the gap in the cave ceiling, breathing a soft sight through his nose. It reminded him, a little, of the too many funerals he’d attended. The Wardens were much more pragmatic about such things than the Orlesians, of course, and there was something more raw and honest about this one than those he’d been to. There was always an element of pageantry there, as there was in everything the nobility did, which was perhaps why his father had insisted on a smaller, more genuine gathering for the passing of his mother. His comrades had received the traditional soldiers’ rites: the nobility paid their lip service, but then the ones who’d known the dead gathered in the tavern and spoke in low voices of the ones who’d passed, until the wine loosened their tongues and the stories grew louder and more ribald, the laughter raucous.

He almost felt that it would have been appropriate to give something from the Chant of Light here, as something of an offering of his own, to mingle with the soft tones of Ithilian’s song as the Wardens had blended together despite their own backgrounds, but he did not feel that the Chant was something he could offer from his heart. So he chose something else. His mother had been fond of poetry, and part of his education had involved learning no small amount of it himself. So, when the silence had stretched a respectful amount of time, he murmured his own contribution, this in the tongue of his homeland. He would have translated, but he honestly thought it lost something if he did.

“C'est la Mort qui console, hélas! et qui fait vivre;
C'est le but de la vie, et c'est le seul espoir
Qui, comme un élixir, nous monte et nous enivre,
Et nous donne le coeur de marcher jusqu'au soir;

À travers la tempête, et la neige, et le givre,
C'est la clarté vibrante à notre horizon noir
C'est l'auberge fameuse inscrite sur le livre,
Où l'on pourra manger, et dormir, et s'asseoir;

C'est un Ange qui tient dans ses doigts magnétiques
Le sommeil et le don des rêves extatiques,
Et qui refait le lit des gens pauvres et nus;

C'est la gloire des Dieux, c'est le grenier mystique,
C'est la bourse du pauvre et sa patrie antique,
C'est le portique ouvert sur les Cieux inconnus!”
*

In that moment, Ashton felt very small. Silent in awe of the company of a Dalish elf singing his songs of old, an Orlesian Chevalier reciting poems in his native tongue, and tied together by the Grey Warden reflecting on her status and what it meant, the simple hunter from Ferelden felt distantly out of place, like a child watching adults. He became aware of the loss these people have suffered. Though never spoken with words, he could read it on each their faces and in the inflection in their voices. None of them were strangers to Nostariel's loss.

The heat of the flames cupped his face, and the smoke stung his eyes, but he dared not turn away from the pyre. He was afraid to speak, to put his words beside those of Ithilian and Lucien. He felt that if he opened his mouth, the words that followed would dimish their effect, and take away their majesty. He had not experienced their loss, so he could not speak as they did. He had no lamentations, no dirges to sing, no elegies to recite, he simply had himself. The least he could do for the Wardens were to bear witness to their funeral. It was all he could do.

She was honestly deeply moved by them, all of them. She knew that there was no grand ceremony that could mean as much to her, and for her friends, as this Deep Roads cremation did. Ithilian’s song was beautiful, and though she recognized the cadence of the elvish language, it was not a tongue that she knew. The translation was not necessary, though—and the sentiment beneath the melody was touching. She could understand why it was that the Dalish used it for funerals, if that was indeed the usual purpose of it. Lucien’s words were spoken, but in the lilting, exotic speech of Orlais, another language she did not know. It was interesting—his common had never seemed at all inelegant or unwieldy, but his mother tongue was simply beautiful in his register. These were her friends, the people she had willingly tied herself to in this new place, and they were here, helping her put to rest her old friends, the ones who had gotten her so far as Kirkwall, who had saved her, laying down their lives for her, their sister and their captain. It was a meeting of past and present, and she was unprepared for the impact it had on her.

Nostariel reached to the side, tangling her fingers with Ashton’s. He hadn’t said anything, but that was all right. Sometimes, there was just nothing to be said. The others had captured most eloquently the feelings which she had come to understand in herself, even if she did not know the exact semantics they had used to do it.

When the time came and the fire was dying down, she released his hand and took a few steps towards the pyre. “‘You will guard them and they will hate you for it,’” she said, apparently speaking to the dead, “‘Whenever there is not a Blight actively crawling over the surface, humanity will do its best to forget how much they need you. And that's good. We need to stand apart from them, even if they have to push us away to make us do it.’ That was what they told us, when we Joined. That there was no longer anything else for us but each other, and the steel or wood in our hands. We made the best of it, you and I, and I am ashamed to say that in the end, my best was not enough to save you. But your best… your best was enough to save me, and for the longest time, I was guilty about this, about being the one of us who lived. So guilty that I forgot to do the living.” She paused, taking a breath, and then she smiled.

“Sorry about that. It was stupid of me, that I forgot to ask what you would have done if it were you that survived. You would have lived as well as you could, every one of you, and I can’t do any less. I always knew that, but somehow, I forgot what it meant. It took some very wonderful people to remind me of that, but I promise I won’t forget again. Thank you, my friends. For saving me. For giving me this chance.” Taking another half-step forward, Nostariel straightened her posture to something a bit like Lucien’s military one, crossing both arms over her chest in the Wardens’ salute. “In War, Victory. In Peace, Vigilance. In Death, Sacrifice. Yours will never be forgotten.” With that, she relaxed, turning back to the three men who had given her this opportunity.

“And thank you, as well.”

The Chanter's Board has been updated. Dust to Dust has been completed.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

"It's an outrage!" the man cried, shaking his pudgy fist as his annoyingly high-pitched voice filled the hall. "I demand compensation for the goods that were lost. I think twice their worth should be sufficient."

Sophia resisted the urge to stroke her forehead, to combat the steadily growing headache that had settled in about an hour ago. The afternoon was slowly dragging on, but the sun set would not come for several hours, a fact Sophia loathed to think about. Her day had been swallowed up holding her father's court again, though it was beginning to seem like she had been here about a week, judging by the way her rear was starting to go numb in the seat. She wondered who had designed the throne. It was a tall and imposing chair, the back rising up to more than twice Sophia's height, but it was still of a rather simple design, and utterly devoid of cushion. Sophia might have found some wisdom in that, if she weren't so tired. The butt that sits on a throne should never be too comfortable, lest the ruler forget that it is, in fact, a butt.

The man hoping to pilfer the city's coffers in front of her was a young merchant prince from Antiva, a son who had inherited family riches, and family responsibility, from those who had actually earned it before him. Sophia suspected it was his first time running a caravan of goods through the Free Marches, given his young age, and the fact that he had tried to steer his carts through the cliffs near the sea, taking the Wounded Coast road. The road was notoriously dangerous and a haven of highwaymen, a fact any experienced merchant would have learned ahead of time. This one, however, hadn't the slightest clue, and ended up with his goods stolen, his modest escort murdered, though somehow his own horse was able to carry his fat little body away from his dying employees quick enough to save his life.

"My lady?" he said, the words acting like an annoying poke in her ribs. "Surely a road so close to the city walls is under the protection of the city watch, and yet the guard was nowhere to be seen when highwaymen ambushed me. Do you not protect the people you rule over?" Sophia could have slapped him, but sadly he was all the way down the stairs below her, and even if she'd had Vesenia in hand she wouldn't have had the reach. This idiot of a man had no idea what kind of lengths she had gone to trying to turn the city around, but it seemed that the harder she strived, the more problems reared their ugly heads. The guard was already stretched too thin trying to keep the city streets safe. A sortie out into the coast was an incredible risk, one that she simply couldn't make right now. It didn't change the facts, however.

"You've made your point," Sophia conceded, sighing tiredly despite her efforts not to. "Your goods will be paid for as you request. Seneschal Bran will oversee the transaction. I trust that the next time you travel to Kirkwall, you will choose a safer road." He scoffed at her, despite having his victory. "Perhaps I won't return at all. Kirkwall is obviously bad for business." He turned sharply on his heel, and strode from the room. Sophia wondered how close Lucien's mercenary company was to completion. The idea of accompanying him to clear out some of the stauncher bandit groups was very attractive to her. How romantic.

There were more people waiting to speak with her, but Sophia didn't feel she could stomach much more. The sun had dropped down low enough to strike through the windows and down onto the hall, heating it up more than she was comfortable with. Summer was beginning to set in, but the day was hot enough for it to be in full swing. For once, Sophia was thankful that she wasn't in armor, but rather a thin dress of a midnight blue color that left her shoulders bared, close fit to her body from the waist up. The skirt was long enough that her visitors couldn't see her feet, so naturally she had removed her shoes several hours ago. She dared not ask to wear the crown yet, instead having a thin silver circlet threaded into into her hair, which was bound in an elegant braid left to rest on her shoulder.

Sophia leaned over to Bran on her left. "I think a break would be nice, Bran." He obviously agreed, and immediately ordered the room to be cleared, declaring that the Viscount's court was in recess for the moment. It was only as the room began to clear that Sophia noticed Nostariel had entered the room. She waved to try and catch her attention. "Nostariel! Please stay, I didn't see you enter."

Nostariel, a day from her return from the Deep Roads, had indeed decided to pay a visit to the Viscount’s court, which she’d learned upon entrance to the Keep was being held by Sophia today. That had brought a little smile to her face; it wasn’t that she disliked or felt particularly intimidated by Lord Dumar, but Sophia was a welcome presence in her life, and it would be easier to speak without the need to couch things in particularly formal terms. It would be a formal request, in a sense, or at least a formal piece of advice, but she trusted that someone—probably the Seneschal, could translate it into the right court-speak for her. She wasn’t terribly good with the flowery language or anything like that; her best option in such situation was honestly to imitate the way she heard Templars talk to each other, or what she read in books. The former were more practical than formal, though, and the latter may well be outdated by an age or so… she couldn’t really be sure.

Of course, no sooner had she arrived than it seemed the room was being cleared, and she blinked a little. Perhaps it had been a long day for Sophia—she would not doubt it. Nostariel knew not the difficulties of such a position, but she could hazard a guess. She certainly would not want to be ruler of a city-state, not even for a single day. A rather squat Antivan brushed past her, looking sour, but she pain him no mind, and she doubted he much noticed an elf either, honestly. It was not until Sophia called her name that she glanced up to the raised dais on which the impressive throne sat, and when she caught sight of her friend, she smiled again, this time a little more widely. Moving away from the door, she allowed everyone to file out before she approached.

“Hello Sophia,” she said cheerfully, but then she paused, her eyes widening marginally. “Oh, um… should I curtsey here? Sorry, I’m not sure how to do this formally…” She was fairly certain by now that Sophia wouldn’t insist anyway, but she figured the least she could do was ask. Her friend looked lovely today, if perhaps a bit weary, which she supposed might be the reason the room had been vacated by the rest of the petitioners.

"No formalities necessary," Sophia said, returning the smile. She stood and came down the stairs to meet the Warden. "Look, I'm not even wearing any shoes." She poked one foot out from under her skirts to show her. "Really, it's quite a relief to talk with a friend in the middle of all the petitioning." She knew that Nostariel had recently returned from the Deep Roads, largely because she had taken Lucien with her. For having just been to the Deep Roads, she looked very well. She hoped all the others were just as well.

"Everything went alright on your trip, I hope? I would have been there if I could." The risks had obviously been too great for her to take, as much as she had wanted to. It was obviously something that was very important to Nostariel, and thus it was important to Sophia as well.

Nostariel giggled at the sight of Sophia’s bare foot. She bet those fancy slippers weren’t nearly as comfortable as a nice pair of boots. She’d probably have tried to escape them as soon as possible, herself. Somehow, that managed to break any ice over the reason for her venture here, and she nodded in response to the question. “I understand,” she replied kindly. “The Deep Roads aren’t a place I want to take anyone, and hopefully, I won’t need to again. Actually, that was what I was here to talk to you about.”

It was, of course, just nice to see her, and perhaps Sophia would have a bit of time for some more pleasant conversation afterwards, but… she really did need to make sure someone in the right position knew about what she had to tell them. “As it turns out, the entrance we used was not structurally sound, and collapsed not long after we entered. We took an alternative way out, but… it lets out closer to Kirkwall than I think is properly safe, and since the Wardens are putting most of their resources and effort into rebuilding the numbers and infrastructure in Ferelden right now, it may be a while before they can act on it in any official capacity. I wanted to let you know before I put in the official report, since it might be better for everyone if Kirkwall could collapse the unmapped entrance. It would prevent any incursions too close to the city, and if I knew it was being done, I could say as much.”

Of secondary, but still relevant, concern was that Kirkwall may not need to play host to more Wardens at a time where the political situation was so delicate. Her organization was not so much a player in state politics, but they were involved in some places, and the less opportunity there was for the state of Kirkwall to make it to other nations in unedited fashion… well, Nostariel thought it would be a pertinent consideration.

The idea of her friends getting trapped in the Deep Roads by a collapse was enough to put a frown on Sophia's face, and the news that their exit was dangerously close to Kirkwall didn't do anything to remove it. As had been pointed out earlier, the guard wasn't exactly in a position to go ranging beyond the city walls and destroying entrances to the Deep Roads, but then again, perhaps the city guard wouldn't be necessary for a job like that. She thought for a moment on the issue.

"That sounds like a good idea. As for how it should actually be done, I'm afraid I'm not so sure. Is there a standard procedure for it that the Wardens use? It seems like something the Circle might be able to assist with." That, or the Qunari. Their blasting powder would certainly be able to put a dent in the rock. Not that they would be able to get any from them, as had already been proven. Whoever dealt with the entrance, they would probably need an escort as well. If the Circle could handle it, the Templars would no doubt follow along, but if not, she could think of at least one upstanding mercenary group able to take up a protection detail.

Nostariel thought about it for a moment. She only barely stopped herself from shrugging in partial response, but remembered her manners. It may not be formal, but it was still business. “Generally, when entrances are to be collapsed rather than stabilized, we use lyrium explosives. They’re usually purchased from the dwarves, but I understand the Circle here does a limited lyrium trade. I think… if the right quantity could be procured, as well as someone with some expertise in the use of explosives, it should not require more than a small escort for security purposes.” Most Circles had some supplier connections of lyrium, given how vital it was to magic, but Kirkwall might be stricter—she did not know for sure. As for someone to detonate it… if Amalia did not know how, she thought that perhaps Ash’s Tranquil friend, Rilien, might have an idea of what needed to be done.

“I would be willing to guide such a group back to the entrance, of course, but I am not much of an engineer, and trying to collapse a stable entrance with magic would be… poor judgement, on my part.” She smiled ruefully.

Sophia nodded. "I think a visit to the merchant quarter might be in order, then. I believe the dwarven merchant's guild here has a limited supply of lyrium explosives we could make use of. I'll... see to that tomorrow." She shrugged up at the chair at the top of the steps. "I never thought that sitting and talking to people could be so tiring. But, for every Antivan merchant prince, there's another person in actual need of help, so the least I can do is sit in that chair and hear them out." It was valuable experience, too. The local nobility was willing to understand that she was still learning now, but it would not always be so. There would come a time when she couldn't afford to make mistakes. She wondered if it had already arrived.

"Anyway... you're well, I hope? No trouble at the clinic? I hear it's become quite popular." The medical attention of a mage as experienced in healing magic as she was would do that, especially in a place like Lowtown, where proper treatment was likely quite hard to find, especially at a decent price. She wondered if Nostariel had thought about taking on any help.

Nostariel hummed a conciliatory note in the back of her throat. The perils of political power were not something she would ever have to worry about, but she knew enough to understand that she was glad of that, and did not envy Sophia her position, not in the slightest. Still, there was a lot of good to be done from one of those chairs, and someone had to occupy them. Better Sophia than almost anyone else she could think of, even if the woman was just as suited for the field and more direct approaches as she was for the diplomat’s trade. There was something admirable about that kind of flexibility; she only seldom met people who could slide from peaceful negotiation to more violent necessities with such skill in both. In fact… it might be that she only knew two.

The friendlier query drew a slightly-weary smile from her, like a mother with too many children, all of them running about underfoot. There was happiness in it, certainly, but also a kind of fatigue, though it was not extreme. “I think that perhaps if there is one thing the world will always need, it is anyone with a bit of skill in medicine,” she confessed, lifting a shoulder. Her formal requesting was done, so she felt comfortable easing the lines of her posture a little bit. “Business at the clinic is never done, really, but I spent this morning seeing to everyone who still needed me after the time I was gone, so tomorrow should be a little simpler.” And back to normal hours, which allowed her a little bit of flexibility, since she kept her late afternoons and evenings free in case her friends needed her for something. Most accidents happened during working hours anyway… at least the ones she dealt with. It would not be false to say that Nostariel was more than occasionally woken in the middle of the night for some emergency or another, but generally speaking, those who came to her were injured dockworkers or sick elves or people worried about their child’s cough.

A thought struck her then, and she figured she might as well inquire. “Not to bring up unpleasant things, but… has anyone managed to figure out what Jamie Arren was talking about, after he was caught? I know it was upsetting to your lord father, and I suppose I thought he might have set someone to looking into the matter?” She wasn’t exactly comfortable with what seemed such a direct and rather meaningful kind of threat leveled so close to a friend, and that friend’s family. She knew there was likely not much she could do to help, but… “I mean, if you want me to, I can start poking around a little bit. Patients are surprisingly chatty, and you never know what kinds of things the laborers hear. A lot of them live in Darktown, and if you want to hide someone, you do it there.”

"It... has been a little difficult," Sophia admitted. "For everyone, I mean. Jamie and I grew up together. Ever since my father became Viscount the Arrens have been trying to match us, and my father was always agreeable with the pairing. Father was always fond of him, Jamie's own parents can't understand why he would do something like that. I've sent men to speak with him in the Gallows, but all he says is that I need to hear the words from Dairren's lips, and not his own." That thought was enough to put a chill in her, even in the warmth of the room. Dairren Quinn was a dangerous man, and her father had seen to it that there was no man with as high a price on his head since his apparent return to Kirkwall.

She realized Nostariel likely did not know who that was, and shook her head. "Dairren Quinn was captain of the city guard here for twelve years, the last six of which were the beginning of my father's rule. He's... actually who taught me how to use a blade, and he was an old friend of my mother's. Father considered him one of the family's closest friends, until it was revealed that he was corrupt, conspiring with the Coterie. He was exiled from the city nearly eight years ago."

She sighed, the weight of heavy memories slipping over her shoulders. "It's fairly clear to me that Dairren had repeated contact with Jamie before the assassination attempt, and that it was his will behind it. If he's in the city, it's possible he's integrated into the Coterie to some degree, and I suspect this is what makes him so difficult to find. I've had Ashton keeping an ear to the ground for me for some time now, but so far nothing's come up. I'd welcome another pair of eyes, but... well, Dairren was as much a spymaster as he was a guard captain. If he doesn't want to be found, it's unlikely we'll have any luck."

Sophia shook her head, obviously attempting to remain optimistic. "Really, though, I would appreciate the help. There aren't any official resources to devote to it with the state the city's still in. I'd go looking myself, but I'd hardly know where to start, and my time is terribly short as is." She frowned, glancing out the window to where the sun was finally beginning to drop past the taller rooftops. "I've been so busy, I've hardly left any time for my family. I couldn't even tell you where Saemus has gotten off to, and the only reason I'm here in court is because Father is focused on mending the situation with the Qunari." It was a little ironic, really, that the extreme efforts she went to for her family ended up leaving her further apart from them. She tried not to think on it too much.

Nostariel didn't exactly know what it was like to have a blood family, and she’d never had to worry about her work taking her away from the other kind of family, but she nodded sympathetically anyway, reaching out to touch Sophia’s elbow in a reassuring fashion. “Well, if it’s like that, I don’t know if I’ll turn up anything useful, but I’ll pay attention just in case. You never know—things are connected in the strangest of ways, sometimes.” Sensing that it might be best to let her friend rest for the evening, and perhaps in need of some herself, Nostariel let her hand fall back to her side.

“Just… don’t forget what it’s really all for, Sophia. I managed to forget, once, and it… let’s just say I hope that’s a road you never have to travel. There is always more work, but you never know when the other things might disappear.” She didn’t mean to sound morbid, exactly, but this was simply a lesson Nostariel had learned too well not to pass on as gently as she could.

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

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For once, it was easier to forget the squalor they lived in.

Marriages were an important event for the elves, and since they lived in such tight-knit communities, they were usually celebrated by all, resulting in an Alienage or clan wide celebration that would last the entire day. Preparation for the marriage taking place today had lasted for roughly a week ahead of time; now that the work was done, the Alienage looked a positively festive place. Ithilian had to look down at his feet to remember that he was standing on little more than dirt. A modest platform had been erected around the base of the vhenadahl, where the marriage itself would take place. For the moment, however, the entire population of Kirkwall's Alienage was out in the streets, feasting and drinking and enjoying the kind weather.

Ithilian had heard tales of human disruption of elven marriages, horror stories of prejudice and racism. He was not fully armed, as he didn't wish to alarm anyone, but he still wore Parshaara at his hip, as a last resort. He sincerely doubted any troublemakers would descend on them today. By now, word had spread far and wide of what became of those who made enemies of the Alienage's defenders. There would be no trouble today.

Still, someone had to keep a watch, and Ithilian found standing somewhat apart from the celebrations useful for another purpose. The scene didn't evoke exact memories; the marriage, while an agreeable one for both parties, had been arranged by the elders, and it was taking place around a single tree rather than hundreds, but it was still an elven marriage. It was slightly disheartening that the mere sight of joyous elves could remind him of a specific moment in his life, but then again, it was one of those moments that would linger in his mind for the rest of his days, and one he never wanted to forget.

Lia was about somewhere, likely dancing with whatever boy was brave enough to ask for one. She had become quite popular in the last year, as she'd grown taller, slowly transforming into a woman. There were talks of who she would be paired with now, though that day would still be years ahead. A few of the elders from other families had even gone so far as to approach Ithilian with the subject, but he refused to speak to them of it. That was a father's task, not his. Without a father, it would be up to Lia to speak for herself. He knew she would want it that way, regardless.

Amalia, on the other hand, was reminded of absolutely nothing. The Qunari did not have marriages, and she had to admit, there was a time when she would have rather stayed inside her hovel, behaving as though all of this festivity was not going on outside. She would have seen it as thoroughly pointless. The match had been arranged in whatever peculiar way these people used to determine who was best suited to produce children with whom, what more need be done? But… she could see now that there was more to it than that, at least for some people. Arranged or not, this event had some connection to the future of a people. More than that, it was an opportunity for everyone in the community to gather together in a celebratory fashion, and it provided, she did not doubt, some measure of vitality to the collective consciousness of the Alienage residents. Something which they needed to weather the constant batterings they received as a result of being trodden upon by the higher echelons of the society in which they lived.

The natural comparisons it elicited from her analytical thought process necessitated a reminder, however: she was no longer entirely young. Right now, her work for her people was no doubt more important to them than her capacity as a bearer of children, but there was no guarantee that it would always be so. Especially not when the Antaam left this place. She may well have to go with them—most, if not all, of the viddathari would be. Without them, her task here was very limited. Perhaps the only reason she was not already someone’s mother was because it had been assumed from a very early point in her life that the match was an easy one… and the other party was obviously Marcus. There was a time when the thought was not displeasing, actually. She didn’t claim to know anything of the emotion that other cultures referred to as love, but spending one’s life in whatever capacity with someone one was close to was vastly preferable to spending it with a stranger.

Now the thought of returning to Par Vollen was unsettling, for reasons related to this train of thought and others. She had only one choice to make, but it no longer seemed that the answer was clear to her. Shaking her head slightly, Amalia exhaled through her nose and moved through the crowd. She was garbed again as she had been for Sophia’s birthday party, save that the warmer summer weather had prompted the removal of the mantle and the sleeves of the tunic. Though her hands from knuckle to elbow were still wrapped, the skin from there to her shoulders was bare, the pale scars on dark skin evident. She didn’t mind it so much, anymore.

Harp in one hand, nothing in the other, she picked her way around celebrants and came to stand beside her closest, and perhaps only, friend. “I do not believe I have ever seen them so… unburdened,” she observed, in typical dry fashion.

"They make use of the time they have for such things," Ithilian commented softly, eyes settling on Lia's golden curls for a moment before she swirled back into the crowd. As he understood it, Qunari did not marry the way humans or elves did; their pairings were purely for reproductive purposes for suitable matches, the offspring of which wouldn't even be raised by the parents, but rather someone with a skillset closer to Amalia's. He did not know if such a system was more effective, nor did he particularly care. The most efficient way of living a life was not always the best way.

The Dalish, while typically expected to marry and produce children, out of the need to keep their people alive, did not arrange matches for their children, but allowed them to choose for themselves. Perhaps it wasn't the best way to keep their people alive, but Ithilian couldn't imagine not being allowed to choose who he tied himself to. He remembered the way he'd made a fool of himself chasing Adahlen around the camp for weeks, until she finally decided he was worthy of the attention he sought. These two being joined today were fortunate enough to be fond of each other even before the marriage was arranged. Not all elves here were so lucky.

"Tomorrow it will be as though this day never happened, save for the new pairing," he said. He'd seen it before. They would make an absolute mess of this place by nightfall, but by morning, all evidence of the festivities would be gone.

“Remember when we used to do this for the children back in Antiva?” Aurora spoke aloud, her hands full of tawny tresses, the owner of which was a young elven lady—still no more than a child. Laughter and smiles came easy for the child, talking and laughing with another girl across from her while she worked on her hair. She was actually a bit envious of the child’s easy cheer, but she too tried to match her smile for smile. The fact that Milly sat across from her, doing the hair of the other child made the process that much more enjoyable. “I remember doing this for your hair more than the children's!” Milly said, chuckling as she did.

Hands darted to and fro, weaving an intricate dance with the children’s hair, pausing only pluck a flower from a nearby basket to braid into their locks. Nearing the end of her braid, Aurora paused for a moment and gave Milly the most puzzled look. With a creeping grin, she raised her hand above the child’s head and revealed that she’d somehow managed to braid her finger into her hair. Milly paused in her work to stare, before she broke into raucous laughter, shortly followed by her own child and then Aurora herself. Deftly plucking her finger from the braid, she tied the braid off with a brightly colored strand of yarn and sent the child on her way. In no time the girl shot off toward the group of other children and began playing with them. “I bet that braid doesn’t last the day,” Aurora easily admitted, keeping her smile as she stood up.

Shortly after Milly finished her own child’s braid, but another quickly replaced the first. “Go ahead, I’ll find you when I finished. I can’t leave a single mop of hair undone—Now can I dear?” She said gently tugging the child's and evoking a gigglin fit. “You were always better at it than I was. Better at just about everything actually,” Aurora admitted, bowing out gracefully. Aurora was aware that she was perhaps the only other human beside Amalia in the Alienage, but much like the Qunari, the elves had grown accustomed to Aurora’s presence. She’d even caught a few children frolicking through her garden on occasion—Children she’d then enlisted to aid her in tending it. Aurora threw a glance in the garden’s direction, feeling the sense of pride and joy at its sprouting colors well up inside. Between her, Sparrow, and the children of the Alienage, it was coming along nicely. Enough so that Aurora had even managed to pass along a bouquet to the mother of the bride-to-be.

She couldn’t help but be infected by the wealth of good cheer floating through the air, and a smile stayed impressed to her lips as she walked through the festivities. Aurora was as dressed up as she could be for the day’s festivities. An entire wreath was tied up in her hair, a ponytail of crimson cascading down her back. Another, a purple violet, was tucked in behind her ear, drawing a contrast from her bright red hair. As for what she was wearing—it was perhaps the first time since she was a small girl she could be found wearing a long skirt along with a sleeveless shirt and the scarf she never took off wrapped around her neck. A discolored scar sat high on her arm, a gift from Arcadius when she had assisted Sparrow once. But she paid it no more mind than she would anything else—a scar earned in the need of a friend was one to be proud of. Her knuckles and hands, however, were wrapped in white cloth, hiding the callouses underneath.

She moved easily through the crowd, somehow getting a few drinks shoved into her hands as she did, and came out on the other side to see the backs of Amalia and Ithilian not too far away. She moved toward them quietly, hearing the tail end of whatever conversation they were having. “Maybe not,” Aurora answered, coming to a stop beside Ithilian, looking into the crowd to try and see what he saw. “Or maybe the memory of this night will get them through tomorrow.” She said smiling optimistically as she held out a pair of cups for both Ithilian and Amalia to take. “Everyone needs release every now and then.”

Amalia cautiously took the wooden vessel from Aurora’s hand and sniffed at it. Satisfied that it was neither alcohol nor fetid water, she kept it. She very much doubted she would ever share her former student’s optimism when it came to such things—she was much more inclined in the direction of Ithilian’s own cynicism when it came to matters such as these. What was the point in a day of celebration if it would only be forgotten the next day? If nothing changed for truth? Then again… maybe the point was nothing more than these few hours, and it was certainly different right now. It was a strange thought, and she didn’t know what to do with it, really, so she let it pass.

Someone in the crowd had found a flute, however, and what had generally been somewhat-disorganized milling around reorganized itself in some fashion, until large groups of people were whirling around in what she took to be a form of dancing. There seemed to be clusters of three or four, who would place one hand against the others’, and they’d spin about for a while, before changing groups in a more-or-less regular pattern, their feet moving lightly, booted or bare, along the dirt and stone floor of the Alienage, currently strewn with rushes and sweet-smelling plants, which released their fragrances when crushed into the earth. It was a thoughtful touch, Amalia supposed, allowing one to forget for the moment that the location was normally not of most pleasant odor.

The beverage she was holding turned out to be some kind of bitter, cold tea. It wasn’t terrible, actually, though she wondered if she’d ever taste a papaya again. What a bizarre thought—apparently, the atmosphere was producing very unusual patterns in her usually-linear way of thinking. She pursed her lips together faintly, but chose to let Ithilian be the one to respond to the hypothesis, if indeed there was any response to be had. Amalia had none.

Ithilian accepted the cup, and drank after much less examination than his Qunari friend. It could have been a potent alcohol, and he would not have particularly cared. He had never been much of a drinker, though he suspected that he could have easily become such, given what he had been through in recent years. The drink would have made days like this one easier, and the mornings after more horrible.

Ithilian had cleaned up as best he could for the celebration, his hair recently washed and neatly combed back away from his face and tucked behind his pointed ears. He didn't own a great deal of nice clothes, as they had rather little purpose in the forest compared to traveling or hunting gear, but he had made the attempt all the same, wearing a rarely used dark green jerkin over a fresh white tunic. He felt even less comfortable for wearing it, but he understood by now that many of the elves here looked up to him, and he did his best to make an example worth following.

"You misinterpret me," he corrected Aurora, gently. "I spoke in terms of appearances. An outsider could visit the Alienage tomorrow and have no idea there was a marriage here yesterday. We're in agreement. Days like this one are what makes their daily toil worth the effort. Horror is unbearable if there is no hope." It was what made him truly astounded that he still lived to this day. He could see glimmers of it in his own life now, but years ago... he supposed it was anger and rage alone that had sustained him, carrying him along as though he were in a dream. He was glad to have woken up.

Aurora tilted her cup backward, tasting the bitter liquid as it slipped down her throat. She winced at first, expecting something sweeter but made no complaints. It wasn’t bad, honestly, just not what she was used to. She nodded as Ithilian revealed his own sentiments, pleased to find out that she wasn’t too far off the mark. A hum found its way to her throat as she agreed with his sentiments. As she stared out into the crowd of elves a thoughtful mood descended upon her. Her head tilted as thoughts made her way in and out of her head, and her cup hovered inches away from her mouth as she spoke. “Don’t forget that they have each other too. Hope is better if it’s shared. They have community. Hightown, Lowtown, Darktown, Mages, Templars, we put so many labels on ourselves. The elves? They’re elves, and that’s it. You look out for one another,” She said with a smile upturned to him. They were proof of that, Ithilian and Amalia both.

Before any more words were exchanged, Aurora was suddenly thrust forward a couple of steps. Half of her tea was split to the floor by her surprise and a quick glance backward revealed the culprit. “Milly! Where’d you come from?” Aurora asked the girl-- who currently had both arms wrapped around her neck. Milly replied with her biggest smile and a hooked thumb backwards, “From where you left me. Where else?” Aurora rolled her eyes and shook her head. She should’ve seen that coming. A moment later, Milly had peeled her arms from around Aurora’s neck and simply stood beside her. “You have me now, remember? Someone has to make sure you don’t kill yourself,” She said with a mock-frown.

“Why aren’t you all dancing?” She asked with a look of puzzlement. Aurora simply shrugged for her answer—though she had an inkling feeling that not many elves would dance with a human. She might have been a usual sight in the Alienage, but she was still human. She didn’t fault the elves for this; it was the way they were, and for good reason. A curious look settled in Milly’s eyes as her gaze turned upon Ithilian. “Serah Ithilian… If I may ask, do the Dalish dance like this?” She asked, turning a hand toward the festivities that surrounded them.

Ithilian was tempted to tell the young elf that he was no knight, and there was no reason to call him serah, but he held his tongue. It was understandable, if Milly had grown up in a Circle tower like Nostariel had. The mages were hardly exposed to Dalish culture at all, locked away by the templars as they were. He glanced down at her with his eye, before looking back to the crowd. He was getting the sneaking feeling that she was a bit taken with him, or at least taken with the idea of him. It wouldn't be the first time an elf born in a city or a tower became enamored with the way others of their kind lived.

"Sometimes," he admitted, thinking back, "though the clans aren't as heavily populated as the Alienages, and so the dances tend to be less..." he searched for the word, "chaotic, I suppose." Ithilian was never much of a dancer, though he supposed the right person might be able to drag him away from his watch. Milly certainly wasn't her; the only reason she was here was because she knew Aurora, the Aurora from before she had been molded by Amalia, a girl Ithilian had found quite annoying. Aurora herself wouldn't have any luck if she asked. Amalia could potentially pull him into the other dancing elves, though he doubted she knew any of the steps, and he doubted she would want to, regardless.

"Someone needs to keep watch," he answered simply. "Humans have been known to disrupt these events in other Alienages."

“I'm sure they couldn't ask for a better watcher,” she said, finally taking in all of the bustling that surrounded them. Milly’s eyelids fluttered as she imagined how a Dalish celebration may have been like. She imagined a cheerful fire in the midst of a grove, elven voices rising and falling in turn, filling the trees with the sounds of song. She blinked the thought away, thinking it too silly to be expressed in words. It was only a fairytale that she dreamed up in the Circle.

She was quiet, but only for a moment before she began to speak again; though far more comfortable than she was when she had first addressed Ithilian. “The Circle had celebrations too,” She began, tossing a glance at Aurora, who replied with a knowing nod. “They… frowned on marriages, for the obvious reasons,” She said in a grimace. A child born of the union between mages had a chance to be a mage themself, and Maker knows that’s the last thing the Chantry wanted.

“But there was always Satinalia,” She said, evoking a small chuckle out of Aurora. “For one week back in Antiva, the whole city lit up in lights and we celebrated, even in the Circle. We danced, we gave gifts, we made masks, and then we danced some more,” She said, her voice taking on a reflective tone. “The Circle had a fair amount of people you know, young and old alike, and we all celebrated the week away, kind of like this,” She said, stretching a hands out to the festivities occurring in front of them. The similarities were not lost on Aurora, though she chose not to speak them aloud. Milly laughed out loud as a funny memory returned to her. “Hey Rosy, remember Piero? He asked me to dance, only to fall flat on his face moments into the second chorus.” Aurora looked back at her and simply smiled and nodded. In truth, the whole memory was cloudy, like looking through a misted window into the past, and she was only vaguely aware of the incident. What she did remember clearly were the Templars that watched them like hawks…

“Hey… Amalia,” Aurora finally said, taking a sidelong glance at her once-teacher and since friend. “I’m curious. Do the Qunari have any celebrations like this, or holidays of any kind?” She said. There was never mention of any sort of celebration coming from the docks, and Aurora was having a hard time imagining the woman dancing. Not physically, Aurora believed that she possessed enough natural grace and dexterity to make even the finest dancers trip over their feet. It was just hard imagining her dancing, to let that little bit of herself go and let the music and mood take her.

Amalia, though she had not been ignoring the conversation, had been content to allow it to slide mostly past her, like a breeze—perceived, but not necessarily acknowledged in any particular fashion. She was watching the way the dancers moved, counting off the steps and finding the rhythm of it, largely for lack of anything else to do. Her watchful eyes would occasionally flicker towards the Alienage entrance, or to one of the celebrants that appeared to have been a bit heavier into the intoxicating beverages than others. Alchohol dependence was not a major problem in the area, largely because most could not afford the habit, but it did occur every once in a while, she had learned. Perhaps to be expected—some preferred to forget their surroundings. It was not one of her flaws, certainly, but on an abstract level, she could at least see the thinking that led to it, and the lack of thinking that sustained it.

Eventually, however, Aurora directed a question to her, and the Qunari’s gaze slid smoothly to the other three. Raising a hand, Amalia tapped her lower lip with the tip of her index digit, a slightly contemplative gesture. “Occasions of unrestrained revelry and religious observance are absent in Qunari culture,” she said, knowing well that this eliminated most of the ‘holidays’ Aurora referred to. “But if you are asking if there are organized occasions during which we are not required to do our usual work, then… yes. Art is appreciated, in all its forms. It is recognized that sometimes in order to create and enjoy it, one must be given reprieve from the mundane. There are also ceremonies, but these are largely role-specific, and they are not celebratory in the sense you’re inquiring about.” They had music and singing and dance, but these things were either the domain of nights in war-camps, when all else to be done was done, children who had no need to be doing anything else, or else exhibited on the days reserved for such things.

Spontaneity was not a Qunari trait, to say the least. But this was not to claim that they did not appreciate the better parts of what other cultures put in their celebrations. Amalia recalled learning to dance—it had been a long time ago now, and the steps looked very different from these. Like everything else, Qunari dances were based on strict geometries and precise measures of time. They were beautiful because they were so executed, not in spite of it. She’d had no cause to deal overmuch in art as a form of emotional expression, because in the way she had been raised, that was not its value, and sometimes a detriment.

The revelry continued on for a time, but it was eventually called to order so that the couple could at last be married. The assembled elves took a while to quiet down and gather, but the Alienage eventually fell into an almost reverent silence. They stood at the base of the platform assembled under the vhenadahl, peering up to where the bride and groom stood before the hahren, the Alienage's elder, who would be conducting the marriage.

Ithilian only vaguely heard the words that were spoken. The lad being married was young and fit; he would have been molded into an excellent hunter by now, were he among the Dalish. The bride looked radiant in her dress. Elves did not take up the human custom of dressing their brides all in white, and this was for the best; city elves hardly had the resources to make a dress specifically to be worn one day of a woman's life. Instead, the girl's dress was a cheery yellow gown, falling down across her slim figure to rest on the wood of the platform. In true elven fashion, the hem was already dusty from the day's dancing.

The pair was joined after a short, warm ceremony, a happy cheer rising from the crowd when their lips met. The unscarred corner of Ithilian's mouth quirked upwards at the sight, though he made no comment. He was glad they were still able to enjoy days like this. Such things were not always a guarantee.

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel

Earnings

0.00 INK



The sun’s rays lazily drifted into the open window that led to Ashton’s bedroom, illuminating the room. The man himself sat on a stool in the corner, his back against the wall and his bare feet stretched out in front of him. The sleeves of his shirt were pulled back past his elbows, and even the cuffs of his pants were rolled back to his knees, which further served to make him feel that the day was an easy one. The rhythmic cutting of his whittling filled added to the melody of the birds chirping and the errant wind rustling his curtains. It was, perhaps the laziest day he could remember in recent time, which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. He had sent Lia and his new addition home, not wanting them to waste the day stuffed inside the shop, so all that remained in the building was himself and Snuffy, who was dozing lethargically in the corner of the room, her snoring adding to the sound.

The room he lived in was small, no surprise. The building he resided in was a small one, with the main floor of his shop taking up most of the real estate, as well as a workshop behind the counter. However, the closet he called home was undoubtably  his. The walls were painted a light greenish hue. A bed sat unmade in one corner of the room, while a dresser with either a sleeve or a pant-leg hanging freely from the between the cabinets. A small bookshelf sat against another wall, filled to the brim with books, with another few stacked on top.  Some were stories or fairy tales, while others were guides or techniques on his chosen craft. In the corner where he was sitting, right at his side was a desk with letters and blank pieces of parchment thrown chaotically into the mix.

For the finishing touches, all around him sat the products of his diligent work, those few that held either close meaning, or were too well worked he felt to be sold. Effort had to be made to actually find them, but they were there. Among those few were plates of wood, polished to a hardwood sheen. Each of the plates held etched within the grain the face of one of his friends. Sparrow as he remembered her, so full of life, of happiness, and of strength none of which he believed she’d lost—only hidden for a time. Another bore the face of Rilien, but he did not wear the tranquil’s frown—this one wore the face he remembered. The smiling face he’d met in the cave on Sundermount, the one that traded easy quips. Another held Lucien’s visage, and even through the plate his regal presence was captured, his head held high, and his shoulders straighter than any one of his arrows. There were ones of Sophia, Lia, Ithilian, Aurora, Snuffy, and even Amalia managed to grace one.

And then there was Nostariel’s. Her soft features reflected well in the cedar plaque, crafted by a sure and steady hand, the same hand that had crafted her bow. Her hair fell down in long tresses, her eyes wide and happy, and her mouth was graced with the widest grin Ashton sought to give her. It was an image he’d memorized, and one he could replicate in an instant. He’d sooner get lost in the woods than forget that face. His thoughts wondered as he worked the wood in his hand, the knife slicing with the grain toward an undetermined goal. It gave him time enough to think and to reflect—for recent events needed reflecting. Between his quest to come to terms with his own past, and Nostariel’s bid to face hers for closure caused him to want to pause and reevaluate what was really important in his life.

“Hurry, hurry! You're blocking the doorway—” a familiar voice whined, muffled from behind the door that led into Ashton's shop. Perhaps, even reaching through the open window overhead. Sparrow shielded her eyes from the sun, squinting up at the shutters. Her hands were poised against Rilien's shoulder blades, though she momentarily halted her insistent pushing. It was she, for once, who'd suggested visiting their friend-down-the-way. She hummed low in her throat and pushed away from her ever-silent companion, tipping her head backwards. She'd made this trek countless times (drunk and sober, semi-conscious and barely clinging on). For certain, they'd all changed over the years. They'd grown closer as friends and stronger as individuals. They'd overcome great obstacles and forgiven themselves for making grievous mistakes, allowing their pasts to become a part of them, rather than a crutch or anchor they lent upon or sank with.

She briefly considered scrambling up the wooden slats and surprising Ashton by appearing somewhere that wasn't the front door, but shimmied around Rilien and pushed the door open with her shoulder instead. No Lia—she noted in disappointment, pouting her lips. Pretty little Elvish girl, she was. She'd said as much to Ashton, who only laughed at her flighty eye-batting, and warned that she wouldn't be interested. It couldn't be helped, she supposed. Sparrow made her way inside, cupped her hand to her mouth and called for Ashton as she walked. Manners had never been convenient or necessary where she lived, nor accommodating unless she needed to smooth out any ruffled feathers (or deal with hoity-toity noblemen and women). She was learning to behave more civilly, as a result of having friends borne in higher places. Progress was definitely slow. She'd never attend a ball and fit in with the others, certainly not without stepping on some toes and offending someone. Sparrow slapped her hands on the counter and peeked around the main hall, before spotting a set of stairs tucked in the corner.

“Come on, over there,” she ushered, snatching up Rilien's wrist and rudely tugging him along with her. She might have appeared like an unruly hound pulling at the tethers, but her excitement often overrode her better senses (and gentility). If she'd ever been in this part of Ashton's shop, she could not recall. Discovering something new, however plain, felt just as thrilling as exploring the Deep Roads. Her nosiness and inability to keep her hands off of things knew no bounds, but fortunate enough for her, her friends tended not to mind. Sparrow plowed upstairs, and stubbornly pulled Rilien to her side as the stairway opened up into a smaller room. “Hey. We're coming in,” The half-elf announced, fingers slowly easing away from her friends wrist so that she could poke around Ashton's room. She flattened the wrinkles in her shirt and readjusted her ruffled collar. Her wardrobe had changed drastically over the years, lending her a feminine quality she never thought she had. Fitted tunics, layered coats and comfortable trousers with leather boots. Everything was still comfortable, still teetering between this and that, but she was now obviously smaller than Rilien, and much more content in her own skin. 

She spotted him lounging against the furthest wall, surrounded by wooden plates and small piles of discarded wood-whittles, intent upon his work. Her mouth quirked into a smile, and her eyebrows sailed up her forehead before knitting down curiously. “What's all this, then?” Sparrow tittered, coming to circle around all of the plates and swoop down onto her haunches for a better look. She crossed her arms over her stomach, and leaned forward like a perched bird. Her expression shifted, quick-firing into one of awe. Her tucked hands casually slipped away from her sides, and snatched up one of the plates—a smiling Rilien, unfamiliar to her. “Ash. These are amazing. I mean, the likeness is uncanny.” She tilted it this way and that, then roved the other plates with her eyes. “Where's yours?”

Rilien was not precisely sure why it was necessary to be here at the moment, but as he had no pressing orders waiting at the shop, he had acquiesced to be present. Sparrow may be of the impression that she dragged him places various and sundry, and in some literal sense, she would be correct. It was also true, however, that Rilien did nothing he truly did not wish to do. He could be relatively easily swayed regarding matters about which he was wholly neutral, which was most of them, so he supposed it might look quite a bit like he had no will of his own. Well enough—this was precisely how he was supposed to be, given his Rite. 

If asked, he would perhaps have advised against such an aggressive method of entry, as he had the suspicion that Ashton preferred his doors to have hinges, but as usual, he was not consulted so much as he was expected to follow, and follow he did, noting that the door had withstood Sparrow’s method of entry relatively intact. He trailed behind her into the smaller room at the back of the shop, just as indifferent to considerations of personal space or privacy as she was, if for wholly different reasons. He almost frowned at the general state of disorder the room was in, but there was no visible reaction to it. He did gain a small crease between his brows, however, at the depiction of himself among the others. He did not find it inaccurate… for a very specific set of circumstances. He could smile like that now, if he wished. He just never wished. Not once in a decade and a half, save then. He did not want her to ask about it. In this, he was served by her effusive enthusiasm and her complete lack of subtlety and attention to detail. If ever there was a person in this world who was antithetical to everything Rilien was, it was Sparrow. 

“Your work is accurate, but there is nothing 'uncanny' about it,” he said bluntly. Then again, for Rilien, he who held efficiency and precision as highest virtue, perhaps accurate was quite the compliment. He’d once used the same words to describe Lucien’s efforts at painting. Neither man seemed inclined to self-portraiture. The Tranquil folded his hands in his sleeves, watching a few dust motes float through the air, the angled sunlight giving them illumination they would not otherwise have had.

He could have heard the chirping Sparrow was making a mile away, much less the dozen or so feet below his windowsill. His first instinct was to rise out of his chair and meet them downstairs. He knew that there was a “them;” that Rilien was tagging along with her. Or maybe tagging along was the wrong phrase... Dragged sounded like a much better fit with what he imagined. Something still kept him in his chair however. The carving knife between his fingers swung around lazily while he waited instead of getting to his feet. Sparrow’s beckons from his main hall was not enough to rouse him either, as he turned his attention to the door on the far side of the room. If he knew Sparrow (and he did) then she’d find the nook that his stairs hid in. He wasn’t disappointed as a pair of footsteps echoed through the stairwell—one set rough and loud, the other soft and quiet.

It was then, that he finally sat the knife on the desk and rose to his feet, in order to properly greet his friends. In truth, Sparrow’s entrance was a tick more subdued than he expected. Of course he’d still have to inspect the hinges on his shop door—but that was beside the point. “Busy work,” He answered modestly. Hovering over Sparrow’s shoulder, he too peered at his handiwork. Then his chin dropped the few inches and landed in the crook of her neck, bristling her with what unshaven hairs he had on his chin. “The shop gets dreadfully dull at points. So in a valiant effort to combat the boredom, I whittle the most interesting people I know,” he said with a chuckle. “Doing myself is… iffy at best,” he admitted offhandedly, his tone noticebly dropping a decibel.

In an instant, he flicked his chin from Sparrow’s neck and skirted barefooted the distance between her and Rilien. With a pair of deft fingers, Ashton moved them through air and landed them on the corners of his lips. He then turned each corner half-an-inch upward, transforming his default neutral expression into a smiling (if forced) countenance. Now it’s uncanny,” he said, tossing glances between the elf in front of him and the elf captured in the plate. Letting his lips slip back into their usual place, Ashton took a step backward and took a seat on his bed. “So what brings you to my very humble abode?”

Sparrow's fingers skated across the wooden cheekbones, creased with an easygoing smile. There was twinkle in those eyes that was not currently there. It was almost as if she were looking at an old portrait of Rilien. Painted before the Rite had claimed the Fade, and his emotions, away. He looked far happier. And if Ashton had whittled it this way, then he'd surely seen him like this, as well. Her grin faltered briefly. Petty as envy was, she'd wished to see him how he'd been before, even if she acknowledged Rilien no differently than anyone else—in the sense, that he was not placed in an unreachable category. It never mattered how much he was unable to feel or reciprocate her own relentless, vibrant feelings, certainly not to her. She'd often joked about feeling enough for the both of them. Her dearest friend was a beacon in her life, guiding her down a path she could never have found on her own.

She traced the depiction of his smile and dropped her hand away from it. Perhaps, if she just could... A stubbly chin needling against the crook of her neck shook her thoughts away, forcing an uncontrollable bark of laughter. She was ticklish, after all. Her fingers tightened around the wooden plate to keep herself from jerking around and dropping it, though she still snrked, toothy grin beaming. “Lucky for you, you've got an interesting band of friends,” she said between bouts of laughter. She finally wriggled away from him, and his scratchy beard, when he released her and strode towards Rilien. She meant to ask him what he meant by that—how could it be difficult whittling yourself? Had she any abilities in any artistic crafts, Sparrow would have depicted him with the widest smile of all. Wide enough for them all. What was a house, without its foundations?

She doubled over in laughter when Ashton's fingers forced a smile on Rilien's face, albeit a very non-consensual one. Clutching her stomach, Sparrow wiped at her eyes with her forearm and nodded appreciatively, “Y-You're right, it is uncanny.” She abruptly straightened and held the plate at arms length, swinging her gaze from Rilien to Ashton's wonderful craftsmanship. These two, they represented her home. However unwelcome, however annoyed they might become over her mistakes and antics, she could not imagine living anywhere they did not. She finally relinquished her hold on the plate, gently placing it back with the others, before sweeping up and facing the now-seated Ashton. Scratching her chin, Sparrow shrugged her slender shoulders and cocked her head to the side. “We don't need a reason to visit a friend, do we? Just thought you'd be lonely. It's been awhile—I mean, all of us together, without any questionable adventures involved.” 

She paused and hooked her thumb towards the stairs, “Besides, Rilien was worried. You seem a lot more pensive than usual.”

It was perhaps fortunate for Ashton that it was almost impossible for Rilien to be annoyed, lest he might well have reacted poorly to his person being utilized in such a humiliating fashion. Of course, he had neither shame nor pride anymore, either, and so he simply remained where he was, hands folded into his sleeves, while the corners of his mouth were shoved upwards, the only indication he’d even noticed the slow, noncommittal blink of his eyes, like a cat that was simply too lazy to bother doing anything about the child tugging at its tail. The moment he was released, his mouth resumed its usual neutral cast, and he allowed Sparrow to do all of the explaining. Really, what would he add? That he had been the worried one was obviously a lie, but he felt no inclination to correct it—the absurdity of the statement was rather self-evident. 

When she was done though, he did add one thing. "Understandably,” he said, picking up on the last statement Sparrow made as though it were true. "You have been thoughtful lately. I believe it is often said that uncharacteristic behavior in another is grounds to inquire after their health.” He didn’t even look at either of them when he said it, and of course, his tone would never waver unless he consciously caused it to do so. He was never one to make the offer—to say that if the other needed to speak, he would listen—but he was decent enough at implying it, somewhere between the flat-greys of all his words, always underlining the vibrant colors of hers. They were both there if he required them. And perhaps, between them, nearly any kind of requirement could be met.

“Ah, of course he was. Poor Rilien, I wonder how he gets anything done with all the worrying he does,” Ashton said, cradling his chin over the back of his interlocked fingers. At some point, he’d pulled up his elbows and planted them on his knees, giving his lofty head some much needed support as he sat on his bed. Then his attentions turned to Rilien after he had spoken. “Thoughtful?” Ashton repeated, weighing the word on his tongue. Yes, he decided that that was the best word that described his current mood. Tilting his head on the backs of his knuckles, the thoughtful mood resurfaced upon his face, hiding the silliness that had been apparent only moments before. “I guess there were things I was thinking about,” He said, looking between Sparrow and Rilien.

He wasn’t going to tell them what they’d gone through on Nostariel’s task, because it wasn’t his to tell. However, the experience he found down there stuck with him and followed him back to Kirkwall, keeping him in a reflective mood the past week or so. What had been closure for Nostariel, was a reminder to him. He still had friends in Kirkwall, and it was thanks to them that he remained instead of moving on. He’d stopped running because he found something not worth running away from. He’d wanted to thank them for that, for being there for him—but just up and saying that was far too awkward and way out of character for him. Rilien was right, he wasn’t a thoughtful individual, but a man of action! (In his optimistic mind, of course). 

They were there, and they weren’t going anywhere anytime soon, and neither was he. Tilting his head the other way, his ever present smile returned to his lips. Pulling his fingers apart, he clapped them together and stood from the bed. “You’re so right Sparrow,” he said looking at her, “I mean it’s about time we fix that, hmm? How about we go find ourselves a questionable adventure. I won't be satisfied unless Rilien has to bail us out of jail.” He added the last part in jest-- He really didn't want to go back to jail if he had the option.

With all the things she held dear, and all the things she was afraid to lose, it was a wonder—Sparrow shook her head and flashed a weasely grin in return, jerking her hands away from her sides to rest at the nape of her neck, fingers tangled. “Now, you're talking,” she chirped, eyes sweeping towards Rilien for a brief moment. Mission complete, then.  She'd never known a truer home and a better reason to stay in one place, as dreary as Kirkwall was, then to be in the presence of all the companions she'd been fortunate enough to meet. Blunder into, rather. They'd chased away her monsters before, so she hoped she could someday return the favor. She unlocked her fingers and waggled them in front of her face, dark eyes reflecting the lights in the room. “Maybe Rilien can wear the dress this time.”

Setting

4 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon

Earnings

0.00 INK

The heat of a late spring morning was warm on their backs, the sunshine casting luminance over the haunches of their great armored destriers, one’s hide lighting like fire, and the other gleaming blue-on-grey. Both beasts were themselves armored, as were the people mounted upon them, though they’d long left their retinue, small as it was, elsewhere. The three men would likely take their rest at the local tavern, but a knight knew no rest until the task was done, and there was nothing that these two could have been but knights—it was obvious from the polish to their sturdy armor, the color of it a deep crimson, the plates belonging to the figure in front outlined in gold, even. Each had the crest of Orlais stamped into their chestplates, and the leading figure’s back also sported a cloak, gold with the same crest in red, the linen laying over the horse’s rear and glimmering like a small star.

Parade armor, Ser Routhier had always thought, was entirely unnecessary. Fortunately, they were not presently in it, and despite the obviousness of their allegiance to the Empress, they allowed the quality of their armament to speak for itself, rather than insisting on excessive flourish in it. Well, save the plumed helmets. Ser Routhier had never liked the plumed helmets.

Which was perhaps why, when the stocky knight dismounted in front of the Viscount’s Keep, raising a deep carmine brow in amusement when several stableboys started fighting each other for the chance to handle the horses, she removed the thing immediately, shaking out hair just a touch darker than her armor. Beside her, her sister, taller and leaner, did much the same, only Liliane’s hair was aureate rather than ruddy. As soon as it had been sorted out who was actually taking the horses, as well as the third they’d had tethered behind them, a massive silvery creature with pale mane and tail, the women tucked their helmets, plumes and all, under their arms, and advanced as one up the stairs, their paces measured but brisk. They had been marching not long after they were walking, after all. Though to look at the hardy, chisel-featured Violette and the more willowy, fine-boned Liliane was not to immediately see a resemblance, their body language was almost exactly the same.

Upon entrance to the Keep, they put question to the first city guardsman they came across, who directed them to the Seneschal. They informed him that they had wish to speak with the Viscount or a suitable representative, and then simply stood their turn along with the rest who had made similar requests, demanding no more haste on their own behalf than the slightly bereaved looking fellow that smelled of fish who was just ahead of them in the queue.

The pair of knights stood out like sore thumbs among the other petitioners of the day, and upon hearing their wish to speak with the Viscount, Seneschal Bran disappeared behind the door leading to the private quarters of the Viscount's family. He strode past the guards until he arrived at the door to Sophia's room, where he lightly rapped on the door, asking if he might enter. When the Viscount's daughter responded in the affirmative, he entered to find her sliding on her leather gloves, completing the process of donning her armor.

"A pair of knights just arrived at the Keep asking to see your lord father, my lady," he said, his neutral look indicating that he was well aware Sophia was planning on heading out. "I thought you might want to meet them." Sophia looked mildly irritated at the idea of doing anything court-related right now, when she was obviously quite distracted, perhaps even a little distraught. She wanted out of the Keep, as it wasn't a quick walk to get down to the Gallows, and she wanted to get the facts from a source she trusted, before she heard it anywhere else.

"And why would I want to meet them?" she asked impatiently, grabbing the sheath for her sword and buckling across her chest. The sword itself she pulled from its place on the rack, sliding it into the sheath across her back. "Their crests mark them as Orlesian chevaliers, Sophia," Bran answered. "Not every day knights from Orlais pass through the city. If you want to speak with them, they await you in the hall. I just thought you should know." Sophia nodded, and the Seneschal took his leave. Chevaliers, was it? Their timing led Sophia to believe their arrival wasn't a coincidence. Perhaps it was best she speak with them before departing.

She stepped out of the private quarters and into the main hall. The two knights weren't difficult to spot, though she was mildly surprised to note that both were female. As she approached, she was suddenly glad for the fact that she was wearing armor. The quality of the Orlesian smithing that went into their suits was certainly on par with her own, and there was a presence about them, similar to the one Lucien possessed. She supposed it was something that only intense training and experience in the field could create. She felt a little small in front of them, but carried herself well nonetheless.

"Greetings," she said. "My name is Sophia. Viscount Dumar is my father. Is there something I can assist you with?" She glanced to the line waiting to speak with her father. It would be quite the wait if their words were for his ears alone.

Both women were quick to divert their focus to Sophia when she spoke, inclining their heads somewhat in deference to her rank. Of course, both of the Routhiers were the daughters of a Duke, though, as everyone else, he was simply ‘milord’ in form of address. They both found it more merciful to forgo the titling all together and simply use the ones they had attained with their knighthood when any were necessary. Violette, at least, was hoping that none would be necessary, but this was rarely the case and it was unwise to presume. “Milady Sophia,” color she said, her accent light but a degree thicker than Lucien’s all the same. She, after all, had much less reason to use the trade tongue than her compatriot did. “I am Captain Violette Routhier, and this is Lieutenant Liliane Routhier. As I expect is easy to guess, we are of the Knights Chevalier, but… we are not here on precisely official business.”

Violette shifted such that both of her hands were clasped behind her back. It was hard to tell for sure, but she had the sense that Sophia had somewhere else to be, so it was perhaps best to keep matters brief. “We have come on a personal matter. An old friend of ours is presently a resident of Kirkwall, and we wish to find him. If your lord father employs knights, we suspected he might be among them, or perhaps in the Guard.” Her eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly. It was true enough that being a member of a city guard was a respectable enough position, but for one who had been born and trained into the very consummate warriors’ order… well, she could only see it as a serious waste of his talents.

“Perhaps you have heard of a Lucien Drakon?” Violette had no doubt, after all, that if Lucien had sought out employment in some personal retinue of nobility here, or even in the Guard, he would have long distinguished himself by now. They were not permitted to be less than exceptional, Chevaliers, and the somewhat draconian nature of their disciplinary structures saw to it that those who would fail were Chevaliers no longer. He was not the kind of person to relax his personal standards simply because no one else held him to them anymore, either. That was why this was the first thing they’d thought of to try and locate him.

“’E would be recognizable,” Liliane put in, her accent thickening her words slightly, giving them a strange lilt. She was not so well-versed in diplomatic situations as Violette, and her tone was a bit blunter as well. “’E is very tall, and, eh…” she gestured vaguely to her face for a moment before covering one of her eyes. Injured, I believe you say.” The exact phrase eluded her, considering that the eye was not precisely missing.

Sophia could help but wear a small smile as the chevalier, who had been introduced as Liliane, described Lucien to her. "Yes, I know Ser Lucien. The Viscount's Keep has made use of his services quite a few times since his arrival in the city." It seemed hardly necessary, or appropriate, to describe how close of friends she was with Lucien, when she had only just met these two women, and when she did not yet know their intentions for seeking Lucien out. Self-proclaimed old friends or no, she knew that not everyone in Orlais held a friendly disposition towards him, given his family ties. That they were specifically looking for him now, however, made this conversation rather awkward for her.

"He isn't technically in my father's employ, however. He's currently in the process of establishing a mercenary company, called the Argent Lions. I'm... afraid there's a bit of a complication, however, if you're looking for him." She folded her hands together in front of her. "At the moment, he's being held in the Gallows. He's been charged... with murder. I was actually on my way to speak with him." It made absolutely no sense to Sophia. Lucien had killed many men, but she couldn't remember a time when it hadn't been in self-defense, when he hadn't given the aggressors ample opportunity to lay down their arms and surrender peacefully. She had known him for long enough to know that this simply couldn't have been him.

The news seemed to have an immediate sobering effect on the two women, and what had been a passably friendly demeanor from each hardened into something that was unmistakably military. It was easily readable from Liliane’s scowl alone that neither woman was particularly happy with the news, and she murmured something under her breath in Orlesian, too low to catch properly. Violette was a little more vocal. Merde,” she said emphatically, shaking her head. From one cage to another? Just what had that fool gotten himself into this time? Lucien and murder did not belong in the same sentence. There was no mistaking that the Chevaliers were not the knights in shining armor they were so often made out to be in popular stories, but if there was a one of them that was worth the chivalric code he swore to, it was that one.

Still, Sophia seemed to have the right idea, and Violette straightened, clearing her throat and thus snapping her sister to attention as well. She was, after all, the captain here. “Then please, Lady Sophia, allow Liliane and I to accompany you there. Something is not right with the world when Lucien is behind the bars of a prison.” She’d seen it but once before, and it had been uncomfortable, to say the least. Like watching a lion in a cage, perhaps, when one knew the creature was meant for freedom.

The concern of the sisters seemed genuine, and it was obvious that they knew Lucien quite well, if they understood just how wrong the situation was. Sophia couldn't have put it any better herself; the world seemed somehow off-balance when Lucien was stuck behind bars. She nodded her agreement, and led the way towards the double doors of the Keep. The guards preemptively opened them prior to her arrival.

"Follow me, then. And please, call me Sophia. Any friend of Lucien's is a friend of mine."




It was now approaching midday or so, and Lucien had been in this particular cell for at least five hours. That in and of itself was no significant hardship—he had been, unfortunately, in cells before, for greater durations. It was dank, as one would expect of a dungeon in a place called the Gallows, and dark as well, smelling like some mixture of stale water and human filth. There was occasionally a rustle or the whump of a body trying to make something softer out of the flat straw pallet placed in the corner of each, but Lucien was of the opinion that one was more likely to acquire pests that way than sleep of any kind. Other than that, only one of his neighbors made any noise, and he suspected the man was having nightmares of some kind, because he was unresponsive to the second voice that had inquired in a ragged whisper as to his health.

The keepers of this place had of course removed his weapons and his armor already, leaving him wearing a simple tunic and jerkin, breeches, and—only after they had assured themselves that he wasn’t hiding any blades in them—his boots. He wondered how often they had prisoners with blades in their shoes? It seemed like something Rilien or Amalia might do, perhaps. Of course, they’d have had to perform a much more thorough inspection than that to find anything those two really wanted concealed, he was certain. But he was not them.

There was nowhere to sit in the cell, and so Lucien stood instead, precisely at the center of it, facing the bars and the dim corridor. From necessity, his arms were held in front of him, linked together with dark iron shackles made for a man slightly smaller than he. They chafed a bit, but he was so perfectly still that it was little more than a situational discomfort. His ankles were bound as well, over the boots, and the manacles were linked together by enough chain to allow him very limited range of motion. So he’d squared himself with his feet shoulder-width apart and his dignity as intact as he could keep it, and he was silent. He’d caught sight of Aurora on his way down here, and had mouthed to her a single word—Rilien. He supposed he could have just as easily asked for Sophia, but this was hardly an affair he wanted to associate her with, were it avoidable. Rilien also knew where in his house Lucien kept the funds that would be necessary to secure his release from here, to await trial in something that was not a cell in the Gallows.

After Aurora had found him—this was not a difficult task, as he was in his shop as usual—it had taken Rilien less than three minutes to leave. The delay had been in the stop he’d made to Lucien’s home, producing a key from somewhere in one of his sleeves and using it to open the door. Fortunately, the other current residents of the home were all out, which saved the Tranquil the trouble of explaining his presence in the event that questions were asked of him. He’d left the mage in the living area for a moment, padding into Lucien’s sleeping quarters and removing the loose floorboard under which the mercenary kept the objects he did not particularly desire others to find, including coin and several important pieces of documentation, all of which Rilien secreted about his person before he returned, nodding to Aurora and heading to the Gallows.

It was, he was fairly certain, not a place either of them really desired to be, but of course there were some reasons for which people would do unpleasant things, and it would seem that for both of them, Lucien was such a reason.

Unlike the last time he’d broken someone from a prison cell, he wasn’t going to be breaking anyone at all. Lucien would doubtless want all the proper paperwork filed and his bail paid for his release until trial for whatever he was in here for, and the arrest documents would not be so easily missed for whatever it was as they would be for public drunkenness and indecency, which had been the listed crimes on the paperwork for Ashton and Sparrow. He knew not what was actually at issue here—but that was irrelevant. Very few things in life were as certain as Rilien would prefer them to be, but that whatever action Lucien took in whatever circumstance was morally faultless was about as close as things became. Legally faultless, maybe not. Practical, often not. But never reprehensible.

So he let Aurora handle most of the actual talking, filling out the needed documentation swiftly, only to be informed that the paperwork would have to go to a superior officer for approval, because murder was not always the kind of thing for which one could secure bail. They were, however, allowed to go and see the prisoner, and so the two of them descended several levels, to where they kept the worst of the refuse down here, in dimly-lit, dank corridors, coming to a stop in front of Lucien’s cell. Rilien, his pale coloration giving him a faintly-limned glow in the permanent twilight, refrained from touching anything, folding his hands into his sleeves. He presumed that Lucien would not have wanted him to flourish the diplomatic documents at first opportunity, but if they didn’t let him out otherwise, it might become necessary.

Still, perhaps it was best to have the story first. “Ser Lucien,” he said, and that would be enough to convey the query. They knew each other that well.

Lucien couldn’t help the small smile that took up residence on his face at the appearance of his friends, as truthfully, he was relieved to see them. There was something about languishing in prison that disagreed with him on a fundamental level and crawled under his skin. He was certainly restless, though perhaps this was well-concealed by the approach he was taking to the whole thing. He glanced between Rilien and Aurora, and felt his appreciation increase further. This could not have been a comfortable place for either of them to be, given what was just a few floors above, but here they were anyway, for his sake. It humbled him, that they would do something like this for his sake.

“Ril, Aurora. I’m glad to see you both. I take it the straightforward bail request was unsuccessful, so I suppose I’ll be in here until someone with authority approves my release.” He didn’t want to use the diplomatic paperwork, he really didn’t. The last thing Lucien wanted to cause Kirkwall was the nightmare that would result if his aunt—or, Maker forbid, his father—decided that a foreign territory was holding him on insufficient grounds. And, incriminating as the situation had been, it really was insufficient, at least as far as he knew.

He considered for a moment sending his Tranquil friend to perhaps communicate the events to Sophia, as her authority was certainly sufficient for something like this, but he didn’t want to embroil the Viscount’s family anymore than he wished to involve his own. It was better to let this sort itself out, if possible. Still, the least he could do would be to answer Rilien’s implied question. “I’m afraid Ambassador Vermire has been murdered, though it was not I that did so.” He’d just been the first to discover the body.

Setting

4 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon

Earnings

0.00 INK

After a walk and a boat ride that seemed to take far too long, Sophia arrived at the Gallows, the pair of chevalier sisters in tow. The Viscount's daughter hadn't made for the most pleasant conversation on the way over, but the women at her back were no mewling kittens who knew nothing but the life of privilege, and didn't need her to make smalltalk with them. It was nice to be with others who were all business for once. A ruler had to make good on her opportunities for such company.

Upon descending into the dungeons, Sophia quite nearly grabbed the gaoler by his collar, to drag him along with her. Instead, she managed to politely order him to lead her and her companions to the cell that held Lucien Drakon. Wisely, he obeyed without question, leading her to a row of oppressively dark and damp cells. Considering that the Gallows were located in the waters of a sea that was all too often unkind, it was not the dryest of places.

She was hardly surprised to find Rilien already present, though the sight of Aurora was not something she'd entirely expected. Her smile for her two friends (though she doubted Rilien would refer to her as a friend) was a bit strained, but she was certain they would want to help Lucien as well. No doubt he would be much more surprised to see a pair of old friends arriving in the city, today of all days. "Release him," she commanded the gaoler, and he silently stepped between them with the set of jangling keys, unlocking the door and sliding it open. A wave of her hand was enough to dismiss the man. He departed quickly.

"Rilien, Aurora," she said, nodding her head in greeting, "Lucien. I've... brought some friends of yours. I hope you don't mind. I've already assured them that this isn't a regular occurrence." She hoped it went without saying that she was here to help with more than just freeing him from the cell. There would be some way to make whatever had happened right again, and in the meantime, the prisoner could remain in the custody of the Viscount's daughter. The thought of him being stuck down here any longer made her slightly ill.

Neither of the Chevalier seemed at all surprised to see Rilien in Lucien’s company, though Violette especially moved her eyes from the Tranquil quite quickly, fixing dark green irises on the slight girl with red hair momentarily, offering a nod before she at last turned to Lucien. Her sister echoed the movements more or less, and they both beheld a rather surprised-looking friend. The elder woman’s face broke into a wide grin, and though Liliane’s smile was more subtle, it was no less genuine. “Vous ne pouvez pas rester hors des ennuis, pouvez-vous?” Violette inquired, and her sister snorted lightly, a form of agreement, doubtlessly.

“Jamais,” he replied, his shock seeming to give way to unexpected happiness, though the word was uttered rather wryly, all things considered. Of course, he was not one to forget the presence of the others, even if it was admittedly mildly less shocking to see Sophia here than it was to see the Routhier sisters. He supposed there would not have been a way for her to avoid hearing of his imprisonment. After the gaoler unlocked his cell and his chains, he rubbed at either wrist for a few seconds before turning his attention back to the small crowd in front of him.

At least, he did for long enough to notice that his friend was incoming. Violette had never been shy about physical contact, whether that be beating some sense into the snotty whelp that thought himself better suited to war than a woman, or, later as now, squeezing the breath from his ribcage. The two sensations were not all that different, really. He patted her armored back somewhat awkwardly, and caught Liliane’s rolled eyes and the shake of her head. Though no less physical on the battlefield, she was a bit less… affectionate than Vi, whose exuberance had only been tempered, not banished, by her knightly training.

As soon as he could properly breathe again, he spoke. “I can safely say that I was not expecting this. Thank you, Sophia, and Ril and Aurora, for your help. I would ask further assistance of you all, should you be willing, but… perhaps not here.” They were causing a bit more commotion than the cells usually saw, he was certain. “Perhaps the shop?” he inquired of the only elf in the room.

Aurora had been mostly quiet during the exchange between Rilien and Lucien, and subsequently Lucien and his friends. She returned their light greetings, but didn't speak, for she really had nothing to say. She was trying her best to stay out of places such of these after all, and there was an edge of nervousness to her actions. During the process to get to Lucien, she only said what she needed to, nothing more and kept a tight lid on what words she chose. There was nothing like being below the Gallows to bring out the cautiousness in an Apostate.

The words spoken in Orlesian did not pass Aurora's notice, and even in her overly cautious mood it intrigued her into curiosity. From what it sounded and looked like, these were Chevalier friends of Lucien from Orlais-- for they had the same bearing he had. She tilted her head, but said nothing until the meeting was asked to be moved to Rilien's shop. "I agree," She said finally, "We shouldn't stay here any longer than we need to. Maybe we can have more proper introductions there?" She asked of Lucien's friends, eager to be free of the place.

These were faces that Rilien remembered well. They had been Lucien’s allies, apparently since the man’s somewhat indiscreet youth. Not that Rilien would ever bother to pass judgement on someone for having an indiscreet youth—even had he not been Tranquil, he would have understood that because he shared it. Perhaps, if he had been the sort of person who could feel pleasure at reunions, he would not have minded this one. They had not been his friends, but they had proven rather staunch allies when Lucien made it clear that their lots were the same, and seemed to take the fact that he wan an elf, a Tranquil, and a Bard with considerably more equilibrium than most.

Even so, he was not disposed to linger for reunions, and as soon as the words were out of Aurora’s mouth, the was leading the way out of the Gallows. They stopped exactly long enough for Lucien to retrieve his partially-broken axe—it had apparently lost the pointed tip—and his armor before continuing on their way, emerging into sunlight and then ascending into Hightown. That was the shop he assumed Lucien meant, as Darktown was hardly the place to take one’s highborn friends, no matter how accustomed they were to being elbow-deep in filth and mire.

Once everyone was situated inside, Rilien latched the door to make sure there would be no disturbances and settled down at the emptiest counter with the rest of them. Bodahn and Sandal were not in today, something with was both convenient and coincidental. Once the introductions were properly made—really just between Aurora and the two female knights—the Tranquil turned a flat citrine gaze on Lucien. “You said Vermire was assassinated.”

Lucien leaned back slightly in his chair, running a hand back through his hair—he probably needed to cut it again—and sighed heavily, his shoulders bowing for a moment before he straightened himself out. The name obviously meant something to his friends, since they both scowled darkly at the word assassinated. Though perhaps that was more a natural aversion to the idea of killing in secret, when your foe was not prepared for you and could not fight back with honor. It was hard to tell. Liliane crossed her arms over her chest, sitting straighter, but Violette leaned forward, drumming her fingers against the counter for a moment, shooting the Tranquil a short-lived glance.

“Yes,” Lucien replied. “After he recognized me at Sophia’s party, I dropped by his office and arranged for a more personal visit at a later time. Vermire is the Orlesian ambassador to Kirkwall, and a friend of my mother’s,” he explained to those without the relevant context. “Or was, I suppose. The appointment was relatively early in the morning, so I arrived there first thing. A servant let me in, which wasn’t unusual, and led me up to the study before departing.” He frowned. The timing of the next events had been impeccable—far too good to have happened naturally. “I knocked, but received no answer. I waited a minute and then knocked again. I went in anyway that time. Laurent was slumped over his desk, and there was a wound in his back, about halfway down the spine.”

If anything, his expression became grimmer still. “I’m not sure if I was the one who was set up, or if anyone else would have done just as well, but no sooner had I tried to check if there was anything to do for him had the guards appeared. I suppose it hardly looks good to be standing beside a dead man with blood on one's hands, regardless of the other circumstances. At any rate, it is how I wound up in the Gallows.” He hadn’t protested his arrest, beyond stating once that he himself had only just arrived, and asking the guards to verify as much with Vermire’s servant. Unsurprisingly, the woman was nowhere to be found. Someone had really thought this through, and he would not doubt that there would be further incriminating details discovered as the investigation went on, designed to solidify the initial suspicion of him, or whomever had been in his place, far enough for the matter to be dropped.

He accepted this with relative equilibrium. One did not grow up as Lucien had and not become at least somewhat accustomed to people attempting to soil one’s name and link one to all kinds of horrible or scandalous misdeeds. He’d lost track of the—often unethical, frequently salacious—things he’d been accused of doing and being over the years. His father had taught him to let his actions speak for themselves, and he tried to. But this… he’d known Laurent since he was a child. Whether or not whomever had killed him knew that, they had slain a family friend. Lucien would have wanted to look into any such death, but the personal nature of the acquaintance meant that he wouldn’t simply be letting it go to the proper authorities, not if he could help it.

Sophia crossed her arms as Lucien explained what had happened, preferring to remain standing. A frown settled quickly over her features. She found it hard to believe that it was by mere chance that Lucien was set up to take the fall for this over anyone else. Everyone in the room knew that he had enemies in Orlais simply because of the name he carried, and if the ambassador had been a friend of his family's... no, it seemed almost a certainty that someone was targeting Lucien. He had long since proven that directly challenging him was a foolish notion, so they struck from the shadows, with deceit and trickery. They were difficult things to fight back against.

"It's unlikely that whoever was the will behind the act performed it themselves," she said somewhat regretfully. "Sadly, there are many groups in the city that would be willing to take an innocent life for coin. Only a few that would be able to arrange with such precise timing, however." The Coterie immediately came to mind, given the resources she knew they possessed, but there was also the chance that something foreign had made its way into the city. It wouldn't be too difficult, given the current state of Kirkwall, and its preoccupation with other, seemingly more notable events.

"Not to mention the enemies you've certainly managed to earn," Aurora added, rather bluntly. She was found leaning against a nearby wall, her fingers interlocked over the crown of her head, her face thoughtful in expression. An apologetic look flashed in her face, but it was a simple cold truth. A man such as Lucien was sure to find opposition merely based upon his moral fiber. A noble man, with a good heart beating could find enemies that detested such principles. Or perhaps it was a revenge ploy of some sort-- there were many ill sorts that they've all faced, and the assassination may have been retribution for a past slight. None of them happy thoughts, but none were when murder was involved.

"Did anyone else know about your appointment?" She asked. If Lucien knew of anyone who would have overheard them, then perhaps they could find a bread crumb to lead them to the real assassin.

Lucien grimaced. It was true enough that there were plenty of people, both locally and internationally, that could have been employed to do something like this. Whether the important part was that Laurent was killed or that he was blamed for it hardly seemed to matter in terms of discovering the culprit. Violet sighed gustily, leaning back a little in her chair. “Bards are obviously a possibility. They could get in and out of the city below notice.” She looked at Rilien for a second, but as before, her eyes didn’t stay there long. It wasn’t like she honestly suspected him, but his talents certainly did lend credence to the statement she’d just made. If someone that flashy-looking could move below notice, than a human with ordinary coloration and similar training would have even fewer problems. “Whatever criminal organizations you have around here, or less-than-reputable mercenaries even. That’s sometimes a problem in Orlais.”

Liliane rolled her eyes, as if in long-suffering agreement. “Crows,” she contributed pointedly. While Bards took care of most of the assassinations of nobility where she was from, the Crows were more used to travelling internationally, and furthermore, one occasionally dealt with even they in Court. They were less an established institution than the Bards, and as such, they could get the same job done without a lot of the Game nonsense. It was poor form, but it was occasionally done anyway. There was a noticable twitch in Aurora's eye at the mention of the Crows. Some fears still lingered after all.

Their old friend’s expression was a bit rueful. “And that’s if Laurent dying was the point. If the concern was me, there’s dozens of smaller-time organizations or individuals I’ve offended in the past decade or so, I’m sure. I confess I haven’t exactly been keeping track.” He exhaled through his nose, shaking his head a little. “Nobody knew about the appointment on my end—there wasn’t really any reason to mention it. I just thought I was going to see an old family friend. I honestly don’t know who he would have told, though. Laurent… had something of a flair for gossip, and exaggerating his stories a bit. He was no Varric Tethras, but at the very least, he wasn’t reticent. Word could have reached anyone in the city, if they had the right source.”

Violette didn’t know who Varric Tethras was, but she got the general point all the same. “Perhaps,” she ventured, “it is best that we start with what remains of the crime scene. Vermire’s paperwork might tell us who he was in contact with, and his servants might know how the culprit could have gained entry to and egress from the estate. It is not much, but it is not nothing.”

Liliane raised a brow, but directed her next question at Sophia. “That would not be so simple, I think. Can you get us access?”

The Viscount's daughter nodded at her in response. "It shouldn't be a problem." She wasn't overly fond of using her authority to repeatedly circumvent traditional procedures, but she would honestly prefer the city guard be somewhere other than poking around an estate for clues, if indeed they were putting any significant effort into resolving the crime, and not simply hanging it around Lucien's neck, as the true killer appeared to want. Sophia's present company would undoubtedly perform a much more effective and thorough search, and forunately, Lucien was one of the few men in the world that could be trusted to investigate a crime that he himself had been accused of in a fair and honest manner.

He looked uncomfortable, and she couldn't blame him for it. Anyone who knew him knew that he wasn't remotely capable of such a heinous act, and yet for the moment, they didn't have so much as a clue as to who was truly responsible. She knew not if he'd find any reassurance in it, but she came up beside him and put a hand on his shoulder all the same. "We'll make this right, Lucien."

Setting

4 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon

Earnings

0.00 INK

The walk over wasn't a terribly long one, though it was on the other side of Hightown. Given the seriousness of the atmosphere, it was unsurprising that there wasn’t a lot of talking, though at one point Liliane, who had been observing the members of the party with some curiosity, abruptly broke the silence. “Lucien? Combien de temps avez-vous fait la cour à la dame?”

Lucien’s step hitched slightly, and his visible eye twitched. Violette couldn’t help the snort of laughter at the look of guilty consternation on her old friend’s face, and shook her head. Some things never changed—and others changed a great deal indeed. “Je ne suis pas, Lili,” he replied, clearly uncomfortable with the topic.

Violette blinked. “Mais elle est celle que vous vouliez nous parler? A la noblesse?”

Lucien sighed. He’d really rather not be having this conversation right now, but he knew his friends well: they weren’t the types to rest until they had an answer. And admittedly his request had been rather strange, but he hoped it would also one day be helpful, and his father seemed to think it might. As loath as Guy Drakon was to play the games of nobility, he knew them very well. Certainly better than his son did. “Oui, mais pas pour la raison que vous pensez. Je t'expliquerai plus tard. La dame ne sait un peu de Orlesiane, vous le savez.” They fell silent after that, and Lucien put the matter aside for the moment. There were much more urgent things to be dealt with than the curiosity of his rather nosy friends, unfortunately.

Sophia kept to the front of the group, and she was glad she did so, as she was aware that the Orlesian members of the party had begun speaking about, or more specifically Lucien and her. Her knowledge of Orlesian was passable, though she was far better at reading text than understanding a fluent speaker. Even still, Liliane's question was easy enough to piece together. She turned only slightly red, and made sure to remain in the lead, largely feigning ignorance. She understood that Lucien would be uncomfortable discussing such things now of all times, especially while she was present, but she was still slightly let down by his response, which was obviously in the negative. She supposed it was her that was courting him, for the most part. The rest she wasn't able to catch as well, something about the nobility, and a bit of Orlesian. When they were through, Sophia was actually glad they hadn't had the conversation in the common tongue.

Laurent Vermire’s estate was, predictably enough, one of the more ostentatious homes in Hightown, the architecture indicating that either it had been originally built for a different Orlesian and acquired by luck or fortune for the ambassador, or else commissioned for him specifically—it was quite reminiscent of some of the more lavish buildings used by courtiers during the Season, when most everyone who could afford it made residence in Val Royeaux rather than on their respective lands. The walled courtyard was flanked by well-trimmed shrubs and several climbing vines, still in flower. He might not have noticed it were he just casually walking by—and in fact had not noticed it earlier that morning—but one of these plants, while still resting against the wall, looked somewhat disturbed, dislodged slightly from its hold on the stones of the wall.

Someone, possibly Laurent’s assailant, had used it as a climbing aid. “Rilien,” Lucien requested quietly, “Could I ask you to take a look at that, as well as perhaps the doors and windows, and tell me if the assassin was more likely to have entered or exited clandestinely or in disguise?” At the very least, someone of Rilien’s expertise should be able to get a decent idea of the sizing and weight of whomever had climbed the vines.

The rest of them were met by a city guardsman at the door, and he imagined for a moment that the poor man had never seen quite so much authority at once in his life. Between the authority he recognized and the two who just looked incredibly important, Lucien supposed that he and Aurora must be rather benign by comparison. Sophia got them through the door and to Laurent’s office, but another guard checked Lucien at the door, who willingly agreed to proceed no further, trusting that his friends would be able to find just as much, if not more information, than he could, and he instead stood in the doorway, in case they had questions of some kind.

Though she was perhaps most useful for her authority, Sophia figured another pair of eyes couldn't hurt while searching for evidence. Hers weren't the most well-trained in matters of crime; she had failed to notice the disturbed plant on their way in until Lucien pointed it out. Nevertheless, she wanted to help where she could. The Viscount's daughter gave a small smile to the hovering servant girl in the room before she moved further in. She didn't even look out of her teens yet, and a bit nervous at the sight of so many authoritative figures. Sophia doubted she'd easily speak to the future Viscoutness, no matter how easy a manner she tried to present her.

Instead she moved on to Vermire's desk. The body had been removed, thankfully, though the blood-splatters had yet to be cleaned. It did indeed seem to indicate a wound taken from behind by a sharp object, which in of itself indicated someone other than Lucien was responsible. Of late he wielded an axe when unfortunate killing needed to happen, and he had entered the room from the front, which would mean he would have had to walk around behind the ambassador to stab him with a dagger. The idea of him stealthily climbing in through the window was also a bit preposterous. She knew him to possess more than a small amount of grace, but he had no experience performing clandestine work such as this.

She began sifting through the paperwork and notes that the Ambassador had collected, being sure to replace everything where she found it. Much of it was uninteresting; schedules and invitations, bland correspondence with nobles large and small in importance. There was one group of papers, however, that appeared to be reports of some kind. They were in Orlesian, but she translated them well enough, noting several mentions of one 'Le Renard' which she believed translated to 'The Fox.' Notably, there were no words present to identify Le Renard's gender. The goal of the reports themselves seemed to be to acquire the person's location.

The most recently dated report caught Sophia's eye. The others didn't present any clear lead or location to go on, nothing but hearsay at best, but this last report seemed to speak of someone's death. The notes scrawled somewhat poorly, likely meant for one's own eyes, and the combination of that with the foreign language caused Sophia to doubt the accuracy of her translation. "Violette?" she said, calling for the nearest Orlesian speaker to her. She held out the report for the Chevalier to see. "This is a report of a separate killing, is it not?"

Violette glanced down at the parchment Sophia was holding, her brows furrowing as she scanned first the document as a whole, then the handwritten note. “Yes,” the chevalier replied, frowning. “It says that an agent Lord Vermire hired to track Le Renard was killed. His head was sent back here, and it is… unclear what happened to the rest of him.” She paused, a thoughtful look crossing her face. “Liliane… where have I heard ‘Le Renard’ before?”

The blond knight set the sheaf of papers she was leafing through back down on the desk, blinking light blue eyes at her sister for a moment. She’d had a posting on the coast for a few years—which meant that she certainly had not forgotten the moniker. “That is the name of… the word is privateer, I think? Closer to pirate, though. A very notorious criminal, suspected of theft, smuggling, assassination… shadow-work.” The somewhat disdainful emphasis on the last words made her opinion on the matter clear, and she shook her head. “If Lord Vermire was tracking Le Renard, ‘e was making a mistake. There would be fame in the capture, but… much risk.” She pursed her lips, eyes flickering to the blood stain on the desk. It actually wouldn’t be very different from this…

Orlesian wasn't her first language, nor even her second. In honesty, Aurora knew nearly nothing of the language aside from the similar words that it and Antivan shared. But, she could read body language, and whatever the Orlesians were speaking about it was visibly awkward for Lucien. Her head tilted in concentrated in an attempted effort to understand what was being said, but she couldn't glean anything else from the conversation. In the end, she gave up and shrugged at Rilien, momentarily forgetting that he too was Orlesian, and could understand everything that was being said.

Laurent's mansion was a sight to behold, and Aurora found herself wondering if all the buildings in Orlais were built so... Excessively. By her approximation, one of the pantries in the estate could probably hold the entire hovel Milly and her shared. Though she didn't find herself envious or wistful at the contrast, but rather content about her own living space. It was harder to get lost in her house than it'd be in Laurent's estate... However, she was a touch jealous as the sheer size of the gardens and magnificence of the plants. She was staring at one such plant when Lucien asked Rilien to check some of the vines.

Soon, they entered the estate, and after more walking than should be necessary in a house, they arrived at the door of Laurent's office. While Lucien was checked at the entrance, the remaining four were allowed entry, and Aurora stepped through the threshold before pausing to get a handle on her surroundings. The room was large, which she came to expect by now. A finely crafted desk sat not too far away, piled with papers and layered with a spatter of blood. Aurora turned her nose upward at the sight and swung her gaze elsewhere. The Chevalier sisters and Sophia made their way to the desk, and she figured she'd just crowd them if she went as well.

Instead, she found herself looking at a timid servant girl. She was young, maybe too young to be standing so close to murder scene, and Aurora flashed her an apologetic smile. The woman had a head of raven hair, and was dressed in the usual servent fare-- tan clothing, smudged apron, better suited for praticality than looks, though in what she came to expect of Orlesian dress, it was still pretty in some ways. Aurora glanced back to the three talking over the desk, and heard the word pirate thrown.

Aurora then approached the servant, if the girl had any information to share, then she was their best bet. Aurora wasn't even close to being as intimidating as the others. In fact, she was perhaps the most normal. It also helped that the girl was a good few inches taller than Aurora was. "Hello," Aurora greeted, "What's your name?"

The girl blinked, evidently a bit surprised to be approached so directly. She looked uncertain for a moment, black eyes darting about the area as though to make sure she wasn’t about to be yelled at for something, then she ducked her head demurely. When she spoke, her voice was soft, but not quite as heavily-accented as Liliane’s was. Though she was indeed clearly Orlesian, she’d learned her second tongue very well. “I’m Aurelie, miss,” she offered, her mouth twitching into a slightly-crooked smile, as though she were much more accustomed to mischief than the deference generally required of servants. She smoothed the front of her apron, though she didn’t seem to be paying much attention to the motion, suggesting that it was more habitual or nervous than consciously chosen. “Can I help miss with something?”

"Aurelie? That's a pretty name," Aurora noted. She had also twitched at being called miss, but otherwise said nothing about it. It was just odd is all, it was not often she was called by an honorific, barring Amalia's Qunari words. Still slightly craning her neck to look at the taller servant girl, Aurora smiled gently and nodded. "I'm... Sorry I have to ask this, but it's for a friend. Do you know anything about what happened to... Monsieur Vermire?" Asked, pausing for a moment to think of the word that Lucien would use. She believed she heard him use it once somewhere.

Aurelie clearly did know something, though what it was could not be discerned from body language alone. She seemed to fold in on herself a bit, her shoulders hunching forward, and her inky ringlet-curls falling over either shoulder to obscure her face slightly. From behind her fringe, she glanced around at the other people present and chewed her lip, settling at last on Aurora. With a cautious gesture, she beckoned the woman to follow her, turning a few corners until she reached what looked like an empty guest room of some kind. Aurelie held the door just long enough for Aurora to enter behind her, then closed it and leaned back against it, looking quite as though she were resisting the temptation to slide to the floor.

She sighed heavily, then looked back up at Aurora. “I’m sorry, I just… I couldn’t say this out there,” she said hurriedly, gesturing at the wall separating them from the hallway and, presumably, the other people about. “Um…” she looked back down, pursing her lips. “If I tell you what I know… will you promise not to tell the Guard? I just… I might have done something bad, but it wasn’t on purpose, I swear! If I’d known what would happen, I never would have done it. Please… I don’t want to go to the Gallows.”

An eyebrow rose over a green eye as the servant girl led Aurora away from most of the others and into another empty room, shutting the door behind them as she entered. It was all very hush-hush, and made it seem like the girl had a secret to hide. Which, in fact it sounded like she did from the way she spoke. Aurora allowed the brow to fall and nodded along with Aurelie's words. At the end, Aurora raised her hands and said, "You've nothing to fear from me." Out of everyone, she was the least likely to run to the guards. Templars they were not-- but they were close enough that it made her uncomfortable, and she'd never send anyone to the Gallows without a good reason.

Aurelie looked relieved, and perhaps the bare fact that she believed a stranger on word alone spoke to a certain uncommon guilelessness. Nodding slowly, she started in a soft voice. “Perhaps a month ago, I was working out in the gardens when I saw a stranger wandering by. He wasn’t someone I knew, but… you can tell a gentleman by the way he walks and talks, no? Like your friend.” The servant looked down at her shoes, wiggling the toes of them mostly for something to focus her attention on, and sighed. “He said his name was Sébastien, but… I suppose I don’t know if that’s the truth. He’d come by a lot after that, somehow always when I was outside. I thought maybe he was a friend of Lord Vermire, but now… perhaps not.”

She looked up, then, smiling ruefully. “He brought me flowers, you know. I thought it was silly, because I worked in the gardens. I had all the flowers I could want. But not like those ones. They were… Narcisse, he called them. I looked that up in the library. They only grow in the southern parts of Rivain, usually. I asked him if he’d ever been there, but he wouldn’t tell me.” Aurelie pursed her lips thoughtfully, then shook her head.

“He said he wanted to see me, at night.” Her face colored a little, and she ducked her head, continuing in a very small voice. “He wanted me to leave a window open in the hallway… last night. I know I shouldn’t have done it, but… he was so kind to me. I thought… I thought it would be nice. That maybe I’d be able to see Rivain one day myself, you know? He never came, though, and then this morning… I don’t know if something happened to Sébastien, or if he was responsible for what happened to Lord Vermire, but…” Aurelie blinked furiously, apparently attempting not to weep. “If he did do it, I hope you find him. He should pay for that—Lord Vermire was a good person, I think.”

It was Aurora's turn to lean against something, hers being a nearby chair. Her face wasn't that of dissappointment but rather... Pity. Aurelie was taken in by a rogue on the promise of love, and Aurora could see the temptation. She would be lying to herself if she didn't admit that in the Circle she dreamed of being swept off of her feet one day. "It wasn't your fault," Aurora stated easily, for it wasn't. This Sébastien played on this girl's dreams, and took simply took advantage of it. Usually, this ended in a heartbroken woman and not an assassination-- which no doubt made Aurelie feel all that much worse. "I'm sure he was. He was friends with Lucien after all," Aurora replied in response. While she didn't know the man personally, Lucien made a point of only allying himself with good people and if he counted Vermire as a friend then he had to be.

Aurora knew the flower Aurelie spoke about. She wasn't wrong in its origins, but the seeds were considered contraband in Kirkwall-- An experience she learned trying to get a hold of some herself. But she needed something more than illegal flowers from Rivain to go on if they were going to find him. He was their only lead, they had to find him, at least to just see what he had to say. "We'll find him," She promised, "But we're going to need your help. This Sébastien. Can you tell me anything specific about him? What did he look like? Did he have an accent? Any unique marks that could help us pick him out from a crowd?" Aurora asked.

Aurelie looked relieved, then pensive, clearly trying to decide how to frame her answer. “He is not very tall, for a man. Not too short, but… perhaps five-and-nine? His hair is blonde, but darker than the Lady Dumar’s.” Evidently, she had recognized Sophia, but then, that wasn’t all that surprising. “I think… he might be from Orlais. He speaks Orlesian like a native. Better than I do, even. But I think I heard him using Antivan once, too, so I don't know for sure. His eyes are blue, very pale. He didn’t have any scars or anything that I saw. He’s, um… he’s fairly handsome, but… mostly it was his way of speaking that made him charming. I guess he would be around thirty? I’m sorry I can’t help more… I suppose I didn’t really know much about him, in the end.”

"A swift tongue can be more dangerous than a dagger," Aurora admitted. Shrugging, she looked back up to the girl and let a comforting smile seep into her lips. "No, you helped more than enough. We at least know who to look for next," She said, finally pulling away from the chair. "And I'll be as gentle as I can to my friends, I won't tell any more than is necessary," She comforted with an easy smile. It wasn't her place to parade her mistakes around. "Shall we?" Aurora asked, pointing at the door. Retracing their steps back through the hall and back to the original room, Aurora gave Lucien a little wave as they reentered.

It was at this same point also that the window behind the desk in the study opened, the latch having come loose quite silently, and Rilien poked his head through surveying the room with no more expression than usual, though he did nod to those present, swinging in the rest of the way and landing noiselessly on the floor. "The person we seek is slightly smaller and lighter than myself,” he said by way of transition. "The vines would not have been able to support the weight of anyone particularly large or armored. Also,” he held up a tuft of what appeared to be blonde hairs, of moderate length, perhaps enough to reach from crown to shoulder. "The assassin seems to have been careless in their haste to remove themselves from the premises.” The vines were probably damaged in egress also.

"I think, however, that this window was used only for exit—there are more disturbed vines on another side of the building. If the intruder was not confident in his or her ability to pick a lock while on the side of a building, they likely would have made use of any open ones they could see. This, however, was the method of exit, from what I am able to observe.” The only thing that made sense based on that data was that the assailant had entered at night, made his or her way to the study, waited, and then killed the Ambassador from behind when next he had entered his study. It was either a shot in the dark or exquisitely timed. Perhaps, however, there had almost been an interruption, necessitating the hasty exit.

From his position in the doorway, Lucien fitted that together with what the documents seemed to indicate and what Aurora proceeded to tell them, sighing through his nose. “It’s never simple,” he said, a hint of weariness seeping through his tone. But he banished it shortly afterwards with a rueful smile and a shake of the head. “I suppose, then, that we’re looking for a career criminal, or someone hired by one. I think… we should pay a visit to our local Coterie agent. They are not known for liking others moving in on Kirkwall—perhaps they would be willing to give us some information.”

He’d really come a long way from Orlais if he was willing to consult criminals to find one, but then again… who better? He’d told Sophia once that not all the good in the world could be done at once, and he’d meant it. Sometimes, progress in the right direction set one’s feet down very strange pathways, indeed.

Setting

4 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon

Earnings

0.00 INK

Sophia kept to the middle of the group as they made their way towards Darktown. They were looking for a person, around five foot nine, with blonde hair and blue eyes. If she hadn't been told they were looking for a man, the Viscount's daughter might have suggested it was her in fact they were looking for. Besides that, however, there were more pressing concerns on her mind, such as the fact that they were headed into a den of criminal activity, and they were actually seeking out the criminals active there. Being something of a symbol of law herself, as well as her chevalier friends, Sophia wasn't expecting anything remotely close to a warm welcome. But if this killer they sought was moving in on Coterie turf, there was a chance they had a common enemy here.

The air was beginning to grow uncomfortably hot in Darktown, as it was wont to do in the heat of summer. Even perpetually in the shade as it was, the heat was as heavy as the stench, borne from too many crowds packed too closely together. Among these people the Viscount's daughter passed with her well-armored company in tow. They were a fantastical sight for many of the slum's residents, shining armor and glistening blades worthy of Hightown. Even the apostate stood out slightly, for her relative cleanliness compared to the masses.

There were no signs directing them in the Coterie's direction, but it was a safe bet that their arrival had not gone unnoticed, which meant that all they needed to do was find a relatively secluded location, and hope that the Coterie would be able to find them. Sophia loosened Vesenia in its sheath on her. She did not expect an attack, as there would be little provocation for something of the sort, and Coterie thieves and murderers weren't the type to risk their lives fighting against trained knights and mercenaries, especially in a tight group like this.

In the end, the group met a pair of Coterie lookouts standing watch over a rather inconspicuous door, seemingly leading to a hovel set well into the corner in the less populous area of town. A slight raise of a gloved hand from one of the two, wielding a crossbow, was their order to hold position, and Sophia reluctantly did so, checking around her to notice that indeed, they had been tailed by a larger group of Coterie thugs, probably across half of Darktown. She wondered if they were even able to set foot in Darktown without the entire gang knowing. Probably not.

Any remaining civilians cleared away, leaving only the chevaliers and their friends with the Coterie, who had their weapons drawn, though none were actively being aimed at the tresspassers. The speaker for the Coterie in this group was a tall, redheaded woman armed with an impressive array of throwing knives, situated on the roof of the hovel before the group. "Quill said you'd be coming, told us to give you safe conduct."

Sophia immediately tensed at the mention of the name. So he was in control of the Coterie. And he was here somewhere. Well, probably. She had no idea what a spymaster's methods were, not being one herself. But this was the man who'd poisoned her, tried to have her father killed by a close friend. A man she trusted once. Part of her simply wanted to march in there and drag his treacherous ass out for a discussion, but the other part realized that doing so would bring the wrath of the entire Coterie down upon them at once, and even a group such as theirs wouldn't survive such odds. Rather than trust her voice to work properly, she kept silent.

"What can we do for the lady and her friends?" the woman above them asked, having little difficulty recognizing Sophia for who she was.

Violette and Liliane were both stonefaced, though neither had drawn steel. The younger sister’s hand rested over her shoulder at the grip of her sword, however, her eyes narrowed suspiciously on the criminals at their flanks. She and her sibling had both turned to monitor the back side of the group upon stopping, though Violette appeared less concerned about the presence of the Coterie, though her eyes flicked occasionally to Rilien, as though looking for a cue to become combative. Honestly, it wasn’t a bad strategy; he would likely know better even than she when to switch to an aggressive stance from the placid one he now occupied. That would have hurt her pride, once, but now it was just another clue to interpret, much like the body language of the thugs themselves.

It was Lucien who spoke. “We’re looking for an assassin. Someone killed the Orlesian ambassador last night or this morning, and we believe it may be a gentleman about the Lady Sophia’s height, with hair a dark gold and blue eyes? Perchance someone who goes by Sébastien? Or Le Renard?” The likelihood of the name being used was slim, since it was almost surely a false one, but it was possible that Le Renard was somewhere in this mix, especially given the interest Laurent seemed to have taken in the case.

The woman's reaction to the question implied that she'd known it was coming. She looked ready to respond as soon as Lucien began to speak. "He said you were looking into that matter as well, and instructed us to help you on your way." She shrugged lightly. "Mutual interests, I suppose. In any case, we don't know about a Sébastien or a Renard, but a certain bitch matching that description has been screwing with our operations lately, her and a few friends. And no, I'm not talking about you, m'lady." Sophia just glared in response.

"They've fucked with enough shipments now that we're putting an end to them, but Quill ordered us to hold off until you arrived. He figured you would want to help us out. We're setting up a decoy caravan along her preferred route. All it needs is an escort. If you want to meet this lady for yourself, that would be the quickest, and only, way."

"We are to bait your trap.” Rilien didn’t sound particularly disapproving of the idea, and in fact he was not. The Tranquil had kept his hands folded into his sleeves, though considering the fact that he kept weapons there, it was hard to tell if this was a gesture of ease or caution. His face, of course, gave no hint of either. He’d been used for worse than this before, and done more dangerous things, besides. He had heard of Le Renard, though some part of him did wonder if perhaps it would be better said that he knew of Les Renards. Something to keep in mind, at any rate. Regardless, if the others were fine acting in the stead of Coterie fighters to escort this false cargo, then he certainly had no objections. It would give them first access to the criminal, should he—or she, or they—be inclined to take what was so obviously dangled before them. Perhaps this woman would know it was a trap and desire to spring it anyway; some were like that. He might have been like that once, himself.

The frown Aurora wore only deepened at the Tranquil's deduction. Even without him explicitly pointing it out, she knew exactly what the Coterie meant, and she was by no means amused. Eyebrows sank down her forehead, causing the space between the brows to knit. "I can't say I'm terribly surprised," She added, with no hint of amusement. Still, she wouldn't budge from her spot. Lucien had asked her to do this, she would follow him through whatever he decided. He was a friend, and that was all there was to it.

“Been a while since I guarded a caravan,” Violette remarked, clearly amused. Lucien could understand why. If it wasn’t mercenary work, it was for recruits wet behind the ears. His father had always been fond of what he called real world experience, and shoving a few noble brats into the company of a few good-natured, seldom-ambushed caravan companies was certainly a way to give them perspective fast. Mandates about the citizenry or not, few such folk cared a whit for house names and livery colors. It was an effective lesson about what it really meant to protect the people, and Lucien had taken it just as gracelessly as everyone else when it was his turn, though perhaps for slightly different reasons.

“Don’t go getting nostalgic, Vi, that’s like as not to get you killed,” he replied, but his good humor disappeared back into solemnity when he glanced back at the Coterie representative. “Then we shall bait the trap,” he said, glancing around at the others, “unless there is anyone who wishes to not risk their lives for this?” He had a feeling he knew the answer, and for the most part, the looks he got were enough to tell him what he needed to know. He was humbled by these people, he really was. He wondered if he’d ever be able to convey to them just how much.

Perhaps they already knew.

He did indeed already know Sophia's answer, even if he did wish her not to get involved in this from the beginning. From the sound of it, their target and her group weren't a large number, else they would be easier to locate by now. Small groups had a much easier time of concealing themselves and avoiding the unwanted attention of a large company such as the Coterie. No doubt they were more dangerous than the average Coterie thug as well, but in her present company, Sophia felt about as secure as she was going to get.

"Well, at least we didn't get dressed up for nothing," she said, with as much good humor as she was able, given that they were surrounded by underworld scum and volunteering for an ambush at the suggestion of a man who had recently tried to have her father killed. These kinds of shadowy affairs always seemed to end at the end of a blade. The trick seemed to be to end up on the side with the handle, and not the point.

"We've got ourselves a deal, then?" the Coterie representative said. "Good. We'll send a guide with you, lead you to the caravan. Oh, and one more thing." She looked at Lucien specifically. "Quill wanted me to relay a message to you. He's taken a rather special interest in your predicament. He says he knows what it's like to have people try and tear you down for something you're innocent of. He wishes he had friends then like the ones you've got, and he hopes you clear your name." She nodded, the message delivered.

"Right then, off you go. Give our mutual friends a warm welcome, will you?"




To give the caravan a realistic feel, the two female Chevalier had elected to ride, as had Lucien, upon the beast they’d brought with them to Kirkwall. Apparently the result of his father’s last foray into warhorse breeding, the mare was of a moonsilver coat, her mane and tail both white as snow. She and her rider spearheaded the arrangement, which included a mid-sized wagon, driven by Rilien and ridden by Aurora, who was disguised to a degree as a merchant. Liliane and Violette, astride the dark grey and red roan horses, flanked either side of the wagon, and there was no need to disguise them much, save that Vi had removed the cloak afforded to captains, and both now wore much plainer ones to downplay the obvious expense of their armament.

The group was making its way over the main path from the Wounded Coast out of the city, ostensibly headed to Starkhaven with a stock of furs from trapping endeavors on Sundermont and also worked metal items from the smithing trade in the other city-state. None of it was explicitly contraband, but such cargo would be valuable, and easily saleable, making it an excellent choice for thieves.

The trap was baited… all that remained was for someone to spring it.

Had Sophia's mind not been more occupied by other matters, she might have noted how this was perhaps her first true attempt to perform in what could be called a stealthy manner. The work that had been done at her party was (admittedly poor) subterfuge, but this was the first time she had attempted to conceal her identity from anyone. The plain grey cloak she wore was hooded to hide her face and hair, with only the tail of her bright golden braid in sight. She despised the thing almost the moment she'd put it on, particularly the way it cut off her peripherals. Looking out for attackers was significantly more difficult when she couldn't see very well to her sides. But it was for the best. If the Viscount's daughter was spotted among the caravan guards, no doubt their targets would know something was seriously amiss. The cloak was wrapped around her completely enough to hide her plate as well. She just hoped she'd be able to get it off quick enough to fight when the attack came.

Presently, however, her thoughts were occupied with the Coterie's message for Lucien, as they departed. The nerve of the man, to suggest that he'd been somehow framed for what he'd done, when he was blatantly working with criminals in front of them. And the amount of knowledge he had already acquired about their motives, before they had even arrived... obviously he was watching them, which came as no surprise to her, but it was still infuriating. She wanted nothing more than to find him, grab him by the collar, and wring answers from him until he could spill no more. First, there was the matter of helping Lucien. She stayed near the rear of the caravan, shaking herself from useless thoughts, and keeping an eye to the sides of the road.

Rilien looked nothing like himself. Disguise was, of course, part of a Bard’s repertoire, and he’d had to be rather exceptional at it to have any chance whatsoever at not being immediately recognizable, given his peculiar coloration and the Tranquil brand on his forehead. That was currently obscured beneath a few swipes of cosmetic paint and some dirt. Whilst the others had been retrieving horses, he’d also managed to darken his snowy hair to a platinum blonde, and swapped out his clothes for much rougher linens, foregoing his armor for nothing more complicated than ordinary merchants’ fare. He was cloaked as well, but his hood was down around his shoulders, allowing him a better range of vision. In his hands were the roughened leather reins attached to the pair of Anderfels draft horses that drew the large wagon over the soft ground and occasional patch of sand.

He sat without the faintest hint of his usual posture, somewhat slumped, his shoulders bowed as though with a lifetime of labor, and drawn in around him in the manner of one who generally attempted to go beneath notice, and succeeded. He looked like any other city elf hireling, really, and that was of course the point. His eyes were half-lidded as one suffering from some road-fatigue, mouth set in a grim frown. It took time, to learn to watch without appearing as though one were watching, but he was every bit as intent on his surroundings as the caravan “guards.”

One of the things learned while living as an Apostate under the noses of Templars, she knew how to keep a low profile. Sitting beside Rilien as he drove the cart, Aurora sat leaned against the bench with her legs crossed, giving off the feel that she was unworried, almost like an ambush wasn't waiting for them. Much like the tranquil next to her, Aurora too took it upon herself to heap an extra pair of clothes, notably a scratchy dirt brown cloak thrown over her shoulders. Tufts of her crimson bright hair escaped from underneath a gray headwrap, giving her the appearance of another of the caravan's hirelings.

In truth, aside from the coming ambush, it brought her back to her younger days. Before Circles and Templars, back in the little place she called home nearby the city Bastion. Her father was a merchant by occupation, though a humble one, and many times he had to ferry his own goods to the city. She remembered the days she used to ride beside him on his trips, just watching as the landscape passed beside them. A sudden pang of homesickness welled up from within, but it was quickly quelled as she turned her mind back to the task at hand. Though she may have appeared otherwise, she could afford the time spent daydreaming.

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

Amalia held one end of the leather cord between her teeth, working the other deftly through a set of pre-punched holes in what would quite shortly be a completed shin guard. She was aware that Sparrow had heretofore worn at least some metal with his armor, and she didn’t doubt that he would continue to do so, but that was a smith’s work, and she had neither the tools nor the skills necessary to do it. Perhaps that Tranquil friend of his would at least make sure he had a breastplate that fit this time, rather than whatever cobbled-together clanking mass he’d arrayed himself in before. She had not had any particular reason to comment upon it, but after several weeks of regular visits with someone who had been her friend in childhood, she’d come to the conclusion that she just disliked seeing him wander around in armor that was so ill-begotten as to be no help at all.

With customary irritability, she’d told him to come by the Alienage in a month, though she hadn’t told him why. As he hadn’t asked, it was obvious that neither of them found it to be necessary information, and Amalia wasn’t much for the exchange of the unnecessary kind. As Sparrow had recently rediscovered, no amount of wheedling or goading could make Amalia talkative, nor even particularly open. She had changed—even she was willing to admit that. But she had not changed so much as that.

The shinguard laced—it would tie off to the side for a better fit—she loosened the binds to make them easier to step into at first and set it aside, picking up the other to repeat the process. Though the work was mostly in leather, it was reinforced with more of the dragonhide she’d procured so long ago in more vital spots. Whereas Amalia could perfectly comfortably walk around in a full suit of black scales and care not at all for the attention this would garner in the open, she had made sure to craft Sparrow’s accouterments with the consideration that he was of the sort to regularly socialize and cavort around the city without particular purpose—and that perhaps was best served by dressing in a way that did not overtly intimidate. So most of it was actually a dark blue—because Amalia had worked indigo dye into the leather, having the material readily on hand and seeing no reason not to use it.

The last of the touches done for now, all the suit required was a proper fitting, and that would have to wait for the intended wearer. Amalia didn’t tilt her head back to look, but she was aware of Ithilian’s presence in the tree, and so when she spoke, it was obviously addressed to him regardless. “I do not suppose you can see him approaching?” The elf was aware that she was expecting Sparrow, as she’d explained the purpose behind this new project a while ago. She’d actually been meaning to ask if he would like her to undertake something similar for Lia, but she hadn’t quite decided how to put the question, of yet. Perhaps after she was done fitting Sparrow…

Ithilian turned his head enough to see the entrance to the Alienage, enough to see that Sparrow had yet to arrive. He was half-tempted to correct Amalia and inform her that the him was actually a her, but he thought better of it. Amalia had known Sparrow far longer than he, and if she insisted on referring to her as male, there was undoubtedly a good reason for it. Qunari, they were… complicated, he found. At least, she was. As for the rest, he could not say, as there was only so much he could observe.

From the branches of the vhenadahl, he could observe more than usual. He’d watched Lia head off to work at Ashton’s store, watched as one of the neighboring boys followed her with his eyes, looking away only when she passed out of sight, into Lowtown proper. He was the same one he’d seen her dancing with at the marriage festivities not long ago. Ithilian wondered what Lia thought of him. He didn’t seem particularly well-built, and probably would be worthless on a hunt. Not that that was all that mattered, but Ithilian was not pleased with elves who were incapable of defending themselves when they needed to. A soft heart was not always a weakness, but a feeble body surely was.

“Not yet,” he answered, peering down to watch Amalia work. After today, surely Sparrow would not want for a set of armor again. Ithilian’s own work was effective and durable, but compared to Amalia’s leatherworking, it seemed crude, the product of an amateur. Not to mention that he’d never had the opportunity to craft something out of dragonhide. No doubt the material would be put to better use in her hands than in his.

Sparrow lingered in the doorway of their comfortable hovel, hand poised on the door-latch. Strangely enough, it had become warmer and warmer the longer she stayed (and Darktown was not particularly known for any semblance of warmth). It was a respite away from all of the noise and bustle Kirkwall offered, like soft blankets pulled up to her chin on a chilly night. Surely, it had something to do with the friends she'd made. Perhaps, Rilien most of all. His presence, while as reserved and isolated as their shoddy residence, made it feel like home. She was sure of this. It still struck her as curious, just how much she had changed. When had she become so fond of one place? Her fingers closed around the ripped bit of parchment and quickly flattened out the creases, where she then proceeded to stick a dagger, procured from her boot, into the leftmost corner. A few inches from the door—it was a cryptic message, with the assumption that Rilien would understand. It relayed something about a tree, accompanied by sketch of two children with horns. Nothing like Ashton's handiwork, but it would have to do. A month had already passed and she was due to visit her once-friend in the Alienage—though, the reason remained a mystery. It itched under her skin and made her childishly nervousness.

She slipped through the door and slammed it closed, as she always did when she was overly excited. Quite detrimental to the door's health, but it was still standing all these years, albeit with a few cracks splitting where the hinges were. Rilien was crafty enough to repair any damages she accidentally tallied up, such were his capabilities, while she naturally broke things. She fidgeted with the hem of her fitted tunic and adjusted her leather belt. It was embarrassing enough that Amalia had seen her regress into such poor shape, but she'd be damned if she saw her in anything but the clothes Nostariel and Ashton had worked so hard to find. Slightly feminine, but even still: androgynous enough. The strength she bore in their youth had come and gone, replaced by a wiriness that complimented a slippery rogue, rather than a warrior—though she still fought like one, to the shame of the Qun. They did not like weakness, and had she stayed, she might have been assigned a boorish allocation for being inherently female. Farming or fishing. Basket-mender, probably. She had long ago stopped wondering whether or not Amalia was bothered by her change of appearance, by her inability to be who she'd always longed to become; male, masculine, strong.

Soon enough, she'd weaved through Lowtown and picked her way through the alleyways and down the staircases until it opened up into the Alienage, with the towering tree at its forefront as per usual. Even after all these years, Sparrow still felt... an odd sense of awe, unaccustomed to such traditions. The paints were always vibrant. As if they'd been done days before, encircled with boxes and dripping candles. The torches hanging in front of their houses, similar to her own hovel, offered them little light—and the clouds overhead, oppressive and heavy, often threw shadows instead of sunshine. She could not remember any Dalish traditions from her youth, as much as she could not remember her mother's face, but even still, she had always found The Tree of the People beautiful. Her lips twinged momentarily, then cracked into a wide grin. She could only see Amalia's back from where she stood, but it was easy enough to identify her. She could not see Ithilian lingering in the tree—looking up hadn't occurred to her, though she never doubted that he was near. Watching and waiting and prickling his bristles whenever someone who did not belong wandered into his safe haven.

“Shanedan,” she chirped loudly, striding beneath the tree. Sparrow was far from still being considered one with the Qun or even remotely Qunari, but she hadn't lost or forgotten any of the guttural language, either. For some reason, the greeting made her laugh. Though she was kind enough to stifle it with her knuckles, pressed tightly to her lips. Her curiosity flared as she neared Amalia, who was clearly focused on whatever object that sat in her lap. Her eyes widened when she spotted an errant shin guard—gorgeously crafted, laying at her feet. The assumption that it was hers hadn't crossed her mind. She did have, after all, a perfectly suitable suit of armor that... she kept in the corner of her room, untouched and shamefully dusty. Chaffing had finally convinced her to put it away, and so, she'd been armor-less (and uncomfortable) for the time being. She whistled appreciatively, perching down beside her with her knees drawn in. “What craftsmanship. I had no idea—is this what you wanted me to see? I'd say you could open up shop with Ashton. Er, do you want a go-between? I'm sure he'd agree.”

She nodded in reply to the update—nothing more was necessary, and thankfully, that meant he would expect nothing more. Many of the things that were of her people, she doubted now, but that lack of reliance on nicety, she would never be able to see as anything but logical. She knew how to speak in the flowery, inane fashion of humans, but she chose not to. She’d had to learn, to earn her posting here. But anyplace she could forgo it, she did, and that was thankfully almost everywhere she would care to be or go. Still, the chirped shanedan, spoken just like that kind of pleasantry, did not jar her, and perhaps indeed Amalia’s mouth did flick up at the corner, for less time than it took to blink an eye.

The Qunari turned to glance over her shoulder at the approaching Sparrow through the corner of a red eye, but moved it and the other back to what she was doing until he’d properly made his way over, crouching down near her and mentioning something about the hunter. Truly, had he learned nothing? Amalia exhaled through her nose; it was almost, but not quite a sigh, and she shook her head slightly. Tossing the indigo-dyed shin guard she was holding at him, Amalia rose smoothly into a stand. “I do not sell my work. You know this.” Everything she made was given, kept, or destroyed as fit the situation. This, too, she had no intention of changing.

Amalia crossed her arms over her chest for a moment, tilting her head to the side and narrowing her eyes slightly, taking clinical estimates of Sparrow’s dimensions. She may use the masculine pronoun when referring to him, but her craft accounted for the fact that though relatively androgynous, there were still certain accommodations that needed to be made for his biological sex. She was fairly confident everything would fit with minimal adjustment, but there was only one way to be sure. Arching an eyebrow, Amalia blinked at he who had once been her only friend in the world. “I trust you still know how to don leathers?” As if to ask then why aren’t you?

Sparrow's inability to respect personal space was less endearing to nearly everyone, and much more of a nuisance—not that she noticed, as she continued peering over Amalia's shoulder like a curious child. She inched backwards and propped herself up on her elbows, staring out across the Alienage. Things sure had changed between them, but she still lacked the courage to appear any different than she had been when they were children, inching their way through fields of wheat and scouring the plains for misadventures. She had changed. Perhaps, just as much as Amalia had, though she still yearned for the familiarity of home. To be sure, Sparrow clung onto these disillusions as tightly as a child would her mother's skirt-tails, but everything was different. She might have been too stupid or simply too stubborn to accept how much things had changed between them, nevertheless she believed in forgiveness. In forgetting what she had done to this woman, in abandonment; her sister, her once-friend, her old bandage, her childhood resolution.

Forgiveness had been difficult for her, as well. While she had not dealt with her past in the smoothest manners, seeking out those who'd wronged her and hunting them like dogs was hardly commendable. But, she'd managed to forgive the most unforgivable person of all: herself. It had come slowly, like the changing of seasons. Assuredly, it would not have come at all had it not been for her companions, gently pushing her along so that she would not lose her way. They had helped pave her own path, hand-in-hand. And while the ripening ache stretched between her and Amalia, she had been making progress in her own life; carving the ghostly silence with her loud, bright colours, sunshine and honesty. She was still crowthroated and garbling. Perhaps, more of a irritant than a comfort. Simply a showy bird who would not fly away from her perch, one which refused to stop singing even when brooms were swept her way. Her once-friend, the girl who saw things much differently than she, wringing small, important moments of grace and composure; laughing entirely with those ruby eyes of hers.

The brilliantly-dyed shin guard thumped against her chest, and Sparrow nearly fell backwards catching the thing in her arms. A throaty laugh bubbled from her lips as she turned the piece of leather mere inches from her face, close enough to smell the leather. Brief flecks of light funnelled down between the trees leaves captured the colours nicely; indigo, purple, reds. She wondered why she had picked such a colour. “That I do,” she mused softly, arching her eyebrows and tracing her fingers across the Qunari's fine work, “There is much you would not have done, in days past.” It had been an observation she'd been making over the years. While Amalia was still obviously Qunari—she was less and less Qun every day, allowing things to slide that the Qun may not have overlooked. She was becoming more individual and less imposed by stuffy regulations. She was growing outward, instead of containing everything inwards. All thanks to him, or a collective group, no doubt. She straightened her shoulders and sat up as soon as Amalia shifted, standing in front of her.

She scratched her chin and skimmed her surroundings briefly, still finding no signs of the Dalish elf. Peculiar. Usually, she'd notice his scowling face. When Amalia directed another question her way, curt and cutting as usual, Sparrow dramatically cleared her throat and held the shin guard against her shin. Of course. Well, almost. I mean, most parts,” she replied uncertainly, slowly coming to her feet, “I, er. You know, steel armour is much more straightforward. They just don't make them properly, is all.” In smaller sizes more like, but she needn't say more. She knew that her old set of armour had been ill-fitting. Her stubbornness, however, often won over her better judgement.

A light scoff came from a branch above Sparrow. "Steel armor is both expensive and cumbersome." Ithilian peered down at Sparrow, giving a short wave of greeting. "There's no forge here, and no materials to make steel. What Amalia does have some of, is dragonhide. Just as good as steel. Lighter, too, and more flexible. And because we already have it, no coin is required."

“Ithilian is right,” Amalia said, frowning slightly as she adjusted a few laces on one of the pieces. She might have added and noisy but Sparrow had never been overly concerned with stealth, so it was largely an irrelevant concern. Still… perhaps a bit less clanking would serve him well. Spare him an injury or two, as would the hide, and that was really the point. It didn’t matter so much which of the features avoided the damage, only that one of them did. She’d even included a loop in the belt for that inelegant mace he insisted on carrying around. As a rule, maces were good weapons, and required much less skill to wield effectively than something like a blade, but using one poorly sized and weighted for oneself reduced the effectiveness. Perhaps one of the spares she’d picked up…? She’d have to inquire later. More urgent matters were first.

If he didn’t remember how to fit everything on, she’d simply do it herself, and expect him to learn from example. It was a little strange—she could recall having done something very similar once before, not too long before he left them. This thought produced relatively little pain, now; it had simply become another fact. He may be dissatisfied with the pacing of their reconciliation, but she was surprised there was a pace to it at all. And, admittedly, pleased that there was.

“Stand still.” She loosened the laces on everything a little more, then deftly slid each item on in its turn, threading and tying occasionally, sliding the chestplate, more molded and hardened than one she would have made for herself or even Ithilian, but suited to Sparrow’s direct, unsubtle style of fighting. That laced at the sides, to minimize the exposure of joints in the armor, and she lifted his arms over his head in turn, tying the fastenings and clicking the buckles into place from the top down, so that it would be easier to remove. Stepping back, she scanned her handiwork, nodding just slightly. “Try moving in it.”

The voice was unexpected. Sparrow flinched backwards, nearly dropping the shin guard. She was still easily spooked. Her gaze swung up towards the sky, searching the tree for the Dalish elf, while she worked to regain her composure. Ah, there he was. Nestled in the branches. Perched like a hawk—so that he could better view the Alienage in its entirety, and protect it from whatever it needed protecting from. “It may be expensive, but it is what warriors wear,” she lamented wryly, arching her eyebrows. She returned the wave with her own salute, shin guard in hand. As childish as it may have seemed to anyone but she, Sparrow had a vivid image of what a warrior should look like; strong, valiant and encumbered by clanging steel plates. It was difficult to imagine them otherwise, and even more difficult imagining her dressing any differently. Growing was startlingly difficult. “Dragonhide?” She mused, holding up the shin guard back in front of her face, “I've never actually seen it before.”

She took his word for it. If it was just as strong as steel, then she had no qualms. No misgivings. Sparrow was anything but stealthy. Stomping into floor traps and creaking through doorways had become something of a joke between her companions—after the matter was done, and they were out of danger. She'd grown accustomed to hanging back and allowing others to peruse chambers, in case she accidentally unleashed arrows, or fire, or angry shades down on their heads. She'd never thought of changing before. “Why're you sitting up there anyway?” She added, swinging her head back towards the leafy canopy, “Join us.” Looking back at Amalia, who was still carefully threading laces through another piece of dragonhide, Sparrow tapped the shin guard against her lips and hummed low in her throat.

Amalia stood there, contemplating something—to be sure, she could tell by the look on her face. Slight frown; pensive, reflective. Similar to when she used to meditate in the glades, quietly observing and absorbing everything around her. She knew that look, but could only guess at what she was thinking. She opened her mouth, then promptly closed it when she was ordered to not move. Easier said than done; being still was against her very nature. Sparrow dropped the shin guard away from her mouth and focused on not squirming. Instead, she wriggled her fingers, tapping them against her palms as Amalia strapped each item onto her person, obediently moving her arms as she dropped the chestplate over her head and adjusting things as she went. She flattened her hair back down, taming any flyaway tufts. Her once-friend had done this before; many years ago, when Sparrow had been Merevas of the Beresaad. A warrior, fitted with heavy armour and an even heavier burden.

She stretched her arms over her head, then abruptly crouched low to test the armour's flexibility and jolted back up just as quick. They were right. The armour moved far more fluidly than anything she'd worn in the past, and it was surprisingly light; almost like leather, but not quite. It did not feel weak at all. She bent her elbows, rolled her shoulders and kicked out her legs. Dragonhide, she supposed, lived up to its description. She'd only heard of it in whispers; from jealous merchants who wished to get their hands on such materials. A laugh bubbled from her lips, steeping into a childish grin. “Amazing,” she cooed, wheeling in a small circle and coming to face Amalia once more, You must've been awfully worried about me to make such fine armour.” She held out her hands to indicate that she was jesting—maybe, and she continued to investigate her handiwork. She seemed a little more sombre, a little more genuine when she added, “Thank you.”

At Sparrow's suggestion, Ithilian reluctantly stirred from his perch, deftly maneuvering between branches with the skill of an experienced climber, dropping to land lightly beside Amalia, where he leaned up against the vhenadahl. In truth he valued the limbs of the tree half as much for the personal benefits they offered, in addition to having a vantage point over the Alienage. It was slightly removed from the ground-level bustle of the city elves, the air seemed to move a little better, seemed less congested with smog from the factory district. Small comforts, of course, but Ithilian took them where he could find them.

Surely, the Dalish had navigated himself amongst much larger trees; in forests as wild as he. She'd never had reason to give it much thought, but she knew little of the man and even less about his interactions with her once-friend. They were close, to be sure, but beyond that, she had no clue how close they'd become or where they seemed to be headed. It reminded her of something she'd wanted to mention. A small smile simpered on her lips as she studied Amalia. “There was a wedding here recently, a little bird spoke of it,” said little bird was obviously Lia, flapping away a teasing Ashton as she tended the shop, “By any chance, it wouldn't have been you two, would it? I mean, I'd have been insulted for not being invited.” Qunari did not marry for love; and had little use for rings, festivities and tumbling in the hay, as it were. Things had changed. People had changed. Dalish were different, she supposed. Judging by Ithilian's demeanour, it would have been a sobering affair. She jested, of course, unless it were true. It was a means of broaching the subject without outright saying what she meant.

Amalia nodded her satisfaction at Sparrow’s approval of his new armor. She would not say that she had been worried, as such—it was not an emotion that she often felt. She knew that, for the most part and despite all seemings to the contrary, he could take care of himself, and where he could not, there were others who would pick up the slack, see him fed when he was too thin, dragged out when he would languish indoors, dragged home when he was too inebriated to make use of his faculties properly. Stop the daggers aimed for his back, even. But this had been something of which she was capable and those he knew were not. Nobody had asked, Amalia had only acted. This was, generally speaking, the way she was. Whatever they may be now, whatever they had been then, Sparrow was… of concern to her. Whatever life this was that she built, he was a part of it, though how much longer that life would last, she could not say. Perhaps she merely wanted him to have something of her should she go, when all was said and done. The protection she would not be able to give, as she had given it when they were both small and young and soft.

“You are welcome.” Ithilian dropped down from the tree, and for a moment, there was a confortable silence, in which she contemplated the possibility of carrying such intentions regarding a material legacy further. Objects were not of much worth to her, but she could at least realize that there was value to them when their function was important. It was why a warrior’s sword was as his soul, but anything else given up with no more than a thought.

Of course, her thoughts were interrupted by the flighty bird, and it honestly took her a moment to process what he seemed to be implying. Her brows drew together, her mismatched stare becoming faintly incredulous. “No,” she replied, blinking at last. “It was not.” Her face smoothed back out, and she shook her head faintly. She had no idea what anyone could have said to him that would make him think that it was—the thought seemed… odd, to say the least. “Perhaps you may wish to loosen the armor—it seems to be restricting blood-flow to your head.” Her tone was about as dry as the deserts of Seheron.

Ithilian too had been a bit stunned by Sparrow's question, but thankfully Amalia provided a more immediate response. Her comment about loosening the armor actually got about as big a smile as Ithilian was capable of wearing. It was still a half-strangled thing, held back by the scar cutting along his face, but it extended all the way up to the look in his eye, an expression that somehow implied that even with all the awkwardness of the situation, of their situation, the Dalish hunter felt more or less at ease.

What they were to each other was something neither of them could fully grasp at the moment. Ithilian had scarcely felt closer to anyone in his life, but neither had he felt more cautious about the steps he took, either. He could see into her well enough to know that she was wobbling on an edge. They both were, questioning the ways in which they had been brought up, the things they were told to believe. Ithilian did not want to push her one way or the other, not for something so selfish as the way he felt. He wasn't even ready to confront any particular feelings himself, let alone share them. So for the moment, they were content to simply be whatever strange sort of companions they were.

It was Sparrow who laughed loudest of all, throwing her head back and holding her hands to her hips. She'd expected that sort of response, dry as tinder and quick as a vipers strike, but even still she'd been secretly hoping to catch her off guard; like a blushing maiden too embarrassed to answer her question. Her expression spoke volumes—it was difficult to catch if one were to not look close or quickly enough, because just as the look had appeared, it had puzzled itself back into its usually composed state. The seas had ceased their wild waves, brief as they were, and settled back into the rhythmic licking of the shore. She held up her hands and cocked her shoulder, shrugging. “My mistake, my mistake,” she chirped, leveling them with a grin. Her fingers feigned loosening the straps to her chestplate, as she danced away from the tree to avoid any swattings, “Should there ever be a wedding I better be invited.”

Setting

4 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon

Earnings

0.00 INK

The wagon rolled more or less smoothly over the ground, the horse guided by Rilien’s deft hand, and honestly they made it so far that Lucien was beginning to wonder if the bait would be seized at all. As was usually the case with such things, it was just as he’d almost decided it would not that it was. The group was dipping into a small depression between two hills when there was a slight snap from one side, though not of the breaking-stick variety. Rather, it sounded distinctly like—

The horse upon which Lucien was mounted danced to the side just in time to avoid the thrust of a dagger from a rapidly-materializing rogue. He’d never understand how they managed to conceal themselves in plain sight like that—it wasn’t classified as magic, but it was nothing that he could do, certainly. The element of surprise ruined, the woman wisely attempted to put space between herself and the heavily-armored knight on a large equine, only to be stopped by the sweeping action of Lucien’s poleax. He still hadn’t replaced the one that had broken in the Deep Roads—this one was a loan from one of his future employees, and rather ideal for wielding from this high off the ground. Her legs pulled out from underneath her, she fell to the ground on her back, the spear-point of the weapon resting an inch from her poorly-protected throat.

“Leave, please,” Lucien said, about as kindly as one could manage from such a menacing position. The woman was brunette, and so while it was possible that their target had since run a dye through her hair, he thought it unlikely. He was actually mildly surprised when she nodded, and withdrew the blade far enough to let her up. She looked incredulously at him for a moment, and he shrugged. He wasn’t willing to give this up, no matter how many times it came back to bite him. Thankfully, she actually left.

He was not so lucky the second time, and this time faced down two more, these a little better-prepared. One of them managed to catch him a hit on the side with a rough-looking mace, which, while not swung with enough force to break a rib, would likely produce a large circular bruise, armor or no. That one took the butt end of the implement to the temple, with enough force to crack his cranium, and in the same general motion, the axe-end bit into the shoulder of the other a second before he was able to wound the horse. This gave him a moment to glance back at the rest—everyone was engaged with someone else, and it was readily apparent that though his friends were skilled, this gang was much moreso than the average such group. They moved like real assassins, light on their feet, unhesitating in their ability to flicker in and out of visibility. Violette wore her usual slight battle-smile, an expression in truth rather mirthless, and Liliane’s face was set into a deep scowl, but both worked through their foes with skill and precision.

He saw no heads of blonde hair save those belonging to Sophia and the younger Routhier.

Sophia had Vesenia drawn the moment she spied the first of the attackers assailing Lucien at the head of the column. They came upon them quickly, and viciously. Expecting a similar attack on her own sides, Sophia glanced left and right, hastily unfastening her hooded cloak with her left hand while her right gripped her sword. The attack, however, came from in front of her, by a crafty rogue who brought a spear of all things. Rather than strike directly at her, he went for her horse instead, the mount the Coterie had provided for the caravan. The blade stuck in the upper chest dangerously near the throat, and her mount immediately panicked at the sudden threat, rearing up on his hind legs. The spearmen pressed the advantage, digging heels into the sand and pushing the spear higher up.

The Viscount's daughter was barely able to get her leg out of the way of being crushed by the falling horse before the ground came up to meet them, greeting her with a painful slam to her side. She rolled over onto her back as the horse clambered to his feet again, eager to leave the sudden battleground behind. The spearman was on Sophia in a hurry, but she'd expected as much, and had her blade ready in time to deflect his attack before he could bury the spear in her belly. She landed a pair of kicks next, the first to the side of his knee to knock him off balance, the second more of a shove than anything, to give her time to make the fight even.

As he stumbled back a few paces Sophia rolled out of the cloak and spun onto her feet, armor glittering in the sun. By the time she'd set her feet, the spearman was attacking again. She had expected him to drop the weapon when it came to a duel; he wore a shortsword at his hip, a more common choice in single combat, but she soon learned that he remained with the spear for good reason. He was skilled in its use, fast and precise strikes accompanied by expert footwork. He darted left and right and back, keeping out of even Vesenia's long reach, all the while forcing Sophia to stay on her own guard, lest she be caught in an overzealous attack. One such maneuver left her with a relatively minor gash to her side, a thin trail of red running down her mail.

He wasn't perfect, though. Sophia proved that with a somewhat unorthodox tactic. A feigned attempt to swipe away his guard and charge forward was responded with the expected thrust and withdraw, but this time Sophia took a hand off her sword, reaching to grab the spear by the haft, her grip just beyond the blade itself. He refused to part with the weapon, so she pulled him into her range with it, drawing her sword across her body and swinging in a broad arc as the spearman came lurching forward, slicing open his chest and sending him spinning to the ground.

The moment he’d heard the unlikely sound, Rilien rolled sideways off the cart, hitting the sand with no sound audible over the general shouting and clanging that was the ambush getting underway. The slight whistle of a blade cutting through air was his only warning, and the Tranquil bent backwards, the shortsword, slicing a few hairs from his fringe but otherwise leaving him unscathed. The mercenary who leveled the attack clearly had not expected the dodge, and overbalanced, allowing the elf to drive one of his own daggers down into the back of his neck in a smooth motion that ended his life with the sort of callus efficiency that commonly characterized him.

The second attacker was more prepared, and swiped the first of a pair of axes for Rilien’s midsection, forcing him to dodge backwards and put his back to the cart itself. The second thudded into the wooden side of the thing inches from his eye, and Rilien ducked low, scooping a stone from the ground with his free hand and giving it a hard toss into the cart-horse’s flank, causing the creature to bolt forwards, freeing up his back. Drawing his other dagger, Rilien took a pair of steps backwards, shoring himself up with Aurora, their current foes readjusting to the new situation by backing off and circling a bit, clearly trying to decide how best to coordinate, now that their opponents were two rather than one.

Rilien was a little surprised by the flicker of amusement that passed through him, then, just a touch in the back of his head that never made it to his face. Such oddities were becoming more commonplace, now, but he was still hardly accustomed to them. "Shall we?” he asked of her, as deadpan as ever.

The whinnying of a spooked horse and the clang of metal alerted Aurora that the ambush had began. She sprang to her feet at the helm of the cart, just in time to witness an assassin slip into view at her immediate side. With Rilien since dismounting the cart, it left her room to take a step back and avoid the shortsword aimed at her thighs. A quick reaction and slide of her leg held the assassin's blade between the sole of her boot and the wood of the cart. She then reared back her other and issued a vicious kick toward the head of the assassin, only for it to sail harmlessly through the empty space where he was, materializing out of sight and leaving his blade behind. Aurora winced and grunted from the whiff, and kicked the blade further into the car, ensuring that it wouldn't come back to haunt her.

Out of her peripherals, she saw as another effortlessly made his way to the back of the cart, and Aurora turned to meet him. She stepped over the helm and onto the back of the cart proper, stepping over the objects that filled it to make it seem like they were carrying something. The assassin was first to strike, stabbing ahead with his dagger in a reverse grip. Aurora countered by pressing a palm against his forearm and threw a punch at him, aiming for the solar plexus. While the hit did connect, it wouldn't matter as her balance was shot when the cart charged ahead, causing both the assassin and Aurora to jerk backward and fall off. However, it did leave Aurora with the better position, as she straddled the assassin who lay prone on his back. She took advantage, and attempted the punch again, this time proving far more effective. She followed it with another pair just to be sure.

As she stood, she felt something brush against her back. The sight of alabaster hair stayed her hand and pushed her eyes forward, acknowledging it was Rilien. "Better than waiting," She agreed, throwing her dusty cloak over her shoulders.

It was at this point that the group was set upon by a fresh wave of fighters, these ones assuredly professional, all cloaked and hooded in uniform black, wearing the crest of a red fox-head emblazoned on the back of these. They were also dressed in the manner of marine soldiers, though not of any standard army; much of their equipment was well-waterproofed, and even the cloaks had a slick sort of shine to them, indicating a treatment made to keep water from soaking into the fabric. The fact that all of them were dressed the same way, including the hoods, made it very difficult to tell if the actual target was among them, but Lucien would give his right arm if these weren’t actual members of the pirate’s crew. They were simply too well-equipped to be mere hired diversions. There were ten in total, augmenting the numbers already present as whomever was leading them chose to commit to the engagement, rather than cutting and running when the others started—slowly, but surely—to fall. It was an indication that the leader believed these ten would be sufficient to deal with the caravan guard, even knowing they were probably not the usual Coterie fare.

The tactical implications of this, however, would have to wait for later. Lucien found himself with no less than three to deal with on his own, another one went for Liliane and one for Violette. Sophia was in the unfortunate position of being unhorsed, injured and now in the company of two, and the other three joined with the three others still circling Rilien and Aurora.

Releasing his reins, Lucien let the trained warhorse have her head, unsurprised when her first instinct was to kick back at the one trying to flank them. Her hoof caught the man’s jaw, knocking him, at least for now, to the ground. The other two scissored in as a unit, and he chose to let the left one go as he went for the right one, swinging not with the axehead, but the butt end of the weapon. He missed her jaw, which he’d been aiming for, and hit her shoulder instead. The other one found a joint in his armor when he wasn’t looking, and Lucien grunted as a red line welled up on his side. Shifting his feet, he tapped the horse’s flank, causing her to rear on command, which at least succeeded in backing them off. Another tap elsewhere whirled her around, and he held his axe steadily vertical, effectively clotheslining the one who’d injured him, knocking the man back. He kept going and slammed the weapon into the chest of the third, dropping him on a more permanent basis this time. The other two, however, were still more or less fine.

“Chevalier,” one of them noted, the accent perfectly Orlesian. Lucien smiled grimly.

“A votre service, monsieur.”

A total of six highly-proficient foes was perhaps not the best arrangement they could have found themselves in, but at the very least, they need not be concerned with being stabbed in the back. "Cover your nose and mouth,” Rilien said, quietly enough that only Aurora should be able to pick up on it. He did not, however, wait any longer than it took her to do so before reaching down into a pouch at his belt, giving the small packet he withdrew a hard toss. It collided with the chestplate of one of the marines, scattering a small amount of greenish powder, which took a few seconds to disperse. It dropped the one it had hit, and the two immediately nearest looked a bit sluggish, much less steady on their feet than they had been.

With his elbow, he nudged the mage, attempting to rotate them both a quarter-turn, so that at least one for each would not be at his or her best. It should take a little bit of the heat off, at any rate. The rest, they’d have to do the old-fashioned way, as he’d heard it termed.

Aurora had slipped her scarf over her mouth and nose when Rilien let go of his mixture. At the nudge, her feet danced through the dirt and stopped when both stood side by side, facing down a pair of sluggish marines. "Now?" Aurora asked. Then she was off, dashing toward the man. As she built her momentum, she began to twist as she closed in on the man, turning a complete circle before she used all the momentum she'd gain to launch a spinning kick at the man's shins. With one less leg, the man fell to a knee, and Aurora responded by spinning in the other direction and issuing a heel kick to the side of his head, pushing him the rest of the way over.

No sooner had he been knocked over than the Tranquil finished him off, stabbing downwards with an enchanted blade and puncturing the soft skin of his throat. The next of the sluggish ones, he dodged a poor hit from, but his nearest compatriot was considerably faster, and Rilien’s options came down to taking the hit aimed for him or moving aside and exposing Aurora to it. Given that she was already occupied fending off other things, it was hardly much of a choice, and he moved as well as he could to soften the blow, though he still found himself with a severed leg tendon for his efforts, a hard snap signaling the release of tension in what had once been a very taut connection between knee and ankle. It was incredibly painful, and rendered the leg nearly incapable of supporting his weight, putting him at a severe disadvantage. Rilien managed to bring up his second knife and skewer the spot directly between clavicle and the deltoid muscle above it, but his opponent’s movement stopped him from hitting the much more vital jugular vein he’d been aiming for, and he could only keep his footing with one foot—a rather unenviable position.

"Duck," Aurora stated, winding up another kick. This one she aimed as high as she could to pass over Rilien's ducking head, and finishing what he had started. The toes of her boot connected with the side of his face, sliding him off of Rilien's blade and throwing him into the ground. A spurt of blood from the blade's exit arced and spattered both tranquil and mage, lathering them in a dose of crimson. There was no time for Aurora to wipe it from her face before she was accosted from her side. Another marine had approached, sword pulled back for a fatal stab.

Steel plunged forward, and quick reflexes saw that it was Aurora's dragonhide bracer that deflected the blow. She then drew her other fist back, coated in a layer of stoneskin and punched forward, drilling the marine in the belly. She drew it back again to repeat, but this time her arm was caught by the man. With strength greater than hers, he pulled her in, and leveled his head into her face, crushing her nose with his forehead. The blow dazed her and sent her stumbling back into Rilien as the man closed the distance, sword positioned dangerous.

With one hand holding together her broken nose, the other swung across spraying a fine mist of ice, tearing into the man's face and eyes.

Even Rilien almost lost his balance when Aurora fell back into him, given that he was effectively working with one good leg. That did not, however, stop him from taking advantage of the opening presented by her spell, and without hesitation, he let the dagger in his right hand fly. It rotated end-over-end three times before drilling with an inexorable sort of precision into the spot where the human heart lay, puncturing through his armor as only the best-tempered of materials could. That left only the two already dazed by his poison, and between the both of them, those were dispatched without much further incident. A couple of potions fixed his leg, and he handed another of his particularly-potent brews to Aurora.

"I can say from experience that a broken nose never heals quite symmetrically,” he said, laying an index finger along the bridge of his own, which was ever-so-slightly crooked from where Silian had broken it by slamming him into the deck of a boat. "But treating it as quickly as possible helps.”

"Thanks," She said beneath the veil of her hand and downed the potion. The felt the potion work as her nose tingled and tickled across the bridge of her nose. She tenderly removed her hand as it was still sore, but it wasn't pouring the blood that it had been. However, the damage had been done and her face looked like a warzone, spattered with blood that was a mixture of hers and another's, while her hair was a mat of crimson. "Let's hope," She agreed, gingerly testing it with a finger. "Still, Milly's going to throw a fit."

With the adrenaline of the fight pumping through her, the gash on Sophia's side felt like little more than a small cut, and she was inclined to treat it as such for the moment, given that she had two more opponents to deal with. Slightly isolated at the rear of the caravan, it appeared as though she would be on her own for the time being. An unfortunate position to be in, considering that this next wave of opponents seemed to be more skilled and better equipped than the last.

Well, one of them was, anyway. Sophia found herself opposing an axe-and-shield warrior in the black marines armor and hood, a burly man clearly with more outright strength than she possessed. The other was a female rogue, armed with a dagger. It was the same rogue Lucien had afforded the chance to run, though Sophia had no knowledge of this. It was possible that she'd had a change of heart, or that one of the black-clad overlords had forced her back into the fight. Regardless, she had strayed to the rear of the column, and ominously vanished from sight, a sure sign that she would reappear at a very inconvenient moment.

In the meantime, that left the warrior, banging on his shield with the axe in front of him. Sophia was willing to oblige him the fight, darting forward with zigzagging cross steps before she opened up her attack, slamming her blade into his shield. She spun away when the axe came to counterattack; it was she who had the advantage of superior range this time. The warrior, for the most part, made few attempts to strike at her, instead playing defensively and allowing her to wear herself down. Sophia knew the true threat came when the rogue chose to reappear, and so she made sure not to overextend herself on any attacks. It was after the fifth or so battering between Sophia and the shield when she heard the snap behind her, and turned quickly to counter the rogue.

But the rogue was a solid fifteen feet from Sophia, smiling. Too late she tried to turn back around again, only to have a hand axe come down on her. The half spin was enough to let the blow fall on her right collarbone rather than her head, but there was still an alarming spurt of blood and a wracking pain throughout her upper body. The shield came next, slamming into her side and throwing her to the ground on her bad shoulder. The warrior may have thought her finished, as he advanced recklessly within range of her sword. Finished she was not, as he found when she sliced one of his feet clean off, sending him howling to the ground. Blearily she pushed herself over to him and shoved her sword through his bowels.

She was still kneeling when the lady rogue set on her from behind, jamming the dagger into the gap at her side, where the gash already was. At this point pain threatened to overcome adrenaline, but Sophia still managed to spin and swing a mailed elbow into the rogue's temple, knocking her over and removing the knife, blood flowing freely in its absence. In one smooth motion Sophia withdrew Vesenia from the guts of one enemy and brought it whirling down on the next, taking the rogue's head clean off.

Resisting the strangely alluring call to tip over and lie down in the sand, Sophia pressed the hand of her injured arm to the more severely bleeding wound in her side, rummaging through a small, sturdy pouch on her belt, retrieving the largest restorative she had on hand. Popping the flask open with one hand, she leaned back and drank deeply, dropping the container only when it had been drained entirely. She shuddered at the effect, but relief came quickly enough, the potion slowing the bleeding considerably, and restoring her arm to a relative working order. Still, she cradled it tenderly to her chest, not sure she wanted to rise from a kneeling position just yet. A visit to Nostariel's clinic would definitely be in order after this.

Lucien, now unhorsed mostly by his own choice—he had no desire to see the creature killed, after all—wasn’t exactly faring his best, either. Blood leaked sluggishly from several cuts that had been aimed with precision almost to rival Rilien’s for the joints and weak spots in his armor. Still, he had the advantage of endurance, though he’d not managed to hit his foes quite so many times as they’d hit him. They moved very well together, almost seamlessly, as people did who had been fighting as a unit for years, if not decades. He’d dug himself into the sand, forgoing mobility that they could outdo anyway for a certain kind of stubborn rootedness that was proving difficult to contend against. As such, the fight seemed to be at a rather active stalemate—they were still all three constantly moving, attacking, parrying, slipping away from hits. But each had acquired wounds, and each felt the salty sheen of sweat at their brows, threatening to drip into their eyes.

Frustrated by his armor in most cases, they’d started aiming mostly for his unprotected face, and one scored a cut against his cheek, deep enough to flay the flesh and scrape the more fragile bone just beneath his eye. It also sliced the eyepatch, which fell to his feet. The temporary blurring of his vision was all the other needed to get in too close, secreting a dagger into a joint of armor at his torso, sinking the knife in deep. He felt the surrounding muscles go numb almost immediately—somehow, he hadn’t been suspecting poison. Foolish; why would they forego the advantage?

He was forced to shift his balance, taking most of the weight of his axe in one hand rather than two, though he chose to thrust it forward like a sword rather than chop, and the oddity of the move caught the one on the left off-guard, slamming into his stomach and knocking him backwards into the sand. The hood flew off his face—pale blue eyes and almost equally-pale blond hair. He looked startled for a moment before his face twisted into a snarl, and he regained his feet, aided by his partner, from behind whose hood peeked hairs of a similar color. The chevalier’s eyes narrowed—was it really possible that…? It sounded like something out of a story, but perhaps he was being reminded in the most unfortunate way that even the stories tended to have a grain of truth to them.

The woman, setting the man on his feet, threw back her hood also, and he was startled by the obvious resemblance. They weren’t just siblings—they were twins. Suddenly, a lot of the things Le Renard had pulled off according to the mythos surrounding the figure made a lot more sense. He wondered if perhaps Laurent hadn’t been close to discovering this, and that had been what did him in. The knowledge that the authorities should be looking for not one, but two people would effectively end a major advantage to the operation. But why frame him?

It was a question that there was time neither to ask nor answer. Both twins surged forward, and he was back again to beating off furious attacks, only this time with a half-useless arm. Still, they were getting tired faster than he was, what with all the acrobatics and dodging they were doing, and it exacerbated their bleeding, which on the man had become rather profuse. It was he Lucien caught with the axe, swinging sideways with his whole body and catching him in the temple with the flat of it. The man crumpled, but Lucien’s shaking arm lost its grip on his weapon, and it went flying off to the side, thankfully well away from any of his allies.

Watching her brother fall, the woman snarled, taking up his knife and coming at the knight with both, forcing even him to take several steps backwards as he blocked largely with his gauntlet. Without an implement, he had to change his strategy, resorting to the strength his hands, or rather hand could give him. Well… and a few other body parts as well. When one swing came in for him, he grabbed the offending wrist, breaking his own guard and allowing the second knife to find a home in his abdomen, sneaking under the bottom of his chestplate and between the rings of his mail. That close though, there was no avoiding him, and he cracked the hardest part of his head into one of the softest parts of hers. If the ringing in his ears was any indication, she wasn’t doing well either, and indeed, she swayed dangerously on her feet. Slightly slower than he would have liked, Lucien brought a knee up into her gut, doubling her over and releasing her wrist to slam the elbow of his good arm down on the back of her head. She fell, and he staggered, but remained standing.

He now had two knives still in his person, which was actually fortunate, because they were stemming the bleeding. The edges of his vision blurred, and it had nothing to do with the fact that his bad eye was exposed, either. Mostly, he suspected it was a mix of poison and blood loss. The most dramatic-looking wound was the one that poured blood down the side of his face, but it was far from the worst. He had to make sure his friends were all right—

Lucien had to fight not to choke when he noted Sophia’s condition—and the identity of one of her felled foes. Liliane and Violette were battered, but mostly intact. The latter handed him a curative, and he held the neck of the bottle between his teeth while he extracted the knives from his person, then downed it as quickly as he was able. Rilien and Aurora were alive as well, and all of the raiders were dead or still. It seemed that all that was left was to get everyone as patched up as they could here—and then get some answers.

Setting

4 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon

Earnings

0.00 INK

Liliane, who seemed to be in the best shape of all the combatants at just that moment, moved forward to the head of the column, where Lucien had put down the matched pair of fighters, using a foot, to turn over the one that had fallen on her stomach. From the groan she issued, it would seem that she was coming to, and the stoic Chevalier frowned, calling something in Orlesian to her sister, who nodded and trotted her horse over to the supply cart, which had stopped a fair distance from the confrontation, when the horse Rilien had spooked apparently decided it was far enough away from the problem to graze on some of the sparse vegetation on the Wounded Coast. Returning a few moments later with a length of hemp rope, she tossed it to Liliane, who bent and used it to bind both siblings in what appeared to be a rather complicated system of knots. Considering it was designed to hold bards and other slippery types, it was.

Violette, meanwhile, dismounted, not in the least concerned about leaving her horse untethered. It, and those belonging to Lucien and her sister both, didn’t seem inclined to wander off, and for the most part just lingered in the same general area, content for the moment to ignore the goings on. “Eh, Lucien,” the captain said with a smile more amused than grim, “Any harder and you might have caved his skull in.”

The knight himself found it hard to share her levity, considering the state they were all in, but he’d always taken injury to his friends more personally than other people did. “That would be why I didn’t hit any harder, Vi. Is everyone all right?” He knew the types of answers he was likely to get, but he had to ask anyway. His mouth compressed into a thin line upon further observation of Sophia’s condition, and he did his best to suppress the flare of guilt. He was committed to giving people the chance to surrender—she knew that almost as well as he did by this point. It did not mean he liked it when it came back to bite, especially when it bit someone that wasn’t him. He also knew, however, that she accepted the risks of this when she agreed to come. Rational as it was, the reasoning didn’t seem to help much, and he sighed, turning to the twins and dragging a hand down his face.

He supposed it was time for an interrogation. Perhaps it would be better done in a prison, or some other place where the law was in charge, but if by chance something they had to say was time-sensitive, it seemed more prudent to get everything they’d willingly divulge now.

The taste of blood had steadily worked its way into Sophia's mouth, until she finally felt the need to tip over forward, using her left arm to brace herself, while she spat out a glob of it onto the sand. There was a high quantity of blood surrounding her, more of it belonging to her slain foes than herself, though she had contributed a fair deal. Most of it had leaked out onto her; much of her left side, from ribs to her knee, was colored a dark red, and plenty had seeped down her chest and back from the shoulder wound. She was quite certain this was the most wounded she'd ever been. Fitting, perhaps, that it was for a cause she cared most deeply about.

She wobbily made her way over to the rest of the group and their captives, using her sword as a sort of walking stick. "I'm..." she started, in response to Lucien's inquiry. "Well... I'll be alright." Upon reaching the rest, she had a sudden desire to put her weight against something. She supposed Lucien would be asking some questions shortly, and thus found a large boulder of a height with her along the side of the road, propping her sword up against it before she did the same for herself. Pulling her blood-drenched glove from her side, she found that it was still bleeding, and she could still feel warm drops running down her back to mingle with the others. She pulled a second healing potion from her pouch.

"Not a word of this to my father or Bran, please," she said, taking a small sip of the potion. Too much of a restorative too quickly couldn't be absorbed by the body, and she rather strongly wanted to avoid hurling the contents of her stomach right now.

“Understood,” Lucien said, his tone subdued. If he’d thought telling either of them would have helped anything, he would not have been so inclined to agree, but in the end, their knowledge would change nothing, and cause only more anxiety and difficulty. Given how much there already was to deal with, he did not find himself with the desire to add more. Still, the man appeared to be coming to as well, and actually got there faster than his sister, testing his bonds instinctively and finding them, for the moment at least, unlikely to yield. He blinked up at the assembled, apparently surprised to find the situation the way it was. Sparing a glance for his sister, he smoothed his face out to professional neutrality, though the look in his eye was more malevolent than anything as he returned his eyes to them. Clearing his throat, he spat at Lucien’s feet.

“You’d have been better served killing us. We have nothing to say to lordlings and Chevalier dogs.”

Interrogation was a matter on which Rilien had considerable knowledge. Part of being good at it was having or appearing to have very few moral compunctions. He had the definite sense that if Lucien was allowed to handle it, they would take forever to get nowhere, only a slight exaggeration. The Tranquil tossed his head just enough to clear the fringe of his hair from the sunburst mark on his forehead, such that it was clearly visible. It would save him a lot of trouble demonstrating that he would not be moved by emotion or much in the way of bargaining, which was really the most inefficient part of the whole procedure. "Is that so?” the Tranquil cut in dully. The knife at his left shoulder rang free of its sheath, and he turned it in his grip, treading forward briskly but not with too much haste.

His fingers wound into the woman’s hair, and he pulled until she was more or less upright. It was the man, however, that the Tranquil locked eyes with as he drew the flat of the knife slowly across her throat, then adjusted minutely so that the edge bit in, just enough to draw the thinnest of trickles from her neck. It slithered down beneath her dark leather armor, and Rilien tilted his head to the side. "Perhaps there is something you would have to say to me.” It wasn’t a question.

The man’s eyes widened, and he reflexively strained against his bonds, before remembering himself and stilling his motions. His glance flashed to the Chantry brand on Rilien’s head, and then over to the rest. Lucien didn’t look particularly pleased with how the situation was transpiring, but for the moment, he kept his peace, trusting Rilien to know when to stop. Perhaps not the wisest thing he’d ever done, considering their differences, but they knew quite well where the other stood, and he liked to think there was an understanding between them, one that meant his Bard friend wouldn’t push past the point Lucien felt was warranted. Right now, he was simply making threats, if implicit ones, and that, while not exactly kind, was understandable.

“And what would I have to say to a bootlicking elf?” the man replied venomously, clearly attempting to call the bluff. Lucien resisted the urge to flinch—this wasn’t going to end well unless they could—his train of thought stuttered for a moment when Violette volunteered her opinion, the sole of her metal boot catching the fellow in the chest and pushing him backwards against the sand. She left it there, not heavily enough to seriously impede his breathing, but definitely enough to make a point.

“Time to stop being brave and start being smart, pirate,” she said bluntly. “It suits you better.”

He squirmed, but it was evident enough that he was relenting. “Fine… just let me up, and call off your dog, all right?” Lucien frowned, and Violette pressed down harder, producing an audible wheeze, before she relented and stepped back, muttering something unkind beneath her breath. “Rilien,” Lucien said quietly, “If you would oblige me?” He waited until the Tranquil relinquished his hold, which he did without protest, before fixing a steady stare on the other man.

“Explain, please. And don’t leave anything out.”

Still struggling a bit to breathe, the man shot another glance at his sister. “Not much to explain,” he said bitterly. “Live life underneath the boots of Chevaliers for long enough, and you learn to want something else. When a man comes to you and offers you a lot of money to take another step to a free Orlais, you take it.” Lucien blinked, exhaling through his nose and crossing his arms over his chest. This sort of thing happened from time to time, it was true—citizens discontent with the disparity between rich and poor, noble and common, in Orlais began to think like revolutionaries. He wondered if this man and his sister had really felt the boots he spoke of, or if they just paid lip service to it in order to seem other than criminals motivated selfishly.

“Before you ask, I don’t know his name, or what he looks like. All I know was that he paid us up-front. Le Renard kills the Ambassador, frames the exiled prince. Two for one deal. It works even better if your powerful friends back home try to help you—then they’re covering up murder, see, and it’s just one more reason to be rid of the lot of you.” He watched the man in question run a hand down his face and shake his head, blue eyes narrowing. “I’d say someone wants you out of the way, Lordling.” He seemed somewhat amused by this fact, but it was tempered by the clear disadvantage of his position.

“I’m afraid someone always wants me out of the way, serah,” Lucien replied mildly. He turned to Sophia, then. “Assuming we can get this fellow to say the same thing to a magistrate, I think it would be best to let the courts of Kirkwall handle the trials of he and his sister, if you don’t mind.” They could be extradited—both Liliane and Violette had the authority to do that—but it would create a lot of inconvenience and quite possibly achieve the very purpose this man professed to want. He couldn’t exactly blame them for having profound dissatisfaction with some of the things that were true in Orlais, but nevertheless, they were criminals and had murdered a good man by contract. They should not go without punishment for that. Where he came from, they’d be executed, but perhaps there was a little more mercy to be found in the Free Marches.

Sophia was not normally inclined to agree with threatening to murder captured prisoners, but all the same, she found it hard to care about the plight of these two, given their willingness to murder innocent men and frame others for simple coin. She supposed their cause would be more important to them than riches, if asked, but no doubt the pile of money they were to receive made murder seem like hardly an obstacle. Still, it was good that no further violence was required, and that these two had confessed. It was what they needed to clear Lucien's name of the crime.

"I agree," Sophia said, after lightly clearing her throat. A mild nausea was setting in from the excess of health potion, but she'd finished the second one during the course of the brief interrogation, and by that point her wounds had ceased bleeding altogether, and she felt comfortable enough to stand without the support of the rock behind her. She set about cleaning her sword instead.

When they were ready to leave, the prisoners were escorted back to Kirkwall, though Sophia made a departure from the group to visit Nostariel at her clinic, donning her cloak again to better conceal the severity of her wounds in the city. There was a story that needed to be heard here, but it was about how Lucien cleared his name of slanderous charges, not about how any of his friends nearly died in the effort.

The Chanter's Board has been updated. Trial and Error has been completed.

Setting

1 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel

Earnings

0.00 INK

After everyone had had a chance to get a proper night’s rest—well, perhaps everyone save Lucien and his two old friends, who had been awake quite late into the night catching up, Violette had decided to spend the following morning about Kirkwall. She’d shed most of the identifiable Chevalier trappings, choosing instead to outfit herself in some spare, unmarked chainmail and a fair amount of ordinary-enough reddish leather. It allowed her to pass through most of the districts of town without too much notice, though any woman walking around with a large two-handed sword strapped to her back was bound to draw some attention, she supposed. Still, it wasn’t like she’d been accosted, though on some level, she might have preferred it.

Vi was not her sister, who could apparently just subsume all of her frustration beneath an exterior like a still pond. She needed to process actively, and given her present level of irritation with Lucien, a good confrontation might have been what was in order, her still-sore wounds from yesterday be damned. That healer friend of his was quite good at what she did, anyway. But truthfully, it was still a terrible idea to go looking for a fight right now, and she knew that.

So instead she wound her way up through Hightown, as it was called, seeking the place Lucien had told her about. The day was quite bright and sunny, bleaching the pale stone of many of the buildings almost white, and the Chevalier squinted against the glare, raising a mail-gloved hand to shade her face. In some ways, it all reminded her of a smaller, less-grand version of Val Royeaux, but there was considerably less artifice and a distinct lack of masked nobles, both of which she counted in its favor rather than against it. Still, from what she’d seen of Lowtown and the rotten-smelling passage to Darktown, it was far from a place without its own problems. Her friend’s initial decision to make this his destination made a lot of sense to her, having seen it for herself. She’d have thought he’d stay in Denerim, but then, that place was being cleaned up quite capably already, from what the rumor mills told.

After a bit of navigational mishap that planted her solidly in the merchants’ guild for a while, Violette finally found the particular storefront she was seeking. Trying the door, she found that it was open for business and stepped inside, almost to assume she had the wrong place again and perhaps hadn’t left the guild after all. The man immediately behind the nearest counter appeared to be a general merchant, and his height and stockiness indicated dwarf. The younger one behind the workbench was also a dwarf, though she noted that some of the counters were sized for someone taller. “Your pardon, serah,” she said politely but not absent a certain authority. “Might this be where I can find the enchanter called Ser Rilien?”

Bodahn, who’d been organizing his wares, glanced up, smiling amicably and bobbing his head in the affirmative. “Indeed so, milady. Master Rilien went to pick up some supplies. He should be back presently.” On the other side of the room, Sandal poked his head up over one of the taller workbenches and contributed a cheerful “Enchantment!” Bodahn nodded affectionately. “Just so. Bodahn Feddic, at your service, milady. This here’s my boy Sandal. We’re Master Rilien’s business partners.” He bowed at the waist in what he took to be a polite fashion, and gestured to the few chairs scattered about the workshop. It was impeccably organized, but the prior lack of seating had been Bodahn’s to remedy, as he believed it would assist with the perception of customer service, something the Tranquil was admittedly unconcerned with. “Please have a seat.”

Before there was much of an opportunity to take advantage of the offer, however, the shop door jingled quietly, and the enchanter himself stepped over the threshold, neatly sliding around the chevalier’s position without making contact and depositing several parcels on the lower counters. "Sandal,” he said simply, and the young dwarf set about opening the packages and filing away their contents in the proper places. After a few moments of this, he turned at last to face the shop’s guest. "Captain Routhier. Is there something you require?”

Though Violette’s mouth had ticked up into a smile at the dwarves, almost but not quite becoming a chuckle at the mostly-passable imitation of courtly manners, she was halted from returning the gesture by the appearance of just the one she’d asked after. She swung around to face him more on instinct than any well-thought-out decision, and even when he slipped past, her eyes tracked him carefully. It was hard not to—not when every lesson near-beaten into her as a child bid her be always wary in the presence of Bards, and certainly never present her back to one. That had been what got Lucien almost killed, and by this very elf, no less. Even so…

At the address, more formal than most of her men even usually bothered with, she tried to find the smile again, only to discover that she wasn’t quite sure where it went. She probably looked a fool, and that was something she was unaccustomed to being. “Please,” she said, then paused to clear her throat. “Just Violette is fine. My friends call me Vi, even, and any friend of Lucien’s is a friend of mine.” After another slightly-awkward pause, she unstrapped the sword from her back and laid it carefully out on the counter. It was somewhere between a true two-hander and a hand-and-a-half, more the former, just scaled for a smaller knight. Violette had not her sister’s elegant height; she was about as tall as Rilien, whereas Liliane was only a few shy of Lucien’s height.

The weapon, therefore, had been custom-made to her, when she took her commission as a captain in the chevalier order. Her style was hardy and stout, but too offensive for a shield, and it was to weapons like this that she’d always been most suited. The steel was excellent, but relatively plain. She wasn’t too fond of the extraneous details, but this was different, really. “I was… hoping you might be willing to enchant this for me, before I go. With fire, if that’s possible.”

Rilien slid the sword from the scabbard that held it, sighting down the blade of it before turning it to examine from the side. A flick of his fingers produced a gentle vibration in the steel, and he nodded slightly. He glanced back up at the woman for a moment, his eyes half-lidded in contemplation. There was something slightly off about her demeanor, and he did not know precisely what to make of it. The wariness, he was used to—it was well-established by this point that he had been and to some extent always would be a Bard, and as a rule, they were not trustworthy. He certainly would not be such a fool as to place his trust in any of them. But there was something beyond that, which apparently motivated her inclination to treat him as a friend would, and it made little sense to him.

Ordinarily, it would not have concerned him. But Rilien was always concerned with what he did not understand, and so for the moment, her behavior was a conundrum that he wished to answer. “I expect that this is possible, provided that you do not leave tomorrow,” he replied neutrally. Then: “Violette.” If she was going to invite him to use her given name, he was going to use it. He generally eschewed formality where it was not necessary, and had extended the use of title here only because of her association with the one man he called Ser. “Is there anything else you would have me add, or will the burning enchantment suffice?”

“Uh…” Vi swallowed a bit more thickly than was perhaps warranted by the situation, then remembered the question she was supposed to be answering and shook her head. “No. I mean… the fire should suffice, I think.” She wasn’t even sure she really should be doing this much; though there was no rule against having a weapon or shield enchanted, it was not commonly done, not even amongst those chevaliers that had the means. Perhaps it was nothing more than an innate distrust of magic, but they were not Templars, so it wasn’t like they generally cared any more than they had to whether or not someone slung fire from their hands. There was no organizational opinion on that, so… it was probably fine. Probably just some dumb pride thing about not needing help in battle. Morons. She’d take all the help she could get, if it would keep she and her people alive.

Lucien hadn’t learned that on his own, after all.

She was pretty sure this was the point in the conversation at which she was reasonably expected to leave, but she gathered her wits about her as well as she could manage under the circumstances and sat down instead. She could at least trust that he’d be direct enough to ask her to leave if she were bothering him. Could he be bothered? She didn’t really know. Violette had only ever met one other Tranquil, and that one had been nothing like Rilien. “So… how do you find Kirkwall, Rilien?”

He glanced over at the woman, blinking for a moment, but he didn’t refuse to answer. “It is as I suspect most Marcher cities are. Less grandiose than Val Royeaux, and also less treacherous. Most of the time, one’s enemies are inclined to the wearing of armor and the obvious wielding of weaponry.” It wasn’t as though they often came disguised as allies. “Or perhaps… the wearing of robes and the wielding of obvious blood magic.” There were quite a large number of apostates and maleficarum wandering about for a city of this size, which was doubly unusual when one considered how hard-line the Templars here appeared to be.

The Tranquil’s head tilted slightly to the side, and he considered the rest of his answer for a moment. “If Ser Lucien’s happiness is your concern, it is perhaps a matter to take up with him yourself. I am a poor judge of such matters. He does not seem to suffer from a lack of things to do, however.” Perhaps this explained her odd behavior—she did not seem used to seeking information in indirect ways, and perhaps she felt that asking him qualified as that kind of method. He was unsure why she would bother—if there was anyone who would be honest to a fault, it was Lucien.

“That’s not it,” Violette protested, pursing her lips. Of course, the she reconsidered her statement and sighed, shaking her head. It was little wonder she’d chosen the knighthood over court life, if she was this poor at conveying her meaning when she… raking a hand through her hair, she pulled a part a few tangles at the end of the red mass and amended. “His happiness does concern me, of course. But you’re right; for the most part, I’d be best served asking him about that. I asked because…” she struggled for the right words for a moment, then gave that up as a lost cause. Let her be misinterpreted if she must; it seemed a fate she was ever condemned to, at least with respect to some people. “I asked because I’d rather hoped that you might be happy here, also.”

Of course, now he probably thought she’d missed the glaringly-obvious. “I know it’s… different for you than it is for other people, but… Lucien’s right about you. You’re not like other Tranquil, and you’re not like other Bards. I don’t think… it seems to me that he might be the only one who ever thanked you, for what you did for him, and that’s just wrong. You deserved to be thanked, and you deserve to be honored for what you did. So… thank you.”

He truly hadn’t been expecting anything like that, and for a moment, Rilien didn’t reply, processing the words. Most of it was sentiment, of course, but it was a very similar kind of sentiment as the sort Ser Lucien was given to, and if nothing else, he’d found a certain… respect for that, over the years he’d known the fellow. He’d known the choice he made was the wrong one when he’d made it, in the sense that he’d likely be killed for it, but in some way he could not explain, it had always seemed right as well, like perhaps if there was a reason to die other than the natural end of a life, something like that might be it. This feeling had always puzzled him, even as faint as it was, but of late, he’d felt that little sliver of himself which was prone to such errant fancies growing larger. If Violette was to be believed, it was something to be honored. He disagreed, but… that didn’t mean he failed to understand it, just a little.

“It is,” he said mildly. “But it is not so different as I once believed.” A pause, and he set down the sword for a moment, folding his hands into his sleeves. He had not expected himself to say that out loud, and perhaps, in front of the others, he would not have been able to, though he could not say what the difference was. Perhaps it was because they were more or less strangers. He had once heard someone, perhaps it was the Warden, remark that some things were easier to say to strangers than they were to friends. Rilien had never had difficulty saying what he wanted to in front of anyone, but perhaps it was simply that it made more sense to say this to a stranger, who would not expect anything different of him for it. Anything he still could not give. He might understand some things a little more than he had, but he was still far from anything approaching normalcy in his emotional range. He was still Tranquil, just… not as much of one as he had been.

“There is no need to thank me. Either I did it from self interest or perhaps because I recognized that the kind of person he is happens to be the kind that deserves such things. Either way, what I did was only logical.”

“If you say so,” Violette replied, but she couldn’t help the small smile that lifted her mouth. “But you know, Rilien… recognizing that isn’t something that most people do. So perhaps you deserve to be thanked for it anyway. Whatever your reasons, you helped my friend, and I’ll always be grateful.” Standing, she bowed formally and decided to leave him to his work.

Setting

1 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Aurora Rose

Earnings

0.00 INK

Whereas her sister had spent most of the day wandering Kirkwall, Liliane was less inclined to do so, and instead had kept her investigations cursory. She’d been a bit curious about this clinic that a friend of Lucien’s occupied however, and had chosen to spend at least a couple of hours speaking with the woman who ran it. Her curiosity assuaged, she was now sitting outside of it, on a chair facing the garden, running a whetstone over the length of her longsword. Her shield, the crest of her house stamped into the silverite surface, lay propped against the side of the chair. The scents of the flowers and herbs were fragrant here, and she found something remarkably pleasant about that.

Not as much a people-person as Violette, Liliane spent most of her days rather quiet, even when most of the speaking was done in her mother tongue. Nevertheless, she wasn't the kind to find company an imposition—she simply didn’t seek it the way her elder sibling did. Regardless, it seemed that it would be finding her rather shortly, at least for a moment. The sound of footsteps caused the tall knight to glance up from what she was doing, only to observe that the slight woman from yesterday was making her way towards the clinic. Perhaps she yet had injuries that needed attention? Though… she was dressed more for labor than anything. It struck her that a garden this size would need tending—perhaps that was the cause.

Not only was Aurora dressed for labor, but Milly as well. The girls walked side-by-side, Milly in a large orange sun hat and Aurora sporting a new bandage spanning the bridge of her nose. It was Milly who stuttered in the small talk between the two when she saw a stranger sitting in front of Nostariel's clinic. Aurora had passed by her a couple of steps before she realized what happened. "Who's... That?" Milly asked, gingerly pointing at Liliane. Aurora followed her point before giving the Chevalier a wave. "That's Lucien's friend. I told you about her, remember? Liliane, the Chevalier," Aurora explained.

Milly hummed her reply, and Aurora shrugged. Maybe it was the sword and shield the woman held that had cause for hesitation, but for her it was an ordinary occurrence. Most of her friends had weapons and they were in use far more often that she cared to admit. For an apostate trying to lie low, she was certainly aware of how much trouble she found herself or her friends in. "Come on now, she won't bite. At least I hope not. I didn't get a good look at her fight," Aurora admitted, tracing the bandage over her nose. Chuckling at Milly's death glare, she approached the clinic and pulled the gardening gloves out of her pocket.

"I didn't expect to see you here," Aurora said to the Chevalier, though not unkindly. "Have you spoken with our resident Warden?" She asked, trying to make small talk.

Violette nodded slightly, pausing in her motions and standing, so as to lean her blade against the same chair and bow before both women. “So it is,” she said, speaking a little more slowly than usual to try and minimize the effect. “She is… very impressive.” To have healing knowledge that broad was quite something, especially when one considered that the bow hanging on a hook in the clinic seemed to belong to her as well. Most people would struggle to master one of those two things.

But her manners were niggling at her, and so when she finished answering the question, she turned to the woman she did not know. “I have met Miss Aurora,” the knight said carefully, “but I do not believe we have been introduced. Liliane Routhier of the Knights Chevalier, at your service.”

Nodding her agreement, Aurora occupied herself with donning the thick leather gloves she used for gardening, while she let Milly introduce herself. They were close, but she wasn't the girl's mother. Milly first looked at Aurora with a brow raised, wondering why she still hid behind that name before turning more politely to Liliane. "My name is Milian Randrel, but my friends call me Milly. It's a pleasure Serah," She said with a tacked on courtly bow to boot.

"I hope you two ladies aren't worried about getting a little dirt on you," Aurora said, noting the odd courtly manner Milly took upon being introduced to the Chevalier. "They're no bandits, but weeds are just as tenacious," she continued, gloved hands planted on her hips and a bright grin spread across her lips, "Fortunately, they don't fight back."

Liliane’s eyebrow ticked upwards, the stoic cast of her mouth for a moment becoming the faintest hint of a smile. “If we are to labor together, then you must call me Lili,” she said simply, sheathing the sword she’d been working on and unbuckling the heaviest pieces of her red armor to leave them in a careful pile upon the chair she’d been occupying. The chain followed, leaving her in a linen shirt and trousers, as well as heavy leather boots. A short cord tied her platinum-blonde hair into a serviceable tail, and after that, she was a willing volunteer, and, as it turned out, a curious questioner. She knew a few things about plants, but not nearly as much as Aurora did, and though her facial expression didn’t seem to change much, she was clearly pleased by the opportunity to learn a little more about them.

“Is this something they teach, in the Circle?” she asked, though admittedly she was not sure if either of them had ever been part of a Circle or not. She hadn’t missed Aurora’s display of magic, and she sort of assumed that the other one was probably a mage, too, given the closeness they seemed to share and the fact that both appeared to be regular volunteers here, at a clinic run by another mage. Perhaps it was a bit of a leap, but it didn’t seem wholly unwarranted, at any rate.

A blush was something rarely found on Aurora's cheeks, but in this instance it was clear as day. She turned a shade that mirrored her hair as her deft hands quit their work and she froze like a fly caught in honey. She needn't look to know that Milly was glaring a hole into her temple. She was refused her chance to answer before Milly spoke for her, a fine line of irriation layering under her voice. "No. No, Rosy learned that all on her own," She said, "Too bad she didn't learn the meaning of subtlety." That comment shrunk Aurora's head down into her shoulders as she began to attack the weeds with a renewed vigor in attempt to work her way out of the hole she found herself in.

"How'd... You find out?" Milly asked Liliane, her eyes having shifted from irritated to pleading between the women. Aurora attempted to open her mouth to answer for her, but whatever words she had in mind were killed in her throat by a swift glance from Milly.

Liliane glanced back and forth from one woman to the other, the reasons for the chilly manner of Milly becoming rather clear from the way the question was asked. “Do not be so ‘arsh,” the knight said mildly, “she used a small amount of magic in service of saving ‘er own life and another’s, on an errand for a good man. There are scarcely better times than that to take risks, and with’olding that which might save the life of another is per’aps even more unwise than parting with a secret.” Even one of that magnitude. “Aurora acted with honor; I only noticed because I happened to be facing in that direction anyway.”

There was a pause for a moment as Liliane worked another week out of the soil, using her hands like a spade to pull free the roots of it as well and cast it into a pile of similar unwanted plants. “For what it is worth, your secret is safe with me. I’ve no great desire to see the friends of my friend imprisoned for ‘elping ‘im. And I don’t think ‘e’d forgive me if I tried.” Another weed came free, this one with a small dirt shower, most of which managed to find the chevalier’s shirt. She frowned slightly, brows knitting together, but otherwise went on as before. “The two of you… you are not from ‘ere, no? Your trade tongue is better than mine, but I can ‘ear it a little still. Rivain or Antiva?”

Aurora watched the tension in Milly's face drain due to Lili's answered and mouthed a small thank you in her direction. Maybe it helped save her a lecture when they returned home. "Oh, Tu sei buono. You're good," Milly answered, placated by Lili's answer, and finally Aurora was allowed to speak on her own again. "Antiva, actually. Originally, I was from Bastion," She said, her words colored with a tinge of homesickness. Milly allowed Aurora's answer to clear before she provided her own, "Antiva City proper. I... Didn't get out much," She answered. Unlike Aurora, Milly's first memory was of the Circle.

"How about yourself?" Milly began, "Have you ever been to Val Royeaux?" She asked curiously.

Liliane smiled a little more noticeably at that. “Quite often. My family has land in the countryside, but like all nobles, it is best if we are present at Court at least during the season. If not, one tends to become a topic of conversation, and being talked about is usually only good when one can control what is said.” She rolled her eyes slightly, as if to indicate a habitual frustration with this sort of thing, then shrugged. “At least, when one is chevalier, one does not have to worry so much about the fashion. The uniform is always in vogue, as they say. Otherwise, I think Violette would be ‘opeless.” Liliane herself would have no such trouble, but the uniform was her preference as well, being a fundamentally practical person at heart.

“It is commonly said that an Orlesian lady’s choices are armor or a corset.” She wrinkled her nose. “I do not understand why they are not all knights, if so.” Her section of the garden appeared to be fully weeded, so she smoothed over the disturbed soil and stood, brushing residual dirt from her clothes. “It is not so bad, to see people taking the ‘arder road in life. I do not know of many roads ‘arder than yours. Should you ever find yourselves in Orlais, you ‘ave at least one friend.”

"I've always wanted to visit Val Royeaux," Milly said absent-mindedly, imagining the opulent buildings and grand architecture. "And what? Miss out on the Gallows?" Aurora added, though the joke was humorless in nature. However, she continued with something far more warm, "Maybe one day we can visit the city. Though I doubt I'll ever punish myself by slipping into a corset.." The smile on Aurora's face was good natured as she looked up to Lili, her face relaying the thanks she felt.

"But Rosy! Imagine all of the dresses. And the shoes, Rosy. The shoes," Milly said between laughter. Once she'd gotten it out of her system, she finished pulling the last weed out of the ground and then placed her hands on her knees as she looked up to Lili. "Thank you for that," She said, "But really it's not all that hard. Not when you have friends like these," She said with a wide smile.

Setting

1 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar

Earnings

0.00 INK

Contrary to what rumor might have suggested about the Chevaliers as a whole, most of them were not really bothered by settings that were largely comprised of commoners. Actually, some of them were commoners, though it took quite a lot more for such a person to advance in rank than it did for the average scion of some noble house or another. It was a common thing to do with one’s spare children, to keep them from derailing their elder siblings. Violette supposed that the promise of prestige and rank was enough to draw the non-inheritors to the profession, but few ever realized just how much a profession it was. She scarcely considered herself a Lady anymore; she was Ser, and that was the only thing she was really interested in being. Campaigns and patrols and the occasional investigation had over the years brought her to many places like this one; just as loud, just as boisterous, and the alcohol just as terrible.

Presently, she sat with her sister at the table nearest the fireplace, Liliane’s blunt stare doing an excellent job of dissuading any other comers from attempting to keep the women company. This was largely because they were waiting on someone specific rather than because they would have cared on an ordinary day. She’d sent a message up to the Keep yesterday expressing her desire to talk to the Lady Sophia in a slightly less official way, and the returning missive had indicated that this was the best time and place for that. She certainly wasn’t going to disagree—the fire was warm and the ale, while terrible, was relaxing. Even the storyteller in the other corner was damned good, thought she’d never seen a dwarf at the occupation before. There’d be a real market for that in Orlais—the nobles loved nothing more than something they’d never seen. Maybe she should tell him so.

“Not drinking?” she asked her sister, who shook her blonde head in the negative. She usually refrained—Lili was not exactly the relaxing type. It made her very good at what she did, but… “You’re almost as bad as he is, honestly.” There was a sardonic smile in the statement, but she dropped the subject, disinclined to push. Tipping her chair back a little, Vi let it rest against the wall, her tin mug set amicably on a knee. They were just about due for that company…

Sophia rarely failed to be punctual when it came to new acquaintances, and Liliane and Violette were rather important acquaintances for her. They wouldn't be staying in Kirkwall for long, no doubt, but she was perhaps just as interested in learning about them as they were for her. Kirkwall, and all of the Free Marches for that matter, really had little on the same scale that Orlais had, and while Sophia certainly didn't think of Orlais as some magical kingdom in the sky (anymore), she had become very fond of getting to know those from outside places recently, for the broadening effect they could have on her view.

She had also become comfortable among commoners some time ago, and entered the Hanged Man with an easiness quite unlike how she'd first set into place years ago, when she had in many ways been little more than a girl. She was dressed comfortably, glad to get out of the day's dress and into a less constricting white blouse, with dark leather trousers and a pair of supple boots. Her braid actually wound around the side of her head today, leaving very little to blow around in the breeze.

Not that there was any breeze in the Hanged Man, for which she was grateful, as she was certain it would be a foul wind indeed. Once she'd acquired an ale for herself and exchanged greetings with both the barkeep and Varric, both of whom had grown more accustomed to her presence of late, she took a seat with the two lady knights, taking up a relaxed posture and starting gradually on the ale. The taste was getting no better, but her tolerance for it was. "Not every day here is as exciting as the day you arrived, thank the Maker for that," she said. Nostariel was an excellent healer, of course, but it would still be best for Sophia to avoid straining herself for a few days still. "How long are you staying in the city?"

“Not long,” Violette replied, the words coming out in a good-natured grumble. Her sister rolled her eyes slightly and relaxed her posture minutely, filling in the explanation a little. “We came bearing a message too important to trust to a letter, from Lucien’s father.” She glanced down at her own tankard, which contained what was purported to be the juice of some kind of local plant, and took a dubious sip, finding it bitter but not wholly unpleasant.

Violette sighed and nodded slightly, her demeanor brightening a little as a half-smile spread over the almost-masculine contours of her face. “A little intrigue and danger is just how we like it, Sophia. Feels almost like home.” The smile blossomed into a grin, and she shook her head faintly, swishing the plumelike tail that kept her bright red hair out of her face. “But perhaps today, the adventure should be in learning something, rather than killing something.” A lift of her shoulders, and she raised her tankard to her lips, knocking back the rest of what was there and motioning for another.

“They talk about you, at Court,” she said, her tone a smidge too neutral to be naturally that way. She quirked a brow at the Viscount’s daughter, amusement playing at the corners of her eyes. “Tales of a woman valiant enough to match any knight, with the grace to balance battle and rule on the edge of her fingertips, cloaked in honor and armored in faith. You’re very popular.” There was almost a little good-natured laughter in the last phrase, spoken as it was into the tin of her fresh tankard. “I’ve told no few of the stories myself, though we let the Bards handle most of it. They put it to song, after all.”

Sophia couldn't help but redden a little at the description of the stories about her, though she wasn't particularly sure why. She knew that her reputation among many, in the city as well as beyond, was for the most part phenomenal, but she'd really never taken the time to think on it all that much. She was typically too busy, she supposed, to give much thought to what court members in other countries thought of her, and maybe that was the reason she was spoken of so fondly. So often the politics got in the way of a leader doing what was best for her people, but Sophia found for the most part that being the Viscount's daughter allowed her to get around much of that. While her father handled the tasks better suited to an experienced politician, she could strike more focusedly at what she saw to be the true problems. She hoped that would not change when all of the burdens of leadership fell on her shoulders.

"Singers have a knack for glamorization, don't they?" she said, smiling. "I'm sure there are some who would rather characterize my courage as stupidity, and at times I'm inclined to agree with them. I would also say that my skills as a true ruler are untested as of yet. My father does still sit the throne, after all. I'm actually impressed I have a reputation in Orlais at all. Kirkwall's not exactly a major player on the world stage." Orlais was perhaps the most major player right now, and Kirkwall's power next to it was paltry. The city had no formal army, and the Templars served as the primary defense in case of an attack. It was not a particularly wealthy city either. Perhaps it was the relatively close location that allowed word of her deeds to drift to Val Royeaux.

Or perhaps... she allowed herself to think for a moment that she really was making enough of an impression to catch the eyes of foreign leaders even before assuming her rule, which she would not do for years yet. The thought warmed her slightly, that others would look on her dedication so kindly. Some of the nobles in Kirkwall certainly didn't, given the way she refused to pander to them as many previous rulers had done.

Determined to avoid becoming absorbed in self-centered thoughts, Sophia shook it from her mind. "You said you bear a message, though? From Lucien's father?" She felt a small nervous flutter in her stomach, wondering if this would be some kind of further complication.

“It helps, perhaps, to have friends in the right places,” Violette replied slyly, dodging the second question for the moment. “But your friend was insistent that we keep the truth as unembellished as possible. The right reputation is how the minor players become the major ones.” She shrugged, then amended a bit. “Well, insofar as they can, anyway. But don’t sell it short—Orlesians love a good story. Tragedies most, romances second, but good old-fashioned heroes’ tales are a close third.” Her smile dimmed a bit, but for all that it seemed somewhat more at home on her face. She tilted her head a little sideways, as though trying to decide something, then shot a glance at her sister. There seemed to be a bit of silent communication for a moment, but in the end, it was the younger of the two that took up the speaking from there.

“There has been a… development, back ‘ome.” She paused a moment, her lips pursing together. “You are as 'e described you, but ‘ow much has 'e told you? About the way 'e left?” She didn’t want to inadvertently say something she shouldn’t, but if Sophia was already in this particular loop, she at least saw no need to conceal the development from her, now that they’d delivered the message to its intended recipient.

Now the flutter twisted into an uncomfortable knot for Sophia, at the way the smile darkened, and the word development. She often found that careful language was meant to soften a painful blow. "We've discussed it several times," she said. "I didn't wish to pry at first, but we've come to know each other quite well. I do not believe there is anything Lucien has not told me." She had a great deal of difficulty even imagining Lucien keeping anything important from her, about as much as imagining him committing murder. If he were to hide something from her, she also knew with certainty that it would be to protect her.

The sisters seemed to accept this. “It’s good news,” Violette offered, “but nothing too definitive yet. Lord Drakon wanted Lucien to know that his situation with respect to the crimes of which he was accused is improving. His accuser’s house is falling out of favor, and with the Empress getting older and still unmarried, many are beginning to suspect they would prefer the predictable ruler a Drakon would make to the less… obvious kind.” Considering what the other options were shaping up to be, she could understand it even from their position. Frankly, they were all just lucky Lord High General Guy had no claim on the thing, because if he did, they’d all be ousted before they knew what was going on. It would be utter turmoil, and not that wise, but he’d run the aristocracy like he ran the Chevaliers. And nobody in the aristocracy wanted that.

“’E thinks that Lucien’s case would be better served if ‘e returned for another ‘earing,” Liliane added somberly. As ever, it was hard to get a read on her thoughts about that, but Violette was much more open about her reaction, though not necessarily the cause for it. She gave an irritated sigh. “More damn bureaucracy. The first trial was a sham—it’s not as though the second would be guaranteed to be any better, and the courtesy of a return visit would not be extended to Ser Rilien.” He, after all, had no status to hide behind and a death sentence on his head. Without the primary witness in his favor, there was still no telling what Lucien’s chances were. Still… it was a chance for him to come home, and in time, perhaps things would blow over on their own, without the unnecessary fanfare.

Good news was certainly subjective, and while it definitely wasn't bad news, Sophia found that she didn't enjoy hearing it much, all the same. It was most definitely good news that Lucien's situation in Orlais was improving, in regards to the crimes he'd been accused of. She wanted him to be able to return home freely when he wished, to not be stained like that in the eyes of people who did not know the true extent of his virtue. All the same... she'd previously thought the throne of Orlais was beyond him, an outside claim that had been pushed aside. She knew he wouldn't want such a thing, but he was the type of man who would do whatever was necessary of him to help, and if that meant becoming a ruler...

How selfish was she, to want Lucien to never be able to take the throne of Orlais? She could not think of a better man to lead, but that was precisely the problem. She could not avoid her inheritence of the throne in Kirkwall, except through death. And for a good deal of time now, she had envisioned that someday, Lucien would be beside her. There were so many complications to step around already, with only one of them holding a position of real authority. If Lucien became a true candidate for the throne, she didn't see how they could possibly...

"That is good news," she said, trying her best to look relieved, though she was one of the poorer liars in the city. "I..." she hesitated for a moment, unsure of what else to say. "Perhaps Lucien can clear his name for a second time, then. This one wasn't so difficult, after all." She was reminded once more of why she hated the position she was brought into by fate, as much as she valued it.

“Per’aps,” Liliane conceded, though the sharp-eyed look she was giving the Viscount’s daughter suggested that she was not oblivious to the slight duplicity in the sentiment she was expressing. Violette glanced from one to the other, catching on a little more slowly, though seeming rather unsurprised when she did. “Yeah, maybe. He doesn’t seem to inclined to find out at the moment, though.” She chose not to elaborate. Perhaps there was a conversation to be had there. If so, it was not hers to participate in.

“So then, Sophia, what made you decide to go traipsing about all over your city, righting wrongs from the ground up?” The redheaded woman smiled, volunteering the change in topic as an opportunity for them all to get more comfortable. Besides, she was curious. There weren’t many people who would do that, even if she did happen to know a lot of them personally.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon

Earnings

0.00 INK

The choice loomed large in his immediate view, and though he’d perhaps become better than he would like to be at ignoring it, there was no keeping it at bay forever, and he understood that well. He’d always been a bit of a slave to duty, in truth, but in some ways, that had made things rather simple for him. Do what was right, even—and especially—when it was difficult. Seldom had he encountered situations in which what was right was hard to discern, but that was not to say never. Still, he could not recall those decisions being as hard as this one. Stay, and remain here with what he had built with nothing but his merit, his labor, and the help of his friends, or go, and try and regain that which had been lost to him? Phrased that way, the question wasn’t easy, but the true difficulty of it was still masked.

The implications of his father’s message had been clear: if he went back, and succeeded in what he’d be attempting… he’d finally achieve what he’d come here to do. He’d have restored his honor. He’d have earned the right to pick up a sword again, and call himself a knight for truth, not whatever he played at being now. Some kind of half-chevalier mercenary, he supposed. More than that... if Guy was suggesting what Lucien thought he was suggesting, he’d probably be doing a service to Orlais. And it was hard to ignore a call like that when you’d been born and raised to heed it. For most of his life, that call had been his only mandate. He was what he could do for his homeland. Be that as a soldier, or as a nobleman. As heir, even.

Sighing, he ran a hand down his face. On the other hand… he liked being here. This may not be the lifestyle to which his history had accustomed him, but all the important parts were still there. He served a good cause, with good people, genuine friends and allies, and… she was not to be found anywhere but here. Nor many of the other people he had come to value most. He must do what was right, it was true, but right for whom? He’d never really felt like two different people before, but he did now. The person he had been, and the person he was becoming. Altered by unfortunate circumstance, yes, but perhaps not in unfortunate ways. His fingers raked back into his hair, and Lucien crossed one ankle over another on the second chair, casting a glance over at the other man in the room.

“Have you ever wanted to go back?” He asked quietly, wondering if it was the kind of thing the Tranquil had ever thought about. But of course it was. Largely bereft of emotion or not, Rilien had doubtless at least put the question to himself at some point, even if the purpose it had served to do so was purely practical.

“No,” Rilien replied immediately. He was presently working on Violette’s sword—the actual lyrium folding had been done already, and so what remained was to smooth and sharpen the re-honed edge with special tools while the blade was still somewhat hot. If he wasn’t careful in this step, the whole sword could become incredibly brittle, but the concentration required did not preclude him from talking, as the actual process of enchanting did. Currently, he was at work with a file, having concluded his use of the hammer and anvil already. His sleeves were tied back with string, the heavy material of the gloves on his hands his only protection from the heat of the cherry-red metal.

“But you are not sentenced to death in that country; nor is your exile in effect any longer. It is not illogical for you to consider what I may not.” He paused for a moment, almost as if hesitating. But that was absurd, of course—Rilien did not hesitate, because Rilien was Tranquil, and there was no logical reason for hesitation. “Besides,” he continued, his voice slightly muffled by the way he was focused on the weapon he worked on, “I do not have to consider the benefits to Orlais were I to return. This is a factor that will necessarily enter into your decision which would not affect any deliberation I made on the matter.” Being to the benefit of an entire country was the stuff of princes and kings, not elves and bards. This was simply the truth of the matter.

Rilien was, of course, right. He usually was, Lucien had discovered. That was perhaps why he’d breached the subject with his friend in the first place. Then again… he also wasn’t particularly helpful, in this case. It would be a simple enough matter to ask the elf to make the hypothetical decision for him, but that really wasn’t what the knight was after. He knew, in some way, what the barest logic demanded of him. The chance that he could do some good for his slowly-destabilizing homeland was too great to pass up, regardless of the ties he might now have to Kirkwall. This was what he expected Rilien the Tranquil would say. But then… his friend was not simply a Tranquil, not anymore. He’d seen the evidence of that, down in that mountainous cavern. He’d been floored by the lengths to which his friend was willing to go for the sake of an emotion, albeit a powerful one. Perhaps the most powerful of all emotions.

But could Lucien turn from duty and logic alike for the same emotion? “How much is it worth?” he asked. “What I might be able to do there?” That at least was not a question he expected his friend to have an answer to. He shook his head slightly, a frown etched into his features, and rubbed absently at the side of his jaw, where his stubble was coming back in again. He hadn’t quite committed to the wearing of a short beard as a full-time practice, but he did let it grow from time to time. Sighing though his nose, the chevalier tipped his head back to look at the ceiling of his friend’s shop. Immaculately clean, of course. Somehow, the idea of Rilien washing his ceiling struck him as amusing, and the frown became a rueful smile and a soft snort.

He sobered immediately afterwards though, and turned his head sideways to observe the enchanter at work. “Did you ever tell her? About what happened down there?”

The methodical motions of Rilien’s craft paused, for just a moment longer than they rightly should have, before they resumed, and he dunked the blade in a vat of water to his side. The hissing of steam filled the silence left by the absence of an answer to the query, and Rilien used the moment to decide what he wanted to say. This was an immensely-complex matter, as he saw it, but one for which the solution had been relatively simple: the less Sparrow knew, the better. Fanning away the worst of the steam, he met Lucien’s inquiring gaze steadily. “I did not. There was no use in it. She knows we slew a Fade-beast, and that is all that matters.” The rest did not have consequence. Could not have consequence.

Lucien’s fingers laced together, and he rested them on the upper part of his abdomen, returning his eye to the roof. “The rest of it matters, Ril. It has to. Maybe not to you, anymore, but to me. Surely to her, if she knew.” Surely it did; because otherwise what Rilien had done made no sense, not logically, not emotionally, not by any metric Lucien could come up with. It was as if the act had been random. But it wasn’t—it was chosen. Just like he had to choose something, here and now. Or at least quite soon. “I think it must matter to you, still, or you wouldn’t be keeping it from her.” Why hide it if it didn’t matter?

Rilien’s hand curled around the hilt of the sword, but he did not lift it from where it rested on the counter. In fact, he simply stared at it, for quite a few minutes, and the silence swallowed them both. That… he had not thought of it that way. He wondered how such a simple consideration had managed to escape him. “It doesn’t,” he repeated, slowly, still in his monotone, but sounding somehow less flat than usual. “But what it might do to her does. She already thinks more of me than I am, Ser Lucien. I’ve no wish to chain her with a misplaced sense of obligation.” She might well begin to believe that she owed him something, if she knew, and he refused to allow that.

A misplaced sense of obligation. Lucien turned the phrase over in his mind, shaking his head faintly. He’d been accused of having such things more than once himself. Frankly, he’d never seen the harm in it. Feeling obligated wasn’t the prison some people took it to be. It just meant there were things in the world that you cared about, things you would kill and die for. He’d never seen that as a weakness, not when he identified it so readily as his strength. “Would it be so bad?” he asked thoughtfully. “There’s nothing wrong with having something in life to hold onto, is there?” Perhaps, in situations like his, the problem was that he tried to hold onto too many things, but he’d prefer this over feeling entirely untethered. If only there were a way that he could satisfy all of his obligations…

But then, why couldn’t he? He’d never stopped being a knight, of a kind, simply because he’d left the nation he was knighted in. He’d never stopped considering his father his father and his mother his mother. He’d never decided he wasn’t Orlesian. He’d changed, but not so much as to lose what he really thought himself to be, when all the trappings were trimmed away to what lay underneath. Perhaps… perhaps there was a way to balance everything that was needed from him with everything he required now of himself.

“I suppose,” Rilien said flatly, “that it depends upon which end is doing the holding.”

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon

Earnings

0.00 INK

It was only belatedly that he recalled Aurora had a houseguest. He'd met her only once, and in rather hurried circumstances at that, but he hoped she would not mind the intrusion overmuch. The conversation of several years ago now was playing back in his memory with startling clarity, and he thought perhaps he owed the young mage a visit—this time, bearing gifts. Well, a gift, in the singular, but it was one he thought might be appreciated. Tucking it under his arm, he wound his way back through the slightly-dingier side of Lowtown, until he reached the façade he recognized. There was something about it that seemed a little sturdier than the surrounding hovels, and somehow, he got the impression that it might be a little harder to break into this one than the others on the street. Not that he had much experience breaking and entering—that was assuredly more Rilien’s area of expertise than his own.

Raising an arm, he knocked a few times on the wooden door. Then, because he figured it was the polite thing to do when the mailed fist on your friend’s door could always be something much less pleasant than you over for a visit, he called out. “Aurora? It’s Lucien. Are you in?”

There was a moment of silence before the shuffle of feet echoed from within. The door knob twisted and the door cracked open enough to reveal-- not Aurora, but Milly answering the door. "Lucien?" Milly asked rhetorically. She knew of the man, and what little she did know other than what their initial cursory meeting revealed, Aurora had told her. Even so, Lucien was not a man easily forgotten, a tall man encased in a aegis of armor. All of the armor he wore was a shock and had cause for her to stumble over her words. "Uh, A-Aurora's out for the moment," She replied, unable to not see the shapes of templars in his shadow.

Still, she was not ungracious, and it was Aurora's friend. "But!" She caught herself rather forcefully, "She should be back at any moment. If you wish, you can come inside and wait for her," she added and opened the door wider for him to enter-- though she believed it would never open wide enough for him to enter comfortably. The interior of Aurora's home had undergone a metamorphosis since the last time Lucien had been inside, solely due to the elven mage that now took up residence. The two roomed hovel now sported a layer of fresh eggshell white paint, the floors immaculately swept, and even the placement of furniture seemed to be better.

Milly left the entry room for a moment, slipping into the back room and returning with a pair of chairs, setting both in the middle of the floor. "Please," she offered, taking a seat on the nearby bed. In the other room, the edge of a cot was visible past the threshold.

He wasn’t exactly sure what about him made her uncomfortable, but in his experience, it was usually either his size or his armor, possibly both. So as he took the proffered seat, he smiled. There wasn’t much of anything he could do about his height except sit down, and the armor was a force of habit. So he made himself as disarming as he could; he had no wish to cause unnecessary anxiety. “Your home is looking very cheerful,” he told her truthfully, without the faintest hint of condescension. “Alas, the same cannot be said for my own.” Remembering the parcel under his arm, he removed it and set it upon a nearby end table.

“Remembering a conversation Aurora and I had quite some years ago, I managed to track down an Antivan vintage this time. I thought perhaps a little taste of home would not go awry—though I apologize for not knowing whether you imbibe, Milian.” He at least removed his gauntlets, considering they would be of little help in the handling of glasses, if indeed Aurora found herself wanting to uncork the thing upon her arrival. These, he set carefully over his knee, then turned back to his current hostess. “May I ask how you are finding Kirkwall? It is not always the easiest place to live in, perhaps especially for those who face your challenges. Still, I imagine it’s nice to have a friend to help.”

"The change is... different I'll admit, but not unwelcome. It's nice to know there's something on the outside," Milly answered. Taking a curious glance at the parcel Lucien was carrying, she couldn't help but chuckle at. "If I didn't, then I would've dehydrated a long time ago. Io sono Antivan," She said, slipping into a bit of her Antivan tongue. Though the wine the Circle always served was a dulled diluted type, there were moments were some of the Senior enchanters brought a few real bottles that they shared with the best pupils. Still, the gift was for Aurora and she was not so rude as to expect the package to be opened for her sake alone.

Turning back to the earlier conversation, she thought about the city she found herself calling home. "Kirkwall is... It's no fairy tale, and it wasn't like the stories Rosy told me of the outside world, but then again, I didn't expect it to be. I'm just happy there's a roof over my head and Templars not watching my every move," She said, biting her lip as she spoke. "Though I couldn't help but have hoped her home would have been a smidge bigger," She said with a smile, holding her thumb and forefinger an inch apart.

"How about you Lucien? Was Kirkwall as you expected?"

Lucien’s smile grew a little wider, and he chuckled softly, shrugging a shoulder in a helpless gesture. Even his own home was not very spacious, but he was so rarely in it that it never really bothered him. He wasn’t too sure whether he’d be keeping it or simply moving into the barracks and allowing his own present houseguests to keep it. It was more theirs than his by now, anyway. His reply, he gave some thought to, and when he did speak, it was clear that he’d contemplated similar questions at length. “Yes, and no,” he admitted thoughtfully, reclining back slightly in the chair and crossing one ankle over the opposite knee. “I suppose… I did not expect it to be as disparate as it is; not because I’m unused to that, but because I thought that other places were less so than where I’d come from. I also did not expect to enjoy my time here, and yet for all that, I believe I have.”

His thoughts on Kirkwall as a place were rather complicated, but he supposed in the end, he still wasn’t quite settled on the question, and perhaps that explained it somewhat. “There are good people here, and assuredly less-good ones as well. I am fortunate to spend much more of my time with the former than the latter. I think, in the end, that matters more than where I find myself on a map, though… I will admit to some homesickness, from time to time.”

"You aren't the only one," A voice replied as its owner entered through the door. Aurora shut the door behind her with one hand as the other held a loaf of bread and a few fruits. "I find myself thinking about Bastion in quiet moments," She continued. If she seemed surprised to see Lucien, she didn't show it, but perhaps surprised was the wrong word. She was pleased she entered her home and found Lucien taking up most of their floor space. She moved past him, placing a hand on his armored shoulder as she went and spoke as she entered the other room to put the groceries down. "Do you ever peel that armor off?" Because at that point, she was certain that if the armor was to be removed, then a peeling sound it would make. "Anyone who'd come after you at this point is just stupid."

“And yet they come still,” he replied with a close-lipped smile.

Returning to the entry room, Aurora took the second chair and sat. "So what brings you to our humble abode?" Aurora asked, having missed the answer to Milly's question and curious as to what brought him their way.

“Nostalgia, mostly,” he admitted ruefully, but then gestured to the bottle on the end table. “And perhaps also the desire to share it with someone who seems to understand. I was of a mind to ask you a question, Aurora; I was hoping your answer might illuminate mine a little.” It was rare that he sought other people for advice anymore—somehow, he usually found himself giving it. This, he attributed simply to having a relatively large amount of life experience packed into the years he’d lived. But as he was presently without his own answer, he thought perhaps hers might be helpful to him. Rilien was very good at thinking logically and removed from emotional consideration, but that simply wasn’t the way Lucien needed to make this choice. His emotions, such as they were, would figure into it importantly.

“If you could go back, without having to worry about Templars or Circles or any of it… would you?”

Now that surprised her. Aurora's eyes grew for a moment before she turned to Milly, who simply shrugged and gave her a he asked you look. Aurora interlocked her fingers and placed her elbows on her knees, resting her chin on her knuckles as she turned pensive. It was a question she asked herself many times. Amalia and her teachings had instilled in her logic, practical thinking, and gave her the tools to form her own philosphy, but home was home and that was no illusion. It was an answer based in emotion, and she had learned to compartmentalize that. She allowed it to show when there was no harm in it, but kept it tied down when it would prove an issue.

"The logical answer would be yes, but I feel like you're not searching for logic," She said. If he had wanted a logical answer, then he had many more friends who could answer with that. She left it at that for the time being searching her own feelings for her own answer. "You know," She began, "Back before this," she said, raising her calloused hands, "Before I know how to fight, how to stay in control of myself, there was a word-- a name I used to tell myself to find my center." her back straightened as she leaned back against the chair and crossed her arms. "Rosaline," She said. The only person who knew of that was Amalia, yet she didn't find a reason to keep it secret among friends.

"She was my mother, I was named after her and I was fortunate enough to favor her as I grew. Rosaline and Rosabella. The last time I saw my mother she broke down sobbing as I was dragged away by a team of Templars," She spoke about it in a matter-of-factly way, but it was clear by the emotions playing across her face that it was anything but. "But would I go back if I had nothing to worry about?" She repeated for herself, mulling it over again.

It was a time before she found her answer, and perhaps it wasn't the one she was expecting, but it was one she felt right. "I don't think I would," She answered, much to Milly's surprise. "I mean, I'd like to visit at least. I don't want the last memory of my family be one in tears, I want it to be all their smiles. But would I go back to stay? No, no I don't think I would. I've found a place here. I have friends, I have a home, and most importantly I feel that I have a purpose. I've changed in my time here, and I feel that I have a great many things to change yet."

He supposed, in the end, that he’d rather expected her to say something like that. Perhaps it was why he’d asked her the question, and not someone else. Sitting as far back as his chair would allow, Lucien propped his elbows on the wooden arms of the thing and steepled his fingers beneath his chin, giving the answer the consideration it deserved. It made a fair amount of good sense, really—and it echoed some things he’d been thinking himself. But there was still a very big difference, and that was the position he’d be returning to if he did return. He supposed it came down to a simple-enough question, then: was the potential good he could do if he took up his old peerage and titles outweighed by everything in this life of his that he valued, and the good he could do here? It was hard to say what a friendship was against a political reform, or rather a potential reform years down the line, because they were just very dissimilar things, completely different in kind and almost incommensurable.

He didn’t know if there was really a wrong choice, but he began to suspect that there might be a right one. The corner of his mouth slanted upwards, and he nodded slightly. “Thank you, Aurora. That was… helpful.” He relaxed a bit. “Now, perhaps the two of you would consent to uncork this bottle and regale me with tales of Antiva? I think it a fortuitous day for sharing such things, perhaps.”

A smile found it's way to Aurora's lip as she flicked her wrist and extended the blade hidden in her bracer. "Hand me the bottle and I'll pop it," She answered as Milly rose from her own seat. "And I'll fetch a few glasses," She explained as she skipped into the other room.

Setting

1 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon

Earnings

0.00 INK

It was with the certainty of a man decided that he tread up the steps of the Viscount’s Keep. The path was a rather long one—he wondered if it had originally been made so from a desire to provide a little time for the ascender to think, to plan, to reconsider. More likely, the idea had been to leave a grand impression, and throw the less-health-conscious nobles for a bit of a loop when they at last arrived a bit out of breath. Perhaps he was thinking too much like an Orlesian again. There was a chance it had no real purpose at all other than getting a visitor from the bottom to the top, but nevertheless, he used it to collect his thoughts. It was not every day one was invited to see the Viscount about one’s charter.

It was also not every day that one came with a request in mind quite like his, but he was choosing not to think overmuch about that right now. Some things could make even Lucien nervous, and when they did, they made him acutely nervous at that.

He waited patiently in line until such time as the Seneschal informed him that the Viscount was able to see him, at which point he filed politely into the office, crossing an arm diagonally over his chest and bowing in the court fashion before straightening back to his full height and smiling slightly. “Your Excellency,” he greeted. Though perhaps he was allowed a little less formality than that, he was here on business, after all. “How are you keeping?”

The two men did not often meet, and their last major meeting had been one that had resulted in a somewhat embarrassing situation for the Viscount at a very public event. Even still, Marlowe Dumar seemed happy to see the man, and he set his quill aside in an inkpot, smiling slightly. "Fairly well, all things considered," he answered. "It has actually been a rather quiet week. No Lowtown explosions, no large scale Coterie incursions, just the good old complaints from noble houses left and right, and the ever bickering Meredith and Orsino." The lack of the Coterie operation was undoubtedly due to the recent disruption in their ranks. "It gives a man some time to rest, and collect his thoughts."

Despite his words, his desk was littered with missives and requests, incoming letters and as yet unfinished outgoing ones. The Viscount wore heavy bags under his eyes, his features steadily being overtaken by age and stress. He looked older than his nearly sixty years. Still, he looked to be in relatively good spirits regardless. "I'm happy to see that your recent predicament has been sorted out. Quite unsurprised to learn of your innocence, I might add." He was of course no stranger to the types of games nobility might try to play on one another to discredit a name or further a political goal.

He waved a hand dismissively, certain Lucien would not want to linger on the subject. "To business, then. Your fledgling company has been progressing well, as I understand."

The half-smile Lucien had worn at the Viscount’s dry humor faded slightly as the conversation turned to business matters, and he inclined his head slightly in reply. The signs of strain were there to see—perhaps his news would be a very small aid to dealing with it. Though admittedly what he did now was more suited to the explosions and the large-scale incursions than the politics of it. In another time, perhaps, but not now. “It does,” he said, something caught between relief and resolve in his tone. “The barracks and outbuildings are finished, the first round of hires made, and most everything ready for training to begin.” He’d chosen people with talent, of course, but more than anything, he’d been looking for the ones with the right moral fiber, and so there was naturally some catching up he needed to do with them so that they’d be ready to take on the kind of assignments they were likely to garner in this particular city.

“I am, in fact, presently only in need of a charter before we can begin in earnest—I’ve brought the application and supporting documentation with me.” He produced a folded sheaf of parchments, mostly standard forms filled in with elegant, if spare, handwriting, as well as a few letters from members of the citizenry supporting the application, a few written, and a few dictated, in the event that the recommenders were unable to write. Such things were not precisely required, but the Seneschal had informed him that they certainly couldn’t hurt, and so he’d imposed upon a few acquaintances and friends for the missives.

“Of course, I’d understand if it needs to wait a while longer yet for your consideration. I just thought it best to present it in person.” Also something not required, but recommended. Though he didn’t necessarily think his seriousness would be doubted here, considering the work he’d put into it, he very much wanted everything about this to be as aboveboard as it could possibly be—and he wouldn’t deny that he hoped that some of his work would come out of the Keep itself, and it couldn’t hurt to make that known this way.

"At this point," the Viscount said, looking over the forms, "waiting is not my idea of time well spent. If you believe you are ready to begin, then by all means, you have my permission to begin. This city has sore need of someone with the skill and experience of a Chevalier, as you have already proven many times over." They would be a step up from the other mercenary companies in the city as well, that was for sure. A group of able bodied individuals willing to serve the common good would go a long way to relieving some of the stress piled onto the city guard's shoulders.

He pulled the quill from the inkpot once more, signing where necessary to give Lucien official permission to begin his work. "Should you require anything from the Keep to get started, you need only ask. Kirkwall needs more like you and those you'll hire, and I'd have it seen that men and women of that caliber are rewarded, not left to flounder."

Lucien half-smiled, entirely unable to argue with logic like that. In truth, he’d rather be started as soon as possible as well. He’d been working to set this up for what seemed a very long time now, almost a year from the initial idea, perhaps. To see it begin to bear fruit would be quite something, he thought. “I’ve already taken care of basic armament, but I may have to send a few up to the Keep to have their armor properly adjusted for fit. There’s a pair of farmer’s boys with their uncle’s old gear—I’d like them to be able to keep it if it means something to them, but it really does need some work.”

He took the paperwork back, then, and tucked it beneath his elbow, only to pause as if in slight hesitation. The nervousness came back to him full-force just then, and he found his mouth unusually dry, and swallowing somewhat difficult. Still, he was no coward, and went ahead as far as he was able. “Your Excellency, if you have a moment more, there is… an unrelated request I would make.”

The look on the Viscount's face was just slightly amused, as though he already had a good idea of what Lucien was about to ask. "And that is?"

Lucien sighed, resigning himself to the fact that there was just no way he was going to be able to maintain all of his dignity and make the request at the same time. If so, he was willing to give up his dignity for the moment. He wouldn’t be surprised if his intentions were easy to guess; he was not a particularly mysterious man, really, nor all that complicated, when it came right down to it. “I was, ah…” he cleared his throat a bit, conscious of the fact that he was coloring ever-so-slightly. Most people got this sort of thing over with rather early in their youths, but Lucien had never felt the need to make the request of a father before, and so this marked his first attempt at it. “I was rather hoping I might have your permission to court Sophia, should she prove amenable to the suggestion herself.”

If he were being honest with himself, and he did try to be, the necessary feelings had been present for some time, though when exactly that had developed was not a question he could answer with any precision. The problem had been and would probably always be his own difficulty in seeing himself as good enough to act upon them. Lucien was a decent-enough sort of person, and he was aware of that. But he rather felt she deserved a great one, and he was not that. Perhaps she would have him anyway.

Indeed, Viscount Dumar did not seem surprised by the request. Instead, he sighed lightly, leaning back in his chair and folding his hands in his lap. "There are perhaps a dozen noble houses in the city with sons that would have made excellent matches for Sophia, had she been amenable to them. She never has been, though, for whatever reason, and either because she is too strong a daughter, or I am too weak a father, or perhaps both, I have not been able to convince her to reconsider. She follows her heart with an iron will. I thank the Maker every day that she was blessed with a kind one." It was quite obvious that Dumar thought quite highly of Lucien as a person. It was also quite obvious that who he was as a person was not the only matter to take into consideration.

"I wish I could grant a man my blessing based on his character alone, but you know as well as I that a ruler must take other factors into account when considering his family's future. How fares your standing in Orlais? You left on rather unfortunate terms, as I understand it. Has the matter been resolved?" The last thing the Viscount wanted, of course, was to give permission for his daughter to be paired with someone who was seen as a potential threat to another Orlesian who would rule.

The question didn’t surprise him, and though his answer was not rehearsed, it was a fair amount smoother than the request proper. “If my father is to be believed, and on such matters he usually is, my standing improves. I’ve been at the very least acquitted of the charge of treason, which is the one that prompted my exile. On the matter of the assault… only time will tell for certain, but I suspect the retrial in my absence will see me absolved of that guilt also.” He paused for a moment, the continued in a more muted fashion. “My friends tell me that I’d stand a better chance of that if I were there to defend myself, but this hardly seems the appropriate time to leave Kirkwall. Perhaps, in time, I will return for a while, but… certainly not now.”

He sighed slightly, shaking his head. “I will always have enemies, Your Excellency. That is an unfortunate part of occupying the position I do. Some of these enemies will have power. But… I think that perhaps you understand that even better than I do. I cannot promise her constant safety. But anyone in a world like this who did would be lying through his teeth.” At the very least, he could promise not to do that.

Viscount Dumar was quite plainly glad to hear it. "It will be enough, then. And if anyone can ward off dangers that might arise, it would certainly be you two." He took a deep breath, then nodded. "You have my blessing, then. Some part of me has always wanted Sophia to choose her husband, not me, and I do believe she settled on you long before I ever did. She never looked at the prospect of courtship with much anticipation, even as a younger girl, not until you came along. Ever since I saw you with her at her birthday I knew. She's never been like that, you know, so absorbed by someone." He smiled, mostly to himself, remembering.

Then he stood, coming around the side of the desk to come within arm's reach of Lucien. "She has the highest of standards, I think, but I'm quite confident she believes you exceed them. I happen to wholly agree." He extended his hand to the chevalier, smiling warmly.

Lucien took it, seeming to relax considerably. “I thank you for that. It is no small reassurance to be held in the esteem of good people.”

Setting

6 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

Where was she? Aurora had searched Kirkwall up and down, visiting the markets, walking along Hightown, and even dipping into the less savory parts of the city, but Milly was nowhere to be found. At first it was nothing that Aurora worried about, but as time elapsed Aurora grew more and more anxious until she couldn't wait any longer. She'd scrubbed Kirkwall clean searching for her, and making a number of trips back to her home just in case she'd returned while Aurora was out-- but always she ended up disappointed and just that much more worried. Aurora stood at the mouth of Hightown, leading into Lowtown for the second time that she realized that no matter how many times she searched the streets, she wasn't just going to happen upon Milly.

It wasn't an easy revelation, and it planted a seed of fear into her mind. What happened to her? Was she okay? Where was she; all questions that ran through her mind. It took a forcible effort on her part to calm down and methodically run through her options. Holding her mouth tightly she leaned against the nearby building and began to think logically. Milly was either somewhere hidden within Kirkwall or somewhere along its perimeter-- there hadn't been enough time for her to get too far away. Wherever she was however, she was hidden from Aurora's sight. Kirkwall was a large city, with many nooks and crannies that a girl like her could slip through.

Aurora couldn't do this by herself, she realized. She would need help. The idea that she was simply overreacting graced her thoughts. Even if she was wrong and Milly was safe, Aurora didn't want to chance it on the bare possibilty that something might have happened. She could apologize for overreacting. It was decided then, she'd enlist help on finding Milly, and the closest person who would was Lucien. Shoving herself off of the wall she took a turn and made a beeline for the familiar housefront.

A series of sharp raps echoed in her ears, and the moments spent waiting for Lucien to answer his door felt like an eternity each as her hands nervously wrung each other in nonstop movement.

The person who answered the door was not, in fact, Lucien, but a middle-aged elven woman with dark chestnut hair. A fair bit shorter than their guest, she blinked up at Aurora with honey-colored eyes and smiled pleasantly. “You’d be here for Lucien, then,” she guessed, and opened the door a little wider to admit the redheaded mage. Inside, the usual chairs had been pushed to the side of the room, to make space for what looked to be the assembling of a fishing line of some variety, if the smooth pole and gut-line were anything to go by. A teenaged boy sat with the pole balanced over knobby knees, pushing stray auburn hairs back out of his face. His sister, a girl of perhaps ten years with the same burnished hue to her long braids, glanced up briefly, but the boy was too absorbed in what he was doing.

Lucien poked his head out from the back room, then, the smile he’d started to form faltering at the look on his friend’s face. “Aurora?” he asked cautiously. “What’s wrong?”

Her hands were clasped and pressed against her lips, looking like it was taking physical action to keep her worry at bay. Aurora was putting forth a valiant effort to keep calm, and instead of bursting at the seams once Lucien asked the question she took a deep breath and chose her words carefully. A moment passed as she collected her thoughts and peeled her hands apart in order to speak without obstruction. "It's Milly," She began evenly, though the obvious worry played out clearly in her body language, "She's missing."

"I've searched the city top to bottom but I couldn't find a trace of her," She said. Her fingertips began to unconsciously drum against each other, an outlit for the anxiety. "I'm not sure what else to do Lucien. I need help," She said plainly, fearing the time wasted dancing around the question would put Milly that much more out of her reach.

Lucien grimaced sympathetically. That was not good news in the slightest, and he sighed through his nose, trying to consider all the angles they could really do anything about. “I think… that we may wish to consult Sophia. She would at least be able to make an inquiry into whether or not the Templars took her to the Gallows, discreetly and without risk of raising any red flags.” If Aurora were to inquire, it might be a little suspicious, and he didn’t have any authority to wield if someone refused to give answer. One might wonder why he was putting his nose where it didn’t seem to belong, and that might in turn bring suspicion upon his friends. But the Viscount’s office? They could simply be making a routine check regarding the status of apostates in the city. It was something to ask Sophia about, anyway. Perhaps it worked differently here.

“Not that I want to assume that’s what happened,” he amended kindly, “but it would make a good start to a search without any other leads. Perhaps… you should seek out Amalia as well? She would know if Milly happened by the Alienage recently, which she might have done if she thought she needed to hide from someone.” It wasn’t much, but at the very least it was something to start with. “I can make the visit to the Keep if you want to take care of the other one.” She was a much more common—and probably welcome—sight in the Alienage than he was, anyway.

“In the meantime, Desne,” he said, addressing the other woman in the room, who was discreetly making herself as scarce as one could in such a small house, “If a young elven lady comes by the house, please let her in and tell her it won’t be long before I return, if you would be so kind.” The woman nodded, glancing between the two before she went back to what she was doing.

"It's... A start," She said hesitantly. It was always a possibility that the Templars were involved, and something she never outright dismissed, but something she didn't wish to acknowledge either. If they were involved, then it wouldn't a simple task to retrieve her from their hands. It only meant that they needed to work faster. If they dallied too long, then Milly would be locked away in the Gallows before they had time to save her, and escaping from a Circle was difficult enough the first time.

"Let's hurry," She said, turning and heading for the door.

As it happened, the door was opened from the inside to reveal Rilien, his hand raised to knock. Blinking slowly, he lowered the arm he had been about to use and folded it into his sleeves with the other. He glanced back and forth between Ser Lucien and Aurora, but perhaps surprisingly, it was to the second that he spoke. The expression she wore was decipherable enough, and so he didn’t waste the breath asking if she was aware that her friend was missing. Instead, all he said was: "I know where she is. You will want allies.” It would be best to explain more fully only when they had sufficient people to retrieve her, as he rather favored not repeating himself multiple times.

A breath hung up in her her throat as surprise at finding Rilien in the door way melted into the surprise that he knew where she was. Turning back to Lucien, a new look of determination filled her eyes. If Rilien felt she would need allies, then she would find allies. "You get Sophia, I'll find Amalia. We'll meet at the clinic and go from there," She said, slipping past Rilien and heading toward the Alienage.




Nostariel had been rather surprised when Rilien arrived, unannounced and unaccompanied, at the clinic. He was also apparently uninjured, and unencumbered, which meant that she had not simply forgotten that she was due for a delivery if potions today. Fortunately, he was as direct as ever, and the situation had soon been made clear to her. Finishing with her last patient, she’d put away all of her supplies and drawn a few things down from the shelves that she thought might be helpful, placing these into a neat stack on the table at the front of the room.

Aurora and Amalia were the first to arrive after that, as they had considerably less far to travel and fewer public obligations to get away from, she supposed. The Warden didn’t say much, but she did offer the other mage a hug upon seeing the obvious anxiety she was exuding. It was very understandable—she couldn’t imagine what she’d be doing if her best friend had mysteriously disappeared in a city like this, and that Milly was a mage only made things worse. The only thing she’d had to offer was that the girl had finished her last shift at the clinic as usual, and nothing odd had been going on all day. It wasn’t much, but apparently Rilien knew more.

When Lucien and Sophia showed up, then, she made sure there were enough chairs for those who wished to sit and herself took up a stool behind her counter, her attention moving to the Tranquil as he began to speak. "She was taken by Templars, but not to the Circle,” he said without preamble. "They were not dressed in the official regalia, either, which was unusual for what should have been a routine part of their business. I followed.” What exactly had made him do that, he couldn’t say, save perhaps that he was a suspicious person, and that even for someone like him, it was impossible to not have some stake in such matters as these. He lived with a mage, after all. One rather likely to accidentally use magic in front of the wrong people, as she’d already proven on more than one occasion.

"They are being held on the Wounded Coast, inside some kind of cave or tunnel. There was more than one mage in it, and more than one Templar. How many, I could not say for certain.” But the amount of magic he’d sensed in the place had definitely not been the work of Milly alone, especially considering she’d been subdued by Templar arts when she realized she was being taken outside of Kirkwall rather than to the Gallows.

There was a certain tenseness in Sophia's body language, something that had been growing ever since Lucien had come to fetch her from the Keep. It had been fortunate timing; an hour earlier and Sophia would not have been able to leave, forced to continue seeing to her court duties, but he'd managed to catch her just as she left the throne room for her private quarters. She'd actually been in quite the good mood previously, as her father had seemed much brighter than usual for some reason. Saemus was still his usual sulking self, but Sophia was certain there was little she could do about that. He needed space, was all.

But now this business with Templars and apostates was rearing its ugly head, and Sophia was beginning to naturally question her lack of action. Aurora she felt more certain about, as she had perhaps the best tutor in the city, if it was a cool head she was seeking, but her friend Milly... did she have the same guidance? She spent time with Nostariel, which certainly couldn't hurt, but compared to Aurora, she lacked experience in maintaining a low profile, fresh from the Circle as she was. Perhaps she would be better off with the Circle mages... Sophia thought this, but dared not suggest it, with Aurora as distraught as Sophia could remember her since Ketojan.

"It certainly doesn't sound right," Sophia said, leaning against the armrest of the chair Nostariel had brought for her. "It's possible some Templars or civilians have tried to take matters into their own hands, as they did with the Qunari delegates. There would be no need for secrecy otherwise. Milly is an apostate, after all." Still, it was awful timing. Compared to the Qunari, the mages weren't causing so much as a whisper of trouble lately. Weren't there enough problems already?

"I'm willing to investigate this with you," she said to Aurora, "but if this turns out to be something officially sanctioned, I'm afraid I won't be able to help." That she knew of multiple apostates within the city and had not reported them to the Templars was bad enough. If she took up arms against them, she and her family would likely go the way of Viscount Threnhold. "It doesn't sound like that's the case, however."

Sometimes, Lucien really disliked that he seemed to be inherently suspicious of circumstances like this. Then again, that natural inclination not to trust people who wielded clerical authority had last made its presence known during the Ketojan incident, and it had turned out to be rather on-point in that case. Still… he wasn’t sure what had happened, but to hear Rilien tell it, it was highly irregular. He would have to wait until he really knew what was going on before he decided anything, but on the face of it, he was moved by his friend’s distress. That Rilien had bothered to follow spoke to something odd about the situation as well—the Tranquil was very good at picking up on things that others might miss, and following them to the right conclusions, even if they happened to be rather uncomfortable ones. At the very least, Aurora had a right to know what had become of her friend, and he could do that much without even the faintest hint of reserve. What happened after would be a matter for deciding once he knew the facts.

Aurora's face was satin veil that billowed from within. Her expressions were even, but even so it was apparent she was barely holding on. It could found in the small things, the dullness in her eyes, the way she clenched her arms, the color that drained from her face as Rilien spoke. She put up a brave front, but she was shaken to her core. Why couldn't it have been her instead? Why had they have to go after Milly instead? Guilt poured into her soul. She knew it was irrational, to bear the entire fault on her shoulders. Milly had her choice, and she had made it by following Aurora into Kirkwall. Even so, it was a far off thought, hidden beneath layers of worry, anxiety, and fear.

Words were spoken to her and it was through no small effort on her part that she managed to hear them. Aurora could only manage a nod before she steeled herself. She had to be prepared for what was to come, she couldn't waver-- not when Milly's freedom was on the line. She reached deep inside and for the first time mentally repeated the name of her mother in order to draw stength from that word-- and not only that one, but Milly's name as well. She closed her eyes and inhaled, letting the cool air wash the unnecessary emotions away. It was not the time to feel, but to act.

Sliding her hand under the scarf at her neck, Aurora clutched at Ketojan's amulet and nodded, the satin veil turning to iron in front of everyone. She understood what Sophia had said, she had her choice to make, same as Aurora. However, if she had to fight Templars to ensure Milly's freedom stayed hers, she would without hesitation. She understood the risks and the consequences of that course, but to her it was the only choice. "I can't ask for anything more than that, from any of you," She said quietly. She took another breath, then looked up to Rilien and nodded.

"Where did they take her?"

Setting

5 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

[font=baskerville]The cave did not seem, externally, to be something particularly extraordinary. It was recessed into a rocky outcropping about a mile and a half from the limits of Kirkwall proper, and though there were subtle signs of occupation to be seen around it for someone who knew what they were looking for, there was nothing to set it apart from any number of bandit dens that appeared very similar. It was just one more part of the architecture of the Wounded Coast—to anyone but Rilien, that was. Whether it was gift or curse, he was still sensitive to alterations in the fade, and he could feel quite a lot of it going on below. Less, however, than there had been this morning. That could mean any number of things, and he took it that the best course of action was not to mention this to anyone else, lest they become prematurely anxious.

He gestured the group to a stop some distance from the actual cave opening, himself ducking low and moving into cover. Glancing back, he made a motion to beckon Amalia forward, as the two of them were much more suited to getting a sense of things before anyone else simply waltzed in. Sticking to shadows and wall-sides, they were able to duck into the entrance and get several yards down the initial tunnel before it became easy to tell that everyone was simply going to have to risk being seen—the activity, whatever it was, happened much deeper in the belly of the earth, and they didn’t want to leave the others behind entirely.

Emerging back into the daylight, Rilien shook his head slightly. "They are deep underground. We encountered no guards, however—I expect they have no reason to believe they’d be tracked.” He folded his arms into his sleeves and awaited the subsequent decision, though he knew well that they’d be venturing in. They had not proceeded all the way out here to be dissuaded by the depth of their quarry, after all.

"There's little use in waiting around..." She said, but the tone she used held a certain hesitance her words did not. She fidgeted in front of them, as if unsure how to phrase her next sentence, though she felt it needed to be said. "You all..." She began and stopped. It was an unfamiliar feeling, being so unsure on what to say. She wanted to say that they needn't follow her if they didn't wish, but they'd made their intentions clear as they followed her out to the coast, she would not insult them asking something that didn't need to be asked.

Shaking her head, she picked the most simple option left to her, and thanked them, "I just wanted to thank you all. I'm... Glad that you all are here." She wasn't sure she would've been able to do it alone and she was thankful for their support.

Sophia wished that she didn't have to be here, but wishing had rarely gotten her anywhere, and the fact of the matter was that this didn't feel like an organized Templar effort in the slightest. Kidnapping mages and taking them to isolated caves on the coast was much more akin to bandits, and Sophia had little trouble engaging bandits. This was surely not something that the Order had dictated.

Still, while Amalia and Rilien scouted their way in, Sophia wondered if there was any way to avoid a confrontation. If they threatened Milly's life, there probably was not, and something led Sophia to believe that they would not be the type to be reasoned with, like so many of their enemies. She'd come in only a simple chain shirt over her tunic, not the plate affair that she typically wore into battle, but Vesenia accompanied her, as always. Grimly, she nodded her support to Aurora.

“Do not thank us yet,” Amalia warned. “Our task is not done, and the results may not be what you hope for.” It brought her no joy to say it, but she was nothing if she was not honest, and she would not spare the truth for the sake of comfort. Aurora knew this, and managed still to find something worthwhile in her company, so she felt no guilt for saying it, either. But the time for words was not now, and she jerked her chin towards the mouth of the cave in a terse motion. It was perhaps best for someone with stealthier inclinations to lead, and though the strange elf had led them this far, she took point thereafter, in case of traps.

"You came when you didn't have to," Aurora replied just as tersely. Feeling that enough words had been exchanged Aurora nodded and settled herself, and slipping behind Amalia and Rilien. They descended into the cavern quietly as they could, with a measured pace, one that was quick enough to reach their destination in a timely manner without tipping anyone off that they were coming. Fortunately, their path was free from traps, it was as Rilien assumed, they didn't expect anyone to track them. Even the clanking arms and armor that Lucien and Sophia bore did nothing to rouse attention.

Before long the cavern led began to open and natural sunlight began to bleed into the wall adjacent to the opening. From where they stood they could hear the shuffle of feet, the clank of swords, and the murmurring of spoken words. Aurora looked ahead to Amalia and nodded, imploring her to go get a look at what awaited them ahead.

The Qunari was not one to waste time, and so she slunk forward as briskly as she could while retaining her silence, pressing herself close into the cave walls and finding shelter amidst the darkened shadows, the mottled black and grey of her armor suddenly making quite a lot of sense—it mirrored the variation in natural shade. It was in this fashion that she was able to make it right to the opening in question, turning her head to get a look inside.

What she saw was not particularly encouraging. The men and women standing around were mostly in plain clothing, save two in armor—perhaps the two that had originally removed Milly from the street. There were several more people, perhaps mages, lying unconscious in various states of sprawl on the ground, mostly at the far end of the cavern. She could make out Aurora’s friend among them. The Templars stood in a rough circle, all clearly deeply focused on what was happening at the center of it, if the sweat on their brows and concentration on their faces was anything to go by. She likely could have walked right in without being noticed. One stood slightly further in, and seemed to be directing whatever power the others were contributing, towards a figure on his knees at the very center.

Whatever this was, it looked highly suspect. Detaching herself from the wall, Amalia hastened back to the others, speaking in a low voice that was nevertheless audible. “They’re doing something, to one of the mages. Whatever it is, it requires a lot of focus. Millian is there, but unconscious.” Lucien’s eyes ascended his forehead, and he immediately sought the eyes of the magical authority he knew the best.

"Ril?”

He didn’t even need to have it described to him. The way the fade was being manipulated around them was evidence enough. He’d known it very intimately, that distortion. "Rite of Tranquility.” Rilien was in motion immediately thereafter, breaking into a sudden sprint and tearing one of his knives free of the sheath. He hesitated for exactly a second before he threw it, but that was long enough to remind himself that he was not here to assassinate them. While he would have had no compunctions with this, it was not, for the moment, his decision to make. There was at least one person here whom he deferred to by default, and one other whose stake in the matter was greater than his, and these facts alone guided his aim, the enchanted dagger flying true—

And thudding into the bicep of the Templar in the middle of the Rite, effectively breaking his concentration and ending the flow of their anti-magic. Whether it was soon enough for the man undergoing the ceremony, he did not know. Perhaps there would be one more like him in the world. He felt a flicker of something at the thought. Something dark, and unpleasant. All the same, he moved no more after that, not even when the attention of no fewer than seven Templars was directed right at him. The others would be here momentarily, and what happened after that was for someone else to decide.

Things were looking bad, about as bad as Sophia had come to expect, but she still hoped there was a chance for them to pull out of this without any death. Rilien had interrupted the Rite taking place before them, and thankfully Milly's turn had not yet arrived, else Aurora likely would have been lost to them. Knowing the moment needed to be seized upon before it was lost forever, Sophia came to stand in the view of the Templars, holding her hands up in the air and hoping they would not immediately resort to aggression, even despite Rilien's actions. Her sword remained across her back, a precarious place for it to be if a fight broke out, but it was loose in the sheath, at least.

"Templars!" she called out, commandingly. "Stay your blades. Why are you here? If this was not explicitly ordered by Knight-Commander Meredith, then you have no authority to be here with these mages, performing the Rite." Technically, her position as Viscount's daughter and heir commanded no authority over them, but her faith was well known, and she hoped that it might win her enough favor to hold off violence long enough for this to be resolved.

The mage within the circle, fell onto his back, but it seemed that Rilien's intervention had been timely, as he instantly began to drag himself backward and away from the men who had moments ago attempting to perform the rite. It garnered Aurora's attention for only a moment, as soon as it was clear he was alright, her attention immediately shifted to the prone form of Milly, her back turned to them. Every fiber of her being urged her to rush to her said, to pick her up and escape from the place, but between them stood a Templar. She could do nothing without it resorting to bloodshed, so she waited and hoped Sophia could talk them out of it. Still, her eyes never broke from Milly.

The armored Templar beside the one that had taken Rilien's dagger to the shoulder first checked on the downed man, helping take Rilien's dagger from his shoulder before aiding him back to his feet. With the dagger in his hand, he turned toward Sophia and her crew and began to speak. "Isn't it obvious, dear viscountess? Tranquility." He said with a crooked grin. Spinning the dagger between his fingers, he continued, "The mage population has exploded these past few years. They're getting... Unruly, hard to control. They're poisonous, they fight us more and more with every passing day."

"The solution was an easy one. With the Rite, they're submissive, but still useful. It's the best way to ensure that the mages obey us,"
That managed to catch Aurora's attention. She despised the man, the way he spoke about controlling them through tranquility. Her eyes narrowed and the hair on the nape of her neck prickled, but still she stayed her hand. She would be patient. Maybe there was still some way to escape without bloodshed, even though she believed that they deserved it.

"This is not the way to peace," Sophia tried, as patiently as she could in the face of the man's disrespect. "Your attempt to force submission will only result in more resistance, and more violence. Regardless, you have no authority to perform the Rite on these mages. I will give you one chance to release them. Do not throw this chance away." She hadn't been watching, but Amalia was undoubtedly waiting to strike somewhere, and Sophia knew the power of the group behind her. If they chose to fight, this would not end well for them, Templar training or no.

"Hah, my dear Viscountess all of that power you think you have has gone to your head. You have no authority over us, we are Templars. We do not answer to you, we answer to a higher power. The Maker is on our side, our word is that of the Maker!" And with a flash of movement, the Templar sent Rilien's blade hurtling toward Sophia's head as the others readied their weapons for the ensuing combat.

The dagger was knocked from its course, however, by another thrown to intercept it. That one belonged to Amalia, who had been watching carefully rather than speaking, reading the body language of the Templars in an attempt to discern whether or not any of them were going to attack. Fortunately, the throw was very telegraphed, her own motions considerably more efficient, and so the blades clanged against one another and flew off to the side, skidding to a halt near the unconscious mages. Amalia herself unsheathed two more and ducked under the swing of a zweihander, coming up beneath the Templar’s reach and slamming the handle of one up into his jaw, snapping his head backwards and exposing his throat. The second blade found his main artery without hesitation, and when he dropped, she moved smoothly onto the next.

Lucien had moved to Sophia’s side, guessing correctly that she was likely to take most of the immediate heat, given her attempted intercession. Angling himself slightly, he took his poleax in hand and gave it a vertical swing, a resounding clang echoing in the chamber as he was met with a Templar’s shield. He couldn’t say he was terribly fond of the situation, but they were not exactly being given a choice here, and he wasn’t about to let his friends face more danger because he would have liked to understand more about why it had come to this. The impact jarred his arms, but not so much that he failed to react to the incoming sword, and the pole of the weapon blocked the hit for the most part. With a twist, the Templar brought his shield in and up, bashing it into the Chevalier’s chestplate. Though winded, Lucien refused to step backwards, instead throwing his weight forward and pushing, disengaging the locked position they were in and forcing the Templar sideways, where he drive an elbow into the man’s nose, forcing him to his knees. The same elbow came down on the back of his head thereafter, rendering him as unconscious as any of the mages against the far cave wall.

Rilien, currently wielding only one dagger, was not in the slightest perturbed by this, and indeed might have even counted himself the slightest bit relieved that it had come to this. He had no great love of battle—having, in fact, no great love of anything—but even he would have felt somewhat unbalanced allowing this to pass with no more action from him than a disable. It was, in fact, the Templar he’d injured that came after him, which was hardly surprising. The man held only a naked longsword in one hand, perhaps usually having a shield or an off-hand weapon that couldn’t be used with his injury. In that sense, they were equally handicapped.

The sword swiped for his midsection, and all particular thought ceased for the Tranquil, giving way to simple, utilitarian calculations of probability, coupled with instinctive action and reaction. It was the easiest thing he knew, and the most difficult part was not acting on some of the things he could calculate. Such as where and how to hit so as to be nonlethal but maximally painful. It was not an action that bothered him normally, but what did cause a slight hint of perturbation was that he actively wanted to do that. To cause this person pain, in a way he would never have the chance to cause another like him to suffer. His mentality had no room for desires of such a base nature, and he quashed them, instead moving with clipped, efficient motions, blocking the incoming longsword with the dagger, then striking his boot against the floor in such a fashion as to eject a small blade from the toe, which with a little maneuvering, found the man’s side, doubling him over. Killing him was hardly any trouble after that, really.

Sophia preemptively ducked under the incoming knife, but it was impressively deflected out of the air before it could even reach her. She was disappointed that it had come to this, but she was not unprepared for it. A pair of the zealots rushed her, given the target she'd put on herself by trying to defuse the situation, but a quick backstep was all the time that was required for Lucien to be at her side, pulling away one of her attackers and putting her on even footing with the remaining foe. She drew her sword quickly from her back in time to deflect the first slash sideways. Resolute in the knowledge that these were no true Templars, but merely fanatics who twisted the imperatives of the Order to make an excuse for violence, she launched her own attack on the man before her, sending a rough kick to the side of his knee and knocking him off balance. She struck deep into his arm with her blade, rendering him weaponless, before bludgeoning the back of his head with her pommel, dropping him face first to the damp cave floor.

Once the hostilities began, Aurora acted quickly. She broke from the group and angled toward Milly and the rest of the unconscious mages. She drew the attention of the armored Templar who'd been assigned to keep watch over them. It didn't matter that he stood half-a-foot above her nor that he wielded a longsword, she would see her friend and the mages freed. On her approach, the Templar stabbed out with his sword, aiming to lance the redhead through and through. Learned instinct and trained reaction halted her step before the tip, and with a twist of her body shifted her momentum slightly to his side. She guided the blade away from her trunk with the dragonhide bracer on her forearm and spun inside the Templar's reach. She finished the manuever by throwing an elbow backward into the side of his helmet, dazing him.

She followed him closely as he stumbled and with a flash of cold emotion she struck out with the wrist mounted blade, digging it deep into his armor. Not yet satisfied, she kicked out his legs from under him, forcing him to his knees, where she then grabbed his arm and wrenched it back, where she then drove a knee into the overextended elbow, resulting in a wet crunching and and pained yell. The shout was short lived however as a palm to the back of his head drove him into an unconscious pile before her.

Despite their leader's belief otherwise, the rest of the Templars found no such favor with the Maker. Each fell in quick succession until the only ones who remained standing were the ones who had thrown their lot in with Aurora. With the battle complete, Aurora jabbed a hand toward the mage they had just saved and commanded, "Make sure he's okay!" As she began to make her way to Milly.[/url]

Setting

4 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

It was a rare day indeed that Varric Tethras did not at least appear to be in a good mood. The dwarf storyteller and rogue had been pacing around the Hanged Man, his place of residence, with an impatience and anxiousness uncharacteristic of him, waiting for those he'd sent for to arrive. On the table, his impressive repeater crossbow Bianca was loaded and ready for a small war, with ample ammunition set aside, as well as a number of other nasty devices, traps and poisons and light explosives and the like. Varric looked as though he was preparing for battle, though in reality it was simply one man that he sought.

The Warden Nostariel arrived alongside Ashton Riviera, and the dwarf put on something of a mask for them, offering them seats in his expansive (for the Hanged Man) chambers and offering them drinks, shoddy though they were. Sparrow arrived soon after, and Varric made somewhat forced smalltalk while they waited for the last arrival. Judging by the look on Ithilian's face when he entered, it was only reluctantly that he answered the dwarf's summons, given the amount of trouble he'd landed himself in the last time he'd accompanied Varric. The Deep Roads Expedition had been born out of greed, after all, and had almost turned into a disaster because of that greed, particularly on the part of Varric's brother. Still, the Dalish had dragged himself into the Hanged Man and back into Varric's private quarters with the others, though he declined the offer for a drink.

"You might reconsider when I tell you the news," Varric said, with a sort of dark humor. Upon seeing that there could be no more delaying, Varric uncomfortably settled in. "I've had an ear out for Bartrand. After the Deep Roads, he ran to Rivain, probably because he knew I couldn't track him. But I hear he might be back in Kirkwall. He called in loans from a few of his contacts in Hightown." Ithilian did not reconsider the drink. To him, this sounded like simply more trouble waiting to happen, since Bartrand Tethras had delivered them nothing but trouble the first time around. "And how do you know he's not just passing through?"

"If my information is good," the dwarf replied, "and it's always good, one of the loans was a small manor to stay in, which gives us a good shot at having a word with my dear, sweet brother."

Nostariel’s cup lay untouched in front of her, one leg crossed over the other. The news caused her to frown; she had not forgotten the ordeal they’d been through in the Deep Roads because of what Bartrand had done, not even in the three-and-some years that had transpired since. Still… the Warden took in Varric’s array of weaponry, and the look on his face, and the way he said his piece. "Are you sure?” Her tone was cautious. "There is little to be gained from retribution but heartache, Varric. And he is still your brother.” One did not array themselves so if they merely wanted to talk to someone. Only the most violent of vengeances required an armory, and she was more willing to just let the whole thing go than she was to watch this hurt her friend more than he expected it would.

"Nostariel, dear," Varric answered, plastering another smile onto his broad face, "I said I wanted a word with my brother, and I meant it." He shrugged at the array of weaponry he'd be bringing. "Bianca's just coming along for our protection, considering what Bartrand tried to do to us last time. I want answers from him first, not blood. That might come later, depending on the answers." The Warden looked for a moment like she wanted to sigh, but in the end, she simply inclined her head.

Next to her, Ashton lounged about in his chair, one leg thrown over the arm and his back leaned against the other his foot rhythmically dancing in the air. In his hands were one of Varric's bolts which he set about to play with in the nonchalant way that was entirely his own. He ran a finger down the shaft, admiring the wood grain, but he was halfway listening to the conversation too. "I'm going to be honest, I'll be a little let down if he doesn't get away without a little..." Ashton paused and made a fist with the bolt, punching it into his other hand lightly a couple of times.Then he let his head loll backward so he could see Nostariel-- though upside down-- and shrugged. "They're dwarves, and brothers to boot. I'd be shocked if neither never thrown a fist at the other."

He then raised his head and tossed the bolt back into the pile, his face taking on a more serious edge. "Though I do agree. I'm not too keen on watching someone get shot in the face."

Ithilian wasn't overly concerned with what Varric would choose to do with his brother; if the dwarf thought the only solution was to put a crossbow bolt between his eyes, that was his business. Dwarven family matters were not something he wanted to be involved in. That said, the idea of seeking answers from Bartrand did manage to resonate with him. He had stolen a valuable lyrium idol from the Deep Roads, a trinket that led him to betray his own brother, leaving them all for dead. If Bartrand was dangerous, or if that artifact was, it seemed a valuable use of a night to sort the situation out. He nodded his agreement, as Nostariel had done.

Pleased, Varric grinned up at Sparrow. "So, what do you say? Shall we stop by Bartrand's new house, welcome him back to the neighborhood and all that?"

“I'd say if he's stupid enough to come back to Kirkwall after what he's done, he has what's coming to him,” Sparrow replied, shrugging her shoulders. Though her methods might have been a shade darker than the others, she could not relate to those who professed having a deeper understanding of familial ties. The closest person she ever had to a sister was Amalia, and she'd betrayed her as well. Perhaps, not in the same manner, but in a roundabout way that still felt like abandonment. What Bartrand had done in the Deep Roads had been far worse. Abandoning them to their own fates for a simple token that may or may not have been completely worthless. To a likely death hadn't it been for their skills. Even she was not that greedy. Not enough to leave her family and throw them to the wolves. If Varric so chose to kill his brother, she would hold him down. Justice and honor hardly held hands, in her opinion.

“I'm in,” she added with a slip of a smile, leaning her chair at an alarming angle before clattering back into place, “Lead on, Varre. May Bianca guide us swiftly.” Her eyebrows jettisoned up, then waggled back down. She looked at the others and pursed her lips, wondering why, exactly, they might have any reservations about the one person that could have been the end of them all. He'd been particularly ruthless about leaving them, so why did they want Varric to talk to him? Surely, if Bartrand had wanted something different, like reconciliation, he'd have contacted Varric or visited him in the Hanged Man. He knew where to find him. Or maybe, he'd lost his mind in shame. She clicked her tongue and leaned her elbows on the table, “Either way, we'll find out why he hasn't come to apologize, right? Let's go give him a warm welcome...”




By the time the group reached Hightown, the sun had set behind the rooftops of the towering manors, casting the streets into a darkness occasionally puncuated by the glow of a torch hanging along the walls. The particular house Varric sought was isolated, conveniently concealed by the wealthy district's twisting turns and occasionally narrow streets. When they arrived, however, Varric and Ithilian frowned as one, surveying the location.

"Abandoned," Ithilian stated, noting the obvious lack of care put into the state of the manor. A garden at the base of one of the first floor windows looked to have died months ago, if not longer, and the window above it had been shattered by something, with not even a simple boarding up job to seal it. Inside, there was no light visible, though the occasional picking up of the wind carried a torn leaf of paper into view. It was a dead end street with no other manors to speak of, and Ithilian wondered if the city guard even came this way. "At least, it looks that way. Could easily be staged."

Varric grumbled something unintelligible to himself. "Hrm... I don't get it. My sources saw people making deliveries here just a week ago. This... looks like it's been empty for months." Bianca on his back, Varric crossed his arms and studied the door, as if he wasn't sure he wanted to go inside. It was possible that nothing at all awaited them inside. More likely, Ithilian suspected, was a trap. Surely Bartrand wasn't so much a fool as to return to Kirkwall and expect those he'd left for dead to take no action.

Nostariel wore a puzzled frown, reaching up to absently tug at one of her ears, the motion somewhere between thoughtful and anxious. There were a lot of things this could mean, but it was probably just impossible to know from just this. She was certainly no master of deduction, nor of knowing the minds of other people. She couldn’t pretend to any knowledge about Bartrand’s logic or his motives, but she did know one thing: whatever was going on here, the answer was unlikely to reveal itself to anyone who waited outside the place. "I suppose… we’ll just have to go in and find out. Watch for traps?” There was no telling what awaited—but caution was not a bad idea, considering who they were dealing with. "My thoughts exactly," Varric agreed. "Keep your eyes peeled."

Sparrow showed no concern given the state of the mansion, and the fact that it looked as if only rodents and roaches occupied the place. This particular corner of Kirkwall was unknown to her, so she hunkered down by what might have been a withered rose bush and pinched the crooked stems between her fingers. In disarray, or splendor, anyone could live in a place like this. She'd seen worse in Darktown, after all. This would have been considered luxury by any of their standards, but it was indeed odd if Bartrand had walked away from the Deep Roads a rich man, and willingly walked into squalor. Maybe he sold that blasted object and gambled it all away—forcing him to take refuge in this dump, or maybe it was a strange form of penance. A punishment for leaving behind his own flesh and blood. She doubted both stories, but it was the only thing she could come up with. She pursed her lips and slowly came back to her feet, studying the door, as well. If anyone knew anything about her, they'd know not to let her bumble ahead when there were good chances that traps had been set. Sparrow merely nodded, fingers creeping across her belt. She was ready.

The door opened with a noisy squeal when Varric pulled on it, and the group moved cautiously inside. They got no further than the entrance, however, before Varric carefully pulled Bianca into his hands, eyes falling to the floor, where two bodies lay in pools of blood. They were armed and armored men, the leather and mail trappings of mercenaries and sellswords. There had obviously been some kind of violent struggle leading to their demises; much of the room was wrecked around them. "These corpses aren't even stiff yet," Varric commented, prodding at one of them with his boot. "There has to be someone still in here."

As it turned out, there was someone in the very next room. Four someones. They were more mercenary guards, standing idly or sitting about as though waiting for someone. At the sight of Varric and the others, however, they immediately sprang into action, charging blindly forward with weapons drawn, shouting madly and incoherently. Most unlike sellswords, they gave no thought to personal defense, and as such Varric was easily able to thrum two bolts into the chest of the first, while Ashton and Ithilian feathered the second, leaving Sparrow and Nostariel to dispatch the others. When all four were dead or otherwise incapacitated, Varric stopped to take a breath. Ithilian frowned, crouching before one of them. "Even the most desperate criminal in Darktown has more sense than these four."

Varric nodded grimly. "They were completely out of their heads. Bartrand must have done something to them."

Whatever had been done, it had taken hold of the dozen men waiting for them in the great room as well. They set upon the group with a reckless abandon, dying without a second thought as they ran upon the arrows and bolts of the archers, and the magic and heavy mace of the mages. They proved little challenge in their delusional state of mind, and the fight came down to little more than butcher's work, as it was clear that little would dissuade them from trying to kill the intruders other than their own deaths. When the work was finished Varric led them upstairs, frustrated at needing to kill someone other than his brother for this. He was just about to kick down the closed door of the master bedroom when a shuffling was heard from his left.

He raised Bianca in the direction of the sound, but it was a second dwarf that appeared before them. Not Bartrand, that much was plain, but a well dressed younger lad, with an as of yet beardless face and short brown curls. He looked absolutely terrified. Upon recognizing him, Varric lowered his crossbow. "I know this man," he said to the others, to stay their hands. "He's Bartrand's steward."

"Varric? Is that you?" It seemed to take the steward a moment to recognize the dwarf. "Praise the ancestors..."

"Hugan, what happened here?" Varric asked. The dwarf steward's face fell, and he wrung his hands together nervously. "Varric, your brother... that statue he brought out of the Deep Roads... Bartrand said it sang to him, even after he sold it." He glanced down to the bodies of the guards on the floor. "I've been hiding in here, away from the guards. They're like crazed animals. I didn't dare go past them. Everyone in this house has gone mad."

"How?" Ithilian asked, not yet putting his bow away, though he did lower it at the start of the talk. "Did Bartrand do something to all of them?" Hugan nodded nervously. "He's been feeding them lyrium ever since he hired them. Secretly at first, but eventually he was able to force them into it. Some of the servants, he... cut pieces off of them while they were still alive. He says he's trying to help them hear the song. Please, stop him." Varric looked somewhat incredulous at the news.

"Bartrand's not exactly a nice guy, but... this doesn't sound like my brother."

Nostariel’s face twisted into a grimace. That idol had made her feel uneasy, certainly, but this… she would have never guessed that anything like this would happen. Uncomfortably, the Warden smeared blood from her cheek onto her thumb, wiping it for lack of anyplace better on the hem of her shirt. This was all kinds of wrong, and something about the air in here made her feel… ill. Chewing her lip, she glanced back and forth between Varric and the steward as they spoke, but in the end she had to admit that it was one piece of information that stuck with her the most.

"He sold it?” her tone was thickened by dread. If it could do this much in the hands of a merchant, she couldn’t even imagine what a magister would do with it. Or a politician. Or… well, anyone who would want to purchase such a thing. "To whom?”

A statue rendering someone mad? Mad enough to cut off limbs and feed people lyrium, supposedly. An incredulous snort sounded, and Sparrow found herself wringing her own hands, binding them into fists. A kinder soul may have thought that it hadn't been Bartrand's fault—that the idol had influenced him so, that his crimes were products of an evil object. Whispering and promising things. She knew the feeling and she'd never excused herself, either. She hoped that the others felt the same, and when the time came, they would kill him. If he was too far gone, and there was nothing they could do, it might even be a mercy. They would need to find the idol and destroy it before it hurt anyone else. Demons and this idol, she believed, had much in common.

"I don't know," the steward said. "It's why we came back to Kirkwall, but I don't know who he sold it to. He was already starting to rant about the sodding idol and the singing. On his better days, he hated the thing, wanted to get rid of it. But the minute it was gone, he got worse."

"And where is my brother?" Varric asked. "I think it's about time we got some answers straight from him." Hugan pointed down the whole, to the last door. "Bartrand locked himself in the study with some of the servants. No one's come out for days, and those sodding lunatics just kept prowling the halls."

"Then we go in after him," Varric said, resolved. "Come on, let's finish this."

He led the way down the hall, leaving the steward behind to make his own way out now that they had cleared it of the mercenaries. Bianca in hand, Varric gave the door a couple of solid kicks before it busted open, and he charged inside. Bartrand was the only one left in the room, but he was lying in wait for his brother, and he sprang upon him as soon as he entered the room, a knife in hand. The two went to the ground, Bartrand ending up on top in an advantageous position, but Ithilian was quick to rush up behind the crazed dwarf, wrenching the knife from his hand and sending it clattering across the floor. Seizing Bartrand under the arms, he pulled him free of Varric, who immediately pressed the attack, throwing a wild haymaker into Bartrand's jaw.

Several more followed, and soon the younger dwarf tackled the older one, pulling him from Ithilian's grip and nearly knocking the elf over. Varric proceeded to beat his brother across the face until it was clear that Bartrand had submitted, at which point Varric reluctantly rose, allowing Bartrand to slowly get to his feet. He coughed and spat out blood onto the floor, but there was a small bit of clarity in his eyes now, something that had been lacking before.

"I can't... I can't... hear it anymore." He rubbed at his bruised face. "I just need to hear the song again. Just for a minute." He then suddenly turned sideways, staring at the wall. "Stop saying that! I know I shouldn't have sold the idol to that woman! It was a mistake! A mistake..."

Varric, annoyed, stepped forward and grabbed Bartrand firmly by the shoulder, shaking him. "Bartrand, get a hold of yourself. Do you know where you are? Do you know what you've done?" Finally, he seemed to recognize the dwarf standing in front of him. "Varric! You'll help me, won't you little brother? Help me find it again. You were always the good one."

"Help you? Bartrand, you left me to die, you left all of us here to die, and for what? Some trinket? Look at yourself. Look at what you've done to the men and women who served you. Where's your nobility, brother? Where's your dwarven honor?" To that, Bartrand seemed to have no answer. His gaze was often unfocused, as though sometimes he saw the people standing before him, and sometimes he saw something else entirely.

It was Ashton's voice that broke Bartrand's silence. His crouch brought him to eye level with both dwarves and he placed a hand on Varric's shoulder, urging him to calm himself. "Varric," He said, his voice lacking Ashton's standard whimsical tone. "Look at him, something's not right. That thing, whatever the hell it was, broke him. He needs help," Ashton said. "And keeping him the hell away from that trinket is a start," He added, whispered into Varric's ear. The Bartrand in front of him was not the proudly stubborn dwarf he remembered on the expedition, this was a sick man whose mind was muddled.

The actions he'd taken were despicable, Ashton wouldn't try to argue that, but the man stood in front of them, talking to the walls and looking at them through a haze. It was hard for him to feel anything else but pity.

Varric didn't seem to like hearing that. He glanced back over his shoulder. "I didn't come here just to leave without telling my brother he's a filthy nuglicker, and demanding some answers. Help can come later." He turned back to Bartrand. "Why'd you do it, Bartrand? Were you already crazy before we even went into the Deep Roads, or was it all the statue?" Bartrand seemed to hear the word statue clear enough, though he shook his head in disgust at the sound of it.

"Idol," he corrected, "not a statue. It wants to be worshipped. It wants me. It wants me back! She stole it from me!"

“He doesn't need help,” Sparrow cut in, throwing her arms wide in confusion, “There's no way he was off his bloody rocker in the Deep Roads, if what tiny said was true.” Whatever Bartrand was suffering had taken time to develop. He'd abandoned them in the Deep Roads with a clear conscience, for whatever manner of jewels and treasure. At the time, he never mentioned anything about the idol—only that he didn't want to split everything among so many people, that he hadn't wanted them to come along. They were pests and he was in the business of coin, always had been from the stories he heard from Varric. Her teeth grated together, chewing heated words in the back of her throat. The damning voice in her head bugled that she was being hypocritical. She'd never been insane, but she'd had the inability to distinguish dream from reality when under Rapture's influence. This was different, she reasoned. “He's dangerous. This is untreatable. Dwarves can't be possessed, everyone knows that. This isn't poison. If we can't help him now, how long do we wait while he's trying to cut off someone's arm?”

The tension in her shoulders slowly trickled away, and she found herself staring at the dwarves, and at Ashton. He was trying to soothe their ruffled feathers, pacify Varric's anger and save someone who was sick. Surely, Nostariel's influence. She couldn't help but feel wrong at the thought of helping someone who'd so easily abandoned them. For an object. An idol, whatever the hell that ugly statue was. Knuckling her nose irritably, Sparrow shrugged her shoulders and forced a tight-lipped, crooked smile. The more Bartrand babbled, the more she wanted to beat him senseless, too. She took a few steps around the huddled group and waggled her eyebrows, absently prodding the back of Bartrand's leg with her leather boot. She? Mm,” her tone might have changed, but it still felt sharp as a knife, “Did an old lady-love take your stupid statue away? Thought that a woman would fall head over heels with you after presenting her with that ugly thing. Did she reject your feelings? Send you away? Choose the idol over you?” She dipped low, crouching to Bartrand's right. Her next words were frigid.

“Tell us who she is.”

"She glittered like the sun," Bartrand answered, "but her heart was ice. She will not feed it, not like I did it." Ithilian rolled his eyes at the answer.

"I don't think he even knows. Ashton's right; his mind is shattered."

Varric grimaced, frustrated. "Bloody ancestors... why bring me this close and still nothing? For three years all I've wanted was to look him in the eye and get his answers. Why he abandoned us in that thaig, what any of this was for. But I guess there's nothing he could say that could make it right." His hands gripped the crossbow a little tighter. It was obvious that Bartrand wasn't going to be able to supply them with the answers they sought. All that remained was deciding what to do with him. Varric's mind appeared unmade.

Nostariel’s mind was not. "Varric, whatever happened here… Bartrand is no longer himself. He’s mad, and he needs to be looked after, not killed. He’s still your brother, and I think you would regret bringing him to harm.” Vengeance was not the answer here, if there was an answer. For all she knew, Bartrand was all the family Varric had left, and even if he wasn’t… that connection, that tie, shouldn’t it be strong enough to allow forgiveness? Nobody was perfect, everyone made mistakes, and more than anything else, it seemed important to her that no more were made in the aftermath of it.

"Sparrow..." Ashton said, the emotion drained from his voice leaving the name monotone. Disappointment hid behind his tone, and held an uncomfortable note, one that was unfamiliar from his lips. "What you're suggesting is murder, no matter how hard you try to justify it," Ashton explained coolly. Sparrow was upset over Bartrand's actions, he could see, but to kill him for it in his state? It was petty vengeance, nothing more, and it made Ashton sick, and the fact that it came from Sparrow's mouth made it that much more worse. The man that'd left them to die in the Deep Roads was already dead, all that remained was an ill husk. "Is that what you want? More blood on your hands?"

She glittered like the sun. Cold as ice. Whoever Bartrand was talking about, she didn't sound pleasant in the slightest. A soft, billowy sigh escaped her lips, and she slowly reeled away from him, planting her hands on her knees and moving away, backwards. This was yet another reminder that she was not quite the same as her companions. Not as kindhearted, and certainly not strong enough when it came to forgiveness. Maker knew, it'd taken her a long time to forgive herself. Only at Rilien's behest had she stopped being so self-destructive; Ashton, Nostariel and the others had played their parts, as well. Her feigned smile faded away and strung itself into a frown, pulled taut at the edges. She'd known Ashton long enough to hear the disappointment in his tone, bereft of its usual lilt. And her heart tightened like a fist in response.

“Mercy,” she corrected, tonelessly, “I'm suggesting mercy.” There had been a time where she'd begged to be killed, to be put down before she committed any more crimes she would later regret. She remembered asking Rilien, as unfair as it had been. If Bartrand had any moment of clarity, would he even regret his actions? Greed had played his hands for a long time, and now, an idol played puppet master. Was she wrong? The fist loosened. What would Rilien do? His pragmatics always appeared sound to her. If there was a threat, it needed to be dealt with—but, he, too, was changing. Perhaps, he'd agree with them, or simply sit quiet and let the others decide Bartrand's fate. Bartrand was not her kin to punish. Bartrand was not her, either. More blood on your hands. Her stains would not wash off, mostly by choice. She took another step back from them, and shrugged her shoulders. Her hand drifted away from the pommel of her mace. “It's Varric's decision, not mine. Do as you will.”

Varric looked more inclined to violence at first, especially after Sparrow's initial words, but Nostariel and Ashton both counteracted them, and then Sparrow herself changed her tune. Ithilian did not offer any words of his own, agreeing that it was Varric's decision, not any of theirs, but he could see Sparrow's point. Whatever magic had warped Bartrand's mind, it appeared quite potent, and he was not sure what he would want if something of the sort was to happen to him. Sadly, they couldn't discern what Bartrand wanted, beyond the idol.

Relenting, Varric shook his head. "I can't do it. I thought I could, but I thought he'd be gloating, lying on a bed of gold and comissioning painters to memorialize the instant he sealed us in the Deep Roads. But look at him. Whatever that idol was... it did worse to him than I ever could." He lowered Bianca, any combative air leaving him for good. "I'll send someone to come get him. Sit tight, brother... help is on the way."

He turned to the others. "Come on. The sooner we get out of this house, the better. And... thanks, for having my back."

The Chanter's Board has been updated. Family Matter has been completed.

Setting

5 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

As Sophia expected, the fight was over quickly, and it had ended entirely in their side's favor. The Templars, or ex-Templars now, were lucky not to have been slain to a man. Most would not have been as forgiving in combat as they. Wiping her blade clean of the blood from the Templar's arm, Sophia sheathed the sword once more, heading over to the recently saved mage, the one Aurora had pointed to. She offered him a hand up. "It's safe now. Are you injured?"

"Uh, yeah-- I mean no! I mean..." The mage fumbled over his words, still clearly shocked over recent events. He shook his head violently as if trying to force his thoughts into place and accepted the hand to his feet. "I'm fine, but a moment later and... Well, I shudder to think of what would've happened," He said sadly. He cupped his face in his hands and attempted to recompose himself. "Thank you for getting here when you did, is what I want to say."

Sophia nodded. It was good that the Rite had not been completed on him, but she wondered if all of the others were just as fortunate. Perhaps they didn't arrive just in time for everyone. He appeared to be a Circle mage, judging by the robes, though she doubted he would remain so given what had just happened, and Sophia also doubted she could convince him and the others to return there, even if she still thought that was for the best. "I'm glad we could help. These Templars had no right to do any of this."

The man shook his head in agreement and set upon biting his knuckle. He was still visibly upset at what had just transpired and seemed to still be week in the knees. "They just... They just took us. Didn't explain why, didn't explain where, just took us. Just told us it was Chantry business, and we followed. We weren't given much of a choice. When we realized that we were leaving the city, some of us fought. Those that did were knocked out and dragged here..." As he spoke, his voice began to crack at the edges and the nibbling at his knuckle intensified.

"When we were all here, that's when they began to give the Rite," He said, looking over toward the rest of the mages and Aurora. "I... I wasn't the first," He muttered quietly, looking away from the mages. He grew silent, cupped his face with his hands and turned away from them, too distraught over the memories to be of any further use. On the other side of the cavern, Aurora sat on her knees with Milly pulled up into her lap, attempting to wake her friend with gentle nudges to her shoulders. "Milly, wake up. I'm here, everything's fine. You're safe. Milly, wake up--" She pleaded, but something caught her tongue, and killed anything else she might have said in her throat.

The hair that covered Milly's forehead fell and Aurora's eyes were drawn to what it had hidden. "No, no, no, Milly! Wake up! Milly! Please wake up!" She yelled hysterically, unaware of the tears streaming down her face. Soon, Milly's eyes fluttered open, but something was wrong, something was missing. Her eyes were empty, without emotion and without feeling. "Rosabella?" She asked in dead monotone. "Why do you cry?"

A pained wail clawed it's way out of Aurora's throat as she pressed her own forehead against Milly's own, bearing the sunburst brand.

Lucien recognized the strange atonality of Milly’s words almost immediately, a hard knot forming in his throat from a mixture of pity and sympathy. Pity, misplaced though it might have been, for Millian who needed it no longer, and sympathy for Aurora. It was hard to watch what happened before him and not feel a welling of sadness, he was sure. Whatever else they might have been, whatever risks their magic carried, he could not watch such things and think it for the best. What right had anyone to strip another person so completely of all of their emotions? Their very souls, some would say, though… Lucien knew Rilien well enough not to believe that much. Then again… Rilien wasn’t like other Tranquil. Whatever traces of the person he had once been that still remained to him, Milly would not have.

He knew precious little of consolation, though he wanted to do something. His teeth clenched uncomfortably tightly, a muscle in his jaw jumping, and he was not as surprised as he could have been that in fact it was Amalia who acted first, moving to Aurora’s side and crouching beside her. The Qunari woman did not do anything else for a few seconds, as though trying to decide something, but in the end, the took one of the arms draped over her knees and grasped Aurora’s elbow with the hand, using the other to grip Milly’s shoulder, and, when she had decided it would do them no more good to remain prone, she hauled the both of them upright with uncommon gentleness and strength. Once assured that the elf was steady, she turned her attention to the human woman, pausing for just a moment before placing a hand on either side of her former pupil’s face, forcing eye contact.

She offered no platitudes, for they were not honest, and Amalia was only honest. There was no undoing this, and there was no making it less terrible. She could find no shame in the grief, and made no effort to stop Aurora from weeping, nor to berate her for it. Some things had to be dealt with in such fashions—she knew that better than most would ever have cause to guess. Loss was never easy, no matter how prepared one was for it. Whether it blindsided a person or they saw it coming from miles, years, away, it was never easy. So instead, she said the only thing she could. “Do not forget the good you did here today.”

It was not enough. Amalia did not expect it to be enough. But it was better than nothing, and in time, that thought might become something else—something that was enough.

Sophia's attention was snagged by Aurora's anguish, and her suspicions were confirmed in the worst way. She knew perhaps less about consoling than Lucien did, and she was glad that Amalia chose to offer what comfort she could, because Sophia didn't have the slightest clue what to say or do. It was the first time she'd seen Aurora lose control of her emotions since the day the Qunari Ketojan took his own life before them. It seemed that despite all she had done to train her mind, the machinations of zealots still got under her skin. Sophia found it easy to sympathize with. These Templars had acted purely out of malice, discarding everything their order stood for in order to gain a petty victory in a war that they had conjured within their own minds.

"They were close," she murmured quietly, to the mage beside her. "They are close, still. Not the same anymore, of course." Times like this were when Sophia questioned things like the Rite of Tranquility altogether. Stopping possessed, transformed mages was one thing, but these people had yet to do anything wrong. She supposed to the zealots, merely existing was a crime.

Rilien, for once, found himself unsure of what the best course of action might be. He had never witnessed the Rite from this side of it, and there had been no one to mourn him when he was put through it. Someone to stop it just before its completion, perhaps, but Lady Montblanc was not a sympathetic nor sentimental soul—she would not have mourned if she’d been too late, only moved onto the next prospect and left him in the Circle. He felt no bitterness for this, no melancholy for the fact that none would have minded were the Templars to have succeeded with him. It was simply a fact.

But this display of such raw emotion stirred something in the Tranquil—a discomfort, perhaps, more than anything else. It was uncommon that he knew not how to solve a problem he was presented with, but was this not the very problem to which he could discover no solution at all? His own continued state was proof enough of his inability to do anything about it. In the end, he simply moved among the other downed mages, rousing those who were still under the effects of sleep. Less than half were Tranquil now, but the number was not none.

It felt strange, to look at them. Like an imperfect mirror.

Amalia would find it took no certain measure of strength to replace the ground beneath Aurora's feet. Her whole world had been shattered in a moment, ripping the ground apart from underneath and left her tumbling into the darkness that was her emotion. Pain, sorrow, grief, and guilt assaulted her and left her numbed to everything but the misery. Aurora was barely aware that she was being guided back to her feet, and it wasn't until Amalia's face broke through her tear soaked eyes that she remembered where she was.

It was hard to see the good through the terrible. Some were saved, but too much was lost to the rite. Once Amalia released her face, Aurora returned back to Milly, the sunburst brighter than the shaft of sunlight piercing through the cavern wall. Milly met the gaze with one of her own, unblinking, unfeeling, with glazed emotionless orbs appearing as if they were looking through her. A moment of quietness between them passed, with Milly's measured breaths and Aurora's sobs the only thing exchanged between them.

"I... I don't know what to do," Aurora said hollowly. Equally hollow, Milly responded in the dead tone of the tranquil, "What do you mean, Rosabella?" At the mention of her name, her real spoken with an emptiness behind broke Aurora, and another vicious bout of sobbing erupted from her throat. She threw herself at Milly, wrapping her arms around her neck and crying into her shoulder. Milly made no movement to return the embrace, and it hurt.

"What do I do?"

“I think perhaps,” Lucien said cautiously, “That it would be best to do one thing at a time.” Of course, it was a rather daunting prospect, trying to make provisions for Milly and the others and deal with her own personal grief, but Aurora did not have to do all of those things right at this moment. There was no making this situation better, but at the very least, they could prevent it from getting worse. “Everyone here has to go somewhere, now, and we have to get the injured ones somewhere they can receive treatment.” Mage and Templar alike, in truth.

There was something else, though he was not sure it was his place to say it. Perhaps fortunately, Amalia seemed to pull the thought out of his head and give it voice. “It will be very obvious what you are if you continue to share your home with Millian,” the Qunari said gravely, glancing from the elf girl’s dead-eyed stare to Aurora’s evident anguish. “I do not believe that is a risk you can afford to undertake right now.” But the decision was not hers to make, ultimately, and she would not attempt to make it, only offer her counsel, borne of the logic and dry reason that perhaps her former student could not be expected to see clearly right at this point.

"The Tranquil should return to the Circle," Sophia offered cautiously, recalling a certain occasion when she had first learned of Aurora's status as an apostate. "Lucien and I can lead them there safely. The mages will take care of them better than anyone else in the city." On their own, they lacked the drive to really do anything, feeling no compulsions or desires. Rilien was obviously a special case, but these Tranquil were not like Rilien, they were like the rest.

"As for the rest of you," she said, speaking to the mages with their emotions still intact, "I know it might sound like an unattractive prospect to return to the Circle after this, but it may be the safest place. First Enchanter Orsino needs to hear of this as well, and it might be best coming from someone who went through it all. If you want to leave, I will not try to stop you, but know that the Templars will not be able to do something like this again. This will not go unanswered." Orsino would likely run to her father when he heard of this, she knew, but with any luck, Sophia could put some of her own influence to work, perhaps convincing the zealots among the Templars to give up taking matters to such extremes.

Of the mages that awakened and of those that were not tranquil, they shared a glance with those beside them. It had not only been apostates that had been abducted, but circle mages as well. A few of the mages, a majority Circle mages, though a few apostates as well, agreed with Sophia. The ones that didn't still looked hesistant with their newfound freedom within grasp. Of these mages, the one that they had saved from the rite, spoke. "Those of us from the circle," he said, exchanging looked between a few of them, "These... Templars. They had our phylacteries so that they couldn't be tracked. I saw them squirrel them away," He said, pointing at a nearby satchel.

"I'm not returning to the Circle," He stated plainly for Sophia, but there was no edge to his words. Only simple tiredness. "We were promised safety once, I'm not willing to risk it again. I am thankful for the aid, but I am not going back," He said, moving to the satchel and finding his phylactery. A few mages followed him afterward as an air of solemnity descended upon the cavern. No one else was willing to speak, or their will to had been sapped by the trying ordeal. And none of them wished to cheapen Aurora's loss.

It was with that same solemnity the group took their leave, no conversation among them and only the echoes of Aurora's weeping to keep them company.

The Chanter's Board has been updated. Rising Sun has been completed.

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

It was not lost on Amalia that her former student had suffered a great deal in the events of the day before. What she was less certain of was what, if anything, she could or should do about it. To say that the Qunari was not an emotional person was an understatement, to say the least, and she had some difficulty coming to grips with situations in which a lot of feeling was present. To be sure, she knew of suffering, but her own was something that she still had not quite made her peace with, and the situations were different enough that the path to that recovery was unlikely to resemble the one Aurora would need to take in any but the most basic ways. But she felt… uncomfortable, doing nothing at all.

Perhaps this was one of those situations in which calling upon the expertise of another would be prudent. Not everyone did everything equally well, and Amalia was deficient in the area of comfort and condolence. If she wished to help Aurora, then, she would be best served finding someone who was better at it. Of course, she didn’t know a lot of people who met the criterion. While Amalia would admit that talking things over with Ithilian worked quite well for her own purposes, it was unlikely to serve the mage in the same fashion. The others present at the time had seemed uncomfortable with the situation just as she was, save perhaps the Tranquil, though he was even less inclined towards the display of feeling than she was. Someone else, then, and already her options were limited. Sparrow had all the subtlety of a sledgehammer, so he wouldn’t do.

The Warden, though… the Warden might be able to help. She was a mage, also—the threat of Tranquility had doubtless hung over her head before. More than that, she seemed comfortable with gestures of consolation and soothing, which made a great deal of sense for one whose profession and talents included healing, perhaps. Surely she had experience with traumas of a similar, if not identical kind. It was this that brought Amalia to Nostariel’s door in the early afternoon of the day that followed the incident with the Templars, and she entered the clinic looking faintly troubled, though perhaps short of distraught. Whether this was a genuine reflection of the degree of her concern was something even Amalia did not presume to know.

“Nostariel,” she said, attempting to draw the woman’s attention. “Are you occupied? There is… something I would ask of you.” It was still somewhat odd, to be the one doing the asking, as often things went the other way around. But she was not ashamed of the fact that she needed to—there was nothing to be embarrassed of in asking help from someone who understood more than she did about a given thing.

Nostariel blinked, somewhat surprised to find that she was no longer alone. Her last patient for the day had left but two minutes before, and she hadn’t heard Amalia come in. That part was not so surprising—the Warden was relatively sure that her Qunari friend did not make noise unless she very much intended to do so. Of course, Amalia also didn’t usually ask favors of her or come to the clinic at all, really, and the tone of voice she used had the younger woman’s muscles involuntarily tensing up. It seemed… serious, whatever it was, and she didn’t really have to think too hard about what it must be about. “It’s Aurora, isn’t it?” Lucien had been kind enough to come by and explain what had happened after the group returned the day before, and knowing what had happened, well… it was not a difficult guess that Aurora was going to be in a bad way. Nostariel couldn’t even imagine what it must be like, to lose someone so close to you in that way.

Of course, in the Circle, there had always been the occasional new Tranquil, but never anyone she was particularly close to, and truly, even the thought made her shudder a little. It wasn’t so different from death, because as far as she could tell, it was the death of everything that made a person who they really were. Their emotions, their connections and relationships to other people. Even their very dreams. That it was also a loss of their magic seemed like a pale side-effect compared to that. Nostariel could imagine living without magic, to a degree. She could not imagine living without the ability to feel. “I don’t know how much I can do, but perhaps if we both go…” She left the sentence unfinished, taking up a light cloak and throwing it over her shoulders. She’d leave the weapons aside for the moment, and the staff just seemed to be in poor taste.

“Lead the way, Amalia.”

And she did. Doubtlessly, they both knew where Aurora’s place of residence was by this point, but it seemed to Amalia to be closer than she remembered, which was naturally quite ridiculous, as her memory was quite accurate and it was impossible for the thing to have moved. She could still pick out all the subtle way in which it was different from the equally-small houses around it—more secure, to her eye. Then again, she’d made it that way… and it hadn’t been enough to help the other woman any. There was still danger around every corner in this place, and for a moment, Amalia wondered how she’d managed to miss it. Perhaps she was simply accustomed to it, enough that such dangers were routine, and she had forgotten that they would not be manageable for everyone she knew. It wasn’t precisely what had happened to Aurora’s friend that bothered her, though it was fair to say that she didn’t excuse it, either.

It was perhaps the fact that, for all she knew, for all she could do and had learned and worked towards, it could have just as easily been Aurora. And nothing Amalia could do would change that. She was unused to being so profoundly useless, and it sat ill with her. Problems were to be solved, not simply acknowledged. The Qunari pressed her lips together and shook her head. This, as many things, was not about her at all, and now wasn’t the time to make it so. So by the time she raised her hand to knock on Aurora’s door, those thoughts had been banished. She would revisit them later, perhaps, but not now.

The door, and the entire house it seemed, was eerily silent for a time. Moments seemed to stretch out far longer than was possible with no sound from the other side. No shuffle of footsteps, no creaking of floorboards, nothing. And finally when something did make a sound, it wasn't with the usual energy found within Aurora's home. It was a weighty, heaving plodding. The handle of the door didn't twist eagerly nor did it excitedly jerk inward. Rather, there was a reluctantance in and when the door was pulled back, Aurora stood on the other side. Well, it wasn't entirely true. Aurora did stand on the other side, but she seemed-- she felt empty.

She needn't tell them either, it was already clearly written on her face. The deep bags sitting underneath her eyes told that she hadn't slept the night before. The hollowness in her cheeks said she hadn't eaten at all either. The area around her eyes were red and swollen and her flushed cheeks were moist. She was a desheveled mess, her clothing in wrinkles and there was something tired about her body langauge. Her head leaned against the door's edge as she looked at her friends through empty eyes-- not even looking at them but rather it seemed that she was looking through them.

"Hey..." She said, though her voice managed to even crack on that single syllable.

Nostariel made a small, sympathetic noise in the back of her throat—half a hum and half something else, harder to place, but in the end it didn’t really matter. The Warden moved forwards largely out of instinct, wrapping her arms around the other woman’s middle and hugging her tightly. Perhaps not as snugly as she might have were she more sure of her friend’s health, but it was not the kind of uncomfortably-delicate thing people gave one another for the sake of appearances, either. She hadn’t known what she was going to say, but now it seemed strange to think that there were words at all. This was impossibly difficult, and it was something that nobody should have to endure. Nostariel may generally support the existence of the Circles of magi. She might even be, on balance, pro-Templar. But if there was one thing she has always hated, it was the use of the Rite of Tranquility, and this was a particularly despicable case. Its effects would no doubt linger with Aurora for a very long time, perhaps the rest of her life, and there was no bringing Milly back from it either.

She wasn’t sure exactly when they started, but Nostariel was unsurprised to find that there were tears on her face, too. She might not have been Milly’s best friend, but the girl had helped out at the clinic with some frequency, and Nostariel would miss her company. More even than that, she mourned for what Aurora had lost—because there was no mistaking that it was a loss, even though Milly lived still. “I’m so sorry.” The words were murmured against her friend’s shoulder. “So very, very sorry.”

"It's okay." The tone held within the words betrayed them for what they really were. A lie. It was not okay. It was anything but. Aurora had spent the past night and day flipping through the emotions of grief, anger, and sorrow when finally-- finally she had found a point of numbness, where she couldn't feel the pain in her heart or the tears staining her face. But it was Nostariel's embrace and the drops in the corner of her eyes that threatened to bring Aurora's forth once again. She returned the hug tighter than she meant to, as she buried her face into her shoulder, hoping it would serve to keep the coming deluge at bay for a while longer.

She tried to find a center, something solid inside her to get a hold of. Something that would let her look into her friends faces without gazing through a watery mist. She held onto Nostariel desperately searching for it, but she found nothing. She tried to think of it as an illusion, but the pain was too great, too real to be hidden so simply. Everything she reached for turned melted away before her touch. There was nothing she could do to stem the tide as the tears renewed. She lilted her head ever so slightly from Nostariel's shoulder and took in a glance of Amalia, standing there looking, as far as she could tell-- lost.

A weakness worked into her knees and they trembled a warning before they finally gave away. Aurora let Nostariel's embrace fade away as she buckled into the ground, leaning against the door frame for support. "It's... It's not," She replied, this time truthfully. And it wouldn't be. It never would be. The Milly she knew was gone, locked away from what made her her forever. And it was her fault.

Strong hands wrapped around Aurora’s arms, dragging her back up to stand—or lean, whichever she could manage—and Amalia met tear-filled eyes with a pair displaying open concern. It was not usually her way, but this was not usually her situation, and that perhaps necessitated a change. “No,” she agreed, “it is not. And that is why you must take it standing up, with your head high. Because nobody else will make it okay for you. The problems you face will not be satisfied having struck you a crippling blow. They will continue, and so must you. There is no one waiting around the next corner, within the next year, to save you or anyone else from this. That, you must do for yourself.”

There was no undoing what had been done. There was no bringing her friend back to the way she had once been, just as there was no erasing the scars that littered Amalia’s body. But that did not mean that the only thing left to do was mourn it. Things would take time, certainly, and this was hardly the ideal environment for such a recovery. Then again, such recoveries were only necessary because the environment never was ideal for them. Fundamentally, this would be something Aurora would have to come to terms with on her own. Amalia knew, and she had little doubt that Nostariel knew, too. These moments, these crossroads in life, were never simple, but they were always formative. And in them, the easy way was never the right way. The easy thing would be to say that she was done, that she had lost, that the blow was too devastating to pick herself up from. But that was not the right thing.

“But you are not alone, Ash-Talan. Not anymore.” Perhaps she had been, once, somewhere between fleeing Antiva and now, but no longer. It was small consolation, or perhaps not even consolation at all. But it was true, and that, more than anything, was what Amalia knew she could offer.

"And you don’t have to suffer alone, either.” That came from Nostariel, who nodded her agreement to the basic gist of what Amalia had said. She wouldn't have put it quite that way, herself, but though it was delivered without cushion, it was in essence the truth. There was no rescue, no imminent relief to hold out for. The solutions must be actively sought. For change to occur, it had to be catalyzed. Nostariel would never advise recklessness or blanket hate or violence, but she did not believe that was what Amalia was getting at, either. "Whatever we can do, even if it’s just the little things, well… we’re here. I know it’s not the same, but… it’s not hopeless, out there. Not yet.”

It was easy to think about, to say. To stand up with her head held high. To take the blow on the cheek and keep plowing forward. Talking about it was always the easiest thing to do. Enacting that change, was an entirely different story. It was harder, hard enough that it made it difficult to even think about. But despite herself, Aurora found herself following Amalia's words as she had done once before. Her posture straightened and her head tilted back enough so that the sun caught the sparkles in her tears. It was hard to think about, but maybe for once this wasn't something she could think her way through. Maybe this time she'd have to feel her way through it, reaching blindly in a dark corridor.

"It's... It's still raw, it's still too soon," She admitted, deflating. But nor did collapse into a heap again, she'd pushed herself off of the door frame and fought a battle of keep herself from hitting it again. "It happened so fast." She tried to wipe the tears away, but she couldn't quite get them all with them falling faster than she could catch. It wasn't worth it in the end, so she just let them fall. Maybe in time she'd heal, maybe the pain would numb away. But that time was not now, nor was it tomorrow, nor the day after. It would take time. Maybe in that time she'd find the straightness in her back and find the strength to hold her head up high. But she was drained of such strength as she was. She would have to find it, but she would not have to search by herself.

Shifting between Amalia and then Nostariel she nodded and spoke. "I need help," She said, her voice cracking as she did. With the plea spoken, she pushed the door wider to reveal the interior. The pair of rooms were darkened with a single candle casting light over the entire hovel. The front room was a mess, with the bed's cover bunched up and thrown on the floor-- giving it the appearance that someone had wallowed in it for the past day. Past that sat Milly, as motionless as a porcelain doll, with her head turned toward the door not due to any sort of curiosity, but the base sense of it catching her attention. "Nostariel and Amalia. Welcome," She said, raising from her chair mechanically. There she hung motionless until she was addressed.

Her monotone echoed through Aurora's head until she couldn't bear to look any longer and so she turned away, unable to hide the sobs in her throat. "I need help looking after her."

Nostariel smiled thinly at the Tranquil. "Thank you, Milly.” She could really only fall back on her time in the Circle for reference regarding what to do here, and she wasn’t sure there was much else to be known, honestly. She turned back to Aurora, pulling her lower lip between her teeth for a moment. "If that’s what you want, Aurora.” Her tone was cautious, tentative. There was still a lot of fragility in the other woman, and there would be for the foreseeable future. "But… having her here… it will draw notice to you. The Circle might wonder why you live with a Tranquil.” It would be suspicious to say the least—such things were unheard of. There was only one Tranquil she knew who had ever lived outside a Circle, and even he functioned more or less as they did there, given the business he ran.

There wasn’t anything illegal about it—Tranquil were, after all, no danger to anyone, given that their magic was gone, but it would cast a lot of suspicion on Aurora. Someone attached enough to the person Milly had been to want to look after her, but obviously not family? There were few likely possibilities. She wasn’t sure her friend could escape that scrutiny. "The choice is yours, and I’ll help you, whatever you decide to do. You certainly don’t have to choose now.” She’d take Milly to the Circle herself, if that was what Aurora decided. In the meantime, it seemed best to give her her space to begin the slow process that was recovery.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon

Earnings

0.00 INK



The Hanged Man was a little quieter than usual, perhaps owing to the fact that it was midafternoon rather than evening. The only people in here were those who sought a warm meal cheaply or the truly dedicated alcoholics, and honestly, there were few who could afford such a habit, even on the copper-swill the place ran on like human beings ran on blood. Given the recently-cleaned plate in front of him, Lucien was of the former kind, though he usually made do for himself in terms of food preparation. He’d had a bit of an adventurous morning, though, and hadn’t felt much like the extra work that cooking himself something would have been, so he’d stopped in here instead.

He remained still only to finish his mulled wine, really, the watered-down beverage a fair bit safer than actual water here, but entirely too weak to do more than warm him a little. He was staring off into space a little, his thoughts preoccupied with reminding himself of the tasks still left to him today, which were more than he’d anticipated since the morning escort job had almost gone sideways. He probably should have brought someone else, in retrospect, but he didn't feel he should yet take any of the Lions on anything that wasn’t a known quantity, just in case. The majority of them had a fair bit more training to go before he was comfortable assigning them to anything more than routine. There were but a few veterans among them, most of them greener than grass in spring. They were improving though. Maybe he’d let Fitch run the afternoon drills while he caught up on the paperwork…

Too quiet if you asked her, but somewhat fitting for what she wanted to ask the daydreaming knight. There was so much she wanted to ask him. So many questions she'd kept to herself because the sight of him was too much. Sparrow hesitated in the hallway leading up to Varric's chamber, foot poised on the staircase, while the other remained firmly perched where she'd been standing moments before. Studying him from behind—convincing herself that she'd moved beyond her fears, and buried them like a good dog. Apparently, she hadn't buried them deep enough. Her knees felt weak as she descended the staircase, focusing on her breaths. In, out. In, out. One step, two step, three. These questions wouldn't wait. Besides, it wasn't as if Sparrow minded bothering someone who was obviously busy and working on something else. Who worked in the Hanged Man, anyway?

She leaned her elbows on the table, wove her fingers together and glanced down at the knots twirling in the wood just below Lucien's right arm. It felt much safer than meeting his eyes, though she stole a quick glance and focused her attention above his shoulder, as if to study the ugly boar's head hanging over the mantle. “Fancy seeing you here, figured you'd want company,” she greeted with a grin, bobbing her head, “You look like you've got something on your mind.” One small lie; she'd been watching him since he first sat down, grimly wringing her hands for an opportune time to approach him. He did look rather pensive, or rather, lost in thought. Rarely did she know a person that actually came to the Hanged Man for a meal, and little else. Rather than spitting out what she wanted to say, Sparrow waited for Lucien's answer. For once in her life, the questions, and the answers he might give, frightened her. She was afraid of what he might say.

Lucien, entirely oblivious to the fact that he’d been watched, blinked slightly when Sparrow sat in front of him, but he did offer the half-elf a warm smile as she sat down. The way she wouldn’t quite look at him was familiar—Nostariel had been like that, once, and even she was hardly the first. He understood that he looked oddly similar to someone she would rather forget, and that was bound to be difficult, so in all honesty, he was rather surprised that she had approached him at all. Surely, thought he, there was a purpose in it, but he didn’t mind. If there was some way he could help her, he would. He understood perhaps only a fraction of what she had endured, but that fraction was enough to stir his sympathy. Perhaps it was unfortunate that she looked ready to bolt at any moment, but he did his best to keep his body language as nonthreatening and unobtrusive as possible. Physical resemblance, he could not help, but he could certainly make the attempt to be different enough in demeanor to allay some of her anxieties.

“I certainly don’t mind company,” he agreed amiably, and the smile widened a bit. “That obvious, am I? Not unusual, I’m afraid—some of us are not capable of much by way of subtlety.” The corner of his visible eye crinkled; it was an obtuse reference to Rilien, who had often pointed out, in those dry tones of his, that Lucien was not subtle. He had the feeling Sparrow had been informed of the same. “But yes, I was thinking. Mostly about the rest of the day; nothing that can’t wait. Is there something I can help you with?” He leaned back in his chair a bit, folding his hands, fingers interlocked, flat on the table in front of him. He did at least have a sense of when someone needed something, and that was, to him at least, what she seemed to be projecting. Whatever it was, it had brought her here, and not to any of their mutual friends, a fact that piqued his curiosity.

“I never apologized, did I?” Sparrow lamented offhandedly, partially to keep her voice from creaking like a rusty door. For all that he'd done for her on that one day, she owed him an awful lot. Not only had he played a hand in freeing her from Rapture, but he'd also helped Rilien seek out the ingredients he'd needed in the first place. Perhaps, he'd done much more behind the scenes. She'd never know because Rilien refused to divulge into any details. Only that it'd been more difficult than he'd imagined, and that in the end, the results were what he'd expected. There were no lines to read between, nor any secret tells she could decipher. Ever the secret-keeper, Rilien could pull the wool over anyone's eyes, even her own, without so much as a wink. It was startling how much she wanted to creep in and tear down those walls.She cocked her head and leaned her chin atop her fingers. “So, I'm officially offering my apologies. No more running.” Diving straight into fear was the least she could do if she wanted to understand and continue moving forward. Standing still, and expecting things to simply flow over her, hadn't done her any good. Change only came with action, and she wanted hers done by her own hands.

It was disarming to see how kind and open her companions were (she's not so stubborn to say they haven't weaseled themselves into her heart). They never asked for anything in return. Even after so many years of being on the receiving end of such warmth, of such loyalty, Sparrow wasn't used to it at all. She'd grown better at seeing the gray areas in-between. Nothing was as black or white as she'd always imagined; clear-cut, evil and good and something else hunkered in a Darktown hovel. The differences between right and wrong were, at times, still hazy in her mind; blended into a murky gray. She was not all smiles and brightly colored eyes; not always. Most disarming of all was knowing that her companions would stick around, even if she behaved like a beast. Lucien was no exception, either. From what she'd gathered from Nostariel, and even Sophia, he was the embodiment of a knight. Not that she had much experience with them herself, but she'd heard stories. The Hanged Man, if anything, was notorious for loud storytelling.

Her grin simpered into a smile, and her gaze drifted from his fingers to his chin. “Don't worry. Neither am I,” Sparrow chuckled, waggling her eyebrows, “I suppose that's the only way I could tell.” She gave no oral indication that she'd caught the reference, besides a much louder laugh. Everyone appeared much more obvious compared to Rilien, and even though she was godawful at reading atmospheres or understanding when things were appropriate, and when she should just shut her mouth, Sparrow had grown unusually good at reading Rilien's cryptic words. Or else, she blindly groped for them, coloring their conversations with hidden meanings. How she thought of him might have been far different from how Rilien saw himself. She supposed that Lucien had much on his mind—dealing with the guards in Kirkwall, or whatever else he did alongside Sophia. Whatever it was, must have been of great importance if he was crinkling his forehead over it. Social etiquette had no place in her life, so when the opportunity arose to declare her intentions, Sparrow's eyes flew away from his chin and met his.

“I need to know what happened!” She burst forth, planting her hands palm-down and nearly rising from her seat. An awkward beat passed and her shoulders visibly sagged. “At the cave, I need to know. I understand that you all went to gather some ingredients, but...” She looked away and focused on her knuckles. “I feel as if there's something missing. From the whole story. And you would know, wouldn't you? You were there, I asked—,” she sighed and screwed up her eyebrows, “I noticed something different, I just don't know what it is.”

Lucien sighed. It was as he’d both expected and feared then—Rilien had not taken his advice and kept his cards played close to his chest, as he tended to do. Strange, that someone so entirely, flawlessly blunt could have more secrets than the average spymaster. Or at least he suspected that that was the case. As with any good spymaster, it was impossible to say with any great certainty. He was for a moment very unsure what to do. On the one hand, he felt it more than a little gauche to casually bandy about Rilien’s personal business, even if he had never been asked to keep it quiet. There was an understanding between friends that one simply didn’t do that sort of thing, and the fact that his friend happened to be Tranquil made exactly no difference in this or any other matter as far as Lucien was concerned.

But then… was telling Sparrow really the same as telling anyone else? The matter concerned her just as much as it concerned Rilien, perhaps even more, if some details were omitted. This was about what had been necessary to save her, to help her, and it was her demon that had driven them all down into that place to begin with. To call it relevant seemed an understatement, making it her personal business just as surely. He knew what he wanted to do, and now all that remained was to determine if he truly believed his considerations or if he simply convinced himself of their truth so they aligned with the result he already desired, for his own reasons. Because he believed it would be better, somehow, if she knew. If she understood. Rilien didn’t let people in past a certain point—nobody knew that better than Lucien did. But something was different about Sparrow, and he knew exactly what that something was.

That much, he really wouldn’t tell her. But the rest… he did hope Ril forgave him for it. The traces of humor disappeared from his face, leaving him looking solemn, the corners of his mouth downturned, but not unkind. “It is… a complex matter,” Lucien said at last, his voice soft, intentionally beneath the hearing of anyone but her. “But… my understanding is that Rilien faced a choice. He wasn’t Tranquil, in the tunnels where we found the last ingredient. He had his magic back, and his emotions, from the moment we entered the place until the end. The demon we fought seemed to be telling him that he had a choice. Help you… or keep it all permanently.” He decided to leave off the part where he’d done it because of his love. In Lucien’s humble opinion, that was obvious from the enormity of the gesture alone. But there was something quite private, perhaps, about the actual admission of it, and that line, he would not cross.

The shift on Lucien's face chilled her like a morning frost settling across the room. Had she been given more time to brace herself, then perhaps... she'd still have the same reaction. He had the look of a man about to confess that someone had died. That they'd gone through the funeral without her, as well. Half of her wanted to slam her fists against the table to keep him from uttering another word, because the fear that clenched its hands around her constricted as soon as he began, and the other half stood stock still, waiting for a blow that might have been better if it had come as a fist.

Thump. Sparrow's chair clattered on the ground behind her. Some of the Hanged Man's dedicated regulars swung their gazes over to them, though they soon turned back to their drinks, nonplussed. Those who came to drink generally didn't care what was happening around them, and the ones that were eating instead of drinking were far and few in between. Her heart felt as if it was hammering against her chest, battering itself like a rickety stick snapping between rib-made fencing. “What?” She breathed, eying Lucien as if he'd said something ridiculous. She heard him the first time, and did not want him repeating himself—couldn't bear to hear what he'd just said again, because nothing at that moment made any sense. Why would anyone sacrifice so much for someone like her? It made no sense. It was illogical and Rilien did not do things that were illogical. Slow and steady, efficient and always, always choosing the option with the highest probability of success. Slim chances, and pointless sacrifices, hardly factored in.

“He wasn't... Tranquil?” Her voice came out as a hoarse, strangled whisper. Sparrow's touch soils things. Cuts them up, snip snip. She'd never been afraid of hurting anyone before, because she believed herself incapable of it. She did not shy away from anyone's touch, because she believed that given the choice, they would choose other paths. Paths that suited themselves, as she might have done in their place. “He, he never told me. No one told me! If I'd been there, I would've—,” she rambled, breathless: stopped him. She would have stopped him from choosing wrongly. This time, she meant it. The revelation sent her reeling backwards, away from the table, away from Lucien. They were too good for her, these kind-hearted, selfless friends. They brought all of her flaws to light, all of the things that made her selfish and needy and despicable. Had she even pressed Rilien hard enough for the truth, or had she been content with her freedom?

“That price,” she said, clutching the collar of her tunic. “You shouldn't have let him... He should've chosen differently!” Sparrow shook her head, eyebrows bunched. He could have had a normal life with all of the people he'd surrounded himself with. He could have gotten back everything he'd lost. Everything that had been taken away from him, stripped from him. It hadn't been his choice, but saying yes, however quietly, to Rapture, had been her own mistake. She should have been the one to pay the price, not him. Lucien's face wavered in front of her, and her grip tightened into the fabric, whitening her knuckles. Too much. It was too much. “You should've let me die,” she croaked, nearly tripping over her chair in her haste to reach the doorway. She hadn't meant to say that to him, not to Lucien. He didn't deserve her reaction, but her feelings shaped her. Moved her limbs, released her words, before her head had any time to catch up. Heads turned to see what had happened, though they might have only seen the shape of a fleeing form, and a slamming door.

Setting

4 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

Nostariel glanced again at the summons in her hand, then folded it several times and tucked it into an inside pocket of the leather vest she was wearing, dyed a deep blue but in other ways not at all resembling Warden gear. It wasn’t likely to be Warden business, from the sounds of things, so she replaced all the open supplied on the clinic counter as swiftly as possible and grabbed her bow from where it hung on the hook, slinging the quiver over a shoulder and pulling her boots onto her feet on her way out the door. After an accidental hop to steady herself, she managed to straighten out and flip the clinic sign such that it read CLOSED—though many of her charges could not read, they by now recognized that the longer word was the one accompanied by the locked front door. She did leave a few potions in an open box by the door, however, in case of emergency.

Whatever the matter was at the Keep, the summons sounded urgent, and when it was both urgent and from Sophia, chances were good that the fate of the entire city hung in the balance, as it so often seemed to do of late. There was really no reason or excuse not to answer, and so answer she would, even if she left the rest of her work behind to do it. Nostariel hastened up to Hightown, bypassing the merchants with little more than a smile and a nod.

Perhaps it was because of all the things she’d had to wrap up beforehand, but she reached the Keep last—or at least she assumed she was last, since Lucien and Ash were already present. There might be someone else, but it was not lost on her that the three of them most often wound up helping Sophia with anything that happened to come up. She exhaled gustily and offered a more genuine smile to both before they were summoned up to the Viscount’s office by Bran, who followed them in, bringing the total number of people in the room to six, the others of course being Sophia and her father. Judging from the looks on their faces, this was serious. "Qunari, then?” She almost dreaded the inevitable affirmative.

The Viscount nodded, gravely. "It is apparently not enough that they define my political life. They must also infect what I hold personal." Considering that they'd been called together for a matter relating to the Qunari, it was no surprise that Sophia was already in plate and mail, for both official appearances and to safeguard against the ever present threat of sudden violence exploding from the tense stalemate.

"It's Saemus," she told them, referring to her rebellious brother. "He disappeared in the night, leaving a note stating his intent to convert to the Qun. He's gone to the Qunari compound." She was obviously distraught over the turn of events, more so for the personal reasons than the political ramifications. She'd always known Saemus to despise the way of life in Hightown, to sympathize with a people such as the Qunari, but... this had taken her by surprise. She thought Saemus would elect to remain with his family, even grudgingly. "I should have seen this coming."

"I as well," the Viscount echoed, frustrated. "He nearly lost his life once to this madness, and it hardly changed him. Now he's seeking to squander it again." It was easy to tell that he was quite angry with him, but purely out of a sense of care.

"I'm going to the Qunari compound to convince Saemus to come home," Sophia said, resolved. It was obviously an extremely delicate matter. Saemus would undoubtedly be quite the symbolic prize for the Arishok, a sign that his influence spread even so far as the Viscount's Keep itself. But more than that, Sophia wanted her brother to be safe. Perhaps there was a debate to be had on if an attempt to retrieve him would not only endanger him further, but Sophia was not willing to have it right now. He was family. She had devoted her entire life to the betterment of the her family and her city, and she would not let him slip away so easily. "I'd prefer to have some company for that discussion. I can't say what kind of mood the Arishok will be in today."

The news was no better than he’d suspected based on the tone of the summons, and Lucien found himself suppressing a sigh. There was hardly a worse time it could have happened. While perhaps an earlier conversion would have carried little danger for Saemus personally, there was no guarantee of any such thing now. The situation was far too volatile to know anything with any certainty. It could boil over tomorrow or in a year, catalyzed by this or something entirely different. Saemus could find himself completely unaffected or immediately in the crossfire, and very quickly. It seemed unwarranted to clutter the air with questions that could not yet be answered, and so Lucien only nodded steadily. He’d come armed and armored—the rest was yet to be done.

The obvious displeasure of visiting the Qunari compound played clearly across Ashton's face, but he made no sound or voiced any of his internal thoughts. They were selfish thoughts that he left unsaid and stuffed in a corner of his mind. The only thing that mattered was that Sophia had asked them to accompany her on a deeply personal-- and familial matter. A request that he was not about to decline. "And you'll have it," He answered, "Let's just hope he's... Well, let's hope he's in as an agreeable mood as he can be." Nostariel nodded her affirmation as well. It was bound to be unpleasant, but there was no question about whether she was willing to do it.

"Thank you," Sophia said to her friends, earnestly. "Saemus is often rash and reckless, but I know he'll listen to reason."




It was a hot summer midafternoon, and they made haste down to the Qunari compound on the docks, putting a light sheen of sweat of Sophia's brow, from the combination of the armor, the beating sun, and the stress of the coming talk. If the Arishok was not of a mind to allow Saemus to leave with her, there would be very little she could do. Attempting anything forceful while surrounded by that many Qunari warriors would undoubtedly result in their deaths. Attempting persuasion would likely be just as difficult. She doubted the Arishok would even allow her to speak with her brother, and the Qunari himself was known to be about as immovable as a mountain. She was thankful, at least, to have her friends with her.

The gate guard grudgingly allowed them to pass, by now recognizing the faces of those entering without introduction. The Qunari were about their business as usual, but Sophia could swear by the Maker that every time she returned here, the mood was a little more foul. Every last one of them had aged years since their arrival in the city, and not all of them had lived that long. Casualties from desertion and hateful zealots plagued them. If they stayed here indefinitely and made no action, they would slowly be whittled away into nothing. Sophia only wondered what that inevitable action would be.

The Arishok seemed somewhat surprised to see them, but granted them an audience nonetheless, taking up his usual seat at the head of the staircase, several of his soldiers gathered about him, watching the approaching humans and elf like hawks, heavy throwing spears in their hands. Sophia ignored them. "Arishok," she greeted, a little more tersely than perhaps was wise. "I'm here about my brother."

"Are you?" Arishok asked, as though this amused him as much as it irritated him. He shook his head, his common disgust filtering into his words. "In four years I have made no threat, and fanatics have lined up to hate us simply because we exist. But despite lies and fear, bas still beg me to let them come to the Qun. They hunger for purpose. The brother has made his choice. You will not deny him that." Sophia was not often told exactly what she would and would not do, and since the matter related to that which she held above all else, she found herself immediately irritated by the Arishok yet again.

"I'm sure you're now keeping my brother from me because you care for him so, and not because of the obvious advantages of having the Viscount's son on your side." She did not often employ sarcasm, but she currently felt that the Arishok was deserving of it. The Qunari scowled back down at her.

"If you understood anything of the Qun, you would know that he is no longer the Viscount's son. Viddathari give up their lives for the certainty only Qunari know. The Qun may demand I take advantage of his former station, but I do not. It was his choice to be educated. He is not my prisoner."

"Then if you'll allow him to see me, I would speak with him myself."

At that, the Arishok seemed further surprised. "He is not even here. You do not know this? He went to see his father. Did the daughter even speak with the father before arming herself and coming here? Surely the Viscount would not send you and a letter both." Sophia was clearly caught off guard by that. She had been with her father for the entire day, and would have known if he had written a letter to the Arishok, or had one sent. The Arishok read her confusion easily, and clarified before she could stammer out a response. "They are meeting at the Chantry. A last, pointless appeal, I assume."

Lucien’s breath hissed out from between his teeth, about as close to audible agitation as he ever got. They all knew for a fact that the Viscount had sent no letter, but if the Arishok said he’d received one, then he had. The problem with dealing with the Qunari was never that what they said was false. And if the Chantry was the place of the supposed meeting… then Saemus’s danger might be even more immediate than he’d suspected. “Thank you, Arishok,” he said, but immediately turned to the others. “I think haste would be advisable here.”

Nostariel tried to believe that this was really just some odd miscommunication, and that there was no ill intent behind it, but… it was incredibly difficult to maintain that optimism. She could read the tension in her friends, and suspected that they must surely be arriving at similar conclusions. "Agreed.” There wasn’t much else to be said; they could talk as they walked—or ran, more likely—if they needed to, but right now, getting to the Chantry was the important thing.

It could be nothing. But if it wasn’t…

"Andraste's blessed ass," Ashton cursed, a little worse at keeping his irritation hidden. Not from being given the run around-- no, he'd become used to that by now. Instead, what rankled his shoulders was how suspect the entire thing was. He could tell by Sophia's reaction that the Viscount sent no such letter and if he had, surely he would have told them about it. Even so, Marlowe didn't seem like he was about the venture from the keep when they'd left. Ashton cupped his face with both hands and rubbed as he wondered aloud. "Other than the Viscount, who'd do this?"

If they were speaking in terms of Chantry members that would want to interfere in official business between the Viscount and the Qunari, only one name came to mind for Sophia. "Mother Petrice," she said, feeling she was beyond all doubt unworthy of that title if indeed she had her hands in this.

"A suspect in many things," the Arishok said, with disdain. "If she had threatened someone under my command, there is only one response." Sophia was selfishly inclined to agree, considering that Petrice had potentially threatened a member of her family, but she dutifully reminded herself that she was here to keep the peace, not to allow herself to act rashly based on anger.

"I will handle this, Arishok. Taking your men to the streets will only make matters worse." The Arishok shook his head, unmoved.

"If the Qun demands it, it shall be done. This is the last insult I will suffer. I will be watching. Viddathari are of the Qun. This offense will have an answer."




With the Arishok's words ringing in her head, Sophia led them back the way they came. Her legs were burning by the top of the stairs, as Hightown was a long vertical climb from the Docks, and they had only just made the descent. She didn't know what purpose whoever was behind this would have for her brother, but she started to feel slightly sick about halfway through the streets of Hightown. She half-walked, half-ran up the steps to reach the front doors, wondering where the usual throng of Chantry sisters and brothers were.

She pushed the doors open to find the Chantry deserted, which was quite unnatural. It was still late afternoon, and there should have been someone inside. Wary of some kind of ambush, Sophia loosened her sword in its sheath, though she still didn't dare draw steel in the Chantry. Moving further in, she searched for signs of anyone, before she saw the outline of a kneeling figure on the level above, silhouetted against the stained glass of the windows behind him. Broad shoulders identified him as male, and his head was bowed as if in prayer, though his arms hung by his sides, rather than clasping hands in prayer.

"Saemus?" Sophia called, thinking she recognized the shape of her younger brother. Moving around to the side, to the base of the stairs, she recognized that it was clearly him. "Saemus!" She jogged up the stairs and knelt at his side, grasping him by the shoulder. As soon as she did, though, his weight tipped him over onto his left side. "Wha-- hey! Saemus!" She caught him just before he hit the ground, and she pulled him to her, but he was utterly limp in her arms, and alarmingly cold.

It did not take long for panic to set it, gripping around her heart as she remembered what Aurora had just gone through not long ago. She spoke at a feverishly quick pace. "Saemus, hey, I'm here now. I've come to bring you home. You're going to be safe, but you need to wake up, we need to go. We need to go home..." She cupped the side of his face, and he was so cold, and the way his head lolled to the side, his neck was clearly broken, and he was dead, but no, no, that couldn't happen...

"Saemus. Saemus! No, no, no. Come on..." She looked back to Nostariel, tears brimming in her eyes, wildly and desperately. "Don't just stand there, do something! Help him! Can't your magic help him?"

Nostariel looked—and felt—very small, standing there. She could not help but be reminded of how she’d been, when she’d woken from her Joining to find him cold and still beside her. There was no spark of optimism in her eyes when she looked at Sophia, only a deep well of empathy and sorrow, a too-familiar understanding of just this kind of grief. She shook her head slowly, her hands tightening and loosening in time with her pulse beside her legs. "There is no magic that may undo death.” Soft as the words were, they were weighed with leaden certainty—the certainty of someone who knew because she once had tried.

Lucien’s jaw was locked, caught between the desire to say something and the knowledge that nothing he could say would make any difference. So instead he dealt with it the way he’d been conditioned to handle death and grief—by seeking out the cause of the agony. For though it was not his, it was close enough. Petrice would be close; he knew that much by now. And she had too much to answer for. And Ashton would see that she did. He turned with his bow drawn and mirrored Lucien, searching for the cause. He had no words that would comfort Sophia, and even given an eternity he doubt he'd ever find them. It wasn't something he could do, but he desparately wanted to do something. Even if it was something very small.

Sophia knew it, but she was still pointlessly angry at Nostariel for saying it, for telling her the opposite of what she wanted to hear. She clutched her brother's head to her chest, crying freely now. "I'm sorry, Saemus..." Sorry that she hadn't reeled him in earlier, sorry that she had never smacked any sense into him, sorry that she didn't stop him from being such a fool and getting himself killed. "I'm sorry that I wasn't there for you."

She was vaguely aware that Mother Petrice had shown herself down below them, surrounded by armed men and women, more fanatics, and the occasional rogue Templar, their weapons drawn in the Chantry. She was speaking up at them, words that Sophia hardly even heard, something about a repentant convert killed in the Chantry itself, deliberately denying the Maker, the Qunari finally being made to answer... if Sophia had been in control of her mental faculties, she may have been alarmed at how quickly her intense grief turned into an all-consuming rage. That woman down there, or one of her mindless followers, had murdered her brother, her innocent, idealistic, peaceful brother.

She wanted them dead.

Sophia gently set her brother down on the rug. Then, with startling speed, she rose, drew her sword in a flash of steel, and vaulted over the railing. Even with bleary vision, she could see that there was a fool beneath her with a battleaxe, not prepared for battle in the slightest. She gritted her teeth and slashed down directly into his head as she landed, cleaving him in half down to the ribcage in a spray of blood, bone, and brain. Not nearly sated from that, Sophia moved on to the next, not caring how many there were, not feeling when a mace found her back and drove her to the ground. She was on her feet again, delivering her just retribution to any she could reach.

Setting

5 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

Lucien was moving a second after Sophia, though he elected to use the stairs rather than vault the railing, disinclined to risk the landing with blood slicking the floor beneath. Still, he wasn’t slow about it, more out of the desire to make sure Sophia didn’t get herself hurt in her vengeance than any particular desire to kill anyone himself. He understood, of course, there was no way he could fail to understand her feelings, but following them blindly could harm her further, and he was disinclined to allow that, to put it mildly.

The butt end of the poleax cracked into the temple of the nearest zealot with a little too much force—he’d live, but not by much. Gritting his teeth, Lucien checked himself when he hit the next civilian, catching that one with the flat of the axehead on his backswing. His forward progress was interrupted next by a Templar, and he caught sight of Petrice fleeing from the corner of his eye. She wouldn’t be able to get far—but he had other problems to deal with right now. He was less disposed to show mercy to someone who should have been taught why men wielded swords in the first place, and the greater skill of a Templar made deadly force all but necessary anyway. Spinning to the side to avoid a bash from a shield, Lucien twisted, catching the pole under the man’s legs in a low sweep. Off balance from the dodge he had not been expecting, the Templar fell, narrowly missing the pointed speartip of the poleax by rolling to the side. It shaved a few hairs from his jawline as it was.

Getting his feet underneath him, the Templar pressed back, slashing in a wide horizontal arc with the longsword he carried. Lucien just let it clang harmlessly off his plate mail, rather than trying to step backwards and yielding the advantage of forward momentum. The backswing was quicker than he expected, nicking his cheekbone and crossing the scar beneath his eyepatch, a thin red line bisecting the more jagged white one. He really needed to relearn how to use both—his depth perception needed some work. Stepping too far forward for his polearm to be of any use, Lucien simply overwhelmed the other with size and aggression—lazy, Liliane would have called it. Right in this moment, he didn’t care much, dropping the spear and catching the man’s head in both hands. A judicious wrench was all it took—the bones in his neck snapped, and the Templar went limp. Lucien dropped him, retrieved the poleax, and kept moving forward.

Back up on the upper level, Ashton found the ideal position was the one that he already occupied. Taking a step up to find a perch on the railing that Sophia vaulted, the archer couldn't have asked for a better vantage point, though truth be told he wished that there hadn't been need of one at all. He was by no means an overly religious man, but his aunt had been, and he still had respect for the Maker, more so than this Petrice it seemed. Which of whom he'd had in his sights, though lining up a nonlethal shot took more time than a lethal one, and by then she'd slipped away from his sight entirely. He grunted harshly, opting to not curse in the Chantry, and instead took aim upon those who instead stayed to fight.

It was then he realized that the force was only partly Templar, the other part being made of ordinary men and women. It only further agitated him. The grunt turned to a growl as he took aim on a man whose bravery was only matched by his stupidity. Turned toward the raging Sophia, the man wielded a sword like it was his first time. An arrow bit deep into his ankle, and another found a home in the opposite shin. He dropped, and the virgin sword clattered to the ground, a pained cry following soon after. Though he didn't know it yet, Ashton had just saved the man's life. Sophia would not have been so forgiving.

Nostariel, too, opted to stay more or less where she was, though she did not trust her balance nearly enough to perch like a bird on the railing. Deciding her focus was best spent on making sure neither of her friends was overwhelmed with numbers alone, she decided on crowd control, sucking in a breath and loading the arrow she was holding with magic. Fitting it to the bowstring, she drew back until the feather brushed her cheek, aiming for no target in particular, but rather a spot on the floor, far enough from Sophia’s trajectory that the woman wouldn’t accidentally walk into it. This meant she had to let off the spell a little closer to Lucien, but he seemed more aware of his surroundings at the moment, and she trusted him not to get caught up in it.

The arrow flew from the bow with a whistle, landing in front of a good five of the civilians. From the point it touched the floor, a cone of cold bloomed, spreading outwards to capture the legs and hips of three, the entire left leg of a fourth, and at least the ankle of the last, effectively holding at least most of them in place for the foreseeable future. She caught a Templar making a beeline for Sophia’s flank, and with a slightly pained expression, she released two more arrows, unaugmented, in quick succession. The second one did the trick, thrumming with a certain kind of finality into his neck and dropping him. It was poor planning that tried to hold a Templar with magic for long, after all.

Sophia could not make herself care for the lives of those that stood in her way. They either participated in the murder of her brother, or they approved of it and its result. Either way, she wanted them gone. Several more lost their lives crossing her path before the fighting ended, and while she had suffered some bruising blows in return, none of the blood that spattered her was her own. Some of the fanatics dropped to the ground with nonlethal injuries that she normally approved. Now she only let them live because others were more immediate threats.

What drew her to a stop, however, was the sight of Grand Cleric Elthina entering the room, with Mother Petrice at her heels, spewing lies in the woman's ear. "Do you see, your Grace? Traitors attacking the very core of the Chantry! They defile with every step!" Sophia might have rushed forward and skewered the bitch right then and there, but Elthina's presence halted her where she stood, and suddenly she was overcome with exhaustion, physical and emotional. She fell heavily to her knees and let Vesenia clatter to the ground, defeated.

"There is death in every corner, young mother," Elthina responded, though she seemed skeptical already. "It is as you predicted. All too well."

Lucien was torn between going to Sophia and remaining where he was, considering that the conductor of this mad little orchestra had finally reappeared. He did not understand how she thought she could possibly get away with accusing Sophia of being a Qunari sympathizer, but it seemed that was her plan all the same. In the end, it was obvious to him that Sophia herself was in no state to carry out this conversation, and so he decided that he could at least do this much to help. “Prediction has uncanny accuracy when you control the results,” he said, a fraction of stony anger creeping into his tone. But then he shook his head and refocused, glancing over at the Grand Cleric. He was sure they made quite the sight, spattered in gore with two archers, one capable of magic, yet on the dais above. But he believed she was wise enough to know that such appearances cold be deceiving.

“My apologies, Your Grace,” Lucien continued, inclining himself at the torso. “It… has been a trying day, and for some of us much worse than that. You should know what happened here, and I would tell you, if you will hear me.” He glanced back at Sophia and swallowed thickly. He couldn’t think too much about it right now—the worry.

"Don't you spout your filth to a Grand Cleric," Petrice immediately interrupted, attempting to get ahead of things. "This is a hand of the Divine." Elthina seemed only more disappointed by the Mother's efforts to steer the conversation.

"I have ears, Mother Petrice. The Maker would have me use them." She looked to Lucien. "Serah Drakon, I assume. Sophia has mentioned you several times." The Viscount's daughter seemed hardly to hear, slumping sideways to sit on the floor amidst the carnage. Elthina looked on in concern, but the truth needed to come out first.

As he had done once before, Lucien completely ignored the fact that Petrice had spoken at all, waiting instead for confirmation from the Grand Cleric. Once he received it, he spoke steadily, but quietly, mindful that it was still not an easy thing to hear. “Saemus Dumar was killed here,” he said, “in your name.”

"I'm sure my name won't like that," Elthina responded. "Petrice?"

"Saemus Dumar was a Qunari convert! He came here to repent and was mur--"

"Oh, don't bother even saying it," the Grand Cleric said, cutting her off. "Killed by his own sister, you would have me believe? Look at what you've done to her. All in a foolish attempt to set more people against the Qunari."

"With respect, Your Grace," Petrice said, clearly struggling not to panic in the face of her collapsing plans, "this is no longer a matter of heathens squatting on the docks. People are leaving us to join them!"

"And we must pray for them, like any other." Petrice was not satisfied with that.

"They deny the Maker!"

"And you diminish Him, even as you claim His side. Andraste did not volunteer for the flame. You have erred in your judgment, Mother Petrice. A court will decide your fate. The Chantry respects the law, and so must you." Clearly wanting no more of the woman, or the mess in her Chantry hall, Grand Cleric Elthina left Petrice before the remains of those she had convinced to follow her in her madness. Petrice looked broken without the support of the Grand Cleric, with the knowledge that she had been abandoned by her faith.

"Grand Cleric?" she pleaded, but Elthina would not hear her. "Grand Cleric!"

She was prevented from saying any more by the soft whistle characteristic of a projectile weapon moving at great speed, the knife flying end-over-end with an unerring precision until it thudded home in the center of her chest, in the exact middle of the embroidered symbol that marked her status as a Chantry cleric. Petrice staggered backwards slightly, clutching ineffectually at the dagger, but she was not to be given even that much quarter. With a sound no louder than the padding of cat’s paws over the stone, Amalia seemed to melt into solidity from one of the shadows in the Chantry’s entranceway, sprinting with long strides towards the mother. Moving slightly to the side, she grabbed Petrice’s free wrist as she passed, spinning herself deftly into place against the shorter woman’s back, and drew she second knife she held over her throat, ear-to-ear in the most deliberate of assassin’s cuts.

The Mother fell to the ground, and Amalia held her dripping dagger slightly out to her side, the look of detached disdain on her painted face quintessentially Qunari. For a long moment, she did not say anything, and when she raised her head from her scrutiny of the corpse, she spoke to everyone present. “They did not heed our warning, and the Arishok has reached the end of his patience.” Another pause, almost one of hesitation, and then she continued in the same iron voice. “Prepare yourselves. These crimes will not go unanswered, and that answer will cost you more even than this.”

"What… what do you mean?” The question was Nostariel’s, and though in some sense she knew it was silly to ask, she felt she had to. Yes, of course the Qunari, whatever they did, would cause a lot of damage—that one was obvious, but she could not help but want to know if there was anything else Amalia could—or would—tell them. She was not especially good with subtle implications, but she had caught the slight pause in her delivery, and wondered if perhaps she was speaking now beyond the strictest bounds of what she was supposed to say. If so… would she be willing to continue. "How can we prepare if we don’t know what to expect?”

Amalia shook her head. She had already said more than she probably should, but to her own surprise, she continued anyway. “Expect the worst. Brace yourself for it, and count yourself fortunate if it does not come.” The army on the docks was more than Kirkwall’s City Guard and Templars together would be able to handle, but she knew what the Arishok’s likely trajectory would be—and she knew also that these people would be most likely of all to place themselves in the way of that path.

“A conquering army with any sense goes right for the enemy commander,” Lucien said slowly, and Amalia’s gaze shifted to him for a moment. She nodded almost imperceptibly, then lashed her arm once, flicking the last of Petrice’s blood off of the blade she held, sliding it home in a sheath strapped to the outside of her thigh. There was no enemy commander as such here, because there was no enemy army as such. The alternatives were few, but obvious. With a final inclination of her head to those present, she turned and walked right out of the Chantry front doors, leaving the others to their thoughts.

The Chanter's Board has been updated. Following the Qun has been completed.

Setting

4 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

It was the day after the event in the Chantry that Lucien decided he needed to go check on Sophia, and he managed out of some sense of… he wasn’t sure what, to wait until about midday to do it. After much longer in consideration than he usually spent, he decided to forgo the armor entirely, leaving himself attired in a dark blue shirt and simple brown breeches. Because it was impossible for him to allow himself to go anywhere without some backup form of protection, he tucked a long knife into one of his boots, but that was it. The battles that would be waged today were of a very different kind from those of yesterday, and he knew himself well enough to know that he would find them much more difficult.

It didn’t really surprise him that on the way to the Keep, he managed to espy both Nostariel and Ashton, and fell in with the pair of them as they made their way up to Hightown. Very little was said, perhaps because there was very little to say. Though he could not deny that some part of himself did want to speak to Sophia alone, he could not think it a poor thing that she would know that she had many friends to lean on at this time in her life. Whatever would help her most, he had no doubt they would be willing to do, and that assurance went some way to laying to rest his unease about the whole thing. He had trouble remembering what people had told him, when his mother had died. He doubted any of it had helped much, as he seemed to remember his grief being a very personal thing—shared, perhaps, by others who had known and loved her, but still fundamentally solitary. He carried it with him even now, and he doubted it would be much comfort to tell someone that no, it never really did go away.

The three reached the Keep and made their way straight to Seneschal Bran, bypassing what little line there was. The death of the Viscount’s son was understandably barring most official business, especially that which couldn’t be conducted through people like Bran himself. It hardly seemed necessary to say who they were there for or why; the looks on their faces would do that well enough.

The Keep was relatively deserted today, as the public had been informed that all the Viscount's business had been temporarily postponed, and that the Viscount himself would be seeing no visitors, in order to have the time and privacy needed to mourn the passing of his only son. There was no official public policy on the Viscount's daughter, but Bran seemed glad to see the arrival of her closest friends. He greeted them, grimly informing them that Sophia had more or less collapsed into her bed upon her return to the Keep, and that she had yet to emerge from her private quarters for the entirety of the day so far, though he had chanced to hear weeping, and knew that she was awake. Bran felt that it could hardly hurt if friends as close as these were allowed to check on her, though out of respect for her privacy, he asked them to wait while he confirmed with the Viscount's daughter that visitors would be acceptable. After a short while he returned, speculating that it might be best if only one of them went to speak with her first, so as not to surround her immediately in her own room. Naturally, Lucien was the choice.

At some point, Sophia had shrugged out of her bloodstained clothes and into a nightgown, and the clothes she'd worn under her armor through the slaughter of the fanatics still lay piled beside her bed, speckled crimson. Sophia had hastily washed herself of the blood, at least from her face, though she had missed a spot on the side of her neck. She was seated in her bed, the covers still thrown over her legs, her golden hair a disheveled mess, her eyes red from weeping. Though she had not left her bed all day, it looked as though she hadn't gotten much rest at all.

It hurt his heart to see.

Lucien entered quietly, not because he wished his presence to remain hidden, but perhaps out of some oddly-displaced sense of respect or empathy. It hardly seemed the time for anything but the greatest of care, anyway, and that seeped quite a bit into his body language, which lacked the general solidity and straightforwardness to which those around him were accustomed. If anything, his mannerisms—sloped shoulders, pulled inward, hands somewhat uncomfortably dangling at his sides, slightly-bowed head—were those of a much smaller person, uncomfortable in his own skin and slightly awkward. Something he had not been for many years.

Gingerly, he took a seat, pulling the chair close to her bedside, leaning his elbows on his knees and letting his forearms hang loosely against one another. It mitigated the discomfited air a bit, but still he swallowed thickly as he studied her face for a moment. “Sophia—” he found he didn’t know how to end the sentence. He felt quite useless at the moment, something he’d always hated. With an uncertainty that did not become him, he reached forward just a bit, placing his hand over hers. “If you want—need us to go, me to go, I will.” The last thing he wanted was to be another problem right now, and he knew enough to understand that everyone grieved differently.

Immediately Sophia was aware of the fact that she hadn't spoken a word to anyone since discovering her brother's body. She had cleaved through the unprepared zealots with a silent, murderous resolve, watched emotionlessly from the floor as Elthina refused to stand by Petrice and then while Amalia opened her throat from ear to ear. She sat in silence by Saemus while the Viscount was summoned to the Chantry, watched in silence as he wept beside her, walked in numb silence back to the Keep with him. She had slipped into her room, in silence, and shut the door, making the world disappear. Then she had curled up under the covers of her bed, as close to retreating back into the womb as she could get. It could not last, of course.

Still, there was no more comfortable a way for her to return to the world of the living and the speaking than his touch, and she pulled her knees to her chest, resting her hands and his atop them, letting her head fall until her forehead touched his knuckles. Lucien was there for her, she knew, always there for her, as much as he allowed himself to be. She remembered when finding a man she would finally allow to court her was the greatest of her troubles. Another life. Or was that yesterday? She did not know. "Stay, please."

The words came out as a hoarse whisper, and she attempted to clear her throat, which had been tightly constricted as though choking her from the moment she had laid eyes on the note Saemus had left, the last words he would relay to his family before dying. His last action in this world had been to leave them behind. She could not help but hate him for it, and hate herself for not preventing it. She should have seen the signs, known he was heading down that path... "I don't know where I lost my way," she confessed to Lucien's hand. "I forgot why I started fighting in the first place. It was all for my family, to relieve my father, to take up the duties my brother never desired. I neglected him instead."

She recalled bitterly when she had been heading out the door on the way to deal with bandits on the coast, when Sparrow had come along, the argument she had held with her brother. He had seemed so stupid at the time, so foolish, and he still did... but was she not just as great a fool for not recognizing the signs, growing within him? "Now he is dead, and my father will not recover. Everything I did only worsened their burdens."

Lucien’s hand tightened around Sophia’s as she spoke, his head tipped faintly to the side in consideration. “We both know that’s not true,” he said, the volume little above a murmur but enunciated clearly all the same. “Your love for them is obvious in everything you do. If you forgot, it is only in the way that people forget that they are breathing.” Instinct. So natural that it pervades everything in a way that was seen most clearly by outside eyes. He knew of no one that would deny her devotion to her father and brother. Had anyone ever done so, he would happily set them straight, because he had seen it firsthand, and knew it for truth.

His free hand moved, brushing the curtain of her hair back to tuck behind an ear, finding the spot of blood that remained and brushing it away with the callused pad of his thumb. It was hardly proprietary, any of it, but at precisely this moment, he cared not at all. “You have burdened no one but yourself, and you have carried that weight with a grace kings and queens should envy.” He didn’t really like to consider what shape the city would be in without her, and likely, all of this would have boiled over much sooner without her standing back there to stem the tide. These were not the traits of a woman lost; not in the slightest.

She was crying again, she realized, as a second tear fell onto Lucien's hand. Sophia looked away, dabbing at her eyes with her blanket. She wanted so badly to find some kind of hope, some happiness, in Lucien's words. He always seemed to know how to instruct her when she was doubting, suffering, or unsure. She could not find it this time. It was as though black clouds circled around her heart, striking with deadly bolts when anything resembling hope came near. "It was not obvious to Saemus," she choked out at last.

She could see the good that she had done for herself over the past years, since she boldly decided to take up her blade and set an example for her city, proving that she was worthy of the crown she was to inherit. She'd grown confident, fearless, strong. She learned how to balance decisiveness and justice with compassion. Where she began with a tunneled view of the world, she now could see clearly in a much broader arc. But Kirkwall, and her family, only seemed to suffer the more she fought. She had allowed her brother to become distant, and he had paid for it with his life. Her father would have little chance of standing up to the combined pressures of the Templars and the Qunari both after the passing of his son, and the city seemed doomed for war because of it.

Sophia had carried the burdens gracefully, but they had crushed her in the end, all the same.

She fought back a sob as though it was an army of Qunari, and of course she lost, tipping over sideways to fall into Lucien, placing her head against his chest as her entire body began to tremble. "Mother was such a fool, to fall for a nobleman," she sputtered. "She sold her freedom for love. And my own." The way Dairren had spoken of it when Sophia was a young girl, they lived a simpler life, a happier one. It was a life Sophia had never realized how much she truly envied.

Sometimes, there was simply nothing to be said. Some things, some feelings, were too deep and rooted for words to do anything at all. There was really no purpose in using them, and so Lucien did not try to tell her otherwise. He knew not her brother’s mind, nor even if it would have made a difference had she behaved in any way differently. He knew that she had been doing the best she could, to contend with more problems than anyone should ever really have to face, and perhaps she knew it too. But grief was not the sort of thing that ceded to logic—he knew that very well. How many people had told him that his mother’s death was not his fault? That what had happened to his comrades, his best friend, was tragic and unavoidable, that he’d done the right thing in sending him to it? He didn’t remember, because he hadn’t cared, then. He didn’t even really care now. The emotion was not defeated that way, and it would take time, in this case as in every other he’d encountered.

“I know,” he murmured, not for the sake of agreement, but rather commiseration. He had to admit, that one struck a little close to home, but he pushed that aside for the moment. Shifting slightly, he adjusted such that her angle against him was no longer so awkward, placing an arm around her back. “I know.” His free hand moved to the crown of her head, then down, stroking in soothing, repetitive motions as he recalled from half-hazy memories of his childhood. “I’m so sorry, Sophia.” He wished there was something, anything, he could do to make it easier for her. But there were no easy or magical solutions for this, and it would hurt her no matter what he did.

A while later, Lucien took his leave, indicating to the others that it was perhaps best if Sophia was allowed to rest for the moment. She knew they’d come, and for now, that would simply have to be enough.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

It took only a day for word to reach every corner of the city: the Viscount's son was dead.

That much was certain. What was unknown to almost all, however, was the nature of his death. Some claimed agents of the Qunari had kidnapped him and brutally murdered him, leaving his body in the Chantry as a warning of what was to come, while others claimed that the young man was attempting to convert, to actually join the Qun, and that zealots, firm in their belief in the Maker, had struck him down. A hundred more stories, some more farfetched than others, circulated through the streets. Ithilian, being closely connected to a woman that had been at the scene of the crime, was one of the few that understood what had really occurred, the entire truth of it.

It mattered little what the truth was, though. The effect was that fear and hatred of the Qunari, and the tensions between them and the local powers, were at an all time high, even though Ithilian knew that they had done next to nothing wrong other than remain in the area and refuse to leave. Every incident they were involved in had always been started by an outside party, but somehow they always seemed to end up with the blame. The city was gearing up for a war, if only because it seemed inevitable, the very preparations for battle only fueling the coming conflict itself.

The Alienage was not immune to the fear sweeping throughout the city. The Qunari had a great deal of sympathizers in the Alienage, and Ithilian wondered if Amalia had not played a role in that. He highly doubted she intended for able-bodied elves to pledge their services to the Arishok, offering what skill in archery they possessed, or even volunteering to pick up a spear and serve in the line of battle. But it had happened all the same, and more left every day, feeling that the safest place to be if a conflict broke out was behind the spears and massive bodies of the Qunari warriors. Ithilian was not sure if he disagreed.

To that end, he had invited Amalia to share a dinner with Lia and himself that evening, to discuss the future in a setting that was not under the vhenadahl, where so many passing pointed ears would hear their words. Ithilian was not an expert chef, but fortunately for him, Lia had already surpassed his modest skills, and together the pair of them were able to nicely roast a duck, not scorch a relatively soft loaf of bread, and prepare a dish of mixed vegetables, with a relatively cheap wine for their thirst, as well as water. Ithilian's home was modest and rather spartan, but with a fire burning in the little hearth, and the company of the two he considered lethallan, his clan, it felt almost homey.

She had watched the gradual thinning of the Alienage with a strange mix of feelings. While it was certainly not her job to actively recruit to the Qun, this should have been something she approved of. These people, the downtrodden and the oppressed, were seeing her way of life for the protection and certainty it could offer, and they were willing to risk life and limb to earn that protection and certainty for themselves, to fall into step with the mighty march of her people, the march that she had always been led to believe would one day carry them all across the surface of Thedas, until everyone walked in time with the great, pulsing heartbeat of the Qun. Vital, strong, united. Everything in its place, honed to an efficiency that no craft of human hands could ever hope to match. This should have lifted the weight from her shoulders—her viddathari left to join the march, and she knew they left educated, not a one of them any longer illiterate or incapable of defending themselves, the words of a second tongue upon their lips. Stronger. Smarter. Sharper. Safer.

Better.

But that was not what she felt. The weight only pressed harder, until she sometimes wondered if it might not soon become a labor to breathe. Because some of them were going to die, and she was not so sure that wasn’t her fault. And even those that would join the inexorable many were not the ones she cared the most about. No, Amalia had come to a point where she cared more about some people than others, perhaps the closest thing the Qun had to true sacrilege. Bonds among comrades were expected, but they were still nothing next to the strongest bond of all—that of a soul to the Qun it served. In her heart, she was not Qunari anymore, even if her body and her mind continued to serve as was demanded of her. This was something she understood now.

It was also something she did not know how to address.

So she watched, and she felt the heaviness of it overtake her, and she did nothing. At least not for the moment. She opened her hands, and watched the grains of sand slip between her fingers and blow away on the wind, her certainty, her precious assurance, finally abandoning her entirely. She let it, if she were being honest. And if there was one thing Amalia always was, it was honest. For all the good it was doing her now. She had opened her eyes, and what she saw before her was an empty house, stripped of the signs of too many lives—the fledglings under her care had taken up bow and spear and knife now, were they able. They had all left, even if they were not, and the space between her lungs was suddenly as empty as the hovel she dwelled in. Alone.

She perhaps felt a sense of relief when she was invited into another, this one still occupied, and it was plainly dressed and nearly unarmed that she made her way there, raising a hand to knock on the door. When she was granted admittance, she took a chair, folding her legs up and underneath her primarily out of habit. She watched the other two move about in the last stages of their preparation, and for a little moment, she felt lighter again.

It was not long after they had begun eating, however, that Lia called the topic into discussion, that which was on the lips of every adolescent in the Alienage, and the one that Lia was privileged enough to have an inside source on. "Everyone's saying there's going to be battle soon," she commented, chewing on a piece of broccoli. "Between the city and the Qunari. Would the Qunari win?" She understood no better than Ithilian why the Arishok and his soldiers were forced to remain in the city, but unlike Lia, Ithilian knew better than to think there was any doubt about the outcome of the coming battle.

"The Templars are too few, and the guards know how to fight bandits, not soldiers." He could see, however, that Lia had addressed the question to Amalia. She looked up to the Qunari woman, admired her, respected her, and like many, was slightly intimidated by her. That was passing with time, however, and Ithilian could not help but wonder if she admired the woman, or the Qunari, like so many of those her age. Perhaps alarmingly, the two did not seem to be quite the same as of late. He knew Amalia well enough to sense she was troubled, even if she hid it well.

Amalia looked up from her plate, which she had thus far been rather intent on, passing her eyes from Ithilian to Lia. Pausing for a moment, she straightened fully and laid her utensils down. She wasn’t sure she had much of an appetite anymore, though the food was more than passable. “When it comes to that,” she said, not at all keeping the battle hypothetical anymore, “the question will not be whether the Qunari win. It will be how.” She traced a finger along the wood grain in the table they sat at. “The Arishok will likely target Kirkwall leadership, but he does have a few choices if that is the case. And… much will depend on what resistance he receives.”

"If violence is inevitable, we would be wise to prepare for it," Ithilian pointed out, somewhat gravely. He did not necessarily believe that either side was the correct one to pick. The Arishok and his Qunari had done nothing wrong, but any conflict here would be theirs to start, and theirs to end, at their will. The Alienage would likely not be a direct target if the Qunari chose to attack the city, considering that none of the "Kirkwall leadership" could be found here, but the elves were already involved, whether Ithilian liked it or not. Many had joined with the Qunari, seeing an opportunity to fight back against an enemy that had oppressed them unopposed for so long. Some time ago, Ithilian might have actually been one of them, using the chance to rally these elves and lead them into strength, to seize their own freedoms alongside the Qunari. But now, he no longer felt obligated to direct their fates. He cared only for a few.

"You aren't one of the Arishok's soldiers. What will you do, when the time comes?" he wondered if she had even made up her mind. Taking up arms against the city would mean taking up arms against many that she had likely come to call friends. But betraying her people would surely be just as difficult. The Qunari were not so scattered as the Dalish. They were here, and in force. They could not be so easily ignored.

Whatever shreds of her inclination to eat had remained vanished with the question. She should have anticipated it, really; he knew her far better than anyone else did—he would have been able to read her uncertainty no matter how well she hid it. Like her, he did not pull punches to spare feelings, and it was one of the reasons she respected him so much. Amalia drew her hands back from the table, lacing her fingers together and placing them at the juncture of her crossed legs. Her posture was one of a characteristic graceful ease, but her inner state did not fall in line quite so smoothly with that as she would have liked. “You are correct,” she said, just as somberly. “I am not a soldier. I will not march with the army. I will not…” She would not watch this place become as it was in her nightmares—burning and carried away in the wind, nothing but cinders and ash.

“There are lives I will not abide being taken. For these, I would contend with the Arishok himself.” She looked as though she was unsure how to feel about that, but it was the truth. “Fortunately, I will not have to. What comes of the rest of it remains to be seen, and I will act as needs must.” And what came after—when the Arishok had done what he came to do and the Qunari boarded their ships once more? That, she did not know. Not any longer.

Ithilian knew Amalia had been doubting her ties with the Qun, just as he had been doubting his own Dalish ideals some time ago, but he had not expected them to be so strained that she would speak of combating the Arishok himself. Lia looked a bit taken aback as well. She had likely believed that if anything, Amalia would fight with the Qunari, and Ithilian as well, and thus the entire Alienage. The city guard was already beginning to view them as antagonists, the friends of an enemy, and lately had been coming down harshly on any elven transgressions, to attempt to dissuade them from further acts of rebellion. It was the directive of the increasingly zealous captain, and it was only backfiring, villifying the guard to the city elves more than they already were.

"At this point, fighting the Arishok would mean fighting part of the Alienage as well. I'm not sure I could do that." He did not feel compelled to fight with them, but neither did he want to fight against them. The Dalish heritage in him still demanded he not raise a blade against another elf, even one who abandoned their culture to join the foreign Qunari. In addition, he did not know all of the lives Amalia would not abide being taken, but Ithilian felt that way about only a few. He would not want the Warden to throw her life away defending Kirkwall, but surely she would not be a target of the Qunari, either. They held a respect for the Wardens, as the Dalish did.

"Maybe there won't be any reason to fight at all," Lia suggested. "No one really cares about the Alienage. Maybe it'll just... pass us by." She was right, in that the Alienage would not be the center of any conflict. Ithilian too liked the idea of remaining out of the conflict altogether, but... if Amalia chose to side against the Qunari and the Arishok, he knew he would be right there with her. That was a life he would not abide being taken. Even if that meant fighting his own people.

“Do not misunderstand,” Amalia said slowly. “I do not expect that any such thing will be necessary. It is as you suggest—the battle will likely remain far from here, and none of the denizens will be forced to choose anything, if they do not take up arms on their own. I certainly do not plan to go looking for a fight. It is only… if one finds me, and the parameters are right… I will not hesitate.” She certainly wasn’t comfortable with the idea, but it was true all the same. If Ithilian or Lia or Aurora or Sparrow or any of the few others she held close found themselves on the wrong end of a Qunari blade, she would put herself there, too. That was simply the determination she had reached. It was like standing at the edge of a cliff, knowing that you did not particularly desire to jump, but committing yourself to do it, if the wind blew from your back. Perhaps she would never need to jump at all, and if not, there would surely be a decision awaiting her further down the line. But if she felt that breeze, insistent and tugging, she would indeed drop from the precipice, with as much grace as she could muster.

She wondered if she would ever be able to come to terms with that, regardless of what actually happened.

Setting

4 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

A storm was coming.

It wasn't hard to read. The day had been overcast, and the day before that, but the clouds were thickening, building, preparing to unleash their fury on the city. By Ithilian's estimate, that would be tonight. That was unfortunate. His job was going to be difficult enough already.

The past three days, Ithilian had rarely been seen in the Alienage. Instead, he wandered, out and about, gathering information, planning. If there was one thing he was certain of, it was that he needed to keep a level head throughout all of this. It was a difficult task, considering the circumstances, but he was determined to do it. He would not allow history to repeat itself, to take a member of his clan from him. They had been beyond his power before, but this time, he could do what needed to be done. He still had that strength left in him.

He kept Amalia informed of his activities, feeding her information and hearing her thoughts on each new piece he uncovered. On the first night, he informed her that Lia had not returned to the Alienage, at least not to her home. He was inclined to think she was with that boy, the one that had been brave enough to ask her to dance at the wedding festival. The following morning confirmed that that was not the case. On the second day, he inquired throughout the Alienage, and then the rest of Lowtown, to see if anyone knew of Lia's whereabouts. Ashton was able to confirm that no, she had not come in to work at the shop that day, but he had seen her leave the shop yesterday. Nothing out of the ordinary had occurred then. But she had never made the trip home.

Many residents of Lowtown were not inclined to speak with an elf, even one so threatening as Ithilian, bearing his brutal scars for all the world to see. He was tempted to pull knives on them and wring them up against the wall, like a filthy rat of a shemlen merchant years ago, but his newfound center stayed his hand. Anger had done little to save his family before. Patience, focus, clarity... these things would bring Lia back to him.

His next thought was the Qunari compound. Lia had fallen under the illusion that the Qunari were the safest people to be with, or perhaps she had been persuaded by her friends to follow them there, impressionable as she still was. She was not with the Qunari. Many elves had recently joined with the Arishok, but none had been fifteen year old girls. He had been about to leave the docks when his eyes settled on something, across the waters.

The Gallows.

By the end of the day he had determined that yes, Lia was being held in the Gallows. Her crime had been heinous, but no one seemed to have witnessed it apart from the city guard. The guards themselves were not inclined to speak with Ithilian, and there was no way he would be allowed visitation without hacking his way through all of them and finding her cell himself. To make matters worse, the Viscount and his daughter had not left the Keep for the past two days, and in their silence, the city rather quickly seemed to be going mad. No one cared for a little elf girl who committed a crime. The Gallows were being turned more or less into an army encampment preparing for battle, as the Templars eyed the Qunari across the water. No elf would be leaving the dungeon without Knight-Commander Meredith's express permission, considering that they were all being considered potential allies of the hornheads now.

And so for the third day, Ithilian made preparations to take matters into his own hands. The Gallows were a fortress, traditionally accessible only by a small dock entrance on the near side of the island. The bastion was made up of three corners, three separate fortresses each holding their own brand of prisoners. The one was dedicated to the Circle of Magi in Kirkwall, and this Ithilian had no interest in. Another was the home base for the Templar army of Kirkwall, and this Ithilian would seek to avoid at all costs. The last, the one facing the open waters of the sea, was the dungeon, where the many prisoners of the crown were held until proper justice could be dispensed to them. The brands of justice being dispensed by Meredith and the captain of the guard, a brutish man named Aatrox, were not forgiving.

The windows of this place were not barred. Unfortunately, they were high enough up from the sea such that throwing oneself through one would undoubtedly result in death. They were accessible by way of a roughly one hundred foot climb up a sheer cliff face. That was the way in. Ithilian would need to row around to the rear of the castle, climb up the cliff, clamber inside, locate Lia, free her, and then make the climb back down far enough such that they could jump the rest of the way. Certainly not a flawless plan, and there were many places where it could easily go wrong, but Ithilian was not interested in allowing Lia to rot in the Gallows, and this was the only way to get her out without defeating an army of guards and Templars first.

He would need help, though. The climb would not be safe without a partner. Even then it would be perilous. But with two of them, they could tie ropes to one another, such that a fall could potentially be caught, if their grips were strong enough. The cliff face looked to have many strong handholds, and the rope would come in handy for the return climb. Secondly, there would be killing. Ithilian would likely need to acquire keys, and if he was detected, the climb would be impossible while being chased. The question of who to ask for help was one he had been thinking over for the day. In the end, it was a difficult choice, but one he felt strongly about.

He found himself at Ashton's shop in the waning hours of the work day. He patted the mabari on the head as he entered. "I need your help with something, Ashton," he said, without delay. He had once claimed he'd end the man's life if anything happened to Lia. But this was not in any way his fault. "Do you have access to a rowboat, and a large amount of rope?"

It was a odd moment of activity that Ithilian caught him in. Ashton was in the process of closing up the shop when Ithilian entered. With the coins counted and stock replinished, all that had remained was sweeping the store and he was doing a terrible job of it, too. Dust and dirt piled up randomly across the floor and more was in the air than on the ground. He already knew that he relied on Lia for a lot, but with her missing he became acutely aware of just how much. A bead of sweat rolled down the side of his face as he looked up to meet Ithilian, though the first words out of his mouth wasn't something he was expecting to hear.

"Yeah, I use it for fishing and I'm sure I have a spool around here somewhere..." He was quiet for a moment as he realized what the implications were. "So you found her then?" he asked tentatively. He reminded himself that if the worst had indeed come to pass, than Ithilian's temper wouldn't have been so even and the only reason he'd be seeing him was because the Dalish had come to stab him. Still, he couldn't help but let recent tragedies color the present. Once he'd realized that Lia never made it home the last time he saw her, Ashton had done a little digging himself. However, his search lead to nowhere, as everyone he asked knew as much as he did.

"In the Gallows, yes," Ithilian answered, plainly. "She'll be home by tonight, though. We're going to see to that. When you're done, get Nostariel and meet me at my home. I'll discuss the plan there."

"I'll be there," Ashton answered, leaning the broom against the counter. Ithilian made him promise once that he would protect her should anything happen, but more than that, Lia was a friend. It was a promise that would be kept, Gallows or not.




Ithilian was thankful for the timely arrival of his friends, given that he wanted to be in position to begin as soon as the sun went down. A light rain had begun to fall outside. It would get worse before it got better.

Ithilian had hardly pulled Amalia out from under the tree when Ashton and Nostariel arrived, and the four of them moved through the door into Ithilian's house, taking a seat around the same table upon which he had shared dinner with Lia only a few nights before. The fire had been neglected for a while, and burned low, casting dark orange flares across the scarred right side of Ithilian's face. He surveyed the three he had gathered for a moment, before beginning.

"Lia was taken to the Gallows three days ago," he said, mostly for Nostariel's benefit, as the other two were already aware of this. "I can't so much as get in there to see her, with the guard and the Templars watching over the place, seeing enemies in any non-human. I don't know what they plan to do with her, and I do not intend to find out. I will be breaking into the Gallows tonight, and freeing her." Honestly, Ithilian was surprised at his ability to remain calm through this. He refused to allow himself to think about anything that might have been done to her while he planned and prepared. There was no use in it, and it would only harm his effort to free her.

"The dungeons can be reached through their windows, some hundred feet above the water's surface, a straight climb. Ashton will provide a rowboat which I will use to reach the base of the island under cover of darkness. He will also provide the rope that I will use for the return climb. And if he is willing, I would have him make the climb with me." The two didn't exactly have the longest history of trust and cooperation, but Lia seemed to find no fault in the man, he was more than capable of assisting... and Ithilian preferred to have only him for company.

"I would have the two of you stay here," he said to Amalia and Nostariel, gritting his teeth. He knew that the request would not be taken kindly, certainly not by Amalia. "No more than two are needed for this. If there is killing of city guards to be done, I will do it. And these elves... I will not risk leaving them with no one to be an example." It was his own pitiful way of saying that what he was planning was dangerous to the point of foolishness, and he would not risk Amalia or Nostariel for that. The job could be done just as well with two; there was no reason to risk the lives of more.

The Gallows? Nostariel had heard that Lia was missing, but she would mot have expected that she would ever end up there. Perhaps she should have, considering the turmoil taking place in the city right now. She was not blind to the fact that many elves were joining up with the Qunari—it was the talk of the Alienage, and even people from Lowtown were noticing. No small number of the humans there had joined too, whether for protection or the chance at a better life, she could not say.

Frankly, the plan sounded terrible. Not because it was strategically bad given what they had to work with, or because she doubted their ability to do what Ithilian said they were going to do, but because there was a very high chance that even if they did succeed in getting into the prison, they would never leave it again. Her concern was only magnified given the tension in Kirkwall—the Guard would likely not be asking many questions, and if they were really to kill guardsmen to do this… it could mean trouble on their heads for the rest of their lives. However long or short those were. She was torn between being supportive of them, of reassuring both that she would look after things here and await—expect—their safe return, and expressing her very real concerns to this effect. Her stomach fluttered uncomfortably, and she felt very much like she might be sick. For Lia, for Ithilian and Ashton. Even for herself and Amalia, who were being left behind while this happened. For the Guardsmen who thought they were only doing the right thing, keeping order as best they could, who would die at the hands of equally-good people driven to desperate ends.

"Please.” The interjection was gentle, but edged in anxiety. "Is there any chance this can be solved some other way?” She knew how important it was for them to get Lia back, but she didn’t want them to risk their own necks and take the lives of good people to do it when there might be another way… and then she landed upon it. Nostariel’s eyes widened minutely, and when she spoke, her words were faster, staccato. "You know what would work… I could get her out. I don’t know if you know this, but the Wardens have something called the Right of Conscription. We can take anyone, anywhere, for Warden service, if they agree to it. Even right out of Circles or Prisons! I could say I’m taking Lia by Right, and there would be nothing that could stop them from letting me walk out with her. With the city as it now, nobody would even notice she never really leaves. Especially as she ages.”

Ithilian studied her as she proposed the idea. He knew what the Right was, but he had not thought of it, if only because he had not thought of actually going through with it, as Nostariel suggested. He would not approve of Lia actually attempting the Joining to escape imprisonment, but falsely attempting it... if Nostariel was willing to do it, Ithilian was too. There was no harm in trying, at any rate. "If that works, perhaps this can be avoided. I tried to see her myself, but the guards were a solid wall to me. They are not fond of elves, to put it lightly." He scowled, mulling it over. "You can try it, but I will be moving ahead with my plan in case it fails. If Lia is not free of the Gallows by nightfall, I'll see to it myself."

Ashton hoped that Nostariel's plan worked. It would save both Ithilian and him a dangerous trip into the Gallows, and even better ensure that Lia had a safe departure. However, nothing was ever so simple in Kirkwall, and agreed with Ithilian. If it worked, then good. If it didn't, then he would be ready. And he would be ready. There was no question in his mind that he would be there beside Ithilian as they worked their way into the Gallows. He turned his eyes to his hand, to the tips of his fingers. A tree wasn't a wall, and he hoped that the mortar and stone were ragged enough to provide for a relatively easy climb.

"Not by yourself you won't. I'll make the climb with you. I promised you that I'd help keep her safe, remember?" He asked. It didn't matter if Ithilian did or not, because he remembered. "I hope your plan works, I really, really do," He said, turning to Nostariel. "But if not... She's coming home one way or another," He said resolutely. Ashton then took to his feet nodded. "So it's decided then? Best I leave to prepare in case Nostariel's idea doesn't pan out..." He said. "Good luck," he told her, finally taking his leave.

“You as well.” Nostariel sorely hoped he wouldn’t need it. He shouldn’t; one would have to be a fool to turn away a Warden. She had faith in the weight of her order to do what she alone could not, and she would have to wear that faith as confidence. It certainly didn’t feel quite right, deceiving the City Guard, but it was so vastly preferable to the alternatives that she wouldn’t hesitate for a second. Ash left, and she turned for a moment to the other two. “If this… doesn’t go well... I’m at your disposal. I really am. If you need somewhere to hide, or a way out of the city… I can find you those things.” She may not be a full-time Warden anymore, exactly, but she still had her networks. People who could make other people vanish without a trace. It wasn’t always the most aboveboard, Warden business, but she had the benefit of being able to do things with a minimum of questioning from the authorities, something she would take advantage of for his sake, or Lia’s, or any of her beloved friends.

She worked as hard as she did for the title, the title might as well work for her, sometimes. Inclining her head, she left the two of them there. This would necessitate every formality and official piece of documentation she had. And she would need to wear the armor and her badges of rank. Nothing could be left to chance, not now.

Amalia had kept her silence throughout the whole exchange, leaning as inconspicuously as someone like her could get against the far wall of Ithilian’s home. She’d been dressing in her armor every day since the Viscount’s son was killed, knowing it was only a matter of time before tensions boiled over. She still did not know exactly where she would find herself when that happened, but she wanted to be prepared, wherever it happened to be. She watched as both of the other two took their exits, Nostariel to try talking sense into men who were long beyond it and Ashton to prepare to exercise a different brand of recklessness in the aftermath. It made about as much sense as any plan would have—it was a situation that never should have been in the first place. The solutions were likely to be just as illogical. Risk was not unfamiliar to her, nor was it always unwelcome.

But this time, none of the risk was to be hers. And that, she did not like. Gauntleted hands tightened where they held her biceps, and she pushed herself off the wall with the foot laid flat against it. “You are asking me to sit by and do nothing while my kadan stakes his life on an unlikely outcome. To abide his decision to place his life at least partly in the hands of another who does not know him so well as I. To make no attempt to help in a cause he holds most dear. I would sooner you did ask me to draw steel on a Qunari.” Like everything she said, the statement was blunt, unadorned, and entirely true.

Ashton’s competence had nothing to do with it. She knew Ithilian like nobody else did—to deny that was folly. She knew how he fought, how he moved, how he thought. Just as he knew her. So surely he knew that what he was asking her to do—to not do, as the case may be—was perhaps the most difficult thing he could have asked. Amalia was made for the kinds of skill this operation required; stealth, infiltration, assassination. She would not even have blinked had the request been made of her. Instead, he tied her hands and feet with his words, and she wanted to know why. Examples were all well and good, but they were not enough reason to discard an increased chance of success. She didn’t like it, and as of yet, she hadn’t accepted it, either.

For a moment, Ithilian did not think he was strong enough to deny her. He was going to acquiesce, to allow her to come with him and throw herself into the gauntlet alongside him. The way she spoke about it, it sounded more appealing... but then he found his resolve, remembered that it was why he couldn't stand her coming along at all in the first place. "No more of my clan will die. Not one," he said, doing his best to keep his voice steady. "If it comes to a fight... more likely when it comes to a fight, I will make sure that Ashton gets out with Lia." He felt that if need be, he could command Ashton to leave him, if it meant saving Lia's life, but Amalia... he knew that she would not abandon him, that she would stand her ground and die beside him without a second thought if it came to that.

"I cannot do this with you," he said, feeling a constricting sensation in his throat. "I am crippled by the thought of your death. You must stay here... and wait for me."

A muscle in Amalia’s jaw jumped as she clenched her teeth together. She wanted to be there, with a fierceness to which she was not accustomed. Not in this sense, anyway. But it was for the very same reasons that she desired to be there that she would stay behind. Because she was capable of considering someone else first, even when it might be—was, surely—illogical to do so. She shook her head, her eyes narrowed, and when she spoke, her tone was unusually thick. “And what do you expect happens to me, when I think of yours?” Much less when it happened somewhere she could not go, a place she could not reach, because he had asked her not to. He even sounded like he was expecting to die.

“I know nothing of clans. But I have only one kadan.” She took in a deep breath and then released it. Saying these things was an action without a purpose. He knew what he was going to do, and she had decided to abide by his wishes in this. Speaking now would change nothing, or cloud her resolve, and that she could not do. Not when the matter at hand was so important. And not when she was wasting time he needed to prepare for it. Amalia started forward as if to leave him, but paused when they drew even. Swallowing, she raised a hand to his shoulder and let it rest there.

“Do not—” she almost couldn’t make herself say it. “Do not die.” Though phrased as a command, it sounded more like a plea than anything. She squeezed the shoulder briefly, then let her hand fall away, and her feet carry her the rest of the way to the door.

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

Nostariel stood as tall as her measly inches would allow her, wishing not for the first time that she had the presence Lucien exuded, or even just the height Ashton possessed. But she did not, and so she would have to make do with what she had. Including almost every official insignia or mark of rank she possessed. Fortunately, the blue armor still fit, more or less as well as armor ever did, the thin chain odd after such a long time in only leathers. The red band of her captaincy was tied around her bicep, the silver griffon of the Wardens emblazoned across her chest. In case it was needed, official documentation of her status and writs for her Right were also tucked away in a pocket.

She carried her bow and arrows rather than her staff, because she wanted to give the guard as little reason as possible to be suspicious of her, and mages were seldom well-received, especially in Kirkwall. To her ears, she could and would do nothing. They would simply have to deal with the fact that she was an elf with authority, even if, glancing at the woman in the mirror, she felt like an imposter. How long had it been since she’d really thought of herself as a Warden? She was a Lowtown healer, and… she was happy being that. But now was the time to be a Warden again.

So Nostariel held her head high, tilting her shoulders back and doing her best to emulate confidence, authority, but not arrogance. It was a little bit Lucien, a little bit Ithilian, and a lot of Amalia and Sophia, honestly. Her stride was purposeful all the way down to the Gallows, which was teeming with Templars and City Guards alike, a hive of activity and densely-packed. She was keenly aware especially of the Templars, a particularly ingrained reaction that she could not prevent. She might not be helpless without her magic anymore, but that didn’t mean having it taken from her was painless. Still, she looked like no mage, and though she doubtless drew eyes in such a manner as she was dressed, she paid it no mind, continuing towards the prison. The Templars disappeared here, only guardsmen left behind.

Approaching what looked like the gaoler, she came to a smart stop in front of him. "I’m here to see a prisoner.” Her tone was firm, but not presumptive. If possible, she would like to do this through the proper channels. Keep it civil. But whether or not that was possible would be entirely up to them.

The gaoler wore a full faced helm, a mask of chainmail covering his face entirely save for his eyes, which angled down to where Nostariel stood. He was a large man, not quite Lucien's height or build, but close. A team of four other city guards had been posted on the door to the dungeons, two on each side, and all had allowed their eyes to wander to the Warden that had come seeking entry. With the gaoler's full faced helm, it was difficult to see what, if any, emotions he was experessing upon meeting Nostariel. His tone was just as strong, though he seemed to not be expecting company from a Warden. "Visitation is currently not permitted, ma'am. Captain's orders. No one is to enter or leave the dungeons without his permission. This policy will be in place until tensions in the city have passed."

Nostariel drew in a breath. Well, so much for getting in the nice way. Inclining her head to show that she understood, she nevertheless made no move to leave. “Were I here on a more mundane matter, I would understand.” She tilted her head to the side slightly, as though to peer under the man’s helm. Or through it, though of course such a thing was patently impossible. She didn’t even have one of those penetrating gazes, really, but she could look like she knew things if she wanted to. It seemed unlikely to help here, so she refrained. “But you currently hold a candidate I have been observing for some time. The Wardens have need to replenish their numbers after the Blight.” That one even had the benefit of being true.

“I am invoking the Right of Conscription. By covenants established long ago, I will enter, and I will leave with the one I’m here for.” It would be absolute folly not to let her in, especially considering the fact that she was here for but one prisoner. Hardly a threat to law and order in Kirkwall.

This was clearly a new experience for the gaoler, having one of his prisoners claimed under the Right of Conscription. If his eyes could speak, they were currently shouting his confusion, wondering whether these covenants she spoke of were really capable of overriding his orders. Just in time, however, his eyes caught sight of a figure approaching from behind Nostariel.

"What's the problem here?" asked the oncoming figure, another muscled man armored in the colors of the city guard. This one, however, has his helmet removed, and his own captain's armband to match Nostariel's. His head was shaved to a shine, but he sported a thick black beard. He came to stand beside his gaoler.

"She's a Warden, sir, come to take one of the prisoners under the Right of Conscription." Captain Aatrox sized up the Warden before him, scowling as he did so. It was obvious that his final judgment was made on her stature, and her race, more than anything else. She did not bear a staff, so it was unclear if he even recognized her for a mage.

"No. I don't think so," he said, shaking his head. "No one leaves the Gallows right now. There's blood coming with the hornheads, I'm sure you're aware. Come back when we've put them in their place, and then we'll talk. Good day, Warden." He turned and made to leave.

Nostariel was not about to stand for that. She was not unused to being underestimated, and that was one thing. But openly denying the Grey Wardens the resources they required was not only illegal in every country or city-state in Thedas, it was damn disrespectful to the people who put their lives on the line so that everyone else could be bothered with their wars and their blood. Never mind that she actually had no intention of making Lia a Warden. Never mind that she didn’t well feel like one herself half the time. And never mind that there was unlikely to be another Blight until their grandchildren were dead and gone, what the Wardens did was still important, and whatever her stature, she would not allow that to be disrespected without comment.

“Excuse me.” Her tone was cold and brittle as the ice she wielded in battle, her eyes narrowing precipitously. She could feel the tide of her anger, and yes, her anxiety, rising underneath her skin. She had not forgotten that she did this also so that people she cared about would be safe. “I do not recall mention of a choice, Guard Captain. Conscription is our right, and it does not wait for the politics of nations. I will have the girl, and not when you decide you are willing to relinquish her. One less prisoner should free up some room for all the dissenters you need to hold, besides.”

A flash of anger flared up in the captain's eyes when he was called back by the elf, and subsequently informed of what would happen. He came to stand perhaps a foot in front of Nostariel, staring down at her. "The cells are plenty big enough, knife-ears. And the prisoners don't mind sharing." The other guards had seemed unsure at first whether the Warden's authority was truly to be respected, but now they could see their captain's example, and several seemed inclined to follow it, drumming their fingers impatiently along the shafts of spears, glowering at Nostariel.

"Now listen to me carefully. I have better things to do with my time. The only way you're getting into my dungeons is if you'd like to tour the inside of a cell. So you can either get your elven ass off this rock, immediately, or stay, and allow me to educate you on the right of my fist. No one leaves the Gallows."

The air around Nostariel dropped about ten degrees in temperature, as she struggled to keep the expression of her anger contained to acceptable levels. On any other day, in any other situation, she might well have taken him up on the offer. She would have liked to see just how her superiors—and her friends—reacted to her being thrown in prison for attempting to do her job. But the situation was too grave for such statements. She knew that practically, there was simply nothing else for it. She didn’t know if he really did think this was for the best and was simply tragically misguided about that, or, more likely, if he simply liked lording his power over people he perceived as weaker than himself, but there was nothing she could do about it right at this moment, much as she would have loved to freeze him to the spot and show him what a stonefist could do.

She was a little surprised at her own vehemence; she was not normally given to instincts of violence. But if he was willing to speak to a Grey Warden this way, to threaten her with bodily harm, she knew he would have no hesitation about treating his prisoners in much more cruel ways than that. “Enjoy your position while you still have it, Captain. It will not be yours for long.” She was not threatening him, only stating a fact. She was needed now, to prepare for the impending Qunari attack, and so was everyone else. But the moment the dust cleared on that, she was going to report this. Either to the Viscount’s office or to Warden senior command, the result would eventually be the same.

The thought was unsatisfying, but it was all she had. Whirling around, Nostariel marched from the office, and it wasn’t until she was well clear of the Gallows that she allowed her posture to slacken, running both hands down her face and knitting her brows together. If that man caught Ithilian or Ashton… she didn’t want to think about it.

But it was all that occupied her thoughts as she headed back to her clinic. Stroud was in the area; perhaps…




To say Ithilian was in a foul mood at the beginning of their operation was an understatement.

As he'd heard it relayed, the guard captain had threatened Nostariel with physical violence, which would likely have angered him even if she wasn't one of his closest friends. Wardens were due a certain level of respect at all times, regardless of their race, size, or gender, or whatever had turned the man against her. He wondered how such a man could have elevated himself to such a position. Likely he hadn't been that way upon first receiving it. Power and command over others often had a way of tempting a soul towards darker roads. With the city likely rewarding his aggressive efforts to curb rebellion and punish criminals, it would only get worse. But he had to remind himself that the goal here was to find Lia, free her, and escape, preferably with as little death as possible.

He did not intend to die, but he would also not hesitate to take any action, no matter how dangerous, if it was required to secure Lia's freedom.

They set out from a small harbor on the docks well after the sun had gone down and darkness had fully settled in over the city. The storm was worsening, a steady drizzle falling from a thick sheets of clouds that hid the moon and stars entirely, further intensifying the darkness. Ithilian had dressed in the darkest clothes he owned under his padded leather jerkin, as well as equipping a mask and a hood to better conceal his facial features, though there was no hiding the missing eye, and the scars ravaging the right side of his face. For weapons, he armed himself with his dual short swords and Parshaara, leaving the longbow behind. The dungeon had tight corridors, not ideal for a bow made for open battlefields. If someone needed to be shot, Ashton could do the shooting. Ithilian would stay up close and personal.

The rowboat rocked gently on light waves as they paddled out. Thankfully, the storm was not having a great effect on the water, as there was a general lack of wind. Occasional bolts of lightning struck down to the south, though the worst of the storm appeared to be holding off for the moment. The Gallows loomed ominously in the distance, its shape only identifiable by dull orange lights burning in windows. They paddled far around, out of sight of the docks, passing under the great chains that could be lowered into the water as a blockade for ships.

"When we get inside," he said to Ashton, who rowed behind him, "can I count on you to do what needs to be done, without hesitation?" These were no bandits or slavers they were combating, but city guards, and likely not all of them were as despicable as their captain. Ithilian did not desire to kill them, but if they were detected, or if the guards stood in the way of Lia's escape, they would need to die. Ithilian was aware that he wouldn't have needed to ask Amalia that question. It was too late to reconsider that now, though.

"I made you a promise," Ashton replied, his tone unusually detatched, "Whatever's necessary to make sure she comes back." His thoughts left a coppery taste in his mouth and a black cloud lingering over his head. The men they would encounter were innocent souls whose only crime was being assigned to a bastard of a guard captain, it pained him to think he may have to take one of their lives. Hopefully it wouldn't come to that, but mere hope wasn't the sturdiest of foundations. He had to ready himself for the worst and it left him in an unusually short temper, bordering on the mood Ithilian found himself in. The news of how the guard captain had treated Nostariel only worsened it. Dark thoughts swirled in his head if they should happen to cross him, but he brushed it off. They weren't there for petty vengeance, Lia was the first and only goal.

Just as Ithilian had done, Ashton had clad himself in his blackest leathers, though these had the misfortune of having seen more recent use during his own venture on Leech's boat. He hated those leathers, they were a reminder of who he was, but he couldn't find it in himself to burn them, as he initially intended to do. It may or may not have been a good thing, depending on the point of view. He didn't want to forget his past, he just didn't allow it to hold him back. And so it brought him where instead of consigning an elf to her fate, he was rescuing another from hers.

He didn't ponder such thoughts himself, instead his mind was turned to the task at hand. The shadow of the Gallows painted a sable silhoutte against an already pitch sky, its outline flashing in tune with the lightning. As the thunder boomed in the distance, Ashton turned his hood in its direction, his grimace hidden by the black mask covering his face. "We should hurry," He said with a muffled voice, "The storm'll only make it harder if it catches us."

Ithilian nodded his agreement. They didn't have much choice, though. It was well on its way. By the time the little rowboat had reached the far side of the island, it was coming down hard, soaking Ithilian's clothes and making him feel rather heavier. It was motivating, at least, that the only way they were going to get dry was by climbing through a window into the Gallows.

The climb was around a hundred feet. They had no axes or special climbing gear to assist them, but the face of the cliff wall itself was jagged and easily ascendable. After disembarking the rowboat and carefully pulling it onto the shore such that the waves wouldn't take it away, the two climbers attached themselves by way of a thick hempen rope around their waists, leaving about fifteen feet of slack in between them. If one of them fell, they would at least have a chance at being caught by the other before plunging into the abyss, or perhaps being dashed on the rocks below if they were unlucky. Ithilian also carried a longer coil of the rope over a shoulder, long enough to make the descent back down to the sea much easier, so long as they had a place to anchor it from.

"I'll lead. Watch yourself. There's no hurry." He doubted Ashton needed any kind of warning, making a climb as dangerous as this one. Stepping up to the cliff base, he found his first foothold, and pulled himself up. The rain lashed down into his eye whenever he looked up for a spot to grab, and the occasional bolts of lightning were actually quite helpful, as they illuminated the face of the cliff, temporarily giving away the positions of the best ways forward. He made sure to commonly check below him, to ensure that the line between Ashton and himself did not become taut.

Ashton agreed as he scanned upward along the cliff face. Hurrying only made it more likely that one of them would fall. The speed and quickness would wait until they entered the tower, but here precision was required. He let Ithilian gain a lead on him, using that time to secure the arrows in his quiver and double checking that his shortbow wouldn't come loose during the climb. Once Ithilian had gotten his start, Ashton made his. The cliff wasn't like the trees he was usually climbing, but the crags provided ample grooves for his hands and feet and rough enough that the rain didn't entirely slick them. It was still a dangerous climb, and as suggested Ashton took his time to ascend.

He kept his eyes turned either toward the next handhold to grasp or the life line that connected them. He kept pace behind Ithilian as they made their climb, sometimes slowing his pace so that Ithilian could regain his lead, but never quickening his pace-- Ithilian would slow if he proved to lag and rushing would serve to increase the likelihood that he would fall, and maybe even dragging Ithilian back down with him. It wasn't a risk he was about to take.

They had nearly reached the three-quarters mark when Ithilian's foothold gave out from under him, peppering Ashton with small rocks and leaving Ithilian suddenly dangling by one arm. He recovered quickly, snatching a handhold and securing his feet elsewhere. After checking below to make sure Ashton was unbothered by the mishap, he pushed upwards. The lightning was coming down in thunderous booms by the time they reached the base of the lowest window. There was hardly any glow from inside, likely because the guards felt it unnecessary to provide housing for criminals with proper lighting.

Slowly and carefully, Ithilian wrapped his fingers around the edge of the window, and pulled himself high enough to look inside. The window was at the end of a somewhat narrow hall of cells lining each side, a lone torch at the far end of the hall the only light present, set in a sconce beside the stairwell. There were no guards in the area. If Lia was not on this floor, she would surely be on one of the others. First, though, they needed to find the man with the keys. Ithilian carefully pulled himself up and over, grateful to be setting his feet down, able to relax his body again. He helped pull Ashton through when he reached the top as well.

The easy part was done with. Now came the hard part.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera

Earnings

0.00 INK

"Wha-- how'd you get in here?" asked a bewildered young elf from his cell, one that Ithilian thought he might have recognized from the Alienage. One of the ones that had supposedly gone to join the Qunari, if he remembered correctly. For the moment, it didn't matter. He wasn't here for all of the elves. Just one. He put a finger against his mask where his lips were.

"Be silent," he whispered harshly. "You'll bring the guards down on us. I need to use the bars of your cell." He gestured to the long coil of rope that he carried. "For our exit." The young elf nodded and acquiesced, quietly moving to sit against the rear wall of his cell, where he quite nearly disappeared entirely into inky blackness.

"Whatever you're here for, give 'em hell for us, yeah?"

Ithilian planned to, if it was at all necessary. He shrugged off the coil of rope, tying one end snugly around the sturdiest looking par keeping the elf imprisoned, before carrying the other back over to the open window, and casting it out into the storm. He peered down to see it quite nearly reach the bottom. It would have to do. He moved back to the cell door of the imprisoned elf, kneeling down. "Where's the warden, the man with the keys?"

"Not sure, but I'd try up a few levels, probably the mess hall, or the barracks if he's sleeping. I heard the guards talking about a card game or something. They might still be playing." Ithilian nodded. It was good information, more than enough to go on. "Are you looking for someone? This is the lowest level, so they'd have to be somewhere above here."

"Thank you," Ithilian said. "I'm not here for all of you, but you may have saved the life of an elven girl." He turned to Ashton. "Come on, let's go." Keeping low, he moved towards the stairwell, ignoring the gaping stares of the prisoners who were awake and watching the spectacle. It wasn't every day that two black-clad shadows passed through the halls of the Gallows, searching for a prisoner to steal away. Perhaps they looked more like death, come to give some weary imprisoned a sought after release.

As the elf suggested, they moved up, silent as ghosts, making sure to pause and take cover whenever voices were heard, though at this hour, half the castle was asleep, and the patrols were light and easy to avoid. The higher levels of the Gallows had winding passageways lined with damp dungeon cells, most crammed with one, or often two, snoring prisoners. Ithilian spotted blood spattering the floors of some of the cells and even the hallways, undoubtedly from the unruly, needing a lesson from overly eager tutors. Few noticed their passing, and none called out to them, likely convinced that they either weren't real, or that they were not a pair to be engaged lightly, either in battle or in conversation.

Three levels up the sounds of bawdy laughter came drifting to their ears, a clear sign that some number of the guard were still awake. To reach the mess hall, one only had to follow the smells, and soon Ithilian and Ashton found themselves crouched down at the hall's doorway. Peering inside, only one of the dozen or so tables was occupied, two benches opposite each other filled by three men each, several with their boots up on nearby chairs or tables, occasionally slapping down cards on the wood, or taking long drinks from mugs of ale. Ithilian peered carefully around the room, but could spot no one else. The man at the head of the card table, however, had a set of keys dangling from his belt. It was unfortunate that he was not alone, but it could be worked around with a little bloodshed.

"Six men, drunk and unprepared," he whispered to Ashton. "We kill them, quickly and quietly. Hide the bodies and take the keys. Agreed?" There would be no subduing six men nonlethally without raising the alarm in the process, but these men could be quickly taken out through a combination of Ashton's sharpshooting, and Ithilian's knifework.

Ashton's mask hid the snarl at his lips because of the proposed plan. A lonely moment passed between Ithilian's words and Ashton's own, leaving plenty of time for his stomach to sink deep into his belly. He wanted nothing more than to allow these men to live and avoid spilling any of their blood. He didn't want their blood on his hands. But it wasn't about what he wanted. He wasn't so selfish, not anymore. He'd not been so foolish as to blindly believe this would end with his hands clean, and had prepared himself for this outcome. His heart was hardened in case it became necessary.

"Quick and painless," Ashton added, meeting Ithilian's eye. "Avoid drawing too much blood," He reminded. It would be pointless to hide the bodies if all of their blood remained. Turning his head back into the hall Ashton nodded and mentally readied himself for what was to come. He then reached back and prepared two more arrows in his quiver before returning his hand to the bowstring that already held the third. "Pick a bench and I'll take the other. When you're ready, start. I'll follow."

Death was rarely painless, and Ithilian doubted the dead cared too much about how they were murdered. Avoiding blood, however, was something he could see the logic in. Their presence would not go unnoticed forever after this, but the longer it took before they were discovered, the better. None of the guards before him appeared ready for action, or even ready to rise from their chairs, but they would still need to act quickly to kill all six of them without one raising the alarm. The pretense of their card game might dissuade other guards from investigating a shout, but it would still be a risk. This night was full of risks.

Ithilian entered the room swift and low, moving silently behind other tables and keeping out of sight of the group as much as possible, heading towards the far side of the table so as to give Ashton a clear shot of the other three. He targeted the one with his feet on the table first, breaking into a sprint as soon as he entered their line of sight, and then taking to the air. His blades remained in their sheaths as he planted both feet on the man's chest, tipping his weight over backwards until he was flat on his back, Ithilian's weight pressing down hard on his chest, knocking all the wind from him. The second man attempted to rise, but Ithilian vaulted again, grabbing the wrist of his sword hand, his other hand finding a spot on the guard's chin. A quick and vicious twist was all it took to break his neck.

The third had risen by then, moving to strike Ithilian from behind, but he had predicted this, throwing an elbow back instinctively, shattering the older guard's nose. This was followed by a backhanded strike to twist him around, which led into another neck-snapping maneuver. The guard that Ithilian had first jumped upon was rising to his knees by this point, but he returned to the ground when Ithilian sent a brutal kick to his head, snapping it back violently and rendering him unconscious.

The moment Ithilian's feet connected with the chest of the first guard, Ashton began his own assault. There was little finesse or movement to be had in the simple act of drawing a bowstring, no jumping or vaulting or any such action. His feet never moved, much less left the ground, but Ashton was no less deadly than the elf. A single thwap and a guard's face smashed forward into the table, an arrow stuck into the back of his head. Confusion set in instantly, and the guard next to the dead one whipped his head around, attempting to get some sort of handle on the situation. With one shadow dispatching the men in front of him, and another unseen one taking out the man at his side, the only thing sensible thing he could do was to reach for the sword in his sheath.

His hands never made it to the hilt, as the first arrow's twin entered his skull, collapsing him and causing the corpse to slink into the lap of the last living guard. Shock hit hard and he sat frozen in his seat. The assault had been so quick and so ferocious that it left him dazed and frightened. Instead of reaching for his weapon like the second, this guard drew his arms in close around him and hid behind his hands hoping that it would be over soon. And it was, as the last of the arrows struck leaving him to slip off of the bench, the look of fear frozen on his face.

Ashton allowed a few moments to pass, another arrow at the ready and scanned for any more signs of movement other than Ithilian. Once sure that everything that needed to be was dealt with, he slipped from the shadows, the arrow on the bowstring drawn back in case something should happen. He entered the room, his eyes darting from corner to corner and his weight pivoting on his feet, scouring the room for any other hostiles. He stopped beside Ithilian and looked down at the bodies that surround them. A tiredness seeped into his brow as he spun, and lingered on his voice as he spoke.

"Find the keys," He said, allowing the taut string to slacken. "I'll start hiding the bodies."

Neither task took them long. There were several keys to choose from, but only one seemed grimy and overused enough to be the one that would unlock the cells. The bodies they dragged into the nearby pantry, which was almost large enough to fit them all on the floor beside each other. A bit of blood was left on the floor and the table from the arrow wounds, but it was barely noticeable even to one who was searching. The cards, however, needed to be disposed of, and those they tossed in the pantry as well.

A cracking boom of thunder roared overhead, the storm outside only growing more intense as the night went on. Just as the two of them were about to leave and search for Lia, the heavy footfalls of guardsman boots could be heard approaching the mess from outside. They quickly ducked down behind tables, making themselves as invisible as possible. He seemed surprised that the group playing cards was no longer present, but aside from a short huh, he made no effort to investigate, instead moving off upstairs, likely to search for them in their bunks at the barracks. Ithilian grimaced once he was gone.

"Won't be long now. Let's move."

Gripping the keys tightly so that they would not jingle against one another, Ithilian led the way back out and down a level, back to the twisting halls of cells they had passed through earlier. Squinting in the darkness, they peered through the bars of each cell in turn, Ithilian checking those on the left, Ashton those on the right, both keeping a lookout forward and back for any sign of guard patrols. Most of the prisoners were sleeping, though a few stared wide-eyed at the passing visitors, while other were curled up on the ground with the single threadbare blanket they'd been given, completely obscured from view. Ithilian worred that they might miss her, but none of the forms obscured under blankets had been in her size. Most were men fully grown, the elves typically somewhat smaller than the humans.

They found Lia near the end of a hall, an unfortunate dead end, her cell closer to one of the scattered torches than Ithilian would have preferred. Perhaps it was for the best, though, as he had only barely recognized the shade of her hair in the dim light, and might have passed over her if she had been entirely concealed by darkness. She slept in a fetal position on the floor, only the top of her head and her closed eyes appearing at the edge of her blanket. As quietly as he could, Ithilian unlocked and opened her cell door, though a small squeak was unavoidable. He moved inside while Ashton kept watch over the hall.

When Ithilian put his hand on her shoulder, she gave a small, frightened shout, moving immediately to strike him.

He caught her wrist with one hand, using his other to cover her mouth. She recognized him then, though he still lowered his mask. "I need you to speak softly. Are you hurt? Can you move?" He gently removed the blanket from her, inspecting her for any obvious wounds. He found none. Instead of answering his question, she threw her arms around him in a tight hug.

"I'm so sorry, I didn't mean for any of this to happen. I had to kill them. You know that, right?"

Her words were almost enough to give Ithilian pause, but he chose to ignore them for the moment. It didn't matter what she did to get herself thrown in here. All that mattered was getting her out. A longer talk could come later, if it was necessary. "Get up. I need you to stay behind Ashton, stay low, and stay quiet. We're getting out of here." She looked incredulous at the very suggestion, considering how few ways there were in to the Gallows, but in the end simply followed his commands.

She had just entered the hall with Ithilian when a pair of guards patrolling together crossed the hall a fair distance away from them. It looked at first as though they were going to continue walking none the wiser, but one of them halted himself and grabbed the other's arm, staring directly at the intruders.

"Dammit," Ashton hissed, drawing on his bow string. The guard that had seen them began to raise a finger to point them out to his partner, but an arrow to the sternum ceased all motion save for one. Down. The guard dropped to the floor, his armor clattering on the stones below. A second arrow was nocked, but instinct proved faster than Ashton's reaction, and the guard bolted down the hall. Ashton followed to the intersection with his arrows moments from being fired, but it was too late. The guard had already taken another turn, and it'd be useless and suicidal to attempt to follow now.

He cursed under his breath and turned back to Ithilian and Lia, beckoning them to hurry. "Let's get out of here, now." He demanded, turning his bow toward the direction of their exit.

They were so close, but everything was about to go downhill fast. Ithilian had Lia go first, and from the way she awkwardly ran, or limped, it was apparent that one of her legs was injured somehow, not enough to prevent her from moving, but enough to slow her significantly. The guard had clearly escaped, and he could already hear the man shouting to his fellows, rousing the castle. It was only moments before a bell began to ring, loud and clear, cutting through even the thunderstorm. By then, the three escapees had already descended the stairs to the lowest level.

The prisoners were all awake now, staring at the three who made their way to the window. Above them, Ithilian could already hear the pounding of boots, dozens of them, the guards hurriedly descending to give chase. Their only way out was by way of the rope... but a rope was easily cut, and that would send all three of them to their deaths. Lia was in no shape to climb something so dangerous, and an extended climb on one of their backs was also too dangerous to risk. The choice seemed clear to Ithilian: one of them would have to stay behind, to hold off the guards while the other escaped with Lia. It was also clear to Ithilian who that needed to be.

"Take her and go," he ordered of Ashton, drawing his swords. "I'll hold them off, give you time to get clear." It was a narrow, dead end hallway. An archer wouldn't be able to hold off a mass of prepared guards equipped with shields, not long enough. Ithilian was the stronger close quarters fighter. He gave Lia the best shot at her escape. The elven girl didn't seem to care, though.

"What? No! We're not leaving you here!"

It wasn't enough to say that Ashton was merely conflicted. Two choices clashed viciously in his mind, fighting to get an edge of the other. On one hand, he could heed Ithilian and escape with Lia-- leaving the man behind to face his fate alone. Or he could ignore the request and stay by the man's side and fight with him, letting Lia find her own way down. There was no time to think about which choice he should take, the guardsmen boots growing ever louder. Every moment he wasted thinking was another the rope around their necks tightened.

So he chose. As fast as he could manage, Ashton ripped the quiver from his back and tossed his bow to the ground. He then grabbed Lia bodily and picked her up, ignoring her angry fists and demands to be put down. Before he took the plummet out the window, he looked back for an instant to speak to Ithilian one last time. "I'll keep her safe, I promise," he pledged before he slipped out the window with his charge on his back. Lia's fists quickly turned to an iron grip as the floor melted into a fatal drop below them.

Lia's grip tightened as they began to make their way down with all the haste that Ashton dared. Her hands slowly tightened around his throat as they began their descent, her anger melting into fear. It grew difficult to suck in enough air to keep his lungs pumping, but his hands were otherwise occupied to try and to loosen Lia's hold. With one hand holding on to the rope in front and the other behind. Soon, the sounds of a scuffle erupted above them, audible even over the din of rain and thunder. Soon another sound met these as Lia's sobs filled the air around Ashton's ear. "It'll be fine, he'll be okay," he lied.

Ithilian did not intend to die, and when faced with the imminent likelihood of it, he became quite acutely aware of how much he did not want to. The first of the guards entered his field of view, armed with a heavy shield and a mace, but Ithilian thought more of Amalia, of Nostariel, of Lia descending the rope with Ashton below. Those he had wanted to spend his life with in Ferelden had been torn away from him before he was ready, and now it appeared as though he was the one being torn away. There were sudden doubts and regrets, and Ithilian wondered if any of this would have happened if he had come with Amalia instead, as she had wanted, or if instead it would simply be the two of them making a stand here, dying together. The thought then occurred to him that he could not think of a better way to die than that.

He resolved to live. This would not be the end, could not be the end. There was more for him to do yet.

First, these men needed to die, or otherwise be defeated, so that Lia and Ashton could escape. He kicked the first one's shield before he came in range of the sword, knocking him back several paces. The guard seemed to be expecting a defensive approach against so many oncoming enemies, but Ithilian did anything but that. He launched himself forward and up, forcefully pushing the shield down before he plunged his other short sword directly into the eye socket, the vulnerable spot of the full faced helmet. The guard went down in a heap.

Ithilian withdrew his blade and rolled out of the attack, rising just in time to duck below the swing of the next guard. He slashed the back of his knee, only having time to kick him forward before he had to turn and deal with the next. The guard was in mid swing when Ithilian's blade found the soft spot under his chin, driving the steel up into his brain. The guards behind that one, though, had an offensive plan of their own, pushing their shields into one another's back, sending an unstoppable weight into Ithilian, the nearest shield knocking him back enough to trip over the fall guard he'd kicked over.

He smoothly rolled out of this as well sidestepping a sword thrust with a jump into the wall, where he then pushed off with his feet, sending a punch to that guard's helm hard enough to send a stab of pain through his knuckles. He ignored it, slitting the man's throat to finish him off. On to the next he moved, and then the next, and before long the narrow hallway had few places to stand that were not the lifeless bodies of slain humans, brought down by a once vengeful elf, who now only sought the freedom and safety of a precious few.

It was the captain, Aatrox, who turned the tide against him, using his own man's shield and body for cover, striking in the moment just before Ithilian made a kill. His blade was halfway through a guard's throat when the captain's heavy maul smashed into his side. Had he met him at the start of the fight, Ithilian might have had enough energy to see the blow coming, to somehow block or dodge it, but it was far too late now. He felt ribs on his left side crack, any air he had left fleeing with no hesitation at all. The brutish captain gave a satisfied holler when the elf joined the humans on the ground.

Ithilian had left one of his blades in that guard's throat when he fell, and the other he attempted to swing at the captain from the ground. This was swatted away with a metal-gauntleted arm, before a boot came up into his nose. Ithilian's face was a sheet of blood after that, and more kicks followed, the other guards surrounding him and launching attacks anywhere they could reach. One had the bright idea to grab him and throw him to some clearer ground, so they could more easily make their hits. He dropped his sword at this point, and though he no longer had the strength to swing it, he tried to crawl to it anyway.

He was in the act of reaching out for it when the maul came down on his elbow, instantly cracking several bones in his arm and setting the elf to howling, which only encouraged the band of guards. Their blood was up now, now that Ithilian had slain that many of their brethren. Aatrox seemed intent on beating him, and none of the others dared finish him, and deny the captain his pleasure. Ithilian was vaguely aware that some of the prisoners were shouting at the guards to stop, while other cowered in corners, hiding from the violence.

"Cut that bloody rope," Aatrox ordered, and one of his men slashed at the rope leading down to the water, letting it fall into the storm. At the sight of that, Ithilian reached for Parshaara, stabbing it down into the nearest guard's foot, setting his entire leg on fire. He howled in pain and took to rolling on the floor to put it out, while another mace blow came down on Ithilian's back, putting him resoundingly to the floor. The captain knelt, and wrenched the dagger from Ithilian's grip.

"Well isn't this a fancy weapon for a dirt crawling elf? What's this made of, anyway?" Ithilian could not so much as speak a reply even if he had wanted to. Aatrox proceeded to grab him by the upper arm and roll him onto his back. "I asked you a question, knife-ears." A punch was what followed, however, right across Ithilian's jaw. "Listen carefully now. I could end your life right now if I chose to, throw you out that window, or bash your head open and see just how few brians you've got, to be breaking into my Gallows. But there's no value in that for me. No, we're going to need an example, to prevent this sort of behavior in the future. I think tonight, you and I are going to spend some quality time together. And then tomorrow, I think I'll hang you, some place where the city can see you, and know what the fate of scum like you is."

He smiled at the knife, though, clearly impressed with the handiwork. "This blade, though? I think I'll be keeping this..."

The descent was taxing, and the rope bit through Ashton's leather gloves exposing the soft flesh to it's friction. The rope only grew slicker as his blood mixed with the water, and it forced him to grip it all that much tighter-- which proved to only worsen the problem. He began to grit his teeth and fight through the pain long before the rope slackened in his hands. Suddenly, they had found themselves in a freefall to the ground below. There'd been only enough time for Ashton to twist his body in the air to avoid landing on Lia, instead letting her land on him.

Fortunately, he'd descended enough so that the fall wouldn't prove fatal. Unfortunately, that did not also mean he would escape unscathed. He struck the ground chest first, and felt his ribs crack on contact, and the pain surged through his body. He wailed aloud in tune with the crash of thunder. He could feel something thicker than water dribble out of the corner of his lips, and it was a small relief when Lia climbed off the top of him.

The rope twisted and coiled around the ground as it fell, before the end of it finally splashed down into the water. Lia looked up for any sign of Ithilian, but there was none, and no sounds of battle could be heard over the storm any longer. She noticed the boat that waited for them. Tears were mixing with rainwater on her face at this point, but she had enough sense to understand that Ithilian wasn't coming, and that this was their only way out. Ashton had taken the brunt of the fall for her, and since she had nothing more than some serious bruising at this point, she would have to do whatever heavy lifting remained, the first of which was Ashton himself.

"Come on," she urged, grimacing as she pulled him up and pushed him over into the boat. "Sorry," she murmured, at not having the strength to set him down gently. There was little to do then but push the boat in the water, get in, and row home.

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

Nostariel released a deep breath, letting the magic at her fingertips dim, and then fade entirely. Ashton’s injuries had been extensive, and she’d been at healing him for the better part of the last few hours. The immediate trauma had been set last night, but it was going to require far more than immediate triage, which had been the endeavor of the afternoon, after she’d closed the clinic to everyone else. Lia was present, too, perhaps at present for lack of anywhere else to go, as Nostariel had taken care of her ankle fracture and the bruising to her face and neck already. Neither of them looked like they’d slept much, and truth be told, neither had the Warden. She, however, was exercising the healer’s capacity to compartmentalize, refusing to think overmuch about why she was currently not treating Ithilian, or indeed what had happened to the other two to cause the injuries they’d sustained.

It was better for now that she reach no conclusions about any of it. Not until things were certain. There was simply no way of knowing, but she was willing to bet that if anyone could find out, it would be Amalia. Letting her hand rest between Ash’s shoulderblades for a moment, she gave him a thin smile. "That’s the best I can do, for today.” It went without saying that the damage would take another day at least to repair completely, and even then, he would need to rest. Even so, he was alive, and considering what could have happened, she was… relieved couldn’t begin to cover it.

Sinking down into a wooden chair, Nostariel reached behind her to the counter and took up a mana restorative, not a substitute for natural rest, but something she desperately needed at the moment, considering the rate at which she’d been burning through her magic. Holding her breath against the pungent smell and taste of it, she knocked the vial back with the ease of someone who’d once taken in other substances in a similar fashion, then set the empty flask on the arm of the chair, moving her eyes to the young woman seated at her table.

"Lia… I’m sorry to make you think about it, but I have to ask: what happened?” She had no idea how the girl had been arrested in the first place, but if it were possible that the guards knew who she was and would come seeking her, then they’d need to find some way to hide her before long.

Lia had mostly been staring blankly at the wall since she arrived at Nostariel's clinic, saying very little, typically only speaking when spoken to. She had wrapped herself in a blanket some time ago, after changing into a new set of clothes and washing her face. Her eyes were red, both from crying and general tiredness. She jumped slightly at the mention of her name, clearly lost in some amount of thought. Blinking rapidly in response to the question, she cleared her throat.

"I was... coming home after leaving Ashton's shop. I didn't get far before I noticed some shemlen that were following me." She spoke the word with a certain amount of disdain, the way Ithilian used to, much more often. "I... remember running. Somehow one of them got in front of me, made me turn down an alley. I ended up in a dead end. A city guard followed me in, and I asked him to help me. He hit me instead. I fell down... then the others were there. One of them got on top of me. The city guard stood there and watched." She swallowed thickly.

"They didn't see the knife in my boot. I killed the one on top of me, shoved it in his throat. I jumped on the second one, stabbed him a couple times in the chest. I... think he died. I don't know for sure. The other two, the guard and the other guy, they hit me from behind after that. I blacked out... then I woke up in the cell." She didn't make a great deal of eye contact throughout the retelling, staring mostly down towards the floor. "I had to kill them."

Nostariel’s throat went dry. She’d been afraid, so afraid… it was a threat she understood, though she’d been more worried about what would happen in the actual prison cell than what had happened to land her there. Apparently this was a mistake. Her hand closed over the empty vessel at the end of the chair-arm, and she squeezed unconsciously, or it was unconscious until the sound of cracking reached her ears. Blinking slowly, she looked down at it, now frosted over and sporting a few hairline fractures. Deliberately drawing in a breath, she forced her grip to relax, standing up from the chair and moving so that she was crouching in front of Lia, placing a gentle hand on the girl’s knee.

There had been a few cases of things like this in the Circle, and the girls there frequently felt comfortable talking to nobody but each other about it, because it was notoriously difficult to bring such allegations against a Templar. Command structure tended to assume that the accuser was simply trying to avoid proper oversight, or seeking petty vengeance for some much smaller perceived slight. It was not the first time, therefore, that Nostariel had heard a tale of the kind, though they grew no easier. In her experience, there was very little that could be said, and in the Circle, she’d been powerless to do much of anything, either.

Not quite so now. "I wish I could undo everything that happened.” And she did; there was no doubting it from her tone of voice. Such a thing—there was very little that Nostariel considered unforgiveable, but such an act certainly qualified. "I cannot, but what I can do is promise you something. As soon as the Viscount’s office is open again, I will go up there myself. I will make sure that what happened to you cannot be ignored. The ones who hurt you who live yet and the ones who jailed you for protecting what is only yours will face punishment for that. And if the Viscount cannot help me, I will conscript them all and let the Darkspawn have them.” It wasn’t enough; it couldn’t be. But it was much better than the nothing that would have been the case if things were allowed to proceed as they usually would.

"In the meantime… if there is anything you need that I can do, you have only to ask me, Lia.”

A thump drew attention to Ashton, now recoiling in pain from the arm of the chair he had just punched. While they had stopped bleeding, the palms of his hands were still tender, and the simple act of closing his fist sent a needle of pain through the hand-- much less punching something. Still, the anger in his eyes burned bright. Though with a sigh, that anger muffled and died down into a smouldering thing. "I... I'm sorry," he said, shaking his head in his hand. He was still shirtless from Nostariel's healing, his body still nursing the evidence of the night before. Purple bruises peeked out from behind a white bandage where his ribs were cracked and his right cheek was cut, along with a black eye where his face had struck the ground on their plummet.

"It shouldn't have happened outside my shop. You should've been safe there," He said, sounding resigned. He was sorry for a lot of things, not only that. But there was nothing he could do but wish everything had been otherwise. He felt... He felt powerless, to put it bluntly. And it wasn't a recent feeling neither. Where he had found some sort of stability, the city had not and he could tell. Nodding along with what Nostariel said, "She won't be alone. Not only will they be punished, but I'll see to it that it never happens again..." The words he spoke was earnest, but he knew they meant little. Maybe even less than that. What could he do? He was just a simple shopkeep in Lowtown. There wasn't much he could do. It was an empty comfort, and it hurt to know it.

"And me. Anything you need, anything at all," That was perhaps something he could deliver.

It was at this point that Amalia entered the clinic, not bothering to knock. She’d been in search of information all day, and around noon, the rumor she was hoping for had finally started spreading in Lowtown. Hoping for, because it meant there was a chance he yet lived. Catching sight of the other three, she read something disquieting in their body language, but refused to even begin to consider why. Everything else was secondary to her concern now, and that was simply how it had to be until things were resolved. She crossed her arms over her armored chest, not even sparing the time to find somewhere to sit or lean before she spoke. “Sundown. There’s to be a public execution in the Hightown Market. Several people.” There was no way of knowing whether or not Ithilian was one of those people, but it was a chance she would simply have to take. It seemed likely enough, considering the circumstances.

If he wasn’t there, well… the Gallows would simply have to endure its second massive breach of security in as many days. But that was something to consider later, not now. Not when they had a very different plan to formulate. Whether the others intended to come or not, she was going to be present at that execution. And if Ithilian was among those to hang, she was going to stop it, or die trying.

“Are we planning for a team of three, or one?”

"Three?" Lia asked, standing when Amalia entered with the news of an execution. She hadn't looked like she had wanted to speak to Nostariel or Ashton much more about what had happened to her, but Amalia's news clearly sparked a bit of a fire in her again. "Why not four? I'm coming with you. I can help. I can shoot." She was not nearly so good a shot as Ashton, and likely Nostariel was better than her as well, but it was clear that she wanted to use what skill she had to help them save Ithilian... and perhaps to take a bit of her own vengeance. She had already proven herself capable of killing, at least in self defense. Perhaps aggression would be another matter.

"You are not." The words fell from Ashton's mouth like lead with the sort of finality rarely found upon his tongue. But he would not be budged, there was no chance in the Maker's Kingdom that Ashton would see Lia so soon back into danger. His face was unmoving and his face made of iron, at least for a moment. It didn't last, his features soon melted back into a sort of softness. "You're not," He repeated, this time more delicately. "I told Ithilian I'd keep you safe, and I don't intend to break that promise," He said. He sat for a moment, and rubbed his face, past the point of tired and into the realm of exhaustion. There was still more needed of him, and he would give, and give until there was no more needed, or there was no more to give.

He turn looked back to Lia, his face as as easy as he could manage and his words as sensitive as he dared. "Look, you've got to understand. What we did-- What Ithilian did... If you came along and got captured again, it'd be all for nothing. I'm not going to let you do that. Leave it to us, we'll get him back. I promise you." Another promise, another pledge he'd have to see fulfilled. However he didn't regret it. They were the one things he would never regret. Looking back to Amalia he nodded, "You'll have three, and not a single one more."

She didn't like it... but it was obvious that she understood. She hated not being able to help Ithilian, when he was able to give everything for her, but she understood why she needed to stay. Deflating, she looked to Nostariel. "Where should I go, then? Back to the Alienage? Should I stay here?" She was still a criminal wanted by the guard, and they would be well aware that one of their cells was empty now, that had been filled the night before.

The last time she’d had to tell someone where to hide, she was showing Aurora where all the good places underground and safe from Templars were. If they were safe from Templars, they were surely safe from the City Guard. Her first thought was actually to send Lia to Lucien, given that it was really harder to imagine anywhere safer than his company, but… she wasn’t sure if he was in, and their time grew short. It was best to send her somewhere safe, but also expedient, and somewhere that wouldn’t get her friend in trouble with the Guard if they came looking for Lia. “I know a few places.” Nodding, she stood and consulted her mental map of Kirkwall for a moment, picking one that wasn’t too far from either the clinic or the Alienage, but definitely still underground and secret.

After describing the location and giving directions, it was decided that it would be safer if Lia had an escort there, a job for which Ashton volunteered. He’d need to pick up equipment on the way back, besides. She wasn’t particularly keen on him fighting in his still tender condition, and there was no mistaking that there would be fighting here. Nevertheless, she dare not tell him that, knowing that he was as resolved to place himself in this danger as she was, though she somehow doubted either of them even approached Amalia’s state of mind at this point. Were there more time, she would have wanted to talk to the other woman before they began the process of planning and undergoing this venture, but they had not the luxury. They would have to go more or less as they were now, fatigue, injuries, and tense frames of mind all.

Ash returned, and it was time to get down to the nuts and bolts. Nostariel knew a fair bit of strategy, but in this kind of operation, she doubted she had near as much experience as either of the others. “All right. Amalia, what were you thinking we should do?” It seemed natural to let her take the lead on this one.

With a face like stone, Amalia glanced between the other two. “The first step is obviously to determine if Ithilian is among the condemned. If not, I will handle the rest myself.” Ashton was too injured to repeat the climb or anything similar, and Nostariel was ill-suited to stealth operations. These were facts, and Amalia refused to ignore them. “If he is, then the rest is simple, if difficult. I will require a distraction, and as much cover as you can give me. Smokescreens, explosions, I care not. They will likely move to execute the prisoners as soon as they know something is happening. Timing will be essential. Once I have him, I will need cover fire to exit. I do not dare assume he will be in any condition to aid in the fighting, so that will come down to the two of you.” They would need to be placed such that they could fire on the market without being easily detected or reached.

There were a few good spots for that kind of thing, but she would need to be much closer. Disguise would be required, as they were unlikely to let someone as heavily-armored as she appeared now simply enter the grounds. She was confident in her ability to carry someone of Ithilian’s body mass the distance she would need to, even if he was entirely dead weight. It would leave little room for the nimble fighting she preferred, however, and in that sense she would very much be putting her life in their hands. But she knew that Nostariel knew what she was doing, and if Ashton had made it out of the Gallows yesterday at all, he was not a lackwit, either.

It was not lost on Nostariel that the plan was incredibly dangerous, especially for Amalia. But then, she doubted the Qunari would have it any other way, really. Some things were worth that kind of risk, and the life of a friend was one of those things. She nodded slowly, and when it seemed that neither she nor Ash really had anything to modify, she spoke. “Right. Then we’ll meet back here in an hour. Should give us plenty of time to position ourselves before they start anything.” Likely, Amalia would need some kind of disguise, and she needed to equip herself as well. Nothing official this time—that hadn’t worked when she tried, and she wasn’t about to give that despicable captain a second chance to prove himself a swine.

Setting

4 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

The storm had finally passed, allowing the sun to reappear in time for the sundown execution.

The light glowing along the horizon washed over the normally cold grey stone of Hightown, painting the wealthy district in yellows and oranges. It would be gone again soon, plunging the City of Chains back into darkness. The open area of the Hightown market had been cleared of merchant stalls as soon as shopping hours had passed. The guard had moved in like an occupying army, shooing away any of the vendors who lingered too long, or packed up their wares too slowly. The city guard did indeed possess a deconstructible platform for hangings, and this was quickly put together as the central attraction of the night's festivities. The platform itself was raised about four feet off the ground, with four separate trap doors for the soon-to-die to stand on, awaiting the drop.

While it was not accurate to say that Aatrox appeared to be in a good mood, he certainly looked invigorated by the prospect of making an example out of the four elves he'd brought with him, showing the city's elite that the guard was still more than capable of catching and dealing with the worst of Kirkwall's lawbreakers. The event had been well advertised as well, for such short notice, and even an hour before the hangings were scheduled to begin sightseers began to gather around the site. Many were well-to-do noblemen and women, come to see the oddity that was a public execution merely for the experience, but others were from Lowtown, most of those being elves, come for their own reasons. Perhaps they disapproved of the captain's work, and meant to berate him for it. Perhaps they simply wanted to see the condemned elves off to the afterlife.

When the captain took center stage and it was clear that the show was about to begin, the crowd gathered around the base of the platform, though a solid ring of city guards were sure to prevent any of them from getting too close. Four accompanied Aatrox onto the platform, seemingly handpicked for their strength, while others still patrolled around the larger perimeter, most bearing shield and spears. Guards were even posted to the nearby rooftops with crossbows, with excellent sight lines over the crowd. Before the captain spoke, the prisoners were brought forth, their faces covered by hoods, their hands and feet both bound. Two guards were assigned to each man, forced to awkwardly push them to their designated pole, where they were tied up, each before a noose, where they were to wait their turn.

"The enemies of order in this city," the captain began, his voice booming and powerful enough to silence the majority of the crowd, "have grown bold of late. Their reckless desire to see Kirkwall brought to her knees have taken a toll on us all. The brave men and women under my command have suffered losses in the past weeks, and these deaths weigh heavily on our hearts. But we have persevered. We will not give in to terror, and allow these criminals free reign over the innocent." He made a sweeping gesture to the four elven men bound behind him. "All four of these men have taken the lives of city guards in the past week. But rather than take a petty revenge, I would allow you, the people, to look upon their faces, the faces of murderers. You will decide what justice should be served to them."

A younger human man shouted out to hang them all already, and a few voiced their agreement. None of the elves in the crowd dared to raise their voices. Most of these people had come for a show, not for justice, and they would have it, one way or another.

Given the variety of people in the crowd, it was very easy to miss the cloaked woman standing near the front, arms loosely at her sides. Amalia, as she had planned, came not in armor, and her armament, such as it was, could not be seen. The protection she did have was minimal, mostly consisting of very light leathers that were more easily concealed under her loose shirt, and leather trousers tucked into her dragonhide boots, which were considerably less conspicuous than the rest of the set. Her palms itched—she was feeling anxious. That said, however, there were few people who understood the value of patience better than she, and in this instance, she could afford to be neither a moment too soon nor too late.

The others had been posted high: Ashton was actually disguised and among the guards on the rooftops closest to the Hightown stairs. Doubtless when he attempted to use his smoke arrows, the other guards would take notice, but he should be able to take advantage of the confusion and eliminate them by whatever means turned out to be necessary. She would prefer not to be shot during this process, but she was discounting no possibility at the moment. Nostariel was over the parapets closest to the exit to Lowtown—and several entrances to the sewer system, which would be most likely to provide them with a getaway they could survive.

The human began his speech, and Amalia took to scanning the surroundings. Four prisoners, eight other guards on the platforms with them. If possible, she would free the other three, but in all honesty, she would be doing it mostly for the additional distraction, and only if it was convenient. She had nothing against the other elves held there, but she would risk her life for only one of them if she desired even the faintest hope of success. The second—that one was Ithilian. She could make out the fact that his equipment, while tattered nearly beyond recognition, was indeed the same set in which he’d left the day before. Parshaara, however, sat currently at the belt of the Guard-Captain, another situation that would be rectified if time permitted. She could make another dagger—she could not replace her kadan.

Smoothly, flowing with the milling of the crowd, she moved such that she was one of the closest to the platform—a height which could be mounted in a single motion if necessary. Efficiency would be her cardinal virtue here. There was very little room for error.

"Behold the faces of these killers!" Aatrox said, turning to the captives and ripping their hoods off one by one. Ithilian might have squinted, the sun setting in his face as it was, but he currently wasn't able to see much of anything. His right eye was long gone, of course, but the left side of his face had clearly taken some serious blows, and the swelling had effectively blocked all vision to that eye, as well. A good portion of his jaw and cheekbones appeared broken, and from the obvious way he was carefully taking in short breaths, it was causing him a great deal of pain to breathe. His left arm was actually broken so badly that some bone could be seen poking through the skin near his elbow, and the right arm wasn't faring much better. His legs, at least, seemed in decent shape from the way he was holding his weight. It was possible that his trousers were hiding more severe injuries, of course.

"This man, a thief and a murderer both!" Aatrox explained, grabbing the first by the hair. "He was caught thieving by the guard, striking a fatal knife blow to a loyal man before he was chased down and apprehended." He moved on to Ithilian, stopping as if to inspect his own handiwork for a moment. "This one... a truly despicable creature. He attacked us in the night without cause, using savage Dalish tactics to infiltrate the Gallows. Over a dozen of our own did not live to see the dawn, but he will face justice now." He went on to detail the crimes of the other two, before turning to the crowd.

"All those in favor of seeing these elves hang, let your voices be heard!" A roar came up from the crowd, their ire worked up from the captain's tales of bloodshed and criminal behavior. Smiling in response to the support, the captain moved to the first prisoner's side.

"Time to meet your gods then, I suppose."

Amalia had never particularly understood the commonality of metaphors that compared anger to fire. Her anger, rare as it was, had always been something a little more like ice—cold, calculating, still rational. She had never really lost her head in any situation, at least not to the degree that other people did. Things could perturb her, and the people—few as they were—who knew her well could notice. But she never really lost the steely self-discipline that had always characterized her temperament.

In this moment, perhaps, she understood how it was that rage could burn. Her teeth grit together, but still she did not lose her patience, waiting until everyone in this farce was committed to their positions, and it was only then that she raised both hands to the cowl that kept her face shaded and pulled it down around her shoulders. That was it—the signal was not meant to be in and of itself flashy. She was not meant to look any different from anyone else in the crowd, not even when she was ushering in utter chaos. And if the others played their parts the right way, that was exactly what would follow.

Nostariel, though tempted to watch the goings-on at the platform itself, had fixed her eyes solely on Amalia, waiting for the signal. She could not deny that the way this crowd called for blood saddened and sickened her in equal measure, but she had seen worse displays of the depravity of men than this. At least they were deceived, in some measure. The moment the Qunari’s hands moved, the Warden nocked an arrow to the string, taking a deep breath to steady her hands, falling completely still in her low crouch and charging her arrow with magic. The distraction would come in two parts, and the first was hers—everyone needed to be focused on something as far from Ash and Amalia as possible. Thankfully, Nostariel’s skill set was well suited to this kind of thing.

As soon as Amalia’s motion was complete, Nostariel drew back the string, aiming for the staircase leading towards the Merchant’s Guild, sighting several storage crates leftover from one of the cleared-out merchant stalls. Softly, she relaxed her hand, and the arrow flew, arcing over the heads of those present to land amidst the crate. The spell attached to it triggered immediately, and the crates exploded in a fiery conflagration, sending splinters and flaming fragments of wood into the crowd. She didn’t waste any time, however, and the second arrow, she sent while she still had visibility, a disorientation spell aimed for the platform itself, targeting the backs of the guardsmen. It wasn’t much, but it was all the help she could really offer Amalia from this distance. Sniper, she was not.

Ashton was thankful that the guardsman uniform came equipped with a helmet, else it would've been impossible to hide the sweat that was dripping from his brow. It took effort to not seem as injured which itself was combined with the nerves of waiting. There was no time to wait the night before, no time to think and allow dire thoughts to drift in and out of his head. Here though, among civilians and other guards in a stolen outfit that hung tight to his shoulders, everything depended on the utmost precision, precision that he could only hope he delivered.

He needn't wait long, however. With the movement from Amalia, Ashton took a step backward on the roof which he was position and gripped his sword. A moment or two later, a pile of crates erupted in a magical flame. No one heard as metal scraped metal, and too many eyes were averted to see a guard impale another. "Run! Someone's attacking! Get out of here now!" He yelled, letting panic seep into his voice. A clamor rose from civilians on the roof and they began a mad dash to escape from constructed assault. No one knew who had opened the second guard's throat, nor did any see the coating of gore on the last surviving guard's sword.

With the two guards around him having mysteriously fallen, Ashton drew his bow and nocked a special arrow. With a shaft of poplar and fletching of gray, it was made to splinter on impact and deliver the pouch that was tied in place of an arrowhead. Upon release the arrow launched a lazy arc, but struck where Ashton had intended. The corner of the platform erupted in a thick plume of smoke as the saltpeter and sugar in the pouch mixed and ignited with a few other ingredients. More soon followed the first, dispersing the smoke around the platform and some into the crowd for good measure.

His tender palms were screaming under the duress, but Ashton tried his best to tune it out. Satisfied with the smoke billowing from below, he switched to more lethal arrows and began to watch for anywhere they were needed the most.

It took very little time for the crowd to begin to panic, and that was exactly what Amalia had been hoping for. With all the confusion, the disorienting spell Nostariel had hit a large chunk of the Guard with, and the smoke billowing around to obscure visibility, nobody noticed the single human woman swing up and onto the platform, at least not immediately. Withdrawing a hand from her cloak, Amalia lashed her wrist, sending a pair of poisoned needles into the eyeslit of the guard on Ithilian’s left. She would have repeated the process with the one on his right, but an arrow beat her to it, placed into the man’s throat by Ashton, no doubt. Emptying the remaining needles into the nearest other guard who looked to have a few wits left about him, she did not even pause in her stride, sliding a knife out of her boot.

An arrow went slightly wide of her position, hitting someone else in the shoulder, but the smokescreen was doubtless obscuring the vision of the archers by now, as well as the people on the platform itself. Fortunately, she was close enough that she no longer needed to see very far to make her way with surety towards Ithilian. His injuries looked bad, and, unsure how much he could see, she swung around behind him and spoke low into his ear. “Left off the platform. We have cover fire, but not much.” The knife sliced through the bindings on his hands, and then she crouched to hack through the ones on his feet. Another explosion rocked the area somewhere ahead—she hoped, though she dare not assume—that most everyone would be vacating the area as quickly as possible, and they could disappear into the tide of panicked civilians.

Unfastening the cloak around her shoulders, she threw it over his, pulling the hood up to better disguise his features from a distance. “Let’s move.”

Ithilian could not see much other than a light before him, but he did not need to see to know that Amalia and the others would come for him. The moment the brute of a captain had stated his intentions to execute him the following day, Ithilian had known that if he could survive that long, he would have a shot at escape. There was apologizing that needed to be done after this, but first they needed to get out alive, which was far from certain. The captain had disappeared into the smoke, but he could not be far away, and there was little chance he would let this stand. Not without attempting to take the lives of those responsible.

When his bonds were cut, Ithilian attempted to take a solid step forward, but the explosion occurred simultaneously, and the strength of his legs failed him. Halfway to plunging face first onto the platform, however, Amalia caught his weight, sending a painful set of stabs through his chest. The pain would have been far worse if he had fallen the rest of the way, however. Trying desperately to push himself forward and not leave the entire effort to his lethallan, Ithilian directed himself left, as she commanded. The edge of the platform would be approaching, he knew, and he also knew he couldn't make a jump successfully even a few feet below.

He had no choice, however, as a shield with a heavy weight behind it plowed into Amalia and himself from behind, pushing them off the edge.

Amalia went to great pains not to land on Ithilian, twisting in midair and coming down hard on her side as a result. That said, the drop wasn’t particularly long, and she rolled to her feet seconds later, though in his condition, Ithilian was not nearly so lucky. She knew she had to make a decision about what to do, and quickly. In the end, it wasn’t much of a decision at all. A bit of sleight-of-hand produced a potion, the best she could do for him right at this moment, and she set it right against his good hand, rising to her full height and consciously stepping away from where he lay. She was armed only with a single knife and about half a hand’s worth of needles, but it would do. It would have to do.

Aatrox, now flanked with two of his guardsmen, seemed more interested in her than the mangled elf, and that much, she had been counting on. Ithilian was not presently much of a threat to him or his authority, and if Nostariel’s characterization of him was on point, he was much more inclined to subdue those who thought they could fight him than anything. She supposed she could speak to him, taunt in the manner of other fighters, but it wasn’t really the kind of thing she did. She didn’t feel much like speaking with him.

She felt like killing him.

The rest of her needles found a home in the eye sockets of the guard to the right, and she surprised the two that remained by springing right for the captain, up onto the very edge of the platform. The shield came to bat her away again, but she was a little too close for a bash maneuver to be effective, and gripped the edge of it instead, using the man’s solid planting to swing herself around, drawing the fight back up onto the platform itself and turned away from Ithilian. She continued sprinting for several more feet, grabbing hold of one of the hanging nooses and using it to swing herself up onto the horizontal bar that held them all in place, bereft of the necks they had been promised to squeeze. It rocked, but held her weight as she ran along the length of it, reversing her direction and instead launching herself off it, right onto the shoulders of the second guard.

The impact carried him to the ground, Amalia’s knife driven down, the entry point just barely above his collarbones. His esophagus tore, and she sprang away as Aatrox’s blade came down for where her head had been until that very moment. Landing in a three-point crouch, Amalia shook stray hair from her face and pulled her lips back from her teeth in something between a grimace and a silent snarl. She had little but her bare hands left to her now, but that did not stymie her aggression in the slightest, driven as she was by something more concrete than a philosophy, more resolute than a religion. There was nothing in this about the good of the whole, nothing about teaching or mending or helping. There was only the cold burn at the pit of her stomach, only icewater in her veins, and only this one person before her that seemed somehow to embody everything that she despised.

She charged. Aatrox met her with the shield, ready this time when she attempted to get in under it, driving her back with a stabbing motion that whispered just barely past her skin, tearing a rent in the side of her shirt and skimming the thin leather beneath.

She should have moved back. Should have kept the proper distance to allow herself to take advantage of her mobility.

But she didn’t.

Instead, Amalia grabbed his wrist, attempting to twist it around behind his back—break it, break him, she cared not—and found herself floored by the answering blow from the shield. It knocked the wind out of her, clipping her temple and sending her sprawling to her back, and Aatrox was not such a fool that he waited long to move in for the killing blow, driving the point of his sword for her throat. She’d cracked at least a few ribs, and the blow to her head fogged her vision, but she had the wherewithal to know that staying in one place was a foolish idea, and so she moved, and instead of her neck, the point of the sword found her face, hitting just below her right eye. Her own roll away dragged it down her cheek and to the line of her jaw, flaying open the skin to her bone, and Amalia let out a half-strangled hiss at the pain of it, unable to draw the breath for more than that.

Clearly, however, he hadn’t been expecting her to move, and they wound up too close together for his weapons to be of much use. Thinking quickly, he discarded the sword and drew Parshaara, flames licking around the bone blade. This time, her snarl was audible, and Amalia backed up several steps, towards the center of the platform. He followed, clearly cautious of her, but quite confident that he was the one who was still armed in this scenario. True enough, until she stomped on her heel just so, and a small knife ejected from the trigger mechanism at the toe of her boot. It wasn’t more than a couple of inches long, but it was better than nothing.

This time, Amalia remembered her patience, and let him rush her, her timing as precise as she could make it. Parshaara swung for her, but her leg was longer than his arm, and she kicked directly up into the underside of his chin, burying the blade there and grabbing hold of a pair of nooses, using them to hoist her other leg up to hook around his shoulders, driving him to the ground. The wet squelch followed by the smell of charring flesh made it clear enough what had happened, even if the white bone knife sticking out of his back was not enough.

Dropping back to the ground with a heavy thud, Amalia shoved the body to the side with her foot, withdrawing the knife from his chest and the sheath from his belt, sliding the dagger home into the lacquered wood. Her anger, that cold feeling, did not abate, really, but it subsided. Aatrox was dead. Ithilian was not.

It was enough.

Setting

4 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

The last of the day's light dipped below the horizon, casting the city into night, just as it fell into chaos. Wounded but remarkably still alive, the pair of Ithilian and Amalia worked their way silently from the scene of the botched execution. The rest of the crowd was not nearly so silent, and the frightened screams could be heard from several blocks away. The fear and panic soon seeped throughout much of the city, as the leaderless guard spread out in a disorganized, though quite fervent, search for the perpetrators of the attack.

Ithilian had attempted to choke down some of the health potion Amalia had left him following the fall, though much of it had only ended up on the ground. What he had managed to consume was probably the only thing preventing him from being entirely dead weight on his lethallan's shoulders. Amalia, too, seemed not as strong as she had been upon freeing him, though that was to be expected following a fight with a man such as Aatrox. Ithilian had only been able to listen to the fight, and he couldn't so much as see what wounds she had sustained, even with her right next to him.

They took to the side streets and twisting alleys of Hightown, the natural layout of the wealthy district aiding them in their escape. Eventually, they linked up with Ashton and Nostariel, the Warden doing what she could for their injuries, at least until they could find a safe place to stop. Their goal was Nostariel's clinic, but it was a slog to reach it. Lowtown seemed remarkably far away indeed when one needed to avoid the main streets, most notably the great stairway connecting the two halves of the city. The guards had fanned out widely, splitting up into smaller groups, though that was undoubtedly dangerous for them.

Perhaps two hours passed before they were finally able to stagger inside the clinic under cover of darkness, hiding themselves from the prying eyes of the guards. Ithilian managed to stagger over to a table, wincing as he threw himself onto it, rolling over onto his back. After that, he focused on remaining as still as possible. "Lia..." he croaked, hoarsely. "Where is Lia?"

"Safe," Ashton answered, "Hidden away in one of Nostariel's hiding places." As he spoke, he began the arduous process of slipping out of a guardsman uniform that was a size too small for him in the first place. He winced and heaved as he shed the armor like a snake molting its skin. With it and his weapons gone, Ashton's usual fare of clothing replaced them, hiding his bandages once more. Trading the guardsman sword for his machete, he also found a cloak and threw it over his shoulders as well, making his way to the door. "I'll go get her. She'll be glad to see you," He said with a weak smile. She wouldn't like seeing him injured as he was no doubt, but to see him alive? That was the important part. With that, Ashton slipped back out into the night.

Ithilian focused on slowing his breathing, which became difficult in spikes, when shooting pains occurred in any of the innumerable places he was severely injured. His tunic was cut away, leaving him bare from the waist up, and it became apparent the extent of the injuries the captain had inflicted on him. His entire chest and both of his sides were a strange mix of colors, anything other than what they should have been, but mostly a mix of dark browns, yellows, reds, and even blue. More of his ribs appeared to be broken than had remained intact, and it was more than likely that some number of internal injuries had been suffered. The captain had hardly needed the noose to finish the job; simply waiting would have done him in. Nostariel worked as quickly as she could, but there were many injuries that required her attention.

Some of which were Amalia's. She had not come out of the fight unscathed, though as far as he understood, there was nothing life threatening. He felt... relief, yes, that he was alive and that Amalia was alive and that Lia was safe for the moment, even if the city seemed poised to explode and consume them all, but he also felt a guilt, a shame, a regret that he had not known since he had turned his blades on his lethallan in the Fade. This was not the same, of course. His actions then had been borne out of pride, selfish pride, a traitorous backstabbing of a friend who had allowed herself to trust him. This time he had acted out of care, out of a desire to shield her from what he felt he knew would come, but his choice had brought pain on them all the same, and only too late did he realize it.

"Amalia," he whispered, turning his head in her general direction. He still could not see her, and this frustrated him. "I'm sorry. I've been a fool again. Your kadan is an utter fool."

Amalia was content to wait until Ithilian’s injuries had been treated before her own were seen to—her alchemy would see her through in the meantime. At the very least, the brew she’d consumed had set her ribs back in place, though they would still need work before it was painless to breathe again. The mark down the side of her face continued to drip blood at a sluggish, lazy rate as the wound clotted and began to scab, but deep as it was, it was tolerable. It could wait, she could wait, and she told Nostariel as much, though the Warden was a good enough healer to know, perhaps, without needing to ask.

She pulled up a chair next to the table he was prone on, leaning her sternum up against the back of it to alleviate some of the pressure on her lungs. When he spoke, she exhaled softly, the barest of huffs. She could feel the last of her anger disappear, just like that, draining with it what remained of her adrenaline and letting finally the emotional and physical toil of the day make itself known in full. Her chest ached, her cheek throbbed, and she resisted the urge to flinch when she shuddered, the motion jarring her torso and sending spikes of pain into her ribcage.

“Perhaps,” she acknowledged quietly. Perhaps he was a fool, still a fool. Perhaps he would always be a fool, stepping out in front of people to place himself between them and pain. Perhaps that would make it worse more often than it helped anything. The reasons had changed, but that fundamental drive of his had not, it seemed. “But he is still kadan.” It was her way, she supposed, of saying that it was forgiven. He was alive, however close to death, and right now that seemed the important thing in the whole situation. Maybe it meant they were both fools. Surely she was, for doing the one thing she had always been taught she must never do—for caring about someone in a way she did not care about others. It had scarred her before, and it had scarred her now.

But this one, she would never think to hide.

"When we were caught, surrounded by the guards," Ithilian said, "it should have been death. I truly believed it was death." He swallowed thickly, resisting the sudden urge to cough. Doing so would have sent racking pains throughout his entire body, and he did not think he could handle that right now. "There was a time when I would have welcomed death. But in that fight, all I could think of was returning here. I was willing to die, but not ready. Not yet."

He turned to her, reaching out slowly with his hand, which eventually came to settle on one of her knees. The swelling was finally beginning to fall back on his eye, and he could see her once more, a blurry representation of his lethallan, at least.

"I will never ask you to leave me again. Nor do I want you to."

Amalia sighed, unsurprised for once at the amount of relief in it. She’d given up knowing what to expect in this companionship of theirs, because it was like nothing else she’d ever known or even heard of. But the reassurance was decidedly welcome, and she nodded slightly, dropping one of her arms to her knee to place a palm over the back of his hand. She wasn’t sure she could handle the anxiety of what she’d endured the day past a second time. Hopefully, she would not have to. It was on the tip of her tongue to say that she wouldn’t leave, but she could not quite pass the words over her lips. She knew what stayed her words, and she knew that the time came when she would have to face that, and make a choice. A choice that she had always been taught didn’t even exist.

But that time was not yet upon her, and so she chose instead to let herself feel the relief to which she was inclined, the corner of her mouth twitching up into a nearly imperceptible smile. “I will hold you to that, Ithilian.”

It was then that Ashton reentered the clinic and he brought with him not Lia, but a look of failure. Looking first to Amalia, and then meeting Ithilian's eye, he let his head drop letting the movement break his view of the elf. "She... Wasn't there," He said, the words hard for him to swallow. He entered the clinic better, throwing the cloak to the ground with a hint of anger, but he continued to explain. "A guard had been killed near where we left her. A crowd had gathered by the time I arrived," He said as he moved the a nearby seat. His shoulders tensed, and despite the exhaustion in his face he occupied only the edge of the chair.

"I asked around. The guard were searching for her and someone who saw told them where we hid her," He said resting his chin on the whites of his knuckles. "When the guards came looking, the viddathari showed up and fought them off. The last anyone saw, the viddathari were taking Lia to the docks for protection," He managed before finally leaning back, the look of defeat falling over his face like a lead veil. "I'm sorry..." He apologized.

“Then she is safe,” Amalia said, though there was no need to vocalize the obvious implication at the end of the sentence. For now. Straightening slightly in her chair, she stood slowly, reaching up onto one of Nostariel’s shelves for another potion. She was out, and the ones with that hint of pearlescence to them were a touch better than hers, anyway. She understood the Tranquil friend of Sparrow’s made them. Uncorking it, she knocked the thing back and set the vial down on an empty counter. “I will go speak with the Arishok. I… cannot promise it will work.” But she would do her best. Hopefully, he would be inclined to agree that the viddathari were still a matter for her dispensation where she wished to exercise her authority.

But with conquest so immanent, she really did doubt it. Taking her leave, Amalia pushed open the clinic door and slipped out into the dark.

The docks... Ithilian wanted to slam his fist against the table, but he knew that would only cause him tremendous pain, and solve nothing. He thought at first to ask Ashton if he knew the name of the elf that had given Lia away to the guard, but he stopped himself. This was not a time for petty revenge, and whoever had done it likely acted purely out of an interest to avoid having the guard rampage through homes in the Alienage looking for escaped criminals. Those elves who stayed in the Alienage, holding on to their way of life rather than joining with the Qunari, had no hope of fighting against the city guard, especially not while their ire was up following the death of their captain, and many of their comrades.

"If the Arishok will not relinquish her," he said, staring up at Nostariel, "I will find her myself. I will not allow her to be caught in a war, not--" his words were cut off by a sudden fit of coughing, one that left tears streaming down the side of his face from the pain. He groaned. "How long will it be before I am healed?"

“You most certainly will not.” Nostariel‘s answer carried an edge of crossness. She hadn’t really meant it to be there—she could understand his desire to be out there, to help someone he held so dear. But she also understood that he was simply in no condition to be doing so. “Ithilian, if you go out there tonight, you’ll die, and I distinctly recall that being something you are not ready to do.” Her tone gentled on the last, though she was cut off by a slightly alarming noise from the other side of the room, and she had to hurry across it to prevent Ashton from falling out of her chair by slumping forward. Apparently his energy had run itself out at last, and she managed to catch him by the collar and right him so that he was leaning back against the wall instead.

Shaking her head, she wondered how she was still moving. Without injury, yes, but she was running entirely on lyrium at this point, and it was fraying her usual temperament at the edges. Proceeding a little more slowly back to Ithilian, she picked up the thread of her words again. “I can only repair so much damage in a night, and even then, you’ll need rest, otherwise your system could go into shock from all the repairs I’m putting it through.” To say nothing of what it had been through to need the repairs. “And Amalia and Ash both still need help as well.” His injuries were the worst, to be sure, but she knew Ashton’s were still bad, and she honestly had no idea what kind of state Amalia was in—the woman hid any lapse in her usual grace and poise so well Nostariel would not have known she was hurt save for the way she’d been leaning against the chair—and the large cut on her face.

Ithilian sighed, knowing she was right, as she usually seemed to be. If there was one thing that could comfort him, it was that until any battle began, the Qunari compound was probably the one place in the city that the guard could not reach anyone. It would have to be enough, until he was strong enough to help her again.

It was about half an hour after she’d left that Amalia returned, her face set in that mostly-blank expression that meant she was deliberately not giving anything away. It was an artifact of her venture to the compound more than of the desire to keep anything from anyone here, and when she spoke, it fell away to reveal her fatigue. She had not slept well the previous night—at all, really, and she’d been up all day since then. “The viddathari are under my care no longer. The Arishok intends to use them as a screen tomorrow, that he and his might advance more quickly for Hightown. If she is to be found, our best chance is then.”

The Chanter's Board has been updated. The Noose has been completed.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel

Earnings

0.00 INK



The shop was quiet, something that was a little more rare in the years since Rilien had formed his odd business partnership with Bodahn and Sandal. They, however, were off for the day, and in the absence of clients, the building was occupied by himself alone. His preferences were few, all things considered, but it was not averse to him to have a bit of time with no one else around. Perhaps it would have been anathema to him in his youth, before, well… before. There was no need to specify before what, because nothing he knew of was capable of changing a life so fundamentally as a Rite. He’d been thinking about that quite a bit lately; while normally he did not give his condition more attention than he found necessary, he’d been turning to the topic in any spare moment, of late, and that more than anything else was reminding him of how different he really was, from others like him.

There was something under his skin now, something that had insinuated its way there, initially beneath his notice but now very obvious to him. He had never stopped feeling entirely, but, like the friend that sees another after a decade, he was seeing himself in a new way, all the nearly-imperceptible changes stacked together to bear a weight he could not deny. It was one thing to attribute it all to the foreign magic of a demon, because it wasn’t really him, then. Just an outside force toying with him. Rapture, Abraxas, these creatures had made temporary inroads along paths he had not traveled since he was scarcely more than a child. But the damage, the progress, mended itself as soon as they were gone, as soon as his head was again beneath cold water.

That was not this. And now, he could not deny it any longer: something had changed in him. It was obvious, so obvious that he wondered how he could have missed it, but it had become clear when he looked at them. The newly-made Tranquil beneath the Coast. He’d never been quite like that, but he’d once been close. Now, he couldn’t see what they were and find himself in them anymore. They should have been mirrors, the images a fraction distorted—but it was like someone had taken a heavy mace to the glass, shattered it and spiderwebbed the remaining pieces, until what he looked at was nothing like him at all.

Rilien supposed, using a knife to work a carving into a rune-stone, that he might well be the only one that noticed it, but then he paused a moment, and reconsidered. Perhaps he was the last one to notice it. Lucien had never treated him any differently than any other person. Once, he would have put that down entirely to the other man’s strange nature, but now he wondered if it might not be that his friend had known something he did not, even all those years ago. Ashton completely failed to recognize his lack of humor or feeling, but that may well be because the lack was less than Rilien had once believed of himself. And Sparrow, well… he’d always just thought her a little bit oblivious. He wondered if, just maybe, she’d seen more of him than he had.

He was not, and would never be, as other people were. He still felt less. He would likely never have much of a conscience—but that wasn’t merely the Tranquility at work, either. Logic and calculation would always find surer expression in him than emotion, and what of those things he did have would always be subdued. But… he was forced to admit, by that very logic he utilized so often, that he was not without these things, and—more importantly—they were growing. The likely cause was obvious: it was the people around him, tugging at the tight weave of his mentality until some things loosened a little and some tore away. The imperfections of his Rite had left fraying ends that had never been tied off. He’d been pulled beneath the water, but never bound there, and every once in a while, he could surface just enough to breathe.

He set the rune down, sliding the knife home in the leather sheath to which it belonged, and brought his forehead down to the heel of his hand. The mark had burned when they’d pressed it into his brow the first time, but he’d not felt it since. He didn’t feel it now, but he imagined that he did.

Just what, Rilien wondered, was he becoming?

The buildings fused together in a dizzying blur of browns and ragged reds as she darted between them. Breathless and shaken, Sparrow shouldered her way into the square and dashed up the staircases leading towards Hightown. She was running from what Lucien had told her. Running from the truth of things. There was a relentless pounding in her head that clattered on the roof of her mind like a rainstorm that refused to trickle away. She stumbled over her feet and caught herself on the corner of rickety stonework before lurching forward again. Her jellied knees disobeyed her orders, making her feel as if the world were tipping sideways. The heaviness of those words weighed down on her like a wounded soldier being carried to safety. She'd been right after all. She hadn't wanted to know. The wretched acid of bile sidles somewhere in her belly and ascends her throat, burning in a grief so rapid that she's surprised she's able to will it back down and keep herself from falling flat on her face.

She clutched at her stomach, curling her fingers into her shirt and leaning against the closest building for support. What could she say to a man who effectively sacrificed himself? He'd been given a chance to reclaim what once was his and what he had every right to have, and he chose her. Stupid, selfish her. The one who'd willingly cracked open her heart and mind and handed it over to a honey-lipped demon: for petty revenge and a hurt that might have gone away on its own. It had been a cheap, quick means of making herself feel better. At the time, she'd never thought of how it may affect anyone else, only that she was hurting and that was enough to excuse what she'd done. Linking arms with all of her fears and insecurities; they'd become crutches she'd never learned to walk without. For all that she'd done over the years, and all of the trouble she assuredly caused, Rilien never turned his back on her.

It was disgust that crept in on her again, though she's not so sure it ever left. As crowded as Hightown was with all of its bugling merchants, tittering women and brightly colored ribbons flapping in the cool breeze, Sparrow felt alone among them. She wobbled away from the wall and ambled up the stairs, abruptly breaking into another puffing run. It felt liberating being exhausted, as if she were settling her worries, and her thoughts, on a shelf until she was finished battling the demons that were snapping at her heels. She scrambled down the street like a wounded deer, leaping over low walls, stumbling like a drunk and ever-evading the faceless nobles that turned to gawk at her. Heading instinctively towards the shop. For what, she would not say. Possible words, possible things, she might say to him ricocheted in her skull. None of them felt right, but if she didn't get them out, she wasn't sure what would happen.

She slowed when the shop came into view. Nestled quaintly between two buildings, as it always was. With all of the money he'd made in the Deep Roads, she'd wondered why he hadn't used any on the shop itself. Gaudiness, she supposed, was reserved for people like her, not him. He was better than her in many ways, even if he did not see it himself. Sparrow's pace became sluggish as she advanced, and the trembling in her knees urged her to stop walking. Sit somewhere secluded and delay the inevitable. Moments later and she was standing in front of the door; one trembling hand wavering above the doorknob, while the other pressed against the frame. She'd imagined herself tearing it open, but now that she was here, and all that remained was stepping through and seeing if Rilien was even there, she froze. Beads of sweat slicked down her forehead, which she slowly came to rest against the door.

Her hand fell across the doorknob. Cold, metal. It grounded her, focused her efforts on what she'd come to say, what she'd come to do. There were things that needed to be said—things she needed to say, or else she'd never be able to face him again. Memories did not get duller with time, and if she pretended as if the conversation with Lucien hadn't happened, she'd remember it every time she looked at him. It was the tight knot of anger pounding against her chest that finally turned the doorknob, throwing it open with all of her strength. She stepped through the threshold before it had any time to clatter against the wall and rebound back towards her. There he was; head bowed, palm pressed to his head. Her breath hitched, and her shoulders tensed. Brace, brace, brace.

“You should've told me, Ril,” she accused, though it was little more than an exhale, and then again, stronger and brighter and desperate for answers, “You should've told me!”

There was no need to ask what he should have told her. Sparrow’s thoughts were often written on her for all to see—scrawled into the lines of her shoulders in the large, loopy handwriting of a child. Etched into her face like someone had taken a chisel and hammer to it. Inked into the set of her limbs, her posture, and vibrating in the tone of her voice. Sometimes, that was actually a clever piece of deception, but not now. Rilien had much experience with deception; what he was seeing now was perhaps the most raw, honest thing she’d ever seen. Frustration. Anger. Hurt. He never had lost the ability to recognize them.

Slowly, calmly, he raised his head, leaning back a little, until his vertebrae all sat perfectly over one another. Whatever visual weakness he had been projecting there, with hunched posture and closed eyes, disappeared like a ghost into the mist. Into the Fade. He laid his palms flat on the table, and decided that it must have been Lucien who told her. The other possibility, of course, was Ashton, but he had the sense that something would have been different were that so. He also hadn’t told her the whole story, for he imagined that would look different as well. It was selfish of him, to feel a little twinge of relief that this was so, but Rilien had never claimed to be other than that. If people saw something else in him, that was their business, not his. He never did anything he didn’t want to do, and in a way, that meant he was living in the most selfish manner possible.

It was something that he would continue to do, because doing the right thing and telling her the whole truth of it would only hurt her. And perhaps himself as well. There was a strange little paradox in there somewhere, but he was willing to let it be. She was hurt, and so he must be whole. Let her howl against him like the emotional equivalent of a gale, and weather it as unchanging stone would. Eventually, things would settle back into something of an equilibrium. The damage would be undone. She was of a fundamentally elastic nature that way; little ever changed her much, and she grew only slowly, in fits and starts. Two steps in one direction, then one contrariwise. He knew it, and he would never attempt to change it. Perhaps that was part of the reason he’d never said a word.

“Why?” The question was unadorned, but perhaps the blunt edges of his tone were softened a little. He knew why, intellectually, but he could no longer fully understand it. That was what he had given up, in the end. He didn’t need his magic anymore, and he cared little if he dreamed, but that difference between himself and every other person was what he’d relinquished. Was it possible to sacrifice selfishly? It must be—for he was still the most selfish person he knew, her included. “What does it change? You would not have been able to convince me otherwise if I told you then, and it does not matter now that it is done. I do not suffer for what I chose.” A lie—he was lying to her now, if only a little. He would do worse to keep the truth from her.

“And you would have suffered had I chosen differently.” The truth, but not all of it. Had he chosen to regain what he had lost, and left her with that demon, she would have suffered, yes. But so would he have, watching it happen, knowing he could have stopped it, but had not, and with the full scope of his understanding returned to him.

There had never been a choice; only the façade of one.

Carbeau eyes stared fixedly on Rilien's face, searching. His own were so calm, so completely bereft of the trembling desperation swelling in her chest that it made it hurt worse. As if he could not understand what she mourned for. In more ways than she could express, those eyes of his were far more expressive than her own. Campfire mysteries, fiery and blazing and evoking emotion in others, even though he professed to having none himself; she never believed him. Eyes of wood-smoke and errant embers blowing in the wind. They are not watercolors. Not faded, monotone or plain. They spit fire and are ceaselessly brave, even when he has no reason to be. His eyes were the color of truth. Hers were mucky and dark and greedy—his were anything but. They were made of contrasts, variants and improbabilities. He, the Tranquil who was far more intuitive than she, and she, the runaway Saarebas who stole things from others without replacing them. She muddied him. And he deserved better. She felt a scream building in her throat. Perched languidly on the posts that composed the jumping lines of her Adam's apple, ready to rip out of her mouth.

She watched as he turned towards her. Aligning perfectly with the room, as always. Inclining his head as if he had expected this conversation, and had been waiting for her to storm through the doors. She would rage and batter and bristle. He would weather it and stand as still as a stone. This time, it was different. Moments before, he'd been bowed over his desk. Head down, hunched shoulders. It made no sense. It made no sense. She'd seen it. She was sure that she did. Brief as it was, and as composed as he appeared now, she'd seen him. This time, what she'd done to him was unforgivable, and what he'd decided for her had been unfair. Unkind, to him. Half of her wished that he'd react almost in the same manner she did; scream and fight and gnash his teeth at all of the injustices he's had to face, at all of the opportunities he's missed. Ask her why she'd accepted the demon's promises, and why he had to give everything away to save her. Ask her why he needed to sacrifice a chance at living.

Not all wounds could heal. And not all wounds were visible. For Rilien, she thought this was the case. Muscles bunched and jumped in her jawline as she ground her teeth together. Her emotions clashed wildly; walking a fine line between gratitude and anger and so much fury at the prospect of being rescued and cleansed, only at the loss of another. This was something she would not—no, could not forget. Settling back into the rhythm of things at the end of the day, after everything was all said and done, was impossible. Couldn't he see that? This pain was as much his own, as it was hers. Perhaps, she would have preferred seeing that different side of Rilien. Like the image itched into the wooden plates Ashton had carved so carefully. That is what he'd seen that day. A carefree, laughing Rilien. One that she imagined was far more reckless than he was now, for much different reasons. The thought had crossed her mind more than she'd care to admit.

On the surface, Rilien was the same as he'd always been. As she's always seen him. Simply so, but so much more. He was not shy to inform her that he thought differently from the others, herself included. However, scraping lines in the dirt to make their differences abundantly clear had never appealed to her. She was too stubborn, too oblivious, to understand that no matter how loudly she felt, that she could not feel for them both. Tranquility did not behave in a way that would suit her. Even so, he'd never dealt with her at arms' length—that in itself was different. Why? Of course, he'd ask that. The choice, to him, had been obvious, when it should have been illogical. Who would give up something so important? The lines of her mouth tightened and jerked into a grimace, teeth no longer grinding. “It changes everything!” She shrieked, balling her hands in her hair and tugging to feel something other than the hopeless, defiant anger. “I would have tried... I would have, and you—you don't suffer? You're lying! You would have been happier, if you'd chosen differently.” Her fingers loosened their grip against her hair, sifted the tufts as she dropped them in front of her. “I suffer,” she said.

The distance between them shortened in a matter of moments, and she did not stop slow to face him. Instead, Sparrow grabbed Rilien's collar and tried wrenching him up. Silently she shook, not in fear, but in her characteristic display of anger. She bit back a sob and turned all of her frustrations inward, jailing them. Clipping their wings. Settling them in their little cages. The muscles in her face tightened under the strain of control. “I suffer, Rilien,” she choked, “And so do you. So do you.”

Rilien stood willingly enough—there was no particular reason to fight to keep his seat. He could read her anger clearly, but he simply could not make sense of it. What had he done wrong? Had the demon not been killing her, slowly leeching the life from between her bones and skin, wasting her away into nothing and breaking her spirit beneath its feet? She truly did not understand him, if she believed he was capable of allowing such a state of affairs to continue uninterrupted. It did not matter whose fault it had been, that she had voluntarily accepted the demon into her body and her mind. It did not matter that he’d had to relinquish something to reverse that damage. Or perhaps it mattered, but even if it did, the simple fact, clear as day even to him, was that Sparrow, as she always seemed to, as he’d told her once already, mattered more than any of it.

“What would you have me do, Sparrow?” he asked dully, perfectly still in her grip. He made no move to step back, but nor did he attempt anything else. He simply stood and withstood. “It is done. I cannot take it back. I would not.” She said she suffered, but whatever pain she endured now was not of a kind that he understood. Rapture was gone, her health and vitality returned to her—she could go, do, be whatever she desired. He failed to see in what way the solution was inadequate to her. He failed to understand how and why she suffered, as she claimed to. “What must I do, so that you do not suffer?”

He had so accustomed himself to the attempt to remove from her path the worst of her obstacles that it seemed the natural question. Glancing down, Rilien placidly removed her hands from the collar of his shirt, insinuating his fingers beneath hers—they both bore calluses, though in different places—and prizing them gently apart. A few wrinkles remained from the force of her grip, but he made no immediate move to straighten them. “I would not have been happier at all,” he informed her factually, lowering her hands back to her sides before he released them. “Do you think it would have made me so, to watch the demon overtake you?” With all the emotions of some other person?

“You underestimate your significance.” To me. To what I would have been.

What did she want from him? A reaction, maybe. For him to finally throw down his hands, utterly fed-up, and scream at her for all of the injustices she'd thrown in his lap, for a life she'd selfishly stolen away. Even if it had been his choice to make, he wouldn't have had to make it if it had not been for her mistake. A future built from someone else' sacrifice, that's what it was. She wanted to batter her fists against him. Force the kind of response she thought was necessary. Caustic, brittle anger. And bitterness, most of all. Each time she tried protecting him, he ended up shielding her—even if it meant deceiving her. There was always a difference between those protecting, and those who were protected. It stood like a clear boundary drawn in the ground, drawing them at opposite ends of the spectrum. She suffered, she supposed, because she was undeserving and grateful, all at once.

Of course, Rilien's responses came as leveled, and unconcerned, as she'd been expecting. As she feared he would sound. There was nothing she could say to change that. No amount of squabbling or ruffled clothes could set any wrinkles across that forehead of his. She could not force him to blame her, as she wished he did. And he could not understand what she could not either. He was the sun, and she was the brooding clouds, eclipsing him in relentless waves. Heedless of his needs, she absorbed what she needed and wanted and desired, and left little more than scraps. Small crumbs, which was hardly sustainable. Had it not been for his Tranquility, she might have asked how he did it. How he gave more, and took less. How she snatched at his friendship like she was starved for it, and he hardly ate at all. As he did now, withstanding her unpleasantness with the patience of someone who'd dealt with this before. What did she want him to do?

Sparrow's eyebrows drew together, as her muscles slowly loosened. The answer eluded her. I would not. It was jarring how much she could not understand. His reasons, his choices; everything. Buds of anger blossomed in her chest—of course they couldn't take it back. There was nothing that could rectify her mistakes, and nothing that could be done to retrieve what was lost. It was finished. The damage was done. And with it, flew his chance of freedom. The cave, and whatever else that had been in there, had swallowed up Rilien's future. And then, he acted as if nothing happened. As if no small part of him ached. Sparrow wept for him, when he could not. She grieved his loses as if they were her own, even if she did not understand why. Long ago, her freedom had meant more to her than anything else, when abandoning those she loved meant less in comparison. She'd expected Amalia to understand her reasons. Though, the difference between her selfishness and his selflessness was stiflingly clear.

“I would've understood.” Had he chosen his own liberty, instead of hers. The flighty thought, little more than an exhale, spoke volumes of what she could not recognize. If Rilien had returned, whole and new and brimming with dusty emotions, Sparrow would have been happy for him. She would have understood his decision, even at her own behest. Rife with good, tender-hearted companions, and with a successful shop at his disposal, Rilien would have thrived in Kirkwall. She would have understood. She appeared to bristle at his question; of what he could do to end her suffering, but her shoulders sagged in defeat. And still, Rilien offered, and she looked, even when she'd taken everything already.

All of the fight left her as soon as Rilien pried her fingers from his collar, dropping her hands away from him. Everything is what it was, as it had always been. However, she could feel small, subtle shifts. Changes unseen to the eye, but felt, in pulsing surges, through the room. Rilien was the most selfless person she knew, keeping her ignorant to ward the pain away. And she, the most destructive one, afflicting guilt and anger as a means of wounding herself. Her mouth twitched, and her eyes and ears burned. “Why? Why​ The thing he'd lost had meant so much more than freedom, so much more than the freedom she fought for. Sparrow leaned forward and leaned her forehead against his shoulder, smoothing out the wrinkles with her freed hand. She remained there, unmoving, until she drew back her hand and covered her face. She would grieve for him, when he could not.

As do you. It seemed obvious. Instead, Sparrow asked, “Tell me how you were before. Everything—tell me how you lived.”

Setting

7 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

With a resolve held up by cracking pillars, the Viscount's daughter emerged from the Keep.

The sun would soon be setting on another day, and though Sophia had wanted more than anything to continue hiding, to ignore the terrible tidings that Bran was bringing her, her guilt at doing nothing was eventually able to overcome her shame, at what she'd already failed to do. She looked like a woman possessed of an illness, and she supposed grief was close enough to a sickness for it to count. Sleep had not come easily, but when it had finally overtaken her, she'd dozed through events that seemed destined to destroy Kirkwall. The guard captain had revealed a hatred of elves, attempted to commit atrocities he never would have dared had she been there to make him answer for it, and succeeded in finally setting fire to a bridge that had never been built with the Qunari. Now the Arishok harbored dozens of elves, several of which were reported to have committed very serious crimes, and potentially were using conversion as an attempt to escape punishment. The law required that someone go in and retrieve them, that they might be judged properly. But Sophia also intended to make one last attempt, a pointless appeal, as the Arishok might say, to stop the seemingly inevitable violence. It was an idea that was perhaps doomed to failure before she even set out, but Sophia had already seen what occurred when she did nothing, and she would not sit idly by again.

Blearily she had risen, washing herself off in a half-hearted attempt to make herself look like a future ruler again. She dressed, braided her hair, and pulled on her armor, feeling as though it was twice as heavy as normal. She felt no appetite, but knew that she needed to eat, and so she managed to consume a meager dinner before she buckled her sword belt across her chest, sliding the blade named for her foolish mother into the sheath. Assigning a personal force of four guards to her (ones she knew personally, which she felt necessary after what she'd heard of recent events), Sophia immediately set out for Lowtown. Though she felt defeated already, she did her best not to show it, putting up a thin illusion that the Viscount's daughter was still confident, capable, and going to make things right.

The streets were quieter than usual, she noted, informed citizens wisely choosing to brace themselves for what was likely to come. Some still seemed in blissful denial, however, particularly the ones with strong anti-Qunari leanings. She heard the word 'hornhead' uttered several times on her way to Lowtown. They would not say such things when the Arishok's vanguard came to burn these neighborhoods to the ground, she knew.

Sophia instructed the guards to wait upon reaching Lucien's street, and she proceeded to his door alone. Normally, she would have sent summons and had her friends meet her at the Keep, but waiting longer would have only hurt the situation further, and deteriorated her resolve. She needed to be moving right now, acting. To hesitate now would paralyze her. She knocked on Lucien's door.

Lucien had only heard about the chaos in Hightown after all was said and done already, and he felt guilty for missing it, considering the state he caught Nostariel in when he dropped by the clinic. Apparently, everyone else involved was much worse off, but currently resting. He couldn’t say how much longer they would be granted to do that, considering, but perhaps they would be able to avoid the worst of what was to come. There must be very little for the Qunari to want in the Alienage. If Amalia was right—and he had no reason to believe she wasn’t—the Arishok’s target was much more likely to be the Keep, or perhaps the Chantry. Though if he had to lay money on the outcome, he personally would guess that it was the Keep.

It was fair to say that this thought was fraying his nerves considerably. Of all the aspects of warfare, the waiting had always been hardest for him, which was a shame because there was rather a lot of it. Though likely not much more in this case. He was torn between remaining here at his home, where he knew everyone could find him, and taking up some kind of permanent post at the Keep, at least until all was said and done. He held no delusions of being able to stave off the Qunari army with what remnants of the City Guard had not abandoned their posts and commissions in recent hours, but… he supposed if the Templars too could be mustered, there might be a chance, depending on how well the strategy could be executed. Unfortunately, he understood well that there was very little chance of uniting those disparate bodies, much less beneath someone with as little authority as he.

And the authority that might have sufficed was in no position to be organizing defenses at this point in time. He could blame neither Marlowe nor Sophia for that, not given all they had lost, but the knowledge of how much danger they were in was eating at him, like the acid mixtures he’d seen Rilien use to wear away at plate mail. Lucien was not a religious man—he never had been. But at times like this, he rather wished he were, because perhaps it would mean something to him, give him some assurance, to be able to put trust somewhere else, to believe without evidence that it would work out for the better. Then again… perhaps it didn’t really suit him at all. So instead, he simply waited, trying to weather that gnawing feeling like he would weather any other kind of pain, to little success. He could not wish the moment he would need to act were sooner, but he could not wish that the waiting be prolonged, either.

When the knock at his door came, his heart jumped for a moment into his throat. Surely it would not be now, would it? But when he opened the door, it was to see someone he had expected to see perhaps less than a rampaging troop of Qunari on his doorstep. “Sophia?” He blinked down at her, clearly surprised to see her, though not displeased, if his tentative smile was anything to go by. He was aware that she was likely still in a poor state, and indeed the signs were there to be read underneath the care she’d managed to take with herself. It hurt, to see that, with the familiar ache of someone dear in pain. There was really only one question to be asked.

“What can I do for you?”

"I need your help," she replied, her voice a little quieter than usual. "I'm going to the Qunari compound. Someone has to try and retrieve the criminals the Arishok is sheltering... and I need to convince him to stay his hand. It might be too late, but to do nothing would be to invite death." She had already done too much of nothing, regardless of how good her excuse was.

“Then that’s what we’ll do,” Lucien said simply. He left the doorframe for a moment, heading back into his house to retrieve what looked to be a halberd from the back room. He informed his houseguests in quiet tones not to expect him back before nightfall. By now they knew that if anything happened, they needed to hide in the saferoom he’d had built into one of the walls. He’d sacrificed a space for clothing, but a trunk was sufficient anyway. Strapping the weapon into place on his back, he slid a spare knife into his boot and headed back out the door, pulling his door shut behind him.

The first stop, it was agreed, would be the clinic. The walk itself was short and mostly silent, though he did ask the guards to remain outside the clinic. His earlier visit had served to inform him that it was not Nostariel alone who was present, and he did not know how the situation would look now. There was no reason to invite more potential trouble than necessary, after all. He actually knocked, given that the place was technically closed, and it was Amalia rather than Nostariel who answered. She looked from himself to Sophia, then shook her head faintly and stepped aside, allowing both entrance without so much as a word.

There were a few cots set out, one of them occupied, and Nostariel herself was slumped against the counter, looking only half-awake. In fact, Amalia seemed the most alert of anyone there, given Ashton’s uncomfortable-looking sprawl in an armchair. They really did look like they’d been through the gauntlet.

While it was true that she was half-asleep, the presence of new people was not entirely lost upon Nostariel, and she straightened in her stool, rubbing slightly at her eyes. What had she—? Oh right, she’d been trying to take inventory of her potions. Rilien was supposed to come by with more today, but given everything that was going on, she felt it would be unwise to count on that. There was another lyrium restorative by her hand, and she uncorked it with a soft pop. “Lucien, Sophia? What’s going on?”

While Sophia explained the situation, Nostariel knocked back the restorative, feeling the kick almost immediately. From the sounds of things, she was going to need it—and probably a few more. This was going to wreak havoc on her system, and her magic would probably be out of sorts for days after she stopped taking them, but it looked like she wouldn’t be stopping until the Qunari mess was done, one way or another. At the request for her assistance, she glanced around at her patients, all in various stages of repair. “I… yes, I’ll help. Just… if I can have a few minutes, I need to…” She gestured vaguely to encapsulate the obvious injury surrounding her.

Starting with Ithilian, since he was still the worst, she gave him as much healing as she thought either of their bodies could tolerate, then moved on to Ashton. Amalia declined, which Nostariel was secretly grateful for. Taking a leather bandoleer off a hook in the back of the clinic, she loaded it with more potions and slung it over her shoulder, taking her bow and quiver down and situating those as well. At this point, it would probably be more offensive to the Arishok if they didn’t come armed to the teeth, so she felt little reservation about this.

“Okay, well… any advice before we go, Amalia?”

Amalia turned her head towards Nostariel, and Lucien wondered where the scabbing cut on her face had come from. Like his own, he imagined it would scar quite apparently. Still, that was definitely a question for another time. “You will not succeed,” Amalia said in reply to the inquiry. Her voice was softer than usual, and did not carry far, even in the small space they all occupied. “The Arishok must fulfill a demand of the Qun, and he has chosen the most expedient path now that patience has failed him.”

Lucien sighed through his nose. “But what demand is it? If he were here just to conquer, he would have moved much sooner than this.” As military strategy, waiting around this long made no sense, and Amalia herself was testament to the fact that the Qunari were nothing if not logical. “Why attack at all, if not to conquer?”

Amalia was oddly surprised the question had not been asked sooner. Then again, perhaps those who dealt with the Arishok simply assumed he would volunteer all the relevant details. Such was not always the way of the Qunari—some things must be asked. And that was the question. “He has lost that which must be retrieved at all costs. From his care was stolen the original copy of the Tome of Koslun. It is the single most venerated artifact the Qunari possess. And he allowed it to be stolen from underneath his nose. Until it is returned, he is denied Par Vollen, and his Antaam with him. It was taken just off the coast of Kirkwall, and there is every reason to believe it is here.”

“Did you say it was a book?” Nostariel’s tone was perhaps surprisingly urgent. “Because… I might know who has it, actually. Um…” The Warden hurried across the room, putting a hand on Ashton’s shoulder, shaking as gently as she could and still have a chance at waking him. “Ash, Ash, wake up. This is important, I’m sorry.” She’d rather not wake him at all, but they had so little time now, in all likelihood.

As soon as he looked awake enough to register words properly, she spoke again. “Ash, do you remember that book we found, on the ship? The one with the Qunari writing in it? Do you still have it? It might be very important.” What were the chances that they’d run across the very same artifact that the Arishok had been searching for all this time? Probably about the same as the chances that they’d run across some other Qunari book in a pile of stolen loot on a smuggling ship.

Ashton's eyelids snapped open wide but they lacked immediate understanding. Completely unaware of the dire mood everyone seemed to be in, he let a long drawn out yawn escape and proceeded to straighten his back accompanied by the sound of his vertebrae popping back into place. "The book? What..." He trailed off as he realized that they were joined by Lucien and Sophia, and by the fact that nearly everyone was staring directly at him. He paused only for a moment, meeting some of their eyes before looking back to Nostariel.

It was then he felt the full brunt of the serious atmosphere. If Sophia was here... Then something important was about to happen. He straightened out in his chair and leaned forward, throwing himself into deep thought. "The book... The book..." He repeated, urging himself to remember where he had it last. "It's at home, upstairs from my shop," He said, nodding. He went nowhere else with it, nor even knew exactly where it was-- but it was at home. That much he was certain. Again, his gaze flickered from person to person until it realighted back to Nostariel.

"Why?" He asked tentatively. He had a feeling he wasn't going to like the answer.

"It might be the key to getting the Arishok and his soldiers to leave the city," Sophia explained quickly, and for the first time since her brother had been slain she was showing signs of life. The revelation that it was a simple book the Qunari were here for, and that Ashton may have it in his possession, had injected her with a great deal of energy. Later, she could be upset at how the Qunari had caused so much trouble over a single lost tome, and how they had refused to ask for any help in recovering it, but for now, she had latched onto the idea of just recovering the thing, and getting them to leave. They could make it out of this yet, if they hurried.

"The book?" Ashton asked in confusion. The book that he had could send the Qunari home? Had her expression not been so serious, Ashton would've brushed it off as a joke, but there wasn't any humor in her voice, nor anywhere else. The attitude was serious and dire, and he could feel the importance. But if he had the book, the key as Sophia had called it... It sat in his shop for countless weeks forgotten. The guilt didn't hit immediately, but it began to drip in. He leaned back against the chair, letting the back of his neck fall against the chair. He hid his face with his hands, cursing himself for being such a fool look like he was simply trying to rub the sleep from his eyes. No... he was quite awake now.

He lurched forward and rose from the chair, going toward where he'd left his bow and arrow, as well as the guard's sword instead of his machete. "Let's hurry, while we can still salvage this," He urged, though his tone sounded more defeated than his words led to believe.




Rilien shifted the crate in his hands slightly, the glass bottles therein clinking faintly against one another. They were padded with layers of linen, but not so thoroughly that they would all hold if he dropped the object. Fortunately, he was more than strong enough to carry it, and it was rather difficult to startle him into dropping anything. Beside him walked Sparrow, no doubt enlivened somewhat by the prospect of going to visit Ashton, whose shop was on the way to the clinic at which he would be making his scheduled delivery. He at least was studiously ignoring the discomfort that hung between them in favor of attempting to return them to their equilibrium, but the longer passed since their… discussion, the less he believed she would simply allow that. Whatever the case, neither was speaking of it now, and he was admittedly at a considerable advantage when it came to acting as though little had changed.

Of course, all plans for delivery were somewhat waylaid when the pair approached the Dragon's Hideout—a name which Rilien believed required some reconsideration, though he had thus far refrained from mentioning as much. Regardless of Ashton’s aptitude for titles, the store itself bore the characteristic signs of theft, and a hasty theft at that. The Tranquil’s expression did not change, of course, but he diverted his path from the road to the storefront, setting the crate down off to one side of the door.

The door hinge was broken, indicating that those entering hardly cared for whether they were seen, which implied that whatever was taken was of enough importance to risk capture. Inside, everything had been turned over and much of it was on the floor. The mess led up the stairs as well, indicating that what they were after did not appear to have been located in the storefront, suggesting an item of a more personal nature, rather than one associated with Ashton’s craft. As far as Rilien could tell from the window, nothing was missing, which meant either they hadn’t found what they were searching for or it was found upstairs instead.

Before he could enter to investigate further, however, a large party of people, including Lucien and Ashton himself, as well as the Warden, Sparrow’s Qunari friend, and the Viscount’s daughter. "Ashton.” The Tranquil’s voice betrayed nothing. "It would appear that you have been robbed.”

"Robbed?" Ashton asked, "What are you... Oh no." His question was answered before it was even asked, all it took was a look toward his broken door. The hinge was torn from the frame leaving the slab of wood that served as his entrance lazily swinging back and forth. He took his first steps tentatively toward the entrance, afraid of what he might find inside. Or perhaps, what he wouldn't find. "Oh Andraste," He said rubbing his face in exhaustion. He couldn't shake the feeling that she was playing some cruel joke on him now. Then his eyes snapped back as realization struck. The book wasn't the only thing of value in his shop. "Snuffy!" He exclaimed and dove into his shop.

He paid no mind to the wreck on the bottom floor, scanning it for Snuffy and Snuffy alone. When that search bore no fruit, he ran to the stairs and took them two at time. The mess in the room he slept in was worse than what was on the ground floor. His dresser was flung open wide, clothing strewn across the floor. His mattress was flipped from its bed-frame, leaning against the nearby wall with the frame itself broken in half. The bookshelf was face down on the floor, with its books and pages scattered nearby. All of his etchings and carvings were either broken or likewise discarded, but none of that mattered.

Snuffy was found laying against the wall under the far side window. Ashton stepped over the mayhem to reach her and found himself relieved to still see the steady rise and fall of her chest. At the soft touch of Ashton, she turned and faced him, her long face mirroring his. Flakes of blood were already drying in her mouth and fur-- and not all of it hers. Another scan revealed drops of blood near his desk, its empty drawer opened wide. "Dammit," He cursed, understanding what it meant. His attentions returned to Snuffy, gently stroking her side. He searched for any injuries she may have had, which were fortunately few. "You tried your hardest. You're going to be fine, Princess. Just fine," He said, reassuring himself more than her. Like him, she'd just have a few bruises-- perhaps more, before this was all over.

Sophia entered the shop not long after Ashton, though she scanned it a little more closely, looking for any sign of the book on the bottom floor. She hoped whoever did this had not killed Ashton's dog, yes, but with the entire city on the line, she needed to focus on this book. It was nowhere to be found, however, and soon she was trailing after Ashton, finding him over the form of the mabari hound, who was thankfully still alive. She glanced around for the book, but it didn't appear to be up here, either. Anxiety immediately began to set in, thinking about what they would do without this book. They were losing time...

"They took the book, then? Whoever did this?" It wasn't really a question, as it was obvious that the thieves had taken little else. "They can't have gone far. Do you think they could be tracked down?"

Now leaning against the same wall that Snuffy was, Ashton nodded in the affirmative. Pointing toward the open desk drawer, he spoke, "Yeah. It was in there." Was being the key word. As for if they could be tracked... "I... Don't know," He admitted. Ashton was a good tracker, perhaps bested only by the Dalish. But tracking in the woods and in the city was two different world. He could follow broken twigs, disturbed leaves, and footprints in the woods. There were no such things in the city, the best being a fine layer of dust on hard, packed in ground. Even then, the thieves' feet wouldn't be the only prints to be found. Hundreds of people walked the streets every day. Ashton didn't like their odds and it frustrated him.

A pound echoed throughout the shop as Ashton hammered the wall with a fist. Why, he asked himself. "It'd be near impossible to find any kind of trail," He admitted, shaking his head. A wet sensation happened upon his elbow, and he looked down to see Snuffy pushing her head under his arm and into his lap.

He began to caress her head as she rested. Ashton had never been a man taken to flights of rage, but his frustrations were nearing a boil. Why could nothing ever work out, he thought. He found himself staring at Snuffy's nose when an idea struck. His head jerked up and looked back at the blood stains. Next to it was a piece of ripped clothing, a pant leg most likely torn off during Snuffy's attack. "Wait." he said, gently moving Snuffy's head and picking the shreds up.

Energy came rushing back as he spun back around and hovered over Snuffy. "I need a potion," He urged desperately. "I'm sorry Princess, but looks like we're going to need your help. At least you'll get a chance to take the bastard's leg this time." Snuffy's ears pricked up that, and she began to leech off of his energy barking as he spoke. "I can't track them, but she can," Ashton explained, showing Sophia the scrap of clothing, "I've been training her."

Potions were easy enough to come by at the moment, and Rilien reached into the crate, withdrawing three and handing them all to Ashton. One was for the dog—the other two were for whatever happened to come next.

Ashton slipped the pair of potions into a fold in his shirt, unstopping the other and put it up to Snuffy's mouth. "It tastes like dirt, but it'll make you feel better. Come on Princess, we need you," Ashton urged. Snuffy's immediate response was to whine lowly and stare at him with her long eyes. Ashton would not budge, and soon she relented and let him turn the vial up into her mouth. She coughed loudly and shook her head, but otherwise took the potion well. Eventually she found she found the strength to stand on her front legs and give Ashton a grateful lick across the face. "That's my girl," He said proudly, giving her head a rub.

Nostariel, on the other hand, chewed her lip and shifted uneasily from foot to foot. “I’m not sure we have much time.” Glancing between the others, she shook her head slightly. “I think it might be wisest to split ourselves. Some of us should track the thieves down, and perhaps the rest ought to inform the Arishok that his book is close at hand—hopefully stop the madness before it has the opportunity to begin.” Though it was arguable that it had started long ago. Perhaps they would be able to prevent the worst of it, regardless. She had little desire to be pulling bodies out of wreckage in the coming months.

It was a knee-jerk reflex that pushed Amalia to immediately track down the book as well. The way they spoke of it, they did not truly understand its meaning, and though perhaps she was still lingering in some threshold place between Qunari and not-Qunari, she could never for a moment doubt what the Tome of Koslun meant to her. The ideas within it had saved her life on more than one occasion, and the actual artifact was something she had seen only once.

But there was more then one reflex to contend with now, and her other one was perhaps something that nobody else here could spare the time and energy to do—something that she was no longer that surprised to find she held to be of equal importance. “The hound will track better even than I can, through this,” she admitted, then shook her head slightly. “And my words are not the ones that can stop the Arishok now. Perhaps none are, but yours have a better chance than most.” she spoke mostly to Lucien and Sophia, knowing as she did the extent of their interactions with him. Still, it seemed unlikely that the Viscount’s daughter at least would be able to sway him—here was a case where her station would serve her ill. Whether he would be any more inclined to listen to the other was something she did not know, and would not bother to speculate about.

“I am returning to the Alienage. When it comes to battle, they are unable to defend themselves.” Not with so many of their young and able-bodied converted to the Qun. Besides, it was still imperative to find and secure Lia, something Ithilian was going to need help with.

Glancing between all of those present, she inclined her head. “Farewell. I hope you do not die.”

She departed then, though not exactly back to the Alienage the short way. There was one more person she needed to find first, someone she desired to keep safe from that which would surely follow.

Lucien watched her depart, then turned back to the others. “Sophia and I should probably try our luck with the Arishok.” They wouldn’t be a whole lot of use in tracking, anyway. Lucien knew only the bare rudiments of it, and he doubted Sophia was any more of an expert than he was. Besides, they’d dealt the most with the Qunari, and it only seemed wise to give themselves the best chance they could have. “In case we don’t get through to him… Nostariel, would you come with us?” He knew he could very well be asking her to die, given the gravity of the situation, but it was also true that with her present, they all stood the best chance to live if things went poorly. Her abilities were good for use on large numbers, and her healing might just save their skins. He suspected that the crate full of Rilien’s potions would have to suffice for the other group. It was far from the ideal situation for any of them, but it was the best way he could think to divide them.

If Rilien were the sort to be easily-stirred by such matters, he might have managed to be a little offended that Lucien would rather take the Warden into danger than him, but as it were, he easily recognized the logic in it, and though perhaps he was still more comfortable facing death beside the Chevalier than anyone else, he wasn’t precisely uncomfortable with it in any capacity, and would serve more use hunting those who were not well seen than those who were blatantly obvious. Examining the crate at his side for a moment, he provided several tinctures each to Sophia, Lucien, and Nostariel before setting about the task of partitioning out the rest into various pouches, loops, and pockets in both obvious and subtle places on his own person.

For her part, Nostariel accepted hers gratefully, then turned to Lucien. She knew what he was asking as well as he did, and though it brought her no joy to admit how long their odds were, she could not fail to acknowledge the reality of the situation. This was grim—and there was little hope to spare—but they would all do what they had to do to give each other the best shot at meeting again tomorrow. It was all they could do. “I’ll go.”

"So... We're splitting then?" Ashton asked, though he already knew the answer. It made the most sense, to split and have people try to contain the coming wildfire. It didn't mean he had to be happy about it. Looking between Rilien and Sparrow, he nodded and added, "Then you two are with me." Rilien and Sparrow he could trust to see their recovery to the end, if anyone had a chance of retrieving the book and getting it back to the Arishok in time, it was them. He stood and lead the groups outside his shop, where they split off into their groups.

Ashton watched as Nostariel's group began to depart before he felt a pinch in his chest. He wouldn't lie to himself, what they had in mind had low odds, if they had any chance to begin with. Danger loomed like a dark cloud over their heads, and it made him anxious and nervous in equal parts. There was a very real chance that he wouldn't be able to see tomorrow. A lot things could happen between then and there. But that didn't scare him the most. No, there were thoughts that were more frightening. He watched Nostariel's blonde hair as the distance between them grew. Well, if they didn't make it, then he'd have no regrets.

"Nostariel wait," He called, pressing the scrap of bloody cloth into Rilien's hand. He crossed the distance between them like he was sliding across ice and when he reached her, his fingers went to her face and pulled her in. No more regrets he told himself as he pressed his lips against hers.

"Come back to me safe, Nos?" He asked, pressing his forehead against hers.

Well.

That was making it considerably harder to leave. And to think, for that matter. For a few seconds, Nostariel could only smile, the urgency of the situation peripheral at best, and she was certain she looked quite the proper fool, holding his hands to the side of her face like that, her fingers slotted absently into the spaces between his and curled faintly around. The moment was warm, and she wanted to savor it, to speak even, tell him everything that was on her mind, everything she’d been putting off saying because she lacked the courage.

But she couldn’t. Not right in this moment. So when her lips parted, she managed only one thing: “I promise.” She had no idea if she’d be able to keep it, but in making the promise, she was giving herself one more reason to try. As though there weren’t enough already. “Be careful, Ash.” Gently, she dropped her hands and stepped away, nodding slightly before mustering the will to take a few steps backwards and then turn around, hurrying after Lucien and Sophia.

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

Sophia led Lucien and Nostariel at a quick jog down the steps and winding streets that would lead them to the docks. They had been so close, to having everything they needed to secure peace in the city, to making the Qunari leave and putting so many minds at ease... of course it would not be so easy. What they had to go on now was only slightly better than what Sophia set out with in the first place. Rather than resorting to begging the Arishok not to attack, she now had to plead with him to wait and allow them to recover the book, since it was so close at hand. His patience was likely nonexistent, but they had to try.

They had hardly reached the outskirts of the Docks when she realized that they were already too late.

The smell in the air was a different kind of acrid than the one that drifted down from the industrial district, and the noise wasn't the typical bustle of an evening on the docks. There was a terror in the air, and she soon found out why. A Qunari warrior burst into the street and hurled a javelin at her. She only barely reacted in time, ducking down and letting it pass right over her shoulder to crack against the stairway behind her. More emerged immediately after, filling the air with deadly projectiles, two of which quickly caught guards that she had brought along as an escort.

"Get out of the street, it's too open!" she cried, drawing her sword and making for a side alley, the others behind her, though a third guard took a throwing spear to the abdomen and crumpled before he could make it to cover. The sounds of Qunari warrior battle cries were everywhere. The Arishok had already launched his full scale attack. "No..." she hissed through gritted teeth. Their escape was not made yet, though. A sword armed Qunari kicked open a residence door in front of her, stepping out to attack, though Sophia turned his blade aside and slashed across his chest. There would be too many of them to deal with shortly, but Sophia wasn't actually sure where to go. She wanted to return to the Keep, to shore up the defenses there and make sure they couldn't get through, but she also wanted to find the Arishok, and try and stop this before it got that far. Perhaps they were one and the same. And the Arishok clearly had a head start.

For now, they would just have to survive.

Tired as she was, Nostariel knew this was hardly the time to be conservative with her magic, and as they made their way up towards Hightown, perhaps reaching an unspoken consensus that they needed to be there, she made a lot of use of her larger-scale spells, especially the ones that would put down or delay large numbers of Qunari at once. Needless to say, there were a fair number of fiery explosions and mass disorientation projectiles, helped along by the fact that the Qunari tended to adhere to tight formations that were organized so as to be very effective against the less militarized City Guard groups they ran into. That same discipline and close quartering made them relatively easy targets for her, and when necessary, she would soften up the phalanxes in order that Lucien and Sophia could more easily cut them down.

The stairs to Hightown waylaid them for longer than she would have liked, as a group of Qunari bore down on them with an enhanced height advantage, probably a rear guard for the Arishok’s main force, judging by the number of them who seemed to be wearing more armor than average. That and size were really the only indicators she had of rank in the army, and these ones had both in spades. It was a serious fight up the stairs, and she had no doubts that they would not have made it were Lucien any less sturdy or Sophia any less driven, and by the time she did mount the last one, the majority of them were slicked thickly with the blood of the fallen.

That was the point at which she consumed the first of her three restoratives. Those, she had to be sparing with, else she’d run out of magic long before the fight was done. “Where to?” She wasn’t sure if they wanted to try the Keep or the Chantry or some other target, knowing rather less about the situation than either of them did.

“The Keep,” Lucien decided, glancing over at both of the others. He’d accumulated a number of injuries by this point, most of them thankfully minor due to the armor protection he had. He was, however, bleeding from a nasty gash in his forehead—one of the Qunari warriors had nearly succeeded in a full-on headbutt with his horns. Had the Chevalier not chosen to move forward into the hit, he might be down for the count at the moment. Fortunately, the resulting dizziness was passing, and his thoughts were clear enough to lead him to the conclusion that the Arishok was almost certainly heading for the Keep. At least if the arrangements of his rear guards and his path had anything telling to relay on the matter. “We need to go to the Keep.”

That was murmured only, but the three started forward even so, meeting no more resistance until they were close to the Merchant’s Guild. Lucien had not picked the majority of the Qunari to be stealthy—at least not the warriors—but they’d apparently caught on to the fact that they were being followed, and seemed to step seamlessly out of shadows and from behind rubble and cover, revealing that the three of them were effectively pincered between two groups of about seven warriors each. Those were long odds even for them—the Qunari were no inexperienced brigands, to be sure.

Were all three of them warriors, he would have advised forming in close and putting their backs to each other, but that wasn’t going to cut it with Nostariel to think about. That necessitated a more mobile defense—they would have to keep their foes as off-balance as possible, and switch tactics as often as possible so that attack and defense never became a comfortable rhythm. This was not holding a line—they would have to be more than simply stalwart. They would have to be aggressive, and that included him. This in mind, he leveled the halberd, in effect calling out the biggest Qunari in the lot, one he took to probably be in charge by a similar line of reasoning to Nostariel—size and the quality of armor.

It was a challenge that did not go unanswered.

The situation actually suited Sophia fairly well. Mobility was always a focus of hers, and she would have tried to keep them off balance even if it was not a necessity. Lucien seemed intent on engaging the largest of the group, and so she focused her aggression elsewhere, hoping to draw a group of them to her. She was not as injured as Lucien, only suffering a few bruises. She didn't have the confidence to think she could take down more than half a dozen of them single-handedly, if even that, but with luck and skill, she might be able to keep them away from Nostariel, the better to enable her to obliterate groups of them.

She charged in, ducking under a blow and slashing low at the legs in return, not stopping to see the effect. Her eyes constantly darted left to right, her feet keeping a solid distance from the heaviest groups of them, as well as the walls. She couldn't allow herself to be cornered. They attacked typically two at a time, from different angles, and it strained her abilities to block the one and dodge the other. A spear was the first weapon to strike her, though it hit at enough of an angle to slide off her breastplate. She struck the Qunari before her with her pommel, before slashing quickly across the spear-wielder's throat. She didn't need to look long to know that he would be going down.

It was only a matter of time before she was caught, however, a swordsman being the one to do it while she was engaged for a second too long with another. The sword blow deflected off her side, albeit quite painfully, but the Qunari's shoulder hit and stuck, ramming her down to the ground. Instinctively she rolled, not even needing to see the blows to know they'd be coming down. She got her knees and blindly swung, catching two that thought to move in quickly on her. When the swing passed, a broadsword of their own came looking for her head, forcing her to duck quickly under it. When she looked back up, the backhand of a plated fist smashed across her cheekbone. Stars of the night sky flashed momentarily in her eyes as she fell back again, even though the smoke had long since covered up the heavens.

Fortunately, Nostariel had grown rather accustomed to acting as crowd control, and a good half the Qunari were currently waylaid by ice to their waists, though she knew it would not hold them forever—not so strong as they were. That said, it lifted the pressure a bit from the other two, whom she knew were working to protect her from direct melee confrontation. She might have a few more tricks than she used to in that regard, but none of them would bring down more than one of these Qunari, and she’d only get the one if she was really lucky.

She turned around just in time to see such a one looming over Sophia, who’d been downed apparently by his fist, as he had apparently lost whatever other weapon he was holding already. Wasn’t that supposed to be a serious problem for them? Whatever the case, he didn’t look happy, and the situation seemed bad for more reasons than were really worth counting. So Nostariel reacted, placing the arrow she was holding between her teeth and throwing her empty hand forward, loosing a bolt of raw concussion, blowing the Qunari off his feet and into the nearest wall, where he thudded audibly, the sound punctuated with the wet cracking of broken bones. He slid awkwardly to the ground and lay still, but that was far from the last of them, and the others were starting to free themselves from the ice.

She got another one with magic and a third with an arrow, but she was running out of mana again, and there wasn’t really time to quaff a potion right at this moment. Turned away from both her allies and unsure how close Sophia was to regaining her feet, it was the other that she alerted to her incoming plight.
“Lucien…”

He was pretty sure the Qunari officer had cracked a few of his ribs with that full-body tackle, but the important fact was that Lucien was still alive, and the other man was not. Moreover, he was back on his feet, and so when Nostariel’s voice reached him, he pivoted, sweeping the halberd around as he went, catching three of the charging Qunari to varying degrees of success. The first came away with a grievous slash on his chest, but the other two were only glanced, a problem rectified when the spear tip of the halberd was shoved up with Lucien’s next step forward, punching into the unprotected juncture of jaw and neck. The chevalier withdrew the weapon, kicking the last one in the chest. As the fellow was off-balance to begin with, he staggered back, doubled over and allowing the axelike portion of the weapon to sever his spinal cord at the neck.

His breathing labored due to the increasing pressure on his ribcage, Lucien grunted and straightened. Keeping mobile was helping them quite a bit, but there were still half a dozen Qunari left, and these were regrouping together for a more concentrated press now that the attempt at a pincer had been broken. Well, that was actually a little better for him at this point: he could mostly stand in one spot and hold it, while the other two worked around him.

Tightly they formed up, and true to pattern, were disrupted by an arrow charged with magic. That was two of them down and one more on fire—the rest would be up to Lucien and Sophia. Lucien caught one center-mass with the halberd, opening his lower abdomen in a diagonal slash, but in doing so, allowed two to split off to either side, in an attempt to scissor him. He couldn’t block in both directions. Sensing Sophia on his right, he trusted her to know what to do and blocked the one to his left.

Sophia almost didn't reach Lucien's side in time, skidding to a halt even as she blocked a strike meant for him. They struggled to gain the upper hand for a brief moment before Sophia broke the stalemate, throwing a knee up into the Qunari's abdomen, followed by a swift downward swing aim at the base of his neck, the result of which left the Qunari's head half-severed. His body toppled over backwards, the last of the Qunari to fall, as Lucien had dealt with his as well.

As least, that was how it appeared, until a small ball of unstable arcane energy appeared between the three of them. They had perhaps half a second's warning before it powerfully exploded, the force strong enough to knock even Lucien off his feet. Sophia was put flat on her back, sliding several feet across Hightown stone before she came to a stop, breathless and aching. The blast had some kind of disruptive effect worked into it, and Sophia found her vision heavily blurred, her ears ringing. With a groan she rolled herself over and pushed up onto her hands and knees, fumbling around for her sword, which she had lost hold off in the fall. Ahead of her, she could see the outline of a heavily chained Qunari mage. Saarebas, as they referred to them. A dangerous thing. This one lit another spell in his hand, and a second ball of energy appeared, directly in front of Sophia.

She braced herself for the blast, but it never came. A large, shining sword burst from the chest of the saarebas, halting the spell before it could take effect. The sword was withdrawn, and the mage fell to his knees, revealing none other than the Knight-Commander of Kirkwall's Templars, Meredith Stannard. She did not allow the Qunari mage to suffer long, her next swift stroke cleanly removing his head. A number of Templars followed in behind her, though it was only a small force, certainly not enough to drive out the Qunari. The rest would be trying to fight their way up from the docks, Sophia imagined.

When the Knight-Commander offered Sophia a hand up, she gratefully took it, shaking off the last of the spell's disorienting effects. "My lady Dumar," Meredith greeted respectfully, "we feared you had been captured by the Arishok. It is good that you are not. The situation is dire." That, Sophia already knew, and she dreaded to hear what extra news Meredith might bring her. She checked to see that Lucien and Nostariel were both alright, and retrieved her sword from the ground.

"How far have the Qunari made it?" she asked, though she already knew the answer to that. If Meredith was on the streets...

"The Qunari have invaded the Keep, my lady," she answered, confirming Sophia's fears. "There were numerous guards inside, however. They could have barred the interior doors, and may hold them off still. We have precious little strength available to us, but with your help, we may be able to break through to them." Sophia would be trying to break through with or without any Templar help, but it was good that they had found Meredith and some Templars.

"To the Keep, then. We must hurry." The Knight-Commander nodded gravely. "As you say. These creatures will pay for this outrage."

Nostariel didn’t really consider herself the kind of person that was usually relieved to see Templars, but in this instance, she most certainly was. Picking herself up off the ground with a bit of a groan, she went for the second of three blue potions on her person and threw it back while Sophia talked to Meredith, keeping an ear on the conversation but content not to contribute overmuch. A wave of her hand went some way towards setting Lucien’s ribs and putting Sophia back to rights, but she couldn’t use a lot right now, and she knew they both understood that. As long as everyone was still in fighting shape, that would have to be good enough. Meredith didn’t even blink at the obvious use of magic, either recognizing Nostariel from the occasional trip she made to the Circle or else just not caring at all about one more mage given all that was going on at the moment. It was an attitude that seemed most practical, and it was appreciated.

The consensus seemed to be that hurrying was a good idea, and so hurry they did, crossing Hightown at a jog manageable to men and women in a lot of armor. In the courtyard before the Keep stairs, however, they ran into more trouble—it would seem that the mages of the Circle were out en masse, defending their city from invaders even as the Templars did the same. They were up against a lot of Qunari this close to the Viscount’s castle, though, and it was perhaps only by dint of the group’s interference that many of them survived. About seven in total, perhaps, all in various states of disrepair. They would, unfortunately, have to do for themselves as far as recovery went, though Nostariel did trot over to the prone figure of Orsino, offering him a hand to stand. “Are you all right, First Enchanter?”

Orsino took the hand and pulled himself up, wincing. "Yes, I'll be fine. Thank you." One of the mages that had survived appeared to have some skill in healing, though there were perhaps too many wounds to go around at the moment. They did what they could to keep each other battle ready, however. The elven mage looked about at the fallen mages, somewhat stricken, though some still stood yet, doing what they could to hold back the tide.

"You survive," Meredith noted, greeting the First Enchanter in what was clearly her usual way. Orsino sighed tiredly, likely also his typical greeting.

Your relief overwhelms me, Knight-Commander."

Introductions out of the way, Meredith turned her attention up towards the nearby Viscount's Keep. "There is no time for talk. We must strike back, before it's too late."

"And who will lead us into this battle?" Orsino asked, not wanting to let Meredith take charge so easily. "You?"

Sophia's patience for such squabbling, when so much was on the line, was approximately zero. She had not wanted to stop at all, but the mages had clearly needed the help. Her father and the guard would need help more, however. "This is more important than your power squabbles, First Enchanter. The Knight-Commander has been trained for these situations. You'll follow her lead until this is resolved, understood?"

The First Enchanter clearly had not taken note of the presence of the Viscount's daughter, but he bowed his head when he did. "Ah... forgive me, my lady. Of course. Lead the way, Meredith." It clearly gave him no pleasure to be forced into handing the reins over to the Templars, but Sophia frankly couldn't have cared less at the moment. They had a job to do, and needed a centralized authority to get it done. She'd have taken command herself, but she knew Meredith's actual experience outstripped anyone here, and the Templars would follow her commands without question.

"Thank you, Sophia," Meredith said, offering a nod. "Let's move. We need to find out what we're up against."

As it turned out, the Qunari had held the entrance to the Keep long enough to begin defensive preparations themselves. They were out in front of the Keep in large numbers, at least thirty, with more undoubtedly inside. Bodies of guards and precious few Qunari were littered around the entrance, evidence of what appeared to be a slaughter. The guard had failed to hold them out here for long. With Meredith's direction, a plan was devised to get a number of them inside the Keep as quickly as possible. The Knight-Commander would lead Templar forces in a direct attack against the Qunari, while Orsino and the mages would remain in support. As soon as an opening was made, Sophia and her companions, as well as several Templars, would push around the flank and into the Keep itself.

The fight went accordingly, the mages easily drawing the aggression of the group and pulling them out and away from the Keep's entrance, where the main body of Meredith's Templars engaged them. Sophia impatiently watched for the right opening from the sides with Lucien and Nostariel, and the moment it arrived, she darted out, cutting through what few enemies got in her way, and sprinting for the doors.

A flicker of hope remained, but Sophia was having trouble keeping it lit.

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel

Earnings

0.00 INK

It was just like they were back in the woods. Like when Snuffy had gotten scent of a squirrel she and Ashton had tracked. Except instead of a squirrel it was a band of thieves and instead of woods, brick surrounded them. Oh, and the entire city's well being depended on this particular quarry. So not even close, as it turned out. Still, Ashton treated it the same. If he thought about what all rode on their success, it would probably crush him with inaction. They followed the Mabari at a decent clip as her nose was planted into the hard ground. The scent was leading them deeper and deeper into Lowtown, the tension growing tighter and tighter with every step they took.

"When we get there, we need to get the book and get out. We don't have time to dawdle for long," Ashton said, though unnecessarily. If they were fast enough, maybe they could still save the city. Because if they didn't, then Kirkwall wouldn't escape the assault unscathed, no matter what the zealots thought. Belief was one thing, common sense was another. Snuffy took another turn into an alleyway and barked, letting them catch up before she continued to follow the scent.

Things had been strained between she and Rilien since her little outburst in his shop. Behaving normally seemed far more difficult than she'd thought. Even so, Sparrow followed closely behind Snuffy with Ashton and Rilien in tow, absently wringing her hands and pretending to check things out in the distance, only to jog back to them and resume her awkwardly quick pace. However important this task was—given that the entire city depended on them to retrieve this strange book—Sparrow found it difficult to focus her attention on it, as always was the case when it come to anything that was actually important. The surreality of the situation may have been at fault, as well. Qunari, zealots, magical books and impending doom just sounded like something straight from one of Rilien's hidden books.

In her opinion, it was always best to leave all of those concerns on the shoulders of those who understood impending doom; like Rilien and Ashton and all of the others. Should they need her mace to reach any of their goals, then she would fight with dogged abandon. Reflecting on what might happen should they fail had never been something she'd dabbled in. Better to steer forward and always expect victory. Perhaps, this is what she'd needed anyway. A means to release her growing tension, in the most intensive situation. It was somehow fitting. The trek towards Lowtown had been awfully quiet; and her usual banter seemed muzzled and distracted. She blamed it on the situation, though it might've only been half the reason.

“Book—in and out,” she repeated, staring ahead. Snatch the book from whoever had stolen it and possibly wreak havoc in the process. Then, they could prance all the way back to save Kirkwall in its entirety, gloriously celebrated as heroes. Maybe, they'd even be given fancy titles. Dukes and duchesses. Knights and a knight-woman. How bizarre that would be. She still managed to keep ahead of Rilien and Ashton, if only to avoid any unnecessary awkwardness. After all, she always had a habit of staring when there was something on her mind. Hopefully, she just appeared antsy to save the day. When Snuffy rounded the corner, into an alleyway, she broke into a jog and stopped short of the hound's heels.

As soon as they regrouped, Snuffy snuffled ahead. Her nose led them all the way to an eerily-abandoned warehouse in the Foundry District. Boarded windows and broken boards greeted them. Sparrow rocked back on her heels, studying the building looming before them. Snuffy did seem sure, though. Sniffing furiously at the edges of the door and turning back, tail flagged, as if she say that her doubts were unfounded. Her nose knew. From what little she'd paid attention to, she found it strange that thieves would simply run within Kirkwall and hole themselves up in an old, rickety building. Had she stolen some magical book, she'd have jumped on the first boat she could have, or flown back to the Wounded Coast. She gestured towards the door, eyebrows raised. “Er, should we knock, then?”

Surveying the building, Rilien could only assume that the thieves had holed up in here because it was unlikely to be a worthy target for Qunari takeover. What exactly anyone hoped to gain by stealing the text was unknown to him, which he took to mean it was illogical. It would only prolong their presence in Kirkwall, and it would be a thorough fool indeed who believed the forces here could contend with the army leaving the docks and win. There were some very accomplished warriors in Kirkwall, but of these, he knew less than thirty who were a match for so much as a single Qunari without a lot of luck or numbers—neither of which he would advise counting on when it came time to strategize. Scattered numbers were effectively useless ones, and the idea of this city mustering something as disciplined and organized as the Qunari ranks was foolish at best, deadly at worst.

But someone else’s folly may well be their good fortune—if they could acquire the book in time. Whatever the case, there was none of it to waste. “The three of you can stay together.” He showed no peculiarity at the notion of counting the dog as enough of a person to include. Perhaps if he still counted as one, it hardly seemed fair to say that a hound with that much intelligence was not. Hadn’t he been called such, not so long ago? Ser Lucien’s hound. He could find no offense in it. “I will find a back entrance, and flank.” In doing so, he should also be able to block any attempted escapes with the artifact—most of these kinds of buildings did not have more than one or two exits.

“Do watch your step, Sparrow.” He wouldn’t be there to notice the traps before she triggered them, after all, and he well suspected Ashton would be rather occupied picking targets to shoot. With nothing further to either of them, Rilien melted into the nearest knot of shadow, slipping around to the rear of the building.

"You be careful too," Ashton told him. Snuffy had done her job well, and for it earned an affectionate head rub, though this was where things got messy. He replied to Sparrow with a weak grin and subtle shake of his head. Any humor the archer might've had was drained by the recent days' events. All he wanted to do now was get the book and go home-- or somewhere. His home was in no shape to be lived in, as it were. "Let's not and say we did, yeah?" He said, slidding up to the door ahead. Pressing his shoulder gingerly wall beside it, he slid a dagger out from his boot and inserted it in the gap between the door and the frame.

A rusty pop and click followed as he unlocked the door, but before slipping inside he turned to speak with Sparrow and Snuffy one more time. "Be careful and quiet. Please? Just follow my footsteps," Ashton instructed, the plea bleeding through his voice. He of all people knew how not stealthy Sparrow was, but for once he hoped to get in close before their enemies were alerted. The closer they got before striking, the quicker they could be done, and the faster they can make off with the relic. "Ladies, good luck," He said with a nod of his head opening the door and slipping in silently.

Ashton stalked through the entrance, avoiding the upraised plate and even going so far as to point it out as he passed. He opted to ignore any and all noise that Sparrow had made for the health of his sanity. Fortunately, they made into the warehouse with no incident, with Ashton sidling up against the back of a nearby staircase. Snuffy settled in behind him, offering a low growl. He pressed a finger to his lips and she quietened. He saw them, the thieves were across the warehouse and talking amongst themselves in hushed tones. He thought he could make out the words "Qunari" and "Devils" but the words didn't hold his attention. The book being held under one of their arms was where his focus lay.

He drew his bowstring taut and turned to Sparrow mouthing only a few words. On me he said, turning back to the thieves ahead. Hopefully Rilien was somewhere else within the building, but he knew the tranquil wouldn't miss this fight. A moment passed as Ashton leveled in aim, and in the next the arrow was free. The impact was immediate, the arrow slamming into the book-holding thief's temple, crumpling him. "Now!" He belted, nocking the next arrow.

Idling near the doorway, Sparrow crossed her arms, uncrossed them and bounced on the balls of her feet. Impatient as ever, but conscientious enough to know that charging inside was not, and would never be, an ideal strategy—as she'd learn previously, setting off traps like a mouse trying to retrieve bits of cheese. However slowly, Sparrow was capable of learning from the mistakes she often made. When Rilien mentioned sneaking into the warehouse on his own, as he usually did in situations that required delicacy and grace, her mouth gawked open to protest splitting up. Stupid. When hadn't he gone on his own to do things? Her gaze drew away from Rilien and drifted back towards the door, and the crawling tension stiffened her shoulders.

“Of course I will.” As if to say that she always did. Before she had the chance to express her own quibble of concern, Rillien was gone. Vanished like a phantom. Probably already scrambling across the roof or slithering through the slit of an open window. Her mouth clamped promptly shut. When wasn't he careful? She'd never truly considered it before. Under the guise of caution, Rilien hardly hesitated. He was, perhaps, far more reckless than she was. Perhaps, much more thoughtless when it involved his own well-being. Disapproval gurgled from her throat in the form of a grumble. Her flagged eyebrows needled back down, creasing her forehead. “Yeah, quiet.” She followed behind him, waiting for Ashton to work his magic on the door.

They'd never let her live that down. She nodded curtly. Thankfully, with Amalia's handcrafted leathers, she wouldn't make such a racket whenever she moved; awkward sneaking-footsteps were much preferred to a tin of nails and creaking metal joints. As soon as he crept through the doorway, she attempted to mirror his movements, focusing on his feet. How the man managed to walk so quietly was beyond her capabilities. Still, she tried her best. She was not as quiet as Ashton, but surely on par with his faithful hound. Plate, ah, yes. She was familiar with those. This time, with his pointed guidance, she did not trigger any traps.

Peeking slightly over Ashton's shoulder, Sparrow eyed the assembled gang of... whoever they were, tossing startlingly offensive words; Qunari, devil. A brief blossom of anger twitched across her lips, until Ashton turned back to her and indicated that he was about to move. As soon as the next word left his lips, Sparrow had flown from her hiding spot like another hound loosed from its kennel. Another man scrambled after the discarded book while the others barked to each other, clearly rattled. Weapons unsheathed just as the mace found its way into her hands, swinging down from bellow to connect with the man's chin as he stooped low. The book fell once more and so did Sparrow's foot, hooking it with her heel, and skittering it back towards where she'd come. She twisted just in time to parry an oncoming blade.

Rilien had indeed entered through a window in the back, but he’d taken to the ceiling rafters very soon after, creeping along the wooden bars with the ease of—strangely enough—practice. Fortunately, they were not so far from the ground that a jump would be unsafe, though he was still trying to get the best position when Ashton and Sparrow entered the fray. Having little to no capability for long-range fighting, Rilien simply drew one of his daggers from his back, shifting his grip on it until he was assured that it would not cut him unless he landed very poorly, and settled back onto the balls of his feet to watch the progression of the fight, crouched on a horizontal rafter beam.

His companions seemed to have matters fairly well in hand, and the dog was currently halfway through dislocating the arm of a wailing smuggler. He supposed bites were not especially painless injures, though it would seem that another two were attempting to flank the hound, which had relatively few possible angles of attack compared to the others. As the book was mostly well in hand, Rilien used his element of surprise to drop down behind one of these, planting the dagger into his back with no hesitation. These were not professional fighters, clearly—it was unsurprising that they were overwhelmed by a force of four. The second man, or rather woman, it would seem, spun to meet his next hit, blocking the incoming dagger with a cheap longsword he would have dared not attempt to fold lyrium into. It would have shattered under the pressure.

Moving with the block, Rilien sidestepped, disengaging prior to any attempted contest of strength, unsheathing the second knife and sinking it into the side of a lung, giving the blade a twist and yanking it back out. The woman collapsed, and was promptly silenced by a quick slice to the artery at the base of her throat. A check revealed that the dog had fastened her jaws over her captive’s throat, and he was dead, too. Apparently, so were all of the others, and with a shrug, Rilien walked over to the book, plucking it from the ground by the spine and dusting it off before handing it to Ashton.

“I suspect this will be needed at the Keep.”

"Me too," Ashton agreed. He accepted the book and slipped it into the rucksack at his back and nodded. That was one thing done, now all they had to do was to deliver it. "Let's hurry and hope it's not too late," He said, whistling for Snuffy to follow behind. With that, the four made their exit.

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

The smell of fire and blood was in the air, and the atmosphere had broken as shouts and the clang of metal echoed through the streets. Aurora may not have left home any more, but even she could tell that things had finally reached a boiling point. She still felt helpless, like nothing she could do would matter in the end. If she even wanted to do anything. A small part of her, a part that she was ashamed to admit existed, believed that the city deserved what was coming. It'd eaten so many people, broken so many souls, not most of all Milly and even herself. Maybe the cleansing fire was what the city needed most of all.

She was tempted to simply lock the doors and let what may happen, happen. There was nowhere safer in Kirkwall than her home, reinforced by Amalia herself. If there was anywhere that could ride out the storm, it'd be her hardened fortress in the obscurity of the Lowtown slums. But that was selfish. It was not what she taught nor believed. They were petty thoughts, revenge was a narrow-minded ideal that would destroy her just a sure as it would destroy the city. If she let it happen without lifting a finger to help, then she didn't learn anything.

The city was rotten, but using that as an excuse to watch it burn down around her ears to make herself feel better was shallow, and she'd be as weak as she felt all those days ago on the Wounded Coast. She let go of her legs and let the fall to the floor below her bed. She needed to do something, to prove to herself at least she was still capable of it. She rose from her bed and found Amalia's present on the floor, clasping it to her wrist. Hair fell around her face as she moved. It was a simple solution, though inelegant as they came. She collected the random strands into a whole and held it behind her head, and with a flick of her wrist, it came from, her hair sitting under her ears in ragged locks. It would just get in the way otherwise. Easy for an enemy to grab and wrench her neck from her shoulders. She wouldn't let that happen.

Aurora threw the handful of hair into the trash, sparing a glance at the flower growing out of a grey pot on her table. The embrium, she remembered it. It was... Doing well, considering the shape she had first seen it in. Shaking her head, she went to the door and began the process of unlocking it, and once the last lock was undone, she turned and spoke, "Milly, when I leave, I want you to lock the door behind me. Let no one else besides me in, understand?"

"As you wish, Rosabella," Came the empty reply. Aurora winced as she shut the door behind her. She waited outside for a moment, until she could hear all of the locks resetting themselves. Satisfied, though not pleased, Aurora wiped her face and turned, heading in the direction of the clinic. It seemed like the best place to start.

Fortunately for their efficiency, Aurora’s path crossed with Amalia’s not far from the clinic itself, and the Qunari allowed a flicker of relief to pass over her face. “Aurora. It has begun. I was going to collect Ithilian from the clinic. Lia has been taken into the Arishok’s ranks—it is unlikely she will last long there.” She paused for a moment. “Will you come?” It did not take a deep well of empathy to understand that Aurora’s condition, mentally speaking, was still far from ideal, and if she wished to remove herself from the goings-on, Amalia would not speak against that. Of course, if she had wanted that, she would have been better off not leaving her house, and the Qunari expected that she knew that.

"I will," She answered simply. She let Amalia take the lead and began to follow her to the clinic. Lia's life was only one in an entire city, but it was a beginning. Somewhere she knew she could be of some value, and something that she felt she could do. Few words were exchanged between them, with Aurora asking what circumstances brought Lia into the Arishok's army and Amalia answering simply. Whatever guilt she may have felt at not being able to lend her aid was muffled by the overbearing sense of numbness than hung over her. It wouldn't do to fret over what she did or didn't do, she only had to worry about what she would do, and that was seeing Lia out of the fighting and back into Ithilian's hands.

Once they reached the clinic, Aurora was met with the sight of Ithilian rising from his cot, sluggishly, obviously in a certain amount of pain. She winced as she watched, but said nothing on the matter. His injuries and the effect they were having was clearly visible. She kept her silence and moved to the wall beside the door, where she waited. She gave him the time he needed, but they couldn't tarry long, nor did she wish to.

Ithilian still looked about halfway to his grave, rather similar to how he appeared after escaping the Blight in Ferelden, only that had involved more blood loss and less broken bones. Nostariel's magic was the only thing that had turned him back towards life, but it would still take a good deal of time to heal, and right now, he was having difficulty standing on his own. He'd witnessed the group departing, though, and knew what the chaos outside meant. The battle had begun, the Qunari finally moving against the city. He didn't know what the situation regarding the book was, and he didn't really care, as he was in no position to do anything about it. What he could do, if he gave everything he had, was try one last time to get Lia out of all this.

"I need..." he said, breathing heavily from the effort of rising. "My bow. It's at my home. And... potions." As many as he could stomach would do the trick. A little armor couldn't hurt, either, considering he was currently without even a shirt. "We can move carefully, the three of us. Find Lia... find a place to wait this out. I can still fight." He still drew breath, thus he could still struggle for what he cared about.

Amalia exhaled through her nose, but she did not argue, instead moving to Nostariel’s cabinets and pulling down as many potions as she thought a person could handle in one sitting, and then a few more, in case things went poorly after they were up and moving again. She set them in a neat line on the edge of the counter, uncorking the lot of them. “You drink these. I will return with your gear.” She knew the interior of his house well enough to know where he kept it, and she’d be much quicker in the retrieval if she went by herself, especially since none of the fight seemed to be happening in the Alienage. They would likely need to go another direction to find the viddathari, and retracing their steps when they did not need to would only cost them time they could not spare.

Perhaps she could get an idea of where to start looking while she was down there, if someone happened to know what was going on.

About fifteen minutes later, she was back, laden with various items, including his usual armor and the bow she’d found with a quiver of arrows. She had not found any extra daggers, so those, she had furnished from her own armory. “They're at the docks." Getting everything in its proper place was a bit of a labor, but she did not comment upon this, choosing instead to help with fastenings that were a little beyond the reach of an injured arm in silence. Last of all, she withdrew something from her own belt, handing the weapon over leather-wrapped hilt first. “I believe you were missing something,” she told him with the barest flicker of a smile. The dragonbone had been cleaned of Aatrox’s blood and sharpened as much as it needed, but in all other ways, it was exactly the same as the day she’d first given it to him, down to the single word engraved upon it.

Ithilian took the dagger somewhat reverently, another bout of thankfulness for having Amalia as his lethallan nearly overcoming him. But they had work to do. His head was spinning slightly from all the potions, but he still had the strength to pull back the string on his bow, and that would be all he'd need. He could aim for center mass until his head cleared up. Swordplay was more or less out of the question; he was in no condition to be taking on any Qunari or Templars or city guards in brawls. His companions would just have to bear the load if it was needed. This, he knew they were capable of. "Lead the way."

He kept his eyes glued mostly to Amalia's back as they departed the clinic and made for the docks. There was not a great deal of fighting spreading over towards the Alienage at the moment, but that could easily change. For now, though, they kept to side streets and altered their path whenever possible to avoid getting swallowed up in the battle, and delaying their trip. The going was hard enough on Ithilian without extra combat. The potions were working well to dull the pain, at least, and help him move more steadily.

The Qunari had vacated the docks almost entirely, no doubt pushing up in force to tear through whatever hurried defenses the city guard and whatever local Templars could put up. The majority of the Templars had been on the Gallows when the fighting started, and thus it was from the Gallows that they launched their counterattack, heading towards the docks in large rowboats. The viddathari, it seemed, were there to slow their advance. Slow, not stop, as the elves of the city had no chance in battle against the Templars, only skilled with bows as many of them were. The Templars were heavily armored and trained soldiers; this would only serve to harass them. The Arishok knew this, no doubt, but it was what any shrewd commander would do. Weaker units sacrificed to the enemy's strongest serve to delay and tire them, while the best of the Qunari could operate freely for a longer period.

The first of the boats was just reaching the docks by the time the three of them arrived, and it immediately came under fire from a dozen different angles. The elves had spread out, taking to rooftops and windows on all sides of them. It wasn't immediately clear where Lia was. Ithilian doubted she would even participate in this. But if she didn't know where else to go, or if Ithilian and Amalia had even survived this long, she was likely swept along, doing what needed to be done. They needed to be quick. The Templars were moving in quick, and Ithilian doubted they would be merciful.

"Amalia." The word was spoken with such fervent intensity, it was hard to believe that it came from the till now silent Aurora. "Did you bring any mana potions?" She asked. An iron gaze had settled around her eyes, though she looked not at Amalia, but past her and toward the Templars arriving ashore. "I'm going to need them," She gave as the only explanation. If she did nothing then more than just Lia would be lost. Those viddathari, they would be slaughtered by the Templars. They had a chance to slow them down, but the end result would be same. Aurora wasn't prepared to watch that again, not without doing everything she could to avert it.

Revenge would destroy her, but... It wasn't vengeance, not really. She did not intend to kill, only hamper and sow chaos among their organized ranks. She was better than that, Aurora didn't need to kill to achieve her goals. Death was easy, simple, cheap, she would not lower herself to their level. Executioner did not fit her. She would prove to them, prove to herself that she was in control and that she was better for it. Her eyes returned to Amalia, the steel in her eyes fading replaced by a smile. It was meant to be reassuring, though weak and fragile as it was. "I know what I'm doing."

She may well at that, but Amalia was not about to let her charge in there, a single mage, well-trained or not, against an entire throng of Templars, with only arrows—poorly aimed ones, if she was seeing this properly—for cover. They needed to do something to disrupt the ranks first, disorient the Templars and make them easier to handle while they set to the business of finding Lia, which was what they were actually here for. Her people may well be involved, but this was not her battle. And she would not fight it if she did not have to.

Reaching to her hip, Amalia detached an object that had the look of a clay discus about it. It was, in fact, loaded with gaatlok, but she lacked a proper detonation mechanism. From her bandolier, she removed three blue potions and handed those to Aurora, but not before speaking. “Taking all of those men at full strength is foolishness,” she said firmly, then held up the disc. “Which is why there are things like this.” She glanced over at Ithilian, tempted to ask if he would be up to hitting a target of this size, but in the end, she did not. He would tell her if he felt it impossible, and if he did not, she would trust his ability to succeed. “Aurora, if you would light one of Ithilian’s arrows on fire, I will toss this and he can shoot it. Mind the shrapnel.” She did not anticipate it traveling so far back as to pelt them, but it was impossible to account for every variable when working with explosives like this. If it did reach any of them, or any of the elves perched elsewhere, it would be at too low a speed to do much damage.

Ithilian wasn't certain he could hit such a target at such a distance, not at his best as he was, but he remembered another time, when Amalia had been counting on him, when he'd put an arrow through the eye of a dragon, and that target had been smaller, and not moving nearly so predictably as this one would be. He was capable of this. It would not remove the threat of the Templars, as there were more rowing in, but it would buy them some valuable time. He nocked an arrow, holding it out for Aurora to ignite. A flame ignited in her palm, a bright orange ball that hovered above the skin. Aurora passed it beneath the arrow, letting it catch fire, before she killed it.

The main effect of the gaatlok was in the disorientation and confusion that the explosion itself would produce—the bang would be very loud, and as close as those Templars were, it may well render them temporarily deaf. There was also a fair amount of smoke, which should hinder them a bit. Hopefully, it would not obscure that which they really needed to see, but she was glad of it insofar as it would offer Aurora cover, something she was going to need. “On my mark then,” she said, shifting her grip on the disc and taking several large steps backwards. The process of throwing such an object for maximum distance involved a bounding run and a spin, and a turn of her wrist put a flare on it such that the broadest side was presented to Ithilian’s eye as it reached the required number of meters from their position.

Ithilian's arm ached from the tension of pulling back even a single arrow, but he forced himself to steady, and aim the shot correctly. As with the dragon's eye, he forced himself to block out the other factors in his sight, like the rushing Templars, or the urge to search for Lia, and focus only on the explosive, taking only long enough to note the disc's flight through the air before loosing his arrow. He knew as soon as he let it go that it would hit.

The disc shattered under contact with the arrow, and the flames Aurora had lit it with came into contact with the gaatlok inside, igniting the deep grey powder in a conflagration of sparks. The explosion itself was loud, and though Amalia did not cover her ears, she could see several of the Templars and elves alike interrupt their motions to do just that. The force of the blast killed a few nearly instantly, and blew those close enough off their feet and to the side, a grey smoke pluming from the site of the explosion. It was not total coverage, and figures could still be made out with decent clarity through it, but it was not immediately obvious what those figures belonged to, and that would have to be enough. “If you are to go, go now,” Amalia told Aurora. “Be cautious, leave when your cover is gone. We will find her.”

A long breath was drawn in, because she knew it'd be the last full breath she'd be able to take. The Templars wouldn't give her the time to catch her breath once she started, but nor would she them. Aurora steadied herself, wiped away all of her lingering thoughts and replaced them with the next course of action and the next path ahead. The exhale was hard and violent, as though she was expelling the auxiliary thoughts through her nose and mouth. In that same instant a layer of rock armor formed around her arms and neck, reaching up under her scarf and Ketojan's amulet, and to her chin-- serving to further hide her features.

"Of course," she answered and then she was off. She was already working her next spell by the time she reached the plume of grey. There was a sudden stutter in her step where she paused for a moment, and threw her hands into the air. The fade rippled around her hands as she heard the Templars attempt to regain order in their ranks. She was not about the let that happen, and a clap of thunder broke through the air above her. The tempest's desired effect was immediate as the first bolts of lightning fell on the Templars. Shouts of magic echoed, sowing chaos among their ranks.

But she wasn't done yet. To make sure she drew their attention toward her and away from the viddathari, and away from Lia. She broke into a dead run and exited the cloud of smoke and tackled the first Templar she came across. Her actions were swift and brutal, as both the Templar and her fell to the ground, she grabbed his arm, first wrenching it out of socket and overextending it, and then driving the heel of her palm into his elbow, snapping it backwards. Aware of another approaching her from behind, she pivoted on her hands and swept with her legs, downing him. Rolling towards that one, she gripped her leg and twisted, ripping the bone out of plane and driving another palm to the kneecap, driving it sideways and snapping it.

Her initial assault over, she kicked-up to her feet and called forth a firestorm, providing cover for her to slip off and away into the docks' alleyways, a number of Templars on her heels. The magic she used would do little harm to the resistant Templars, but her goal wasn't to harm, but to disorganize and disrupt. By the yelling behind her, it sounded like it had worked.

Determined to make good use of Aurora's distraction, Ithilian picked a side and moved into the buildings, Amalia staying close by him. They would search more quickly if they split up, of course, but Ithilian would be more or less defenseless if a Templar was able to get into close range with him, and he was quite glad for her presence besides. If Lia was here, this wouldn't be too difficult. They'd made quite the loud entrance, after all.

He shouted her name loudly, looking for signs of archers from the arrows flying from windows. "Lia!" He forced himself up a staircase and through an open door, finding two elven males armed with bows, one of which was a youth he remembered from the Alienage, from a few conversations. They turned their aim at him, but one look at the Dalish elf was enough to make them hold. He held up open palms in a gesture of peace. "You remember Lia," he said to the youth, certainly that he did. "Where is she?"

"Yes, uh... back across the street, third or fourth building." Ithilian needed no more than that. "Thank you. Leave this place, the Arishok does not expect you to survive. Find somewhere safe." He left immediately, not waiting to see if they heeded his warning. If they did not, he would not expend any more effort to save their lives. If they had any sense, they would not continue with this.

He limped quickly as he could back across the main street, taking note of Aurora's progress, before moving into the buildings ahead. Lia was not in the third or fourth building, but rather the first, in a second story window. She appeared breathless from running, but otherwise unharmed. "Ithilian!" He would have asked her to simply jump from the window, but a look to the docks informed him that more boats were unloading with more Templars. He would not be able to outrun them in his current condition. "Inside," he advised Amalia. "Aurora! Get out of there!"

With any luck, either the Templars would be more interested in reaching more valuable territory, or there would be somewhere ideal to hide in the house. He moved in through the first floor door, ascending the stairs and meeting Lia at the top. [b]"Gods, Ithilian... the guards found me somehow, I didn't know what happened to you or—"[/color] He shook his head, cutting her off.

"It doesn't matter right now. Get to cover." He noticed that there were two other elven viddathari in the room with them. "You two as well. Let them pass over us." Nervously, they obeyed, getting out of sight.

The vial shattered as Aurora downed it's contents and discarded it. That many high level spells in such short time sucked away her mana, but she was not done yet. She was vaguely aware of Amalia's and Ithilian's location because of his shouting, and she stayed nearby so she wouldn't lose them. At the his cue to find cover, Aurora pivoted and faced the Templars chasing her as she ran backwards. She swung her arms out in front of her and laid down a sheet of cold ice. The cone of cold was not aimed directly at the Templars, that would be foolish and useless, but lower. With their armor forcing their momentum ever forward, every Templar that followed her slipped and slid causing the ones behind them to trip over their comrades.

Aurora took the moment to completely stop and shift directions, ducking into a nearby alley, toward the direction Ithilian's voice came from. There wasn't enough time to find the exact building they were in, instead she slipped into an entirely different one and shut the door behind her. Her back slammed against the wall next to it while she waited and listened. It wasn't until she heard a creak across the room that she realized she shared the house with a viddathari. They exchanged glances before Aurora pressed a finger to her lips and shushing gently. He nodded and watched the door with an arrow nocked.

Heavy footfalls passed by the door, but soon even their building was invaded. The hinges broke off the frame as the first Templarbarreled through. His gift was an arrow to the chest. He stumbled forward, the arrow affecting his breathing, but a second, better aimed one ceased all function. It was on the second Templar that Aurora decided to act. This Templar was focued on the viddathari in front of him. He never saw Aurora grab him by the arm and slamming him into the wall beside her. A snap echoed through the house as she broke his arm, and the clatter of armor followed soon after when she kicked his feet out from under him. The last blow came from her stone hardened boot when she punted him into unconsciousness.

The third Templar was on to their game and the viddathari's arrow bounced harmlessly off of his shield. Before Aurora could act, she felt the same shield open up a cut on her forehead, sending her reeling. He decided that the Apostate posed more of a danger than the elf, and pressed his advantage. The sword was quick, but Aurora was quicker, flinging a rock encrusted arm to counter the blow. It held only for a moment before the Templar's sword began to bite deeper, thanks to the antimagic he possessed. She was quick enough to save the arm, but the rock was still stained with a streak of crimson. She punched the blade away with her other fist, and sending another into the center of his armor. The impact was heavy and she could feel bones in her hand creak in protest. She grit her teeth as the pain from the cut in her arm exploded, but she still capitalized. Grabbing him by the collar, she pulled him in and drove him into the wall behind her headfirst. He slumped into a pile as she stood over him, exhausted.

Panting as her arm bled freely, she pointed at the viddathari and spoke. "Get. Out." She didn't wait to see if he listened before she ran upstairs, catching sight of a familiar face out of the window.

Amalia reached into her boot, withdrawing a knife of about a foot in length, and this, she tossed at the wall not a few feet from where Lia was hiding. It was there if she needed it, that way. Time was of the essence, however, and so she said nothing in particular, going still in the center of the room and listening. Sure enough, she could hear the sound of heavily-armored boots hitting the stairs as a group of them ascended, doubtless intent on stopping the rain of arrows pelting down on their comrades in the open field. A solid strategy—but unfortunately for them, what they were about to burst in on was very far different from a few scared, unskilled children.

From her back, Amalia withdrew two curved, single-edged shortswords, their broad blades about three-quarters the length of her arms, flipping them backwards to rest the blunt edges along her armored forearms. She chose to press herself up against the wall on the side the door opened. They would likely take a few seconds to properly register her presence, and those seconds were something she knew very well how to utilize. The feet slowed, hitting the hallway outside the door, and there was a bit of a shuffle as they reorganized themselves; she had little doubt the one with the biggest shield would be through the door first.

She was not wrong—the door slammed open suddenly, the first man charging through with a longsword in one hand and a tower shield in the other. She could have scoffed—a tower shield would have been so much dead weight against a Qunari warrior. She was not one of those, but it was of even less use against her, and the first blade flipped out, simply opening his throat as he passed. She still had another few seconds of surprise, and with it, she punched the second up into the soft flesh of the second’s throat, springing back onto her hands in time to avoid the blow from the third, who had realized what was going on. This allowed several more to enter, and quite quickly, it was five Templars, herself, Ithilian, three hidden elves, and two corpses, all packed rather tightly into this small room. Given that mobility was Amalia’s greatest asset, she was going to have to work hard to maintain it here, but her training had not instilled in her a lack of confidence. She was realistic, and the reality was that they were capable of this, if they did it together.

Considering that she'd just killed the first two of their comrades, two of the Templars saw fit to go after the Qunari in the room, leaving the other three to deal with the elves. As soon as it was obviously going to come to a fight, the viddathari had readed their weapons again, and a makeshift volley was prepared on the doorway. Two of the arrows found nothing but the broad shields of the armored soldiers, a third bouncing off the side of one's helmet. Only Ithilian's found a mark, in the slim space between the base of the helmet and the collar. With an arrow in his throat, that one fell, leaving two.

There was no time to nock another round of arrows, as they had no room to work with anymore. At that point, Ithilian was forced to drop the bow and draw Parshaara, taking on the uncomfortable prospect of engaging them in close quarters. It was that, or allow Lia to take the brunt of it, and that he was not willing to do. With what little force he could muster he rammed against the shield of the first to reach him, striking his dagger against the crown of the Templar's head, drawing a spray of sparks and flame into his face. It caused him a good deal of pain, but did not do much else, and Ithilian soon found himself pushed over by the Templar's superior strength. Grabbing the rim of the shield, he at least made sure to bring down the man with him.

That, of course, meant that a Templar fell on top of him, immediately sending stabbing pains anywhere that an armored weight came down. The Templar made to stab down on his face with his sword, but Ithilian managed to catch his wrist and hold him for a moment. It was all that was needed, as Lia came up behind him without hesitation, using the knife Amalia had tossed her way to stab into the back of his neck. Almost instantly he went limp, but the second Templar was there immediately as well. Lia wisely rolled out of the way, for the stab to hit the other Templar's back.

The two other viddathari delayed the Templar by trying to rip at his armor, or find a place to stab with their own pitiful blades. One took a shield to the side of head for his efforts, while the other suffered a nasty slash across the midsection. Ithilian struggled all the while to push himself out from under the Templar, wondering how many recently broken bones he had reinjured just now. Lia was the next to try the Templar, but she ended up pinned between the wall and his shield, clawing at the eyeholes of his helmet to buy herself some extra time.

The moments Lia bought proved to be the ones that saved her life. The killing blow never came as the hand that held his sword let go and snapped, dropping the blade to the floor. It popped again as Aurora dislocated the limb from it's socket, and then threw him to the ground. Still holding on to his mangled arm for leverage, she pressed a knee against the crook between neck and shoulder and dropped a series of heavy stone-laden blows to his helmet. It was enough to put him out of the fight.

She had jumped into the building through a nearby window, as the one she had held down near the one Lia occupied. It was simple enough for her to jump between windows and land in the middle of the fight. Popping the cork off of another mana potion, she downed it as quick as the last. She threw the vial down and traded it for the Templar's sword, pressing it into Lia's hands. "You need this more," She said, turning to see where she could lend aid.

With two more Templars attempting to back her up into a corner, Amalia chose to beat them to it, gathering her speed into a dead sprint and allowing them to follow as she ran straight up the wall, pushing off into a flip that carried her behind their backs. The sword of one passed just beneath her nose in the air. She landed in a crouch on the ground, slashing horizontally with one of the shortswords and hamstringing the one on the left where the armor was weaker and jointed behind. With a cry, he started to topple backwards, and she rolled up into a smooth kick that placed him in the path of his fellow, who had to adjust his stride to step over the man and not trip. This threw him off balance, and Amalia took advantage, stepping in under his shield and using the heel of her hand to deliver a hard blow to his jaw. Dazed, he stumbled back, and this time, he did trip over his comrade, knocking his head against the wall behind him as he fell and thwarting the other’s attempt to stand.

It wasn’t difficult to slit a pair of throats in such circumstances and her cuts were clinical and efficient, no effort wasted in the slightest.

That accounted for all the Templars in the room, it would seem, and she turned to the others. “Now seems the time to leave. Viddathari, I suggest you die for the Qun another day.” That was all she said on the matter, however; she may have been a little sore with the Arishok for taking those under her care and making them fight before they were properly trained, but she also understood the strategy in it, and, wise or not, they had volunteered for this when they had sought the protection of Qunari certainty. For certainty was no protection at all.

The young elves did as Amalia instructed, quickly but carefully making their way out, leaving Lia alone with Ithilian, Aurora, and Amalia. After thanking Aurora for her timely arrival, Lia made sure to help Ithilian back to his feet from under the slain Templar. There didn't seem to be any words important enough for her to speak at the moment. She hugged him instead, carefully so as to not aggravate any of his injuries.

"Let's go home, da'len."

Setting

6 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

Resistance inside the Keep itself was thankfully light, most of the Qunari in the immediate area having already been drawn to the battle outside. It was possible that they would be too much for Meredith and the Templars, even with Orsino's help, but hopefully she could just hold them off, while Sophia reached her father, and ended all of this. The interior fighting looked to have been fiercer, more bodies of both sides strewn across the halls. Sophia had grown up in this place, in these halls, and never once had she seen blood spilled inside. She tried not to imagine Saemus's face behind the mask of every guard's helmet.

It appeared as though the guards had been engaged in a fight just before the doors to the throne room, and there they had suffered heavy casualties, likely buying time for those inside to bar the door. A heroic sacrifice, but it appeared to have been in vain. The doors did not look overly damaged, but they did appear to have been forced open, and now were simply closed again. She could hear a number of voices from within, scared or angry or confused. If Lucien and Nostariel had not been present behind her, Sophia doubted she would have been able to move forward, and open the door. They were behind her, though, and she did...

A number of Hightown's nobles had been rounded up by the Qunari at the base of the throne room's steps, mostly the leaders of various important families. The Qunari stood guard around them, far too many to take on at once. They were elite troops, all of them, and they had better positioning, archers and spear-throwers with good vantages over the assembled crowd. The bodies of slain guards had been tossed into the corners. The Arishok stood before the throne, turning to face the three intruders, unsurprised by their presence.

"Here is your Viscount."

He tossed a crowned head down the steps.

It bounced horrifically, the crown flying off and rolling off the carpet and onto stone, settling amongst the bodies of the guards. The head, still bearing Marlowe Dumar's terrified expression, came to a stop only a few feet from Sophia. She was certain that her heart had also been pierced by an arrow, as she suddenly lost the strength to stand, collapsing heavily onto her knees and needing to brace herself against the ground in order to keep from completely falling over. The anguish of it gripped at her, threatened to kill her right then and there, but this was somehow different from finding Saemus dead in the Chantry. She had known, in her heart, that this was coming. As soon as the Qunari had attacked them in the streets she had suspected this would happen. As soon as Meredith reported the Qunari took over the Keep, she knew. Her father was dead, and Sophia was now Viscountess. It had always been her future... but it was never supposed to come about like this. Not like this...

She didn't know what to do. She felt like she needed to do something, but there was just a head in front of her now, eyes unseeing. Sophia reached out as if to touch it, to touch her father, but then recoiled away. Touching him would somehow make it more real. Until she had touched Saemus, he could have been sleeping, or unconscious. Only when she touched him did she know that he was dead. This was of course different, but still her overwhelming desire was to think that it had not happened, that this was not real. She was frozen, tears falling onto the carpet, while her father's blood leaked from his head.

A nobleman in the crowd spoke up in anger. "You dare! You are starting a war!" The Arishok waited and watched while the nearest Qunari came up behind the man, and snapped his neck. The terrified nobles around him screamed and backed away, trying to find some kind of safety in numbers. None made another outcry.

"Look at you," the Arishok said down at them, filled with scorn, "like fat dathrasi you feed and feed, and complain only when your meal is interrupted. You do not look up. You do not see that the grass is bare. All you leave in your wake is misery. You are blind. I will make you see."

Nostariel’s first instinct caused her to step forward, hands lit with magic, before it fully set in that there was absolutely nothing she could do. This was not an ailment that magic could alleviate—grief could not be soothed by anything from the fade, nor there was a cure to be found therein for a beheading. That reality halted her in her steps about a foot behind Sophia and a few more to the left, watching the nobility of Kirkwall cower before the might of the Arishok and wondering just how it had all come to this. Where had it gone wrong? Amalia had said that the Arishok was only here for the book—how had that, the retrieval of an item, caused this? All this pain, all this death. Nostariel had stared Darkspawn in the face, known the worst of the horrors that they could do, felt keenly the Taint circulating in her blood, kept from killing her only by time, and still she could not help but feel that in the end, it was men that were the monsters. No one person had made this, no one group. The fault lay nearly everywhere, and this was what it brought.

Lucien’s throat closed, choking back he knew not what words. Perhaps there were none. It was entirely different, and yet—for a moment, looking upon the scene, he saw Thierry again, and the blonde of Sophia’s hair was so like Liliane’s. For all the strength he tried to gain, for all the good he tried to do, he seemed always to fail in the end to spare the pain of anyone around him, and to spare the death of the sort of person he most wanted to live—the good ones. His friends, even. But whatever pain he bore, whatever he saw standing as he was and looking at this, it was not the barest measure of Sophia’s. And perhaps that was the failure he felt most keenly of all: for how long had he been at her side, attempting to lend his effort to her ideals? He’d needed something to serve again, and she’d given him so much more than that. All he’d ever had to offer in return was his strongarm, and in exactly the situation where it should have been of aid, she was there, kneeling and bowed with grief, and the last of her family was gone.

It was like someone had lanced him in the chest.

He almost couldn’t bear that, the way she looked so crumpled, as though she were utterly defeated. As though she were smaller, more fragile, beaten. It wasn’t how he knew her, because even in her weakest moments, there had been a kind of strength about her, born, he’d suspected, of hope and love for her family in equal measure, and this was like watching what happened when that light went out. It felt like something in him was extinguishing as well, and all that it left behind was anger. At the Arishok for the murder, at the zealots for provoking the Qunari, at whomever had stolen the damned book in the first place. At himself, for never asking the crucial question sooner. At the kind of world where this sort of thing happened not just here, not just to them, but in many places and times, to many people, without ever the faintest hint of becoming better.

Crouching beside Sophia, he placed one hand gently at her elbow. His words, however, were firm. “Listen to me Sophia,” he murmured. “This is not the time to fall. It is the time to stand. Kirkwall needs you still. Your friends need you still.” The sentiment itself may well have been harsh—he would like nothing more than to wave a hand and make this all go away for her. But that was not the kind of thing he or anyone else had the power to do. The Arishok still stood there, the Qunari still had control of the Keep, the nobles were still panicking and likely to get themselves killed, and Ashton had not yet arrived with the book. Lucien did not know exactly what would happen now, but he did know there was no magic to fix this. That was something they would have to do themselves, to the degree they were capable. Some of it would not be fixed, and never could be.

But he had learned long ago that being a leader meant that sometimes you had to feel the greatest of pain, carry the heaviest of burdens, and still stand up to face down the next thing. Because if she could not, how could any of those who followed her expect to manage the task? If her pain overtook her here, then everything they had done to reach this point was meaningless. If it was the only thing left he could do, he would at least stay here, to hold her up until she could stand on her own again.

The Arishok was beginning to descend the steps towards them. Sophia was distinctly aware of his approach, even though she had blocked out the nobleman being murdered, the Arishok's words following that, everything around her, right up until Lucien joined her. He might as well have been speaking in a foreign tongue at first, for her apparent lack of comprehension, but slowly the words sank in, as though transferred through his touch into her very bloodstream. It made her angry as well, initially just at everyone and everything. She wanted nothing more than to mourn her father. So much was lost here, how could she be asked to keep going?

She didn't know, but she was aware that she had to rise. One way or another, she had to face this on her feet, like a true Viscountess would, like a warrior would. Kirkwall still needed her, Lucien said... but in that moment, she couldn't find it in her to care about Kirkwall. None of the nobles in the room had ever sacrificed anything for Kirkwall. The Arishok was right about them. They only sought their own advances, and looked to make friends only when it suited their needs. No, she could not rise for them.

There was truly only one thing that could make her rise. It was that anger, that which began to spill from her like dark blood from an open wound. When Saemus had died, his killer had paid the price then and there, and she had not been able to find any fault in Amalia's handling of the situation. But here... no assassin would come to take the Arishok's life in retribution for this. No one was going to bring him justice, to make him suffer for what he did to her, without cause. Her father had only ever worked to maintain the peace, and this was how the Arishok repayed him for it. No one was going to kill the Arishok.

No one but her.

She reached out, sliding fingers over her father's eyelids, shutting them, before she grasped onto Lucien's arm and borrowed his strength to pull herself up. It felt like ripping a knife out, to rejoin the world like so, and she hastily wiped tears from her face, taking a firmer grip on her sword. She locked her eyes on the Arishok as he approached.

"Maraas toh ebra-shok. You alone are basalit-an, Lucien Drakon. You retain clarity even when all these others are blinded and stricken." He looked to the other nobles, putting his heavy axe upon his shoulder. "This is what respect looks like, bas! Most of you will never earn it."

The doors leading into the Keep swung open violently, revealing an exhausted team of Ashton, Rilien, and Sparrow, with a panting Snuffy lingering behind him. Sweat fell from his face as Ashton entered the room, betraying the effort given to make it in time. But it was clear it was too late, Ashton's eyes darting around the room before finally resting on the Viscount's head. Pain welled up in his face and guilt threatened to take over, and it would have if there wasn't something that he could maybe still do. Moving from Sophia to Lucien and then the Arishok, Ashton steeled himself and reached into the bag behind him.

A moment later, the Qunari relic sat in his hand. His grip was heavy as the guilt morphed into anger. All of this, all the death, all the destruction over a book. So many lives were given for something so meaningless, so... useless. He wanted nothing more than to burn it, but it was a means to an end. Eager to be done with the thing, Ashton set the book on the ground and slid it across the floor toward the Arishok. He wanted to be nowhere near the man who had murdered the Viscount. "There's your damn relic," Ashton said, moving to stand beside his friends.

The Arishok picked up the book with a mixture of surprise and reverence, examining it for any signs of severe damage, of which there did not seem to be any. "The Tome of Koslun..." he said, as though he did not believe it. Indeed, years of his life had been spent in this city, waiting for this particular artifact to be found, and now he had it, in his hands. A high ranking member of his troops came forth at his behest, and he handed the tome over carefully into his hands, the Qunari soldier taking it with a bowed head. The Arishok turned to the crowd. "The relic is reclaimed. I am now free to return to Par Vollen."

"No."

The word came strongly from Sophia, and she had been preparing to speak it from the moment Ashton entered the throne room with the book. If this had happened earlier, she would have been more than happy to allow the Arishok to take his damned book and leave the city. But she could not let him do so now, not after what he had done. This was the reason she had risen to face him at all. She was the Viscountess now, and the Arishok had murdered the last Viscount. She would see him dead, one way or another.

"What?" the Arishok asked, finally directing his attention towards Sophia.

"For the crime of murdering my father, I challenge you to single combat. I will deliver justice to you myself. No one else but you or I will die here." It was perhaps the most foolish thing she'd ever said, but she meant it, and had her reasons. She was aware, as much as she didn't want to be, of the unnecessary nature of any further fighting at this point. By all means, she should have allowed the Arishok to simply leave, and not allow any more violence. But one way or another, she would not allow him to leave the room without a fight. Either she would kill him, or she would die. If she could not fight him alone, she would fight him with the others, but she did not want to drag them into this. A small army of the Arishok's best were in the room with them, as well as a number of innocent, in a sense, bystanders. She would not have any of them suffer for this. It was stupid, probably, but it was what Sophia was intent on doing, even if it killed her.

The Arishok did not seem inclined to accept immediately, however. "You are not basalit-an. You are unworthy. Unless..." he looked to Lucien, standing beside the Viscountess. "You know this woman far better than I, basalit-an. If you believe she is worthy of the challenge she proposes, I will honor her request, and allow her the attempt at her vengeance."

No. Not Lucien. Why did he have to pin this on him? This was her choice, her decision to make. If anyone was to suffer in bringing the Arishok to an end, it should be her. Qunari and their notions of worth... Sophia looked at Lucien, conflicted. Vouching for her would mean allowing her to face the Arishok alone, as she intended. But judging by the two combatants, it would possibly mean condemning her to die. "Lucien..." she whispered, wondering if she was thinking straight, or if the grief of losing her father, and the rage she felt at the Arishok were driving her towards madness. Surely he could see her reasoning for this. This should not have been his to bear. She had made her choice already. All that remained to be seen was if she would be allowed to go through with it.

There was a very long moment of silence. Lucien wasn’t sure if it held all the volume of a crypt because everyone was really waiting on him or because he’d lost the ability to properly take in new noise. It was one thing for the Arishok to name him basalit-an; he understood the enormity of the gesture, though it was hard to feel honored at precisely this moment, when he just wanted the Qunari to be gone from here, and the complications of their presence with them, but this… for it to matter in such a way was something he was utterly unprepared for, and he sucked in a breath, initially unsure how to respond.

He knew what Sophia wanted, what she was asking him. He did not have the excuse of ignorance—he understood her far too well for that. But the choice was impossible. He was too seasoned a warrior to believe she stood much of a chance of surviving this—in fact, he could almost guarantee that if he let her challenge the Arishok one on one, she would die as her father had. The very thought of it shot a cold bolt of terror down his spine, and he dared not think about it for long. But he also knew what would happen if he refused. She was obviously not going to let the Arishok go, and no choice he made, no words he could say would prevent a fight. If they were all together in this, there was a chance, a small chance, but still a chance, that they would survive it. But how many others would die in a completely preventable manner?

His tactical intelligence bade him allow the sacrifice of one for the lives of others, but his heart could not condone it, constricting at the very thought of letting her die for the sake of vengeance, even if it was a vengeance she had chosen. He could almost hear his father’s voice in his head, telling him what needed to be done, but for once he could not abide the advice of the man who had taught him so much of war. He knew, in the end, that there was only one thing he could do here. Only one thing his mind and his heart both would allow him to do.

And it would surely stain his honor.

Bringing himself to his full height and drawing all the cold dignity he possessed around him, Lucien Drakon looked nothing like a mercenary and everything like the prince he was supposed to be. And he spoke only the truth. “You could walk all of Thedas for the rest of your days and still encounter none worthier,” he said, meeting the Arishok’s eye with his own. Sophia was not without flaws—the very fact that this predicament existed at all was proof enough of that. But he believed in her, in what she had the potential to become. In what she was becoming. That was why he would step aside and allow her the choice.

But it was because he loved her that he would not let her die if she lost.

"Meravas," the Arishok replied, offering Sophia a nod. "So shall it be."

The Arishok's soldiers set to moving the nobles aside and clearing a space for the two to fight. Sophia offered Lucien a quiet thank you, one that she felt was impossibly inadequate. She wanted to apologize as well, but there was simply no time, and her mind needed to be clear for this if she had any hope of surviving. The Arishok wielded two weapons, both of which Sophia would have required both of her hands to use properly. The first was a great axe, double sided and tipped with a sharp point, the other a double-edged longsword that in any other hands would have been a bastard sword. They would give him excellent range, and she did not doubt he would swing them as quickly as another might swing a knife. Her own sword, Vesenia was smaller and thinner in comparison, and so was she. Speed, agility, and timing would need to be put to great use. She would not last long, otherwise.

The combatants took to separate ends of the lower area of the throne room, while the spectators were ushered up the steps, to watch from above. The only thing breaking up the emptiness of their arena were two pillars, one on each side of the room. She would need to keep track of those. The Arishok raised his weapons as the base of the steps, signaling that he was ready to begin. Sophia waited a bit longer, attempting to block out all the other swirling thoughts in her head, and focus solely on the battle. Then she readied her sword, and they began.

Arishok charged forward with a remarkable speed, his first attack coming so swiftly that Sophia was forced into a full dive and roll to escape cleanly. She rose swiftly and turned to face him, reacting in time to duck under the axe. She attempted to parry the sword, and while the steel of their weapons rang through the hall for the first time, his strength was by far superior, and her block was pushed aside. The axe returned, busting through her armor at her left side and biting into flesh. She disengaged hurriedly, offering a pommel blow, as they were too tight to each other to really maneuver her sword. Backing away, she took a brief moment to examine the wound. It bled steadily, but she would not be stopped by that alone.

She moved near to one of the pillars, putting her back to it, waiting for the Arishok's next approach. He came with a lunge of the sword, not what she had wanted, and she was forced to block it aside. The axe was what she wanted, and it came next, in a swift overhand strike that would have cleaved her head in two had she not ducked just in time, the blade passing inches above her golden hair. It carried on to bury itself temporarily in the stone of the pillar behind her, and left its wielder open for a brief moment for a counterattack, one that Sophia used to win a slash across his upper abdomen. Stronger he was, but more armored the Arishok was not, and there were many places she could easily wound him if given the chance.

Sophia had sidestepped to the flank for another attack, a more lethal stab through the side, but the Arishok seemed hardly to notice the first injury, instead removing his axe from the pillar and swinging both weapons simultaneously for Sophia's upper body. There was no choice but to block them, a feat Sophia was only barely capable of, at least enough to redirect the blades so that they would not pass through her. Instead they passed upwards, and all three weapons were quickly locked above the combatants' respective heads. Arishok was the one to break the stalemate, with a forceful kick to her torso. She felt her entire chest compress, one or two ribs giving way under the pressure, and Sophia was thrown onto her back, skidding to a stop some ways away from the Arishok, who did not immediately pursue. She grimaced, sucking in a breath and slowly pushing back upright.

"Yield, Viscountess, and this will end now," the Arishok promised. He bled as well, but seemed unbothered by the fact. "If you are as worthy as baslit-an claims, I would rather see you live."

Nostariel’s heart was firmly lodged in her throat—this was all so unnecessary, but for all that it was just as wracking. She couldn’t tear her eyes from the scene before them, and one did not need to be a combat expert to understand just how outmatched Sophia was here. Still staring almost unblinkingly at the scene before her, she reached to her side, grasping Ash’s hand as tightly as her grip would allow. It would be obvious to him, therefore, that there was a fine tremor in her entire frame. She was torn between being unable to watch and needing to, and she couldn’t begin to imagine how Lucien felt. The Arishok offered mercy, but how likely was it that Sophia would accept? Looking at her, Nostariel felt a sinking in her stomach. No, she wouldn’t. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

Ashton let her clutch his hand, even as it began to hurt. The other hand held Nostariel's shoulder giving her all the support he could muster. His face was drained of all emotion, dark shadows lingering over his eyes. He watched the fight without word, simply staring and hoping that it would be over soon, and hoping Sophia would be okay. He felt helpless, unable to do anything, unable to stop this. The only thing he could do was ask the Maker to lend Sophia strength, to pray. So for the first time in years, he prayed.

Sophia could not yield. Even as the likelihood of her death increased, her resolve strengthened. Physical pain was negligible to her by this point, especially when compared to the more intangible kinds of pain she knew. This was nothing that could not be pushed through. Maybe when she'd set out, as a girl of twenty-one, a bleeding side and a broken rib would have made her falter, but she was not even remotely that same girl anymore. The Arishok would have to do much better than this.

She did not deign to answer his offer, instead replying with a surprisingly swift counterattack, one that actually seemed to catch the Arishok momentarily off guard. Her strikes came swiftly, from one angle and then the next, and Arishok had no time but to block and retreat, and unlike him, Sophia knew the layout of this building from living in it for so many years. She directed him right into a pillar, striking when his back collided with it. Her blade pierced through his midsection, just barely missing a lung, and she withdrew it just as quickly, not wanting to overcommit, knowing the Arishok's own tolerance for injuries now. Instead, she hopped a backstep in anticipation of the counterattack, which came in the form of an axe thrust, trying to put the sharpened spear point on the end of it through her. It was much too slow, for once. She hooked her blade under the bottom edge of the axe and pulled the arm to her, withdrawing her sword and bringing it down in a heavy slash on his wrist. His bracer was the only thing that prevented her from cutting clean through his hand, but she still made it halfway and cut into bone, allowing her to easily follow up with a kick to the axe, knocking it from his hand. His sword slashes that followed forced her to back away.

That wound had clearly caused him pain. She darted away from him, being sure to slide the axe towards the wall with her foot, and get it out of his reach. Now they were on even footing in terms of weaponry, at least. His right hand was also fairly useless now. They came together again in a flurry of slashes, attacking and blocking in turn, and while the Arishok was far her superior in strength and pure force, Sophia seemed to have surpassed him in terms of this single-weapon, one on one dueling. How many times had she done this with Dairren, when he had trained her in his own style? They had stood in one small space and traded blows with blunted swords for session after session, until she knew just how to counter everything that was thrown at her. The Arishok was not so different, he only needed to be countered a little less directly.

Finally, she had him, the opening that she'd sought. Her sword made to plunge straight through his chest and into his heart, and it had nearly done so when at last Arishok did something she did not expect. He simply caught her blade with his free hand, wrapping fingers around the edges of the sword, redirecting her lunge high and above him even as her weapon sliced deep into his palm and fingers. She could not allow him to disarm her, but his grip did not falter, and Sophia found herself pulled to him at his will. His knee thudded into her stomach, a blow that felt like a dozen knife wounds with her already injured torso, before he turned and pulled her on past him, bringing his sword around in a wide arc to slash diagonally down her back.

The strike opened a long bloody line, and Sophia cried out with the agony of it, falling when the Arishok released her sword and mercifully backed away. She did not allow herself to go entirely to the ground, catching herself on hands and knees and scrambling away. She turned to face him, still not yet fully risen again. Blood dripped steadily to the floor below her, and her breathing was heavy. Her bearing, though, was still aggressive, indicating she had no intention of relenting.

"Yield," the Arishok urged her. He seemed tired, though not so tired as she. "Do not waste your life on this. Remember your role, Viscountess. A corpse cannot lead a city."

It was one thing to see or know that someone was being injured on a battlefield, when you fought beside them.

It was entirely another to simply stand by and do nothing while it happened right in front of you.

By this point, Lucien’s grip on his halberd was so tight his knuckles were white, pressing uncomfortably into the joints of his gauntlets, but he could not be bothered to notice this fact. He could not be bothered to notice much of anything except for what was going on in front of him, actually. He was more relieved than he could properly express that the Arishok seemed to be in a merciful frame of mind, and sincerely wished Sophia would see that for the boon it was and accept it. Because while doing so would mean she walked out of here bereft her father and perhaps even her pride, it would mean that she walked out of here. And he could find no flaw with the course of action that allowed that.

More than once, he had to bite his tongue to keep from speaking, and it bled in his mouth from the force he used, but interfering now would do little to make things better and much to make them worse. Nostariel was here, he had to remind himself; everything that had occurred thus far could be repaired. But for how much longer dare he believe it could remain so? Would his insistence on staying the course she wanted, on respecting her ability to make her own choices, become the reason he lost her? Could he bear that?

Protecting people is only rarely being the shield that stands in front of them, his father had said. Most of the time, it is standing behind, allowing them to feel the brunt of their choices, and holding them steady if they start to collapse. Inaction was the hardest thing of all for a man like him, though, and he knew not which situation this was. Could he interfere, could he forfeit these lives here to fate, risk the additional death brought by a larger confrontation?

Should he?

“Sophia,” the word, a cracking plea more than anything, fell into the silence that followed the Arishok’s command. Gone was the coldness and the dignity, gone also was his usual easy sort of demeanor, his equilibrium, his steadiness. He was not a prince here, because he could command nothing, only plead. He was not a knight here, for the foe was not something for him to fight. All that was left of him was a man, and that man simply could not carry the thought of losing her. He had found at last the burden that was too heavy for his shoulders to support alone.

“Please.”

The plea hit her, but she was resolved to ignore it. Her mind was set, and she could not let feelings like that cripple her, not when there was such an important task to be done. She wished that Lucien did not need to be here, that he wouldn't have to see if she fell, never to rise again. This would have been easier for the both of them if they had never met, but such thoughts were the very folly she had to avoid.

Some part of Sophia wondered if the Arishok would truly kill her, at this point. He seemed intent on letting her live. And perhaps, if she took another wound like the last, she would fall, unable to rise, but unable to die. The Arishok would proclaim the duel to be over, and Nostariel would save her. Some small part of her, the one most tormented by what she had suffered, did not want this to happen. Some small part of her wanted to keep her promise, to die before she let anything happen to her family. Her family was gone now, and she yet drew breath. There was something wrong about that to her.

The greatest part of her just wanted the Arishok dead, though.

With as furious a cry as she could muster, she pushed to her feet and charged him again. He was ready for it this time, but Sophia did not overcommit, sidestepping in her approach and making it unclear which angle she would attack from. They exchanged blows back and forth, neither making any solid hits, as each one tired. Sophia was tiring too fast, though, the Arishok merely stalling her out now, waiting for the blood loss to take its toll. He was attempting more attacks with the pommel of his blade now, trying to put her out cold, and it was steadily making him predictable. She waited until she knew the next attempt would come, and then threw everything she had into one last attack.

She dropped low at precisely the right moment, slashing her blade into the side of the Arishok's left knee, causing him to momentarily stagger in pain. The wound she scored angered him enough to attempt a downward swing of his blade, at her exposed back, but this too, she had been counting on. She rolled forward and to her left, ignoring the blistering pain on her back and the agony in her ribs. The Arishok's blade came down hard into the ground where she had been, and her own sword slashed into the back of his other leg. Both legs heavily injured, the Arishok had no choice but to fall to his knees. Spinning around smoothly from that point, Sophia swung her blade in a horiztonal arc, aiming to take off the Qunari's head. He leaned back enough to avoid decapitation, but the point of her sword still slashed cleanly through his throat.

Her mistake was believing that such a wound would finish the Arishok.

He was a fountain of blood at this point, but he still rose, his sword in hand, and Sophia was rooted to the spot, unable to move in time. In one smooth motion his sword punched into Sophia's armor and slid through her midsection like she was made of tissue paper, coming out her back glistening crimson. The feeling was not that of being pierced, as one might expect, but rather that of being slammed, like a warhorse armored in plate had charged her at full speed, taking her off her feet and leaving her breathless and helpless. Her legs quickly buckled beneath her, and it was only the Arishok's forward momentum that kept them moving. He stumbled forward, pushing the sword through until the hilt pressed up against her abdomen, and only then did he let go, releasing the blade and collapsing onto his face, blood draining out onto the stone as he stilled at last.

Vesenia clattered to the ground as Sophia fell onto her side, coughing up a mouthful of blood and shaking. Her trembling hands grasped around the handle of the Arishok's sword, but she was far too weak to remove it. She quickly gave up the futile effort, letting the sudden voices and movement wash over and around her. Sophia was dimly aware that Lucien was at her side. She was glad for that.

“Nostariel.” The call was a terse one, given in the tone of an order more than anything, and while he ordinarily would have felt bad had such a thing slipped him, he could not be bothered to care at the moment. Sophia needed a healer immediately, and the Warden was the best damn healer in Kirkwall. He doubted he needed to spell it out for anyone. As soon as the healer was near, he steadied Sophia with one hand, looking to her and speaking more quietly, but still in as few words as possible. “Out on three.” As carefully as he was capable, he wrapped his hand around the hilt of the Arishok’s sword. He’d elected to take the spot at Sophia’s back, so that Nostariel had better access to the wound, so he was glad his reach was long, else he’d have had to angle the blade on the way out, and that risked worsening her wound.

On three, he slid the longsword from the wound, tossing it at the feet of the nearest Qunari. “Take it and your damned book and begone. Rilien, Sparrow, Ashton, get everyone out of here, now.” Quite a lot of the triage work would have to be done here on the ground, probably, and he was not going to allow that to be a spectacle for the nobility and the Qunari to peruse at their leisure. Fortunately, the latter at least did not seem inclined to linger, and while one picked up the Arishok’s sword, none so much as looked at his body. He was dead now, there was nothing of value left in the flesh.

He had no doubt that Nostariel was working as hard as she possibly could, but Sophia was bleeding at an alarming rate, and so Lucien unbuckled all of the armor on his left arm, allowing access to his relatively-clean sleeve, which he tore and pressed up against the exit wound, trying to stop her from exsanguinating before the Warden could finish her work. His hand shook; Lucien only took it as incentive to increase the pressure he applied.

She had never doubted that Lucien had experience with battlefield medicine, and she was grateful for it now—Nostariel herself took strength from the fact that he seemed intent on doing what was needed. It was no easy thing, working on a friend in such a state, especially because Sophia’s survival was far from guaranteed, and she herself had so little magic left to give. Everything in her now was put there by doses of lyrium, and she only had the one left. But if Lucien could weather this without letting the strain of it overtake him, so could she. With the bleeding stemmed from Sophia’s back, Nostariel focused on healing from the inside out, trying to knit together all the flesh and blood vessels that had been torn, using a separate spell to siphon away excess blood. The reason so few mages were any good at healing was because it was incredibly complicated, and for her at least involved weaving multiple spells together at once in a lot of cases, something which provided a very quick drain on her reserves.

Sophia would need to be brought to a relatively stable condition, and then they needed to move her somewhere Nostariel could work for an extended period, free the woman of her armor, and really get down into the sinews and bones of the work. For now, though, the priority was just keeping her heart going without allowing her to bleed out on the stone of the Keep’s floor. She was dimly aware of the Qunari leaving, and then the nobles being ushered out, not all of them quietly, but she couldn’t spare the attention to give a damn at the moment. Her hands were wet and growing sticky with blood, and she was starting to shake from the pressure of so much magic expenditure on her system. It took a while for her to even feel comfortable using one hand to quaff a potion, but when she did, it was to realize that there was a large quantity of them, about half a dozen, sitting by her side. She could only assume that was Rilien’s contribution to the effort, and she was grateful.

She would need them all before the day was out, she was sure.

The Chanter's Board has been updated. Demands of the Qun has been completed.

Act Two has been completed.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

Fortunately, the alienage had not been hit very badly at all in the fighting, and when it started to die down again, many of the residents emerged from their homes, surveying what damage had accrued and checking on one another. Some would never return, Amalia knew, either because they were viddathari or because they were dead. Many of those who converted would probably desert now that the need for protection had seemingly passed, and she did not doubt that was part of the reason the Arishok had used them so carelessly. The Qunari wasted nothing, even what was only available to them for a short time. She lingered for a while, little more than a watchful shadow on a wall, while Ithilian and Lia found their way home, and the rest of these did the same, or found one another, or found corpses.

The dust settled again over Lowtown, and word reached them all of what had happened in the Keep. Amalia was not particularly surprised to hear that Sophia had challenged the Arishok, though the outcome was not the one she would have predicted. Regardless, the others had the Tome of Koslun now, and the Arishok was replaceable. Everything was, really. Her people would return to Par Vollen, and regroup. She didn’t much doubt that they would be doing so in order to prepare for conquest, because they were always either preparing or conquering. It was what they did best, and for a people who did many things very well, this was saying something.

It had reached afternoon on the day after the battle, and Amalia made her way quietly from her home, armed and armored still, as there were looters about and she would rather not converse with them. She found herself down by the docks, watching from a small rise as the Qunari boarded their ships once more, filing in with precise order and those viddathari that had both survived and committed to the Qun as a way of life. She knew nearly all of them, by what they had been called before, but those names would be relinquished when they reached the jungle-cities or the desert sand. This place would be relinquished in them, too, and everyone they had known here. Much of that, she knew, was her doing—and she wondered how it was that she felt about that.

She traced the still-healing line running from beneath her right eye to the edge of her jaw with her index finger. The wound wasn’t infected; it would mend and scar cleanly.

Ithilian was hardly able to rise from bed until the afternoon after the battle, and he only did so at Lia's urging. He would have gladly slept his injuries off for a day or more, especially considering that Nostariel was no longer available to speed along the process. It was unfortunate for him, but he had a steady supply of potions to work with, and Nostariel's talents were needed elsewhere. He found it remarkable that the Warden was still functional after all of this. Her own physical injuries were nonexistant compared to what some of them had gone through, but in terms of sheer effort and willpower, Ithilian doubted any in the city could match her.

But it was not for Nostariel that he dragged his aching body out of his house. Lia had informed him that she'd seen Amalia leaving the alienage quietly. Ithilian knew that the Qunari would be departing today, not wanting to stay any longer than was absolutely necessary now that they had their sacred artifact in hand, and for a moment, a brief lance of icy fear shot through him, at the thought of Amalia going with them. It occurred to him that there was no real reason for her to remain, no real role for her to play here anymore. The viddathari would be gone, and unless she desired to start over and instruct new ones, she would have only people of other cultures surrounding her.

It occurred to him that he might be her biggest reason to stay. He was kadan to her, the one and only she allowed herself. He did not know if he would be enough.

He hoped so, though. He had come to rely upon her like few others in his life, this woman he had once called shem, believing her lesser for the shape of her ears, for the chance of her birth. A great fool, he had been, before coming to know her. Slipping into his armor again and taking up his weapons, he departed the alienage with Lia at his side, the girl also armed. The city was a chaotic mess in the wake of the battle, and though Ithilian still managed to look fearsome, he would not be back at his full form for sometime. There was a chance he would never fully recover from the injuries he'd sustained. There was only so much suffering a body could endure before the damage went more than skin deep. Besides that, Lia did not seem inclined to let Ithilian out of her sight, and he was fine with that.

It took some time to find Amalia, especially considering the slow pace that Ithilian felt was best for himself. He had managed to let himself believe that if Amalia was actually going to leave with the Qunari, she would at least come to say farewell. It was all the opinion he was going to allow himself to form on the subject. When he located the rise upon which Amalia was watching the ships, Lia gave Ithilian some space to speak with her alone. He came to stand beside her, observing the new scar she had earned.

"I expect we'll have quite a bit of time soon to think about what, exactly, we are." To each other. To those we hold dear. To our cultures, to the world. To ourselves. "I also expect that there is no real answer to that question."

“Once,” Amalia replied, “there would have been nothing to think about.” She had always known what she was, even when she had not quite been sure of whom. Or rather, the questions had always seemed to have the same answer, as simple as naming back the role she had been given. It was her very identity, and comprised the core of everything she was and did. Rightly so—she had been born to it, trained for it from her very youth. There had been no need to find or discover it, or any of the other strange metaphors other people used in relation to themselves. It had always just… been.

But if she were truly Ben-Hassrath any longer, she would already be aboard that ship. There were no more viddathari in Kirkwall, and besides that, she had only been teaching those there were because no Tamassrans were there to do it. She wondered distantly if the ones on Par Vollen would find the work she had done satisfactory in this respect. There was no one else here the Qunari particularly desired dead, no deserters to hunt down and reeducate.

Except maybe herself.

Was she deserting? She supposed she could justify her choice to stay in terms the Qun would understand and accept, were she pressed to do so. She could say she remained because this was a volatile place, to spy, to gather information for when the Qunari did return. A thin reason, but enough of one, considering there wasn’t much incentive to return, either. But whether it would work or not, it was not her real reason—those were different. The biggest one was currently standing beside her. She took strength from that, no longer feeling the temptation to take just another step closer to the ship, closer to the absolute assurance that a reversion would allow her. It would be an illusion anyway—she could try to forget this place, forget them, forget him, but she would not be able to. And she would always wonder.

“Now… perhaps there will be many answers.” It was hard for her to accept that there would be none. Amalia didn’t know what she was going to do with herself, now. How was she to function in a world of humans and elves and dwarves? Was she human now? She had never felt herself so before, because she was Qunari, and that had been all that mattered. Could she really accept that she was other than she had ever been? Or could she be Qunari still, in some way, even though she did not stand amidst the others, did not live by their every tenet exactly? They were daunting questions, but she had to believe they had answers.

"I was much the same, as you well know," he reminded her. It seemed, at this point, as though Ithilian was perhaps adjusting to a new purpose, or rather a lack of one, somewhat better than Amalia was. Perhaps because previously Ithilian's purpose had not been so dominating, as adherence to the Qun tended to demand. But Ithilian had been forced to confront his separation from the dogma of years past a little sooner than Amalia, and a little more abruptly. Ithilian had been the betrayer in the Fade, not Amalia, as he recalled. That had been the moment when he'd been convinced of the wrongness in his ways.

"I think there is much that you and I can still do here, though," he said, folding his arms across his chest and watching the last few Qunari board their ships. "Not as Dalish or Qunari, teachers or hunters, but... whatever it is that we are. There are good people here, though the wicked may outnumber them. I can improve their lot, with what strength I have, and I'll do it not because of their race or the gods they do or do not worship. I'll do it because they deserve better, and I may still have the power to give it to them. That, I feel, might be an example worth following."

He wanted to hide for a time, to safeguard only those who meant the most to him, but this was not his way, could not be his way forever. Not when there was more that could be sought after, with the wiser views that this pit of a city had somehow instilled in him. That she had instilled in him.

"I would welcome your help. I have proven many times over that I am a fool without you."

Amalia’s mouth ticked up into a wry half-smile, but it vanished in the next eyeblink. Could she really do that, she wondered? Just… pick up another cause, use it to fill the space in her soul where the Qun had once been? There were people here without whom she would not feel fully alive, but it may just be that the same was true of what she had to let go to stay with them. Perhaps she was only choosing her half-life. If so, she was choosing this one, and not the one that awaited her if she boarded that ship. But it was still half her world, half her self that she was giving up, and she did not quite think she could just… replace it with something else. She did not know if she would ever be able to hold to another purpose like she had held to the Qun, because there was nothing else in the world like it, to her knowledge.

But still… Amalia sighed softly. It could be something. She could try, and see what came of it. She could continue to do what she’d started nearly a year ago, without the faintest idea that it would bring her far. She had opened her eyes, and she had seen. Now she had only to decide how she wished to shape the things she saw. Without her people guiding her hand, it would not be easy, but if every part of it were even half as rewarding as guiding her own eyes had been, then…

“For now, it is enough.” She took a long look at the ships, watching as the gangplanks were drawn up, anchors hauled and sails hoisted, and she opened her hands, allowing the last grains of sand to scatter into the wind. They were hers in truth now, to use for reaching to whatever she wanted. Perhaps one day she would know what that was.

Shaking her head faintly, she turned her back to the departing boats. “Where would you suggest we begin?”

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

The waiting, the not knowing, was terrible.

For two days, Lucien and Nostariel had not left this room, save when he went to fetch food or potion deliveries from Rilien on the Keep’s doorstep. Only the regularity of these kept him aware of what time of day it was, else he might have lost track entirely, the way the curtains were drawn over the windows like this. He’d entered the place immediately after Nostariel had told him it was fine to do so, and he’d been intermittently assisting her ever since. Fetching things she asked for, timing her naps such that she was able to wake every three hours to check on things, making sure she ate, and mostly just sitting by Sophia’s bedside, not in the way but feeling about as useful as a stone.

He was quite sure he could never remember feeling this miserable in his entire life. This utterly wretched. At least when he’d managed to let his friends get hurt before, he’d tried to stop it. But here, he had not, could not, and he was regretting that now. He wasn’t sure if he should have lied and said she was unworthy, or dishonored them all by interfering in the duel itself, or what else, but he should have done something differently. Because no outcome where she was in this kind of state, hanging on the razor-thin precipice between life and death, could possibly be the result of doing the right thing.

As miserable as he felt, however, he was also still angry. Mostly, it turned out, at Sophia herself. It was something that made him feel guilty, because he shouldn’t be feeling it, especially not right now. But he was, and the guilt for it only made it worse, a rather vicious circle of emotions he was not quite sure how to handle. Guilt, he knew very well, but not like this. It certainly didn’t help that he had so much time with nothing else to do but wait for some sign of one outcome or another. It meant he stewed in his thoughts, especially when Nostariel was asleep in her cot in the corner of the room, like now. He dare not disturb her until the appointed candlemark, however—she needed all the rest she could possibly get.

Some people admired the Chevaliers for their strength. He could say now with utmost confidence that there was simply no one stronger than a healer—at least one who could do what Nostariel was doing. He didn’t need to understand exactly how it worked to understand how difficult it was. She slept very little, only daring a few hours at a time, and drew the rest of her energy from potions supplied by Rilien. She’d also been exhausted to start with—keeping Sophia alive was doubtless costing her everything she had and then some. He could not express how grateful he was… nor could he try, however gently, to get her to rest a little more. Because he couldn’t risk what that might mean for Sophia’s chances.

He glanced back up at the taper in the holder on the desk beside him, and realized that it was finally time to wake her for another check. Stepping past his discarded armor—he’d have to remember to send it back with Ril next time he came by—Lucien moved as quietly as he could over to where the Warden slept. He didn’t know why; the point was to wake her up, and Sophia wasn’t sleeping so much as she was comatose, so it didn’t make any difference to her, either. But he’d not been able to shake the reverential quiet from himself since he entered, and he was no longer trying. Gently, he laid a hand on the elf’s thin shoulder and shook. “Nostariel. Nostariel, it’s time.”

Nostariel stirred at the contact, though it took her several more moments to shake off the heavy weight of fatigue from her limbs and the fog from her mind. She knew this was going to be an extended process, and so she was doing her best to keep herself in working condition for the long haul, but it was not easy. She couldn’t let herself fail further down the line any more than she could afford to fail now, but the temptation was always there to keep working long past what she could really handle, which at this point was mostly keeping Sophia stable and trying to make slow progress on the wound itself. In the meantime, she was keeping all the more minor ones treated with poultice and bandage, hoping they would not get infected, and occasionally stopping her work on the main injury to fight off burgeoning problems with that. It was slowing her down, but even a minor infection would kill her just as easily as the final blow the Arishok had dealt, as weak as she was.

Honestly, the prognosis was very bad, but she could not bring herself to say that, especially not to Lucien. She slept little, but he seemed to sleep not at all, and from the expressions on his face she’d catch from time to time, he wasn’t thinking pleasant thoughts. She could hardly blame him for that, of course, and in fact despite everything she was grateful for his company. Right now, she needed someone to be around, someone who understood. Working on her friends had always been harder than healing strangers, and that combined with the exhaustion and emotional remnants from all that had happened in the last several days would almost certainly have been too much for her to handle all on her own.

Rising blearily, Nostariel chilled the water in the washbasin near her cot, splashing some on her face and neck to help herself wake up, then tied her hair up and out of the way, padding over to where Sophia lay.

Several hours later, she collapsed into a soft chair, something Lucien had moved in here from a study or something when she’d asked for one, and she leaned her head back against it, closing her eyes and concentrating on keeping her breathing steady. As she’d feared, there’d almost been an infection, and she’d spent quite a while fighting it off. Normally, she could use a patient’s own immune system to help with something like that, but Sophia was so weak she dare not risk it. Everything she was doing had to come from her alone, and it was a daunting task on the best of days, which today certainly was not.

“How are you feeling?” The question was directed at Lucien. It was largely obvious what the answer was, she supposed, but she needed the conversation, the comfort of another person’s voice, or she might lose her mind, here in a room that smelled like blood and death. She had to remind herself that someone else was alive in the world, something that was historically surprisingly easy for her to forget.

Lucien snorted, the sound bitter rather than amused, though of course it wasn’t Nostariel’s fault. So he managed to keep most of his current rancor from his tone when he replied. He supposed it might be helpful to her, to have someone to speak to, and it was really all he could do for her, paltry though it was. There wasn’t any way he’d refuse, even though he didn’t feel much like speaking to anyone at this moment. As usual, he was honest, though perhaps his fatigue blunted his delivery where he might have otherwise attempted to keep it softer. “Terrible. Angry. Guilty. Useless. Helpless.” He paused. “Afraid.” That was the predominant one, without a doubt. He was afraid, more than anything, that this would not be enough. That Sophia would die. He wondered what would become of him if she did, but the thoughts were too disturbing to ponder for long. Not now, when so much was uncertain.

Now that he’d said it, he felt the need to explain a little. “I understand why she did it, I just… I wish she hadn’t.” He knew what that feeling was, the strange need for vengeance cloaked in the color of justice, but he also knew that the shading was only for show. What she’d wanted—what she’d gotten—was revenge, and look at what had come of it. The Arishok was dead, but it meant nothing. Perhaps he’d deserved it, perhaps not. There were so many complications that Lucien found it impossible to pretend to have the answer. But whatever the case there, his death had brought only the very shadow of her own, and he wasn’t handling it very well.

“What… what do I do, Nostariel?” He felt even worse for asking her, because he knew exactly which experience of hers this would call to mind, but it was one of the few they did not somehow share, and he needed to hear something, to hear anything, from his friend. He needed to feel like there was something he could do, something he could be, that would solve this problem, rectify Sophia’s error and his own. It was hard for someone accustomed to power and strength to accept that there was nothing, even when he knew it. He’d not felt so superfluous since he was a child, and the woman in convalescence had been his own mother.

It did indeed cause her to remember the death of her first love, but Nostariel didn’t resent that. She thought she understood enough of who Lucien was to make sense of why he’d asked, and of course there was nothing malicious or even careless about it. She refused to believe, however, that those answers were the ones he needed. She could not let herself believe in the chance, however great, that Sophia was going to die. Perhaps he only meant right now, in this moment, but there honestly wasn’t a lot. At least, not much that an action-oriented person would appreciate as a lot. But maybe it would help a little even so. “Talk to her.” Nostariel cracked her eyes open with too much effort and looked over at him, smiling wanly. “I’ve always found that in cases like this, the presence of familiar voices can help the patient’s responsiveness. It doesn’t have to be anything profound—just let her hear you speak. Hold her hand sometimes. Believe that she’ll get better.”

She dropped her gaze to her friend, and the smile disappeared. “And you know… I’m being a little hypocritical here, but…” The Warden trailed off for a moment, then shook herself back to wakefulness. “But, when she does wake up, maybe tell her how you feel. I speak from experience when I say that sometimes, even when it seems obvious to everyone else, it’s not real until you say it.” Reaching from her chair to his, she put a hand on his shoulder, squeezing gently.

If talking to her would really help anything, he’d do it until his voice was entirely gone. He wasn’t sure what he’d say, but perhaps there were books around the immediate proximity that he could read from. In the meantime, he supposed there might be a use for all that poetry he’d been forced to memorize in his childhood. Still, it seemed so… inadequate, to the task at hand. He found it very hard to take a dim view of magic when he wished now that he had it with the fervor that he did. But he would have to trust in Nostariel for that. There was nothing greater he could imagine having to trust someone with, but if there was anyone who could rise to this occasion, it was the Warden, he was sure of it.

It wasn’t a great confidence booster, but it was something, and he felt a little better than he had before. At least until he properly considered what else she’d said. It had occurred to him to regret not having said something sooner, yes, but… it wasn’t that simple, not anymore. He’d been so close to telling her before Saemus had been killed, but there had been no right time after that, given everything she was going through, and he truly wasn’t sure there would be a right time after this, either. Like it or not, the entire experience had taught him some things he would rather not have known about the people they both were, and he wondered if he could find it in himself to forgive either of them for what had transpired. For what might yet transpire. He couldn’t let himself decide, though, because he hadn’t been able to speak with her, and he would never make up his mind on something so important without knowing where she stood afterwards. Besides, he didn’t like the way the balance of things was leaning.

“I suppose… I can do that much,” he said. One way or another, he would speak to her after this was done, and she would survive. He could believe in her—or more accurately, he still did. He just had to keep doing it. Giving Nostariel a tired half-smile at the touch, he patted her hand gently with his own, then reached forward, daring to touch Sophia for the first time since he’d been holding her innards in while he moved her from the floor of the throne room to here. It wasn’t much, nothing more than placing his first two fingers to her palm and his thumb to the back of her hand, as though he were afraid any more than that might break something important.

“Thank you, Nostariel. I could never begin to repay you for what you’re doing.”

“Then I suppose it’s a good thing you don’t need to, isn’t it?” The Warden’s expression was soft as she took in his unusually tentative manner, and she wondered for a moment just what was going through Lucien’s head. For a man so honest, he could be surprisingly enigmatic sometimes. He seemed rather uncomplicated, but the longer she knew him, the surer she was that the opposite was true. It was not everyone who could live like he did, take on the burdens he bore. She had almost been expecting him to somehow interfere with the duel, or offer to fight it himself, but he had not. He hadn’t even hesitated to tell the Arishok that Sophia was fit to fight it, and the words themselves had been deeply-moving, almost a sentiment of poetic character.

Nostariel had always loved stories, and she supposed that in some ways, she’d expected him to be the fairytale knight-gallant, moving to the rescue without so much as needing to be asked. Often, he did just that. But in this case, he’d stood behind rather than in front, and allowed someone else to fight her own battle. Someone he loved, and at steep cost. It could not have been easy. Imagining doing that herself was difficult, and she was no knight. She was used to watching others get hurt, and patching up the damage afterwards. But even she would prefer to step in front of a situation like that for the person she loved. She couldn’t doubt he had his reasons, and she knew that if he explained them to her, she would believe they were the right ones. He was like that—so very good. She was just glad she could look him in the eye now.

“She’s lucky, to have you.” He was fortunate to have her, too, of course, but she meant right now specifically. Strange thing to be saying about someone so close to death, but true nevertheless.

“I expect that at the moment, she is quite a bit luckier to have you,” he replied, the humor thin at best. But it was necessary; he couldn’t really deal with the implications of that statement right now, or the trains of thought it brought up. Because really, he couldn’t help but think that she wasn’t lucky at all, with regards to him.

But he could only stew in thoughts like that for so long before they drove him mad, and so true to form, he decided to make himself as useful as he could. “I’ll go get something to eat.” As it was unwise for Nostariel to leave the room, he’d bring her back her meal, as well. And perhaps a book of some kind, while he was at it. It might not be very useful, but it wasn’t useless, and that was the best he could do right now.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel

Earnings

0.00 INK

A week and a half since the Qunari set sail, and it was the furthest Aurora had ventured from her home. The looting in the streets had slowly began to taper off, though it was replaced by Templar presence. With the Guard having lost many of its personnel, it fell to the militaristic Order to attempt to keep peace. It was hardly ideal for her, but the city needed some sort of command and order and the Templars had a way of dissuading prospective criminals. Still, it made the walk she was taking feel all that much longer. She was dressed as plainly as she dared, with her scarf tied around her head instead of her neck. There was little chance of a random Templar picking her out from the crowd, but it still didn't help the unease she was feeling. The fact that Milly was left home alone only worsened her tense mind.

If she knew what else to do, she would've stayed at home. But again, she found herself lost in the dark unable to find the answers on her own. Nostariel was the best choice, but she was exhausted and spent much of her time beside Sophia's bed. She had heard what the woman had done, there weren't many in Lowtown who didn't. She acted with equal measures of bravery and rashness, though Aurora felt it was not her place to judge. She made her choice, and now she was dealing with its consequences. She could do nothing but wish the woman a speedy recovery.

Amalia was her second choice, but chances were she wasn't in any better of a place than she was. The Qunari had left but she had stayed. No doubt she was no searching for her own answers. Instead, she travelled into Hightown, toward the one person that she knew the recent events had not changed. The bell leading into the shop labelled Enchantment rang as she entered.

The proprietor of the shop was currently by himself, taking inventory. His locking mechanisms were much more clever than the average such thing, but they weren’t all that much use against looters determined to break down his door, which in the end was still simply wood. The break in had happened on the very first day, else Rilien himself likely would have been around to put a stop to it. Alas, the looters had made off with most of the shiny objects in the store, which was to say the silverite, lyrium, a few of Sandal’s runes, and the few weapons that had been displayed on wall mounts. They’d also smashed much of his glassware. Another small group had taken the previously-missing door as an invitation to pick over the remnants. They were four more dead looters for the undertakers, removed the night after. The door had been replaced three days ago.

With it in place and order mostly returned to the city, Rilien’s suppliers would soon be back in business, so he was taking an accounting of everything he would need to order to bring himself back up to stock, and then extra, because Knight-Captain Cullen had just requisitioned a large number of potions from him. It would seem that there were many injured or dying Templars and mages, more than the Circle’s own resources could properly handle. And Rilien was very good at what he did.

Marking down something else on the slightly-curled parchment beneath his quill, Rilien did not initially look up when the bell jingled, indicating the entrance of someone new. He could feel the magic on the person, and it was by this point familiar enough that he recognized her without needing to look up. “Aurora. What do you require?”

The first thing she noticed was the lack of glass in many of the cases. It seemed that even Hightown felt its share of the looting. Probably by those either braver or more desperate to attempt such an act. Even her own door had been knocked on in the days since, but Amalia's reinforcements saw to it that it remained closed. She had to break the arm and leg of a pair of such looters to even get back inside. She nodded in greeting and made her way to the counter, taking a seat in of the stools lining it. She let a moment pass between them, gathering her words before she finally spoke. "Clean bandages would be a start," She said, rolling her sleeve up.

Her entire forearm was bandaged, though the worst of the wound had since healed. Speaks of deep red still stained the bandages in a straight line across the middle of the arm. The bleeding had long since been staunched, and Amalia had seen to it that the wound wouldn't become infected. "This is all that we had," She said, staring at the arm. Milly had bandaged it for her, though cut off from her magic and emotions, Aurora was left to heal the natural way. The fight she had received the wound was still plain in her face. A cut over her eyebrow had also been bandaged up, and there was a twist to the tip of her nose, mirroring the Tranquil's own. He had been right about treating it quickly, it seemed.

Perhaps fortunately for Aurora, the looters had not found it necessary to steal Rilien’s medical supplies, and for a moment he ducked under the counter, returning to his previous position with a mid-sized wooden box in hand. From this, he withdrew a roll of bandages, a red potion, and a sterile knife. “May I see the wound?” After Aurora complied, laying her bandaged arm across the counter, Rilien cut away the old bandaged with a practiced flick of the small blade, exposing the wound to the open air. It did not appear to be in any danger of infection—whomever had looked after this had done so with enough care that it was healing normally. Still, he used the tip of the knife to push the potion bottle closer to her, an indication that she was to drink it.

There were, however, fragments of stone in the wound, something that he took to be the result of a rock armor spell, in all likelihood. “This will not be pleasant.” He did not find any more warning than that to be particularly necessary, and set about removing the fragments either by leverage from the surgical knife, or if he could reach them, a pair of thin metal tweezers. A few of them were embedded such that he had to make small fresh cuts in the skin, but with these, he was unerringly precise and entirely unmoved or worried by the fact that he was causing any sort of pain, allowing in fact for a minimum of it to be inflicted.

Moving away the soiled bandages, he started to unroll the fresh ones, reaching into the box with his other hand and withdrawing a small jar that, when the lid was removed, proved to contain some sort of greenish paste that smelled strongly of mint. A small, flat wooden instrument was dipped into it, and he smeared the paste along the line of the cut. It was much more pleasant a sensation than most, being rather cool, as such wounds tended to accumulate heat as the body made to repair what of itself was broken. The paste would protect and speed the process, and the potion would as well, but there wasn’t really a substitute for simply recovering in time, unless of course one was possessed of the right kind of magic.

Rilien was not.

Lifting her arm, he expertly wound the bandages around the wound, firmly enough to hold everything in place properly, but not so tight as to cause discomfort or restrict normal bloodflow to the area. It would not do to disrupt the natural process of healing, anyway. The process complete, Rilien tied off the bandages, glancing back up and blinking slowly at Aurora. “You wanted to speak with me about something else.” He was not asking a question.

She'd managed a single, "What?" before the first nick of pain caused her to wince. She turned her head away from the wound as he proceeded to dig out the pebbles from her arms, wincing and twitching with every new stone found. Once the wound was cleaned and rebandaged, she drew her arm tentatively away, and inspected the fresh gauze. "Where did you learn to do that," She asked.

That was obviously not the question she originally had in mind, but Rilien was not particularly bothered by it. “Ser Lucien once had a tendency not to watch his back.” Rilien lifted his shoulders, just slightly. “And I was once the only person around when he was stabbed in it.” Apparently, some basic trauma and field medicine was standard training for officers in the Chevaliers, however, and so Rilien had simply followed Lucien’s instructions when it came time to sew up such a wound. It wasn’t like there’d been any healers about at the time. It had seemed a useful skill, and he’d plied the man for the rest of his knowledge on it as they crossed Ferelden.

Aurora's eyebrows arched and then lowered in one fluid moment. It shouldn't have been surprising, a man like Lucien was sure to find himself on the wrong end of a blade. But the fact that it was Rilien that made sure that those wounds didn't slow the man down made an odd kind of sense, she supposed. Shrugging the thought off, she leaned forward on the counter, careful to put her injured arm over top her uninjured one. "It's... Milly," She said, looking up from the counter and to Rilien. "I'm... Not sure what to do. Still," She revealed. Amalia and Nostariel had lent her their aid, but they were both otherwise occupied. Rilien was the next best choice to talk about it. Perhaps even better.

He was tranquil, yes. She even glanced at the sunburst branded into his forehead before she lowered her eyes again. It was the same one that Milly wore, but he was not Milly. He was different. Aurora supposed she always knew that, that Rilien wasn't the average Tranquil. But now that one was living with her, it only made her all that more aware of it. It was hard to place her finger on it, he certainly didn't feel like an ordinary person, but neither did he act like an ordinary tranquil. There had even been moments where she'd forgotten.

If there was anyone who could help her, it was him.

It took him a second to place the name, but as soon as he did, it was obvious why she’d come to him, though he wasn’t sure exactly what she was expecting of him. “Do with her?” He turned the words over in his head for a time, occupying himself with clearing away the used supplies, save the salve, which he left on the counter. It would serve more use with her than with him—daily applications would continue to stave off infection and dull pain, neither of which he had any use for personally at present. Stowing the box back beneath the counter, Rilien screwed the lid back on the glass jar and pushed it slightly to Aurora’s side of the counter.

“Give her something to do.” It was a fact that Milly was entirely incapable of caring what she was told to do, and would obediently do anything, providing she saw no logical reason not to, but that did not make her a piece of furniture. “She has no magic and no emotions any longer, but she is still possessed of a mind and a body. Those are things with uses. Allow them to have a use.” He would not be able to do it, himself, not without feeling the inclination to do something else instead, but that was not exactly the case with proper Tranquil.

“If it makes you feel any better, choose something she would have wanted to do were she the person she used to be. I understand she helped out at the Warden’s clinic for a time. Perhaps a task suited to the care of others.” He paused, thinking it over. “But do not keep her with you to soothe your own conscience only. She is capable of making do anywhere, but her presence will only bring trouble to those around you. Who would keep a Tranquil but a mage?” His words were not without the faintest trace of irony, for he knew several non-mages who would quite likely not mind having him around. The only one he’d actually lived with was true to the form, however, one of many reasons Rilien chose not to make it obvious that he in fact lived with her.

It was blunt, but she expected nothing less. It was not in his nature to sugar coat the truth. As he spoke, Aurora's head sunk lower and lower into her shoulders until her chin rested in the crook of her elbow. "It's not that, it's..." She trailed off. It was what? Would she truly try to tell him that she didn't keep Milly around because she felt guilty? That she was somehow trying to make things better by keeping a watchful eye on her? No, the simple truth of it was that Milly lived with her because of some vain attempt to protect her, when she couldn't when it was most important. If Aurora saw it, then so did he, probably clearer than she did. "How do you do it?" She asked, looking up at him. Whatever the answer was, it probably wasn't enough, but it didn't stop her from asking.

Rilien tilted his head slightly to the side, unsure he understood the question. “I do not know what you refer to. I do many things. Most of them because I learned from someone who knew a great deal of them at some point. If you are asking how it is that I operate with autonomy despite my condition, the answer is simple: my Rite was interrupted, and I still have a thread of connection to the Fade. It is not enough to work magic with, but occasionally I dream. And I have some preferences, such as not being in a Circle.” He took a seat at the counter, perching on the stool and hooking his ankles over the legs of it.

“Though it is in truth the best option for other Tranquil. There are parameters in place for them to learn trades, and they are more understood by mages and Templars than by ordinary people.” Not that anyone understood them especially well—to this, he could attest quite effectively. Still… in Circles, at least, they were usually respected, and only the apprentices ever looked at them strangely. Not, of course, that any of them would care, but it wasn’t Milly that needed peace of mind here, clearly.

"I'm not sending her to the Gallows," She spoke adamantly. "It's because of them she's Tranquil," She continued, anger bleeding through her words. It was not directed toward Rilien, nor even all of the Templars. The mages are watched, night and day, and yet the Templars are not. No one was watching when the Templar stole the mages from the circles and the streets, nor were they watching when they pressed the brand into Milly's forehead. Who would be watching Milly then, if she was sent to the Gallows where there may be more Templars like the ones that gave her the Rite. She would rather go in her stead than to send Milly.

Rilien gave her a flat look. “I never said you should send her to the Gallows. I said she would likely be best off in a Circle.”

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera

Earnings

0.00 INK

A long whistle escaped between Ashton's lips as he surveyed the damage. He didn't know what else he expected, the door was torn clean off of it's hinges. It couldn't have been more inviting to prospective looters than if there had been a sign outside begging people to steal from it. Hell, had it been in better shape, he was positive the door would've been stolen as well. The days following the total mess that happened at the Keep, Ashton and Snuffy had holed up in Nostariel's clinic. Partly because the room he laid his head down at night was ripped to pieces, and partly because he had wanted to keep an eye on the place for her while she tended to Sophia. Fortunately, there was little to keep watch for as it escaped the looting that ran rampant through the city.

His shop, however, was not so lucky. It was far worse than the night it was initially broken in to. Everything that might've been of value was long since gone, and even a few things that weren't. He had no idea what anyone[i] would want with a bundle of fletching, but that too was gone. And what wasn't taken was smashed into pieces. "I would say they cleaned me out but... clean is the [i]last word I can think of. At least they didn't take the damn nails. Or the boards,"
Ashton told Snuffy, a lopsided scowl glued to his face. Despite it all, there was still a hint of playfulness in his voice. They could steal everything in his store, but they could never steal his humor.

Snuffy whined in agreement and began to follow her owner as he began to scour what was left for anything of use. "Wonder what the idiot who came through the window was thinking? The door was wide open," Ashton pondered as he stared out of where the glass was. Now it crunched under his feet as he moved. "Oh hey, look at this," He said. The surprise perked Snuffy's ears up as he knelt and picked up an iron arrowhead. "What a shame, it looks like they forgot something," He said with eyebrow arched. Snuffy barked in response, and left him to search for the pillow she slept one. Maybe they forgot that too.

Upon arriving at Ashton's shop with Lia in tow, Ithilian would have opened the door, but there was no door to open, and as such he just stepped in, offering Ashton a somewhat awkwardly strained smile as he entered. His movement still somewhat hampered by slowly healing injuries, Ithilian was glad to see that Ashton had not suffered anything similar while surviving the chaos of the battle. Lia was no worse for wear, physically at least, and her face lit up when she laid eyes on Snuffy again. She crouched down in front of the mabari.

"I've missed you, you stinky little furball!" Snuffy had been acquainted with Lia long enough to know that the namecalling was entirely affectionate at this point, and proceeded to greet Lia by licking her face and neck. "You're being careful in here, right Snuffy? There's glass all over the floor. I'd hate for you to cut a paw." The mabari gave a bark to reassure her, at which point Lia smiled, standing and wiping her face with her sleeve. "Hey Ash. Sorry the shemlen wrecked the place."

"We thought we might be able to help with the repairs," Ithilian explained, taking a look around at the interior. "The looters really hit this area hard." Ashton's wasn't the only shop that was more or less destroyed on the street, though it was one of the most damaged among them.

"What can I say? I'm a popular one," Ashton answered with a shrug. He sighed as he stood and pocketed the lonesome arrowhead before shaking his head. Repairs, Ashton couldn't say that he was looking forward to them. There would be a lot of work to be done and a lot of coin to be spent to get the shop back in service. Fortunately, Ashton hadn't been so silly as to keep his sovereigns hidden under his mattress, despite how much as he joked about it. As far as he knew, his finances were still in order-- unless the bloody looters found that as well. He tilted his head toward Ithilian, noting the sluggishness that he still moved with. It was hardly surprising, considering the amount of injuries he had sustained. Even Ash still had bruises. But, Ithilian was alive, however, and that was all that mattered in the end.

"Me too," He told Lia with a twist of his lip. He looked around his shop, spinning in a slow three-sixty when he stopped, and then let a defeated chuckle escape his throat. "I have no idea where to even begin. I haven't even checked upstairs yet," He admitted. He was afraid of what he might find, or rather what he might not find. The shop floor had a lot of things, yes, but those were replaceable. The things in his room were... Less so.

"How about you? Last time I saw you, you weren't in much better shape than this place," he asked, his smile turning to a curious frown. He was grateful for the help, but if he was still hurt... Ashton couldn't in good conscience let him get injured again on his account. He was pretty sure Nostariel would strangle him if he did.

"Moving about helps, I think," the elf replied, shrugging. "I was never meant to lie injured in one spot for too long." All the lying around, waiting for his body to catch up with his spirit had proven to be a steadily irritating process for Ithilian. He could only remember one occasion that he had been closer to death, when he had been fleeing from the darkspawn horde, bereft of family and clan, and even then he had been itching to get back on his feet long before Marethari and the Sabrae clan thought it wise. He had no real medical expertise, and did not actually know if physical activity, light or not, would help him recover, but he wasn't going to remain helpless in his own bed any longer than he had to. For better or worse, Nostariel was not around to advise him against it.

Lia moved off to better search the house with Snuffy, leaving Ithilian alone with Ashton in the entryway. "I don't believe I ever thanked you for what you did. For Lia, and for me. I hope you'll forgive me, but you didn't strike me as the courageous sort when we first met. Maybe I was incapable of seeing any humans that way then, but I've since been proven wrong. I don't give out trust easily... but you've never given me a reason."

He smiled slightly, looking down. "Perhaps I should have known sooner, from the Warden's opinion." He'd been more cautious with Ashton because he had agreed to place something dear to him in his care. But then again, a heart was nothing minor to entrust someone with as well.

A laugh came from Ashton's throat as he flipped over a table with his foot. Once on its own four legs though, the thing buckled beneath its weight cutting his laugh short. He stared for a moment before shrugging and throwing the pieces out the broken window. He had to start somewhere after all. Might as well start clearing out all the broken things. "Nobody's ever accused me of being brave before," he said, tossing a look back to Ithilian before tossing another piece of table out the window. "Not that I blame them. The picture of courage I am not," He said with a grin. This coming from the man who ran from Highever because the Darkspawn were invading from the south.

Ashton then picked up a broken chair with a missing leg. He spent a moment scanning the shop for it before raising an eyebrow. Did someone really steal a single leg from his chair? Brushing it off as nonsense, he threw the chair out the window as well. He paused for a moment in his work, and leaned his back against his counter. A thoughtful look that was more common of him now crossed his face. "I told you I'd look after her, there's no reason to thank me for holding to my words. What's there to forgive? I wouldn't have trusted me either."

A moment passed before a smile returned to his face, though this one did not possess the silliness the last had. "The Warden's opinion hm? Yeah, well, it does have a way of changing people, doesn't it?" He said with a nod. He owed a lot to that pretty little Warden's opinion.

Ithilian wondered if Ashton had changed as much as he had in the past few years. It was entirely possible; both of them had been through a great deal, though Ithilian had not been there to witness every the hunter had done. Lia told him about it, sometimes. Rather, he noted the subtle changes in her story. Eventually Ashton was no longer an employer, but a friend, though Lia had taken a good deal of time to say that outright. Shamefully, Ithilian remembered clinging to a feeling of uneasiness, that Lia spent so much time around a human, enough to build such a relationship. Years of hate-filled and vindictive teachings had been burned deep into him, and such things were not easy to work out, as he still found out every day.

He saw now, however, that his uneasiness was unfounded.

"Have you ever been a family man, Ashton?" Ithilian asked, genuinely curious. He knew precious little about his past, and from what he could tell, the man had no familial ties to anyone in the city. He came across as one who was resourceful, able to take care of himself and get things done, but he wondered if Ashton really had any experience in being so tied to another person, of whatever relation, that every decision in life stopped being solely his own. "You strike me as someone who has been... unbound, perhaps, is the right word."

"Never had much of a family to be a man about," Ashton replied with a shrug. He'd lifted himself off and now sat cross legged on the counter, more interested in the conversation at hand than the amount of work that surrounded him. It was true though, for a majority of his life he'd only had his aunt and uncle, and Uncle Harlan was enough man for them all. His real parents had pawned him off along with most of their belongings, but Ithilian didn't ask about that and Ash figured it added little to the conversation. He had asked about him, not his parents, and he was not his parents.

Ashton scratched the dusting of fuzz on his chin and agreed with Ithilian, nodding along. "Unbound is the polite word, yeah," He said with a laugh. Liberated, footloose, and lost were also words. There really hadn't been anywhere he was heading to, and he had no more plans to life than to survive. He simply did things with no thoughts behind them. It was odd, now to see him thinking about his actions. Maybe if he thought about them a little bit more, then he could've saved Kirkwall from the Qunari, if only he'd taken the book to Amalia sooner.

There was a hard twitch and a jerk in his shoulders as he decided to stop thinking about it and set about filling his mouth with words instead. "Didn't have much of a reason to settle down, I guess." It was odd, having this conversation with a man he was positive would've rather slit his throat a few years back.

"I think you'll find it a transformative experience, when you get there." His smile was wistful, but not sad at all. Rubbing his hands together, he turned his gaze from Ashton and onto the mess on the floor and... everywhere else. "But, we came to help clean up, not to speak. We should get started." They'd be picking up wreckage long after dark if they didn't.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon

Earnings

0.00 INK

At the behest of Nostariel, Lucien had at last left the Keep, albeit only temporarily. She needed a few more things from her clinic, not least among them fresh clothing, because trying to heal in someone else’s too-loose garments was apparently not the best of ideas. He certainly didn’t mind going to fetch things for her, especially considering the fact that Sophia was now stable and out of immediate danger. It had been about a week and a half in total since the Qunari attack, and in that time, Kirkwall had descended into utter chaos, then found itself slowly pulled out, mostly by Templar effort, as they had taken to using the power that usually belonged to the Viscount. Given that there currently wasn’t one, and Sophia’s recovery was still largely an uncertain quantity, he supposed someone had to.

He’d stopped by his own house first, for much the same reason as he was going by the clinic. He’d asked Rilien to check on his guests of course, but it was still a relief to see for himself that the three of them were unharmed. He trusted his friend to recognize physical injuries immediately, but wasn’t sure how well Ril would read into their psychological states. Or more accurately, how relevant he would find anything abnormal there to be. But the three of them were fine—the house had in fact remained untouched by the Qunari themselves, though there had been a visit by looters, in which Desne and her children had used the hidden room as instructed.

Lucien was unsurprised to find that his coat of arms and several of his spare weapons were missing, but thankfully they seemed to have left most everything else intact. He doubted anyone would see the value in old books and drawings, and none had taken the time to destroy much just for the sake of destroying it, either. Probably they’d simply decided to leave for better pickings elsewhere. Retreating to his room for a moment, he retrieved enough coin to compensate the three what they’d personally lost and then some, pointing out that it might be a while yet before he was back to stay, and directing them to a former client of his who made a very sturdy lock. It seemed to assuage any remaining concern, and with a small rucksack, mostly empty, he headed down to the clinic.

He was returning downstairs from Nostariel’s rooms and picking through the potions on her shelf—the clinic was remarkably free of signs of theft—when he heard the front door open on his blind side, and turned his head so as to see the newcomer.

Kirkwall's lapse into chaos had shaken, rightfully so, all of its citizens. Whether it was the scrummy vagrants hunkered down in Darktown, or the equally grimy denizens of Lowtown—all the way to the prim and proper nobles of Hightown, picking through ravaged homes and grimly peeking out through broken windows and doors that appeared as if they had been up and stolen away. To their credit, everyone was all too eager to return to some semblance of normalcy. Buildings were being repaired, as well as anything else that had been destroyed. People were actually working together, and while it might have taken awhile to gain what they had lost, even Sparrow could appreciate the efforts that were being made. She, too, had walked away affected by everything that had happened. As surprising as it was, even to her, Kirkwall had become something of a home. Admittedly, without everyone inside of Kirkwall, it would be just another place she was passing through. She no longer wandered, and cared far more about people, and what they thought of her, than she'd care to admit.

And so came her self-entitled mission to corner Lucien into having a conversation with her. That wasn't to say that she hadn't seen him, as he was staying at the Keep round-the-clock, and she had been dropping by to bolster the chamber with flowers. She hadn't, however, allowed any moments where they might be in the same room together, alone. She scurried out as soon as she appeared, leaving petals and bandaged fingers in her wake. This time, this time, she would set things straight. If it hadn't been for Lucien, she never would have known the truth. And she would have never been able to confront Rilien, at all. Even if Rilien didn't understand the importance of knowing what he had given up, because as he said, it was done, it would always be important to her. Lucien had shed away layers of Rilien she hadn't noticed before. Layers that she wasn't ready to notice. He'd peeled back some of hers, as well. Screaming at him, and then ignoring him as she'd done before, was unfair.

She followed him to his own home, keeping to the shadows. Fear told her that that was not the right time to make herself known, so she pressed her shoulder to the building and waited for him to reappear, only to tail him towards Darktown. Ah—the clinic. Again, Sparrow hesitated approaching him, until he entered the clinic itself. She hopped down the steps and pushed open the door just in as Lucien swung his gaze over, causing her to pause mid-step. She was half tempted to turn tail and slam the door behind her. Instead, she took a breath, stepped inside and closed it behind her. “Ah, Lucien—fancy meeting you here,” she greeted shamelessly. Small talk, somehow, seemed inappropriate. Bringing up Sophia, and her health, even more so. She understood the gravity of her situation as well as anyone else did, and it wasn't a comfortable topic to bring about. She shuffled her feet and scratched the back of her head, focusing on the ground in front of her.

“I wanted to catch you before you headed back to the Keep.”

Considering that the last few times he’d seen her, she’d fairly well avoided him, Lucien could not say that he was expecting Sparrow. The sensation of being watched, of being followed, had definitely hit him along the path he’d taken, ingrained as it was by years of just waiting to find a dagger in his back one day, but he’d passed it off as unimportant. Hardly anyone here would have a reason to kill him; it was probably just someone trying to keep away from him in case he was a looter. He wouldn’t even put it beyond people to be actively trying to protect the clinic. Nostariel did good work, and asked nothing for it—surely even the most hardscrabble people would not want to bring harm to the same person that healed up their cuts and bruises and set their broken limbs. He was firmly a believer in the idea that criminals were not themselves without hearts—or at the very least without enough intelligence to know when they were being so obviously counterproductive. No, surely nobody who lived here in this community in Lowtown would let the clinic go up in flames. He may have simply run afoul of one of its many protectors.

So when it was Sparrow, he wasn’t immediately able to reply, and it took him a few seconds before he got a handle on his tongue. His brow furrowed a bit—while far from unhappy to see her, he did hope she didn’t plan to take that much time. He wasn’t too keen on being far from the Keep for long. Nostariel needed these supplies, and Lucien needed… well, he needed to be back there shortly. “Well,” he said, remembering his manners and managing half a smile, “you have indeed caught me. What can I do for you, Sparrow?”

Even as she entered the clinic, Sparrow hesitated and took a few step backwards, eyes flicking down to the bundle Lucien held. Of course, he was probably heading back to the Keep, and visiting Nostariel's clinic meant that there were some sort of healing goodies he wanted to bring there, as well. She pulled the doorknob and held the door open, sweeping her hand in front of her, “We can talk as we walk. I'll be your escort today.” Not like he truly needed one. Pity the poor soul that decided to try and wrangle those goods away from him. Either way, it was another excuse to delay the inevitable. She wasn't entirely sure where Nostariel was either, though she'd rather keep the audience to the minimum of two should she resort to grovelling and pouting. Apologies came as naturally to her as trying to breathe underwater. Once they were out of the clinic, and on their merry way down the hobbled alleys, Sparrow twined her fingers together and settled them at the nape of her neck. It wouldn't get any easier the more they walked, she understood that much.

“I wanted to—,” she began, sifting air through her clenched teeth, “Forget it. I'm sorry.” She continued walking slightly ahead of him, tangling and untangling her fingers. Neither she, nor Rilien, had even admitted that Lucien had been the one to confess the specifics of his actions. He'd opened a door for her; one that Rilien would have kept firmly shut for her benefit. How many things had he neglected to tell her because he was shielding her from something he believed too harsh for her to face? If she never learned to hold her own shield, what did that say of her strength? Strike hard enough and she would shatter. If they saw her as little more than smoke and mirrors, incapable of defending herself from harsh realities, then she would thicken her skin. Sparrow was a storm, but she would stop sinking them.

“I've never been good at apologizing.” Truly. Anyone would know—Amalia would, specifically. She never apologized because she always believed her actions were justified. For reasons that continued to elude her, she was beginning to question herself. All of her motives, once tangled in freedom and worldly enjoyment, shivered away at the thought of losing what she now saw as important. Most of all, she feared losing her companions and being left alone. They were not expendable. She would fight for them, even when the obstacles were of her own making. “But I hope that you can suffer me awhile longer.”

It honestly took Lucien a while to decide what she would need to apologize for. The past few weeks had been murder on his ordinary sensibilities about such things—he lived now in a very narrow world, where he waited for something he hoped was not impossible, and everything else simply faded. His company, his plans, even his friends—for these weeks, they were there, and his thoughts occasionally wandered to them, but they were far from the center of his attention, as perhaps they would have been at other times. He liked being able to do that, in some senses, to shift his focus such that he was wholly invested in whatever people brought before him. He thought it suited him to be that way, to want to solve problems and give them everything he had—it certainly felt right. He’d never found it to be a troubling balancing act, keeping all of those concerns, those people, at the fore, but right now he simply couldn’t manage it.

He had to cast his mind back to their last conversation, and the details were slow in emerging through his distraction. Once they did however, he understood that she must be referring to her hasty exit last time they had spoken. “Then I suppose it’s fortunate that none is required,” he said, shifting the burden in his hands slightly such that it was tucked under one arm. He used the other to pull back the thick strands of dark brown hair that had fallen into his face. It really needed to be cut, but that was another thing that could wait. He favored Rilien’s cohabitator with a smile, though it was a melancholy thing, and unlike him. “I understand why you needed to leave, Sparrow. It was not exactly easy tidings I was giving.”

He’d been told he was patient with people, and supposed that to an extent that was true. But most of the time, he didn’t think patience was the right word for what he did. It seemed to imply that the things he was being patient about vexed him somehow, that he needed to exercise some superhuman capacity for tolerating them. Lucien thought that rather than that, he was simply not a man easily vexed. Sparrow leaving had not been an annoyance to him, merely a reaction he understood in the context of the revelation she’d received. He had no idea how he would have reacted if he’d been told Rilien had given up a chance to divest himself of his Tranquility for him—but that was a matter complicated by the fact that Ril being Tranquil had never bothered him in the first place. There were nuances to their situation that Lucien was not privy to, and he did not expect that she would stay and linger for light conversation having heard what she had.

They approached the Keep, now, and he turned to Sparrow at the bottom of the stairs, an indication that this was where he thought it best to part. “I wanted to say… I know that being friends with Ril has its challenges, and perhaps more for you than I. But… in his way, he holds you very dear, Sparrow, and I’ve never known him to do anything without a reason. So, whatever you did to produce that reaction in him… thank you. I think you’ve done him good.”

Silence had always bothered her. And while Lucien had good reason to be reflecting on more important matters, like keeping Kirkwall from collapsing in on itself and tending to Sophia while she recovered, Sparrow still wrung her hands together behind her head, anticipating unreasonable outcomes. Dread curled rings in her stomach. She expected much from people, and assumed they thought the same of her. Instead of standing tall as they did, she bent under the strain and lashed out like a cornered animal, scratching and biting and spitting. Apologies—those were new developments. Surely, by their influence, she had changed. Tiny steps were still progress, and perhaps, she would learn to quell her volcanic tendencies and voice how she felt. She hoped so. Rilien hadn't even suggested apologizing to Lucien. His suggestions had become fewer and fewer the more she ventured out on her own, driven by her single-minded determination to do better.

She occasionally flicked her eyes over her shoulder to read the expression on his face, but found herself unable to read anything at all. To her, Lucien looked as if he were always contemplating something. Vexed by matters that went far beyond her. Backwater politics or Kirkwall's state of disrepair and its recent dalliance with petty crime, and who knows what else. His plate, as well as anyone else involved with the Viscountess and leading lords and ladies, were full. While she might have had brief glints of envy when thinking of had comfortable it might have been living in such a grand home, surrounded by nobles and knights who bowed and saluted as you passed, Sparrow had spent enough time around them to know that she would have hated it. Gaudy garments aside, there were certain responsibilities she did not envy. She doubted Lucien had any less, and of his own volition. Alongside Sophia, she doubted he'd care if his duties tripled, quadrupled.

None? She blinked, caught in mid-glance. The look on his face... was somber, exhausted. And still, he managed to smile and say things she hadn't expected. Sparrow's hands slowly dropped away from her neck and drifted back to her sides. Being understood was strange. Stranger still that her behavior needed no apology in the first place. It struck her as odd, perhaps, because she had never had conversations like this before. Living among the Qun, she apologized to no one, even if she had done something wrong. She did as she pleased and expected those she cared about to simply accept her as she was, and if they did not, she behaved as if they did. Explaining herself to those she wished to keep close continued to be an experience she was not familiar with. However, she did not dislikeit—this, being understood and being forgiven.

Soon enough, they stood in front of the Keep. Sparrow's expression walked a fine line between bewilderment and serene. She bobbed her head and turned to leave as Lucien halted on the stairs, turning to face her. She paused and swung back around, about to chirp her goodbyes. With her escort services complete, and her secret mission annulled, she had planned a hasty retreat, but as she feared, Lucien had more to say. He was thanking her. She garbled unintelligibly and ruffled a hand through her hair, shouting louder than she'd intended, “I—you, you, as well! Thank you!” The goodbye was strangled, and clipped, but she managed to sputter that she'd be around later to drop off more flowers. Her heels, in full-flight, flagged her retreat.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon

Earnings

0.00 INK

Fourteen days after falling to the Arishok's blade, Sophia woke.

Eventually it became acceptable to transport the Viscountess back to her own bed, and there she lay, pale as a corpse, still as a statue save for the slight rise and fall of her chest from breathing, and utterly peaceful, a contrast to the state in which she'd been in the moments before she'd nearly died. After perhaps a week of danger, it became clear that Nostariel's healing techniques had indeed saved her life, and she would wake again, the only question being when. By the time that her eyes did crack open, she had only regained a fraction of her color. Under the covers of her bed, she almost looked like she'd just come down with a sickness. The scars she'd earned from that fight remained hidden.

She stirred at last when the setting sun filtered in through her window to fall upon her face, and at first she thought it must be the Maker's light, greeting her to a never ending rest with her family. But she had always imagined pain no longer existing in death, certainly not bodily pain, and almost immediately there were uncomfortable twinges, and a few outright jolts, through her abdomen and down her back. She recalled the wounds she'd been dealt, the course of the fight, how hopelessly outmatched she had been.

That, more than anything, settled upon her in her first waking moments. She had been unable to see any kind of hope in her situation, and feeling that, she had resigned herself to what seemed like her fate, what should have been her fate. There were no dreams to be had in her sleep, no time to think, and the fight itself seemed as though it had only just occurred, but somehow she acquired some kind of separation from it, and now, lying in this bed, which she knew to be her own simply from the feel of it under her skin, the utter pointlessness of her actions washed over her like the waves that first brought the Qunari to Kirkwall. Of all the struggles in her life, grief had never been among them. It was an enemy completely foreign to her, and it had taken a grip on her heart so strong it had blinded her to all hope.

"What happened?" she mumbled, sensing she was not alone in the room. She cracked her eyes open, but her vision remained temporarily blurred.

As it happened, the only person currently in the room was Lucien. He’d bade Nostariel go rest a couple of hours ago, and as it was now safe enough for the healer to sleep in an adjoining room rather than on a cot in this one, she was next door. When Sophia stirred, he considered going to wake her, but decided it was more prudent not to do so unless it became necessary. For the moment, Sophia seemed disoriented more than anything, and perhaps that would pass as she adjusted to being awake. Carefully, he closed the book he’d been reading and set it down on the small table next to his elbow.

It was a curious time for his tongue to fail him, but for several seconds, Lucien found it seemingly adhered to the roof of his mouth, perhaps because he had too many things to say, rather than not enough. The relief hit him with enough force to knock him down, so it was rather fortunate that he was already seated. In the end, he won the battle with his capacity for speech, though his response may well have been rather underwhelming, all things considered. “You were unconscious for a fortnight,” he confessed. You almost died. I almost lost you. “The Qunari are gone—once the Arishok died, they took the book and left. Knight-Commander Meredith is keeping things in order for the moment.” You’ve had several visitors. Everyone was worried about you. Call it force of habit, but he found it hard to say any of the more personal things when he knew the question had been seeking the factual ones.

Only when that much was done did he manage to force himself to utter anything that might have betrayed his concern. “Are you—how do you feel? If you need, I can go get Nostariel, she’s just next door.” And he was reminded, not for the first time, that it was probably more than slightly irregular that he was in here by himself. It had been easy to persistently forget before. Now, perhaps because of the stilted manner of his speaking, he was quite unable to.

Lucien was with her. Of course he was. He was one of the many things she had blocked from her vision with the blindfolds of her grief, and now she was lanced with guilt for the things she could remember. Please, he'd said, with altogether different but no less powerful form of agony than she herself had carried at the time. And she had ignored him, selfishly, villainously, so that she might continue striving for her revenge. Because if she'd really allowed herself to hear him, the weight of her guilt would have crushed her, and the Arishok would have walked away. Instead she had taken her revenge, and it failed to surprise her how little relief it brought.

What did surprise Sophia was how little she cared for Lucien's summarized report of what had happened in Kirkwall following that night. The Qunari were gone, and she could not help but feel glad for it. The Templars were keeping order, which she agreed with wholeheartedly. Whoever was to take up a leading role now, it surely could not be her, not after how wicked she had proved herself to be. How callous. Unthinking. Selfish. Reckless. Weak.

She forced the room into focus, blinking at Lucien beside her bed. "No, I... not right now." She would want some assistance from the Warden, considering how she felt, but she wasn't going to die now of all times, and there were more important things to be said first. Mostly with her arms, out of a desire to avoid using her core muscles, she pushed herself up slightly higher in her bed, the effort monumental, and causing her to wince painfully. "Help me sit up."

It was a slow, careful process, but eventually she found herself in a sitting position, pillows bracing behind her. She tentatively traced a finger over the newly formed scar under her night clothes. That would remain with her for the rest of her life. "Lucien, I..." She struggled to find words. This was not a place she had ever expected to end up in her life. These were feelings she had next to no experience struggling with. "I fear you've misjudged me. There cannot be a less worthy individual than I. Not after what I did."

For a moment, Lucien hovered, a bit unsure what to do with himself, clearly vacillating between going back to his chair, remaining standing, and something else. In the end, he pushed out an exasperated breath at his own indecisiveness and sat at the foot end of the mattress, drawing his legs up and underneath him. There was plenty of room, and he wasn’t terribly close, even, but there was a sense of emotional proximity greater than if he’d remained in the chair. Resting his hands on his knees, he tried to decide what to say, or rather, how he wanted to say it. That he would tell the truth wasn’t even really a matter that needed deciding—the closest he’d come to telling a lie in a very long time had been two weeks ago, and he hadn’t been able to do it then. He wouldn’t be able to do it now, either, not to her.

“I think…” he started softly, glancing down at his hands. There was a thin white scar that ran vertically down the back of the left one. Like anyone who’d regularly trained with sharp weapons, he had many more like it. Little mistakes he’d made when he was too young or too stupid or simply too inexperienced to know better. They were much more merciful than nearly being disemboweled, but the general principle was the same. “That what you did was reckless, and foolish, and quite likely to kill you. I think that you displayed a truly surprising lack of understanding when you did it.” He grimaced, and met her eyes. “Or at least, I hope you did, because to think that you realized exactly what you were doing to your friends, to me, and chose to do it anyway is… unpleasant.” An understatement. You nearly tore something out of me.

He swallowed thickly, shaking his head slightly. “But I understand why you did it, even so. For a long time after my mother died, I… felt powerless. Useless, ineffectual. It is perhaps harder to bear than the grief itself. I expect that I would have done something similar, had I come to be in your position then.” He flexed the hand with the scar.

“But what I don’t think is that worthiness comes from never making mistakes. If I did, well… I don’t expect I’d be able to find the wherewithal to drag myself out of bed in the morning, much less try to do anything worthwhile. Neither of us is without flaw, Sophia. And I have always thought that your worthiness is yours because of how well you learn and adapt to what is put before you. How you overcome the obstacles you face instead of allowing them to cow you. How even in moments of poor judgement or weakness, it is impossible for me to believe that you are anything but good. And that… that I do not think I have misjudged at all.” Lucien sighed through his nose. She had hurt him, deeply, and he wasn’t going to behave as though she hadn’t. But it was not an unforgivable transgression by any means, and he forgave it.

Sophia could not stop herself from crying by the end of it. A fortnight did much to regenerate tears, it seemed, and she wondered how long it would be before she was finally out of this bed, and no longer crying into it. She could hardly remember anything that had happened before Saemus died. There were vague images of a party, a beautiful dress, a memory of how her heart fluttered in her chest. A child was all she was, then, still blind to the cruelty of her future. It had not approached stealthily, either, but she'd ignored it all the same, certain that her effort and her goodness would somehow win out in the end. It was, of course, not enough.

Her throat was constricted to the point where it was difficult to breathe, and she fumbled with her hands, eyes seeking anything to settle on, because she could not meet his. "I... I wasn't thinking, I... couldn't think. He just... tossed my father's head at my feet, and I just... I forgot. Everything. None of it mattered anymore." The city that she'd struggled so hard to secure ceased to exist in that moment, and her friends suddenly became distant distractions in the way of a selfish, bloodthirsty goal.

"Maker, what have I done? I didn't want to hurt you, Lucien. I could never want that. I didn't want to hurt anyone. I knew it was wrong, but I thought... if I could make it so that only I suffered for it... such a stupid, pitiful excuse." She brought her knees up towards her chest, carefully, so that she might bury her head against them and fight against the growing shaking throughout her body. "I'm sorry." The word was completely inadequate to describe how she felt, but she could not be bothered to come up with anything better now. She could not stand the thought of hurting him, and she could not stand the knowledge that she had done just that.

He… hadn’t meant to make her cry, but he had to acknowledge that it was a possibility. Lucien honestly hated the fact that he’d done it, especially considering everything else that had happened, but some things needed to be said. Some wounds had to be lanced and bled, else they would fester and rot and become something poisonous. It was because he’d said what he had that he was able to bring himself to move closer, sitting such that he could reach out and place a hand on one of her raised knees. “I know,” he said gently. “And it is done now.” His second hand found the crown of her head, and he threaded her hair through his fingers, combing it out in soft motions, so as to avoid pulling at any tangles. It was considerably lanker than usual, given how long she’d spent in convalescence, but that didn’t concern him.

“Let that much at least trouble you no longer, for it was forgiven weeks ago.” He could not, of course, assuage any of her grief regarding her father, but he had no wish to add to it, really. Only to take away what he could.

He was quiet for a few moments, and then because the vein of honesty had been leading him so well, he risked something else. “I’m just glad you’re alive. We didn’t… we didn’t know if you would make it, for a while there.” He knew that the scene in the throne room would be the stuff of his nightmares for a very long time, modified in various ways but never missing the acute, terrible sensation that was warm blood soaking his hands through what had once been his sleeve. It would doubtless join the litany of phantasms that he’d accumulated over his life, and he could not doubt that it would always be prominent in that ordering. Especially not given how many times he’d woken from it in the last half a month.

But she was awake now, and alive still, and somehow, the air felt easier to breathe than it had in too long.

She huffed out a shaky breath, trying to steady herself. She touched her forehead to the fingers that were on her knee, the feeling of his touch somehow calming her. It was sufficient, for the moment, that he could forgive her. Forgiving herself would most certainly take much longer. This was... new territory for her. Nothing in her life previously had prepared her to handle what she'd gone through. She supposed she was the Viscountess of Kirkwall now, but she could not help but feel that in her current state, both of mind and of body, she was not even remotely fit for such a responsibility.

"I... don't know what to do, Lucien," she admitted. "Meredith can lead, I think. At least... until I'm ready." She did not know when that would be, or if the day would ever come. She knew that right now, she did not want it to. Politics and games of power and war had taken so much from her, her station and responsibility taking away or holding back what happiness seemed within her reach. She had been determined to wait, until the moment when she and Lucien might be more than just the closest of friends, but she was beginning to think that while the forces of their respective lineages pulled at them, they would never be free enough for that.

"I need time. Time to rest, time to think. Also... I think I may need Nostariel." She was slowly becoming aware that a fair bit of the pain in her was not emotional. But she tried her best to smile for him, to show him that this had not broken her, even if she would never be the same.

Lucien nodded. Time, at least, was something they had now. The Qunari were gone, and though he doubted Kirkwall would remain entirely peaceful—if it could even reach such a state to begin with—for the moment at least, there was no looming war. There was time enough to breathe, to rest and recuperate. Something which likely needed to continue now.

“Then I will go get her.”

Setting

7 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

It was after no small amount of thought that Aurora stood on the docks. There were many questions she had to ask herself and emotions she had to battle. Beside her stood Milly, a cloak thrown over her shoulders and a wide brimmed hat hiding the sunburst mark on her forehead. Unlike Aurora, Milly did not look out and into the horizon, but at the mage by her side, awaiting the next instruction. A pent up breath of air forced its passage through her nostrils as Aurora watched the ships come and go. There were many in the bay, but one in particular caught her attention. Pointing it out for Milly, Aurora spoke. "That one. That one's going to take you... Us, home."

The ship in question was entirely nondescript, ordinary in every sense in the word. A simple cargo ship that traded goods up and down along the coast. Aurora had worked out a deal with the captain. He would grant them passage in return for her work during their trip. She was not the poor stowaway she was when she first arrived, the crew would not take pity on her this time. She would have to earn their passage-- but she wasn't fragile as she once was. She was ready to work, and a momentary glance to the side revealed the crates she was to help load. They looked heavy, but her shoulders had long since grown accustomed to burdens. Nodding, she reached for Milly's hand and gave it a comforting squeeze, giving her a forced smile.

Antiva was their destination. Home. Aurora could not hope to keep Milly safe and hidden outside the Circle. Even though it had only been a few weeks since the Qunari incident, but already the Templars were asserting their control. She could feel their squeeze, and she feared it would not relent any time soon. Milly was not going to go to the Gallows. She would be a stranger there, completely and utterly alone and though she wouldn't realize it, Aurora would. Antiva's Circle was familiar, there were people there that knew Milly and could take care of her, better than she ever could. Rilien was right, Milly would be best off in a Circle, and the best Circle for her was Antiva's. It did not mean she wasn't nervous about the whole thing.

The ship lazily drifted into the harbor with both Aurora and Milly patiently awaiting its arrival. It steadily grew as it drew closer until finally they had to step out of the way of the gangplank. By then, the pair were joined by the other ship hands and once it was tied off, they began their work loading the cargo onto the boat. The Qunari may have damaged the city during their attack, but trade had recovered quickly and resumed within the weak. Aurora found the captain of the ship, worked out the final plans. She handed him a coin purse, full of the silvers she managed to save doing odd jobs around the city during her time there. It would buy his silence, and ensure that they reached their destination safely.

Aurora set about loading the cargo with the other ship hands quietly, avoiding any unnecessary conversations. They seemed to allow it, keeping their talk between themselves, and before long all the cargo on the docks was stowed away under deck. "You got an hour to finish any business before we shove off-- with or without you," The captain warned as he stepped off the ship. He headed toward Lowtown-- the Hanged Man for one last drink if Aurora had her guess. Nodding, Aurora sat down on the dock and let her feet dangle below, urging Milly to do the same.

"This is it," Aurora said, giving Milly's shoulder a protective rub. "In a month we'll be home again." Milly looked at her and nodded her acknowledgement. "It's as you say," She said simply.

"Do you plan to return?” a flat voice asked from behind them. It was in fact Rilien, bearing a smaller cargo crate of his own, which he handed off to the crewmen still on board, tucking the purse of sovereigns he received in return up one of his sleeves. He did not wear his money openly, because he knew exactly how simple it was for a good thief to take advantage—and how common it was for a bad thief to try. He knew the ship was headed for Antiva, and it was not difficult to divine Aurora’s intentions, given Milly’s presence, though he had to say he felt a small flicker of dull surprise at the fact that it would appear at least that she was actually taking his advice. He would have supposed her too emotionally attached to act on the logic in it. But then perhaps he was getting ahead of himself. Just because they were going to Antiva did not mean Millian was to be given to the Circle there. It would not shock him that Aurora had become tired of dealing with Kirkwall.

Still, he supposed he might as well ask, if perhaps only for Sparrow’s sake. It seemed like the kind of thing she would want to know, after all. "Have you adequate provisions for the journey?” He didn’t only mean food—likely, it had cost a substantial amount to get a ship captain to transport a Tranquil away from the city, particularly given the clues that provided to what Aurora was. It would be preferential that they actually made it to their final destination, rather than reaching the shores of their home only to starve on their way inland.

"Eventually," She answered. Aurora had told Lucien something to that effect, and despite all that happened between then and now, she still felt much the same. She still felt that she could do something there, that she could make a change in a city that needed it. But she couldn't do it as she was. Time was needed, to heal, to mend, and to make whole what was broken. The journey to Antiva was not for Milly's sake alone. Aurora needed it just as much, she needed time away to regroup and recollect herself. It was about time she took the long road home. Family would center her and give her strength. The next time she left them, it would not be by force, but by choice, and the tears would not be from sadness alone.

Aurora's eyes came back into focus as he spoke again. Leaning back on her arms, she looked up at Rilien. "Adequate enough," She answered, "We get off in Bastion." The importance of the destination may have seemed inconsequential to him as she never revealed where she lived before the Antivan Circle. She had told Lucien, but he was not the type to spread such information, and Rilien wasn't the type to ask. "From there, the DiMerenda Trading Company should help me get Milly into the city..." Should. She had asked the captain about the company, if he even knew about it, and from what she gathered her father's business was quite doing well for itself.

She wondered what he would say when he saw her again. What would she say? What would he think about Milly? It was the cause of the knot in her stomach. There was so much uncertainty, but it was not without its measure of excitement. It was closing in on eight years since the last time she'd seen her family, she wanted to see them again. She just wished it could've been under better circumstances.

Rilien nodded with a sense of thoughtfulness, though perhaps that was only because he always seemed so serious. He made a small movement on one of his arms, something akin to a shrugging motion, though the gesture itself would have looked odd on him, and hooked his fingers around the small satchel that fell from his sleeve. “If one could account for all the circumstances in which bribery was necessary, there would be fewer.” It would seem that this explained the fact that he was dropping the coinpurse into Aurora’s hand, or was at least as much an explanation as he was going to give. Glancing briefly sideways at Milly, he offered a nod to both.

Bon voyage.” Rather ironic, maybe, from him. He could hear the approach of others, however, and had no desire to remain. Therefore, he didn’t, choosing instead to turn on his heel and depart. His business, after all, was done.

Her mouth moved to tell him it wasn't necessary, but summarily closed. Aurora could attempt to return the coinpurse, but the end result would be same. He was a lot like Amalia in that regard, he did nothing without a purpose and to try to reject a gift from either would only make her feel silly in the end. So instead her eyes fell to the collection of coins in her hands, jingling them for effect before stowing them away on her person. "I'll pay you back," She said adamantly. She owed him a lot more than a few coins, but at least the coins she could repay.

Lucien had made a bit more of a concerted effort to actually be present to see his friend off, and he arrived at about the same time as Amalia and Ithilian did. He’d been left temporarily once more in charge of the embrium, but he figured it would be good to come say a more proper farewell-for-now regardless. Bereft of most of his armor, he approached the other two with a small smile. “I know it is not undertaken for the nicest of reasons,” he admitted, glancing at Milly’s impassive expression with something unreadable in his expression, “But I must confess to a twinge of envy all the same. I understand that Antiva is simply lovely in the summertime.” It was more than that, of course; Aurora was making a journey back to her homeland, and given what they had told each other of such things, he knew it was not insignificant for her by any means.

“I am glad you get to go back, regardless.”

"I'd.. Be.. Caught in a lie if I said I wasn't intimidated," Aurora revealed. The anxiousness she felt was clear in her face, but it held a look of not excitement, but an emotion more subdued. She was looking forward to going back home, despite the circumstances. It was not to be an entirely joyous return, but it was a return. She found enough solace in that to keep her looking forward. Worrying, thinking about how things could've be different, and fretting on circumstances out of her hands would do nothing to help neither Milly nor her. Forcing a smile back to her face, Aurora nodded and thanked him. "But.. Me too," She said.

Amalia, who had thus far simply been scrutinizing the scene in her usual stoic fashion, seemed to find nothing wrong with the seaworthiness of the vessel from where she was standing, and so turned from it to Aurora instead. Her lips pursed slightly, her expression appearing troubled for a short moment before it smoothed back out. “Be wary,” was all she said, though perhaps even two words made everything else clear enough.

Looking back to Amalia, Aurora held her words for a moment before accepting them for what they were. "Of course," she replied. Not everything needed to be put to words for the meaning to be found, and she was grateful for what hid behind them.

"Don't be intimidated," Ithilian urged her, though quite gently. He was no mentor of hers as Amalia had been, nor did he have years of friendship with her to call upon. He spoke more from being the one in the current group who had already taken the opportunity to return to what had once been home, and learn from it. "Keep a clear head, and don't doubt yourself. You'll find the way forward." The clear head was easily the most difficult part, when dealing with anything that evoked powerful emotions, something he knew Aurora was going through with everything that had happened. But he'd found a way through it, and from what he'd seen of how much Aurora had grown, she would too.

"We'll be glad to have you back when you return."

“Hurry, hurry! C'mon, it's a shortcut—”

The insistent urgings came from the half-haphazardly dressed sprite dragging Ashton through winding alleyways and down questionable cobble-stone streets, all the while clutching onto the sleeve of his shirt as if he would simply wander away if she let go. Flighty as she was, she hadn't actually explained why he had to go with her this instant, but she still managed to convince him to follow along with her, and while they walked, she finally told him where they were headed and, more importantly, why. Spending time in the Alienage, and in the gardens specifically, she'd already heard what had befallen on Milly. She was familiar with Tranquility. Far more than she wished to admit. She supposed it was worse for Aurora, since she'd known Milly when she was wide-eyed with curiosity and teeming with enthusiasm. To have that all stripped away and not know what to do afterward. She couldn't imagine it. With her and Rilien, it was much different. True enough, it was difficult seeing him as anything other than who he was, for everything he had been was little more than tales he seldom shared.

As soon as they rounded the aforementioned bend, Sparrow relinquished her grip on his sleeve and spared Ashton having to replace his shirt altogether. Had she shown any signs of acknowledging her roughhousing and oblivious rudeness, she certainly did not show it, as she was already waving her arms in the air, trying to call over to the assembled group without shrieking across the docks. Not that that would have been all too surprising given that she had the subtlety of a bugling dragon flying overhead. She abandoned her gestures, leaving Ashton at the mouth of the alleyway, and broke into a brisk jog. Then an impatient sprint, as if they would hurry onto the ship and disappear before they had the chance to say goodbye. Each crisis, each tragedy, she'd learned, in mostly awful ways, revealed truer measures of a person's character. The parts one would normally hide away, because they were raw, ragged things. In Aurora, she saw hidden strength. Maturity, patience, and even if she felt lost, she recognized a sense of direction.

By the time she reached them, she inhaled sharply and held a hand against her chest to slow its thumping. No endurance, after all. She was all momentary bluster, with hardly any staying power. “G, good, you're... not gone... yet,” she breathed, puffing her chest out and planting her hands on her hips, “Can't leave.. without saying... goodbye.” Finally looking around her, Sparrow noted who was here, and who was absent. Everyone was here... except for Rilien, which was strange, wasn't it? He had given her all of the right information. The destination and the time, and a stern-eyed warning that if she were late, the captain would not wait and she'd miss her chance to say goodbye.

She straightened and hooked her thumb over her shoulder, indicating that she had another wily visitor to see her off. Without another word, Sparrow bustled towards her and cupped her face between her calloused hands, planting a kiss on her forehead. She pulled away and stooped to do the same to Milly, brushing strands of hair away from the starburst tattoo, before planting another whispery kiss—while it may have been just her way of saying farewell, it was one of the only things she could remember mothers doing to say that they would always be there. She stepped back from them and smiled unabashedly. They would do fine, the both of them. She'd never been good at comforting others, she simply expected things would pan out, as she did now.

“I'll tend the garden until you're back, yeah?”

"I, uh," Aurora stammered clearly not expecting a goodbye kiss. Her cheeks matched her hair for a moment before she gathered herself and nodded, a smile at her lips. "Thank you Sparrow." For both the garden, and the farewell. Looking over her shoulder, she watched as Nostariel's friend, the lanky archer she'd met in the Hanged Man followed behind Sparrow straightening his clothes that he'd almost gotten pulled out of.

Ashton took a moment to exchange nods with Ithilian before leaning on Sparrow, planting his elbow on the crook of her neck and cupping his head with the hand. "What she means to say, is that she'll miss you dearly," He said, flicking a lock of Sparrow's hair. "And between you and me," He said, hiding his lips from her, "I think you're a good influence on her." A playful smile fluttered across his lips as he suspiciously eyed Sparrow for a moment. "But I'm not only saying farewell for myself, though make no mistake, you'll be missed. If Nos was up and running, I'm sure she would've been here too. She'll miss you and I'm positive she's sorry she couldn't make it," he said, somewhat apologetically. "So don't forget about us, yeah?" He asked with a laugh. Like anyone could forget them.

Aurora nodded gently grateful for his message and agreed, "Of course not. Thank you-- both. And give Nostariel my best wishes." If she ever had doubts about returning, maybe lingering in Antiva, they were summarily dismissed and replaced with the desire to return one day. It was a journey she needed to take, one that was a long time in coming. Grabbing Milly gently by the arm, she drew the girl close to her side and bowed. "Thank you-- All of you. And Milly thanks you as well, I'm sure," She said, Milly nodding along. Just then, a whistle cried out from the ship behind them. The captain stood on the deck and beckoned them to hurry, they were about to set sail.

Nodding, Aurora couldn't shake the want for just little bit more time, just another minute or two to express just... Just how thankful she was. For their support, their belief, and their friendship. "Thank you all," She said, her eyes wavering, "For everything." She couldn't imagine trying to survive Kirkwall alone. She couldn't imagine life without them. She didn't want to think how life would've turned out if she didn't duck into the Hanged Man all those years ago. "I'll be back. Soon. I promise," She pledged. Taking Milly's hand into her own, Aurora stepped onto the boat as it floated away from the dock. She stood at the bow, waving until they faded from view and nothing but water surrounding them.

Aurora then leaned against the bow rubbing the spray from her eyes. "We're going home," She told Milly as she stared out across the sea. A moment of silence passed between them, before Milly spoke. "Are you?" She asked. Aurora looked at her before smiling, looking out back toward Kirkwall.

"No. I'm leaving it."

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

It took everything Nostariel had left to get Sophia back on her feet and drag herself back down to the clinic. In truth, she couldn’t even remember if she locked her door as she stumbled back in across the threshold—her vision had been going in and out by that point, and she may have only let it fall shut before she lurched over to the nearest cot and fell into it, not even able to take her boots off before oblivion took her. The strain of protracted reliance on artificial mana had bled her dry of basically everything she had, and she was certain she looked more like a Darkspawn than a Warden by the time she was finally done.

The first time she woke was three days later, and that only because she was—quite literally—starving, and desperately in need of nourishment. Someone, she knew not who, had left basic food items on her counter, fruits, bread, cheese, and the like. She did not take this to mean she’d forgotten to lock the door—she knew many people who could easily make quick work of such a simple measure, after all. By the time she’d downed all she could make herself eat, she was shaking from the strain of being up and moving again, and she fell back asleep leaning against the counter, only to wake again a few hours later and lose most of what she’d eaten, half-digested at best.

Remembering only then her lessons on things like this, she stuck to water and weak, fitful dozing for a couple of days after that, and transitioned back into solid food only when she could move around without excessive risk of toppling over. She still spent most of her days sleeping for the better part of two weeks in total, and even then, she felt thin and ragged, but content. Looking outside was at least not likely to bring her images of the dying or dead anymore, the sun was bright enough for the time of year, and her friends… her friends were alive this time. At least as far as she knew. She really did need to go pay some visits to make absolutely certain—not all of them had been much better than she was by the end of all that. One step at a time though—for now, she was going to tidy the clinic.

Tap, tap, tap.

A series of soft raps echoed from Nostariel's window, and on the other side of the pane of glass stood Ashton, pointing questioningly at the door. It'd be just like him to barge through the door without asking first, but with all that she'd went through, he felt that a bit of finesse was required-- at least at the beginning. It'd become a routine for him by now, to make an occasional stop at the clinic and make sure that Nostariel was still alive, if not entirely conscious. In fact, he'd almost kept walking by until he confirmed that, no, the motion he saw wasn't just his eyes playing tricks on his mind.

He worried about her, but he also understood that he could do nothing beside occasionally checking on her and delivering basic foodstuffs. He'd not the gift she had, he was no healer, but that didn't mean she lacked his support. She needed her space to recover at her own pace, and his silly mug constantly staring at her would probably do more harm than good. He'd spent the time instead working on fixing his shop, and it served another purpose in helping to take his mind off his constant fretting. Seeing Nostariel up and moving, he breathed a deep sigh of relief, and the big smile plastered to his face was genuine. Slipping from the window to the door, he poked his head through and spoke, letting a bit of concern seep into his voice.

"You... Okay? How're you feeling?" Below Ashton's head, Snuffy's snout poked through and peered at Nostariel with puppy-dog eyes. Ash wasn't the only one who'd been worried.

Nostariel returned the smile, if a touch less broadly, and beckoned with her hand. As though she’d ever turn him away. Still, she’d appreciated the opportunity to get her feet back under her, so to speak. She wondered if he was responsible for the food, but didn’t ask. There were a lot of people she could think of who might have done it, and that in itself was a gift. It didn’t especially matter which one of them had covered her back this time, only that so many would. It was a nice feeling, to be able to fall backwards sometimes and know that there would always be someone there to catch her, and she found herself in high spirits despite her still somewhat-weakened condition.

“Much better than I was…however long ago you last saw me conscious.” She estimated that about a fortnight had passed since then, but it was no certain thing—her ability to keep track of time had been severely hobbled by her lack of much awareness. “Actually, if you wouldn’t mind catching me up on everything that’s happened since Sophia woke up, I’d appreciate it.” She pulled out a chair in an invitation to sit, then moved across to the other side of the counter to go back to putting things back in their places. There was a little niggling at the back of her mind—a small reminder that there was probably something else they ought to be talking about, but she wasn’t quite prepared to bring that up at the moment, and so she left it be.

"Well, you know. Wouldn't be Kirkwall if something's not happening," Ashton admitted, taking the proffered seat. Snuffy followed him in, and laid down beside him, watching as Nostariel flitted about her shop. "Let's start with the most important bit?" He began with a cocky grin, "Repairs on my shop are going though it'll be another age before I ever get it stocked up again." The grin then shifted into a frown. It wasn't only the stock that he lost, but all of his wood art upstairs. Some were too scratched, others were outright smashed, but the people the potraits were modelled after were safe and that's all that really mattered in the end. He can replace his idle whittlings, he can't replace his friends. He stayed on the topic of his shop for only another moment before continuing.

He told her about the power struggle between Meredith's Templars and the Captainless guard, that was just as likely to run into a Templar as it was an ordinary guard. "So keep a Warden badge on you when you go out," A trickle of worry finding his voice again. He'd hate to have a mix up on their hands, and have to break into the Gallows for a second time, but if he needed to... He moved on and told Nostariel about how Aurora embarked on her journey home, and he continued to speak about relatively minor bits of news as she continued to tidy up around the clinic.

Ashton leaned back in his chair, lifting it off of two legs by the time he exhausted what news he knew. "The usual really. Kirkwall's a disaster, but it's our disaster. Do you, uh, need help?" He asked, wondering if she'd rather him do something besides nothing at all.

No sooner had he asked the question than Nostariel decided she was done enough for the moment, and took the seat beside him, propping her feet on her counter in an uncharacteristically-lax posture. She tipped her head back against the wooden chair—not the most comfortable arrangement, but a relief nonetheless. Her hands dangled on either side of her until she pulled one up into her lap and used the other to rub at the spot behind Snuffy’s ear that the hound favored. “In truth, I think I’ve had about all the cleaning I can take.” It had been what she’d been using to occupy herself for the last week, after all. While the place wasn’t precisely spotless, it was close enough, and she really didn’t want to spend any more time on it at the moment.

“If you want to help me, you can help me get out of here for a while.” She smiled wryly and shrugged, slightly awkwardly considering she was still petting the dog. “I’m not exactly up for running about Kirkwall and chasing away bandits, but at this point, a little fresh air might do me some good, if you’ve the time.” She wasn’t so confident in her recovery that she’d venture out of the city alone yet, but if there was someone else around to make sure she didn’t break her leg in a foxhole, it might be nice to breathe something that didn’t smell like cleaners or sooty aftermath.

"For you, my pretty little Warden? I've got nothing but time," He said, letting the chair settle back on all four legs again before rising. "And don't you worry about any of those pesky bandits trying to jump us, we've got ourselves a stalwart protector," He added, pointing at Snuffy. A proud bark was his immediate response, and she too rose from her haunches, eager to escape the hustle and bustle of the city. He let his grin linger for a while longer before letting this bravado fade away into something more... Natural. Soft, almost. A real smile fell into his lips as he offered his Nostariel a hand to her feet. "Come on, we'll steal you away from the city for a while. You deserve that much at least."




Somehow, they always managed to find their way back to this spot.

It was here, at this lookout point with a view of the city and the surrounding landscape, that Ashton had taught her to fire a bow, and told her the story of his greatest personal failure. But it had also been the site of many a pleasant sunset, and though it was still morning this time, she could almost see the other colors anyway. Picking a spot not too far back from the sheer drop-off that allowed for the view, Nostariel eased herself down into the grass. It wasn’t the worst climb to get here by any means, but it wasn’t especially easy, either, and she was still not exactly in great condition. Her breaths came a little faster and more shallowly than normal, and she could hear her heart thumping in her ears. Though… that may have more to do with what she was planning on saying than anything else.

She waited until Ash and Snuffy were more or less settled as well, folding her hands in her lap and fixing her eyes pointedly on the furthest point she could see. When was the last time she had been nervous in this way? She wasn’t sure she could recall the feeling, at least not exactly. Unlike other kinds of anxiety, it wasn’t wholly unpleasant, but… in some strange way that almost made it worse. Nostariel took a deep breath, filling her lungs with sweet mountain air, and then let it out again. “Hey, Ash?” With some effort, she turned her head so as to be facing him instead of the horizon. “Sorry to bring this up out of the blue but… what happened, before we split up the day of the attack… how should I take that?”

Ashton stood at the lip of the cliff, and beheld the horizon around them like the captain of a ship would his deck, with his hands on his hips and his back straight against the winds. It'd been... A while since they were last here, or at least he felt it was. Too long. It was a shame, really. He'd loved their little spot away from everything but each other. He closed his eyes and let go of a deeply held breath, one he didn't know he had pent up. With the breath, he could feel the stale city air escape his lungs and replaced with the fresh air around them. He missed this.

He pulled himself from the cliff's edge, and gave Snuffy a gentle pat on the head as he passed, making his way to his spot beside Nostariel. When she called his name, he tilted his head to look and waited to listen for what she wanted to say. And she was right, it was out of the blue. His eyes grew wide as saucers and he turned to look away, but there was no hiding the rosy tint in his cheeks. It was his turn to be a nervous wreck, and unlike Nostariel, he didn't have near the practice that entailed. It was a strange feeling, the warm fluttering in his stomach and his mind stumbling. "It's uh..." He tried and failed.

It happened in the heat of the moment, they were parting ways, unsure if he'd ever see her again. He did what his heart told him to, and told himself no regrets. "Well you see..." He floundered again. Ashton was not a man who got flustered, but then again, there he was. Maker he was terrible at this. But did he have any regrets? Not a single one. Unconsciously he ran a hand through his hair and scratched the back of his head, trying to ignore the burning in his ears.

"How... How do you think you should take it?"

Nostariel groaned, pulling her knees to her chest and setting her forehead against them, letting her hair do some of the work towards concealing her own (completely obvious anyway) embarrassment. Somehow the fact that he was clearly struggling for words made it even worse for her as well, and she would have laughed were she not so busy trying not to die of shame. That would be how she went, after all the other things that should have killed her. “I don’t know; that’s why I asked you!” Her voice was muffled, but still audible, the tips of her ears basically the same rosy shade as his.

Of course, when she lifted her head off her knees, it was obvious enough that the rest of her face and neck was basically the same. Nostariel couldn’t help herself—she did laugh. They were adults, but seemingly incapable of acting like anything but children or awkward teenagers at the moment. It was at once mortifying and a little giddy. The look on his face, though—she really couldn’t help herself. When the only slightly hysterical giggling died down, she was still smiling like an idiot, but she didn’t feel quite so awkward anymore. “We’re not… very good at this, are we?” She took a deep breath and pressed her hands to her cheeks, feeling the warmth of the blush and shaking her head at herself.

"No. No we are not," Ashton agreed. Nostariel's laughter was infectious though and it leapt into his throat soon after. Pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes he fell over backward and faced the sky above. His giggling was less restrained, fully aware of their ridiculousness. "Darkspawn? Fine, we can handle those. Demons? We fight them every other weekend. Qunari? Eh, no problem. But feelings? Feelings? Oh Maker please no, what're we going to do?" Ashton found himself in another laughing fit. The laughter had done something for him, he felt he wasn't as nervous, as stricken as a love-sick puppy. The gears in his mind began to turn again, though he still felt like his ears were pressed up against a torch.

Sliding his hands from his eyes to his forehead, he pushed the hair out of his face and stared at the clouds above them. He had an idea that his entire face was still red as a beet, but he didn't care anymore. They could sit there and try to fumble around miserably, or he could at least try to mount an attempt. He promised himself no regrets, but if he left this place without telling her... He didn't think he'd regret anything more. A glance to his side revealed Snuffy glaring at him. Fine, he mouthed.

"Nos, I..." He tried again. Rolling his eyes at himself he shook his head and pushed back up into a sitting position. Even after all that, he couldn't find the exact words he wanted to say. He didn't know how to word what he felt, because he never felt like that before. But... But maybe he was making it harder than it was supposed to be. It was the easiest thing in the world for him, a feeling so natural he couldn't imagine life without it. Couldn't imagine life without her. He reached across the gap between them, taking the hand from her face and cupping it in his. "I, uh..." His fingers tightened around hers, refusing to let go of her as he pulled.

Then something gave. A smile flitted into his lips as the words jumped into his head. "I have this secret, do you wanna know what it is?" Gone was all of his hesitance, his fear, his anxiety. He was right, if he'd just stop trying to fight against it, it was the most natural thing in the world. He really should just listen to his heart more often. His other hand came around and gently held the back of her head, pressing her forehead against his.

"I think I might be in love, Nos."

He might as well have stayed sprawled on the ground, because, small or not, that was likely where he’d end up considering the force with which Nostariel knocked into him. It really was a little bit like being an adolescent again, the strange excitement of nascent feelings which really weren’t that nascent at all, just very new in the expression. She hugged him around the middle, still smiling like a lackwit, her happiness threatening to overflow her eyes in the form of joyful tears. She wasn’t sure she’d though they were possible, though of course she’d heard the expression before. “What an incredible coincidence.” Nostariel rolled over onto her side, such that they were facing each other on the grass. “Because… I think I might be in love too, Ash.”

And her skepticism be damned, there really were happy tears running down her face. Perhaps she was allowed something like that, after everything they’d been through over these past few years. She’d fallen slowly, somewhere between all the work they both did and the demons, metaphorical and literal, they faced down, both together and apart. She hadn’t been looking to, not after the last time. But whether she’d known at the time or not, she’d fallen hard, and it was an unmistakable relief to her that she hadn’t been falling alone.

“Does this mean that we’re, ah…” She cleared her throat with lingering awkwardness, but she was still smiling, somehow much less concerned about that part than she had been before. “Together?” It seemed a bit of a ridiculous formality—but then, if she remembered properly, there were a lot of ridiculous things about being in love. One simply ceased to care about how silly it all was. There was too much else to care about instead.

He was knocked backward but he laughed like a twit all the way. There was a certain liberation to be had in finally telling her what he'd known for so long. That he unequivocally, irrevocably loved her without a doubt in his mind. And when she mirrored his words, his smile reached from ear to ear. He felt like he was free falling, and hoped that he'd never stop. The smile spread so wide across his face and so earnest that it actually began to hurt. He saw the tears well up in her eyes, and despite himself he found his own watering as a result. He brushed his thumb across her face, wiping the tears away and pushing the hair out of her eyes. He'd never thought he'd feel like this, he could never have imagined the feeling of pure bliss between them. Once he believed that he didn't deserve it, but damn what he deserved-- he wanted this. More than anything else in the world.

"I really hope so," He chuckled, "else this is going to be incredibly awkward tomorrow." With nothing else to say, Ashton drew in close for another kiss, content that this time they both knew what it meant.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

Sophia could not forget the last time she left the Keep, as much as she wanted to. She could remember the way she felt, that crushing knowledge that her brother was still dead, but she still had to struggle to keep others from suffering the same fate. But there had been a kind of hope, too, a glimmer of hope that whatever she attempted could still work, only compounded when she learned of the existence of the book that the Qunari sought for. Of course, there had never really been any hope for that. The people in this city had been intent on murdering each other. A pointless, futile...

No, she didn't want to think about that right now. Any thoughts about what had happened that day brought little but pain, and she'd had just about enough of that for a while. Today would be her first day out and about, she had decided. She wasn't entirely sure if she was ready for that, given that she'd only been able to start moving around the Keep again two days ago, but... she couldn't stand to stay in there for another minute. She avoided the throne room as though it carried a plague, and did the same for Bran, for Meredith, for anyone of note who inevitably desired to ask her about what she planned to do next.

Sophia did not know the answer to that. There were many things that she did not want to do, and taking up her father's rule was right at the top of that list. The discussion of selecting a new Viscount or Viscountess had not even begun among the nobles; all of them seemingly thought that Sophia simply needed some time, and that soon she would settle back down and accept her inheritance. Perhaps they just didn't want to suggest Meredith step down from her position of temporary Stewardess of the city. Sophia could not give them a worthwhile answer one way or the other. Maybe they were right, and she just needed time and distance from recent events, to clear her head, and decide the best way forward.

In any case, it didn't have to happen today. Nostariel was due up to the Keep for a check-in on Sophia's recovery, but by Sophia's understanding of it, the Warden hadn't fared well from the strain, either. Rather than ask her to spend another afternoon expending magical energy she sorely needed to recover, Sophia wondered if they might not take a walk about Hightown instead. Any time out of the Keep would put Sophia in a better mood, she did not doubt, and it would be good to talk with her friend again.

So to that end, the Viscount's daughter, or the Viscountess (the Five-Minute Queen, she'd heard once), or whatever she was now, dressed herself comfortably and pulled her hair back into a ponytail, heading carefully down the steps of the Keep to meet Nostariel at the base, so that she would not need to climb any more for nothing.

Nostariel, as it turned out, still felt a little bit like she was walking on clouds. Not literally, of course, but there was just this lightness to her step that she wasn’t sure she could remember having experienced before, like if she wasn’t careful, her feet would stop hitting the ground and she’d just float away somewhere else. She even managed to hum to herself—somewhat tunelessly, as it turned out—as she went, aware of the lingering signs of a month ago but resolved for the moment not to let them dampen her mood. There was, she could say from years of experience, plenty of opportunity to be appropriately solemn and sad; opportunities for happiness like this were far fewer, and worth the cherishing.

So she flitted—actually flitted about the clinic that morning, packing a small satchel of things Sophia might need and finishing the last bit of tidying. After all the use they’d seen, she’d had to change her tables and countertops, as well as a lot of the rest of her equipment, but fortunately, she had friends who were not bad with such skills as carpentry and whittling, so the clinic might actually look better now than it ever had. It seemed to fit, really.

Twisting her hair into a knot atop her head, she fastened it in place, tied on the Warden sigil, just in case, and swung the light satchel over her back, leaving Oathkeeper and her arrows at home. Her injuries and exhaustion had faded to a dull ache, and for that, exercise was just as good as rest, really, and so she didn’t mind the walk up to the Keep at all, breaking out into a wide smile when she saw Sophia already descending the steps. “Now, milady, are you sure your healer would allow you out and about so soon?” The chastening note in the question was entirely for show, and the expression on her face made it rather obvious. Of course, Nostariel did wonder about Sophia’s current state of mind, considering, but it was unlikely to be something she wanted to talk about at present. There were plenty of other people sure to be reminding her of it at every opportunity. So Nostariel at least would not, not unless Sophia brought it up first.

Part of Sophia was rather tired of being referred to as milady, but the smile on Nostariel's face helped her look past it, and she actually returned it, though her own was not nearly so full. It was good to see her again, looking almost none the worse for wear after all she'd been through during the attack. In fact, the Warden seemed in high spirits, and Sophia imagined that her being up and about once again wasn't the entire cause of that. "The way I see it," she said, reaching out to give Nostariel a hug, "as long as my healer accompanies me on my walk, we shouldn't have any problems." She was glad to see that Nostariel was bouncing back physically. Now she didn't have to feel guilty about leaning on her just a little.

Sliding her arm under Nostariel's, she set out at an easy pace, taking a moment to enjoy just how much more open the air seemed out here than inside the confines of the Keep, lofty as they were. "Really, though, I think I just needed to get out of the Keep for a while. It's not... well, I just needed to get out for a while." There was no good way to describe it, she supposed. It was either a feeling one understood or one that they did not. She wondered if Nostariel had ever felt that way about the Circle, before she'd become a Warden.

"Do you know if the market is open again?" she asked, changing the subject. There had been heavy fighting there, if she recalled correctly, and while Hightown was the first part of the city to have order restored to it by the Templars, many of the merchants were not eager to come out and risk their goods so quickly, with the city guard as depleted as it was.

Nostariel could definitely sympathize, and resolved to keep the topics of conversation well away from anything to do with why it might be that Sophia felt the need to get out for a bit. “Mostly, I think. There are a few merchants who might not feel comfortable setting up for a while, but if there’s one thing Templars are always good at, it’s imposing a sense of order. I suspect most people feel fairly safe by this point.” Sometimes that was a good thing, sometimes not so much, but she restricted her comment to that, because talking about the Templars right now was talking about the state of the city, and it was only going to circle back to unpleasant things eventually. Given how ubiquitous such matters were, though…

“Why do you ask? Have you the sudden desire to peruse exotic silks? Taste the new spice shipments from Antiva? Complain that the Orlesian vintage for sale is clearly not sufficiently aged?” Nostariel’s smile crinkled her eyes at the corners. Minus possibly looking at silk, none of those things were like Sophia in the slightest, and the very mental image of her (mostly) practical friend doing something so frivolous as complaining about the date on a bottle of Orlesian red was rather incongruous. Enough so that she found it funny.

"I've forgotten my jewelry today, I'm afraid," she said, taking up a slightly haughty tone, "I always need my jewelry if I'm going to harass the merchants." She had, of course, never harassed a merchant in her life, as best she could recall, and certainly wouldn't do so over something like a vintage or a shipment of spice. The markets sounded nice, however. Sophia didn't intend on purchasing anything, as she hadn't even brought any money with her today, but if there was a specific place that had the most color and energy in Hightown, it was there. Well, she supposed the Blooming Rose could have it beat, but she wasn't really looking for that kind of color and energy. Mostly she was looking for a place to walk around, where interesting things could catch her eyes.

Nostariel, though... Nostariel was acting strangely, in perhaps the best way possible. Sophia had expected her to still be tired, exhausted even, perhaps in low spirits as well from all that had happened recently, but she was quite the opposite. "You are positively glowing today, you know that?" Her tone was the slightest bit teasing, as she could guess that the good mood wasn't just for her benefit. "I suspect I know what this is about. A certain kiss comes to mind, at any rate." One look at her was enough to confirm that. She hadn't thought much of it at the time, given everything else that was going on, but with some separation from it, Sophia could realize just how much that would mean to Nostariel. She nudged her gently in the ribs with an elbow.

"Let's hear the details, then."

Nostariel coughed off to the side, clearly more than a little abashed by how obvious she was being, but too happy to really do anything about it. Still, when next she lifted her eyes to Sophia, her enthusiasm had contained itself into a smile with a tinge of embarrassment. “I’m being insufferable, aren’t I?” She rolled her eyes in a good-natured fashion, and sighed, half from a sort of self-effacement and half… well the other half was honest-to-Maker dreaminess, if she was being completely honest. “It was, um… awkward, actually. Though I’m sure that’s not hard to guess. I think… I think we were both a little… wary, maybe. Cautious at the very least. I was admittedly terrified.” A bit like jumping off a cliff without knowing if the drop was two feet or two hundred. A piece of her recent conversation with Lucien came back to mind.

“It’s difficult, not knowing. Even if it seems obvious to everyone else, maybe. I suppose it was obvious, wasn’t it?” She wasn’t certain she wanted to know how much—that might be even more embarrassing in retrospect. All the hedging, the dancing around. A bit silly, now that she knew there’d been nothing to worry about. Perhaps they’d each had to come into themselves a little first, but there was nothing much stopping them, afterwards, save their own hesitations.

The two women reached the market proper, the sight of the former Viscount’s daughter arm-in-arm with an elf of all things hardly even registering on the scale of strangeness anymore. Perhaps in another month or two, such things would again be worthy of skeptical sideways looks, but for the moment, everything was a bit too unsettled to lean so heavily on conventions. Or so it seemed to Nostariel. The air in the market was, as it often seemed to be, a little thick with the aromas of some of the wares for sale: perfumes, spices, steel. It wasn’t overpowering, but it was easily perceptible. A few of the stands still had damage here or there, but by and large, things were in working order. Merchants could hardly afford extended recovery times, after all.

“But… I suppose I can’t regret even that. He was very sweet. I mean, Ash is always sweet, but… well.” The Warden colored slightly, shaking her head. “We went up to a lookout point on Sundermont, you know, view of the whole city. Oh that sounds dreadfully clichéd now that I say it out loud.” The thought amused her more than anything, though. “I asked him… how I should take that, you know… the kiss. It took us a bit of time, but eventually we wound up in the right place.” Nostariel realized she was rambling somewhat, and perhaps had been doing so for quite some time now, and the permanent smile became apologetic for a moment. “I ah, didn't mean to gush there, sorry.” There was a pause. She wasn’t sure how to ask her next question tactfully, so she settled for asking it gently. “Did… did Lucien say anything to you, after you woke up? He never left you, you know. I told him it might help you if people talked to you, so he spent most of his time reading you things, or reciting Orlesian poetry. I didn’t understand most of it, but it sounded nice.”

Sophia had been delighting in Nostariel's awkward ramblings, but her smile faded somewhat when the topic of Lucien was brought up. She supposed she should have expected it, given how she prodded into Nostariel's own personal affairs, but still the prospect of actually talking about it caught her off guard. If anyone else had asked, she might have politely told them that it had been a difficult time for both of them and she didn't wish to discuss it, but she and Nostariel were close enough of friends to overcome any wariness she had.

"I... don't remember any of that. I wish I did, though." It didn't surprise her that Lucien would not leave her side, or that he would read to her, speak to her, do whatever he thought would help to make her well. That was just the kind of man that he was. And every time she realized she had that kind of affection from him, she felt nervous, light as air, warm, and now... the slightest bit guilty.

"We didn't talk much after I woke, it wasn't long before I needed you. But... I know that I hurt him, with what I did. He forgave me, of course... but I don't think I'm ready to forgive myself just yet." She fixated her eyes on whatever seemed most interesting to look at. Stalls selling wares to nobles who had already forgotten the trouble with the Qunari, patrolling Templars walking the routes that the city guard had once taken care of. She wasn't going to have another breakdown, she knew, and she was glad for that, but this was still a difficult thing to talk about. Next to the deaths of her father and brother, it was high up on the list of things that troubled her. Still, it was better not to keep it bottled inside.

"I know how much he cares, and I know I feel the same, but I'm not sure if it can ever work. Maker knows I want it to. It's like there has always been a wall between us, the complications of our circumstances, everything that has gotten in the way. I'd thought we might have been close, before... but now I just don't know." Lucien's situation had never been ideal, but with time, things seemed to be improving. Her own, she knew, had just become considerably worse. There were things that were expected of her, and they did not include running away from her responsibilities, living a more simple life somewhere with the man she loved, but she could not deny that was her greatest desire. In truth, there seemed to be no right answers.

Nostariel frowned thoughtfully. It was really the opposite problem, wasn’t it? Getting to the point of mutually acknowledging what was between them probably wouldn’t be all that difficult for Sophia and Lucien. Translating that into some kind of actual relationship would be the tricky part. There were so many barriers in the way of it. Entirely too convoluted, as far as Nostariel was concerned, but that wasn’t the fault of either of them. She’d had a bit of experience trying to navigate a similar situation, but her solution back then had been to sidestep the station problem by changing her station, an option that wasn’t exactly available to them in the same way. It was not a situation she could ever envy. “That’s… certainly not an easy fix.” A grave understatement.

The Warden sighed, and reached her free arm over to pat Sophia’s hand where it was resting on her other one. “But really, if there are any two people I’ve ever known who can figure it out, it would be the two of you. I doubt it will be easy, but then… that doesn’t really seem to be the way any of us do things, especially not you and he. You don’t have to figure it out today, at any rate.” She smiled the most encouraging one she had, then turned her attention back to the market stalls. Something smelled absolutely delightful. “A problem we can solve right now is our obvious lack of cookies. My treat.”

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

It was an ordinary day, but for Ashton, it was anything but. Words like extraordinary, wonderful, magnificent, and amazing came to mind. He'd never felt genuinely happier in his entire life and was a walking font of positive energy. A tune fell from his lips as he whistled down one of Lowtown streets with an obvious pep in his step and a little skip to his hop, with his faithful hound dutifully at his side. He was dressed lightly that day, his shirt sleeves rolled up to the elbows, his bow and machete absent. He didn't want to ruin the day burdening himself down with dreary weaponry, but in a place like Kirkwall, it was foolish to be totally unprepared. A dagger hidden in his boot made sure he was never completely unarmed. While he was having a great day, another vagrant may not be.

Ashton was on his way to, where else, Nostariel's clinic. He'd been spending more time there than he had his own shop recently. The repairs were done, and everything that was broken was either repaired or replaced, but it still stood empty, bereft of wares of any kind. He dreaded the work it would take and kept pushing it off, always finding a reason or an excuse to not get back to work. The days spent without having to worry about it were nice, and he was... Content. If his uncle saw him, he would throw a fit, but clouds muffled Ashton's eyes and ears. Being a lowly shop owner, hawking his wares-- even if they were finely made wares-- just didn't have the same appeal any more.

He almost bounced right past the flyer before it registered. A few paces backward brought him right back and he took a closer look. Snuffy, on the other hand, kept plodding forward until she realized that her partner was no longer by her side. She barked a few times to get his attention. "Hmm? Oh, yeah. I'm coming," He said, continuing on his way, though his eyes rarely left the leaflet. Minutes later he arrived at his destination, Nostariel's doorstep. He stepped inside, holding the door for Snuffy to slip through before shutting it behind him. "It's just us o' love of mine," He called for Nostariel to hear. It was still an odd thought, to be in a committed relationship, though not too terribly odd. Every time he thought about it too much, his feet threatened to leave the ground.

And they did as he lifted himself onto Nostariel's counter, the trim of which he had whittled, and he stared into the leaflet in his hand.

Like Ashton’s shop, the clinic was now practically gleaming, something Nostariel had put down to her recovery of energy as well as a new certain kind of ebullience that made everything, even the most daunting of tasks, seem much easier to accomplish. And, perhaps conversely to Ashton’s own mood, much more worth the accomplishing. Something in her life was finally exactly the way it should be, and she found herself very motivated to ensure that the rest of it followed. The counters were clean, the shelves neatly-stocked and labeled, the unobtrusive donation box dusted off and placed into a corner, waiting, as ever, on the kindness of strangers, or perhaps more accurately, friends and the occasional stranger.

She was just finishing with a patient when Ash sauntered through the door, an elderly woman with a chronic cough. Honestly, there wasn’t much Nostariel cold do for her besides ease her pain and give her a bit of company now and then—even a healer could not halt death when it was of a mind to appear. Though… sometimes, she seemed to get pretty close. The woman stood, readjusting her shawl over her shoulders, and Nostariel reached up to one of the shelves, pressing the bulb of a red potion bottle into her hands. “Come back and see me next month at the latest, okay?” Her patient nodded, then exited the clinic, leaving Nostariel to grin like a little girl and shake her head.

“I’m afraid there’s no just about the two of you.” She crossed the clinic floor to meet them, and, if standing on her toes, was just tall enough to buss Ash’s jawline, which she did, splaying her fingers at the center of his chest to keep her balance. Lowering herself back to her heels, she caught sight of some kind of parchment in his hand. “What’s this? Nobody usually leaves flyers in Lowtown—most of the people can’t read.” It looked like some sort of official announcement, but she couldn’t read it from the angle she was at.

"Ah, most! But then, I'm not most people, am I sweetheart..? That and I'm sure that there are others, but they aren't as nearly important as yours truly," he cooed with a warm smile in the corners of his mouth. "Here," He started. Ashton proceeded to throw his arms over Nostariel's shoulders and turn her away from him. Nestling his chin into the crook of her shoulder so that their faces were side-by-side, he brought the flyer up so that they both could read it. Nostariel was right about it being official.

At the top, spelled out in big bold lettering were the words Guards Needed followed by an explanation detailing the need for additional manpower. The incident involving Lia and Ithilian, including that of the Qunari, had thinned their ranks, and now they were attempting to bolster them. The Templars may have reinstalled order, but it was the guard's job to preserve it, and for that, they needed men and women. Underneath that were details of pay, advancement, along with the usual notes invoking pride, courage, and strength.

He let her eyes sift through it for a moment before he spoke again. "So?" He asked, "What do you think of me in a uniform? One that fits."

“Hm…” Nostariel turned around, cocking her head to the side and pretending to assess the possibility. Truthfully, she thought he’d look sharp in the Guard mail, though she wasn’t entirely convinced he’d like it. The armor could get hot in the summer months, or so the Templars had been fond of complaining in the circle. But none of that was what she was actually going to say in a situation like this, of course. “I don’t know… I’m pretty sure that if anyone in this room would make a good Guard, it’s Snuffy.” She grinned and turned her attention to the dog for a moment, leaning down an admittedly-short distance to scratch her behind the ears and then lay her palms on the hound’s cheeks.

“Now miss Snuffy, if Ash over there goes and joins the Guard, you’re going to have to take extra care of him for me, okay? I don’t want to see him in this clinic after a patrol unless he’s dropping by to say hello. Do you think you can do that for me?” Her tone was only half-joking, a note of seriousness perceptible in it even through the smile on her face.

It was true that in some ways, being a Guard might actually be less dangerous than the things they did now. But knowing Ashton, it would be in addition to his extracurriculars, not instead of them, and it did worry her a little. Guards didn’t have the most freedom when it came to choosing how to do things, and they had to follow the orders of people who might not know them so well—or care about them so much. It was a bitter-flavored cynicism, but considering everything that particular institution had been through of late, she could not call it unfounded. Sighing, she straightened up into a stand again, and shook her head a little.

“Truthfully? I think you’d make an excellent guard. And if it’s what you want, I say you should do it. But I will worry about you, so… try not to get into too much trouble without me, okay?”

"I'll try to save the best trouble for you then," He agreed. He was pleasantly pleased that she saw it for what it was, an earnest attempt to actually try to do some good in the city instead of some odd joke he was playing on her. These feelings weren't a new occurrence, he didn't wake up one morning and decide he wanted to do more. The flyer had only been an answer to the question of how to start. Folding it neatly and slipping it into his shirt pocket, he slid off of the counter and leaned against it, giving Snuffy's rump a gentle rub with the toes of his boot. "It's just that I feel I can do something with this, you know? Try to make Kirkwall a little less... Kirkwallian." He was explaining himself when he knew didn't need to. Nostariel... She would be by his side, no matter his choice and he loved her for it. But he wanted to talk about it, put his thoughts to words and verify to himself that his reasons were sound and yes, this was something he wanted.

Plucking a stray hair from the side of Nostariel's face, he placed it back behind her ear, brushing the sharpened tip with a knuckle. "I just want to do something more, you know? You run this clinic and help the people that need it most. Lucien's trying to get his mercenary company off the ground, Ithilian and Amalia are pillars in the Alienage, and Sophia gave everything for this city." There was guilt in his face that he was unable to hide. Though there was no way he could've known, he still felt partially responsible for what happened to the city. If only he'd gotten the book to Amalia in time instead of letting it collect dust in his study, maybe Sophia would still have her family. "Maybe if I had some sense, she wouldn't have had to go through that."

"Don't get me wrong," He added, "This isn't some sort of redemption type thing." Not completely. The incident involving Lia and Ithilian was still fresh in his mind. The Guard should protect the entire city, that included the Alienage. Even the elves should feel safe under the Guard, not eye them with suspicion. If that made him some sort of idealist, well, then so be it. While not completely without his faults, he felt he could judge right from wrong, and if he couldn't... He had friends he could turn to. They-- she would keep him honest. "The Guard desperately need a good man in there," with a flick of his lip he smiled, "But I guess they'll have to settle with me."

Nostariel, on the other hand, hopped up so that she was sitting on the counter. For a moment after he’d finished speaking, she was silent, thoughtful. In the end, though, she smiled, and laid one of her hands overtop the closest of his, weaving her fingers into the gaps between his own. “Ashton Riviera, you are nothing but the very best of men. Nobody is settling with you. Not me, not the Guard—nobody.” It was evident enough in the fact that he was the kind of person who could see what was happening, want to do something about it, and then actually do it. Find a solution, and take it, even knowing the dangers and hazards. It was true that they both perhaps knew several people that would do something similar, but this did not diminish the rarity of those people. Most were stopped by fear, or self-preservation, or even indifference. Even when Ash made mistakes, though, she knew that they came from that same caring place in his heart, and that, Nostariel firmly believed, meant he was a person anyone would be lucky to have beside them or in their ranks.

She leaned sideways, resting her head against his shoulder, and hummed contemplatively. “If I weren’t a Warden, I’d probably join you.” But in truth, it was likely better, at least in this respect, that she was a Warden. An elf in the Guard would have been bad enough at the moment, but a mage? No, she belonged right here, helping in the ways that were suited to her talents, even if she didn’t especially like the idea of Ash facing danger without any known quantities for backup. She was certain there were other good people in the Guard, but she was also certain there were people whose motives were less-than-ideal, and that was something he would have to navigate. Still… she believed in his ability to do that, with or without help.

“Just don’t forget me when all the Hightown girls are swooning over the uniform, okay?” She smiled, eyes alight with mirth. It was, after all, an amusing picture. "There's only one girl I need swooning over me," He replied, leveling a peck on her crown.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon

Earnings

0.00 INK

Lucien re-folded the letter neatly along the original creases, turning it over absently between his fingers for a while, evidently quite contemplative. The rather unobtrusive signs of life in the next room of his house faded to little at all, and time, as he often found it to do at such moments, slipped away from him. There was, after all, much to consider. The words his father had written him were equal parts troubling and intriguing—though it was not the case that both adjectives applied to the same parts of the missive. News from home was mixed, to say the least. At some length, he set the letter down carefully on the small writing desk squeezed into his room nearby his bed, and stood, running a hand down his face and then raking it back through his hair. He’d taken to forgoing the fabric to cover his bad eye, because there was a bit of a depth perception problem using only one, and he’d decided he’d rather learn to see out of both again, even if it did feel strange after so long.

Hopefully, he’d have plenty of time to adjust before he really needed to test his precision at anything important. Glancing around, he contemplated his armor for a moment, before he shrugged into the chainmail and slid a shortaxe into the weapon loop at his belt. There wasn’t really a need for any more than that, considering his plans. Still, he was hardly in the habit of going anywhere unprepared for the worst.

Really, though, he’d learned quite well by now that the worst was not the kind of thing mere chain would protect him against. Not even close.

The trek up to Hightown showed almost no evidence of the previous Qunari incursion. Less lasting structural damage, everything was essentially the way it had been before, from the markets to the merchants’ guild. The Chantry courtyard was filled with the typical amount of traffic, though there were few notices on the Chanter’s Board at present, probably because everyone was still focused on putting to rights what had been disturbed. Almost a shame—he could have used something to do with himself by this point. Well, perhaps for the moment it was best if he didn’t. Lucien let himself into the front of the Keep—apparently the sentry on duty recognized him, or else Meredith was holding open audience in place of the Viscount, which wasn’t impossible, but might suggest a bit of an overreach of her present authority. He didn’t miss politics, that much was for certain.

It was evening by this point, but that hardly meant anything different for Sophia's schedule. It was fairly non-existent, as she had requested, leaving her with little to do but pass the time, waiting for something, somewhere, to change. That change would either have to be within her, something where she would finally come around to the idea of moving on with her life as was expected of her, or in what seemed like a more possible event, the world would simply stop waiting for her, and she would be left behind to her own devices. She was still the favored choice of the nobility, but they would not wait for her forever. She couldn’t help but feel a little ashamed when she was glad for that. Being cast aside, having the weight lifted from her shoulders, it sounded quite nice.

But in the meantime, she had to find a way to make the hours go by, and the very walls of the Viscount’s Keep seemed to be fighting against her in this regard. She was alone in here now, utterly alone, but everywhere she looked she saw the signs of a family that had once occupied these rooms. They didn’t trigger bouts of tears or wracking sobs anymore, just a dull ache on her heart that never seemed to go away. A few seconds would pass each morning where she was, for the tiniest moment, free of everything, her mind fixated on something unrelated and unimportant… and then she would remember, and the ache would settle in again.

Sophia had started in on a bottle when Lucien arrived, what she believed had been a gift from Varric some time ago, though she couldn’t be sure. Alcohol didn’t seem to help all that much, but it gave her something to do at least, and to be fair, getting through much of it was a modest challenge. She was no heavy drinker, and it was a heavy drink. She wondered if she would get better at it over time. She hoped it wouldn’t last that long.

The knock at the door to the Keep’s private quarters came mid-gulp, and Sophia nearly sputtered onto the little table before her, battling with the drink’s wretched taste momentarily. She wasn’t expecting visitors, as she’d told Bran to keep out anyone unless it was important, which meant that this was probably a friend. She was hardly prepared for a guest, considering that she wore only a soft, sleeveless tunic and pajama pants, her hair done up in a lazy bun, but her friends had seen her in worse states. She opened the door to find Lucien.

She didn’t even realize what she was doing before she’d stood up on the tips of her toes and hugged him around the neck. Chainmail wasn’t very comforting, but somehow he still was. Realizing that it was a bit of a strange greeting, she stepped back, smiling a little awkwardly. “Uh… hi. I’m glad you came by. Come in, please.” She hoped she didn’t smell too much like what she was drinking.

Lucien dropped his hand from where it had reflexively come up to rest between her shoulderblades, not quite an embrace itself but certainly an acknowledgement of the fact that he at least was receiving one. It wasn’t exactly what he’d expected to get upon entering the room—he was generally quite careful to touch people only minimally himself, and whether from reading his own inclinations or because of their own, most others followed suit regarding him. But… it wasn’t unpleasant, not by a long way.

While Sophia had a long way to go before she smelled like a distillery—something not even Nostariel in the early days of their friendship had ever quite managed—it was not difficult to tell that she’d been drinking, and given events of late, it was not a promising development. He hoped she was wise enough to stay away from well and truly trying to drown her sorrows, but… he’d seen very wise people succumb to the same temptation. Still he smiled slightly, and nodded. “And I am… glad to be here.” Her appearance seemed to bother him not at all—and in fact, the only thing he even really thought about it was that he was glad she looked a little healthier. Two weeks unconscious and therefore not eating wasn’t good for anyone, but it would seem the physical damage was fading away apace. It made him feel a little less guilty for what he was going to suggest.

But all things in their time. Lucien took the invitation to enter as one to sit as well, and relaxed—as much as he ever did, anyway—into one of the other chairs at the table. The setup was somewhat familiar, actually, and called to mind an amusing memory, one not so old as it seemed, given present circumstances. He folded his hands on the table in front of him, and waited for her to sit back down as well. “You are… healing, I hope?” He didn’t want to make his query too pointed—she’d likely both heard and thought enough about it all for the time being, but he was concerned about her health, and there wasn’t much he could or would do about that. Besides, it would be more than a little gauche to just sally forth with what he was primarily here for.

Sophia's demeanor was quite a departure from when she'd spoken with Lucien after awakening. Then she had been without any energy whatsoever, every action crushed by the agonizing weight of what had occurred just before she lost consciousness. Now... it was as though she was trying to compensate for that. While Lucien sat she slid the bottle into a cupboard and closed the door shut. There was an air of energy about her, but it was tinged with agitation, and frustration, things she was clearly trying to hide, and failing to do so. Her thoughts weren't very straight, but that wasn't from just the alcohol.

"Healing?" she repeated, coming around to sit across from him. "Yes... yes, I'm doing better. I've been going for walks with Nostariel, actually. I shouldn't be doing any fighting for a while, of course, but she thinks I'll be fine being out and about on my own." Her eyes fell to his hands momentarily, her own settled in her lap. Obviously her healing involved much more than just physical recovery, but she found herself wanting to focus on the aspects that were actually going well, and physically, she was recuperating. Miraculously, or perhaps not so much, considering her healer, the lasting effects of her injuries didn't seem like they were going to be too severe.

"Let's not talk about me, though," she suggested. She was tired of being wrapped up entirely in her own issues, and ever since she woke, it seemed like every conversation was nothing but concern for her. She appreciated the kindness, of course, but she also wanted to be a help again, someone who could be leaned on, not a burden. "How are you?"

Well, if she wanted to speak of things other than herself for a while—and he did not blame her—he could certainly oblige. At least, after a fashion. “I’m…well,” he replied, a note of something almost perplexed coloring his tone. “All things considered.” He looked down at his hands for a moment, then folded them so that his fingers wove together. “I came by, in truth, because I received a letter from my father yesterday. The trial they ran in my absence went considerably better than the first one.” What that said about his ability to defend himself was probably best left unremarked upon. The real reason, though, was just that different people were in favor, and they liked him, or rather the idea of him, better than their predecessors had. Absences, it was said, did tend to whitewash memory a bit.

“It would seem I’m no longer an exile, and he’d like to see me.” Lucien’s initial feelings about returning had been… mixed. While it was true that he’d missed his home, and perhaps would always think of it as just that—home—it was evident enough from what his father wrote that certain things had not really changed. But even so, the more he thought about it, the more he realized that he wanted, needed even, to go back. At least for a while, long enough to take care of some things, see some old friends, people he had left behind with no time to stand on ceremony. More than that, though, there was something else.

“I would like you to come with me,” he said quietly, raising his eyes to hers and smiling slightly. “If, that is, you’re amenable to the suggestion. I’ll be gone perhaps a few months in total, including the boat both ways, but I don’t suppose it will be too long. I think… a temporary change of scenery might be nice.”

It was the understatement of an age, no doubt. Sophia had concluded that remaining in the Viscount's Keep much longer was only going to continue deteriorating what mental stability she had left. Time was one thing that could help with healing, but distance was another. She hadn't felt like running off on her own, certainly not while she was still in a fragile state, but with Lucien, in Orlais, for months... well, she couldn't think of anything that sounded more appealing.

"I would love to come with you," she said without any real hesitation. She smiled more with her eyes than her lips, but it was obvious that she was thrilled by the proposal. The idea that it might create some extra tensions when she returned did occur to her; it could be seen as her running away from the throne that everyone wanted to push her into, especially if she did not return for months, but Sophia found that she couldn't care less about that. This was extremely important to Lucien, and the most important thing in her mind was being there for him, as he had always been there for her.

"When do we leave?"

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel

Earnings

0.00 INK



For once, Kirkwall felt less stifling to her. The crumbling walls no longer pressed in on her and Darktown's musky stench hardly swayed her unfaltering steps—she was on a mission. Not one that involved murky magic-dabblers, which always tended to lean on the dark and bloody scale, nor were there any wayward, vicious Qunari involved. No no, not this time, at least. And she led someone in tow, flapping her gums about nothing in particular. Somehow, she'd managed to convince poor Rilien to accompany her somewhere special. It was the most information she would give, which was hardly any at all. Not that Rilien seemed to mind.

Though it had taken a some convincing for him to simply leave the work he'd been poring over; partially, because she'd been relentlessly badgering him. First from the staircase, perched like a stubborn songbird; staring intently until he settled down his quill. From there, she'd moved a few feet away from his working table. Scrunched up with her knees to her chest. Obviously waiting for something, expectant as a child. Sparrow wanted people to ask what she was doing so that she could bluster on with what she actually wanted. Rilien, more than anyone else, understood that.

Whether or not she'd actually bothered him was a mystery. She supposed that if he was ever bothered by her incessant pecking in the past, she would've been thrown out ages ago. Thankfully, Rilien had the patience of a Saint. Half of the time she did not look where she going. Speaking over her shoulder and walking backwards, seemingly without purpose. But she was heading somewhere in particular. She just didn't want to spoil the surprise. They'd hardly had any time to speak between her heated argument, the Qunari invasion, Sophia's comatose state and Aurora's parting.

Kirkwall was anything but a sleepy little town and they always seemed neck-deep in another catastrophe. Not that she was complaining. Had she been born anything other than who she was, and if she had any other friends other than those she currently had, her life might have been a great deal duller. She grinned to herself and knuckled her nose. Besides, it's nice to get away from work every once in awhile, y'know?” A little play in his life might've done him some good. Books and quills and mixing potions was well and good, but what fun could be found in that? Her contributions came in the form of needling entertainment and brief brushes of newly-discovered areas spanning across the entirety of Kirkwall. This was her home now, so it was imperative that she touched every corner of it. There was no doubt that the Wounded Coast was far prettier. However, the dark history Kirkwall presented had its own gritty appeal. Dark alcoves, hidden spaces, and great views. She wanted to share that with someone.

They finally arrived at the Docks and Sparrow led them down a straightforward stairwell ending in a small, rickety pier. Her boat awaited her, bereft of the sailors they'd once slaughtered. With the remainder of her money made in the Deep Roads, she'd maintained and improved the trusty little vessel. It was small enough not to be a bother and large enough to fit several someones should she ever wish to leave Kirkwall.

But today, she was on a mission. There was a smug pleasure in having freedom swaying just at your fingertips, and being able to share something as secret as a her discovered nook. Not too far from where they were—just around the bend, maybe. The craggy rocks and intimidating statues provided perfect cover to dissuade curious sea-farers from venturing too close, and so, they were hers to claim. “Alright, then. Get on!” She chirped, springing onto the deck. She turned to offer her hand, as a gentleman might to a fair lady, and only barely hesitated before doing it anyway.

“I was thinking that we've much to talk about.”

Rilien eyed the boat with the faintest trace of skepticism, unsure he could affirm that Sparrow had enough knowledge of seafaring vessels to maintain one in decent condition for travel. Also, he was unsure how the dinghy itself was relevant to whatever it was that she might want to discuss with him, but he accepted that this at least was one of her many strange idiosyncrasies. Unlike himself, she could not simply say whatever it was that she wanted, regardless of setting. Quite the contrary, she had to feel comfortable enough, and this was apparently where she had decided she would be comfortable today. Raising an eyebrow just slightly at the outstretched hand, he bypassed it, stepping gracefully onto the boat and sinking into a seated position, pulling his legs up underneath him on the bench.

"Is that so?” His reply was neutral, eyes fixed on her as she went about the process of casting off and getting the vessel into working order. He was willing to help, of course, but he did not know an especially large amount about boats, only the basic principles, and thus he may only be in the way if he acted without direction. "I think you would find nearly universal assent to the proposition that I generally have very little to talk about.” It was another half-joke, only really funny because of how utterly not funny it was. If indeed there was any humor to be found in it at all. He could no longer claim to know, particularly.

"But if you find yourself with the desire to speak, I will listen.” He always did.

Her expectations were often outrageous. She couldn't understand why Rilien, or anyone else for that matter, hadn't thrown themselves aboard, full of bluster and adventure. The ship was seaworthy enough and she'd already spent inordinate amounts of time among sailors to know how to keep the vessel afloat.Well, she knew enough not to severely damage it. There were telltale signs gouged into the side of the dingy; obvious indications that it had taken some rough handling to get used to. Like all things, she never learned easily. All in all, she and the ship were still alive, so that must've counted for something. Sparrow snorted, as if to say suit yourself. Surely, any maiden would have gladly accepted her aid—but, in retrospect, Rilien was no maiden, and he was far more capable than she when it come to grace and balance. She mm'd at his choice of seating and bustled around setting up the sails, tying down the rigging and finally taking her place at the wheel. Obviously, she'd done this many times. Practised manoeuvres and many mistakes later, and she wasn't so bad anymore. It was her only means of showing off as well, so she did little instructing and far more pea-cocking.

Sparrow stared down at him, dangling her arms dangerously through the wheel and leaning her chin across the wooden bands. They were going in the general direction she intended to go, anyway. No need in being overly cautious. She did laugh, but not particularly because it was funny. Partially because she did not believe it, and partially because what she wanted, and needed, was what was so difficult to achieve—Rilien often said what needed to be said, and tended to speak his mind far more than she imagined any Tranquil would, even if it took prior initiative or relentless needling. He listened and she rattled on. He stood vigilant while she crashed against the shoreline. They were made up of variants and variables, spontaneity and tendencies. She craned her neck owlishly, blinking. Universal assent might have been that Rilien was nothing but different. Even in his sameness, in his proposed general lack of conversational skills. What little he did say always seemed to speak volumes. A soft sigh escaped her lips, proceeded by a grin. “Sometimes, I suspect that's a selective trait.”

She withdrew her arms from their wooden shackles and stretched them over her head, settling them on the pegs of the wheel. Now that they were alone, swaying on the sea and rounding the aforementioned bend towards the craggy caves and mountainside, Sparrow felt uneasy. As if all of the questions and all of the things she'd wanted to say were being clamped shut by chokedust. Asking questions, and talking at someone, were two different matters altogether. She was not so foolish to admit feeling discomfort in situations that called for genuineness. Her process involved boiling over at a breaking point and Rilien, simply put, did not. She had no memories, no glimpses or images, to call upon—no brief touches of who he'd once been. In that regard, she was shamefully jealous of her companions.

Sparrow clicked her tongue and arched an eyebrow. “And what about you? I've got ears, too.” Her gaze drifted away from the top of his head, and settled on the looming statues up ahead. Rusty chains hung from their arms. Great sentinels guarding terrible secrets. She closed her eyes briefly and scratched the back of head neck, “Tell me a story about yourself. Anything, really. You know too much about me already. I'd say that's fair, given that I'm letting you sail on the Fair Maiden.” Her lips twitched into a stiff smirk. Far easier to venture down that avenue, then to ask him outright.

So she had invented for him a debt owed, and now requested her recompense. Rilien was not surprised. Perhaps, had he even been capable of much in the way of shock, he still would not have been. His fingers, resting motionlessly on his knees, twitched slightly, an old piece of instinct. A Bard never told his own story—he was merely a conduit for other kinds of information, the stories of others. The natural reflex was to expect a lute or lyre in his hand, but here, there was none. Only what words he could conjure to mind—and those were not generally many, even if they did sometimes have meaning.

Still, he supposed, he was not a Bard any longer. There was no particular reason not to answer, though he doubted what he had to say would be what she wanted to hear. "There is only one story about me.” While perhaps not literally true, it was certainly true in a sense. When most people asked him for something of that nature—and lots of people had, once—it was only the one that they wanted. The one that began with a boy who had the world at his fingertips and ended with a hollow shell imprinted with the Maker’s mark on his brow. He thought, sometimes, that he had picked up on instruments so easily because he knew so well the feeling of being able to make something from almost nothing, to transmute the world around him, long before he ever used song as the medium for the transformation.

For a moment, he tipped his head back, letting the rays of sunshine hit his face, narrowing his eyes to half-mast and squinting against the luminance. "I remember the faces of my parents, but not their names. I was sold to Lady Aurelie Montblanc sometime before my tenth year of life. She attempted to keep me out of the Circle when I discovered my magic, but she was unsuccessful.” He tipped his head back down, meeting eyes with Sparrow. "This only grows less pleasant. Are you certain you really wish to know?” She was not known for her staying power when things became difficult, after all, and while the tale could hardly cause him any distress, he supposed the same was not true of her.

She had once asked that question herself—had anyone asked for Rilien's story? Of course, it wouldn't have surprised her if people had asked him throughout his journeys. Those inflicted with the Rite of Tranquility were already considered oddities on their own and people in general, whether Elven or human, had always been curious creatures who needed and wanted to hear about things they did not currently understand. Truthfully, she'd never met any other Tranquil, and she still had trouble considering him anything but who he was. He was Rilien. Composed of serene seas, and uniform seashells. Of greater and far more resilient statues than those that cast their shadows over Kirkwall's harbour. The only time she found herself painfully reminded of their differences was when she wanted more than he could give, and she was such a beast who never stopped reaching out.

Thinking back on all of the colourful folk she'd met along her own adventures, Sparrow had never met any Bards, either. She understood now that they were a secretive people who traveled throughout each and every kingdom, carrying songs and stories and tales of grander escapades, and traded whispers if one should so seek their counsel. She only knew these things because Rilien had told her, and even then, they sounded otherworldly. Qunari had no such vocations. They spoke as plainly as Amalia, and sheared through half-truths, much as she did not. She found herself leaning forward, draped across the wheel. Only one story—she wondered what he meant by that, but kept her mouth clamped shut for fear that the story would end prematurely. There was a sadness, she supposed, that resonated from that statement, even if his tone remained temperate, unruffled.

Sparrow anchored her attention back to Rilien, owlish and eager, with her hands digging into the wheel, anticipating a waterfall of something washing over her. Realization or sorrow; she was not so sure what Rilien would say next, but she'd learned early on that the majority of stories that mages had to tell ended in hardship and an ache they couldn't quite shake off. She was sure that his would be no different. However, where her companions were involved, she felt and ached for them with an acuity she'd never believed she had. Common sense might have flown from her as a child, but empathy for her loved ones had strewn thorns and barbs in its wake. The future hardly swayed her, but looking at Rilien now, she wondered who he might have been had he never gone through with the Rite. Beautiful, and perhaps, not much different. She blinked. “Aurelie Montblanc,” she echoed softly, curling the words in her mouth.

Her eyes fell to Rilien's, and she realized he was asking a question. “Yes.” A simple exhale of assent. However, Sparrow paused and took a deep breath from her nose, leaning precariously backwards, while hooking her hands through the spokes. “That's not all I wish to know—who was Aurelie? Was she kind? Were you afraid of your magic then? Do you wish to find your parents? Did you try to run away?” As she had. These were the questions she sought. Pieces of Rilien she'd wanted to assemble to better understand who she may never have the opportunity to see, to know. “The Circle. What happened there? Aurora once said, she told me that she'd learned to dance there. What was it like?”

Rilien pursed his lips, though if it was evidence of anything, it didn’t pan out conclusively. His answers bordered on monosyllabic, mostly because he took her to be asking irrelevant questions. Perhaps this was why he avoided being the person doing most of the talking in any given situation. It was much easier to listen. “A bardmaster. Not especially. No, no, and no, respectively.” Kind and unkind were not really the applicable adjectives for a relationship of the kind he’d had with Lady Montblanc. She was a bardmaster and thus a teacher, as well as a collector of exotic rarities of one kind or another. He doubted she’d have looked twice at him were he more average of coloration, but he also knew that the reason for that was simply business. One had to stand out among others, if one was to be a successful Bard. At least in Orlais. It may serve a Crow well enough to blend, but the nobility where he was from would often refuse to engage a person perceived as bland or boring. His talent had made him good at what he did, but the simple fact was that his appearance had gotten him in the door to begin with, and continued to open other ones thereafter.

“The Circle was nothing special, I do not believe. It had Templars and other mages, both with varying degrees of skill and talent. I recall being bored with the vast majority of them. Speaking in generalities, the mages were fond of me and the Templars were not. I suspect this was largely a consequence of the fact that I frequently deceived them into scenarios designed to produce discomfort or humiliation, but with no actual harm. On balance, I spent approximately one third of my nights in solitary confinement because of this tendency.” Before he’d had much opportunity to be a talented Bard, he was a talented mage, if a troublesome one. It was not as though he could not recall it clearly, it just produced nothing in him any longer. He felt no residual traces of amusement at what he’d done, nor any righteous anger, nor any shame, though he recalled all of the feelings with clarity and distinctness.

Rilien folded his hands in his lap and cast his eyes out over the ocean. Kirkwall was still visible, though from this distance, it was quite small. If you care so much about the damned Tranquil, then you can be one.” His words were flat as ever, apropos of seemingly nothing. It was clear enough that he was quoting someone else, though he did not specify the context of the statement. He turned his head so as to glance at Sparrow out of the corner of his eye. “There is no justice in the world, and I long ago gave up on seeking it.” It was enough to do what he did, and provide the means for those few who concerned themselves with him to remain as safe as one could in such a world. He had no aspirations to anything grander, not anymore. He left the aspiring to other people, and kept his own feet planted firmly upon the ground.

And so, Sparrow learned that Aurelie was a Bardmaster—not that she particularly understood what the difference was, for weren't all Bard's exclusively masters of their instruments? Perhaps, Aurelie played a myriad of instruments, keeping them all secured to her back while she traveled, but by the sounds of it, the image seemed unlikely. However irrelevant her questions might have been, she still found herself disappointed that this woman hadn't been kind to him. Or kind, in general. He never wondered about his parents, even now? She found it difficult to believe. If he did not remember their faces, surely he wouldn't recall why he had been sold in the first place. If her parents had sold her, she doubted that she would have any interest in finding them, as well. Slavery in itself, or the act of being sold to another, hardly existed in her realm of thoughts. Yes, she'd been born in a segregated part of some smelly city, but she'd also experienced the joy and freedom of the Dalish forests, short as that time was. Rilien had been little more than an accessory being shipped from hand to hand; first, his parents, then Aurelie's, and finally, the Circle's. Afterwards, she wasn't so sure. She supposed that story may have been happier, even if he hadn't felt that way.

She never considered him a tool to begin with. No one was. People simply were—even if Rilien had explained the manner in which Orlais functioned, with all of its systems and snobbish workings, Sparrow would not have understood, nor appreciated any of its intended splendour. Nobility, in her opinion, had no such attraction. They might have worn bejewelled shackles, but they were shackles all the same, and they chose to spend their time oppressing others. It was an ugly system she wished to see unraveled. Her eyebrows drooped down and pinched together. Rilien had no use for any of her sympathies, and comforting words were often unnecessary. Even still, she wished to soothe the sorrows he could not feel. To be robbed of the selfish opportunity made her feel hollow. What had she expected? Something of the ordinary. Or the kind of reaction a woman might have had, while attempting to calm their quivering lips. Rilien was neither, so her repertoire of savvy responses was like an empty coin-purse. She, did, however, listen without interruption. The only indication that she wanted to ask more questions was a brief puff of her cheeks.

Reflecting on the wooden masterpieces Ashton had created, it didn't surprise her that Rilien had been somewhat of a rascal. She was still glad to hear it. In those caves, for whatever brief time they'd been in there, Ashton and the others had glimpsed the missing pieces of Rilien from long before. They'd also seen something that could have been. Whether or not she'd ever come to grips with the fact that he'd chosen differently, and did not suffer the consequences, Sparrow wanted to see him that way. She wanted to see him cry and scream and laugh with the genuineness reserved for those who could. No amount of questions could bring about the reception she wanted. But she would try. She couldn't stop. His answers painted pictures across a great canvas, and even if she alone stood as a single, selfish observer, she would stay. Cranking the wheel hard to the right, Sparrow steered the ship towards the Wounded Coast but stopped short and turned inwards, towards an outcrop of slanting rocks and smoothed out stone. She busied herself moving the sails into position and snapping the rudder towards the rocks. It was only upon closer inspection that the questionable harbour could be seen, and she managed the dinghy with surprising confidence.

If you care so much about the damned Tranquil, then you can be one. Sparrow's shoulders grew rigid as Kirkwall's statues, and her stomach felt as heavy as their foundations. Whatever source those words had come from felt startlingly relevant to her own life, as well. Her mouth slivered open, then snapped closed. He might've been right. She wasn't ready to hear the rest. His life was a landscape, as far as the eye could see, of brackish hostility. Of the deepest distress and betrayals. She was not ready. If there were no good moments to give, then she was only scraping her nails across old wounds he could not feel. The lump in her throat jumped and settled like an iron fist. She, too, did not believe in justice. Not the kind that knights carried at their hips. Not the kind that the Chantry waved in the air, either. She fought for making herself feel better, but that sort've thing never cloaked itself under the veil of honesty. “I don't know about justice,” she replied breathlessly, “but there are some things best not to give up on.” Motioning with her hand, she beckoned him to stand while she finished all the essential preparations to keep the ship from sailing away without them. Without a moment's hesitation, Sparrow threw herself across the gap and landed on the mossy wooden slats, already clambering up the rocks.

Giving up.

Was that what he had done? Rilien did not know if that was the best characterization for it. He had simply decided that it would be better to cease depending on anything in particular. If the only things he needed were the things he could provide himself, then it would simply not matter what the world was or was not like, how far it sank or how high it rose, according to whose standards. If that was giving up, then perhaps he had. There seemed to be little value in doing otherwise. And yet—there were some things Rilien still knew he could not always do for himself. Even he needed to rely on other things sometimes, other people, even. Certainly, he would not have been able to slay Abraxas by himself, magic or no. He had tried to choose the most solid, reliable people he could for these purposes, and ones who would not mind him overmuch for being what he was, but… to get from that to relying on anything else seemed like a gulf he simply could not cross. He was self-contained, stretching out into the world just as far as his limbs would allow, to touch only what was closest. His feelings did not extend any further than that. They could not. Rilien stood on command, and trailed Sparrow up the bank, looking a mite odd climbing a rock face, so obviously urban as he was.

And this is what she wanted to show him. She neared the mouth and placed a hand across the lumpy stones. Another home away from home—a place to escape, should he so desire to. Should they both desire it. Clear, unbridled satisfaction was riddled across her features; like a child with a toy held aloft in its hands. There were indications that she'd been here many times before. Some things had been moved here; chairs, a large chest and a fire pit a little further inside; as well as her old suit of armour hanging on its own wooden rack. “What d'you think, Ril? Glorious, isn't it? I mean, it smells a little, but if we were pirates, and needed somewhere to lay low, this would be it.” Her throat grew thick again. There were squeaks and chattering coming from above, probably sea-birds nesting in her hideout. “I mean, if you ever wanted to escape. This place would be safe for you and I.”

The environment was certainly about as far removed from Rilien’s aesthetic as it was possible to get. The polished cleanliness and silks of his person were sharply at odds with the earthen hideaway, the fire pit with raw wood, and the faint smell of something odorous. But then something in his body language shifted a little, and in a blink, it was as though he had blended a little, blurred slightly at the edges, and the contrast was no longer so sharp. These were things he knew how to do—hold himself in certain ways, move certain muscles in his body or his face, and suddenly he was more or less intrusive, depending on his surroundings.

He could tell by the expression on Sparrow’s face that she was quite proud of her accomplishment—it was a look that people wore when they were expecting praise. Rilien moved his eyes back to the hideaway, and then back to her, and decided that there was no especial reason why he should not meet those expectations. It took him all of two seconds to remember how, but he pulled one side of his mouth slightly upwards, just barely, the expression flickering across his face for barely a moment before it was gone, like a shadow of something that had been, but could be no longer. "The location was well-chosen.” Any hope that the inflection of his voice might change to match the tiny piece of affected pleasure on his face was dashed by the monotone. But still—he’d said it, and he’d meant it.

Sparrow stood like a hound expecting a bone. Any measure of bedazzled fascination at finding such a hidden cove of... mostly brine, but she could bring treasure here if she so wished. Her expectations might have been a little misplaced, given that Rilien operated through pure, unrestrained logistics and always followed an unimaginable system that would make a librarian blush. But she still expected, as she always did. Shallow creatures groped for pretty words. Even if this particular discovery was moss-covered and smelled like a natural version of Kirkwall's dirty harbour. At least the water was cleaner. No bodies floating around, either. A perfect childhood hideaway. She was sure that if it had been Amalia standing in Rilien's place, the response might have been the same—and for reasons she could not describe, she felt fortunate.

Her expression slowly ebbed away as she puzzled over his smile. A flicker of something. Or a twitch of the lips, more like. It lasted the length it took her to close the distance between them, until she stood in front of him and held her hands at the side of his face, dipping her head slightly to the side. Rough hands splayed beside his cheeks, not quite touching but inches from doing so. She yearned and craved and expected such compliments, and the fact that Rilien found them unnecessary in the most analytic way seemed to make them all the more gratifying. A more sensible mind may have presumed that Rilien expected excellence, and so, by remaining silence, it might have meant that she'd done well. Silence, in her opinion, only soured the milk. It never spoke volumes. It did not sate her hunger. She blinked and cupped his cheeks in her hands, pulling the corners of his mouth up with her thumbs.

Not quite how she imagined. Her face twitched. And when she could no longer hold it in, laughter bubbled from her lips as she released her loose grip on him and turned away to study the cove. “I'm glad, I really am.” Sparrow leaned backwards with her hands on her hips and hopped beside him, throwing an arm around his shoulders. Our secret cove, then.”

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

The events of the Qunari assault were now more than a month in the past, and Amalia was already beginning to feel restless. Without something central and meaningful to drive her forward, she found that it was much harder to take the necessary steps. She did not understand how other people managed to go entirely lives without any directions—freedom seemed much more impediment than anything, paradoxical as it might seem to anyone she should share the observation with.

Nevertheless, it was something she could place to the side for the moment, because there was something a little more immediate that could perhaps benefit from her effort. Whether this would be so, or if she would only make matters worse was something she could not tell, and so she had waited until she was reasonably sure that she would be more benefit than detriment before acting. It was not, after all, a matter on which little or nothing depended. She stood now in front of an assemblage of items, arranging some of them for transportation. She had several sheets of tanned leather, some tools, a few weapons, and her harp, at present, and was in need of some cord to roll up the leather for better efficiency. It would be carried over her back, after all. Despite the ever-present weapons, however, she was not dressed for combat, and indeed wore nothing more complicated than most of the elven women in the Alienage—a loose, sage-green dress that fell halfway down her calves and drew in only at the waist, and sandals rather than boots.

The rolled leather strapped to her small rucksack easily enough, and though one of the knives remained visible at her belt, the rest were secreted beneath her clothing, a task made almost laughably easy when none of her garments rested especially close to her skin. When she was ready, she exited her home, only seemingly mildly burdened by what she carried, and made her way to her second-most frequent destination in the city, trumped only by her near-permanent posting under the Vhenadahl. Knocking was not strictly necessary at this point, perhaps, but seeing as her purpose was somewhat irregular, she decided it could not hurt.

It was Ithilian who answered the door, though when he saw that it was Amalia he allowed it to swing wide open, and stepped away from the door so that she could enter. "There's still some left," he said, gesturing to the late breakfast that he and Lia had shared. "Though I imagine you've already eaten. We were just cleaning up." Lia met eyes with Amalia on her way back to the table to grab the pair of plates, offering her a close-lipped smile on the way. The pair of them were both dressed comfortably, though Lia wore a dark blue shawl over her shoulders, somewhat of an odd choice for the summer heat.

The pair of them were able to live mostly in comfort after the expulsion of the Qunari, though Ithilian was certainly wary of the fact that at least one person in the Alienage had given up Lia's location under threat from the guard. As much rage as this inspired in him, he had chosen not to pursue it, as he refused to take action against someone who had undoubtedly been compelled by fear, perhaps not even for themselves, but for a family. He did not know for sure how troubled Lia was by everything, or how safe she felt on a day to day basis in the Alienage now. Truth be told, he was not particularly good at asking about such things. This was not an experience he'd ever had with his own daughter, as her death had come too soon, and even if it had not, the clan would have been a much different place to raise a teenage girl than Lowtown.

"Have plans for the day?"

Amalia had indeed eaten well in advance of her visit, so she declined anything further. The query, however, drew actual words from her. “I do,” she replied mildly. “But I was inclined to request some assistance. From Lia.” She paused a moment, her eyes flicking to the young woman in question. “I understand that you have some knowledge of leatherworking—I was hoping that perhaps you would lend your skill to a project of mine.” Of course, she didn’t expect that Lia would have much expertise, as the shop she worked at was not exactly hers, but what she did not already know, Amalia had more than enough patience to teach. Actually completing the task today was not a requirement, after all, merely a secondary side effect of what she really wished to do.

“I’ve decided that today, I shall work on the near part of the coast, however, and so I will be departing now.” Which was to say, in a typical Amalia fashion, that she would go one way or the other, but did in fact desire that Lia should come with her. Asking here and now was also an oblique way of making sure that Ithilian as well as his ward would be amenable to the arrangement. If Amalia had to guess, however, she would suppose that getting free of the Alienage and Lowtown for a while would be for the better, as far as Lia was concerned.

"That sounds nice," Lia said almost immediately. "I'll get my things." She hurried off to a back room, leaving the rest of the cleaning to Ithilian. He seemed a bit puzzled, but he knew that Lia thought highly of Amalia, and would enjoy spending time with her alone. He shrugged his approval, seeing no problems with it.

"You don't need to work today?" he called, just as Lia returned with a pack slung over her shoulder. She shook her head. "Nope, Ashton hasn't been very interested in the shop lately. Wants to become a guard, he says." She spoke the word with a poorly concealed layer of disdain, coming to a stop before Amalia. "Right, I'm ready."

Amalia nodded slightly, and then they were both off, quickly making passage from the city to the Wounded Coast. As soon as her feet hit sand and grass instead of stone and dirt, Amalia paused long enough to remove her sandals, tying them together and slinging them over her shoulder. The sand was pleasantly warm and grainy on her feet, the grass cool and soft by contrast. It was something she’d missed, for too long. She was not one for small talk overmuch, but the silence didn’t seem especially uncomfortable to her, though perhaps she was only used to it.

It persisted long enough for her to find a spot for them to settle on, under the boughs of a shade tree, a rather gnarled, twisted one, bowed permanently to one side by years of enduring the ragged winter gales off the Amaranthine Ocean. It provided nice protection from the full heat of the summer sun, though, and there were even a few flowers growing from the firmer patches of earth. Amalia crossed her legs beneath her, as was her wont, and then unrolled the sheets of leather. Already drawn upon them in exacting shape were the stencils for its cutting, and she spread one such bit in front of Lia, drawing out a short, meticulously sharp blade.

“If you would cut along the outermost edge, I will do the others.” It was hard to tell exactly what the shape would actually make, but it could not be something especially large, given the amount of leather before them. It looked complicated, though, or at least layered, as some of the shapes on Amalia’s piece were rather small. She allowed silence to fall again for a time, and when she spoke next, it did not immediately seem to be related to what they were doing.

“How does it feel, to move in your own skin? To be in your own body?”

Lia began working as instructed, with far more care than she had ever employed in Ashton's shop, and her eyes quite commonly flicked upwards to watch Amalia's hands at work, from where she sat across from her. When the question came, though, she paused, her mouth temporarily stuck half open while she digested the words. When she felt she understood the question, her hands resumed their work, and her eyes fell low, staying there.

"Fine, I guess," she said, somewhat more casually than she intended. This was some kind of test, she supposed. She wondered how long ago the test had already started. She also wondered if fine was the correct answer to Amalia's question. She doubted it.

Asit tal-eb. Amalia set aside the first of the shapes cut from her leather. They would need to be wetted and shaped and molded into the form they would eventually occupy later, but for now, they were done. Leaning forward slightly, she started at the top of the next pattern, parting the tanned animal hide as though it were water. “It is to be. This is what I said, when the Ariqun asked me a similar question. It is a platitude of the same type as fine.” Her tone was the same as it always was, and she seemed to be carrying on a perfectly normal conversation—insofar as Amalia ever carried on conversations.

“The only wrong answers are the ones with which we deceive ourselves, Lia,” she said, turning her head and pausing so that for a moment she made eye contact. She held it for only a second, though, before resuming her motions. “That was what I attempted to do. I was used to the feel of flesh unmarred and unbroken. Wholly mine. I did not know or understand this body, the way it was cut and mangled. It did not feel like mine—for surely someone had taken something from me, when they damaged it so. They had taken my sense of connectedness to it, my sense of belonging in it. I was no longer whole.” Amalia finished her cuts, then removed two sets of the tools necessary to punch holes in the leather, a mallet and a thin metal cylinder, essentially. Those were already marked, too.

Amalia moved with steady precision, one strike of the mallet producing a round puncture at each of the marked points with clockwork regularity. “I had learned what it was like to be utterly powerless, and so I rejected the skin and bones that had not been enough to match what I willed.” Not that her mind had been a safe sanctuary at all, either, not then.

Lia typically tried to make an effort not to stare at the parts of Amalia that were the most scarred, now that she was not committed to covering every inch of herself, but today she forgot about that, staring somewhat blankly up the length of her arms, and anywhere else she could find a scar. Compared to her, Lia was still a flawless creature, visually. She'd been hit, but bruises disappeared in time. No, surely the two of them had gone through entirely different experiences. Lia didn't know the details of Amalia's troubles, but just looking at her, she didn't need to. They had been terrible, beyond horrible.

"I wasn't powerless," she asserted strongly. "I had a knife with me, pulled it on the one who was on top of me. I killed him before he could go through with it. Turned his pleasure into pain. I watched him go." Truthfully, there hadn't been time for that. He had been thrashing on the ground, clutching at his throat, and she tried to scramble away, then to swipe at the guard who came to stop her. He caught her arm, and that was that. But they couldn't go through with it, not with their friend dead on the ground there. She stopped them.

"They did worse to Ithilian than they ever did to me. And most of them are dead now." Most, but surely not all. She was willing to bet that one of them, one of the three she failed to kill, had lived through it all, through Ithilian's rampage in the Gallows, through the rescue at the execution, through the battle when the Qunari invaded... and maybe there were more, who hadn't been there that day, but wished they had.

“So it is,” Amalia replied, a small smile touching the corners of her mouth only to disappear later. “But even so, you are not the same as you were before, are you? There are things that will change us, however much we might resist it. Or do you believe this is not one of those things?”

"No, you're right," she admitted, though even she wasn't exactly sure how she was changed. Certainly things were different now. "I was naive before. I didn't expect a city guard to take advantage of their power like that. But I know better now. I know that even if Ithilian doesn't hate them anymore, there are still shem out there that will jump on any weakness." She suddenly seemed to realize the word she used, and backpedaled.

"I didn't mean you, though, or all humans, I just meant... evil people. I don't regret killing him, or trying to kill the others. If they hadn't picked me, they would have picked some other elven girl, maybe even someone I know. I'd do it again."

Amalia was certainly not going to disagree that Lia had acted in the best way available to her; there was little doubt of that and no point disputing it besides. Still… “Fair enough,” she conceded quietly, “but what is it that makes a person evil? Is she evil because she has done one evil deed? Two? How many does it require before the person herself is an evil person? How many more before there is no longer any chance of her redemption? I have killed more people than I can count. Perhaps they were evil people. Perhaps some of them were not. Does this make me evil as well?” She laid her mallet and hole-punch to the side, stacking the resulting leather pieces neatly to her side.

“What if, in the moment someone shows aggression towards you or someone you love, you do not know whether or not they are wicked? Perhaps they are just like you—fighting because it is necessary, or to prevent harm to someone else. The world of bloodshed and death is not one entered easily for any of us, and the answers are rarely clear, however pure our motives. But there are those of us it beckons even so. Is this a calling you feel as well?”

Lia struggled with the question. "I... I don't know." Her tone was frustrated, and she sighed. "During the battle, when you found me, I killed that Templar that attacked Ithilian. I didn't know anything about him. I... don't feel very bad about it. It was either him or Ithilian. I guess I'd do that again, too. I don't want to hurt anyone, but I guess it just ended up that way." She certainly didn't feel compelled to go out hunting people like the ones that had ambushed her in Lowtown that day, but all the same, she didn't feel any remorse for killing any of them, at least not until Amalia made her really think about it.

"But I know that the men that took me were evil." She pointed cautiously towards Amalia's scars. "I know whoever gave you those is evil. There's no way that kind of thing can be done to protect anyone. The guards who pulled me off the street weren't thinking about how necessary it was that they each take a turn. If that's not evil, I don't know what is."

Amalia nodded slowly. “You do not have to know,” she said thoughtfully. “I certainly do not. I doubt anyone does. But it is very important that we realize that we do not know, so that we do not delude ourselves into behaving as though we do.” The point was fine enough, however, and she took Lia’s assertions regarding Marcus and the guards with a simple equanimity. There were always going to be some cases that were clearer than others.

She reclined slightly, leaning her back against the smooth bark of the tree, and tipped her head back to look at the canopy of fronds above. Irregular, it resulted in a sort of stippled shade, giving a strange visual illusion to the lined of the things beneath it. Hate was like that—distorting the truth of things in a way that made a person certain they saw clearly. A filter over the senses, so integral that one forgot its presence. “Death is not the only option, if you have the resources to choose another,” she started. Perhaps funny coming from her, who did not generally bother with what other people might call mercy. But then… there was no reason that Lia, should she choose to walk the path of violence, need be as Amalia was.

“Acquiring those resources is not easy. But it is possible. In doing so, you also acquire the responsibility to use them as well as you can.” Amalia tipped her head to the side, fixing Lia with both eyes. “Is this something you want?” It was an offer, but she thought it imperative that the girl understand that it would not be free. The knowledge of taking life and sparing it, the ability to do these things with your bare hands, to look at a person and instinctively understand that it was within your power to end them, and not within theirs to do the same to you… that was a burden, and a temptation, one that those with weak natures succumbed to at the touch of rage or hate or other passionate emotions. To learn to defend, after all, was also to learn to destroy.

Lia tilted her head sideways, propping an elbow on her knee and scratching her fingers through her hair. "Not really, no," she said, shaking her head a little. "I want to be able to protect myself, and other people if I have to... but I don't think I could be like you." She felt really just more confused at this point in the conversation than she had going into it, but maybe that was the point. She wasn't really considering many things beyond what was obvious. She liked her simpler version of the world a little better, but she could admit that it wasn't the best way of looking at things.

"I just wish I could grow up without needing to think about this."

“Not an uncommon sentiment,” Amalia conceded. Well, she could understand if Lia did not desire to be like her. Sometimes, Amalia did not desire to be like herself. But she would do well to stay away from confrontations if she was not going to pursue training in their management. Hunting was one thing. But she was certain Ithilian could elucidate the differences were it really necessary for someone to do so.

“But there is more than one way to protect someone.” She leaned over slightly and picked up one of the pieces of leather that Lia had been working on, running a thumb along the cut edge. “You are learning a trade. One of the most useful of trades, as it happens. The work of your hands might still help those you love, without the need to give up your convictions.” What did it matter, after all, if the leatherworker had no studied opinions on who deserved to die—she was not the one who had to make that decision. Her world could remain as simple as raising arrow or knife only to the people that directly walked into her life to threaten her. She need not muddy her resolutions with seeking them out, or the necessity of choosing a side when neither was right and neither was entirely at fault for that.

It was not the path that had been set before Amalia, but then, Amalia had not had the luxury of choosing what she was to be.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion

Earnings

0.00 INK

It felt odd, to be encased in a sheath of guard mail instead of his typical light leathers and silent boots. Ashton was still in his transitional phase from lowly shopkeep to lowly guardsman, but there was progress the be found. For one, he was no longer a prospective guardsman, but a fully fledged one. It had been about a month, give or take a few days that Ashton revealed his intentions to join the guards to Nostariel. In those few weeks, they rushed him through the training process and spat him out as fast as they safely could. He had been right that the guard's numbers were down due to the Qunari and the extracurriculars of a select few who perhaps were best left unnamed. Fortunately Ashton was no greenhorn looking for a paycheck, years of living in the heart of Lowtown and taking on some of the more dangerous errands with his friends had prepared him more than a few sword swings at a straw dummy ever would. Of all those that had answered the guard's summons, he was among the few who had the most combat experience, having faced Darkspawn, Qunari, and bandits in equal measure.

It meant little in rank, however. He still started on the bottom rung of the ladder and he'd have to climb his way to the top tooth and nail. They'd taken his leathers and machete and stuffed him in a uniform and gave him a proper sword. The one thing they'd never take from him was his bow and it remained strung on his back, a quiver full of arrows sitting beside it. As long as he had a guardsman sword they'd let him keep the arrows, he'd been told. A fair agreement in his head. He would hate to be armed only with a sword in the dark alleyways he now patrolled. While he looked the part, a soldier he was not, at least not yet. At heart he'd forever be an archer first and foremost.

"Any baddies here? Maybe they'll be polite and turn themselves in, hmm? Would save us the trouble." He spoke aloud, mostly to Snuffy who loped at his side. Even his faithful hound was outfitted to seem more official with a light layer of kaddis displaying the guard crest on her back. Their patrol had been quiet thus far, and there was no indication that was going to change. Not that he complained. He'd rather enjoy the easy peace of a quiet street than have it erupt in a fountain of gang members out for his blood. He'd chosen his own patrol and he chose Lowtown, letting some of the greener recruits safer areas like Hightown and guard duty in the Keep. He wasn't so brave as to attempt Darktown without another partner... or several. Snuffy was a wonderful hound, just not the entirity of Darktown wonderful. A lone uniform there was like a big kill me please sign. He'd rather the relatively safe Lowtown.

Relatively.

A wiser woman might have adopted a faithful hound to watch her stagger through the streets like a sloppy spaghetti noodle, but she was not wise and hounds as loyal as Snuffles were hard to come by. Besides, Sparrow doubted that she could properly care for any other living being if she could not even care for herself. From her hazy view of the alleyways, the streets appeared fairly empty anyway. Not that she could see particularly well. Kirkwall looked much different, in this light. A little less ugly. Swaying tapestries of bright, flapping colors danced in the small licks of moonlight pouring down from the skies. Occasionally, her hands darted out to clutch at the air, as if she could hold the tubes of light. She dared not look up or the world would swallow her whole. Waking up with an egg-sized lump on her head sounded as appealing as dragging herself back home, dejected and still lost in all those thoughts that swam in her skull. Instead of ruminating and reflecting in front of a creaky desk, Sparrow did what she did best in times of thoughtless abandon—she got piss-drunk. In the months passed, she'd thought herself cleansed of those bad habits, of those rank pulls. Habits, it seemed, were hard things to shake, and maybe, she hadn't been as ready as she thought.

Slumping against one of the buildings, Sparrow pressed her cheek against one of the cool bricks and closed her eyes. The world span behind her eyelids, urging her to follow its momentum and continue forward else her head might spin off her shoulders. Like her ripped tunic, slipping freely down her shoulder until she grumbled at nothing in particular and fiddled with her non-existent buttons. While she hardly left home without wearing some form of protective gear, she didn't want to ruin Amalia's hard-work. Ruining the leather by means of vomit or dirt would be a disservice to such beautiful leathers, and so, they remained hung up in her hovel. It still felt strange wearing normal clothes. A soft, fitted tunic that was more or less ruined, and a pair of leather trousers loosely belted and haphazardly tucked into unlaced boots. One might have wondered whether she'd been at the Hanged Man or just woken up, too sleepy and rushed to bother making herself look presentable. “Stupid moron,” she babbled, slapping at her cheek, “Tell me about... story, I said, stupid.”

Suddenly pushing away from the wall, a little too forcefully, she careened into the streets; jerky legs instinctively trying to keep its upper half from taking them both down. The impending danger of the ground kissing her face seemed of no concern to her, because the world felt as if it were tilting to compensate for her lack of balance. Everything was right in the world, or else, in hers. Warmth spread through her stomach, even as the empty bottle slipped from her fingers, bouncing off the toes of her boot and disappearing behind an empty stall. A voice called out somewhere to her right—or was it her left? Or even below? Cocking her head slowly in both directions, Sparrow detected nothing out of the ordinary and decidedly hunched lower, slowly swaying in what might have been an attempt at a silent tip-toe, moving towards another alley. It was neither quiet nor sneaky.

Thunk.

She fell flat on the ground. Far from where she'd been sneaking. Somehow, she had managed to make it into a wide open space and from her sideways vantage, someone was standing there. In a uniform. Shiny. Brown, maybe. And a dog. Or something furry. Lopsided silhouettes tended to look like any kind of critter. She stared at them flatly, searching for a face, and dumbly realized that the man was facing the other direction.

“Whu... this is my alley, you.”

Ashton had whirled around in an instant, hand already reaching for his bow when he realized how entirely unnecessary it was. Even Snuffy bit off a growl as she too realized who had fallen behind them. Sparrow and stealth went as well together as oil and water, it just didn't happen. Ashton paused for a moment to let what he was seeing register before laughing. "So much for a quiet patrol," He told Snuffy who had trotted to the prone Sparrow. Ashton followed soon after, coming to a kneel in front of her.

He held a single finger in the air as a father would do to quieten a child before plunging it down onto her forehead. "Technically," Ashton began, issuing the most haughty tone he could manage, "This is my alley, you. Gotta keep them safe from ruffian vagabonds such as yourself." A mock frown etched into his features before it broke into a genuine smile as Snuffy began to lick Sparrow's face.

"Come on, let's get you to your feet," He said with a smile in attempt to help her stand again. That's when he caught a whiff of the alcohol on her. All of it. "Damn Sparrow, what? Did you sack a brewery while I wasn't looking?"

Sparrow presumed an alert stance in her mind, but in reality, hardly budged from her prone, cheek-to-ground position. She squinted up at the blurry figures, wondering whether or not that furry creature was some sort of monster-cat. No, no—it was a hound. A Snuffy. It was Snuffy. But why was she here? And with a stranger? Snuffy never usually left Ashton's side, and that might have been a more telling sign, but her rattled thoughts immediately hooked onto the singular thought: kidnap. It was obvious, wasn't it? The stern interrogation for committing such a lofty crime against her friend came out as another gurgle, holding none of the intimidation she'd conjured in her head. “Quiet... patrol? Pah!” This couldn't be Ashton. He wasn't a guard. And besides, what kind of guard stole, anyway?

She opened her mouth to sputter some colourful expletive, but the shadowy stranger held up a finger. A finger! How dare he—and then, the offending finger tapped down on her forehead and the blurry image become clearer. Finally dragging her arms up in front of her, Sparrow broke into a fit of snorts and chest-rattling laughter. She swiped at her eyes and blinked up at him. “Oh. You are Ashton. Did you, did you... steal a guard's uniform? Why would you do that?” As soon as Snuffy started licking her face, she attempted to shoo her away with weak, floppy hands. To no avail, mind you.

And then, the world began to right itself as Ashton tugged her back to her feet. Her legs protested, but it felt immeasurably better than lying on the ground. Sparrow squinted her eyes harder at him, peering close enough so that her nose nearly touched his cheek. Then, as abruptly as she'd stumbled into sight, she pulled back and nodded her head, as sage as a drunkard could be. “Ah! You are Ashton, then. Yup—and no, no. I think the bartender is fond of me, is all. Why else,” she threw her arms out wide, “would he send me home with his best ale.” For harassing everyone else in the tavern.

"Last I checked, yeah, I was still Ashton," He chuckled as he let Sparrow stand on her own two feet, though not without caution. He had a hand at the ready in case she threatened to take another plunge face first into the cobblestones. "I'd say he's a little too fond, I mean, how many of me do you see anyway?" He asked with a smirk. He then began to sway side to side, subtly at first to see if she would notice. Despite his words, he didn't miss the initial hesitance Sparrow had displayed, but it wasn't anything he didn't understand. Sparrow hadn't seen him in his uniform yet. Hell, he wasn't sure she even knew about his intentions to become a guard, it wasn't something he paraded around his circles.

"Oh Sparrow, you wound me. I don't steal... Well, I didn't steal this one, anyway," He scratched the back of his neck and averted eye contact as he spoke. The ones that he did had long been disposed of, along with the sword that came with it. Besides, the one that he wore now fit a lot better and didn't ride up in sensitive areas. "They give one to you when you pass training. You, my friend, are looking at one Ser Guard Riviera, esquire. Defender of the peace, protector of the innocent, and friend to a very certain drunk," He said with a playful wink. "Come on, let's get that ale and you home, hmm?" He said, offering her a shoulder to grab on to. He'd been drunk once before too, he remembered how hard walking was.

"What were you drinking for this time?" he asked in an attempt at conversation.

She narrowed her eyes at him, as if to verify his sincerity. Yes, this was Ashton. She had already identified the telltale scar. Sparrow pinwheeled her arms in a slow circle before regaining her sloppy balance, eyeing the ground suspiciously. How dare it move in such a way. Her mouth quibbled to blubber such accusations, but as soon as her eyes swayed back to Ashton, she had already forgotten. “You,” she cooed with a shake of her head, “Just you. And no shadow... are you sure you're Ashton? Serrah man-guard.” She followed his swaying. First with her eyes, then with her head, until she grew dizzy enough to prod a limp-finger into his chest. Or shoulder. Close enough. Ashton the guardsman. The Kirkwall guardsman. It had an odd ring to it. Why would he do that, anyhow?

Well, this supposed-Ashton knew her name, so that was proof enough of his character. Surely, a pretender wouldn't have known who she was. She was a stealthy beast of crafty proportions after all. That sounded nice, come to think of it. She bobbed her head agreeably. Well, if he hadn't stolen it to add to his repertoire of stolen outfits, she supposed that she believed him. Her squinted eyes could have passed for fatigue or veiled astonishment, depending on how one looked at them. “Ser Guard Riviera! Congra, congura, good!” She threw out her arms in celebration and nearly toppled backwards, if it weren't for Snuffy's resilient post behind her, pushing her back to her feet as a colt might. “That does have a mighty fine ring to it, doesn't it? Ser Guard. Riviera, Ser Guard Ashton. Guard Ashton, ser. Protector.” Her rattling laugh carried her forward, where she slung one droopy arm over the man's shoulder. If she'd known any better, and this was not indeed Ashton, she might have been marching off to jail again.

Ah well. When Ashton posed the question, Sparrow crinkled her nose and rolled her eyes skyward, turning the question in her head. Why had she been drinking this time? Why, why. “Oh,” she exhaled solemnly, “There's no ale left, y'know.” She took another breath, heedless of the languishing weight she applied onto Serrah Ashton's shoulders. “Rilien, y'know. He doesn't look like that wooden plate. And, I, no, no.” She pursed her lips and clamped her eyes shut, and recovered. “We sailed to a cave, and I said, I said, this can be home. Like, I can be home.” She swung another stare. Perfect explanation.

"Oh, there's plenty of ale. I can smell it on you from a mile out," Ashton said, having valiantly resisted the urge to poke her in the belly. The rest of her words, however, took a while to decipher and he had a sneaking feeling that if he was drunk as well, he'd understand her perfectly. Alas for sobriety. Still, he remembered being able to understand her, or at least thought he was able to understand her when they both were properly sauced. For all he knew, he could've been hearing something completely different from what she was saying-- but that all that felt so long ago...

"Rilien and that wooden plate...?" He repeated, thinking on what she meant. It didn't take long for the cogs to turn and he remembered the portraits he had carved-- she must had seen the one he had made of Rilien. "Oh! That one. Yeah... But he did, once." And he wasn't talking about the one time in the cave either. Before Ashton, before Sparrow, Rilien the Tranquil, was Rilien the Mage. He never asked about the latter, because to him, he was neither tranquil nor mage, he was just Rilien. Nothing more, nothing less, just a close friend. The next series of blubbering words were a bit harder to peice together. "Wait. You sailed? To a cave? Like, in a boat? The hell'd you get a boat?" He asked confused. Not only had she apparently gotten a boat, but also somehow managed to learn how to sail.

Ashton shook his head to brush his confusion off. The boat wasn't the important part, it was what came afterwards. "Home? Sparrow. This is home." He agreed with a knowing smile.

Plenty of ale,” Sparrow parroted with a snicker, rolling her eyes skyward. Tattered flags and balconies swirled overhead. Combining muted colours, swaying in the wind. Seeing the world in such a light, as drunk as she was, could have been considered refreshing. With her stomach burning and her legs disobeying simple orders, she found herself sorely missing the simplicity of not caring. There were too many unanswered questions rattling around in that skull of hers, just when she'd begun to clean out the cobwebs to make room for things she'd yet to experience. As of recent, she had decided to stop running from her problems, but here she was, still running, in a manner of speaking. Stumbling around Kirkwall, more like. She dunked her head closer and nudged his shoulder with her forehead, before dipping forward, laugh rattling her entire being.

What she wanted to do exactly remained a futuristic mystery; an island bobbing on the horizon. Holding promises and lengthy conversations that she couldn't bear to voice, and words that would not crack the surface. Rilien might have been patient with her outbursts, however unintelligible, but hers was a minute, mostly nonexistent thing. Her tiny footsteps evolved into coltish stumbles, and no matter what way she looked at it, waking Rilien in a drunken stupor seemed like a bad idea any way she imagined it. He would not understand—illogical, he'd say. Or he'd try to appease her. And neither did she.

Understanding this feeling would've taken a tremendous amount of reflection; and she was childish and selfish, still a sapling in all accounts. She blinked up at him and bobbed her head with a grim frown. It hardly lasted a second when Ashton mentioned sailing and her majestic boat and the cave she'd discovered. “Oh yes, my boat! Sophauriel. You see what I did? A combined the names of lovely lasses,” she cooed brightly, “From the bad ones. The, you know. We killed them. I mean, Ithilian and Rilien, we—uh, you weren't there were you?”

She blinked again, trying to piece together her foggy memories. But the veils were too heavy, and Sparrow simply shrugged her shoulders and grinned. Home. Such a strange word. One she had come to seek out with feverish desperation and one she'd been able to speak aloud when referring to such a strange place. “Home,” her body slowly slackened against his shoulder and she turned to look back up at him, owlish and wide-eyed. She pulled on his neck and peered uncomfortably closer. “You really mean that?”

"Think about it Sparrow," Ashton said, turning toward her own very close head. "I don't know about you, but there isn't anywhere else I'd rather be than here with everyone. How about you? Anywhere you'd rather be than with us? With him?" He said. He followed the question up with a very sudden, but playful headbutt, the risk of drawing far too close to his face. Hard enough to knock, but soft enough that no damage was done. "That's what makes it home."

She stared at him. Murky eyes wide with wonder—as if she was witnessing a miracle, or an assembly of shooting stars, or the first time she successfully kind of sailed her ship. Had anyone ever said anything so kind to her? Maybe. She couldn't remember. And the harder she tried to recount the memories, the more the ground beneath her swayed like the seas. Had she even asked the question before? Maybe. Her assumptions were simple. She belonged wherever her friends were situated, but never accounted for any particular area.

She struggled with the idea of freedom and the need for acceptance, for all of her faults. Even so, despite her addled state, it was strange to hear aloud. Sparrow blinked up at him when Ashton butted her head, producing a rattling laugh from her gut. She finally withdrew her face, kindly sparing her friend from her ale-breath. She drew her free hand to clap him gently on the cheek and readjusted her grip on his shoulder. The sadness that gripped her own shoulders seemed much lighter.

“Seems as if I've been closer to home than I thought. Home. Home.”

She liked the sound of that.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon

Earnings

0.00 INK

Rilien adjusted the leather strap hanging off his shoulder, settling the items more securely over his back. Not that he was presently running or anything, but it wouldn’t do to catch an errant protrusion on some merchant stall as he passed by. For the day, he was leaving his Hightown haunts and heading down to the lower districts. In particular, a newly-renovated building near the Docks, turned now into a barracks. It was starting to fill with occupants, actually, though official activity would not begin until such time as Lucien returned from his planned journey to Orlais. Rilien believed that he was doing it so as to give himself a definite reason to come back, after he went to the place the Tranquil believed he still considered his home, in what the poets would call his innermost heart. Lucien was inextricably tied to that place, and always had been, whereas Rilien had never felt tied to anything at all. Not then, and not now. Or so his logic told him, anyway.

He entered the barracks without knocking, his boots alighting softly on the polished wooden floor, adorned artfully here and there with thick rugs, mostly to serve as barriers between the floor and the various legs of furniture scattered around the area. There was an enormous stone hearth up against the far wall, flanked by bookcases of all things, currently about half-full of various reading material. Rilien thought it was optimistic of Lucien to believe that mercenaries would in general have any interest in literature, but apparently his friend thought differently. Over the fireplace, mounted on the stone of it, was a coat of arms, bearing the same crest as the sign outside the door, a silver lion on a maroon field. Crossed behind it were a longsword and an axe. The room contained several dining tables in the middle and more lounge furniture at the back near the hearth, while the front was dominated by a large desk, behind which sat an efficient-looking woman with iron-grey hair pulled back into a severe bun at the nape of her neck. She glanced up when he entered, but made no attempt to stop him.

Choosing the first door on the right of the massive front room, Rilien followed the short hallway to its end and knocked on the door there. It would seem the one concession Lucien had made himself with respect to his living conditions was that one of the rooms was entirely his own, though there were other doors along this hallway. "Ser Lucien.” It would not be unwise to announce himself, he supposed.

Lucien was in the process of drafting a letter when the knock came on his door, and he stood from his desk as soon as he heard Rilien’s voice, opening the door with a small smile and gesturing his friend inside. “It’s nice to see you, Rilien,” he replied, pulling out a chair from the small table in one corner of the room. The captain’s office, as it were, took up the front half of his quarters, a door behind the desk leading to his actual bedroom and washroom. The office was dominated by the desk he sat at, which was due more to positioning than size. There was another hearth at his back, and the desk itself was simple, unadorned but made of excellent wood. Though there were by this point a lot of carpentry projects Lucien would be willing to take on himself, he had left this one to the professionals, and was quite pleased with the result. Dark in color, it was offset by the cream color of the walls and the maroon of the rug underneath it, but matched the hue of the many more bookshelves in the room.

Those were occupied by actual books and more official records in roughly equal measure, the latter consisting mostly in journals and also formal documentation of Lucien’s mercenary work so far in Kirkwall. It was perhaps understandable, then, why it could fill an entire bookcase on its own—he’d been admittedly rather prolific in his endeavors over time. It helped to have something of a near-exclusive retainer with the Viscount’s office, he supposed. There was other, more comfortable seating scattered about, but most of it seemed rarely-occupied, the only other area that would appear to be in much use the large map table off to the left.

For the moment, Lucien set the half-finished letter aside, folding his hands together under his chin and leaning his elbows on the desk. “Am I to hear another attempt to dissuade me from leaving in a fortnight?” The question was inflected mostly seriously, but with faint traces of gentle humor rather than irritation. He could certainly understand Rilien’s position—in fact, he thought his friend was right. He just didn’t think that the point was one of those that could actually prevent him from doing what he’d set his mind to.

The short answer to Lucien’s question was yes. Rilien honestly was not precisely sure why he was bothering, because he knew just how stubborn the chevalier was, and he knew that nothing he could offer in the form of reasonable protest could possibly dissuade him from the course he had set for himself. Personally, Rilien thought that the whole thing was utterly foolish. Here, he had been offered a chance to live in the way he wanted, and he would never have to compromise his honor for his duty (because reasonable or not, Lucien did care about such things), because they could be one and the same without the external obligation that came of the position he occupied in Orlais. Furthermore, he was just unimportant enough out here in Kirkwall that for the most part, at least, he didn’t have to worry about being poisoned or stabbed in the back when he wasn’t looking. Why move from this situation back into the slog that was the political climate in Orlais?

But… even knowing that it would help nothing, Rilien felt… obligated to say it. “Someone will try to kill you.” There was little point in denying that. Quite likely, they would hire one of his master’s other students to do it. Aurelie did train the best, after all. “You cannot be sure that they will fail.”

Lucien smiled. “You know, Ril… that almost sounds like concern, coming from you.” But he didn’t linger on the point—he doubted his friend would even deign to respond to such a tongue-in-cheek point. “And you are right, I can’t say for sure that I’ll be alive by the end of it. But it’s also true that even if I didn’t go, that anything I do here instead would be any less dangerous. I risk death every time I walk out the door in the morning—probably more often than that.” Despite his lack of desire for a reputation, he had one anyway, and were his detractors here every to find the coin, he did not doubt he’d have to deal with assassins regardless. Not that any of those would be as bad as a Bard or three, but even so.

“And if I’m already at that much of a risk anyway, I don’t see the point in accepting it here but letting it prevent me from going there.” That was, of course, only the more logical side of the picture, but this was intentional. It was the one he knew Rilien would be more likely to accept. He followed it up with the one that he almost certainly wouldn’t.

“I am told that there is a chance that going back could help me get you an imperial pardon, you know. Perhaps it is of little consequence to you, but… I would like to try.” To some extent, it was Lucien’s fault that Rilien couldn’t never return to Orlais, and even if Rilien didn’t care… Lucien did. Even if the Tranquil never returned there in his life, the chevalier wanted him to have the option. In case it was needed, yes, but also on principle. He should not have been punished for telling the truth—and Lucien wanted to make that right.

It was of little consequence to Rilien. And yet… the Tranquil pursed his lips slightly, realizing quite well that nothing else he might say here was going to make a difference. That would not have made any difference to him, once, but strangely, he could almost imagine the ghost of apprehension, at the very edge of his self-awareness. Nevertheless, Lucien’s lack of prudence was a deeply-ingrained character trait and unlikely to change for the rest of his life, all things considered. There were few things that could cause such a change, after all, and Rilien’s bare logic, delivered with no more expression than a shopping list recited to a supplier, was not one of those things.

He was unsurprised. So instead of pressing the point further, he shifted, sliding the leather strap over his shoulder down his arm and moving to set the satchel on the desk. Several bottles clinked, but it was evidently not just potions. In fact, he’d assembled a number of useful items, precisely the ones that would fulfill his own usual functions as well as could be done without him there. So there was also an enchanted dagger, of the right size to fit comfortably into Lucien’s boot, and a few of the more specialized types of antidotes, ones that would counteract specific bardic poisons.

“Do not die, Ser Lucien. I suppose your honor will allow at least that much of you?”

The smile that spread across Lucien’s face was both genuine and rather expansive, and he chuckled under his breath. Most would say that there was simply no way a Tranquil could possibly crack a joke, but Rilien had taught him differently. Or perhaps Rilien was not really a Tranquil. Either explanation was satisfactory to him. He was still shaking his head when he reached forward for the satchel, inspecting the contents and letting his expression fade into something thoughtful. It was not lost on him, the nature of the items within, and he regarded Ril with a measure of solemnity.

“I’d still rather you could return with me,” he said quietly, tilting his head slightly to the side. “But I daresay I could scarcely be more protected otherwise, now. It would be quite shameful for me to die with measures of this quality standing between myself and the end, don’t you think?” Carefully, he set the items down on the floor beside his chair, then folded his hands back in front of him again.

“Thank you, Ril. Your continued support of my inherent foolishness is invaluable, truly.”

Setting

1 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera

Earnings

0.00 INK

A jaunty tune echoed through the empty shop, and the man whistling sat upon the front counter swinging his legs back and forth as he fletched another score of arrows. Ashton had peeled back most of the layers of the guardsman plate, the chest and arm pieces thrown haphazardly on the far side of the counter. He had yet to kick off the leggings and boots of the uniform, but at least he could breath now without the clinking of chains fouling up his ears. He looked down the length of wood, verifying that it was straight enough to fly true and once satisfied, set about adding a set of goose feathers to the tail end.

It was busy work, something to keep him preoccupied while he waited. He had morning duty that day, and had woken before the sun. By the time the sun broke the horizon, he'd already made one round through Lowtown with Snuffy and was beginning a quick check of Hightown. By late afternoon, he was allowed his leave and went straight to his shop. Snuffy on the other hand made a beeline upstairs to the lavish pillow she called a bed. While Ashton was accustomed to early dawn hours, she was not a morning creature. With a deft cut of a sharp blade, he cut grooves into the end of the shaft, and applied the glue and feathers before tying it off with a length of twine. He then set the half-finished arrow aside next to a number of similar shafts and began to repeat the process on another.

He was waiting for his very valuable employee to make her appearance. He'd sent Lia a missive that told to meet him at the shop, something to do with her continued employment. Since the Qunari incident, and his preoccupation with the guard, there hadn't been much of a shop to be an employee of. It was hard to hawk wares when such wares didn't exist, after all.

As often occurred, missives sent to the Alienage took a while to find their targets. Lia was not spending much time home of late, preferring to be out and about, or hunting, or spending time with Amalia or Ithilian, or with friends her age around the dilapidated elven buildings. When the missive did reach her, though, she made her way slowly up to the shop, grabbing her hunting gear first in case Ashton wanted her help in a different manner. She expected it would be cleaning duty today, if Ashton wanted to get the shop back up and running again, but she preferred to be prepared.

Wearing the same hooded shawl she commonly found herself donning, the elven girl warily made her way up through Lowtown, not speaking or really looking at anyone if she could help it. Amalia’s words still rattled around in her mind, but she didn’t really know how to interpret them when she felt eyes on her in passing.

Maybe she would talk to Amalia again about it sometime. For now, she had arrived at Ashton’s shop, pushing her way through the door to find her boss sitting on the counter, half of his guard armor removed from his person. “Enjoying the new job?” she asked, though her tone was not entirely interested. It had certainly been taking a good deal of his time, considering that she had stopped needing to come into work for a while now.

Setting her pack down against a wall and propping her bow and quiver up next to it, she turned around and looked expectantly at Ashton. “You wanted me for something?”

"In a sense, I guess I am. It's hard and thankless, and there's always the danger of getting stabbed in the face-- but that's nothing new, really. I'm just getting paid to get stabbed now," He said, winding the twine around the spine of one last arrow before laying his undivided attention on her. "You don't realize how much gunk is in the city until you start trying to scrape it out."

With that, Ashton drew his legs in and sat cross legged on the counter, elbows on his knees propping his head up. The job was difficult and sometimes he felt like he was never getting anywhere. No matter how many times he apprehended a criminal, routed a bandit, or helped the town drunk home, there was always another to take their place. If it wasn't due to his new found sense of blind optimism, he might've felt like he was drowning.

But he refused to see it that way. Every person he helped, every criminal he put behind bars, and every bandit he put down may have saved someone's life and it put him closer to the top, where he finally could enact real change. It was a long term goal, but he wasn't going anywhere fast. He looked at Lia and tilted his head in his puppy-like fashion and shrugged. "I'm sorry about the letter. I would've came for you personally, but the Alienage," he said, jerking his head to the guardsman plate, "Doesn't take too kindly to the uniform." And for good reason too. He always gave the Alienage a wide berth, out of respect, and out of common sense. Besides, they had both Ithilian and Amalia-- they'd be able to guard the Alienage better than the entire guard.

There was a lingering silence for a moment as he continued to stare at the uniform. "Tell me," he began, still staring, "What do you think? Honestly." Ashton asked, turning back to her. He was there when she relayed the story of how she ended up in the Gallows' prisoner, and remembered the guilt he felt for allowing it happen outside of his shop, and the helplessness that came with it. He wondered what she thought of him now, that he was one of them.

"Everyone wants to know what I think..." the elven girl mumbled in response. She sighed, though, and lifted herself up onto the counter. "I wouldn't mind knowing, too." She shrugged. First Amalia, and now Ashton, though Lia was fairly certain she wasn't going to be as comfortable opening up about anything to Ashton. He was right about the uniform... it wasn't doing him any favors.

She brought her feet up into a crosslegged position. "What I think... I think you were just fine before this. You weren't like other shem. You didn't need to tell anyone how to live. You didn't need power that you could hold over people." In the end, that had to be the root of it. Becoming a guard was about having more power for himself, for something that he decided he wanted to do. And if it was because of what happened to her... she didn't know what to think about that. But she didn't want her own misfortunes pushing the direction of someone else's life.

"I don't think ambition does people much good. Maybe you're different, I don't know. But I don't think all the men that took me joined the guard just so they could grab elven girls. Maybe some of them were more like you at some point, until they spent too much time with the gunk."

Ashton sat with a tip lipped frown marring his face, at least at first. It all broke moments after Lia had finished speaking, and he responded with a light hearted laugh. "Oh Lia, I thought you'd know me well enough to realize that I am still anything but ordinary. Like for example, one of my best friends is a tranquil, another is Sparrow and the love of my life is a Warden mage. Taking a step back and looking at it all, that's weird.," With that came another hearty chuckle. Ashton was Ashton, even a spiffy new uniform would have a tough time taking that away from him. As if to reinforce the point, Ashton dangled a leg off the lip of the counter and kicked it in a childlike manner.

"Look, I'm not going to sit here and preach at you. We both know I'm not the preaching type, and I have this feeling that having a heart-to-heart with me of all people wasn't exactly on your schedule this morning." He leaned backward on his hands and shrugged. If she wanted to talk, he'd listen, but if not then it was her choice. "So I'll tell you what I told Nos, and we'll leave it at that. Deal? All I want to do, is to do more than what I was doing before. I've already spent my time in the gunk, and I'm not planning on returning. I've turned the page on that part of my life."

"Now," He said, clapping his hands together. "Let's get to the meat of this little conference, yeah? Riddle me one more question. What are your plans for the future? What would you do if I told you I was closing down shop tomorrow? -- Hypothetically speaking of course. No one's getting fired... Yet." He threatened with a dance of the eyebrows. "Between you and me," He said, checking over his shoulders, "Snuffy's been slacking."

He was right; she hadn't really planned to do this right now, nor did she want to. But the subject was brought up, and while Lia didn't really feel like tearing through it at the moment, she didn't feel like backing down from it, either. She had enough knowledge of these kinds of things to know that just ignoring them was only going to make them worse.

"I didn't say you were ordinary. I was just trying to say that you're not infallible." She scratched at the back of her head, thinking. "Just... I don't know, ask yourself a lot why you do the things you do. So you don't forget." She didn't see how he was done with the gunk, as he had said. Working for them or putting them in the Gallows, there was no getting around them either way. But he obviously wanted to move on, so she didn't keep the talk there any longer.

A knowing grin spread across his face as he nodded his understanding. "Sweetheart, now you're the one preaching. To the choir, actually." She needn't tell him that he was not infallible. It was already something he knew and experienced first hand. He knew the mistakes he made and bore them on his shoulders, he didn't try to hide from them but learn and move on. There was a lot of fumbling involved, but at least he felt like he was fumbling forward. He placed a hand on the crown of her head and gave it a little ruffle.

She'd seen the closing shop coming, at least for a little while. He obviously didn't have the time to devote to this place anymore, and it was starting to show. He couldn't be a guard and a store-owner both, especially with the current demand on guards in Kirkwall at the moment. "Uh... I'd probably stay and find work in the Alienage. There's always something to do. Pay wouldn't be as good, obviously, if I got paid at all. But it's not like all that many elves actually make any money here." The jab at Snuffy got a tiny smirk from her, but that was all he was getting.

"You don't have to feel bad about closing the place down. Really, I'm better off than most kids my age. I'll be fine."

"I told you, hypothetically closing shop," he said, using finger quotes to emphasize the word, "In the end, it's not my decision to make." He leaned back and reached behind the counter, plucking an envelope he had stuffed away prior. He held it between his fingers, examining the outside before placing it on the counter and pressing it toward her. "It's yours."

With that bombshell dropped, he felt some sort of explanation was in order. "Now, as we both know, I've been busy of late," He said, pointing at the uniform, "And I can't run a shop and be a guard at the same time. I'm good, just not that good." he said, talking to his feet. "Now, before you start screaming charity, this isn't me doing you a favor. This is a business deal. That envelope has a bunch of lease papers and contracts. I'm willing to loan out the shop to you for a flat monthly payment," which was, of course, generous, "that begins when you get it up off the ground."

He made his way away the counter and began to pace the store and making a show of inspecting the property. "I'm not going to throw you into it and hope for the best. That'd be dumb. No, I'll get you into contact with my suppliers, show you how to balance the books, keep inventory, all of that technical junk that doesn't involve me being bored off my ass tending the front counter." He stopped near the wall, where he then crossed his arms and leaned against it. "This all assuming you agree, of course. No pressure or anything, you don't have to come up with a snap decision now. Take the papers home, look over all the contracts and stuff with Ithilian, make sure they're legit, and get back to me with what you want to do. If you think you're not up to it, well, then we'll shut her down."

"But. If you decide that this is what you want to do, then we'll make it happen."

That was all a bit much to take in, and it showed on Lia's face when her mouth dumbly hung open for a moment. "Uh..." she said, staring down at the envelope for a moment, before dragging it over to her by placing a single finger on it, like it was too hot to really grab. "Wow... that's... uh. Yeah..."

Elves didn't really run stores on their own. There was Rilien in Hightown, of course, but being Tranquil and incredibly skillful with working enchantments had a way of smoothing things out. She was just a normal person, and still a very young person. Sixteen year old girls in the Alienage were usually most concerned about who their parents were going to pawn them off to in a marriage, not with running stores, managing supplies and books and inventory and customers. She'd done some of that before, of course, when Ashton wasn't around, but it had always been clear that she was the helper, the servant, keeping the place tidy, not running it herself.

"I'll definitely have to talk it over," she said, finally taking the envelope. "But... yeah, I think I can make it work. With help." She would certainly need a lot of that, but it just so happened that Lia knew some of the best help around.

"Thanks, Ashton, this is... yeah, you know. Thanks."

Setting

1 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon

Earnings

0.00 INK

His home was exactly the way he remembered it. For Lucien, this was more reassuring than anything, though admittedly, there was a note of melancholy to the realization as well. Though they’d docked at Val Royeaux initially, they had not stayed long. Really only a day or so, and Lucien had been anxious to return to the countryside the whole time, which he hoped had not made him a terrible tour guide. Perhaps it had—he’d have to make it up to Sophia on the return trip.

From the capital, they’d taken horses and a small carriage to his family’s holdings in the southeast of the country, which were visible for about half a day before they actually reached the castle. And it was assuredly a castle. More on the Keep side of castles, because it would have been impossible for most of his ancestors to live in anything less secure, he suspected, but there was no mistaking a certain kind of elegance in it all the same. He found most of the architecture in Val Royeaux to be too ostentatious for his tastes, and so the step down that his home was felt just about right, a nice balance of form and function that the artist in him could appreciate. The walls were primarily a light grey stone, one that matched the heavy mist that coated the ground in winter. At the moment, though, it stood out cleanly against the green and gold of the surrounding fields and vineyards. Lucien was willing to bet it was going to be a good year for both, from the look of things.

They passed beneath the gates with neither any trouble nor excessive fanfare—this was not the kind of estate that threw parties for the return of its heir, though he’d clearly been expected, as had his guest. Their horses were taken from them to be cared for elsewhere, and their belongings carried up to the castle proper, while they were led towards the front entrance by Pierre, his father’s steward. Both Lucien and Sophia were encouraged to rest from the journey, and shown to where they would be housed. Lucien had his old rooms, of course, and Sophia was provided with a set of them in the guest wing.

The interior was much like the exterior, in that it showcased a certain self-aware luxury and traditionalism without beating one over the head with the obvious expense of every single piece. The emphasis was on cohesion, comfort, and quality, but there was no denying that such things would be possible to achieve without the exceptionally rare imported woods or subtle inlays on many of the pieces of furniture.

It was some hours after their arrival that, unable to sleep as he probably should, Lucien made his way out onto the grounds, bypassing the stables and eyrie and kennels in favor of the gardens, winding, intricate things maintained by a staff of about ten, usually, a mixture of humans and elves. He was pleased to see that the Madonna lilies were in bloom, and for a moment, his thoughts flitted to a horticulturally-gifted mage he knew. He was sure Aurora would have been able to tell him the name and history of most of the plants here, but for the most part, Lucien could appreciate them only aesthetically. He knew what these were, however, for they had been his mother’s favorites.

With the knife Rilien had given him, he sliced into the stems of a cluster of them, judging which would least disturb the overall arrangement, and gathering a triplicate of them in one hand before replacing the blade in his boot. From there, Lucien followed the winding trail further inward, until he came upon a modest mausoleum. It was situated in a grove of short trees, still technically in the gardens, and the stone memorials were well-preserved by the same ten people as looked after the rest. Cremation was the custom in Orlais as it was in most countries that had ever seen a Blight, but the markers were given a certain kind of reverence by those families that could afford to maintain them.

Stopping in front of the one he wanted, he initially did not make any acknowledgement of the fact that he was not alone, kneeling to place the flowers next to the red roses that had already been laid upon the stone that bore her name. He didn’t pray often, but on these occasions, he did, and he folded his hands together, still upon his knees, and bowed his head over them, remaining silent for several minutes before he opened his eyes—he’d neglected to wear the patch over the one for several weeks now—and rose, finally cutting a glance to his side.

He’d been told that he favored his mother in appearance more than anything, but there was no denying certain similarities he bore to the man at his side either. Guillame Drakon, more often referred to as Guy, was almost as tall as his son, and perhaps even a bit broader, which was definitely saying something. His age was worn well, but it was worn. The lines at the sides of his eyes and mouth were evidence enough of it, his skin marred in several places by old campaign scars, his complexion weathered to a rough tan by years spent leading soldiers in the sun. He’d never been one for the elegant masks that the other nobility wore, and usually attended court barefaced in what was a rather gauche flauting of custom. It wasn’t like anyone could tell him what to do, after all. Even Célene tended to wield her power more gently where he was concerned, because there was no denying that Lord General was not one who would tolerate too much in the way of being commanded. Pride was perhaps part and parcel with nobility, but his was of a markedly different kind than most.

But it was tempered by the same honor his son took himself to have inherited, and so Lucien at least found it difficult to fault. Then again, he’d always found his father difficult to fault, for one reason or another. They didn’t always see things the same way, and Guy was often ruthless where Lucien would rather be merciful, demanding where Lucien would request, but for all that, he felt sometimes that nobody understood him better. And that was part of the reason he’d agreed to return.

Neither of them bothered to waste time on unneeded pleasantry. “How do you do it?” Lucien asked, his eyes falling to the stone marker before them. It wasn’t necessary to specify any further.

Guy shifted slightly, folding his hands behind his back in the standard parade rest. His eyes were the same silvery-grey as Lucien’s, and at present, fixed on the same place. He had married Veronique for love of her spirit, and even he would admit that bearing her loss had been the hardest thing he’d ever done. It was not difficult to understand marriages of convenience, by such lights. But then, he’d never done anything because it was easy. “Because I must.” The answer, as the question, came slow and thick in their native tongue, the product of careful consideration and only after being forced past a certain barrier of silence that men, that soldiers, of this country were expected to keep their truths behind. Their feelings; things that were still in so many minds the provenance of the common, the vulgar, or in some cases, the female. Neither of them thought so, intellectually, but it was difficult to overcome that engrained reticence anyway.

“I can’t stop thinking about what I’d do, if I ended up like you.” It wasn’t that he thought his father handled his grief poorly by any means. Rather the opposite—Lucien didn’t think he had the steel in his spine to deal with it the way Guy had.

Though he kept his eyes fixed forward, he could feel his father’s boring into the side of his head, heavy with a familiar weight. Judgement, probably. His father was about to tell him he was an idiot, and to be fair, he was rather sure he deserved it. He was also rather sure he needed to hear it.

“And so you hesitate.” It was not a question.

“I do.” It was an uncomfortable admission, but true all the same, and Lucien didn’t lie. Especially not to his own blood. “My thoughts always turn that way. I could say it, I could tell her, and I’m… as confident as a person can be about these things that I’d probably be received well. But I… any thought about how happy that would make me is turned to how terrible it would become, if I lost her after that.” He didn’t just mean in the way his father had lost his mother, either. Their courtship had been a simple thing, comparatively, because they were both of the right social standing. It was far from a marriage of convenience, but it was convenient. What existed, or rather, could exist between himself and Sophia was much more complicated, especially now.

Guy sighed, the noise mostly exasperated, and Lucien could almost feel him rolling his eyes. “And so… what? You are afraid because it might end badly? Lucien, any number of the things you do could end badly. Your life could end badly. I hardly think that is a reason to refuse to live it. I do not regret the risks I have taken, even the ones that did not turn out as I hoped they would, and I didn’t take you for that particular kind of fool, either.”

Lucien grimaced. “It’s less that I’m afraid of how badly it could end for me, and more that I’m afraid of how badly it could end for her.”

Guy snorted. “Oh, so you’re making decisions for her now, are you? Either you’ve been lying to me in your letters or she’ll love that.” The sarcasm was dripping from his father’s tone, and Lucien knew he’d deserved that one. It was extremely unfair for him to withhold on this for such a reason, but… still, the temptation was present, and persuasive. “Andraste’s flaming arse, Lucien, have some bloody courage, why don’t you? I’ve never understood why love makes cowards into lionhearts but brave men into sniveling whelps.” He waved a hand in disdainful emphasis.

But the point was made, and he didn’t feel the need to drive it home any further. His son was certainly intelligent enough to make the necessary connections. So he shifted the topic a bit. “Those mercs of yours… up and running soon?” Guy turned toward the outer gardens again, and Lucien made to follow suit. He was still thinking about it, but as usual, his father had managed to make starkly-clear and rather colorfully-phrased his thoughts. He’d known all of this, but it meant something to hear it coming from someone else. Particularly his father.

He owed her an apology. And also a lot more than that.

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

This was a foreign pain to Ithilian.

The Dalish hunter was beginning to find that years upon years of straining his body, receiving injuries, and not having all of them well healed by a professional like Nostariel, was taking its toll. He felt stiff in the mornings, or after any period of extended stillness, pains in some of the joints, scarring that went deep. Nothing to be ashamed of, but something that couldn't be ignored, either.

He couldn't continue with this lifestyle forever, but for now, he had to. There were still a great many people that depended on him, that looked to him as an example, that would falter and suffer without him. So if that meant he had to sacrifice a bit of his pride to keep himself functional, he would do it without a moment's hesitation.

To that end, Amalia's physical lessons with Nostariel had acquired two new members. Ithilian was presently contorting his limbs in a way he had simply never thought to attempt before, grimacing like a fool, while Lia did so as well beside him. The girl did much better in matters involving flexibility, but far less so in anything that required strength. Now that she was old enough, and the circumstances obviously warranted it, it seemed prudent to allow Amalia to strengthen her as well.

Ithilian was not opposed to the idea of Lia taking over a shop in Ashton's absence, but he would be damned if he allowed her to do so unprepared. He couldn't help her run a business, as he had no experience himself, but he could make sure she was strong enough to ensure that nothing like what had happened before in Lowtown ever came to pass again. There were a number of people he would be asking to assist, at least at first. Amalia, Nostariel, Aurora when she returned, even Lucien if he could spare the time. The theory was to demonstrate that individuals not to be trifled with were interested in the protection of this store, to ward off hateful cowards who would spite it simply because of the pointy-eared girl behind the counter.

"I'm starting to think," Ithilian said, his face turning rather red from the strain, "that I actually seek out pain." It was also possible he was just doing this wrong, in which case he hoped Amalia would correct him.

“An interesting hypothesis,” Amalia replied, a small smile flickering over her face. “I can’t seem to think of any evidence to the contrary.” She paused a moment as she walked by him, tipping her head to the side, her very long ponytail falling over her shoulder. She was quite casually-dressed on this particular day, nothing more complicated than ordinary loose trousers and a sleeveless blue tunic. Her feet, as they often seemed to be, were bare, and she curled them absently into the worn sandstone of the Alienage floor. “Don’t force it—the goal is to build flexibility slowly, not break your spine in half.” Her tone was colored faintly with amusement, but she was indeed serious in what she said. Perhaps she should not have had him attempt a backbend yet.

Given Aurora’s absence, Nostariel was far and away the most flexible of the lot, having been doing this kind of thing under Amalia’s instruction for several years, but Lia wasn’t bad for a beginner, either. As for Ithilian, well… perhaps the less said, the better, for the moment. Still, this was something that might save his life one day, being able to bend far enough that a blade went through air instead of his throat, and being able to move this way tended to keep muscles and tendons in more youthful condition longer. Though she was not far from entering her fourth decade, Amalia neither looked nor felt any different than she had five years before, particularly.

Stopping to correct Nostariel’s form by picking up the woman’s arm by the wrist and moving it back a few inches, she placed it back down. Fortunately, this would not provide a balance issue for the Warden, however temporary. “If you can, transition into a stand. We’ll work on your legs next.”

Nostariel was certainly accustomed to this sort of activity by now, but that wasn’t to say it was easy for her. Every time she thought she might be close to mastering the next set of exercises, Amalia had a new, more difficult one for her to work on. But she’d never felt this comfortable in her own skin in her entire life, and it was most certainly a welcome compliment to her psychological state of euphoria lately. She felt, as a whole, balanced, both literally, proven to be true when she was able to give Amalia control of one of her arms without wobbling or falling over, and more figuratively, which was perhaps best shown by the near-permanent smile on her face.

At the other woman’s instruction, Nostariel moved out of her back-bend, aligning her vertebrae one over another in a steady sequence until she was standing entirely upright, her hands resting loosely at her sides, the last of her old breath exhaled before she intook a new one. At least they weren’t sparring right now—Nostariel usually wound up sporting a lot of bruises when that happened, and it would put a bit of a damper on her current mood.

Ithilian groaned in relief when he was finally in a normal, upright position again, though his own transition back there had been significantly less smooth than Nostariel's, as had Lia's. She was struggling a good deal with Amalia's regime, but she was trying fairly hard to hide that. To be expected of a teenager, Ithilian figured. He had been much the same at sixteen. He wiped the sweat from his brow, tugging his shirt away from his chest, where it seemed inclined to cling.

It was then that he noted the figure entering the Alienage, and immediately identified him as someone who was not a regular denizen. He carried several heavy-looking packs on his back and held a walking stick equal in height to him in his right hand, identifying him as a traveler. He was dressed plainly, dark pants tucked into well worn boots, with a light tunic unbuttoned halfway down the chest and sleeves rolled up around his elbows. He was an elf, and Ithilian would have thought him a complete stranger if not for the tattoos on his face, marking him as Dalish. He knew those marks well, three thick black lines ascending away from between his brows, a patch covering his chin, with dots in a line roughly perpendicular to his cheek bones.

He smiled when he caught sight of Ithilian, gleaming rows of white teeth. He seemed less surprised to find Ithilian than Ithilian was to find him, but still a bit shocked. "By the Dread Wolf, Ithilian, you're even uglier than I thought you'd be."

Ithilian was forced to momentarily abandon Amalia's routine, approaching the elven man somewhat slack-jawed, though by the time he'd come within arm's length of him he had determined that yes, this was the man he thought it was. "And you're still the pretty boy you always were, Emerion." His friend grinned broadly in response, and the pair clasped arms, Ithilian obviously still somewhat surprised at his presence. "It's been... a very long time." He wasn't even sure of the years, but the two had both been late teenagers when they were separated. "What are you doing here?"

"What does it look like I'm doing? I'm visiting an old friend. Took some leave from the clan, the Keeper isn't going anywhere just yet. I ran across Marethari's bunch, and they suggested I might stop here for a while. She said you've been busy here. I thought you might welcome another hand." It was somewhat clear that he was still getting used to the sight of Ithilian's uncovered head. In the years before he'd left, Ithilian had almost never walked about without the headwrap.

"Marethari did not lie," Ithilian answered. "I've been settled here for years now. This is... unexpected. Not unwelcome, though. I... did not think to see you again, to be honest." And he certainly hadn't planned on it. Ithilian wondered how, if at all, Emerion had changed. Ithilian was certainly a different person entirely when he was a teenager. Not to mention Emerion was a mage, First to a Keeper, and though he didn't exactly look as such at the moment, Ithilian wondered if his old friend had any experience hiding his magic away from the clans.

"It seems as though I haven't caught you at your best," Emerion teased, poking fun at Ithilian's state from Amalia's workout. He turned his attention to those Ithilian had been with, or more precisely, to Nostariel. "Is that a Warden band, my lady? It's a delight to make your acquaintance. I am Emerion, of the Dalish, and old partner in crime of my hideous friend here."

Nostariel had heard enough of the conversation to have caught the man’s name before he gave it and also that he was a friend of Ithilian’s, and the tattoos made it obvious enough how that had come about. She supposed they must have been clan-kin to one another at some point… though she had believed that all of them were killed by the Darkspawn. Ithilian seemed surprised to see this Emerion, but not surprised enough to have thought him dead, so there must be something else going on there. Either way, she smiled at their familiarity—this was clearly a fortuitous meeting, and for someone so formerly haunted by the past, to have a figure walk right out of it in a positive sense could only be good news.

She was admittedly somewhat surprised to be the first addressed of the group; she definitely considered Ithilian a close friend of hers, but she was standing next to two of the few people in the world who were closer to him still. Though… there was no way for Emerion to know that, and she recalled something about the Dalish having a high regard for Wardens, so her confusion was short-lived, and her smile morphed into a slight ducking of her head and a modest wave of the hand. “It is, but I am no Warden in present company. Only a healer and a friend. It is a pleasure to meet you, Emerion. I am Nostariel Turtega, presently of Kirkwall.”

"Was that your clinic I passed by on my way here, then?" Emerion asked, appearing pleasantly surprised. "It's always good to find another healer, the world has too few." Ithilian remembered Emerion's healing magic coming along nicely when he left, and he didn't doubt his skill had only improved since then.

"This is Lia," Ithilian said, when it appeared as though the girl was actually somewhat shy for once. She didn't look uncomfortable, like Emerion scared her or anything, but she obviously knew she was looking at a proud example of the Dalish, one of the few she'd had the opportunity to meet. "A close friend of mine," Ithilian added, in case there was any confusion. "We met not long after I arrived."

"Hi," Lia said, offering her own little wave. "You and Ithilian were friends?"

"We were. The best of friends, actually. We grew up together, but before I was twenty I had to leave for another clan, and several countries separated us."

"Why'd you have to leave?"

Emerion smiled slightly at the question. "Let's just say that certain gifts are not feared among the Dalish as they are among shemlen. The clans share these gifts, and those who carry them, equally." He tilted his head towards the staff he carried, and then Lia understood.

"Oh. I see. Well, it's nice to meet you, Emerion."

"And you as well, Lia."

Amalia was disinclined to introduce herself when it was evidently not solicited, and so she busied herself for the moment with gathering the few supplies she’d brought outside for the purpose of instruction. She’d been thinking about taking them through some empty-handed forms, focused especially for Lia and Nostariel on disarming and throwing larger opponents. Not that knowing such things would be at all useless for Ithilian either. But it seemed that for today at least, activity would be cut short.

Inductively, she had no reason to believe that a Dalish elf, from the very same clan that Ithilian was from, would see anything past the shape of her ears, and while she was perfectly capable of dealing with that sort of reaction, she was not necessarily going to volunteer to do so without a reason. Her supplies collected, she nodded over to the others. “The day after tomorrow, if you’ve the time to spare.” Turning to Ithilian specifically, she continued. “Pol’s unsure about the new patrol up near the fishmonger's. I’ll be tailing them tonight, should you wish to come.” Flicking her glance briefly to Emerion, she dipped her head, but said nothing, instead deciding to make herself scarce by heading back into her house.

Ithilian was not really sure how to respond, and so the chance eluded him before he could grasp any words, and Amalia was gone. He had been expecting, on some level, for that to go awkwardly, but not that poorly. Emerion seemed to regard Amalia as a curiosity more than anything, and he looked to Ithilian for explanation once she had departed. "Friend of yours?"

"Lethallan, actually. That is a long story." Emerion briefly raised his eyebrows, but took the information more or less in stride.

"Well, I may be around for a while, so perhaps there will be time to tell it. We've got a lot of catching up to do. For now, though, perhaps I should see the hahren regarding a place to stay. I don't intend to impose myself on any of you for that long, after all." Ithilian nodded. It wouldn't have been a problem to house Emerion for a while, if he needed it, but to be honest, he wasn't sure how he would feel about him staying for an extended duration. He wasn't going to ask him to leave, though. He was, after all, and old friend, and deserved better than that.

"I'll show you to him," Ithilian volunteered, gesturing for Emerion to follow. To Nostariel and Lia, he offered a somewhat apologetic look, as the arrival of his friend here had cut short their time with Amalia for the day. He could almost feel Lia's eyes on Emerion's back as they walked away.

This was going to be interesting.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon

Earnings

0.00 INK

The second trial was basically as his father had told him it would be, in the last letter. Oh, there was far too much dramatic posturing, but the important part was that, in the end, he was exonerated of his crimes against the crown, as well as his slight against his former commander’s house. It tasted a little bitter to know that this had much more to do with the fact that the house in question had fallen out of favor recently, and lacked for the allies it had once had in plenty, and quite a bit less to do with the justice of it, but even Lucien knew there was a time and place to take issue with these things and a time and place to accept what he was given and try to make it worth something. Nothing changed if he insisted on punishment for the latter while still maintaining his innocence on the former.

Even so, the verdict once read produced in him no sigh or show of relief, and if anything, it only felt that another weight had been placed upon his shoulders and his back. He’d almost forgotten what that felt like—the weight of the ghost of a crown, a specter of a throne. Not actual, perhaps never actual, but very, very possible. With nothing speaking against him now, at least in the legal sense, he was once more the heir, and he knew then that it was not going to be an easy weight to carry. It changed everything.

But there were also some senses in which it changed nothing at all.

His first act as an exonerated man was to bend his knee before the Empress and request an Imperial pardon for the bard that had once tried to kill him. He did not speak lies in Rilien’s defense, only truths. He believed the Tranquil no danger to the realm, and sought the pardon for all the elf had done for him, special emphasis placed on the preservation of his life during the initial months of his exile. It would likely have been somewhat bad form to decline a request given in such a manner and at such a time, and Lucien knew that as well as any man did. Just because he disliked politics did not mean he failed to understand them. The request was granted.

What followed was almost more arduous than the trial. To be precise, there was a small party held in his honor. Most of those present at the dinner were friends, including most of his old comrades from his days as a Chevalier, but there was also a detachment of the Empress’s most trusted dignitaries as well, people who would be insulted if not invited, and dangerous if insulted. So it went. Fortunately, dinner itself was followed with much less-formal socialization, and it was during this time that Lucien decided it was now or possibly never. And he really didn’t want it to be never.

“Not to drag you away from your very first Orlesian party, Sophia, but… well, actually, no, that was exactly what I was planning on, if you weren’t too riveted.” There was a wry half-smile on his face, and his tone was dry as a desert. His eyes were softer, though, giving him away as they tended to. “Would you perhaps like some fresh air?” He held an elbow out slightly in invitation.

Sophia had been in conversation with Lucien's chevalier friend Liliane when he approached, though it was not an interruption, as the two had merely been catching up. Liliane, of course, had been respectfully avoiding delving too deeply into events that had occurred to Sophia in the recent past, as had most of the other guests. Apart from accepting the occasional condolences, Sophia had not really had to deal with it, something she appreciated very much.

"I would like that very much," she said, slipping an arm through Lucien's offered one, settling her other hand on his forearm. She offered Liliane a smile in parting. "If you'll excuse me. It was wonderful seeing you again."

Departing the rest of the party at Lucien's side, Sophia had to resist rolling her eyes at him, though she did playfully nudge him in the ribs with her elbow. "This isn't that bad, you know. I've been enjoying myself, at any rate." There were a number of threats to that enjoyment, but so far Sophia had been able to avoid letting any of them get in her way. Some of the guests were not present for Lucien exactly, and Sophia had enough political intuition to identify them. She simply spent her time with the rest. The trial had been a fairly heavy ordeal, but it had not turned out poorly.

They emerged out onto a balcony, and the fresh air was indeed refreshing, as well as the relative quiet as compared to the din of voices inside. Sophia had worn a dark blue dress tonight, not nearly as ravishing as what she'd attempted the night of her birthday, but enough for her to fit in well enough with the formalities of a party. She was glad, at least, that she had not been forced to any events where masks where the standard. The Orlesian nobility's sort of revelry in deception was not something she could identify with.

"I know I have already, but I wanted to thank you," she said as they reached the railing, looking out over part of Val Royeaux. Though she had seen a good portion of it by now, it still had a way of taking her breath away, and now, bathed in the cooler evening air and dim glow of dusk, it was no different. "This has been just what I needed, I think. To begin healing."

Not literally, of course. By now Sophia had recovered from the near fatal wound inflicted by the Arishok, and could probably return to as strenuous of activity as she liked upon her return to Kirkwall. But the distance, particularly, was helping her at least find some kind of peace, a more centered state of mind that she could return with, and confront the ordeals that previously had overwhelmed her. Where she would go was something that she still could not settle on, but the fact that she could go on was now a certainty in her mind.

Lucien smiled slightly, and inclined his head. “I’m glad to hear it has helped.” It could perhaps have hurt as much as anything, considering the similarities to situations she had encountered as the Viscount’s daughter. But he trusted her to know what was going to harm more than assist her recovery, and he was happy this had done the latter.

Leaning forward and bracing his free hand against the balcony rail, Lucien looked out over the familiar vista with both eyes, focusing so the damaged one wasn’t so blurry. There was no denying the beauty of Val Royeaux, nor of the vistas he preferred on his own family’s lands. For all its shortcomings, his homeland was dear to his heart, and for as long as he was anywhere else, he would always feel the pull to be here once more. Yet… for the moment, at least, he was not obligated to remain, and because of that…

“Sophia. There’s… something I’ve been meaning to say. For several months now, actually.” It went unsaid that the reasons he’d held off had everything to do with the momentous events of those weeks. Taking a deep breath, he slowly lowered his arm and stepped a slightly larger distance away from her, so as to turn and speak to her properly. The spare light of dusk glinted off his silvered chainmail in places, but in moments like this, no amount of armor had ever made him feel secure in what he was doing. Actually, Lucien was not sure there had ever been moments like this before. Or rather, not for him.

His father had the right of it—actually attempting to say what he was thinking wasn’t far from making him into a craven. It was a bit too much to just spit it out as directly as he would have preferred, so he took the next best route available to him. “Before… everything, I went to see your father,” he confessed. “I wasn’t precisely sure how things were done, in Kirkwall, but I thought it was perhaps better to err on the side of tradition when it came to such an important matter, I…” He sighed through his nose, swallowing past the sudden, but not entirely unexpected, lump in his throat. He’d known it was going to be more difficult, now, when actual feelings were involved, but nothing anyone had ever said had prepared him for how much.

“I can’t… I can’t promise you anything, Sophia, as much as I want to be able to. I cannot say what will be required of me in a year, or five, or ten. One day, I will have to return here, and it is a call I cannot refuse. But… it is just as possible, I realized, that I could die tomorrow, and perhaps… perhaps that’s given me some perspective.” There was little point in dwelling on the uncertainty of a year or decade when the uncertainty of the next day was enough. And if that… if that was something he was willing to look past, then perhaps he could learn to look past the rest as well.

“So, I suppose that, having said that… I still want to ask you. May I—may I court you, Sophia Dumar? Because I’m afraid that I’m rather desperately in love with you, and quite exhausted with telling myself why I should pretend I’m not.”

Sophia had an idea of what Lucien had wanted to speak to her about, and try as she might to keep her cool on the way out, she found herself clutching the balcony railing much tighter than was necessary. She'd had as many nightmares about this moment as pleasant dreams, because the moment they finally forced themselves to confront this would inevitably tip the scales one way or the other, and there would be no turning back from there. In fact, she had planned to make a push herself before returning if Lucien did not, but it seemed she would not have to.

When the words I can't escaped his lips, she thought she might turn and run, cover her ears so that she might not hear other words that would follow. Words like never, duties, obligated, complicated, anything that implied the pulls that their births and their stations had over them, pulls that had always somehow gotten between them, when it seemed just as likely that they could have been pulled together. She used to be a noblewoman poised for a throne, while he was an exile out of favor. Now he had returned to good standing, but her floor had crumbled beneath her, and the idea of being drawn into that responsibility for life now terrified her.

But he did not speak those other words, and when she could truly see where he was headed, she clutched the railing all the harder, for fear that she might simply lift off and rise into the sky. Everything he said was of course already known by the both of them, but somehow hearing it out loud made it so real. She was at a loss for words herself, for once, and the one thing she could think about in that moment was how there was space between them, air separating them, and she despised that.

Sophia quickly stepped to Lucien, eliminating that space, throwing her arms around his neck, and kissing him. She found herself on the verge of tears, but judging from the fact that she couldn't stop smiling, they were not the kind of tears she had been formerly shedding.

Breathless, she realized she needed to say something. Or maybe she didn't, but she wanted to, so she at last pulled away from him, though she didn't dare let her hands leave him. "I've wanted to do that for so long," was the first thing that came to mind, and she laughed, reddening slightly.

"Whatever happens in the future, to you or to me... I know that you love me, and you know that I love you." She broke into a teary eyed smile just from saying the words. "And we know that we were brave enough to try and make this work." There would always be the possibility of things crumbling to the ground, their feelings not enough to overcome the pulls of the world against them, but who would they be if they never tried? That would be the worst pain, something that Sophia could not bear. This was the way things were supposed to be.

Lucien didn’t blush, but from the smile on his face, equal parts sheepish and elated, he understood perfectly well where her feelings on the matter were coming from. He supposed that her point was on the mark exactly, and though some part of him would not be able to stop dreading what might happen, he believed it was fully possible not to let the dread be the prevailing instinct. Exhaling a deep, contented breath, he twined his arms around her back, almost as if to reassure himself that this was no dream, no conjuration of a sleeping mind, to be here and with her, but that what he saw was truth and she was solid and flesh and present. Yes, dread was conquerable.

Some part of him felt that anything was conquerable, just now.

“That was… not exactly how I was expecting this to turn out,” he admitted, relief and laughter and contentment warring for control of his tone. It came out breathier than he’d intended it, but he was hardly concerned with his dignity at the moment, and found that he did not care. Still holding her to him, he pressed a kiss to the crown of her head, savoring the contact for what it was. He’d denied himself this privilege for a very long time, restricted by politeness and decorum to only the most incidental or clinical of contacts. There was just something wrong with the world when you held your beloved’s innards inside her abdomen before you were able to embrace her or even say the words themselves.

“But you’ll not hear me complaining.”

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon

Earnings

0.00 INK

The process of folding lyrium into existing metal was a complex thing, one that required an abnormal degree of concentration and focus, as well as the ability to ignore distractions. This, Rilien suspected, was the real reason that Tranquil were generally so much better at it than anyone else. Other suspected it was their innate severance from magic, but if that was true, then dwarves would all have the same proficiency, and they clearly did not. But it was his Tranquility that gave him this singleminded determination—though he had once been an intense person, he’d also been a flighty one, to some degree, and things held his attention only as long as it took him to grow bored with them. It was often said that in most cases, it was intelligent people who were most easily bored. Perhaps it was easy to guess that he’d never lingered on one thing very long until his magic was taken from him.

The dagger in his hand was currently heated until the blade was golden, and he handled even the hilt with thick blacksmith’s gloves, scraping a groove into the side of the steel, and pouring liquid lyrium in with his other hand. What happened next was difficult to explain, but back into the fire went the blade, and the lyrium itself seeped into every imperfection in the metal, which all yielded to the large one-handed hammer he applied to it with force. Striking it was actually a measured action—Rilien was listening for a specific tone. When he struck upon it, quite literally, the entire blade thrummed in his hand, and he doused it in the trough of water next to him, steam curling from the contact of burning and liquid. It was not a one-time process, but this was the last time this particular dagger needed it, and so he set it carefully on the weapon rack standing next to the trough, removing his thick padded glove and returning it to the hook on the wall made to hold it.

Padding on silent feet across the workshop, he mounted the steps to his quarters above and gathered a few items for lunch from his small kitchen. Bread, cheese, a few vegetables. Rilien ate for nutrition, not enjoyment, though this was not to say he was entirely without culinary knowledge. He knew how to recognize finer things among less-quality ones, and that was simply part of who he was. He’d been learning the distinctions since he was merely a child. Raised under such a rigid hierarchy as the Orlesian one, it was very important to know who was accorded what, and who denied which things. But while he understood the point of finer clothes and the like, he had no need of fine foods when alone. They were not more nutritive for tasting better.

Returning downstairs, he took one of the stools at the round table on the far side of his counter and settled down to take his meal, not at all unnerved by the quiet of the shop on this particular day.

Most of the day since their return to Kirkwall, Lucien had spent putting everything back in order, checking in with his mercenaries, and things of this nature, not to mention resting. It wasn’t until the second day, therefore, that he decided to make his social calls, and the first one of those was one he was only too happy to be making. With an official envelope in the inside pocket of his jerkin and a most unexpected weapon at his back, he headed for Hightown, to see a certain enchanter friend of his.

The journey up was quick, perhaps because he’d grown so used to the route, but also because he could not deny that there’d been a certain verve in his step and pace recently, for more than one reason. His life was good, he could not deny that, and though things around him could always be better—and indeed, he would always strive to make them so—that did not preclude him from enjoying them as they were, either.

His knock on the door of the shop was more courtesy than necessity, and he found Rilien seated at the small table Lucien himself usually occupied when he came by to visit, apparently taking his afternoon meal. Reaching into his pocket, he withdrew the sealed envelope and tossed it so that it landed gently at his friend’s elbow. “For you,” was all he said, taking his own seat across from the Tranquil.

Rilien finished chewing before he acknowledged the presence of the envelope by his elbow, and even when he did, he chose not to open it until Lucien had sat down, turning the object over in his hands. It was made of thick vellum, the very same near-instinctive sense for quality he had informing him that it was especially-quality stock, of the kinds used by nobles for official communiqués. It was therefore rather heavy, but the outside envelope was unmarked, save for the wax seal in deep purple that held it together. It was stamped, of all things, with the Empress’s sigil.

With a quick flick of his fingers, he broke the seal. The paper inside was excessively official, lined with fine silvery leaf around the edges. It was, however, the words, written in his native tongue in an elegant hand, that caught his attention. It would seem that Rilien Falavel, elf and ex-Bard, had been granted formal pardon by the Empress herself for his crimes. He was at any time permitted to return to the place of his birth with no fear of official reprisal. Unofficial reprisal was, as it had always been, another matter entirely. But even so… the way back was no longer barred to him. In truth, he had never suspected that even Lucien would be able to achieve something like this. For what reason could any Orlesian noble have to bother exonerating him? Getting any of them to do something without a self-interested reason was basically impossible—it seemed to be a law of human psychology.

And yet… here was the evidence to the contrary. Rilien’s brow furrowed just slightly, and he folded the paper back into the envelope and set it down carefully. Lifting his eyes, he studied Lucien for a moment. "Thank you, Ser Lucien.” Perhaps this would never make any difference in his life—he was comfortable here, as he was and doing as he did—but all the same, it was not lost on him the effort that Lucien had been willing to put forth just to give him the option.

Tilting his head to the side, he observed the new armament his friend was carrying with some interest. "Is that Everburn?”

He wasn’t surprised at Rilien’s perceptiveness, though actually, the reaction he’d gotten for the missive was substantially more than he’d been expecting. Lucien smiled slightly, then nodded, unbuckling the leather strap that kept the blade affixed to his back. The sword was a mighty thing, and clearly very old, from the designs on the hilt and at the base of the blade. They weren’t Orlesian, but rather in Old Tevene, the language of the Tevinter Imperium before the advent of the Chantry. The blade itself, however, appeared to have suffered not at all for its age, probably attributable in part to the fact that his family had taken a great deal of care with it since it came into their hands. It had belonged most famously to the man for whom his house was named, the first Emperor of Orlais, but it had surely known other hands before that.

Still, for all the maintenance it was given, it was still a sword, and swords were meant to be used in battle, so… that was what they did with it. Leave it to his family to have such a practical heirloom, he supposed. His father had given it to him, before he left—in some ways, he supposed, to make sure he’d return. Despite that, the importance of the gesture was not lost on Lucien, and it had humbled him even if there were ulterior motives involved. He had not held a sword in his hands in years, feeling his honor lost to him while he was still an exile from his homeland. But… now, perhaps, he could carry one again, use one again, for he was a knight again, and no more an exile.

“It is,” he acknowledged, laying the blade on the table between them. It was sized for a Drakon—apparently, few of them had ever been small people, though he heard that his great-grandmother had used it quite effectively from a height of about five-and-eight, though he imagined that would have been difficult. It was quite heavy as well, even for something of its size, something he attributed to whatever strange metal it was made out of. It had a sheen like silverite, but it was different, of that much he was certain. “I was hoping you might do me a favor, actually, Ril. The enchantment on it is really quite old… and my father hasn’t actually used it on a battlefield in more than a decade.” It wasn’t exactly the kind of weapon one practiced with, given its properties. “Would you mind taking a look, making sure that everything’s still in order?”

By the standards of a martial culture, this probably counted as quite the honor. This sword was among the most historically significant objects in Orlais, if one went in for that sort of thing. To Rilien, a weapon was a weapon, and he knew that in some respects, Lucien was the same, but all the same this was probably quite the honor. Tilting his head to the side, Rilien examined the blade, flicking his fingers against it, which produced a similar metallic ring to steel, but with a better tone to it. "You wish me to… maintain the enchantment on this?” He could not understand his own doubt—he should not be feeling it.

Rilien knew, from a purely logical perspective, that he was the best enchanter in Kirkwall. Though he did not know all of them personally and thus could not say for sure, he may well be more skilled than any enchanter in Orlais, as well. This was his craft, and he was exceptional at it. It made perfect sense that if the enchantment needed to be inspected or possibly restored, then Lucien would ask him to do it. Even so… Rilien felt something, and it was entirely illogical, and he remembered that the name of it was something like doubt. Something like being humbled. It was not especially pleasant, that flicker against the solidity of his Tranquility. Unsettled, was the word, and a tiny sign of it passed over his face, almost too quickly smoothed back into his usual expression.

"Very well.” He glanced up from the sword to Lucien, blinking citrine-colored eyes slowly, his equilibrium to all appearances intact. "If you will consent to leaving it here for a day or two, I will make the required assessments.” It was not something he would do in his current state.

Lucien couldn’t help but notice a slight irregularity in Rilien’s demeanor—when a person gave everyone else so little to work with, small changes were perhaps more easily perceptible, after all. And there was of course no question that it meant something important that it had occurred at all, but Lucien didn’t press, because he sensed it was a bit more distressing than anything, and if Rilien wanted him to know, he’d tell him. So instead he nodded, perfectly sanguine, when the Tranquil asked him to leave the sword behind for a few days. He certainly didn’t have any issue doing so. If there was anyone he trusted with it, it would be Ril.

“Of course; take as long as you need to.” He paused slightly, eyeing his friend for a moment. “And Ril… if you ever need to talk about anything, well… I’ve said it before, but I’m here for you.” He didn’t push it any further than that, however, just settled further into his seat with the intent of updating him on the goings-on in Orlais.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

It was easy to interpret Sophia's current actions as running away, and indeed, sometimes she couldn't help but see it that way herself, but lately all she could think about were the aspects of her life that were blissfully positive.

Moving to Lowtown could hardly be described as a blissful experience, but it would mean she'd be closer to Lucien, and that in and of itself was close enough, not to mention Nostariel. Interestingly, Ashton would be spending a good deal more time with the guard in Hightown now that Sophia was getting away, but she was fairly proud of him for making such a bold change, and was certain he would be a positive impact, something the guard force sorely needed lately.

Bran had tried to get Sophia to stay in the Keep and reconsider, but as usual, he held little sway over her, and she did what her heart told her to do, and that was to rid herself of all the horrid weights of living in that place while she still had the chance. While she still had the time. The future could bring any number of things to her feet, and she would have no choice but to confront them, but for now, she finally had the chance to become someone she had always wanted to be.

So it was that the famed daughter of Marlowe Dumar, the former Viscountess of Kirkwall and slayer of the Arishok, moved from her castle into a small room on the second story of the Hanged Man tavern, right across the hall from the one Nostariel had formerly occupied. Sophia wondered at the thought of them being neighbors, but she supposed they were hardly very far apart as it was. Varric had been rather flabbergasted at the news, and made every effort to ensure the room was well equipped, after he had determined that yes, she was serious about this.

The next few hours were spent organizing what goods Sophia had felt she needed to bring along from the Keep into her much smaller quarters. Some of it was painfully out of place, such as the set of armor hanging on a rack on the wall. If this was successful, Sophia figured this wouldn't be a permanent fixture, and she would eventually find somewhere more suitable. For now, she was just excited to be taking life by the reins again.

Nostariel hummed to herself, a pleasant little tune that she was sure she’d picked up from Sparrow, or perhaps Ash; definitely someone who had a taste for lively music. A shanty of some kind, she was sure, but she didn’t know the words. Considering what shanties were usually about, she probably didn’t really want to, but the tune was pleasant enough, and served as measure and rhythm for the work of her hands and the small spade she was using, to unearth a particular-pretty purple hydrangea plant from the garden in front of the clinic. The plants next to it were doing well enough that it wouldn’t be obviously missing from the whole view, and she had a feeling it would contribute more where she was taking it than where it was coming from, anyway. Fortunately, this one was only small, and shouldn’t require more sun than a window could provide.

She moved it, roots and all, into a cheerful little pot she’d painted a bright green, with darker green at the bottom in a gradient effect, then packed the rest of the pot with soil from the surrounding area, then stood with it, brushing her knees off with her free hand and stepping back into the clinic just long enough to stow the spade in the toolbox under her counter before she locked up behind her, swapped the sign over to CLOSED, and headed the long-familiar path to the Hanged Man.

If the rumors she’d heard, about Sophia taking up residence there, were true—and she knew they were, considering the source—then it was in some sense a very strange reversal of fortune, though thankfully not one that Nostariel took to mean that Sophia was at rock bottom. The Warden had seen her at rock-bottom, and for her, that had been in the Keep, all alone, and miserable. Perhaps this was actually a step in the right direction. It was certainly something she planned to ask about. Well… that and the much more obvious, much more intriguing thing, which was that she’d spent two months in Orlais with Lucien. The little harmless gossipmonger inside the polite Warden was practically slavering to know what had happened there.

Besides, turnabout was fair play.

When she entered the Hanged Man, Varric helpfully pointed her in the direction of Sophia’s rooms, which turned out to be just across the hall from where Nostariel herself had once lived. The door was slightly ajar, and so the elf didn’t so much wait to be admitted as announce she was coming in. “Knock knock.” The projected words were followed by Nostariel gently shouldering open the door. “Sophia? I, um… I brought you a housewarming present.” She held out the hydrangea as if to provide evidence for the claim.

"Nostariel!" Sophia's eyes lit up as they fell on the elven woman, and she swooped over to the doorway. She smiled at the potted plant in her hands, accepting the gift and quickly moving it to a table beneath the window, before returning so that she could wrap the Warden in a hug. "I missed you. Come on, come in."

Returning to the hydrangea, Sophia made sure to position it where it would receive enough light. "It's beautiful. Very nice choice. I suppose I'll have to thank Aurora as well, though?" There were fairly few places in the city to acquire flowers such as these, and the garden outside of the clinic was probably the best, not to mention the most convenient.

“Oh, certainly. She helped me plant and look after them.” Nostariel still felt a little bad that she hadn’t been there to see Aurora off to Antiva, but she knew her friend would be back.

"You've heard the news, then? I'm free of Hightown, at least for the moment. Not exactly the most spacious quarters, but I think I'm right where I want to be." She could have bought herself any open place in Hightown, and indeed, that was one of the options she'd considered for getting out of the Keep, but this was just... better.

“It’s actually kind of nice, living here. Right on the pulse of Lowtown, so to speak.” At least, Nostariel had liked that about it. She’d needed a reminder that other people still lived and had troubles, because it meant that sometimes, she was able to drag herself far enough out of her cups to do something about it. This was obviously not going to be Sophia’s problem, but it didn’t hurt to be somewhere so central even so, though it was perhaps not the ideal permanent arrangement unless you were someone like Varric, who made a living knowing everything about everyone.

There wasn’t much containing her questions, though, and Nostariel didn’t much bother being delicate about it. They were friends, after all, and if you couldn’t be frank with your friends, then you were dong something wrong. “So? Orlais? You and Lucien? How was it? I want to hear everything.” Judging from Sophia’s mood, and her current location, the news was good, and Nostariel bit her lip, smiling behind it in an exaggerated fashion, parking herself in a chair and crossing one leg over the other.

Sophia was actually quite eager to tell someone all of this. At least, someone who was not Varric. The details of her private life were not something she wanted bouncing around in the mind of a storyteller, especially one who had already made some efforts to build up her legend. She made for an interesting story, after all. Nostariel, though, was someone she could easily confide in, and it was only fair, considering how she had pried on the other occasion, when it was her friend bursting at the seams with exuberance.

She sighed pleasantly, settling herself down on the bed. The wood creaked a bit under her, but she paid it no mind. Leaning back on her hands, she dove in. "I know I don't look like it now, but a lot of the trip was actually a bit stressful. For Lucien more than me, I think, but... the issue of us was unfortunately left hanging over our heads for most of the trip."

Since Nostariel wanted to hear everything, Sophia started from the beginning, detailing most of the places they traveled to, meeting Lucien's father and seeing his home, the journey to the capital, the trial, and the subsequent party that followed. She'd enjoyed every step of it, but the stress of not knowing how things would pan out between them had steadily loomed the entire way.

"It was during the party that we confronted it, finally. I was a nervous wreck inside. He offered me his arm and we left the party behind for a moment, going to get some fresh air on a balcony. I used to think some of the views from Hightown were spectacular." She rolled her eyes, indicating how ridiculous that was now that she'd seen Val Royeaux for herself.

"I... thanked him for the trip, first," she continued, remembering how she'd felt in those moments of uncertainty. "I knew what we were going to be talking about, or at least, I was going to ask him about it if he didn't bring it up himself, so I just wanted to make sure he knew how much it helped me first, in case things went poorly." Even the thought of that happening was enough for her eyes to fall to the floor.

But it hadn't turned out that way, and she picked her eyes back up, smiling softly. "He said that he couldn't promise anything, that he didn't know what would be required of him in the years to come, but also that he could die tomorrow, and that it gave him some perspective. Then, well... he asked if he could court me. Somewhat timidly, I might add. He's the bravest man I know, but I do believe I scare him sometimes." It was remarkable, how he could walk into a dozen darkspawn without a second thought, but the thought of falling in love with her had left him fear-stricken for years.

"Not that he wasn't romantic about it, mind you," she added. "Desperately in love with you, were his words. I... well, I kissed him after that. There wasn't really anything else I could respond with. At least, nothing that I wanted to do more." She turned a little red. Talking about romantic relationships was... not something she was extremely experienced in. The drawbacks of being picky, she supposed.

Suddenly, Sophia flopped backwards onto the bed, golden hair splaying across the covers. She settled her hands over her stomach, and sighed. "I've felt about as light as air since then. It's nice, isn't it?"

“It is.” Nostariel had kept her silence throughout the story, listening with rapt attention, though admittedly, she’d been fidgeting quite a bit towards the end, attempting to contain her excitement. Perhaps that was a little silly of her, but she’d been watching those two dance around each other for the better part of four years, and to hear that it had finally resolved in something good, even if it was something without a guaranteed duration, well… that was something worth being so enthused about, if anything was. Lucien and Sophia were two of her very best friends, and to know that they were happy in this way made her happy, too, compounding her own existing state of joy.

Was it ironic, that it was only after so much pain and death that things finally felt like they were becoming as they should have been all along? Well, it was definitely certain that little ever came easily. “I’m so happy for you, Sophia. I really am.” There were other things she wanted to ask about, of course, not least the obvious: what would they do if Lucien eventually had to go back to Orlais? But that wasn’t something she expected either of them had an answer to at the moment, and it was assuredly too much of a damper to just throw out there in just this moment.

So instead, she made an observation. “You know, I’ve tried to get myself to stop thinking of things like this, but in a lot of ways, that really is a fairy-story. The one you two have, I mean. Only… better, I think, because I know how hard you’ve both worked for everything you have.” And she knew how much they’d lost, as well.

Sophia pulled her legs up onto the bed and rolled over onto her side, propping her head up on her hand and letting the sunlight from the window fall across her face. "It is kind of like that, isn't it?" She smiled distantly, obviously thinking of something else. That sort of half smile had been near permanently etched onto her face since then. It was glorious how much more youthful she felt now, whereas before she had always desired to act older than her age, to grow up and saddle responsibility even before it was her time.

"Everything feels so much less overwhelming now. I still don't think I can go back to Hightown, but I really think I can make a life here. One that suits me better." She knew there were many who would say she was better suited for no role other than that of leadership, but she couldn't agree with them. Not now. "I'm going to help Lucien with his company as much as I can, and keep doing the work I've been doing for years already."

Now she would not have the weight of her inheritance looming over her. Sophia was not unaware that she was actively trying to recreate the life her mother had led before settling in Kirkwall, but she could find no reason not to. That, she believed, was what would make her the happiest.

Nostariel grinned, hopping up from her chair and clapping her hands together once. “Excellent. In that case, I’ve gathered a few of our friends together to help you get started. They should be down in the main area of the tavern. Varric and I are throwing you a housewarming party, you see.” There was a little mischief in her eyes, and the smile inched wider. “I hope you don't mind.”

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

Emerion was gone at last, though not indefinitely. The Keeper's First had stated his intent to explore the majority of the city, to better learn its layout, and Ithilian had seen no reason to try and stop him, or warn him of the dangers. He pitied the first shem who would think to test the new Dalish arrival to the city, for if Ithilian knew Emerion even slightly, he was just as deadly as the hunter himself had ever been, probably more so. Emerion had magic at his fingertips. A power Ithilian seriously hoped he would keep hidden.

The day before had been spent almost entirely with his old friend, as there had been much to discuss, and merely getting each other caught up on the events of their lives had taken hours and hours, to the point where Lia, who had interestedly followed them around for most of it, could stand it no longer, and turned in to sleep.

Today was different, though, and Ithilian was resolved to make use it of it while it lasted. Amalia had avoided the pair of them altogether while they were near each other, and Ithilian was never sure how, or even if, to try and break the ice. He'd done his best to try and stress how much of an ally Amalia was, both to the Alienage and to Ithilian personally, but he had a feeling little of it took hold. Emerion had been the son of the old Keeper Ithilian had followed, and what began in the father carried on in his offspring. He did not have a kind disposition towards humans.

While Emerion was gone, though, Ithilian made quickly over to Amalia's dwelling, rapping on the door three times with his knuckles. If Emerion was going to be staying here for a while, which it seemed like he was, then this was going to rear its head eventually. Ithilian hoped to make that as painless as possible.

Amalia answered no more than a few seconds later, clearly having been on her way out of the house for a while, considering her attire. Which was to say, she was actually wearing shoes, which was something she never did inside her own home. Her harp was cradled under one arm, her hair braided over one shoulder, but whatever she had been on her way to do was evidently not of particular importance to her, for when she discerned the identity of her guest, she let the door fall open the rest of the way inside.

Kadan. Where once in their history, a visit like this would surely have meant that some task urgently needed doing, that was no longer the case in the vast majority of the instances they saw one another. But she would not have expected a social call with his friend in town so recently, and she tipped her head slightly to the side. “Is something the matter?” She stepped aside from the doorframe, indicating that he was welcome to come in.

After her viddathari had cleared out, she’d wound up with the four-roomed home to herself. It was considerably more space than she required, where once it had been packed with too many bodies, but the Hahren had not seen fit to designate her other rooms as belonging to anyone else, and so for the moment, it was all clean, precisely-organized, and mostly empty. Amalia’s life was not one that left much in the way of refuse. Excluding the elements of her various craft pursuits and the very basic things she used by way of furniture, she owned almost no personal items whatsoever.

"We should talk about Emerion," Ithilian stated somewhat bluntly, after a brief pause at Amalia's question. He'd thought it rather obvious, but then again, he knew much better than Amalia what kind of person Emerion was. As far as he could tell, he was quite similar to how Ithilian had been when he'd arrived in the city, minus the residual crushing grief of losing his family. It was still a dangerous concoction to brew in a city like Kirkwall, which had already proven itself to be a hornet's nest just waiting to be kicked.

"He's off exploring the city for the moment. I wanted to better explain where things stand, as... we didn't really get a chance yesterday." The explanation of his relationship with Amalia had more or less sailed by Emerion. He wondered if the same would happen here. Probably not. She was not so blinded by a doctrine of hatred that had taken years and the worst kind of suffering to break through.

He stepped inside, closing the door behind him and settling into the nearest chair, leaning forward to place his elbows on his knees. "I'm... not sure what to think about this, honestly. I was a very different person when I knew him, but from what I can tell, he is largely the same. That is to say, dangerously prideful, hateful of humans, and not one to sit back and not assert himself. We were kindred spirits of a time. Now, though..." He trailed off. It didn't seem right to take out on his old friend the frustrations Ithilian had with who he used to be, but all the same, they no longer agreed on nearly as many things as before.

"He's still a friend of mine," he continued, scratching his head, "but if he's staying here for a while... I don't know what he's doing. I could understand if he just wanted to see me again, but if he's settling in... it doesn't make sense. He's First to a Keeper, in line to control his own clan. He has responsibilities, and it seems like he's neglecting them by being here."

Sensing that this was going to be rather important, and not something for public consumption, Amalia took up a spot on one of the cushions on her floor, settling the harp in her lap. She didn’t do much with it, at least not until her kadan had said his piece. Her brow furrowed slightly, and her fingers teased the strings as she attempted to put together what she wanted to say. Carefully, she set her personal feeling to the side and considered the matter as rationally as possible. Somewhat more difficult than usual, when her personal feelings as such were not entirely settled.

“I think,” she said carefully, trilling a chord, “that the best way to find out what his purpose is here is to ask him. I do not know if your friend is of the dissembling kind, but if he is not, then the answer should be ready enough. Perhaps something happened to his clan. Perhaps he feels that his responsibility to them, as you put it, extends more properly to all elves, and looks for somewhere that he might be of most use.” Kirkwall was, after all, notoriously unstable—if ever there was a place to stir a populace into something, this may well be it, especially considering the continuing distrust of the Guard and the draconian—by standards not hers—measures the Templars were taking to maintain their control. Something was abound to give eventually, again. And there was opportunity in that, for the right sort of person.

“As for the rest… I think we have both learned by now that it takes more than abject hatred to deter me from doing as I wish.” She smiled slightly, one of her eyebrows quirking upwards, a reminder that his attitude had certainly not affected her, when he had been the same way. “And… just because this is his attitude now does not mean it will remain so.”

Ithilian returned his lethallan's smile. "I suppose we'll just need several years and a world of suffering for him, then." It was said jokingly, but there was some truth to it. Ithilian would never have seen through his old ways if he had never been made to feel so wretched. It was not something he would wish upon a friend, even if it would serve to make them wiser. "Not to mention that the man who drilled it into him was his father, not just his Keeper."

Letting out a pent up breath, Ithilian leaned back in his chair, resting his palms on his thighs. "I'm overthinking this, surely. You're right. I guess I've just... gotten accustomed to trouble." With good reason. There had been little cause to add to his collection of scars lately, and he expected that surely something was coming to change that.

There wasn't really much to be done about the prejudice, he supposed. As Ithilian had already proven, anything thrown at Amalia would simply wash over her. She wasn't one to be moved in any direction by a bark over a bite.

“Not without reason,” Amalia acknowledged. “Caution is rarely ill-conceived, but better, when it is ultimately for naught.” Anything else she might have said was interrupted by a knock on the door, and she stood smoothly from her seat near the ground and set her harp down next to the cushion. She was certainly not expecting any more guests today, but they were not precisely uncommon. Despite her strange nature, four years had firmly entrenched her here, and in all that time, she had given none of these people any reason to fear her. Particularly not the children, who tended to be bolder with their impositions on her time and energy. Not that she minded, of course—if she had, she would not have allowed it. In this way, she considered herself a particularly simple person.

When the door swung open that time, however, it was no child that stood on the other side. “Emerion,” she said, a note of soft incredulity in her tone. Perhaps he had simply heard that his friend was present and needed him for something. “You are welcome inside, if you are so inclined.” She moved the door wider, and stepped to the side. If nothing else, it would be easier for him to talk to Ithilian from the entrance that way.

"Thank you," Emerion said, taking her up on the offer and stepping through the doorway. Once inside, his eyes shifted about in nearly every direction, taking in the interior of the house, its layout and the items easily visible, before settling on Ithilian. "Lia informed me that you were here. I hope I'm not intruding."

Regardless of whether he was intruding or not, he then turned back to Amalia. "We weren't properly introduced yesterday, and considering how highly Ithilian spoke of you, I felt somewhat callous in having ignored you. Allow me to correct myself. As you know, I am Emerion of the Dalish."

Amalia leveled Emerion with a measuring look, but in the end, her reply was basically what it would have been in any case. “I am called Amalia. Once Qunari. Now… of the Alienage.” She felt no need to put a finer point on it than that.

"A pleasure to make your acquaintance. Any friend of Ithilian's is surely a friend of mine." Ithilian watched this somewhat cautiously from where he still sat, caught a bit off guard by Emerion's politeness. For all his experience with the man's prejudice towards humans, he couldn't say he'd ever actually seen him interact with one while outside the confines of the clan. Perhaps he was just smart enough to know that Amalia wasn't one to throw pointless hate at.

"This is... quite a lot of space, for an Alienage home, if you don't mind me saying. You live alone?" That was more along the lines of what Ithilian had expected. Emerion could hardly know what Amalia had done with this place without seeing it for himself. It only followed that he would find issue with it, considering how much less space many elves lived in here.

“For now.” Amalia nodded slowly. She was far from oblivious to the implication of the statement, but it was not really her business what the Hahren did or did not decide to do with the other three rooms in her home, and if any here should want to share the house with her, she would have no issues with it. As usual, however, where saying this out loud may have smoothed something over, she chose not to. It was not on her to explain everything about herself to anyone who expressed curiosity. That much, at least, had never changed about her at all.

“Is there business you must attend to, or would you care to remain? I was going to make tea.” She blinked over at Emerion, one eyebrow raising slightly as if to punctuate the question. Perhaps in contrast to the previous day, she appeared rather centered, at ease, unruffled. Arguably, she always seemed that way, but this was absent the tension of Emerion’s initial arrival. It would seem she was taking her own advice when it came to the benefit of the doubt and caution.

"Why not?" Emerion asked rhetorically, as though Amalia were a longtime friend of his as well. "That sounds wonderful." He sat down across from Ithilian, who was not able to contain his apprehension at the idea of sharing tea with these two so soon, but for all that, Emerion seemed intent on remaining civil.

This was going to be interesting, to be sure.

Setting

5 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

The day was a magnificent one, for early autumn. The air was crisp without being cold; it didn’t tend to get terribly chilly in Kirkwall anyway. But there was a bit of a freshness to it, perhaps due to the rain that had fallen the night before, dampening down the natural odors of the walled city and allowing the briny tang of the ocean to drift in for a while. At present, Lucien was enjoying on the docks with two of his favorite people: Sophia and Nostariel, who had both been kind enough to volunteer to help him with a few finishing touches on the barracks today. A few of the other mercs had already moved in, but some of the rooms in the back still needed maintenance before they could be opened up, and even in advance of their first official contract, he’d already had the fortune of a new wave of applicants.

Lunch was a simple affair, but the bread was fresh, the fruit was ripe, and the cheese sufficient to his Orlesian sensibilities on the subject. One would not immediately pick Lucien for a food snob, but there were certain things he could not really help about himself, and he enjoyed eating too much to not want to eat well. Not that he made a fuss about it, of course. Concessions were necessary when living a more modest lifestyle, and he was happy to make them, for the benefits that came of his current position.

So, almost like children were given to do in Val Royeaux, they were sitting on one of the smaller docks, their legs dangling over the edge. Lucien’s feet were submerged, actually, his breeches rolled up to the knees. The water was pleasant against his skin, and unconsciously, he moved them back and forth. It reminded him of days ill-spent, sneaking out past his tutors, donning the clothing of a pauper child and exploring the grand, beautiful disaster that was the capital. The sea hadn’t drawn him more than anything else, in truth, but his friend Thierry had been absolutely enamored, and when his turn came to decide what they did, they wound up by the boats more often than not. He remembered the sun on the back of his head and shoulders, twiggy boy-limbs stretching to skim the surface of the sea at high tide. Wondering if that was how people caught fish.

“Thank you both, for your help,” he said genially, raising his glass slightly ironically. It was, after all, just water. He had more work to do that afternoon and no desire for wine at the moment. Perhaps that evening, though.

"Of course," Sophia answered from his right. Only her toes really broke the water's surface. Unlike Lucien, this reminded her of nothing, as it was a new experience, sitting at the water's edge, swallowed up by the city. Her childhood had been largely contained to Hightown, and she'd never really been the sneaking out type. Not until now, of course. She turned to give Lucien a light kiss on the cheek, something she could hardly stop herself from doing at every chance now.

"Let me know when you're going to start training the recruits," she suggested. "I'd love to be there for that." It would likely be soon, considering how well the preparations were coming along. In addition to watching, Sophia didn't doubt there was a thing or two she could teach to aspiring swordsmen and women. She couldn't deny that she'd had an excellent teacher herself, as much as she wanted to find him and wring answers from his throat.

“And of course I’ll be happy to patch them back up when you’re done with them.” Nostariel’s contribution came with a large dose of levity; she knew that neither of them would mistreat the recruits, of course, but she also had the guess that Lucien wouldn’t go too easy on them, because to do so would be to leave them less prepared for what they were facing. So it only made sense to offer what help she could, both for the aftermath of training and their actual contracts, whenever those started.

Nostariel kicked her legs back and forth, savoring the food and the company, grinning behind her hand when Sophia leaned over to peck Lucien’s cheek. They were honestly adorable. The Warden, being considerably shorter than either of them, did not manage to skim the water with even her toes, but the breeze coming off the ocean was lovely. In the distance, she could see what looked like a passenger boat coming in for the docks; or at least she assumed it was a passenger boat. On a day like today, the fishermen would be out until near nightfall.

"Glad I picked the guard instead. At least their training doesn't include trips to the clinic, not that I need a reason to go mind you," A familiar voice behind them said, as a wet nose pressed into Nostariel's elbow. Ashton leaned forward and planted a ginger kiss atop her crown. "Didn't want you to feel left out, sweetheart," he said coyly. A wink was tossed in Lucien and Sophia's direction, laughing as he nodded a greeting. He remembered his first thought when word finally, got around that they were an item. About damn time, though he had little room to speak-- so he didn't.

The docks were his to patrol that afternoon, but it was serendipity that Snuffy had sniffed out his very special friends. His route had been quiet, no doubt due in part to the nearby mercenary headquarters. It made his job easier and he was pleased that it was Lucien that headed them, he'd never have to worry about them with him in charge. In fact, he expected them to run into each other in a more official capacity as the Argent Lions took on more contracts. "I've got time to kill. Things've been pretty low-key around here as of late. I think we owe that to you, Lucien." Ashton's gaze shifted toward the direction that the other's face; into the bay.

Snuffy found herself a seat on the other side of Nostariel as Ashton stood behind them, watching contently as the passenger ship meandered toward the port. At least, until he thought he recognized the certain head of crimson hair standing at the bow of the ship. He squinted in an effort to see better and leaned over Nostariel trying to get a better view before he finally brought it up.

"Hey... Isn't that...?"

Lucien, who seemed to be wearing a semipermanent smile these days, had no trouble mustering an additional one for Ashton’s arrival, shaking his head slightly at the further commentary, at least until something seemed to catch the guardsman’s eye, at which point the mercenary turned to look back over his shoulder, observing the same thing. Well… it was true that a fair number of people had red hair, but… this particular one did seem familiar. “You know, it might just be,” he replied, pulling his feet from the water and offering Sophia a hand up.

“I do believe we have the return of a prodigal friend on our hands.”

The City of Chains was an apt moniker, one she'd almost forgotten in her absence. Sailing into Kirkwall as statues clapped in irons watched with pained expressions brought that memory back. However, this time they did not intimidate her as Aurora stood at the bow of the ship staring forward at the quickly approaching port. It had been nearly a year since she departed.

She looked healthy, her red hair cut into the bob style she had in her early years in Kirkwall. The red scarf that forever occupied her neck made its return as well, though it looked new, restitched with the hands of an expert. A jacket was thrown over her shoulder as she wore a pair of long pants, to help fight off the chill of autumn. It wasn't long before the ship pulled into a dock, and Aurora took her first steps back into the city proper.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, before reopening them and taking a look around. It was still much like the remembered, but a city could hardly be expected to change in year. Soon, her gaze was thrown toward a nearby dock. She should've been surprised seeing as she didn't write them about her return, but she was too glad to have been shocked. She tilted her head toward them and smiled, hiding the chuckle from Ashton's enthusiastic wave. She shouldered her pack and walked toward her friends, unable to hide wide smile stretching from cheek to cheek.

"So how'd you all know I was coming back today?" she said, a twang of Antivan present in her voice.

“Oh, you know, the usual. Psychic revelation.” Nostariel wore a grin to match, hopping up from her spot and half-running, half-skipping over to Aurora to collide against her friend in a bear hug, or at least the closest version thereof that someone of her size was capable of producing. She was strong enough to spin the other woman around though, so she did that a few times, before setting her down.

While she was expecting a hug, not like the one Nostariel gave her. A meep escaped her throat in surprise as her pack fell to the ground, but soon it was replaced by laughter and a tight hug of her own.

“I’m so glad to see you! It’s been a long time. Everything went well in Antiva, I hope?” She took the opportunity to scan Aurora over with a healer’s eye, reaching up to tousle her newly-shortened bob affectionately. “You look happy.” The Warden tilted her head to the side, as if to ask whether she had the right of it.

"I feel better," she admitted, readjusting the hold on her pack. "It was nice seeing my family again. They kept my room the exact same way I remember it, do you believe that?" She was beaming, obviously excited to be back with her friends. By the way she held Nostariel's hands, it was clear that she missed her as well.

Sophia didn't jump in on the hug, partly because Nostariel was already occupying most of that space, and partly because she and Aurora weren't that close of friends. Still, it was good to see her return, in what looked to be good spirits. In all the chaos of the Qunari attack, and her state both shortly before and after it, Sophia had entirely lost contact with Aurora. They would need to work on that.

She came alongside the two mages, putting a hand on Aurora's shoulder and giving it a slight squeeze. "It's good to have you back. I'm sorry I couldn't be there to see you off."

“Welcome back, Aurora,” Lucien added with a smile. “You’ll have to tell us all about it when you have the inclination. Everything here has been mostly peaceful in the meantime.” No more large-scale invasions, at any rate.

"What they said," Ashton added, pointed at three others surrounding her. "Now, as much as I'd like to stay and throw a welcome back party, duties call. I've slacked off enough for today... Gotta get back to serving and protecting." He took a step forward and took one of Aurora's hands in both of his and squeezing it. Letting it fall back to her said, Ashton turned and pecked a kiss onto Nos's temple saying, "I'll see you later, sweetheart," before taking his leave.

Aurora watched Ashton, now encased in the guardsman plate, walk away from the group in utter confusion. An eyebrow was arched and a hand planted on the side of her face trying to figure out if what she was seeing was true, "Ashton's.... A guard? And you two are... Together?" She asked, two fingers together to demonstrate her point. "You two together I can believe. You're adorable, that's not the hard one. But a guard?" Shaking her head, she smiled up at Lucien and nodded.

"And you're going to have to tell me everything I missed."

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

Nostariel tugged slightly on the hem of her blouse, feeling a smidge uncomfortable. It wasn’t that she was especially concerned with how she appeared, at least not in the sense that would likely be expected of a woman in this situation. She didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about her looks, but she knew they were well enough, as looks went. And what she was wearing wasn’t inappropriate for the eventual setting—which was apparently a Hightown eating establishment. But… the fact that she was going at all made her feel a bit off. Though none of her friends had ever expressed any opinions about it, and that made it easy to forget most of the time, she was still an elf, and she wasn’t entirely sure Ashton had remembered this when he’d suggested the place.

Smoothing the imaginary creases in her blue skirt, she adjusted the leather belt to lay more naturally over her white shirt, loose enough to have a bit of tilt to it, but still functional for its intended purpose. She’d elected to wear slippers on her feet, though they felt a little to flimsy compared to her usual leather boots or even the sturdy laced sandals she wore daily in the summer months. Her hair, she just let fall loose, though as they always did, the tips of her ears protruded too far to be covered by it, and she probably wouldn’t have passed for a human anyway.

Not that she wanted to. Nostariel closed her eyes, smiling to herself. She wasn’t proud of her heritage, because she didn’t really see an accident of birth as the kind of thing she should be either proud or ashamed of. It just was, like her magic. But not everyone saw things that way, and she was going to be walking into a building full of just the kind of people who probably didn’t. She was far from afraid, but just because she didn’t have to worry about being physically harmed or anything didn’t mean that she was going to enjoy the experience.

“No thinking like that. Everything will be fine. Wonderful, even.” She was, after all, going to be going on an actual date with Ash, and she’d be lying if ever she said that didn’t made her giddy to the point of silliness. In fact, this whole internal discussion with herself was only happening because she was still waiting for him to drop by and pick her up for the walk up to Hightown. Come to think of it… it should be about that time, right?

In a matter of fact, it was. A series of knocks at the door announced the presence of just the man Nostariel was waiting for. Ashton stood on the other side of the door, dressed in his guard attire. However, for this it was immaculately polished until it had a spotless sheen. Not only was the plate flawless, but the man himself matched. His face was free of stubble due to him having shaved that day. His wild brown hair was tamed enough so that the majority laid flat against his scalp. Most of it did, a few renegade locks refused to be slicked so easily and cross his forehead. Still, he was perhaps the best dressed he had been in a long while. While Nos might not have been especially concerned with her appearance, Ashton was. He'd be damned if he didn't look his best for her.

Butterflies were still a-fluttering in his belly and they threatened to pick him off of the ground and into the sky. He wasn't nervous, there was no reason to be. The whole idea was his, to actually go out and act like an ordinary couple for once. To have a day devoted to just themselves, without having to fight or survive something. In fact, Ashton had left his bow and the guard's sword at home (a knife remained hidden in his boot; to be totally defenseless in Kirkwall was simple foolishness) for the occasion. He thought it'd be nice to have one day be absolutely normal. Though, to be fair, he felt anything but. He felt extraordinary.

As she opened the door, Nos was met with a bouquet toting Ashton smiling ear-to-ear. "Sweetheart," he said before going in for a kiss. When he withdrew, he finally offered her the bouquet with, "Flowers for my flower?"

Nostariel snorted at the terrible joke, shaking her head, but her expression was nothing but affectionate. His humor wasn’t exactly sophisticated, but it was entirely his, and she liked that levity about him. It made everything else they had to deal with feel more manageable somehow. She already wasn’t sure what she’d do without it, without him, and that was honestly a little frightening. But part of being happy was taking those risks, and she was more than willing to do so.

“Thank you, Ash. That was very sweet.” She rose up onto her toes to peck him on the jaw—about as far as she could reach unless he ducked his head for her—and grinned, stepping back and turning on her toe to find something to keep the blooms in. Fortunately, there was no shortage of glass vessels in the clinic, and the flowers were cheerily occupying her windowsill no more than two minutes later, at which point she turned back to her guardsman.

“You know, I’m beginning to suspect you just look for excuses to wear the uniform. So… where are we off to?” She laid her worries to rest for the moment, willing to suspend her skepticism for the sake of what was, in all honesty, the first proper date she’d ever been on. It was worth a little effort to be optimistic, considering the company was perfect and the rest didn’t matter near as much as that anyway.

"Hey, if it fits it fits," He answered with a sly grin, rolling his neck around in his collar. She wasn't wrong, he found himself in it more often than out of it. It was still an odd feeling, being a guardsman, though not uncomfortable. It was something about the weight of it, the way it hung around his shoulders that reminded him why he joined the guard in the first place. He offered an arm for her too take and gestured outside. "It's not the Hanged Man by any means," he said with a laugh, "Just a nice little place I tripped over on one of my lighter patrols. Not too big, not too fancy, but just right."

He chose a smaller place for a specific reason. Had he not cared at all, he would've suggested the fanciest, nicest place in Kirkwall, but those places tended to attract a certain kind of people. Despite appearances, Ashton wasn't unaware of the fact that he was a human and she an elf. It was just that he never paid it much attention. Others may, but that's why he chose this place. While some may still judge them based on their relationship, it wouldn't be as much as if they went elsewhere. While he couldn't give less of a damn about what people thought of them, he wasn't going to let a few harsh glares or ugly words disturb their time. And he figured that Nos would have an easier go of it with a little less staring.

That and he heard they had really good food.

"Come on, Nos. I can either tell you about it, or I can show you," he said with a laugh and a playful beckon.

“You know, last I checked, most people could walk and talk. At the same time, even. You sure this plate isn’t slowing down more than your feet?” She grinned and gave a playful tug to the front of his chest plate, looping her arm through his and walking them both right out the door.

The walk up to Hightown was pleasant, partially due to the early autumn weather, which was still warm with the vestiges of summer, without the awful humidity that made clothing stick to a person like a second skin. The sunlight was bright enough to almost bleach out the pale stone that most of the city seemed to be made of, the colors to be seen against it—merchant awnings, painted storefronts, even the occasional more artistic piece of vandalism—bright and contrasting.

Nostariel enjoyed that she didn’t have to talk constantly with Ash, whether because they were enjoying the quiet or because he was naturally more talkative and she enjoyed listening to him being mostly inconsequential. A little of one, a little of the other, really, and everything was perfectly pleasant until they reached the restaurant, which seemed to be rather small. She supposed that made sense; such establishments were usually only for a limited clientele; more traditional nobles preferred servants do the cooking, and most people in Lowtown couldn’t afford such luxuries on anything like a regular basis. Even if they could, they likely wouldn’t be especially comfortable among the more cosmopolitan rich of Kirkwall.

“So, do we just go in or…?” Nostariel had only ever taken meals at inns and the like, nothing of this kind.

"I would imagine so," He answered. "I mean, I'm not sure how they do it in Hightown, but I doubt we have to knock," He said with a smile. "If we end up looking silly, feel free to blame it all on me." He took the led toward the door, and like the gentleman (he thought) he was, opened it and let Nos go in first. The interior was as small as the exterior led one to believe, but it was far from cramped. It was actually kind of cozy, with the décor one would expect of a Hightown establishment. Neither were they alone, other patrons occupied tables that dotted the floor.

Ashton led them to a nearby table, again pulling out a chair for Nostariel to take a seat in before find his own, before waiting patiently for the wait staff. "Don't ever say I don't take you anywhere nice," He said with a wink.

“I would never.” Nostariel smiled over at him, the expression so obviously affectionate she might have been embarrassed if she could see it on her own face. But she was quite far gone, wasn’t she? Of course, it was perhaps at least a little because if she focused on this, it was easier to ignore her discomfort. Fortunately, even as their orders were taken and the food prepared, no one was overtly hostile at all. That said… she was keenly aware of being the only elf in the building who wasn’t presently laboring over someone else’s dinner. She’d never be able to stop being aware of it.

Her friends did not see her status and judge her for it, she knew. Some of them, she suspected, failed to really see it at all. And that was wonderful, it really was. But it didn’t change anything about the way the wider world was. However lucky she was in her personal life, however fortunate she had been to be first a mage and then a Warden, two places where the racial barrier was thinnest, she still could not escape the fact that out there, she was less. And he would be less, too, for loving her the way he did. It was one thing to say he didn’t care… but another to actually experience it.

She waited until they’d had plenty of opportunity for more pleasant conversation before broaching the subject as delicately as she could. “Um, Ash… I just.” Well, that wasn’t the most articulate sentence she’d ever managed, to be sure. Knitting her brows together, she tried again. “I know you don’t think about these things very much, and that’s good, but… this isn’t going to be as simple as we want it to be, you know? I mean… I’m an elf. Warden or no, that’s going to create some problems.”

"Nothing worth doing ever is," Ashton said gently, his hands propping up his chin. One peeled away from the other and laid on top of Nos's, squeezing it affectionately. "Nos..." He said with a sigh. he was expecting a conversation like this eventually, though didn't know when it'd happen. He knew now though, and he didn't intend to dodge it either. "You know me well enough by now," He began with a smile, "Not a lot slips by me. I just choose not to point things out," His hand then left her own and went to the side of her face, caressing one of her elongated ears with his thumb.

"I know that you're an elf. These beautiful ears of yours remind me everyday. I see the looks we get when we're together too," a tilt of his head accompanied his words, gesturing over to an older man with gray hair glaring at them. "There's muttering in the barracks that suddenly dries up when I walk into them. No one's ever said anything to me, but I think it's part of the reason Snuffy and I are usually patrolling alone." He plucked a strand of her from her face and tucked it behind her ear, his smile never wavering as he spoke.

"Odd looks and whispering never bothered me. If they did, then I wouldn't be the man you love."

“I know. And if it were just that, then I wouldn’t have said anything.” But… it wasn’t just that. It wasn’t just a few intolerant people who’d look at them funny or sometimes say unkind things. “But Ash… this isn’t just those things.” She reached up to the hand hovering by her ear and caught the back of it in her palm, lowering both of them back to the table and turning them so that his palm faced up. It was easier to say this when she had something trivial to occupy herself, like using the index digit of her other hand to softly trace his calluses.

“Shop owners will refuse you service. People that were friendly to you before, maybe even your friends, will stop talking to you. You’ll probably be passed over for promotion—and I know how much it means to you that you’re doing something good. You can’t change the whole Guard by running solo patrols with Snuffy.” That much was just obvious. To change anything, a person had to have some kind of power. The avenue to that power through the ranks of the Guard may well be permanently closed to him, depending on who decided promotions. Someone had thought it was a good idea to put Aatrox in charge, after all, and look at how he’d been.

“People… some of them will say awful things. Disgusting things.” She generally didn’t make it a point to mention this, but being rather less fearsome looking than someone like Ithilian, she already dealt with a number of these issues. “And some night… someone might decide that what we’re doing here is a crime we should pay for in blood. It’s not for nothing that there are no stories about people like us… we don’t usually live through them.” Of course, there were no guarantees it would go that badly, but… realistically, it was something they would always have to watch for. People could find all kinds of reasons to hate and hurt each other—some even less logical than this one, if that were possible.

But the precedent was definitely not optimistic. Nostariel knew she perhaps had more to worry about than he did, because regardless of everything, Ash was still human, and that would protect him, to a degree. She could not be more grateful for that. But even so… they could not live oblivious to the dangers of what they did.

Falling in love had been so very easy, in the end. A life together would be much harder.

Ashton's smile wavered before slipping downward into a frown. He... hadn't thought of all that.

Perhaps he was far too optimistic for his own good. Maybe he was just naive. She spoke from what sounded like experience, something she'd been through far more than him. He'd been floating in the clouds, but hadn't taken the time to fly back down to remember what the real world was like. He sighed through his mouth as his eyebrows twitched, digesting all that she'd said. Everything, it made sense and he could see that she was right. As usual. Things would be hard for them, harder than he'd thought.

But.. What was his other option? The only other option he saw was one he refused to entertain. She meant too much to him to just give up for the sake of convenience. It'd be just like giving up and running away, and he promised himself that he was done with running. He nodded his head as he quietly watched her trace his hand with her finger. He wanted this no matter how hard it would be for him, but he wondered if she did too. He looked back to her and gently shook his head, a smile forming back into his lips.

"You... Are my rock, you know that?" Just by being there she shored up his weaknesses. She made him into a better man, and he truly believed that. He didn't know what he'd be, or what he'd do without her. It wasn't a thought he liked to think about. "So. What are our choices?" he asked.

A life together would be hard, but it wasn't a life he could imagine any other way.

Nostariel’s mindless motions stilled, and she glanced up at him. She hadn’t really been expecting that question. “Well… I suppose there are two. Either we can… just not do this, or… we can try it carefully, sleep with one eye open, and accept that what we are will never be okay to some people.” Her eyes softened, and she sighed, relinquishing his hand.

“I’m not saying I want to give up before we’ve even begun. Maker, that’s the last thing I’d ever want. But… I do want you to understand what you’ll be taking on, if you want to do this. If we’re to be… together.” In that specific sense of the world. It was funny, really. She’d never been the kind of person who wished to have been born a human rather than an elf—she’d always been more concerned with whether or not she wanted to be a mage. It had been the status with the most salience. For once, her magic wasn’t the problem. She didn’t exactly wish she were human, but she had to acknowledge that life would be much easier if she were.

“I don’t want any of those things to happen to you, Ash. And maybe if we’re lucky, they never will. But I need you to understand that they might.” Often, she had found, it was the best people, the people who would never dream of seeing her as different or less, that were least aware of the ways in which everyone else did see her—and elves generally—that way. Disabusing him of his sunny optimism was unpleasant, but necessary. “Whether you want to shoulder the possibility has to be your choice—it can’t be mine.” She’d never have it, but that didn’t mean she’d dream of taking it away from him. She’d not hold it against him if he didn’t want to risk that kind of systematic danger, and unpleasantness. It was not, after all, trivial.

"It can't just be mine either, Nos." His manner was gentle, but firm. "You run the same risks that I do, maybe even more because you're a mage too." She was worried about him, far more than she was worried about herself. It caused another flicker of a smile. She was so selfless, even after everything she'd been through. It was why he'd called her his rock, she was a stabilizing force in his life. He stopped her hand before she fully relinquished it and held it on the table, affectionately circling the back of her palm with his thumb. "This isn't just about me, I never want to be that selfish ever again. Everything you just said goes for you too. It's not about one or the other, it's about us."

He didn't want her to suffer because of him; didn't want to drag her down with him. "Can you live with that possibility? You'll be in just as much danger as me, do you think you can handle it? Not only that, but would you be okay with watching me carry it?" He sighed again, and brought her hand to his lips. "I don't... I don't want to see you suffer because of me." It pained him to think about, but he loved her too much to let her be hurt because of him. "You're so kind, but... You have to think of yourself too. You can't just push all of this in my hands, because I'm not going to facing it alone. You'll be there too, right beside me."

He was quiet for a moment before he spoke again. "This has to be our choice. We have to decide if we're both are strong enough to do this."

Nostariel sighed, the flicker of a smile crossing her face for just a moment. Honestly, the things she would deal with because of this relationship were not so different from the ones she would deal with already. But… he was right, that it would not be easy to watch him shoulder those additional burdens because of who she was. Leaning forward slightly, she forewent typical table manners for the moment—she was done eating anyway—and propped her elbow on the surface, catching her chin in her free hand. “None of that will be easy. And it will be difficult in a very different way from fighting Darkspawn or bandits or even Qunari. But I… even knowing that—” She shook her head slightly, restarting her sentence.

“Ash, I’ve never been this happy before. Not in my entire life. Sometimes, that scares me, and I start looking for all the ways it could go wrong. I convince myself that it will, because everything else always has.” It was hard to come off a track record like Nostariel’s and not be constantly bracing oneself for inevitable failure. It was something she knew she had to work at—letting herself hope that this time, things would be different. They would be better. That even though she knew beyond the shadow of her doubt that her life ended in violence, in about twenty years, give or take, if not before, it was worth it to make that time as wonderful as it could possibly be.

“I… I want that. I want to be happy, with you. I want to hope that, come what may, we’ll be able to endure, and that, on balance, our good days will outnumber our bad. That the things we’re doing, together and separately, will mean something, maybe even change some minds. But even if they don’t, even if we can’t… I think I’d be okay with that, as long as we were both where we wanted to be. So… yes.” She took a deep breath, meeting his eyes with a tentative smile on her face. “I am strong enough to do this. As long as you’re with me.”

He hadn't noticed until now, but his hands were trembling on the table top. He didn't know when it started but they shook, ever so subtly, but it was there. At her answer he closed his eyes and sighed, his head dipping downward. He lingered like that for only a moment, and when Ashton rose, he wore a smile that mirrored Nos's, meeting her eyes with his.

He'd take all the bad that came with the good, he'd never thought he'd be as happy as he was with her. He never thought he would've deserved it. But it didn't matter now, however hard it'd get, he'd take it all with a goofy smile and an easy laugh. He wanted this too much to do otherwise, whatever the danger was.

"There's no place else I'd rather be."

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion

Earnings

0.00 INK

Flowers had their own personalities, too. Sparrow had taken to naming them after her friends. She questioned whether or not she was spending too much time tending to them, but the books she'd borrowed from Rilien, specifically on botany and herbalism, strictly directed would-be greens-keepers to treat their flowers as if they were little people—or else, the author was the strange one. She didn't mind it. There was a small row of sunflowers, startlingly tall; ripe for the picking. A small satchel swung at her hip, holding seeds that she plucked in passing. Sunny-yellow petals, with stalks reaching out into the sky; higher than the others, they reminded her the most of Aurora. She, like the others, missed her in Kirkwall.

The most fragrant of the bunch lied in twisted bunches; mixing with blue-bells and twisted branches: alyssum. Dainty white flowers that didn't look like much until you swept past them and caught a whiff. Perfumed with the sweet scent of honey that often dominated the entire garden, and the main attractor of colourful beetles and flighty lacewings; they reminded her of Ashton. Unassuming from the outside, but capable of bringing out the best in people. The comparison would've been better if he were a woman. Looking closer at the hanging bluebells, lied starry-pink flowers that appeared as if they were bursting into long strands. The name eluded her: puff-balls, she'd decided. If she puffed on the blossom-shaped petals, the leaves would close in on themselves. Similar to how Amalia used to be, but surrounded by all of the other flowers, without interruption, they would open up all on their own.

There lied the upturned Calla lilies, assorted in colour; pure-white, with shades of yellow, green and purple. They were sculpted like vases. Delicate with strong stalks; delicate and strong—Nostariel for certain. While she may have scoffed hearing herself being viewed in such away, Nostariel, at least to Sparrow, was very much a woman. For all of the knightly things she'd done in her life, with and without the Wardens, she'd seen her change throughout the years. Become stronger and happier and brighter, while still maintaining the same strength she admired. She crouched down in the dirt and sifted clumps through her fingers, examining her dirty fingernails. As of recent, she'd been returning home with fresh callouses, dirt-stained hands and smelt of flowers (fortunately for anyone around her, for it always beat stinking of fish and brine).

To her right was the only Yarrow bush in the entire garden. Growing on the outskirts, outside of where she'd meant to plant it. However it was clearly the hardiest of the bunch; throughout cold bouts, droughts and heat, it hardly withered. Spicy-scented and strewn with yellow and red clusters, she was aptly reminded of Ithilian. Watching from a higher vantage point but not straying too close unless he was asked to; a guardian to his own garden, his home. Even when he tried his best not to be noticed, it was near impossible. His presence was always impossible to ignore.

Closest to her feet, nestled between flowers, grew a patch of Sage. Had it not been for Aurora's good eyes, she never would have found it—might've trampled over it, too. It was perfect for herbalists; an all-purpose plant used to reduce swelling and heal wounds, cook wonderful food and as a curative for sore throats, colds and fevers. Hidden from view and growing in the strangest of places, convenient when you understood it, but puzzling from its appearance; there were no flowers at all, only fuzzy leaves. Velvety to the touch and the closer she looked, the more it looked like ash or snow had fallen. To anyone else, it might've looked like a weed. Rilien, perhaps. Sometimes, she brought leaves back to him to have hung up and dried, for whatever use he may have. Sometimes, she watches. Most of the time, she doesn't understand.

Sparrow took a deep breath from her nose, and exhaled through her mouth; wiping the sweat from her brow with the back of her hand. Together, in the unlikeliest places, flowers and people could grow.

Ithilian made his way out of his house once more, now wracked by a considerable amount of soreness, in places he never would have expected. Amalia's routines had really pushed him, but he knew it would be beneficial in the end, even if it was a pain in the ass now. For the moment, the Alienage was not in need of regular protection, given the way the entire city had calmed down in the wake of the chaos. Now that the dust had fully settled, it was as though everyone had lost their will for troublemaking for the time being. It would not last, but it was nice while it did, and Ithilian meant to make good use of the time.

He'd intended to make his way up out of the Alienage to what was now Lia's shop, though it was still ultimately owned by Ashton. Lia had worked the store on her own for several days now, and was doing well to start out, but Ithilian still felt that regular check-ins were warranted. Amalia and Nostariel and Ashton would swing by when they could, but this morning was Ithilian's turn. He was stopped short, however, upon sighting Sparrow, crouched down among flowers and dirt.

She wasn't exactly a common sight in the Alienage, though she was known enough by now to be welcome. Ithilian wasn't actually aware if she and Amalia had worked out whatever differences they had fully, but if they hadn't and Amalia didn't want Sparrow around, he assumed she would have taken care of that already. She was harmless enough, in intentions at least, and much more of a friend to elves than many. It was enough for him.

"We should be paying all you gardeners," he commented, stopping once he was close enough to speak comfortably. "The Alienage was downright drab before." Ithilian was certainly no gardener. No Dalish were, really. The idea of a garden relied on being stationary, and that was the opposite of what the clans were.

As always, Sparrow did not hear Ithilian's approach, rather she jerked away from the shrubs like a child with its hand jutting out of the pantry—not that she was doing anything particularly wrong, but she never expected Ithilian to approach her willingly. Even if they were on better terms than before, though she suspected the majority of it was a mild-mannered tolerance born from her relationship with Amalia. Perhaps she was wrong and he genuinely saw her as someone of respect. Or else, he might have just seen her as a moderately irritating stray cat that drifted in and out of the Alienage, doing no damage that would warrant shooing her away (with the pointy end of his knives).

She swept her hand back across her head, smudging dirt and flecks of pebbles across, before pushing herself back to her feet with an exaggerated yawn, as if she hadn't been surprised by his sudden appearance and she'd just finished what she'd been doing. Of course, Ithilian no longer caused her to bristle. Not quite, anyhow. He no longer posed as a threat when it came to Amalia, either, though the age-old green monster sometimes stewed like the remnants of a smothered fire. Immaturity still reigned its ugly head, but she was growing; she was sure of it. Hopefully.

“Paying?” Sparrow parroted and scratched her chin, mock-considering such a proposition. Her reasons for sporadically visiting the Alienage and tending the gardens did go beyond boredom, or doing Aurora a favour in her absence. However, she didn't understand herself enough to acknowledge those reasons. She felt like she'd found a home in Kirkwall, for all its dark secrets and histories, but she only half belonged. It was in the way people tended to look at her—humans and elves, alike. The elves in the Alienage fought for their freedoms, and the humans in Kirkwall fought to maintain what they had. She wasn't so sure what she fought for.

“Consider it a favour, of sorts.” She eluded to none in particular, of which there were many. Her serious expression demurred, and crinkled into amusement. “It does look nice, doesn't it? Though if I let them be, you might find yourself trekking through a forest of flowers and prickly shrubs.” Sparrow took a few steps back and eyed the garden, nodding her head. She hummed low in her throat and tipped her gaze up towards the tree growing in the center, coloured with bright reds and blues and greens: beautiful. It reminded her of something. “You left the Alienage for awhile, hadn't you?” She paused and shifted her gaze towards the sky, squinting. “Did you happen onto any... y'know, others like you?”

She supposed that part of the reason she appeared so often was because she was waiting. A stupid, hopeless child, still searching.

"Other Dalish, you mean?" Ithilian asked, raising an eyebrow at the half-elf. He wasn't sure why the question was phrased as it was. She knew full well the people he came from, and what to call them. Willing to pin it on her awkwardness around him, Ithilian carried on.

"I did, actually. I sought them out on information given to me by Lucien." In hindsight, it was fairly strange that he'd made such a move on the words of a human mercenary at a time when he had not yet relinquished his hold on blind hate, but he'd also been in a strange state of mind, and more willing to accept things that had slipped by him before. And it had really only affected the direction of his search, not his decision to search in the first place.

"I found the Relaferin clan in Ferelden, and stayed with them for a time. Why do you ask?" The details of that trip were rather intensely personal, and he was not of a mind to delve into them on a whim, but it was possible that she sought something else.

“Dalish!” Sparrow parroted again, albeit full of daft bluster. Her eyes widened expectantly, as if he'd inadvertently cleared all of the confusion. Or any of her awkwardness—either way, it was an admission that he had seen some, right? Of course! She stepped forward and barely contained the urge to grab him by the shoulders, in order to squeeze the information out of him in the kindest way possible. Her social conventions and civilities were as polished as the dirt crusted under her fingernails. That is to say, Sparrow blundered through them with bearish force.

And as soon as Ithilian admitted that yes he had, her shoulders squared and excitement danced across her face. Perhaps, perhaps, he'd seen them after all. He wouldn't have known of any connections between them, lest they spoke of her. Unless they remembered her and still sought her out after all these years—perhaps. Attempting to wrestle down her childish hopes came as a brief twitch of her lips, which soon after liberated itself into an eager grin. Several questions bullied through her mind... like, how Lucien had obtained the information in the first place. And if he, too, might know of any other Dalish clans in the area, or if the Relaferin clan had spoken of the one she'd been briefly accepted into.

“You did? You stayed with them?” She blustered and shifted her gaze to the ground in an effort to conjure up the name. What was the clan's name again? It was her mother's clan, after all—so why couldn't she remember? Not that she was particularly interested in things like that as a child; its history and traditions remained a mystery. The only thing she could remember was their strange affiliations with the Halla. Almost every one of them had one of their own, connected as children, or so they said. Deer-things. Halla-riders? No. She turned back to Ithilian and pinched her stunted ears, waggling her eyebrows. “As you know, I'm a bastard. Er, I... were there any nearby clans? Full of Halla? I mean, Halla everywhere. Er, song of the people. I can't remember. An Elvish woman and a human man.”

She rubbed at her temples, and crossed her arms, scrunching her face up. She'd never once considered that they might have been dead. Or far, far away from her.

Ithilian was starting to see where this was going, and he was able to relax more now that he had a grasp on what Sparrow was after. This wasn't about him, no prying inquiries into his own past or anything of the sort; this was about Sparrow. The bird wanted to know if he'd heard anything about where her nest was. Sadly, he had not known to listen for that at the time.

"We encountered no other clans while I was with them, no. Messengers, sometimes, but no full clans. I certainly don't remember any mention of a clan with that many Halla." Clans sometimes kept in touch, but bad things tended to happen when too many elves gathered in one spot. Human kingdoms didn't seem to like it. With the whole of Thedas to wander, they often lost touch with one another, only to regain it a decade later.

"You're looking for your mother, then? Or... your father." He supposed that could be just as likely. Old instincts took a long time to fade, even more so when Ithilian was far beyond youth. He reminded himself that he didn't know the first detail of this union. It could have been love, like Arianni thought she'd had when she left the Dalish for Feynriel. Or it could have been something else entirely. And he didn't know the first thing about where Sparrow came from. Judging from the fact that she was a Dalish bastard and had past history with the Qunari at least in the form of Amalia, it wasn't anything remotely simple.

"It could be done, with a lot of luck. It was years ago when I visited the Relaferin. They may have moved since then, or they may not have. They may have heard news of this clan you're after. A lot depends on chance. The Dalish aren't supposed to be easy to find." There was the matter of his current lack of information, too. Ithilian hooked his thumbs behind his belt, glancing down a moment and beginning somewhat awkwardly with his question.

"Your mother was Dalish, you said, and your father human? That... tends to be complicated, if the relationship is one of consent. She likely would have been pressured into leaving the clan, for laying with a human. If she isn't with a clan anymore, then my help is quite useless, I'm afraid."

Sparrow stared at him, nearly bristling with energy—excited to hear any news comprised of what she was looking for, even though the chances were unlikely. She hated dipping her feet in disappointment and if she set her heart on something it was difficult enough realizing that she might have been unrealistic, so when Ithilian conceded that he hadn't seen any other clans, she appeared to deflate. Shoulders slumping and eyes slinking down to her dirty boots.

She did attach herself to a few of his words, and like a child bent on getting what it wanted, Sparrow's gaze flit back up to her only means of information. Personal space? No. She stepped closer to him, eyes spinning. Messengers. If there were messengers, then they must have come from another clan, somewhere in the distance. And if what Ithilian said was true, and she had no reason to doubt his experiences, then it might not be too far of a stretch to admit that the clan she sought could very well be in the area. Which meant she still had a chance.

“Both of them,” she babbled between bated breaths. Even the mention of such things—father and mother, Sparrow felt elated. She had barely flakes or a fragments of a memory to chew on, but she remembered the feelings as clearly as the beating sun on her face, as the salt on her skin whenever she sailed that unruly ship of hers. She remembered kindness, and warmth and love that drove them both to sacrifice their previous lives to construct a better life for them. She remembered stories, and a few Dalish words, as well as the Halla that influenced their lives. Of her parents, she remembered little; dark eyes, perhaps. Or skin as ruddy as her own.

If what Ithilian said was true, finding a Dalish clan with a human... clansmen, kin, could be impossible. How then, did she remember living among them? She was so sure that he'd been there, as well. She took a deep breath and studied Ithilian's face, uncomfortably close. A foot between them, as she might have if Amalia had been the one standing before her. Personal space? Never. Qunari had no use for that. And she certainly didn't either. Seemingly ages ago, she'd been a much different person. Colder, harsher. Until meeting Amalia, and going through the process of becoming someone new. It occurred to her that she'd never actually met anyone Dalish since she'd shed that skin, and even if she did happen onto her family, she wouldn't know how to approach them. Sparrow was many things, but not of the Qun, and not Dalish; hardly an elf.

“You're the only one that could help me,” she mused, heedless of the fact that he hadn't actually consented to help her. Sometimes she asked, and other times she artlessly anticipated. Surely, Ashton could help her track them down, but he knew just as much as she did about Dalish traditions, or their etiquette, and secretive nature. Being pin-cushioned with arrows seemed a high probability if they found any clan, especially looking like two wayward humans, and with little more than a few Dalish words spoken between them, there would probably more than a few misunderstandings. “You're the only Dalish I know of, and I, even if I were to find them on my own, I wouldn't know how... I'm not Dalish. I don't remember.”

She watched as his gaze dropped to the ground, and finally stepped back as soon as the question was stated. Stumble, rather. A bubble of indignant warmth swirled in her gut as an errant muscle jumped along her jaw, “Of course it was consensual! They were in love. We were together,” Sparrow's voice rose and trickled away, like the momentary spurt of anger. Trickling through her fingers, because she could not clearly recall the things she needed to know. To prove that they'd been together in the clan: accepted as one. Hadn't they? Her head throbbed. She wheeled back towards Ithilian, eyebrows scrunched. “What if she were the Keeper? They make the rules, right? It can't be the same for every clan. It isn't fair. That isn't fair.”

"The world isn't concerned with fair," Ithilian said, somewhat firmly. "You should know that by now." Any mage should, especially any mage who had gone through what Sparrow had. Apart from that... he was honestly having a bit of trouble processing this. Sparrow was a Keeper's daughter? The Keeper fell in love with a human man, and the three of them were together. That was what Ithilian had to go on.

"The Keeper does not make the rules," he corrected. "They guide the clan, lead the clan, but the Dalish have traditions, things that are tied to who we are as a people. The Keeper's task is to keep these traditions alive." The Keeper's authority rested on the clan's belief in their wisdom. They were not rulers. "First among these traditions is our separation from the shemlen. The clans interpret this law differently, but it is treated as law. No human can ever be Dalish. If your mother, a Keeper of a clan, allowed a shem to live with the clan out of attachment for him... I'm sorry, but I can't see that going well."

The Dalish were not always opposed to hospitality, but there was a difference between the kindness of finding a lost shem and saving them and allowing them to live with them. Such a transgression would cause the clan to be seen as little different than the city elves, if the Keeper allowed it to stand. The result, as far as Ithilian could guess, would be the removal of the Keeper if she refused to change her stance. Even if the clan got behind her, the other clans would likely cut off communication with them. Either way would make it difficult to find her or the human father.

But... there was clearly something he was overlooking here. Sighing, Ithilian tried to ignore Sparrow's childish nature as she bounced around him. Truly, she was worse than Lia. "As it happens, I know someone who may be able to help. He may have knowledge that only the Keepers are privy to." It was unlikely Emerion had been to an Arlathvhen himself, still being the First, but his Keeper could possibly have told him of it. A subject like this would have undoubtedly come up at a meeting of the Keepers.

"I will ask him for you... but don't get your hopes up."

Like a ragged pup that was finally tossed the scraps of a bone, Sparrow's eyes brightened considerably. So there was hope, and as long as Ithilian's nose was to the ground and his ears were open—she would find them. She'd never doubted his abilities, and perhaps, with a little insistence, he would also give her some quick lessons on the Dalish. Even with his frankness, squashing the hopes that her father and mother were still merrily living together in a faraway clan, she still believed that it was possible. They'd been in love, she was sure of it. She chose to cling onto the few words that she liked, and clamped the rest in a box she'd rather forget.

For now, there was a chance. And that was all that mattered. She clapped her hands on his shoulders and stared at him for a few seconds, grinning. “Not so prickly after all. Thank you.” A compliment? Hard to tell. Without giving him time to respond, or shoo her away, she was gone. Spirited away with the remnants of caked mud flying in her wake, flitting off her boots.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera

Earnings

0.00 INK

Ithilian and Ashton walked in silence, putting some distance between them and the city walls, heading for the forest. The Dalish hunter had sent Emerion ahead, to pick up on Lia's trail. The situation worked out more or less for the best. The less time Emerion spent walking with Ashton, the better, as far as Ithilian was concerned.

The idea had come on in less than a night, starting with Emerion, not to Ithilian's surprise. He hadn't even considered it before Lia approached him and asked if she might be eligible to receive the vallaslin, the blood writing. At first he wasn't sure why she would ask, as he had no knowledge of how to perform the ritual, nor the supplies needed, but then he remembered that his friend would have been taught just these things. It wasn't hard to make the jump and figure out that Emerion was the one who suggested the idea to Lia.

Ithilian could see no reason not to let her try. He'd gotten his own writing even younger, and Lia was a fine huntress, with two more years of experience than he'd had at the time, experience that did not just include hunting. She'd seen far more of the world than he had as a teenager, in terms of experiences. And if she failed in the process of actually receiving the writing, she could always try again.

So with his blessing, they made plans for the following morning. It was Lia who suggested Ashton should be there as well. Normally Ithilian would have denied the request; it was an elven ritual, Ashton was a human, and Emerion wouldn't like it, but Ashton had become very important to Lia, even if she didn't like to show it lately, with his decision to join the guard. If it was important to her, it was important to him, too.

And thus the hunt was arranged. Lia would need to make a kill on a predator on her own. The three of them would follow her trail, to be near in the event that she required help. After that, they would return to the Alienage and prepare for the ritual. With Emerion in sight up ahead, Ithilian spoke softly to Ashton, at his side.

"He's not happy about you being here. He may hide that well, or he may not. Just... be careful what you say. I've never known how to predict Emerion." The First wasn't one to always say what he felt, unlike Ithilian. It was a skill he'd never been interested in acquiring.

"I'll try not to do anything that'd get me stabbed," Ashton replied in the midst of a flashback to his first meeting with Ithilian. Funnily enough, that too had been in the forest during a hunt with Lia. There was no Snuffy, and only one Dalish then, he thought, glancing down at her loping beside him. Truthfully, he didn't even know why he was there. Lia had asked for him to be there of course, but from what he gathered what he was to be a part of was usually a strictly Dalish thing. Something that a human, or shem as he'd heard the term tossed around before, rarely, if ever, set eyes on. Obviously he was honored that Lia thought of him and that Ithilian allowed it. Still, to say that he felt out of place was an understatement.

He at least thought better of wearing the plate of guardsman mail. The armor wouldn't be welcomed for what they had in mind, and not only that but it wasn't the right thing to wear in a hunt. In comparison the brown leathers he wore felt as light as a feather around his shoulders and he'd almost forgotten the maneuverability they'd offered. He wasn't the only one looking like the part of the hunter. He'd taken the time to prep Snuffy for the outing with a layer of kaddis. Black lines stretched horizontally down the length of her back while a single white line was drawn vertically over them. It served to differentiate her from another animal. One that didn't have such a snuffly nose.

Hell, he'd almost forgotten what it was like to actually go on a hunt that didn't involve the head of a burgler or bandit at the end of it. His uncle would've probably thrown a fit to hear that, but fortunately the old man was on an entirely different continent.

Ithilian was tempted to correct him on the stabbing comment, though he knew it was merely a jest. Emerion would be more the kind to cause roots to spring up from the forest floor and surrounding him, trapping Ashton in a thorny prison for a couple of days. Ithilian had yet to see what magical abilities his friend from youth had picked up in their time apart, but even when they'd known each other he was skilled at handling his magic. He wouldn't do anything while Ithilian was around, but he just wanted to make sure he didn't get any ideas about coming back to pay him a visit later.

"I took the liberty of following her trail in a ways," Emerion called when they came close enough. "If I'm not mistaken, she's tracking down a mountain lion." Ithilian's brow furrowed slightly, but he reminded himself not to worry. Lia was more than capable of bringing down dangerous prey, and he was confident she'd be able to do it without suffering the same kind of serious injury he himself, fool that he'd been, had suffered. Emerion gestured for the two of them to follow.

"Let's do the introductions while we walk, shall we?" He headed off into the forest, walking along the subtle trail that Lia and her prey had both left behind. "My name is Emerion. And you're the important shem?"

"I guess, though you're being far too kind. I'm just a friend." There was the word again, shem, but this time it managed to garner Ashton's attention that it would had it been said by Ithilian or Lia. The way that this Emerion said it reminded him of the way Ithilian used to say it. Still, to him it was just another fancy word for human and like many things he let it roll off of his back. "Mine is Ashton Riviera, though my friends call me Ash." He wouldn't bet that Emerion would be calling him Ash any time soon, though, but it was polite to try. Thoughout the exchange, Ashton eyes darted between him and the trail in front of them.

"Ashton Riviera," Emerion repeated, as though testing the way the words tasted on his tongue. "Welcome." It wasn't as though this was his forest, and indeed, Ashton had hunted in it more than either of the elves he was with, but considering the circumstances, it did seem as though he was the outsider here.

Either Ashton was getting rusty or Lia was getting better, (or more like a combination of both) but the trail that she left behind was light with hardly any footprints besides that of the mountain lion. Obviously, there were still enough to follow her. A twig broken, a patch of ruffled grass, but she was coming into her own as a hunter. Fortunately, Snuffy was also there, and she'd already had her scent and had her nose pressed to the ground a foot or so out in front.

Of course, he expected no less when her guardian was none other than a Dalish. Much like Ithilian, though he was unaware of it himself, his brow had hiccuped when he heard that she was tracking a mountain lion. It was dangerous prey, but he reminded himself that that was why they were there... And that she was Lia. She'd be fine. "You've taught her well," Ashton mentioned to Ithilian.

Ithilian was inclined to agree. He wouldn't have consented to this if he had thought Lia wasn't capable of it, and while he was not her father and it was ultimately not his choice, he imagined Lia would probably have accepted his wish, one way or another. Look around, her trail was not uncertain or meandering. She knew where she was going, and she was headed there with a purpose.

"There is one thing that must be cleared up," Emerion said after they'd walked a while in silence. His voice was quieter now, as he didn't want to risk disturbing anything they might come across. "The process of preparing the vallaslin is partially a magical one. There is a reason we can only now perform the ritual, after I arrived here. I trust you can put two and two together."

He paused for a moment, examining a waist-high bush. "I know nothing about you, Ashton Riviera, only that a sixteen-year-old girl asked for you to be here, and my oldest friend allowed it. I'm sure you'll understand the need for caution, on my part. The shemlen don't take kindly to magic walking around unchained." He returned to his full height, and carried on, expecting the two behind him to follow.

"I'll need you to keep this to yourself."

"You're not telling me anything I don't already see," Ashton said quietly with a sigh. A lot, if not most of his friends were magically inclined, including one that used to be. Nos had the privilege of a Warden which allowed her to be free from Templar scrutiny. Sparrow and Aurora were not so fortunate however, but they did manage to slide by. And if they could, so could Emerion.

Still, as a guard he felt the pressure that the Templars were pressing them with. With the Viscount's seat empty, and Sophia moving into Lowtown, there was a power vacuum. Politics had no place in a hunt though so he opted not to bore anyone by mentioning it. He didn't report to the Templars anyway. "I'm not a Templar, so magic isn't part of my duties. You have my word, no one will find out from me."

"I can vouch for him, there," Ithilian added, offering Ashton a nod. "If he were the type to take issue with magic out of Circles, I think I would have noticed by now." Not only was Ashton not against mages, he was quite wrapped up in magic, though it was easy to see it was not Nostariel's magic he was attracted to, but the woman who wielded it. It didn't seem like a necessary detail to add. The First's secret was safe with him, and that was enough.

There was no time to discuss it further, however, as once they crested the next rise they came into sight of their destination. A rocky cliffside rose before them, dotted with hardier looking trees and bushes than the rest of the forest, the ridgeline dotted with caves here and there. Lia sat near the base, leaning back against the mountain lion that she had felled, the arrow already removed from where it had struck the creature in the chest cavity. She looked quite tired, but entirely unharmed. She'd been out in the woods since dawn, so the tiredness was to be expected. Ithilian cracked a small grin at the sight.

"I figured I'd wait for you guys here," Lia explained, a smile etched on her face as well. "Knew you wouldn't be long, and this way, someone else can carry him back with us." She rose to greet them, slapping dirt off her leggings. "What do you say, Ash? Are you jealous yet? How long's it been since you hunted something that didn't have just two legs, and stink like Darktown?"

"What's that? I couldn't hear you over the sound of this bear scar," Ashton said, indicating to the mostly faded slash across the side of his face. There was an embarrassing story behind the scar, one that he declined to tell at the moment. Despite the teasing, there was a purely affectionate tone and a hint of pride danced across his features. Even Snuffy was happy for her, trotting to her wagging her tail enthusiastically and barking.

"She says you did a great job," he translated with a wink. "And I have to agree."

"Well done," Emerion said, nodding at her. "Consider the first test passed. Let's return to the city, shall we?" No one objected, and Ithilian volunteered to sling the carcass over his back, though not before he gave Lia a squeeze on the shoulder. He said nothing, for there was nothing really that needed to be said. He was proud of her, and she knew it.

After making their way out of the forest and back to Kirkwall's Alienage, they gathered at Ithilian's house, though Emerion departed briefly to prepare the vallaslin for application. After stringing up the carcass, and glancing to where Lia sat somewhat nervously awaiting Emerion's return, Ithilian turned to Ashton.

"I'm afraid this is where you'll have to leave us. This part is for Lia and Emerion alone, and whether he says it or not, he doesn't want you near this. No Keeper would, I don't think." He offered his hand for a shake. "I appreciate you coming out to the forest for this, though. It meant a lot to Lia."

"Just trying to make you all wistful for the good old days when you didn't have to lug that ugly plate around," the elven girl called from her chair, grinning. "But yeah, thanks."

"Ah, don't even worry about it, it was nothing. If she wanted me there, then I'd be there." He didn't mention that he had swapped out to a night patrol with the guard in order to be there today, but truthfully it was an easy choice. He'd always try to find the time for his most favorite people in the world, Lia included. Ashton gripped the offered hand, gave it a firm shake and a grinning nod.

He then moved to shoulder his bow and quiver, but before leaving he offered a parting shot. "If you keep hunting like you did today, I might actually start to miss it all," he said to Lia. "Who knows, you might even get as good as I am one day. Maybe."

With a laugh, he beckoned to Snuffy and with a wave and a farewell bark, they departed.

Emerion returned not long after, carrying a bucket of water, several smaller bowls in his other hand, a clean cloth draped over one shoulder. After these items, and more beneath his cloak, were set upon the table next to Lia, he took a long breath through his nose. "First we will clean and purify the skin as best we are able, then you must meditate on our gods, to determine which will watch over you in the years to come. Applying the vallaslin will be painful. You must not cry out if you can avoid it. Are you ready?"

"Yes," she answered, nodding. Emerion then turned to Ithilian.

"This will take some time, but I expect she'll do quite well. I'll come find you when it's done." Ithilian nodded, clapping his old friend on the shoulder as thanks before taking his leave. This was not an opportunity Lia would have had if Emerion had not chosen to come to Kirkwall. He was glad for it.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

The sun was just beginning to set when Amalia made the familiar trek halfway across the Alienage to Ithilian’s residence. Though she came empty-handed or carrying her harp only more often than not these days, in this particular instance, there was a medium-sized bundle tucked under her arm, apparently composed of or at least wrapped in a deep green fabric, the dye of it mottled with other shades of green, brown and grey, blurring together and indistinct. It was folded neatly, though some irregularity in shape suggested that there might be some other object or objects inside.

It may well have been impossible for Amalia to walk without a sense of purpose, even dressed casually as she was, but she did not seem to be in any great hurry, and stopped a few times to answer queries or greetings before she eventually found her way to her kadan’s front doorstep. Knocking was but a formality at this point, and while she still did it, it was well-understood that she would thereafter let herself in unless directed otherwise, which she in this case was not.

Just as there were now a few chairs in her home for someone more inclined to use them, there was here a clear space on the floor with only a thin cushion on it, as she tended to prefer. Settling herself down into it, she laid the object she’d been carrying to the side. Ithilian, she surmised was in one of the other rooms. He’d likely be out shortly anyway. It did not seem that Lia was currently present, though she may well be elsewhere in the small house also.

Ithilian had long since learned the sound of Amalia entering his home as compared to a stranger, and so he made little movement away from the pot he stood over in the neighboring room. His cooking skills were fairly limited, and while he produced a fairly solid stew, that particular result wouldn't come about if he became too distracted. "You're welcome to some of the stew if you like, lethallan. There will be some extra."

"And who could pass up such a tempting offer?" Lia teased, emerging from the room opposite Ithilian's. She looked fairly different from the last time Amalia had seen her; for one, her blond hair was cut from its former mid-back length to around her jawline. Most noticeable, however, were the tattoos now adorning her face, two symmetrical dark swirls curling away from her eyes around her cheeks, snaking lines coming from her jaw to mingle with them, an extra two coming up on either side of her chin.

"What do you think?" she asked, leaning up against the doorway to the side room. It was quite obvious that she herself enjoyed their look. Her mood in general seemed lifted from when Amalia had guided her out to the coast.

Amalia spared a smile for Lia’s obvious enthusiasm, assuming that Ithilian would interpret her silence as consent to his offer. She didn’t find the stew at all disagreeable, though she did have occasion to miss the rich spice found often in the cuisine of Par Vollen. But it was obvious which question demanded her more immediate attention. There was a certain aesthetic value in the blood writing; it was smoother than the traditional patterns of ornamentation she was accustomed to, less geometrical, but she could see the careful control and artistry in them all the same. More than that, it was what they represented that mattered. As Amalia understood it, this was the official recognition that the person who stood before her was no more a girl, but now a young woman. While she did not think that Lia needed vallaslin to prove this to anyone, it was nevertheless worth being happy about.

“They suit you,” Amalia replied honestly. “Are they Andruil’s?” She knew only a little of the elven pantheon, knowledge gleaned from conversations or references Ithilian made, or occasionally bits and pieces taken from the other Alienage residents. But most of their knowledge was bound to be warped and distorted—she was given to understand that not even the Dalish had full memory of their myths and stories and history any longer. Still, what little she did know informed her that Andruil was the goddess of the hunt, and that seemed to suit Lia’s disposition and talents very well, whereas she knew for a fact that Ithilian’s writing was of Elgar’nan, he of fatherhood and vengeance. Less vengeance and more fatherhood these days, it seemed. At least if she were capable of recognizing such things when she saw them. It was up for debate, all things considered.

Lia's face lit up when Amalia guessed correctly. "Yes! Yes, they are. The Lady of the Hunt. Sister of the Moon, Mother of Hares, Creator of the Way of Three Trees."

At that moment, Ithilian entered with the stew pot, and several bowls and spoons. As Amalia preferred to sit on the floor, Ithilian and Lia did so as well, so that they could all eat at eye level with one another. Also it apparently gave Ithilian a chance to contort his legs into a position he was uncomfortable with, but steadily getting used to. "Careful, it's quite hot," he said, setting out a larger spoon and allowing the others to take what amount they desired.

"She didn't so much as flinch, from what I hear told," he continued, allowing himself a small smile in Lia's direction. Emerion, too, had seemed impressed, though Ithilian wondered if that was not more because an elf raised in the city had passed the trials of a Dalish. He chose to belief it was something more real than that. "And yes, they're very beautiful." He paused, as though debating whether or not to continue. "Not so different from how my wife's were, actually."

Lia stopped chewing for a very brief moment, but enough to be noticed by the perceptive. That was not a common subject for Ithilian to even mention. But there was no better company for it, he had decided, than this one.

Even to Amalia, Ithilian did not speak often of his life before Kirkwall. Then again, this was something true of both of them—that as a matter of habit or respect or something else, they tended to restrict their conversations to the present, the future, or what little of the past they shared with one another. It wasn’t that she hated the idea of talking about what was before that, though some parts of it were admittedly still difficult, but rather that it had always seemed unspoken that their focus ought to be on where they were going. Perhaps in his case, there was more actual reluctance, but she had never been quite so blunt as to inquire if that was so.

But it would seem that in this instance, he had, to use a metaphor she had heard before, cracked open the door of his own volition. Amalia was not certain what to do with that—if indeed there was anything she should do, and for a long moment, she was silent, chewing over her food before she spoke. “My people do not have family, not in the sense that others do. We are raised by many, with many. Nor at any point later in our lives do we ever bond so exclusively with so few.” It felt… important, somehow, to offer some kind of reciprocal understanding before asking what may be a very insensitive question.

Slowly, she looked up from her food, her glance flicking over Lia before she made eye contact with Ithilian. “What is it like, to have that? To have family?”

Lia looked to Ithilian when the question was asked, obviously not intending to speak herself. She had no siblings, and had been without parents for over four years now, so she did not consider herself any sort of expert on families. Ithilian, however, had experienced nearly all the angles of family ties. He'd grown up under the watchful eyes of two parents, married a woman that he'd loved dearly, had a daughter with her and raised her for some years, before the darkspawn took all of it away. Emerion had been like a brother to him, but he would not acknowledge the relationship as such. Brothers were not chosen, like he had been.

"The Dalish don't have the most separated of social structures," he admitted. "The communities are always fairly small, and so naturally the entire clan pitches in to the raising of the children. Everyone knows everyone. Still, my relationship with my family was separate from my relationship with my clan." It was hard to keep things truly private in such a tight-knit community, but for the most part, they tried their best to respect the privacy of others.

"It is..." he began, though he struggled with the explanation. It was strange, to try and imagine an upbringing that was so devoid of a family life, and then to explain such a thing to that person. "At least typically, among the Dalish, a child will have the undying care, protection, and guidance from the two that created them that a person simply can't offer to a group at large." At least, he didn't think so. It didn't seem possible to individualize treatment in that way. It would require making all the children as alike as possible, so that raising them all in the same way would have the best results for all.

"We don't choose the families we're born with," he continued. "I had no choice in my parentage, and my parents had no choice in me, other than the choice to create me at all. But we offer each other all the love we can regardless, because... that is what a family does." He had no way of words with this, nor had he expected to have to teach the qualities of a family system. But she was genuinely interested in learning, so he desired to do his best in the teaching.

"The families we make however, are chosen. A husband or a wife can be sought after for qualities that an individual admires, whatever those are. And the choice must be mutual, a choice to create a union between two souls that find something that completes them in the other half." That was how it was supposed to work among the Dalish, anyway. Ithilian understood such matters worked quite differently among humans, especially the nobility, trading away children to other families like they were a commodity to be sold in order to acquire something desired more by the parents.

Amalia, who had finished eating while Ithilian was speaking, carefully set down her bowl and spoon, bracing her elbows on her knees and resting her jaw in her hands, a thoughtful expression on her face. Evidently, then, the biological notion of family was part of the explanation, and she had expected that much. What she was more confused about was the rest of it. Amalia was not blind—she knew how families worked among the humans and elves, how the units were constructed, that there was usually an emotional bond involved also in a procreative union.

What didn’t make sense to her was the language of completion. Of being as halves. She understood very well what it was to be part of something greater than herself. All Qunari understood that, perhaps better than anyone else. But they never believed themselves to be only partial without the whole. “Does that not create too much dependence?” Amalia voiced her thought as well as she could manage, given her own shortcomings. “Would it not be better, if two people who were already complete, already whole, should as one be greater than they would be as two? Change for the better, but not lose their distinctive traits?” Perhaps she was describing something that made for ill couplings; she certainly had no idea.

“Is it not a higher form of respect, of… love, to be wanted than to be needed?” She needed basic sustenance, but it did nothing for her soul. Companionship, purpose… these things were higher things, and she acknowledged that she did not need them. They were not necessary—she could be whole even in solitude. But she desired them, wanted them, because they brought with them emotions and thoughts that were better, more sublime, than those she merely required.

"Maybe... maybe it is a higher form of love to acknowledge that without this other person, you would be lost, shattered even... and then to trust them with that anyway." Ithilian had not eaten as much of his own meal as he had planned to, having done more speaking instead, but Lia had had plenty of time while the two talked, and had since finished. She now carefully set her bowl down, smiling somewhat awkwardly.

"I'm... going to head out, I think. I'll see you tomorrow." Ithilian gave her a nod of understanding, and she took her leave quietly out the door.

"Maybe it isn't a matter of being incomplete to begin with... but of choosing to give a piece of yourself over to another, to let them share in that. To choose one person over any other in the world who you believe to be worthy of that." Ithilian had never felt incomplete before he'd met Adahlen. He'd been satisfied in who and what he was at the time... but he became unsatisfied with the fact that he was not able to share himself with another as closely as he desired. And when he tried to choose a candidate, there had been no other he could have eyes for.

But he was no expert on these things, nor a man who had spent long periods of time meditating on them. He'd just lived, and did what he felt was best. "Maybe it does create too great a dependence. Gods know that I was... broken, for a long time after I lost my family. I don't know what way is best, I only know the way I lived. But I can't imagine my life without taking that risk. It wouldn't be me."

“Is that the difference, then?” The question was murmured, almost as if Amalia was asking it of herself rather than him. Her brows furrowed together, and she shook her head slightly. “It seems I do not understand even still. What you have just described, the exchange of a piece of oneself, that kind of trust and elevation… I have felt that. I do feel that. It is why I am here, and not in Par Vollen.” She smiled slightly, then shrugged her shoulders. It was evident that there was something about all of this that she did not quite grasp, but mastery of new ideas was not the matter of a day’s work. She would leave it be for the moment; it did not seem necessary to continue and prod Ithilian on the matter. What he had said already was not the easiest of things to say, and she knew that.

“It seems that Lia departed before I was able to fulfill my original purpose for being here.” She picked up the bundle at her side and slid it across the floor to Ithilian. The fabric wrapping the outside was in fact a waterproofed cloak, the mottled colors of it making it ideal for blending in shadow or forest, as one might on a hunt. Inside of it was a short, curved knife, of the kind useful for a number of everyday purposes more than for fighting, made from the same bright white bone as Parshaara, as well as an archer’s bracer, made of the leather she’d had the young woman work on their trip to the Wounded Coast. “I suspect you will see her again before I do, if you would not mind giving her my congratulations.” She was not of the Dalish, but she did not think that they were so different from everyone else that the items here would be of any less use to them.

It was hard for Ithilian not to be a little uncomfortable, and not just because he was delving back into painful memories. He was used to that by now. What he was not used to was confronting the fact that he too, felt in the way he had just described, but for all that, this discussion had clearly proven that they were still quite different of mind, the two of them, at least in the ways they were raised. She didn't fit in with the system he had known, as much as he may or may not have wanted her to. Not yet, at any rate. Whether he would be able to handle issues that would arise if and when that happened remained to be seen.

"Of course," he said, setting his hand atop the cloaked package. "I suspect she'll want to thank you personally." He knew, after all, the quality of the gifts that Amalia gave to those she saw fit. "I'm glad she's decided to look up to you. She hasn't had a woman in her life to look to for a long time." Amalia could not be a mother to her, not truly, but there was little stopping her from being a mentor, and Ithilian was pleased that it had worked out that way.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon

Earnings

0.00 INK

The two buildings immediately nearest the barracks had also been purchased. One of them had been repurposed into a stabling area, though at present it contained only about five horses and their equipment. The other, however, Lucien had torn down, removing even the stone from the foundation and instead laying down a large amount of sand. It wasn’t like the Wounded Coast would miss that much of it, after all. The areas had then been ringed by sturdy wooden fencing, providing an ideal practice ring for the recruits. They would train as he had trained—in sand, uncertain footing at best, against what their instructor deemed most helpful, as many times as it took for him to be certain that they would survive most anything Kirkwall could throw at them. They’d only been taking the simplest of jobs thus far, and even then, he had personally been present for each and every one of them. He would not be as other mercenary leaders he knew, and simply accept anyone who wanted to fight, give them a blade and some perfunctory instruction, then throw them at whatever came along.

Some mercenaries wanted that. He chose the ones that didn’t, as well as the ones whose commitment to their consciences seemed promising. He would not tell them what to do in every situation, but he did want to be able to trust their judgement, when the time came to send them out on their own. He also wanted them to survive their missions, as much as possible. So even if it took a year or more to train every last one of them to his standards before he sent them out on their own, that was what he would do.

Presently, the arena, as they’d taken to calling it, was occupied by all fifteen of his present recruits, who were paired off against each other and sparring with heavy wooden practice swords. He was also quite insistent that while they were free to use whatever they preferred on jobs, they should have at least a basic familiarity with how any weapon worked, both so they could defend themselves with anything and also against anything. Knowing how a swordsman had to move meant that your shield would be in the right place, without the need for too much thinking about it.

The odd man out was currently by Lucien’s side, listening as the chevalier explained what he was looking at. Though his recruits were a mixture of younger and older, with a fair few of them several years more experienced than Lucien himself, they were all getting the same drills. They had to know how to work with one another, as well, after all. The boy he was talking to, though, was the newest of the lot, and the youngest, at perhaps no more than seventeen. He was also an elf, though not the only one in the group. Lucien mostly had humans, but there were four elves in total, and a pair of dwarves. The youth beside him now, however, was actually more familiar to him than any of the rest, as they’d been sharing a house for the better part of a year, before Lucien had moved himself into the barracks and left Desne and her children the abode he had once owned.

The lad was tall, as far as elves went, maybe an inch over Ril’s height, but he lacked significant muscle mass at the moment, giving him the impression of being a long, stretched out scarecrow of a person. Lucien remembered when he’d looked like that, and he’d been significantly taller to boot. He was currently in the process of trying to reassure Cor that this was not going to be a significant issue impeding his success as a mercenary.

“There are ways to fight that do not involve brute strength. More than that, any style that relies on that to the exclusion of all else would get a person killed. Watch Tessa—she’s not nearly as strong as Dirk, but she doesn’t have any problem blocking him because she understands the angles.” Indeed, the woman he’d picked out raised her sword to parry a downward blow from her opponent, and her quick riposte put him on his arse in the dirt. “See? Learn to do that, and it won’t matter if your opponent is a Qunari.”

Sophia stood off to the side of the practice arena, leaning up against a post at the stables. She'd migrated her own horse down here from the Keep's stables, and though the conditions were not as ideal, she was seeing to his care herself, and doing an excellent job of it, if she could be allowed to judge. Aiden was fairly impressive compared to some of the other horses, but the white destrier was fairly calm of demeanor most of the time, and caused no trouble.

She'd come to nearly all of the training sessions held here, both for the enjoyment of being involved in something like this, and also for the excuse to spend any and all time she could with Lucien. Sophia was more than skilled enough to demonstrate a good many things to the recruits, but teaching experience she had little of, and she suspected she wouldn't be nearly as natural in the role of instructor as Lucien looked. Despite Lucien's birth, here in Kirkwall Sophia was the more well-known of the two, and among this group, it was as the Slayer of the Arishok. She wasn't sure how she felt about being called that.

It was better than some of the other names she'd heard, at least. There were people in the city who greatly resented her choice to leave the throne open and let Meredith take up a stewardship. The Princess Who Ran, The Broken Viscountess, The Five-Minute Queen... none of them had caught on yet, but even still it was hard to ignore them. Working with Lucien and his soon-to-be mercenaries helped in the effort. They, at least, seemed to have high opinions of her. Probably wise, considering the man they were going to be calling their commander.

Picking up a spare wooden sword, she made her way slowly out to where Lucien was instructing a recruit, Cor she believed the elf's name was. She hadn't used a training sword for years, not since she and Dairren used to spar in his Hightown home. She was dressed a lot more like Lucien might commonly be, a shirt of mail over her grey tunic in place of more elaborate armor, light brown leggings tucked into well-worn leather boots. She quickly tied her hair back up behind her head in a ponytail.

"Don't think of it so much as blocking, but instead as redirecting," she offered, thinking of all the times she'd engaged a foe with more brawn than herself. "You don't need to stop the attack cold, you just need to make sure it doesn't hit you when it passes by."

Lucien hummed a note of agreement, the small smile on his face spreading quite broadly when Sophia joined them. “She’s quite right,” he agreed, “and that applies equally well with shields and blades alike. Even a gauntlet can be used to block, if you keep that in mind.” Cor nodded seriously, looking caught for a moment between somehow deferring to Sophia’s presence and not doing so, but in the end, he didn’t, offering a lopsided smile instead.

“But,” Lucien continued, “Theory will only do you so much good. Go join Havard and Donnelly. They’ll help you practice.” Havard was almost as old as Lucien’s father, and considerably more grizzled, but he had a grandfatherly heart, to say the least, and seemed to quite enjoy tutoring the younger ones. Donnelly was almost as inexperienced as Cor was, but not quite as good at asking for help. The youth nodded again, taking half a step back before he remembered himself, reset his feet, saluted, and then left.

Lucien had to exert a significant amount of effort not to laugh at him. “I’ve told him not to do that, but he seems remarkably good at forgetting, for someone who hangs onto everything else I say the way he does.” Shaking his head, he turned to Sophia, noting the practice sword she carried. “In the mood for a match?” He inquired. “I almost fear to accept, lest I find myself so thoroughly bested that my people lose all respect for me.” It was a jest, to be sure, but the implied respect threaded into it was quite genuine.

"Well, I suppose you'll just have to risk it," Sophia replied, lifting the wooden sword and setting the point lightly down on Lucien's chest. This wouldn't be a regular occurrence, the two of them sparring. For the first couple of sessions, Sophia had merely shown up to watch from the sides, though eventually she found herself wandering close enough to offer critique to some of the trainees when Lucien was otherwise occupied with someone else, or even stepping in briefly to demonstrate a particular stance, parry, or attack. "We'll just have to see which one of us is rustier with a blade."

She smiled, as ever enjoying teasing him about his former unwillingness to pick up a sword. Sophia understood quite well that it had been a serious issue for him to grapple with, but she still remembered his scythe-wielding days, and still happened to think he was quite a ridiculous man for using a farming tool as a weapon, by choice. She was immensely happy to see him wielding swords again, even if it was just a wooden one for the moment.

Sophia herself had yet to take up her real sword in actual combat since her battle with the Arishok, but she had at least been keeping in practice, though not as regularly as was optimal. She backed away several paces from Lucien, letting the sword fall away towards the ground, and taking up a place alongside the line of recruits. The line wouldn't hold for long though, of course, as the recruits would undoubtedly halt their practice in order to watch their leader spar with her.

"Shall we?"

“We shall.” Lucien stepped a few paces backwards himself, making a quick gesture to Tessa, who tossed him the sword she was practicing with. Testing its weight for a moment, he accustomed himself to the feel of it and then nodded slightly, bowing in a genteel fashion at the waist to his foe. There were some formalities it was hard to train out of oneself, after all.

As it turned out, they need not have waited to gain their audience; as soon as Lucien had the wooden sword in his hand, all attention was fixed on what he was going to do with it. Aside from teaching them the motions of their drills and the occasional demonstration with one of the recruits, they hadn’t really seen him fight, at least not in a situation as calm as this one. Jobs didn’t really count, since there was no time to be concerned with anyone else’s form. The initial seconds were exceedingly quiet; some were a little afraid to breathe at too great a volume.

Lucien was still, standing apparently quite relaxed, his practice sword held firmly but not too tightly, knees slightly bent, one foot somewhat in front of the other, shoulder-width apart. He was hardly ever the aggressor, and it seemed he did not plan on taking that role now. He knew Sophia well enough to know that she would attack before he did, anyway, and he preferred to defend first.

He was quite right: Sophia was not one to take the defensive if she had a choice. She tested the weight of the wooden blade in her hand, coming to the conclusion that it was a little light, and not quite as long as Vesenia. It would have to do. She wasn't quite prepared for how being watched so closely like this felt; the recruits had almost immediately come to see the bout. Sophia had only had one of her battles widely spectated before, and in that one, they'd been easy enough to ignore for the bigger threat. She offered them all a brief smile.

Then she began, her features settling into a focus as she made her attack, starting with a pair of low slashes, followed by a feigned lunge for his midsection, which she pulled across her body and then brought down in a straight vertical chop.

The low slashes, Lucien stepped back from, raising the practice sword to block the feint, which of course never completed. Sophia’s redirection was quick, but using the very same principle he’d just been trying to explain to Cor, he turned the downward chop aside with his forearm, stepping into the space created by the motion and thrusting the sword in the style of a fencer for her sternum.

Sophia was able to bend backwards rather impressively to avoid the thrust, the dodge necessary because she couldn't bring her sword back in time to block, courtesy of Lucien's redirection. She took a step back and brought her blade across hard, to smack the other wooden sword away, before making a cross body slash the other way, aimed for the base of the neck.

It was Lucien’s turn to duck, though he didn't bend backwards to do it, instead simply bending his knees, the wooden blade whistling by over his head. He rose after it had passed by, grinning. “I fear for the safety of my windpipe,” he said, tone congenial as of they’d been dancing rather than sparring. There were those who likened the two, and the comparison was not entirely without merit, though excessive flourish could get a person killed on a battlefield where it got them lauded in court. He followed the comment by stepping in, quickly swapping his grip on the blade and aiming the pommel for Sophia’s center mass.

"Not without cause," Sophia commented back, a smile breaking her own look of focus. She reacted to the pommel strike well, shifting sideways to snatch Lucien's wrist in her off hand. She attempted to pull him forward and past her just a step, while she made a smooth spin around his side, slashing down for the back of his leg.

And here Lucien faced a dilemma: go where she was guiding, or dig his heels in and refuse. In the end, he went with the latter, utilizing his size and balance to remain in place instead of stepping forward, something which took almost all the force out of the hit to the back of his legs by giving Sophia very little room to swing. A metal sword wouldn’t have made it through leathers that close, which was the important consideration. Once the hit connected, he spun the other way, disengaging them and putting both again at distance where their swords were effective. “One more pass, for demonstrative purposes?” If he was going to ask his men to analyze this later, and he was, he didn’t want it to last too long for them to remember it all.

It was a draw if Sophia had ever seen one. She'd landed a hit, sure, but it had been far too weak to really do anything. Still, the sparring had her blood pumping a little more now. It was a different kind of dance with Lucien, to be sure, but she found it almost as enjoyable. Almost. With a short flourish of her sword Sophia reset her stance, her smile having difficulty fading away. "Of course." She moved forward at him again with a pair of zig-zagging sidesteps, before attacking with a rising slash that crossed her body diagonally.

The rising slash was met by a downward chop, and then Lucien circled his arm to lock the blades together, stepping forward so that they were far too close for the swords to be of any use, before his muscles slackened and he stepped back again, disengaging. “All right,” he said, addressing the others after bowing once more to Sophia. “That last position—both swords out of the picture, very close range. What should I have done?”




Perhaps half an hour later, Lucien had dismissed the rest of the Lions to use their afternoons as they would, and taken the opportunity to shed his practice armor. The weather was getting very warm again, and though he would never complain about wandering about in full plate in the middle of summer, it was vastly preferable not to need to. He’d asked if Sophia might be amenable to joining him for something to eat, and so at present, they were sitting outside, on a bench with a short table in front of it, accessible through the back door of his office. The entire setup overlooked the less-crowded side of the harbor, and the smell of the ocean was refreshing from this close, unclouded by the general odor-milieu of Kirkwall.

“So?” he asked quietly, leaning back against the bench and crossing one leg over the opposite knee. “What do you think of them?”

Sophia waited until she was finished with her current bite to reply, which also gave her time to think them over. "They have a lot of potential," she noted, thinking that the younger ones in particular could really grow into themselves with a teacher like Lucien. The others would have perhaps developed habits that would be harder to break, but she didn't doubt that could be done as well. "They also have a long way to go." She said this with a small smile. There had been a few clumsy incidents during the session, as there were bound to be when getting used to various kinds of equipment.

She found it remarkable how well-picked this location was, and figured if she'd been asked to pick a spot in Lowtown that had a decent view, enough space for combat training, and a lack of industrial stench, she would have been hopeless. It had to simply be his experience with this place. She found it very... comfortable. A welcoming place to apply oneself. She supposed she didn't even need to practice all those strict manners she'd been taught for the table, but of course she did it anyway. Habits.

"And what does their commander think of them so far?"

Lucien had, of course, spent quite a lot of time thinking about this all already, and so the answer was quite ready to him. “Well, I did choose them all, so I may well be incapable of objective assessment, but…” he smiled. “I think that eventually, they will be excellent.” The thing about the right kind of training and the right amount of dedication was, it could make a soldier of anyone, in the physical sense. Their bodies would break and rebuild as anyone’s did who had to become accustomed to a new lifestyle, and he would do his best to ensure that their skills grew to match their capacities. That had honestly never been the part of the whole thing he was worried about.

“What concerns me most is that they have the judgement they’ll need. And the conscience.” Mercenary work was one of those things where opportunities were plenty to take the easy way out instead of the right one. “I can lay down as many rules for conduct as I want, but I won’t be out there with them every time, and I can’t teach them how to make decisions of that kind.” It was why he’d been much less concerned about the experience or combat-readiness of his recruits than their motivations for joining, their goals in life, their histories and aspirations. He could teach anyone to swing a sword and be good at it. That he was any good was proof enough that such things could be done even for the least likely candidates. But he couldn’t make them into good people; he had to hope he’d been able to pick the good ones in the first place. That they were so willing to work with and help one another was a good sign, but the true test would not be one event, nor one period of time. It would be everything that followed this.

“In all honesty, I don't think the world needs more soldiers or mercenaries. It just needs more good people who have the power to act.”

"And if anyone can show them how to be that way by example, it's you," Sophia said with certainty. She also knew that he wouldn't allow them to be the type of mercenaries that he feared, that if any of them showed an inability to act with good judgement and conscience, they would have to change, or otherwise no longer represent the organization he was trying to build. He wasn't the kind of man to settle for something adequate, and he wasn't doing this to make money. They would do fine.

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

You’re going to get yourself killed one of these days. The words were almost there on Nostariel’s tongue, but she quieted them. It didn’t feel right to say them, all the circumstances considered. She knew she likely had some part, however small, in the fact that Ash found it difficult to find patrol partners, and maybe even in the fact that the captain didn’t see fit to enforce the rules about those things in his case. Maybe part of it was just some ridiculous initiation ordeal, she didn’t know. But she did know how important this was to him, and that he suffered all of these things willingly, for the sake of making things a little bit better in Kirkwall. Who was she to cast shade on that? He knew the risks, and he had to know that she cared for his health, and so she swallowed the words instead of speaking him, that her concern would not be one more weight on his shoulders.

They wouldn’t be bearing a whole lot of physical weight for a few days, that was for certain. Something had stabbed into the weak spot underneath one of his pauldrons, and though she had repaired the muscle as well as could be done in one session, he would likely be very sore for a week or so, and not fully functional on his left side for at least another day. She prodded gently at the spot with surprisingly-strong fingers, infusing a little bit of magic into the touch to try and loosen the tight knot around the injury, kneading the flesh as gently as would still be effective. The more relaxed it was, the less it would pain him the next day.

Sighing through her nose, she picked his slightly-bloody shirt up off the counter and was halfway through the motion of handing it to him when she brought herself up short and wrapped herself around him from behind instead, propping her chin on his head and draping her arms loosely around his neck. She didn’t say anything, for fear that whatever she attempted to say would come out as the words she was avoiding, instead. The shirt still hung loosely from the fingers of her right hand.

He reached up with the hand on his good arm and squeezed one of hers trying to comfort her. She was worried and for good reason. What he did was dangerous, but it was a risk he was willing to take. He felt guilty for making her worry like that, but they both knew why he did it. It wouldn't be easy for him to rise through the ranks, made even harder by his personal relations. But he wasn't going to trade one for the other, he wanted them both, and he would work that much harder to keep them. He would give the guard no choice but to recognize his actions and diligence, even if he had to drag himself into Nos's clinic bleeding deep from the shoulder.

"I should've seen him," Ashton admitted, squeezing her hand tighter. Snuffy and he had taken a patrol deep into Lowtown and run afoul of a gang. While most were felled by his arrows, one had managed to slip away and before he noticed, had slipped a dagger into his back. Snuffy sank her teeth into his leg and let Ashton finish him with his sword, but the damage was done. It hurt, but at least that part of Lowtown was safe for the time being. "Next time, I will."

Amalia was unaccustomed to being unable to figure things out on her own. Generally speaking, she had only to recognize the need to understand something, make the requisite observations, and things would properly arrange themselves for her. She was quick to grasp and understand new things. The problem was in this case that she intellectually understood the concepts she was wrestling with—but she did not know what they meant to or for herself. The facets of this culture she was now trying to integrate herself into that she wrestled with were things that had always carried firm mental labels of human, or some other thing that she did not consider herself to be. Non-Qunari, in the broadest cases. This had closed them off from the need for further perusal. As long as she could get along well enough to draw no ire, it had been enough.

Now, it was not. If she wanted to understand—really understand—what family was, she had to observe families, ask questions of them. If she wanted to understand love or social structure or any of those other things, she had to see them. Not only see—apprehend. It was proving most difficult.

Deciding that it would be best to treat the topics one by one, she would begin with the one that had emerged prominently from her discussion with Ithilian. To this end, she needed to speak to someone who understood love. Of course, she supposed kadan understood it very well, but it was clearly something difficult for him to talk about, and there was something fraught, almost uncomfortably so, about discussing the subject with him specifically. She meant to see of this generalized, and she would need another case for that.

The obvious choice was Nostariel, and so it was to the clinic that Amalia directed herself. Given that it was a public location in the middle of the day, she didn’t exactly expect that knocking was a norm she was obligated to observe, and so she didn’t, entering rather noisily for her, which was still pretty quietly for anyone else. She brought herself up short, however, when she observed what was going on.

An eyebrow ascended her forehead. “Shall I return later?”

Nostariel straightened, draping Ash’s shirt over his good shoulder and giving Amalia a smile. “No need.” She appeared not in the least concerned about her friend’s presence, and indeed she wasn’t. While she would readily admit she was quite… girlish, in some ways, this wasn’t one of them. Maybe it was the healer training. “Is there something I can do for you, Amalia?”

Well, if they were unconcerned, then so was she. It wasn’t like she was a cleric, just a Qunari. At the question, however, she fell still and quiet, contemplating the question she actually wanted to ask before she took one of the many chairs available in the front room of the clinic. She felt a bit of preface might be called for, else she seem to be broaching the topic too abruptly. Once, this would not have been of any consequence. She cared more now for the comfort of other people than she recalled ever having done before. “I am not sure,” she admitted. Amalia felt that if anyone would have a satisfactory answer for her on this point, it might well be Nostariel, but that didn't mean her hopes were high.

“I am… trying to learn more than I have before of the ways in which people live.” People wasn’t quite the term she wanted, but she couldn’t say humans when this was something they seemed to share with everyone but her people. “Some particular concepts elude me more than others. Ones the Qunari do not have.” She gestured between the two of them as an example, a fairly obvious one, honestly.

“When Qunari couple, the only purpose is procreation. Or recreation, if it is… necessary. The bonds are clinically formed and broken once their purpose is served.” For some, like herself, it never had been necessary, nor arranged, but that seemed a bit beside the point. She didn’t think additional carnal knowledge would be of any help in this matter. “But that is… not always the way of it here. For you, this means something else. I do not understand the something else.

"Love?" Ashton asked, looking between Amalia and Nos. "The Qunari don't... Love?" He asked, sounding confused. "That's kinda sad," he said, looking over at Nos as he slid his bloodstained shirt on. He would have to run by the shop to get a replacement before returning to the Keep to deliver his report. But he had time to burn before then. "How do you even explain something like that?" Ashton asked. It was strange notion, to explain something that was easy to feel, but harder to understand completely. He decided to let Nos try first.

“We love,” Amalia countered. “It is just that love and sex have nothing to do with one another, for us. I do not understand how two things that are to me completely different are so… entwined for you.” It was like telling her that the concept of the color red was somehow bound up in the concept of being blue. They were just completely different colors. Certainly, there could not be blue reds, and if you thought there were, you turned yourself in to the reeducators.

"Oh," Ashton said, a red blush bleeding into his cheeks.

Nostariel contemplated it a great deal before saying anything. It was a matter of great importance, that much was clear. Perhaps for reasons Amalia herself did not fully understand, but Nostariel believed she glimpsed. It would certainly be bad to give her a poor understanding in any case. Pressing her lips together, she took a seat next to Ash and across from her friend. “Well, the bridge is romantic love, I think. That’s what’s missing from what you describe. It seems to be oversimplifying, though, to say that romantic love is just friendship plus sexual desire.” In sharp contrast to Ashton, she accepted the topic of conversation with relative ease, and that was definitely healers’ training. She’d heard enough stories, seen enough unclothed bodies, and prescribed enough potions that all the embarrassment was long gone from her when speaking about such things.

“Though both are certainly involved.” She smiled slightly, flicking an amused glance at Ash’s face before resuming her more serious manner. “I think that the love you’re asking after is a little different for everyone, which is why it will be difficult to describe in general terms. But I think it is some measure of both friendship and desire, in different proportions for different people, but also… something that makes it more than the sum of those parts. Something like…” Nostariel chewed her lip, trying to think of how she wanted to say it. Or even what she wanted to say, really.

“A lot of little things, and some big ones. Wanting to be near them, more than you would a friend, but in a different way than a casual partner, for one. Finding that the way you perceive them changes—things that before might have irked you or at least you were indifferent to now seem more positive, endear them to you. You want the best for them, and to expect it from them, but are willing to forgive them when they don’t quite make it there. I don’t know, am I describing this right?” She looked up at Ash.

"Mostly," he said with a smile, his hand slipping into hers. "They make you feel like your feet are about to lift off of the ground, that your belly's full of butterflies and your head spins when you think of them. They make you feel better, and they make you want to live you life better than you ever have. They make you want to be better. You want to live up to their expectations and never ever let them down. It makes you want to stand beside them and weather the storm, whatever'll come. There's no more just you or them or anything, there's just us. You're more together than either would be alone." Ashton laughed, his arm twitching before he grimaced in pain. He meant to run a hand through his hair, unfortunately, the arm that hand was on was the one that Nos had just repaired.

"It's not something you can really explain, I don't think. We're just listing off the, uh... Symptoms I guess?" he told Nos, internally pleased with the bit of cleverness. "It's something you have to feel to really understand. It just sorta... Happens, you know? It was like trying to explain color to a blind man. You could list off the objects that had that color, but it still wouldn't matter because he still wouldn't know what color was. One had to see it to truly understand. "That... Something else is just that. Something else. Not everything can be explained, but that doesn't mean it's not there," he said, squeezing Nos's hand.

“I see.” That wasn’t exactly a false statement, but Amalia wasn’t sure of its truth either. Still, that had been more helpful than anything she’d been expecting to get. Not because there had been more reasons or features, but because even in watching them answer, she was perceiving commonalities in them—about how they felt this thing they were trying to describe. Perhaps it was indeed something that could only be felt, but if the precise problem was in wanting to be able to identify such a feeling when it was encountered, that was not going to be of much assistance.

But she could work with the understanding she was developing. Amalia thought that the interpersonal phenomena would understand might help fill in the social phenomena she understood even less. For that purpose, she was sure this would do. For anything else, well… she would have to keep thinking about it. For once, she had a great deal of time for that kind of thing.

Glancing back and forth between them, then down at their hands for a moment, she nodded. “Thank you both. I am not sure what the right words are, but… I hope this ends favorably for you.” Rising from her seat, she took her leave in much the same manner as she’d arrived.

“Well. That was unexpected."

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

In the years since she’d come to Kirkwall, Nostariel had rarely had cause to venture too far beyond its walls; save the occasional sojourn on the Coast, or in previous years, her visits to Feynriel, she hadn’t much bothered to explore the wilder areas surrounding the city. There was enough to do in it that she honestly hadn’t had the time.

But with the Qunari gone and uneasy peace restored, she found that she actually did have it now. And so, when she’d caught up with all the work she could possibly do at the clinic, everything outstanding for the Wardens, and still had a bit of time to herself, she’d taken to exploring. Huntress she was not—she held no illusions that she moved through her environment with all the grace and natural aptitude of someone like Ithilian or Ash, but that wasn’t the point. She did it for the fresh air, and the time alone with her own thoughts. And sometimes, she did it for the opportunity to relax her guard a little, to let down the strict barriers of magic that even she was forced to maintain within the bounds of Kirkwall. If she felt seized by the childish urge to flick little colored sparks from her fingers, or try some spell she had not yet fully mastered, well… she could do it here, and there was no one around to hurt if she happened to exert a little too much force or something of that nature.

It didn’t take too long for it to occur to her that she was not the only one who could benefit from something like that, and it was watching Lucien’s mercenaries practice one day that the idea came to her. Why should practice rings be the stuff only of warriors and roguish fighters, of archers and swordsmen? Circles hardly taught magic for the sake of combat, but that was certainly how she used it. If she was to get the most out of those moments when she practiced, it needed to be less like it was in the circle and more like what the Lions did.

She spent the better part of a week finding the perfect spot, and once she had it, she spent another few days setting it up, moving out the especially-flammable underbush in the large clearing, setting up targets, and marking the path to it with trailsigns, doubtless obvious to people who knew what to look for, but not, perhaps, to anyone else. Proud of her efforts, she’d wanted to share them with a specific someone first, someone who could make just as much use of it as Nostariel herself. So she’d made a bit of a game of it, sliding a piece of parchment under Aurora’s door that morning, accompanied by a rough sketch of a map and the symbol her trailsigns used, along with a short note. Surprise for you. Follow the signs. –Nostariel

And now she waited. The clearing was on the far side of Sundermont, but reachable within an hour’s walk if a person knew the area. The general surroundings were forested, but not thickly, and the clearing itself ran up against the bank of a river that came down the mountain, the falls themselves crashing down not more than a quarter-mile upstream. Perfect in case of fire, which could happen, but hopefully would not.

It might be just the thing.

It took more than an hour to find her way through the forest. Her half-a-year sojourn from the city had blurred her memory of the rarely trekked forests outside. Aurora had never thought of her as the outdoors type of person, and after misreading the map and a set of wrong turns she realized how much of a city blood she was. She could hide from Templars and the like among crowded streets and lonely alleyways, but in not in between trees and in brush. The rustle of leaves and snapping of twigs accompanied every step she took, but then again there was nothing she was hiding from, not out here. Her guard was lowered there among the bushes-- it wasn't like Templars hid behind them after all. Maybe if she was lucky, Nostariel would even hear her coming and lead her to wherever she was supposed to be meeting her.

Every now and then, she found herself backtracking after walking too far without finding another symbol Nostariel had written down. Fortunately, she learned patience while living in Kirkwall and she took these minor setbacks with a click of her tongue and a shrug. It probably didn't help matters with the lax attitude she took to finding Nostariel's trail. Even in those moments where she was lost, she felt relaxed. There was nothing for her to look over her shoulder for and no secret she had to keep from the trees. Had she not found the note under her door, then she wouldn't have ventured out into the woods like this, and then she wouldn't have this sensation of... Freedom.

She'd have to thank her for that. If she could ever find her, that is.

She could, as it turned out. It just took the better part of an hour and a half, but she found her way in the end. She entered the clearing with an enthusiastic wave for her friend. "Found you! Finally. I was beginning to think I never would. I knew I should've kept left at the big rock. You know? The one that looks like Varric." She laughed, it really did. If he was blockier, and rounder... and shaven.

Aurora took the moment to observe just where Nostariel's little trail led her. "Oh, wow. Someone's been busy, hasn't she?" The clearing had been... well, cleared and just recently from the looks of it. "Hey, are those Ashton's?" She asked, pointing at the targets set up near the edge of the space.

Nostariel’s answering smile was large and full of mirth, particularly at the comment about the rock that resembled Varric. At the question, though, and the accompanying gesture, she nodded. “Warded against elemental damage now, but yes, originally they were his. I… might have neglected to tell him what they were for, though.” It wasn’t that she didn’t trust him with her secrets—the furthest thing from it. But, in not too long from now, this would no longer be her secret, and out of respect for that, she had kept um on the reason she was lifting several of his practice targets. He had enough, anyway.

“It came to me while watching Lucien’s mercenaries the other day. They have this whole practice ring set up, I’m sure you’ve seen it by now.” It was right there on the docks, after all, next to the barracks building, which was now probably the nicest-looking building in that district. When Lucien undertook something, he certainly did not cut corners. “And I know there’s practice with Amalia at the Alienage, and that’s good, but… it’s not like we can sling around our magic when we need to practice, you know? And they don’t really teach you to fight in a Circle, so… here we are.” She looked around at the humble clearing and placed her hands on her hips. It didn’t have to be anything fancy; indeed, it was probably safer if it wasn’t. “No Templars, no unwary civilians, no pressure to do everything perfectly the first time.”

Aurora focused on the targets as Nostariel spoke. "I have seen it," she said about Lucien's practice ring, "It's hard to miss." The ring and the building next to it put the rest of the docks to shame, and it'd take a lot more than a good scrub for the rest to match it. Her eyebrows rose as she continued to stare at the targets, but fell in time with the corner of her lips rising. The next series of movement were fluid and seamless as she extended her arm and flung a small fireball that ignited in her hand like she would a ball. It streaked through the space between her and the targets, striking the middle most one and petering out against the wood.

"I was worried I was getting rusty," she admitted with an embarrassed smile. There were a rare few chances where she could practice her magic in relative safety. Anywhere in the city and she ran the risk of alerting someone to her identity as an apostate. She had been legitimately worried that the grasp she had on her magic was beginning to loosen. It was a skill, and like all skills it required study, practice, and time to master. Things she had not been afforded since her escape from the Circle. Instead, she tried to focus her energy on improving her mind and body, but still...

Hands threw themselves around Nostariel's shoulders as Aurora drew her in for a hug. "Thank you," she said with a jovial smile. "What would you like to try first?"

Nostariel laughed, winding her arms around her friend’s waist in a brief squeeze before she released her and stepped back. “You know, I’m not sure. I’ve always been better at ice than fire, so maybe I should brush up, too.” She lit a small flame in her hand, weaving it delicately between her fingers, the motion almost playful. She snuffed it by closing her fist, though, and turned back to Aurora. “I want you to know… nobody is aware of this place but you and I. No one at all. If you want to keep it that way, that’s fine by me. But also… if there are other people that you want to bring here, that’s up to you. I think there are apostate who could benefit from the practice in control, but not if it compromises what you can get out of this.” And certainly not if the risk of compromising the location was too great. It was, after all, supposed to be a refuge, of sorts.

“But enough seriousness. How was Antiva?” As she spoke, Nostariel tied her hair up into a tail at the back of her head, rolling her limbs out the way Amalia had taught her to do and feeling the fade tingle at her fingertips. Another fireball bloomed with the opening of her hand, but she kept it small. For now, she wanted to practice precision and endurance, not power. Experimentally, she divided the fireball in two midair, and then augmented both until they were the size of the original. Maybe she could hit two specific targets at once…

"You know, perfectly Antivan." The smile on her lips was coy, at least for a few seconds before they parted again. "Did you know I'm rich?" She said, watching as Nostariel experimented with her fireball. "Well, not me specifically, but my family. The DiMerenda Trading Company experienced a boom after the Blight in Ferelden."

Nostariel did indeed seem slightly surprised by the revelation, but in the end, all she really did was shrug and attempt to split her fireball again. “Well… that might actually make things a little easier for you. Even the Templars are a political organization to some extent. If your family is prominent, even in Antiva and not here… that can only help, I suppose.” Her eyes narrowed with concentration as she tried to control four fire spheres both independently and also at the same time, something which was much more difficult than it sounded. Thankfully, she had practice at complex spell manipulation due to the intrinsic difficulty of healing, so none of them guttered out or exploded.

"It certainly provides some options." Aurora was still watching Nostariel manipulate her fireballs, quietly impressed with the amount of control on display. She could see the gap between their experience, Aurora's formal education on magic totalling only four years in the Antivan Circle. Compared to Nostariel having been born in one, that was very little. She looked at her own hand and dipped into the fade to summon an arc of electricity. It was a small amount, to test her own control, and she let it dance in between her fingers, first arcing in between the digits slowly.

“Regardless, I’m glad you were able to see your family again. I can’t imagine they were expecting you.”

"They weren't," Aurora admitted, "When I knocked on the door, my second oldest sister opened it. A lot of awkward staring ensued." She said with a chuckle, the lightning dancing between her fingers even faster before splitting off into two arcs. "I didn't know what to say, and she didn't recognize me at first, but it sunk in slowly. I think when she saw the scarf she realized. Then there was a lot of awkward sobbing and crying."

“I’ll bet.” Try as she might, Nostariel could not keep a little bit of wistfulness out of her tone, but she shook her head and let it pass. She had enough gifts in her life that she could not let herself lament her lack of a blood family. It was surely a wonderful thing to have, but it also came with its own issues and problems, she was quite certain. Catching sight of the little crackle of lightning between Aurora’s fingers, her smile slanted up a little more slyly.

“So… how good are you with those? Or do you just punch everything these days?”

She flung her hand out toward the targets' set up, sending a set of three sparks toward three separate targets. Instead of striking any of them, one hit the dirt yards in front of one, feet to the left of another, and scoring the tree behind the last.

"I'm... Better at punching," She said with a weak smile. But then she clutched her hand into a fist, and electricity began to pop around it. "Much better," she said with a more confident smile.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Aurora Rose

Earnings

0.00 INK

Kirkwall felt lighter today. Of course, it was because one of her friends had returned—the lovely little flower, Aurora. She huffed impatiently, slipping through the narrow alleys as if she were a stray cat returning home; all giddy excitement, untempered energy. She hadn't known of her immediate return, so she'd missed the welcoming party, but hopefully she'd be home now. In retrospect, she supposed she'd never actually missed friends before, since she was always the one walking away. And now, she had a home, with people she cared about, and whenever they left (for however long), she wanted to see their faces again; as soon as possible. This was no different. Besides, she wanted to see how this flower had grown. And if she'd seen anything on her travels. She wanted to hear her stories.

She dipped underneath a hanging tarpaulin flapping in the wind. Red was Kirkwall's color, red as her hair. Unusual color. One that she'd never seen before in her youth; both with the Qunari and what she remembered from the Dalish clan, whose name still eluded her. Pretty color, she thought. Hopping down the steps like a child, Sparrow neared her destination and bubbled with the temptation to simply throw open the door and greet her in the most boorish way possible. Instead, she cleared her throat and rolled her eyes skyward, waited a few seconds and rapped her knuckles on the door; always louder than was necessary, and harder, by far.

A glib smile played on her face, and her arms twitched at her sides, ready to be thrown into a rib-squeezing hug. She didn't call out, for fear of ruining the surprise. It was always better to be pleasantly surprised, then to expect things—at least, in her experience. Much like how Rilien operated. He might do things in an orderly fashion, but he still managed to confound her. Strange how much she'd changed over the years, where something as simple as seeing someone's face would make her this happy. If home were ever described as a feeling... she supposed it would feel something like this. A mass of moments, rumpled together.

On the other side of the door, Aurora laid on the floor, a film of sweat glistening from her brow. Her fingers were interlocked behind her head and she pulled herself to her knees, "Seventy-three," she said, counting her sit-ups aloud. She'd peeled away heavier clothing and wore instead a simple light shirt with matching pants, something that she could work up a sweat in without ruining. It was part of her routine she'd adopted, to work out whenever she had a free moment, and since Kirkwall was quiet as of late, she'd found a lot of those. A strong body led to a strong mind led to a strong spirit after all.

Since her return to Kirkwall, she learned a few things. For one, Nostariel and Ashton were an item. Second, Lucien and Sophia were too-- which was a bit more surprising honestly. Still, she was happy for them all, and thought they all made adorable couples. Other than that, the clean up after the Qunari attack had gone smooth, and though there was still evidence of it, most of it had been patched away. There was still the lingering presence of Templars, more so than it had been, but years spent skirting around them had taught her how to stay out of their way and it wasn't anything she couldn't cope with.

Aurora was still in the process of catching up with everyone since her departure, and she'd find the time for it in the coming weeks. There was still a good many things she had to do. Among those things, she still had to repay Rilien back for his loan, and check on the Embrium she left in Lucien's hand. But all in good time, right now, she had to reach one-hundred.

She'd gotten to eighty-five before a knocking echoed through her small house. She paused her exercise to just stare at the door, wondering who it was that came calling. It could've been anyone really, but judging by how loud the knocking was, she had a few ideas. Pulling herself to her feet, she grabbed the cloth that was on the back of a chair and threw it over her shoulders, and moved to the door. She pulled it open and beheld the culprit.

"Sparrow?"

Sparrow wasted no time in wrapping her arms around the shorter woman's shoulders, and only noticed then, that her light shirt stuck to her back—sweat? Had she just taken a bath? Sparrow pulled back a few inches and studied Aurora's face, eyes scrunched critically until it dawned on her that she might've been interrupting something important. Something intimate, perhaps? Her mind, as always, drifted off like a lewd ship sailing for the Blooming Rose, and her murky eyes drifted over the woman's fiery hair, seeking out any naked interlopers.

None. Well, Aurora was dressed and had, indeed, answered the door. She blinked once, then twice, and laughed gaudily at herself. She'd nearly forgotten about Amalia's tutelage. To think that her once-friend could actually teach—or, perhaps, it wasn't so surprising after all.

Hardly remembering that she was invading someone's space, holding them by the shoulders and staring at them as if to absorb their wayward journeys, Sparrow pursed her lips and smiled wide; a pleased shark. Or someone who'd missed a dear friend. “Aurora,” she greeted with a twinkle in her eyes, dipping her head to perch a kiss on her brow, heedless as she'd been on the docks.

Her affections tended to burst, unchecked. But hadn't it been a long time since she'd seen this lovely bird? She'd taken good care of her gardens in the Alienage, and she'd missed the welcoming party at the docks as well. An unwelcome visit was in order, even if she was busy. Sparrow was not one in the habit of asking for an invitation, she merely stood with an energy that was slowly unravelling, uncoiling from her shoulders; asking impolitely to let her in.

“How've you been? What've you seen? I want to hear everything.” She chirped as she finally released her shoulders, stepping back to rub at her chin, as if to mock-scrutinize some kind of magical change in her character. Aurora certainly seemed stronger; coloured with something she could not yet put her finger on. A flavour of growth only travels and closure could bring. She did not doubt that she'd had both in strides, on her journey across the way, and she wanted to hear all about it. “Sorry I missed the welcome wagon, but you'll be pleased to know that I haven't killed all your plants.”

"You didn't miss much, it wasn't a huge wagon. I just sailed into the harbor with my things," Aurora said, simply moving out of the way to let Sparrow in. If she didn't then she was worried the woman might literally pop from excitement. And she did, in a sense. Aurora was expecting the flurry of questions with a smirk and was hardly surprised when they flew from her mouth. "I knew you were the right person to trust with my garden," she said teasingly batting a lock of Sparrow's hair as she slipped by. She played coy and hesitated in answering Sparrow's question, keeping them behind a pair of tightly coiled lips.

She dabbed her forehead with the cloth resting on her shoulders and made her way to a chair in her humble little "parlor." "In order," she began, listing them off with her fingers. "I've been feeling better, thanks for asking," one finger, "I've seen a lot of things. Antiva City is big, so can't really go too far without seeing something wonderful," Another teasing grin and another finger down, "And that's going to take awhile. I was gone for a couple of months, that's a more than an afternoon's worth," she said with a laugh and putting her hand down.

Aurora leaned back in her chair and looked at her ceiling, wondering even where to begin, or even how. Her gaze then fell onto Sparrow, and she remembered something she told her a long time ago. "Remember that time in the Necromancer's lair? The one trying to reanimate his wife?" She left it at, since it wasn't an experience forgot all that easily. She shuddered even thinking about it. "You asked me to teach you how to do this?" She said, holding up her hand, which was now crackling with electricity from the fade. "Tell you what," she said, killing the small display of magic as quickly as she summoned it, "Let's get out of here, I've got somewhere I want to show you. And on the way, I'll tell about Antiva?" she asked, rising.

Didn't miss much? She doubted that. Sparrow pursed her lips again, arching her eyebrows higher, burgeoning on the edge of bursting out with many more questions. One did not simply travel without getting into a little bit of trouble, and while Aurora might've been a smidgen more innocent than she, surely she'd seen some interesting things. It was Antiva, after all. Unfortunately she'd never had the pleasure of visiting it before, so her excitement showed through her jittery impatience, tensed and strained as if she would pounce into her home. Her grin simpered a little. Of course, she'd taken great care of the gardens. It'd been a duty she was glad to have—better than keeping herself stuffed behind closed doors, tiptoeing around Rilien like their conversations would shatter a world's worth of her most recent thoughts.

She nearly danced into Aurora's home. Nosey as ever, she feigned disinterest as she peered into different chambers along the way. It occurred to her that she'd never actually set foot into the woman's home, even if they lived in such close proximity. As soon as they reached their destination, Sparrow plopped down in a chair and hunkered forward, clutching onto her every word; elbows propped on her knees, and chin perched across her steepled hands. What were these wonderful things? Beautiful long-lashed women, bedecked in silk finery; big bosoms. The only tales she'd heard about Antiva, and its citizens, were from passing sailors, and usually, their stories tended to be far more lewd and exaggerated than they actually were. Aurora hardly seemed the type. “You've got my rapt attention, pretty flower.”

Suddenly, the conversation shifted, and Sparrow cocked her head to the side, finally nodding. Her memory was a mishmash of what she wished to remember, and tended to walk the same lines as the sailors. This, however, she remembered vividly. Who wouldn't? It wasn't everyday that someone stumbled onto a Necromancer's lair. Or someone so twisted. She remembered the smell, and how sick she felt afterwards. The brief flicker of solemness disappeared as soon as electricity danced along her fingertips, circling around her hand. Controlled, disciplined. Unlike her own meagre attempts; only working half the time, coming out in childish spurts. She was made up of violence. Smashing things up and setting things on fire was hardly subtle. “I'm surprised—even I'd forgotten.”

Sparrow straightened her shoulders and vaulted from the chair, nearly dragging Aurora out the door. “Of course. Let's go, let's go. Tell me everything!”

And she'd brought them to Sundermount. A particular patch she did not recognize, which meant it was a secret alcove—shared with her, as well. Just like the place she and Amalia had been along the Wounded Coast. Pleased as coddled feline at the imagined prospects, Sparrow stretched her arms over her head and surveyed the area. Trees spotted here and there, and she could hear the sounds of running water. If she'd ever chosen the life of a hermit, she supposed she'd have chosen something like this. She clapped her hands together and turned on her heels, eyes bright and expectant.

"Antiva City was my first stop," Aurora began, as promised. "It's a booming trade city, it wasn't hard to find a ship to take me. I spent a few days there." Thanks to the sovereigns Rilien had loaned her, she was able afford room and board at a local inn, as well paying the innkeep to look over the brand on Milly's forehead. "I... Sent Milly to the circle. There were people there that would remember her, and care for her much better than I could. I was a wreck after that," she sighed. She still felt the pangs whenever she thought of Milly, and the memory of the sunburst always accompanied every thought.

"I didn't spend much more time there," She said, looking at Sparrow. She hadn't wished to spend her time alone lingering in the city with the pain still so fresh. "I chartered another ship to Bastion-- home. It's smaller than Antiva City, but no less beautiful in my eyes." She continued to relay the story. She told of hunting down her father's trading business, only to find that they had become more prominent, and was run by her brother now instead of her father, having retired himself. She talked about how awkward the initial reunion was with her sister, and how they just cried after realizing she made it home. It wasn't long until there wasn't a dry face in the entire house.

"Their flower garden had grown since the last I saw it," Almost the entire hillside on which their house was built was covered in flowers of all colors, shapes, and sizes. "It rains all the time in Antiva, but the flowers are always in bloom." She said wistfully, a smile on her lips. She continued to talk about her time from there. How they kept her room the same since she left, how wealthy they'd grown, just how happy she was to be back. A few months later, she revealed, that she finally returned to Antiva City, this time with her parents and her youngest sister. "They... Dressed me up. I don't know if you noticed, but I'm not too big on dresses, but they put me in one anyway. It was the most fun I remember having putting on clothes." A laugh escaped her lips.

She paused for a moment, pressing her tongue into her cheek and thought. "When I left again, there was more crying. But it was happier this time. They knew I was okay, and I knew they didn't forget me. They asked me to take care, and to write them whenever I have the chance... I plan on sending the letter off tomorrow," She revealed with a wide smile.

"And here we are," Aurora said, stepping into the clearing that Nostariel had set up. "So far, only Nosta, you, and I know about this place," She said with a coy finger placed on her lips. "As she told me, there is no place to practice our magic in the city, but this isn't the city, and it's away from anyone that would see us in the Circle. A perfect place to teach," She said, raising her fist again, this time enveloping it in stone.

"Want to begin?"

Antiva City—the city of splendour and beauty and all of the things she used to slaver after in her glory days, selfishly bouncing from city to city in search of ways to find herself. Whether it was in someone's lap, in some gaudy brothel, or in a dishevelled tavern surrounded by men with bristly beards and pirate-garb, Sparrow had many misadventures in many cities, but had missed out on Antiva. She maintained an expression of giddy excitement and prying curiosity as she spoke, shifting her weight from foot to foot as she waited for the juicy details to come pouring out. She still remembered the original circumstances for such a journey and dampened slightly, wringing her hands together when Milly was mentioned. She wanted to reach out for her hands, to give a quick squeeze, but only scrunched her eyebrows together. Had she known Rilien then...

She bobbed her head and inched a little closer to her. Understandable. It was for the best, but being so close to the Circle and not being able to do anything for her would have driven her mad—had positions been reversed, she wouldn't have known what to do. How to react or even if she would have been selfless enough to think of Milly, or Rilien, instead of clinging to them and keeping them nearby. Aurora was by no means a selfish creature, but Sparrow was like the bird she claimed as a name; clinging to priceless baubles and gems just as hard as she clung onto the people in her life. Now, Bastion. She'd never heard of the city before, but if it was anything like Antiva City, and if Aurora said it was just as beautiful, she had no doubts that she was right. She smiled and grew dewy-eyed as Aurora told her of her family reunion, grinning wildly soon after and clapping her on the back as a late celebration.

Closing her eyes to imagine the hillside she spoke of, ripe with flowers of all colours and sizes, Sparrow smiled and sighed. She could almost smell them. Having been tending to the garden in the Alienage for as long as she did, her senses came easily. Dirt under her nails, the grit and earthy muck staining her hands, and the sweet, distinct scents. “Yours will look like that in no time,” she cooed, snapping her eyes open. “I'd like to see that. Sounds beautiful there, not so with the places me and Am used to live.” Dry sticks and long expanses of grass, always travelling and being shipped off to try their hands at specific jobs. Children did not grow up in gardens or tight-knit families, so the nights they spent under the stars, bundled together like thieves, were the best memories she could recall of her childhood. “Lovely sight, I bet. I wish I could've seen.” She clucked her tongue, blunt as ever.

Family. She supposed this was what it was like. Filled with letters flying back and forth and well-wishes; visits and crying and holding each other until you felt warm and at home again. Hearing about it from a friend was enough, instead of fantasying about it on her own. It gave her hope, even if she considered her companions as close to family as she could get. “I'm glad everything went well. And you'll have to send our greetings, too. We missed you.”

“Oh?” She rubbed her chin, trying to wheedle the pleasure from her face. It was almost like a secret gift—almost like showing the caves to Rilien and having him say that it was a pleasant find, or that she'd done well. However she'd composed his words in her mind. Rightly so, not that she'd ever been too worried about Templars or being dragged down to the Gallows (as she should have been). This place was a convenience mages could afford to take advantage of, especially since the recent activity of Templars in the city. She, too, stepped into the clearing and shrugged her shoulders, stretching out the muscles there, before holding out both hands in front of her.

Yes.”

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

Amalia pushed an errant strand of hair from her face, folding it back behind an ear, only for it to fall back into her field of vision again a moment later. Frowning slightly, she tried again, to achieve no more than the first time. It hung there, like a little cloudy wisp, obscuring the leather she was presently working on. Though perhaps working was a bit of an exaggeration, considering that really all she was doing to it at this point was adding artistic detail. Superfluous, unnecessary. She would have never done something like that before—it would have been plain and of exceptional quality, and she would have been done with it. But she’d practiced such things as this for a solid month before she’d let herself touch the bracer she’d given Lia, and when she had, she’d added… vines. Flowering vines. Practically the antithesis of efficiency.

And strangest of all, she’d been rather satisfied by the result. The finished piece was better than it had been before, because there was something else in it, something she’d never put into anything she’d made before. Her own touch. Oh, to be sure, she was especially careful when she crafted anything, but that was because she was thinking always of who would be using it, what purpose it must fulfill and for whom. Parshaara had been weeks as a mere thought before she’d even allowed herself to begin working the bone of which it was made. But when those pieces were made and done, no trace of their maker had remained. That one little piece of leatherwork, simple by comparison to some of the other things she’d done, had been profoundly different.

But then, she was profoundly different now. Shaking her head slightly and watching the tendril of wavy golden hair swish in front of her face, Amalia rolled her eyes and stood, making her way over to the fireplace tucked into one corner of her house. She was sharing it again, as the Hahren had moved a few people around to accommodate a growing family. A few of the residents had volunteered to move in with her, perhaps by now accustomed enough to her presence not to mind her proximity, however human she might be. But they were out for the afternoon, and so when she boiled the water, she made enough of it for a small pot of tea only before disappearing into the tiny room that contained her pile of blankets and finding a small leather cord.

She was halfway through braiding the troublesome cluster of hair into a larger one around the crown of her head when she heard the knock at the door. “Enter,” she called.

Aurora entered and was struck by how empty the home seemed now without Amalia's viddathari. It hit her that it had been that long since she last stepped foot into her abode, and there was a momentary flicker of guilt that resulted. It was smothered soon after. She had been in no position to visit after the Qunari had left, and when she was, she hadn't been present. "Amalia?" she called, "It's me." The woman wasn't immediately visible, but movement revealed her to be in one of the back rooms.

The next thing she noticed was undoubtedly Amalia's current project. Always busy, Aurora thought, never a moment to settle down and breathe. She grinned to herself as she picked her way toward the piece. Not everything changed, it seemed. She looked over the leather Amalia had been working, impressed by her consistent craftsmanship before arching an eyebrow. She lifted her wrist with her bracer and looked at it closer. The main difference between her bracer and the leather was the fact that hers was dragonhide, and the leather was just ordinary leather-- if of exceptional quality if she had her guess.

But that wasn't the point of the comparison. Her bracer was well made, but bare. There was nothing else special about it meant only for utilitarian purpose, and the only personality it held was that earned from years of use. The leather she was looking at was not so plain, instead bearing a decoration of sorts. Admittedly, Aurora felt a sliver of envy. "I'm not interrupting anything, am I?" She asked.

Amalia tied off the finished braid, shaking her head and glancing over at the worktable. “Practice,” she replied evenly, rising from her seat when the water in the kettle over the fire started to boil. She plucked a couple of cups—also entirely plain ceramic—from the shelf and placed them down on the low table at the back of the room, moving the water into a pot and spooning in some leaves from a cylindrical canister, one that smelled when opened of exotic spice. It had not been a simple matter to procure the plants she’d needed to put together this blend, as several of them grew on Par Vollen only, but she’d managed it. Smuggling worked the same everywhere.

“Sit, if it please you.” After a few moments, she poured the tea. It was too strong to let it steep for long. She had noticed Aurora’s exercise in comparison, but took a little moment to mull over what it might mean. When she had a tentative guess, she furrowed her brows and chanced it. “I have… improved, in my craftsmanship somewhat, since coming here. If you are dissatisfied with it, I could make a new one.” She wasn’t especially pleased with the guess—she always took great care with things and tried to make them as well as she possibly could—but she could see that what she was capable of now was more than she’d been capable of then, even if there was nothing wrong with the initial design. Still… she felt a little disquiet about it, for a reasons he could not fathom. It was simple logic to want the best gear imaginable. Somehow, the sentiment she was allowing herself now was being misdirected. Amalia wondered if this sort of thing happened to other people often.

If so, she might understand why they seemed so… volatile, compared to her people. Unsettled by the thought, she took a sip of her tea, letting the spice burst over her tongue the way she favored.

"Practice?" Aurora asked taking one last look at the leather and turning to Amalia with a smile. "I wish I could practice like that. It would've really helped my studies years ago." She made her way to the table that Amalia sat at and took the teacup in both hands, letting the liquid warm her hands through the ceramic. She tilted it around, swirling the liquid in the cup and taking in its particularly strong scent. "I doubt that," she began, pulling the tea closer to her face, letting the steam wash over her face. "Your craftsmanship is immaculate, as always. You're just putting it to use elsewhere." She took a sip of the tea in her hand and her eyes widened from the taste. The spice was potent, but not unpleasant.

"I'm fond of the one I have now, I'm satisfied with it really. It saved my life more times than I'm comfortable admitting," because the fact that it needed to save her life at all hinted at the dangerous life she led. She would not lie to herself and believe that it was behind her either, it would probably save her again at some point in the future. She set the teacup back onto the table and laid the arm with the bracer beside it so that Amalia could get a better look. "It might not be decorated, but it still has a story." The leather was worn, but still strong like the dragon that it came from. Scuffs marred its surface and indentations ran the length from fending off blows that would've ended her otherwise. "It's just not as pretty."

“I… wasn’t thinking about that sort of thing, back then,” Amalia admitted with a wry twist of her lip. “Things that serve a purpose were beautiful. Function was paramount, form only secondary.” She paused, setting her cup down on the low table. Everything she owned, few things as those were, was a testament to that principle. Each item in her possession was plain, but exceedingly functional. There was no ornamentation, no flourish. Amalia folded her hands in her lap and looked down at them. At the little white scars that punctuated her tanned skin, from training or the errors of a green fighter or from Marcus.

But even when she’d been near to death and crawling out of a hole in the ground, she had been functional. Her body, her spirit, these things had served a purpose. It made it easier to live in her skin, believing that everyone else was wrong about what true worth was. Her form, like that of her tools or her teacups, was not aesthetically appealing, especially. At least she’d never been given indication that it was. But like her tools and her teacups, it served every purpose she bent it to, because it had been made for them. Her mind, her spirit, these were the same. But she found herself in a strange world now, one where form and function were not so easily separated, where sometimes, it was more useful to be beautiful than to be capable.

Where sometimes, it was just nice to be ornamented in some way beyond the necessary. She did not know exactly where that left her, and it made her feel strange. She had many new things to think about, of late, and it seemed that they were all connected in some way or another, and none left her quite so comfortable in her skin as she’d been half a year ago. Because it needed to do more things now, she needed to be more things. “Perhaps I see a little differently now.”

A pause, and she seemed to fully exit her contemplations, fixing both eyes on Aurora’s. “But I do not think you came here to talk about leatherwork.”

"About Sparrow actually," then realizing how that could sound considering how Sparrow was, Aurora raised a hand wave off any worry Amalia might've had. "She hasn't done anything, yet." She laughed and took another sip of her tea before continuing her thought. "She just made me realize that I'm not all that great of a teacher." There had been a lot of floundering in the clearing where they practiced their magic, and Aurora was pretty sure she made things worse by trying to explain how she did what she did. back in the Circle, she hadn't been that great of a student herself, and she hadn't been considered as one in line to become one of the mages to teach the apprentices.

Figuring that an explanation was necessary, she continued. "You've seen how Sparrow uses her magic, right? Well, I want to teach her a little control and focus to be able to utilize it like I do, but... Sparrow," she said bobbing her eyebrows up and down as explanation enough. "You taught me, and I watched you teach your viddathari and you're just so much better at it than I am. It's like you always know what to say and how to say it." She leaned back in her chair and threw her arm over the back and using the thumb on her other hand to press in between her brows. "I guess what I'm trying to ask is give me some hints on how to get through to her without sounding like a fool."

She let a moment pass and leaned forward again, adding something, "You can't teach her how to use magic like I can, but I can't teach her like this."

Amalia had a fair sense that Sparrow hadn’t caused any disasters recently. That Tranquil friend of his was usually there to make sure he didn’t, something that Amalia had gotten the immediate sense, all those years ago, he was capable of and would do to the extent truly required and no further. Strange, to be able to get that impression from so little interaction, but she did not believe she was wrong, even now. The rest of the explanation was honestly not something she had been expecting. Aurora was trying to teach Sparrow more effective use of his magic? Things did truly move in strange patterns sometimes. In some roundabout fashion, Sparrow was the reason Aurora had learned what she knew of control and discipline. Because Amalia had long ago noted what was missing in him, but been unable to impart it. So when she noted the same things missing in Aurora a decade later, she had not hesitated to make the attempt to rectify them. Perhaps that act would not have further-reaching consequences than she had ever expected.

“You must not teach him to be like you. You must teach him to be like himself, only better. Approach him not from where you are and what you know, but where he is. Do not attempt to pull him to the place you occupy. He cannot be you any more than you can be me, and you should not want that. I did not.” Amalia’s lips twitched, the bare beginnings of a smile. “Nudge him from behind and let him chart the course himself. Steer where necessary, but he must be the driving force in his own transformation, must believe he accomplishes all of these things by his own strength, or it will not remain in place.” The student was the real agent in the learning process, and the teacher only a resource they had to understand how to use.

“If course correction should become necessary however, it is acceptable to beat him into it. Sometimes, students need a demonstration of just how much they do not know, lest they assume the reason you are not more aggressive is that they are too talented.” The smile inched a little wider before it disappeared behind Amalia’s teacup.

"Well there's an image," Aurora said, leaning back with her hands on her lips trying to stifle the laughter. "Sparrow and I in a fist fight. She's got some muscle, though you couldn't tell from her frame." Composing herself well enough to continue the conversation, she leaned forward and held her teacup with both hands, hints of her laughter still present on the corners of her lips. The parallels were not lost on her, she knew that Amalia had known Sparrow before any of them, and now Aurora was attempting to teach the woman, just like Amalia had taught her. It was odd how things often worked out. "I don't think I could teach her to be like me. It would be hard to make her into something that's not her. Sparrow's a... Unique individual." However, she still nodded her understanding and accepted the idea.

She drew the teacup to her lips and left it at her lips for a time, digesting what she said. "It's not so much teaching as letting them learn, is it?"

"Precisely." Aurora would do just fine.

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

A soft knock echoed into the space, followed by the sound of a door opening. The tread gave the person away as Nostariel right away, most likely, and she poked her head into the back room where the other two were, looking pleasantly surprised to see Aurora there. “Well hello there, you two.” She smiled brightly, then indicated the small crate she carried. “Amalia, I brought you those herbs I was talking about. The ones from the mountainside.” She had noticed a fair amount of useable plants growing near the spot she’d located for her practice, and mentioned the herbs, if not the location, to Amalia, who had indicated interest in augmenting her present stock.

“If you’re looking for more exotic varieties though, Aurora is magic with seeds. Er… no pun intended.” Her smile turned wry, and she shook her head. It seemed that Ash was beginning to influence her choice of phrase, quite without her meaning to. Soon she would be making pun-jokes on purpose.

Amalia had indeed recognized the footsteps as belonging to Nostariel, and nodded her gratitude when the Warden stepped into the room with a collection of herbs in tow. She had been familiar with Aurora’s gardening skill beforehand, but had to admit, she had not thought to call upon it for this purpose before. Perhaps it was something to consider, if she could procure the right seeds. “Join us, if you will,” she offered, gesturing to a third side of the square table. “We were just talking about teaching. Perhaps you have something to offer, from the Circle?” Amalia was unsure if Nostariel had ever taught, but she had clearly been taught, and very well, from the skill with which she deployed her magic.

“Teaching?” Nostariel accepted the third seat easily, and with gratitude. In a manner much like the other two, she drew her feet up underneath her rather than allowing them to stretch out in front of her. Funny, how after a time, this had become the more natural thing for her to do. Helping herself to some tea, she inhaled the spicy aroma and smiled. It wasn’t something she could down quickly, to be sure, but she could savor it slowly. “My teacher was a Senior Enchanter. I suspect she might have been made First Enchanter eventually, but I’m told that after the Starkhaven Circle burned, she was transferred to Montsimmard.” Most of the Starkhaven Circle had been merged with the one in Kirkwall, though she knew few of the mages there now. Perhaps many of her old friends had been moved along with Sarra.

“I think… the most important thing is to have patience, and not be afraid to repeat yourself. Learning is different for everyone, and the students can sometimes get disappointed in themselves or discouraged very quickly. Reminding them that you believe in them, and pointing out the things they do well, that can be just as helpful as constructive critique.” She shrugged a little, taking another sip of tea. “But… I’ve never had to do a lot of teaching, myself. I left the Circle before being asked to do much more than babysit the really young ones, make sure they didn’t light anything on fire. That’s a bit different.”

"Is it? I'm asking for Sparrow," Aurora replied, laughing gently. Sparrow had a grasp on her magic, Aurora wasn't worried about her setting anything on fire any time soon, but her application was rather blunt, kind of like how she fought. However, she didn't think this would change any time soon unless Sparrow specifically sought it out. If anything Aurora wanted to give her options and expand her control and focus to make her better, not different. "I didn't do much teaching in my Circle, either, I looked after the herbs if you can believe that. They did give me something to build on though, but I don't think I showed much teaching ability. No patience, like you said." That was a long time ago, and Aurora has since learned its virtue. Though she was still bold, Amalia helped temper her rashness.

Nostariel could definitely believe that Aurora had been in charge of the plants. She certainly had a knack for them. The Warden was a little surprised to hear that Sparrow was the student in question, but perhaps she should not have been. “Well, I’m sure you’ll do just fine, but if you ever want my help… or maybe need to patch someone up after a mishap… I’m here.” One never knew with magic; it was unpredictable, especially when a person was learning something new. Hence the remote practice location.

“So, Amalia, I’ve been meaning to ask you.” Nostariel wasn’t exactly sure how to approach the topic, but this setting, relaxed and convivial as it was, didn’t seem like a bad idea. “You, ah… you didn’t leave when the other Qunari did. Is that because you are supposed to be doing something different here still?” If so, Nostariel couldn’t imagine what it was. Kirkwall was admittedly not the most stable place still, and she could sense that things would probably get worse again, but not in a way she would have imagined had anything to do with the Qunari. So her friend’s continued presence was a bit of a mystery. Not that she minded of course—Nostariel firmly believed that Kirkwall was a better place for her presence, the Alienage especially.

Amalia pursed her lips. It was only natural that the inquiry should come eventually—she was a little surprised it had not done so sooner, considering the fact that she’d been making a rather obvious and concerted effort to understand more of the nuances of the environment in which she now found herself. And indeed, it had been more than a year, and still she was present. “I’m not going back,” she said softly, setting her empty cup down and for the moment declining to refill it. Instead, she folded her hands in her lap, studying the wood grain of her table intently. “I still… I find it difficult to think of myself as human. I was raised to be a Qunari, and part of me always will be. But I cannot go back. Not anymore.”

This place, these people… she wondered if they understood how profoundly they had changed her. Here she was, raised in the Qun, and having a conversation with two free mages. Saarebas. Dangerous things. Dangerous people—and that was just it. She had never been able to see them as things, only as people like her. She should have kept a better distance, perhaps, but at the time, she’d thought what she did instead was better. A superior method of ensuring that Aurora did not bow to that in her which would be tempted to deal with demons. She did not regret her choice, seeing that same girl sitting in front of her, child no more, and confident and skilled enough to teach others to be stronger, better mages.

“I am Tal-Vashoth now, I suppose.” Her tone betrayed her mixed feelings on the matter, a thread of melancholy laced in with what was otherwise quite a factual statement. “I owe the Qun, and my people, much, but I am no longer one of them. Perhaps it has been a very long time since I was.” Perhaps this change, this slow descent, had begun the moment she decided to open her eyes. Perhaps it had begun long before that, when she paid the price for her blindness. A price she could not help but be reminded of every time she saw her own skin.

“But in its absence, I am no longer sure what to be.” That barely scratched the surface of her confusions and difficulties, but it was the general idea, she supposed.

Aurora was quiet, and let Amalia answer the question. It was one that she'd been curious about as well, but could never find a way to work it into a conversation. She didn't possess Nostariel's tact. She held on to the teacup as Amalia explained what she thought and how she felt. It wasn't until she had finished did she finally speak. "To the Qunari," Aurora corrected gently, "You are Tal-Vashoth."

She took her hands off of her teacup and crossed them over her chest, leaning back as she did a smile still on her face. "To us, you are what you always were. A friend. I think the word is... Kadan? And I'd like it if that's what you continue you to be."

Nostariel didn’t know any Qunlat, but she could agree with the general sentiment well enough. “You don’t have to be human, in the sense that you’re talking about. Even if you don’t think you can be Qunari, either. You just have to be whatever it is that feels right to you.” She couldn’t say she understood what it was like, to have an identity conundrum that ran that deep, but she understood at least a little. Navigating being an elf and a mage and a Warden… it was little surprise that a lot of people didn’t know quite how to react to her. That was two negatives and a very big positive to most people. Most of the time, Nostariel honestly only cared about being Nostariel. She couldn’t claim a great deal of cultural heritage, either from a city or a clan, nor entirely even from a Circle, because she had grown out of many of her old habits.

“Sometimes, there isn’t a word for what we are. And that’s not because there’s something wrong with being that way. It’s because people haven’t had to have a word for us yet, that’s all.” She smiled, in a way that she hoped conveyed her sincerity.

Amalia supposed she could understand that. How many times had she run into situations where Qunlat was inadequate to describe something? Too many to hold much faith that any language had all the words she needed. Slowly, she nodded her head, giving an answer by way of returning to Aurora’s question. Kadan is… not quite the right word.” She suspected it meant something slightly different for every Qunari, as some freely used it among their coworkers, others only with close friends and still others not at all. She felt distinctly wrong using it for any person but one, though these two were both extremely important to her also. Just… differently.

“But… I do believe friends works perfectly adequately.” As for what she was now… Amalia found it hard to believe it was really as simple as they made it sound, but on the other hand… did she not call herself Amalia? There was nothing about that at least that had changed, even if she was no longer Ben-Hassrath or Qunari. Her changes, however sweeping, could not erase what she had done, what she had endured, and whatever the words, she was yet the same woman who had endured it.

Perhaps it really was that simple. “Thank you, both of you. For being friends to me.”

Setting

1 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael

Earnings

0.00 INK

Ithilian would have preferred to spend his morning in company other than Emerion's, but right now he didn't have the luxury. He'd put off approaching him about Sparrow's request for too long now, and perhaps more dangerously, Emerion seemed to be growing restless. Not that he'd ever been a patient man, as Ithilian remembered it. He saw problems, or goals, or just things that he wanted to take care of, and found a way through or around them. There was little waiting as far as Emerion was concerned, unless it was absolutely necessary. In the clan, this attitude was passable, not overly problematic, but here, in the heart of Kirkwall, surrounded by an army of the most strict templars in Thedas? Caution was needed here. Ithilian had not been given much reason to care about the affairs of mages and templars up to this point, and if he could have his way it he never would. Emerion posed a threat to that, and it needed to be seen to.

But they weren't in Kirkwall at the moment, rather in a wooded grove not far from the coast. Ithilian had only needed to ask Emerion to accompany him on a hunt to get him out of the city. The First was certainly not rejecting Ithilian's company, and indeed it seemed to be that which he sought above all else. He'd done a little to help out around the Alienage, occasionally taking away the need for elves to travel up to Nostariel's clinic. He was an excellent healer. To that end, he was spending his time sitting crosslegged at the base of a tree, grinding up alchemical materials in a bowl in his lap while he waited for Ithilian to return.

Ithilian did so empty handed. He hadn't really expected to find much in the way of game here, and wasn't surprised when he turned out to be right. Emerion picked up on this quickly, the corner of his lips curling up slightly while he kept his eyes peering down at the herbs. "You obviously didn't come out here to hunt, lethallin. Out with it, then. What did you want to speak to me about?"

He did wish Emerion wouldn't call him that. They hadn't been clansmen for quite some time. If they were even friends anymore was a matter for debate. So much had happened to Ithilian, and as far as he could tell, nothing had changed with Emerion. He'd felt none of the Blight, probably wandering with a clan in the southern reaches of Orlais, and he knew nothing of what Ithilian had faced since arriving in Kirkwall. He kept his faith in the gods he believed in, and it would be impossible to ever fully extinguish his pride, but Ithilian did not know if he could even be called truly Dalish anymore.

"I have a favor to ask," he said, hoping to get straight to the point. He leaned up against the nearest tree to him, crossing his arms. "I'm looking for some information for a friend."

"And which friend might this be?" There were two that he would probably have helped, and they were Lia and Nostariel. Letting him know it was for Sparrow surely wouldn't help matters any. He didn't know if the two had crossed paths yet, but she was a walking example of an idea that Emerion had always despised, as had Ithilian until only several years ago.

"You haven't met, I don't think. She's looking for information on the location of a particular clan, and came to me for help. I thought you might have heard something, if your Keeper mentioned something to you after the last arlathvhen." They only happened once in a number of years, but if Ithilian recalled correctly, the last one should not have been too long before Emerion arrived. Perhaps that was how he had learned of Ithilian in Kirkwall. It wasn't impossible for word of him to spread, especially now that Marethari's clan had moved on.

"That information belongs to the Keepers, Ithilian," he reminded him. "Keeper Astarea shared a great deal of it with me upon her return, but I don't remember her giving me consent to pass it along to anyone who asks. I wouldn't share it with many in my clan, let alone anyone outside of it." Seeing as there were only two Dalish in Kirkwall at the moment, it was obvious that Ithilian's friend was not of the People. There was no hiding from that.

"The information might not be about the Dalish, necessarily," Ithilian tried, figuring this approach might lead him somewhere. "The clan she's looking for is... a bit odd. Willing to accept humans, one of which may or may not be married to the Keeper." At this, Emerion looked up and laughed derisively.

"You're talking about Beragail's group, then. They are no clan, and she is no Keeper. They're mostly flat-ears right out of the cities, apart from the few Dalish who followed her when her clan pushed her out of leadership. She understood that her presence was not required at the arlathvhen."

"But you know of them, then?"

"She caused quite the scandal, so yes, I know of them. They should still be in Nevarra, if they haven't picked up their pace. Heading this way, actually. Give them... a couple months, I'd say, if this friend of yours wants to see them." Sparrow would be delighted to hear that, Ithilian did not doubt. It was extremely fortunate, and also unsurprising that this Beragail's clan had been ostracized from the rest of the Dalish.

"Thank you. She will be pleased when I tell her."

A couple moments of silence followed, an uncomfortable air settling between them, one that Ithilian was unsure what to do with. He took his bow into his hands again, thinking to set off for a time again, and see if anything had wandered nearer yet.

"Ithilian..." Emerion said this just as Ithilian turned to leave. He stopped, turning back around to meet Emerion's eyes. "What are you doing, lethallin?"

Ithilian stared at him silently, waiting for him to elaborate on the question, since he assumed he wasn't looking for an answer about hunting. Emerion set the alchemy ingredients aside, coming slowly to stand on his feet.

"I don't think I was ready for how much the years changed you," he admitted, narrowing his eyes at Ithilian as if he were trying to recognize a stranger, one who seemed familiar, but most assuredly was not. "You've been through a lot, I know. The Blight destroyed so much. It took your wife, your daughter. It took my father, too. Our mentor. Our leader."

"You need not remind me."

"Maybe I do," he said, taking a step forward. He was about an inch shorter than Ithilian, something that had bothered him to no end right up until he'd been sent off to join another clan. He missed the times when their greatest issues involved standing back to back and asking the Keeper to be the judge, or shoving each other at girls, to test their bravery more than any dangerous hunt could. "Because from what I have seen, you've forgotten. Consorted with shemlen for years. Wallowed in an Alienage under shemlen boots. Now you're letting a shem accompany us on a vallaslin ritual hunt, helping someone find this poor excuse for a clan."

He looked like he wanted to spit in digust, but held back from doing so. "The flat-ears often are ignorant of our customs, but these elves openly mock them. What could you possibly want with them?"

Ithilian, for his part, was remaining calm, but he was confused. He'd been confused by Emerion ever since he arrived in Kirkwall, and it was one of the reasons he'd brought him out here in the first place. He just hadn't imagined the conversation going anything like this. "I want nothing from them," he answered coolly. "My friend wishes to see them, and doesn't know how to find them. That is all. And if wallowing in an Alienage is too much for you to bear, why are you here?"

"For you!" Emerion replied, his voice rising. "I came to see you. Because you were a brother to me, and I thought you were dead with my father and the rest of the clan. Had Marethari not mentioned you, had Astarea not told me about it, I would still think you were dead. I thought there had to be some explanation why Ithilian, the finest hunter I knew, had been living in a festering shithole like Kirkwall for years, among the elvhen'alas. I came to help you, to let you know that my clan will be a place like the one we had, the one the darkspawn took from you. I thought you might join me... but I'm not even sure who you are anymore."

Ithilian weathered this, trying to behave how he believed Amalia might, letting it wash over him, water on rock. "I understand that the Blight took much from you, too, Emerion, but you were not there. Nor have you been here. I did not intend to live here when I arrived. I intended to be a weapon of vengeance, like I was taught. Instead, I learned the error of those ways, how I was destroying myself. Dirt elves and shemlen though they may be, they've given me peace. A better purpose than shedding blood for its own sake."

"You've become as much a flat-ear as this Beragail did, I think," Emerion spat back. "You think everything Father taught me, taught us, was drivel? You think being the proudest, strongest clan was worth nothing, then? Why? Because some scarred shem told you something at your lowest, when you'd lost everything? I wanted to be there, you know that I did. I would've helped you through it, I would've been there for you. I don't want to see you throw our culture away. Adahlen wouldn't want that."

There was only so much water that the rock could take, and this amount was approaching the limit. He took his own step forward, coming to stand directly before Emerion. "Do not presume to tell me what Adahlen would want. I learned the destructiveness of your father's ways firsthand. Pride and vengeance in excess will do nothing but destroy us. You might've learned this if you'd crawled out of your aravel and looked at the world as it is in the last decade."

That set him off, and a fist came flying into Ithilian's jaw. He took the blow in full, though he grabbed onto Emerion by the shoulders, and the two of them went to the ground. The blows were evenly exchanged, reminiscent of times in the Brecilian forest years and years ago when they used to wrestle each other like brothers, though there wasn't any laughter now. Eventually, Ithilian forced himself above Emerion, about to land a heavy blow to the First's unbroken face. Suddenly, a wave of energy burst out from Emerion, the mind blast throwing Ithilian back and away from him, landing flat on his back several feet away. Emerion was on his feet first, hands up and out, ready to cast another spell.

"I wanted to help you, Ithilian."

"So help, then!" he shouted back, getting to his feet, though he made no motion to approach Emerion, who was still aiming a spell defensively at him. "Don't be so naive as to think the one way you've been taught has to be the only true way. How can you know if you don't even try? You've isolated yourself so far from the world all you know of it are horrid stories you use to keep yourself afraid!"

"You honestly believe a place like Kirkwall is even remotely the equal of a true clan? That it doesn't prove everything said about the shemlen?"

"It is a place, like any other. There are good people there, some of the best I have ever known. And I am tied to them now, for better or for worse. If you're as interested in being my brother as you say you are, then try this with me. Try to open your mind to the possibilities. If you don't find them to your liking, then reject them and leave. But do not enter my home and tell me that people you have judged before even speaking with them have somehow corrupted my mind." His breathing was quickened from the adrenaline of their brief fight, but he now tried to calm himself, his posture relaxing, tiring.

"I was like you when I arrived here. Angry, violent. It can carry you, so long as you have a target. But it nearly destroyed me. If not for the people I met, none of them Dalish, I would have died. All that I ask is that if you want to stay, give them a chance. They don't believe in our gods, but they believe in goodness, and those people are worth fighting for, no matter how they were born."

Emerion was silent for a while, before he too loosened and relaxed his stance, lowering his hands and forcing the magic away from his fingertips. Ithilian had landed mostly body blows on him, his face largely untouched, while he had not been so lucky himself. A nasty bruise would undoubtedly form along his jaw, perhaps over his eye as well.

"Perhaps it's happening already, then. The destruction. If it means that much to you... I will try. I make no promises, but I will... open my mind, as you say. I'm sorry, Ithilian. I didn't mean for it to come to this."

"We rarely do. Lethallin." Emerion's eyes had fallen, but they lifted back up at the Dalish word. "I trust you can make your own way back to the city? I'm going to stay... hunt a while longer."

"Even when you know there's probably nothing out there?"

Ithilian shrugged, turning to leave. "I've been surprised many times before."

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel

Earnings

0.00 INK

It didn't take her as long as she thought to settle back into Kirkwall. It only took Aurora a month and a few weeks to feel like she never left at all. She did leave, and she carried those memories with her, but it felt... Nice, to be back as odd as that was. Kirkwall was much the same as when she left it, except Templars wandered the streets more often now. There was still a pressure in the air, not from the Qunari this time, but something else. The Templars, if she had her guess. Still she felt better, and it all felt ordinary in an unordinary type of way. She had left her exercises-- both conventional and magical-- for the day and approached an all too familiar path up to Hightown.

She navigated the city like she never left and found her destination with ease. She looked up at the signage and tutted, like she usually did when she read Rilien's Enchantment She couldn't tell if it was Rilien's idea, or Sandal's. Shaking her head she opened the door and walked in, and was greeted by the boy and his father. "Is Rilien in?" She asked Bodahn.

“He is, Miss. Should be back in a few minutes,” Bodahn said with a friendly smile. Sandal, bent over a dwarf-scaled workbench, glanced up for a moment, contributing a brief “Enchantment?” before going back to whatever he was doing, which in this case seemed to be runecarving. The stone itself was deep blue, but the etching Sandal was adding appeared to be giving some of the areas a silver tint. The shop seemed to be doing fairly good business, though that was really only discernible from the neat stack of work orders on one of the counters, as everything else was as meticulously-neat as it would have been had the shop been open but one day. Everything was polished and clean, as though dirt were a mortal foe to it proprietor.

It did indeed, only take Rilien two more minutes to appear, burdened down with what appeared to be a shipment of glass bottles, presumably for the potions he continued to brew on the side. Setting these down behind the counter, he raised his head only afterward to look in Aurora’s direction, though he had doubtless been aware of her presence, unconcealed as it was. As usual, his face betrayed nothing whatsoever in the way of emotion or surprise. It was as though he’d been expecting her.

He did not bother pointing out the obvious, making a banal observation about her return, so instead, he made his way to the stairs, gesturing for her to follow, should she so desire. The upstairs was just as clean and neat as the shop below, but curiously, there were touches of unnecessary decoration and sentimentality in the space as well. A well-maintained lute was propped up in one corner, the furnishings made of rich fabric in deep colors, contrasting with the pale stone of the walls. A few pieces of art, likely made by Lucien, were hanging on the walls, including sketches of various Orlesian landscapes, and a few images of people in various situations, usually ones that would have been familiar to Aurora at least by word-of-mouth. A large bookshelf sat against one wall, part of it seemingly devoted to odds and ends, trinkets that had no other place to be.

"You are welcome to make yourself comfortable.” Rilien's intonation was also exactly the same as ever. "Though I have little to offer you.”

Aurora followed obediently, not expecting any fanfare due to her return so she wasn't surprised when it didn't come. Up the stairs they went into a room she never seen before. She noted the painting and guessed that the hand that painted them was Lucien's. Likewise, she had one of her own in her own home, though she would've liked more but had no where to fit them in her small quarters. The next thing she noted was a bookshelf of what she could only describe as knick-knacks. She looked at it for a moment before glancing toward Rilien with an arched brow. He certainly did not seem like a collector of sorts to her, but then again he had a habit of surprising her.

She approached the bookshelf to get a better look at its contents. Some of it was as she thought, knick-knacks, baubles of little importance to anyone but the collector. She picked over some of them with her eyes, noting the dragon claw that probably came from his run in with the one in the Deep Roads. Another item that caught her attention was an illuminated copy of the Chant, craning her head at the book. She was not especially religious, nor did she figure Rilien was, so it was odd that he would have such an item. She turned back with a grin and an inquisitive look. "I didn't know you were a collector."

"I am not.” The reply was flat, but nevertheless, he flicked his eyes to the shelf she was at. The rest of them had books, of course, but that one was, admittedly, quite different. "With the exception of the claw, all of those items were given to me. As I do not make a habit of procuring such things for myself, I do not have another place to put them.” It was precisely because he wasn’t a collector that he had the issue. He blinked slowly, then settled himself down in a chair, crossing one of his ankles over the other knee. He looked very much like he belonged in the space, with its obviously-elegant taste in décor. Perhaps a little more surprising to those who knew him now than those who had known him before.

"The panpipes were a gift to signal the end of my bard training. The copy of the Chant is older, and represents a more misguided attempt. I was not an obedient youth, but the illumination is an excellent example, and I realize its value now even if I did not at the time. The halla was from a child, several years ago.” There was a small pause. "The earring belonged to a friend. Perhaps its match still does.” He tossed his head slightly; his fringe was getting a bit long, and the rest of his hair now hit his shoulders, which meant it was occasionally in the way.

"If this is about what I gave you before you left, you need not concern yourself with returning the amount. It was not a loan.”

She ventured one last glance at the shelf before turning back toward him. Though she was curious about the origins of a few of the items, she did not want to pry too far. Rilien would most likely share the story behind them, but for Aurora, the respect of his privacy outweighed her own personal curiosity. Besides that, it was fun, always finding out something new about them every time they met and she would hate to suck the magic out of that by asking him about it. She enjoyed these little adventures he took her own.

"Consider it a gift then, since you don't like to return those," she said with the purse in hand. She crossed the room and set it in his lap before backing up and finding herself a chair of her own. He'd find that the purse was heavier than the one he'd given her. "Plus interest. My brother insisted that we pay that as well," She explained, and there hadn't been any refusal on her end. It would've been much harder to find passage to Bastion, much less paying off people curious as to why she travelled with a tranquil. "Don't worry about it, I would only be asking to get mugged if I carried that much around with me and my family are well enough off to not miss it."

She paused for a moment to allow time to pass in order to change the topic without jumping from one to the order. "Hey Rilien, before we left you told me you dreamed. I didn't think anything about it at the time," She had other things weighing on her mind, that the realization that a tranquil, even one with a partial rite, still dreamed was pushed back. But now she was back and her mind was at more ease than it had been. She was curious, and this she didn't mind prying. "What do you dream of, if you don't mind my asking."

The truth was, Rilien wouldn’t miss this much either, but he supposed by this point saying as much was rather unlikely to change anything. So he tucked the satchel up his sleeve, deciding that if he were going to refuse it, he would have to do so in a more subtle fashion, one to be decided upon later. For the moment, he was presented with a question, one that, strangely enough, he had never been asked. Then again, he was unsure that anyone else knew he dreamed. It was not as though he went about divulging such details to anyone who would listen. It had seemed somehow relevant at the time of their last conversation, and so he’d said it. That was really it—though admittedly, it was not something he would have disclosed to many people, whatever its conversational salience.

The question was completely unnecessary, but he answered it anyway. "My contact with the Fade is extremely limited.” Which would be expected, considering his condition. The strange things, he supposed, was that he had any contact with it at all. "I do not pass quite beyond the Veil. It is more that it is… translucent, at times.” The most explanatory metaphor seemed to be that one. He could see into it, just a little, but never enter the way mages did, nor those that had access to the full range of dreams.

"My dreams are more like memories, variants of things that have already been.” He paused, folding his hands together beneath his chin. "Sometimes, they are of what might have been, were I whole. Everything in them is available to my own mind—they are things I have seen or thought. But like all dreams, they are not entirely within my control. And I do not choose whether or not to have them, so they are not mere memory or conjecture.” He supposed they would disquiet him, were he not already so inured to emotion. Not everyone would desire to see their most unpleasant memories replayed for them over and over again, nor, he thought, would they enjoy being tantalized with visions of what was always sweetly beyond their reach.

Not even he was entirely unaffected, but then, there was little to be done.

It sounded sad when he said it like that. To be taunted by your own dreams of things that could've been or to be reminded of the things that were. Aurora felt a sliver of pity for the man. She didn't see how someone without their emotions suppressed could endure it, but Rilien could. Even so, by his own admission, he felt something at times, just not as fully as another person. While there was no way for Aurora to understand what it felt like without being him, she felt sorry for that piece of him.

"Is that why you can feel magic like you do?" She asked. Milly never displayed that ability, or if she did, she never told Aurora. It was strange, how he could know it's her without looking by her magic.

"It is impossible to say for certain, but I believe so.” It was not as though there were other people out there with half-completed Rites of Tranquility for him to compare himself with. "It is like… a scent. To the uninformed, all flowers smell more or less the same, but to someone who pays enough attention, each one is different. I do not actually smell magic, of course, but each mage is similarly unique, if I attend to what I perceive. If I am around it enough, I recognize it thereafter as belonging to the specific person.” He could even tell the difference between a healing spell and a destructive one, if he knew what the person’s magic usually felt like. Much less so on strangers.

"She is well, then?” It was not necessary to specify who she was.

"She... Is." There was a hesitance in the answer, but to the extent of her knowledge it was true. The last time she saw Milly, it was her back as she walked toward the Antivan Circle as the tears welled up in her eyes. "It was hard, letting her go like that." Aurora's gaze fell to her lap as she shook her life. Those few months were the hardest she could remember, maybe matched only by the weeks following her own introduction to the Circle, though the feeling was much the same. Loss. "I felt like I was abandoning her, but she would do better there than here. I couldn't watch over her." She'd already failed once, she couldn't bear it if it happened again. The Circle would care for her and keep her safe.

Looking up from her lap, her eyes went to one of the windows and nodded to herself. "I believe I've taken up more than enough of your time Rilien," she said with a smile, rising out of her chair. She placed a hand on his shoulder and gave it a friendly squeeze, "Thanks for your help, I don't know if I could've gotten home without it." With that she turned toward the door and began to make her way out, before she stopped mid-step and paused in thought.

"Hey Rilien... If you... sense any other mages that look like they need help... Give them my name and tell them where to find me." Though she couldn't help Milly, there were other apostates that she could.

"As you wish."

Setting

1 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon

Earnings

0.00 INK

The breeze off the ocean that morning was cool, crisp, and carried a distinctive salty bite that separated it from the lakes in Lydes. There was no region quite like the Wounded Coast in Orlais, as the line of the coast at home tended to be either in rocky cliffs or else much more gradual sandy declines. This retained some kind of mix of the two, and even at its busiest, the activity in the harbor proper here had nothing on Val Royeaux, as one might well expect, all things considered. But the terrain was difficult and sometimes treacherous, nowhere exactly the same, and the bandits were plenty. It seemed like every time they cleared out one lot of them, more arose to take their place, and by this point, Lucien was quite accustomed to getting contracts to deal with them. Not the most lucrative, but worthwhile.

So today he’d taken a group of his Lions with him, because they needed to get their feet wet in actual battle before he felt comfortable allowing them to take missions on their own. They were making excellent progress, and he was prepared for the truth that he would lose some of them, eventually, to overprepared enemies or superior numbers or just plain bad luck, but he would not be losing any of them to carelessness, on his part or theirs, nor a lack of training. They would be as prepared as they possibly could be, though he was going to spare them some of the more inhumane training methods employed by the Chevaliers. It was enough to describe to them what to look for in determining how harmful a wound was… they did not need to know what the difference between a minor wound and a potentially-fatal one felt like. Not because of him anyway. Besides, the only healer he’d trust with that kind of situation was Nostariel, and he wasn’t about to ask her to watch him slam an axe into someone’s spine and then heal it, even if it did actually hurt less than some lesser wounds.

He wasn’t about to do that, either.

At the moment, Tessa and Cor were acting as his forward scouts, mostly so that the former could teach the latter how to do it. He wanted them all to have the basics, but he was admittedly also having the youth work with a lot of the more experienced members of the group so as to get an objective assessment of where his talents lay. Not that he would focus only on the things that Cor was or was not good at—quite the contrary. But it wasn’t fair to expect someone to be equally good at everything, and Lucien wanted to know where to accelerate his training and where to be very patient. It was something he’d done for all of his people, at one point or another, but the experts would be able to tell him more than he could figure out himself about their own areas. Tessa was a very good scout and hunter, being the daughter of a minor noble family that specialized in raising dogs and horses for the same purpose.

A trilling whistle, mimicking the natural call of one of the ocean’s many gull species, reached his ears, and he held up his hand to draw the rest of the company to a stop, which they did immediately, even their breathing inaudible over the wind. The call was followed by another, indicating, strangely enough, the all-clear.

Shortly thereafter, Cor appeared, tugging at the hood drawn up over his head. “They’re all dead, Commander," he said, sounding perplexed. Lucien could not blame him. To his knowledge, there were no contracts out on the group aside from the one Meredith had given the Lions, and he didn’t imagine she would extend it to someone else as well when she knew quite well it would be done by them. “Tess is still down there, checking them over. What do we do?”

Lucien thought it over, then nodded slightly. “Approach carefully. Whatever killed them might still be here. Archers, I want you on high ground, in a perimeter. Let us know if anything approaches.” Perhaps the bandits had simply run into an armed caravan guard, but he wasn’t going to take any chances on that. Leading the other five, those armed for melee, over a rise, Lucien paused for a moment to examine the scene in front of him.

The bandits were only a small group. He understood that they were effective largely because they were quite good with ambush tactics, and the Templar giving him the contract had passed along that they had believed there was at least one apostate in the group as well, which would have made them formidable for mundane caravan guards, despite their numbers. And yet, here they were, as dead as Cor had said they were. Perhaps other bandits? There was rarely any honor among thieves, at least not out here. “Search the bodies,” he said quietly, grimacing a little when Donnelly lost the contents of his stomach in a nearby bush. He straightened, wiping his mouth, and Lucien clapped him on the shoulder. The lad had likely never seen an actual dead person before.

As far as corpses weren’t, these ones were not yet in terrible condition. There was a bit of a smell, suggesting that they’d been dead a day or so, but it wasn’t yet overpowering. Flies were collecting on some of the corpses, which bore irregular injuries. Some looked like they had been burned, others stabbed, though not well. Amateur’s work, at best. Perhaps a desperate merchant trying to defend his caravan? But if so, there should be other bodies around here, ones that didn’t look like—

“Commander!” The voice belonged to Tessa, and Lucien turned to where she was, crouching beside one of the fallen. Moving closer, Lucien observed that this one was dressed differently—not richly, but well, though the garments bore the wear of long travel and a great deal of fading and dirt. “She’s still breathing.”

That quickened his steps, and Lucien dropped into a crouch next to the woman as well, removing his gauntlet to press two callused fingers to the junction of her neck and throat, seeking her pulse. It was there, fluttering weakly and erratically, but it was definitely there. “Idris,” Lucien said, summoning the one member of this team with more experience in combat medicine than he. “What can you do for her?”

Idris, an older man of clear Rivaini descent and a rather large, squat frame, checked the woman over carefully, frowning as he prodded at what appeared to be various injuries. “Some of these are too old,” he murmured, almost to himself. Scratching at his bald pate with one hand, he shook his head. “She’s in pretty rough shape, Commander. I can’t treat her with what I’ve got.” The look on his face said he doubted he could help her even if he had his full kit with him and a clean table on which to do it.

“Can she be moved?”

Idris looked uncertain for a moment, clucking his tongue thoughtfully. “Maybe. Might just kill her faster.” He paused. “But she’s dying anyway, if we leave her here. Doesn’t have too much time, either, judging from how long she’s been out here already.” That was probably true. If she’d sustained these injuries in a confrontation with the bandits, she’d likely been like this—prone on the ground, face to one side—for the better part of the last day.

“All right. Stabilize her as well as you can with what you have. Then we’ll get her to Nostariel.” He didn’t know who she was, or how she’d come to be there, but her appearance did not suggest bandit, not in the slightest. She looked too well-groomed for one thing. Underneath the road dirt, her fingernails were still short and had no cracks or yellowing. Her skin bore little evidence of sun, suggesting a primarily indoors lifestyle. There were calluses on her hands, but the kind one acquired from writing and ordinary household labor, rather than work with weapons.

He stood and backed off, giving Idris the space he needed to prepare the woman for travel, standing instead beside Tessa and Cor, the latter of whom looked uneasy. The scout, however, spoke immediately. “She’s young. Looks noble.”

“What makes you think that?” Cor asked, cocking his head quizzically and crossing his arms over his chest.

“Her hair,” Tessa replied, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. She fingered a strand of her own chestnut-brown locks, cut shorter even than Lucien’s, so as not to get in the way. Cor still looked confused, so Lucien elaborated.

“It’s very long, something most with difficult jobs wouldn’t want. It’s also clean, even despite the fact that she’s been travelling. Someone’s taught her to keep up appearances, so it’s probably habit by now. Nobility isn’t the only guess, but it’s a fair one.” Cor nodded, seemingly understanding now, and sought to add his own contribution.

“Some of the bodies… they’ve been burned. But I didn’t see anything that looked like a fire near here, so…” He hesitated, as if he weren’t sure whether or not he should proceed. Fair enough, considering the sensitivity of what he was about to suggest.

“An astute observation,” Lucien said mildly, “but perhaps we should let her speak for herself before we reach any especially important conclusions.” Cor nodded, and Lucien smiled, only to be called back over by Idris, who appeared to have staunched what sluggish bleeding remained.

“No promises, Commander, but it’s the best I could do.” He looked down at the young woman with a grimace, then hauled himself to his feet again. Seeing as how they lacked any horses on this excursion, Lucien figured the best option was just to carry her himself, and spent a few minutes trying to figure out the best way to do so without aggravating any of her injuries. In the end, the rescue carry seemed appropriate, and so he lifted her carefully over his shoulder, with some help from Cor and Tessa, for as little jostling as possible.

“Cor, run ahead to Nostariel’s and tell her we’re coming. If she’s not there, get Aurora and Rilien first, then go looking.” Healing was not Aurora’s specialty, and his mercs likely assumed she was someone like Idris, but she would be the next best thing, if her talents were combined with Rilien’s knack for potions and surgery.

“Yes, sir.” The boy was off on light feet thereafter, heading straight for the city. Lucien and the rest followed more ponderously, but as quickly as they were able, considering their new burden. A few remained behind to take care of the bandits, which would mostly involve collecting anything of value to donate to the Chantry or the clinic, and then burning the bodies in a large pyre on the sand.

He was hoping this one need not be given such grim rites as well, but only time, and the talents of his healer friend, would tell for sure.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

When Cor had run to her with advance warning of an incoming patient, Nostariel had fortunately already been in the clinic. Halfway through her routine visits for the day, but it was easy enough to tell all those remaining that she would be happy to see them whenever was convenient tomorrow, and send them on their way with potions in the meantime. That was all most of them honestly needed anyway. She had noticed a strange fascination with her magic, though, and people seemed to prefer the application of it to being sent away with a tonic that would do the same thing just as well. She supposed it was a good thing that they weren’t afraid of it anymore, because the situation had once been the opposite way around. Even those with grievous injuries had been too nervous to let her use the magic around them.

In any case, the extra practice proved useful with the patient Lucien brought in. The young woman was in bad shape—nothing as terrible as Sophia had been, of course, but she’d also gone untreated for at least a day, and that was doing a damage all its own. The work necessary took Nostariel the better part of a day, and every few hours, one of the Lions would come by with food and water, asking after the young woman. Lucien himself showed up again right after sunset, fortunately just as she was ready to take a break anyway. She’d done all she could for the girl—the rest of it was up to her.

Sitting heavily in one of the chairs at the front of the clinic, right next to her friend, she tipped sideways slightly until she was leaning against his arm. No armor at just the moment, which was something she was quite grateful for. She probably looked exhausted, and a bit silly using him for support, given how tall he was, but she was far too tired to care, readjusting so that her shoulder pressed into his bicep and accepting the food he’d brought along this time. Bread, cheese, fruit. Simple, but exactly what she needed right now. “You’re the best.” She said it in a tone of reverence usually reserved for people talking about the Maker or something, but just right now, it was about right.

She was tucking into the food shortly thereafter, slightly inhibited on her right side by their contact, but apparently fine with that. It forced her to eat a little more slowly, which was probably good for her anyway.

“Don’t let Ashton hear you say that,” Lucien returned with good humor, shaking his head slightly as he watched her dig in. He supposed that healing took a lot out of a person. It only made sense—the energy for all those closing wounds and such had to come from somewhere, and it seemed like it might have been a bad idea to take it from a heavily-injured person. Lucien had no idea if magic even worked like that, but for the moment, it was a sensible explanation and seemed to fit with what little he did know.

He ate his own dinner a little more slowly, glancing from time to time over at where their foundling lay, still but clearly much better than she was when they found her. The rising and falling of her chest was visible now, indicating that her breathing had evened out, and was no longer so shallow. Nostariel’s magic really did seem like the stuff of miracles, sometimes, but then… she’d had a lot of practice bringing people back from the cusp of death. Perhaps too much.

“How is she?” He’d waited until she seemed to pause in her eating to ask the question, not wanting to force her to try and answer the question while chewing. He did have some manners, after all, even if he was quite hoping for good news about the patient’s state. He doubted his Warden friend would have been acting so casually if the girl’s life were still in immediate danger, there were still a lot of possibilities between that and ‘fine.’

Nostariel swallowed, pursing her lips together slightly. “I’ve done everything I can do, for the moment. It looks good, but… I can’t say for sure.” She paused a moment, turning her head to look over at her unfortunate patient, debating whether she should tell Lucien. To a certain extent, Nostariel believed the girl’s injuries and history were her own business, but she also knew if there was one person who could handle such delicate matters with the care they demanded and also be of help with resolving them, it was probably him. Nobody else she knew had quite the right balance of traits. Not even her.

“Lucien… some of those wounds were old. Weeks old. They’d been healed, kind of, but there’s no way they weren’t still painful. She clearly hasn’t eaten properly in at least that long… my guess is, she was either travelling by herself, or with people who didn’t much care for her condition.” Nostariel hesitated again, biting her lip, then continued. “She’s also a mage. I felt her magic react to mine. There was something strange about it, like it was raw, somehow. I’m not sure she’s had much training, to be honest.” Which was very peculiar, really, but would account for the fact that the healing she’d done wasn’t particularly good. Good enough to keep her moving, maybe, but not much more than that.

Lucien absorbed this information carefully. A scarcely-trained mage, with weeks-old injuries, likely traveling by herself? It was hardly a wonder she’d been attacked by bandits. She wouldn’t have appeared to present any kind of threat, and she was dressed just well enough to be worth the time. He felt another stirring of sympathy, and wondered just what had led her here, or where she had come from. Still, all of that was her information to keep as close as she wanted. He was just glad that Nostariel seemed to think she would pull through.

He was about to go back to eating when a sound caught his attention. A hitch in breath, followed by a soft groan, pained, but not agonized. He immediately set down what he was eating and stood, Nostariel doing the same, and moved over to the table where the young lady was beginning to stir.

Pain. It was the last thing she remembered, and so perhaps it was…right?... that it was the first thing she encountered. The pain was different, though, duller, like a low-frequency throb in time with her heartbeat rather than a thousand stinging needles. A pitiful sound escaped her, and, had she the energy or the wherewithal, she would have laughed at herself for it. This was how she ended up, was it? She’d promised him she’d survive, that she’d never stop running until she felt safe, and it was bandit scum that did her in. Well… she’d never been destined for greatness or importance like him, but this was an ignominious end, even for her.

Only… it didn’t quite feel like an end, did it? This was not the oblivion she’d fallen into when the pain stopped, and something was wrong with it. It didn’t match. The ground underneath her was hard and unyielding, not soft. She couldn’t feel the wet slick of her own blood anymore, either. Something was wrong. Her eyes cracked open, and she flinched against the brightness, but not before she made out a shape above her. Forcing her arms to move, she threw them up in front of her, gasping when the motion pulled at something barely-healed, her muscles violently protesting the suddenness of the action. Had they captured her? She’d thought…

Ubi sum nunc?” she demanded, though her tone lost much of its force, considering how dry her throat was. Swallowing, she tried again, attempting to drag herself into a seated position, only to be held down by arms a great deal stronger than she was at this point. Quid factum est?” With several more attempts at blinking, she could tell that the shadowy shape above her was actually two: a human man with a scar bisecting one eye, and an exceptionally-pretty elf woman. She was not reassured.

Seeing as how she continued to struggle, Lucien continued to hold her down by the shoulders as gingerly as he could. “Tevene,” he said, his brows knitting together. His Tevene was pretty terrible, but he could manage the basics. Et salvi facti sunt. Sumus amici. It was apparently accurate, or at least close enough, because she stilled a little, looking from himself to Nostariel and back again, her expression wary but no longer outwardly hostile. Carefully, he let go and stepped back. “Do you speak the trade tongue?”

She nodded slowly. “Where… where am I, exactly?”

Nostariel decided to field that question. She could read a little Tevene, from books in the Circle, but she certainly couldn’t speak it, so it was a relief that the girl knew the trade tongue. “You’re in Kirkwall, in the Free Marches. I’m Nostariel, this is Lucien. He and his mercenaries found you out on the Wounded Coast and brought you to me.” She smiled reassuringly and carefully checked over a few of her patient’s wounds. Thankfully, her thrashing didn’t reopen anything, though it might have made her a little sore.

“You should be all right to sit up now, if you let us help you.” She’d also probably be hungry, if her current state of thinness was anything to go by. She looked like she hadn’t had a good meal in a month, probably just barely subsisting for that span of time.

The girl nodded, letting the both of them help her upright, though she was tense under their hands, unmistakably uncomfortable, either with her infirmity or just contact, it was hard to tell. “Estella,” she said quietly, breathing through her nose to steady herself. “My name is Estella.” She gave no more than that.

For the moment at least, Lucien didn’t think any more was necessary, and retrieved the last of his dinner, handing it over to Estella, who accepted gratefully. “I’m… going to go get some more,” he said, mostly to Nostariel, observing the way their guest was wolfing down what was available. “I’ll be back in a quarter candlemark or so, if that’s all right?”

“Of course.” Nostariel smiled and started in on tidying up a few things. It would seem the awakening of her patient had banished some of her own fatigue as well, at least for now. His absence would also give her the chance to inquire of Estella a few things that she might not feel entirely comfortable talking about with more people present. Lucien could be intimidating, even if he was, in reality, one of the kindest people she knew.

Once he’d exited, she finished putting away the few remaining odds and ends still out on the counters, then hopped up onto the examination table beside Estella. Leaving a gap of several inches between them, Nostariel figured the girl could use her space. “Estella… you don’t have to tell us any more than you want to, and I know it isn’t easy to trust strangers, especially when you’re a mage. But… if there’s anything else you do feel comfortable saying, we would be glad to help you however we can.”

Perhaps contrary to the reaction one would expect at being told something like that, Estella’s eyes narrowed in suspicious displeasure. “I’m not a mage,” she snapped, her jaw tightening. Suddenly not hungry anymore, she set aside the rest of what she was eating and shook her head. “And there’s no way that’s true. You don’t know anything about me. Why on earth would you want to help? I could be a psychotic magister for all you know.” Wasn’t that what they thought, in the South? That Tevinters were all either bloodthirsty, cutthroat mages or else crushed under the heels of such?

Truth be told, she had no reason to suppose that either of these people could be trusted. She was hungry and desperate enough that she supposed it really didn’t matter, because she needed to eat and heal before she could do anything about her situation, but she wasn’t inclined to let that soften her guard any more than she already had. Estella could feel her heartbeat pick up in her chest, thundering against her ribcage as she waited for… something. The hammerblow, maybe. Confirmation, defensiveness. Anything.

Nostariel had indeed not expected that reaction, and was quick to react herself, putting both of her hands in the air in a placating gesture, not allowing her voice to rise above the soft tone she usually used with children. Estella was young, but she used the tone more because her emotional state seemed quite volatile. “Hard to be a psychotic magister if you aren’t a mage.” There was a thread of gentle amusement in the words, but she let it fade when she continued. “But Estella… whomever you are or whatever led you here… honestly, it doesn’t much matter. Everyone has a history, and some of them are… unkind. I won’t ask about it unless you want to tell me, and neither will Lucien, I am sure. So whether you intend to stay or go, well, you’ve nothing to fear from us.”

“You know, usually when people lie to me, they at least try to say something believable.” Estella wasn’t sure if that made what this woman was telling her more or less likely to be true. She wasn’t sure of anything, in all honesty. She’d heard most of her life that people in the south were afraid of mages, hated them for what they could do. And even though she barely considered herself one, she knew they wouldn’t bother with the nuance here. But… judging from her current state of not-death… they had saved her life, whatever their reasons. And this Nostariel had to be a mage too, if she’d healed her.

“If you’re just helping me because I’m like you…” she started, unsure how to finish and trailing off into a shrug. “You should know that I’m not. There’s no advantage to helping me. I’m not a mage, and I’m not important where I come from. There’s nothing to be gained from this.”

Nostariel sighed. She’d met plenty of people who were resistant to the idea of being helped before, and she wasn’t exactly surprised that this was how things were going, but that did leave her in the unenviable position of trying to decide how to deal with it. “Estella… we’re not going to force you to do anything. If you want to, the moment you’re well enough, you can walk right out that door and never come back. We won’t stop you. We won’t even blame you.” Folding her hands in her lap, she swung her legs back and forth slowly, dangling as they were from the edge of the counter.

“I understand why you’re skeptical. I’m not sure what I would think, either, if I were in your situation. But Lucien’s a good person, and his intent in bringing you here was to save your life, that’s all. I did what I could as well, and here you are. It doesn’t have to be anything more than that. You can leave before he gets back, if you think your legs will carry you far enough.” They might well, considering the evidence. Estella seemed to have been fighting through injuries for the better part of a month. Nobody did that unless they had to, and to do it alone… that was the act of a desperate person. A person afraid.

“But you don’t have to.”

Kindness. She wasn’t unfamiliar with it. An act of benevolence when she’d been expecting some kind of punishment. If that was indeed what this was. Estella tried to make sense of her situation as well as she could. She remembered the beach, this coast Nostariel had mentioned probably, and stumbling along it as well as she could manage. Being accosted by… some number of bandits, seven or eight, maybe. She’d reacted from surprise, more than anything, and it was really only by luck that the magic had hit the front cluster of them. The half flanking had been… much more difficult. It became very indistinct after that, she remembered being hurt, and then hurting herself, when she got hold of someone’s knife and started stabbing with it. She’d just been thinking of what he told her.

Run, Stellulam. Don’t stop until you feel safe again.

She wasn’t sure she would ever. Pursing her lips together, Estella decided to test the woman’s words. Lowering herself slowly from the table, she hissed softly when her feet hit the ground, taking her weight again for the first time since she’d fallen on the sand, supposedly to be rescued by utter strangers. A few more seconds, and she was letting her hands fall to her sides, no longer necessary to support her. The first step threatened to buckle her knees, but she sucked in a breath and braced herself, continuing the pattern until she made it to the clinic door. Raising an arm, she pressed a palm against it as if to push it open, but then turned to look over her shoulder at Nostariel, who had not moved from her position on the table.

“I can really go? Whenever I want? Even right now?”

“Whenever you want. Even now, though as your healer, I’d rather you didn’t.” Nostariel made no move to enforce her preference, however, merely shrugging both shoulders, as if to indicate that it was all quite out of her hands. And it was, really—what Estella chose to do was entirely up to her.

It seemed to be the right thing to say, at least after a fashion. After a long moment of what seemed to be very intent—and slightly incredulous—scrutiny, Estella had the good grace to look slightly ashamed of herself, and shook her head. “I… sorry. It’s just… I’ve only ever been able to trust two people, and I had to leave both of them, so… I’m a little off-balance at the moment.” Her smile was decidedly more of a grimace, but it was all she had at the moment. At the very least, she removed her hand from the door, sinking into one of the chairs at the front of the place. She still wasn’t sure how she felt about all of this, but if Nostariel was lying to her, she was doing a very good job of it. Estella also knew that, realistically, if she tried to keep going at this point, she’d just end up in a similar situation—one she might not survive this time.

There was a silence then, one that stretched out awkwardly, and she wasn’t really sure what to do, so she tried for something innocuous to discuss. “So… this Lucien guy, then. You said he’s a mercenary?” Her attempt at a non-stilted manner of speech only sort of worked, somewhat ruined by the very-obviously-educated accent Tevinter accent she had. She was going to have to learn to speak like… anyone else. Eventually. When she stopped.

“He is.” Nostariel was relieved that the tense moment hadn’t turned for the worse, and she’d even managed to get something out of Estella that wasn’t a question. Justified as her suspicion was, it really wasn’t going to help her in this case. “His company is called the Argent Lions. They’re only quite new, but they’re doing well.” She hesitated, unsure if this would provoke a reaction like her first assurance had, but here in Kirkwall, it needed to be said.

“Estella… I know you said you’re not a mage, but… you should be careful here. Right now, the Templars more or less run Kirkwall, and they are... quite strict.” Whatever the girl said she was, Nostariel was almost certain she was a mage. Healing someone who had their own magic just felt different from healing anyone else. Being unwilling to admit it might be wise, here, but she had to deliver the warning even so.

Estella’s brows furrowed, but she nodded, a short, jerky motion that was as much acknowledgement as she would give that the information had been both new and useful to her. Fortunately, it was at about this time that Lucien reappeared, burdened down with more food and smiling broadly, something that she found she could actually answer, albeit only with a tiny quirk of her lip.

Maybe, just maybe, she’d found her destination.

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

There was something about being seen together in public, in a setting like this, that drove home the fact that they were together. Sometimes, Lucien almost believed he’d deluded himself into thinking it, but at present, it had a solidity he could not deny. Comparatively, it was tame compared to some of the things he’d been known to do as a youth, and much, much more reckless than anything he’d done since, simply for all the ways it could go wrong. It was hard to deny the satisfaction of it, though. Something about this, walking out of the theater’s atrium with linked arms, watching the way her face lit up when she was amused or delighted by something, hearing her thoughts on the acting or the story they’d just seen, it was… dangerous, honestly. Because he didn’t think he’d ever been this happy in his life, and his instincts told him it wouldn’t last for exactly that reason.

He was resolved to ignore them.

“I saw this particular show staged in Orlais once,” he admitted. “The set was much grander, but I like this version better. Not everyone dies at the end.” He wondered which version was the less-edited one from the playwright’s original. Probably this one, since the author was Antivan. They didn’t have the same cultural obsession with tragedy and dramatic irony as Orlesians did.

The walk back down from Hightown was pleasant, as dusk was just settling in over Kirkwall, cooling the air outside, but not so much that it became uncomfortable. When the time came to choose a direction, however, Lucien glanced down at Sophia and raised an eyebrow. “Tired of me yet, or do you want to risk a while down at the barracks?” He’d certainly walk her back to the Hanged Man if she preferred, but his father had just sent him another shipment of the family vintage, and he was loath to lose her company in all honesty.

And Sophia was loath to return to the Hanged Man. There was a lot to get used to, for someone who had spent their entire life growing up in Hightown, in a noble's manor or the Viscount's Keep. There was so much less noise in Hightown, and especially in the Keep. Here the streets were hectic, the interior of almost every building in Lowtown's center filled with sound, either from within or beyond. It was difficult to focus when she was alone, and harder to sleep. It would take a while to adapt, but she was confident that she could. Just not right now.

Right now Sophia had put herself in a little two-person bubble, one that seemed like it might break if she let go of Lucien. Feeling that way, she had maintained at least some kind of contact with him the entire evening so far. She was abusing her new privilege, surely, but she couldn't come up with a reason to feel guilty about it. For the moment, he was hers, and she was resolved to take advantage of that as fully as she could.

"Is that even a question? I'm hardly done with you yet." She tugged him away from the street towards the Hanged Man, and they headed off towards the barracks. The streets were fairly crowded, but it was remarkable how little she noticed any of the faces. There was some talk about the two of them, unsurprisingly, for those who listened. Varric had proven that to Sophia quickly enough. It was only a tiny voice in the back of her mind that cared what they said, though. It was easily drowned out.

"Any progress with the new arrival?" she asked, turning her head to look up at him as they walked. She had met Estella briefly the day before, but the girl didn't exactly respond with a welcoming attitude. Sophia knew hardly anything of her, only that she was hanging around with the Lions, without actually joining them. A refugee, if she had ever seen one.

“She’s coming around,” Lucien replied. He’d been trying to coax her into training with the Lions, not having failed to notice the interest with which she observed their drills. So far, she was proving reticent, as though she were afraid to try for some reason. Perhaps she was intimidated—she was yet quite young, and many of the Lions were not. Still, at least one of them was even younger than she was, and Cor had been nothing but eager to learn. It was something deeper than that, he thought, but it would take time and patience to get through to her. “Slowly, but surely.”

They reached the barracks, entering via the front door. As usual, a few of the others were scattered variously around the front room, which was quite large. Even Estella was off in a corner, only one chair away from Cor, which was a positive sign. Both appeared to be reading quite intently. A few of the others were playing cards or chess, and from the fact that Donnelly had already lost his shoes and shirt, the game was Wicked Grace. Lucien suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. Closer to the front, however, was a less-expected face.

“Amalia,” Lucien greeted amicably. “I thought you’d have returned home by now.” She’d graciously agreed to help with some of the drilling today, taking his recruits through a series of basic stretches that had rendered basically everyone quite aware of just how inflexible they were. Oddly enough, Idris had been by far the most supple, something that he had teased the others about for some time afterwards.

“Lucien, Sophia,” she said by way of reply, her expression rather at ease, for her anyway. “I was invited to remain for cards, but I fear I will not be in the future.” Apparently, one was not expected to win the game called Wicked Grace having never played before. When she had discovered the penalty for losing a round, however, she had refused to do so. What a strange hobby to have.

“I stayed because I have a question, one that both of you might be able to answer, but if another time is better, I can leave.”

Sophia couldn't help but smile at the idea of Amalia playing Wicked Grace with the others. It was... more of a game for the uninhibited, to put it one way. She hadn't seen the woman much recently, but that had always been true, she supposed. Perhaps she would see her more now, staying in Lowtown as she was.

"We can certainly spare some time for you." She glanced up at Lucien. "Shall we go somewhere more private, then?"

“Let’s use the veranda,” Lucien suggested, referring to the private area off the back of his office, the one with the view of the ocean. Once everyone was properly situated—himself and Sophia on the bench and Amalia actually perched on what was usually a footrest—he poured two glasses of wine, then looked over at Amalia with an obvious question on his face.

“No, but thank you,” she replied. Lucien knew she wasn’t exactly a Qunari anymore, but she didn’t have any particular desire to imbibe even so. She’d never really seen the appeal, and probably never would. He accepted this easily and returned the cork to the bottle, setting it off to one side. Amalia figured she might as well make her question evident now, since the setting was about as comfortable as it could get. “I was… actually intending to ask you to explain a few things about human governance to me. I think your thoughts will also be of value, Sophia, so I am glad you are here.”

Governance… well, that was a bit of a broad topic area, but he supposed he was reasonably well-qualified to talk about it, just as Sophia was. “Was there anything specific you wanted to ask about?”

She nodded slightly. “Qunari are governed, mostly, by an idea. Even those who decide how to handle various portions of our lives are always guided by the Qun, though that can sometimes mean different things to different people. But, even considering that there are people assigned to make these decisions, we don’t have anything like… an aristocracy. There are no kings, nor even… Divines.” There were people at the top of each branch of the Qun, to be sure, but they did not rule in any significant sense. They made decisions where needed, but the Qun itself was rule and law. Here, it seemed that whomever was born into the right circumstances could decide almost as they liked, with no guiding principle. It was the reason why such atrocities as genocides and mass starvations and civil wars were possible. The Qunari did not have those things.

“I wish to know why it is that one’s parentage is seen as giving one the right to rule, while it gives others nothing at all.”

That was... a bit of an interesting question for Sophia to try to answer. Also a slightly awkward one. It occurred to her that, with Amalia remaining in the city so long after the departure of the other Qunari... she must be something different now, unless her duty to the Qun had for some reason demanded she stay. Amalia had never cared to ask about why humans governed themselves the way they did before, so she had to assume something had changed for her to ask about it now. Sadly, Sophia wasn't certain she could give her any kind of reassurances that their way was somehow better.

"Well... you might note my current situation as evidence that I also don't really agree with that principle, of a rule transferred based on bloodlines. I would say that qualities of character should place someone on a throne, though what those qualities are or how to seek them out, I can't say I know." She also couldn't say that she saw them in herself, whatever they were. It was more than being a good person. She had a decent enough opinion of herself to acknowledge that she did right by most people, that she was practiced in generosity, courage, selflessness... but ruling, leadership, it required a certain kind of endurance, a mental strength, to make difficult decisions. A good person might not be able to make necessary sacrifices when she needed to. Their judgement could be fogged by attachments, things they cared about too much. That was what Sophia felt was stopping her, the great barrier between her and moving on to... whatever was next.

Still, perhaps she could at least offer Amalia something. "There are many ways countries justify it, of course. Divine right, if they believe their bloodline was chosen to lead." She certainly didn't feel very highly about that one. "It can often be political. In the absence of a Viscount, Kirkwall's nobility will elect a new one, based on who the majority believe will best move the city forward. Or at least... they're supposed to." It clearly wasn't happening at the moment, though. No real candidates were stepping forward, the last two Viscounts having been slain, and the recent and brewing troubles in the city making the position an utterly unattractive one. Meredith was strongly keeping order in the meantime, and for the nobles, it seemed to be enough, for now.

"Or perhaps it's just about stability. About believing in the future of the nation. A land with no heir, no reliable source to transfer power to, will fall into doubt. It leaves room for those who seek power for themselves to try and make a claim. This can, and has, torn places apart. With a strong heir, the people can feel more secure." She shrugged, before taking a sip of the wine. "It's far from perfect, obviously."

Lucien nodded slightly, twisting the stem of his glass in his fingers. “Orlais has used most of those justifications, at one point or another. The ‘divine right’ excuse flew for a while because our first emperor was basically responsible for the institutionalization of the Chantry in Thedas. But even his bloodline was usurped eventually, by the Valmonts.” There were amusing statues in some older parts of the Empire depicting Lions eating dragons and the like, though it was less a consumption and more a trick of paperwork. That was how empires got along from day to day, ruler to ruler, unless something especially tumultuous occurred.

He wiped a nonexistent smudge from the rim of the glass with the pad of his thumb. “Something else to consider might just be that it isn’t a family that rules, but families. Weaker or stronger, there is always a structure of nobility surrounding any individual ruler. Though they aren’t especially useful in the world down here, nobility do usually have some skills, ones they have been trained for from birth. In Antiva, a country that relies primarily on trade and export to function, that skill is business, and the aristocracy is filled with merchant princes. In Orlais, that skill is in the Game, in manipulating other nobles to get what one wants out of them. So the aristocrats are those especially skilled in this manipulation. It’s just not something a commoner would know how to do, in either case, because they have no reason to know it.” Commoners needed to know how to work, or farm, or barter, or any number of other skills, but at least where he came from, they would be swiftly devoured by the nobility should they even be allowed to attempt the Game.

“Oftentimes, especially good players can get themselves a throne, or something close enough. In that sense, at least, those who can do the most with the power are also the ones who can obtain it. And that, I think, makes sense on some level.” He grimaced slightly. “Of course, not everyone is even given a chance to do that. It is a rare peasant who will ever see the inside of a palace as anything but a servant, let alone be given the option of knowing how to play the Game, and I don’t think there’s any good reason to suppose that those people continuously ignored by my countrymen would not make the best leaders of all of us. But it all reinforces itself—and that makes it very difficult and slow-going to change it.”

Amalia thought she understood now—unlike emotional matters, more political ones were easy enough for her to grasp, because there was logic in them. Very limited, egoistic logic, of course, but once she accepted as a premise that everyone, or at least most everyone, wanted what was best for themselves, it was easy to see how systems like this had developed. Some people had acquired more wealth and resources than others, and used these to build systems that would ensure that their families could continue to do so. Rarefying that tendency for enough generations could quite plausibly lead to systems of nobility and monarchs that operated in just the way Sophia and Lucien suggested they did.

“That much power, for one person…” she mused thoughtfully. “It seems like the kind of thing that could either go very well or very badly. That much risk—I am surprised people accept it, allow it.” Then again, perhaps they had little choice.

"Sadly, not a lot of people will have the power to change anything about it." Or perhaps not sadly. There was a certain danger to anyone having the power to change the way the world functioned around them, but it was also true that there were many good people who wouldn't abuse that ability, if they were capable of grasping it. "Though no few would-be dictators have been overthrown by the people choosing not to allow it."

It was an interesting state of things, to watch Amalia being the one to learn, rather than feeling solid in what she knew, and Sophia could admit she never expected to be teaching her anything.

“And it isn’t usually that hopeless,” Lucien added. “Except in the truly extreme cases, the rest of the nobility holds enough power to check the monarch to some degree. The problem is when they mostly agree on what to do and it’s still terrible.“

“Like Alienages.”

Lucien nodded slowly. “Yes. And worse.” His voice was weighted by something, but she could not identify it and she did not press the issue. Amalia had not failed to observe that human nobility had certain distinctive traits, and that Lucien bore all of these, to one degree or another, save perhaps the incessant conviction that he was right in whatever he did. Sophia lacked that too, fortunately. But she did not need to inquire more deeply, nor did she desire to, if it would make him uncomfortable.

Instead, she accepted what they said with equanimity, and smoothly stood. “Thank you. That was… most illuminating. I’ll leave you to the wine.” A flicker of a smile passed over her face, and then she was gone.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

And here they were again.

The skeleton of the ship was still there, though eroded further by the years that had passed since last Amalia had been to this precise spot on the Coast. She supposed she had eroded, too, in some sense. Some would say it had made her weaker, but she thought that in truth, all that had happened was that some of her sharper edges had worn away a little, leaving her smoother but not soft. Stone, not sand. Her fundamental nature had not changed, only the mode of its expression. She had, she thought, always been capable of being everything she was now, and arguably, things both worse and better. But she was not those things, she was this. And she was at peace with that.

She would change still more, she could sense that. But though what lay ahead for her was in many ways clouded and indistinct, foreign to her ways of thinking and even… frightening, in some respects, she had accepted that too. Acceptance was probably her strength, she supposed. She could accept others as they were, even if she did want to push them away from paths that seemed especially perilous to walk. She could accept mistakes and failures. She could accept pain and punishment and change, even. Once, she hadn’t been able to turn that acceptance towards herself, but she thought she might be able to now. It was a weight lifted, to be sure.

She thought that Sparrow might have a bit more difficulty with acceptance than she did, though he would probably argue until he was blue in the face that it was not so. Or… less argue, more insist. As though he fooled anyone but himself that way. As though there were anyone left who hadn’t forgiven him but himself. Curling her toes into the sand, Amalia turned so she was facing him, halfway. Her reddish eye caught his, and the brow over it ascended her forehead.

“I believe you had something to say to me?”

Here they were.

Sparrow busied herself with a piece of driftwood. Skewering the sand and painting lopsided, ugly pictures; depictions of herself with slanted grins, and perhaps, something that resembled a Qunari. The only indications were branch-like horns sprouting from its lumpy head, and the clear size difference between the two figures. She occasionally stopped to peer away from her work and scrutinize the upended ships, merely wooden skeletons decorating the Wounded Coast; husks of what they once were. Was she the same? She supposed she was, in a way. However, she was no longer alone. She did not waste away as she once did, becoming less and less of what once was. An old ship with patched holes, painted anew and sailing again. Only a little more carefully this time.

Her eyes lingered on the remains of the nearest ship and then drifted towards Amalia, who stood only a few paces away. She could not read her expression--that, at least, had not changed from when they were children. The years had transformed them both. In Amalia's case, certainly for the better. She watched her open up in ways she would have never dreamed plausible, and to particular people she would have thought impossible to get along with, given their differences. Not that she believed that she, too, hadn't changed for the better. In more ways than one, she had. Never had she felt as if a place called her name, but things were different now and she'd been given many reasons to stay. Freedom no longer tugged at her legs, willing her to ride the wind as she had; abandoning all that remained behind her. Did anchors now weigh on her ankles, or roots to grow?

Years had not changed her temperament. She still denied her faults, burying them in the sand and convincing herself that the spot would be long lost and forgotten. Her companions, as stubborn as they were, had been the ones to dig them up, dusting them off in order to pin them back where they belonged. They did not push her away when she was selfish, nor did they scowl when she made outrageous mistakes. She did not understand their kindness. Sometimes, she rejected it--as a mistrustful child would, striking out unintentionally. She was Sparrow, after all. A flighty bird prone to moody outbursts; slow to understand, and quick to anger. She screwed up her eyebrows and stabbed the ground with the stick. Forgiveness was a sour word to swill in your mouth, even now.

Murky eyes swung away from Amalia as she turned towards her. In her peripheral vision, she could see that her once-friend did not face her directly. It felt as if they were meeting with their backs turned. Two forces with many tales to tell, many grievances to swallow, and a tongue too twisted to get the words out. She blinked down at the sandy images and scuffed the heel of her boot across them; smudging. Erased.

"Don't I always?" she asked lamely, finally arching her eyebrows. How long had it been since she'd heard Amalia laugh? Ages. Ages and ages ago. It felt far away, now. She bit at the inside of her lip and shifted her weight from foot to foot. "We haven't had a proper talk about everything. I mean, it doesn't feel... resolved. I wanted--I mean, I want, I say that a lot." She laughed curtly, shaking her head. "What do you want? What do you see? For us. I've never asked."

What did she see for them? Amalia knew what was meant by the question, she simply did not understand why it was being asked. Then again, perhaps she did. Sparrow always seemed to want reassurance, someone to reinforce the ideas he already had formed—that he deserved to be forgiven, accepted, and brought in close. Or perhaps it was not something he thought he deserved, but something he wanted anyway. Whatever the case, she had long since let the hurt of his abandonment go. Forgiveness was a relatively simple thing for Amalia, as it was for most Qunari, though perhaps not many people in this city would know that, given what they had seen. Once a wrong was rectified, as best it could be, it was forgotten. Grudges were poor substitutes for the people they kept you from. Even the Qun understood that.

She did accept him, too. She always had. But neither of those things meant they had to be… friends, whatever that meant for her now. In childhood, she knew, they were encouraged to spend time with one another, probably so that the centered, calm Amalia could level out the unsteady, coltish Sparrow. Convince him not to fly, so they wouldn’t have to clip his feathers. That had obviously been a miscalculation. Or maybe they’d known, and only used him to teach her a lesson. They wasted nothing, after all, not even the temporary.

Amalia sighed. Somehow, it was always incumbent upon her to decide, with him. For all of his fluttering and squawking, he rarely seemed to get anywhere or achieve anything. “I don’t understand what you want me to say,” she pointed out. She visited him in his house on occasion; all told, they ran into each other maybe once or twice a week. Even that was a matter of some effort on her part—they did not otherwise occupy the same circles in Kirkwall. The interests they had independently of one another didn’t often intersect, and so unlike Nostariel or Aurora or even Lucien, she didn’t naturally run into him during the course of her normal activities, and he’d made no effort to make a space to include her in the rest of his life, not that she’d have necessarily accepted the offer to occupy it. She was not one for flitting around, socializing and occupying herself with whatever whimsical thing caught her attention next. She saw nothing in particular wrong with him being like this, but it would never be who she was.

And just the same, she did not expect him to occupy the spaces in her life that were open to him—he likely had little use for her instruction, he was not frequent in the Alienage, and he did not come to visit her on any but the rarest occasion. All fine, all perfectly acceptable to her, but none of it conducive to any relationship other than the one they already had. “Would it satisfy you, if I said we were friends? If I told you that you mattered?” He had never ceased to matter, but perhaps she had not been especially clear on this point. She’d thought he still spoke the language of implication, but she had learned that sometimes, unspoken understanding was insufficient. That things had to be said. And some people just needed things spelled out for them, even the not-so-crucial things. As for friends, well… not close ones, but as she had learned to use the word, Sparrow qualified. “What if I just see that?” She was frustrated, but kept her tone as even and calm as it always was.

How many times would they tread this ground before he was satisfied?

What she felt was a mess of confusion, fatigued from her desperate attempts to conjure up or preserve their youthhood. She was trying to resurrect a relationship that remained in the past, even when she did not understand the reasons herself. While others grew around her and became better, more stable people, Sparrow clung to old feelings, old relationships like barnacles beneath wet stones, heedless of the waves smashing across them. What did she need? What did she want? She wasn't so sure herself, which only made things worse. Her behaviour, she supposed, was the furthest thing from being Qunari as far as she could tell—forgiveness was as unpleasant as treating a wound with salt and acceptance, especially of oneself, was like pressing scalding stones to her skin. The branch-jabbing softened into smooth lines drawn into the sand as she searched herself, sought out reasons she could not let go and move on. The effort was fruitless.

Being a creature of needs and desires, hardly practising patience and discipline and restraint as she should have been, meant that she was usually unsatisfied. The Qun, the Dalish, City Elves; none of them held a place for her and so, she could never make comparisons. She was Sparrow, and even being that made things difficult for her. She was in-between most things, treading grounds that did not call her name. Sometimes, she desired the simplicity Amalia and she shared as youths. Sometimes, she just wanted their relationship to return to her imagined state; sharing everything from dreams, nightmares, goals, foolish things. Acceptance, forgiveness. Those were concepts that flew over her head. They might have been two sides of the same coin she'd been seeking for so long, but her awareness was a sad, stunted creature, scrambling after scraps of approval. Pats on the head; nods, any small measure of comfort to sweep back her ego.

That is how it had always been. So it shall be. It was in the name she left behind in the valley, where and when she'd abandoned Amalia and the others. It felt as if it had been eons ago, and still, Sparrow chased after those moments as if she could turn back time. As if she could prevent herself from walking away as she had, but maintain everything she'd gained in the process. If she stood at any sort of crossroads, she would have been the hopeless wanderer, cross-legged, beneath the sign post. Too stubborn to move forward and still looking over her now-slender shoulders. She licked her dry lips, and stared hard at her sand-markings, willing them to answer her questions. Calm the stirrings in her mind, quell the unease that inhabited her thoughts. Had it been any of her other friends, in her position, they would have simply accepted their pasts and moved on. They would stop beating the dead horse, as it were.

I don't understand what I want you to say, either. It was an unending battle that pulled her in all directions at once, though she was never satisfied with the results, and always fearing that she was missing something. That her discomfort could be rectified if she only tried again, if she only rephrased it; if only she raised her voice higher and made her intentions known, even if they made no sense. She swung the branch like a blade, and imagined it were so. Sharp, whetted. Cutting through the jumble of words tangled in her throat. Her tongue was brambles; her words were thorns, coming out all wrong. They were friends, weren't they? They both lived in Kirkwall. They shared the same friends. She could see her anytime she wanted, if she so wished to seek her out. Shame kept her in the shadows, wishing to be there, but not quite making it to her door. Hell, it seemed as if she spoke to Ithilian far more. She jabbed at the air again and crushed her teeth together, bunching the muscles in her jaw.

She wanted to know her, as she was now. “Yes,” it came out as a hiss, surprising even herself, until she bit out a laugh that loosened the tension in her face. She wanted to know that she mattered to her, she supposed. Had there been any more space to occupy in her life, and if it still existed after having vacated it so long ago, Sparrow wanted the chance to make up for it. She wanted to make amends; not just forgiveness, but another chance. She blinked up at the sky and lowered the branches tip to study the clouds, intent on the horizon. “Long ago, you were the only one I called a friend. There were no others. And I... Nothing I say can excuse what I did,” she shook her head, and glanced at her, “but that's not why I called you here.” She exhaled sharply and abruptly crouched crouched on her heels, dropped back on her rump, and wrapped her arms childishly around her legs. Her ears grew hotter. Saying things plainly made her feel physically ill. “I want another chance. As your friend. Nothing else feels right—but if you don't, if this is all you see, there's nothing I can say to sway you anyhow. I know that much.”

“So take it.” Amalia looked somewhat incredulously down at Sparrow, crossing her arms over her chest and letting out a breath that sounded suspiciously like a sigh. “You are waiting for me to extend something that I have been attempting to put into your hands for a while now.” She wasn’t sure how he had missed it, honestly. It wasn’t like she went around visiting people she did not care for, or making armor for those she did not want to help. Amalia had never been one to use other people’s words to describe how she felt about something—she had always been a person who preferred to show herself through her actions. “I cannot close your fingers for you.”

Shaking her head slightly, she dropped down to a crouch, putting her more on an eye level with her friend. “You know how to ask, to insist, even to demand. Now it is time to learn to accept. Yourself not least of all. Only when you are able to come to terms with yourself will you be able to come to terms with me, with this.” He was friends with others, of course. But his history with those others was not so fraught as it was with her, and so the obstacle was only hampering him here.

There was a period of silence, and in it, she studied him, pursing her lips slightly. “Sparrow… are you still aqun-athlok? You lived as a male, when last we knew each other well. Would you still have me call you as one?” It might seem a change in topic, but for Amalia, at least, the matters were connected. There were those Qunari who were born as one sex and lived as another, and this was accepted. For all intents and purposes, the Sparrow she had known in her childhood was a boy. But he had never been quite like the other aqun-athlok. He’d seemed less comfortable than they were, with what he was. As though he were not sure of the role. Now, Amalia thought he looked much more feminine than he ever had as a child, and she wondered if his mind on the matter was still the same. This, whatever the verdict, as something he had to accept about himself, as well.

Just take it? Simple as that. No catches, and no begging on her knees. Not that Amalia was the sort to demand either—but for so long she'd learned to expect things from others. Nothing was free. Even friendship had a fee. Rough times, and rougher acquaintances, had taught her that much. Everything came with a price, and if you expected anything different, then you were a fool and deserved what you got. So she thought, until the day she stumbled into Kirkwall where her world, along with all of her give-and-take ideals, was flipped on its head. She finally looked at her, jaw slack, even as the minute signals of impatience flickered across Amalia's face. She probably reflected stupid-surprise, but she couldn't help it. She hadn't expected this. There was space there, then. A breath of relief escaped her; one she wasn't aware she'd been holding. Her hands trembled, as if she wasn't sure what to do with them now that they were empty. Had she missed so many signs?

The tension in her shoulders loosened when Amalia stooped down to her level. She did not look away, even when the words she spoke turned her stomach in weak flops. Probably because she was right and it was difficult to hear. Words could be used as weapons, as well as bandages and salves. For so long she'd used her own as biting whips, or furious waves of passion that were made to reduce things to ash and dust. To damage and destroy; hardly to understand anything or make known what she truly meant. She was fickle, but honest. At one time, they operated on metaphors, actions, and silent nods of approval, but that had been long ago. No longer did she understand what others meant, unless they made their intentions known, because her thoughts swam with what she assumed to be true. Accept herself? It made her want to laugh, but she could not. The problem, it seemed, lied with her.

Aqun-athlok. She blinked and tipped her head against her knee, chin propped. The question caught her off guard. Sure, she'd been referred to that before, particularly when the other Qunari found her tattered and naked in the woods, but she'd never given it any thought. To her it had been a simple change, as if she wore new pants. A new identity that suited her purposes. She had shed her old skin to begin anew, even if it meant she'd never truly left her other self behind. Sparrow was a boisterous man, full of bluster and fickle as the wind. She was also wonder-eyed, and adventurous, but she'd also been kind and naive, far too friendly for her own good. A weaker person, she supposed. It surprised her even more when she mouthed, “no.” If she ever struggled with her identity, she had long pushed it to the side. Kicked it under the rug so that she could no longer see it.

What would she call her, then? It seemed strange that there should be any shift at all, as if the change would affect who they were in the past. Who she was, and who she would be from now on. Stranger still that all of her friends had been aware, and already acknowledged, her true gender for years now—it never bothered her, even if she still wasn't the most feminine of the bunch. Having any possibility of weakness, of returning to that broken thing in the woods, frightened her more than she could admit. But she was stronger now for having changed. She had companions who would watch her back. It made no difference now. Her eyebrows drew together. “Suppose not. Still Sparrow, though.”

A new beginning. She held out her hand and stuck out her pinky finger.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon

Earnings

0.00 INK

About a year from their earliest drills and six months since they’d discovered a refugee from Tevinter out on the Coast, the Lions were really beginning to look like a fully-fledged mercenary company. Actually, that might be something of an understatement. They were more cohesive and regimented than any merc company Lucien had ever come across, and more skilled as individuals than most of those he’d run into in the business. They were more an army than anything, but to call them so implied both a size and a regimentation they did not have. He’d built them, as carefully and meticulously as he could, to be a hybrid between the two things, the best of both. He wanted them as disciplined as any chevalier, and as well-trained, both as a team and by themselves, but he also wanted them able to make independent decisions in the heat of the moment when that became necessary, respectful of the rank structure he’d instituted, but not wedded to it. Flexible, adaptable, strong, and more than anything else, trustworthy. To do the jobs they were given and do them the right way.

Watching them now, he believed they would one day be all of those things. Perhaps a day sooner than he had initially anticipated. He believed he could have them taking full contracts within a couple of months, and send them out without him by the end of the year. It brought a smile to his face, leaning down to brace his forearms on the rail of the fence and watch them drill. Even at the height of summer, drenched in sweat and doubtless quite hopeful that respite would come sooner rather than later, they worked and did not waver.

Havard was leading the drills today, barking out instructions in his rather strident fashion. Lucien appreciated this too—that all of them retained their unique personality traits, the wealth of their experience from before they were Lions, and found ways to meld these things harmoniously. The company was better for it, and he certainly couldn’t take the credit. That was all them, and he was glad of it.

Raising one of his hands to his jaw, he absently rubbed at it as he watched their forms. All were making excellent progress, but he was proud of none so much as the young ones. Cor was, as promised, swiftly filling out his now six-foot frame, and Lucien was taking care of much of the lad’s specialty training himself, as he had a good mix of traits for longswords and greataxes. Donnelly was making an excellent marksman. Tessa was going to be his lead scout for the foreseeable future, though she claimed to like the hand-to-hand Amalia occasionally taught more even than the hunting skills she grew up with. Well, there was nothing wrong with that. Idris would always be a large man and a medic, but he had better throwing accuracy than any of the others, so even he was far from without defense.

Estella was an interesting case. She had remained at the barracks for weeks after she was found, long past the time she needed for a clean bill of health from Nostariel. Coaxing her into drilling with the others had proven to be a slow process, and when she did pick up a practice sword, it was clear that she’d never held one in her life. She was no natural talent, either, but the others were tolerant and understanding—and slowly, he watched her change. While her first practice had ended with her telling him she would never succeed in the slightest, he’d asked her to keep at it, and, perhaps out of some misplaced sense of owing him, she had.

Eventually, he’d begun to catch her practicing by herself at night. It was helping, but what he thought she really needed was individual attention, more than he or any of the others could give her. But he knew someone who might be able to help, and so to that end, he’d asked Rilien to meet him here this afternoon, to see if perhaps he might be willing.

At the appointed time, Rilien did indeed appear at the barracks, gliding in that peculiar way of his to a stop beside Lucien, electing to fold his hands into his silk sleeves rather than lean against the wooden fence as the chevalier was doing. He observed the drills with the practiced eye of someone who had also been trained to fight, though not in the way of a soldier. They were exceptional, considering the short amount of time they had been learning—or in some cases, relearning. That was often more difficult.

“You wished to see me about something.” As usual, it was not a question. Rilien had his suspicions, of course, that it had something to do with what he was looking at. Lucien was a more deliberate man than most people gave him credit for. He may not like it or embrace it, but he had been raised to play the Game just like any highborn Orlesian, and one had to be especially good at it to be able to get away with disdaining it, in point of fact.

“So I did,” Lucien replied, smiling slightly over at his friend. Rilien dressed so well that he’d never really look like he belonged in a ring made of dirt, but it was precisely the apparent civility and gentility of him that was his most dangerous characteristic. Well, after his mind, perhaps. And it was, in part, that calculative rationality he was going to need.

“Would you tell me, what you think of them?”

Rilien assumed Lucien did not really need him to comment on the general strengths of his company. Those he would know quite well. Nor was he especially in need of the critique another soldier would give. So he looked at them as a bard would, an assassin, and someone who used weapons these people generally would not, tactics they would find beneath their morals. Even then, their deficiencies were few. Lucien had obviously accounted for how stealthy fighters and mages both would behave, evident when they moved into a different set of drills. The Tranquil cocked his head to the side.

“Unprotected side.” He started at the far end of the line and moved towards the side on which they were standing. “Too slow, probably from fatigue. Needs more endurance training. The next one has the opposite problem—he needs to be more aggressive.” He proceeded down the line until he reached the young woman at the end of it, currently shield drilling against a dwarf. His eyes narrowed.

“That one is not suited for shields.” She was also, he could sense, a mage, so why she was bothering to train in these things at all, he did not know. “She knows the forms, but lacks the confidence to implement them properly.”

Lucien huffed a breath through his nose, amused. Rilien’s blunt honesty was perhaps something that not everyone could appreciate, but he certainly did. And he thought there might be others who could benefit from it as well. He had noticed that any attempt to compliment or praise Estella in any way was immediately rebuffed, if not verbally than in her body language, and he recalled what Nostariel had told him of their initial conversation—she seemed inclined to look for ulterior motives in everything. He couldn't blame her, since he’d been the same, once. But if there was one person who would obviously never say something for the sake of being kind or making someone feel better, it was Rilien.

And perhaps that assurance, that he had no reason to lie or coddle, was exactly the kind of thing that Estella needed right now.

“You’re right,” Lucien admitted. “And that’s the reason I’ve asked you here. If you’re willing, I would like you to teach her. She’s just going to learn more from you than from me, and I think you’ll be better for her at this point than any of the rest of us will.” He might have asked Amalia, but she was doing more than enough for him already, leading drills and providing basic hand-to-hand instruction at least once a week as she did. He was going to start paying her for it, if he could figure out a way to make her accept it. Rilien would have no issues with that. He knew exactly how valuable his skills and services were.

“I know it isn’t something you usually do, but I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t think she’d make you a good student, as well. It will take time, but I think you’ll both gain something from this.”

Rilien considered it for several minutes, still watching the mercenaries practice. He knew quite well that he did not have the proper demeanor for teaching, not like Lucien had. It was true that he was patient, but he also lacked compassion, something he was well-aware of, and he was far from what anyone would describe as warm or amiable or approachable. But it seemed that Lucien had given this considerable thought, and he was clearly not unaware of these facts. Indeed, it seemed to be because of them that he was asking.

There was also, of course, the matter of his shop, as this exercise would doubtless take time out of his shop hours nearly daily if he agreed to it. That by itself was not especially problematic—of late, he had been letting Sandal do most of the orders, anyway, because if the boy was to be successful in the future, he would need to have a base of customers, all of whom would be able to spread word of his work. So Rilien himself had less to do anyway.

In the end, he could not think of any overriding reason not to agree to what Lucien was asking, and the fact that it was Lucien who asked led him to believe that there was at least something worthy in making the attempt, even if Rilien himself was not precisely sure what it was. “Very well. If she agrees, tell her we will begin tomorrow. Not here—on Sundermont.”

“No need,” Lucien said, smiling broadly. “You can tell her yourself.” Rising a hand, he made a beckoning motion with it. “Estella! A moment, if you will.” The girl’s attention snapped to him, her eyes flickering over the odd-looking man standing next to the commander, until they alighted on the sunburst lyrium brand on his forehead. She’d heard by now that Lucien was friends with a Tranquil, but she’d never seen him herself. He was… not quite what she was expecting. Most Tranquil were quite simple and utilitarian in both heir appearance and their manner of dress. This one looked… almost flamboyant. Certainly, someone of expensive and impeccable taste had selected his garments.

She approached carefully, her practice sword still held loosely in one hand, though she’d added the shield to the pile of them at first opportunity. She really wasn’t fond, even if Havard did swear by them. She came to a neat stop a full three feet from Lucien and his strange acquaintance, her eyes wary, almost as though she were expecting to be chastised for something. And perhaps she was.

“Commander?” She was uncertain what to do here. Should she address the person she didn’t know or ignore him until introduced? Did the fact that he was Tranquil make any difference? They were practically anathema in the Imperium, though they did exist, and the Chantry did employ a few, she just rarely had to interact with them. “Is there something I can do for you?”

Lucien took mercy on her obvious confusion. “Estella, this is Rilien Falavel. He’s a friend of mine, and an excellent combatant, among other things. Rilien, this is Estella, one of my recruits.” As she had still declined to give a surname or any specific information about where she’d come from, he included none of what he’d guessed in his introduction. Rilien only inclined his head, seeing no need to embellish his own any further.

“I’ve just finished speaking with Ril here, and I’d like to propose something.” Her confusion persisted, and he noted that a slight flicker of fear entered her expression for just a moment, and her gaze moved back to the brand on his friend’s brow. Did she really think…? He hastened to reach the end of his explanation. “I think you could benefit from learning to approach combat the way Rilien does, and he’s agreed to spend the time to teach you, if you’re amenable to the suggestion.”

The line of Estella’s shoulders eased somewhat, and this time, she met the elf’s eyes directly. “And how is that?” she inquired, her tone lacking the accusation Lucien had been concerned it might carry.

Rilien lifted on shoulder in something like a shrug. “Sharp things. No shields. Quickness, precision, subtlety. I was once a Bard, but you need not learn to sing, if you do not wish.” Lucien would probably recognize the joke, accustomed to his strange mannerisms as he was, but he did not expect the girl to. Fortunate that he also meant that literally, then.

Lucien did indeed smile, but to his surprise, it was Estella who laughed, just a quick burst of amusement, soft and more a snort than anything, but it was accompanied by a bigger smile than the chevalier had yet seen on her face. Dry humor, as it happened, she was quite used to.

“So what you’re saying is that it’s an option?” The smile faded a little, but she nodded. “I think… yeah. I think I’d like that. Sharp things, and no shields, and… the rest of it, too. Thank you.”

“Do not thank me yet.”

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

It was not often that Sophia Dumar was summoned anywhere. Normally, she was the one sending out the requests, asking for allies to meet her at the Keep or to assist her with whatever crisis she'd taken upon herself to fix. This was truly a sign that things were changing. Or perhaps it was not. There was a chance that this was just the first bell toll, signaling the end of her little escape from the responsibilities of her station. Some part of her, lingering in the back of her mind, had always known this would come, that this city wouldn't be willing to just forget her and let her fade into the crowd, like she wanted.

The missive was the order of one Knight-Commander Meredith Stannard, a woman everyone in the city knew, for it was her templars who had been keeping order in Kirkwall ever since the death of Sophia's father, and her own nearly fatal wounds. For all her standing, Sophia actually had little experience with the woman herself, often only seeing her in passing while she was on her way to converse with her father, offering a polite greeting here and there. It could have been much different. Sophia remembered clearly her youth, when the option had been presented to her to actually join the templars, something she had seriously considered, and probably would have done had her responsibilities to her family not taken precedent.

The two of them were to meet, or rather, Sophia was to make a visit to the Gallows, and the templar headquarters located there, when she was able. Sophia knew better than most that it was not wise to keep those in positions of power waiting, and so she had departed from the Hanged Man at once, dressed as though this were a light mercenary job, in mail and leathers, her sword sheathed across her back, hair coiled behind her in a loose bun. Her full set of armor seemed like overkill, but a dress or something else befitting a noblewoman didn't send the right message, either. This seemed to be the best balance, and the best way to openly show who she was now.

Having learned her lesson the hard way, Sophia understood that these matters were best not approached alone. She didn't hardly imagine she'd be fighting the Knight-Commander, but she had a fairly decent idea what Meredith wanted to talk to her about, and a bit of moral support was welcome, as well as some trusted friends to speak with it about afterwards. To that end, she had checked by Lucien's barracks and Nostariel's clinic, pulling them both away from their work for the morning. She didn't like to be a burden on them, but neither had been particularly busy, and she knew by now this wasn't a trouble for them.

She explained the situation to each on the way, what little of it she knew at least. Sophia suspected Meredith was tired of waiting on her move, and hoped to glean Sophia's intentions from her, or perhaps try to steer her towards something in particular. That was no surprise. The nobility, as she had heard, were growing restless while the templars remained in full control over the city, and somehow Sophia was still the top candidate to be pushed into the seat of Viscountess, even though she had shown no interest in the position for over two years now. It was frustrating, truly.

"Thank you both for coming," she said, standing at the front of the barge while they crossed the channel from the docks to the Gallows. She held onto one of the ropes, one boot raised up along the side of the ship, staring ahead at the ominous island fortress that housed the mages and templars of Kirkwall. "I'd hoped to be left alone, but... I suppose I shouldn't be surprised."

Lucien was dressed in a similar fashion to Sophia, largely because it was most common for him to do so these days. When she’d dropped by and asked him to accompany her to a meeting with Meredith, he also had been able to guess what direction such a conversation was likely to take. He would not deny that he had definite thoughts about the matter, but he had thus far avoided speaking them, out of respect for Sophia and to help give her the space she needed to make her own decisions, come to terms with what was doubtless still a difficult series of issues to think about.

“Well, when you spend so long trying to do good for the city, people will remember,” he pointed out kindly, reaching over to settle a hand between her shoulderblades, just a light touch, especially through the armor. “Just remember that your life is yours, and only you can decide how best to live it.” He thought this was something Meredith was unlikely to remind her of.

Nostariel, on the other hand, had elected to actually swap out the simple blouse and trousers she’d been wearing that morning for Warden blues, a very fine set of chain mage armor with the identifiable crest. This was not because she wanted to assert anything, but merely to avoid confusion or awkwardness, given that she was still both elf and mage. It was just kinder if nobody had to try and bother her while she was in the Gallows. The Templars, by and large, only tried to do their jobs, and she didn’t want to make anything more difficult than need be.

“And we’re here for you, in any case.”

The barge nudged gently against the Gallows docks, allowing its few occupants to depart. There was little civilian traffic to and from the Gallows lately, most making the wise choice to continue straight on to Kirkwall's docks. The mages were rarely allowed to leave, and only then under templar supervision, making the vast majority of travelers to the Gallows either city guards to the prison, the knights themselves, or those who regularly supplied them with everything they needed.

Sophia led the way across the Gallows courtyard, beneath the imposing towers, criminals in one, mages in another, templars in the last, passing the equally imposing massive bronze statues of slaves from the Tevinter era, hiding their faces from those wandering below them. Sophia regretted that the Qunari couldn't have attacked and destroyed these things, instead of heading for Hightown.

The templars were expecting them, or Sophia at least, and allowed them into the headquarters without any sort of check of their business. One of the knights on guard directed them towards the Knight-Commander's office, though Sophia already knew the way. They were instructed to wait upon a smooth wooden bench outside the office itself, in a fairly dismal hallway lit sporadically by small wall-mounted braziers.

Eventually, a petite woman with hair a shade darker than Sophia's approached them from within the office. She wore black, red, and gold Chantry robes, and most notably, bore the sunburst brand upon her forehead. She spoke in the calm monotone of all the Tranquil, locking eyes steadily with Sophia. "The Knight-Commander will see you now, Lady Dumar. She asks, however, that your friends remain here."

That wasn't entirely unexpected. The missive had asked for her specifically, and if Meredith wanted to have a private conversation in her own fortress, that was her right. Offering her friends a slightly apologetic nod, Sophia rose and passed through the open door. The Tranquil assistant closed it behind her, heading off quietly down the hall and out of sight.

Meredith sat behind her desk, looking over a recently written letter on her desk, one of the many articles of parchment lying about, as well as several thicker tomes, pulled from the entirely filled bookshelf on the right wall. The office was spartan in appearance, with dark stone tile flooring interrupted only by one plain red rug in the center of the room. A templar shield with crossed swords behind it adorned the wall beyond the desk, and the same wall-mounted braziers lit this room as well, a little better than they did for the hallway. When Meredith laid eyes on Sophia, she offered a small smile, rising from her chair and coming around the side of the desk.

"Lady Sophia, it's good to see you again. You look well." The way she said it, Sophia couldn't quite figure out the delivery. Was that a hint of amusement? Scorn, even? No, she was imagining things. The Knight-Commander herself had her ever present air of authority, achieved with her impressive mail and plate armor over her scarlet robes, the cowl of which was pulled up over her head and circled by a circlet.

"Thank you, Knight-Commander. As do you." Truth be told, she looked a little pale, but Sophia needn't mention that. "What can I do for you today?"

"A great deal, I'm hoping. As you well know, a great deal of time has passed since the departure of the Qunari. The city has no Viscount, and the nobility requires placation. They come to me... and they ask for you." She certainly didn't waste any time on pleasantries, did she? Sophia shifted her weight, a little uncomfortably. Meredith had a way of making people feel small.

"I see. Are they not satisfied with your stewardship? Kirkwall has had markedly fewer incidents since you restored order." The small smile returned to Meredith's lips.

"That says little, I'm afraid, in the aftermath of an attempted occupation. The nobility have no choice but to accept my control for the time being, but still they would be more at peace if they had a leader from among their own number, and for many years now they have been expecting that leader to be you, only to have the rug pulled out from under them with your decision to leave Hightown. As such is the case, I have taken it upon myself to try and persuade you today." Sophia did not have any immediate reaction, for everything Meredith said was valid. Indeed, she had reassured the nobility herself that power would be transferred to her, that she would be the best Viscountess she could be, only to suddenly change her mind when it came time to actually take up that responsibility. Part of her was surprised they still trusted her enough to want her to rule.

"You must take some sort of action, Sophia," Meredith continued, her tone firm. "Kirkwall needs someone like you as its face. A strong woman, but kind and gentle, and a champion of the faith. A warrior who can boast the slaying of the leader of all Qunari forces. The nobility would fall in line behind you without question, and together we could repair all the wrongs this city has suffered."

"Together?" Sophia asked, unable to help herself. Meredith was seemingly trying to hand power back over to the Viscount's Keep, but Sophia found herself focusing on what reasons she would have for doing so, when the entire city was in the palm of her hand, to do with what she could. She focused on this also because it distracted her from the points Meredith was making on why she would be a good fit for the seat.

The Knight-Commander sighed softly through her nostrils. "It is clear enough that you have little interest in actually ruling, Sophia. If you don't want to, then you need not, at least not in depth. I have years of experience watching over this city. Your father did not always have the authority that my Order could muster. Thus I propose a partnership: you rule the city in name as Viscountess, assisting me in managing the nobility and some matters of state, and I will continue on as I have done in the past, as a warden of the city, ensuring continued order and stability."

What she was proposing was... a figurehead. A puppet. She wanted Sophia to assume the role that her father had always suffered, but by choice. And all because... what? Was she overwhelmed by the demands of the nobility? It didn't seem likely. They were troublesome, certainly, but as she said herself, they had no real choice but to accept her rule, especially while they could not conjure a leader of their own to take it away.

"I have no interest in creating the illusion of my authority, Knight-Commander," she responded, firmly as well. "When I stepped away from the Viscount's Keep, I did so with the intention of allowing another, more suited to the task, to fully take up the mantle, so that the Templar Order can return to their designated duties, those of watching over the mages."

"And how long will it take you to see that this will never occur?" Meredith's brows were raised, hints of her annoyance with Sophia slipping through. "There is no other more suited to the task than you, you who have been trained since your childhood for this very purpose. I too desire to fully focus my attentions on the mages, and for that I require a Viscount. If you do not intend to take up the seat, what do you intend to do instead?"

Was she required to do anything? Had Kirkwall not taken enough of her, had it not demanded enough sacrifice? Why did it feel so sinful to desire a little peace for herself, a little happiness, which she had so tenuously grasped with her fingertips the past year?

"I intend to help the city as I always have, Knight-Commander. On my own, with my blade, with my faith, and with my friends."

"The nobility will never accept that, Sophia. If you remain as you are, living in Lowtown, they'll still think you're putting distance between you and the crown, with the intent to someday return. They're stuck thinking this. If you want to assist with your blade, then join with me. You need not join the Order, but there are a great many things I could use you for, a great many things you could accomplish by performing the Maker's work."

But it would not be the Maker's work, rather Meredith's. Sophia did not necessarily believe Meredith had become an unjust ruler of Kirkwall, though today had done nothing to help her opinion, but ever since the death of her brother, she had been resolved to keep her faith a personal matter, to believe in the Maker and his bride on her own. Only Elthina still had Sophia's unquestioning trust among the Chantry.

"With respect, Knight-Commander... I'm not currently interested in being used by anyone. I need to make my own way. I thank you for the offer, but I must again decline." Meredith looked as though she wanted to say something else, but Sophia had had enough of the discussion, certain that nothing the Knight-Commander could sway would sway her right now. Turning, she left the scowling templar leader before her desk.

"Let's go," she said somewhat abruptly to Lucien and Nostariel when she reentered the hall. She didn't know if their voices had managed to carry through the door or not, but she relayed the points of the discussion to them once they had passed beyond the walls of the templar stronghold once more, finishing the summary once they had reboarded the barge back for the Kirkwall docks.

"Was that selfish of me?" she asked, looking to them for... something. Reassurance? Possibly. She didn't know if it would work. "I would never be anyone's puppet, but... can I outrun this? Do I even have a choice?" It didn't feel that way, most of the time.

“There’s always a choice.” Nostariel’s tone was at once gentle and firm, because she was trying to reassure Sophia, but also because she truly, deeply believed in what she said. “I think… it seems that the Knight-Commander was being unfair. There are other nobles in Kirkwall. In time, one of them may gather the support necessary to make a bid for the seat. That’s the way these things work, isn’t it?” She couldn’t believe that of all the nobility in Kirkwall, not a one of them wanted to be Viscount. It shouldn’t be Sophia or no one—that was a false dichotomy.

"In time, maybe," Sophia said, shrugging. "No telling how long, though. They were accepting of my inheritance, but now that I've turned away from it... I think you'd be surprised how indecisive they can be." Especially when the position was so unattractive. It tended to leave only those who desired the power for themselves, rather than the city.

It was far from a simple situation. Bound up in this were considerations of inheritance, duty, and the good of Kirkwall, to be sure, but neither could Sophia’s own wellbeing and preferences be discounted. “A ruler who does not desire to be there is rarely a good one.” And there was no helping her inclinations. “But one who wants it too much, or for the wrong reasons, is more dangerous still.” Because such a person would prioritize their position itself over what they should be doing with it. History was utterly riddled with examples of that turning out very poorly for people, organizations, and even entire nations.

“I don’t think you should take the throne because Meredith or the nobility want you to have it,” he continued quietly. “If you believe you best serve this city and its people with your sword and your friends, then you do. But I also think Meredith fundamentally misunderstands you if she thinks you could be used that way.” Sophia was far too beholden to her own conscience to allow someone else to act while using her as a smokescreen, especially if she disagreed with what they were doing. He happened to think it was a trait that would make her a very good Viscountess. But that was not, he thought, something best said now. She seemed to want assurance that her rejection was the right thing, and he thought it was. For now, that was perhaps enough.

It was going to take time, Sophia knew. She'd already taken a great deal of it, but more was needed before she could admit to herself what she desperately wanted to avoid, for her own happiness. For now, she had turned Meredith down, what she felt was the correct decision. If she decided to come into her throne, it would be on her terms. Not on the Knight-Commander's, not on the Arishok's, but hers.

First, though, she needed to enjoy the time she could spend free of the chains of responsibility. She needed to clear her head, take several deep breaths, before she would be able to plunge below once more. "Nostariel, could you tell Ashton to come by when he's free sometime?" She needed to clear up some lingering issues, irksome whispers from her past.

"There's someone I need to have a conversation with."

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

It was, of course, entirely like her to be missing after requesting the company of another. Amalia attempted not to sigh as she made her way up to Hightown. Having checked most of Sparrow’s usual haunts, she was left to ask the one person who probably had a better guess about her friend’s location than she. Sparrow had wanted to see her about something, but had not been at the requested location at the correct time. Had it been someone else, Amalia may have been concerned, but it was not entirely unlike what she knew of the other former Qunari to forget such things, especially if something happened to distract her. She was not especially concerned for Sparrow’s safety, therefore, only for her own time if she wasted much more combing the city.

Still, she would admit that the walk was nice. She left the Alienage much less frequently than she used to of late, considering she no longer had viddathari to visit. Even then, she’d almost never had a reason to go to Hightown, and had honestly only been a dozen times or so over the years she’d lived here. It was an effective reminder of the things that wealth could accomplish in a human society. Those with things that others wanted were always in the best positions, no matter anything else about them. She supposed the Tranquil himself was as good an example of that as any. People might well look down on him for any number of reasons, but still he was allowed a shop here, and lived in what she supposed was a much more comfortable fashion than most of the humans in the city ever would. She wondered how he had accomplished it.

Entering the shop, Amalia found him at work on something, though what exactly it was, she did not know. She could brew potions, cook poison, even work leather and hide and bone, cut she knew nothing of smithing or lyrium. The latter was something the Qunari had next to no use for. Its more mundane properties were better had in gaatlok and other substances, and the magical ones were of little use to a people without Templars or the desire to empower mages. Saarebas did not get access to the fade; it was just one more way they could become abominations.

“Rilien.” She had not known his name, when first they spoke, many years ago now, but she knew it now. It was impossible not to, when one knew Sparrow to any extent. He was perhaps almost as central in her life as Ithilian was in Amalia’s. “Have you seen Sparrow? She was supposed to meet me in the Alienage some time ago, but never arrived.”

As it was sevenday, the shop was empty save for Rilien himself, who worked and did not work as dictated by the rest of his activities, and not by human social convention. Sandal and Bodahn, however, had the day off. Having recently finished his tune-up on Everburn, he had returned at present to the more mundane business of enchanting ordinary weapons. It wasn’t especially riveting, and his skills were honestly attuned well past the point where this kind of practice would be at all useful to him. Still, it kept his affairs in order to do these things, because the fee he could charge for them bordered on exorbitant, having the only non-Circle enchanters in all of Kirkwall, possibly the Free Marches, working here. He was fair in his distributions of these profits to Bodahn and Sandal, but there was still plenty to be kept, something he did quite carefully.

When someone entered the shop, he glanced up, his eyes meeting the unevenly-hued pair belonging to Sparrow’s Qunari friend. Or once-Qunari; he supposed she might not be anymore if she was still here so long after the rest had left. It was none of his concern either way. Tilting his head to the side at the inquiry, he lifted his shoulder in a shrug. "I have not seen her since this morning, though she usually comes by at around this time most days, if you would care to remain and wait.” He went back to his work, unfazed by her presence.

Amalia nodded serenely, casting her eyes about the pristine shop before settling in one of the chairs on the far side of Rilien’s workbench. As a craftsman herself, she admitted to some curiosity regarding what he was doing, and she did not suppose he would have much reason to mind her observations. She was personally familiar with the effectiveness of his potions—they were, she could readily admit, a fair bit better than hers. She wondered, looking to several of them lined on a shelf set against the wall, if the difference was in the ingredients or the process of combining them.

She also could not help but note the fact that his equipment was all especially well-tended, worn naturally with use but clearly of excellent quality all the same. What she had was brought with her from Par Vollen, meaning that while the craftsmanship was exemplary, she had not been able to bring her full set with her, and many of the things she had were naturally reaching the end of their usefulness. It likely cost a great deal to replace them with anything as good. It was something she still had difficulty with, that she could not simply expect to be provided with what she needed to do her work, because it was someone else’s work to so provide. The things she made were to the benefit of others, so why was it that she could not make them without incurring cost to herself in more than simply time and effort?

It was clear that sufficient mastery of the human economy could provide a great deal, more than her two hands would ever be able to. That was quite unsatisfying, honestly, but it occurred to her that it should not be so difficult, to master this system. Amalia was a quick study, and there were people who could benefit from it if she took it upon herself to learn what Rilien and people like him knew. “Can I ask how one becomes established in business, in a merchantile system?” Surely, there were better and worse ways to make the attempt, and she would do well to ask someone who was clearly successful in this regard.

Rilien remembered the bone dagger she’d brought him quite some time ago, recalling that she had, in fact, been responsible for its creation. It had been a superb piece of work, and he was as surprised as a Tranquil could be that she wasn’t already in business. Perhaps the skill had heretofore served some other purpose. Still, he assumed she inquired for herself, and answered appropriately. "It can be difficult, without initial funds. Something to sink into providing oneself with a workspace, equipment, and somewhere to sell out of. Assuming you have all that, it is not especially difficult. The only intellectual challenges are pricing and balancing the hours of a shop with the hours one needs or wants to spend doing other things.”

He was under the impression that she spent a great deal of time acting in a capacity as some sort of guardian figure in the Alienage, not entirely unlike what Lucien had once done for Lowtown. He supposed he understood the general reasoning behind such a thing, but just as he wondered why it had taken Lucien so long to decide to better organize his efforts into a proper mercenary company, he was uncertain why her efforts were so scaled-down. Perhaps it was only a question of what she was accustomed to doing.

"If operating an entire shop is inconvenient, there are other storefronts that will rent shelf-space and sell one’s wares, usually for some portion of the profits.” The other option, of course, was to hire someone else to mind the shop, but that was generally even more expensive, and likely not an option for someone who lived in the Alienage. One had to start with what one could already do, after all; overextension was one of the easiest ways to fail in merchantile endeavors.

So many trappings. Amalia pursed her lips together. Admittedly, there was perhaps something useful about grouping items together in shops if they had to be sold, but that was simply something there was no space for in the Alienage, nor did she wish to purchase a storefront somewhere that would take her away from it for large periods of time. If this endeavor were to take place at all, it would be entirely secondary to the other things she did. She admitted that the idea of having someone else actually manage the selling part was appealing—she had no taste for such matters herself.

So it was then a matter of figuring out where she could rent the space to display her goods, and negotiate how much it would cost her to do so. It made the most sense to do so where she also wanted to benefit or at least would not mind benefitting the actual proprietor with however much their portion of the sales would be. For her leather and cloth goods, it seemed best to ask Lia if she would not mind. Perhaps her occasional presence there would also serve as a reminder that the store was protected as well. She saw no downside to this at all.

But there was still the matter of potions and poisons. She had noted that only certain people sold those, even in stores of a sundry nature. She assumed there must be some kind of restriction—perhaps they required a form of authorization from the government here. That meant if she wished to make use of her alchemy, she would have to find somewhere else. The logical conclusion was obvious. “My potions are not to the standard of yours. This would suggest I should sell them for moderately less. What would you ask in return for my being able to do that here?”

"Ten percent, or ten sovereigns a month, whichever is more.” Rilien’s answer was immediate. It was a similar policy to the one he used for Bodahn and Sandal, though since they provided the additional service of manning the shop when he was out, he asked somewhat less of them. This way, if her sales were not successful, he would not be asking too much, and if they were, he would not be asking too little. It was a rather effective principle, he had found. He was not averse to the idea of selling more inexpensive potions, either, as from time to time people did complain about the cost of his own. Mostly hot air, in all honesty, but the existence of hers would provide him with a useful bargaining recourse, and what profited Amalia would profit him as well.

The Tranquil was nothing if not shrewd.

Though she had little experience with the quality turned to such purpose, Amalia could appreciate the logic in his approach. It was honestly optimal for her ends—she would be able to make things in quantities small enough that they would not consume too much of her time, and it would allow her to maintain the quality of her craftsmanship all the same. But it did not require that she fundamentally alter anything about her daily schedule, really, and it would be bringing funds into the Alienage. Funds that, if used properly, could at least go a little way towards evening the vast disparity between it and where the humans lived. Better building materials, better tools for the other craftsmen, better fabrics for their clothing and more food for their families. The way things should be.

It wouldn’t be enough, by itself, and it wouldn’t be as much as they’d have received under the Qun, either. But it would be something. Something she could do with her skills and her hands, for the people under her care. Her lips turned upwards at the corners. She wondered for just a moment what Ithilian would think of it, if Lia would be willing to take on the surplus, what the Hahren would use the funds for. She supposed she would be finding out on all counts soon enough.

Extending her hand halfway across the counter, she regarded Rilien with a level expression. “I believe that it is customary upon striking a bargain to shake hands.” Amalia had the thought that she was rather glad this man was the one looking after Sparrow. Something about him was the right kind of even-headed. Something she supposed her friend dearly needed.

Rilien blinked down at the hand for a moment, before laying aside his tools and grasping it with his right. "By convention, yes.” A firm shake, and the deal was done. It was only then that the sound of the door opening caught his ears, and he turned to it.

"And it would seem that you have found what you were looking for as well.”

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera

Earnings

0.00 INK

"I haven't seen him even once since the party," Sophia said sideways, stepping lightly off the barge and back onto the hard stone of the Gallows. Ashton stepped down beside her, and the two of them entered the courtyard. She'd hoped to avoid returning to the Gallows so soon, but Sophia was steadily coming around again to the idea of doing things that seemed unpleasant to her, for a larger, better cause. This was the first step.

Jamie Arren had been allowed to rot in the dungeons ever since his attempted assassination of Sophia's father, and for a while his fate had simply been put off, while the consequences could be weighed, and while they waited for their emotions to die down from the heat of the attack. He was nobly born, after all, from a fairly respected family of Hightown, though his actions had done much to change that. His parents now held little sway, not nearly enough to get him removed from the Gallows. When the Qunari had attacked, finishing Jamie's task for him, he'd simply been forgotten, as had a great many things following the death of Marlowe Dumar. The Gallows were more than willing to keep him.

But Sophia was able to recognize that he wasn't doing any good rotting in a cell, and while she didn't enjoy the idea of being in his presence or even thinking about the man, he knew things that he kept from her, things about her father, things about Dairren Quinn. Things about her mother, maybe. She assumed he had learned most of this from Dairren himself, as he knew a great deal about her mother, having grown up with her, and about her father, having served him as guard captain for over twelve years before he was exiled for his corruption. She intended to find out today what he knew, and how he knew it. If he could lead her to Dairren, she could find a way to put this entire mess behind her.

She was dressed much like she had been to see Meredith again, light chain and leathers, her sword across her back. For once, Ashton was the more official presence of the two, the guard uniform lending more authority to the pair than her mercenary's attire ever could. She'd asked him along because he'd been there for as many steps of this as she had, and because Quinn was supposedly still at the head of the Coterie. Getting to him would be a massive victory for a guard, and Sophia was certainly interested in helping a man like Ashton advance where he was sorely needed.

"Have you done much questioning for the guard? I'll admit I'm not the most experienced with interrogations." She wondered how often he even had the choice to keep the criminals alive or not. Not often enough, no doubt.

"Not enough to call myself an interrogator unfortunately. Most of the criminals I deal with are usually too busy trying to run away or trying to kill me to answer any of my questions." Most of his job description of late consisted of patrolling through the streets and looking for anything suspicious, and then dragging those individuals to the dungeons-- if he was lucky that day. Fortunately, he'd been having more help, finally earning enough respect in the guard to be assigned with partners or volunteers. Diving head first into the more dangerous tasks all on his lonesome usually did that, if one managed to survive long enough. "I've watched a few though, so I'm sure we'll be fine," he added, flashing a smile.

It felt odd taking the lead while Sophia stood behind him. Not so long ago, their situations were reversed with him lingering in Lowtown and her in Hightown. Though she deigned to spend her time in Lowtown, she was still respected amongst the guard so her presence didn't hurt. From what he heard in the barracks, the guard would prefer her to having to sift through the rest of the nobility to find another, and Ashton had to admit to agreeing with the sentiments. She was the kind of person they needed-- though he didn't bring it up. Her choices were hers to make, and he didn't want to urge her into doing something she didn't want to. He'd side with her through whatever choice she made.

As they drew close to the entrance into the Gallows, Ashton hailed the pair of guards that stood beside the entrance into the dungeons. Though he was familiar with them, he still stated his name and rank. "Sergeant Ashton Riviera, Sophia and I've come to, uh, visit with a prisoner. Ask a few questions and the like," He said with a grin. One of the guards rolled his eyes while the other nodded, opening the door for them to pass. The guard that rolled his eyes spoke up before the door was closed behind them, "Don't forget Riviera, we have a patrol next week." Ashton waved and nodded as the door shut behind them. "Sergeant Riviera, pretty neat, huh?" He told Sophia, laughing.

Ashton led them through the dungeons, going deeper into the tower. He'd asked which wing Jamie was in before meeting with Sophia, and before long they drew into the hallway lined with bars.

"Neat, and well overdue, I'd say." It was sad to see lingering remains of the issues that had plagued the guard before holding Ashton back, but all things considered, he could have had it worse. Sophia had learned much about what the guard had gone through leading up to the Qunari attack, and part of that included a certain break-in to the Gallows that left no small number of guardsmen dead. It was quite likely they didn't know Sergeant Riviera had been involved in that little incident.

There was always a dampness in the air in the Gallows, the proximity to the crashing waves sending a constant mist up and over the walls, ocasionally filtering through the windows of the dungeon itself. These were now barred, to prevent further incursions. The prisoners themselves spread this soggy look; their cells were fairly abysmal in terms of cleanliness and basic comfort. Sophia couldn't manage much pity.

If there was a creature in here that could inspire such pity, it was Jamie Arren, but his actions had earned him nothing but scorn from Sophia. They found him sitting with his back to the bars, facing away from them. His hair was damp, unkempt, and ragged, his clothes threadbare and worn away. He looked to have lost a good deal of weight. He'd never been a large man; Sophia had known him to be of an excellent figure, more for appearances than for practicality, but now he was quite shriveled. It was a wonder he yet lived, she thought to herself.

"Jamie," she said strongly, to get his attention. Upon hearing her voice, he instantly turned around, clambering onto his knees and peering wide-eyed at her, clutching two of the bars before him and holding his face close to them. His eyes darted momentarily to Ashton, in the guard uniform, a glint of recognition there. He remembered Ashton being the one to stop him before he could take down his mark. For the moment, however, he seemed more concerned, or perhaps elated, at seeing Sophia again.

"Sophia!" he said, his voice hoarse from lack of use. He immediately worked to clear his throat. "I thought I'd never see you again. When I heard what happened with the Qunari, with the Arishok... I'm so glad to see you alive. You look wonderful."

"Jamie, stop." It was unnerving, that he would think expressing open care would win him any favor. She wished she could have seen this in him sooner. A dangerous mind, prone to desperate measures. An easy person to twist to one's will, if they were cold enough to do it. "I'm here for information, nothing more. It's time you told me about Dairren Quinn. Everything."

"Sophia... you know I want to. You deserve to know. But it didn't happen the way it was supposed to! You never became Viscountess. Which means... Quill never came to see you." He seemed disheartened by the thought, and slumped back on his heels.

"Seems a little depressed for a man who tried to kill both you and your father," Ashton said, tilting toward Sophia. He spoke loud enough so that Jamie could hear as well. He'd been there that night, he remembered Sophia fainting from the poison and the mad dash to find Jamie before he found the Viscount. He had little pity for the man who tried to assassinate his friend and throw the city into disarray. Ashton wore a firm face as he knelt down to his level and stared in between the bars.

"Things never work out the way they're supposed to, that's just how it goes. You say you want to tell her, that she deserves to know. Well, then tell her. It's not hard," He said, his voice even. He never really understood these types, the ones who claim to want to do something but never really do it. That she deserved to know yet never tell her. Ashton sighed as he shook his head, looking back up at Sophia.

"I never tried to kill Sophia," he said, the idea seeming to offend him greatly. "It wouldn't have, even if the healer hadn't been there. I swear." As annoyed as she was to admit it, Sophia figured he was right about that. Jamie's aggression had been towards her father, not her, even if she had the unfortunate part of being the unwilling distraction. An interesting approach to it. Had they not been as wary as they were, he might have reached the Viscount in the chaos and actually gotten away with it.

"You heard the Sergeant. Spill it, Jamie."

"I... that wasn't the plan. I was supposed to kill the Viscount, you were supposed to become Viscountess, and then Quill was going to tell you everything himself, when he delivered you the Coterie. He's just using them because he needs them, you see. Marlowe was watching for him, always. The Coterie was able to protect him, but it was supposed to be a temporary arrangement. So much time has passed..." His eyes fell to the floor, and he was clearly thinking hard. It had likely been a good deal of time since he had given this any thought at all. He probably had begun to think Sophia would never come to see him. She almost never did.

"You've had it backwards all along, Sophia. Quill was never the enemy, Marlowe Dumar was! For what he did, for what hung around Quill's neck. I'd tell you more, but..." he licked his lips nervously. "He can find ways to me in here, and if he's alive, if he's still got the Coterie, he'll find out I told you, and he'll kill me. I need... something, I don't know. If I just tell you, you'll just leave me here."

"Things are never simple, are they?" Ashton asked Sophia. Everything that Jamie said could've been a lie, there was no reason to trust him, but Ashton could understand the plan. If Marlowe was out of the way, Kirkwall fell to Sophia and whatever the former Viscount had on Quill would've died with him. Still, though what Jamie said made sense, Ashton took it all with a grain of salt and kept a healthy amount of skepticism. He'd make a poor excuse for a guard if he lingered on every word a man said behind a set of bars.

Ashton shrugged, letting Sophia digest the information before continuing with the questioning. "That's if he finds out. As far as I can see, there's only us three, and I don't plan on reporting to the Coterie any time soon." Ashton then chewed on his lip for a moment, looking like he was in deep thought before turning back to Sophia, "Of course, he could already know. I mean, the guard hasn't exactly been the beacon of purity of late," Despite all of his attempts to correct that, there were still some elements he was unsure about. He turned back to Jamie and spoke again, "Someone could've seen us come to talk to you so... It might not matter if you tell us or not. If there's a chance that you could've told us anything, well... would Quill take that chance?"

With that, he stood and brushed the dirt off of his knee plates before standing at a military ease, his hands locked at the wrists behind him. "It's up to you. Personally, I think that us coming to see you already sealed your fate. If you don't tell us anything, then there's nothing I can do. But if you do, then maybe I can work something out, if Sophia wishes it," He said, glancing at her.

Sophia remained against the opposite wall, arms crossed, watching Jamie closely. She didn't respond to the idea of working something out, mostly because it was, as Ashton had made clear, irrelevant until Jamie supplied them with something. He'd given them a bit, in a sense, with the claim that Dairren had planned to betray the Coterie to her when she became Viscount. How that alone would somehow win her favor, when he'd just killed her father, was beyond her, but she supposed that detail was what Jamie was hiding from them still.

"I guess..." Jamie began, again thinking over things carefully. "Maker, he might be dead. The Coterie expected things from him too, with a tie established with the Viscountess and all. If they thought he was leading them on..." He glanced around, actually checking to see if anyone else was in earshot. Ashton's words were clearly weighing on him.

"Sophia, listen to me carefully." He sat up more attentively, taking a firmer grip of the bars and staring directly at her. "Marlowe Dumar's not your father. Dairren Quinn is."

He just stopped after that, as though that was supposed to suddenly make everything make sense, but Sophia stared at him, rather dumbfounded. "Sorry?" she said, trying to process it. Dairren Quinn was... no, Maker, that was too much. He was spewing as outlandish a claim as he could think of, to try and surprise her, and get her to give him something useful, or release him entirely. The surprise had worked, but the rest... she wasn't so sure about any of that.

"It's true, Sophia. It happened after the wedding. Your mother didn't want anyone to know, so she pretended like Marlowe was the father. I don't know how he found out, or why it took him so long, but when he did, Marlowe was going to have Quill executed. He was furious that his daughter, his perfect daughter, hadn't come from him at all. Quill had to flee the city, the Free Marches entirely. Marlowe pretended like he'd exiled him, conjured up some charges of colluding with the Coterie. When Quill returned, he used those charges to get the Coterie's trust, so he could cripple them at will when he made his move!"

Sophia could only continue to stare at him quite blankly. She'd known her mother and Dairren Quinn had grown up together, ran a mercenary company together. They were close friends, but... no, never like that. Why would she have married her father then? Social climbing? Her mother wasn't like that... was she?

"No, that's... that's quite ridiculous, Jamie."

"You see? This is why he couldn't just tell you. You wouldn't believe him. You'd hand him over to the guard, or see him dead. Marlowe refused to trust you with the truth when he learned it. Quill... Dairren wanted to be the one to tell you himself. He's always cared about you. He's always tried to look out for you, but... he told me, when we met, that he wasn't a good person, he didn't know how to be a good person. That was your mother's end of the arrangement, he said."

Could it be? Sophia was getting angry at herself for even entertaining the idea. Dairren had reached the rank of guard captain when Sophia was only five, serving seemingly with honesty and faith and loyalty until she was seventeen. She remembered him as a hard, even cold man to others, but to her... no, he'd clearly cared about her. He taught her to defend herself, when her father didn't want her getting ideas of fighting. He'd been more or less in the role of the favorite uncle for years. She would ask him about her mother a great deal. Why hadn't he ever told her then? Maybe... maybe he enjoyed things the way they were? Looking out for her, helping her, without being truly responsible for anything other than her safety, as guard captain? He didn't think of himself as a good man...

"There's no proof of any of this. Not anymore. I can't go and ask my father if it's true. I can't ask my mother. The only person I can ask is Dairren. I would very much like to pry the words from him instead of you." At least if she had him here, in Jamie's place, behind bars, she would know he wasn't a threat to her, using these elaborate lies to get under her skin, for some unseen purpose.

"If Quill's still alive..." Jamie began cautiously, as though he were treading on ice, "I can get him for you. I can get out ahead of this, find a way to get him to meet you privately, with your assurance that you won't kill or imprison him. He'll talk this through with you, I know he will." He then looked to Ashton. "You can do that, right? It's for a good cause. Think about it, the downfall of the Coterie at last. Quill can deliver. And if you think I'm just going to run... look at me, ser. I don't know how to live on my own. And if this doesn't work, then I'm probably dead anyway. Please... I want to help Sophia."

Ashton stared at the man for a time, with his hands still behind him, looking every bit the guardsman that he was. It was a lot to take in, that Marlowe may not have been Sophia's father, that this Quill could be, that all of this was some sort of convoluted plan to put Sophia in power and deliver the Coterie to her on a silver platter. "Why?" Ashton asked, "Why do you want to help so much? What do you owe Quill or Sophia?" he asked. He'd entertain nothing until he could ascertain Jamie's motives. There felt like it was more there than simple looking after his own hide.

"Isn't it obvious?" Sophia asked, but Jamie was quick enough to clear it up.

"I... Sophia never wanted me. I tried to be charming, but charming was never what she wanted. I... well, Quill found out, somehow, I don't know, and thought he could make use of me, maybe bridge the gap. Don't you have people in your life that you love, Sergeant? Wouldn't you do anything to help them, even if they decided they didn't love you back?"

Sophia was tempted to roll her eyes, but refrained. He was... a bit deranged, it was hard to deny, but if he could truly lead her to Dairren, maybe he could still be of more use than he was just sitting here in the Gallows. Even if everything he said about her birth was a lie. She would probably prefer it that way.

"And besides... what do I have left here now? I can never go back to my old life. At least I could still do some good this way, if I'm not wasting away in this cell."

Ashton sighed through his nosed and nodded, though the call wasn't his. He gestured to Sophia and led her out of Jamie's earshot. Satisfied that he couldn't hear, he began. "Look, you probably already know this, but he could be lying through his teeth. Attempted murderers aren't the most trustworthy bunch," He looked away for a moment and shook his head, making eye contact again, "But on the other hand... He could be telling the truth. The only person who can say for certain is Quill, and we still have no idea where he is." Ashton shrugged and waited a moment before going again.

"This is all yours, it's your choice. I'll help however I can." Ashton looked over her shoulder and down the hall where they left Jamie in his cell. "If you want to let him rot, we can leave and never think about it again. But if you want to do this," he said, looking back to meet her eye, "We can maybe work something out. The guard still has respect for you, and you were the injured party in this mess. If you were to ask a favor, I could probably get them to swing it."

Sophia didn't like this any more than Ashton did, but her perspective was a little different. She was pretty certain Jamie wasn't exactly right in the head lately, but she was also confident that whatever he thought, he didn't intend her harm. He'd demonstrated that he intended harm for people close to her, but as of now he didn't seem to have cause to go after anyone other than her father, who was no longer around to target.

She chewed softly on a nail while she thought, before finally settling on a decision. "I don't necessarily believe what he said, about my father and about Dairren... but he's our only way to him right now, if he's still out there. And if he's still out there, I want to talk to him." And if Jamie was telling the truth, well... she would cross that bridge when she came to it. It would be yet another complication in her life, in regards to the seat of the Viscountess, if it ever came to light as fact. But she didn't want to think about that now. She just wanted to resolve this.

"So... let's find a way to get him released. See if he can make good on his word to set up a meeting." She managed a small smile for him. "And thank you, Ash. You've always been steadfast for me in this. Even now that it just got a lot weirder." Answers were rarely as pleasant as she wanted them to be, and this case was no different.

"It always gets weirder," Ashton agreed, scratching the back of his head. "Don't worry about it, I told you I'd help, remember?"

Setting

4 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

Rilien was not a common sight in Kirkwall’s Alienage, elf or no. He stuck out a great deal, perhaps even more than its usual defenders did, and considering that one of those had a face full of scars and a bearing the furthest thing from servile and the other was a human, that was saying quite a lot. Even bereft of his usual silk and soft linen, in favor of coarser blue-dyed cotton and dark leather armor, he was exceptionally distinctive. The meeting place for this venture had been given as the shade of the large painted tree, however, and so, distinctive or not, that was where he chose to plant himself, in anticipation of a venture out.

Sparrow had been making attempts, insofar as someone with little knowledge and less tracking skill could, to locate her birth family, he understood. The excursion into the mountains outside Kirkwall was going to be the fruition of those inquiries, and he had asked him to be there. Rilien could not remember the names or faces of his birth parents, beyond a few very indistinct impressions, but he had never cared to. Not even when he was young, and yet complete. He therefore found it difficult to truly understand why she had any desire to find hers. They were not a part of her life, and had not been for a very long time. But whether he understood or not, she had asked this of him, and he was rarely inclined to deny her anything.

He was not presently alone. Amalia, his newest business partner, was beneath the tree as well, and the Dalish elf Ithilian. They were to be the remainder of the party for the trip, and this also he had no reason to object to. He knew little of either of them, truthfully, but it did not matter. He knew enough, and Sparrow wanted them here as well.

"She would be late to her own venture.” The observation was dry, but perhaps not entirely so.

Amalia’s lips twitched; she crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back against the trunk of the vhenadahl. Rilien spoke truly, to be sure. Still, she expected that Sparrow would be along as soon as it was physically possible for her to do so, given the importance of what they were doing. Amalia understood that her parents were apparently part of some nomadic group of elves and humans, though she chose to follow what seemed to be logic in not referring to them as a Dalish clan. She didn't know a great deal about them, but what she had picked up from Ithilian indicated that actual Dalish clans would likely disdain them a great deal. It seemed an unsafe way to live, but perhaps they saw it as better than a city. They may not even be wrong.

“She would,” Amalia agreed, “but she will be here, even so.” The one human in the group was also dressed for travel, with an eye for the dangers of the road, but out of consideration for the fact that this was supposed to be a peaceful meeting, she was only wearing two visible knives in the way of weaponry, and had a mere four hidden elsewhere on her person. It was about the minimum for leaving the Alienage, really.

Being at least in appearance obviously Dalish, it was less concerning for Ithilian to be armed, but he carried no more than his usual armament, the bow and two short swords, Parshaara at his belt. He was eager to be getting on with this, though mostly for Sparrow's sake. As far as he knew, the clan they sought didn't know they were coming, and would have no reason to stay put for too long.

Sparrow had taken the longest to appear at the designated meeting place—partially because she'd been worrying over what to wear, pacing in front of the mirror like a dog with no direction. She plucked through her wardrobe and tossed whatever article displeased her on a growing pile in the corner, much like she'd done with the riches she'd acquired in the Deep Roads. That pile was much smaller. It was a surprise it wasn't entirely depleted, but for once in her life, dingy taverns like the Hanged Man hadn't been receiving as much attention from her as it had been over the years. Too worried, she was. Instead of drowning herself in goblets of ale and wandering her ship like a sailor late for duty, Sparrow obsessed and fantasized about her meeting with her parents, heedless to the possibility that they may not even be living. With a snarling noise frothing from her lips, she finally donned a soft green shirt, strong leather pants, and quickly strapped on the armour Amalia had crafted for her. Why hadn't she thought of that before...

She ran the entire way, puffing through the empty alleys, and scrambling over stone fences to reach Kirkwall, and the others. They were all here, which meant she was the only one who was late. A crooked smile twitched across her face, accompanied by an awkward laugh. “You wouldn't believe how busy the streets were,” she gushed with sweeps of her arms, and bobbed her head. “Anyhow, now that we're all here,” she looked them over and took another deep gulp of air to still her beating heart. Her mouth felt as dry as a desert. Or bones. Bones chucked into the desert on a hot summer day. Or else anything equally uncomfortable. She regretted not bringing her water canteen. Unlike the others, Sparrow hadn't brought any weapons. Not this time. One dagger, she supposed, tucked into her boot, would be enough. Even if there were other dangers outside of Kirkwall, and they were met with hostility by the unknowing clansmen, she appeared nonplussed by any of those possibilities.

“Let's get a move on. Time's a wasting.”

The sheer magnitude of the forest troubled her as they walked, following Ithilian's surefooted directions. She believed she'd explored a great portion of the region—but found herself wrong on all accounts, at least, when it came to this particular path. How Ithilian navigated himself through all the shrubbery without getting lost was beyond her. She counted herself lucky that she wasn't the one leading. As they walked, the woods grew thicker and thicker; taller trees, thicker branches, with far less open spaces. Darker, almost. Her gaze drifted away from Ithilian's back and settled through the trees, to their sides, because she could swear... she heard absolutely nothing. The only advice Ithilian had given was to assume you were being watched at all times, because you probably were. From his directions, they had walked around the main pass to avoid banditry, and taken an indirect route.

“Stay your ground.”

A voice from her left... no, right. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled as she jolted to a halt, swinging her head to locate it. It seemed as if it echoed off the trees, and carried on a ways. Through an abyss of branches, yet she'd heard none snap at the strangers approach. She'd never been the most perceptive of hunters (or even one at all), but she had trouble even locating its source. Light filtered through the trees, and caught the reflection of an arrowhead nearby; notched, poised. Dark eyes narrowed, focused on the only other person recognized as Dalish.

Ar'din nuvenin na'din. Dirth. Why have you come?”

They were wise to be defensive, Ithilian thought. They traveled like Dalish and lived like Dalish, but if these rumors of shemlen in their midst were true, then they weren't really Dalish. It wasn't anything negative or positive, simply how it was. Ithilian expected they had run into trouble with other clans in the past, if they were pointing an arrow at him. The Dalish were typically quite welcoming to those that bore their marks.

"Andaran atish'an, falon. We mean you no harm, so I'd prefer if you didn't shoot me or my friends." He stood at ease, one foot elevated slightly upon a fallen log. His hands he rested on the pommel of one of his swords, fingers loose and not actually gripping the weapon. "Sparrow here," he gestured to the elf-blooded woman in question, "would like to meet your Keeper, Beragail. She is the Keeper of this clan, correct?"

There was a murmur of compliance coming from behind the combative archer. Another voice, higher pitched and much kinder. Another male, equally covert. Sparrow only now noticed the first of the two, following Ithilian's line of sight. The arrowhead dipped slightly lower. His knuckles, however, remained taut and white, ready in case any of them made ulterior movements. His eyes remained narrowed slits, searching them without restraint. It was only when an older man shifted from behind the tree; smiling disarmingly. He, too, was an Elf. Dalish markings claimed the majority of his face, but newer ones, in a lighter colour, had been added. Old, and faded patterns, casting a stark contrast against its lighter counterparts. The design was mostly of a tree, with the lighter parts signifying a Secret-Keeper.

He raised his hands defensively and then placed them palms-up, empty of any threats. No weapons, no deceit and no crinkles of distrust—like the younger man, hardly at ease beside the tree, but still stepping out from his vantage point. Ma serannas. For staying your blade.” He tipped his head to the side, meeting Ithilian's eyes; dismissing the hand that could, and would given the circumstances, draw its blade out in a matter of moments. He'd seen that look before, in his younger days. Dangerous men; Dalish or no. “I am Pilen, and he, Arros.” He paused briefly and shifted his gaze towards Sparrow, before continuing. “If you are aware of Beragail, or our clan, you must understand our caution.”

The archer's mouth twisted into a scowl, sour as curdled milk, as if he wished to speak but barely managed kept his tongue in check. Instead, he snorted and finally loosened his grip on the notched arrow, slipping it over his shoulder into its quiver and pinned the bow to his side.

Pilen seemed to consider the Dalish' words, without any haste. He looked at each one of them as if he were scrutinizing hoodlums caught trespassing on an old man's property. If the situation was awkward, he bore no indication that he thought it was so. This was, however, a strange assortment of strangers bandying through their woods. He had no doubt that the Dalish man had led them here, though he was curious as to why they had a Tranquil elf in their midst’s, as well as a human woman. He scratched at his chin and bobbed his head once. Twice. Not a Dalish ploy—that was for certain. “You are correct,” he admitted and hooked his thumb in the direction they had been travelling in, “you may follow us, but you are not welcome unless Beragail permits it.”

The archer made a hissing noise and shook his head, hopping down from the mossy outcrop and stalking ahead of them. Red-faced and shoulders hunched. Younger, by far.

Sparrow felt uncomfortable and giddy all at once. How did one even claim something as large as these woods? Dalish etiquette made no sense to her. Their words slipped out like silk, but jumbled in her ears like tangled cords. None of it made any sense, but whatever Ithilian had said seemed to have some effect. They weren't pin-cushioned with arrows, at least. She trekked beside Amalia and Rilien, as quiet as she'd ever been. Deeper and deeper into the woods, and finally, underneath overgrown thistles and thorns, they somehow appeared into a well-hidden grove. A cleared space with wagons and leather-made tents. Easy to tear down and move when needed. Most surprisingly were the people living there; humans and Elves alike. Some with vallaslin, and others, bare-faced, and perhaps, from different Alienages. The humans appeared like any other, adopting traditional garb, and simple clothes; laughing and eating together.

“Vir Adehlen,” Pilen hummed softly. Together we are stronger than one.

Amalia had thus far been silent. She was not here to take issue with the hostility directed against them by the younger of these guardians, nor indeed to do anything at all, save apparently be beside Sparrow whilst she underwent whatever she supposed was waiting for her here. Though she understood intellectually the importance of family, she still didn’t quite understand how this could be so significant, to meet with someone who had played no important role in Sparrow’s life. If Amalia ever knew who her own birth parents were, she would likely be concerned with them not at all. Perhaps a bit of idle curiosity, but nothing so important. The Tamassrans had raised her, and the Ariqun had advised her, and these were the people that had made her into the person she was. Even Marcus had a more significant impact on the person she had become than her parents. All of that, of course, was to say nothing of the exceedingly important contributions of those she had met since arriving in Kirkwall. She had thought this was something she and Sparrow had in common.

But nevertheless, she was also not here to tell her friend that what she believed was important was really not. Sparrow was not Amalia, and they were allowed to be different. As for these people… honestly, it looked like an Alienage with humans and aravels. They gave off not the air of guerrilla fighters, as she would have expected from a clan like Ithilian’s had apparently once been, nor even the hardened survivalists she would at least have suspected most other Dalish were. They were… soft, somehow. It was more a moving village than a band as such.

Amalia glanced over at Ithilian for a moment, raising a brow. She was interested to know what he made of it.

Ithilian was wondering if that young scout they'd run into was not the finest of their warriors. If so, this would-be clan was right to fear all outsiders. He was also glad that Emerion had not needed to come along for any reason. Regardless of their heated conversation and his subsequent attempts at altering his mindset, he would not have been able to contain himself here. Even Ithilian, who had been without a clan or any reliance on Dalish ways, was feeling old pride being dredged up to be slighted by this.

Amalia's glance caught his eye, though they were certainly in earshot of the clan elves of their present company, so he could not respond as bluntly as he might wish to. Instead, he directed his question at the elf who had greeted them, Pilen. "You must need to be extra careful, to avoid the other clans as well as the humans." All had some reason to dislike this place, after all.

“We are well aware,” Pilen replied with another modest smile. While some Elvish hackles raised around them—perhaps for good reason, and others seemed less so, only raising their heads away from conversation to offer Pilen their greetings and sparing them curious glances, before returning to their duties. Some cooked and stripped the hides from rabbits, cutting them up, while others prepped cooking pots and bustled around with various vegetables. They worked efficiently and laughed easily. One might have assumed there was nothing different from any ordinary day; as if there were no strangers walking into their camp. There was an impressive array of Halla in a makeshift fenced-in area. Mostly with wooden posts and ropes, tied in sailor knots, surrounding the enclosure. Anyone well-travelled would have recognized many different cultures amassed in one location.

“This must seem strange to you,” he trailed a finger across his chin, where the patterns were the heaviest, “I had thought so, too. Once.” He tipped his head towards the tree canopy and squinted against the sliver a light sifting through the leaves and branches, pausing briefly before regarding Ithilian once more. Out of all of them, he supposed he would have the most to say about the way they had chosen to live. Few Dalish understood their way of life, clinging to the past as they did. Humans thought of them as peculiarities, but still, laughably, as Dalish. They were different from them, that much was to be admitted. And the Elves, outside of their clan, looked to them as threats; as if they believed their scheme was to tear down their heritage and ancient ruins just to spite them. A foolish notion.

“Humans. Elves. They are not so different after all of our old aches, and our prides have been put to rest,” he continued while leading them further into the camp, nodding his head, “Imagine an old tree, bending against the wind. There are other trees around it, but it refuses to accept shelter. Cling to those grievances long enough and new growth is impossible.” A rough laugh paused him in his steps. “Had I been with you years ago, I would have cursed this,” he swept his hands towards the campfire, and everyone else around them, “Beragail is a strange woman.”

Sparrow lingered closer to Amalia, as they followed. It was only when they paused in front of another group that her throat tangled further. A couple of Elves, and two humans, clustered with bows and staves, speaking heatedly about something she could not hear. Something about moving camp again. She could not see most of their faces, but someone had tufts of snowy hair. Lighter than hers. And she was much shorter; arms crossed and talking vibrantly. Sparrow's hand snaked out and snatched Amalia's wrist while she ground her teeth together to keep them from chattering. She was sure her fingers trembled, but she kept focusing on her wrist.

Rilien wasn’t the sort to care much for the explanations or the politics of this kind of thing. None of this had ever been his world, and in all honesty, he probably would not have given any of it much consideration even if he were not Tranquil. He wasn’t Dalish, and he wasn’t even really part of any sort of elvish culture, not anymore. Nor did he subscribe to the sorts of soft-bellied notions of togetherness and union that fell so easily from the tongue of this Pilen. It was antithetical to everything he knew about the world—to the world as it really was. That made it illogical, and Rilien was nothing if not logical. Of all those present, he probably fit in least of all, given the way he was dressed and the way he carried himself; there was no common ground to be found, really. Besides, he wasn’t here to learn what these people thought was the right way to live; he was here because Sparrow believed she needed to be, though for how long, neither had he asked nor she specified.

As such, his attention had remained more or less fixed on her, aside from what was necessary to ensure that the were not taken by surprise in some manner. He noted her anxiety and the way she clung to Amalia; also, perhaps, the way it was fixed on a specific figure in the distance. The resemblances were clear even from this distance—that must be the infamous Beragail. Sparrow’s mother, if her memories served her well.

Moving up to her other side, opposite Amalia, Rilien folded his arms into his sleeves, glancing at her from the corner of one bright eye. "You did not come here only to observe. If fear stays you now, there will likely be no more chances.” He would go with her, if she wished, stay at her side just like this all the way up to her mother, but he could not and would not speak her words for her. However much easier it would be for someone with no anxiety to do so. Amalia's only contribution was a hum of agreement; she chose not to mention the increasing pressure on her wrist.

Sparrow gulped thickly. Her mouth was dry, so not even the comfort of saliva could quell her anxieties. It was not she who first approached, but the woman with snowy hair turned slightly to face them, and inclined her head, bird-like. However much fiercer. From the sharpness of her chin to her hawkish nose, even she could see the similarities in appearance. Though, her eyes were different. Much lighter, and blue, nearly as bright as Rilien's, but not quite. There was humour there, dancing a slow circle of curiosity around them all. Not quite a predator on the hunt, but a quiet, mischievous creature slinking through the trees, curious and clever. Her death-grip only relinquished Amalia's wrist when she realized she'd been holding on too tight, and she hung her head apologetically.

Aneth ara. Newcomers?” The woman finally spoke, nodding her head towards their group. Her voice was higher than hers; soft-spoken, and bright. Everything she was not. The telltale signs of a past long abandoned marked her face in colours of white and blue; unusual markings spanning the majority of her face. Her smile was friendly, wrinkling around to her eyes. There was a staff strapped to her back; decorated with white feathers, and green beads.

"No, no. They wished to speak to you. I felt no ill-intentions." Pilen tapped his bottom lip and hooked his thumb towards Sparrow, nodding. "Or her, specifically."

She knew that Rilien could not speak for her. Nor could Amalia, nor Ithilian. The woman who stood before her was her mother. She needed no introduction, needed no confirmation beyond seeing her face in person, and even as she stared at her, she could see that the recognition was one-sided. Her mouth worked over the words she'd so carefully practised, and she swore she could imagine the outcome—but nothing came out. Letting her gaze drift around the Dalish camp, or whatever it truly was, and Sparrow found that she could not recall any of her prior memories. There were trees, padding around barefoot and strange insects; afterwards, only pain and soon after rebirth, when she'd been inducted into the Qun and introduced to Amalia. She did not belong here. This was not her home. Even still, the tension sifted away from her shoulders, and she cleared her throat; applying another carefully cultivated mask.

“Ah yes, er. We've come from Kirkwall. This clan, I heard, has few friends. Trade must be difficult. And the area, as you probably know, is dangerous,” she spoke with her hands, “and I know you've no reason to trust us, blindly. I know I wouldn't, but there's channels that can be explored.” Sparrow prodded herself in the chest and then pointed at Beragail. “Between you and Kirkwall. We've a shop, with goods.” Ashton's shop. She sported a cheesy smile. “Kirkwall's a free port, after all. Things come in from the sea; you make Dalish things, we make everything you might need, and we trade. Good yeah?”

Beragail stared at her. Her smile did not slip away, only crinkled apologetically. “You are sympathetic merchants, then?” She paused and regarded Pilen and the others for a few moments before slowly shaking her head, fingers perched on her chin. Abelas, da'len. We thank you, but we will not be staying here for much longer. And I cannot risk the safety of my people in lands I am not familiar with. Rafael may know more. You may stay as long as you like.” Pilen had already murmured a soft farewell and retreated back towards the archer he'd been with previously.

Sparrow exhaled softly and nodded her head, forcing a wily grin on her lips, even though it quivered. “All's well. That's business for you. I tried my best,” she threw up her hands and shot Ithilian a look of defeat, “thanks for the hospitality, but we'll be heading back. It's a long walk.” She began walking in the direction they had come in, shoulders slumped, as if the business deal truly bothered her. She could feel the eyes trailing her back, but could only focus on keeping her face settled into a straight line; smother the quibbling and push back the sick lump in her throat.

They were alive, after all. And doing well from what she could tell. It was enough.

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

By the end of a very long day, Sophia was quite tired, and more than a little disappointed.

She walked with Nostariel and Ashton through Hightown, the two women accompanying the guardsman back to the barracks before they parted. The day had seen Sophia setting out on her own at first, at the behest of a merchant named Hubert, a man she had performed a service for some years ago, an incident involving a mine, and quite memorably, a fairly large dragon. The day's efforts hadn't been quite so remarkable, even if Sophia had hoped they might.

Hubert had requested Sophia's aid in uncovering the culprit behind attacks on his caravans between the Bone Pit and Kirkwall itself, and looked to Sophia for aid, since she had freely offered her services before for the sake of his miners. The day became interesting when a leak was found within those miners, one of them coming forward and confessing that he was leaking information about the time and routes of shipments. After shielding the worker from Hubert's outrage, and his desire to leave his body in a ditch on the coast, Sophia learned the the miner thought he was giving information to the Coterie.

He also had the time and location for the next attack. Rather than foolishly go alone, Sophia went quickly to Ashton, the nearest available ally, as she had to hurry. Nostariel simply happened to be on hand as well, and the three of them hurried out to the site, to find the supplies already hit. The culprits were still there, however, and a fight was forced upon them. It ended in blood, the last of the enemies escaping instead of being caught, the ones who did fight unfortunately suffering fatal wounds. Regardless, they didn't appear to be Coterie. They were too careless, too slow, and none had any identifying marks. A splinter faction, possibly, or an upstart gang. Maker knew there were enough in Kirkwall already.

None of the three had been injured enough to warrant care, so they instead returned to Hightown. Once inside the Keep again, Sophia stopped, tapping Ashton on the elbow with her knuckles. "Thanks again for the help, Ash. Thought we might have caught a break. How's that little project of ours coming, with the Gallows?" She imagined securing the release of a man who tried to assassinate the Viscount was no simple task.

"Slowly, like that's a surprise," Ashton said, shaking his head. The current captain was an older guardsman, and much more cautious than his predecessor-- and for good reason, seeing how Aatrox's tenure was cut short by some anonymous blades. Ashton believed the man was only trying to survive with his throat intact until he could safely retire. "The captain doesn't want to upset the Coterie and paint a target on his back, which I can't exactly blame him for... And let's not forget the little wrinkle that he's also an attempted assassin. That tends to stall things." He laughed dryly before shaking his head. He was trying, but that's all he really could do.

Nostariel, who had been caught up on all the goings-on regarding Jamie Arren and Dairren Quinn, pursed her lips at Ash’s response. No fault of his, of course, but she could definitely sympathize with how much Sophia wanted to resolve the matter. She couldn’t imagine how it felt, to have thought of a person as your parent for your whole life, to have loved and been loved by them, and then to discover that, not only might they not be your birth parent, but they may have done something truly cruel to the person who was. That was the part that would be difficult, she thought. Family wasn’t just about blood, after all. Nostariel’s opinion was that it was love more than anything that made a family, but those connections of lineage did seem to have a weight of their own all the same. However probable Quinn’s claim was or wasn’t, it was bound to be disconcerting until the facts were discovered.

Whatever was true, it was clearly bound up in the events of Sophia’s party. She wondered what else it might influence in the future. “You know who would know?” Recalling the party had given her an idea. “Your mother. You said she kept journals, didn’t she? Surely they’re around somewhere.” It was a bit of a long shot, maybe, but the chance for some independent evidence was one worth taking, maybe.

"They might be," Sophia said, admittedly caught a little off guard by the prospect of digging through her mother's things. Nor did she expect those journals to be among her mother's things, but her father's. He had guarded them closely, and that meant not leaving them to sit in a closet somewhere, keeping a silent vigil over darkness and holding memories inside. Not all that long ago Sophia would have been uncomfortable with the idea of exploring her father's territory, but now...

She had the best of friends with her, and her desire to get the right sort of answers, and closure, was able to overcome any misgivings she might have had about the idea. "We could look around for a bit. Care to join us, Ash?"

Ashton turned toward the direction of the barracks and shrugged. "Sure, anything to skip out on writing up a report." Out of everything he enjoyed about being a guard, the paperwork was most certainly not one of them. Anything he could find as an excuse to postpone doing it was well worth it. That, and a little bit of digging into their little Sophia's history enticed him, he had to admit.

She led the way up the familiar path to the private quarters for the Viscount and his family, though the steps felt unusual, a little like a dream. She hadn't once come back here since leaving for Lowtown. People were going to see this, inevitably, and speak of it. It hardly mattered to Sophia, though. Her course was fairly set, no matter how much she might want it to be different.

Her father's office was where they started. With no Viscount taking up the post after his death, the place had been left almost undisturbed. Even the servants seemed to have been allowed to lighten up in the work load, as a fine layer of dust covered most objects exposed to air in the room. Sophia took up searching the desk, feeling like she was standing inside of a ghost, picking up objects that she imagined her father leaving here for her just so before the Qunari dragged him out to take his head off.

"I've never heard either of you talk about your own parents much," she said, opening an unmarked book and skimming the first few pages. "Did you live with yours for long before being taken to the Circle, Nostariel?"

Nostariel examined the bookshelves in the office, running her fingers along the spines carefully. Most of them were not books in the conventional sense, more like collections of official documentation. She brought up a little dust with her fingertips and rubbed her thumb absently against it. “Honestly, I don't know.” She kept her eyes moving over the spines, but few of them bore much labeling—she might have to take them down and flip through before she had any idea of what they were. “I don’t remember anything before the Circle. I mean, they have to have been elves, of course, but I don’t know where from. Apparently I was brought there quite young—I slept with the staff before I discovered I had magic.” Her eyebrows furrowed slightly; taking down one of the books, she paged through it carefully.

“I guess they must have known, whomever they were. It makes me think they were probably mages themselves.” She’d made up a thousand stories about them over the years, of course, everything from forbidden lovers to apostates who’d wanted a safe and comfortable life for their child that they could not provide to even sometimes proud Dalish, and she stolen from them. It could have been anything, from the mundane to the outlandish, and it wouldn’t have made much difference, she supposed.

It wasn’t even impossible that at least one of them had been in the Circle with her all along, or that she was the child of a Circle mage elsewhere. They were usually taken from their parents, if it happened that way. That honestly seemed most likely. There were a few other children in the Circle like that, but they usually at least knew who their parents were. Some were allowed to write letters, though the Templars red them first.

Sophia wondered what that might be like, to not know anything at all about her parents, other than what could be reasonably speculated. Maybe Nostariel was even better off for it, less compelled to follow the same paths. Difficult for a mage, obviously, but she'd undoubtedly had figures within the Circles to perform the task of raising her probably better than many children had from their own parents. Perhaps that was better than thinking she knew her parents, only to find out as an adult that she might have been deceived for her entire life.

"And what about you, Ashton? Parents back in Ferelden somewhere?" He definitely didn't talk about it a great deal, but he wasn't a Kirkwall native. Sophia shut the book she was flipping through, before trying a few of the drawers beneath the desk. One of these was locked tightly shut. Her pulse quickened a bit, as she thought she may have found something worthwhile.

"And you wouldn't happen to know how to pick a lock, would you?" It wasn't like it was breaking and entering or anything. This was still her home, after all, at least until the nobility decided they wanted to give it to someone else.

Ashton turned away from the bookshelf he was investigating and saw the lock Sophia was dealing with. "As a matter of fact, I would happen," He said, plucking the dagger he kept in his boot. He crossed the room to where Sophia was and noted the lock she was talking about. "Just don't tell the other guards, they tend to frown on stuff like that." Once upon a time, Ashton the guardsman was Ashton the smuggler, and all good smugglers knew how to pick a lock. Though it was perhaps best that the guard didn't know about that section of his life. He held the dagger like he would a quill and slipped the tip into the lock and began to feel around for the tumblers.

"Somewhere, though I couldn't tell you where. The illustrious Bann Atlas Riviera was my father, Lady Kendra my mother. Don't know what either of them looks like nor do I especially care. There was very private incident involving my mother walking in on my father, a couple of the housemaids, a manservant, and a small animal that led to a very public debacle. From what I understood, it tore the Bannorn apart, and left my parents destitute." Ashton laughed at this before he paused picking the lock and looking over to Nostariel, "Did I tell you about the small animal?" He said before returning to the lock, a silly grin plastered to his face.

“Uhm… no. No, you did not.” Nostariel was quite sure she would prefer if he continued to omit this information.

"They didn't raise me, thank the Maker. I was given to my aunt on my father's side, Abigail. Auntie Abby, I used to call her. My grandparents disowned her when she married a commoner, a hunter by the name of Harlan Jerall. They... Couldn't have children of their own, so they raised me like one of theirs. Uncle Harlan was a hard man to please and stiff, but he taught me everything I know and tried his damnedest to make sure I didn't end up like my father. I'd like to think he did alright." There was a click then, and Ashton withdrew the dagger and slipped it back into the sheath in his boot. With his job done, he took a step back, but still lingered over Sophia's shoulder, curious as to what he'd just unlocked.

It was probably times like this that earned Ferelden people the moniker of doglords, said with the most negative connotation possible. Of course, they seemed to wear it with pride instead. They certainly did love their hounds. "I'd say he did quite fine, myself," she mused, taking hold of the desk drawer and pulling it slowly open.

Inside, she found a number of personal effects, and about half of them had belonged to her mother. Much of it wasn't all that important; a bracelet, a letter opener, an elaborately plumed black feather quill, three different ink jars, and no journals. It seemed like there was a spot for one, however. A blank space in the drawer where it didn't seem to make sense to just leave it empty. Maybe it was the shift in the dust that caught Sophia's eye. She set two fingers down upon the spot.

"There's... nothing here. There should be something here, shouldn't there?" A hint of frustration crept into her tone. That her friends should be at peace with their lineage, that they could be left to focus on other, more important matters, while she was stuck trying to unravel a mystery she'd never known existed until recently.

A soft, light blue ribbon caught Sophia's eye, and she slipped a finger through it, pulling from the drawer a necklace, a clear white pearl set in the center of a small silver floral pattern. She wrapped the ribbon around her hand several times, pulling it closer and holding it up to the light from the window. It gleamed at her, but offered no answers.

"I wish I could talk to her. Just once."

“I know how that feels.” That much, at least, they had in common. Nostariel had long ago accepted that she would never know from whence she had come, but that didn’t stop her from wondering, occasionally. Who they had been. What they had been like. Maybe it was better not to know though. Working her way through the rest of the books produced nothing of interest, and she sighed, dusting off her hands and shaking her head to indicate her lack of success. “I don’t suppose there’s anywhere else you might like to look? Or shall we go see what outrageous stories Varric is telling today instead? At least they probably won’t be about us.” It might be a ‘drinks at the Hanged Man’ sort of night, after the first part of their day, though Nostariel herself still didn’t partake. She could at least be there for a friend, if Sophia were so inclined.

"I doubt that. Think he'd pass up the chance to tell a story while we're sitting right there? Man knows how to play his audience." Though he spoke, he still looked into the opened drawer. There was a spot for a journal, yet no journal. Just some ink and a quill. There was something off, though Ashton couldn't quite place his finger on it. "Here," Ashton said, gently nudging Sophia so he could get a better look, "Let me see."

Ashton gingerly fingered through the contents of the desk, examining the jars and running a finger through the dust, brushing up against the quill's plume. he hesitated for a moment, staring it before shaking his head. "No... You don't.." He murmured, plucking the quill up and examining it in the light. "You don't think...?" He turned it around, knocking off a sheath of dust and noted how the tip was flawless, as if it never been used before. Ashton closed his eyes and sighed deeply, "The sly bastard..." He said, shaking his head, "I don't think we were the first ones to get into this drawer," He said, holding the quill out for Sophia to see.

"This man's going to drive me into drinking again."

Sophia had to stare blankly at it for a moment before she understood that it was some kind of message left behind by Dairren, or an associate of his if not the man himself. So there was a journal to be found... but it was likely in the same place that he was. Which made it hardly helpful. She sighed tiredly, looking at the necklace cradled in her hands for a moment before she carefully slid it into a pocket.

"Hanged Man it is." She normally grew annoyed at the constant noise from the place, but tonight it would be lovely to just have something else to fill her head with.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon

Earnings

0.00 INK

"Everyone's in position Lieutenant."

The night was chilly in Kirkwall's streets, the wind gusting just enough to produce a whistle. The full moon above illuminated the scene in front of Ashton. Guardsmen outfitted in their best full plate and weaponry stood at the ready, lined up along the side of a door leading into a nondescript warehouse. Stacked up against the other side of the door waited the Argent Lions company, their commander standing next to Ashton. He nodded at the guardsman and turned toward Lucien. "Lieutenant," he murmered, chuckling mostly to himself, "Anyway, here's the plan. We throw open the door, I throw this wonderful little beauty down," he said, pulling out an arrow from his quiver and showing it to Lucien. Where a broad head tip should have been was a small burlap sack tied on tightly instead.

"Then shields go in first, followed by the swords and what-have-you, and then the archers. When the archers get in, they scan the balconies and clean up whatever the soldiers miss, sound good? It should be routine, really," Ashton said, not only to Lucien, but to the men collected nearby. The warehouse that they were lined up against was allegedly a lair for one of the gangs that stalked Kirkwall. Many guardsmen reported increased bandit activity around the area, and further investigation revealed the warehouse as their most likely base of operations. It was their job to do everything they could to see these attacks stop.

While the guard could've, and would've raided it on their own, the Captain (at Ashton's behest) had decided to enlist the aid of the Argent Lions. The protection of Kirkwall would be easier to maintain if they recruited the help of the local mercenary outfit, after all. It also helped that its commander was a personal friend of Ashton's, who'd also like to see the city kept safe. The job they were currently on was a probationary contract, to test the Lions and see if they were suitable for further contracts from the guard. Ashton, for his part, needed no convincing, since he knew first hand what the man at his side was capable of. "Quick and clean if everything goes right."

“So it is.” Lucien nodded slightly, making a silent hand signal to the men and women in the front of his line. His own approach was slightly different, because he had his swifter, stealthier types running in behind the shield line, positioning themselves already as the lighter swords followed, but that was just a difference in his personnel balance and numbers rather than a fundamental tactical disagreement. Never one to lead from behind, he took his spot at the vanguard of his men, hefting Everburn into his hands before taking a spot in front of the door.

With a soft countdown, he felt the people behind him tense and prepare themselves, and then, with a couple of well-placed kicks, he broke the lock on the door and the halves slammed inwards. Ducking to allow for Ashton’s cover shot, he proceeded in after it, followed by the shield-bearers from both groups, weaving one guardsman followed by one Lion, and so on, filing in and then fanning out into a large wall that would allow the rest to enter with ample protection.

The arrow that whizzed over Lucien's head struck the far wall violently exploding into a bright white light, blinding those who hadn't shielded their eyes in time. Ashton had been explicit with his men and Lucien with what the arrow would do, and he hoped that they hadn't forgotten. Opening his own eyes, he noted that the only ones who seemed to be stumbling were the bandits beyond the door. Slipping with the archers near the rear, he was just in time to hear Lucien recite his demands of surrender. Ashton smiled to himself, some things never changed.

“Dockside Razors. You are under arrest on suspicion of smuggling, theft, and murder. Please lay down your arms and surrender peacefully.” They never did, but it was important that he always asked.

Ashton was pleased that Lucien did that part of his job for him, his voice didn't carry near as well. A few of them threw their weapons down and simply laid down to be arrested. The rest, of course decided to try their hand at fighting their way out. He saw an archer on the balcony fumble with his bow, and as soon as he nocked an arrow, Ashton resolved the problem for him, firing an arrow of his own into the bandit's chest. "We won't ask nicely again!" A few more decided against it, but still a majority tried to ready their weapons. "Have it your way," Ashton stated, nocking another arrow.

Diverting his quicker agents to get in, grab those who had voluntarily surrendered, and get out, Lucien and his four shieldbearers joined the additional five guardsmen of similar ability and started to push back against those that remained fighting. The light swords and spearmen of the Lions came next, the latter leveling their lances over the shoulders of their more heavily-protected comrades. The gang, being mostly comprised of lighter rogues and the very occasional warrior, weren’t really equipped to deal with such an assault, and almost immediately scattered, attempting to remain mobile and flank. Ashton’s archers took care of most of those who got too close, and the light swordsmen cleaned up the rest, flashing in and out among their comrades with precise, clean timing.

Everything was looking to be in order when the lightning struck from up above, crashing into the shield line with a great deal of force, breaking it and knocking several of the soldiers back. It didn’t look like any of them were dead, but a few were likely unconscious, and unmoving for the moment. Lucien followed the arc’s trajectory upwards. The warehouse, like many in the city, has an upper level with several storage rooms behind, and it was from the overlook that the mage had shot the lightning. Nothing in the intelligence they’d been given had indicated the need to prepare for magic, and the absence of that information meant, of course, that they had not. With Lucien’s light fighters mostly preoccupied getting the non-hostile Razors out of the area, their options were limited. The Guard’s light sword likely wouldn’t reach the mage before he loosed more magic, and the archers that had moved to fire were already being blocked by more magic.

“Commander!” The voice drew his attention, and he turned slightly, to note that Estella was now at his elbow, shortsword drawn and her other hand empty. “Let me.” Lucien was not fond of the idea—Estella was still very green compared to most of his recruits; this was her first proper operation. But she was likely the only person mobile enough to get there in time and also have some measure of protection from the magic. The choice was clear. He couldn’t let the rest of these people take unhindered fire from the mage.

“Go. We’ll get you there. Ash! Cover fire?” It would be much more likely to succeed if she didn’t face too much impediment on the way, after all.

"Ask and receive!" Ashton barked, nudging the elbows of the two archers on his either side. "Staggered fire, I want a constant stream," he told them, choosing to go first, loosing the first arrow into the group of bandits in between Lucien's man (or woman, in this case) and the staircase leading to the mage. It was supposed to be quick and clean, and this was becoming neither quick, nor clean. He was going to have a discussion with whoever the intelligence came from, as a mage is something that should've come up in the reports.

Estella’s heart was loud in her ears as she sprinted forward. She wasn’t sure how it was that Lucien and his friends did this sort of thing on a regular basis, because she was pretty sure something was going to rupture any second now. Fortunately, there wasn’t enough time to think, only to act, else she might well have wondered whether she was capable of this at all. But eight months of training with a Tranquil taskmaster left little room for any of that now—she was just trying to remember her lessons. Keep your eyes open. Don’t lose your awareness of your surroundings. A flash from the corner of her eye, and she hit the ground, rolling forward and away from the second blast of lightning, which scorched the ground where she had just been standing.

Adjusting her grip on her shortsword, Stel pulled in another breath and kept going, trying to dodge around the people who noticed her and tried to divert their course to attack her. Most of them fell to arrows, or to Lucien, who’d kept pace behind her as long as he could, and was now engaging several of her would-be assassins. Her lungs were burning by the time she came up to the staircase, perpendicular to her. Choosing the highest elevation she could, she jumped, using her free hand to brace her as her feet cleared the rail and landed with a soft thud on the other side.

Another spell, this time a stone fist, flew for her, catching her in the shoulder with enough force to knock her down the stairs she’d just skipped, and she rolled painfully, cracking her head on the first stair and coming to a stop in an upside-down sprawl.

I can’t.

You must.

Sucking in another breath, Estella coughed. Fortunately, the mage had been sufficiently enough distracted by something that he wasn’t following up on his attack. With some effort, and pushing back a wave of nausea from the head injury, Stel righted herself, getting her feet underneath her and hauling herself back into a stand. Gritting her teeth, she propelled herself back up the stairs, noting that the mage was charging another spell to hurl at a large cluster of people, including her commander. “I don’t think so,” she muttered, at least as well as she could with her jaw still mostly clamped together. Her first instinct was to throw herself at him, but Rilien’s cool tones interceded in her head, redirecting that instinct to something more subtle and much more effective.

Still, she had to be fast. Bounding forward, she brought the shortsword down with both hands on the hilt, biting deep into the mage’s wrist. He’d heard her coming and turned to meet her, but he had no time to change his spell to something that would block her, and he obviously had little idea how to handle himself at such close range. He lashed out with another stonefist, but she leaned to the side to avoid that one, and followed up by stepping in close, thrusting the sword for his throat.

She was unprepared for how exactly it would feel, when the flesh gave way under the blade, and she’d actually used too much force, which, with nowhere else to go, sent them both over the rail and to the floor below. As before, Estella landed hard, but she was quicker in scrambling to her feet this time, casting her eyes around for more foes.

Unnecessarily in the end, for the last of the others were just being dispatched by the rest of her allies. In the end, the raid had killed none of the guards or the Lions, and though several of each had been knocked out by the lightning, the worst injuries were actually hers. Nobody else had anything more dire than a few cuts and scrapes. Lucien smiled at her, placing a hand on her uninjured shoulder, and then nodded to indicate that she should go have Idris look after her.

The chevalier himself addressed Ashton. “Seems to me your intelligence network could use a little, well… work.”

"Intelligence is stretching it," Ashton said, scanning the balconies once more just in case. "You'd think they'd notice someone able to whip lightning and rock around with their mind." Satisfied that everything of immediate danger had been taken care of, Ashton went to see to his men. There had been no causalities, and only minor injuries, a fact that he was immensely relieved to hear.

Pleased that everyone was on their feet, he began to divvy up the chores. "Sergeant Vesper," Ashton called aloud, and a woman in guard plate and a shield approached him. "Sir?" She asked with a salute. One Ashton returned that looked oddly natural for him in his uniform. "Take some of the guard and Lions and escort the prisoners to the dungeons. While you're at it, pick two more to stand guard outside the door-- Make sure they're suitably intimidating. We're not open to the public," He said with a grin. The Sergeant nodded with a smile of her own, and immediately went about following her orders, picking one Lion and one guard for the door. The rest set about the clean up.

Turning back to Lucien, Ashton scratched his head and nodded, "Sorry about that. I had no idea there was a mage, else I would've prepared better. You can bet whoever is in charge of telling me things are going to hear me tell them some things." Ashton said, a rosy tint seeping into his cheeks. He waved it off easily enough and patted Lucien on the shoulder. "Still, the good guys are still alive and the bad guys aren't or in chains. I'd call it a win, wouldn't you? Your men did well, escpecially the girl... Is she the one Rilien is...?" He trailed off. The way she went for the mages throat eerily reminded him their tranquil friend.

Lucien glanced over to his left, where Estella had shed her light armor so that Idris could have a look at her shoulder. He’d seen the tumble down the stairs—that was one of those things that was painful for anyone, and potentially fatal as well, no matter how well-trained or strong one otherwise was. She seemed fine, though, but Idris would take care of her even if she weren’t. Presently, though, she was smiling slightly, as several of the other had gathered around her to offer their congratulations on her success, however lacking in grace it had been. Returning his eyes to Ashton, he nodded. “Along with the drills she runs with the rest of us and the practice late at night she thinks I don’t know about, yes. She seems well-suited to it.”

The topic returned to business, though, and Lucien frowned slightly. “Apostates do have to know how to hide well. But I see your point.” He paused for a moment, then smiled slightly. “Command suits you well, you know. Shall I be calling you Guard-Captain Riviera at some point in the future, perhaps?”

"I sincerely hope not, because then I'd have to start calling you Commander Drakon and that'll just make things weird. I think Ashton will do," He said with a chuckle. "Though Guard-Captain Riviera does sound nice. Come on," Ashton said, gesturing with his head that they take the stairs. "Let's see if we can find any clue to who's supplying them. You can buy a sword in the market, but swords are harder to get. We like to look out for bulk purchases," he said with a wink. Buying a volume of weaponry only meant a few things, and not many of them good.

They climbed the stairs to where the mage had been and Ashton led the way into the storage rooms. Inside there were crates, casks, and boxing holding who knows what, and against the far wall there was a desk with a candle above it. "I'll have a few of my men come up here inventory all of this in a minute," he said, cracking a top of one of the crates and curiously peered inside.

“It’s actually quite nice when there’s a mage in the group,” Lucien noted, stepping into the room behind Ashton and heading towards the desk set up in a corner. “If they were ever in a Circle, chances are good that they know how to read—and write.” Indeed, there seemed to be some parchment on the desk itself. From the wet ink and the quill laying out next to it, the mage had been in the middle of writing when they had so rudely interrupted. Lucien did not touch the implements, however, as the Lions were not on full contract with the Guard. It was better for the investigation if the only people who handled potential evidence were the ones who had official ties with the Viscount’s (currently mostly empty) office.

“Ashton.” He gestured the other man over, gesturing with his hand to indicate the documentation. In the short silence that accompanied the other man’s perusal of the desk, however, he spoke again. “I have been meaning to thank you, though. Sophia tells me you have been extremely helpful regarding her… family matters.” He wished he could be more helpful himself, but he was admittedly ill-suited for most of the tasks involved. It left him feeling a little frustrated, but he had learned long ago to appreciate that there were some things other people would just do better than he did, and to be glad when those people were his friends.

Ashton turned and made his way to the desk Lucien was at. "A pretty good bonus along with being able to throw fireballs and boulders, I'm sure," he said with a chuckle. Chances were, the mage wasn't brought on just because he could read and write. Or maybe he was the leader of the whole thing. If he was, then he really needed to get in touch with the person who investigates these things. "Don't worry about it," he said, waving him off, "I told her I'd help her with this. It's just lucky that I can do it in a more official sense now. She'd do the same if it were any of us." She was a good person like that, the least Ashton could do was help her with this.

He then began to carefully finger through the contents of the desk, careful not to upset or ruin anything that may be important later. It didn't take long, however, and he found something that caught his interest. He plucked up hand written note and read it aloud.

R,
The fee has risen. If you want more equipment, I expect more jingle in the next drop.
-G


"Should've paid for it," Ashton mumbled to himself, before sitting the note down. "It's a start. Maybe if we can find who wrote this note we can get some of the weapons off of the streets." Shaking his head, he shrugged. "But that's the guard's problem, not yours. Lucien, I think you and your men's work is done here. They performed flawlessly, as expected. You'll get a sterling recommendation from me and mine." Ashton's hand went to his forehead in a salute, but a smile broke any illusion that it felt anything but weird. Chuckling, he patted him on the shoulder again and nodded, "Tell your men next time I have a night off, I'll meet them for Wicked Grace."

“Don’t expect to win. Estella plays cards like Rilien does, now.”

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

Amalia was an exceedingly rare sight at the Hanged Man, having been there exactly twice in all the years she had lived in Kirkwall. Obviously, someone who did not drink and could cook quite well for herself—and who did not enjoy loud, debaucherous forms of socializing—had little need to visit the place. Still, her lack of familiarity was not at all evident in the way she conducted herself. Lucien had told her which rooms Sophia occupied, and she knew to head straight for the back. Mounting the stairs, she came upon the door she was looking for in short order, cocking her head to the side when she found it cracked open.

Sophia was visible through the sliver of open space, apparently bent over some reading, further stacks of it beside her. Perhaps now would be an inconvenient time. If so, she might still make use of it to find a better one. Rapping the doorframe with her knuckles, Amalia pushed open the portal with her fingertips, stepping smoothly inside. ”I thought those who grew up a certain way were more inclined to ward themselves from danger,” she commented, her tone thoughtful more than anything else. “And yet were I an assassin, I am afraid this would have been simple.” She leaned back against the door, crossing her arms beneath her chest.

“May I ask what holds your attention so perilously?”

Sophia was indeed taken by surprise, for one because she did not expect a visit from Amalia here in the Hanged Man, and also because she... was making a joke? Possibly? It was difficult to tell, but Sophia smiled a bit awkwardly anyway. "Should I be epxecting assassins? It seems like everyone wants me quite alive and well, for a job I'm supposed to be doing. It's good to see you too, Amalia." She supposed a few people might still benefit from her being removed, but most of them wouldn't resort to hiring assassins.

She shut the thick tome in her lap, looking down at it somewhat distastefully before setting it upon her desk, leaning back in the chair in which she sat. "Old records, mostly, from years ago. I'm... looking for someone. It's a personal matter. Sadly, none of this seems to be helping. It's all too official to be of any real use." The details that would interest her were not the things kept in a guard captain's reports, or historian records. She needed personal accounts, journals and diaries. She needed what Dairren had taken from her, from her father.

Sophia might have given Amalia more information, but it seemed unnecessary to involve her. Ash already had all his resources on the job, and while Amalia was extremely proficient in matters of subterfuge, it seemed increasingly clear that the best way to get Dairren out into the open was to play his game.

"Come in, please. What brings you here? Not the drinks, I take it." This place seemed almost the antithesis of Amalia's demeanor.

Amalia trusted that if she would be of use, someone would have requested her assistance by now, and so, given the absence of such a request, any further inquiry was unhelpful on her part. It was a personal matter, and that was that. It was no longer her business to pry into the business of others, and even had it been, she probably would not have done so directly. Spying was interesting work, to be sure, but she didn’t mind that she no longer had to enact it. At the invitation, she moved slightly further into the room, selecting a chair and sitting at it, pulling her legs up underneath her and wrapping her hands comfortably around her ankles.

“Indeed not.” She shook her head slightly, recalling the typical behavior of those under the influence of such substances. It was not something she saw the appeal in, even though she was no longer bound by the Qun’s injunction against it. “I was hoping you could help me with something, though if you wish to return to your… records, or pursue something else related to your personal matter, I would understand.” She paused for a moment, as if to check for the emergent excuse, but when none was immediately forthcoming, she explained further.

“I think it is… rather obvious, from my manner, that I am not… like other people.” This observation was accompanied by a small furrow of her brow. “It does not bother me, exactly, but… I think it may be more useful to me now than it was before to be able to act… more human.” Qun-bound or not, she was still Qunari, from her words to her walk. She didn’t necessarily desire to change that about herself, only to blunt it a little. In a way that would make sense. She could pass well enough, blending into a crowd and the like, but those things were only temporary. She knew how to feign humanity, not to live it.

“There are many things I must know in order to do that, but I think it would help to start where our last discussion left off. I know why social classes exist, but not how they interact. Not truly. I would know modes of address, rules of etiquette, how to comport myself as you do, from the talking to the eating to even the dancing, if you will instruct.” As it was, she knew better how the elves did these things than anyone else.

“Of course, if you are disinclined, I shall not be offended.”

Sophia couldn't help but find it a bit funny, a half smile creeping onto her face, though she felt a bit poorly about it. "You... want me to teach you how to dance. Among other things." She could see the benefit as well, of course. Amalia didn't have the most approachable manner, at least to those not of the Qun, which now made up the entirety of the people around her. Sophia could help with all of it, certainly, but...

"I... might not be the best woman to ask, Amalia. I can teach you all of that as I learned it, but I don't know how much of it will actually be useful here. In Lowtown, that is. Everything is different here, the addressing, the etiquette, the bartering, the eating, and most certainly the dancing." It still felt like a foreign city on some days to her, most commonly when she was alone, without the usual routines of the upper classes surrounding her.

"In truth, I'm still learning how to live here myself. This is nothing like what I've known my whole life." It didn't seem like as great a leap as departing from the Qun, but the gap between human upper class and lower class was large indeed. And like with Amalia and the Qun's teachings, she could not simply stop being a woman born and bred in Hightown. She could change herself, but it was taking a great deal of time, and no small amount of patience.

The nagging thought that she wasn't supposed to be heading this way didn't help matters any.

Amalia shrugged slightly. “Then teach me what you do know, and I will tell you what I have seen, and perhaps together we will learn what we need to.” She was quite aware that Sophia was more likely to understand noble manners than common ones, but this perspective was also necessary for a complete understanding of what it meant to live in a place like this. Besides, there was no telling when knowing what Sophia could teach would be useful. She had given up on attempting to predict much about where she would end up and what she would need to know there. Certainly, she had never pictured any of this. But that was a failure of her imagination, not a fault in her circumstances, and it was one she wished to rectify.

“Is it so strange, that I should want to know?” She hadn’t missed that the request was at least somewhat amusing to Sophia, and while she was far from offended, that was not to say she understood the reason for the humor the other woman clearly saw in it. “This is my life now. It is… what I have chosen. I cannot let myself do it poorly.”

"No, no, not at all strange," Sophia said, attempting to backpedal a bit. Her look became somewhat apologetic. "These things are always just a little... well, funny. To watch. And not just you, certainly. Ashton in a guard uniform? Nostariel at a noble party? Me living in the Hanged Man, of all places? We make choices sometimes that don't seem like they make sense for us, even if we know full well the reasoning behind them. I don't know why I find it funny... I just do." It was also possible that Amalia simply hadn't developed very much of a human sense of humor yet. But surely Sophia Dumar living in a small room in the Hanged Man was funny to a great many people. And she had decided that it was simply not worth it to take herself too seriously. Laughing at her own struggle to adapt made it a lot easier than stewing over doing it just right.

"Forgive me, though, I would love to help how I can. I needed a break from reading, anyhow." She said this with a slightly scornful glance at the things she had yet to begin reading. If Dairren had earned his nickname from writing many interesting things, he certainly hadn't included any of them in his guard paperwork. "Shall we start with forms of address, then? The two you'll need to use most often in the Marches are serah and messere. Serah is used when greeting someone of equal or lesser rank to yourself, whereas messere is for respectfully addressing one of greater status..."

If Amalia was good at anything, she was good at operating within determined sets of rules. She could navigate through a system with strict requirements on behavior and decorum, smoothly adapting herself and changing whatever facets of her tone, demeanor, body language, or appearance were necessary to pass muster. That said, she really didn’t understand why half of the things she was learning were necessary. Qunari titles were informative. The rules regarding the preparation and consumption of food served a purpose, usually for the health of the people involved, and to make sure that there was enough in an environment that was not always resource-rich. She was unsure why a separate fork was necessary for each course of a formal dinner, but she tried to table her skepticism and learn the details faithfully.

She nodded at the end of Sophia’s lecture, indicating that she had retained everything. She had stopped a few times to ask questions, or inquire into the history of a custom, if Sophia knew it, but otherwise, she had been an attentive listener and not much else. It was admittedly quite interesting, to say the least. “You were right,” she said at last. “We have… made very odd choices. I should think a Qunari in the Alienage is just as peculiar as yourself here. Perhaps there is some humor in it, though I did not think it very easy to find, at the time.” She’d felt more like she was being torn in two than anything. On the one hand, there lay everything she had ever known, everything she needed to know. On the other… there had been many things she did not yet understand, and yet they felt so crucial somehow, so important.

Here, Amalia paused for a moment. “I… am sorry, for how it happened to you. The Arishok’s actions were not mine, and I cannot apologize for them. All the same, I understand now, what it is to have people I do not want to lose, and I am sorry you lost yours.” The gravity of Sophia’s losses would not always have been evident to her, but it certainly was now. She could also understand how conflicted the other woman must feel, about what she wanted to do with herself now.

"Not all of them, thank the Maker," Sophia said, turning significantly more solemn, though her bearing was not overly heavy or weighed down by the words. "Even if it may have felt like it at the time. I am more sorry that I almost caused the people I care about to lose me. The Arishok was hardly alone in the responsibility for my loss, even if it was his blade that took my father from the world. You yourself removed the other party, if I recall correctly." And it wasn't as though she could forget the night her brother died, and Mother Petrice soon after.

She wondered for a moment how Amalia would have reacted, in a situation like hers. Now that Amalia professed to having people in her life she did not want to lose... if one was lost in front of her, would she respond irrationally, with more violence, fighting that was entirely unnecessary? Sophia was certain that Amalia the Qunari would not have done so, if the way to the greatest good was to stay her blade. But Amalia was clearly no longer that cold of a woman. Perhaps she had never been. Sophia could not say whether or not she believed it was a good thing.

It seemed warm of her to admit her attachments, to confess that there were people in the world she cared for enough to behave irrationally for their benefit, but... surely that was not a quality of a good ruler? For Sophia was most certainly that way, always fighting off a wretched fear that her loved ones would come to harm out of her inability to defend them. Making sacrifices was never something she had been able to do. She was too human, perhaps.

"I hope this turns out well for you, Amalia. It could not have been easy, to watch the others leave and decide not to join or follow them." It wasn't something Sophia would have predicted when they'd first met. She had seemed so... immovable in her beliefs. "Personally, I'm not sure I've ever been happier than in the last year or so. But I'm beginning to see that this won't be permanent for me." Like Lucien, she could not turn away from duty forever. She could... but she would likely never forgive herself for it.

“Little if anything is truly permanent,” Amalia pointed out quietly. “If that is how you feel, then enjoy this while you can. Do not ruin it by thinking only of what must eventually come. Take the time this gives you to bolster yourself for what is to be, but do not let the future haunt you any more than you let the past.” That was the attitude she herself was taking towards life at the moment, anyway. Perhaps it would be of some benefit to Sophia as well. Amalia did wonder, from time to time, if the life she had now would not eventually come to an end as well. There were certainly many ways in which it could. But always letting that occupy one’s thoughts was no way to live. That much at least, she knew very well indeed.

“And thank you. I am rather hoping it turns out well, also, though I know not what that means, exactly.” She was content now, but she was not blind to the fact that there were still unsettled matters. She was still without a place, in some sense. She still didn’t fit quite the way the others she knew did, into this place, this life they had all built together. But she would try. Because, however unlikely it seemed that she’d be able to, she wanted to, more than she could recall wanting anything so specific, ever.

Letting out a soft breath, she stood. “Well, I believe you have satisfied my curiosity on matters of address and etiquette for now, but I still do not know how to dance as humans do. The one I played at your birthday… this is called the waltz, yes?” The humor on her face indicated that she knew it was—she knew how to play one, after all, but it wasn’t for the answer that the question was asked.

"Yes, indeed," Sophia said, also rising. "I'm no Orlesian dance instructor, but thankfully we aren't playing the Game just yet." She supposed the best way to explain things would be to demonstrate and practice. She almost wished Ashton or Nostariel would walk by, to see the noble and the ex-Qunari waltzing in a backroom of the Hanged Man, to the ill-fitting music being played outside the door.

Surely that would be funny.

Setting

1 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel

Earnings

0.00 INK

Rilien lightly sidestepped, his feet making no more noise over grass and stone than they did over carpet or a paved walkway. Not even when he didn’t much care whether he did or not, as now. The motion was smooth, with none of the abruptness of the lunge that had prompted it. The wooden sword whistled by into the space he had occupied, the disturbance of air fluttering the long hair beside his cheek, and when she stumbled forward in overcompensation, his own practice implement slammed with punishing force into her back, carrying her face-first into the dirt. A few small pieces of debris fluffed into the air at the impact, settling immediately afterwards atop her clothing.

Pivoting on his heel so as to face her, at least in some sense of the word, he blinked slowly down at her. "Again.” It was not the first time he had given the command, and he knew quite well that it would not be the last.

When Lucien had asked him to teach Estella, he had known he was beginning essentially from nothing. As a mage, she had no reason to have any experience with martial implements, and indeed she did not. He himself had been much the same upon first receiving his Bard training. He did not remember it being quite this difficult to advance these skills beyond the rudimentary, but he could not say that she was giving the matter insufficient effort. He knew she practiced, more diligently than he ever had, and for a number of hours each day that would long ago have frustrated someone with an ordinary degree of willpower and patience. It certainly showed in her physical form, but not as much as it should in other ways.

Because for the amount that she worked, Estella seemed to gain very little in return. She was competent, now, more than a year since they had begun, but she was not yet what one would call adept. She was not as skilled in her areas of specialization as her fellow mercenaries were, not even the ones that were likewise heretofore young and inexperienced. And with as much as she worked, she should be. Rilien knew what the causes of this hindrance were, though he did not believe it would be helpful at this juncture for him to explain them to her. She was unlikely to believe him, for one. And even if overcoming those hindrances would help, so would continuing as they had been, albeit less efficiently.

Rilien despised inefficiency, insofar as he could despise anything, but in this instance, he chose it over the risk of making things worse. He took his role as her teacher seriously, and though his personality may not be suited for it, he was helping, and had decided quite some time ago that he would continue to do so for as long as was required. It was Estella herself who had convinced him, but she did not know that, and he did not tell her.

Estella herself was taking the moment to catch her breath. Rilien was not merciful by any stretch of the imagination, and that last hit was going to leave a large welt across her back, one that would probably become an ugly bruise no matter what Idris did to it. In some sense, she even wanted that. She felt like she needed the reminder. Groaning and turning her face to the side, she breathed in and out a few shallow breaths, trying to wait until it was comfortable to pull a full lot of air into her lungs again. The blades of grass near her mouth bent over under the shallow little pants, and she realized that she felt sore everywhere.

They’d been at this for three hours already, though of course Rilien hadn’t even broken a sweat. He was so perfectly composed, all the time. Part of it was just because he was a Tranquil, and she knew that. But she’d known enough Tranquil, if not well, and known him for long enough now too, that she understood he wasn’t exactly the same. Even other Tranquil probably would have stopped instructing her by now, because they tended to do things that made them think they had purpose, that their talents were being put to good use. Training a complete incompetent like her was assuredly a waste of Rilien’s time—he was an immensely talented person in a number of ways, and she was pretty much the opposite. Why he continued to do it, then, was quite a mystery to her.

“I can’t.” The admission was delivered with the same flat tone as his injunction, and even despite saying it, she was making her best effort to push herself up onto her feet again. Because she could, really. She could do the little things, the things that involved getting up after every subsequent defeat and trying again. She could persevere for a very long time. She could certainly fail more persistently than anyone else she knew. She didn’t ask for breaks or reprieves or easier exercises or for Rilien to gentle anything about his approach. She didn’t ask to be coddled or looked after or even healed, unless the injury might do her some permanent damage. Idris had to hunt her down if he wanted to apply his tinctures, and she never went to Nostariel unless she was dragged there, usually by Idris or Cor or Tessa.

But the other half of that was supposed to be that her persistence would mean her success. That eventually, if she got up enough times after falling down, practiced her swings and did balance exercises for enough hours, she would get it. The skills would… develop, or click into place, or whatever other metaphor people tended to use for this sort of thing.

Estella had been waiting for a moment like that her entire life. She still didn’t know what one felt like.

Dusting herself off as well as she could, she shook her hair—long pulled loose from its bun—out of her dirt-smeared face, trying to ignore the sheen of sweat she could feel sticking her shirt to her body. She leveled her sword again. “I… I mean it, Rilien. I really can’t get any better than this. You probably—” She found the words stuck in her throat, because part of her didn’t really want to say them. She liked this, in some strange way, this period of time every day when she would come out here, to the side of Sundermont, and they would practice in a flat portion of land he told her had recently been occupied by a Dalish camp. She liked the way it made her feel, that someone wasn’t giving up on her. Many someones, really, if she counted Lucien and the other mercenaries. So few people in her life had ever believed she could achieve anything, and the ones that had were family. Obligated, in some sense.

And… she liked him. Rilien was a strange man, and she doubted she would ever fully understand him, but his hints of dry humor made her laugh, and she liked the way he didn’t try to keep the truth from her. If she was lacking in some way, he just told her, and so she didn’t have to worry that he was withholding some disdainful opinion of her. He was honest, always, and it made it easier for her to believe what he said. She could, to some extent, be at ease around him. She wondered if it was normal, to feel at her most relaxed around a Tranquil. They were supposed to make mages uneasy, weren’t they? Slowly, Estella lowered her sword again, neglecting to rush him like he’d been trying to teach her to. It really did seem a waste, when she thought about things this way.

“You probably have better ways to spend your time.” She swallowed thickly.

"No, I do not.” Rilien did not relax his posture, as that was unnecessary—he was already quite loose in the way he held himself. Something he had been trying to impart onto Estella, to as yet a limited amount of success. She concerned herself too much with doing everything exactly the correct way. It was not an inclination he condemned, but taken to an extreme, it could be detrimental. There seemed to be very little about her that did not qualify as extreme in some way, though not often the usual one. "I am here because I have decided to be. If you would like me to cease, you need only say so.” His eyes narrowed, just a little, and he tilted his head a bit to the left, the scrutiny in his expression quite obvious despite its subtlety.

“N-no, I…” She didn't know how to say it. A frustrated sigh gusted from her, her shoulders slumping faintly. “I don’t want you to stop teaching me, I just…” She felt the heat on her face and knew she was turning more than a little pink. Traditionally, she wasn’t much better at expressing her feelings than she was at anything else. Her tone grew very soft. “I just don’t want to disappoint you.”

She hadn’t worried about that, at first. He was Tranquil, after all; he couldn’t feel disappointment. But she knew differently now. No matter how little it was, he did feel things. And she couldn’t stand the thought of disappointing someone who had worked this hard and this long to make her better at something. It would be like telling him that it was all for nothing. But there was no other choice, with how she was. Either she did this now, or she did it later, when he’d put even more effort into it and nothing had changed.

Well, that was interesting. He had not fully accounted for the possibility that part of what was in her way was actually him. Via emotional connections that he hardly understood anymore, of course, but a fear of this kind was not too difficult to track, now that he knew to look for it. Rilien stared her down for close to a full minute, but as ever, she remained impervious, or at least resistant, to the discomfort this would have caused someone else. Or perhaps she felt it, but simply did not allow it to cow her. It was difficult, to comprehend how someone could at once be so utterly stubborn and so very ready to give up. He had the sense that something important rested on what he did here, as though this girl, his student, walked on a thin edge, and his words, ineffectual as they so often proved to be for influencing others, would be the very thing that pushed her over one side or the other.

It was not unfamiliar knowledge. When playing the Game, people with the advantage and the acumen could do the same things with lords and ladies, in rare cases empires. Rilien knew how to choose his words carefully, to achieve just the end he wanted. All of the good Bards did. But… what was the end he wanted? He wasn’t a being completely without preferences. Not even full Tranquil were that way, but his desires did extend beyond the simple knowledge that he had a use to someone. That did not mean they were always easy to discover or understand.

"Then try again.” He did not bother to tell her he could not feel disappointment—she would not believe him, and she would be correct, to an extent. But as far as he could tell, the only thing that would make him feel something like that was if she came so far only to stop, to decide she was done. Because he wasn’t. She would be a good combatant yet. Perhaps even a great one, because while talent was useful for mastery of anything, it was neither necessary nor sufficient. Persistence was certainly necessary, at least.

For a moment, Estella just looked back at him, and she imagined she must look like a fish. A dumbstruck fish—mouth slightly ajar, eyes wide, frozen to the spot. That was… not what she was expecting, at all. Was that really all it took? She just had to keep trying, and he was giving her a blanket permission to fail as many times as she could stand? She found it difficult to imagine that anyone, Tranquil or not, could be that patient, and for a tilting moment, she wondered if there was some angle here that she had missed, all her old suspicions roaring back full force and threatening to knock her over just as easily as Rilien always did.

But after a year and a half in Kirkwall, here, with these crazy people who didn’t seem to care where she’d come from or how she’d ended up there, her doubts found little purchase, like trying to cling to a smooth surface with desperate fingers, and they slid back again. She would always be suspicious of people’s goodwill, perhaps, but he wasn’t people anymore. He was Rilien, and she could think of no reason for him to lead her astray with this.

If he really just wanted her to keep trying, then… maybe she could oblige.

“I… all right.” Nodding slightly, she set her feet the way they were supposed to go, glancing down to check them, then leveled her sword outwards. Trying, she could do. Taking a deep breath, Estella sprang forward suddenly, attempting to minimize the telegraphing of her muscles and her eyes, to make herself less predictable.

Of course, she wound up hitting the dirt again, this time on her back, with the wind knocked out of her and staring up at the sky, but if he said that was okay, then she believed him. This time, when she regained her feet, she didn’t even wait for him to tell her—she just reset her posture and waited for whatever instruction she was to be given next. She was still sore, she still doubted her ability to ever get this right, and she still had no idea why he was bothering, but… it seemed to matter less. She wasn’t going to let herself be a disappointment again, and for once, the way to avoid that was really within her control, her reach. She could do what she had been asked, and she was almost giddy with the lightness of that knowledge. Was this what other people felt like all the time?

Rilien nodded, just slightly, but it was as much an indication of his satisfaction with the answer as any. She was still shifting her weight too early—he always knew from what angle she was approaching by checking her feet. It was not difficult to down her again, but this time she did not hesitate to stand back up. That was more progress than the mastery of any specific maneuver he could teach her. He held up a hand, halting her from another attempt, and stepped backwards a few paces, before he turned and leaned down to access the bundle of items he’d brought with him. Normally, it just contained practice weapons and a few not-so-practice ones, in case he gave her exercises with live steel.

Today was more or less the same, save that, while he usually had her practice with an ordinary shortsword, as it was most suited for someone of her size and physical attributes, this time he had something a little different. The sheath was curved, the blade itself the same, made of silverite and for that reason much lighter than another weapon of the type would be. The hilt had no guard, which allowed room for it to be gripped several different ways, in one hand or two, without the extra heft of an actual hand-and-a-half. The sword was single-edged, save that the last third of it also had a blade on the back side, for stabbing. It was a very versatile weapon, overall, and would serve in as many situations as any other weapon, more than some.

Returning to stand in front of Estella, Rilien held it out for her to take. "This will serve. Certainly better than the scrap metal you are using now.” Actually, her current armament was not bad; Lucien would never let his people walk around with anything that would not stand up to abuse, but the Lions were yet a new company, and they did not have the funds for silverite, to be sure. He did. And so he had used it to make her this.

She looked like a fish again, she was sure.

Reverently, Estella reached out for what Rilien was holding, and, when she had a grip on it, she drew the blade a few inches from the sheath, blinking when it proved to be almost impossibly bright. It was clearly enchanted, and if he was giving it to her, she could only assume he’d done the work himself. She’d seen his workshop—it wasn’t a full smithy, but he was capable of forging. Given the unique character of the implement, it was unlikely anyone but Rilien himself had forged it, shaped it from ore to sword. The hilt was silver, too, wrapped in dark blue leather for grip. It was probably worth more than anything else she’d ever held, and he was just giving it to her.

Her lower lip trembled. She didn’t deserve it. She knew she didn’t, just like she knew he was serious about giving it to her anyway. Estella knew she shouldn’t accept it. Charity was wasted on her, honestly, and there were other people who could benefit from such a fine piece of work much more than she. But… she thought about how long it must have taken to make. How much of his own work and effort Rilien must have placed into it, and how that whole time, he’d been doing all that for her. It was evident in every detail, from the form to the weight to the leatherworked details on the sheath. Constellations, if she looked closely. Stars.

Carefully, she slid the blade fully back into the sheath. With shaking hands, she slid the whole thing into her belt, then lifted her admittedly-moist eyes to regard him steadily for a moment. She wasn’t sure what to say, but it occurred to her that she didn’t have to use words at all.

As suddenly as she’d been taught to lunge—and with no telegraphing, at that—she moved forward, attaching herself to him with exactly the amount of grace and dignity one would expect of a nug, which was to say none. Twining her arms around his ribcage, she tucked her head under his chin.

“Thank you.”

It wasn’t just the sword itself, though that was clearly an extraordinary gift. More than this, though, it was for the chance he’d given her to be something more than she was. The chance they’d given her—Lucien and Nostariel and the Lions—to live here, with them. It wasn’t lost on her that Kirkwall was far from the nicest of places, but as far as she could tell, it had the best of people.

Rilien, for obvious reasons, was not often hugged. She’d more successfully caught him off-guard with this maneuver than she’d managed in hundreds of attack repetitions. Which one of them that said more about, he was not sure. His relative lack of experience in such matters did not, however, mean that he was uncertain of how he was supposed to respond, and so he brought a hand up to rest gently on the back of her head. Whatever her life had been before was no business of his, but if he were to guess, he would suppose that in many respects, it had been unpleasant. One did not become so convinced of one’s uselessness when surrounded by people who properly understood and bolstered oneself. His hand smoothed down her hair to rest at her shoulderblades.

He didn’t understand that. As far as Rilien could tell, Estella was… he didn’t know the word anymore. His Tranquility prevented him from feeling it the way he should, as well, and that stirred a faint unease, one that seemed to dissipate when her arms tightened fractionally around him. He didn’t need to feel any more than he already did. He didn’t need to be anything other than he was. She wasn’t thanking some other person for this, for what they had done to help her. She was thanking him. He was enough, even like this. What a strange piece of knowledge.

Rilien let his eyes fall closed for just a moment, the corner of his mouth twitching faintly upwards.

"You are welcome, Estella.”

Setting

4 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

"Fond of squirming, aren't you?" Emerion asked, as the elven boy before him demonstrated the truth of the question. "You're going to need to hold still. This cut needs to be properly cleaned to avoid infection."

The boy, Vim, as he'd called himself, grudgingly agreed to remain still while the Keeper's First continued work on the back of his leg. He was nearly a teenager, a short and scruffy-haired elf, and he'd come running, or rather limping, past the physical training session hosted by Amalia at the base of the vhenadahl, the calf dripping blood every few paces behind him. Cut in a bad fall, he claimed, though the rest of him didn't look too dusty. There was probably some other explanation for it, but no one immediately pried into it.

Despite having no formal place to work, Emerion had become well known for his abilities as a healer in the Alienage. He was supremely knowledgeable in the use of nearly every kind of herb that grew around Kirkwall, and regularly made trips outside the walls to collect them. He carried poultices and other healing supplies with him most places he went. And conveniently, he knew enough of traditional healing techniques to avoid the use of magic. Elves could always make the trip to Nostariel's clinic if they required more serious care.

Ithilian didn't doubt it had lightened the Warden's load of less urgent patients considerably, which probably allowed her to focus more fully on what patients remained, or other activities she chose to undertake. He was glad for it. He hadn't spoken privately and at length with Emerion about his place in the Alienage since their scuffle in the woods, but he thought he could sense a real change in him. It had been difficult for him at first, he could clearly see, but as the months pass, he seemed to be loosening up. He'd always been excellent at making friends; Emerion was quite charismatic when he chose to be, and once the people started to see the value he had for the Alienage, they warmed up quickly to him. He was not known as a Keeper's First among them, for such a title was dangerous, implying magical abilities as it did, but they often sought him out regardless. He had a prettier face than the Alienage's other Dalish, after all.

Sitting cross-legged and relaxing in between contorting stretches, Ithilian's eyes wandered to the Alienage's entrance, where he spotted an unusual sight coming down the steps into the boundaries of their area. Templars did not often come into the Alienage, far less than even the city guard, and they had rarely shown their faces here since their numbers had been decimated by the Qunari and... other violence. Two Templars now approached, a man and a woman, each in full armor and closed helms, the way the woman walked half a step behind on the man's right indicating who was of superior rank. They did not seem to be in a great hurry.

Clearing his throat, Ithilian turned briefly to look back at Emerion. "Lethallin," he said quietly, nudging his head to the side. "Templars." Emerion's eyes flicked up from the boy's injury, settling on the two armored individuals, before he went back to his work.

"So it would seem." His reply was nonchalant, unconcerned.

Nostariel, who along with Aurora and Lia, was also present and currently taking a brief moment of respite, glanced up at the words, though they were not directed at her, exactly. Her brows furrowed together. Templars were rare this far away from the Gallows, and she had no doubt that they had been sent here for a reason. They did not simply wander in. Not if they had the first clue what they were doing. It had also, perhaps, given everyone here a sense of relative safety that even now was being quite abruptly thrown into doubt.

They wouldn’t be here for her—she was known to be a Warden, and therefore outside their authority. That left quite a few possibilities, but two of them were sitting within sight of her at this moment. Aurora, immediately to her left, if by some unforeseen chance the Templars had caught wind of her activities with Kirkwall’s other apostates, and Emerion. Both seemed to be doing a very good job of hiding who they were, but… there was no way to be sure.

Nostariel didn’t take herself to have much authority here, but she was at least capable of interceding without fear of repercussions, which was something neither most elves nor most mages could say, and so she stood first, brushing herself off and raising her hand to hail down the Templars, smiling disarmingly. “Something you need, sers?”

If Aurora seemed nervous or otherwise anxious about the Templars entering the Alienage, she didn't show it outwardly. Instead, she regarded their presence with dull curiosity, tilting her head toward them as they descended the steps. She of course wondered what brought them from the Gallows, and knew that there was a chance that it was because of the two apostates present. However, she didn't even glance over toward Emerion, but kept her vision loosely interested in the man in front. To do anything else was to rouse suspicion, and that was the last thing she needed. Her last memory of Templars was not a fond one, but she suppressed it enough to not show on her face. When Nostariel intervened, she waited patiently for their answer.

Amalia, for her part, did very little at all. She was quite skilled at ignoring people, and unless the Templars decided their business was the hostile kind, she was content to wait it out. She was not most pleased to see them here, but that did not mean she had to make this obvious. Nostariel was better suited to handle this sort of thing than she was anyone, having doubtless a great deal more experience with the type of diplomacy required in just this sort of situation.

"Knight-Lieutenant Grath," the lead Templar said, introducing himself somewhat brusquely, though he did remove his helmet. A man in his late thirties, Grath had combed back yellow-blond hair and blue eyes, his mouth set into a hard line. "This is my partner, Knight-Corporal Swann. This is a routine patrol on the Knight-Commander's orders, nothing to be worried about." Left unsaid was the assumption that there were no apostates hiding here. Then, of course, there would be cause for worry.

Nodding, he moved on past the Warden, while the Knight-Corporal removed her helmet, revealing auburn hair pulled into a tight bun, a younger woman, probably not yet thirty, with bright hazel eyes. "Sorry about the lack of routine-ness in the routine patrol," she said, her tone a little apologetic. She kept in step with the Knight-Lieutenant, but turned to look back as she walked. "You're the Warden, right? Nostariel? I've heard a lot about you. Good things, that is. It's nice to meet you."

"Begin with these, Corporal," Grath ordered, gesturing to those working with Amalia. He tilted his head to his right. "I'll start on the West side." He moved off to his right, approaching some elves engaged in bartering for some wares. Swann seemed happy enough with the given assignment, coming to a stop before the group assembled beneath the vhenadahl.

“My apologies for the interruption. I’m Knight-Corporal Swann, Templar Order. We’re currently investigating the possible presence of blood magic within Kirkwall, and Knight-Commander Meredith has asked us to make a sweep of the Alienage. We’ll be out of your way as soon as possible. Now, have any of you noticed anything strange recently? Perhaps at night-time?” Ithilian was actually a bit surprised by the politeness of her tone; the male Templar introducing himself to the other elves appeared to be taking a more direct approach.

“And nice to meet you as well, Knight-Corporal.” Nostariel’s smile widened a fraction, though her expression became more solemn when the reason for the visit was mentioned. Blood magic? In the Alienage? She certainly knew one person who could do that, but she had figured Emerion for much more careful than that, and so it was unlikely they were actually after him. The problem would be if their search happened to lead them to him anyway. Perhaps one of Aurora’s pupils? She knew her friend wouldn’t ever condone something like that, but it wasn’t as though she had the ability to do background checks on those she was working with. If they didn’t tell her they were blood mages, there weren’t many ways to find out otherwise. “I’ve neither seen nor heard of anything unusual, though I'm not here at night, most of the time.”

“Those who live here are seldom active after dusk,” Amalia added, meeting the Templar’s eyes from her seated position. The reason for that much was rather obvious—it was unsafe to be moving about Kirkwall at night, especially if one happened also to be an elf. Or alone, or both. “I have encountered nothing unusual either.”

On the inside, Aurora relaxed a degree. Things were less likely to go wrong if the Templars were amiable, and nothing she saw told her that they were looking for trouble. Only blood magic. Aurora raised her eyebrow for that, clearly a little surprised. No one she knew used blood magic, or at least she didn't believe they did. There was a chance that Ithilian's friend could, yes, but she didn't peg him as they type to be so open about it to rouse the Templar's suspicion. "Neither have I," Aurora agreed. "But I do hope you find them," She added, tilting her head. It wasn't a lie either, when blood magic cropped up, nothing good ever followed.

"It's as the others say," Ithilian offered from his seat. "We have seen nothing, and we here are the ones who watch over this place. We would not allow a threat to it to linger, you have our word." He knew with near certainty that Emerion practiced blood magic; most Dalish Keepers knew at least a little, and Emerion had certainly not been raised with the ideals of restraining his own power. He did, however, think his friend was smart enough not to make overt use of it while in Kirkwall. There was no guarantee that Emerion was the blood mage being sought after, or that there was any blood magic present at all.

"And a fine group of watchers they are," Emerion offered, standing up and wiping his hands. He clicked his tongue twice, gesturing for the young boy to depart, and he did so quickly, though not at a run, with his recently stitched leg. Knight-Corporal Swann watched him go with some interest, but Emerion's healing supplies were visible enough, and she paid it no further mind. "They are skilled," Emerion continued, with sincerity, "devoted, tireless in their efforts, and fairly well-loved by the people. That last part can be applied to few groups in the city, of late."

"Perhaps that's true," Swann conceded. "The Templars can be harsh, on occasion, but for Kirkwall as a whole, I do believe we're the best equipped to maintain the peace. I do hope we can do that in a way that will create cooperation from the people, though. Some of my fellow Knights are fond of kicking down doors, sadly."

A voice was raised off to their left, easily identified as the Knight-Lieutenant, Grath. Ithilian found himself standing, moving over towards the man, though Emerion was two steps ahead of him. He frowned, wishing his mage friend would choose not to get involved in this. He hadn't liked the look of the man from the start, and suspected there would be trouble. No doubt Emerion had thought the same.

"Compose yourself, woman," Grath said firmly, standing at least a foot and a half over the older elven woman he was speaking to. She was visibly shaking, her eyes thinned and threatening tears, though Ithilian hadn't seen any threats leveled. He supposed the Templar's appearance alone would seem a threat, to someone not used to seeing them around here. "You need only answer my questions, and I will move on. Silence will not work in your favor."

She then sank to her knees, looking away and terrified, while Grath turned back to see Swann already headed over, with the pair of Dalish in front of her. "If this Alienage is harboring apostates or worse, maleficarum, they must be brought forth. Giving them shelter will only make this all the more painful."

"If you are willing to give me a moment, ser," Emerion offered, his tone devoid of both fear and aggression, something that almost seemed to surprise the Knight-Lieutenant, "I believe I can help."

"You have something to say to me, elf?"

"Not to you, no." He walked past the armored man and knelt slowly beside the crumpled and sputtering woman. His tone was gentle, but strong. "Mala suledin nadas. You are capable of more than you think. This will pass, and they will go. He means you no harm." He glanced up at the taller man, with a slight grin. "Even if he does look a little grumpy. Come, stand. I will remain with you." His hand he kept on her shoulder, and the pair rose together. The woman did not look at the Templar, but she was finally able to make herself speak to him.

"N-no... I have s-seen nothing of magic h-here... messere." Grath didn't seem satisfied by the answer, but had clearly been dissuaded from pressing further.

"I did not expect a warm welcome here," he muttered to himself, before turning to Ithilian and the others. "You're the guardians of this place, then? Perhaps we can enlist your aid. Reports of apostasy and blood magic have increased over the past year, but it's too scattered to pinpoint a central location, if there is one. The Order could use assistance in rooting out these maleficarum."

"What he means to say is," Swann cut in, delicately, "we would be most appreciative if any useful information any of you uncover could be brought to the Order's attention. The Templars can stay out of your way, and no more blood magic. Everyone wins. The Templars are interested in building bridges, not burning them."

"Thank you for your understanding," Ithilian said, nodding. "We'll be sure to do that."

Satisfied, or as satisfied as they were going to get, the pair of Templars bid them farewell, and turned to leave the Alienage. When they were gone, the elven woman who had been questioned gave out a shudder, leaning into Emerion for support. He narrowed his eyes in the direction the Templars had gone.

"Two different faces. Each the same oppressor. They should not have come here."

Nostariel sighed softly, shaking her head. Templar shakedowns were the last thing the Alienage needed, it was true, but from her point of view, it was rather pointless to try and hinder them overtly. One had always to tread carefully with them, and if at all possible, not lump the reasonable in with the unreasonable. “And yet the best way to see less of them is to cooperate when we do. To a point, anyway.” She certainly didn’t plan on giving up anyone who knew what they were doing, but there was little mistaking that most blood mages were a danger to themselves and others. If there really were ill-trained maleficarum hanging around the Alienage, they would make things considerably worse for everyone here, Templars or no Templars.

Her lips pursed, and she glanced over to the woman, checking her over for any sign of injury. There were none, of course—Ser Grath may have intimidated her, but he had not laid hands on her. Fortunate, for everyone involved. “Are you all right, madam? Perhaps you should sit down for a bit.” She also wondered, for just a moment, if it was simple fear that had sealed her lips shut at first. Or if perhaps she knew something more than she’d said. Now was clearly not the time to ask, however.

"I'm... alright now. I think I'll head home. Thank you for the help." She nodded her thanks at both Nostariel and Emerion, and then made her own departure, heading deeper into the Alienage rather than out of it. Emerion watched her go for a moment, to make sure she was alright.

"Delya told me she has a history with a Templar, something to do with her son. Both are gone now. The Templar slain by the Qunari, and the son slain by the Templar while fighting for the Qunari." No more explanation was likely needed. A number of young elves had been driven to fight when the Qunari rose up, seeing some sort of chance to fight for their own place in something, even if that something was as foreign to them as the Qun.

“Many people were slain that day.” Amalia was not completely certain what was meant by a history with a Templar, as she had learned this could have many senses, but whichever one it was, it probably wasn’t good. Histories with Templars rarely seemed to be, around here. Whatever the case, there was nothing to be done about it now. Her eyes moved to Aurora for a second, visible concern flickering over her face for a moment. There was little point telling her to be careful; she knew that very well by now. Amalia was tempted to say it anyway, but in the end, she refrained. Nostariel was safer, considering her status as a Grey Warden; Aurora had no more protection than her wits could grant her… and her friends, to a point.

Aurora exhaled a sigh and rubbed at her brow. Things were becoming more complicated, but she was relieved to find that the Templars only had rumors to go on. Had they more evidence than that, then either Emerion or her wouldn't have slid by so easily. She did not want to imagine how things would've turned out if they were here for either of them. Still, the event changed some things and it reminded how careful she had to be-- especially now. Her eyes turned to Emerion for a moment before she shook her head. There were other apostates in the city, some of which may even practice blood magic for less than favorable reasons.

It caused her to think, however. Looking toward the direction the Templars left, she spoke. "I should go. There are some... things I need to see to." She turned back to her friends still gathered around and gave them a reassuring smile before landing solely on Amalia. "And don't worry. I'll be careful," She said, taking her leave.

Setting

8 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

It was, Lucien thought, a worthy cause for celebration.

Earlier in the day, the Argent Lions had taken—and completed—their very first contract as a full mercenary company. No provisional status, no trainees, just the twenty-one members of the company, sweeping the Coast and simultaneously raiding a large collection of smuggler’s caches and the den proper. They’d taken several prisoners, and the Gallows had a few cells less empty that night. The rest had been commended to the Maker, or the gods, or whatever one liked to say, their bodies heaped on a pyre and set alight. It was not glamorous work, but then, they’d all known it wouldn’t be.

More importantly, they’d all survived it. A few injuries, as was to be expected, but their training had served them well, and their skills far outstripped the brigands they’d been set against, as did their strategy and cohesion. He was proud of them, so much so that he could feel it, a palpable lightness, contrasted with the weight of knowing now that the time of relative safety, of training and trial runs and probationary periods and his constant supervision, was over. He would look after them as well as he could, of course. Always. But he could not be everywhere, and it was time for the company to start taking on a volume of work that would not only sustain, but profit them. Something which should be considerably easier with the obvious success of their first outing.

But those were the concerns of tomorrow. Tonight was something different entirely. The large central living space in the barracks had been rearranged, the long tables moved closer to the walls, and the rest of the furniture stored in the hallway, leaving the center of the room clear. A few of the tables contained food Lucien had ordered from local restaurateurs and bakers, a few more various kegs and bottles and flagons of alcohol from a variety of sources, but definitely not the Hanged Man. It was, as Havard would call it, that poncy good stuff what burns like a dragon. And hopefully some stuff that didn’t burn quite so much. The middle of the floor was left wide open for dancing or whatever else the mercs could think to use it for, and there were several decks of cards and so forth laying about as well. It was assuredly the paraphernalia of a celebration.

Everyone was free to invite guests, of course, though those were generally few—most of the Lions came from solitary lives or families of the sort that would not suit such an occasion, but a few brought in sweethearts or friends or siblings, and Lucien had invited his friends as well. Many of them had had a part in the success of the company, and even those who had not would benefit from it in some way, he hoped, even if only indirectly. Events had actually not started yet, but a few of the mercs were already in the room, mostly relaxing at the moment, and Amalia was tuning her harp in a chair in one corner.

Sophia came to sit next to Lucien, pushing her chair somewhat closer so she could comfortably snake her fingers into his own. She was quite proud as well to see today come; she hadn't done nearly the amount of work that Lucien had, but she'd been there for many steps of it. She'd helped train many of their sword fighters, accompanied them on a few early jobs, and got to know more than a few of them, though not as closely as they knew each other. Mostly she'd just done her best to give whatever kind of support she could. Despite her earlier intentions, she had never officially joined their ranks. Sophia had never fully become the mercenary woman she tried to look like. And she knew she never would.

But it changed nothing about tonight. Tonight was for enjoying the present, not thinking about the future. As Amalia had advised her to do. "A rather more earnest party than what I'm used to," she said, grinning at him. "I love it. And congratulations again. It's clear that all the work you put into this has paid off."

Lucien squeezed her hand gently, leaning down to press his lips to her temple. Direct contributions aside, she was assuredly the reason the Lions existed. He, after all, had been leaning towards leaving Kirkwall altogether. It was only after she’d pushed him to really consider what it meant, to be here, to live this life, and not one halfway somewhere else, that he’d finally allowed himself to grow the little seed of an idea into something enduring, something that would last. There was no overestimating that. “Thank you, my love. I am glad it has.” He smiled and leaned back, content to simply watch them interact for a while. They’d all come so far since he’d met them; it humbled him to have been a part of that.

One of the earliest guests to arrive hadn't exactly been invited, but was more than close enough to one of the attendees for that to go unnoticed. Lia entered with a rather clueless look, though she was without sign of fear or apprehension. She'd simply never been in here before, and knew only one of these people. She knew who she was looking for, however, so when she laid eyes on Lucien, she made her way straight over to him, reciting a line that had obviously been practiced once or twice.

"Ser Lucien Drakon? I'm Lia, of the Alienage. I'm a friend of Amalia's. I'd like to join. If you could make use of more scouts, that is. I haven't done a lot of fighting, but I know the city and the surrounding areas well, and I'm a good shot with a bow. Trained by the best." Her eyes darted to the watching Sophia for a moment, before she seemed to realize she might be interrupting something. She added another "Ser" for good measure.

It was not every day someone walked right into his barracks and asked to join, but Lucien was not necessarily put off by it. He was rather used to people being blunt, after all. When she mentioned Amalia, he glanced over to the woman in question, who was already looking in their direction, and she nodded slightly, indicating as far as he could tell that she endorsed the request. He also took it as confirmation that the training she mentioned was indeed excellent. Still, it was not quite so simple as that. “May I ask your age, Miss Lia?” Technically, he’d accepted Cor at seventeen, but that had been a bit of an extenuating circumstance. He’d known in advance that the boy wouldn’t see real combat until he was of majority. He couldn’t tell precisely how old Lia was, but she was visually young enough that it was worth making sure.

"I'm eighteen," she answered quickly. "Well, almost."

Well, that was fair enough. It would be a simple matter to wait until she actually had that birthday before sending her afield. Trying to put her at ease as much as possible, he nodded in what he hoped was a reassuring manner, then turned to Sophia. “Would you give us a few moments? I do believe I’m to conduct an interview.” It wasn’t that he would have minded her staying, but it might be somewhat more comfortable for Lia to only bear the scrutiny of one person rather than two. He’d been told he was rather good with people, but he knew also that he wasn’t exactly the softest-looking of men. “Please, have a seat,” he continued, gesturing for Lia to have the one across the table from him. Carefully he laid his hands on his side of it, clasping them together.

“May I call you Lia?”

"Yes, thank you," Lia said, taking a seat once Sophia had graciously allowed them some privacy, moving off to catch up with some of the others. "Should I call you Ser? Or... captain? Lord?" She obviously felt a bit uncertain about that last one, but ventured it anyway. She had no inkling of how chains of command worked, and she had heard something about Lucien's bloodline that made her think that title might be necessary. She was thankful that he didn't seem like the type to demand being called a lord, though.

“Lucien,” he replied mildly. “Some feel more comfortable using ‘Commander’ on missions or the like, but I certainly don’t insist upon it, and I really do prefer my name over a title.” He gave her a moment to make sure she was comfortably seated, then shifted slightly, leaning a bit forward, though not enough to enter her space. Just enough to lose the impression of distance or too much formality.

“The interview process isn’t really the most refined,” he admitted. “Basically, I have one question for you, and if that answer happens to generate more questions, I’ll ask those too.” He shrugged slightly, his smile more in his eyes than the cast of his mouth, but present nevertheless. “Why do you want to join the Lions, Lia? If this teacher you mentioned is who I think he is, much of what we do here, you could do with him instead. And if you’re as talented as I expect you must be, there are plenty of organizations or individuals that would hire you, for both work like ours and work more or less bloody or difficult or glamorous. So why us?”

"Because... this is the glamorous job for me. You don't have anything against elves, and you don't let any of your people have anything against us, either." Other companies couldn't guarantee that. "I want to do something good with myself. I'm skilled in ways most people here aren't, but I've been sitting around tending a shop. That's... not me. I don't want to be some kind of soldier, but I need to do something physical. I've gotten good at it."

She shrugged. "I could stay with Ithilian. I love him, but he's not a leader, not like you are. With him I'd probably stay alone, but here I can meet people, other good people. I can make my own life. It's what he wants, too, as long as it's my choice. And I won't choose to stay cooped up in the Alienage forever. That's also not me."

It really was a sorry state of affairs when this was one of the few places she could get those things. But still, he wasn’t under the impression that this was the primary reason she’d chosen to make an attempt at the mercenary lifestyle, and he certainly couldn’t begrudge her anything she’d said. “Well, Lia, it sounds like you’ve given it more than enough thought. I think you probably already know about our extra regulations, but in case you don’t, we’ll bring you up to speed tomorrow morning.” He referred, of course, to the ethical standards that he held his people to. Considering the fact that these were a small point of humor among other mercenaries and the occasional subject of gossip elsewhere, he knew they had to have circulated. He certainly didn’t mind—the reputation that would make some laugh at them would make others more inclined to hire them.

“Drills start an hour after sunrise. If you have your own equipment, you are welcome to bring it; everything you don’t have, we’ll provide for you. It’s also encouraged for you to take a room here in the barracks within the first couple of weeks, but you are by no means bound here in your free time.” Lucien smiled, fully this time. “You’re also welcome to stay for the festivities; it can’t hurt to get to know one’s comrades, after all.”

"Thank you, and I think I will," Lia said, standing. "But first, there's someone I need to get."

After disappearing briefly outside, she came back in dragging Ithilian, though he appeared to be moving along willingly enough. All things considered, he seemed in a fairly good mood for attending a social gathering outside of the Alienage. "He's shy, but he agreed to hang out with us for the night if I was able to join the company."

Ithilian gave an honest grin, looking more like a one sided smirk due to the scarring of his mouth. "If it's alright with you. I promise to keep the threats of violence to a minimum." He expected they wouldn't be necessary, even if he was going to be meeting all of Lia's future comrades. They seemed an alright sort, and he'd had no small amount of discussions with Amalia before giving Lia his support here.

“Only a minimum? I’m honored.” Lucien returned the expression, then gestured with an arm to encompass the rest of the room and the refreshments provided, as well as the growing number of people beginning to filter in. “Make yourselves at home.”




About an hour later, the celebration was in full swing. Not that it was especially raucous, and it certainly never turned debauched, as nights at the Hanged Man were wont to do on occasion, but there was a palpable air of enthusiasm about the room. The Lions had been eager to meet their new member, the younger ones seeming especially so, since Lia was quite close to their own age. Everyone seemed to mix freely, though; there were no parts of the room dominated by veterans or greenhorns, no evident separation of the revelry by race or background or even by whether one was a Lion or a guest. The music was kept steady, usually by Rilien or Amalia or occasionally anyone else who had the desire to play a song. Idris, it turned out, was fair with percussion, and quite happy to introduce the traditional genres of Rivaini music to the rest. There was a lot of revelry involved, it would seem, and the tempo had a wilder cadence than most were used to, but trying to move in time with it proved an interesting exercise to watch.

Perhaps not so strangely, Amalia seemed to have the best sense of what it was supposed to look like, though her participation thus far had been limited to telling other people what they were doing wrong, rather then demonstrating. It was understated, of course, but for those who knew her, it would be clear that she was quite enjoying herself. Lucien himself could not seem to stop smiling, though he’d chosen to bow out of the game of Corners happening nearby him. It would likely degenerate into Wicked Grace when everyone was suitably drunk, but for now it was more strategic and less prone to lose a person their shirt.

An emergency at the clinic had kept Nostariel from arriving as early as she would like, but as she understood it, the invitation was open and standing, so she didn’t suppose it would be too bad. After cleaning up the mess the injury had left behind, she’d bathed quickly and changed herself into a new item of clothing. Nothing too complicated, just a simple light blue dress, but it wasn’t her work clothes and it wasn’t armor, which made for a nice change of pace. Ashton, having been forced to stand around while all of this treatment and wardrobe changing took place, nevertheless hadn’t left ahead of her, and they walked down to the Lions’ barracks arm-in-arm.

They arrived to find the party already in full swing, with smiles and amusement all the way around. Even Ithilian was present, and Amalia too, which Nostariel would not have expected but was glad of. There was a lot of dancing going on, some of it apparently to a foreign-sounding rhythm, but it all had an air of festivity that she suspected the food and drink were only helping. Upon entering, the waved to Lucien and Sophia, then turned to look up at Ash. Admittedly, she had to crane her neck a little when she was this close. The disadvantage of being with an exceptionally tall person, she supposed.

“So? What mood strikes you? Dancing or cards?” She had a feeling she knew what the answer was. Hopefully he’d remembered to wear sturdy shoes.

"I want to see Rilien drunk." The statement was accompanied by a single-minded stare at the man in question as he played his instrument, unawares of Ashton's mechanizations, however futile they may have been. It was only fair, after all the times Rilien had to scrape him off the floor. Ash only wanted to return the favor once. He turned away from his quarry and dipped his head to look at Nostariel before fluttering his eyebrows. "Soon..." He whispered. Ashton came in neither his leathers nor his guardsmen plate, but just an plain outfit. It was odd, to feel so... Ordinary.

Though he couldn't say that it didn't feel nice. Even the time spent waiting for Nos to get ready was spent with a smile on his face. There was the whole thing about him waiting on a woman to get ready, but that was something he wisely kept to himself. Some jokes weren't worth being mentioned. "But until then," He said, taking a hold of her hand and spinning her in a small circle before facing her again, "We dance." With that, he stretched their hands out toward the direction of the dancing, and placed his other hand in the small of her back, leading her right into its heart.

It wasn't his shoes she'd have to worry about.

Lia had enjoyed meeting all of the members of the company, and they had seemed to enjoy meeting her as well. Eventually, however, she became a little tired of introductory small talk leading to polite answers of no, I'm not really Dalish and no, he's not really my father and became determined to learn as much as she could about other people instead. This led to her joining some of the others in the dancing, which she had just a little idea how to do to this music as anyone else. It was nice, to feel so welcomed here as she was.

Ithilian, meanwhile, was consuming a fair share of drink, but managing to get along quite well with most of the people he spoke to. This surprised him as much as anyone.

It was then that Aurora quietly slipped in, closing the door behind her. She still wore the clothes she wore that day, a few grass stains on her knees, but it mattered little. It wasn't like this was a Hightown party where she had to be dressed up. This was a mercenary party that included her friends, they wouldn't care how dishevelled she looked. Standing by the door for a moment, she scanned the room, issuing waves to Lucien, Amalia, and Nostariel before catching sight of the drinks. Of which she slid toward, greeting everyone she passed with a smile. She hoped she'd find the wine matched Lucien's Orlesian tastes.

Lucien himself was taking care not to imbibe much, seeing as how he was, in some sense at least, the host of the party, but he did eventually join the dancing, and after a few turns with one or another of his friends or Lions, asked Sophia if she would be so inclined as to join him. Overall, the party seemed to be going quite well, and no hostilities had cropped up, nor even all that much awkwardness from what he could tell. Lia seemed to be integrating herself well already, which was assuredly a good sign of things to come.

Amalia, on the other hand, left Rilien and Idris to the instrumentation for a while and slid into a seat next to Ithilian. “Not someplace I’d ever have expected to find myself,” she remarked, assuming this was true of him as well. “But better.”

Setting

8 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

Nostariel wasn’t exactly sure whose idea it had been or why anyone else had agreed to it, but apparently at some point in the evening, an archery contest had been proposed. The competitors were the Lions’ best archer, Tessa, Ash, Lia, and surprisingly enough Ithilian. Barring Ashton, everyone was either a little intoxicated, in Lia’s case, or significantly more, as seemed to be the way of things with the other two. Still none of them were falling over, and she was here in case anything bad happened. Of course, it had been decided fairly quickly that it wasn’t quite fair if Ashton got to shoot sober, and Nostariel had proposed a solution: she would simply cast a basic confusion spell on him, which would simulate the effects well enough to even things out, more or less.

When that was done, the competitors lined up in the arena, the end of which had been fitted with a matching row of targets, courtesy of Cor, Idris, and a few other interested mercenaries. Nostariel stepped to the side and lined up along the training ring fence with the rest of the spectators, her own job done since Amalia would be officiating. Hopefully nobody’s aim would be off enough to cause injury, but she was here if it was.

"I gotta be honest. Did not wake up this morning expecting to have a drunk spell cast on me..." Ashton's world had a spin to it that was uncommon to him with a sober mindframe. It was disorientating, but then again, that was the entire point wasn't it? Then again, he'd never consented to having a spell cast on him either. It was only after the fact that he began to hope that Nos had some way to undo the confusion so that the rest of the night wouldn't be spent in some sort of magical induced faux-intoxication. Taking a bow from the Lion's collection, he plucked the string and tested the weight and tried to get a general feel to the weapon.

As it turned out, any preparation he might've done was negated by the confusion spell. Everything in his mind was fuzzy and he couldn't tell how the bow was supposed to feel, only that it made a twang when he flicked the string. He flicked it again, just to be sure before throwing his hands up, "Good enough!" Along with the ability to gauge bows, so gone too was his ability to walk a straight line. His feet did their own thing and he was simply along for the ride. It was a good thing he didn't need his feet to shoot... At least not this time. He finally made his way to the line they were to shoot at and nocked an arrow, pausing for a moment before drawing.

"Wish me luck sweetheart!" He called to Nos on the other side of the fence, blowing a kiss in her direction. With a lopsided grin plastered to his lips. Ever the showman, Ashton began with a flourish. He raised his arm straight up, rotating his wrist fancifully as he slowly pulled it down to the bow string. Once the fingers were on the string (after missing it entirely the first time. He hoped no one saw.) he drew it back and aimed at the first target. He loosed it before he was ready, however, and it struck wide left of the center. He repeated the act again, moving quicker this time and aimed at the next target. Better, but still left. He forwent the flourish for the next four shots, settling instead into a rhythm. At the end, he twirled the bow around his hand-- almost dropping it in the process-- and passed it off to Lia.

"Let's see whatcha got." he said, making his way out of the danger zone.

The bow was a little big for her, and Lia hadn't really been expecting to demonstrate her shooting skills tonight. She wouldn't have snuck down more wine than was probably wise if she'd known. Still, she was determined not to disappoint, setting her stance up a bit rigidly, taking a moment to test out the weight of the bow, and then pulling back the first arrow. She wasn't really prepared for how sweaty her hands were, how warm her face felt. The arrow hit the target... in the leg, leaving chipped wood behind before it buried itself in the dirt.

"Er..." she said, taking a second arrow and adjusting. She fired it fairly quickly, if only to forget the first shot, and hopefully make everyone else forget it, too. The rest of her shots all hit the target, at least, though only two of them came reasonably close to the center.

Ithilian, on the other hand, was quite drunk at this point, but still more than capable of maintaining a serious face. Despite how much this seemed unlike him, he'd actually done this before, a time when he'd have boasted his skills much more loudly, and tested them when he was just as drunk. He swayed visibly with the arrow drawn back, but his gaze was unwavering, and the first two arrows hit the bullseye, the second splitting the first. The rest were slightly more inaccurate, but it still left him with an impressive score.

"Clearly I need more," he said, tossing the bow to Tessa, the last to go, just before he took another swig of the ale he'd brought out with him. "Could always get Nos to throw a spell on you, that'd probably work," He replied with a grin, though obviously holding on to the nearby fence tighter than was strictly necessary. Though no matter how tight his grip, the world never stopped spinning.

Tessa laughed aloud at that, catching the bow with a precarious tilt forward. She was… well, she’d just worked her ass off for almost two years to make it to this point, this occasion, and she was a big believer in celebrating when it was due. She lurched a fair bit more than the other two when she made her way up to the line to shoot, but all the same, her round was a good one, and while she only made one bullseye, the rest of her shots were clustered relatively tightly around it, and she actually came out of the first round with the highest score, Lia being eliminated by the numbers.

Tessa was the next to go though, as her second round was not as good as her first, and both of the others did quite well. In the end, it came down to Ithilian and Ashton. Both took their turns, and Amalia totaled the points based on the locations of the arrows—green fletching for Ithilian’s, blue for Ashton’s. “The winner is Ashton, by two points.” Working the arrows free of the target, she returned them to Cor, who ran them back to storage.

The announcement made, Ashton’s confusion lifted as Nostariel applied a dispel to him, grinning brightly. “And they can’t even complain that you were the sober one.” The statement was meant as a joke of course, but it had been pretty entertaining to watch. Standing on her toes, she hopped slightly to be able to actually reach his cheek, which she kissed. “Who needs luck, anyway?”

"Certainly not me, sweetheart. All skill, all day," he said, chuckling. He returned the kiss by leaning down to give her a peck on the temple. To the others, he wrapped one arm around her shoulders, and the other planted firmly on his hip and spoke for all to hear. "Let's all remember, this is why it's Lieutenant Riviera and not Recruit Riviera. I'll also take Master Archer Riviera, if you all are so inclined."




While the archery contest was going on outside, several of those who had remained indoors had decided to play cards. After a bit of discussion, it was decided that the game of choice was Wicked Grace, as sure an indication as any that a large portion of the would-be participants were intoxicated. Fortunately, Wicked Grace could be played for either money or articles of clothing, and neither was necessarily demanded. Lucien was cajoled by several of his people into joining the game, much to his own chagrin, but when they attempted also to get Sophia to agree, he felt it necessary to say something.

“This game is known for requiring a fair amount of guile,” he said, leaning over slightly so as to be inaudible to anyone else. “And it's not exactly played in polite company, usually. You are welcome to abstain… and I might recommend it.” Especially since it seemed to be the case that Rilien had agreed to play. What that really made the exercise was a question of how long other people could tolerate losing before they folded. Estella had already decided to sit out, though Donnelly was in. Lucien pitied him, but he chose not to say it.

"I think I'll spectate, then," Sophia decided. "I expect I'll enjoy it a great deal more that way." Guile was obviously not her strongest attribute, and she hadn't imbibed nearly enough to somehow think that it was. She looked forward to seeing how Lucien would fare. Either outcome, she figured, would be entertaining to watch.

It was Rilien who dealt the cards, moving them about so fast that it was impossible to keep track of them. Well, not for him, but there was really no point in cheating at a game that was well within his capability to win fairly. Having dealt everyone a hand (five in total, for himself, Lucien, Aurora, Donnelly, and another Lion whose name he did not know), he spread out the three dealer cards face down to begin, then settled back into his chair, picking up his own hand. Doing some quick mental math and glancing around at the expressions of the other people at the table, he withdrew a few pieces of copper from his coinpurse. Bets started low while everyone got a feel for the game, and would generally increase by round. In the event one ran out of funds, they could bet items of clothing instead.

Rilien never ran out of funds when playing Wicked Grace.

Poke.

A finger jabbed Rilien in the ribs and as its owner spoke at him. "I'm not afraid of you," Aurora stated before poking him again. Then she laughed and took another drink from her goblet. She wasn't sure what glass of wine she was on, but it was enough to start feeling its effects. It helped explain the boldness at openly challenging the Rilien to a card game. Even without seeing it first hand she knew he had to be great at cards. It only made sense after all. He was probably great a cards before he became tranquil too.

With her two cards in front of her, Aurora took one more swig out of her goblet before placing both hands on the table and taking a deep breath. "Okay..." She began, closing her eyes and focusing. "Amalia face." What followed was one of her hands sliding across her face and taking all emotion with it. At least for that moment. It broke the next with a barely suppressed giggle as she poked Rilien again without looking. She fished a couple of coppers out of her pockets and set the betting, before returning to her pockets to find the rest of the coins she had.

Lucien snorted slightly at Aurora’s imitation of Amalia—it was not entirely inaccurate, actually. Once she’d set the betting standard, he followed with the same, leading Marchiel next in the sequence to fold immediately. Fair enough—he wouldn’t lose anything this round, at least. Donnelly matched the bet, and things went around again.

By the fifth set, almost everyone but Rilien was out of money. Marchiel was missing her boots, and Donnelly was down to trousers and the scarf he usually wore around his neck. Lucien pushed the last of his coins into the pile, raising his eyebrow over the table at Rilien. It was pointless trying to read the Tranquil for tells; one simply had to hope one’s hand of cards was better than his. But if he didn’t have a good hand, he rarely bothered to play far, and he still had a large stack of copper and silver in front of him.

Aurora's eyes were level with the table, the rest of her face obscured by its lip. She stared intently at her cards, which she held only a few inches away from the surface so that only she could see it. While her "Amalia face" was still on, it did not keep her from her antics. She only did them with a serious face now, occasionally broken by a laugh when she poked one of two people on either side of her. She was already missing articles of clothing, having run out of coins a few sets back. For now, she was barefooted, having lost her boots and one of the her bracers (the one that was not made by Amalia) during the last set.

She glanced up from her cards and to both Lucien and Rilien before returning back. "I bet my coat on this," she stated, putting her cards down and picking up her goblet.

Rilien didn’t really understand why it was necessary that he accept bets of clothing in lieu of actual money, but he was familiar with the custom, and since he didn’t really care how much money he won at the table, he chose to indulge it. He, of course, was still fully clothed and would remain so. He had little regard for propriety as such, but lacking such articles was a vulnerability of a sort, and he did not cede advantages for any reason. In games as in life, perhaps.

Not that he was taking this completely seriously. That was impossible even for him. Deciding what he supposed Aurora’s coat was worth, he raised by double the amount. That would force the next player at the table, Donnelly, to either bet his trousers or forfeit. Rilien was holding a fairly weak pair of cards this round, but nobody need know that, of course.

Lucien pressed his lips together, suspicious perhaps more from habit than from any tell of Rilien’s. Still, perhaps it was the drink, but he was feeling good about this round. His cards were good—not excellent, but good—but staying in the game meant betting articles of clothing that would actually bare skin when absent. With a twinge of embarrassment muted by the alcohol, he decided not to look anywhere near his left where Sophia was sitting, and set his cards facedown on the table to pull his tunic over his head. “I, ah… raise.” So to speak.

Sophia, as she had predicted, was enjoying all of this greatly, seated on Lucien's left with all her clothes right where they belonged, thanks to his wise counsel. It had taken some time for Rilien to get Lucien bare-chested, but he had done it now, and Sophia leaned over to set her cheek on his shoulder. Her gaze was slightly unfocused from the alcohol as she slid her arms around his bicep and hmmm'ed pleasantly.

"This is fine work you're doing, Rilien." She didn't wish for too much embarrassment for Lucien, but really... the removal of his shirt was hardly a crime. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Aurora looked to the growing pile of coins and clothes, and then to the backs of her cards, before cycling to Rilien and Lucien. Her gaze returned to her cards where it lingered for a moment. Then she shrugged and took a large gulp from her goblet. "I'm still in," she said, sliding her arms into her shirt and popping it off over her scarf. There were a few things she did not want to risk, among those were the bracer from Amalia, her scarf, and her pants. Everything else was replaceable.

The loss of her shirt did not make her indecent, as her scarf and layers of bandages covered most of her torso. The bandages were layered thick, in order to lessen any injuries she might take during her ventures in Kirkwall's streets. However, it did leave her arms and shoulders bare, and revealed many of the scars that her clothes hid. Discolored lines cut up to the shoulder on one arm, and down the forearm on the other, as well as a few indentations earned from her years fighting beside her friends. She caught the staring blush of Donnelly across the table, which caused her to look at one of her arms.

"This one?" she stated with a grin, pointing at the scar at her shoulder. "A parting gift from a pirate, on his own boat. Rilien was there," she said, jabbing another finger into his ribs. "I like your scarf by the way," she added rather abruptly, wagging an eyebrow at the article in question before slipping into a grin.

If it were possible for Rilien to feel amusement, it was a fair bet that he did right now. It would seem that Lucien became somewhat less decorous when drunk, and Aurora somewhat more forward. Of course, this extended to himself only insofar as he intermittently found himself poked in the ribs or the arm or something of that nature. Supposing that Lucien was going to play this round through, Rilien chose to fold. He would lose only a few silvers by doing so, and his cards weren’t worth risking more for when another player seemed bound to call any bluff anyway. So he ceded, leaving the round to be between Donnelly, Lucien, and Aurora. It would likely be the last anyway, as everyone seemed to be at about the amount of lost clothing they could take with good humor. And some discomfort, of course.

"It is nice to be appreciated, Sophia."

Lucien cleared his throat slightly awkwardly, not even initially noticing that Rilien had chosen to fold. He was, perhaps understandably, quite distracted at the moment, and wondered if the perceptible increase in temperature was the room, the alcohol, or the skin-to-skin contact with Sophia. He had a feeling he knew which. Shaking his head slightly, he put in a valiant effort to refocus on what was in front of him, which at the moment included the fact that Donnelly, now gingerly placing his short scarf on the table, was quite red in the face.

“Uh… I mean, thanks. It’s um… my aunt made it for me. You’re pretty too—I mean. Your scarf. It’s uh… yeah. Pretty.” Well, Lucien could not help but think, at least he wasn’t quite that bad anymore. Probably hadn’t been since he was thirteen. Perhaps growing up in court just meant growing up faster, at least in some respects.

“All right, turn them over then.” Lucien had a pair of cups and a pair of crowns, which wasn’t bad. Donnelly only had a pair of tens. Both looked over to Aurora thereafter, curious as to what she’d been playing with.

A lone pair of swords.

Aurora stared at Lucien's cards before looking at hers again, switching back and forth between them. "Wait..." She sputtered. She hoped that maybe if she looked just a little harder that she'd find maybe she imagined his two pairs and that she'd won instead. No matter how closely she stared however, the cards never changed, and a rosy tint seeped into her features. "Well." she uttered as she cradled her forehead.

"At least it's not cold tonight, right?" She offered Donnelly with a smile.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel

Earnings

0.00 INK



Considerable time had passed since Sparrow’s rather anticlimactic return to the people that had brought her into the world. Rilien could not say he was disappointed, of course, though he did have a sense that this was not how such things were generally expected to proceed. Literature was not exactly replete with characters who were reunited with long-lost relatives and did nothing. And while life was hardly literature, he would perhaps have expected something more dramatic, or at least loud, out of her. But there had been nothing. She had laid eyes on her mother, exchanged words as one would with a stranger, and then gone on with her life.

All in all, it had been mostly… rational. Rilien would have said that there was very little they could offer each other. They didn’t know one another, to the point where Beragail had actually failed to recognize her own child. Not unforeseen, necessarily, but he would have expected it to produce a very different reaction in Sparrow than the somewhat defeated acceptance it had. For a few days afterward, he had even contemplated returning and revealing the secret, though it was not his to tell. Rilien was hardly concerned with the convention of such things. Her possession should not have been his business either, but he had made it so, because it was something he could fix. If he had thought there was something to be fixed here, that telling Beragail about Sparrow would have helped her in any way, then he would have, he supposed.

That she might resent him was hardly relevant to whether or not he would act in her best interest… was it?

For once, he was not in his shop, toiling away at his craft, nor was he out on Sundermont with Estella, training. He actually had some time to do as he wished this afternoon (not that he did not wish to be doing those other things when he was), and so he had decided to spend it on the roof of the shop, or rather, the roof of his lodging above the shop, his legs crossed underneath him and his lute in his lap, his fingers plucking precise sequences of notes at intermittent intervals. Dusk was falling on Kirkwall, tinting the pale colors of most of the city with vibrant oranges and reds, a few violets and blues. The air smelled less bad up here, and while the city was hardly an aesthetic marvel, the present hue of it was not unpleasant to look at. The breeze stirred his sleeves and his lengthening hair—long enough now to fall slightly past his shoulders. It had been much longer in Orlais.

The sporadic nature of his playing evened out until he was properly strumming a song, a soft tune that started quiet and slow, then gradually increased in tempo and volume. If he closed his eyes, he could remember. Lords and ladies in all the colors under the sun, garlanded in feathers and lace and gossamer, whirling about until their feet could no longer follow, then begging off to the sides to watch those who could yet continue. Until there were only two. Strange, that it could seem at once so long ago and so recent.

Time did not heal all of her wounds. Like a sick dog dragging its hind legs underneath an old, abandoned house, Sparrow slunk back to Kirkwall without so much as a two words to the others, aside from her abashed apology and thanks when they finally returned. Directed to all of them for attending to her selfish needs, but especially towards Ithilian for tracking them down in the first place, when he did not benefit from any of it. It could have been far uglier without his presence. Back home, she mourned as she always did. Quiet days in the Hanged Man which quickly transformed into gratuitous, loud evenings slumped outside Rilien's shop. Or in the doorway of their home. She always found herself tangled in her own sheets, even though she swore she hadn't made it that far. Time was a burden of memories, composed of all the what-if's she'd walked away from. Even then, turning her back had seemed the proper thing to do. The right thing.

What right did she have to return? Sparrow would not leave Kirkwall. And she did not expect her mother to return with her. What would Beragail have done? Leaving the clan to its own devices was out of the question, especially after all she'd seen, after everything they had managed to build throughout the years. Had she been younger and still lost, she might have considered joining them. Certainly not the case with how she was now. She'd grown into another person entirely. Papyrus still dwelt beneath the surface of her skin, clammy and uncomfortable, even if she acknowledged that she was not who she had created so long ago. Sparrow had been there to steel her bones, and carry her through her aches, she was the one she wanted to be. She could be whoever she wanted to. There was no place, no room, for her in Beragail's glade, and the knowledge that her daughter was alive and well would do neither of them any good. Let them both thrive, she supposed, as well as they could.

It didn't mean she could fluff it off. Not so easily. Sparrow bore her expectancies clear as day. Pinned to her eyelids, rimming her eyes like gloomy anchors. She did not slip into the same slump she'd suffered during her possession, but she grieved as anyone did when confronting loss, however poorly. Where had the warm embrace gone? Where had the realization that her daughter was standing right in front of her gone? The moment of recognition and heartache and flooding relief. Her expectancies had been robbed from her in only a few seconds, a breath of eye-contact and then nothing. It was strange, surreal. Like entering a stranger's home, expecting a warm return, and only finding someone who was wondering why you were there in the first place. It had hurt, but she'd learnt something in the process. Home was not what ran in the blood, but rather, whoever you chose it to be. Family was not who you were related to, either.

She wandered the streets with her hands linked behind her head, occasionally dropping them to pluck flailing pieces of shredded cloth clinging to some of the wrecked buildings in the area. Her hands were always busy. Always needed to be occupied, lest she wouldn't know what to do with herself. As she tended to do when she walked with no direction, Sparrow found herself in front of Rilien's shop, kicking up rocks and steeling herself beside his door. It was unfair how she treated him in the throes of her tantrums. In times where comfort and friendship would have been appropriate, she disappeared to mourn on her own, and sheltered herself against kind words. These days, she could not guess what he would say. Or what questions he might ask should she show her face, and still, she appeared at random, greedy for the solace she'd previously rejected.

A few moments later and she heard music playing from above. Had the instrument, and its playing, not sounded so familiar, she might have thought she was losing her mind. It sounded sad, at first. Mimicked the ache in her heart, slow and painful—but then, it quickened, and reminded her of warmer things. Her friends, the Hanged Man, and laughter mostly. She did not need to call out to know that it was him playing. Sparrow found a rougher path up one of the balconies, and relished the climb, pulling herself up brick and iron-cast fencing before reaching the rooftop where Rilien was seated. He faced away from her, looking to the horizon. Almost lost. She brushed her hands on her trousers and approached him, kneeling down behind him and slipping her hands across his eyes. She'd wanted to laugh and shrill guess who?

Instead, she murmured, “What do you see?”

Fortunately, Rilien had no need of his sight to play, and finished the last few notes with her hands over his eyes. Rough, callused hands—his eyelashes brushed her palms as he blinked. “Very little, at present.” His answer was, as always, exceptionally literal.

Sparrow remained immobile, hands poised across his eyes, hunkered behind him like a flightless bird. His eyelashes tickled against her palms. Long and feminine as they were, far longer than her own. She often wondered how he had been in his youth, and if he ever took advantage of those eyes of his, as she would have had their lives been reversed. It would've been a waste otherwise. Hers were mucky coloured things, hardly worth diving in. She envied visceral traits like a hungry beast. A soft chuckle hummed in her throat at his response, as literal as ever. Even if he could not see, he could play just as well. Far better than any of her attempts at clumsily plucking the strings with her eyes uncovered. She figured his playing was like a mirror to the self she'd never been acquainted to. A reflection of memories, long lost but still swimming just beneath the surface. Scratch hard enough and there it was—brass, copper, brilliant and blinding.

Setting his lute down in his lap, Rilien raised both of his hands to her wrists, wrapping his fingers around them and lifting her hands from his eyes. He did not immediately let go of them, however, instead shifting himself and her both so that they were facing one another. Then he blinked again, moving his hands such that his fingertips, just as callused as hers if a bit more fastidiously-maintained, slid from the insides of her wrists along her palms, finally coming to a rest such that they were under the crooks of her own fingers, balancing them there with no coercion.

She paused when he settled the lute in his lap, and froze entirely when his hands closed around her wrists. Her stomach gave an empty lurch, twisting and twisting and twisting. Whatever fickle, feckless nerve she always had around everyone, seemed to crumble apart in the strangest moments, particularly when Rilien was involved. His hands appeared much larger than hers. Had her hands always been smaller? They slowly lifted away from his eyes, and she shifted along with him. Partially because she did not know what else to do. Like a young boy teetering on the cusp of discomfort and boyish clumsiness, Sparrow did not jerk her hands away. The jest she'd been planning during her ascent quivered away like the smile on her lips, and she wondered how he managed this. Hadn't it been for his Tranquillity, she might've blamed magic. A spell, of course. Of course it was.

Rilien had learned, among many other things his Bardmaster had taught him, that of all the visible parts of someone’s body, the hands often indicated the most. Where they were placed, how rough or smooth they were, where the calluses were located, how the fingernails were kept, or not kept, as the case may be. Sparrow’s hands, despite being only slightly smaller than his, with somewhat shorter fingers, were entirely different in character. Rilien’s roughened spots were evidence of carefully-chosen disciplines; he had ones on his fingers from lute strings, and others from the hilts of weaponry and his crafting tools. Hers were nicked and toughened in a much less-evident kind of way. Rilien’s training had been difficult, but Sparrow had had a hard life. This much was clear in their hands in a way that may never show in their demeanors.

Her hands might have been a mess of claws and old distrusts, hardened where the shaft of her mace would have sat and littered with forgotten scars, while his told tales of artistry, of subtle brutality and another man who'd walked a very different path—but, his were still graceful and gentle, as if he were guiding the hands of a skittish creature. For once in her life, when she may have guided those hands as any narrow-eyed deviant would have, Sparrow felt green and out of her element. He only ever offered her blunt honesty; subtle, soft. It did not lessen her surprise. When he spoke to her, it nearly felt as if the world had narrowed down to her, and her alone. Whether or not this was intentional, Sparrow could not tell. He did not speak in riddles, nor did he speak in metaphors, in words she might have to puzzle out.

“And now I see you.” The delivery was the same as his purposefully-obtuse answer had been before, but the character of it was entirely different.

He saw her.

Her.

Sparrow drew abruptly closer, tilting her head, and stopping short of his face. Inches apart. Eyes flagged at half mast; hungry, selfish, stupid. Had it been anyone else, perhaps in the Blooming Rose, she might have... Her expression crumbled as she tipped back on her haunches, hands still poised in his. “You see me?” she quarried between her teeth, though her words softened, “even when I don't see myself?”

Rilien knew an invitation when he saw one. This one, like much about Sparrow, could hardly be called subtle. That established, however, he was unsure what to do about it, in a way he was not accustomed to being uncertain. Perhaps it was because other invitations were always accepted or declined with a long view to an end or an aim he wished to achieve. But what was the long view here? He could not be what she needed. Not anymore. His ability to do anything for her, to be adequate to her demands, lasted up until she required something more than his resources, his intellect, or his patient tolerance could give her. He had always known that—never more keenly than when he had accepted that this state of affairs was necessary to save her.

It was a keen irony, that the version of himself that would serve here was the one he’d given up so she could reach the point where it would be wanted. His emotional self, offered and lost so that she could live as a whole person, who might eventually need someone who could feel for her.

“Often, I see nothing else.”

And it was all he had to give.

Gently dropping one of her hands, Rilien placed his free one on her crown, leaning forward and pressing his lips to her forehead, at the spot between her brows, just above the bridge of her nose. Smooth, unblemished, whole. As it should be. It was not his doing, in the end, but he had been part of it. He accepted this sharp awareness of his own hollowness as part of that, part of the price to be paid. “But merely seeing is not sufficient.”

It was unfair. But when had things ever been fair for any of them? In her youth, she'd thought that no one could afford weakness. That staying in one place longer than was comfortable, was simply foolish. Trust and friendship were blades poised at the bottom of your spine, slavering to sever whatever bonds you'd cooked up in your mind. They were vulnerable spaces, small chinks in her armour, that she'd created over the years. Flaws of her own making—how strange, now, that all of the things she'd promised she would never fall prey to, she was now doing. She believed. She stayed. She trusted and actually had friends. She feared losing them, and always wanted more than they could give.

Stranger still, how he could say exactly what she wanted to hear. Her mouth pinched and then settled into a frown, shoulders slumping like a dramatic actress. Rilien had never held a blade to her spine. Never made her feel as if she were backed into a corner and needed fleeing to another part of Thedas, nor driven her away whenever she made trouble. Sure as hell, there was no end to that. How he managed to keep it all at bay... in his own words, illogical. It might have been easier not to bother. That he did meant something. The lump in her throat squeezed at the words she did not have the courage to speak.

She did not move when Rillien dropped one of her hands. Frozen in place as he closed the distance between them and planted a kiss above her nose, soft and sweet as a kitten. It was Sparrow who rocked back on her heels and plopped herself back on her arse, shying away from the proximity that hadn't bothered her nearly as much as before. Warmth boiled up in her face, spoiling her demeanour. Smooth, savvy, slick. All gone. She tugged at the bottom of her mangled ear with her free hand. Her frown wavered in a thin, quibbling line, bordering on one of her grins. It sat awkwardly on her face, as she eyed him. “Not nearly,” she blurted, cotton-mouthed, “you're unfair, you know that?”

"Not nearly as unfair as you are.” Rilien moved back, content to allow her retreat, and placed his hands upon his knees. His head listed slightly to one side, noting the redness to her face with the tiniest flicker of amusement, tempered even so with the weight of that less-desirable knowledge. The person he had been, could have been, would have felt so much more than that bare spark of a thing. Even now, this was all he could muster.

Perhaps it was better, to skirt around the edges of the subject, allow it to be a matter of implications, all plausibly deniable, but Rilien had never been one to do so. At least, not unless it was necessary. "Why are you here, Sparrow?”

Unfair as you are. Sparrow tilted her head owlishly. She was somewhat surprised by the mild disappointment swelling in her chest when Rilien released her hands. She settled them in her own lap to prevent them from trembling—and found herself incapable of smothering the jittery energy bleating through her limbs. Though, his response gave her pause. When had she been unfair? She swore she'd always been the tortured one. Poor her, in her selfish pursuits. Unless he meant all the trouble she'd brought down on their heads. Like an endless storm, cold sleet shivering down to their bones. Never dry enough. No. Rilien never spoke in riddles. He always made things clear.

She tousled a hand through her hair and dropped it back down. Good question. It was a habit. Whenever she drowned herself, instead of facing her feelings as she should have, she'd end up here. Not here exactly. She'd usually find him, wherever he was. He put her worries at ease. Smoothed the wrinkles from her nose. Made her feel lighter. She supposed she sought him out to make herself feel better, and perhaps, that was reason enough. “I wanted to,” her voice squeaked until she cleared her throat and licked her lips, “I wanted you to understand. What I did, I mean. Why I left. I wanted to explain to you. Just you.” The others might have understood if she explained herself properly. Some of them deserved answers.

“My family is here. I belong here. This is my home. Without everyone, without... There's no returning now.”

"Very well.” Rilien certainly didn’t have a problem with that. She was right, he thought: her home was there no longer. That much was plainly obvious to him, at least. Of course, if she had decided she wished to attempt making a life there, with her parents, he would have arranged everything to best suit that goal, as far as he could, too. Arranging things to suit this decision was admittedly considerably easier, because it involved changing little, if anything, at all. "If that is what you want, if this life is, then you are welcome to it. I suspect no one would disagree.”

Perhaps some would feel that she should have at least told her mother that she was alive, to bring the woman closure if nothing else. But from the looks of things Beragail was fine, settled and certainly not excessively distraught on a daily basis. How much more distress would it bring, to both of them, to open up wounds already closed with no clear way of healing them again? In all likelihood, both would have expectations that the other was unable to meet. He was no expert in such matters, of course, but it seemed a likely hypothesis, from what he had observed of other people in his life.

"I… happen to concur.” The thought was offered softly, though as with everything Rilien said, confidently. He was nothing if not realistic. "You belong here. That is no shortcoming.” She fit here—and she fit into his life in this way. To lose that would be… unsettling. Even to him.

Her shoulders sagged. Whatever retribution she believed she would have had to endure seemed entirely fabricated. It might have been a waste of time, trekking so far out into the woods, and turning tail as soon as they found who she was looking for—but she was still relieved that he did not blame her. He understood. All that was left was to somehow apologize to Ithilian for piddling away at his time, and constantly heckling him for information. She was not so sure he would be as understanding but figured that he, too, might agree that she had no place there. A few stern words, at best. Or maybe, he'd surprise her. Stranger things had happened. Even if he did not think so, Sparrow still counted him as one of her friends; and once that was done, there was no escaping her tedious requests to repay her debts.

She wriggled in her spot. When had she been asked to stay in one place? When had she stayed long enough to be asked, more like. Amalia hadn't the chance, and whatever friends she'd made along the way had little more than a glimpse of shaggy hair fading in a crowd. She steepled her hands together, quickly unwound them and settled them down and back up again. His goodness was compelling and stifling and warm as a scarf wrapped around her neck. Did she deserve all he had done for her? No. The answer resounded in her, clear as day. Nothing could be done in return. It was an outstanding debt she would gladly pay with time and friendship. She hoped it would be enough.

The smile twittered back across her lips, still teeming with a gladness she could not wrestle off her face. She scooted beside him and draped her legs over the edge, kicking them back and forth.

“Can you play another song? A slow one.”

Setting

9 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

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An acrid haze filled the air, the smell of smoke and ash thick in Ithilian's nostrils. It wasn't the first time he'd been to the Bone Pit, nor was it the first time he saw signs of dragon activity here, but the one he had helped slay here before hadn't come close to wreaking this kind of destruction. This was the work of a high dragon, and likely a fair number of her brood. There were enough clawed footprints in the sand to confirm that.

They were gone now, though. What they left behind of the mining operation was nothing more than charred and torn bodies, mostly consumed by the hungry dragonlings, and the wreckage of obliterated equipment, things that couldn't be eaten, though some of the bite marks indicated that they had certainly tried for a little while. It was safe to say that the mining efforts here were going to be shut down for some time. This place was heavy with the deaths of many souls. Ithilian didn't need to be a mage to feel it. It could practically be seen.

"Keep your spacing," he reminded the others. "Don't give her an attractive target." She would return soon enough, he didn't doubt. From the looks of it, she was looking to make this place her lair, to settle here and try to raise her young. That would of course be bad news for the city. The Bone Pit wasn't exactly right outside the walls, but it wasn't far, either. This needed to be dealt with. Ithilian wasn't happy about being convinced to come out and battle a high dragon, but it needed to be done, and the job needed the best.

Almost all of the best had been roped in like him. Ithilian wasn't even sure where the effort began. With Sophia, perhaps, or maybe Ashton. Hubert would have either gone to mercenary help, or the guards, depending on who he trusted and if he was willing to pay. Regardless, the word had spread to both groups, and now a decently large strike team had been assembled to go into the dragon's new lair, and remove the creature for good.

Certainly, the advice to spread out was good, but it would make matters a little more difficult for Nostariel. Even her roughest, most widespread heal spells could only be cast over an area so large, and she knew from experience that there were a lot of ways a dragon could injure people in various positions relative to her. Still, that was why she was wearing, along with her usual armor and arms, a leather bandoleer full of blue mana potions. Given that nobody else in the team was much for healing, she knew she had to be prepared to take on that burden herself. A bit further to the left, Rilien stood in an accustomed position near Lucien’s shadow, unruffled as ever. His dark leathers had replaced his usual silks and linens, several more blades than usual sheathed about his person. Not entirely unwarranted, considering the last time they’d done this kind of work, many years prior.

Perhaps out of stupidity or misplaced excitement, Sparrow stood in her allotted position with her top-heavy mace balanced across her now-slender shoulder. Nowadays, it looked out of place. Proper training had enabled her to pick it up again. Good thing, too. She missed it. The weight in her hands, and the momentum she felt swinging it around was bar none. With Aurora's most recent lessons under her belt, she felt as if she could take on anything. A dragon? No problem. Little bone-licking dragonlings scurrying under her big talons, flapping wings, and fiery gullet? Easy as pie. She did not, however, roll her eyes at Ithilian's advice, and promptly distanced herself a little further from the others. She'd also donned Amalia's handcrafted leathers for this occasion. It shifted with her comfortably—no clanking and no discomfort. Perfect for dragon-slaying; and hopefully, strong enough to keep her from burning to a crisp, or being skewered in half.

While Rilien stood to Lucien’s left, a few of the Lions occupied the right. Those who had not already been dispatched for the day, and were therefore able to fight a dragon on short notice. Of course, a few of them were looking a little green around the gills at the prospect, especially Estella, but she seemed placated when he told her that they would be asked to combat the younger ones only, unless things went very, very badly. Cor actually seemed a little disappointed, but Lucien was willing to bet that wouldn’t last very long.

Amalia had come a little better-prepared to this fight than her last one with a dragon, and all of the weapons she carried on her person this time were stout, thick, and sharp, because she stood a better chance of puncturing the creature’s hide than slashing it open. She didn’t make a habit of carrying anything long enough to suffice for the latter. She shifted her weight slightly from one foot to the other, arms crossed over her chest.

Aurora had not come completely unarmed, not against a high dragon. Not only would it had been foolish, but also suicidal. She leaned lightly on her staff and kept herself loose in preparation for the upcoming fight. Her staff was a simple affair, a long, thick wooden rod with a white focusing crystal embedded in the tip. Stretching one more time, she hefted the rod and gave it a spin above her before stopping it as she held it out to the side. It had been a while since she had used her staff, but it wasn't too hard for her to adapt it into her style.

Nearby where Nostariel stood there was Ashton, an arrow already nocked and held at half-draw. On the other side of her was Ashton's sergeant, the woman named Vesper with her shield at the ready and her sword resting on its edge. Behind them, a count of three more guards accompanied them, all patiently waiting for the dragon to make its appearance. "So, I'm calling it now. When we kill her, I'm claiming her head and mounting it. I've already got the perfect spot in mind for it," he said with a chuckle and a wink to Vesper.

"We have to survive first, Lieutenant. Let's do that before you start thinking about any promotions," Vesper replied to the chuckling of the other guardsmen. Of the Guard, he trusted these men and women the most to keep their wits about them and to not shy away from fighting beside apostates. Which wasn't much of a problem, none of them were about to do anything to further the Templars control over their city, much less turn their Lieutenant's apostate friends into them. The trust ran both ways. "Of course, Ves. I plan on it," Ashton added with a grin. Fear was absent in his voice, instead an excitement replaced it as he bounced on his heels, eager to get started.

Sophia wasn't sure if they were hunting, however, or merely offering themselves up as prey. She held a position near Lucien, though she heeded the advice of Ithilian's, keeping a fair distance and preventing any clusters from forming. The last dragon she'd fought hadn't gone cleanly at all, but that was years ago, and she'd only had two allies to help, not the small army here today. The land already looked like a battleground. Soon it would be in truth.

The beast could not hide the sound of her heavy beating wings, though in the center of the Bone Pit, it was difficult to tell which direction she was going to come from, with the way sounds bounced around the cliffsides. Ithilian spotted her approaching from the south, coming over the cliff's edge into view, and immediately called it out, though they had only a few moments to react before she laid down her first blast of fire, an intense blaze being put down right through the middle of the assembled warriors, effectively splitting them in two for the time being.

The high dragon proceeded to swoop around to her left and land before those furthest into the sandy basin at the lowest point of the pit. On the other side of the blaze, a small horde of dragonlings emerged seemingly from the earth itself, coming out of their subterranean domains now that their mother's presence emboldened them.

The Lions were quick at attention, and almost as soon as the younger dragons had begun to emerge, the mercenaries were present, working in tight clusters of two or three, so as to keep their backs covered. All had judged it was better to handle the small ones in melee, save Tessa, whose job it was to act as spotter, finding what little high ground she could and keeping one eye on the large dragon and one on her comrades, ready to direct them to move if anything should markedly change in the flow of events. She also added the occasional arrow to the fray, but in order to avoid drawing any of the dragonlings to her position, she did not fire at full speed.

Lucien, meanwhile, took point. It was, perhaps, a fairly safe assumption that doing so was his job in this situation, and he didn’t mind. Part of him rather relished in the opportunity. Everburn, he slid from its place at his back, the cool metal of the sword slowly heating until it glowed, the enchantment in fine working order thanks to Rilien, the metal tempered strong enough to withstand its repeated use. Though he often wore lighter armor than plate these days, he was presently in as much of it as he could be without sacrificing his ability to move. He knew quite well that fire was not a dragon’s only danger. Rilien ran as he had the last time they faced down a dragon, a step behind and slightly to one side of Lucien, quite literally in his shadow. He carried a blade in each hand, the lengths asymmetrical, both trailing frosty air from the metal of which they were made.

Amalia, split off from that half the party by the initial jet of flames, decided to fan to the left and seek to flank. She’d do best up under the dragon, where the scales were softer, but it would require some ingenuity to get there without the creature noticing.

Nostariel, also cut off from most of the party, chose first to put out the flames, too late to make waiting more convenient for Amalia, but perhaps valuable to those who wished to see the other side of the battlefield. She would be best off closer to the back ranks anyway. When the flames had been extinguished, she drew Oathkeeper from her back and nocked an arrow to the string, treading forward considerably more carefully than most of the others. She would need to keep an eye on as much as possible, and in that sense, her role was not so different from Tessa’s.

Sparrow shrugged her shoulders one more time, and luckily, hadn't been in the direct line of dragon-fire spewed in the middle of the Lions assembled there. It appeared as if no one had been injured, but it was difficult to tell with all the ash and dust flying around them in fat plumes. She squinted at the glinting creature flapping around them. Its wings were damned loud enough to drown out the clanging of metal and shrieks of those dragonlings, but her heart was pounding the loudest. Pure energy—pure excitement bugling through her veins. This was much different then their encounter in the Deep Roads. Betrayal had dampened her spirits, but this, this was a mighty hunt, and she needed to stretch out her muscles. It felt much like waking up.

She, too, struck out on her own, glancing over at Rilien and Lucien dashing forward from her peripherals. She approached around the Lions as a brisk jog while dragging her mace through the dusty terrain, occasionally skittering skulls and bones in its wake, while focusing magic through her upper arms, forearms and fingertips. She focused it straight through the haft of her blunted weapon and into its flanged head. Become one. Strengthen her arms. Surround herself with the Fade's heaviness, until she felt like bursting. Digging her heel into the ground, Sparrow drew back her mace with a grunt, tensed her arms, and slammed the mace across one of the dragonlings gaping gullet. It snapped back with spittle flying, allowing the Lions to pounce.

She did not wait. Instead, she lurched forward again, dragging the mace, spattered and all, behind her. What would it feel like, crushing it against this dragon?

Wordlessly Ashton issued a series of hand gestures for Vesper and the rest of the guard he'd brought. In turn, Vesper replied with one of her own and took the others, and made their way as a group to the Dragonlings in order to aid the Lions. Before they got too far, Ashton called for his sergeant to wait for a moment, "Ves." He held her gaze for a moment before glancing toward Nostariel. Vesper followed his gaze and nodded her acknowledgement before leading the men across the field. "Right," Ashton muttered to himself, moving forward to the High Dragon ahead.

Initially cut off from the rest of the battlefield, Aurora aided Nostariel in snuffing out the flames separating them. Once the path between the sides of the field was open, Aurora tentatively approached the dragon and stopped once she reached a comfortable distance. Unlike her other friends, this was her first dragon, and she wasn't aware of just how big they could get. However, she'd seen Amalia peel off at first to approach the dragon from the flank, and she intended to make sure that she got there in one piece. Swinging her staff in a wide arc, she focused her energy into the crystal at the tip, and into the second arc she flung a heavy stonefist directly at the dragon's maw.

Not too far behind the stonefist, an arrow followed. Ashton pulled beside her, though still a distance away to avoid clustering. He drew another arrow and sent it down field seeking the same effect that Aurora was, though instead of Amalia, he was looking to cover Lucien and Rilien's approach. He tilted his head and nodded at Aurora before going searching for his next arrow.

Sophia had maintained a position somewhat close to Lucien, but the dragon’s initial flyover had put a large wall of fire between them before turning to land on his side, leaving her to be beset by an encroaching horde of dragonlings, very similar to the kind she’d fought here years ago. While Nostariel was working on removing the flames, Sophia moved to guard her back, cutting down one smaller dragonling with a clean slice down into the neck. Soon she was able to maneuver closer to the Lions, holding her position with them and cutting down the scaled beasts as they came.

“Behind you, Sparrow!” she called out, pointing out the dragonling trying to chase down the half-elf from the rear.

Ithilian meanwhile climbed swiftly up to a spot of high ground, a flat rocky plateau overlooking the sandy basin below. Tessa had already arrived there by the time he took up his position, taking out his longbow and crouching down, adding powerful long range shots to their arsenal against the dragon. Unlike the other archer up here, or Ashton below, Ithilian had nothing to worry about other than placing the correct shots.

The high dragon was none too happy with the reception she had received, and wisely refused to remain in place, shrugging off the initial attacks. The stonefist from Aurora however served to get her attention, and when the dragon took off briefly to reposition, her blast of fire was directed at the mage responsible.

Setting

9 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

Behind you, Sparrow. The warning came early enough to warrant an inelegant jerking-halt towards the High Dragon. She took advantage of her forward-momentum to pivot on her right leg and swing the dragging mace in a wide arc, swinging her around to face the dragonling nipping at her heels. If it weren't for its gaping maw full of scissor-sharp teeth and pulsing gullet shifting embers through its skin, she might of thought it looked like a hound chasing a thief away. Her swing missed a few inches above its head, but pulled her along with it. Fortunately, it's snapping jaws missed the meat of her arm by a few inches, though she felt the heat wafting against her face.

Time seemed to drag—and she didn't have enough of it to swing her mace back around by the time it skidded to a halt and turned its head back towards her. She whipped her hand in front of her and focused her energy into her fingertips, into her palm, willing coldness through her core. It shivered down her forearm and burst forth in a spray of sharp icicles, shattering across the dragonlings head. A startled laughed bubbled from her lips, and she took the opportunity to grapple back onto the handle of her mace, swinging it in an upwards motion, while the creature was dazed. It's jaw cracked backwards, and then, it's body followed. She did not wait to see whether or not she'd killed it.

Aurora realized that she may have been a little too effective at providing a distraction, especially when the dragon lifted off with her eyes turned toward her. Ashton turned toward her with eyes wide like saucers before he bolted out to the side and out of the way of the incoming fireball. Aurora's eyes widened as well, but she took step backward to first set her heel, and then scooped upward with her staff, summoning a thick veil of frost in an attempt to counteract at least some of the fireball so that she wouldn't end up as a charred crater in the sand.

Fortunately, she was not alone. Nostariel, still towards the back and well-protected from any errant dragonlings, had the time to set her feet, and draw her bow, but not enough time to fit an arrow to the string. Fortunately, Sparrow and Aurora were not the only ones who’d been practicing, and an arrow did in fact appear—made entirely of ice. With a softly-released breath, the Warden relaxed her hand, and the magical projectile flew, striking right at the center of the fireball itself, the burst of ice that followed rapidly cooling the dragon’s breath weapon. It would hit Aurora’s ice shield at a much lower temperature, now.

Aurora didn't just wait to see what happened. As soon as she summoned her frost veil, she dove out to the side to clear the blast radius. The fire struck the ice and steamed violently and went out with a bang. Had Nostariel not cooled the fireball with her arrow, then Aurora's veil by itself might not have been enough to save her from being scorched. Rolling to a stop on her knees as the steam fell around her, Aurora swung her staff around and shot off a series of lightning bolts toward the passing dragon from the staff's ambient enchantment.

Ashton for his part followed with more arrows, targetting the creature's leathery wings and the joints that connected them to her body. He wisely chose to not stop moving this time.

There was nothing quite as good for one’s confidence in a situation like this than knowing you had the best of friends at your back and sides. So thought Lucien, in an absent sort of way, as he once again ran after the dragon, eyes to the sky to get a good idea of where she would land. When she did, perhaps out of desire not to have holes poked in her wings by the archers in the party, he was there, meeting a sideswept set of claws with the blade of Everburn, his boots digging deep furrows into the gravelly ground beneath his feet. In the end, both he and the dragon were mutually stopped cold. Rilien occupied himself mostly by weaving in and out of Lucien’s shadow, using the gaps provided by the chevalier’s broader motions to add short cuts and stabs to the attack pattern without presenting much in the way of an additional target. When both drew to a stop, he capitalized, punching the blade of his knife into the dragon’s snout, when withdrawing again just as quickly.

Breaking the stalemate, Lucien stabbed swiftly upwards for her snout, meeting air when she reared her head back in time. Thankfully, she seemed to be fully occupied fending off himself and Rilien this time.

Sparrow rounded towards the dragon's flank as well. She'd seen Rilien and Lucien attacking from the front, adding a large, bulky weapon into the fray wouldn't help them much. Besides, she was not graceful and once she swung—stopping was difficult. She skidded to a halt behind the dragon's left heel and ducked under its sweeping tail, careful not to be on the receiving end of its wild kicks, and dug in her own. Like a lumberjack preparing to fell a particularly large tree, Sparrow tensed the muscles of her arms, and swung her mace towards the fleshy under-part of its foot.

Sophia found herself targeted by a larger drake, matured enough to have sprouted wings from its back, the creature rallying the lesser dragonlings somewhat. It led a charge forward, screeching as it tried to chomp down on the nearest target. Sophia met the charge with a swing of her blade, burying the edge of it deep in the dragon's chest, enough to hit the bone and set a spattering of dragon's blood onto her armor and the ground. It failed to kill the creature outright however, and their proximity became a problem. Sophia was forced to take one hand off the handle of her blade and grab the drake by the throat, to try and keep its snapping jaws away from her. It raked at her with claws, trying to find some weakness in her armor, and thus far failing. But her blade was stuck in its chest, and the awkward pair struggled about in place, trying to gain the upper hand.

Fortunately, help was not long in coming. A well-placed shout from Tessa drew the attention of Donnelly and Idris, and the pair finished off their dragonling foes with haste, moving to help Sophia. Idris, armed with a heavy wooden quarterstaff, beat off the additional dragonlings led to the location by Sophia’s obvious predicament, while Donnelly, broad-bladed sword in one hand and kite shield in the other, moved in to help Sophia, blocking an erratic wing-buffet with the shield before stepping in smoothly under the drake’s guard, swinging his sword with controlled strength for the middle of its neck, using the spikes to guess where the bones must be.

The blade sank about halfway into the neck, far enough to be fatal, and he sawed it forward, extracting it with minimal fanfare as its grip on Sophia slackened and it slowly collapsed.

The high dragon meanwhile was growing frustrated at the offensive thrown against her, several arrows having weakened her wings, a number of solid hits landed up close, magic spells taking their toll. When Ithilian landed an arrow through her forked tongue, her attention was pulled up to the vantage point he occupied with Tessa, and she soon took off, heading straight for them.

"That's not good," the elf muttered, shortly before he was forced to dive off of his elevated position. The dragon landed heavily upon the plateau, turning sharply and stomping around the rise, roaring displeasure. Ithilian landed with a roll below, quickly exchanging his bow for his blades, and taking down the nearest dragonling. Tessa was not as quick off the vantage, taking a moment to identify the next one in range, before the incoming dragon forced her to jump off the incline, the impact of its landing showering her with debris.

From her vantage point, the high dragon began to launch balls of flame from her gullet down at the battle below, flames that would do little to her children, but would cook the would-be dragonslayers if they did not avoid them.

“Damndamndamndamndamn,” Tessa muttered as she rolled to her feet, the word repeating in a frenetic rhythm not so different from the one her feet beat on the ground as she sought cover, imagining, not so inaccurately, that the heat she could feel on her back was a fireball chasing her down.

In the end, it started to scorch, and she was forced to dive sideways into a dip in the ground, covering her head with her hands as the flaming sphere passed overhead. When the heat seemed to her to have gone, she poked her head up from the small dip she’d laid in, then picked herself up from the ground. She could feel that her back had suffered some damage under her leathers, but judging from the lack of crippling pain, it probably wasn’t too bad. It took her a bit longer to reach the new vantage point than she would have liked, but at least the dragon wasn’t paying attention to her anymore.

Ashton's choice to not stop moving proved an intelligent decision. One of the fireballs was aimed directly at the archer, causing him to shift focus from shooting at it to running from it. Turning to the side, he bolted as fast as his legs could carry and as soon as he felt the broiling heat on the back of his neck, he dove. The impact threw tongues of flame all around him, but Ashton had avoided the brunt of the explosion.

He rolled and came to a stop on his knees beside Nostariel, the back of his armor singed, and the bits of cloth in his uniform singed. Smoke was still rising from his shoulder when he nocked another arrow and fired it without a hint of hesitation. Then he paused for a beat, tilting his head toward Nos and said, "We can talk about how heroic that was later," before nocking another arrow. An attempt was made to stand again, but he fell back to his knees, the energy taken out of his legs by his proximity to the shockwave. Though he escaped the worst of it, he did not get out completely unharmed.

“And I shall congratulate you on your unparalleled skill at running away.” Nostariel smiled briefly, but there was no time for much more than that, as the dragon had begun to issue more balls of flame from her mouth, and keeping well away from those was top priority for the moment. In fact, it was about all she had the opportunity to do at the moment, though she did occasionally shoot more icy projectiles at the dragonlings or their mother, to great effect in the former case, and not so much with the latter.

The dragon was, unfortunately, capable of moving much more quickly through the air than Lucien was over the ground, and without someone to distract it, it became considerably more dangerous for everyone. This was something that Amalia did not have to think very hard to know. She could see he and Rilien making their way over, but in the meantime, the battlefield was slowly descending into complete chaos. Pursing her lips tightly together, she drew two knives from her back, short and sturdy, and crouched low to present little visual target, circling around behind the dragon and creeping up on it as it continued to aim and shoot spheres of flame towards the other combatants.

In the end, she didn’t think much about it at all—she just did what seemed most likely to achieve the end she was after. It had to happen quickly, and she could not hesitate. That in mind, she bounded into a sprint, her treads quiet against the sounds of battle, and jumped onto the highest point of the dragon’s tail she could reach, sprinting up the rest as far as she could before the dragon reacted violently, pausing in her assault of the field to try and throw Amalia off her back. It was at this point that the knives came into play; Amalia willingly buckled her knees, plunging one of the knives with all the force of her weight into the creature’s shoulder, sliding it as well as she could between the more armored plates.

This went about as well as one could expect, and the dragon’s attention was now fully on getting her away from it and into range of attack. The second knife joined the first on the opposite side, and Amalia held on as well as her grip and the strength in her legs would allow. It was certainly well enough to maintain her positioning despite the dragon’s thrashing, though she had to grit her teeth in order not to bite her tongue.

What she did not expect was what happened next—rather than try and throw her from the ground, the dragon beat her wings several times and jumped off the plateau she’d landed on, taking to the air with Amalia still on her back. From the ground, it appeared as though she ascended almost vertically into the sky, letting out a horrendous, grating shriek that sounded like stone being scraped against metal. A few of the Lions paused in their motions at the sound, Estella flinching visibly.

The dragon reappeared some moments later, twisting through the air in a series of barrel rolls. Amalia was beginning to feel distinctly sick, but she’d locked her grip and refused to relinquish it, knowing that to do so would mean her death. After what seemed like hours, but had in reality been perhaps a minute, the dragon landed hard on the ground, the jolt dislodging her passenger, who at last slid off one side and landed on shaky feet, promptly falling over when her legs gave out from under her. The frantic flight had clearly tired the dragon as well, however, and she was sluggish in her efforts to turn around and finish off her violent passenger, sluggish enough that Lucien could intervene, striking up at the softer scales between her forelimbs, leaving a bloody gash and forcing her to deal with the more immediate threat.

The dragon attempted to get at Lucien, but his positioning was just close enough to make it difficult, and her predicament was only made more obvious when Rilien intervened, waiting for her to shift in such a way as to bear much of her weight on one forelimb rather than the other. At that point, Rilien took his chance, drawing the longest blade he had and darting into towards the foot, bearing downwards with all his weight.

The blade sank into the dragon’s flesh and emerged from the other end, puncturing the ground and effectively staking her in place. The blade, like the others, had been enchanted, and ice began to coat along her limb, reinforcing the hold. There would be no more repositioning for a while, but it wouldn’t hold forever. Whatever they did, they had to be quick about it.

Tessa, who had tracked the dragon’s movement through the sky, caught something from her peripherals. “Hey, incoming!” The Lions, nearest the new arrival, scattered, diving out of the way in time to avoid being crushed under the landing of a second, smaller, but still formidable dragon, apparently summoned by the high dragon’s call.

“Shit.”

"Don't sound surprised, this is Kirkwall. Shit gets worse before it gets better," Vesper said to Estella. The Guard had been amongst the Lions, doing their part to slay the dragonlings, but with the appearance of the matured dragon, their priorities shifted accordingly. With a bang of her sword against her shield, the four guardsmen formed into a small unit, with a Vesper and another shield bearer standing at the front and a pair of swordsman waiting in the wings behind them. "Get your Lions, or are you going to let the Guard do all the work?"

“They aren’t my Lions,” Estella replied, her tone tinged with something that was almost affront, though it revealed its true nature in the comment that followed. We are the Commander’s Lions.” Nonetheless, she readied her sword, shifting her grip so that she was holding the curved blade with both hands.

“Damn straight,” confirmed Cor, Taking up a spot at her left. His own sword was considerably larger than Estella’s, built to be wielded always with the strength of both hands, like Lucien’s. Donnelly took up a post on her other side, his shield to the middle, where it would protect both of them to some degree. Idris and Tessa ranged out a little further behind, but they would definitely be tackling this as a unit.

“All right. Let’s go guys.” A series of nods, and the Lions charged, staggering their speed so that the first fireball clanged firmly into Donnelly’s metal kite shield, deflected upwards by the deliberate angle of it. Just like a mage’s spell would have been. Cor and Estella split off thereafter, letting Donnelly take the middle and moving to attack the flanks. Tessa provided cover fire for their approach, and Idris worked his way through a knot of smaller dragons attempting to led assistance to the other, weaving and jumping between them like a man of half his years.

Donnelly’s momentum carried him practically into the dragon, though he managed to avoid getting mauled by dint of excellent reflex, the creature’s forearm slamming into the shield he’d raised just in time. It still hit hard, and he staggered heavily sideways. At about the same time though, Cor reached one of the sides, slashing brutally at a back hamstring. It was hard to drag his sword through all those scales, and so the wound was nowhere near deep as he’d intended, but nevertheless, it was an effective distraction. Estella closed from the other side, her enchanted sword finding a place to punch through the natural armor near the wing joint on her side. The dragon’s spiked tail swung for her in response, and her feet were knocked out from under her, forcing her to somersault backwards in an ungainly pile of limbs to regain her footing, spitting strands of hair from her mouth that had once been in her ponytail.

The aggression from the Lions, and Estella's hit in particular, gave Sophia an opening to get around to the dragon's other side, and when the tail swung away to try and hit the younger woman she moved in for her own chance. Ducking under a flapping leathery wing, Sophia struck low, near the rear leg, stabbing up into the underbelly, needing a great deal of force to actually pierce through. Her blade sank in deep, though, causing the creature a great deal of pain, and soon drawing its ire back on her. Quickly, she withdrew her sword and backed up quickly, just in time to avoid the swing slash of the foreleg that tried to retaliate on her.

The Guard was not about to be outdone by a bunch of mercenaries in their city. Vesper lead the guard at an angle toward the front while its neck was turned and focused on fending off Sophia. They struck as one, four blades piercing its shoulder and leaving behind a number of wounds. The act had also garnered the full attention of the the dragon and it whipped its long neck around, dousing them in flame. They'd expected retribution of course, and prepared accordingly. Vesper and the guard to her side set down their towershields and hid behind them, the other two swordsmen hiding behind them. When the gout of flame tapered off, smoke billowed from the red hot surface of the shields, and the ground was scorched around them, but the guardsmen themselves were unharmed, if a bit warm.

The dragon didn't allow them the time for a counter attack, swiping at them with its forearm. Again, it was met with the pair of tower shields, both individuals grunting under the effort and being slid backward with the force. The swordsmen were quick, and struck not a moment after, drawing deep ribbons of blood from the creature's arm. It recoiled from the shock, giving Vesper and the other guard a moment of respite before their ears were assaulted with a shrieking cry. The dragon began to back out and it beat its wings to make room to take to the air. Vesper had other plans, however.

She spared a glance between the guards and indicated with a nod of her head its wings, each understanding the unspoken plan. They approached the escaping dragon, but before meeting it proper, the two shield bearers turned to face the swordsman and dropped to a knee, bracing the shields with their shoulders. The swordsmen had staggered a moment to make room to get and running start, and once their platforms were set, bolted off. They met the shields with their feet, and were launched into the air and onto the dragon's back. Each taking a wing, they plunged their blades deep into the joints, rending its ability to fly.

The two on the ground followed up by rushing forward and slamming into the dragon's torso with their shields throwing it off of its feet. "Someone kill the damn thing!" Vesper ordered the Lions.

The dragon, however, was quick to its feet, and while hobbled, still a brutal creature with strength in reserve. Clawing its way back to its feet, it roared at terrible volume, great sweeps of its tail and lashes of its limbs pushing everyone back, and disarming several in the process. Gouts of fire followed, threatening to cook anyone unwary enough to be caught, even as it swayed dangerously from side to side, worn down by the numerous wounds that had been inflicted upon its body.

Tessa’s bow was crushed beneath someone she didn’t recognize who’d fallen beside her, one of the guardsmen, she could only assume. Not that she blamed him for it—she was pretty sure he’d broken the worst of her fall, so it was hard to hold anything against the fellow. Looking around, she could spot Estella not too far away, clambering to her feet with her hand pressed to one side of her ribcage, one eye closed and a rivulet of blood carving its way down her face from somewhere just over her left eyebrow. Idris was farther off, not having taken any of the direct hits, but his arm looked to be reddened and blistering quickly. Cor’s sword had been snapped in half—she wasn’t sure how, but maybe the dragon had stepped on it or something.

Donnelly looked to be completely out of commission, if the way his legs were twisted around was any indication. She remembered him taking the brunt of the first few hits in an attempt to let them all get away. She found that her own ankle was in too much pain to move, but she wasn’t sure she had a choice. Minus a cut lip, Cor looked fine, and though she couldn’t hear them, she could tell he was talking to Donnelly, and with a short nod, the elven lad took up the human’s sword, shorter than what he usually used. Thanks to their training, though, she knew he’d know how to use it.

For the moment, the dragon was still trying to regain its balance, but they didn’t have long. Not too far off lay someone’s lost crossbow, and Tessa clenched her teeth. Rolling off the guardsman and onto her belly, she crawled over to it, mostly using her elbows to pull herself along with a bit of help from her knees. “Cor, go! Stel and I will cover you from behind!” Laying hands on the crossbow, she pulled a breath into her lungs and rolled over again, half-rising so she could brace the weapon properly as possible in a half-sitting, half-laying position. She was a fish in barrel if the dragon decided to use fire, but she’d cross that bridge when she came to it, if she ever did.

For a moment, Estella was frozen by indecision, but when Cor glanced over at her to confirm, she nodded sharply. There was only one way she could hope to succeed in laying enough cover for him to succeed, and she knew what she had to do. She just wasn’t sure she could do it.

You must.

“Do it.” Cor needed no more incentive, and was off like a shot. Behind him, Estella reached deep into herself, dipping for the first time in years into the half-familiar Fade.

Fire had always been easier to her hands than anything, and it was fire that answered her call now. Not much use against a dragon, but she didn’t have to kill it, she just had to distract it. Her first few attempts fizzled out before they even reached the dragon, one whizzing dangerously close to the tip of one of Cor’s pointed ears, though she doubted he even noticed. With the third, she hit her stride a bit, and though it was hardly masterful, the flames did hit the target, drawing its attention while Tessa pelted it from the other side.

“Over here, you ugly son of a Darkspawn!” The dragon’s much more impressive fireball was its reply, and she had to sprint to the left to avoid it, firing as she was able. Fortunately, she didn’t have to keep it up for long, because she could already feel her reserves drawing close to empty. She’d never been a talented mage.

With a great running leap, Cor looped one of his arms partway over the dragon’s shoulder, gripping one of the spikes that protruded from its upper spine and swinging, locking his legs around the middle portion of its neck. Pulling himself up by this hold, he torqued himself upwards, driving the sword up under the soft part of the throat, under the base of the tongue, a vulnerability that would have been otherwise unreachable. Wrenching the sword back out again, he dropped, landing in a crouch and promptly bolting to the side before the dragon fell, as otherwise it would likely have crushed him. When it fell, it moved no more.

A massive roar from across the battlefield announced that the original High Dragon was still alive, though more injured than it had been. Ashton stood a distance away, having once again found the strength in his legs to get back to moving, though he was noticeably more sluggish. His quiver was also steadily drying up, with the amount of arrows countable with his fingers. They needed to finish this soon, else the dragon would be the one grinding them down-- not the way it was supposed to be. Ashton reached back for another arrow when his fingers brushed against the fletching of one of his specialized arrows. He hesitated for a moment, a plan formulating in his head.

Well, it wouldn't hurt anything. Dropping the original arrow he was searching for, he plucked the one with the burlap sack for a tip. He nocked it and waited patiently. Aurora, much closer than she was initially, stood panting, downing the last of her mana potions. The dragon roared once more and reared her neck back, and Aurora prepared a spell to counteract the gout of flame that was sure to follow. Instead of spitting flame however, an arrow snaked its way through the air and went into the dragon's open mouth, smacking against the back of her throat. A muffled pop and bright flash replaced the fire, and the dragon stopped everything it was doing in a massive fit of coughing-- leaving it stunned.

Aurora watched in confusion for a moment, wondering what just had happened before shaking it off. She was presented with a prime opportunity, and it wasn't one she planned on wasting. Digging deep into her reserves of magic, she dipped into the fade. Thrusting her staff deep into the sand at her feet she used what was left of her mana and summoned a pair of spires beneath the dragon's feet on one side, and forced them to rise as high as she cool manage. The effort expended was massive and when she reached her limit she fell forward on her hands and knees, panting and forcing as much air as she could into her lungs.

The effect was as envisioned however, having her balance shattered by Aurora's earthen spires, the dragon tipped over and fell onto its side, its head bouncing as it hit the ground.

A falling dragon was not terribly difficult to predict a few seconds ahead of time, considering how long it took something that large to actually topple. As a result, Lucien was exactly where he needed to be when it did, standing just beside where its head contacted the ground. Before it could so much as move, Everburn was whistling through the air, and his strength and leverage, as well as the heat of the blade, moved it through the thick protection of the scales and out the other side, severing the head completely from the neck.

With a heavy exhale, he stepped back and lowered his ancestral sword. “It’s done.”

Setting

4 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon

Earnings

0.00 INK

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“Magic is a cancer in the heart of our land, just as it was in the time of Andraste. And like her, we are left with no choice but to purify it with fire and blood.”



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The aftermath of the Qunari attack on Kirkwall served to release much of the tension that had built up to a boiling point over the years, and for a time following that event, the city calmed considerably. Now, three years after their departure, Kirkwall has come to rest once more on a timeless issue: the conflict between mages and templars. At the head of this conflict are two respective leaders. First Enchanter Orsino grows steadily more aggravated at his repeated attempts to improve the lot of his mages leading to nothing, and Knight-Commander Meredith remains steadfast as ever in keeping her charges under the grip of a lock and key.

Kirkwall's most notable residents face great challenges in the year to come, as the ever present conflicts in their city inevitably reach a breaking point. The Viscount's seat remains empty, the woman with the strongest claim now no longer possessing the Knight-Commander's blessing to take it. As the Templars tighten their grip, their attention turns upon the Alienage, where symbols of individual and communal strength inspire the populace.

The mage resistance is alive and well in Kirkwall, cells growing independently of one another throughout the city and surrounding areas, each with their own ideas on how exactly to enact desired changes. These events, driven by the powerful people on either side of them, will serve to bring Kirkwall to the forefront of the world stage, a fearsome representation of wait awaits the whole of Thedas...


The Chanter's Board has been updated. New quests are available.





How could everything seem so similar, when so much had changed?

Seven years ago, Sophia had been blind in her faith to the Chantry, a girl of twenty-one skilled with a blade and with a fearless desire to step out of her sphere of comfort and make a different somewhere that mattered. Every step of the way, she had envisioned her own future as Viscountess, a distant future, when she'd cooled considerably, when she'd aged enough to become like imagined her mother might have been.

She did not have the closest friends of her life back then. She did not have reason to doubt those that advised her, apart from the troubling development with the guard captain who knew her mother. She did not have scars from battle, titles granted upon her for slaying enemies who nearly slayed her in return. She hadn't been helplessly, inextricably in love with quite possibly the most difficult man to have a steady future with.

But Hightown looked the same. Some things couldn't be changed, and the way this place operating was starting to look like one of those. It would certainly stay that way if Sophia remained in Lowtown, and continued trying to do nothing. She had hidden herself away in the Hanged Man for long enough. It was time to go back.

To start with, she needed to purchase a residence for herself. After three years, the Viscount's Keep was not exactly open to her anymore. Her father was still the last man to sit the throne, so technically she had grounds to claim it, but it would be seen as an open challenge to Meredith at this point, and Sophia was not yet ready to declare such a thing. Meredith had already demonstrated she was willing to entirely remove individuals who sought to push the Templars away from their seat of power. Her direct wrath wasn't something she wanted to incur on herself... or her friends.

But she could buy her family's older home back. She remembered the manor from her childhood, as she'd left it behind for the Keep at the age of eleven. Her father had sold it, but the owner had since passed, and the heir had no wish to maintain it. The opportunity was too good to pass up on. Thinking Lucien might be interested to see where she had spent her early years, she invited him along for the trip. That, and she tried to pounce on any opportunity she had to be with him.

Their walk through Hightown, however, was interrupted as they passed by the Chantry steps, where a crowd of nobility had gathered, as well as a number of servants and visitors, mostly congregating near the edges. Upon the platform in the center of the stairs stood the elven First Enchanter, Orsino, speaking to the interested masses. Sophia looked to Lucien uneasily.

"This doesn't seem like something that will end well."

“Does it ever?” Lucien was hardly the cynic that some of his friends were, but there was no mistaking the tension that had been on the rise in Kirkwall of late between its mages and Templars, particularly their respective leaders, who only seemed to drive one another further towards the edges of fanaticism. Neither had gone too far yet, perhaps, but both were beginning to skirt dangerously close as far as he could tell, particularly Meredith, who seemed more and more inclined to act as Viscount of the city on an indefinite basis. No longer content with a power void, she wasn’t even pretending to be looking for someone from the nobility to fill the seat anymore.

And if Orsino was in Hightown, she would know about it very soon—assuming she didn’t already. Lucien sighed. He’d really been hoping today would be nothing more complicated than going to tour Sophia’s childhood home, as he’d once shown her his. He’d remark on the architecture or the state of the gardens, listen to any stories she wished to tell, maybe even suggest some tradespeople he knew for any renovations she might wish to make. Alas, such simple contentment was rarely theirs for long; complications were everywhere.

“Perhaps we should stay.” Not a happy suggestion, to be sure, but quite possibly a necessary one. If Meredith did show up… Lucien wasn’t sure, but he’d rather be here to find out than hear about it later and wish they’d been present to moderate a bit.

Sophia was thinking something similar, and redirected herself towards the crowd. She didn't see Meredith just yet, though a few guards were already present, keeping a watchful eye on the gathered crowd.

"I know you fear us," the First Enchanter was saying, when Sophia came close enough to hear. "Knight-Commander Meredith uses that fear to take control of your city!" Sophia glanced at some of the faces present, recognizing a few. They regarded Orsino with interest, at least, though she suspected many regarded him with little more than curiosity, either as a mage, or an elf wielding some amount of power, however meager.

"She opposes every effort to replace our Viscount, and you have seen the chaos of her reign! Will you allow it?"

Off to the side standing between the crowd and the First Enchanter were Ashton and Vesper, Snuffy sitting in between them. Both guards stood at rest with their wrists locked behind them scanning through the crowd for the first sign of unrest. "Are you sure it's smart letting him talk?" Vesper asked, never taking her eyes off the crowd in front of them. Ashton too was searching through the crowd, pausing a moment on the familiar sight of Lucien's head over the rest of the crowd. It lingered only a moment before continuing what he was doing. If anything, he felt a better knowing a calmer head was among the crowd.

"We can't stop a man from speaking his mind Ves, we're just to make sure it doesn't turn violent." Ashton answered. About that time, a shimmer of light shown in the middle of the crowd, drawing both pairs of eyes to it. Honestly, the only thing that surprised Ashton was that she didn't show up sooner. "Return to your homes! This farce is over," Meredith ordered the crowd, striding through the middle of it with a retinue of Templars on either side of her.

Meredith was the kind of woman to command a great deal of attention, and indeed, most eyes turned directly upon when she arrived, but Orsino quickly sought to turn them back. "Wait!" he said, raising his hands into the air. Few of the nobles made any move to leave the scene, far more interested were they in how this would turn out. "Perhaps there are some who might disagree with you, Knight-Commander."

At that, he gestured towards a spot in the crowd. Sophia had not been aware that he'd specifically noticed her arrival, but perhaps Lucien being with her as usual made things a bit easier. The people around her gave way slightly, and quite suddenly Sophia found that she and Lucien now occupied a third platform in this impromptu debate.

"Do not hide behind Dumar's skirts, Orsino," Meredith said, taking a step forward, her steel armor making her look fairly more impressive than Sophia, in the simple dress she'd chosen for the day. "She has already made it clear that she wants no role in this."

The robed elf seemed unmoved. "Perhaps we should hear her opinion, all the same." Sophia was tempted to sigh, but resisted. She'd stumbled across what was clearly an important moment. Orsino was growing bolder with his protests, and this had the potential to become a turning point, one way or another.

"My interest is merely seeing this argument resolved peacefully."

"This is not an argument," Meredith declared. "It's treason." She stepped forward, just as Orsino stepped down from the platform to meet her face to face. She was several inches taller than him, and he had come alone, making him look like quite the weaker of the two. Likely on purpose. Sophia had to admit he had a great deal of courage, to be doing this.

"Surely Lady Sophia has some opinion on the subject, and I think it would be appreciated here. You don't fear what she might have to say, do you Meredith?"

"I fear nothing," Meredith shot back. "My only interest here is in keeping order and protecting the innocent."

Whether she liked it or not, Sophia had been pulled into this discussion, though at the moment it seemed like a mediator was needed more than another participant. These two were probably never going to be reconciled, but it was her duty to try all the same, if she was going to hold to her current path.

"To keep order, then, perhaps we should discuss the First Enchanter's concerns. Your methods of protecting the innocent have become increasingly drastic over the past few years."

"As have the actions of rogue mages abusing their powers," Meredith responded at once. "The cold corpses they leave in their wake speak far louder than the abstract freedoms they claim to seek. And as long as that's true, Kirkwall needs its templars. It needs me to lead them."

"And when will that end?" Orsino asked. "When will you stop seeing evil in every corner?"

"When it's no longer there."

She was not going to be moved on that front, Sophia could see. The woman was sustained by her work, and that work was rooting out mages that used their powers to lord themselves over others. It was driving her to sometimes create such enemies where there were none, but it was also so difficult to determine if her actions were lowering the numbers of these blood mages, or simply creating more of them. Sophia suspected the latter.

"And do you truly intend to step aside from your position of power, when a ruler steps forward and proves to be capable of defending the city?"

"I do." Meredith's tone was grave. "But it has been years, and none have stepped forward with the qualities to succeed where your father failed." Sophia was immediately tempted to declare that her father had failed in nothing, that no man could have held up under the burdens placed upon him, but Orsino spoke first.

"So the templars will rule us indefinitely?"

"We will not stand idle while the city burns around us."

"The Templar Order exists to guard the Chantry and Circle. I suggest you let the nobility rule the city. Lady Sophia, you were poised to lead us once. Will you do so now? Kirkwall needs a ruler again, so that the Templars can return to their duties."

She had expected to be put on the spot with this question, and knew ahead of time what the answer needed to be. She had to choose her words carefully, while Meredith was here, glaring at her, the words from their earlier discussion no doubt lingering at the forefront of her mind. "I have decided nothing yet, First Enchanter. But I agree that it is not the place of the templars to rule Kirkwall. This cannot continue forever."

"I do not need either of you to remind me what my duty is. The templars remain in control, until order can be assured."

"Do you see?" Orsino asked, eyes almost pleading to Sophia. "She is incapable of reason!"

If that were true, the city was on the brink of yet more suffering. A lack of reason and understanding had led to almost all of their previous debacles. It would only lead to more. "It's clear that neither side is going to give in here. Some kind of compromise has to be reached, surely."

"You are naive, Sophia," Meredith declared. Orsino glared at her.

"You will find that not everyone bows to your will, Knight-Commander."

At that moment, Grand Cleric Elthina made her entrance, the crowd parting easily to allow her to join in on the discussion. "My, my, such a terrible commotion." Her tone was wry as ever, and Sophia could not help but smile at her arrival. She had not seen the woman for some time, lingering in Lowtown as she had, keeping her faith in private.

"This mage incites rebellion, Your Grace," Meredith said. "I am dealing with the matter." At that, Elthina turned her gaze on the elven enchanter, studying him.

"Ah, Orsino. So frustrated. Do you think this is truly wise?"

"I..." his anger faltered, sputtering out. "No, Your Grace."

"Of course not." She turned to the Templars that had accompanied Meredith. "Young men, would you show the First Enchanter back to the Circle? Gently, if you please." The templars complied at once with a bow, and began escorting Orsino away from Meredith, who appeared predictably outraged at the soft treatment.

"Your Grace! He should be clapped in irons, made an example—"

"That's enough, Meredith. This demeans us all, surely you can see that. Go back to the Gallows and calm down, like a good girl." The Knight-Commander did not take the order well, but remarkably, obeyed without protest, turning sharply on her heel, and storming away from the Chantry steps.

The crowd began to disperse, now that the potential for excitement had passed. At this point, Elthina turned to Sophia. "It's good you stepped in, Sophia. Had you not—" She was cut off, however, as Sophia hugged the Grand Cleric in greeting, not exuberantly, but warmly all the same.

"It's good to see you again, Elthina. And I think your own intervention did far more than mine. There's not much that can keep those two apart." She sighed, slowly breaking the hug, but still holding Sophia by the arms.

"Sadly true."

Lucien smiled slightly, inclining his head in greeting to the Grand Cleric. “A task that only grows more difficult with time,” he mused. “I do not remember them being this at odds when I arrived here—perhaps, in the absence of something to unite against, they divide instead.” He distinctly recalled the two working together against the Qunari, and though their relationship had been a bit… chilly, it was not as bad as all this. The chevalier knew a building problem when he saw one, and doubtless everyone else did too.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Aurora moving away with the dispersing crowd, two men at her side, a bald fellow and a shorter one with dark hair, from the looks of it, but for the moment, he paid no mind. Doubtless, it would not do to draw attention to them just now.

"What we have here is a good old fashioned power struggle," Ashton remarked as he approached, Snuffy padding along beside him. Vesper was doing her job, dispersing the crowd and threatening those who wanted to linger and watch the aftermath with a loitering charge. He blew a gust of air from his nose in amusement before nodding his greeting to the Grand Cleric. "It's nice to see you again, Elthina."

"And you as well, Lieutenant. It's good to see all of you, and I hope I get to see more of you in the coming months. You in particular, dear," she added in Sophia's direction. "Though I have a feeling I don't need to tell you that. You seem to be working your way back already."

"I am," Sophia admitted. "It's going to take some time, but... yes, I am."

"That's good to hear. Now, I must attend to the Gallows. They will see reason, if the Maker wills it. Thank you again, and farewell." Once she had gone, Sophia briefly leaned her head against Lucien, sighing. She seemed to shed the tiredness from the debate quickly enough, though, and smiled for him.

"Shall we get back to it? The manor's not far from here."

“Why not? There is daylight left to us yet.”

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

Nostariel matched her stride to the considerably-longer one of the woman beside her as well as she could. Amalia had a way of moving that was just so oddly graceful that the Warden was honestly a little jealous. She seemed to be able to step just so, in such a way that she made no noise and disturbed nothing, while at the same time never hesitating. It was probably very difficult to make her lose her balance. Nostariel herself wasn’t exactly clumsy, but she felt like it walking next to the former Qunari. Or at least ungainly.

Still, it wasn’t the sort of thing that bothered her. Amalia had her strengths, and Nostariel had her own. She accepted this with an equanimity that she hadn’t always had, but was grateful to have cultivated. The two trod presently through the forest near Sundermont, on their way to visit Aurora and her pupils at the younger mage’s request. Nostariel could see easily enough why she might be asked for, but to what end Amalia was coming as well, she didn’t know. Perhaps it was only because she’d done such a good job teaching Aurora, and might be able to impart some fraction of that ease and confidence unto the others. Either way, it was a pleasant journey, if mostly a silent one.

Well… it was until they came within a few hundred yards of the clearing, anyway. At that point, it was easy to discern that someone was shouting, a man from the vocal range. Nostariel shot a worried look at Amalia, biting softly down on her lower lip and approaching with caution. There were few things more dangerous than an angry mage. She drew no weapons, though Oathkeeper still rested across her back. Honestly, neither she nor her companion needed them to be effective anyway, something which was a bit of a relief going into an unknown situation.

As they reached the treeline, someone broke through it, a young man with dark hair. He seemed vaguely familiar to her, but Nostariel met so many people in her line of work that she wasn’t immediately able to place his face as he brushed past the both of them, a thunderous expression clouding his eyes and blotching his skin with patches of red. Frowning, Nostariel broke the treeline in the opposite direction, finding Aurora and a few others standing in the wake of… whatever had just happened.

“Was that… something I need to be worried about?”

Aurora stood on the far end of the clearing with another man, easily the height of Lucien, but with none of the hair on his head and a red beard. Her forehead was cradled in one of her hands, gently shaking it back and forth as the man beside her hid his face behind both of his. She looked tired and a lot more older at the moment, the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes and forehead multiplied with the stress. Her hand peeled back when Nostariel approached and she offered only a shrug before looking up at the man.

"No, it's not. He's just... Frustrated," she said with the man's nod. Letting her hand fall back to her side, she leaned far more heavily on the tree before a smile finally made it's way to her lips. "Maybe some introductions are in order?" She asked the man, "These are my friends, Nostariel and Amalia. Guys? This is--" Before she was able introduce him, the man cut her off and chose to introduce himself.

"Donovan McGregor, it is a pleasure to meet you," he said without smiling, but with a subtle bow to his head. "And the angry one you saw is called Elias Pike. You must forgive him, he is still impulsive. We have been trying to work with him on that."

“Have you tried telling him it will get people killed?” Amalia’s tone was sufficiently dry to indicate that, while the suggestion was serious in a way, it was primarily meant as an agreement rather than a critique of anyone’s teaching method. Shaking her head slightly, however, she cast her eyes about her for a moment. This was, after all, the first time she had seen the clearing. It was clear from the state of the equipment that it saw considerable use, and indeed the types of damage evident made it clear that mages and not warriors practiced here. Still, it was not a poor choice of location overall.

“Is there a reason his anger extends to you as well? I would have expected it to be centered upon Templars and the Chantry, which you are clearly not.” Perhaps he simply felt they were not aggressive enough towards those other parties themselves.

"Like I said, he's frustrated," Aurora repeated, throwing a glance toward the other mages. A gesture with her hands and they went back to their practices and mediations. It was clear, this hadn't been his first outburst. At least enough to not leave everyone who knew him pondering after him for long. Aurora pushed off of the tree she leaned against and stood straight, her arms interlocked around her chest. "He was one of the mages we helped rescue, you know?" Aurora asked Amalia, "The one we saved from the rite, that was Pike."

Donovan beside her rubbed his red beard and nodded, "And that is where the problem begins. He still feels that powerless. He wishes to do something, but he does not know what, so he lashes out." He scratched his beard a little more before shrugging, "That is what we believe, anyway. We cannot know for certain, for we are not inside his head. I suggested that we take him to the Chantry, and pray that Andraste could give him more answers than us, but..."

"That might've made things worse," Aurora continued, shaking her head. "Not the Chantry itself, that was actually a nice change of pace. Thanks for that Donovan. No, but what came after." She clarified while he nodded. "Orsino and Meredith had a public spat, and it didn't help Pike any at all. He agrees with Orsino, and I do a little too. The Templars are overreaching with their authority-- and the last time that happened..." Aurora trailed off quietly, before shaking it out of her mind.

"However, there is nothing we can do as mages without inciting outright rebellion. So we do what we can," Donovan said, gesturing to the few mages that remained among them, still practicing and mediating. "We help other apostates find their center to strengthen them against possession. Despite what Meredith believes, we are not all murderers or a threat to be quashed. We're all just people just trying to survive, like any other. Perhaps if she loosened the boot on our necks, she would see that." Her last comment drew a worried glance from Donovan, but a quick smile from Aurora put him back at ease. "Donny, if you would? Make sure the others are okay in their studies. I should probably talk to my friends about something a little less dire."

"Of course," he said without a smile, and moved to the nearest group of mages to lend his assistance.

"He doesn't smile a lot, but he's a really good guy," Aurora said as she watched Donovan speak a few words of encouragement. "And don't worry about Pike too much, he'll come back soon and apologize. He always does."

It wasn’t an especially uncommon story in Kirkwall, really, and that just made it worse. Nostariel also knew how it usually ended, and that was to no one’s benefit. “Perhaps he only needs to feel productive.” That was, of course, not terribly easy, but maybe she could help. “If he’s any good with alchemy or can hide his magic as ordinary treatment, you’re welcome to suggest that he come help at the clinic for a while. Goodness knows I have enough patients that an extra pair of hands wouldn’t go awry.” Of course, she wasn’t without help when she really needed it, either, but that was rather beside the point.

"He's not exactly a spirit healer like Donny, but he does have some experience with alchemy. If anything, he has two hands to offer," she acknowledged. However, it wasn't her choice, but his, and she couldn't rightly put him up to something he didn't want to do. "We'll talk to him about it when he gets back, okay? Andraste knows he needs more, better role models." Aurora said with a laugh.

Amalia wasn’t exactly keen on the idea of someone that lacking in stability being anywhere near her friends at the moment, considering the obviously-increasing Templar presence, most evident in the Alienage. Someone acting rashly could easily expose others being more careful when the scrutiny was this overbearing. Her eyes narrowed with a keen displeasure, but she kept her thoughts to herself, as she usually did. This was Aurora’s situation to manage, and Amalia would not step in unless she felt it absolutely necessary. She was admittedly much more accustomed to being the last resort than the first.

“The rest appear to be doing well,” she noted. For all the damage the targets had suffered, the surrounding area was surprisingly intact. This, she took to be a good sign.

"They are, though not because they can hit a few targets." Aurora smiled, she had seen Amalia glance at them. It wouldn't be fair to the rest of them if they only equated how well they flung spells at the targets to their progress. "Some of them aren't even that combatant and we don't teach them how to fight unless they want it." It wasn't always about how well they fought, Aurora wasn't training up an army. Far from it, she was giving them the tools in order to better themselves and protect themselves. "Besides, the physical application isn't near as important as the mental, right?" Aurora laughed.

She shrugged and crossed her arms, watching as Donovan knelt beside another mage and whispered a few words of advice, placing a gentle mitt on their shoulder. "We talk, we mediate, and we exercise. There's not as much sparring as we used to do," Aurora told Amalia with a grin. While their training methods were the same at their core, Aurora wasn't imitating her style. It'd be a waste of time if she did this any other way but hers. "We want their minds to be strong, and if they want it later we strengthen their bodies. But they should be able to think before they act. Pike is a work in progress," she added, scratching her forehead in the process.

"Still, they've gotten more confident in themselves. I... Haven't really taught them anything. I just guided them, let them grow into it themselves. Kind of like a flower, if you want to think about it like that," Aurora said, beaming. "It's not too much of a different concept." Some gentle encouragement, nourishment, and care was all it took. "They're stronger for it, because they found it on their own."

It was perhaps true that accuracy in hitting a target was not the most important skill here. But what Amalia had taken it to mean was that they were learning enough control that they would not accidentally incinerate anything they were not aiming at, and that was a hallmark of discipline more mental than physical. Still, she didn’t bother putting the point on it too fine, instead simply nodding slightly. “If so, you have done your part as you should.” It was good to see this, and it was better for Aurora to see it, to know it for what it really meant.

“Amalia's right. This is all really quite wonderful." Nostariel, as befit her temperament, was a bit more effusive in her praise, smiling brightly. “I never expected this result when I found this place, but I'm glad it has worked out this way."

Aurora offered them both a smile before turning back to watch Donovan work with another mage. It was a few moments later that the brush on the edge of the clearing began to rustle. She turned toward it and slowly began to walk toward it as the smile slipped away from her face. The source of the sound soon became apparent as the man who'd been identified as Pike calmly re-entered the clearing staring downward. Aurora met him halfway between her friends and the edge of the clearing, staring at him with the same look a disappointed mother would her child. The man tried to silently avoid her gaze, but eventually he had to look up at meet her eyes.

"I'm... I'm sorry," He offered, but Aurora said nothing in return and continued to stare at him-- obviously waiting for something more than an apology. Pike began to fidget and avoid her gaze again, but eventually he sighed and met it again. "I'm sorry for losing my temper like that. I know I should know better, but--" He said, but was cut off Aurora raising her hand.

"No excuses. Don't try to shift the blame elsewhere. You lost your temper, nobody lost it for you." Aurora stated before sighing. She then placed a gentle hand on his shoulder and offered him a warm smile. "Try to think before you act next time, okay? That's all I'm asking. Come on, we've got a proposition for you," she added, tugging on his sleeve for him to follow her toward Nostariel and Amalia.

"We'll get you under control yet, Pike," she said with a laugh.

He sighed and nodded, her infectious smile slipping into his lips as well.

Setting

5 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

Winter in Kirkwall, she was told, was a bit more forgiving than it was further south, but that didn’t mean Nostariel had to enjoy it. Being of a rather small stature, she found that she became cold quite easily, and the fireplace in the clinic could only do so much to protect against the woes of the season. Outside, there was fresh snowfall on the streets, perhaps a blanket of three inches or so. People occasionally wandered by her front windows, bundled in cloaks and fur-lined gloves. She’d taken to wearing a wool hat lined with white fur of some sort to keep her ears warm, else she might well have lost the tips of them by now.

The clinic saw fewer people overall in such inclement conditions, but more injury from falls and a few more cases of colds and flu. She’d had to treat someone for frostbite, too, which was new in her repertoire of skills. Just because ice magic came easily to her did not mean she liked being surrounded by the stuff, to be sure.

Of course, the pervasive chill was hardly the worst of her problems. She’d never suspected to be the target of a coordinated attempt to kill someone—that was something she rather expected Lucien or Sophia would deal with. And indeed, both had, or come close enough, in Sophia’s case. But her? It didn’t make much sense, and stranger still was that the men who’d assailed her on her way home from Ash’s barracks a few nights before had all been dwarves. A few of her friends were still looking into it, but she was willing to call it a very organized mugging and leave it be. Perhaps that was wishful thinking.

The water in the kettle over the fire started to boil, and she removed it from the hook it was suspended by, delicately transferring it into a smaller pot. Amalia had generously provided her with some of the milder varieties of Seheron spiced tea, and some of the leaves went into the pot to steep. It would certainly help take the chill out, she knew that much.

Content for the moment, she was considering the spare books on her shelf—many of them there by recommendation from Lucien, who seemed to enjoy reading even more than she ever had—when a noise downstairs caught her attention. She’d closed the clinic already, and she wasn’t expecting anyone, but it may well just be Ash or Amalia with some news, or perhaps an emergency visit.

Padding down the stairs, she was met by someone she hadn’t seen in a number of years, though one could hardly fail to recognize the rather distinctive moustache. Or the armor. “Jean-Marc?” Though perhaps she should be calling him Commander Stroud. He was dressed rather more like the latter at the moment.

Stroud’s eyes found her immediately, and he ducked his head in greeting, though he did not smile. He wasn’t given to it, usually, but something seemed especially worrisome about him at the moment. “Nostariel. I believe we have a problem.”

She sighed softly, half-smiling. “Somehow that does not surprise me. Please, come upstairs. We can talk while you warm up a bit.”




Stroud sniffed the tea with a slightly puzzled look on his face, but he seemed to find the flavor of it agreeable enough, and kept his red-fingered hands wrapped around the ceramic cup she’d served it in. There were still ice crystals in his hair and moustache, but they were melting into water droplets as he sat in the confines of her personal rooms. He looked like he’d traveled hard through the poor weather, if the way snow was packed into the joints of his armor was any indication. She wondered that he had not found an inn or something to rest at before coming to see her, but she wondered less as he explained. He’d always been one to take his work extremely seriously, after all.

“Four weeks ago, reports reached me of some unusual Darkspawn activity in the Vimmark Mountains. There’s an old prison near there, one the Wardens used to maintain, so I went there first. It connects to the Deep Roads, and I thought they might be coming up through a structural breach or something of the sort.” It would be strange for such a thing to spontaneously occur at such an old site, but Nostariel had to admit, it was where she would have started too, for lack of better ideas.

“Is there such a problem?”

Stroud shook his head slightly, hefting a heavy breath out of his nose. “I do not know. I wasn’t able to get close enough to determine.” When she looked at him worriedly, he shook his head again. “It wasn’t Darkspawn, though. It was the Carta.”

“The Carta?” Could it be? Nostariel pursed her lips. It couldn’t simply be a coincidence. She’d long stopped believing in those. “Do you think they knew you were coming here?”

Stroud grimaced. “Perhaps. They probably could have beaten me—I was not moving as quickly as I should have been.” She looked at him curiously for a moment, and only then was it that she noticed a slight discoloration on some of the fabric beneath one of the plates of his armor, concealed by the rest of it.

“Jean-Marc! I’m sitting right here! You should have told me about this!” Huffing, she stood and crossed to him, scarcely bothering to wait for him to set his cup down before she was at the armor, tsking as she unfastened the buckles keeping the plates in place to get a better look at the injury underneath.

He made a sound that seemed equal parts amused, surprised, and—there it was—a bit pained. “You have changed, Captain Turtega.”

She supposed, crouching to get at the wound better, that she really had. How long had it been since she was regularly in communication with her fellow Wardens? Years, at least, and even then, she hadn’t known too many of them all that well. Stroud was among the closest of those, and that because he’d been responsible for a large part of her training—and her own and Tristan’s recruitment. The last time he’d seen her, she’d been bereaved, miserable, and well on her way to death by organ failure, courtesy of too much liquor. From that, she had come quite far.

“This place has been good to me.” Not always, not even most of the time, at first, but being here had been exactly what she needed. There was no mistaking that. Nostariel’s hand lit a pale blue, and she passed it several times over the wound, which, though undoubtedly much more painful than Stroud was making it out to be, was more shallow than deep. It would indeed have impeded travel, though, positioned as it was between shoulder and ribcage. It would have twinged every time he breathed too hard, to say nothing of riding.

When she was done, she stepped back, allowing him to set his tunic and armor to rights.

“Thank you, Nostariel. I came here to ask if you would assist me in investigating what is occurring in the mountains, but—” He stopped when he realized she was smiling, his brows furrowing together.

“I’ll do you better than that, Commander. I’ll invite my friends along.”




Predictably, it had not been difficult to secure their agreement to help her. Ashton had been on board the moment she’d finished explaining. Probably before then, honestly—they didn’t go much of anywhere without one another these days, save he to patrol and she to clinic hours. Even then, they generally took lunch together. Lucien, Ithilian, and Amalia weren’t hard sells either—though she’d hesitated to ask the Dalish man along. She knew how he felt about Darkspawn, but it hadn’t stopped him from helping her before, and it did not seem to have been a hindrance this time, either.

Travel was difficult, as the mountains were cold at this time of year, the trails still passable but treacherous. She’d asked Lucien to provide horses for those of the party without them—though Stroud had his own, she hadn’t ever needed one before, and of course Ithilian and Amalia would have little reason to keep one. It did make the passage faster, though, and it took them only a day and a half to reach the place they wanted, or quite close, at any rate.

“It is not much further now.” Stroud had taken the lead, turning back over his shoulder to advise the others of this much. It was slightly difficult to hear him over the wind, which blew snow around in various swirls and eddies, but it was possible. “Be wary; there could be an ambush waiting.”

Ithilian was not used to horses. He actually had more experience with halla, enough to know that the act of riding one was closer to cooperation than commanding. Still, the basics were the same. He kept near the front, a dark scarf pulled up over most of his scarred features. He'd said little during the ride here, and said nothing now, preferring to focus on watching their surroundings, a hand resting lightly on one of his blades. Nostariel had been careful about asking him to help her with a darkspawn issue, but she needn't have been. He was quite far enough removed from his past at this point to maintain his cooler head, and helping the Wardens with an official trouble was not something Ithilian would turn down, even if he were not close friends with one of them.

"I'd be surprised if there wasn't. This is us we're talking about," Ashton replied, though it was hard to tell if anyone aside from those immediately beside him heard over the wind. A wisp of a smile was present on his lips, but his eyes constantly scanned the horizon trying spot where the "inevitable" ambush would take place. Not that it was given, but it was how their luck worked. Ashton rode at the rear, throwing the occasional glance backward to ensure that they weren't being followed or attacked either. A dull gray cloak hid most of his guardsman plate and a scarf wrapped around his neck. City life seemed to have stolen some of his tolerance for the cold.

Lucien had to agree, but he didn’t say as much. His own horse, the very same one Violette and Liliane had brought him from Orlais—now called Mercure after her coloration—was well-used to colder climes, as was he himself, being of southern Thedasian origin. As such, he knew how to insulate even plate against the worst of the chill, and was fairly comfortable with what they were doing.

Amalia was in essentially the opposite position. She knew how to ride, to some degree, but she was no expert, and what was more, her tolerance for the cold was very limited. The only part of her currently exposed was her eyes, and the skin around them bore evidence of windburn. She was fairly certain her extremities were going numb even encased in fur-lined leather, and she had to keep flexing her fingers and toes in an attempt to maintain feeling in them. She almost wished for a fight, if only to have a reason to get herself moving and warm again.

It wasn’t precisely a fight they got, though—at least not at that point. As they wound their way over what terrain remained passable, the group encountered what appeared to be a caravan, overturned and destroyed, the brontos that had been pulling the cart destroyed. A few dwarven corpses could be made out under the snow coating them, and the red color of it was dark, old but not so old it had yet been covered by fresh precipitation. The dead did not appear to be outfitted like Carta, though Nostariel was no expert.

“Merchants?” She turned to Stroud, assuming he was likely to know more of this area than she did. If he’d come to investigate, he would have done at least some research beforehand, certainly.

He pursed his lips in reply, his expression unreadable. “There are trade routes not too far from here, yes. But if so, I am surprised the Carta have killed them. It serves them no purpose.” Indeed, it didn’t even appear that much if anything had been stolen from the wreckage—the brontos were still wearing all of their equipment, and various crates were scattered where they had fallen out of the cart, no few of them destroyed. The only explanation seemed to be that they had been killed simply for being here. Perhaps it had been Darkspawn, and not the Carta at all.

Reaching up to pull her hat down tighter over her head, Nostariel directed her horse forward again with her knees. They had a while to go yet.

At about what Stroud estimated to be fifteen minutes from their destination, they appeared to have come upon… something. A ruin, most like, but with small signs of activity. Disturbed snow, the occasional piece of refuse or waste, that sort of thing. There was also a much clearer trail to follow here, and it seemed safest for the horses to continue to follow it. As they did, however, they were forced down into a shallow ravine of sorts, perhaps better called a chasm. It was then that the voice first reached them, someone shouting down at them from above.

“At last! The witch’s blood approaches!” The voice carried in an odd way, echoing throughout the chasm. Nostariel’s brows drew together, and she looked up and around. For a moment, she could have sworn she saw the shadow of something move, but before she could so much as think of drawing Oathkeeper, it was gone.

“If this is an ambush, it is the strangest one I’ve encountered.” They pressed on, having little other choice, and the owner of the voice followed, none of anything else he said making any more sense than the first thing. It was starting to make her uneasy though—it sounded like this person, whomever he was, was insane. What was more, she was beginning to sense Darkspawn nearby, and when she looked beside her, it was to find her expression mirrored on Stroud’s face. Reaching behind her, Nostariel removed Oathkeeper from her back and lay it across her lap instead. She wasn’t sure exactly what to expect ahead, but it didn’t hurt to be prepared.

The trail before them sloped upwards, carrying them up and onto what she initially suspected was a small rise, but turned out to be more of a plateau, ancient columns around it some mixture of fallen, tilted, and still standing, like crooked teeth in the mouth of some large creature. Her horse pulled up suddenly short once they capped the plateau, and it didn’t take much to see why.

Standing there was a single dwarf, his garments indicating a more roguish trade, but his eyes glazed over with a foggy grey film that she at least was quite familiar with. Her own widened, and she was parting her mouth to speak when the dwarf beat her to it.

“You!” It was not immediately obvious whom he was speaking to, and for a moment she assumed it must be Stroud, or perhaps just the group at large. “You’ve finally come! Everyone! It’s the child of Enelya the witch, come to us at last!”

That certainly ruled out Stroud, considering how elven the name was, and Nostariel automatically looked at Ithilian. It seemed quite the long shot, honestly, and chances were good the man had simply been driven insane by the taint, but it was possible the name was some kind of reference she did not know. Perhaps more worrisome was the fact that when he said everyone, people answered, crawling out of gaps in stone and from behind pillars and wreckage. The group looked to be at least a dozen strong, all dwarves, all armed. She couldn’t tell from this distance, but chances were good that they were all Blighted too. Why answer to this man otherwise?

As of yet, though, none of them made to attack.

Ithilian met the look Nostariel gave her, but the one he returned indicated that he didn't have any more idea what the dwarf was referring to than she did. He'd never heard of any Enelya, witch or no, though the name did sound elven. He was less concerned with the words of the dwarf, however, than the fact that he and his compatriots were to a man affected by the taint, but all seemingly in the same way, responding to the same call. He'd seen the taint do its work before, and this was not a normal result.

Needless to say, Ithilian held a blade in one hand, Parshaara flipped backwards in the other. He would not attack without being provoked, but he was not opposed to the idea of starting a fire here, in the tainted flesh of these wayward stone children.

Well, there went her only idea. If it wasn’t a reference her only Dalish friend knew and wasn’t anything she’d ever heard, the chances of making sense of it were slim unless this poor man explained. The Blight-sick were usually not even this coherent, let alone this organized. She’d have expected them to be more, well, dying. “What does a witch have to do with this? How did you come to be here?”

“It began with her, and it ends with you! Blood for blood, that’s what we were told!” The reply this time seemed to be directed at Nostariel, though she wasn’t sure if that was only because she had been the one to speak or not. “You’ve come to us now, and that’s the only thing that matters.”

She wasn’t honestly sure what to say in reply to that. “Blood? But—”

“We’ll take it! Corypheus will walk in the sun once more!” It would appear that whatever else was strange about the form of the taint these dwarves had contracted, they had not weakened physically, and as the man in front stepped back, several more drew up to fill his place, baring their weapons at the ready.

Setting

5 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

Finally. Amalia had almost begun to wonder if she was frozen to her saddle. Thankfully, that proved to be untrue, and though her exit from the back of the horse was slightly less smooth than she would have liked, she landed well enough, finding her footing quickly and drawing a knife from under her thick cloak, which she shed with a motion, throwing it off her shoulders and too the ground. It would only weigh her down now.

The dwarves were a mixture of the close-quarters fighters and the ranged ones, and she knew that allowing any of them to stand back and shoot into the fray could be a disaster. They were also behind cover, meaning that the archers in their own party would have a hard time hitting them compared to the exposed melee fighters. “Ithilian.” She jerked her chin to where a cluster of them had taken refuge, occasionally popping up over a barrel or overturned slab of wood to fire in volleys at the intruders.

Closing on them from the front was a stupid idea, but flanking shouldn’t be too hard for people as swift and mobile as they. Ducking low, Amalia ran for the first piece of visible cover on their side, in this case a crate of some kind. An arrow thudded into it from one of the archers, and she used the time he’d need to draw another arrow to find and break for the next bit of cover.

Amalia was the quicker to make a run at the defensively positioned dwarves, and drew their initial fire, allowing Ithilian some time to press forward. Slipping his feet out of the stirrups, he quickly pushed himself up on top of the saddle and jumped off entirely, clearing the head of the nearest dwarf, and landing on top of the second, his blades outreaching the dwarf's knives as he stabbed him through the neck.

He made his move for the archers, who loosed a volley into the cover Amalia had ducked behind. His actions appearing extremely aggressive, the dwarves turned their next round on him, at which point he sidestepped, deflecting a blade from a sword-dwarf and slicing across the exposed throat with Parshaara, a flash of flame bursting across his face for good measure. Taking the fatally wounded body in hand, Ithilian ducked down behind it as a pair of arrows thudded into the dwarf's chest. It would likely be all the time Amalia needed to get within arm's length of them.

Nostariel chose to remain mounted, but Stroud slid off the back of his horse, drawing the sword and shield from his back and advancing forward into the melee line, currently recovering from Ithilian’s quick assault and forming up into something slightly more organized. That said, most of them were lighter skirmishers and rogues, so none were especially eager to face a fully-armed Grey Warden head-on. There were two heavies, though, and those both cut in towards the commander at the same time, their height forcing him into a less-mobile crouch to block the first blow, aimed for his knees.

The second went higher, to where his neck now was, but Stroud was aware of it, and tangled his sword with the axe, twisting to expose the weaponlocked dwarf to the fire of the archers behind him. Nostariel was quick to take advantage, drawing back Oathkeeper’s string without the need for an arrow. Two flaming projectiles, compressed by magic into the shape of arrows, thudded into the warrior’s side, killing him when one found his lung.

Utilizing the older Warden’s preoccupation, one of the quieter fighters moved with his blind spot, creeping closer in an attempt to flank.

Until an arrow slammed into his throat, ending whatever plans he might've had for the senior warden.

With the arrow loosed, Ashton took the opportunity to pull back on the reins and fall back behind his companions, staying out of their way as he made his way to the side of the plateau and toward the ruin pillars. As happen-stance would have it, it was the opposite that that Amalia and Ithilian had taken. An arrow was already nocked in his bow by the time he cleared the first pillar, and drawn by the second. It had been a while since Ashton last fired an arrow from atop a mount-- the last time being during a hunt with his uncle before coming to Kirkwall. The rust was apparent as the first arrow missed its mark, but as the dwarves were clustered, he was lucky enough to wing the one beside him.

The second was better placed, though still off, slamming into the midsection of the same dwarf. His efforts earned a few arrows of his own, but a few bounced harmlessly off the pillars as he passed, and the other out right missed the quickly moving target. He continued to use the pillars to his advantage as he circled around them, plugging them with arrows every other gap between pillars. His aim wasn't the best while moving, but it'd be enough to harass them.

Lucien had joined Stroud in the melee, as he was by now much more accustomed to fighting those who preferred to slink around a battlefield than he once had been. He did not dismount; he was, after all, a chevalier. Horses were in the name, and for good reason. His own, being of his father’s stock, was bred and trained for this very sort of thing, and so moved unflinchingly into battle when he squeezed her flanks with his knees. There was no need to hold the reins—a creature like this could be directed with his legs alone, or even his voice, if his legs should fail him somehow.

Mercure did him the courtesy of essentially trampling his first foe, her shod hooves knocking him to the ground. Everburn followed, the cherry-red of the blade a stark contrast to the colorless landscape around them. It was a bit of an adjustment, considering his foes were dwarves and both he and the horse were considerably taller than average for their species, but he’d been taught to compensate. When two more attempted to flank, Lucien wheeled the warhorse, using her momentum to add to his horizontal slash, putting both out of commission in one stroke. They were only wearing leather armor, after all.

Amalia, meanwhile, had closed on the archers. The first one in her sights received a knife to the chest from several feet away, and she sprang for the second one while he was still surprised, kicking the heel of her booted foot for his unprotected forehead. He went down, and the finisher was nothing more complicated than a quick cut to the vital artery in his neck.

The skills of those involved on full display, it was hardly a surprise that the Carta soldiers were felled in little time at all, their back ranks dropped even as their melee warriors fell to the bite of blade and arrow alike. When they were all down and her friends proved uninjured, Nostariel breathed a sigh of relief, bending down to pat her horse on the neck.

“Some friends you have.” She smiled at Stroud’s dry observation. It was probably a little unusual to just know this many people who were this good at what they did, but Nostariel had long ceased to notice that it was strange. They’d just sort of gravitated towards each other, in a way that seemed perfectly natural to her.

“What can I say? I’m just lucky.” Pausing a moment for everyone to remount or at least lead their horses along, the group followed a winding path through what looked to have become the Carta’s base of operations out here. Some of the structures looked more like arenas than anything else, one even in possession of a nasty spike trap, but with no one present to trigger it, the group passed over it unharmed. Every once in a while, they encountered another corpse, usually a dwarf that looked Carta, but for the most part, it was empty.

Eventually, rougher landscape transitioned into more in the way of ruined architecture, and they were forced to tie the horses under an outcropping for shelter and proceed on foot further downwards. Here, they encountered more Carta, as well as several brontos, but these proved to pose no more challenge than the previous lot. They were universally in possession of cloudy grey eyes, each and every one of them infected with the taint. It was making her uneasy. A condition like that should have been the death of them.

It became clear eventually that the structure they’d entered was a fortress, or part of one, built into the stone. The structure seemed to ring a tower of some kind, set too far down to yet see the bottom, though as they descended, Nostariel could begin to make out features of the tower’s base. It was a peculiar arrangement, and she could not think of why anyone would build a fortress around a tower. Perhaps the spire had been there first, and the tower was meant to protect it? Or perhaps protect from whatever was inside it.

It was a disquieting thought, and Nostariel was honestly a little relieved when it disappeared from sight, as they entered the fortress proper, rather than simply walking its outer walls. The inside was dingy and gloomy, smelling faintly of sweat, stale air, and bronto—a safe bet that the Carta had been occupying it a while.

Stroud seemed to come to the same conclusion. “They have been here longer than I expected. Why was this not reported?” He seemed irritated, and Nostariel could not blame him, though she had no more answers than he did, and simply shook her head in reply.

“Perhaps some of their documents will provide an answer. I suggest we search.” The hideout seemed to have been cleared out by their previous efforts, but there were still traps to beware of.

The smell of the place reminded Ithilian of the Deep Roads, though they hadn't yet seen any actual darkspawn, only dwarves ravaged by the taint, and their similarly-afflicted pack animals. Sliding Parshaara back into its sheath, he kept one blade out, knowing that they were dealing with assassins, albeit insane ones, their minds destroyed by the corruption in their blood. With his free hand he searched among the piles of papers they kept on a nearby table. Apparently their madness did not prevent them from writing.

Sifting through parchments, Ithilian eventually settled on one that mentioned the name the dwarves had spoken of earlier. He read it to himself, than turned and called out his findings to the group. "Here's something: 'You will find Enelya Losshëlin's heir in Lowtown. Runs a clinic, blue building near the Alienage.' Mentions capturing you, not killing, and at the bottom... 'In the name of the Master, Corypheus. May he see sunlight again.'" He put the note down, letting it fall among the other papers on the desk.

"This isn't fresh writing. I wonder how long they were watching." They seemed to have gotten their wish, though it was quite a bit more than they'd bargained for.

“I don’t… that name doesn’t mean anything to me.” Nostariel’s tone was one of some distress, and not without reason. If she really was this Enelya’s heir, then that implied that she was her child. She had never known her parents, not their names, nor their occupations, nor anything else about them at all. According to her tutors in the Circle, they hadn’t known either. So how was it that these Carta dwarves had come by the information? It seemed impossible, and she hated herself for hoping that they might be right, that they hadn’t just mistaken her for someone else.

It was only… everyone else she knew had a history, a background, a heritage. Even Amalia knew who her parents were, even if they hadn’t actually raised her, and it wasn’t even especially important among the Qunari. Nostariel didn’t even have that much, and for the longest time, she’d never felt like she belonged anywhere. The Circle, nice as it was at times, hadn’t suited her, and she didn’t really suit the Wardens. She was neither a proper city elf nor a Dalish, and even now, when she had friends and a life she’d built, it felt at times like a castle on air, like there were parts in the foundation that were just missing. Could this really be the answer to that empty space? It was too much to hope for.

Lucien had moved into another room, searching for anything of use, but it appeared to have been used for bunking, and there was nothing especially important to be found in it. Emerging from it on the heels of Ithilian’s troubling discovery, he spotted Amalia emerging from his room’s twin, a decrepit-looking book in one hand. The cover might once have been leather, but it looked like rats had gotten to it, and it was held together by little more than strips of binding, the pages yellowed and torn.

“This was in one of the bunks,” she explained, flipping through it quickly, until she came to rest at a page near the end. Squinting at it, for the handwriting was very difficult to read, she pursed her lips. “’The Wardens did not guard the key with care. It was left in repository, with objects of little worth. Trinkets. Dusty Grey Warden trophies. Not even a guard posted. Fools. If only they knew what they had, and had lost. It will not wake at my touch; it sleeps and its power remains within. The Great One says it requires Enelya's blood to awaken it. Only then can its powers set him free. I will find the heir to the blood and the Great One will reward me. Yes. Let it be soon.’ The rest is equally unstable, but less useful."

“A key?” Lucien blinked, then glanced over at Stroud and Nostariel.

Stroud shook his head. “I have heard of no such thing.” Nostariel mirrored the gesture, frowning slightly. “In truth, I am not even certain what this facility was intended to do. It is a prison, that much is clear. But what it holds… I have not been informed of that.”

“At least you knew it existed.” Nostariel was, as far as she knew, the Warden based closest to the place, and nobody in the organization had seen fit to tell her about its presence, nor what it was intended for. Stroud had only discovered it by accident, and he was a Commander, something which usually licensed a person to a bit more of the obscure knowledge than the troops would ever get. “Perhaps it has been defunct for long enough that no one really remembers it.” Considering the fact that Wardens had shorter life expectancies than other people, it was not a completely outrageous claim. Who knew what the Wardens of ages past had left here? And yet…

“The note alludes to us as though we were present.” And that was really the rub, wasn’t it? She couldn’t sense any of her order here, but… there were enough Darkspawn around the area that she did not doubt their presence would be well-masked.

“Well, anyway… perhaps we ought to get going. Unless anyone’s found anything more helpful?”

"The rest isn't very useful," Ashton said, having taken a seat on a bench that held even more correspondence. He held up a scrap of torn paper and shrugged, "It's all basically the same. Get this one," he began, clearing his throat to begin reading the note theatrically.

"'Like many of you, I was once a thieving wretch. I was a servant to coin and my own base desires. And that is when I heard his call. Corypheus opened my eyes, just as he has opened yours, and showed me what was true!' Etcetera, etcetera. It sounds like the prison Stroud's talking about holds this... Corypheus character and the Carta's trying to dig him out." Balling the note up and throwing it against the far wall, Ashton stood up gathered with the rest of his friends

"I've broken up one or two cults with the Guard, particularly one that worshipped a desire demon. This has that same type of creepy feel about it," Ashton said, sighing. He made his way to his place by Nostariel's side and placed an arm over her shoulders, drawing her in for a quick side hug. "I promise sweetheart, I won't let anyone try to sacrifice you," he said with a warm smile, trying to dispel at least some of her distress with the joke.

Nostariel snorted, leaning into the contact for a moment before she pulled away. They did, after all, need to keep moving. “It’s not really the trying that I’m worried about.” She huffed a short sigh and half-smiled at her friends. “Charming as our surroundings are, I think it might be best to press on.” They still weren’t sure what was going on here, but they knew more than they did. And if the point of all this was to free something that the Wardens had bound, then it was no doubt best to halt the effort. She was sure that if they needed to make sense of this talk of keys and heirs, then it would happen as they went.

Setting

5 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

As such things seemed wont to go, they had to essentially clear out the entire Carta base of its tainted occupants in order to leave it. Nostariel honestly would have preferred not to, but at this point, death was essentially a mercy. They were all doomed to it anyway, infected as they were. The last lot had included several brontos as well, and she was patching up a gash on her arm when she realized that one of the men she had shot was still moving a little. Pursing her lips, Nostariel resolved herself to the deathblow, and was just about to release a bolt of magic at him when he spoke.

“Doesn’t… matter.” His cracked lips curled upwards into a smile, stretching across grotesque teeth, his gums bleeding and caked in some kind of yellowish pus. “I’ve done it. I’ve brought you here, and now Corypheus will walk among us again.”

Nostariel’s fingers relaxed, curling into her palm. “Who is Corypheus?”

The smile spread wider, and the dwarf—perhaps the leader here, from the craftsmanship of his armor, shook his head from his spot on the ground. “You’ll find out, blood of Enelya. I told him—told him I would bring you here, one way or another.”

“How—how do you know it’s me you want? I know no Enelya, and I never have.”

“The master knows. The master wanted you—your blood. And what Corypheus wants, Corypheus gets. From us, or from somewhere.” Her coup de grâce was ultimately unnecessary, for the dwarf’s jaw slackened, his muscles losing all tension as he slumped back onto the ground, dead. With a frustrated sound, Nostariel clenched her fist the rest of the way, banishing the magic. Corypheus was no demon—even a demon could not know what its mortal servants didn’t. Not unless… but it was useless to speculate. They had to keep moving.

She had taken the first few steps that way herself when something on the dwarf’s body began to glow, emitting a strange, purplish light. “Magic?” The question was mostly rhetorical—the answer was yes, and she was in the best position of anyone here to recognize that fact. Crouching down beside the body, she pushed aside some fabric that had been part of his sash, exposing the object possessing the radiance. It appeared to be nothing more interesting than a slender metal bar, about the length and width of one of her fingers. Intending to pick it up for further examination, Nostariel gasped and fell backwards onto her rear when, the moment her skin came in contact with it, she could feel it, pulling the magic from her like some kind of gravitic force. It felt like something was exploring her, mapping the contours of her skin and bones and blood like a curious cartographer, albeit one with an unsubtle touch.

The object itself began to change shape as her power gave it form, thickening and extending outwards until it was slightly taller than she was, and just slender enough to wrap her hand around such that her middle finger could just touch her thumb around the other side.

The haft of the staff was silver-white, the curious substance she believed was commonly called ironbark. The focus crystal at the top was deep blue, carved in the shape of a half-opened flower, and the blade affixed to the other end was straight, with a hint of the same blue. The wood was elaborately carved in lovely geometric patterns, also stained a deep indigo color, to match the leather cord wrapped tightly around where one would grip it.

“What on earth?”

Ithilian was nearest at hand, and so he offered Nostariel an arm up, allowing her to pull herself back to her feet. If Nostariel had no idea what she held, he certainly couldn't guess at its capabilities, but he could comment on its appearance. He eyed the thing in her hand for a moment, pointing out at the carvings in the staff, though he did not touch them, out of wariness for what the piece of equipment might do.

"The carvings look Dalish," he speculated. "They are Dirthamen Secret-Keeper's, most likely. The haft is ironbark. I... can't say where it might be from, though. Never knew any Dalish smith who could make something like this." Emerion might have been able to say more, but then again, everything about this place seemed like a well-kept secret, even from those who were supposed to know about it, like the Wardens.

“Wherever it’s from, I suspect it is going to get us to Corypheus.” Nostariel supposed Stroud was probably right about that, and nodded at him, indicating that he was free to lead the way onwards. He didn’t know the place any better than the rest of them did, but if he was in front, they should have a little more warning if any Darkspawn showed up. She would stick to the rear for the same reason.

There was really only one direction to keep going, and that was mostly down. The group descended still further into the chasm, or what she supposed must be the chasm, since the hideout was built into the cliff-face somehow. When next they emerged into daylight, it was more gloomy than anything, a sort of damp-looking grey that was permeated with a translucent mist, heavy on the senses and sound alike. The prison tower, once viewed from level to the top, now loomed over them, a bridge between the structure and the veranda of sorts they now occupied visible several hundred feet ahead. It was blocked from them by another bridge, one which went from where they were to what looked like another antechamber, though whether that one would put them closer to the tower proper was hard to tell.

It was not a pleasant-looking structure, and one could almost smell the taint here, kept pressed down by that fog. Old Grey Warden standards hung from the outside, the only markers of the structure’s most recent ownership.

“Nostariel.” Stroud drew her attention with his voice, then redirected it, pointing towards the bridge. It was hard to see exactly what was there, save that many humanoid figures were crossing at a rapid pace, their gaits irregular, their flesh pale and dull. They agitated the measure of taint within her own blood, pulling at the base of her stomach in the same way a bad flagon of rotgut did. Darkspawn.

Seeing as how she was already holding it, Nostariel readied the staff, feeling it respond to her magic instantaneously. Stroud glanced between the party and the Darkspawn approaching, then started forward. There was little point in waiting for them to charge in with all the momentum, after all.

"Wait," Ashton advised Stroud as he reached into his quiver.

Flipping through the nocks of his arrows, he stopped on the one that felt distinctly different from the rank and file. He drew the speciality arrow that exploded in an intense flash on impact and nocked it against the bowstring. "I suggest everyone look away!"' he warned as he drew back. Ashton aimed along the arrow and let loose, closing his own eyes the moment after. The arrow raced through the air but dipped low, striking the ground in front of the darkspawn and erupting in loud bang accompanied by a blindingly bright flash.

Ashton opened his eyes to see the front line of the darkspawn trip and stumble over themselves in a bout of disorientation. "Now you can wade in Ser Warden," Ashton said to Stroud, drawing a mundane arrow this time.

Stroud looked mildly irritated at the last-minute nature of the interruption, but said nothing further on the subject, waiting until the worst of the flash part of the flash-bang had faded before he moved in to take advantage of the fact that the Darkspawn hadn’t gotten any warning at all, even a late one. His sword sliced a broad horizontal arc across the chest of the first, before he kicked it off the side of the bridge and into the ravine below. In style, his early training as a chevalier was obvious, sharing a certain number of features with the way Lucien handled combat, with a few modifications gained by many years of fighting Darkspawn more often than men.

He was efficiently through three more of them before Nostariel got the hang of the new staff, channeling her magic through it and adding fireballs to the back ranks of the charging creatures. Ice was well enough, but where Darkspawn were involved, fire was best.

Ithilian could only add small amounts of fire to the attack, but he did so gladly, cutting into the chest of a hurlock with Parshaara and watching a burst of fire come forth. The elf followed in Stroud's wake, backing up the warrior's charge with quickly-slicing blades, making short work of the ones not immediately cut down by the Grey Warden, pierced by arrows, or burned to a crisp by the fireballs flying overhead. He didn't make the most painful strikes possible, as he had once in the Deep Roads, instead going about the work much more grimly. It was what this venture had turned into at this point. Work.

But at the very least, it was a certain type of work, one that Lucien and Amalia had both been learning how to do since before they could properly know whether they even cared to. One of a surprising number of commonalities between them, perhaps. Lucien chose once more to plant himself in the front with Stroud, forming what was essentially a two person wall, behind which Ashton and Nostariel could pick their targets without fear of harm and in front of which Ithilian and Amalia could range and retreat like the tide, striking quickly with the force of waves and then fading back again, to let the darkspawn dash themselves on the stones for a while.

It proved quite effective, and while the majority of the party chose to wound them with weapons, Amalia refrained, using only her hands and feet to handle her foes, as this was less likely to make them bleed, and therefore less likely to contract her the Taint, as she understood it. Fortunately, there was another advantage as well—the bridge itself. If she focused on stagger-blows and joint-locks and throws, she could pitch more than half her opponents over the side of it and into the depths below, saving her the effort of needing to kill them with the force of some blow or another. She tread the edge like a cat, tempting her opponents into trying the same, the easy victory of knocking her to her death. But Amalia could balance on something as thin and tenuous as a wire, and darkspawn clearly had not half the grace required. It proved an efficient method of thinning their numbers.

They were ruthlessly efficient and Ashton couldn't help but feel a little impressed, lined with a hint of pride, with how quickly they cleaned up the tainted mess. One last arrow down field saw the last of the darkspawn defeated and Ashton finally lowered his bow. "Well... I'll be honest, if my guards were anywhere near as good as us, I'd have the city cleaned up within the month. The gangs wouldn't know what hit them," Ashton said, laughing. Nocking one more arrow just in case Ashton carefully began to creep forward to make sure that they were all, indeed, dead.

They did in fact, all appear dead, but Nostariel did not share in the grim pride for the effectiveness. The simple fact of the matter was, where there were a few darkspawn, there were bound to be many more, and something about their presence here felt… more cloying than usual, thicker, pressing down on her awareness like damp cloth. Still, she spared a small smile for Ashton, shaking her head a bit before she filed in behind Stroud, who had not sheathed his weapon, but carried it in a more relaxed fashion, doubtless because he, like she, no longer sensed any darkspawn in the immediate proximity.

More disconcerting was what she could sense from the antechamber. “Magic.” She murmured the word, stepping out and around Stroud to lead the way, the staff in her hand thrumming softly, but perceptibly, in reaction to something within. If something bad was about to happen because of it, she wanted the others to be behind her, not between herself and whatever it would be.

The room they entered had a cracked stone floor, the tiles perhaps originally red, and a large Grey Warden crest on the wall facing them as they made their way inside. A red circle about the size of Nostariel’s spread hand glowed in the middle of the crest, and when she turned her head to the left, she could see another crest, with the same glowing red circle. More peculiar still was that, at the end of the room, there was what appeared to be some kind of magical barrier, a swirling, pearlescent amber in hue, with two identical glowing circles sitting next to each other at its center.

It was no magic she had ever seen before, to be sure. The chamber was wholly empty, but still she approached cautiously, her boots kicking up small puffs of dust wherever they landed. When she came within about six feet of the barrier, the staff in her hand hummed at a different pitch, higher and faster, like the wing of a hummingbird, and it grew warmer to the touch, the blue designs lining the wood brightening. To her left, she felt a disturbance in the Fade, and took several steps back as something began to materialize, running right backwards into Stroud, who steadied her with a hand to the shoulder.

The figure that began to coalesce was blue, but its form was yet indistinct. Clearer than its appearance was its voice, which spoke into their silence, pleasantly high-pitched and sibilant. “…be bound here for eternity, hunger sated, rage smothered, desire dampened, pride crushed. In the name of the Creators, so let it be…” The voice faded just as quickly as it had risen, and the blue mist of which the figure was comprised dissipated.

Nostariel reached out as if to grasp it, but of course she could not get a grip on something like smoke, and it eluded her fingers. It wasn’t merely smoke, though. “I’m not sure if it’s a dream or a memory.” She spoke more to herself than her companions, puzzled by this phenomenon she had neither seen nor read about before.

“We may have other problems.” That was Stroud, and when she turned back around to face him, he was staring past the barrier, into the small chamber it sealed off. Following his eyes, Nostariel was able to make out what he was looking at—a Shade, from the look of it. It stared back, or so it seemed.

“A demon? Here? For what purpose?” It made little sense to keep a demon contained rather than simply killing it, and in a Grey Warden fortress of all places. It seems quite unlikely that this was the Carta’s doing, but then… “How long has it been here?”

“Does it matter? It should not be.”

Ithilian was making a clear effort not to touch anything he wasn't supposed to. This place had more than its fair share of magical occurrences and items, and these were things he knew nothing about. The Wardens were not restricted in the same ways other mages, and other organizations were, in the use of their magic, and he knew it was not unheard of for them to take drastic measures if required against the darkspawn. This whole place seemed odd, however, and the caged demon was just another instance of that. That, and there weren't actually any Wardens here so far.

"Kill it, or leave it?" It was behind the barrier still, but he figured it wouldn't be too difficult to dismantle, and there was a chance it was somehow linked to that vision, and the woman's voice they'd heard moments earlier.

Nostariel sighed through her nose. “Leaving it here like this hardly seems a wise idea. The darkspawn might figure out how to free it, and then that’s one more demon wandering around outside the Fade.” Certainly not ideal. She didn’t even know how long it had been here, but it certainly seemed a while. It wasn’t like demons required sustenance, after all.

Of course, this meant they had to find a way to break down the barrier. After checking to make sure sufficient force definitely wasn’t going to do the trick, the group backtracked across the room, and Stroud nodded at one of the sigils. “There are marks like this on the barrier, as well.” That was certainly as good a hint as any, but if it was that easy, she didn’t understand why the darkspawn or the Carta hadn’t done it already. Tilting her head to the side, Nostariel approached the first sigil, examining the glowing red circle and then passing the staff by it. Nothing.

Perhaps a more direct application of magic? Reaching out with her free hand, she laid her palm down on the symbol, only to draw it back again sharply. “Ouch!” Some exposed bit of metal or something had sliced into the soft skin between her thumb and forefinger. Muttering a few terse words under her breath, she healed the cut.

“Nostariel.” Stroud’s voice drew her back to the sigil, where the red circle had disappeared. A glance back down the room confirmed that one of them was now missing from the barrier as well. Was it really that simple? All she had to do was touch it?

“That’s peculiar.” Even bespelled objects generally required a bit of active magic to dispel, not a mere touch from a mage. The darkspawn definitely should have been able to do that. Nevertheless, she crossed to the next red circle. “Maybe get ready, just in case this one takes the barrier down?” She waited until everyone had arranged themselves however they wanted, then touched the second circle… and nothing happened.

Furrowing her brow, Nostariel passed her hand over and through it several more times, and even tried applying her magic. Still nothing. But why…?

Ashton's bow was still pointing toward the barrier and had been ever since the demon on the other side made itself present. It was proving stubborn however, as no matter what Nostariel did, the thing didn't go down completely. He glanced repeatedly from her to the barrier, watching her attempt to dispel it and keeping an eye on it as well. When it was clear that waving her hand over the next symbol he finally let the bowstring slacken, taking a few steps toward the sigil.

He inspected the first one, the one that Nostariel had been able to dispel and noted that there was a speckle of something red on it. Letting go of the bowstring, Ashton tentatively touched the wet spot and looked at it, noting that it was her blood. His eyes closed and her wordlessly swore with his mouth, the revelation what humor he had out of him. Turning toward Nostariel, he showed her the blood on his fingers and shook his head. "Blood magic?" He asked, but he already knew the answer.

"It's always blood magic."

Nostariel’s lips parted, and she looked at the smear on Ash’s fingertips with a burgeoning sense of dread. Blood magic… she’d met maybe one or two mages in her entire life who could do it without falling prey to demons or some other form of corruption. She certainly didn’t know any, but it seemed like in this case, all that was required was her physical blood—the mage part seemed irrelevant. That it was someone else’s blood magic didn’t make her feel better, particularly, and in fact it only increased her anxiety. She might have been able to trust her own intentions even with a weapon like that, but the intentions of someone she knew not at all?

She swallowed, glancing to Stroud, but he offered no counsel, remaining still, his arms crossed and clearly expectant that the others would deal with the demon behind the barrier just fine by themselves. She didn’t disagree, but she wished he would make the choice for her—a childish desire, perhaps.

Sighing, the younger Warden allowed her eyes to slip closed, shaking her head faintly. Eradicating that demon was the right thing to do. It did not belong in this world, and it would pose a major danger to untrained people if it were ever freed. “Can I borrow a knife, then?” Ash, ever prepared, was able to produce one from his boot, and she slid it out of its sheath, which she tucked into her belt near the small of her back. Lighting a diminutive fire in her palm, she sterilized the blade as well as she could, then let it cool, having no desire for burns to go with her cuts.

She regarded her arm for a moment, trying to pick a spot less likely to cause much damage if she cut too deeply. She was a healer, not a surgeon, and not used to paying much attention to this sort of thing. In the end, she picked a spot on the inside of her forearm, making a nick and watching her blood well up to the surface of her fair skin. It ran down her forearm to her hand, and she smeared some of it across the sigil. The red circle reacted, brightening for a moment before it vanished, freeing the demon inside the cage, which immediately went on the attack.

It was little match for so many impeccably-trained and well-practiced combatants, and fell within a matter of moments. Curiously, as soon as it died, the blue apparition seemed to reform itself, and she had the sense that its head was turned towards the spot the shade had lain. “I can do nothing about the Wardens’ use of demons in this horrid place.” It spoke with the same feminine voice as before. “But I will have no one say any magic of mine ever released one into the world.” The cloud moved, as though the person represented within it were taking her leave, moving deeper into the complex.

It seemed, somehow, that they were meant to follow.

Setting

5 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

The next part of their continued trek towards the tower bridge was mostly uneventful, passing them through several more rooms mostly dominated by sand and silence, but as they reached the midway point of yet another, Nostariel and Stroud both showed a hitch in their steps. Halting a moment, they exchanged a look. Nostariel’s brow furrowed heavily, her face betraying clear confusion, and though Stroud remained stoic, his frown deepened enough for her to tell that he was just as perplexed as she was.

“It’s… there’s something in the next room.” She realized the others would have no idea what the silent communication between herself and the commander meant. “It’s… it doesn’t feel like a darkspawn, but… be careful.” There was something very wrong about the feeling, but more like a sick kind of wrong than an evil one. Darkspawn tended to feel like both at the same time.

They resumed their forward progress, though upon entering the next room, Stroud and Nostariel were both bearing weapons again, and they weren’t alone in that. What they saw was at once a relief and a further confusion.

A haggard-looking man in Warden armor appeared to be searching through the contents of the room. His hair, perhaps originally a reddish-brown, now occupied sparse patches of his head and nothing more. His eyes were glazed over, partly foggy with the taint, and his gait was shambling, almost more apelike than human, his back hunched. For a moment of utter, cold terror, Nostariel looked at him and saw her future. She’d never seen those closest to their Calling, but shed heard that some of them tried to fight it off, perhaps for too long, and it was not hard to imagine that this was what they became. The thoughts closed her throat and dropped a stone into the pit of her stomach, and for a moment, she forgot how to speak.

An ability that the stranger, at least, seemed to retain. He glanced up sharply, as though he had sensed their presence in the same way they had sensed his, blinked his rheumy eyes, and immediately started shambling in their general direction, with as much haste as he seemed capable of mustering. “The Key!” His voice rasped, likely not having been used in some time, but the expression on his face was open, and might have been friendly—it was hard to tell, given what the Blight had done to him. “Did they find it? The dwarves? I heard them… looking… digging.” He paused for a moment, his eyes, or what was left of them, seeming to bore into Nostariel for a stretch of time she lost track of, but he did stop a few feet from the party, perhaps mindful of how well-armed they were, perhaps just out of habit. “How do you bring the Key here?”

“I don’t understand. How is this a key?” Nostariel’s hand tightened on the staff she held, knowing nonetheless that it was the object he referred to.

“Magic. Old magic, it is. Magic from the blood.” Well, that certainly confirmed the hypothesis from earlier, not that they’d needed any more assurance that blood magic was at the root of this somehow. “It made the seals. It can destroy them.”

Seals? There was more than one? Nostariel pursed her lips, trying to make sense of all this, and decided it might be best to stick to the most important thing going on here. “We came in here to find Corypheus. Do you know anything about him?” Perhaps that had not been their exact intent in coming here, but it seemed to be the problem they had to deal with at this juncture, anyway.

The man’s reaction was immediate—he flinched backward with a soft hiss. “Do not say his name! He will hear you. Do not wake him… not when you hold the key.”

Behind Nostariel, Amalia’s lips pursed, and she folded her arms across her chest, the sharp end of the knife she was holding sticking out past one of her elbows, safely away from any of her companions. She did not particularly like the look of this man, the way he was hunched over like something half-regressed to animal nature, but at the very least his words were comprehensible—even if she did not yet fully understand what all of them referred to. “And how would this Corypheus leave, even if he did wake? The entrance we came through is sealed.” And unless they found a way out, they were sealed in with the darkspawn, too.

“Corypheus… he has power. But you—no way out when the walls stand. The Wardens build their prisons well. If the center holds, who cares what else is trapped?” He paused for a moment, and his eyes passed from Amalia back Nostariel. “But you hold the Key! The key to his death… yes, I can show you out, yes.”

Nostariel pursed her lips, something in her eyes softening against her will. She could hardly help it—the man seemed to be in such pitiable condition that even her wariness of strangers was being swamped by it, diluted by her concern. “Who are you?” The question was gentle rather than accusatory. “What happened to you?”

“You ask me that?” He seemed equal parts nonplussed and melancholy, his expression morphing into something very recognizable as sorrowful. He touched a fist to his rusted breastplate, more of a kind with Stroud’s than Nostariel’s own. “Wardens, yes? Guardians against the Blight. You… and me. The seals hold us in. Anything comes in, and nothing ever leaves, not without the Key."

“Wait.” That was Stroud. “You are saying we cannot get out without breaking these seals?” His eyes narrowed suspiciously; like Amalia, he crossed his arms.

The man nodded. “You must, yes. Every seal, you must hold the Key, use your blood. Only then they open. Only for the witch’s child.” There was a pause, and it looked like Stroud was about to argue, but the man continued instead. “Not back, not up. Only way out is down and through the heart. Down… down in the depths…” He turned from them, and started in that direction himself, shuffling through a door to the left, and out, across the bridge they’d first spotted upon their entrance here.

A perceptible sigh issued over Nostariel's shoulder. "It doesn't sound like we have much of a choice... Dammit," Ashton said behind her, muttering the curse under his breath. He didn't enjoy having to follow this...man? Or whatever he was anywhere.

The amount of trust Ashton had could've been gauged by the draw he had on his bow, though pointed toward the ground instead of anything in particular. The fact that Nostariel would have to use more of her blood to work the magic these seals only served to sour his mood even more. "I don't like this," Ashton began, shaking his head, "I don't trust him. But I'm beside you Nos. Always," He told Nostariel, a supportive smile slipping into his lips.

"On your lead, Captain."

Ithilian had been silent throughout the meeting with the old Warden, his face set in stone, though now that they began moving again, following on the man's heels down into the depths, Ithilian came to walk beside Nostariel, a hand always on his blade. He did not speak loudly enough for the corrupted Warden ahead to hear.

"How is he still alive? He must be... too old, too old to still be functioning. The Taint doesn't spare the mind, but it has spared at least a part of his." She obviously didn't need to be told how the Taint worked, but Ithilian had witnessed the progression of its effects in the worst of ways, and this made no sense.

Nostariel pursed her lips, shaking her head faintly. Everything abut this made her uneasy, from the sort-of blood magic to this man himself. Ithilian was right—she’d never seen anything like this. Then again… the only exposure she had had to Wardens near the Calling were those who had enough left of themselves to still be coherent, to file their official notification and plan their last ventures into the Deep Roads. “I don’t know.” Her reply was no louder than a murmur, followed by a sigh. “I’m not even sure how it is that the Darkspawn have not killed him yet. This place is… wrong.”

And that sense of unease, of wrongness, only grew as they crossed the bridge at last. The door immediately in front of them was worn and immovable, blocked off by debris and sand, but they were able to move clockwise along an external walkway, and nothing else molested them on their way to the next door, this one long torn off its hinges, leaving only an empty, unornamented stone archway.

What was inside the room was of significantly more interest, however. On the ground rested what looked to be an iron circle, four spikes protruding vertically around its circumference, about as high as Nostariel’s waist. In diameter, it was perhaps as long as she was tall, and from the whole thing emitted a sickly green light. There was little else in the chamber save for a towering griffon statue near what appeared to be the way out.

“This is one of the seals, then?” Stroud turned his head towards their guide, who stood closer to the statue than anything, and the man bobbed his head in confirmation. Frowning, the Warden-Commander turned his eyes back to Nostariel. “I do not like this, but… whatever has occurred here, we must neutralize this Corypheus. His reach extends too far to leave him to rot.”

That was fair enough, especially considering that their only way out may well be through him, whatever he was. Advancing to the seal, Nostariel stepped up into the iron circle, the light throwing her features into grim relief, and drew Ashton’s knife with her free hand. As before, she took a moment to find a spot that seemed unlikely to do much more than hurt, and found one, accidentally cutting a bit deeper than she’d intended and letting the blood drip down onto the seal. Nothing else appeared to be required, because at the very moment the first drops splashed onto its surface, there was a loud bang, almost like a rapport of thunder, and she found herself knocked back as space temporarily warped over the seal.

Emerging from the disturbance they came, three pride demons, more massive than she was used to seeing, slightly magmatic in form, as though lava coursed through their bodies instead of blood. Even from her spot, now on her back on the stone floor, Nostariel could feel the heat rolling off of them in waves. What on earth had the Wardens been keeping here? And to what end?

The initial force of the blast had caught Stroud square in the chest, pushing him back several feet from his position closest to the front of the group, and it was only by some combination of training and luck that he kept his feet rather than hitting the ground like some of the others did. His position relative to the blast radius meant he was now to the far right of the room, and his sword and shield were in his hands before he had to consciously command his body to make the needed motions.

The first thing this pride demon did was shoot a sphere of fire for the space slightly to Stroud’s own right, one that a quick glance informed him was occupied by Nostariel’s archer friend. Setting his jaw, Stroud lunged, bringing the shield up to guard against the magical projectile, Chevalier training ensuring that he tilted the shield just enough that it glanced off harmlessly rather than hitting directly on, which was good, considering the awkward angle at which he’d been forced to block. His shield-arm still rattled, and was going to be sore for some days afterward, but it was nothing that could not be overcome.

“Any time you’d like to start shooting, I would be much obliged.”

Ashton had taken the blast as well as he could've. The force threw him backward and off of his feet, but he turned the fall into a roll and made it back to his feet in relatively short order. However, his feet were not so quick as to evade the gout of flame aimed at his head. Instead he took cover behind Stroud, and more importantly his shield. It was moments like these that he wished he'd opted to take the guardsman shield along with the sword. The Warden's served the same purpose, and Ashton stood crouched behind him so as not to get the crown of his head singed.

"My mistake Ser Warden, I thought this was the part where we cowered," Ashton deadpanned. He then peeked up over his shoulder with an arrow drawn, and let it fly towards the demon. It found purchase in the demon's pectoral, but it'd take more than a sole arrow to down a mutated pride demon. Ashton tapped the back of Stroud's shoulder with his elbow, urging him to move. "Go, we'll divide its attention. Won't smash us both," Ashton said, stepping out from behind Stroud and strafing it to its opposite side firing all the while.

Where Ashton went one direction, Stroud moved in the other, rolling his shoulders to shore the set of his arms and torso. He was a long-haul fighter, built stocky and strong, and while his training demanded flexibility and adaptability of him, he was most comfortable right in the thick of things, the sound of his pulse hammering in his ears, and the rasp of his breath loud over the din of clashing steel and the softer sounds of giving flesh and blood. He tightened his grip on his sword, and advanced.

Ashton’s arrows proved of little use as implements of damage, considering how well-armored the demon was, but they were certainly ample enough distraction, especially when one bounced off its cheek, dangerously close to the eye. It turned for the archer, then, and Stroud seized the opportunity, batting one of its massive arms out of the way with his shield to thrust the sword almost straight up. He wasn’t nearly tall enough to reach the armpit, which would have been a much more deadly maneuver, but he did manage to find the joint at the inside of its elbow, burying his blade a good five inches in before he was forced to withdraw and spin to the side to avoid the retaliatory attack from its other arm, not to mention the lavalike substance that seemed to serve as its blood.

He was not, however, quite fast enough, and a few of the demon’s human-arm-sized fingers found purchase around his shield, pulling at it with far too much force to be endured. The straps fastening the shield to his arm gave, but not before the ball-and socket of his shield-arm did, the limb dislocating and cracking in what felt like several places, though he could not be sure. With an inarticulate shout, Stroud stumbled backwards, the arm hanging uselessly at his side as his shield was tossed somewhere across the room. The demon continued to advance towards him.

Before he could reach the Warden, an arrow clattered harmlessly off the back of the demon's head. The lone arrow wasn't enough to deter the monster, but what the archer hurled next did make it hesitate for a moment. "Hey! Hey ugly! Over here," Ashton insulted, firing another arrow harmlessly off of one of its shoulder blades. "Look at me when I'm insulting you, you idiot!" Ashton demanded. That managed to get the demon to turn around and narrow its eyes at the archer.

"Oooh, look, it's not as dumb as it looks," Ashton continued sarcastically shaking his head. "Pfft, pride demon? Pride my ass. Proud of what? You're ugly as sin so it can't be your looks," Ashton said, beginning to count of his fingers. The insults did have their intended as the demon turned away from the injured Warden and began to make its way to Ashton. And you're dumb as a rock, so it's not that, and you're slow! What are you going to kill me with? Old age?"

The demon roared at him in a boiling rage, spitting off another fireball in his direction. Except this time, Ashton was still on his feet, so it was easier for him to dodge the brunt of the resulting explosion. It was still close enough to singe the edge of his armor and throw him a little to the side, but he brushed it off as nonchalantly as he could, hiding the burns behind a front of bravado. Ashton came up to a knee and threw his hands up into the air "What? Pissed? Did I hurt your pride? Aw, boo hoo. What a joke, come get me like a man!"

That finally managed to have the intended effect as the demon slipped into a sprinter's stance, before rushing forward with reckless abandon. Ashton dropped all verbal attacks and instead switched to his arrows again, specifically knocking one that had gray fletching. In moment, Ashton forwent his bow and jammed the arrow hard into a ground, causing a pop and a plume of smoke to quickly envelop both him and his immediate area. The demon careened through the smoke, but Ashton had darted away under its cover, letting the demon harmlessly rush through it and out the other side...

... Head first into the stone wall behind them. The impact was enough to create fissures in the stone wall and snap a portion of the demon's horn off, leaving it stunned and opening an opportunity.

"Warden!? Its legs, cut into its legs!" Ashton ordered, trading his own bow in for the guardsman's sword.

A task that was somewhat easier said than done, considering that Stroud had one good arm and a cloud of smoke he couldn’t really see through between himself and his target. Still, he’d dealt with worse, and while the wisdom of this plan was questionable, thus far he had no complaints about its effectiveness, and so it was with haste that he angled himself into the smokescreen and kept his strides long and straightforward, eventually emerging out the other side. The demon still seemed to be stunned by its own impact with the wall, which gave him some time to attempt to hobble it.

Also easier in theory than in practice. He would normally have swung with both hands for such a task, but he didn’t have that luxury. What he did have was a few more seconds than he would have normally had to get the hit right, so with his good arm, he slid the tip of the sword so it was between the plates protecting the demon’s legs, right at the less-armored back of the knee-joint. Using his body weight for extra heft, he stabbed, sinking the blade in as far as he could, then tearing to one side, severing at least one of the lava-covered tendons there.

The effect was immediate, the demon unbalancing and collapsing onto its side, but Stroud, near its back, was ill-positioned to finish it off. “Stab it!” The words were more barked than spoken, his accent thickened by pain and exertion. “The underarm!”

That was the plan, but Ashton didn't have the time to voice it, and instead forged ahead without a quip. Ashton rushed forward with his sword in both hands, but the pride demon wasn't dead, not yet. The searing pain in the back of its knee ripped it out of its daze, and it was aware of that archer closing the distance between them. With the insults still fresh in its mind, it reached out with one of its huge arms and grabbed Ashton before he could deliver the blow. The heat emanating from the monster's hands seeped deep into his plate and began to burn at the flesh beneath. But those burns would be minor compared to what the demon had in mind.

It tightened the grip, increasing the heat and threatening to break some bones in the process as it bright Ashton closer to its mouth. It opened wide to douse him in flame. Ashton had to act quickly before he was crushed or incinerated or both. He managed to free an arm and reached back into his quiver, grabbing a handful of arrows and jamming them deep into the soft spot between the where the fingers met the hand. The arrows bit down deep, and the pain was enough to get it to roar instead of spit flame, dropping him in the process.

Ashton fell back to the ground, but had enough presence of mind to drive his sword deep under the pride demon's arm as he fell. Instead of spurting blood, magma welled up from the wound and added to the burns Ashton had suffered. The heat forced him to leave the sword in the wound as he fell backward, wracked with pain. The damage was done, however, and the demon breathed once more before its chest fell silent-- finally dead.

Not too far away, Ashton laid on his back, alive but stiff and moving very little. He had a number of burns all over his body and maybe even a fractured bone or two-- the last thing he wanted to do was to move and agitate it. Still, he had enough strength to speak.

"I hate demons. I really, really do," Ashton said between clenched teeth.

Setting

4 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

The next thing Nostariel felt after the fall and wave of heat was a pair of arms under her own, because Amalia was dragging her back into a stand. They didn’t have any time to recover at leisure, because the impact of the blast had knocked both of them to the left, and one of the pride demons appeared quite intent on coming after them first. It was bigger than she remembered the other one being—the one in the Fade, in Feynriel’s dream. Amalia wasn’t even sure if that was the last one she encountered; she only knew that it was the most significant. That one had found purchase on her companions. This one, she knew, would not, and that meant that at least the effort to kill it would be straightforward.

It was not her preference to have the full attention of such a large opponent, but she knew that her chances of withstanding such attention were greater than Nostariel’s, and so she didn’t hesitate. “Stay back,” she warned, though in truth she doubted the necessity of saying so. Nostariel was intelligent and experienced both—they could make this work.

Strafing to the right, Amalia drew the largest weapon she had—a curved blade about three-quarters the length of her arm. It had been sheathed at her hip, and lacked a companion on the other side. Indeed, her other hand she kept free. Flipping her grip on it, she laid the blunt edge along her forearm and continued to move sideways. The creature tracked her with its eyes, but she was considerably more patient than it, so when it started to charge her, she was ready, diving out of the way into a roll that had her back on her feet in seconds. Considering the impact it made against the opposite wall, it was definitely for the best that she not let it come into contact with her.

Nostariel utilized the distraction Amalia provided to the fullest she could. Looking at the strange mutated version of the pride demon led her to believe that it, unlike others of its kind that she had encountered, was somehow fire-based, which meant that ice was always a good bet. With this in mind, she took hold of her staff with both hands, one of her arms still bloody from the cut she’d inflicted upon herself. There wasn’t time to worry about it, however—killing the demons before they themselves were killed was much more important.

Knowing that much, Nostariel launched a steady stream of projectiles at it, especially as it charged past her position on its way to try and take down Amalia. When it made impact with the back wall, however, she switched tactics a little bit, instead building the magic into a cone of cold spell, trying to trap the demon face first against the wall for as long as she could. Ice bloomed from the stone floor, creeping up its calves to its armored knees and above, trapping it in a rather exposed position. That said… “Amalia, it won’t hold long! Be careful!”

There was a time limit on the advantage, and that wasn’t unexpected. Amalia didn’t need to be told twice to capitalize on it, however, and was sprinting full-tilt for the creature before it had even been fully iced into the wall, springing up and onto the frosty spikes that held it in place, and then—before she could lose her traction and slide back down—again, this time into the armored plate that protruded several feet behind the demon’s elbow. One last jump gave her access to the back of its neck, and Amalia torqued herself in midair, adding a half-spin to her jump that gave the broad slashing blade in her hand more force as it cut into the flesh there. Lavalike fluid erupted from the wound when she severed whatever the analogue of a blood vessel was, splashing back to land on her armor with a hiss, spoke rising from the black scales it was made of, but the dragon’s skin served her just as well as it had served the dragon, and though it was uncomfortably hot, she did not burn.

Landing in a crouch, Amalia rolled to the side as the demon freed one of its legs from the icy prison, using that foot to kick free some of the frost containing the other one still. From behind her, she could feel more of Nostariel’s magic projectiles rushing by, and backed off and to the left, so as to once again present the demon with two wide-apart targets. Lines of fluid fire coursed down its back from the wound she had dealt it, but it remained on its feet, swinging around to face them again, its eyes like hot coals in its head.

Nostariel didn’t relent, knowing that their best chance to take down the demon before it managed to cripple either or both of them was to do so quickly. It had definitely taken damage from Amalia’s strike, as well as all the ice she had been throwing at it, and for a moment, it looked as though it knew not which target to choose. In the end, it swung towards the mage, who was still pelting it about the head and chest with ice, probably considerably annoying.

The Warden started to slowly back away, still throwing magic, hoping to guide it far enough towards her that Amalia could slip around behind it and get a few more good hits in before it managed to do much damage of its own. Unfortunately, it chose this point to show off its capability for damage at a distance, and she soon found herself facing down a very large ball of flames. With a quick gesture and a desperate burst of magic, she raised an ice wall in front of herself, the fireball crashing into it with great force, exploding against the side and hurling chunks of ice and slush in a wide radius. At the very least, Nostariel supposed, she wasn’t currently charred.

Shards of ice and frost pelted Amalia as she snuck around the demon’s flank, but she was unconcerned with them, instead readying the blade in her hand for another series of attacks. It was hard to say exactly which area she should target—with the demon much more mobile than it had been before, trying to gain altitude before striking would just be a waste of time. She could try for the backs of the knees, but she did not like her little sword’s chances at surviving too much more concentrated heat. Picking something further away from its core and thus cooler was preferable.

In the end, the answer was obvious enough. Patiently, Amalia waited for the demon to advance far enough towards Nostariel that she had room enough to maneuver behind it. Once she was certain it had not noticed her, Amalia surged forward, ducking low and aiming for the back of its ankle. There was a gap between plates there, and she slammed the blade between them much as one would a broad chopping knife, hoping to sever the tendon there, or at least damage it enough to hobble the demon.

She must have been at least somewhat successful, because it roared, shifting all of its weight to its other foot, pivoting more quickly than she would have guessed and dealing her a resounding blow with one of its massive hands. Amalia’s feet lost purchase on the ground, and she was effectively thrown back into the wall. Without enough opportunity to adjust for a landing, she hit the stone hard with one arm, trying to break the impact for the rest of her body. She succeeded, but at the cost of her ulna, the long bone in her forearm shattering in several places with the force of the hit.

Amalia landed hard on her feet, shifting the broken arm behind her to protect it. It hurt quite a lot, but fortunately, she did not think the bone had broken her skin, and it was held relatively well in place by her armor.

On one foot alone, the demon was hardly as formidable as it had been before. Amalia had paid for that with the use of her arm, and Nostariel wasn’t about to let it go to waste. Another fire ball shot towards her, but she ducked under it, feeling the heat singe some of her hairs, and coming up on the other side of it, lighting both her free hand and the end of her staff with magic. The demon was turning around towards Amalia, but a large sphere of ice bludgeoning it in the back of the head altered those plans considerably, and it swung back around to face her.

Destructive magic was not generally her forté, but Nostariel had been improving in its use for several years, and so she dug deep, pulling up as much mana as she felt she could safely handle at once, gripping her staff with both hands to channel it all through one conduit. The resulting blast of energy hit the demon square in the face, ice spreading downwards over its neck and shoulders, hardening the magma dripping from its wounds and locking its arms and torso in place. The rapid cooling brought on by the ice was enough to freeze the magma inside its body in place, locking it in one position.

With a heaved exhale, Nostariel collapsed onto her knees, the massive discharge of energy bringing on a fresh wave of fatigue. The ice had continued to spread, frosting the creature from head to toe, though the worst of it was near the neck and shoulders, and it thinned towards the extremities. A rather moot point—it clearly wouldn’t be moving again for some time.

Moot or not, Amalia was not content to leave anything to chance. With her good hand, she sheathed the badly heat-warped blade she’d used, and drew another, this one shorter, stouter, and straight, fashioned more like a climbing spike than anything. Fortunately, that meant it would serve exceptionally well for this purpose. For a few seconds, she examined the ice-sculpture the demon had become, then chose a readily-accessible part of it, behind the uninjured knee. Driving the spike in as well as she could with one hand, she kicked it a few times to make sure it was solidly in there, then drew a small pouch from her belt. Placing it carefully on the spike, right up against the surface of the demon’s flesh, she stepped back a fair distance.

With Nostariel’s help, the small packet was lit aflame, and after a delay of perhaps a second or two, a contained explosion took off the demon’s leg, and the bottom half of the arm on the same side, tipping the still creature over and causing it to smash further against the stone floor, effectively leaving it with a limb and a half. That would do.




Lucien, able to avoid being knocked over by the force of the demons’ entrance largely due to his weight, found himself directly staring down the middle one of the lot, and grimly drew his sword. He wasn’t sure what the Wardens thought they were doing, keeping demons down here, but what he had to do now was obvious enough. To his left, he could see Amalia helping Nostariel to her feet, and he thought he spotted the glint of Stroud’s armor to his right, but he wasn’t sure exactly if any of the others were behind him or just out of his view, grouped closer to one of the sides. He was sure he’d find out eventually, but he couldn’t risk looking behind him.

Everburn slid free of its sheath with a soft ring, and he brought it around in front of him, grasping with both hands. This would be better if he could keep the demon pinned as far back against the wall as possible—the room wasn’t tiny, but it was small enough that there was a serious risk of collateral damage if the demons got too close to one another and then attacked one of his companions. If they could keep the conflicts somewhat isolated, they had a better chance of success. So, rather than wait for the demon to come to him, Lucien pressed the attack, leaning sideways to avoid something that appeared to be a lash made of fire—he could feel the heat of it pass by his face, a little too close for comfort.

When he made it in close enough, he swung for the demon’s leg—if he could hobble it, keeping it in one place would be considerably easier. The first hit jarred his arms, but proved little issue for the demon, rebounding off one of the armored plates that seemed to comprise the majority of its body. Still, he’d left a hairline fissure in the protection, which meant it could be overcome. It just might take a while.

The pride demon looked down on Lucien with either annoyance, contempt, or some mix of both, and soon prepared to bring a crushing blow down on him. In the middle of the backswing, however, two arrows struck it in the face, causing it to recoil slightly, and interrupting the attack. The arrows themselves, fired simultaneously from the bow of Ithilian, some distance behind Lucien, had not done a great deal of actual damage. They seemed to have annoyed it enough, though, for it to turn its next attack upon the elf, a second lash of fire materializing in the demon's other hand.

Roaring, it took a lurching step forward that also served as a sort of kick at Lucien, and smashed down both lashes into the ground in a straight line out in front of it. Ithilian was forced to dive to the side, the lashes causing blasts of fire to ignite all along their path. Shoving himself up quickly into a crouch, Ithilian pulled an arrow free from his quiver, taking aim at the demon, and loosing another arrow towards its face. This one found an eye, glowing magma gushing forth in the place of blood from the wound.

Ithilian readied another arrow, but for the moment, the demon was bent over and low enough to the ground from its strike for Lucien to strike something other than its legs now.

It took Lucien a second to right himself from the double-over a demon’s foot to the gut had caused him, but when he did, he saw the opportunity. It seemed to be making good use of its arms to control the lashes of fire. In fact, that seemed to be the most dangerous thing about it.

Lifting his sword over his head, Lucien swung down with the full force of both arms and a considerable amount of the rest of him, too, the resounding clang this produced audible even over the din of two other pitched confrontations. Unlike his last attempt to hit an armored plate, this one left a large crack, one that grew as the musculature shifted underneath it, forcing one plate to separate into two, and leaving a rather large, rather obvious new weak point between the nape of the demon’s neck and the end of its shoulder. Before he could hit it again, though, the demon rose, and Lucien maneuvered back in front of it, to hopefully deter it from attempting to attack Ithilian at range.

The deterrence was successful, very much so, as the pride demon roared with aggression at the chevalier, drawing back both fire lashes, and swinging them horizontally now, one coming from each side, an obvious attempt to wrap them around Lucien, to both ensnare and burn through his armor and the flesh beneath. Though the chevalier managed to duck out of the way of one of the lashes entirely, the other one caught his right forearm, wrapping around his gauntlet and biting deep, the flame hot enough to soften the metal and start to sear the skin beneath.

As it made the attack, Ithilian had darted into action around its side, bow put away, blades in hand. The weakness Lucien had exposed could be taken advantage of, but his bow simply didn't have the necessary punch to do any real damage to the demon, and merely annoying it wasn't useful at this point. As the lashes swung together towards Lucien, Ithilian reached the demon's side, passing under the left of the lashes, and leaping to sink both his blades into the thigh and hip area of the demon.

Molten blood leaked out, some dripping onto Ithilian's left thigh, but a hiss of pain was all he gave it, withdrawing a blade to move up around to the demon's back. The neck was the endpoint, but he would need a little more time to get there.

Lucien, able to guess as much from his vantage point, gritted his teeth and reached forward with his entrapped hand, wrapping it around the burning lash, mostly so as to prevent himself from being hauled around any which-way the demon pleased, and give himself a little more leverage over the way they were locked together. He was much smaller than his foe on this occasion, so leverage was imperative.

It was pointless to try and use his sword in this state, and because he could feel the heat starting to eat through the part of his gauntlet protecting his palm, he knew it was imperative to act quickly. Dropping Everburn, Lucien made a run for it, the lash still in one hand. Rather than attempting to move away from the demon, and thus triggering a tug-of-war against a creature with strength far superior to his, he instead went the other way, sprinting towards it, then dropping into a slide between its legs, the fire-lash still held in one hand, which was by this point in excruciating pain. Still, he locked his grip, standing out of the slide and running to the left, effectively pressing the burning whip up against the inside of the demon’s leg, and then hooking it around the outside of the other, in something like half a figure-eight.

The fire did not, of course, damage the demon half as much as it would have damaged him, but it wasn't immune, either, and what was more, its movement was now inhibited, which should buy Ithilian the time he needed to reach the weakest point on its body. Grimacing, Lucien switched his grip, feeling the hot weapon start to burn his other hand, but unable to tolerate more in his right without risking permanent damage.

The pride demon tried to spin to face Lucien again, but having its own weapons turned against it and its mobility hampered that way was making it incredibly difficult for it to do so. Ithilian had worked his way onto its back, ignoring burns on several parts of his body, but certainly not as bad as what Lucien was enduring with his arm. The process of striking his blades repeatedly in and out of the demon was actually beginning to heat them up to the point of melting them.

Just as he reached the shoulder area, the blade he'd been planning to strike into the throat of the demon could take no more, and only the handle and lower part of the blade came free, glowing a dull orange. The other half had remained in the demon's upper back. Still secured for a few moments by his other blade, Ithilian turned to Parshaara, pulling the dragonbone dagger free and reaching across for the throat of the demon.

He plunged the dagger in, ignoring the searing pain that covered his hand immediately after. Ithilian then pulled across the throat, cutting relatively easily, and sending a torrent of the blood-magma spilling down onto the floor. The demon wavered slightly, releasing its grip on the fire whips it was wielding to bring its hands up near its throat, either to swat at Ithilian or otherwise stem the flow of its life blood. It could not succeed in either, however, as it immediately toppled over forward, sending Ithilian into an ungraceful fall, thankfully not into any of the spilled magma.

It was quite dead, apparently the last of the three demons to fall, and Ithilian clambered back to his feet, pulling the damaged form of his other blade out of the demon's shoulder. He strongly hoped they would not have to do that again.

Setting

5 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

Considering all the damage the party had sustained—burns, breaks and fractures—it took Nostariel a considerable amount of time and several mana restoratives to put everyone back to rights. Undoubtedly, the injuries would still be uncomfortable for some time, but she was able to heal the actual damage and reduce the pain, so all was well enough on that front.

What she was less certain of was what they were really getting themselves into. The trapped Warden had told them that the only way out was in, more or less, but if they had to break these seals to get out, and they were designed to hold creatures like those… she wondered if it might not be better to leave them be. The group together could take care of mutated pride demons, but what of the creature so fearsome as to need more than one of these seals to contain it? Something powerful enough to justify all this secrecy, all these arcane steps to lock away here, where no one was ever supposed to find it. Would they have a chance against something like that?

Rubbing her tingling palms together, Nostariel cut off the remains of the magic flow and smiled at Lucien, the last of her patients for the moment. She was glad she’d been here, or his hands… it was better not to think about it. His gauntlets were still warped, and it looked like Amalia and Ithilian had lost a weapon each to the demons. Stroud’s shield was bent, but would work at least decently for its intended purpose, for now. Looking at all of them setting themselves back to rights, she knew there was no way she and Stroud could have done this alone, and she knew also that the only reason any of them were here was because of her. Because she’d asked them to be. Doubts or not, she couldn’t just give up and resign herself to dying down here because of how fearsome Corypheus might be. If they failed, well… the consequences could be disastrous, but she truly believed that if anyone could succeed, it was they. They were far too important to leave down here, and some of them not just to her or each other or even their remaining companions.

But just as much as she would not give up, she could not charge ahead as blindly as she had been. It was time for a better explanation. Her eyes pinned the old Warden, standing still beside one of the griffon statues, and as she rose, staff in-hand, she spoke. “The first seal, I take it?” She had thought the devices like the ones holding the shade in place were the seals, but these appeared to be something of a far greater magnitude than that.

The man nodded, approaching the party tentatively. “Two thousand years the magic holds. Never broken.” Nostariel felt some of her irritation soften—if they were really that old, he probably wouldn't have had any way to know what was behind them. She certainly hadn’t sensed it, magic or no. “Take it back, into the Key. Absorb all that has come before.”

It was only when he said this that Nostariel noticed the four vertical points on the seal were faintly aglow with violet-hued magic. It would seem the breaking of the seal had left something excess behind. What good letting the staff absorb it would do, she was not sure, but it was probably better than leaving live magic around down here. It wasn’t terribly difficult, really, and for a moment, the light flared gold, before settling, the staff in her hand growing warm for just a moment. “The blood works. It is good.”

Nostariel pursed her lips. That again. Turning to face the man, she tilted her head slightly to the side. “I can’t put my friends in any more danger than I already have without understanding.” She spoke softly, almost as one would to a child, if a clever one. “Please, tell me who you are. Explain what is going on here.”

For a moment, the man seemed confused. “Name… so long since I’ve said my name. La—Larius! I was Larius.” He paused. “There was a title, too… Commander… Commander of the Grey.”

Nostariel blinked, glancing over at Stroud, who shook his head. “I know of no Commander named Larius.”

Larius shook his head. “You would not. I am dead. But I never died.”

“Your Calling.” Paradoxical as the words were on the surface, Nostariel knew exactly what he had to be referring to. His Calling must have come, and so he would have informed the other Wardens, who would record his death in the books. But… it would seem the Darkspawn had not killed him, even down here.

He nodded solemnly, his face twisted down into a frown. “It comes to us all. The voice we cannot resist. Our death.”

Nostariel shifted uncomfortably. “This seal… what does it have to do with my blood? I am a Warden, just as you are. Our blood is much the same, whatever it was before.” The Taint tended to be the salient feature, honestly.

Larius shook his head. “The magic, it calls to the blood. Reads the thoughts of those who hold it. The last to hold it… the witch. Enelya. I… I was there when she laid the seals. Before I became this.” He blinked, slowly, then reached out over the space between himself and Nostariel, brows furrowed, like he was trying to recall something. As delicately as she suspected he was able, he traced two lines from the bridge of her nose over her forehead to her temples. “She had the writing, like this. You favor her, but your eyes are his. Garrahel’s.”

Nostariel’s lips parted, as though she were trying to speak, but no sound came out. He said that so easily, like these were people he had seen yesterday. Like he was so certain that these people, this Enelya and this Garrahel, were of the same blood as she. How often had she wondered, had she begged Sarra to tell her something, anything, even a lie, just so that she could imagine who they had been?

Before her voice found its way back into her throat, she felt something strange, like that pressing dankness of this place flared a little more dominant in her perception, but then it was gone. Larius, however, seemed almost seized by it. “C-Corypheus calls! In the darkness! What waits there?” He turned, his calmer, more rational demeanor gone as soon as it had appeared, and though he seemed not to notice, Nostariel had to swallow several times, reaching up to trace one of the gently-curving lines he’d drawn invisibly on her forehead. It felt like they burned.

“Wait!” Nostariel made a small noise of frustration, then shook her head and started to follow. It seemed that if she wanted any answers, she’d just have to keep trying to navigate their way out of here. At least both ends had the same means, she supposed. The group tailed Larius as he wound halfway around the outside of the tower, and then over another bridge away from it, carrying them down a staircase, as his commentary earlier had indicated they must go. Down, then out.

The path took them past another imprisoned creature, and Nostariel released this one just as she had the last, almost eager to see what the fade would conjure this time. Another glimpse, perhaps—just something. However imperfect. When the abomination was dead, the blue mist materialized and solidified into something, still indistinct, but perhaps clearer than last time. Perhaps she was only imagining it, but she could almost swear she was starting to make out features on the phantasm’s face. A sharp jaw, a nose slightly upturned? It was so hard to say.

“I may not be from one of their Circles, but we have our own ways. My magic will serve what is best in me, not what is most base, so that I might teach you the same. That, I promise you.”

“I don’t…” Nostariel reached out, as though trying to keep the apparition in place, but neither body nor will was enough to do it, and her hand passed right through as the memory faded. Something in her chest felt like it twisted, and the hand she’d lifted curled into a fist. Pressing her lips together, she continued forward. There was no use trying to pull more from these memories than was present. They weren’t even interacting with this world, not really, just echoing over and over.

The lower levels they traversed were filled with Darkspawn, and though by this point it was not difficult work to thresh through them, it frayed on Nostariel’s nerves in a way she could not remember it doing before. Beside her, she could sense Stroud growing similarly agitated, his jaw locked tight and his grip firmer than it needed to be on his sword. Something about the atmosphere here—or maybe it was just the mounting frustration of so many potential answers dangled in front of her face and none given to her. Her hand clenched and unclenched periodically on the staff, and her expression gradually started to harden. She kept the group moving at a swift march, inclined to be through these Maker-forsaken passages.

The third prison contained a Desire Demon, bound for who knew how long, just like the rest, and still they hadn’t come upon another seal. She provided a bit more of a challenge than the Darkspawn, but most of the people in this group were old hands at demonslaying.

When the creature was dead and the mist began to gather again, Nostariel could sense that something was different. It pulled together much more cohesively, and she could firmly make out two figures this time. One of them, clearly feminine, took a few weary steps towards the other, who reached out both of his hands to steady her by the elbows. A small smile curved the woman’s face, and it was indeed obvious, the resemblance between she and her daughter. Their hair was the same color, their faces contoured in much the same manner, but Enelya’s eyes were green rather than blue. The man, who bore vallaslin and a staff as well, wore the armor of the Grey Wardens, his black hair tailed high on his head, strands of it escaping to frame his tanned face. His nose was crooked, like it had been broken one too many times, but there was no mistaking the bittersweet look in his eyes—blue ones.

“I’ve bought our freedom, Garrahel. We can go home now, both of us… and the baby.” One of Enelya’s hands moved to wrap around her torso, her pregnancy obviously quite new. “We’ll be together—you don’t have to go back.”

The ghostly image of Garrahel raised a hand to her face, moving to tuck a wisp of hair behind her ear. “They will come for her, eventually. This is not a task that is only done once, Enelya.” He sounded melancholy, burdened with something, but his—lover? Wife? Nostariel didn’t know—shook her head fiercely.

“Not if they can’t find her. We’re done. All three of us. She will not be you, and she will not be me.” She leaned into him, and he propped his chin on her head, supporting her while she caught her breath.

“Then may she never learn what we’ve done here.” He wrapped his arms around her, and both faded from view.

Noastariel couldn’t move. All her life… she’d wondered who they were. Sometimes, she’d thought she didn’t need to know, didn’t want to know, even, for she imagined that they must have abandoned her to the Circle, whomever they were. But… to see them, here, even just in a memory of this place—she had nothing but questions, and it ached just as badly as it had in her very young childhood, when Sarra had possessed no insights to give her, not even the faintest of clues.

Ashton was the first to move. A thin line across his cheek bled from their most recent fight as his plate were beginning to show signs of the gauntlet they were running through, though it did little to drain the life out of his limbs. He took a step forward to stand behind Nostariel. His hand moved toward her shoulder before hesitating. There wasn't much he could think of to say, and even less that he could. Still, he wanted to be there for her, even if it meant just being there. His hand then came to lay tenderly on her shoulder, gently squeezing as his other hand came to find hers.

He simply stood quietly behind her, holding her, gently reminding her that she was not alone.

Nostariel steadied herself, taking in a shaky breath, and squeezed Ashton’s hand briefly before letting go, and turning so that she could face the rest of the group. “I’m sorry, everyone. I… wasn’t expecting this, when we came here. But what matters is getting out, and I haven’t forgotten.” She smiled wanly. “And here I thought nothing could surprise me anymore.” She could still feel… something, pulling at the edges of her thoughts, wearing away at her, but it helped to know that they were near, as dear as they were to her.

Lucien felt, here, that there was something he wanted to say. Or perhaps it was just that he felt he should say something. He recalled days, years ago now but still ready to memory, when Nostariel would talk to him of her troubles, and he remembered also that, when especially deep in her cups, she would offer this buried heartache: that she had no history, no heritage, not even a name. Turtega, at least, had been bestowed upon her by Circle and Chantry, an artifact of what she would become, not what she had been. He could not rightly imagine what it must be like to know her parents only this way, or at last in this way, he couldn’t say which it was.

Perhaps that was why nothing was ready to his tongue, and he could only gently nod his understanding. It was certainly not the best time or place for revelations of this kind, but it was not as though she had chosen to confront this here and now, and he thought she was holding up remarkably well considering the circumstances.

“Let’s keep going, then.”

The portion of the tunnels that followed was mostly empty, but it did lead them to the second of the seals. How many there were in total, Nostariel didn’t know, but she could tell from the way the otherness in the atmosphere increased its pressure that they were getting closer to… something. Corypheus, probably. The demons that appeared from this seal made things difficult by teleporting around the room, but in some senses, it was less bad than all the fire, or at least the injuries afterwards were less, and it didn’t take much longer to withdraw the magic from the seal as before.

Soon afterwards, they caught up with Larius, or rather, he doubled back for them. Fear and anxiety were starting to creep into his expression, something that Nostariel didn’t like. It matched the burgeoning dread in her guts all too well. “He is waking. The magic grows lax. He feels us walk where no step goes.” He shuddered visibly. “He calls, like an Old God, mimics their cries. He calls them to free him. The dark children and the light, any with the taint in their blood.”

Nostariel met eyes with Stroud, the latter scowling. When he spoke, his words were terse, almost as if he had to force them out through gritted teeth. “Just what is Corypheus, if not an Old God? Not an Archdemon?” That had been the possibility that most concerned Nostariel as well. This level of control over darkspawn and the tainted… to send people after Stroud’s retreat, after her, while behind some kind of seal? She’d never heard of anything capable of such a feat.

“More than darkspawn. More than human. He thinks. He speaks. He pierces the veil. He is waking, and he must die.” Larius seemed to be growing more and more anxious, his hands in constant motion.

“Larius, what’s wrong?” Nostariel had the uncomfortable feeling that the knew, because she was starting to feel it as well.

“I know the darkness before the seals. Here, the voice is too strong. I cannot stay!” This time, when he went to retreat, she did not try to stop him.

Their grim march took them down further, and this time, the passages opened up into what looked to be a section of almost undisturbed deep roads. Building structures from ages long past dotted the otherwise largely featureless stone around them, and a strong scent of sulfur assailed their senses, justified by the yellow-green pits that belched languorous smoke at periodic intervals. Crossing the threshold into the area felt, to Nostariel, something like hitting a brick wall at a dead sprint, the pressure in her head increasing to the level of a migraine. She staggered backwards several steps, but righted herself before she hit the ground. Beside her, Stroud’s breathing had become heavy and audible, as though he too were in pain.

Ashton reached out to steady Nostariel, an arrow already on the string of the bow on his other hand. "One more fight, and then we can be done with this damned place," Ashton said. All the humor in the man was dried up, leaving nothing but stern faced seriousness. "Let's do it fast, yeah?" he said, throwing a glance at the rest of the group.

Amalia wasn’t sure where Ashton was getting his figures from, as it seemed quite indeterminate to her how many fights they would face before they were done. Certainly, the coming confrontation with this Corypheus seemed inevitable, but they were in the Deep Roads—one did not have to be a Warden to know that Darkspawn were everywhere.

“We should consider making camp soon,” she offered. It was not preferable to rest here, but it was difficult to tell how much more they had to do before they found Corypheus, and it seemed better to rest before all the seals were undone. There was no sun or star to tell her what time of day it was, but Amalia’s internal clock seemed to be informing her that the hour grew late, and they had been fighting for most of the day. It was beginning to wear, even on them. Her arm twinged uncomfortably; she flexed her grip and resolved to ignore it.

Setting

5 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

It seemed like only half the words the others were speaking were properly making it to Nostariel's ears. She registered encouragement, and something about camping, but it wasn’t really processing the way it should, as though it were all coming to her disembodied, through some kind of thick, soupy fog. Her vision was blurring, and whatever sense Wardens had that darkspawn were near was almost rendering her incapable of paying attention to anything else. There was something in her head—a singing, almost—something that began to deafen her to all other sound without itself having volume, as far as she could tell. Something was alive in her blood, tugging her forward almost against her will, and she left the shelter of familiar hands to take a few lurching steps forward, her eyes fixed on some unseeable point in this distance, clear blue hazed over with a light, greying film.

Distantly, she realized that this was not something she wanted. The way it sang in her mind was off-key, somehow, or at a pitch she could not tolerate. Overwhelming, yes, but there was no sense of pleasant allure to it, nothing mysterious or beckoning or inviting. She knew that to heed that call was something unpleasant, something she did not want and should never do, and yet it drew her forward anyway, at the same time pressing down on her mind with the same dark, foreboding pressure that had been weighing on her since she entered this place.

Swaying slightly from side to side, Nostariel clutched her head in her hands, fingers pressing into her temples as though to relieve the building pressure there, if such a thing were possible. Her hearing was gone, swamped by the damnable singing, and she started to lose feeling in her extremities first, followed swiftly by the rest of her.

From the outside, it was easy to tell the exact moment at which she lost control of herself. She stiffened, her hands dropping away from her head, and spun around in a jerky motion, the ice blast from her left hitting Lucien square in the chest.

Whatever Lucien had been expecting—a collapse, perhaps, or equally as much for Nostariel to right herself and continue on—it had not been for her to attack him. Caught thoroughly off-guard, he staggered backwards from the force of the hit, the ice freezing his chestplate and chilling the mail and linen and skin underneath. Forcing himself to intake a breath, he steadied himself again, reaching halfway to the sword at his back on pure instinct before he hesitated, uncertain.

Amalia had no room for such hesitation herself. This would not be the first time that a friend, under the influence of something outside themselves, had turned hostile towards her, and she had no more intention to flounder in this situation than she had in the last. She drew no weapons, knowing that there was less chance of miscalculation when she relied only upon the strength that was naturally hers, and she ducked around Lucien, lunging for Nostariel in an effort to pull the Warden to the ground for a pin.

It was a sound enough tactic, and perhaps would have worked, had Stroud not body-checked her on her way, throwing his shoulder into her from the side, his superior weight sufficiently diverting Amalia’s course and allowing Nostariel to back up and gain distance on the rest of the party. Her movements were still jerky, much less precise and practiced than usual, and her next shot, aimed for Ithilian, flew slightly wide, aimed not for center mass but rather his left arm. Stroud had drawn his sword, and swung it in an overhead arc for where he’d knocked Amalia down.

Before the downward stroke of Stroud’s blade could be completed, Amalia saw another cross her vision, horizontally some distance over her. It slanted down, the tip digging into the mortar on her other side, effectively shielding her from the attempt at a cleave. Stroud’s blade clanged off of it with a loud rapport, and she was able to use the time and the space both to regain her feet.

Ithilian's mind did not work fast enough to immediately connect this with the occasion when he had turned his own blades on his allies in the Fade. Perhaps if there had been some verbal struggle beforehand, instead of what looked like head pains causing the Wardens to attack any and all non-Wardens around them. He also did not draw his weapons, having none of a particularly gentle variety, and could only watch the opening moves from his spot on the flank, as Amalia's attempt to subdue Nostariel was interrupted.

The blast of ice that came for him might have speared him straight through the chest had Nostariel's aim been better, but instead it took him through the arm, the bulk of it stabbing just below his left elbow, the rest clumping tightly around his sleeve. His proximity to the wall behind him caused him to suddenly be pinned in place, the ice having shattered through it and locking in place, while blood ran down the frosted length of it. He struggled to work his arm free, to no immediate effect. Nostariel looked about to follow up that attack with another, and Ithilian no longer had any means of moving out of the way.

As it so happened, the attack never came. The bow in Ashton's hands clattered uselessly on the ground as he let go of it. It served no purpose other than to wound or harm, neither of which he wished upon Nostariel. Instead, his feet started to churn as he did the only thing he could think of and threw himself at Nostariel to try and wrap her into a tight hug and pin her arms to her.

Nostariel was no expert at barehanded confrontation, but it was possible that she knew more of it than Ashton did, considering all the time she had spent with Amalia, learning what the other woman had to teach. It wasn’t elegant, but she managed to get her knee up in time to prevent a true pin, even as she was carried to the ground. Her staff was hopelessly tangled between them, so she let go of it, rolling out from under him with a hard shove and carrying herself to her feet.

Bereft of her weapon, she reached for the other she carried, the bow still slung across her back. It had no arrows, of course, for she could provide those herself. Drawing the string back, she materialized a blue-white projectile, cool next to her ear where she held it. Her frame shuddered, a soft choking sound accompanying her release of the string.

With a thud, the arrow thrummed home.

There wasn't any pain, just the force of the arrow pounding through the plate in the middle of his chest and slamming him back against the ground. His hand went to where the arrow was, just in time for it to discharge its magic. Icy fingers mixed with his blood as they spread across his chest in a diluted crimson, freezing his hand to his chest, and freezing him to the ground behind him.

Finally, the pain struck, accompanied by a low whine and a choking cough. His breathing became labored as his head slumped back, his eyes closed in an effort to focus on staying alive.

"Nos, please..." He pleaded.

Nostariel drew back the string on her bow again, her eyes still glazed over. This time, the arrow that appeared on it seemed to crackle with electricity of all things, quite likely enough to stop a man’s heart, if he were the only target of the force. Once more, she raised the draw to proper firing position, sighting down the shaft of the mana-crafted arrow. The words whispered over her, like the faintest brushing of fingers along the shells of her ears, a teasing touch that—

The singing crescendoed, drowning out the thought that was trying to form, but still her hand did not relax its grip on the arrow. She held it fast in place, her eyes refocusing on the target now that she knew it was lined up. The target. She had to shoot the target. Grip rock steady, because she held it with her back more than her arms. Any fool could throw an arrow, but it took an archer… it took an archer to…

Fire one. Fire now. FIRE NOW, FIRENOWFIRE

Face twisted into a distorted expression of agony, Nostariel swung the bow for the sky, releasing the arrow harmlessly into the air. It reached the height of its arc, and she let go of the magic holding it, causing the chain lightning to explode in all directions, lighting the dim cavern with sharp white light for but a few seconds.

The singing was an ugly, shrill sound, more like a constant, high-pitched shriek now more than anything. She couldn’t stand the sensation, couldn’t stand the noise. Turning on her heel with a motion like something mechanical but erratic, she put distance between them, moving back as though to rejoin the fight.

Amalia and Lucien were still occupied with Stroud. Though she did not feel the same need to be nonlethal with him as she did in Nostariel’s case, Amalia acknowledged that it would be much better if they could neutralize the threat without ending the man’s life. Lucien seemed to be of the same mind, and as a result, he was doing a great deal more defending than attacking, which meant that even when opportunities for good hits came up, he was not always taking them. Both warriors were wearing down, and Amalia herself was not feeling especially useful, able to draw Stroud’s attention when Lucien needed a moment, mostly to stop him from trying to go for the pinned Ithilian.

It was impossible to keep exact track of what was going on with the other two, but she did notice when the lightning spell exploded in the sky, and pursed her lips grimly. Leaving Lucien to deal with the other warrior, she shot a glance behind her at Ithilian, then moved her eyes forward to Nostariel. There was little choice—someone had to distract her, lest she be able to take aim and fire at her leisure. This in mind, Amalia hopped into a sprint, carrying herself low and zigzagging so as to present a smaller, more erratic target.

Nostariel’s motions were not exactly quick, either, and she at times seemed to countermand her own previous decisions to move in some way, making her look rather like a doll with an exceptionally-spastic puppeteer somewhere behind her. Perhaps the better thought would have been somewhere inside her. Whatever the case may be, she was not able to take decent aim at Amalia, and backed up rapidly, relaxing her draw and letting the arrow fly off to the side, well left of where it would have needed to be to hit the fleetfooted target.

The next few seconds were an attempt to avoid the inevitable, which went about as well as one would expect. Amalia managed to take her to the ground, but a mage was dangerous at any distance, and almost by reflex, Nostariel conjured fire to her hands, trying to shove the other woman off by causing her enough pain that she’d loosen her hold. Somewhere, she distantly remembered that she’d have better luck making a nug fly, but there was no way to spell out the implications of the recollection—too much singing, too much struggle. Her hands were having less effect than she would have liked, partially due to the fact that Amalia’s armor was made of a dragon’s hide, and thus quite flame-resistant. She was tiring quickly.

Stroud wasn’t doing too much better—but he was better equipped for a long confrontation than Nostariel, especially since his opponent was taking the slow route, wearing down his energy by presenting a solid defense and just enough offense to keep him on his toes. They circled each other, Stroud either unaware or uncaring of the fact that Lucien had shifted him such that the Warden’s back was now to Ithilian.

Ithilian had to get himself free of the wall first, and to that end, he drew Parshaara, striking it against the ice that pinned his arm. The magical flames leapt onto the ice, burning it away and sticking in a way that no mundane fire would be capable of. Eventually the ice magic began to wear away, at the cost of fairly severe burns up the length of his arm. Finally he was able to rip free, at which point he fell and worked to snuff out the flames. Easier said than done.

When he was able to rise again, he charged Stroud from behind, wrapping his good arm around the Warden's neck, and trying to trip up his legs to bring him to the ground, hoping to either choke Stroud into unconsciousness, or otherwise give Lucien a better opportunity to disarm him.

Stroud was not prepared for the sudden change in weight distribution over his body, it seemed, for he staggered backwards, regaining his balance only with several seconds of effort, and it was clear that Ithilian’s choke-hold was not making his life any easier. In the time it took him to recover, Lucien had seized the opportunity his ally provided—with a decisive hit from Everburn, Stroud’s own blade went flying off to the side, and Lucien stepped in, maneuvering to strike the Warden’s temple with the pommel of the weapon. When the other man began to collapse, apparently unconscious, the chevalier kept hold of the collar of his armor, largely to give Ithilian a chance to get off before Stroud fell over backwards onto him. When everyone was properly extricated, Lucien lowered him carefully to the ground.

It took Amalia a few more seconds to achieve a similar effect with Nostariel, the armor covering her torso heating to the point where the skin beneath was decidedly uncomfortable and probably beginning to burn. That said, it was nothing bad enough to detract from her focus, and she shifted her weight, pressing a forearm into the base of Nostariel’s throat, cutting off her air supply. Carefully minding the seconds, she waited not a moment longer than it took her friend’s grip to slacken and her eyes to roll up in her head, then removed her arm and rolled to the side.

Setting

5 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

What followed was grim, quiet work. It was obvious that they could go no further with both Wardens and Ashton incapacitated, and besides that, the fatigue was beginning to wear even on the least-injured of them. No one really said anything, but by unspoken accord, they moved to set a meager camp with the few supplies they had carried into the cave or could scrounge. There was no wood to be found, and so they were without fire, but managed to arrange everything centrally, their backs to a stone wall for protection against any darkspawn that might approach.

With Amalia’s help, Lucien moved Ashton from where he’d fallen to the camp area, but he left her to tend the other man’s injuries, since she’d brought a few potions and their healer was currently out of commission. He couldn’t say what state Nostariel and Stroud would be in when they woke, but he sincerely hoped that their periods of unconsciousness would free them from whatever had taken hold of them. Once everything was as settled as he could make it, he sat heavily upon the ground, his sword laying next to one outstretched leg, and absently watched the methodical movements of Amalia, who had moved to bandaging Ashton’s wounds, having chipped the worst of the ice away, presumably trusting that the rest would melt. Lucien imagined it was helping clot the wounds, at least.

“I didn't know that could happen,” he murmured at length. “That darkspawn could influence Wardens that profoundly.” With a weary sigh, he leaned back against the stone, letting the back of his head fall against it too. Even he was tired; it had been a full day of nothing but hard travel and combat, after all. That would wear anyone down. He was certainly no exception.

“If that is what happened.” Amalia tugged firmly on the bandages she was tying, makeshift as they were. Mostly cut from the bottom of Lucien’s own cloak, which he’d volunteered for the purpose. It was, after all, the largest. He supposed no one had really planned for a medical emergency that Nostariel would not be there to solve.

“What else could it be?” he asked slowly, tilting his head back down to meet her eyes over Ashton’s prone form. “You’re not suggesting that this was intentional.”

Amalia shook her head. “No. But Darkspawn are not the only forces at work down here.”

“You mean the magic.” He paused, considering it. “I suppose it could be. But a strange coincidence, that magic should affect only the Wardens. Perhaps it is some combination of things. Whatever the case… it’s troubling. How is he?” He nodded to indicate Ashton.

Amalia pursed her lips, tying off what appeared to be the last of the bandages. “He will live. But…” Her eyes moved to Nostariel, and Lucien took her meaning. For all the shock the rest of them might have felt at what happened, his was bound to be the greatest, if only because of what was between them. Now that the actual fight was over, Lucien could admit that it was deeply unsettling, to have to fight allies, friends. If it really had been the darkspawn, then he couldn't blame them, of course, but… even knowing that didn’t quite ease the ache. He dearly hoped they woke up as themselves. Otherwise… well, he wasn’t sure of what would happen, but he would not enjoy it.

After helping to move Nostariel and Stroud as well into their meager camp, Ithilian was able to begin treating his own injury, his bleeding left arm. The ice from Nostariel had pierced through it, thankfully a weapon that left little behind when removed. He bound the wound as best he could, to put a stop to the bleeding. The arm wouldn't be the most useful in fights for the moment, but his strong arm was still functional, and he was willing to bet he'd still be able to use his bow if need be. It would be painful, but Ithilian was nothing if not accustomed to that.

He chose not to join in on the discussion Lucien and Amalia began about the nature of that last fight, for he had no thoughts that were anything more than speculation and guess work. Clearly the Wardens had been affected by something that the rest were not vulnerable to, but that was as far as his knowledge went. All he knew was that he held nothing against them for their sudden attack. It was not hard to forgive, when they were forced to fight under the sway of magic. They'd done the same for him.

What was more troubling, indeed, was that while the event had been unnatural and hopefully temporary, it was still a glimpse into a Warden's future, of a sort. There was no choice involved in the madness that would claim Nostariel's mind eventually. It would come to pass, and it would not be pretty. To see it arrive so suddenly was a shock to the senses for those who cared for her.

A sputtering coughing fit erupted from Ashton who had finally begun to come to. He made an attempt to move, but shuddered and stopped, the pain in his chest too much to fight through. Even the little movement that he did manage only served to cause him to cough any more, every tremble only adding to the discomfort. "Am I dead?' he said, just barely above a whisper. He tried to move his arms this time, but only after barely raising them from the ground he let them fall right back down. His eyelids clenched tighter and he bit into his lips.

"No... Death wouldn't hurt this damn much," Ashton wheezed. Instead of trying to move any more, he decided on the opposite and tried to stay as perfectly still as he could. The pain in his chest throbbed with every beat of his heat, and the amount of it rose and fall with every minute, wincing with the particularly rougher rises. His head felt like it was stuck in the mud, a thousand thoughts bombarded him at once and it was difficult to grab one and focus on it. "Nos? Is she okay?' He asked. For the time being, he'd forgotten how he'd ended up like this.

“She lives.” The answer was Amalia’s, and though it was terse as ever, it was spoken in a surprisingly soft tone. “She and Stroud are both unconscious for the moment, but I expect they will wake eventually.” She looked briefly as though she were considering saying something else, but in the end she didn’t, moving instead to make sure his bandages had remained intact. But her knots were good and he hadn’t moved overmuch, so everything was as yet intact.

“You’ve been out for a couple of hours,” Lucien added, guessing at the next possible question. “If you can get any more rest, you might want to. I’ll let you know when she wakes.”

It took about another hour for that to happen, but when it did, both Wardens stirred at roughly the same time. Stroud was the first to reach full consciousness, raising a hand to his head and slowly sitting up. He noted the presence of the other three, then scanned the campsite until he found Nostariel, who was herself starting to twitch. Gingerly adjusting his position so he could sit comfortably, a confused look passed across his face. It passed, however, as his attention was drawn back to his fellow Warden, who pushed a pained groan out with her breath, attempting to push herself upright.

Nostariel wasn’t by comparison extremely injured, but she felt exhausted, drained in a way that she hadn’t since the aftermath of the Arishok battle. Her limbs were leaden, and her thoughts sluggish. At first, she wasn’t sure how she’d gotten there, though the familiar sight of her friends, and their apparent lack of alarm, meant that she felt no need to panic. Still, there was something wrong. This was… the Deep Roads?

Sluggish as her thinking was, it eventually caught up with her, though what had happened immediately before she lost consciousness was foggy at best. She remembered… her eyes went wide, and snapped to where Ashton lay, still prone on the ground. Had she really…? “Maker, I… did I… do that?”

"Yes," Ithilian said, though his tone was undoubtedly gentle, "and no. Your mind was not your own." Even sitting, his posture had become more tense when he'd seen the Wardens stirring again, as he erred on the side of caution, and wanted to be ready in the event that they needed to subdue the Wardens once more. Seeing that it was not the case, he visibly relaxed, and tried to soften, both in tone and appearance.

His effectiveness at that was middling. He did not think it right to try and sugarcoat what had happened, nor was he the best at delivering hard news, but he did truly think this was not Nostariel's or Stroud's fault. It didn't make it any easier to see the results, though. Lucien was waking Ashton gently, and Ithilian had to admit some nervousness for what would come next.

Her mind was not…? Nostariel frowned, for a moment unsure of what he meant, but then she remembered, the oppressive feeling of being weighed down by something, followed by the sudden intrusion upon her mind, like cold steel claws digging into her thoughts, clamping with a viselike certainty and strength. The insistence that she forget, that she disappear—it was a little like drowning, she supposed. But she’d fought to stay near the surface, to move her limbs herself, and moments of awareness had broken through the haze. She’d shot him. She’d shot him, and that was why he was laying on the ground like that.

The Warden drew in a breath. “I can fix this. I can make it better. I can—” she cut herself off with a shake of the head, hauling herself to her feet. Better to do it than to say it. Hopefully her hands would not shake as badly as her voice did. Her steps were far from steady, but they only had to carry her across the small campsite, and then she could fall to her knees beside Ashton. Lucien had moved a small distance away by that point, leaving her space to work.

The wound was bound, evidently with pieces of Lucien’s cloak, from the dark red color of them. It made it difficult to tell how much he’d bled, but she was sure that if they’d just left him to rest, he was in the best condition they could manage. She reached for one of the knots, and despite her best efforts, her hands held a tremor. “I can fix it. I can. Everything’s going to be okay.” It was hard to tell if the whisper was more for his benefit or hers.

The gentle prodding in his shoulder caused Ashton to groan. He tried to shoo the annoyance away, but that only resulted in a half-hearted shrug. Still, the act managed to bring him around enough to get his eyelids to flutter, before he shook his head slowly. He'd taken Lucien's advice and tried to get as much rest as he could get in an hour, but he still hurt and the soreness was beginning to kick in. He coughed again and stirred, but didn't try to sit up. He'd been slipping in and out of consciousness, and the moments where he were lucid came with a layer of blur.

Eventually, he felt something at his side again and turned toward it. "I'm up, I'm--" instead of finishing the sentence his eyelids flung open wide and he winced hard. Nostariel was above him, and for a moment a sense of fear gripped his mind. He tried to back away on an elbow before collapsing and sending him into another coughing fit. In a moment of clarity he remembered. Nostariel had shot him. The memory of the ice cold arrow penetrating his chest struck him, made fresh by seeing Nostariel's face again.

He tried to cover the bandaged wound with his hand but inadvertently brushed against Nostariel's. The touch caused him to seize and close his eyes tight.

It was, she supposed, an understandable reaction. Justified, even, considering that he might not yet be fully awake. That didn’t mean it was painless for her—quite the contrary. But now wasn’t the time to be thinking about that. “Ashton—Ash, it’s okay. It’s me. I’m not… I’m not going to hurt you. I need you to relax so I can heal this. Please.” She went to lay a hand on his shoulder, but drew up short, pulling it back. It might only make things worse. She didn’t want him to startle any more severely than he had already, because he was still at risk of reopening his wound if he thrashed at all.

When the death blow he was expecting never came, Ashton let one eye slide open. Satisfied with what he saw, he let the other follow. The hand that was frozen above his wound fell onto his belly instead, his body losing its tension soon after. Though he still felt on edge, the thrashing had stopped and he seemed as calm as he could've been under the circumstances.

"Am... Am I the only one hurt?" he asked, arching his head back so that he could see past her. While not completely whole, the rest of the team weren't laying on their backs either. "Typical," he muttered, before slipping into another cough. It didn't surprise him, really.

Setting

5 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

Seeing as how the group wasn’t in the best shape to move anyway, they elected to pass the night—or whatever time it was outside—at their makeshift campsite. Lucien, Ithilian, and Amalia set up a watch schedule, deciding that it was probably best to leave the Wardens off it, just in case their minds were interfered with again, though they didn’t explicitly say that. The whole thing seemed to sit ill with Stroud, who sank into contemplative silence, sleeping only intermittently throughout the period. He did not give protest to the idea, however.

Nostariel spent the first portion of the night working to heal Ashton’s wound. It wasn’t especially difficult to do—she’d healed much worse wounds before. That said, she never recalled having so much trouble detaching herself from the process. The reasons why were obvious enough, and it seemed that not even a healer’s trained professional impartiality could overcome them. Still, she closed the injury, and because she had the time, she did much of the deep tissue work as well. At the very least, it should not cause any more pain unless he was directly hit in the same spot, nor impede his motion any, but it would scar, right in the center of his chest. She didn’t dare sleep, but spent most of the rest of her time dozing lightly, upright against the wall they’d wisely put to their backs.

When everyone was as rested as they were going to be and able to move about freely, they broke the camp and continued onwards, even grimmer than they had been to start the whole thing. Nostariel had to admit that she was distracted, her thoughts taking troubling turns, seemingly caught in the same circles and eddies of motion. Repeating, refining, and knotting somewhere behind her heart. She wore what seemed a permanent frown, the relative silence of the group only serving to facilitate her blossoming disquiet. Her treads felt heavy, and she leaned heavily on the staff in her hand, leading the group at a rather brisk clip.

It took about two hours to reach the end of this particular stretch of the Deep Roads, and the stairs before them indicated that it was finally time for them to begin heading upwards again. No sooner had she placed a foot on the bottommost stair, though, than Larius appeared again. She looked at him with something approaching suspicion—he had not warned them of what could happen down here, and had it gone even a little worse, she might have been disinclined to hear him at all. As it was, she held fast to her patience as well as she could, reminding herself that it wasn’t his fault.

The ground shook slightly underfoot, and Nostariel removed her leg from the stair, steadying herself on both as the rocking intensified for a few seconds, then faded to nothing again. “He feels the seals weaken. He knows you are close. You must be ready…” Larius’s lurching gait seemed oddly unaffected by the tremors, though he stiffened immediately upon coming to a halt, his head snapping back to look behind him.

“What’s that? Who? No, no… they’re here.”

Nostariel barely resisted the urge to snap her next words. “More complications? Who are they? Have we not finished with the Carta?” Because if it were someone else, she was probably going to hit something. She’d had more than enough of this place already.

But of course, fortune laughed at her petty frustrations. “No. Worse. More treacherous. More dangerous. Wardens—Wardens who listen to Corypheus. Wardens who want to bring him the light.” His eyes darted between herself and Stroud, and Nostariel summoned the strength to turn around.

“Jean-Marc? I thought this place was supposed to be abandoned.”

“It is.” He pursed his lips, a displeased frown taking up residence on his face. “But if this place can affect us in such a way, is it really so difficult to believe that it has affected others? Perhaps others without companions to help them.”

No, that wasn’t unbelievable at all, unfortunately. For a moment, she wondered if Larius had been affected in such a way. Was it what had broken his mind, or was that just the natural course of the Taint? She almost felt her thoughts slip into one of those eddies again, and forcibly wrenched them away. They didn’t really have any choice but to trust him, and he seemed more lucid than she remembered being, at least. Would these other Wardens be the same?

“Stop them. You must stop them.” Larius seemed unusually direct about this, but Nostariel wasn’t so sure. She wanted to know what was really going on before she decided to do anything as extreme as harming her fellow Wardens. Larius disappeared again, and Nostariel sighed through her nose, feeling a headache coming on. Turning to her companions, she smiled thinly.

“I don’t expect we’ll be able to continue without running into these other Wardens. Please be careful.” She doubted she needed to say it, but it made her feel a little better to do so, anyway. Making her way up the stairs, she led the group for about another five minutes of empty tunnels before they came across another bridge. Walking in the opposite direction, towards them, were what could only have been the Wardens in question. There was a woman in front, her hair bound up in a reddish-brown bun, the staff at her back indicating that she was a mage. From her armor, she was ranked similarly to Nostariel. With her were a man in heavy armor, another with a pair of long knives, and an archer.

They hadn’t been noticed quite yet, and could make out a fragment of the conversation. The woman was speaking. “Something’s happening. The prison’s breaking down. But it’s stood up to tunneling before. What can—” She paused as she looked up, catching sight of the group. She froze in place for a moment, her gaze immediately captured by Nostariel’s staff. “You! You have the key! And you’ve come through the seals! But how?”

Nostariel was opening her mouth to explain herself, but this was apparently unnecessary, because the woman just kept right on talking. “Are you the one? The child of Enelya? You must be. The Carta said they were close. I am Janeka. I lead this unit of Grey Wardens.”

“You sent the Carta after me? They tried to kidnap me!” Nostariel’s frustration bled into her tone. “They tried to kill Commander Stroud!” She gestured to the man behind her, whose eyes were narrowed thoughtfully.

Janeka shook her head. “They were only told to bring you here, and keep anyone else away for their own safety. The methods they chose were their own.” Nostariel ground her teeth, recalling the overturned caravan and dead tradesmen they’d seen on their way in. The methods in question were hardly excusable.

Oblivious to her rising temper, Janeka continued. “We need your help, Captain. I have done extensive research on the darkspawn your mother helped to seal here. His name is Corypheus. I believe that the original Wardens who imprisoned him here were wrong. He isn’t a threat to humanity—he’s our greatest opportunity. A darkspawn who can talk, feel, reason…”

“Corypheus cares nothing for Blights! He used you.” Larius appeared from somewhere to the left, glaring at Janeka, and Nostariel felt the pressure behind her temples increase again.

“Don’t listen to this… creature. He’s half darkspawn himself!” Janeka’s reply was immediate, but a couple of the men behind her looked less comfortable with her words. “I know how to harness Corypheus, use his magic to end the Blights.”

“No. The Wardens knew. Corypheus is too powerful. He calls her, and she listens! She brought him the Carta, sent them for you!” It was honestly hard to tell if they were arguing with each other or trying to convince her. Probably it was both.

“You must help us. He is no mindless monster. This search for the Old Gods comes at a terrible cost to his people.” Janeka crossed her arms over her chest.

“He tricked you. Those are not your thoughts, they are his Calling.”

“How many of them died in Ferelden alone? And that was the least of the Blights! Do not think me a fool. I have a spell which can control Corypheus, bind him to my will. He will be a new, important weapon in the war on the Blights. No more, no less.”

“You—”

“Enough!” Nostariel slammed the bottom end of her staff against the ground, the noise loud in the cavernous space they occupied. That got their attention—or perhaps it was the perceptible chill in the air. Frowning, she contained her magic, and the air slowly warmed again.

Under ordinary circumstances, she would not have dreamed of shouting at fellow officers in such a way, but this was becoming absurd. “Janeka, I have no idea whether Corypheus has influenced your mind or not, but he has influenced mine, and there is no way I am allowing a creature capable of something like that to go free. It is arrogance and folly to believe that one spell could contain a darkspawn of that kind of strength. Letting it loose could cause something just as bad as the next Blight.” To be fair, she wasn’t entirely sure Corypheus had been that presence in her mind, but it was the only logical guess. No normal Darkspawn could do that, and no mage she’d ever met was capable of such full control. Perhaps a demon could do something similar, but she’d invited none into her head, and they couldn’t possess someone who didn’t agree to it.

Janeka scowled. “We will find a way to do this with or without you, Captain. This prison will be broken. The Blight will end.” She backed up several paces, reaching for her stave. Nostariel reacted as quickly as she could, throwing up an arcane shield over her friends, but rather than attack directly, Janeka blocked their path with fire, retreating up the nearby stairs, her underlings in tow.

“With me! We will beat them to the seal!” Larius gestured frantically, starting to shuffle at full speed towards a side passageway.

The passage proved to be a great deal narrower than the ones they’d used previously, obviously not one built by the dwarves originally. Perhaps it had been carved out over time by the darkspawn. Whatever the case, Lucien actually had to hunch slightly to make sure he didn’t hit any dips in the ceiling with his head, and they were forced to run in single fire, more or less, Larius leading them at a brisk clip for someone who shuffled rather than walking. It was hard to see, and the easiest way to mark the pace of the person in front of him was by the sound of their footfalls, rather than trying to figure out how close their silhouette was by sight. Then again, he still didn’t always have fantastic depth perception, considering the fact that one of his eyes was bad.

The tunnel eventually sloped upwards, and Lucien nearly tripped up the first of what turned out to be a set of crudely-hewn stairs. “Watch your step,” he warned those behind him, and focused on what was in front of him, Nostariel’s form now limned by the light coming in from the tunnel’s exit. They burst into a well-lit chamber, still nearly sprinting, and Larius turned sharply to the left. There were more stairs, these ones clearly delineated, and then they saw it—the last of the seals.

Unfortunately, Ashton didn't have much grace remaining in his body. He brought up the rear and even with Lucien's advanced warning, Ashton struck the first step hard and fell to his knees on the second. He hissed aloud in pain but quickly stood back up and began to ascend the stairs. He was still sore, and healing could only do so much without rest. It was the least he could do to keep on his feet and keep moving forward. That much could be seen by his lagging gait and the fact that he straggled behind everyone else. Still, every fiber in his body hoped they would be done soon.

The next corner came with a little more warning, and he was able to make this one without missing it. At the first step, he drew the bowstring taut, but kept the arrow pointed down, following up behind the others as they ascended the stairs.

The chamber they had emerged into was more open than the others—they appeared to be at the top of the tower they had seen going in. There wasn’t much in the way of walls, merely arched support beams holding up the vaulted ceiling overhead. In the very center of the circular room sat a seal, shaped roughly like the other two had been, but larger, and this one glowed with an ethereal golden light. Nostariel could feel something from it, and a chill crept up her spine. Whatever they were keeping here—whatever this Corypheus really was—it was mighty.

“You’re too late, Larius.” Janeka and her three soldiers appeared from the other side of the room, advancing towards the party. As of yet, no weapons were drawn, though Nostariel’s grip was tight on her own. “Hand over the captain, and I’ll give you a quick death.”

“She has made her choice—the right one.” Larius’s speech was for the moment, at least, exceptionally clear, though Nostariel was not especially fond of being spoken for.

“The right choice, or the only choice?” Janeka’s smile was wicked, the look in her eye something like a cat wore when it knew it had cornered a mouse, and intended to toy with it. “Enelya was not allowed to disagree.”

Larius, in turn, was a dog with his hackles raised. “It is the past. It doesn’t matter now!”

But Nostariel wasn’t having that. She was just about done with these people holding important information over her head. “Larius, what is she talking about?” Her tone was careful, circumspect, but there was no mistaking the fact that she wasn’t about to do anything else either of them asked until she received an answer.

Larius looked over at her, and then down, shaking his head. When he spoke, his speech was halting again. “Enelya was… reluctant. She had to be persuaded to help us. I was Warden-Commander. It was my duty. I delivered an ultimatum. Help us, or you’ll never see him again.”

“You were going to… what? Kill my father?”

Larius looked at her sharply. “No! There was no need for that. Garrahel was a Warden. Wardens… go where they are commanded. I had the authority to send him places she could not follow. And I told her… that if she helped, he would be freed of his obligations to us. Free to help her raise his child.”

Nostariel absorbed that in silence. The trouble was, she knew well that the Wardens could do something like that. And… she knew that some of them would, if that was what they thought it would take to get what they believed themselves to need. The mandate to fight the Darkspawn always came first, and they were allowed a good deal of liberty in its interpretation. Enough, certainly, to tear apart a family to ensure that this was done.

“You see? How can you trust anything Larius says?” Janeka’s smugness indicated that she believed she had just delivered the master stroke.

Nostariel didn’t see it that way. “What he did or would have done to my parents doesn’t have any bearing on how dangerous Corypheus is or is not.” In fact, more than anything, it seemed to confirm that he really believed that this Darkspawn needed to be kept from freedom at any cost. Even costs that she was clearly expected to see as too much.

“I will not help you, Janeka.”

Janeka scowled. “You can come willingly or not, Captain. I just need your blood.” As one, she and her unit drew their weapons. Janeka’s first blast of magic was sent right for Nostariel and Larius, and while she ducked out of the way in time, he was too slow, and the force of it picked him up and dashed him against the ground. He did not move thereafter.

Nostariel grit her teeth and sent a barrage of ice at the archer on Janeka’s left, who rolled to get out of the way, but was unable to loose the shot he’d been about to send in Stroud’s direction. The Warden-Commander rushed the most heavily-armored of the lot, his shield meeting the silver-haired man’s chestplate with a clang.

Behind the rest of his team, Ashton braced himself against the far wall staying as far out of the fight as possible. In his current condition, he'd just be a liability if he got too close. "I hate this," Ashton muttered in monotone under his breath. "I hate her,"[color] He said, sighting in on Janeka. Before he let the arrow fly he paused and cursed again. Off to the side where Stroud was engaged with his foe, the rogue of their group approached from his blind spot. [color=#347C2C]"I hate him," he muttered, adjusting his aim and letting the arrow fly.

His aim was off, but not by much. He miscalculated the drop, and instead of striking the man in the upper back hit somewhere in the lower back, near the kidneys. It still dropped the rogue, and the next arrow slamming into his spine ceased any more movement. "I hate the Deep Roads. I hate these people. This is the last time I'm leaving Kirkwall," Ashton continued to rattle off as he planted a third into the rogue for good measure.

Ithilian's weapons had been drawn for some time, and he was ready to jump into action when it became clear that he had permission to kill these people. Janeka appeared to be the one not already occupied with one of his allies, so Ithilian rushed her before she could fire off another magical blast. Her staff lunged for him, the tip crackling with an arcane energy, but he ducked under and slashed it up and away with his blade, sending the spell into the ceiling above them, showering the area with miniscule bits of stone.

Without hesitating he drove Parshaara down into Janeka's chest, only barely missing her heart due to a swift contortion of her torso. She groaned when the blade sank in, then cried out when the enchantment sparked to life, searing her flesh and threatening to ignite her entirely. Ithilian drove her back several steps before she reached a pair of fingers to her temple. A blast of magic exploded from her mind, knocking everything back away from her, friend and foe alike. Ithilian was thrown onto his back several feet away, his dagger pulled forcefully from Janeka's chest, leaving a bleeding wound behind.

Nostariel followed with several blasts of ice, hitting Janeka repeatedly. She had been far enough away to avoid the telekinetic hit, and so her strikes were aimed well and struck true, the last one at speed and positioning adequate to snap her head back too far, breaking her neck. Janeka fell, but her companions were still fighting. She hissed when the time it took her gave the archer she’d been initially engaged with time enough to recover and loose an arrow in her direction. It skimmed her arm, clattering to the stone ground behind her.

Stroud, still engaged with the warrior, found an opening, and thrust his sword into the left side of the man’s torso, sliding it between the plates with enough force to puncture the lighter armament he was wearing beneath it. The other man’s shield clipped his temple when he couldn’t get his own misshapen one up to block in time, forcing him to take a couple of steps backwards to regain his bearings or risk being hit with something much worse.

Nothing worse materialized, however, because Amalia slid into place between Stroud and his foe, deftly escaping the backswing of the shield and planting a knife where Stroud’s sword had gone. The difference was that she had enough time to make it worse, and she tore it brutally to one side, opening up a no-doubt fatal wound where only a serious one had existed before. After that, it was only a matter of keeping her foe busy until the blood loss crippled him and he fell, allowing her to finish him off cleanly.

Across the way, Lucien was dealing with the archer, hacking through the man’s bow and following it with a straightforward decapitation, grimacing as the Warden’s head rolled a few feet after landing. “I don’t feel good about this,” he murmured, shaking his own. It was a statement more to himself than anyone else, as he supposed it was obvious that there was little to celebrate here. But he’d been raised to believe that the Wardens were upstanding, or at least necessary. It was more than a little disturbing to learn what some of them had been planning to attempt, especially without a full understanding of everything involved. Still, he had no compunctions about defending his friends, and he trusted Nostariel’s judgement.

Nostariel herself wasn’t nearly as sure that she was doing what she should be, but she knew there was no way they could risk a darkspawn this powerful being anything other than dead. She healed everyone as well as she could, though she was not able to rouse Larius from unconsciousness. They moved him off to the side, hopefully far enough away from whatever would follow for his safety. He’d been the harbinger of a great amount of strain, but she recognized that it was not his fault.

When that was done, she moved towards the final seal. She could feel whatever was within it—Corypheus, she supposed—and its power, twisted and dark, was enough to make her nauseous. Still, she couldn’t well just leave now—the seals were weakened, and one way or another, this thing was breaking out. If she could control the when, she might just be able to stop it before it did any harm.

Correction: they could stop it. She held no illusions that she would be capable of this by herself, but… with her friends, she felt that she could. Glancing behind her, she confirmed once more that they were all present and ready, and then she drew Ashton’s knife, sliding it across her palm. The magic here was too strong for the key alone, but when her blood hit the seal, she held it out, willing it to work as it had before. Moving from her grip seemingly of its own accord, the key floated to the very center f the seal, something Nostariel took as a signal to back off. Standing perfectly vertically, it floated in place for a few seconds, sucking the surrounding golden light into itself.

A humming sound vibrated the air, growing louder and more urgent very quickly. When it was almost too loud to bear, it suddenly ceased, and there was a half-second delay before the seal broke with an audible bang, throwing a shockwave that knocked them all off their respective feet and to the ground around the seal.

Clambering back to her feet, Nostariel blinked at what was before them. Its form was not unlike other darkspawn, though there was something about it that vaguely recalled abominations as well. The flesh on one side of its face was marred, stretched back unnaturally, almost hooked over what seemed to be red protrusions of some kind of stone or gem fanning out from just in front of where its ear would have been to its temples or so. Its arms were elongated, its fingers even moreso, all ten of them tipped in yellowed claws, and it wore what seemed to be robes of some kind, red in hue and unlike any design she’d encountered before.

“Corypheus?”

Setting

5 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

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The creature that had emerged from the seal seemed confused, glancing around at the room they were in, though he seemed almost not to notice them. “Be this some dream I wake from? Am I in dwarven lands? Why seem their roads so empty?” He raised a twisted hand to his head. “The light… we sought the golden light. You offered… the power of the gods themselves. But it was black. Corrupt. Darkness…ever since. How long?”

Stroud was scowling, helping Ashton to his feet and then stepping about a pace to the archer’s left, his hand on the hilt of his sword. “Does he refer to…?”

Nostariel’s eyebrows nearly disappeared into her hairline. Perhaps he did, though she wasn’t sure she believed it. This… wasn’t exactly what she expected. At this point, he turned his attention to them, addressing Stroud, though her fellow Warden stood slightly behind her. “You! Serve you at the Temple of Dumat? Bring me hence! I must speak with the first acolyte.” When no one immediately moved to do so, he seemed to grow impatient. “Whomever you be, you all owe fealty to any magister of Tevinter. On your knees, all of you!”

Ithilian had certainly never seen anything so perplexing before, and he felt quite like an elf who had seen far too much already. He did not read the human Chant of Light in its entirety, but he knew the story, and he was able to make the connections based on the words escaping this deformed creature. He was like the darkspawn and yet... not. There was a clarity, an intelligence in his eyes where the others had only raw aggression. He was marred and deformed in similar ways, but ultimately more impressive than any darkspawn he'd seen.

If he was who he seemed to be implying, a magister of Tevinter, a man who sought the light of a supposed Golden City, then he was powerful, regardless of his foolishness. Ithilian turned to his bow rather than his blades, drawing and nocking an arrow. He did not raise the bow just yet, instead cautiously muttering, keeping his eye on Corypheus all the while. "... Do we have a plan for this?"

Can we plan, for something of this kind?” Lucien was also instinctively gripping the hilt of his sword, rather obviously so, considering it was sheathed at his back. They didn’t know what this being was capable of, though he was willing to bet the same intelligence that rendered it capable of speech would make it a cunning foe. It seemed unlikely that they would just be able to mow it down as they did with its lesser kin, but he supposed that what they did would be largely dependent on what it did.

Amalia, less immediately obvious than some of those she traveled with, didn’t answer verbally, taking the opportunity provided by the creature’s distraction to sidle around behind it, though she kept a moderate distance from it. Chances were good it used magic, claiming to be a magister the way it did. Then it ought to die twice over, once for being a despicable, hateful creature full of corruption and unseemly lust for blood and death, and then again for being a darkspawn.

Instead of trying to discuss some sort of plan, Ashton exhaled a weary sigh. Perhaps he was too tired to fully grasp the situation at hand, or more likely, he just didn't care. Letting his eyes slip upward for a moment, he drew the next arrow and pulled back on the bowstring, a look of utter contempt flitting across his face. Had he been in the right frame of mind, he might have felt some sort of fear, or maybe caution. But the desire for the whole ordeal to be over and done with outweighed anything else. Ashton had never been accused of being a wise man, after all.

"The plan's the same," Ashton said, the tip of his arrow still pointing to the ground. "We kill it, then we go home." In one smooth motion, he lifted his bow and fired, the arrow striking forward. Hopefully, the others wouldn't be caught too off-guard by his sudden action. It was too late to regret it, in any case. The arrow struck the monster's chest with a dull thump. "Any questions?" Ashton asked, slowly pushing backward and out of the immediate range.

Corypheus sneered, ripping out the arrow with a vicious glare in the direction it came from. “Very well. If I do not leave with you, I leave through you.” He raised his arms to either side, and the carved pillars at the north and south ends of the room began to glow, more aureate light pouring forth, and this time apparently absorbed directly into the darkspawn himself. He closed his fists, cutting off the flow, then drew both in front of him, letting loose massive twin jets of flame, long enough to reach and lick up the walls of the chamber all the way across its radius. There was precious little chance of escaping them unscathed if one was in their way, but it seemed that he could not move them too fast, else he risked weakening the fire enough that someone might jump over it unharmed.

Nostariel was not quick enough to get out of the way of the first blast, and flames licked up her left forearm, forcing her to drop to the ground and roll to put them out, then scramble sideways to avoid where Corypheus was aiming to move them. The maneuver had effectively split the group, and it looked like, for the moment at least, getting close enough to damage him in melee would be quite a challenge.

Stroud, sword drawn, realized this as well, cursing under his breath in Orlesian. “What did he do?” The senior Warden grit his teeth, jogging leftwards to avoid the moving jets of fire.

“The pillars. Something with the pillars!” Nostariel wasn’t sure what, but it had looked like he was drawing energy from them or some such.

Amalia, who had been about to try and take her chances with getting behind the darkspawn, as she seemed as yet to be unnoticed, diverted her path as soon as Nostariel mentioned the pillars. The way the fire had split the room was such that she had a clear path to one of them, though this was far different from knowing what to do once she got there.

Racing to the pillar on the left, one of the two he’d drawn from, Amalia studied the thing as quickly as possible, running her eyes over the stone column. There was writing on it of some kind, not that she could read what it said, but it was glowing, and that was usually a bad sign. So she did the only thing she could think of—she drew a knife and raked it across the limestone, marring a few of the letters with an extra stroke.

The effect was instantaneous—like the seal itself, the pillar issued a shockwave, pushing her back. Worse was the fact that, though the text had stopped glowing, she’d released a pair of rage demons. Rolling out of the way of the blast of fire one of them shot at her, Amalia came up on both feet. Still separated from the others by Corypheus’s jets of fire, she’d have to last long enough for the others to figure out a way around, or else find some way to dispatch both herself. They seemed larger than other such creatures, and realistically, her chances were not excellent, but a little ranged support might make all the difference.

“Destroy the words, but watch for demons!” she shouted, just in case the fire or distraction made it impossible for the others to see what was happening.

Ithilian took a defensive step back from the flames that split through the middle of the room, though the wall of fire then began to move away from him, offering him a moment to take in the situation. Amalia had attacked one of the pillars that Corypheus utilized, unleashing a duo of rage demons as a result. Ashton's arrow did little enough to the darkspawn magister himself, so Ithilian made the judgment that his own would be better spent elsewhere. When the arrow in his hand was suddenly enchanted with Nostariel's frost magic, he knew they were thinking the same thing.

He loosed several arrows immediately one after the other at the rage demons trying to hack and spew flame at Amalia, the cold damaging them heavily. The one turned to try and rush Ithilian instead, while the other kept up its assault. Minding the rotation of the flames, Ithilian continued to back across the room in time with the fire, giving him the space he needed to finally put down one of the demons, dissolving it into a puddle that sank into the floor, leaving nothing but his arrows behind.

For the second time in recent memory Ashton found himself on his back. The gout of fire caught him off guard, and the usually sure-footed Ashton felt his feet catch and he tumbled backward in surprise. He didn't remain there for long however, flipping over and scrambling away from the stream of flame as fast as his battered body could take him on all fours. Eventually, he got far enough away to avoid getting immolated, and was helped up by Lucien just in time to hear Amalia shout over the din of fire.

"Come on," Ashton said, gesturing to the pillar on their side with his head. They quickly made their way to the pillar, when Ashton turned and face the rest of the room with an arrow nocked. He had lost his guard-issued sword when the flaming pride demon melted it in its attack, leaving him no other way to scratch the words off other than shooting them with arrows, and he could think of better uses for them. "Think you can do it? I'll welcome the guests," He asked Lucien, and though the joke was made, it lacked his humorous tone.

Lucien glanced quickly between Ashton and Stroud, who had also followed, and nodded. “On three.” He readied his sword hefting it in both hands. “One, two… three.” With the last, he swung in a quasi-horizontal arc, angling the blade down in just enough time to bite a wedge out of the soft stone rather than simply hitting it as hard as he could. Everburn could take a lot of abuse, but striking it against a stone pillar bluntly was not what it was made for.

Fortunately, it worked, and the lit words dimmed, a small chunk of limestone falling away from the pillar. Prepared for the shockwave this time, Lucien simply withstood it, and the demons appeared to his right.

Stroud reacted quickly, charging the one on the further right shield-first, Nostariel’s enchantment coating it and his sword both with a layer of ice. It hissed when it came into contact with the body of the demon, and he withdrew it, smashing forward again closer to the thing’s head, and following up with a powerful stroke of the blade for its middle. He was already getting uncomfortably hot from its proximity, but that was not as much a concern as killing it quickly, and so he bore the temperature without complaint, taking a blow from one of its hands to his sword-arm.

He could tell that it had burned him, but not so badly that he was in too much pain to move, and so he grit his teeth and plunged his blade into the base of its neck in front, the ice enchantment cooling its flesh rapidly and making its movement slow and sluggish. Stroud twisted his wrist and yanked the blade out sideways, felling the creature at his feet.

Nostariel chose to stand as close to the fire as she dared, mostly distracting Corypheus, but also providing a few projectiles by way of support for Ithilian and Amalia. She tried to out-ice the flames the darkspawn was using, but his magic was too strong to be overpowered by hers, at least at present. She carefully maintained safe distance from them, hoping that by annoying him, she would keep her friends from his immediate attention.

With projectiles flying in overhead courtesy of Nostariel, Amalia chose to stay low, running in for the rage demon Ithilian was not fighting at a crouch, not precisely surprised to discover that her knife was now coated in magical ice. It would certainly make matters much simpler. Moving in from the right, she pivoted out of the way of one of the creature’s magma-coated arms, slashing at what would have been the underarm region.

Her knife alone likely wouldn’t have done much, but the enchantment was much more effective, and the joint went dark as it cooled rapidly, the demon’s arm essentially stuck, prevented from moving up and down. With it hobbled so, it was a relatively easy matter to slide around behind its back, though she had to be quick—the flames were approaching. A deep slash to the back of its neck felled it, though magma dripped onto her hand, protected by a much thinner layer of dragonhide than the rest of her, and she could smell her own skin burning, and withdrew her limb quickly, switching the knife to her other hand and moving her injured one slightly behind her back.

Back on the other side of the room, Ashton loosed the third arrow into the second of rage demon that appeared. Like Lucien, he weathered the shockwave, though not as well. He had stumbled, and almost fell again, but caught himself with just enough time to greet the demon with an arrow. Enchanted with Nostariel's ice spell, the arrow pounded into the creature's chest, ice blossoming from the point of impact and drying the magma around it. He winced as his own chest hurt from the memory, but he nonetheless followed up with another pair in varying places.

By the time the fourth struck, the demon was all but an immobilized block of dried magma.

Stroud felled it with one last stroke, and that was when the flames ceased, one jet only half a foot from Amalia. Corypheus yelled something, but over the din it was virtually impossible to hear him. All Nostariel really cared about was that he was floating down away from the central seal, towards her, and she was currently very much the only one in his path.

She didn’t have the time to prepare anything more than an arcane shield, and the massive telekinetic blow that the darkspawn used shattered it anyway, sending her flying across the room and into one of the curved walls. The impact was disastrous, and she felt—and heard—some of her ribs snap in several places as she slid to the ground. Trying to breathe hurt, and she accidentally took in too much air attempting to recover and coughed, spitting up blood over her lips and chin, each new involuntary hacking motion murder on her midsection. She groaned softly, unable to breathe enough for much else.

Ithilian could only watch as Nostariel was tossed across the room to slam into a wall, but when Corypheus looked to be following up the attack with more, he had time to act, and intervene. Just before the darkspawn magister could unleash another blast on the downed Warden, Ithilian charged up behind him, his bow abandoned on the ground and his blades in hand. Jumping, he drove sword and Parshaara into Corypheus's back, a move that succeeded at least in interrupting his spell. It appeared to have only agitated him further, however, rather than actually wounding him.

"Miserable wretch," he murmured, reaching a long arm behind him and snatching the back of Ithilian's jacket. With incredible strength he pulled him up and off of him, taking the blades with him, which Ithilian refused to relinquish. Pulled around in front of the magister and left to dangle, it was only a moment more before a heavy blow with the force of magic behind it slammed into his chest. Any attempts Ithilian might have made to hack at the darkspawn's arm were interrupted when his sternum and several ribs cracked under the blow.

"Squirm, filth. You are nothing before me..." He brought his fist back again, aiming another punch for Ithilian's head.

Its connection was interrupted when something slammed into Corypheus from his unprotected side, the one he was using to hold up the elf. That something, as it turned out, was Lucien, who had noticed that most blows weren’t doing much to actually hurt the magister, and therefore didn’t want to risk a sword-slash, in case it didn’t stop Corypheus’s next blow from landing. The body-check, while doubtless much more uncomfortable for himself than the darkspawn, did at least knock the latter’s aim off-course, and the blow meant to break something else instead sailed by Ithilian’s ear, hitting only air.

Lucien staggered backwards, shaking his head—Corypheus was a lot more solid than the sorts of things it was usually wise to assault in such a way, and he would admit that his shoulder ached even under the armor. The darkspawn had a little more give in him than, say, a wall, but not much. He still had hold of Ithilian, however, and so Lucien swung for his outstretched arm, trying to force him to drop the other man.

It worked, but perhaps not in the best way possible. Corypheus used the now-empty hand to catch the sword, and though Everburn bit deep into the magister’s palm, he’d taken most of the force out of the swing by catching it high, before gravity and muscle power had really lent it the strength it should have had. Lucien was left in the awkward position of trying to bear down with nothing but the strength of his arms, the angle too wide for much of the rest of his body weight to be any use to him.

Stroud entered the confrontation at that point, aiming for the same arm Lucien had, hacking with his shorter blade for the darkspawn’s eerily-distended bicep. He didn’t leave more than a shallow cut, despite the force he used, but it was enough. Lucien’s efforts pushed Corypheus’s arm down, pinning it for no more than a pair of seconds to the floor, the darkspawn thrown off-balance by the sudden shift in force. They had to make it count.

Setting

5 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

Amalia, meanwhile, was at Nostariel’s side, trying to get the Warden back to her feet and moving. Nostariel didn’t seem in much condition to be healing herself, so the other woman rapidly uncorked a potion and did her best to get her friend to drink it. Simultaneously, she snaked an arm under one of Nostariel’s, reaching around her back to brace her on the other side as well, bringing her to her feet by standing as smoothly as she could. They could not stay here, easy targets for Corypheus if he managed to free himself of the others for even a moment.

The forced movement was unbelievably painful, dulled somewhat by the numbing effect that the potion was having on her innards, but at the very least, it all brought Nostariel back to a certain kind of sharp awareness—she couldn’t ignore how much she hurt, and the fog over her mind cleared much more quickly than the black spots on her vision did. She registered being supported by someone strong and solid, and quite tall, at least by her own standards. Though she didn’t immediately know which one of her friends it was, she was grateful just the same.

“M’okay.” The sentence came out more slurred into a word than anything, but she was fairly certain her feet could hold her weight now, and she was eased back to the ground, and blinked furiously, trying to chase the blurs from her vision. She recognized Amalia, and breathed a thanks, halfway between words and just a sigh, letting her friend help her to one side, rather than directly in Corypheus’s path. When they were enough out of the way, she threw a blanket heal over the group, crude and nonspecific, but hopefully of some benefit anyway. Once that was done, she set her own ribcage until she really could move on her own, then nodded at Amalia.

“I’ll be all right. Go help the others.” In the meantime, she would see what she could do about fortifying them against Corypheus’s powerful magic.

Another arrow slammed into Corypheus's chest, followed by another in short order. Ashton couldn't keep the pace however, as he was beginning to scrape the bottom of his last quiver. He nocked a third and nearly loosed before he grimaced. The arrows weren't doing enough to justify the shots, and though everything in his fiber told him to fire it off, he refrained. He'd wait until it would do more than annoy the darkspawn. Though he felt useless in the moment, Ashton quietly backed away and slipped into Corypheus's tunnel vision. No doubt he'd be more occupied with the others than he would be with a skulking archer.

Ithilian expected yet another blow to come after the second missed, courtesy of his allies, but he witnessed a brief moment of hesitation in the magister's eyes, perhaps frustration that they all still drew breath, despite the damage he'd done to them. They were stubborn like that, he would learn, and not so easy to kill. Instead of attacking further, Corypheus vanished into wisps of a smoke-like substance, which twisted through the air and back upon his seal, where he reformed.

Ithilian thought he might have a murmur from him, something about insolence, but the words were soon drowned out when the darkspawn magister called upon the other two pillars, returning the walls of flame to the room, this time augmented by primal magic in the form of jagged, sharp rock formations bursting up from the floor in their wake. He was no longer content to let his magic spin slowly around the room. Instead he now shot the lines forth directly at his enemies. Either he was tiring, or this was taxing him more than before.

After he'd crumpled to the ground following his release from Corypheus, Ithilian had gotten back to his feet as best he could, his breathing ragged. Nostariel's heal had done not nearly enough to mend him, and he cradled his own chest even as he had to dive-roll out of the way of shooting rock spikes and flames. They moved away from him after he fell, however, indicating that he was focusing his attacks on someone else, currently.

It was a strange conglomeration of the elements, in truth. When everyone had managed to dodge the initial blast of fire to some degree, Corypheus started shooting ice, the projectiles having the benefit of being somewhat faster through the air. For the moment, his barrage was concentrated on Lucien, and the first caught him in the shoulder, throwing that half his body back and making it difficult to dodge the next, which glanced off his temple, making him see stars.

Unable to tell exactly what was in front of him, he was forced to make his best guesses about where the next ice spikes were, and his blocks with Everburn were clumsier than he would have liked, more of the ice-lances hitting him than he dodged or batted away. Ice was beginning to coat his armor, adding weight and restricting his movement, and Lucien started to walk forward, if only to keep his joints looser than they would be if he stood still, but the effort was rapidly becoming too much for even his strength. He’s be frozen to the ground in short order if someone didn’t find a way to interrupt the darkspawn’s casting.

At least he could see again, he supposed.

Amalia appeared beside Ashton, drawing another knife from somewhere on her person and handing it to him. “The pillars give him strength. We must take it away. I can go left if you can go right.” The two of them had the best chance of staying beneath the darkspawn’s radar, and were mobile enough to hopefully navigate the increasing terrain hazards cropping up as a result of hostile magic. They were also, admittedly, in better condition than most of their comrades, though in Ashton’s case, that wasn’t saying much.

"Okay," Ashton answered as he accepted the knife. It wasn't exactly what he wanted, but what he wanted for the whole thing to be over, and that wouldn't happen until the monster that was belting them with fire, ice, and earth was dead. And in order to kill it, they'd have to damage the pillars first. He exhaled sharply as he made eye contact with Stroud. He wouldn't be able to handle the demons that appeared by himself in his condition. With a jerk of his head, Ashton began to make his way toward the right pillar.

Still taking advantage of Corypheus's tunnel vision, which was currently focused on Lucien, Ashton managed to draw near the pillar without encountering any direct hostile magic. A spike of earth had almost impaled him, but missed by inched and threw him off balance instead. He arrived at the pillar scambling on all fours, and he called out, "Get ready!" for Stroud, feeling that they didn't have the time for a countdown. The knife Amalia gave him bit deep into the rock, damaging the markings and issuing another shockwave, again taking his balance from him.

He then turned to meet their new acquantiances, knife pulled up into a defensive stance.

This time, there were three demons, all of them the rage kind. That said… they were all taller than Stroud was, and he wasn’t a short man by any means. The ice on their weapons had also long faded, and the Warden-Commander knew they’d need the help. “Nostariel, ice!” He didn’t have the time to look back over his shoulder or be polite about it, but it would seem he did not need to. In response to the demand, his sword and shield, as well as the weapons belonging to the others in the room, were coated again in frost.

Knowing Ashton’s condition, Stroud knew he’d have to juggle at least two of the fiends himself. Straightening for a moment, he knocked the flat of his blade against his shield, gaining the attention, for the moment, of all three. “Allons-y.” Grimly moving forward shield up, he weathered the first set of blows by taking cover behind it, the sizzling sound of very hot demon limbs hitting very cold metal loud in his ears.

When the next one came in, he swung, taking the arm in question off the demon it was attached to. Rather than follow up with that one, however, he was forced to block another incoming blow, stabbing around his shield and hitting the second, purely by luck, in a vital spot, freezing its core past the point of motion and allowing him to behead it with relative ease.

"Three!?" Ashton exclaimed in mixture of surprise, anger, and despair. "Why?!" he yelled to no one in particular. The answer he got wasn't the one he wanted, honestly. While two were preoccupied with Stroud, the last faced off against the weakened archer. The rage demon lashed out with two tendrils of lava, slamming where Ashton stood only moment ago, before he dove out of the way. He reached his feet a moment later, though they didn't stay under him for long. One foot slipped and he found himself face first into the dirt.

Instinct was the only thing that saved him next. He rolled to the side, not knowing what was coming and dodged another lava lash. The dodge could've been better, however, as the flesh on the arm closest to it broiled under the guardsmen armor on that side. He hissed in pain, but didn't hesitate, lest he not feel the next one at all. He scrambled forward, mostly on his arms and knees, rolling out to the side when needed. When he got close enough, Ashton dug his feet into the ground and gripped the knife with both hands, now encrusted in a thick layer of frost.

He drove upward with the blade, and into the heat thrusting the blade up under what could be considered the demon's chin. The magma hardened, but lava still dripped onto his hands, causing him to rip the knife backward and out through its face, spraying him with a gout of lava. He turned just in time to avoid it immolating his face, but instead it hit his back and drove him to his knees, crying out in pain from the burns.

The demons on the other side fell also, and when they had, Coypheus descended once more from the seal, left with no more power to draw from his surroundings. “Dumat! Grant me your strength!” He sounded more enraged than entreating, however, and shot a bolt of lightning for the near-frozen Lucien before turning to Amalia’s side of the room and launching several spheres of fire at she and Ithilian, as well as Nostariel, who’d been trying to remain in neutral ground, taking cover behind a rocky protrusion and weaving all the defensive spells she knew. They might be enough to stop some of what he was throwing at them, but she doubted it would protect them from a direct hit.

Before he could do the same to Ashton and Stroud, she stood from her spot and released the biggest ice spike she had the mana left for. It was faster than even she’d expected, and impaled Corypheus, though not anywhere vital. Rather, it stuck between his collarbone and shoulder, in the thick muscle there. With a shout of incoherent anger, he reached up and ripped it out, though it had at least done something, for a gout of blood issued from the puncture wound it left behind. It might have been their interference with the pillars, but he seemed at least capable of taking more damage now.

His retaliatory spell was a full-blown tempest, filling the room with dozens of arcs of lightning, striking from the air above them seemingly at random. Nostariel dove behind one of the rock formations. “Get down!”

In the aftermath of a fireball blast, which had slammed into a small rock formation Ithilian had taken cover behind, the elf managed to slip out of Corypheus's sight, and get behind him. He fully ignored Nostariel's command; danger or no, he had no intention of being pinned down by the magister, not when they had him injured at last, and resorting to attacks that were growing more desperate all the time. No, he wanted more of this creature's blood.

A strike of lightning crashed down next to him, knocking him off balance and sending a ringing through his ears, but Ithilian stayed focused, ignoring the pain and locking his eyes on the magister's back, though he noted Amalia approaching as well from his peripherals, bearing several new scorch marks from her dealings with the rage demons, but still standing. He spared her a glance, his bared blades all the communication that was needed. Attack together.

Reaching Corypheus on his left side, Ithilian went low, stabbing Parshaara into the back of his leg just above the knee. Before Corypheus could so much as look down, he shredded downwards with the blade, cutting open much of the leg down to mid calf. His attention turned to Ithilian now, he prepared a close range blast of lightning, and was entirely blind to Amalia's approach.

Where Ithilian went low, Amalia went high, bolting for a rock formation and running up its slope, launching herself off the top to get the height she needed. The darkspawn was larger than an ordinary man. A knife in each hand, she plunged them down with all her might, one getting a good grip in the exit wound provided by Nostariel’s previous ice spike. The other glanced off what appeared to be some of the red stone that coated parts of the magister’s body, and she struggled to find somewhere to dig it in, winding her legs around the darkspawn’s waist from behind to maintain her position as long as possible.

In the end, the best she was able to do was sliding it between a pair of ribs, withdrawing quickly and stabbing multiple times in quick succession, intent on doing as much damage as possible as quickly as she could. She was, in the end, removed from Corypheus’s person by one of his unnaturally long arms, which found her braid and pulled until she was forced to slacken her grip. He seemed disinclined to let go even when he’d peeled her away from himself, and so with the one knife she still held, Amalia hacked off the end of her hair, nearly six inches left hanging in his grip while the rest of her dropped to the ground.

He launched another blast of fire right at her, and she rolled to the side just in time, the blast catching her in the leg instead of dead center. She clearly favored it when she stood again, but she was far from done.

It was at this point that Lucien, weakened by a direct hit by lightning spell, finally managed to free himself from the ice, and ran at Corypheus from the front, forcing him to direct his attention away from the two others present to deal with the oncoming warrior. He didn’t expect to land much of anything, merely to provide a kind of cover to the others, who could do damage with greater celerity than he could ever hope to in his present state.

Before Lucien could reach the magister however, an hoarfrost covered arrow beat him there. Ashton had dragged himself to the pillar and placed an unburned shoulder against it to brace himself, to fire what remained of his arrows. The arrow darted in low, and struck Corypheus’s ankle with enough force to penetrate the skin, and bury into the dirt beneath as well. If it were only the lone arrow then it would've been a useless gesture, child's play for the magister to rip it out again, but two more followed in close succession. Bolstered by the lingering effects of Nostariel's ice enchantment, frost blossomed from the arrows until his feet were also frozen to the ground.

With what was left of his ammunition spent, Ashton slumped sideways and hit the ground with a solid thump, finally slipping into unconsciousness.

Pinned, heavily-injured, and perhaps understandably livid, Corypheus went to open up the air above them to a firestorm this time, but Nostariel was quicker, clambering up onto the rock protrusion she’d been using for cover. Shooting two quick blasts with her staff, she knocked his hands away from their positions, both encased in heavy ice. That prevented the spell, but she wasn’t done yet.

A broad sweeping motion created a wall of frost, and a shoving pantomime pushed it forward, eating over the ground like a glacier in fast-motion, hitting the magister with the force of a warhorse at full charge, then rolling over him like a wave, closing in until he was encased in a sphere of bluish ice. With a sharp jerk, Nostariel closed her fist, and the ice prison imploded, crushing the darkspawn into a puree of bone fragments, flesh and blood. There was a pulse of some magic not her own, but then everything settled, and Nostariel fell sideways off the rocks, landing hard on her shoulder.

She managed to retain consciousness, though, and rolled over onto her back as the magically-produced rock crumbled away into dust, the ice still remaining on Lucien and Corypheus’s corpse melting away. She hurt, and her vision faded from red to black and back again, but as Sarra had once been fond of saying, the healer was always the last one done with the battle.

She’d need some help to stand, though.

The Chanter's Board has been updated. A Genealogy of Sacrifice has been completed.

Setting

1 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera

Earnings

0.00 INK

"Look, by now you should all know what we are about here; we are not the types for some grand, enchanting speech, and I'm most definitely not."

A murmur of laughter spread through the guard barracks, the gathered guardsmen each in their platemail standing at ease in front of the newly appointed guard-captain. The man, one certain Ashton Riviera, stood informally with one arm in a sling and other used to gesture as he spoke. Behind him and off to the side stood his trusted lieutenant, Vesper, trying in vain not to roll her eyes. In the week since his return to Kirkwall, he'd been more busy than ever preparing for the promotion of guard-captain. There was a lot more paperwork involved than simply rising from sergeant to lieutenant, unfortunately, and truth be told, he still had a few more to sign.

Still, it was all worth it, he thought as he stood in front of the men, his men, outfitted in the polished mail of the guard-captain. "We aren't here for the honor or glory of it, because there's little to be found in the guard. We don't sleep on piles of gold at the end of the day, and job safety is... Sub-par to put politely," he continued to another round of chuckling. "There are other jobs if we wanted all of that. A baker doesn't have 'getting stabbed' as part of the job description. But..." Ashton said, pausing for effect while rubbing his chin. A huff from behind him made him continue.

"We're here because we wanted to make a difference, I definitely am. I joined some three years ago because I wanted the guard to become better than it was-- I wanted to become better. I'd like to think that's happening, for all of us. Well, for most of us," Ashton said, shooting a glance back at Vesper to a round of tentative chuckles. The glare she gave silenced the rest. Despite the look, Ashton himself gave a small laugh before continuing. "The city's safer than it has been in the past, thanks to you all. Crime is down, we've busted not just a few gangs, and bandits think twice before they attack now. If you'll all forgive me for getting a little misty eyed," Ashton joked, playfully wiping at his eyes. "I'm proud of you all."

Then Ashton's posture straightened, his one good hand slipped behind him in military ease, chin up, and he looked into the crowd of guards in front of him. "And I'm proud to be your guard-captain. Together, I'm absolutely sure that we'll be able to keep this city safe from anything, bandits, gangs, Qunari, and even, ugh, Templars. Meredith's not taking our city without a fight, right!?" Ashton said to the applause and shouts from the guard, and even his sour lieutenant managed a smile on her face.

"Alright, well, get to it! We're not going to do any of that with you all standing here clapping. If you do not have a copy of the patrol schedule, please see Lieutenant Vesper, she'll get you sorted out," With that Ashton gave the men a salute and turned, the crowd dispersing to do their jobs. Ashton instead went toward the entrance of the barracks, toward a certain Orlesian Warden. "Well, how'd I do Ser Warden?" He asked Stroud, a lopsided grin on his face.

“Rather more jokes than the Wardens usually get, but then I would hope as much.” Stroud, leaning against the doorway to the barracks, uncrossed his arms from in front of his chest and approached Ashton, nodding to Lieutenant Vesper as he passed her. “I was at the Keep regarding another matter when I remembered Nostariel mentioning your recent promotion. I see that it was very recent.” There was a trace of amusement in the Warden-Commander’s voice, and he appeared to take in the surroundings for a moment, though what he thought of them particularly, it was impossible to tell from only his expression.

He looked rather out-of-place, in one sense, his plate armor the blue and dull silver of the Grey Wardens rather than the burnt orange and shine of that belonging to Kirkwall’s guard, but there was perhaps an extent to which any military-like establishment was effectively the same, and his posture was not so far removed from that of any of the more conscientious guardsmen, really. “So perhaps my congratulations will be timely enough.”

"For what? A slightly better job title and significantly more work?" Ashton said with a laugh. "No, I appreciate it, and I really am glad I finally made it. It took somewhere around three years to get here, maybe now I can start to do some real good," he said scratching the back of his head. Here's to hoping, he guessed. The work wouldn't get any easier from then on out, but then again he'd be disappointed if it did. Then he chuckled again, "I still got some paperwork to file. I kind of had to rush some things because of our little... Adventure," he said, twitching the arm in the sling.

"Come on, let's continue this in my office. Some of the men might start to get nervous thinking you're here to conscript them," he said, gesturing toward the door with his head. The way that he said his office, Ashton was obviously getting a kick out of being the captain, though to be honest, it hadn't really struck him yet. Maybe it never would, in the end he was just another guard with just considerable more work.

Ashton led them into the office, and the first thing that greeted them was the mounted head of a High Dragon above his desk. He wasn't kidding when he said that he was going to mount its head, apparently. Ashton then went to the desk, reached into the bottom drawer and pulled out a bottle of whiskey, "Want some? I don't drink, but the last captain left it for me. Would hate for it to go to waste."

“Well, then I suppose the drinking is all on me.” Stroud took a seat on the other side of the desk, glancing up at the dragon’s head and blinking laconically. “Interesting choice of decoration; are you trying to scare the shit out of the new recruits?” One of Stroud’s eyebrows inched up his weathered forehead, and he accepted a class of the whiskey from Ashton. “My thanks.”

Raising it to his nose, he took a sniff. Early contemporary age, Rivaini, probably from the south of the country. The previous captain had excellent taste in alcohol, but that might have been about it.

"It helps," Ashton said, grinning at the dragon. There aren't many people who would like to be reprimanded under the snarling visage of a dragon if he'd had a guess. "Certainly makes a statement. Says the captain isn't one to be crossed, you know, despite the silliness... Even if he did have help, between you and me," Ashton said with another laugh.

Taking a seat in his chair, his eyes fell on the half-filled form on the desk, before slowly sliding it out of view. Later, he decided. If he was asked why it was late, he'd just say he was improving relationships with the Wardens which technically wasn't a lie. "So how long have you been with the Wardens anyway? You certainly aren't some raw recruit or journeyman. Did your share of hauling my carcass around, if I remember."

Stroud wore a thoughtful expression for a moment, tipping his head up to the ceiling as though trying to remember something. “It has been almost… eighteen years now. Since my Joining. It is something that we at once try not to think about and find occasionally, startlingly, on our minds.” Returning his posture to the way it had been before, he swirled the liquid in his glass around a few times before knocking back a swallow. “I had not thought about it in a long time, before last week.”

"Yeah... Last week was tough," Ashton agreed, leaning back in his chair and his hand coming to rest on his chest. Then he shuddered and ran the hand though his hair. It wasn't amongst his most favorite memories, to be sure, even if most of it was a blur. But he remembered enough and that much was enough to make him uncomfortable. "Sorry, didn't mean to make the mood that depressing. I've just been with Nos so long that it's hard to, uh, remember these things," Ashton said, attempting to delicately sidestep the matter, more for his sake than Stroud's.

“It is an easy enough thing to forget, when one is not constantly battling Darkspawn. I gave Nostariel this post because I believed forgetting for a while would do her good. But nothing lasts forever, least of all a Warden’s peace and quiet.” He sighed into his glass, his breath fogging it slightly. “But you did no harm in the asking. Our reminder came from Corypheus, not you. It’s something we’ll have to come to terms with, just as we came to terms with our Joinings, and with the deaths of our comrades.” It was perhaps inevitable that talking with a Warden about time would eventually become a bit somber, but Stroud didn’t seem overly distraught. Rather, there was a kind of quiet reserve to him, almost but not quite a resignation.

“There has been talk of restructuring our postings, again. Some of the commanders at Weisshaupt think it a bad idea to let our officers get complacent in one place for long. I have made the argument that having Wardens posted places they are familiar with is the better strategic move, but it is difficult to predict headquarters.” His eyes had sharpened, and he was making steady eye contact with Ashton now. “Death is not the only way to cut time short.”

"Yeah, I know," Ashton answered, learning forward on the desk resting on his hand. Instead of trying to explain himself, he remained quiet for a moment before continuing. "She's done a lot of good here, you know?" He said, leaning back. "She's one of the pillars of the community, things in this city would be a lot worse off without her." He then chuckled wistfully shaking his head, "Half of us are still alive because of it. Ithilian, Sophia, and myself I know. You've done more for this city than you know by giving her this post."

Stroud’s mouth pulled up into a wry smile. “Perhaps, but I think I’m beginning to understand.” He finished off the last of the drink, setting the glass down gently on the edge of Ashton’s desk. “I was the one who took her from the Circle, you know? And… I was the one who brought her here, after her squad was killed.” He rubbed at his stubble thoughtfully. “If it were up to me, I’d keep her here. Kirkwall has done her good, and she has done it some good in return.” The implication still hung in the air, though—he wasn’t solely responsible for that decision.

“I also wanted to say… that I regret what happened, in the Deep Roads. Our minds were not ours, and though I cannot apologize for something that was not of my own will, I do regret that it harmed the rest of you.” He paused. “The Wardens owe all of you their thanks, for what you helped prevent. Had it been just the two of us, or any number of our order at all… we would not have succeeded.”

Ashton waved the thanks off and leaned back in the chair, "Don't mention it," he said with a laugh. A moment later however, the smile slipped right off his face and was replaced with tight-lipped frown, "Seriously. Don't mention it. I'd like to forget most of it." While he wanted to say that he's had worse times in his life, that would be a lie. Warden secrets, demon infested tunnels, and a darkspawn magister at the end of it all wasn't exactly one of the memories he wanted to keep, but it was stuck with him nonetheless. He had scars to remind him if he did forget.

"How... Is she, anyway?" he asked tentatively. Since they returned to Kirkwall, Ashton hadn't seen Nostariel.

Stroud gave him a flat look. “That, I think, is something you should discern for yourself.” His tone hinted at his certainty regarding his statement, but he did relent a little. “She is confronting her own mortality, and several facts about her history that she did not know. It is going about as well as you would expect, considering.” He grimaced slightly, but then shook his head and stood.

“But I should be going. I depart Kirkwall tomorrow. Congratulations again, Guard-Captain. May your tenure be quiet and uneventful.” He sounded skeptical of such a possibility, however.

"I'd be doing my job wrong if that was the case," Ashton answered as she stood with Stroud. "If you ever find yourself out this way again, you'll always be welcome here," he added, extending his hand.

"I've got official business to get to anyway. A favor for a friend and a man in a dungeon."

Stroud clasped his hand, nodded, and took his leave.

Setting

1 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael

Earnings

0.00 INK

Within a few weeks of being accepted into the Argent Lions by their commander, Lia was at last ready to move out of the Alienage for good. She didn’t have all that many things, and honestly didn’t want to bring much that she couldn’t carry on her back. All the more reason she didn’t the need the house in the Alienage. They couldn’t afford to waste any space, and she’d been given more than she needed, or could properly use. As far as she had heard, a small family would be moving in once she cleared out. In all, she had more than enough reason to want to hurry.

It did not snow on the day she left, but the air was cold and crisp, and she dressed warmly, a scarf wrapped around the lower half of her face. Ithilian saw her off at the exit of the Alienage. It wasn’t as though she were leaving the city, or had any intention of abandoning the Alienage. She would visit him often, and she knew he’d do the same for her. After all they’d been through, she was immensely grateful to him for being able to let her out of his sight. To trust that she was ready to make her own way.

Shouldering her pack, she set off, and made good time to the barracks. The first few weeks had been a learning experience. What time she’d spent with Amalia prevented her from being as sore as she might otherwise have been, and already she could see her skills improving. Ithilian was excellent to learn from by example, but he was not the most practiced teacher, nor was he a natural at it. She was getting along with the other Lions well, and putting her all into her training. There were still many rewards to be reaped.

At the barracks door she pulled up, knocked twice, and then let herself in. “Goodbye Alienage!” she called, to anyone that might be within earshot.

“And hello barracks?” There were, in fact, people within earshot, at present about four, and the one who replied was Tessa, seated at one of the long tables with Estella, Cor, and Donnelly. They all grinned, apparently quite aware of what Lia was doing today, and they tossed the cards they were playing back into the center of the table and stood. “I’d ask if there was anything we could help you carry, but it looks like you’ve got everything under control.”

“Probably for the best; these rooms are comfortable, but they’re not the biggest.” Estella smiled slightly. “You’re sharing with me, by the way. I hope you don’t mind.”

"No, that's great!" Lia grinned upon finding her favorite people in the company awaiting her arrival, and proceeded to head towards the room she was sharing. "I've never gotten to share a room before." Not with anyone remotely her age, of course. The Alienage was obviously a small space, tightly crammed with people, but she'd still managed to have the experience of the only child, exacerbated by her turbulent youth. Most of the other elves had trouble relating to her. It made collecting friends troublesome.

Stepping into the room, she set her bags down at the foot of her cot, before setting herself down to test it. She imagined for some in the company this was harder living, but for Lia, she was being paid now to live in a better place. After bouncing a few times on the cot, she stood back up and stopped in the doorframe, leaning against the side.

"What about you guys? Anyone have lots of siblings?" She'd trained with them long enough to become curious about them, especially the ones she liked. Now that she was living here, she imagined she'd have a lot more time with them that wasn't taking up by training and drills.

Everyone looked at Tessa when the question was asked for some reason, and she mock-groaned, holding a hand to her heart dramatically. “Only about six. But let’s maybe sit down before we talk about my family, huh?” There were a few scattered chuckles and some agreement, and Donnelly ran to Idris for some of the man’s rather locally-famous tea over ice, and it wasn’t long before the five of them were settled comfortably in the room. Tessa had plopped down next to Lia on her cot, and Estella gave up half of hers to Cor. Donnelly sat backwards on a chair he’d dragged in from the main room.

“But really, six?” The question came from Cor. “My whole family’s always been my mom and my sister. Just the three of us.” Or at least, since the boat. But he didn’t really talk about anything before that, and the rest never asked.

“Six,” Tessa confirmed. “Four sisters, two brothers. I’m from Starkhaven. My family’s a bit puffed-up, so they took the ‘heir and the spare’ thing very seriously. But once you’re spare number three, you don’t really matter much in the long run. It wasn’t so bad growing up, though—having so many older siblings really took all the pressure off. No one cared if I spent all day in the kennels or the forest or whatever.”

“I’m an only child,” Donnelly confessed, tugging at the ends of his fringe in what was by now a familiar tic of his. “Loads of cousins, though, which is probably the only reason my pop didn’t murder me when I said I wanted to join the company.” He grinned sheepishly.

“Pop?” Cor repeated, his voice indicating his mirth. “Sometimes I forget you’re a farm kid, Donny, but you make it really easy to remember again.”

“Shut up, Corvin,” he replied, reaching over to shove the elf hard in the shoulder. This knocked him against Estella, who rolled her eyes and shoved him back the other way.

“I’m, um… a twin, actually.” Her statement got the other two to quit pretending to fight each other for a moment. She’d never really talked about where she came from, or what she did before she was one of them, and they’d all respected that. “I have a brother, back in Tevinter. Cyrus. He’s… we’re not very much alike.”

“Yeah, I’m not really like any of my siblings, either,” Tessa observed. “Honestly, I get along better with you guys. Probably because you’re all knuckleheaded enough to join the weirdest merc group in the history of merc groups.”

“Yeah, we’re pretty… hey. Did she just call us stupid?” Donnelly attempted to whisper the last part to Cor, but the room was small enough that he didn’t have a chance. Tessa only winked at him.

Lia's grin hardly wavered throughout the exchanges, though she could sense the slight serious dip when she inadvertently got Estella to mention something about her past. Even being with the group for a short time, she'd come to understand that some of them were more tight lipped about stuff than others. She imagined she might end up as one of those herself. She didn't mind sharing quite a bit, but certain things were definitely going to remain her own, if she didn't have to speak of them.

"So... do you think I'll be getting jobs with you guys soon?" she asked, glancing sideways at Tessa. "I think I'm getting there."

Tessa hummed, tilting her head from one side to another. “I imagine the commander will want you to be familiar with more types of combat before you get anything like a raid, but honestly, you could be doing recon or scouting now, if there was anything along those lines. We get a few of those from time to time; it’ll be nice to have someone else along who knows what they’re doing.” She grinned. “Donnelly can’t keep quiet to save his life.”

“Hey, I resemble that remark,” the youth in question replied, his wryness a good indication that he well understood that stealth and tracking were weaknesses of his, and openly acknowledged it. He was more of a frontliner, anyway.

“I wouldn’t worry about it taking too long, Lia,” Cor continued. “It’s pretty obvious that you’re really good; you’ll be out slaying dragons with the rest of us in no time.”

“Yeah, and she’ll be a lot smarter about it than you, Ser charge-right-at-it.” Estella hid her smile in her glass of chilled tea when the tips of Cor’s ears turned red.

“Hey, it worked.”

"Someone's gotta be the punching bag, right?" Lia offered, amused. That fight with the high dragon was something she was probably going to hear about for a long time to come. There were few better ways to spread their reputation than by working with the city guard and some well-known figures of the city to bring down a high dragon. And everyone had come back alive from it, no less. Very few people could match what they'd done already.

"Can I practice with you sometime then?" she said, directing her question at Estella. "I don't think I'd get along well with a shield or a broad sword, but your style seems like something I could maybe pick up." She also happened to know that Estella had a drive for practicing like few others here, so she seemed unlikely to turn down a chance for a little more.

Estella blinked a couple of times, looking vaguely bewildered. When she replied, it was slow and deliberate. “I’m… I’m really not that good, but if you think it would be helpful, I don’t mind.” She nodded slightly, and Cor next to her nudged her with his elbow.

“Don’t be so hard on yourself. One day I bet you’ll be showing us all how it’s done, the hours you put into it.” She scoffed, but smiled slightly anyway, and from the way the others grinned, that was a victory of some kind.

“Yeah, if ‘it’ is getting beat down by all comers.” There was a distinct lack of bitterness to the way she said it, though. “In the meantime, I’ll spar with you whenever you like, Lia.”

“The rest of us, too,” added Tessa. “You’ll be getting plenty of it in drills, of course, but there’s nothing wrong with a bit of extra work, and between the four of us, you’ve got most types of opponent covered.” The other two inclined their heads in affirmation as well.

“I know you’ve really been here for a while, but… since this seems official and all, welcome to the Lions, Lia.”

"Thanks, Tessa."

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon

Earnings

0.00 INK

When Jamie Arren returned to Sophia's newly inhabited Hightown manor alone, she could not help but feel disappointment. She was disappointed that he could not bring Dairren Quinn with him, disappointed to even see his face again, after she had made the ill-advised move of setting him free, to find the man she sought. He was seemingly unharmed, too. She would never be rid of her animosity towards him for what he had done, but she had the self control to bury it down beneath the surface, and do what needed to be done. And while he did not have the man himself with him, he at least brought news of him.

Sophia proceeded to make him wait just inside the front door while she retreated into her quarters and donned her armor. She was certainly not going anywhere with Jamie, or doing anything relating to her would-be father, without it. With her sword on her back she returned to Jamie, and ordered him to accompany her to Lowtown, and the barracks of the Argent Lions. She was not going to be diving into this without consulting those she trusted most.

On the way she stopped by the Keep, and the guard quarters inside, to call on their new captain, who had the time to spare for her. Ashton clearly seemed relieved that Jamie actually came back, and didn't just take the the chance to bolt. He left command with Vesper and flanked Jamie, unwilling to let him get too far out of reach when he could help it. The three of them walked in a fairly terse silence, as Sophia preferred to explain the situation once, rather than to each man individually.

Once she'd arrived in the lion's den, she pulled her prisoner (for she did indeed have a vise-like grip on his arm since leaving her home) into Lucien's office, Ashton joining them. A few of the mercs noted the scene with interest from the outside, but Sophia trusted Lucien would call on them only if necessary. It was, after all, a private matter.

"Tell them what you told me," she ordered Jamie at last, releasing him. He rubbed at his arm for a moment, sheepish, but then began to explain.

"Nearly got gutted in Darktown, but I made contact with the Coterie, and met Quill again, face to face. No messages, no nonsense, saw him in the flesh. He looks different now. Older, I guess." He shook his head and shrugged, realizing he was getting off the point. "I told him you were looking to meet. He would like to meet as well, but he doesn't want to end up in chains, or headless. He'll meet you if you're alone, or not at all. Well, alone save for me. Picked a spot on the Wounded Coast, and I'm to lead you there. The two of you can say what needs to be said from there."

He lowered his head, a sign that he was finished. Sophia's hands rested on her hips, her lower lip between her teeth. She glanced up at Lucien. "Thoughts?" Her two advisors here would know that she was determined to meet him, and that this was her best and possibly only chance. Of course, this was more than personal. According to a previous dialogue she'd had with Jamie, Dairren was playing the Coterie for fools, intending to cripple them upon reforging a bond with Sophia. She would have to see that to believe it.

"A few, and none of them pleasant," Ashton said grimly. "How do we know this isn't a trap? Because it definitely feels like a trap."

"Didn't you listen?" Jamie asked. "He's her father. He's never meant her any harm, not from the first. He'll--"

“Not trust her enough to allow her to bring friends, which means that your estimation of his feelings is rather irrelevant, I’m afraid.” Lucien broke in, his eyes narrowed. Jamie’s words likely would have weighted very low in terms of relevance anyway, considering, but he wasn’t especially in the mood to entertain them right now. “Perhaps you can see why this is still a discussion.” Reaching for the office door, he opened it and gestured over Havard and Idris, the two Lions who’d been in the common room at the time his guests entered.

“Please sit Ser Arren down, and make sure he doesn’t go anywhere.” Havard nodded, gripping the younger man by the shoulder and steering him firmly out of the room. Lucien shut the door again behind them, then waited long enough for the sound of their footsteps to recede. “There. Let him think the conversation is about whether you go at all.” Realistically, he knew she would be—he’d read it in the expression on her face. He knew she wanted these answers, and he did not blame her for it.

“What I’m actually interested in is making sure you can do it safely. I don’t think it’s wise to assume that Quinn will be alone, and so it seems ill-advised for you to be so, either.”

Ashton let out a sigh and gazed downward to the floorboards in deep thought. "The coast has plenty of brush and coverage to hide in... For both parties. We could slip a few of Lucien's scouts in it, but there's no guarantees that Quill won't have a few of his own doing the same, and it's also reasonable to assume he'd expect something of the sort." As a previous captain of the guard himself and current head of Coterie, it was less an assumption and more assured. Quill was the type to have all of his bases covered at all times, for any contingency. It was the type of person Ashton hated dealing with the most.

"And I also don't trust Jamie, not as far as I can throw him. He already tried to kill you once, damn the excuses he tries to feed us. There's nothing saying he won't try to finish the job, save for his own words. And I'm not too keen on trusting a criminal's word." Ashton pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling all that more weary.

"If Jamie goes with me, he stays within reach of my blade at all times," Sophia said, leaning back against the wall. She was glad to have Jamie out of the room. The sight of him... sickly, weak, a hollow shell of his former self... she didn't know why, but it made her uncomfortable. "Not saying I would kill him if he tried to betray me, but he might come back short an arm." She wondered how thick the walls here were.

"I'll go mounted, of course. If it is a trap, there isn't much that Aiden can't run past, or through. Bind Jamie's hands to the saddle... cut him loose if I have to." The Coterie would no doubt have his head if a trap failed. They had no great love for him. And she was quite certain that he had no death wish. And strangely, she was fairly certain he was sincere in his desire to not hurt her. Perhaps he was insane, and misguided in what he thought was best for her, but she did not think he would intentionally lead her to harm.

She didn't know if she could persuade the two men in the room of that, though. "I could use some cover," she said, directed at Lucien. "They'd need to stay out of sight all the way to the meeting point, though. No knowing where he might have eyes, and if he catches wind of others, he could be gone."

“There’s also the Coterie to be considered, quite apart from Quinn,” Lucien pointed out. There was no telling how they would take their leader meeting with Sophia, whether he told them or not. Actually, he almost certainly would, since they would probably take it worse if he didn’t. He had heard that the man’s grip on the organization was strong, but some were bound to chafe under that yoke, even if they were few. There were any number of possible combinations of attitudes and allegiances that could spell trouble, but he knew Sophia was right.

If he sent people, they would have to be good at staying hidden. Good enough to match the very best. He wasn’t that skilled at it, and neither were most of his more battle-ready men and women. But he had two who should be able to accomplish such a task. He’d hesitate to send many more, anyway, for more people had a greater risk of being found. Rubbing at the stubble on his jaw, Lucien nodded, more to himself than in response to anything specific. “I’ll send Tessa, and Lia as a runner. She can get word back if anything happens.” Likely not fast enough to make a difference, but it was better than nothing. They were the best scouts the Lions had. He’d put another chunk of the troops on standby as well, just in case.

“But let’s keep that away from the ears of Ser Arren. He may not intend you harm, but that doesn’t mean he won’t cause it.” He also had to check with his scouts, to make sure they were willing to take on the risk this would entail. If all went well, this would be a lot of caution for nothing. But very little ever went well, and Lucien didn’t dare expect it would.

"As much as I'd like to peel off this armor and tag along, I'm the guard captain now, I can't just go skulking in the woods any more. I'll have to leave this in your hands," Ashton told Sophia, pushing himself off of the wall. "I'll stay here and wait until you get back. Be careful and don't let Jamie out of sight. I'd hate for my first act as captain to be losing a would-be political assassin. That'd be a difficult one to explain to everybody..." he said, nervously.

"Don't keep us long, yeah?"

"I'll be cautious, I promise." Sophia took a step over to Lucien, taking his hand lightly. "First sign of trouble and I'll bolt like a hare from the wolves." She kissed him briefly, not wanting to make a scene of this, but still hoping to offer some reassurance. "I'll be back with some answers. One way or another, it's time I put this all behind me."

Lucien expelled a heavy breath, not looking terribly reassured, but smiling slightly anyway. “Do what you must. I will be here when you return.” He rested a callused palm on her cheek for a moment, then let his hand fall back to his side.

Opening the door again, Sophia made her way out, where Jamie immediately looked up with rather wide eyes. She gestured for him to stand.

"You'll be tied to my horse. One wrong move and I leave you for the Coterie. Let's go."




The rope that tied Jamie Arren to Sophia's horse kept him at about six feet in distance, and she made sure to keep it that way, refusing to let him walk beside her. The going was predictably slow, with her captive on foot, and not particularly able-bodied anymore. More than once she wondered who here was the captive and who was delivering them, but it was foolish to linger on it. She focused instead on watching her surroundings. The Coast looked as it always did, even if it felt colder. The occasional ocean spray they caught when the road drifted too close to the shore was chilling, and she sometimes could hear Jamie's teeth chattering behind her. Thankfully, the sky had remained clear. It looked to be about midday.

At various turns, she asked Jamie for instruction, and he guided her left, right, left, wherever she was needed to go. The roads here were winding and twisting and convoluted, so many new paths created to try and find routes that the bandits did not prey on. He seemed to know where he was going, though. At no point in her trip did she see or hear her two shadows watching over her, as was for the best. She knew they were there, and while the help of an archer and a runner was not likely to turn the tide of overwhelming odds, it was comforting to know she was not alone.

"It's just up ahead," Jamie said quietly. "See that rock there?" he pointed in front of them, towards a three way intersection of the path, settled in the middle of rolling hills and rocky formations. They had traveled inland a short distance, away from the spray of the sea. Sophia had noted no less than three gaping cave mouths, and wondered if they housed Coterie cells, or other wicked creatures. She liked to think that the feeling of eyes watching her was just Tessa and Lia.

"I see it. I don't see anyone else." The area appeared as deserted as the rest. Jamie took a few quicker steps to try and catch up to Sophia's side, prompting her to urge Aiden ahead a little faster.

"We're a little early, I think. We should wait here, at the crossroads. He'll be here." She came to a stop at the point where the little paths met. It could hardly be called a crossroads, as any caravan of wagons would have difficulty getting through here at all. Sophia reached a hand down to pat her horse's neck, watching the various angles of approach all the while. It seemed they would just have to wait.

Tessa was on high alert as she and Lia tailed Sophia and Jamie over the Coast. There was a fair mount of cover, but it wasn’t absolutely everywhere by any means, and both had to make use of considerable skill and experience hunting and tracking to remain hidden. At times, they were forced to drop back far enough that they could no longer see their charges, and followed the rather peculiar amalgam of hoofprints and human boot-tracks trailing to the side of them. They managed, however, and not too long after the other two had settled in to wait at the crossroads, their shadows had concealed themselves as well, blending into two separate clusters of cover and waiting there.

There didn’t appear to be anything out of the ordinary. The area had its share of prints from both men and beasts, but nothing more in volume than Tessa would have expected. She allowed the steady rhythm of her own heart to mark time for her, her muscles relaxed, but ready to spur herself into motion at any point necessary. The commander’s instructions had been painstakingly clear: the minute anything looked to be going sour, Lia was to run back to Kirkwall and inform those waiting at the barracks. Tessa’s actions were more for her own judgement, but she could read between the lines well enough. Lucien was asking her to do whatever she could to protect the woman he loved, and she had accepted that entreaty. Any of the Lions would do that much for another, she knew.

"He'll be here," Jamie reiterated, and Sophia spared him a glance, to find that he looked more nervous than ever. Slowly, she slid her sword from its sheath across her back. He looked up at her, holding his tied hands up submissively, and keeping himself at the maximum distance the rope that bound him would allow. "Please, Sophia, just a little longer."

"He wouldn't be late, not the man I knew. Deceptive, maybe, but if he intended to be here, he would be here on time. Do you not agree?" Jamie seemed to struggle for words, and nothing but an uncertain whine came out. Just as Sophia began to wheel her horse around to face him, however, there was movement behind the largest of the rocks ahead of her. A man appeared, dusting off his leather armor, as he'd apparently been sitting in the dirt. He was hooded and hid his face, but clearly displayed were his weapons, a longsword at his hip and several knives on his arms and legs.

"You need wait only a little longer, m'lady," he said, with a heavy Lowtown drawl. She did not know Dairren to speak that way, and as she soon as she heard the words, she reached across her with the sword and slashed through the rope binding Jamie to her, cutting him loose. She did not intend to drag him behind her if she needed to flee. Jamie jumped back a step, looking up at the other man with surprise.

"Who are you? You're not supposed to be here!"

"Dairren sent me to greet you, make sure there were no surprises planned." He held out his empty hands as though in a show of peace, though the mailed gauntlets they were in spoke otherwise. Sophia narrowed her eyes at him, though she made sure to continue checking the approaches, and the place others might hide.

"He said he'd come alone," Jamie continued. "He was very clear about that."

"I've heard enough," Sophia said, disgusted. "Goodbye, Jamie." He protested, called for her to wait and not leave him, but immediately she put her heels into her horse and turned around, taking off at a gallop the other way. In the distance, the sound and rumble of many other horses could be heard.

Lia, for the moment, didn't know what exactly to do. She seemed to be making a clean getaway, so there was little point in giving herself away when she had no horse to escape so easily. It was only after the white horse that bore Sophia away rounded a corner and left her sight that she had her mind made up for her.

All Sophia saw was the axe, a broad, two-handed weapon emerging ahead of her, the wielder obscured behind a jutting rock on the side of the road. He must have moved into position there some time after she'd passed on the way in. The axehead cleaved more than halfway through her horse's neck, nearly severing the head clean off. The beast made a hideous attempt at a screech as it stopped and reared back, about to topple over. Sophia managed to slide her feet from the stirrups just in time to avoid having her leg crushed, as Aiden fell heavily onto his side, leaving her to crash into the sand behind him. The horse quickly ceased to move.

A massive man appeared over Sophia, at least seven feet tall and heavily built, wielding the axe that had easily slain her horse, but he did not attempt to bring the blade of this down on her. Instead, he stomped a foot down on her wrist before she could bring her blade up. The butt of the axe came down to try and strike a blow to her head, but she was at least able to twist out of the way of that. Drawing a knife from her boot, she plunged it into the back of his calf, causing him to cry out, but not release the pressing weight on her wrist.

Back at the crossroads, a troop of at least two dozen horsemen were arriving at full speed, most armed with various blunt weapons, as well as some nets, bolas, and other less common tools. Several of them dismounted with bows, and made for the high grounds, watching places other than the struggle between Sophia and the axe-man. Lia had long since departed, though the man that had initially greeted them had taken notice. He was now in the process of assaulting Jamie, who put up little resistance.

Tessa assessed the situation and grimaced. It wasn’t good—in fact, she knew she would make next to no difference if she chose to participate. Still, she wasn’t going to run away and leave Sophia to her fate—it wasn’t right. So she moved, reaching for the bow at her back and nocking an arrow to the string. Her draw was as calm and practiced as it had always been, and when she let it fly, it struck true—to the back of the axe-man’s neck. It wasn’t enough to fell him, though, and she’d given away her position by loosing it, something she knew the other archers would take advantage of if she let them.

So she didn’t. Staying low, Tessa moved into a different piece of cover, tracking the progress of those who moved to put themselves in high-ground positions. She was definitely worried about them, but also about the ones carrying nets. She wasn’t stupid—that meant they’d come for hostages, and there were only two people guaranteed to be here, meaning Sophia was the most likely target. She doubted they cared much about Jamie.

Another shot took down the horse of one of two men carrying a large, heavy net between them, pitching he and his partner both to the ground, tangled in their own device. She had to focus on delay tactics, because she wouldn’t be able to kill them all—it was just impossible. So the best she could hope for was to keep them busy long enough that the literal cavalry could come riding in. Even that was a threadbare chance.

Her third shot thudded into the left lung of an archer, this one taking aim for somewhere near her hiding place. He fell, but the woman next to him didn’t miss, and Tessa bit her tongue hard enough to taste blood when a barbed arrowhead pierced her left bicep. That was going to make drawing incredibly difficult. She still had her sword—and never had she been more thankful for her increasing repertoire of skills—but she didn’t relish the thought of being so close she had to use it. Moving again, she barely rolled out of the way of another two arrows before she finally found more solid cover: a stone this time. Bracing her back against it, she peered out at the crossroads, aiming and firing again. Her weakened off-hand caused her shot to go wide, merely injuring the next archer she hit.

“Come on, Tess,” she muttered to herself. “Make it count.” Gritting her teeth and suppressing an agonized cry, she drew again and fired, this time hitting her target square in the forehead—another fellow with a net. An arrow whizzed by her nose, but she still had ground roughly as high as the other bowmen, so most clattered off her stone.

Setting

1 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar

Earnings

0.00 INK

The arrow to the back of the man's neck was enough to send him lurching forward a step, and this allowed Sophia a moment of freedom, which she used to scramble to her feet. She thought for a moment of the potential for escape, but her horse was dead, and she'd never be able to outrun a mounted group. No, her chances were actually better fighting them. Aside from that, she couldn't leave Tessa behind here any more than Tessa would leave her. This was Sophia's folly, this mad hunt, and she would not leave someone else to pay for it alone.

Before she could advance on the axeman, a whirling bola came flying through the air, the aim a little high, and Sophia was able to duck under it, rising to meet the charging horseman soon afterwards. Her blade found his midsection, and she unseated him onto his back in the dirt, coughing up blood. She moved on.

The archers appeared to be ignoring her, focusing their arrows on Tessa's location now that they had identified another threat. Thankfully, she had already dealt with the net-bearers, leaving Sophia to battle against those engaging her in melee with their clubs and maces. As many of them as there were, the blows were predictable, aimed for her body and limbs, no chances being taken towards the head. She took advantage of this, leaving several more corpses in her wake.

When she could not withdraw her blade from a man's stomach in time, however, she paid for it with a heavy mace blow to the side, a resounding clang against her armor accompanying the loss of all her wind. She staggered back and suddenly found another man trying to secure a grip on her arms. Their legs twisted and they fell, spinning on the way down and leaving Sophia under him, her face and eyes suddenly spattered with sand. Blinded, she lashed back with an elbow, getting him off of her, before she pushed forward and got back to her feet.

Still trying to blink the dirt from her eyes, she missed her next block, taking a club straight to the stomach. She doubled over and heaved a cough, soon forced to a knee from a jab given by the axemen behind her. A heavy punch followed, catching her across the cheek, spinning her around and leaving her flat on her back, stars dancing above her in the clear blue sky.

Tessa had, in the meantime, culled the archers down to slightly below half, though the rest were now moving, meaning that her location was not likely to serve her well for much longer. But Sophia was taking heavy damage on the ground, and she wasn’t sure how much longer it would be before the other woman was subdued, at which point they could demand of her her surrender, and she would be forced to it. With that in mind, she decided to hold her ground as long as she could, raining arrows down on the throng of warriors intent on overcoming Sophia. She dare not hit anyone too close to the other woman, for fear her injury would affect her aim too much and she’d hit the very person she was trying to help.

But she managed to down a good four of the men on the edge of the group before her arm simply would not draw back the bowstring again. There were tears in her eyes from the pain of it, and her muscles themselves burned for respite, something she could not give them. She was nearly out of arrows anyway.

So, shifting her injured arm behind her back, she drew her sword with the other. It wasn’t the thickest of blades, made light and fast rather than heavy and strong, but it was more durable than a rapier, to be sure, and had more reach than a shortsword. At this point, the arrows were starting to come in, the first few missing mostly by chance, and she was forced to dash up the nearest incline to get in close enough. Another grazed her in the abdomen, a third slamming into her bad shoulder, but at this point, she was mostly using that arm to guard anyway. It was useless for anything else.

Her footsteps faltered in the sand, and she almost fell over, her armor slick with blood in places and her breath coming in hard pants. Wisps of brown hair had come loose from the bun she used to contain it, dangling in front of her face, but she tossed her head and forced herself to continue, applying a burst of speed up the hill and colliding bodily with the first of the archers. It knocked him off-balance, and she wasted no time in slicing his throat open. The motion continued into a smooth stab, but she got stuck kicking the second one off the end of the sword, allowing an axe to slam into her thigh. Her armor took away some of the damage, but it still bit deep, and she felt the uncanny grinding sensation of steel hitting bone, only for a moment, before it was withdrawn. It wasn’t a wide wound, but it was deep, and a ribbon of blood followed the axe from her leg.

The throng overwhelming Sophia was distracted when arrows came their way, enough for Sophia to tuck her legs in and roll over backwards, giving herself some space, at least until she could see a man's boots in her peripherals as she looked down. She sent a quick kick to the side of his knee, before bringing her blade around in a wide, swift arc. It sliced him cleanly in half, his lack of armor letting her cut right through him.

She didn't notice that yet more riders were arriving, these ones coming slower. She was too focused on the next foe, driving her blade between his ribs before he could fully pull back his weapon for a swing. She planted her boot on his chest and shoved him off her blade to the ground. No sooner had she done so than she was rushed from the side, a shoulder ramming hard right where she'd been hit already. She fell again and rolled, twisting and coming to her knees just in time to receive a kick to the chest, planting her flat on her back again.

Refusing to quit just yet, she rolled and dodged a downward blow, slicing and taking off a leg of the attacker. She rushed to attack another, but he was the first to be quick and wise enough to block her, giving time for a swift one among the criminals to get around behind her and land an elbow to the back of her head. Dazed, she stumbled forward, feeling a pair of arms slide under her own, forcing them to the sides, while her blade was pried from her hand.

She was tugged up and back, and saw a fist only moments before it struck her. She blacked out entirely for a moment, sight only returning when she was crumpled in the sand on her side. The voices around her sounded like hummed murmurs, and she tried to rise, at which point she was delivered a brutal kick to the abdomen, and the pull of the ground became too much to fight against.

Tessa methodically worked her way through the rest of the archers, picking up a couple of new injuries, but nothing so bad as the last few had been. She was much better in close quarters than they were—she supposed they were used to the one thing only, as she had been for most of her life. When the last one was down—she wasn’t sure if he was dead or not, but he wouldn’t be getting up for a while—she glanced back down the incline to the crossroads, and swore out loud. “Shit, Sophia!”

With the other woman down, those guards still free turned their attention towards her, and while Tessa would ordinarily have pinched any remaining arrows from the other archers and started firing, she didn’t have that option. In fact, she didn’t have many options at all. Her hand tightened on the hilt of her sword, and she took a deep, shuddering breath to calm herself.

The first man reached her, and she ducked under the swing of his mace, managing a glancing slash over his good arm, but the second and third were upon her too quickly, and her vision was swimming from blood loss. She didn’t think she’d die from these wounds immediately, but she knew she needed medical attention, or she’d bleed out. Something she was highly unlikely to receive in time if she was caught here. Though she fell to the ground, she did so kicking and thrashing for all she was worth, one of her boots catching an assailant on the temple, causing him to drop her legs and give her a glimmer of hope, before another twisted her wrist until it broke, her sword falling from numb fingers. Several more hauled her upwards, and though she struggled still, they managed to carry her the rest of the way down the hill, her every weakening effort neutralized by the strength of her captors.

Their resistance at last defeated, the two women were bound with their hands behind their backs, hauled up, and largely dragged back to the center of the crossroads, where they were forced to their knees, kept upright largely by the strong hands gripping a shoulder on each of them. Sophia was maintaining consciousness. The blows to the head had opened a cut above her left eye, which bled down the side of her face, but on the whole her injuries were not as serious as Tessa's, merely the kind that left her exhausted and unable to continue fighting. She noted that the man who had greeted her first now held her sword, the tip in the dirt between his feet.

Jamie yet lived, his hands already bound by Sophia, and he was tossed down in the dirt beside her, where he did not rise from his side. His face had been severely beaten, and he looked to be fading in and out of consciousness. The Coterie men around them, and indeed they looked like Coterie, appeared annoyed, tossing uncertain glances between one another while they panted, tired from the fight.

At the head of the column of riders that approached midway through the fight, a woman was at their helm, and she dismounted now, making her way over to the captives. Her skin was pale and her hair black, her outfit like something a noble would wear on a hunting trip into the countryside rather than a criminal leader. It made sense, however, when she spoke, and Sophia recognized the voice.

"Quite a mess you've made here. Little difference it made." Miranda Threnhold had a bow on her back, though truth be told, Sophia never knew she had learned to shoot. She certainly didn't look to be a fighter in the traditional sense; she was dwarfed in size by nearly all the Coterie thugs that surrounded her. She reached a thin-fingered hand around the back of Sophia's head, wrenching it back by the braid to look at her face. "That should heal well enough, I think." She turned to the man holding Vesenia. "Were there any others?"

"An elven girl, ran off on foot towards the city," he answered. Miranda turned back to observe her prisoners.

"I assume you know what to do about that."

He nodded, before gesturing to two mounted men. "Ride her down. Dump the body somewhere that isn't the road, would you?" Wordlessly, they put their heels into their horses, and sped off down the path. Miranda turned her attention now to Tessa.

"And what of you? I'm not sensing any reason for you to be here any longer. Care to give me one? Or barring that, some last words?"

Tessa raised her head, a quiet sort of dignity in the motion despite her haggard condition. She narrowed her eyes at Miranda, tilting her head just slightly to the side, and then shrugged, a whisper of motion that twinged her shoulder wound, not that she’d let it show on her face just now.

“I don’t regret this. But you will.”

Miranda returned the gaze with an icy glare, before looking up to the man holding Tessa in place, and taking a large step back. "Dispose of this one."

Without much in the way of hesitation, he drew a knife, grabbed Tessa by the hair to pull her head back, and drew the blade deeply across her throat. The motion drew a gout of blood to the surface, and the last breath Tessa expelled was wet in sound. She closed her eyes, and slumped motionless to the sand.

Sophia closed her eyes until it was over, which Miranda took note of when she proceeded to grab her by the chin. Sophia jerked her head away, looking up to find an infuriating smirk on the woman's face.

"She won't be the only friend to die for you, if you're unwilling to see reason. For now, though, we have a short walk ahead of us." She gestured for Sophia to be stood up, at which point the axeman behind her hauled her to her feet, though he still had to support most of her weight. A gag was secured into place to prevent her from speaking, not that she had anything to say to Miranda. Frankly, she didn't care what her angle was in all this.

"The rest of you, clean this place up," Miranda called, heading back to her horse. "We need to move."




A number of rocky hills and winding paths away, Lia scrambled through the wilderness, trying to balance staying off the paths and making good time back to Kirkwall. She refused to let herself think of what had happened behind her, instead only focusing on reaching Lucien and doing her job.

She knew it would be more difficult, however, when she heard heavy hoofbeats approaching behind her. No sooner had she turned to look than an arrow whistled over her shoulder, barely missing her ear. Quickly she moved to get off the road and behind some cover so she couldn't be trampled by the horses, and her bow was immediately in her hands, an arrow nocked. Archery from horseback was difficult, and she was able to draw her arrow back before him.

Her arrow found the pursuer in the neck, sending him toppling over backwards off his horse, where he undoubtedly broke his neck or back upon crashing violently to the earth. The horseman that followed him, however, smoothly dismounted and charged Lia's position, tackling her just before she could draw back the string again on him. The two of them tumbled down a short hill of sand and dirt, Lia's bow and arrow flying from her hands. They split up halfway down and rolled to a stop at the bottom. The man was up on his feet first, drawing a knife and twirling it deftly in his hand.

"On your feet, girl. Let's have a little dance."

Glaring at him, Lia got to her feet and drew her own knife, flipping it backwards in her hand and settling into a crouch.

"Come on and try it, shem."

Setting

4 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

Lucien stroked the neck of his horse absently, the creature’s silvery coat smooth beneath his gauntlets. His face was set into a neutral expression, carefully so, but there was a barely-perceptible tension in the lines of his shoulders and limbs. He and about ten other Lions were fully armed, armored, and ready to depart on horseback or on foot, depending on what word came back to them, should any word do so at all. He was doing his best to be at ease, because he knew that the others, consciously or not, would pick up on his mood if he wasn’t careful about it. He was deeply worried, for Sophia and for the two he had sent with her, but he knew there was little point in stewing in it. So he’d kept himself busy with the preparations.

At present, he stood near Ashton and Estella, who along with several of the younger Lions, had insisted on being part of the reserve. Lia and Tessa were good friends of theirs, after all, and he would not deny them the chance to feel more useful while waiting for some word or another. The young woman had her arms crossed just below her chest, and was chewing her lip rather more actively than he believed she was aware.

“It’s been too long,” she said, glancing up at the sun’s position in the sky. Lucien found that he agreed—he’d given them enough time to return by now, and none of them had. Not Sophia, but also not Lia. That could either mean that nothing was wrong, or that everything was.

“It has.” He turned to Ashton, who was pacing back and forth. For present purposes, he’d been loaned a horse as well. “Ashton, I don’t like this. Can you run and get Nostariel? We may need her.” Idris was a good healer, but he had no magic at his disposal.

"Let's hope not," Ashton said. He stopped his pacing and moved toward the horse he'd been loaned. Time was of the essence, and if they were to move, he would like to move as quick as he possibly could. He'd rather not waste time walking to get Nos when he could ride. "I'll be back in a moment," Ashton told him, mounting the horse in a single smooth motion. He pulled on the reins to angle the horse toward the city, but something caught his gaze that caused him to pause.

A hooded figure approached, clearly making their way toward them. Ashton's hand went to the sword at his waist out of reaction, though further inspection proved the action unnecessary. The figure struggled to walk, and the cloak he wore was damp with something. It wasn't until a drop of crimson splashed on the ground under him did Ashton realize it was blood. Still, even bleeding and injured he didn't lower his guard. "Halt," Ashton ordered, blocking his path with his horse. "Who are you?" He demanded to know.

The injured man pulled back his hood, revealing a face that Ashton would only be able to recognize through descriptions that Sophia had provided him with. One gloved hand clutched a bleeding wound in his side, and his features were spattered with it as well. A two-handed sword about the length and size of Sophia's rested across his back, though he did not look to be in any position to draw it.

"Dairren Quinn," he managed. "I've... made a grave misjudgement." He said no more, however, instead collapsing to the ground before Ashton, and slipping out of consciousness.




Nostariel worked steadily on Quinn’s injuries, her pace as brisk and efficient as it ever was, though the shadows beneath her eyes were dark. The healer wore not a trace of her Warden armor, and only the lightest of her leathers, because there hadn’t been any time to prepare when Ash showed up at the clinic, and not for the reason she’d been hoping. They’d caught her up on the goings-on, and the way she figured it, Quinn was likely to have information that they needed, though she’d have healed him anyway, since it was largely against her principles not to.

A few of them were clustered in the side room she was using, her patient laid out on an upholstered table, covered in something water-resistant. The wound wasn’t negligible, but it wasn’t fatal, considering her skills and abilities. She took a second to tip back a potion when she’d finished with the deep-tissue work, repairing blood vessels and the like, and after that, sealing his skin over was a relatively simple matter.

“He should wake soon, I think.” It wasn’t always a sure thing, of course, but she’d done the necessary mending. That was usually all that was required. She certainly hoped he would.

Lucien was leaned back against the wall, his arms crossed mostly so he wouldn’t give into the urge to move them. His jaw was tight, his posture rigid, and his eyes didn’t leave the unmoving figure of Dairren Quinn. His head was nearly spinning with questions, things he wanted to ask or demand, but he knew that if it came down to it, there was only one he really cared about at the moment. “Thank you, Nostariel,” he murmured, the utterance more habit than consciously decided. He hadn’t lost his calm or his manners to his anxiety—yet.

“When he does… Ashton, you know more about this situation than any of us. If you would not mind handling the questions?” It was only logical, though it was difficult in this particular case for Lucien to leave matters to someone else, even if that someone was a friend. But he reminded himself that he trusted Ashton, and trusted his ability and his sense of urgency both.

Ashton looked up from his chair and nodded, though he added, "He's unlikely to say anything he doesn't want to, even in his condition. I know his type, they don't give anything up they don't want to." Even though, Ashton drew his sword from its sheath and placed it tip down in front of him, moving to lean on it. An intimidation tactic, one that he figured would have little effect on Quinn, but nonetheless it was worth an attempt. Even so, Ashton continued to speak to Lucien, "But he wouldn't be here if there wasn't something he wanted to say." With that, Ashton turned back toward Quinn and waited for him to wake up.

He did so in short order, letting out a groan a few moments after Ashton fell silent. His eyes opened, dark brown in color, and he tilted his head about, getting his bearings in the room. They lingered on his weapons, taken from him and piled in the corner next to Lucien, before moving to his rescuers, and captors. "Thank you for the healing," he murmured to Nostariel. Wincing, he sat himself up on the table.

"Sophia... she'll have been taken captive by now. If you sent people to shadow her... probably dead. I don't know what they want with her. I was a fool, thought I could control them a little longer." He moved to stand up, and found Nostariel attempting to support him. "Thank you, I'm fine. We need to move quickly, a small group. I know where they're going to hold her, and I know a way to get her out cleanly."

Ashton's grip on his sword tightened as Quinn tried to stand. "I'll prefer it," Ashton interjected with authority, "If you just sat instead." Time was of the essence, he knew this, but that was no excuse to drop his guard. He was not about to let go of his caution, not until he was sure that Quinn meant them no harm, and was indeed earnest in his desire to help them.

"Let's start with some answers instead, yeah? I'm not going anywhere without them," and there was no doubt in his mind that he was going this time. "The obvious ones first. What happened? Where's Sophia? Who's taken her? We need to know as much as you can tell us." Ashton watched the man intently, searching his face and body language for any indication that what he told him was anything but the truth.

Dairren appeared impatient with the questions, but he complied, returning to a seated position, and folding his hands together where the new guard captain could see them. "Sophia's likely in a cave formation on the Wounded Coast, near where that fool was leading her to me. I was supposed to be there, but the Coterie... I could only dupe them for so long. They grew tired of me, saw the opportunity, and didn't believe I would take it. They were right. I know not who leads them now, or what they want with her. It doesn't matter. We will retrieve her."

He gestured to the wound on his side. "They likely think I'm dead, or too injured to be a threat. I know a way into that cave system the Coterie isn't aware of. They weren't the first to use it. If we attack from the front, with your full strength, they may well just kill her. We can't risk that. We need to get inside quietly, and get out quick."

"Is there any reassurances you can give us that this isn't just a trap?" Ashton said stoically.

“What difference would it make?” Lucien spoke up at last. The best thing Quinn could give them to that effect was words, and those were already implied. The Lions’ Commander found it difficult to care. “We have no better option than going where he leads, and so that’s where we’re going.” His tone was unusually curt, but he didn’t even seem to notice. Meeting eyes with the room’s fifth and final occupant, he nodded. “I want Cor, Donnelly, Estella, and you. Tell everyone else to stand by. Idris is in charge.” Havard nodded and exited the room quickly, to convey the orders.

Reaching down to the gear he’d piled beside him, Lucien hefted most of it in one hand, the hand-and-a-half alone resting in the other. This, he handed to Quinn, hilt-first. It was of a similar construction to Vesenia, and an icy spike of fear lanced him at the reminder. They’d wasted too much time already.

“Don’t make me regret this.” He wasn’t a man for elaborate threats or intimidation at all, really, and the words, such as they were, didn’t quite count as either. If it hadn’t been an imperative, it might have counted as a simple statement of fact.

Ashton exhaled loudly through his nostrils. He wasn't overly enthused with trusting the man who'd been a shadow for the better part of Sophia's life, but made no voice to try and dissuade Lucien from his course. He had a feeling anything that he could say wouldn't matter, and that there would be no stopping him either way. Still, Ashton would've liked to wring a little more information from Quinn before they set off, though it looked like that wasn't happening. Instead he stood and sheathed his sword, and gave Quinn a long stare.

"Be careful," he said, before turning to Lucien, "We can't help her if we're dead."




Sophia was mostly in a daze while she was hauled off by the Coterie, only glancing back once to watch them carry off Tessa's body along with all the others they had slain before succumbing. They wouldn't burn the bodies, as they couldn't afford making a smoke signal giving them away. They wouldn't take long burying them, either, not with the imminent counter-attack coming. They were smart enough to know by now that abducting Sophia Dumar, and murdering a member of the Argent Lions would not go without an answer.

Which meant Tessa would likely lie in a shallow grave, surrounded by dead Coterie thugs. Sophia could not help feeling shame for the result, which seemed so obvious. And yet the choice had been irresistible, a chance to finally put her mind at peace by seeing this man who claimed to be her father. She didn't know for sure that he had betrayed her, for she had not met him here, only Miranda. She'd already known Miranda was wicked, and willing to do a great many things to restore her family's power. This, however, she would not have predicted.

By the time Sophia thought to pay attention to her surroundings, she had already entered the darkness of a cave system. It was clearly a mine of some kind, likely from the days when magisters still ruled over Kirkwall. No one had worked it in many years, but the hollowed out structure of the place still held, serving as a fairly defensible base for the Coterie here. The criminals seemed to know which way they were going, taking several twists and turns through hallways of varying widths and lengths, leading her deep into the earth.

Eventually they arrived in a small room, entirely empty save for two support beams situated away from the walls. After warning her not to struggle, Sophia was untied, and forcefully stripped of her armor, leaving her feeling naked, though she still wore breeches and a tunic. The dirt felt cold and wet between her toes. Forced to sit, her hands were pulled behind her back around a support beam, and tied back together. The thugs proceeded to carry her equipment out of the room, a few remaining with Miranda. Jamie was tied to the other post, silent as ever.

"You're probably not feeling terribly warm towards me at the moment," Miranda said, settling down on her knees in front of Sophia, and leaning back on her heels. "That's understandable. You were expecting a family reunion. You may still have a chance for that, provided you cooperate, and provided Quill doesn't do anything dumber than I expect him to."

"Did he betray me to you?" Sophia felt miserable for even conversing with the woman, but she'd brought up Dairren, and she couldn't help the curiosity. Part of her wanted Miranda to say yes, if only to confirm that the man was as evil as she wanted him to be.

"Quill? Oh, no. From what I understand, he's quite enamored with you. Still, not the shining knight he'd have you believe." Sophia wasn't sure the man she knew would ever have referred to himself as a shining knight with a straight face, but then, she didn't expect Miranda to know the man well at all. "In fact, it may surprise you to know that Quill actually believes everything to be going according to plan. How amusing it is, when the king places himself into checkmate."

The conflicting statements clashed like charging lines in Sophia's mind, and the confusion must have shown on her face, as it pulled another smile from Miranda. Neither woman said any more on the subject, however. Sophia assumed she simply couldn't trust anything Miranda told her about anyone else, and she suspected the woman was much more interested in talking about herself regardless. "So what do you want from me? You said you needed my cooperation."

"It will require some effort on your part, yes, but I'm sure that this can be relatively painless for us both if we work together. Well, from here on out, that is. I've noticed that you've begun pushing back against Meredith, reminding the people that she was never meant to rule this city." She leaned forward, putting a hand on each of Sophia's shoulders, though she maintained an arm's length distance. "You know she shouldn't remain in power, but you don't want to seize that power for yourself. You want other things. The way I see it, I can free you to pursue those other things." Sophia refused to break the gaze that the two women shared, wondering just what crazed plan she had in mind.

"With your help, I believe that the family meant to rule Kirkwall can return to power. The family that ruled it long before your father ever stumbled onto that throne."

"And why would I help you? Why would I want you in power instead?"

"Don't you worry about that. Your motivation should be well on their way by now."

Setting

4 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

Estella tried to relax, knowing that she was causing her poor horse a fair amount of discomfort, riding as stiffly as she was. Still, it was difficult, when everything seemed so… on edge. The Lions rode with an edge of anxiety, or at least the younger ones did. Havard projected the same cool detachment he always did, though she like the rest of them knew that was partly just a front. Cor’s eyes wouldn’t stop flicking over the landscape, as though permanently on watch for Coterie men to pop out of the sparse brush. Donnelly’s breathing was so regular she knew he was concentrating on it, though his free hand rested uncertainly on the pommel of his sword.

This wasn’t like other jobs they’d been on before, and they could feel it. There were people involved in this that they knew personally, people they cared about. Sophia was around the barracks a lot, and so many of them considered her, if not precisely a friend, then at least a friendly face. And none of them could mistake how much she meant to their commander, even if he wasn’t the most demonstrative man in the world. But more than that… Tessa and Lia both were still out there somewhere, and not knowing where they were, or if they were even still alive… that was difficult on all of them.

The weirdest part of the whole thing, to her at least, was that she couldn’t read Lucien’s face. He rode with the kind of expert ease he always had, being trained to cavalry and all, but that was just automatic, and she knew it told her nothing. That even she—who had learned to read the subtle nuances of Rilien’s visage—couldn’t begin to guess at his thoughts, disturbed her. She didn’t know if he trusted Quinn at all, she didn’t know if he thought, with the Guard Captain, that this was a trap he had to spring, or something else entirely. She couldn’t even tell if he was upset, though he had to be, didn’t he? It was making her uneasy, in a completely different way from the rest of it. He was always so… warm, but looking at him now made her feel chilled somehow.

So she focused on her friends, riding close to Cor, Donnelly the outriding flank guard on her other side, and she tried to keep herself as still and level as she imagined Rilien would be in this situation. Calm, composed, controlled. That would be more effective, more likely to help, than any amount of worry or fretting. It wasn’t easy, but she’d had the best to learn from.

They’d been riding for a while when they reached a small crossroads, one stirred up by a churning mixture of hoofprints, footprints, arrowheads, and blood, strewn over the sand like some macabre afterimage of death. Seeing it reminded her of too many things, and she swallowed down the bile that threatened to rise in her throat. This… clearly, a battle had taken place here, a desperate one at that. She tried not to imagine her friends as part of it, because it was hard to look at all the blood and believe they had survived. That anyone had survived.

Dark blue eyes flickered from Cor, whose jaw was so tight a muscle in it jumped, to Donnelly, slightly green, and then to Lucien, whose face was just as stony as it had been the whole ride.

Ashton was less guarded with his emotions, as a grimace worked itself into his face, but he did not speak his thoughts. There had been a fight, that much was clear and he'd expect nothing less from Sophia, Tessa, and Lia. However, none of them had any idea where they were at, save for Quinn, and Ashton was not about to begin trusting the man now. Still, they had no choice in the matter but to believe the man knew that the were safe and could lead them to where they were kept. It was not a pleasant state of affairs, to put mildly. Ashton spared a glance at Lucien before returning his gaze back to Quinn.

There were no bodies.

This was the detail that Nostariel chose to fix in her mind. No bodies meant that someone had survived this, perhaps many someones. It did not bode well in the long run—those she knew were not the type to bury others in shallow graves or dispose of them in the ocean, and the fact that her horse could even now be treading on such a burial site was disconcerting, to say the least. But if she knew someone had survived, she would believe that Sophia and the others were among them until she had no choice but to acknowledge otherwise.

“Where to from here?” She directed her question to Serah Quinn, as he was the only one who knew where they were supposed to be headed.

Dairren's face was not an easy one to read, clearly being someone that had some experience in concealing his emotions, and his eyes held a nearly permanently hard look to them. They looked now not to the ground and the evidence of the battle that had occurred, but rather to the surroundings, which appeared to concern him more. He brought his horse to a halt, and smoothly dismounted, his earlier injury appearing not to bother him overmuch.

"It's not far now. Leave the horses here, we go on foot." He made a hooking gesture of his right hand, indicating the desired direction. "We should swing wide along this road, to avoid possible sentries. Just in case, have your weapons ready, and stay silent from here on out." To aid those with heavier armor, Estella suggested tying fabric around and between some of the noisier joints, and quickly sacrificed a cloak for the process, which was completed in efficient silence. The resulting lack of metal-on-metal chinking, however soft, was a relief.

Dairren led them into the hills, following the road for only a short period of time. The group moved as quietly as they could, though some were more adept at this than others. Dairren was swift in his assessments of the land, stopping for only as long as he deemed necessary to properly scout out the land ahead, and confirm that no enemies lay in wait for them. Though he wielded a hand and a half sword at the moment, a number of smaller blades could be seen sheathed, from short swords down to smaller knives, previously concealed under his hooded cloak, which he no longer wore. His face was lined with age, but still his step was sure and strong.

It was about the moment when it began to seem like he was leading them nowhere that he held up his fist and indicated that the group should come to a full stop. "It's just ahead. Move softly, follow my lead." Moving out from behind the rock he'd stopped at, he descended a small rise and approached what appeared from behind to be a relatively average rock formation. After shoving aside some overgrown bushes, however, he revealed a doorway in the rock, visible slits carving out a roughly man-sized hole.

"The magister who lorded over this place, long ago," he explained, pushing aside another bush and feeling across the face of the rock with his hand, "had an entrance of his own installed, so he might come and go without the slaves seeing him, I imagine. I discovered it in the earliest weeks of my flight from Kirkwall, over a decade ago." After searching a moment more, his hand settled on a subtly hidden handle in the rock, which he closed his fingers around, twisted, and pulled.

With a surprising lack of noise, the rock barring their path sank into the earth, opening up a passageway. No light came from within, but a torch could be seen set into the wall. Taking it from the sconce, he held the end of it out to Nostariel. "If you would, Warden..." Nostariel nodded, flicking her hand in a sharp motion that produced a flame over her palm. Holding it to the end of the torch, she passed it back and forth a few times, until there was a healthy flame going, and then snuffed hers out by closing her fingers over it. With a slight smile and a silent nod, she stepped back, knowing she’d be better at the middle or back of the group rather than in the front.

"The other end is barred as well," Dairren explained, leading the way into the tunnel. "They'll not see us approach." The hall was only wide enough for one at a time to fit in, and with decent spacing between each member, they one by one filed inside, leaving the doorway open behind them. The sound inside seemed to echo more strongly off the walls, every little clink of armor that was not suppressed sounding twice as loud as before, though Quinn was quick to assure them that they would not be heard from the other side.

Eventually, the tunnel came to a sharp ninety degree turn right, and her Dairren stopped, finding what appeared to be a small peephole in the wall, allowing him vision of the room on the other side. "The most likely place they would choose to keep prisoners would be... here. The room's empty." He frowned, the pause his first since arriving in front of the mercenary headquarters. His stony visage threatened to break for only the briefest of moments, however, as he looked back to Lucien, the second in line.

"We'll have to search room by room. This door will open into a sort of back rooms, offices and sleeping areas of the management. It's the logical place they would keep prisoners. Any Coterie we encounter must be dealt with quickly, and quietly." With that, he quickly located and pulled another handle, and a door that was previously invisible to them once again opened with a surprising lack of sound, allowing them to file into the empty room. Two support beams were all that stood before them, the room otherwise bare, save for many light footprints in the dirt.

Lucien said nothing, his eyes falling half-lidded for a moment before he nodded. He turned over his shoulder, casting a look to the others. “Mind your steps, and look out for each other.” Of course, he hardly thought Ashton and Nostariel needed such basic advice, but he was not oblivious to the unease in his Lions, and he knew that they needed to hear him sounding calm and confident, whether he felt that way or not. They were also smart enough to know that this was probably a trap, and that he was springing it on purpose. Now, though, he was beginning to see more dimensions to it, including that not everything was as Quinn had planned for it to be. How that worked out for them was as yet undetermined, but he wasn’t planning for anything in particular.

"They were here," Ashton noted aloud. He knelt beside one of the support beams, examining the dirt around it. Someone had been there, judging by the dirt's displacement. However, it wasn't the dirt that told him that either Sophia or Lia had been there. Plucking something off of the splinters of the beam, Ashton turned around and showed everyone what he'd found. A long golden blonde strand of hair. "Recently, though why did they move them, I wonder?" he said, letting the hair slip through his fingers before standing again, gripping his bow with both hands. "Let's go, the quicker the better."

Dairren did not seem to find the finding of a hair interesting, sparing it only a single glance, instead moving to the edge of the open doorway to ensure that no one outside had heard the words just spoken. After a brief, tense moment, he gave the signal to follow him out into the hall beyond. Torches periodically dotted the walls, allowing Dairren to drop his own, and they cautiously peered into the other nearby rooms, finding nothing. There were only three on each side in this particular wing, all with their doors open, and all devoid of anyone, hostage or Coterie. It left them with little choice but to proceed down the hall and closer to the center of the mine's upper level.

"I don't like this," Quinn admitted, as he neared a corner. Coming to a stop, he placed his back against the wall. "Up ahead is the mouth of the cave, the main... entrance. Shit." He had peered around the corner with one eye, and clearly did not like what he saw. Turning back to look at this others, his mouth was set into a hard line, his mood clearly having turned fouler than before.

"They have her up ahead. I saw her. They're... waiting for us. I don't know how they knew about the other entrance." Dairren's expression was not one of panic, but his frustration was clearly evident by now. "We'll have to speak to them, then. We can't risk a fight, not now."

Before anyone could respond to them, however, a woman's voice called clearly from beyond, from the main room of the cave. "There's no point hiding anymore! You have no more plays, Quill, and no routes of retreat." And before Dairren could so much as curse in anger, another voice sounded out from behind them, a man's, likely just having emerged from the tunnel they entered from.

"You're cut off, Lions. Stand down, or the lady gets her throat opened." Slowly, he entered the hallway behind them, in cover behind a tower shield, and more Coterie men followed in his wake. They made no move to attack, but remained defensive. "Go," the one in the lead said. "Don't even need to drop your weapons yet if you don't like. But get out in the main room. Lady Threnhold wants to speak. No one else needs to die."

Threnhold. Nostariel remembered that name from years ago. And a face—a lovely fair woman with dark hair. A noble, so what was she doing with the Coterie? But though the thought seemed incongruous, when the group moved into the larger chamber of the complex, she was indeed present. Dressed less finely than she had been at Sophia’s birthday party of course, but unmistakably the same woman. Nostariel looked next to Sophia, who was standing somewhat in front of Miranda. Armorless, bound at her wrists and ankles. She looked a bit scraped up, but Nostariel supposed this was likely to be the result of the fight that had resulted in her capture rather than anything since. There was no trace of Tessa or Lia to be seen.

Miranda held Sophia by the shoulder with one hand, the other clutching an elegantly crafted knife. Sophia was gagged once again and thus prevented from speaking. The two were situated on an elevated wooden platform that spanned much of the room's right and far wall, accompanied by over a dozen Coterie archers, with bows poised on the approaching group. The criminals that had flanked them continued to press them forward from behind, while at least twenty five more awaited them on the ground level ahead.

"Glad to see that sense could prevail," Miranda stated, smiling. "If all goes well, Sophia will be released from this place shortly. The rest of you will have to stay for some time, sadly, but arrangements for your releases will be made as well, down the line. This is truly nothing personal, merely a step I needed to take, before the opportunity was gone to me forever."

Dairren seemed to be only half hearing her, his eyes locked on Sophia. He looked pained, still confused, and angered. Sophia still clearly bore the weight of what had happened earlier, and now the rippling effects of her capture. It had led to the subsequent capture of many of her closest friends. And now, with Quinn right before her, she found herself more concerned for the others. Her original purpose in all of this no longer seemed to matter.

"Lay down your weapons," Miranda commanded. "The men will escort you... to your chambers, so to speak."

Lucien initially made no move to divest himself of his armament. “Where are my scouts?” He inquired softly, his voice on an even lower register than usual, probably not intentionally, though it did match the narrow cast of his eyes and the tightened way he held himself in place. He didn’t look directly at Sophia, but rather squarely over her shoulder at Miranda.

"She was instructed to come alone, if you'll recall. The scouts are dead."

"There's no way this'll work," Ashton said slowly, but angrily. "You've got the Commander of the Lions, the Guard Captain, and a Grey Warden. There's only one way this works out for you," Ashton said. However, the grip he had on his bow loosened before he threw it onto the ground, followed by his quiver. "Badly. I'll see your pretty little neck in a noose before all is said and done," Ashton said, raising his hands to his head so that the Coterie could take his other weapons.

A fist was the first thing to reach him, clocking him in the side of the temple. Ashton's head snapped viciously to the side, before whipping back and staring at the man intently. A trickle of blood fell from the side of his head. He'd remember that face yet.

The Lions, particularly the younger ones, looked stricken at the news about their comrades, but Lucien himself said nothing, and reached up to unbuckle the thick leather band holding Everburn to his back. He lowered it to the ground with care, then took the knife out of his boot as well. That was all the weapons he had on him, but he stood stiffly while a few members of the Coterie patted him down as well. Behind him, his mercs took their cue and did the same, though Cor may have accidentally stomped on a toe with his heavy boots. It earned him a warning look from his Commander, and he looked down, face set into a scowl.

It wasn’t until he was being led away that he dared meet eyes with Sophia, and something in his stony expression shifted as he focused on her. “Whatever she wants, don’t give it to her. Trust us to fix this.” Perhaps rather bold words, from a man being led to captivity, but he seemed certain of them.

Setting

4 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

The great axeman Sophia had struggled with at the start of the fight took her by the shoulder now, roughly tossing her into her new cell, a wall off section deep in the mine, a lower level than her friends were being held in above. The lone torch that burned on the wall was pitifully weak, leaving much of the room in shadow. She did not even see where Jamie was until he stirred, noticing her return. They didn't even bother tying him to anything, content with just binding his hands and leaving him in the corner. They'd nearly had him executed, before he pleaded well enough to live, by arguing that he would help sway Sophia, that the two of them had known each other since they were children.

Sophia was feeling particularly unswayed when her shoulder hit the stone floor of the cave first, causing her to grunt out in pain. They had at least cut her legs free so she could walk here without being carried. Miranda seemed to disapprove of the rough treatment as well, walking in behind the axeman. "If I want her to be struck, I will command you to strike her. Are we clear?" The axeman simply looked at her, and slowly nodded, before moving to bind Sophia to the wall. A ring had been mounted to the wall, forcing Sophia to hold her arms above her head while in a sitting position. Miranda muttered something about brutes as the axeman finished and stepped aside.

"I trust your motivation to assist me has improved?" Miranda asked, crouching down in front of Sophia. "I have shown you that I am very willing to kill your friends, and now I have eight of them imprisoned above us, at my mercy." Sophia felt that the hatred welling up inside her was familiar, though she had only felt something like a few times before. Against Petrice, when her brother was killed, and against the Arishok, when her father was killed.

"If you so much as lay a finger on them..."

"What? What will you do? What can you do? Barehanded and alone, you are weak, and outnumbered. When I set you free, you can come back here with an army of guards and Templars if you like, and it still won't change the fact that all those you care about here will be dead long before you can do anything about it." Sophia would have spit in her face had her throat not been so dry. It took all the control she had to remember Lucien's words, and not give in, to even entertain the idea of assisting this woman. For Miranda, everything had to go right for this to work. If only one thing went Sophia's way, this entire scheme could come crashing down. Hopefully they would all be able to crawl away from the wreckage.

"Have it your way. If you need another demonstration to be convinced, I will provide you with one." With that, Miranda stood, and walked from the chamber. The axeman closed the door behind him, and stood guard outside. Sophia could hear Miranda walking away, hear a Coterie thug report in as she went.

"Vic and Dunbar haven't reported back yet, m'lady..."

"And you're sure they're not just taking their time with the task?"

The voices trailed off, what more Sophia could hear instead interrupted by Jamie's voice, which surprised Sophia slightly. He had sat up, moved somewhat closer to her, settled into a kneeling position.

"I'll find a way to make this right, Sophia. By the Maker, I swear."

She was tempted to laugh, but didn't wish to insult him. She needed all the help she could get, after all. "It's a little late to start playing the hero, Jamie."




Nostariel grimaced. Perhaps Estella had managed to avoid her current predicament, but the Warden was publicly a mage, which meant that even despite her small size and relative lack of physical strength, she had been bound exceedingly thoroughly. While her feet were tied together with rope, her arms had three different bands of metal secured around them, making simply singeing them off an impossibility—she’d brand her skin before the metal would melt, even with her own fire. Ice was an option, but would take an exceedingly long time.

Still… she had to do something. Pushing her core temperature down as far as she could without risking injury, she began the slow process of encasing her arms, and consequently, their bonds, in ice. She was going to enjoy the next part of this even less. “Ash… when I’m done here, I’m going to need to borrow your feet.”

They had searched Ashton pretty thoroughly. He was without his captain's plate. They'd found the hidden blade he'd kept in his boots, unfortunately, as well as he'd been keeping under a plate in his greaves. His hands had been shackled together and his ankles tied together tightly with thick rope. Still, it was a rather light treatment compared to the bonds Nostariel had to chew through. Ashton managed a short chuckle, though all of the humor had been drained. At this point, it was more of a reaction than anything. "Anything you want, sweetheart," he said dryly.

Ashton rolled over onto his side and began to struggle with the bindings at his feet. Fortunately they'd left him with his boots on, which would make slipping out easier. Ashton continued to roll until he hit the far wall, where he then positioned himself where he sat against it, though with his back against the floor and his feet climbing it. What followed was several feverish attempts to use the rough wall to drag his boots off. Eventually, the did come off, but not without leaving nasty bruises on his ankles. Rolling back on to his side, he then began to try and work his feet out of the inch or so extra room he bought himself. It was a good thing then, that he'd always been flexible. Though they felt like they've been through a meet grinder, his feet were finally free.

"Now what?" he asked.

“You’re going to want to put your shoes back on.” Nostariel sucked in a shuddering breath—magic or not, working ice up her arms like this was cold, and her core temperature was already low. But she had to freeze these things to the point of brittleness, and they were only cheap, flawed iron, so she believed it was possible.

Hopping ungracefully over to the door, she rested her frozen wrists on the handle, which was locked, obviously, but the only thing in the room that would hold against what she needed to subject them to. “I’m going to vanish the ice, but the metal will still be frozen. You have to kick at them until they come off.” It went without saying that it would take more than one blow, and she did not anticipate this being at all painless, but it had to be done. If they could free her hands, his would be comparatively easy, and getting out of here would become not only possible, but maybe even likely.

“You probably owe me anyway, for the Deep Roads.” She tried for levity, but her tone fell a little flat even to her own ears.

Ashton looked at his boots, and then looked her before closing his eyes and shaking his head. The easy part was getting them off. Getting them back on again wouldn't be as fun. Dragging himself back to where his boots were, he pushed them against the wall with his toes and tried to angle his feet so that they would just slide in. It took more than one try to get his feet into them, and even when he did, a piece of leather in the sole bunched up against the heel. Grumbling, he rolled over to his knees and finally made his way to his feet.

"We don't talk about that," Ashton said with a forced smile. Angling himself so that he could put as much strength into the kick as he could he spoke again, "Alright. On three. One... Two... Three--" and his boot struck the cold iron. It didn't break, but he didn't expect it to on only the first kick. The force managed to throw him off balance on his one foot, and wasn't helped by the fact that his hands were still bound. Still, he found his balance quickly and did it again, and again, careful not to miss and hit Nostariel full on.

Nostariel did her best not to cry out at the impact, though she had to admit, being kicked in the half-frozen arms while they were being held at a painful angle was not the most pleasant of experiences. It took several more tries before Ashton broke through the uppermost band, and by that point, she was sure her arms were going to be a mottled mess of bruises the next day. “Is that… so?” Her reply was a bit late, but honestly, figuring out how to string the words together was the only thing keeping her mind off dreading the next hit, so she spoke anyway. “Because it seems more to me like… it’s what’s keeping us from talking at all.”

The second band snapped under the next blow, and she nearly sobbed her relief as her arms were allowed some slack, circulation returning to her arms with a stinging pins-and-needles sensation. Her wrists were still held, but that wasn’t too bad—she could move her arms around enough to do targeted magic now, and that was a lot more than she’d had before.

Ashton panted, but was glad that they finally got a majority of the bands off of Nostariel. Once he caught his breath, and made sure that she was okay considering, he spoke again. "Look Nos, it's just-- Wait... Listen," Ashton said, stopping in the middle of the sentence. A pair of muted voices were heard approaching the door-- and they weren't familiar. "Someone's coming. Get behind the door," he whispered, gesturing with his head and slipping to the wall on the other side.

"Can you do magic?"

Nostariel sucked in a breath, forcing a wry smile. “Just who do you think I am?”




Lucien found himself split from the rest of his people, and brought into the room they’d initially entered, with Quinn. Both were bound at the hands and feet, and they’d taken a number of precautions with him perhaps due to his size. His wrists were manacled together, and his arms were tied further at the elbow, which gave him little room to move. His feet were also shackled, and he’d been tethered to one of the support beams in the room, though there was enough give in the chain that he could move about three feet in any direction. Of course, both doors in the room were shut by this point, offering no immediate escape route.

Testing the strength of the bonds, Lucien flexed his arm muscles against the ties halfway up his arms first. They were tight, but only rope, unlike the metal bands around his wrists. They were, therefore, more likely to give. He cast about for something to work the rope against in hope of fraying it, and settled on the pillar itself. If it had managed to catch some of Sophia’s hair earlier, it was less than perfectly smooth, and with enough diligence, that was all he’d need for the first part of this process.

“How long have you known Lady Threnhold?” He asked of the man tied to the other pillar, backing up against his own and using his hands to feel for any especially roughened portions of the beam. It was a question with a purpose, of course—now was hardly the time for idle conversation, even if he’d been in half a mood for it, which he was not.

"A few minutes," Quinn answered, curtly. He looked a fair bit different stripped of his outer layers. Without any head covering, he was revealed to be entirely bald. His arms, now bare of sleeves, were marked heavily with scarring, as was what bit of his chest showed in the unbuttoned portion of his tunic. Physically, he was not nearly so impressive as Lucien, though he was not a weakling by any means. Well built for his age, perhaps. A weathered warrior.

He looked particularly weathered now, however, and it carried through in his tone. "I know of the woman. I served in the guard while her father was Viscount. She was just a girl then. I suspected I was running out of time with the Coterie, but I did not expect someone like her to swoop in and steal them so easily." He spent a moment fussing with his own restraints, looking around for any sign of weakness in the pillar he was bound to.

"How long have you known Sophia?" It was quite likely that he already knew the answer to that question, but it was also likely one with a purpose.

Trying to work the ropes binding his elbows against the pillar was no simple task, considering the height of the roughest patch necessitated him crouching, but it felt to Lucien like he was getting somewhere. Something about Quinn’s answer didn’t sit especially well with him—if the only part of his acquaintance with Miranda was that old, then she was quite something for being able to predict exactly what he would do. Either she’d discovered all of the necessary facts some other way, which was possible… or there was something else going on here that only they and the Coterie knew about.

But for the moment, Lucien did not believe that Dairren wished any harm on Sophia. In fact, he was relatively certain the other man really did want little more than to get her out of here alive. And so, for the duration, he was willing to set aside his doubts and simply act as allies. He, at least, had little to hide. “Seven and a half years, give or take. I suppose she’s trying for the Viscount’s throne, then? Sophia’s support would carry weight, if nobody knew it was coerced.” He hated politics.

"It must be her angle," Dairren agreed. When Lucien did not become confrontational with him, he too seemed to back off from it, for the moment ceasing his struggle of trying to loosen his bonds, and letting his head fall back against the post.

"I couldn't be there for her birth," he said, closing his eyes, "but I've known Sophia since she was a babe. Watched her grow. Protected her when she moved into the Keep. As a child, she would ask me about her mother. Marlowe was busy, or didn't want to speak of it, she would say. So I would tell her what I could of Ves, but I never had a way with words. I taught her to protect herself..." He trailed off, opening his eyes again to look at Lucien.

"I always thought I might die before I could tell her I was her father... but I never thought I would die with her hating me. Because of Marlowe's lies..."

“In my experience, family matters are always somewhat complicated,” Lucien replied, sparing Quinn a glance before he took in another breath and went back to sawing away at the ropes. “But whether he lied or not, the Viscount Dumar loved Sophia a great deal, and she him. You won’t get anywhere trying to talk to her if you attempt to make that less than it is.” A few more passes, and there was enough fray in the rope that a few moments pulling with all his strength snapped it clean in two, leaving him only with the shackles.

Surprisingly, those were the easier problem. “Thank you, Rilien,” he murmured under his breath, working his wrists against the manacles to get an idea of how much give they had. The long sleeves of his tunic were thick, considering that he wore it underneath full plate, and they’d fastened the metal shackles over them rather than under, which meant that with a little work, he’d pushed up the sleeves and suddenly had a lot more room to work. Pulling against them too much cut into his wrists, but he’d dealt with worse. With a bit of finesse, they were almost loose enough to get his hands out of… but not quite.

Well… it would appear he had little choice. Leaning himself awkwardly back against the beam, Lucien set his hand at a strange angle, locking his jaw as he drove his body weight backwards against every natural instinct. He heard the distinct, muffled crack as one of his hands broke, in such a way that he was then able to worm it out of the cuff. His dominant hand, he didn’t bother with, because he needed at least one of them to be fully functional, and the extra bloodied cuff dangling around it wasn’t going to hinder him much.

Dairren appeared somewhat contemplative of Lucien's words as he watched man force his arms free by breaking one of his own hands, though shortly after this was done he heard voices from beyond their door.

"Lady Threnhold wants the Lion Commander. Bring him down to the lower level."

Well… that nicely complicated matters. Lucien had moved his hands behind him at the first sign of an approaching guard, but now he had to act quickly, forcing his broken hand back into the shackle, so that anyone following from behind would believe it still held fast. At least he knew he could get it back out again… if it didn’t swell too much beforehand.

Immediately afterwards the door was roughly forced open, and two Coterie thugs entered the room, closing the door behind them. One of them wore a grin on his face, watching the chained Lucien.

"Never honestly thought I'd get a chance to see this. You've annoyed the hell out of us, you and the little shits in yer company. Whattaya say, we soften him up for the lady first?" The other stayed nearer to the door, crossing his arms and rolling his eyes.

"Just lemme know when you're done. We shouldn't take too long." The man closer to Lucien, not yet within arm's reach, pulled his fingers through a set of brass knuckles, his grin growing.

Just then, however, the doorway leading to the outside began to slide open, and the two Coterie men froze, staring at it in confusion. The handle certainly hadn't been triggered from this side. Their surprise grew further still when on the other side was nothing but an elven girl wielding a bow and arrow, the string already drawn back, aim already taken.

The arrow was loosed before either man had time to say a word, tearing through the throat of the thug nearer to the door. He fell to his knees, choking on his own blood, more of which spurted down his front. Lia had her knife drawn already by the time the second thug was able to react and move to punch her, but in so doing he took a step that brought him too close to Lucien.

That was a terrible mistake. Lucien seized the opportunity, freeing his hand again and reaching out, grasping the back of man’s head in one hand and pushing downwards with both force and leverage, bringing his knee up at the same time. The impact broke the man’s nose, and cracked several of the other bones in his face. When he fell to the floor, Lucien’s foot came down on his neck, and the resulting crunch was wet and rather loud in the room, all things considered. The man didn’t move after that. Lucien took a moment to pull in a deep breath, his granite expression cracking only several seconds later. He smiled, slight but genuine, at his surprise rescuer.

“Impeccable timing, Lia. I don’t suppose you can pick a lock?”

"I think..." Lia said, moving forward, "he should have a key." She walked with an obvious limp. Her right leg appeared to have been slashed by a short blade on the outside of her thigh, a wound she'd tied off tightly with a strip of cloth. There were several other notable bruises forming and smaller cuts, but otherwise, she was intact. Crouching down, she rooted around the thug's clothes, before she pulled out the needed key to Lucien's shackles.

"I saw them," she said, pausing briefly while she freed the rest of Lucien's restraints. "I saw them take away Tessa's body. I... I know where to find her. I'd have tried to stop them, but..."

The smile fell away as quickly as it had arrived. “You did the right thing, Lia, and I’m grateful for it.” When he was freed, he briefly set his unbroken hand on her shoulder, squeezing softly, as if in reassurance. Turning swiftly to the dead man, he fished around in their pockets until he found the second key, and used it to free Quinn of his bonds as well, handing him the sword one of their guards had been carrying. Lucien himself took up a one-handed blade, seeing as he only had the one good hand presently, but with luck, that was something Nostariel could see to.

“I do believe it is time to thank the Lady Threnhold for her hospitality.”

Setting

4 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

Sword in hand again, Quinn rose to his feet, moving to the door. Lia nocked another arrow, making sure to stay behind Lucien's extra bulk. Dairren looked back at Lucien, one hand resting on the handle of the door. "Sure to be more guards on the other doors. You and I will hold them, while the girl frees the others. You can pick locks, yes?"

Lia narrowed her eyes at him. "Don't see why everyone's just assuming... fine, yeah, I can pick them if I have to. I'll try the keys first, though." Dairren appeared unconcerned with accidentally tripping on a point of racial tension, instead adjusting his grip and getting used to the weight of the new blade in his hand.

"Ready?"

Lucien nodded shortly, and when the door opened, he was the first one through, allowing Lia and Dairren to follow at their best opportunity. As promised, there were guards beyond the door, though they were clearly unprepared for what greeted them. Lucien’s movements were unconscious, more the memory of his muscle than any effort to strategize on his part, though his training lent them a fluidity that was far from mechanical. The guard in front raised a sword, but Lucien deflected it to the side with his own, then drove his elbow, since he couldn’t use his hand, into the man’s windpipe, hitting hard enough to break his collarbones. That put him out for long enough that the remaining two could be dealt with, and he’d have not the air to raise an alarm.

Bereft of his armor, he’d reverted to moving a lot more than he usually did in a straightforward combat situation, making surprisingly little noise for one not especially inclined to stealth. His face remained set into a grim line as he swung the stolen sword in a horizontal arc, slicing deep into the second man’s neck. He didn’t follow through far enough to decapitate him, because it was, at present, a waste of time. Instead, he yanked the sword out, and the body collapsed to the ground, the half-severed head lolling grotesquely to the side. The sword, swiftly diverted, sheathed itself in the third man’s chest, puncturing a lung so that he, too, had no ability to cry out. That one slumped forward against the blade, and Lucien raised a foot, planting it in his chest and casting him off the sword, driving it finally down to end the slowly-fading life of the first.

He glanced back behind him for a moment, presumably to ensure that the others were still following, then bent down, noting that the first man had an entire ring of keys on his belt. There were several more doors in this hallway alone, though as Quinn had said before, this seemed the best area of the complex in which to keep captives, so it stood to reason that they were all nearby. Tossing the key ring to Lia, he spoke softly.

“There should be enough keys here for most of these doors.” There wasn't much time to say more, though, because the guards further down the hall had caught sight of what was happening, and at least one was heading away from them, probably to raise an alarm. Tightening his grip on the hilt of the dead man's blade, Lucien started forward to meet the rest. If he could push them back past the line of cells, it would be a lot easier for Lia to free the others quickly.

The first door on Lia’s right opened obediently once she found the right key, and swung open only to reveal Estella on the other side of it, scowling at what appeared to be a bent hairpin of some kind. “Can’t get anything right,” she muttered under her breath, but despite the words, she and her cellmate Donnelly were both completely free of restraints somehow. She quickly glanced up, and, seeing Lia, her face broke into a smile.

“Oh, thank the Maker you’re all right,” she breathed, surging upwards to her feet. She looked for a moment as though she wanted to say more, but the noise of battle outside stymied any further celebration at the realization. “Donnelly, they’re here. Let’s go.”

“Good t’ see you, Lia,” he added with a grin, but it fell back into a more serious expression when he followed the two young women out of his confinement. Fortunately, at this point, there were enough dead Coterie men and women for the two of them to arm themselves decently, and Lucien and Dairren had pushed the line of incoming foes back past the last of the cell doors, for the moment.




The sounds of approaching guards had swiftly become that of a rather pitched battle, and it wasn’t too difficult to infer what was going on outside. At least one of the other pairs of their friends had gotten loose, and the Coterie had noticed. Nostariel’s eyes widened, and she moved quickly behind Ashton. “Hold still.” With a bit of effort considering the height difference, she managed to face back-to-back with him and take the chain between his shackles in her hands. Considering that it wasn’t her own bonds and her hands could move a bit now, she was able to concentrate the heat of her magic in one of the links of that chain. “Okay, now pull!” With luck, he’d be able to snap the weakened link, and find some way or another to pick the lock on hers or something. Worst case scenario, she supposed she could fight like this until they found a key.

It didn't pop immediately, but on the third jerk the link finally broke in half and freed his hands. Ashton spent a moment rotating his shoulders, but not a second longer before turning eyes toward Nostariel's cuffs. He pretended to not see the bruises developing on her arms and decided to instead focus on her bonds instead. Taking them in his hands he quickly inspected them and said, "It wouldn't be too hard if I just had... " He trailed off as he looked up. He reached out toward her hair and plucked one of her hair pins, "This."

He bent the tip slightly and slipped it into the keyhole for the cuffs. It didn't take too long before a click was heard and Nostariel's hands were free.

Nostariel hissed softly as the shackles came off, bringing her arms around to her front with considerable pain considering what they’d just been through. She rubbed at them for a few seconds, infusing a little healing into the touch to ease the pain and slow the formation of bruising. She wasn’t sure they had the time for much else, though, and it turned out she was right—though not precisely in the way she expected. There was a slight sound right at their door—barely audible over what was going on outside—and she’d lit some offensive magic in her hands and stepped in front of Ashton by the time it swung open to reveal not an enemy but friends.

The Warden breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank goodness.” Lia was among them, which was wonderful news, but only if they made it out of here alive. Right now, she was worried about Sophia—there was no way this had gone unnoticed, and her friend was still a hostage, making her in some sense even more vulnerable than the rest of them, who could at least fight to survive. Reaching out, she gave Ashton’s hand a slight squeeze, then headed out the door.

"Behind you," Ashton told Nostariel, following her out the door. He did, however, pause a moment to give Lia a small side hug, and said "That's my girl." The relief in his voice was palpable.

"Someone had to save the day," Lia said, quietly enough that she expected only Ashton would hear it. They were actually the first words she'd said since the fighting in the hall had begun. Her focus had been fully on freeing the others, so that Lucien would have some help in holding the line. Now that everyone was free of their team, it was becoming increasingly apparent to the Coterie that they could not stay here, and that their chances of simply forcing the captives back into their restraints was long gone.

A shout went up, and they began a disorganized retreat, several of them being immediately cut down from behind before they could get away. "They're fleeing to the main room," Dairren said, not immediately pressing. "Watch for archers." He then stooped to snatch a dying Coterie man, one that was lightly armored, and hauled him to his feet, turning him around and beginning to walk forward with him. The first two arrows from the archers on the raised platform thudded into their comrade's chest, the meat shield working effectively to protect Quinn.




Even from her makeshift cell deep in the mine, Sophia could tell that something had happened above. The guards left her door, sounds of shouts carried down, and then screams and the noises of pitched battle. Someone had gotten loose. Sophia's heart jumped, though she worried someone else might fall trying to get to her. She would just have to trust them. Jamie seemed to notice it as well, looking up as though he could see through solid rock from where he kneeled.

"Insolent cretins!" Miranda suddenly shouted, just beyond the door. She kicked it open with her boot, storming in and moving over to where Sophia was forced to sit. The hooded brute of an axeman followed in behind her, looking back to watch to their rear. "If I have to parade you before them a dozen times with a knife to your throat, I will do it. Might even spill a little blood, so they understand. You're a tough woman, no?" She reached her knife forward, slicing the rope that bound Sophia to the wall, leaving her hands still bound together, but free.

No sooner had she than Jamie let loose a battle cry, somewhat pitiful when compared to others, but likely the best he could muster, as he jumped directly onto Miranda's back, throwing his bound hands over her head and trying to choke her. Immediately the pair went to the ground, and the knife slipped from Miranda's hand, falling to the floor. Sophia was quickest on the reaction, snatching the weapon up and holding it in both hands, before she scrambled to her feet. Her first thought was to stab Miranda, and she lunged for her, trying to strike the blade into her side.

The axeman reached her first, however, ramming his meaty shoulder into her upper back, sending Sophia sprawling forward face down to the ground. Miranda managed to squirm out of Jamie's clutches and get to her feet. To say she looked flustered would have been an understatement. Upon seeing Sophia still in possession of the knife, she backed out of the room entirely. "Subdue them! Restrain them! Now!" She shut the door behind her, and ran.

Stuck in the room now with the axeman between her and the door, Sophia got to her feet and held the little knife out. His axe remaining on his back, the brute cracked his knuckles together and waited for them to make a move. Sophia was just about to, when Jamie took a step in front of her.

"Stay behind me!" He held out his hands as if to hold her back, which Sophia regarded a moment with incredulity. She then shoved him to the side, thankfully not to the ground, and returned her attention to her large enemy.

Jamie seemed to take the hint, and tried to attack the moment he saw Sophia rush for one side. The axeman reached out and grabbed Jamie by the neck in one hand, stopping his aggression cold, though what he'd even planned to do was unclear. For Sophia the brute lashed out with a backhanded strike of his other hand, which she ducked under, lunging in and stabbing the knife into the side of his gut. He reacted enough to let go of Jamie, who stumbled back and coughed heavily. That hand then came across and caught Sophia in the cheek.

Stars swirled in her vision as she turned and stumbled away, falling painfully onto her hip after two steps. By the time she'd rolled onto her back the brute had reached her, about to reach down and either seize her by the hair or neck, or try and wrench her blade away. She didn't find out which, as Jamie performed yet another brave attack from behind, leaping on the man's back as soon as he stooped over, squeezing around the neck as tightly as he could.

That seemed to have some effect, as the axeman immediately stood back upright, his hands going to grab Jamie's arms, a gurgling sound escaping his throat as he tried to breathe. Pushing to her feet, Sophia rushed forward and jammed the knife into his unarmored torso, first into the gut, then back out and into the chest. It seemed impossible for him to just shrug off the wounds, but he'd more or less ignored an arrow to the neck earlier.

He was driven back all the way to the wall, at which point it became clear that he was driving himself back, when he slammed Jamie's back into the rock, causing him to cry out weakly as a few of his ribs undoubtedly cracked. His grip slackened on the brute's throat, at which point he freed his hands to deal with Sophia again. Her next stab he caught by grabbing onto her arm before she could reach him. Unwillingly she was pulled in a step, a punch landing to her abdomen, doubling her over, before another came, in the form of an uppercut.

He let her fly then, a moment of weightlessness taking her over before the hard floor came up to meet her back. The axeman huffed a tired breath, before removing Jamie from his back like he was some kind of fleshy cloak. The much smaller man struggled while Sophia worked to return to her feet. He could not break free before the brute decided he'd had enough, and brought both hands up to Jamie's head. With a quick twist, Jamie's neck snapped, and he dropped to the floor, lifeless.

"No..." Sophia huffed from one knee. She would never have said she was fond of Jamie, not by any stretch, but regardless of his past actions, he had tried to fight for her, and died as a result. And she did not want to see anyone dying on her behalf. Even him.

The axeman, however, did not seem to care, lumbering forward silently, while Sophia remained on a knee. Either he believed her to be trying to catch her breath, or he was slowed by his injuries, because his next overhead punch came much too slow, and Sophia was able to dodge under it before it came. Planting her food hard, she lunged back and stabbed her knife right into the back of his knee, forcing him down lower with a grunt of pain. She wasted no further time, jumping up from a stationary position and slamming the blade down into the top of his skull. From the way he instantly went limp, she knew he was dead, and she let the knife go, allowing him to topple over onto his face.

Breathing heavily, Sophia dropped to her knees, situating herself beside the shortsword at the axeman's hip, beginning the painstaking work of cutting through her thick rope bonds with it.

Setting

4 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

With the ranks fully augmented and all his friends accounted for, Lucien felt no compunctions in pushing forward at full speed, though he minded the warning about the arrows, pilfering a dead man’s shield and strapping it to his free arm. It didn’t require his hand, thankfully, and it served its purpose well enough when he stepped into the large central room they’d made it to before. Several arrows clattered off the metal surface, and he had to mind his feet, else his current armorless condition prove to be his undoing. Fortunately, he was a large and imposing target, which earned him a lot of the early effort by what had to be about ten concentrated archers, who appeared to have gained the high ground by way of a staircase off to the left.

Getting there would be a bit of a challenge, though. Without any ranged weapons yet on them save Lia’s bow, Lucien knew they had to get close as soon as possible. “Estella, Nostariel, Lia, keep them busy. Havard, Donnelly, pick up shields and help me defend the three of them. The rest of you, get up there and finish them off.” The three ranged fighters should be enough to keep them from making many accurate shots, and with the shield fighters there to protect them, they’d be able to keep up a steady harassment, enabling the others to get over to the stairs quickly and quietly, something Quinn and Ashton were both quite good at. Cor would do fine as well.

Estella knew what he was asking of her, and while she wasn’t exactly the most confident about it, she nodded anyway, sheathing her sword and taking up a position on Lia’s left, lighting fires over both hands. They were the first things to hit, right near the feet of the front line of archers. The other two would have superior aim, but if all they needed to do was disrupt, then it shouldn’t matter much anyway. She flinched and tried not to move when she saw an arrow headed towards her, but it thudded into Havard’s wooden roundshield anyway. The older Lion smiled wryly. “Don’t worry, lass. We’ve got you covered.”

To help the runners further, Nostariel took a moment to cast an arcane shield over them, which should help a few of the arrows veer wide, if any came their way. After that, though, she was happy to do as Lucien had asked, and added ice to Estella’s volleys of fire, her own hits steadier and more accurate than the young woman’s, she suspected largely due to the large gap in practical experience. An ice spike drove through one archer’s chest, and he was the first to fall, careening forward off the ledge he’d been perched on and hitting the ground headfirst. Arrows continued to fly in their direction, but Nostariel trusted the others to take care of them.

"Gladly," Ashton replied, spinning the pilfered sword in his hand. "Quick as you can, don't slow down," Ashton told Quinn and Cor. The faster they moved, the harder they'd be to sight in, especially with them being harrassed as they were. Still, it was dangerous but it was better than being locked in a cell waiting for his fate. Ashton watched the archers for a moment, and judging the moment when a majority of the archers loosed their arrows, he bolted low and erratic, dodging from side to side but ever moving forward.

Ashton took the stairs a moment later, pressing hard against a railing to dodge an arrow before clearing the rest of the steps. The archer who'd stood at the top of the stairs firing down on him was the first to go down, Ashton stabbing him clean through the gut. He grabbed his collar and held him up for a moment, letting a hail of arrows strike his back before letting him sink. Ashton moved to the next one, but he proved slower than the next archer, taking an arrow to the shoulder instead of the head by pure reflexes alone. The impact threw his shoulder back, but he'd been close enough to take one more step and drive his foot hard into the man's groin. He dropped, leaving Ashton to cleave part way through his neck.

Quinn sped by the murdered Coterie man, doused with a small spray of blood as he passed, which he paid no mind. He moved with excellent speed for a man his age, ducking under a slash from an archer who had drawn a blade upon seeing their perch being overtaken. He then proceeded to slice across the archer's belly, allowing most of his guts to spill out onto the floor. Horrified by the sight, he was then defenseless to having his head removed by Quinn's blade. Grim-faced, he moved on to the next.

He stepped over a pair of corpses to reach the next archer, a woman who had drawn a knife in preparation to fight him. She opened with a lunge, Dairren sidestepping and taking hold of her wrist with his free left hand. Holding her arm extended, he brought his sword down swiftly, slicing it clean off at the elbow. She screamed, dropping to her knees, and he finished it silently, grabbing her by the top of the head, wrenching it back, and slicing open the throat. Only one remained for the elf boy to deal with.

Corvin Pavell was no grizzled veteran of many battles, but he was well-trained and talented, and so while he was easily the greenest of the attack team, he managed to keep up just fine for the most part, splitting off from Ashton’s initial foray into the archers in the opposite direction from Quinn. This gave him one target, a woman at several dozen paces away. She shot at him once it was clear he was coming for her, but reflex and instinct drove him down into a roll, and it whizzed by over his head, allowing him to regain his feet smoothly as he knew how and continue his sprint forward. While he preferred to fight in the style of his mentor Lucien, there weren’t many Coterie members with large blades, and so he’d armed himself with a one-handed battleax instead.

When he got close enough, the archer drew a knife, swiping for his midsection. Jerking backwards, he used his superior reach to extend, catching her in the brow with the haft of the axe. Off-balance, she staggered, and he stepped in, finishing her with a heavy chop downwards and diagonally, the axehead biting deep into the juncture of her neck and shoulder. There was a vital artery there, he’d learned, and when the axe came away, it spurted blood for several seconds before stopping, some of it unavoidably hitting his linens and the corresponding side of his face. A quick swipe of his sleeve ensured that none of it was headed towards his eyes, but he didn’t bother trying to get it all off.

With the archers down, the main room was cleared. After pausing a moment to allow anyone to adjust their loadouts as necessary, Lucien considered the situation. He didn’t know the full layout of the base, but most of the cave formations around these parts had a fair number of side passages and other such things. It seemed prudent to make sure they weren’t ambushed from behind again. “Havard. Stay here, with Estella, Donnelly, Cor, and Lia. Keep our way out open, and be sure we aren’t followed. If you have any problems, send someone after us.” The eldest of the Lions nodded, gesturing to the younger ones to gather about him for a moment. He’d know where to post them to make the most of their talents.

Lucien had to admit it was a bit of a relief. He relied on them, it was true, but he would also be happy if he didn’t have to risk them much further. He knew things would only likely get more difficult up ahead, and more delicate as well. He would feel comfortable knowing that his back was protected. He assumed the rest would want to come with him, but he didn’t presume to give them orders, not now. They knew as much as he did about what they would face further down, perhaps more in some cases.

Turning towards the passage down, he shook his sword sharply to get most of the blood off it, and started down the path. He’d never been a religious man, but he was praying now, to anyone who would listen.




Deep in the mine, Sophia cautiously exited her cell, forced to leave Jamie's body behind with the slain brute. Assuming they survived this, they could come back for it later. Her hands were finally free, wrists rubbed raw from the ropes that had bound them for so long, and in one hand she held the axeman's shortsword. It was a much smaller and lighter weapon than she preferred, but it was better than trying to take the axe, which she imagined even Lucien might have found cumbersome to wield.

The sounds of fighting were still distant, leading her to assume that the others had not yet reached this deep in the tunnels yet. Working her way slowly along a curved, rocky path, Sophia came to a stop when it abruptly opened into a much wider space, and the sounds of closer voices reached her ears, one of them being Miranda's.

"What do you mean, we've lost control?" she demanded of a Coterie thug, furious. "Did we not have dozens more men?"

"With all due respect, lady... fuck you. Don't see you doing no fightin'."

Miranda scoffed loudly in reply, but for once could come up with no scathing words to lash out at him with. Sophia had taken cover behind a small crate, but peered out to take in the upcoming surroundings. The large room was a supply storage type area, one that the Coterie had taken to filling with their own stores, these secured in stacks of heavy wooden boxes and crates, many of them lashed to one another with thick ropes the likes of which had been used to bind her as a prisoner. Torches and the occasional brazier lit the room dimly from the walls, casting long, dark shadows across the room, and other small towers of supplies.

"Is there no other way out?" Miranda finally asked.

"None that don't lead right through those bastards."

There were two of them, Sophia could see, one on each side of Miranda, who had armed herself with her bow again. Having no intention of waiting around for them to find her when they realized the axeman wasn't coming back, Sophia crept out into the large room, taking cover behind several stacks of boxes as she approached. She was no adept in stealth, but her lack of any armor made it easier to move quietly, and her targets were already distracted by the sounds of fighting from beyond. It wasn't difficult to get into striking range without being detected.

She went for the Coterie thugs first, believing them to be more dangerous than Miranda. The first she stabbed around his jerkin, plunging her blade into the weak under-arm area, cutting his cry short before it could even begin. Miranda cried out in surprise next to her, at least until a kick from Sophia to her gut silenced her and sent her stumbling back. Allowing the first man to fall, she wrenched the sword free and made a swift advancing step on the second.

This one had enough time to prepare, blocking her first slash with his hand-axe and sending a punch her way in return. She leaned back swiftly to allow it pass in front of her face, before slashing at the arm, leaving a deep and bloody cut along his tricep. He growled and brought the axe down on her, leading Sophia to block high and stop it a foot from her forehead. She brought her foot up to give a hard kick to the inside of his leg, which successfully knocked him off balance, twisting down to his knees. She then plunged the sword down into the base of his neck before he could put up a proper defence, leaving him to fall over forward, lifeless.

Sophia had realized that Miranda had disappeared midway through the fight, but had only just turned to look for her when an arrow struck her in the side of her right leg, at mid-thigh height. She yelped in pain, turning to try and locate the woman, eventually finding her nocking another arrow down a sort of makeshift hallway of the stacked boxes. Limping forward towards her, Sophia jumped to the side just in time to dodge another, at least partially. The arrowhead still bit a deep gash into her left shoulder before she could get behind cover.

"I know the noose awaits me now, Sophia," she shouted. "I'd rather see you dead first, though." She drew another arrow, shifting her position while Sophia prepared for another move. "You, who couldn't appreciate the gift that fell right into your lap!" Sophia darted out from her cover, trying to reach another stack of boxes, only to take another arrow, this one to her left hip. She cried out, stumbling and falling, thankfully behind some cover.

"The Five-Minute Queen! Whose first act was to bleed all over the floor of her own throne room!" She drew another arrow, stalking closer now. She'd driven herself into some kind of fury. "It should have been mine!"

A small box was loose, and Sophia snatched it up from the floor, hurling it over the top of her little pile of boxes to where she knew Miranda was. Her aim was true, and the smaller woman was struck in the side of the head with it, sending her staggering to the side, flustered. Pushing herself up, Sophia forced her legs to work despite the arrows, moving with as much speed as she could muster into close range with Miranda. She threw a hard punch across her jaw, something Miranda clearly wasn't used to taking, as she immediately dropped her bow and fell, now beside the two bodies of the other Coterie men. Sophia descended when she rolled onto her back, straddling her across the waist and holding the sword level at Miranda's throat.

"Yield," she demanded, and the dark haired woman looked up in terror, holding her hands still to the side and panting with adrenaline. "It's over."

"It was his plan from the start, you know that?" she suddenly said. "The man who thinks he's your father. I wasn't included in it, he didn't even know of me, but the Coterie sought me out. He wanted this." That she would even bring him up caught Sophia off guard, and she narrowed her eyes down at Miranda.

"What do you mean? How do you know?"

"The Coterie told me everything. He wanted to set up a meeting, then capture you, pretend like the criminals had abandoned him. Only then he swoops in with a way he acts like only he knows, steals you from their clutches, not a single death. He's a hero, back in your good graces, and the Coterie has their link to the future Viscountess." Sophia was clearly struggling to process it, which Miranda seemed to enjoy, as she continued on. "Coterie saw through him, though, knew he was weak, but wanted to have the little Dumar in their grasp anyway. So they came to me. Someone who could make use of it all. You see? You have no hero of a father, with a falsely stained name. You have only a traitorous criminal, and a coward who lost his head!"

Sophia pulled her sword back in anger to strike Miranda, but she had failed to notice from the distraction that the Coterie man's handaxe was in reach. Miranda grasped this just in time, swinging it across and cutting into Sophia's side. A splotch of blood spilled out, and Sophia immediately tipped over off Miranda, falling onto her own back, and the dark haired woman rose, coming above her and trying to bring the axe down. It clanged onto her blade as she halted it, and even wounded as she was, Sophia was able to hold Miranda's attack back.

Out of the corner of her eyes, she could see someone approach, a bow in their hands, and with as much strength as she could force out of herself, she pushed Miranda entirely off of her, to put space between them and allow for a clearer shot.

The arrow came in not high, but low, entering the side of Miranda's knee. Due to probably not taking many of those in her life, the arrow took her off of her feet immediately. Despite it all, she still tried keep her balance and get to Sophia, at least until Ashton followed his arrow and planting the heel of his boot into her chest, putting her on her back. Kicking the axe she'd had moments ago far, far out of reach, he drew another arrow and kept a heavy boot on her chest as he pointed it at her head.

"May I have this dance, Lady Threnhold?"

Setting

4 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

The others were not far behind Ashton, and while he was dealing with Miranda, Nostariel was moving swiftly to Sophia’s side. The fight through the Coterie with no armor and unfamiliar equipment hadn’t exactly been easy, and even the Warden was sporting more than one injury because of it, but she’d been careful to conserve as much magic as she could, knowing that the others, like her, would rather weather a few more wounds than risk her not being able to help their friend if Sophia really needed it. There was a large cut across one of her cheeks, dipping to the level of her jaw before whatever made it had lost contact with her skin, and her forearms had by now mottled into an ugly conflagration of purple and blue bruises, evident when she pulled her sleeves up past her elbows.

Other than that, she actually wasn’t too badly off, having had the benefit of being behind much larger, urgent targets for most of their way through, particularly Lucien. “Sophia. We’re here. Hold still for me, okay?” She didn’t look much like she would move, if she even really could right at the moment, but Nostariel knew from experience that it was best to make sure. She noted several arrow wounds, and one from some kind of slashing weapon in her side, which could be very bad if not addressed in short order. Still, her life wasn’t in any immediate danger now that healing was within easy reach, and so Nostariel worked carefully as well as quickly, peeling her shirt back to expose the wound to her side first. Her hands were swathed in bluish light, which she passed carefully over the wounds, adding a few threads of magic designed to dull the edges of the pain a little while she worked to stop the bleeding.

Sophia didn't move, allowing herself to remain still on her back while Nostariel worked. "I'm alright. I'm alright." She noted that Lucien was there as well, and closed her eyes, tears threatening. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry for all of this."

Lucien, having been basically front and center for most of the trek down here, had sustained a rather large amount of injuries, as one might expect of someone wearing no armor and carrying only a roundshield by way of protection. Blood oozed from several wounds that had once been homes for arrows, the shafts long since snapped off, though he had not yet ventured to remove them in their entirety, as it would only exacerbate his bleeding problem. And indeed, it seemed to be a problem—not all the sanguine drippings he was leaving in a puddle on the floor belonged to members of the Coterie. His linens were black, so it was difficult to tell exactly how much he was injured, but the large gash in the left side of his tunic was an indication that he’d suffered at least one major wound in addition to his broken hand and the various projectiles that had landed. Honestly, he’d been lucky—there were many more arrows and devastating slashes that had not hit.

This was certainly far from the worst battle he’d ever faced. He wasn’t as injured now as he had been at various points in the past. His physical pain was entirely tolerable, and he was hardly in mortal danger, unless something should heal wrong and become infected, which was essentially impossible with Nostariel around. And yet for all that, he would much prefer to endure anything else again rather than this.

Whatever inherent dignity, stoicism, or military upbringing had been holding him upright and in place until then failed him after, and he allowed himself at last to fall to his knees beside Sophia, careful to stay out of Nostariel’s way. It was evocative of another time, when she had been injured and he had felt useless, save that this time, he knew he had not been. He hadn’t saved her on his own, but he had no concern for that. She was safe, and that was what mattered. He swallowed thickly, his good hand brushing a few hairs out of her face and settling against her jaw. He brushed a thumb back and forth over her cheekbone a few times, unsure he could trust himself to speak. He tried anyway.

“Don’t apologize.” His voice was hoarse, thick, but as gentle as he could make it. “You are not at fault for this. You never were.” He tried valiantly to prevent it, and perhaps no one else could tell, but his hand shook slightly where his roughened fingers were touching the smooth skin of her cheek. Even the contact itself was delicate, as though he were afraid something might break if he applied even a fraction more pressure.

He wasn’t sure if he thought it would be her, or him.

One of Sophia's tears did roll down her cheek, and touched Lucien's hand. She smiled just barely, reaching up and across herself to take a hold of his hand. When she opened her eyes, however, she recoiled away, more from Nostariel than Lucien. "No," she said immediately, "what are you doing? Heal him. I can wait. He needs it." She put her hands to the ground and pushed herself up halfway into a sitting position, scooting away from Nostariel as if to further discourage her from healing.

Nostariel sighed. “We all need it, at the moment.” Still, she was hardly going to get anywhere if Sophia wouldn’t cooperate, and she turned to Lucien, asking the question more with the expression on her face than anything else. He shook his head slightly. He was fine—he would be fine. But nevertheless, he stood, allowing her at least to treat the obvious injuries, at least until he was patched enough that Sophia would let herself be helped.

"You're... as generous as I remember, Sophia," Dairren suddenly said, from where he stood off to the side. He too was somewhat wounded, though he had avoided much more than Lucien had. He leaned against one of the crate stacks for support. The tentative way he spoke, he clearly was unsure how best to enter the conversation.

Sophia, however, reacted immediately. "You." Her eyes narrowed with an intense disdain, her hand scooping up the short sword she had abandoned, and she tried to twist up to her feet, immediately crying out when she did more harm to her own wound, and sinking back to the ground. Dairren remained unsure how to react. "This... was his doing," she managed, breathing heavily. "The blood... on his hands."

At just this moment, several new emotions entered Lucien’s mental landscape, warring insistently with his relief. There was definitely anger—it would be impossible to avoid. Someone, after all, was responsible for Tessa’s death and Sophia’s kidnap and Lia’s injury, but he had rather thought that person was about to be arrested, and he could deal with that. He had not expected it to be someone that he had helped, but he was careful not to conclude anything just yet. He was also glad that, for the moment, the rest of the Lions were not here.

With his most major injury dealt with, he nodded to Nostariel and stepped away, slightly forward. “How so?” he inquired quietly.

"Lucien..." Ashton cautioned, though his eyes never left Miranda.

"He intended for me to be captured," Sophia explained, her eyes locked on Dairren the whole time, though she no longer tried to rise, and allowed Nostariel to work. "Had the Coterie pose like they'd betrayed him. He was to sneak in and free me with you, and play the hero in some twisted attempt to win affection!"

"On whose word can you claim this?" Dairren asked, appearing somewhat offended by the accusation. "That witch?" He pointed to Miranda. "She has nothing but contempt for you, Sophia, and would say anything to cause you pain at this point. I would never intentionally bring you harm. You're... my daughter."

"Do not use that word with me." Sophia's tone was full of anger, and now she looked away from him, fixating her gaze upon the ceiling. "I know who my father was. Not you."

"And what of that lovely party?" Miranda chimed in, grimacing through her wound but remaining utterly still. "As I recall, Sophia was left in agony through that affair. Screaming rather loudly." Dairren gave her a murderous glare, but could offer no words to combat her on that count. Miranda's grimace turned to a smile. "I thought as much."

"They're all the lowest of scum," Sophia said, unable to stop more tears. "This was a waste of time. A waste of blood and life."

"You cannot believe Miranda," Dairren repeated. "I owed the Coterie no allegiance, and I would not put your life in the hands of their kind no matter what I stood to gain from it."

“Whomever is telling the truth or lying, it seems to me that this is hardly the place to hash it all out. We’re injured, and tired, and there are dead to see to as well. What seems evident enough is that we have two former leaders of the Coterie in this room, and a Guard Captain. Perhaps we should leave, and sort this all out the official way.” Nostariel lifted one of her hands to wipe accumulated sweat and grime off her brow, shooting a glance at Ashton. He was the one with authority to arrest or detain people, after all.

Before anyone could answer that suggestion, the sound of approaching feet reached them. Lucien tensed for a moment, but when he heard the voices carrying down the hall, he relaxed again. The chamber soon gained two more occupants, Estella and Donnelly, burdened down with what appeared to be everyone’s equipment. “Everything’s still okay upstairs,” she said, attempting to reassure them that they weren’t emergency runners, though it was rather obvious. “We managed to find what we were missing, in one of the storage rooms. Um, there was also this, but I wasn’t sure if it belonged to one of us or one of them.”

She held up a small object, thinner and lighter than the average book, and with clear signs of wear on the leather cover, scuffs here and there as well as signs of age. It had no adornments of any kind, and indeed seemed rather plain. “I’m not sure what it is, but I thought I’d ask before I put my nose where it shouldn’t go.”

"That's mine," Dairren immediately claimed, beginning to walk towards Estella with a hand outstretched to claim it.

"No," Ashton spoke up with authority in his voice, "It's not. It's mine, that's evidence. Lucien, call your Lions, we've got a pair of prisoners to transfer."

The Chanter's Board has been updated. The Spymaster's Gambit has been completed.

Setting

4 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

As soon as he’d been sure that everyone had made it back safely from the ordeal on the Coast, Lucien went to retrieve the one who hadn’t. Lia led him to the spot where Tessa had been buried, and he’d turned the shallow earth with his hands until he’d reached her, laid out unceremoniously in a pile of dead Coterie fighters. Without the faintest hint of hesitation, Lucien had brushed the sand off her face and picked her up out of the mass grave, careful to support her half-severed neck in the crook of his arm, his other held under her knees. Rigor mortis had come and gone, and so while she was cold, she was not stiff.

He carried her back on foot, disinclined to do her the indignity of being tied to the back of his horse and transported that way.

The customary funeral rites in the Free Marches were like those in Orlais, in most ways: unlike everywhere but Nevarra, Kirkwall burned the dead. He double-checked to make sure that was what they did in Starkhaven as well, and Nostariel was able to inform him that it was. The Lions had lit her pyre in a private ceremony not long after, gathering to say their farewells to their comrade, friend to many and first to fall. No words had been spoken, a reverential silence enforcing some kind of moratorium on noise or even overlarge gestures.

Then had come the even less pleasant part: informing Tessa’s family. She had told him she was estranged from them, and so he did not expect to be well-received, but he felt it his obligation, anyway, to bring them her ashes and inform them of what had happened to their daughter and sister. His reception was mixed; though her mother was cold to him the entire time and her father simply looked perturbed, her siblings by and large seemed grateful that he’d gone to the trouble to return her home at the last. The trip to Starkhaven took him three days, and upon his return, preparations began for the wake, a more public and open thing that would serve as the chance for any and all who had known her to pay their respects, share stories, and celebrate her life, even as they mourned her death.

It seemed only right, after all—Tessa’s death had been honorable, but the same could be said of her life, and more besides.

For the occasion, the long tables in the barracks had been arranged into two lines, himself seated at the head of one of them. There were drinks to be had in plenty, and food enough to feed everyone who came through. Lucien was finishing the last of the necessary paperwork even as it started—all of the Lions were entitled a modest pension in the event of their deaths, to go to whomever they desired to support. Without any dependents, Tessa had written that hers was to be split between Nostariel’s clinic and a small group doing charitable work in Darktown. The others had since turned down her room, and everything that wasn’t returned to her family was to be sold, to go to the same places.

He affixed his signature to the death notice, which would eventually become an official death certificate issued by the Viscount’s office, and returned all of the documentation to the folder he was keeping it in, stowing it in his office before rejoining the others in the common room. The mood was solemn, thus far, though not oppressively so, exactly. The Lions were muted, but they talked amicably among themselves, mostly on the topic of their departed friend.

“I just… I can’t believe she’s gone, you know?” That was Donnelly, who tugged a hand roughly through his hair. Idris reached over to squeeze his shoulder.

“Seems like she should be here, doesn’t it?” The elder man smiled sympathetically. The death of a dear friend was a loss he knew better than most of the young ones did. Estella stared too intently at the pattern in the wood grain of the table, her face set into an expression that was difficult to read, exactly. Cor kept shooting her concerned glances, but appeared to have decided it was better not to inquire. Havard was deep into his third cup already, nearby the others but not currently adding to the conversation. Guests continued to filter in and take up places at the tables, occasionally earning a glance or a tentative smile from those already present.

Nostariel was one of those who came in around that time. She’d been surprised that part of Tessa’s pension was to go to her clinic, but then, she did see an awful lot of the Lions in and out of the place, so she supposed it was a way of looking after her friends, even after death. There was something at once extraordinary and perfectly ordinary about that kind of sentiment, and though Nostariel would have gone to the wake anyway, the gesture left no doubt as to her attendance. Smiling softly at the cluster of Lions she knew best, she took a seat on Cor’s other side, declining a drink but consenting to nibble on a bit of the provided food.

She knew well what it felt like to lose a close friend or a comrade, and as such, she knew that there was little to be said for it, but also that being present was important, that sometimes that was the best kind of support one could offer to someone who had suffered such a loss.

Sophia was present as well, and had been for some time. She sat next to Lucien around the corner of the long table, her posture best described as withdrawn. She drank sparingly, and had eaten nothing. She made the barest attempts at conversation when spoken to, though it was clear she was working hard to maintain a pleasant attitude towards the others attending. Everyone had a different relation to the death that had occurred, and Sophia felt particularly troubled by hers.

She tried again and again to rationalize it by thinking that Tessa had died in a line of duty, but that voice was consistently drowned out. The stronger one reminded her that it had been a personal affair, one that felt utterly unnecessary now, days after. She had yet to deal with the issue awaiting her in the Gallows, but she did not feel any need to rush. He would be there when she was ready to confront him. In the meantime, she had this to struggle with. Sophia was unused to this feeling, of others paying the price for her boldness. It was significantly harder to deal with. It was the first death they'd had to fight through. It would not be the last; it couldn't be, not in this line of work. But Sophia imagined this one would always stand out in her mind.

Lia, meanwhile, seemed to be doing better, chatting mostly with Cor and Donnelly and occasionally trying to poke at Estella. For a time she had struggled with thoughts of things she could have done differently, but as hard as she thought, she could think of nothing that would have saved Tessa, only things that would've made it worse. She'd lived, and returned in time to free the others before more death could happen. That, she decided, was the best way to honor Tessa.

Ashton was the next guest to arrive, along with Vesper and another guard who wished to pay his respects. All three of them were immaculately dressed in their plate, buffed and polished spotless as a sign of respect. After stepping over the threshold into the barracks, he nodded to the other two and allowed them to filter out and find their own places, while he himself took a seat on the other side of Nostariel. "I'm sorry we're late. I had to work through some paperwork," He explained.

Once everyone was reasonably settled into place, Lucien used a natural lull in the conversation to stand, a glass of port in hand. He didn’t really lead in the kind of way that entailed a lot of speeches or anything like that, but he knew that, nevertheless, it was important for a Commander to address his people. They had suffered a loss, and to a certain extent, the responsibility for that, even if not the blame, was his. That was the burden of leadership. Another part of that burden was that in times like these, it was his job to care enough to make this impossibly difficult thing a little easier for them to cope with. That part, at least, he would do gladly, and to the best of his ability.

“There are not adequate words, for a situation like this. Three days ago, we lost a comrade, companion, mentor, and friend. Tessa is the first Argent Lion to pass in this manner, and I regret to inform you that she will not be the last.” This, of course, was something that they all knew by this point. Being a mercenary was a highly dangerous occupation—dockworkers were not asked to provision their resources in the event that they died, nor did merchants leave their boss with a list of people to contact should they expire in the line of duty.

“Ours is not a safe life, nor one that will always earn us the praise and thanks of others. Those are things we can do little about. What we can do is what Tessa did: we can live our lives, however long or short, with kindness and honor and laughter. We can extend the warmth of regard and consideration to everyone around us, no matter who they are or where they come from. We can strive to leave the world just a little better than it was when we entered it, better for the fact that we lived. We can face death with courage, and we can sacrifice willingly on behalf of those who need our help. These are the very things upon which I counted when I began this company, and they are the same things you counted on when you joined it.” He’d made rather sure of it before he let them join, after all. Lucien paused a moment, sweeping his eyes slowly over the room.

“I will not tell you when or how to grieve or stop grieving. She was important to all of us, to some of us especially so. It is not wrong to grieve for those we lose. It is not weak or childish, and there is no reason to pretend that you aren’t, if you are.” He lowered his head for a moment, eyes falling to where his fingertips lightly touched the table in front of him. “I am.” He looked back up, his mouth tilting into a rueful smile. “But I ask you, in your grief, to think not just of what we have lost, but what we never will. Look to yourselves and each other, for she has left traces behind on all of you. The memory of a practice match, an old inside joke, a touch, a word. These things linger, as they rightly should. They are the ways, however small, that she has influenced you, affected you, changed you.”

He paused a moment, clearly thoughtful. It was fairly evident that he hadn’t really planned the speech beforehand, but he didn’t think he was doing terribly at it. He did have some sense for what was required to speak to groups of people, after all. More than anything, he was just being honest. “So let your grief be also about these things. Let it be about what you still have, because of her. Let it be about her life, and not just her death. Let it be not only about extraordinary courage and tragic circumstance, but also about the most ordinary and meaningful thing of all: the love we have for our comrades and our friends. We drink to her, as comrades must, so that we do not forget.” He raised his glass.

“To Tessa Orkney, Scout-Lieutenant of the Argent Lions. To our friend.”

Lia raised her cup, downing what was left of her drink and setting it back down on the table. Sophia drank as well, murmuring a few words that were likely lost under some of the louder Lions.

"May she find peace at the Maker's side."

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel

Earnings

0.00 INK

The Underground, as Aurora had taken to calling it, was slowly increasing in size. There were mages who still came to her for help in controlling their powers, and only those who needed it were given combat training. However, there were also mages who did not come to the clearing for training, who just tried to keep low and out of sight of the Templars. For those, the Underground was a way to find help, a shoulder to lean on if needed. From finding cheap housing for those who wished to stay in Kirkwall, to helping those who wanted to flee find a safe way out, Aurora and the Underground did more than just train mages these days.

She was careful to keep a close eye on what they did and said, and always made sure that anything they did could not be traced back to magic. Thanks to her caution, to her friends, and sometimes even the friends of those friends, their group was nothing more than rumors and speculation on the street. Aurora would not take even the slightest chance on them being discovered. Some of the mages they helped did not even know they existed. It was not a huge organization, and it was optimistic to even call it an organization. In Aurora's eyes, it was a loosely connected group that sought to help others out so that as a whole they could survive. Like the roots of a flower.

It was a partly clouded day in the clearing, mages were practicing small spells as a concentration exercise, while others simply sat and mediated. Aurora, Pike, Donovan, and Sparrow stood apart from the majority and spoke amongst themselves about recent rumors concerning mages possibly escaping the Gallows.

"The way I heard it, most of them were captured again soon after," Pike said, frowning with the thought, "Though it's possible that others might've eluded their hounds thus far."

"Anything's possible Pike, even the rumor being false," Aurora added. There was not much love for Templars, even among nonmages, there was a very good chance that one of those people simply made it up in order to discredit the Templars. She did not like to deal in possibilities or maybes. "I won't have us go looking for mages that may or may not even exist."

Sparrow was squeezed in between Pike and Aurora, shoulders hunched forward and elbows propped on her knees. She scratched at her chin and snapped her eyes shut for a few moments, the closest thing to rummaging through her thoughts for some other plausible scenario that wouldn't involve not doing anything at all. She didn't like the idea of inaction, even if the rumours were false. But Aurora was right—better to be safe, and all that. She puffed her cheeks out and sighed harshly through her nostrils, “Might be more to go on if we wait.”

Pike visibly grimaced, but said nothing more on the matter. Instead Donovan clapped a meaty hand on his shoulder and gave him a reassuring squeeze. "We will help those that we can, but we cannot be foolish. Impatience will do more harm than good," he said and though his lips lacked a smile, Donovan's eyes were warm.




Rilien refolded the missive and tucked it into the inside of his tunic, taking the few moments necessary to clean his workspace. “Something needing attending to?” The question came from Bodahn, who’d seen the young Templar carrying the message come in earlier, a bit nervous, and hand over the sealed envelope to the shop's proprietor.

The elf nodded slightly. "Yes. I will be out for the remainder of the day, and likely tomorrow as well. Please handle any orders in the usual way.” Bodahn confirmed that he would, and Rilien took a moment to make sure his order sheets were in order and accessible to his dwarven shop-mates before heading up the stairs. It didn’t take too much longer to armor himself in smooth, dark leather, sliding various blades, lockpicks, and potions home in the loops, sheaths, and pouches designed for them. When he was properly attired for his other kind of business, Rilien headed out the front door and made for Sundermont.

He was not usually in the business of outsourcing his more discreet requests, but in this case, he felt that it would be beneficial to all parties involved to bring in Aurora and whomever of her people she desired to have along. The problem was hardly unique, but he was being offered a great deal of discretion regarding his methods, and neither Thrask nor Cullen ever asked him many questions regarding how he accomplished the things they asked him to do. This was for the best. It was enough that when Rilien was asked to take care of a problem, it did not ever become a problem again.

For an elf, he looked rather out-of-place in the wilderness; Rilien wore his city-born nature with, if not precisely pride, certainly an utter lack of shame. A peculiar kind of almost gentrified sophistication was built not only into his wardrobe, but into the way he kept his appearance, and even the way he moved. That said, he passed as quietly as anyone might hope to through the forest, a silent but not invisible shadow sliding between the pillar-like trees and over the irregular landscape under his feet. He had learned of this location not too long ago—Aurora, it would seem, trusted him with the information, and in all honesty, he would have been able to extract it from Sparrow if he’d so desired. But he had as yet left the information unused. He was appreciative, as much as he could be, that Sparrow was finding a sense of community and belonging that had nothing whatsoever to do with him. It made the inevitable future much easier to plan for.

At present, however, he would have to intrude. He approached the clearing unnoticed by anyone, watching with an unreadable face as various mages, ranging from the very young to the rather wizened, practiced their craft in small, precise ways. A cluster including both Aurora and Sparrow stood off to one side, and it was these he approached, breaking the tree line and making a beeline for them. One young woman looked up and started when she noted the new arrival, enough noise to alert the rest to his existence, anyway.

"Aurora.” He waited until he had gained the attention of the speaking group before he continued. "I was recently passed a job from Ser Cullen. I believe it might interest you.”

Sparrow eyed her fellow mages with pursed lips, scuffling the dirt with the toe of her boots. They were far enough from Kirkwall to refrain from being overly cautious, but she still felt itchy. Not even the great trees, weaving back and forth in the wind, could soothe her soft-spoken worries. She'd forgone Amalia's dragon-made regalia for soft-leathers, far more comfortable for treks in the woods such as these, and not drawing unwanted attention. Her hair had grown longer over the months. Forgoing clippers and choosing instead to pull it back from her face into a loose knot, it made her appear much less intimidating. Not soft, but different. She exhaled noisily and stretched her arms over her head, arching her back and settling back into place. It was a nice day.

A noise snapped her attention sidelong. She'd spotted someone jerk backwards, and instinctively drew back her hand, fingers splayed. Warmth pulsed down her arms, and crackled at her palms. It took her a moment, blinking owlishly, to realize that the person approaching them was none other than Rilien. Silent as a ghost. Looking no more nonplussed by their reactions as if he'd been invited all along. Thankfully, no Templars were in pursuit. She dropped her hands dramatically and clicked her tongue, a grin slowly creeping it's way onto her face, “Can't you make a little noise? Or wear a bell?”

"It'd suit him, I think," Aurora agreed with a smile. She was surprised to see him there too, at first, but as it always did when it concerned Rilien, it soon faded away. She'd known him long enough to understand that she had to expect the unexpected with him. She looked past him and waved to the mages, asking them to calm down. "It's okay, he's a friend. Please continue with what you were doing before," she bade them. Even so, she couldn't help but over hear the word tranquil whispered between them.

Pike watched the man carefully, while Donovan stood relaxed with his arms crossed, as if waiting for something. Likely waiting for Aurora to ask what the job was. She turned back to Rilien and chewed on her lip, looking somewhat puzzled. "Ser Cullen is a Templar, is he not?" She asked, looking first to Sparrow and then back to Rilien, "What kind of job would a Templar have for you?" Aurora asked.

"He's asking you to hunt down a mage, isn't he?" Pike said, his frown deepening. "It's what Templars do, after all," He added, as Donovan's hand clasped his shoulder once more. That drew even more looks from the mages collected, and caused Aurora to sigh audibly.

Sparrow's grin smothered itself into a thin smile. Rilien hadn't told her he'd been planning to come up here at all. Neither did he mention needing any help, seeing as it concerned Cullen and who-knows what. Truthfully, she had nothing against him, but he was a Templar, and generally, Templars meant trouble for most of the people she surrounded herself with. Including Rilien, ironically. He didn't owe them anything, so why did they continue dogging him for solutions?

Rilien turned his head slightly, staring down Pike for several long seconds, his citrine-yellow eyes unblinking. "Attempting to see everyone as for you or against you will make you blind.” Blinking slowly, he returned his eyes to Aurora, ignoring the jest that suggested he wear something that would allow others to hear his approach. "What Ser Cullen wants is for me to ascertain the location and activities of two apostates, before Meredith comes to believe the matter one that she has to send a troop of Templars to deal with.” He adjusted the arms in his sleeves slightly.

Pike continued to look at the man for a moment more before his gaze averted, his eyes dropping to Rilien's feet. Meanwhile, Donovan gave Pike's shoulder a gentle squeeze as he nodded in agreement with Rilien's thoughts.

"As long as he hears nothing of them afterwards, he is willing to leave the handling of these matters to my discretion. If they are no longer Templar problems, they do not require Templar solutions. It seemed to me that this would interest you.” He tipped his head faintly to the side to indicate the various mages practicing their skills in the clearing. He did not believe that every apostate possessed the character required to live safely outside the bounds of a Circle, but he also did not believe that none of them did. All that he was required to do was take these two in particular off the Templar radar and out of the rumor mill.

"One of them is named Evelina, and Ser Cullen believes we will locate her in Darktown. The other is Emile de Launcet, and his location is undetermined, but his father, the Comte de Launcet, lives in a mansion in Hightown. It is suspected that he and the Comtesse are hiding their son from the Templars.”

Aurora tilted her head and brought her hand to her chin as she thought about it. Not that there was a decision to be made on whether she was going to help or not, that much was a given. It was as Rilien said: if it were no longer a Templar problem, then they would not be required. Instead, she'd make it a mage problem so that a mage could deal with it. No, instead the thoughts were on another matter entirely.

She turned toward Pike with her arms crossed and spoke, "You're coming with me on this one." She said, "Open your eyes a little, so to speak. It'll be a fine learning experience, I'm sure." Next, she turned toward Donovan, smiling. "Think you can stay here and watch over the others while we're away?" She asked.

The man looked passed them toward the mages who were now all watching them and nodded in agreement. "Aye. I will make sure they get through their regiment," though before he left them he leaned down and looked at Pike, "Do not give them any trouble and do not do anything foolish, yes?" Once Pike agreed with a slight incline of his head, Donovan straightened and went to the other mages.

"Sparrow?" Aurora asked, looking at the woman. A smile soon broke out on her face though as she laughed. "Do I even need to ask?"

The ember-eyed woman knuckled her nose and dropped it down to tap at her chin, feigning thoughtfulness. Even if there were any other options, should Rilien request anything of her—they both knew she'd be there, indefinitely. No other choice, really. If any mages were involved, she wanted to personally see it through. In her experience, even the slimmest chance of salvation was worth pursuing and if they could prevent her friends, these mages, from suffering future troubles, she'd do anything. More than that, she wanted to be involved in these things, in Rilien's secret disappearances. Tight-lipped as he was, she felt a whispering of neglect. She threw her head back and laughed too, slapping a hand down onto Aurora's shoulder, eyes alight. “Course not. Course not.

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel

Earnings

0.00 INK

The four of them, Aurora, Sparrow, Rilien, with the addition of Pike, entered the city and headed toward Darktown. It was a path she travelled more often than not, so she was becoming numb to the stark changes as the environment began to melt away from Lowtown to the slums. However, Darktown was a general location, and a rather large place to be searching for a single individual, especially if they were a mage. Aurora had decided that they should try and find Evelina first. If she had evaded the Templars, then there was no way she could be that easy to find. Though rarely did she expect anything of a similar manner to be easy.

"What's the plan when we find her?" Pike asked. He lagged behind the trio as they walked, specifically behind Aurora. Turning back to look at him, Aurora answered, "We will do what we can for her, so long as she doesn't bother the Templars any longer," She caught the wince on his face, but she clarified, "If they know she's here, then they'll keep searching for her. She can only avoid them for so long before they find her, so we have to find her first." Aurora didn't exactly know what they could do for her, but they'd still have to find her first.

Toward that end, she turned to Rilien. "Did they tell you anything besides that she might be in Darktown? There's a lot of people there, and not all of them want to be found either."

"And that is why they asked me to do this, and not someone else.” Rilien had extensive informational networks scattered throughout Kirkwall, contacts from all walks of life that he could lean on when necessary. The abundant coin that his shop brought in smoothed many of these relationships over, and as a result, any number of his birds were happy to sing what they knew. Down here, he’d be best off inquiring of Tomwise, but fortunately, he knew something of Evelina from his own years living down here, and as such, it likely would not be necessary.

"Evelina is a former Fereldan refugee. She spent the early part of her years here taking in various orphaned or homeless children and caring for them, until begging proved insufficient, at which point she went to the Circle, in an attempt to secure them resources by turning herself in as their primary guardian. That is not, however, how such things work. She broke out of the Circle several weeks ago and destroyed her phylactery. But I do not believe she would have gone to ground without checking on those children she considered her responsibility, so if anyone knows where she went, it would be them.” It should not be too difficult to figure out which were hers—people tended to know things like that down here. And of course, he was still in possession of the coin required to loosen tongues, if that became the issue.

Strange how he knew so much about people, when she, another inhabitant of Darktown, hardly knew anything at all. Not that she really cared to, honestly. She believed two breeds of people existed in the musty underbelly of Kirkwall. Those whose eyes discerned weaknesses, raking across exposed purses, throats, and bangles, to survive and scrape and live. And those who'd already given up. Hunched in darker corners, settling into the shadows. Anyone else unfortunate enough to call this home were just that: in temporary hiding. Over the years, Sparrow had become a reckless creature of light shoving past everyone, while Rilien became something more of a spider weaving its web across Kirkwall in its entirety. Strange how she'd never noticed before.

She licked her lips and walked beside Rilien, hardly looking where she was going. Weaving down these dirty streets came naturally to her. Instead, she listened. Whoever this woman was, she was good in ways that were all too uncommon. Her crime? Freedom. The Circle left a sour taste in her mouth, even if she'd never experienced life in any tower, in any constraint beyond what the Qunari had taught her. It had taken from Rilien, from many of the other mages, and threatened the very same freedoms she'd sought for so long. Templars, too, for that matter. She had no love for them. “Alright then, lead on,” she said with a flourish of her hand, indicating one of the many paths. There were many children scuttling around, and her means of questioning often involved near-throttling them to a stop and roaring in their faces. Softness did not her needs.

Like Pike, all she thought of was what they'd do when they found her.

Darktown, perhaps of all the places in Kirkwall, changed the least with time. The poorest were always the poorest, and it wasn’t as though any of them had the ability to bring any cheer or basic cleanliness to the dirty, half-underground cesspool that was the bottom rung of the city. Rilien, having lived here for three years himself, still knew it quite well, and as such, it wasn’t terribly difficult to navigate to a section of the place where youths were known to gather, mostly to keep each others’ company while their parents—should they have any—attempted to beg or steal work or coin elsewhere.

The particular corridor he led them down was only sparsely occupied at this time of day, but there were two children sitting against the wall, apparently occupied with a game of some sort involving an ill-carved wooden top and some sticks. One of the boys appeared to be considerably older than the others, perhaps twelve, while the younger looked about seven, though given his malnourishment, he might well have been considerably older and merely stunted in growth. It wasn’t extremely uncommon in these parts.

Rilien in fact recognized the elder of the two—he’d paid him a few times to run errands for his old shop, back when he had been based a few blocks over. "The elder is named Walter. I do not know if he is one of Evelina’s adopted, but even if he is not, he is likely to know someone who is.” He was a reasonably intelligent child, as Rilien recalled, and down here, knowing who was whom was a valuable skill.

Sparrow crossed her arms over her chest and stared down at the children, squinting her eyes, trying to place faces and names together. It conjured no familiarity, and probably scared them, but they weren't here to make friends. Had she been born in different circumstances, she might of pitied them as Aurora did. As far as she was concerned, they were as free as she had been at their age. Perhaps, even more so. She glanced towards Rilien, then shifted over to let Aurora through.

Aurora frowned with one arm over her chest and the hand of the other on her chin. She felt sorry for these children, they had nothing. She may have been taken from her parents, but she was never without food or shelter. Looking at her companions Aurora shrugged and took the first steps toward them. Out of all of them, she perhaps had the required demeanor to speak with children. Rilien was, well, Rilien, and both Sparrow and Pike were not the most delicate of creatures. She approached the children and they both stood, the younger one running to hide behind the older-- Walter, as Rilien told her.

"We got nothing here you want, leave us alone," The boy said defensively shielding the younger one. Aurora frowned and seemed a bit hurt, but quickly smiled and shot a glance at Rilien. Walter followed her gaze to the tranquil and upon seeing him seemed to relax a little. "Rilien?" He asked. Rilien inclined his head slightly in answer.

"We mean you no harm, we just want to talk," Aurora said, dropping into a crouch to be at the same level as the children. "We just want to know where Evelina is, do you know her?"

"Evelina, she..." Walter began, though he seemed unsure if he should go any further. Aurora smiled warmly and tilted her head to the side. "We just want to help her, that's it."

"She shared everything with us. She found us when the darkspawn came, when our parents died. She made sure we got to Kirkwall safely... But when she went to join the Circle, they called her an apostate, for leaving the tower in Ferelden. They locked her up..." Walter said.

"Typical," Pike said, rolling his eyes. Aurora shot him a glance, of which he shook his head at. "Why didn't she stay here, with you?" he added.

"She didn't want us to be stuck in Darktown, she wanted to give us a real life. She thought the Circle would help her, but they just locked her up!"

Pike said nothing else, but he visibly grimaced and crossed his arms, clearly unimpressed with the actions of the Circle, and Aurora couldn't help but feel the same way. She sighed and nodded, asking another question. "Can you tell us where she went? You can trust us, we'll try our very best to help her in any way we can."

"No one can help her," Walter said, but the boy hiding behind him stepped forward and began speaking instead, "The Templars made Evelina angry. The made her change. It wasn't her fault, when it was over she was ashamed she ran into the tunnels and hid," Before he could continue, Walter pushed him. "Shut up Cricket! Don't tell them that!"

Aurora dropped her head for a moment, before shaking it and looking at Rilien, then Sparrow. "You can't go there, she'll know we told you and she'll get angry!"

"Angry? I don't like it when she's angry! We have to hide!" Cricket said in a panic before he bolted. "Cricket!" Walter called, following close behind.

"Changed.” It didn’t take a genius to figure out what the children meant by that, especially since it had been brought on by Templars. Rilien’s expression didn’t shift, nor did his posture alter much, but he knew exactly what would become of this situation now. There was no going back from being an abomination—one case very obviously excepted. "We should find her, before she causes any more damage.”

Abominations. Sparrow swallowed thickly and rocked back on her heels, watching the children scamper away. It was a possibility she hadn't wanted to consider—ever again, really. How many times had they faced things like this? Grim reminders that they were made up of tender things, swaying on the brink of something dark and irreplaceable. Knowing what they were going to face didn't make it any easier, and as her eyes raked away from tiny footpads rounding the bend, back towards Pike, she knew this would be made more difficult with his being here. She swept her fingers through her tousled hair and rolled her eyes up. Fairness played no part in this, anymore.

As much as she wanted to walk away from this thing altogether because of what she'd been to those children... there were no options. She looked down at Aurora and shook her head mutely. She didn't like this either, but she'd killed enough abominations to recognize futility, and wasted efforts only made things harder. “Maybe it'd be best... you know, if,” she mused and cleared her throat, “we dealt with this instead.” The only other option one had was to close their eyes, and if Pike wanted no part in this, she wouldn't blame him. Her hands, however, no longer shook.

"Better us than the Templars who started this," Pike said, spitting to his side. "Dammit," he then cursed under his breath. Aurora turned toward him and nodded in agreement. She had said that they would help her in any way that they could but now... It was the only way they could help her. She shouldn't be left to suffer like that and hurting others. No one would want that.

"Come on, let's do it quick..." Aurora said, standing and making her way toward the sewers.

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel

Earnings

0.00 INK

The sewers, as one might expect, smelled exactly like dead things and shit. If Rilien looked out of place in Darktown, the effect was magnified tenfold here. Still, though his boots might be of fine make, they were functional and watertight, something that was definitely fortunate considering where they’d ended up. So while they sloshed through stagnant, filthy water as deep as their ankles, none of it seeped in. Oddly, most of the sloshing seemed to be left to other people, as even in these conditions, Rilien made little enough noise that he wasn’t heard over everyone else.

Who had deigned to place traps in a sewer passage, he did not know, but he found several anyway, walking in front to better spy the occasional tripwire or pressure plate. He didn’t stoop to disable them, considering the terrain, but he at least warned the others of where they were located, so that they could place their feet carefully. Not knowing where exactly Evelina was in the sewer system meant they had to sweep it, at least until Rilien picked up on ambient magic in the area. After that, like some kind of odd bloodhound, he led them to where he sensed it from, coiling and slithering like black oil on the surface of a dank pond. Corrupted, beyond their capacity to repair.

Slogging through shit so early in the day hadn't been on Sparrow's list of things she wanted to do, either. It seemed as if her day was being plunged into the same muck she was currently drudging through, and no amount of breath-holding would quell the wafting bouquet of fecal matter and cankerous mold that surrounded them. She kept her arms swinging in an odd, chicken-fashion to prevent soiling anything besides her nice, new boots. If she'd known ahead of time, perhaps she would've worn clothes she cared nothing about. She had to admit though, it was a nice distraction to the fact that they'd soon have to slaughter another mage-gone-astray, in a dank gutter that overshadowed all of her good deeds.

The area Rilien led them to was a wider, more cavernous one, the terrain a mix of sodden and completely covered in water, which would mean poor footing for those not used to keeping it. Rather than Evelina, however, what they saw first was Walter and Cricket, who had obviously known more exactly where their former caretaker had hidden herself.

"Walter.” It was perhaps strange that the one word, delivered in nothing other than his characteristic monotone, could produce a sort of instantaneous guilt in the adolescent, but it did.

“I—I thought if we warned her about you, she wouldn’t be angry. But she—”

“Walter…” A feminine voice sing-songed the word, perhaps from up the stairs slightly ahead and to their left.

Walter’s eyes went wide, and he grasped Cricket’s upper arm, shifting the smaller boy behind him. “She’s coming. Run!” The two took off, attempting to mount the stairs, but a figure appeared to be descending them, cutting off the boys’ escape.

It belonged to a woman, her face lined, probably prematurely, with stress, her cheeks hollowed and slightly sunken. Her coloration and build were entirely average for anyone around the area, but there was a malicious light in the way she stared. Rilien knew that wasn’t just a metaphor—it was a reflection of the nature of the magic she harbored. “There you are. Don’t run from me, Walter. You know those are the rules.”

Rilien moved swiftly, insinuating himself between the woman and the children, one of his long knives sliding free of its sheath with a soft ringing sound. Electricity crackled along the surface of the steel, the enchantment waking now that it was properly in his hand. "Get back.” His order to the boys was toneless as ever, but they obeyed immediately nonetheless.

“You play the hero well.” Eveline eyed him speculatively, and then the others as well. “But I see through you. You lived here, once, but you were never one of us. And now you live in Hightown, up there with the nobles and the filth. Never to look at what’s below your feet. I should rule Kirkwall! Then my children will have a whole city to play in!” Evelina’s face and form contorted, bathed in a sickly green light, and no more than a moment later, an abomination stood where once she had been. To her sides, several shades and rage demons appeared from the ground as well, hissing and spitting magmatic saliva and rotten air alike.

Rilien did not hesitate, and sprang for Evelina.

It was Rilien who had darted forward first, shielding the children from who she assumed had been Evelina. An old, withered husk crooning at the head of the staircase. Blabbering about things that made no sense. An empty shell bearing a twisted face, and a well-meaning woman gnawed away by monsters whose sickly-sweet promises had been too great to refuse. She understood that better than anyone, and it made her stomach twist in knots, her mouth swill with bile. She chuffed harshly and unwrapped the mace from her hip. Already, it hissed with heat and spat embers from its flanged fins, mirroring her outrage. It was unfair. All of this. Dirty business fit for the sewers.

She, too, darted forward and nearly fell flat in the mud, slipping in the muck under her feet. She regained her balance, swearing and sweating from heat wafting from her weapon. With Aurora's guidance, she still could not control the measure of magic poured into temporarily enchanting weapons, and at this proximity, the shaft burnt hot against her palms. She gnarled her discomfort into pure energy and planted her feet onto the first staircase, which was relatively drier than the rest of the sludge, and threw herself at the nearest shade, screaming. The sizzling mace swung back behind her head and swept into a large arch focused on the upper portion of its chest, sending her and the shade over the railing and back into the filth.

The satisfying crunch of steel against the shade's face made it worthwhile. It sizzled and crackled in a mess of ash and embers, sweeping up into the air as she passed overhead. She landed shoulder-first and managed to roll back to her feet without kissing muck and grime, another gurgle of rage battling its way from her throat as she stumbled back towards the rage demons.

Next into the fray was Aurora who dashed in low past the two children and directly to the shade on the far end. When she threw her arms back and when she brought them back to her front, they were encased in a thick layer of stone. Her face held a grim edge as she went to work. On her approach, she feinted to the side, which brought the shade's attention there before she broke back to the opposite side, breaking the sightline. Aurora rose up and delivered a heavy uppercut to what could be considered the thing's head, though it required a little hop to reach. Though the onslaught didn't stop there.

Once she reached her feet again, she delivered two more strikes to the demon's midsection before he had the chance to lash out. He brought a horizontal swipe across in an attempt to take her head off, but she leaned heavy to the side. Unfortunately, it threw her off balance, and in the muck of the sewers she lost her footing, and she threatened to topple over. However, her stoneskin hand kept her upright, though partly horizontal, acting as a pillar of some sort. Instead, she swept with her foot, taking the shade's base from it. She pushed herself up and brought her hand in a semi circle, ending in the creature's chest, dispersing it.

She turned just in time to witness a rage demon rear back to belch a stream of lava on to her, but before it could carry it out its intentions, a heavy force picked it up and tossed it to the side. A sidelong glance revealed it to be Pike, standing protectively in front of the children. She spared a nod in acknowledgement before jumping back into the fight.

Rilien had a bit of an uphill battle on his hands, as Evelina had backed up the stairs after his initial lunge resulted in a deep stab wound in her side. Trailing a ribbon of blood, she made to get away from him as quickly as possible launching multiple projectiles at him, as the staircase forced him into a rather narrow path, minimizing his ability to dodge. But he was light on his feet and well-balanced, and so while a fireball managed to catch his sleeve on his way up, he was not seriously injured before he was able to get in close again.

One of the abomination’s arms swept outwards, just clipping his cheekbone as he bent to avoid the worst of it, the thin line of blood trickling down the nearly-alabaster white of his skin, stark if nothing else. Narrowing his eyes, he lunged again, sweeping in low and hamstringing her on the way past, straightening to a stand once he was properly behind her and taking another glancing blast of telekinetic energy to his left shin. Shifting his balance to his other foot, he plunged his dagger into the base of her neck and tore it out the other side, sending her to the ground. Noting that another rage demon approached Sparrow from behind, he drew a smaller knife, this one glistening with ice, and hurled it, striking between what would have been its shoulder blades, freezing it at the core and making it vulnerable to blunt impact. A couple of blows from Sparrow’s mace would probably shatter it.

Sparrow felt, more than heard, the slicing wake of Rilien's dagger hissing beyond her shoulder, and punching into the rage demon skulking at her back. He was backing Evelina back up the staircase, and looked as if he needed no help. Blood pumped through her temples as loudly as drum beats, clamouring and trampling any remaining logical thought as if they were the shoulders of the dead. Her movements were clumsy in the perilous slop, but it did not take her long to take advantage of the terrain and slip under its extended claw and drifting her mace behind her. A wake of destruction hardening the slime it schlepped through, crackling with hoar-frost. Cold enough to numb her hands. Its blueness reflected in her eyes, dancing with the demon's flames, and as she tensed her shoulders and arms, swinging wild and wide, the mace connected with its shoulders and sailed straight through it's neck and torso, sideways.

Unfortunately, its momentum swung her off balance and she plopped onto her side, mace held askew. Her anger sizzled out as if it'd been doused with water—or shit and muck, probably both. The stench reached her nose once more, and she tasted copper in her mouth. She sucked at her gums to realize she'd bitten her tongue. Fortunately, all the other demons and baddies had been slain, and now all who remained was the withering Evelina, the children, and her friends. Stuck in a sewer, sodden with who-knows-what. Even she admitted that she'd need to bathe. She did not immediately stand, but instead shrugged her shoulders and glanced up at Aurora and Pike, grimacing and flicking clumps of mud from her sopping sleeves. How long would it take to get that out of there? She sighed, “Shit. Everywhere.” And then, there was the children: wide-eyed, trembling. Also in shit. Hardly a place for kids.

The last demon was handled not too long thereafter, due to Pike and Aurora's teamwork. Pike used his magic to force the last demon toward Aurora at an impressive clip, who ran toward the demon and punched. With the momentum of her run combined with the demon's own, it slammed against the ground with stunning force, dispersing it instantly. Unfortunately, it lived long enough to make impact with the sewage soaked ground, splashing her with muck and who knew what else. She managed to avoid most of it by turning her head away at the last moment, but even a little bit was far too much for her. She noted Pike bringing his hand to his mouth in an effort to not laugh.

"... Everywhere," Aurora agreed with Sparrow. "Let's... Go somewhere else. Anywhere. I really want to change," she said, trying not to move and spread what was already on her elsewhere.

Quickly as they could, they left the sewers, Pike ushering the children along with them. Before they left Darktown, they had to see children's care, as Aurora nor Pike wished to simply abandon them. "The Templars would let them rot, and that's not what Evelina would want," he said, though no one disagreed. Toward that end, they decided to allow a small charity group that did most of its work in the slums to take kids in, but not before Rilien gave them a few coins.

It was then decided that they would change clothes first, before making their way to Hightown in an attempt to find Emile de Launcet.

Setting

4 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

The paperwork was finally dying down. When Ashton did these kind of things on his own, he never had to look forward to a mountain of forms to fill out once he got home. Now that he was official, records had to be drawn up, reports had to be written, and detailed account of events transpired had to be transcribed. It wasn't like he could pawn it off on Vesper either, she wasn't there, as she helpfully reminded him every time he brought it up.

In hindsight, he should have maybe had a contingent of guards with him when tackling the Coterie. Still, he planned to make it up to them. They still had two of the former heads of the gang, Quinn and Miranda, in the dungeons. If they could get any information out of them, then the Coterie could take a hit thanks to the efforts of the guards, and maybe the Lions, if they were so inclined. It was a process, however, things needed to be done in a certain order before any moves were made against them. Signing his name on the last report, Ashton called in Vesper and asked her to take them to Bran for filing purposes.

He then went to the thin journal on his desk, which was where it'd been since he'd taken possession of it from Quinn. It was the only solid piece of evidence they had, but if it was Quinn's personal journal, then it was bound to have some senstive information in it. Leaning back into his chair, he opened it and began reading. It didn't take more than two or three lines for him to realize that it wasn't at all what he initially thought it was. Leaning forward, he read one more line before he shut the journal and stood, grabbing his sword and making his way out of the barracks.

His destination clear in mind, it didn't take him long to navigate down the Keep and to Sophia's new home in High Town. He gave the door a series of hard knocks before he waited, fidgeting outside her door.

Only a few moments later, Sophia opened the door, dressed casually, as she had not expected to go many places for the day. Greeting Ashton with a smile, she stepped aside and held the door open so that he might come in. "Ashton," she said, noting the guard's plate he still wore, "how can I help you? Is this about Quinn?"

"Uh... Not exactly," Ashton said, holding up the journal for her to see. "You... Might want to read this," he added, holding it out for her to take.

"What is it?" she asked, taking it in her hands before she could properly recognize what it might be. A journal of some kind, the right size and shape, she noted, the memory coming back to her immediately. The missing book from the Viscount's Keep, a mere black feathered quill left in its place. She flipped open the cover carefully, reading the opening page. The script was small and concise following the title header, which read:

These are the adventures of Vesenia of Wycome, intrepid adventurer and soon to be mercenary-queen...

Sophia fought the momentary weakening of her knees by leaning against her doorframe, staring down at the page with an unconscious smile. She stopped before getting far to suddenly hug Ashton tightly. "Thank you, for bringing this to me." She didn't even have to ask if he'd read any of it. He wouldn't have read any more than was necessary to know who the author was. Breaking off the hug, Sophia gripped Ashton briefly by the shoulders.

"If it isn't too much trouble, could you get Lucien and Nostariel, and bring them here? There's no rush, I'll need some time to read this, but I'd very much like the three of you to be here for when I finish." There was always a chance there wouldn't be any noteworthy information about Dairren or anything else to help her move forward, but all three of them had shared in her struggle to settle with her family's history, and this would hopefully be one of the last steps she needed to make.

"I'll get right on it," Ashton said with a smile. With that, he gave he a slight bow and backed away from her door, heading away with in noticeable slow meander. He wanted to give her as much time to herself as possible.




Sophia's manor still looked a little unlived in, as it was difficult for one person to make such a large space their own in a short amount of time. In addition, she spent a great deal of her free time lately out of the house, prefering to see Lucien in Lowtown rather than ask him to trek up the other way. The company was better near the Argent Lions, after all.

The interior was divided among the two floors, the second of which had a railed balcony that overlooked much of the first. The living area on the first floor was large and spacious, situated around a warm hearth, large windows offering a good deal of natural lighting when the sun was out. She'd had many of her old books, and most of her father's, moved out and into their new home, now along the walls of the manor, which were also decorated by a few pieces from Lucien. Opposite the main door on the first floor were a storage room, the kitchen, a dining room, and one other room she had yet to declare a permanent use for.

The upper level, accessible by a wide staircase along the left wall from the entrance, was a good deal smaller, consisting of the balcony walkway overlooking the entrance and living area, and the rooms that lined the back wall, along the guest's left had they just ascended the stairs. These were Sophia's room, a guest room, and a study, which she believed was fairly underused. In her own room was hung the striking image of her mother, painted by Lucien for the occasion of her birthday several years ago.

She'd gazed at it briefly, looking upon the face of Vesenia of Wycome, as she'd referred to herself, before she began reading in earnest, settling into a lounge chair on the second floor balcony near a window, overlooking the door, which she'd left unlocked for when Ashton returned with Lucien and Nostariel. From the earliest pages, she determined that her mother had been very young indeed when she'd become a mercenary, leaving her home behind to travel the Free Marches with Dairren Quinn, a man five years her senior. There was next to no mention of her own parents, leading her to wonder what her mother's relationship with them was. She seemed so driven by the idea of freeing herself from Wycome, of not letting her lowborn status keep her down. The pages were lined with a youthful exuberance that quite honestly reminded Sophia of herself, albeit with less weight on her shoulders. She could not help but envy her mother's experience, even as she smiled reading it.

Vesenia spoke of Dairren a great deal, for the two were very close friends, from what Sophia could tell. Her mother rarely wrote an ill word of anyone, but she seemed to know the younger Dairren in and out. Unlike Vesenia, Dairren was the son of a local lord, something Sophia had never known. His connections and coin enabled them to start their work, but he abandoned all hope of lands or titles when he left Wycome, even changing his family name. Whatever it was, it was not Quinn, which was the name he chose to adopt.

What followed was an account of many of their jobs over the following years, a few of which Sophia was inclined to skim over. From what she could tell, her mother's organization had already been surpassed quite handily by Lucien's, in terms of what they were able to take on. They were a close group, though, initially brought together by Dairren's influence, but Vesenia mentioned bringing in a few recruits of her own in her travels. Sophia read with detail the entry following the company's first death, to find that her mother's emotions felt much like her own, though it had not been a personal matter.

It was another of these deaths that led the group to Kirkwall, to seek a place to set up more permanently, and have access to better supplies, and potentially better medical aid. No small amount of frustration came to Sophia when she realized that a fair number of pages had been ripped from the journal shortly after they stopped in Kirkwall. It was heartbreaking, but there was nothing to do but continue on, hope she could fill in the blanks.

Where the entries resumed, the mercenary company had already been disbanded, Dairren already entered into the guard, and Vesenia married to Marlowe Dumar, a nobleman that she had apparently enchanted, a necessity given her lack of status. Marlowe gained nothing for himself by marrying Vesenia, but then that wasn't surprising to Sophia. He was never a man to seek out personal gain for its own sake.

And then Sophia turned the page, reading an entry written in a shaky hand. She felt her own start to flutter when she realized the subject. I woke this morning to realize that I had no memory of the previous night. What I did remember... meeting Dairren. I could tell he'd been drinking, but he seemed in a melancholy mood, and I hoped to bring him out of it. I drank with him some, and talked with him of Wycome, which he'd not discussed in years... and then nothing.

Sophia looked back to the date, compared it to that of the wedding. This was two nights later. Vesenia had gone to confront Dairren, only to find that the guardsman was eluding her. An entry followed some unspecified time later, the date unmarked. I don't know what to do. I know what Dairren did. I don't know why. A child is within me. I know not the father. I don't know what to do. The entry abruptly ended. Another began on the next page.

I will not tell Marlowe. I will never tell him. Dairren was always a friend, and he made a wretched mistake. I will never speak to him again, but I will not destroy him for this.

It was around then that Ashton returned to the manor, Lucien and Nostariel in tow, and they crossed over the threshold with a minimum of fanfare, Nostariel waving up to Sophia, visible near the balcony rail, though the Warden lowered her hand when she noted the rather nonplussed expression her friend was wearing. Ashton had mentioned that he’d left her with her mother’s journal—apparently something she was reading therein had shocked her, and not in a pleasant way. Toeing her boots off, as it would be rather rude to track dirt into the place on a friendly, not-terribly-urgent visit, Nostariel was the first one up the stairs.

“Sophia? Is something wrong?” She took a cross-legged seat in one of the plush armchairs on the balcony, the other two arranging themselves as comfortably as they desired as well.

There were enough seats for all of them, and when they were all seated, Sophia found that she had momentarily forgotten how to speak. She flipped the journal over in her lap, so as not to lose the page, and sat up more fully.

"Dairren... he forced himself on my mother, shortly after she wed. I only just found out. She never knew who my father was." Which meant that Dairren couldn't know for sure, either. It explained... a great deal, actually. And when she came to think about it, it didn't surprise her very much. Dairren, a noble's son, abandoning at least some measure of wealth and other inheritance to roam the Free Marches with a girl who may as well have been a peasant. He'd likely been in love with her from the start, though Vesenia had never written anything of feelings from her own end.

Nostariel’s eyes were wide. “It says that?” It was hardly a surprise that Sophia’s reaction was as it was, if that was what the journal intimated. The Warden blinked a few times, not sure she knew exactly what to say to that. Of all the things she might have guessed, that had not been among them. It made so little sense. Not that she couldn’t believe it of course—such crimes were unfortunately common in the world they occupied. Almost mundane, even, though of course this itself was terrible. But… something about it did surprise Nostariel even so.

It would take a very specific kind of man to be able to do something like that, and then believe he could dupe someone he assumed to be his daughter into never finding out. He didn’t seem to be the kind whose mind would be addled by affection, considering his stated disdain for Jamie, who was deluded in that fashion, Maker rest his soul. It left her feeling like she didn’t understand any of it at all—but then, perhaps it was better that she couldn’t.

Unconscionable. Lucien had never known what the basis was for Quinn believing that he was Sophia’s father, but he had to admit he had not been expecting that. Anyone who was willing to use the Coterie to regain a foothold in Kirkwall was misguided, yes, but this was something else entirely. He noted that there was an odd gap in the diary where pages were missing, but now seemed hardly the time to comment on it. “While I am certainly in favor of those accused of crimes being allowed to speak in their defense,” he said quietly, “I do not think there is much to be said in defense of such a thing.” He regarded Sophia with some concern—if in fact this was the truth of the matter, it was possible that she existed as a result of what he considered the foulest of all crimes. He suspected that would weigh ponderously on anyone.

Sophia did not understand it, but then, she did not know Dairren's mind. She remembered him saying to her, when she was younger, that he'd never been able to speak to anyone very well, and even around her he seemed guarded, watching every word he said. She wondered if he had always been that way. She did not know what kind of man her mother had left her first home with so many years ago, but there was no doubt in Sophia's mind that he had changed drastically since then, for the worse.

"I can say nothing to defend him," she said, finally. "My mother did not, either." She flipped the book back over, glancing down at its pages as though she might send another message, but only the same words remained. Leaning sideways, she rubbed her forehead briefly, wanting only for this ordeal to be over. Instead, it felt as though it had become more complicated.

"Is it wrong, that I should want him to hang?" she asked. "He may well be my father. My mother chose not to expose him... but then, that was to protect me. Exposing his crime would have thrown my parentage into doubt." For all Sophia knew, her mother could well have been afraid of anyone knowing, perhaps for the horridness that would have followed between Dairren and Marlowe. It had come, of course, but only years later, long after her death. "Even when my father, when Marlowe Dumar, learned of it, he did not reveal the truth. To protect my future. Both of them were so selfless... and both of them are dead, while Dairren yet lives. Is this not wrong? It feels wrong."

Nostariel’s frown deepened, and she sighed slightly through her nose. “I don’t know how you’re supposed to feel, if there’s any fact about that at all, but… whether it would make a difference or not, perhaps we should speak with him. Or you should, if you’d rather do so alone. There are two sides to every story, and if hearing his doesn’t make any difference, then… you’ll just be more certain of how you feel.” The Warden wasn’t really in the business of deciding what punishments fit which crimes, and she’d consider herself lucky if she never had to be.

Ashton shrugged from where he sat, and said, "It may or it may not, there's only one way to find out, though it may not change much." He leaned back in his seat and cradled the back of his head with his hands. "Blood or not, Marlowe was a good man and he cared for you. Quinn, well, you haven't seen him since he left, doing Maker knows what with the Coterie," Ashton stated, before a small chuckle escaped his lips. "Take it from me, blood isn't the only thing that ties a family together."

Leaning forward, Ashton placed his elbows on his knees and shrugged again. "Willingly allowing your daughter to be captured by the Coterie though.. Not entirely selfless parental material," he noted dully.

Sophia took in their advice attentively, somberly. What bothered her most about the situation was that she had not always hated the man who claimed to be her father, as he had been a fairly large presence in her youth. She'd gone to him often when her father was indisposed, considered him a friend. He was the one to teach her how to swing a sword, how to defend herself. That such a secretly wicked person could have influenced her, and indeed been the reason for her existence at all, made her feel somewhat ill.

"I'll speak to him, then," she declared, closing the journal and rising to her feet. "Tomorrow, once I've prepared. I think it should be something I do alone. Thank you, though, all of you, for your help. I doubt I'd have made it through this without you." It was becoming a pattern, she could see.

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel

Earnings

0.00 INK

After everyone had taken about half an hour to clean up and get the smell of the sewers off themselves, they met up again, this time in front of Rilien’s shop in Hightown. The differences in their surroundings were so different as to be almost nauseating, but to Rilien’s mind, at least, the amount of perfume on the air, at least around large clusters of people, smelled almost as bad as the sewers. Still, it was in every other way significantly less troublesome, and that included the even cobblestones beneath their feet.

"The de Launcet manse is this way.” Rilien, intimately familiar with Hightown, led the way. By this point, dusk was beginning to fall, the sky overhead growing darker, casting the pale stone most of the buildings were made of into medium greys and blues. A few merchants were closing up shop; others lit various torches and candles to illuminate what was still on offer. Down a side street, they could make out the bright, blush-colored paper lanterns that signified the boundary of the pleasure district. He led them in the opposite direction, however, turning down a few less-used, but still well-maintained, side streets, ending in a rather large courtyard shared by three different manors.

"Left. The Knight-Captain believes that Emile’s parents may be harboring him, but it is a much more complicated matter to level such an accusation at a noble with status and position to wield in retaliation.” Had he set upon this task himself, he would likely not have bothered to interrogate them at all. While he wasn’t ineffective at persuading people to part with information, it was simply easier to find it in more direct ways, and he would have chosen to sweep the house for traces of the mage son and his magic, or evidence of where he might be instead—without the knowledge of the Comte and Comtesse. But they were not him, and the face-to-face approach may serve them well, since their ears were bound to be more sympathetic than his ever could be.

Crisp, clean clothes. Sparrow pinched the fabric of her loose shirt and brought it up to her nose, inhaling deeply, heedless of manners and her exposed belly button. Smelt like lavender, strangely enough. When she thought about it, all her clothes did. It sure as hell didn't come from the musty heap of shirts and trousers she kept just beside her ill-fitting rust-bucket she'd once called proper armour. She dropped her hands back down and smoothed them across the front of her shirt, eyeing the remaining people bustling in the square. People were beginning to drift back home, shutting doors and windows. The smell was noticeably stronger around these parts, but she didn't mind. Not as subtle as Aurora's flower garden, but she admitted to nuzzling a few fragrant jawlines in these very houses.

She followed beside Rilien. While she, too, professed familiarity in Hightown and all of its extravagant estates, it had been for very different reasons—and usually, the interior of houses nor the location of windows out of sight helped. This man's house was unfamiliar to her. She'd never cat-called from beneath his bannister, and had no spidery connections to know of any families. Pretty faces had nothing to do with lineage. She sucked on her teeth and absently watched as candles were lit and hooked onto porches. All in all, Hightown painted a lovely picture in the evening. It also included her old home away from home, the Pleasure District, which she instinctively eased towards, clearing her throat with disappointment when they shuffled down the opposite alley.

“So, we have to... talk to them about it?” Sparrow snorted with a shake of her head, planting her hands on her hips. From her experience, nobles did not take well to anything logical. Tell someone their mage-son was causing a ruckus and drawing Templar's in, as well as endangering all other mages in Kirkwall, and they'd shut the door in their faces. What could be done, anyhow? She glanced back at Aurora. Sparrow might've been smooth-tongued when it came to courtship, but not in confrontations with skittish parents.

"It's always a good start," Aurora teased. She traded in her dirty clothes for the nicest set she believed she owned. If the next stage took place in Hightown, she didn't want to seem too out of place, but it was still undeniable that she wasn't from there. Pike even more so, unfortunately, as he seemed to be uncomfortable even walking through its streets. Walking beside him, along with Sparrow and Rilien, she actually felt like the most ordinary person in the group... Which meant that she was probably going to have to talk to the de Launcets.

The revelation caused her to sigh inwardly. "Actually," she began, "I'm probably going to have to talk to them about it," she finished, glancing at Rilien and Sparrow. Neither of them was much of a... People person. It wasn't something that she looked forward to, and she could have swore she heard Pike snicker at her. Aurora allowed Rilien to lead them to the manse, but she was the one to knock on the door. It was answered by what she assumed was their butler, a man who looked straight ahead without emotion. Aurora caught herself looking to his forehead for the sunburst brand.

"How may I help you?" The butler said in an eerily familiar monotone.

"May we see the de Launcets? We wish to speak to them about their son, Emile. We fear he may be in trouble," Aurora asked, which finally caught a glimmer of emotion from the butler. He looked down to her for a moment before nodded and asking them to wait while he informed the de Launcets.

A minute or two later, he returned and allowed them in, standing in between them and the doorway into the parlor. Aurora stood confused for a moment, before he shuffled to the side and revealed a woman, obviously highborn.

"Good evening Lady de Launcet," Aurora greeted with a bow. It... Seemed like the appropriate thing to do, considering the circumstances.

"I do not believe we have been introduced my dear...?" She asked in a distinct Orlesian accent.

"Aurora," she added, "And these are my friends Sparrow, Pike, and--" Before she could finish, the Lady finished for her.

"Rilien. He is the tranquil that runs the enchantment shop, no? From what we hear of him, his works are masterpieces. Please, come in, I will call for refreshments," she said, leading them into the parlor. Aurora was struck by how big the single room was, and noted that it could fit probably two of her homes in it. She'd never been one to place an attachment on material goods, but she could not deny the touch of envy she felt.

Talia!" She called. A few moments passed without a response before the Lady gave an exasperated sigh. "Oh! She is so slow, this girl. Come, let us chat while we wait," she said, leading them to a small table to the side.

Rilien clearly wasn’t one for chatting, but he did politely move himself into one of the chairs the Comtesse indicated, crossing one ankle over the opposite knee in a gesture of relaxation. It was in small part deceptive—he was habitually ready to react quite quickly to his environment, but he did not believe that the de Launcets posed anyone here an actual threat. They were nobles, not warriors, and he suspected that if they were harboring their son, they were doing it out of no malice. It was not as though they could be expected to want him in the Circle, considering the rumors floating around about Meredith’s authoritarian leadership style, rumors which had grown worse rather than better of late.

Sparrow immediately felt a prickle of discomfort when they were invited inside. It always came in brief moments when she noticed just how different she was in comparison and lasted just as briefly, flitting away in childish curiosity as she glanced into the rooms they passed by. Gaudy furniture and equally fantastic paintings loitered the chambers. While she'd never been to Orlais before, she certainly recognized that outer influences had motivated the furnishings, which were so unlike Kirkwall's rabble. She was also somewhat dumbstruck by the woman's cordiality. Perhaps, a door closing in their faces, or at least harsh, clipped words. She had to admit she'd expected a different reaction, but maybe this wouldn't be so bad. Plopping down in another plush chair, Sparrow settled herself like a lounging cat and fixed the Lady with what she thought was a friendly, enquiring stare.

Chatting seemed harmless, though. “You've got a nice home, then. Pretty things,” she rambled as she plucked something from the nearest table. A small, intricate letter opener. Sparrow turned it over in her hands, and deposited it back where she'd taken it from. Rudeness was an acquired taste—but her comments were genuine enough. She'd never been surrounded by so much wealth before, excluding that time they ventured into the Deep Roads. Her brief flirtation with wealth left her feeling as if it hadn't happened at all. She clucked her tongue and glanced over at Aurora. She racked her brain for something less inappropriate to lean on, aside from the obvious compliments sitting on her tongue. Not appropriate. “Is there anything you'd like to say?”

Aurora looked at Sparrow for a moment before shrugging. "We wanted to talk to you about Emile," she said. All of the niceties and socialization was nice and all, but they had come there with a purpose and Aurora was not too keen on drawing it out for too long. They had come for a reason, and the longer they tarried, the more danger Emile was in.

"Emile? Oh, I have not seen Emile since he was taken to the Circle. He was just six. You do not have to worry, I am sure Emile will turn himself in soon. He is a good boy," the Lady said pleasantly.

Aurora intended to follow up with another question, but she barely opened her mouth before a voice echoed across the cavernous room. "Dulci!" A man called from the doorway, whom Aurora assumed to be Emile's father. "What have you done? You should have told the boy to throw himself at the mercy of the templars." A muffled cough escaped Pike at the notion, who then quietly shook his head. Aurora only shot him a glare in response.

"Guillaume! Darling..." Dulci managed before getting cut off by her husband. It seemed that for the moment Aurora and the others were ignored.

"Do not 'darling' me Dulci. He has been telling people he is our son, that you gave him gold."

"Guillaume, darling, we have guests!" Dulci said, gesturing over to Aurora and others. Guillaume slowly turned his head and stared at them for a moment, while Aurora offered a smile and a small wave. Pike on the other hand, rubbed his eyes. "As you were saying?" he muttered under his breath.

"Look, we just want to help Emile," Aurora said, "We may be your son's best chance for mercy from the templars."

"Mercy?" Dulci repeated in shock. "They would not really hurt him, would they? Oh, you should have seen his face-- It just broke my heart," She continued, rubbing her cheeks. She was clearly distraught. "I gave him some money. Not too much. He said he wanted to start a new life.

Guillaume's head snapped back to his wife. "New life? His new life is spent in Lowtown taverns, getting drunk on cheap wine. It's a wonder the templars haven't found him yet." He then turned back to Aurora and entreated her, "Help us, please. Emile is not a blood mage, just a foolish boy. Don't let the templars kill him."

Upon hearing the words 'blood mage,' Dulci shot out of her seat, while Aurora noticeably sank deeper into hers.The last thing she wanted to hear was blood mage. "Blood mage! Oh Guillaume, do not say that!" Dulci continued, Aurora twitching at another instance of blood mage.

"Please, save my son's life," Guillaume pleaded.

Rilien had not missed family dramatics of this sort in the years he’d gone without witnessing them. As far as he could tell, they had all the information they really required, and he stood smoothly. "Whatever we do, we ought to do it soon, lest the poor concealment Emile is maintaining bring less sympathetic visitors to his side.” Not that he was sympathetic, of course, but one would be hard-pressed to find anyone moreso than the other three. He didn’t understand everyone’s panic about blood magic—Emile’s father had just said he wasn’t one, and the truth of the matter was something they would likely not discover until they confronted the man himself.

Sparrow lifted two fingers together and dropped them back to her sides, swiftly rising from her comfortable perch, “Awkward.” She wasn't sure what to make out of the whole spectacle, and it'd panned out stranger than she'd imagined, but Rilien was right... they needed to find him as quickly as possible. Templars and crocodile tears hardly mixed. Ripping apart families and shoving people into towers was only a matter of business. Besides, they'd sooner have Emile's head erected on a pointy stick, presumably posted outside the Gallows for all to see. She blinked owlishly at the mention of blood magic. Why mention it if there was none involved? Suspicious. She cleared her throat and placed her hand across her heart, “We'll do what we can. Now, we should be going.”

Taverns in Lowtown? Those were places she could actually lead them to.

"Thank you!" Guillaume said, "An acquaintance spied Emile in the Hanged Man not too long ago. He should still be there," He offered.

Dulci covered her mouth in painful surprise, "The Hanged Man? Oh, but that place is so filthy!" Aurora averted her gaze and said nothing about the tavern being a sort of.. nexus of theirs. Of course he'd be in the Hanged Man.

"Come, Dulci. Perhaps you should lie down," Guillaume said, leading her away, leaving Aurora and her friends in the parlor for the moment.

"She's... Not wrong, the place is pretty filthy," Aurora agreed, "Come on, let's hurry before we miss him." With that, she turned and led them out of the manse and back onto the streets. The path to the Hanged Man was one any of them could make in their sleep, due to how many times they've been there. It wasn't long before they pulled up to the familiar door, and Aurora pushed her way in, holding the door for the others to follow.

Upon entering the Hanged Man, Rilien scanned it over. Being a weeknight, it was not as busy as it was at the end of one, when the more conscientious tended to relax their standards a bit without more work to do the next day. That meant most of the patrons were either alcoholics, regulars close enough to it, or those with unusual schedules. It wasn’t too hard to pick out the man in silk who shared his mother’s hair color—he was presently facedown over one of the tables, several empty mugs laying about his person.

If it were possible for Rilien to look even less impressed than the way he usually did, that was how he appeared, his eyes falling half-lidded. Leaning slightly down and slightly over to speak quietly to Aurora, he flicked his eyes in the direction of the passed-out noble. "When you visited the Antivan Circle, did you note that the mages were now required to distinguish themselves with unfortunate haircuts? Because I can think of no other logical reason a person would voluntarily look like that.” His delivery was unswervingly monotone, but there was a faint hint of distaste in it as well.

Aurora tried to stifle a laugh, to no avail. It still came out between her lips, and after that she couldn't stop herself. "No, no they didn't. I'm pretty sure they'd jump off the tower before going into public like that. Who ever thought that hair was a good idea needs to be locked up instead," she said, hiding her mouth with her hand. Emile had a... Bowl cut, of sorts, but that wouldn't have been so bad by itself. What really set him apart was the massive bald spot that sat on the top of his head. Pike was turned around, his back toward the man, though his shoulders were hitched, more from the unexpected joke from the tranquil than anything else.

"You... You're going to have to talk to him, I don't think I'll be able to keep a straight face."

It might have been a quirk of the lighting, but for a moment, Rilien seemed almost to smile with his eyes alone, though if it indeed happened, it passed very quickly, and he looked again as he always did. "Fortunately, ‘keeping a straight face’ happens to be my area of expertise.” He did indeed lead the way towards Emile, or the man who could hardly be anyone else anyway. He had no desire to touch the man—the Hanged Man was fairly unclean—so he inquired verbally, at just enough volume that he should rouse the sleeping.

"Emile de Launcet?” Subtlety seemed hardly required on their parts when the man in question was obvious enough to pass out in a tavern while the Templars were looking for him. He supposed the Knight-Captain might have intentionally held off on the search for this one, if he hadn’t been found already; the Templars were not generally incompetent.

The man, though in truth he looked more of a boy at present, started, shooting upwards sharply until his nausea likely caught up with him, and he swayed a little in his seat. Rilien took a judicious step to the side, just in case he should lose the bellyful of rotgut he probably contained. He seemed to become sensate again, though, and kept the contents of his stomach to himself. “How do you know my name? Did Nella tell you?” His voice was slurred, but not enough to make him incomprehensible. Rilien resigned himself to taking a long time to get to the point, and indeed, Emile kept talking.

“I gave her my Launcet signet ring in exchange for a kiss, and tonight, she’s going to make me a man.”

"Is that so?” Rilien blinked, no more impressed than he was a few minutes ago, wondering distantly if anyone had ever taught Emile how to shave his face. His uneven, wispy facial hair was doing him no more favors than his haircut.

Apparently unaffected by the elf’s dry manner, Emile continued to make a mockery of any attempt to lay low in possibly the history of all attempts to lay low. “Round of drinks, on me? I’m Emile, as you know. And you are…?”

Rilien said nothing, staring him down for a moment, waiting for the realization to kick in. It wasn’t like people wore sunburst brands on their heads for aesthetic reasons. After several very long seconds, what he was observing seemed to catch up to Emile. “You’re with the Chantry! Oh, buggery! I know what this is about. I’m not a blood mage, all right? I, uh… I started that rumor because… because I thought it would make me sound dangerous and… suave.” He stood, apparently more to make room for emphatic gesticulation than for anything else.

At Rilien’s continued silence, he seemed to grow more desperate to explain himself. “I-I mean, it’s not like I’ve told everyone you know. Only people in the tavern. And only women.” The Tranquil was unsure how exactly that was supposed to make anything more reasonable, but he kept his silence. Apparently, that was intimidation enough to wring everything from Emile that he wanted to say, anyway. “You don’t understand. I’ve been in the Circle since I was six. Six! For twenty years I was locked up. Never had a real drink, or… cooked something for myself. Never stood in the rain, or kissed a girl. I just wanted to live a little.”

Something told Rilien that a few of these lacks of life experience had more to do with Emile than the Circle. He didn’t remember having any trouble with either locating drinks or interested parties with whom to hide in dark corners and broom closets. He chose not to say this, however. Pike on the other hand, simply sighed-- loudly. Sparrow snickered behind Rilien, knuckling her nose in a weak attempt to hide her amusement.

Emile sighed. “Please. If you’re going to kill me, do it. I’d rather die drunk.”

Rilien drew one of his knives, seizing the wrist of Emile’s non-dominant hand. Despite his words, the young man struggled against his hold, but the Tranquil was unconcerned. A flash of the knife, and Emile’s silk sleeve was split up the middle, falling away from his forearm on the underside. The skin there was smooth, free of any wounds or even the light scars that blood mages tended to accrue. The elf’s knife slid home in the sheath at his belt, and he glanced back at the other three, releasing the young de Launcet from his grip.

"The bloody fool," Pike stated, clearly more upset with the thought that Emile had been parading himself about as a blood mage because it might make him more popular with the women. "You idiot, do you know what they do with blood mages? Maybe it's better that you don't..." Pike said, calming down after getting a look from Aurora. "Doesn't matter, no amount of blood magic would help that hair," he said, though under his breath. Aurora couldn't help but hide a grin at that.

However, that grin faded soon after, as they had to do something about Emile. If they were to let him go, then there were no guarantees that he wouldn't pull another stunt like that again. Looking at Pike Aurora shrugged and stepped forward. "Templars kill maleficarum. It doesn't matter if it you were lying or not, Meredith wouldn't take that chance in letting even one escape. You can't stay here," Aurora said, earning herself a surprised look from Pike. It was surprising to see her so blunt with others.

"There’s a merchant ship departing for Rivain tonight.” Rilien raised one white brow ever so slightly. "You may wish to take it.”

Rivain or death—it wasn't as if there were many options for him, and by the slack-jawed expression on his face, he would choose wisely. Sailing into the night didn't sound half bad. She slung an arm around Rilien's shoulder and leered toothily beside him, craning her head to the side and decidedly placing a hand across his bald pate. “You should probably take care of that when you get there,” she suggested as he indignantly slapped her hand away.

If no one else was going to say it.

The Chanter's Board has been updated. On the Loose has been completed.

Setting

1 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar

Earnings

0.00 INK

Sophia remembered the last time she'd come to the Gallows for a visit to a prisoner. She'd expected that to be the most uncomfortable time she would ever have in the place. Of course she should have expected Dairren to end up here as well. But some part of her, some naive little corner of her that Kirkwall had yet to destroy wondered if this man might really be something better. A slandered captain of the guard, who felt forced into bed with criminals to protect himself, just trying to come to some accord with his daughter. Misguided, certainly, and perhaps still not a good man, but also not an evil one. She was fool to think as much. The good men had a way of falling into early graves. Dairren was far too old for that.

It was a cold day, the winter's chill making the mist from the sea cut like daggers, but Sophia ignored it. She was in her full armor again, Vesenia on her back, having no intention of going before Dairren unarmed. He'd taught her to wield it, true, but he had not seen her in action since she was a girl. She'd learned much and more from the world that her swordplay teacher could not give to her.

The request for the visit had arrived several hours ahead of her, courtesy of the guard captain, and the guards stationed at the Gallows were ready for her arrival, ushering her away from the Templar headquarters and into the prison, where Lieutenant Vesper guided her to the room that had been prepared. It was well away from other prison cells, so she need not fear other prisoners overhearing her conversation. It would be just her and Dairren across a table from each other, Dairren chained hand and foot to that table, with the guards standing ready outside the doors. Sophia nodded her thanks to Ves when they reached the room, and strode through the door that was opened for her. It immediately shut at her back.

"I don't want to be here any longer than I need to," she said, meeting his eyes. "Understand?" He nodded. Dairren looked every bit the prisoner now, clad in a tattered tunic and breeches, the chains binding him to the table by both wrists and ankles extremely short. He couldn't even bring his hands close enough together to touch. Preferring to remain standing, Sophia placed both her hands on the back of the chair before her, gripping it tightly.

"It has been several days," Dairren noted. "You've read the book by now, I assume?"

Sophia tried to bore through his skull with her eyes, but she could never conjure as deadly a look as many she knew. "Do you deny what my mother wrote in it?" He shook his head, answering no. "Then why keep it at all? Why not tear it out with the other pages?"

"Because," he answered, "it was the only evidence I had, real evidence, that you were my daughter. Without it, I had only my word, and I have never been trusted."

"You can't know that I'm your daughter. There is no proof, and there will never be any proof, one way or the other. How can you be certain of it?"

"All I had to do was compare," he said, the chains clinking when they snapped taut, as he tried to lean forward. "Your brother, Saemus, he was not mine. And he was very much developing into his father. You, though... you had a strength Marlowe lacked, something your mother and I gave to you."

"I will not stand here and listen to you insult them," Sophia said, infuriated. "Why now, of all times? Why crawl back to Kirkwall, when you could have lived out your life in peace somewhere else?" She wished he would have. The answers at the end of her search were proving more trouble than they were worth.

"I don't have all that many years left, Sophia. While Vesenia was still alive, I lived for her, even if she didn't want me. When she was gone, I lived for you. For better or worse, I allowed myself nothing else. There was nowhere I could find peace."

"You lived for yourself. You didn't need to interfere with my life. Try to kill my true father, try to worm your way into my good graces. If you wanted what was best for me, for my mother... you never would have done any of this."

His eyes fell down to the table, breath slowly expelled from his lungs. "Perhaps you're right. I've never thought of myself as a good man. I've always done what I had to, didn't care if I had to get my hands dirty. But for her, and for you... I wanted it, I will admit. I wanted it for myself."

"The other pages, the torn out pages," Sophia suddenly interrupted. "What was in them? I assume you were the one to remove them?" Dairren appeared confused for a moment.

"What? Oh. I... your mother wrote a great deal about Marlowe. Childish, perhaps, but... I felt no need to preserve those pages." Sophia was tempted to roll her eyes. By his delivery, she believed him, that nothing important had been left out. He seemed ashamed of that as well, and he'd left the most incriminating piece of information in.

"You're to be hanged. Did you know that?" Sophia had turned sideways, looking now towards the floor, and she spoke more quietly. "You've done more than enough to be put to death even without bringing the charge of rape to light. And it will not come to light. For better or worse, I intend to claim the throne when I have the necessary support. I can't have this hindering me."

"I understand," he said, managing to maintain his composure. He did not seem perturbed by the thought of his impending death. "You will take the throne. I know you will. The people will follow you, when you're ready. Meredith will be forced to step aside."

"I'm glad to have your confidence," she muttered, with no small amount of sarcasm. "I believe that will be all, Dairren. Farewell." She turned to leave, and was unsurprised when he called after her.

"Sophia... I am sorry. I loved your mother. I never meant to hurt her. It was an abominable mistake, and... I am prepared to accept the punishment for it." Sophia paused for a long moment, refusing to turn and face him. She wondered for a time what to say, or if anything should be said. Finally, she settled on something.

"Good."

Rapping her knuckles twice on the door, it was opened from the outside, and Sophia showed herself out, leaving Dairren alone with the silence.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

It was with her features tightly-set that Nostariel made the journey from her clinic all the way up to the Keep. The Warden generally considered herself to be a patient person, but she was not willing to wait forever, especially not when it came to certain things, and so she had decided that it was perhaps time to force a certain persisting issue. She didn’t want to—she would much rather that Ashton stop avoiding her of his own accord. But if there was anything the past weeks had made clear, it was that this wasn’t going to happen, not on his end. So it had to happen on hers.

She reached the stairs up to the Keep and tilted her head back, compressing her lips together. She supposed there was a chance that she’d be turned away, but she liked to believe that wouldn’t happen. She probably still warranted that much courtesy, did she not? Taking a deep breath, she sighed it out and shook her head. No use standing around here. She smoothed down her plain green shirt and ascended.

The guard barracks would have been easy to spot, even if she weren’t already quite familiar with the layout of the building, and she made her way over to them, entering without difficulty. Most of the Guard knew her face by now, and even those that didn’t probably figured she belonged there in some capacity, given how confidently she walked right in. Vesper was outside Ashton’s office door, and after explaining that she was there to see the captain, the other woman opened the door to admit her. Managing a tight smile and inclining her head in thanks, she stepped inside, her eyes seeking, and immediately finding, the man she was looking for.

“Ashton.” Her voice was level, even, and she stood with her hands at her sides, resisting the urge to cross them over herself defensively. She wasn’t exactly feeling defensive, but it was hard to know exactly what to do in this situation. It wasn’t one she’d ever faced before, after all, and it was not as though anything she’d ever learned from anyone else had prepared her for it, either.

“We need to talk.”

Ashton sat at his desk, his hand balled into a fist and tightly pressed against his mouth. He seemed to have been in deep thought before Nostariel entered, and when she called his name he physically winced. "Nostariel?" he asked in surprise, rising from his desk. About halfway up, he paused and hesitated, before resuming far more mechanically. It was... Strange, to see the so-called Captain of the Guard cowed so easily by only a handful of words. His mouth worked for a few moments, as a million thoughts raced through his mind and he tried to focus on one.

"I, uh... It.. Hm," he sputtered before shaking his head. He would've liked the time to prepare for this, but it probably wouldn't have helped put the words he needed into his mouth. Sighing, he slowly moved out from behind his desk and nodded. It wasn't as if he had a choice this time. "I, uh, I guess we do," Ashton said, nervously. He was definitely not looking forward to this conversation. For one, he'd hoped for a better time and place, but in the end the waiting probably only made things worse.

“Sit, please.” It was a bit awkward, gesturing for someone to take a seat in his own office, but she did it anyway, because she didn’t want to draw this out any longer than she needed to. It was uncomfortable enough already, and there were too many things on the tip of her tongue, things that needed saying, and needed saying now. She felt like if she kept them inside her any longer, they would start to poison her. This wound needed to be lanced, lest she fester and rot from trying to keep it to herself.

Of course, lancing it meant that she was going to bleed, but she was prepared for that. It was better than the alternative. When Ashton was seated, she took one too, so that they were facing each other on the outer side of his desk. Nostariel folded her hands in her lap, the motion almost prim more than anything, and she straightened her spine. She might not be feeling very good about all of this, but she was resolved to do it.

“Three weeks.”

The words dropped like stones into the silence, and she watched him keenly for any signs of the ripple they might make. Her eyes bored into his, carrying just a hint of accusation. But mostly she just looked… sad. It was in the subtle downturn of her mouth, though she was trying to keep the set of her features as calm and still as possible. “It’s been three weeks since we went into the Deep Roads, and three weeks since you’ve said anything to me that doesn’t have to do with our mutual obligations to our friends.” She wondered if she would have seen him at all, had it not been for the fact that Sophia had twice needed them in that time.

“I know what I did hurt you, Ashton, and I am sorry for that. I have said it before, and I’ll say it as many times as I have to until you believe me. I am… disappointed in myself, for letting that… that thing find a purchase in my mind. I almost killed you, and if you think for a moment that it didn’t destroy me…” Nostariel’s voice broke, and she cut herself off, drawing a few deep breaths. She held herself steady, refusing to waver from this.

“But… even though I’m disappointed in myself… I’m also disappointed in you.” Despite her efforts, her lower lip trembled. She bit hard on the inside of it before she continued, the sharp pain serving to ground her. “I saw the first glimpse I’ve ever had of my parents, of who and what they were, of who and what I am. I had a Darkspawn crawling around in my head. I remembered…” She lost her tenuous hold on stoicism, and grief flashed across her features. “I remembered that I have an expiration date, and I found out what it is going to feel like, when the Calling comes for me. And for three weeks, I’ve put up with all of that alone.”

She’d seen more of every mutual friend they had than she’d seen of him. And it hurt, that whatever he felt about what had happened there, he hadn’t been willing to talk to her about it. Never mind the rest.

“You told me you were done running from your problems, Ashton. So what are you doing now?”

"Hiding," Ashton said in answer, his gaze averted to his boots. He knew what it looked like, and she had every right to be upset with him. It was his fault for waiting so long, for that perfect moment that probably wouldn't ever come. It wasn't like he was hoping that everything would just pass over, he knew things like that never did. Neither did he want to forget what happened, and remembering what would happen only made things worse. However, he had to say something else instead of just sitting there like a shamed dog.

Ashton rubbed his forehead and shook his head. "I know," He said. "But look. Let's get one thing straight," He said, looking up at her, and into her eyes. "I don't blame you for what happened down there," he said, tapping the chest of his plate with his fist. He didn't want to say it, that she had almost killed him. He had some sense of tact, and they both knew what happened. "It's as you said, you had no control over it, and I know you. You wouldn't do anything like that unless something was forcing you to. I don't talk about it, because there wasn't anything to talk about. I know," However, if that was all of their problems, they wouldn't be having this sit down.

"It's not that that bothers me... It's what it meant," Ashton said, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. He was quiet for a moment, trying to get up the courage to spit out the words, as if putting them out there would curse them. Tilting his head to the side, he finally said it. "We... Don't have as long together as others. I know that too. And it scares the shit out of me," he said in a monotone. He was afraid if he allowed in his emotions, then his voice would break and quit on him. But no, she was right. They needed to talk.

"You have nothing to be disappointed about. You did nothing wrong," Ashton added. "And I'm sorry I left you all alone with that. I want... I don't... Maybe if I saw you sooner, maybe if I just... I was just hoping..." He said, trailing off. He didn't know what to say, or how to say it. He didn't want it to sound like he was making excuses, but he just didn't know how to piece the words together..

Having said everything she’d come to say, Nostariel felt the traces of anger bleeding out of her, leaving only resignation in their wake. She sighed, and her shoulders slumped, her eyes moving down to where her hands were clasped in her lap. She studied her own fingers for several moments, strangely uncertain of what to say now that she hadn’t gone over it in her own head thirty times on the way up here. It wasn’t in her to stay upset for very long, and she honestly didn’t want to be upset with him in the first place.

“It's not fair.” She hated the weakness she could hear in her own voice. She was being pathetic—she had known what the consequences were when she chose to undertake the Joining. But… she’d also been young. So, so young, and foolish in the way the young could sometimes be. “We fight so hard, do as much as we can every day, and all I’m going to get at the end of it is madness and death and I—” She swallowed past the growing lump in her throat. “I’ll leave you behind. I can’t grow old with you. I can’t…” She shook her head.

Wrapping her arms about her midsection, Nostariel seemed to fold in on herself a little, her upright posture collapsing into something half-bent, bowed under a weight she’d never felt so keenly before. How could she have forgotten? She hadn’t really, but it had seemed… so inconsequential, so far away, until she’d tasted death in the Deep Roads. Until Corypheus had taught her what it would feel like. Now—it wasn’t close, exactly, but she no longer thought of it as far away. It was close enough to make a difference. In the grip of that thought, she felt her stomach turn.

“I’m so sorry.”

Ashton was out of his chair and across the gap between them in a moment, on his knees with his hand reaching for hers. "No, no, no," he repeated, a certain solidity backing his voice. "You have nothing to be sorry for. I knew from the beginning, and I didn't care," he said, gripping her hand with one of his, the other still balled into a fist on her knee. "Look. Nos. I would rather have a few years with you than not have you at all. You are... You are worth it, every bit," He said, letting go of her hand and cupping her face. "I love you," He said.

Nostariel didn’t respond verbally, instead winding both of her arms around Ashton’s neck, leaning forward and pressing her forehead into his shoulder. She didn’t cry—honestly, she was fairly sure she’d run out of tears several days ago, with as much as she’d been dwelling on this, but her fingers found all the purchase they could on the back of his armor, and she resented it for a moment, for keeping her from his warmth the way it did.

“I love you, too.” It was more a murmur than anything, considering her positioning, but it was audible. “I just… right now, I wish I weren’t a Warden. I wish our problems were normal things, like whether we should move in together or get married or how many children we wanted. Not… not what we’ll do if I get transferred or something happens to one of us in the line of duty or what… what happens when I die.” They’d been together for right around three years; those should be the kind of things they talked about. If they’d been anyone but themselves, those would be their concerns. It was hard to think of anything she wouldn’t have given to be able to disagree with him about things like that. But she realized she’d never broached a single one of those topics, perhaps because some part of her had always known this was coming. Had always known that they wouldn’t get that kind of blessed simplicity.

Ashton wound his arm around her and breathed her in deep. "We'll figure something out. We always do," he said, pushing the other thoughts out of his head and putting up a strong front. "But..." He said, slowly pulling back from her, and looking her in the eyes. He seemed hesitant, as his eyes flickered in his head, however soon his jaw set and he decided on something. "If you really want a normal problem, we can start with a simple one. A yes or no question, really."

Ashton glanced down at his fist on her knee and slowly opened it, revealing a silver ring inlaid with what appeared to be dragonbone, and set with a sapphire. Along the inside, an inscription read, "For my sweetheart, Nostariel."

"I'd hoped to do this far more romantically but... Nos, would you marry me?"

Well, she was wrong about being out of tears. Rather embarrassingly, Nostariel burst into a fresh round of them at the question, blotchy red complexion and all. She was an ugly crier, she knew that quite well. But she didn’t really have a thought to spare for it, because tears or no, she was intent on providing an answer.

Perhaps in retrospect, she should have spoken before she moved forward and sealed her lips to his, but she was a mess of emotions, hurt and sadness ricocheting around and knocking against elation and the soft, effervescent bubbles of giddiness. She kissed him until she was out of breath, and then she pulled back, hands yet at his collar, a smile creasing the corners of her eyes, still, ridiculously, leaking tears.

“Yes. Yes, of course I will.”

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

A day after her quite surprising conversation with Ash, Nostariel was back in the clinic. She wouldn’t say that her concerns had gone away, especially not the ones about the Calling, but… they seemed lesser. A great deal lesser at the moment, if she were being honest. She hadn’t been able to stop smiling all day, and her good mood seemed to be a little infectious, because the mother and child she bid farewell at her door were smiling, too, and that was saying something at the clinic. Waving after them, she closed the door again gently, deciding to spend some time tidying up since she had no other patients to see at the moment. Business had been a little slow lately, but unlike most people, she tended to prefer that. That she was doing less healing meant that there were fewer injuries and illnesses to heal. It was still early in winter, though, and there would be plenty of colds and fevers within the next few months to keep her busy.

Moving the bucket of soapy water out from under her counter, she set about cleaning her work surfaces, humming softly to herself as she did. Occasionally, she’d glance at the band of silver on her off hand and grin a little, feeling a bit of a fool. But then, she was probably entitled to a little bit of foolishness, considering the circumstances.

A brief knock on the clinic's door preceded the entrance of Ithilian, who shut the door in short order behind him, to try and keep out a little more of the cold air. He wore a hooded shawl of what appeared to be wolf fur, likely made by himself, from beasts that he had undoubtedly hunted or had to kill himself. What injuries he had sustained helping Nostariel in the Vimmarks had been healed as well as could be, with the Warden's help, and he did not look to be arriving for any sort of medical attention.

In fact, he looked a bit tentative at first, but then shifted his expression into a semi-confused smile when he noted Nostariel's humming, and her obvious good mood. "Hello, Nostariel. You're looking... better than I expected, honestly." He removed the shawl, rolling up the sleeves of the white shirt he wore underneath, and taking a seat in a nearby wooden chair. "Have I missed something?"

Nostariel smiled. “You should have seen me yesterday.” The comment was light and good-natured, though—whatever parts of those worries that had so plagued her the day before remained did so well away from her general demeanor and mood, chased away by her joy. Drying off the examination table, she put her cleaning supplies back under the counter. “Something to drink?”

"Sure."

Nostariel nodded, and poured herself some as well. It wasn’t anything much—just a basic black tea, but thanks to magic, it was piping hot in little time at all. She set it all down on the small, low table in the front part of the clinic, and took a seat across from Ithilian. All this time, she’d been trying to work out exactly how she was supposed to say it. It still sounded strange, even in her own head, and she’d had a day to get used to the idea. There was no question she would tell him, of course. Ithilian was her friend, and while she might once have been wary of his reaction only because Ash was human, she no longer felt the need to worry about it.

She took a sip of her tea and set it down on its saucer on the counter, pursing her lips, an endeavor which didn’t last long because she couldn’t keep herself from smiling. “I, ah… Ashton and I are getting married.”

Ithilian smiled as well, as best he could, his scarring still keeping it a one-sided affair on his features. "I thought that might have been it." He had noticed the ring, and now they were seated closer and he could get a better look at it, he could see that it was very finely crafted, the new guard captain's salary being put to work, he imagined. "I'm happy for you. Ashton's not half bad for a shem."

There may have been a time when Ithilian would have disapproved, but back then he hadn't known Nostariel well enough to make judgements on whom she chose to marry, if she chose to marry. Even then, the rational basis for it was the fact that any children the two of them might have would be half-blooded, for all intents and purposes considered human by the likes of the Dalish. Nostariel having children was unlikely at best, but also none of his business. What mattered was that she was happy.

"I'd feared this would be a gloomy conversation, but perhaps it won't be so bad." He had stopped by a few times after returning from the Deep Roads, observed her obvious state, but he'd chosen not to speak to her, under the assumption that Ashton would do so first. Apparently he had by now, or otherwise she went to him, as those issues seemed to be behind them. Still, there were a few things he wanted to inquire about, given that she was a close friend.

"I actually came to check on you, see if you needed or wanted someone to speak with about what happened in the mountains. That was a lot to take in." For her, specifically. He couldn't imagine what it would be like to so unexpectedly learn of one's parents.

The Warden nodded slightly. “It really was.” Almost too many things for her to properly process them all, even with three weeks to stew. Well, when she hadn’t been busy being taken captive and the like. A thoughtful look crossed her face for a moment, and she shook her head ruefully. “You know… I’d always wondered, about who my family was. I used to pester my teacher in the Circle for ages to tell me anything she could, but… there was nothing. I was just there one morning, on the Chantry’s doorstep. I guess I’d always thought it most likely that they’d died, or were too poor to keep me, or maybe hadn’t wanted me.” That last possibility had bothered her for some time, when she was younger, but as she grew, it seemed to matter less.

“After that… I guess I figured that it didn’t make much difference who they were, because they had so little to do with my life.” She sipped her tea again, the smoothness and the smell soothing in some way. “I might have said something similar when we met, right? That I didn’t feel much like an elf because I was busy being a mage and a Warden.” Maybe she hadn’t said it aloud, but she recalled thinking it, or something close enough.

“And then of course, both of them are mages and one is a Warden, and now I’m wondering if there really is something to the idea that things can be in our blood.” She quite nearly rolled her eyes at herself, but stopped short. Of course magic was generally thought to be hereditary, but only loosely, and the Warden part was just strange. It would have been an almost-absurd thought to her before all of this, but now… well, now she didn’t know what she thought. “It would be quite the coincidence otherwise, wouldn’t it?”

"And if it is in your blood, would that be so bad?" Ithilian asked, before taking a drink. He leaned back in the chair. "It takes a certain kind of person to become a Warden, to really become one, as you did. Maybe it was those qualities that are in your blood, and they just happened to lead you down the same road?" He shrugged. "Or it was quite the coincidence, as you say."

He wished he could relate more so that he might help her, but his own early life had been devoid of all the particular troubles Nostariel had faced. It had been nearly a guarantee that he would end up like his parents. They were hunters, warriors, and their parents before them. It was the only way he was taught, and took years and extraordinary amounts of pain to break him even a little free of it. In fact, he was willing to bet a little doubt, a willingness to ask questions, like Nostariel had, might have helped him.

"It must give at least some closure, then, knowing who they were, what they had to do," he said, propping his elbow on the armrest. "Even if you felt you'd already moved on from it. You know now that they did care for you."

Nostariel thought that over for a moment. It was true that it had hurt, to believe they had given her up because they didn’t want her. But the way she’d seen them talk to each other, and about her… well, even if it was only a little bit, she could tell from it that they had cared. “I don’t know what became of them, and perhaps I never will. I’m not sure why they had to leave me behind, or if they’re alive or dead, but… you’re right. It’s enough to know that they cared. That I mattered to them, and that they mattered to one another.”

It was a pleasant thought, and she decided she would keep it.

"And if there's anything in your blood," Ithilian added, "it's your goodness. Something that is sadly hard to come by."




Ithilian stayed a short while longer, but when a patient arrived, he saw it as his cue to depart, and bid Nostariel farewell, stepping back out into the cold. He'd been just about to turn towards the Alienage when he spotted a figure standing still across the street from him, a woman wrapped in a cloak, staring in his direction. It took a moment for him to recognize her without her armor on, but when he did, Ithilian approached her mostly at ease. She offered him a tenuous smile in greeting.

"It's Ithilian, yes?" she asked. "I'm Eliza--"

"Swann, yes, I remember you. The Templar. Were you waiting for me?"

She shifted her weight uncomfortably, clearly not preferring Ithilian's approach to conversation. Nevertheless, she adapted well. "I was on my way to the Alienage, but I saw you enter the Warden's clinic. I thought I'd wait to catch you on your way out."

Ithilian's arms found their way across his chest. She'd given him no reason, but he could not help but feel suspicious of Templars. They had no reason to be bothering the Alienage, as they had done nothing to provoke it. They were not needed as peacekeepers, and so any presence they had could only cause trouble, as he saw it. "And what do you want?"

"I'm not here on orders," she said, "just thought I would come by and give you a heads up. Meredith is increasing some of our patrols, and including the Alienage in that. Pairs of Templars are going to begin sweeping the area roughly once a night. Starting tonight." She clearly understood that the information would not be received well, and delivered it as though the words were the most fragile of glass.

"The Alienage has no need of your patrols. We're fully capable of policing ourselves."

"And the overwhelming majority of us Templars know that, but orders are orders. I can promise you the patrols will make no intrusions into homes, and try to disturb the people as little as possible. We do understand when we're not wanted, and despite what you may have heard, most of us don't want to make trouble where there is none."

"Most. But not all. And all it takes is one."

"Which is why I came to give you this information, so it doesn't come as a surprise when Templars show up on your steps. When we don't find anything interesting, Meredith will back off. I know she will." Ithilian was not nearly as confident of that, but he could tell that this woman was being genuine in her attempts to help make this go smoothly. She was not his enemy, Templar or no, so it would not help to fight her.

Releasing a pent-up breath, he nodded. "Thank you for speaking to me. I'll let the Alienage know." She smiled and nodded back to him, and they went their separate ways, Eliza heading back towards the docks, while Ithilian took the short road to the Alienage.

He found Emerion outside of his home, working with a mortar and pestle, grinding up a steadily shrinking pile of herbs. Silently at first, Ithilian leaned himself up against the awning's support in front of Emerion's doorway.

"Templar patrols are going to start coming through the Alienage. Pairs, random nights. Play it safe, will you?"

Emerion stopped grinding up the herbs when he heard the news, looking up and out at the Alienage in the direction of the great tree. He paused only for a moment, however, soon returning to his work. "Of course." He did not bother to ask how Ithilian had learned the information.

"Where we you today?" Ithilian asked.

"Sundermount," came the immediate reply. Emerion gestured with his towards the small pile at his feet. "Picking these."

"All day? That's not a very large pile."

"There... was a favor I needed to do as well. For an old friend. A Keeper was required for the task." He fell silent. Ithilian waited for an explanation, but none came. Not in the mood for pressing him, he accepted that he would get no more for the moment. Pushing off the wooden post, Ithilian headed in the direction of his own house.

"Remember, Emerion. No risks."

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

Night had long since fallen over Kirkwall, but the city was far from asleep. It did not bustle with the industrious energy of the day, far from that, but it wasn’t quiet, either. Not to her ears, anyway. Amalia had long been taught to listen for precisely those things which did not desire to be heard. She could almost hear the gangs in their hovels, fleet messengers carrying sensitive information back and forth. The hours after dark belonged to the criminals and the assassins and the thieves—all things that she had been at one time or another, depending on whom one asked.

As it happened, however, she had no intention of being any of those things this night. She had not been any of them in several years, long enough to feel like an age. Sometimes, it felt like she was wearing someone else’s skin, trying to move around within the confines of a role she was never meant to occupy.

Most of the time, if she thought about it at all, it felt… satisfactory.

She wound her way down several side streets on her way back to the Alienage. She’d been at the barracks until late, invited once again to pass the evening with the Lions, something she found herself consenting to from time to time. She conceded that they were not bad company, and she found herself with much less work than usual, of late. It was finally becoming clear to the underhanded elements of the city that nothing in the Alienage was worth the trouble it would take to obtain it. This was as it should be, but it left her with, she felt, too much free time. It was when she had nothing to do that she felt most keenly that this new skin, this new life, still somehow wasn’t quite hers.

Rounding a corner, Amalia felt a distinct prickle at the back of her neck. They were getting closer. Despite her overabundance of leisure time, she had not in the intervening years allowed herself to go soft, and she had been aware that she was being followed since she left the barracks. She supposed she could simply have walked back in and requested the assistance of any of the mercenaries there, but if she had, her would-be assailants would not show themselves. She knew that much. Better to have this out now, when she was aware it was coming, even if she was alone. Better also to do it here, in these half-abandoned, darkened city corridors, than in the Alienage, where someone might be inadvertently harmed.

So far, she didn’t think they had guessed that she knew they were there. Amalia supposed there were at least three—to send any fewer than that would be an insult, considering. At some length, she found the spot she’d been looking for, ducking into a heavily-shadowed alley. Before any of those following her could round the corner and get a sense of where she was, she was climbing the side of the nearest building, pulling herself up onto the windowsill and using that to get to the roof. If they’d brought an archer with them—and they should have—they would have stationed him up here, where he could follow and maintain the advantage of height. Considering her own predilections, he was the greatest threat to her, but only if left unattended, which she did not plan to do.

They were professionals, and neither gave up nor panicked when they lost sight of her. She could make out the distinct sounds of their treads now, though—they had picked up the pace, likely guessing that they’d been made. Amalia knew the alley would only keep them occupied sweeping it for a short time before they'd guess she’d gone aboveground and alert their comrade, and so she stalked along the roof as swiftly as she dared, her feet falling with all the softness of flower petals on the ceramic tiles of the building’s roof.

There.

Just barely limned in the light from a faraway window, she could see the archer, crouched on a balcony railing of the next building over. He’d chosen one with an awning, to provide himself maximal cover while his friends swept the ground, which was a wise thing to do. It was not going to save his life.

Keeping low, Amalia picked her way over the roof, giving the awning a wide berth until she was around the other side of it. The archer was young—an older man would have at least occasionally turned to look behind him. But this one was convinced that ground he had left behind was safe, looked over enough to ignore for the moment. As it happened, this made it all too easy for her to lower herself from the awning behind him, her feet alighting with catspaw delicacy on the balcony rail. By the time he registered the small vibrations she caused, it was too late. She lunged, her hand fastening over his mouth to prevent him from alerting the others, her other arm joining the first to twist his neck around with a sharp jerk, breaking it. Carefully, she lowered him to the floor of the balcony, picking him over quickly for weapons.

She found a few throwing daggers and a tomahawk, any of which would suit her just fine. She’d only gone lightly-armed to the barracks, and presently wore no armor and carried only a knife. She crouched at the archer’s vantage and waited. No sooner had she settled herself there than one of the others came back around the corner, looking up to where she was and flashing a hand signal—one to indicate that she had not been found. The signaler, likely the one in charge of the unit, wanted the archer to move around the other way, to try and cut off her likely pursuit. The idea, she knew, was to catch her in a pincer maneuver, and block off her most likely avenue of escape.

Since she couldn’t be seen well, she doubted she was expected to respond, and so she didn’t, merely vacating the spot in the manner indicated. Her height and build were similar enough to the archer that she could pass for long enough to do what she needed. Hastening across the roof, she reached the edge of it just as the second man rejoined his partner, a woman by the looks of it, in the alley. Testing the heft of the tomahawk, Amalia weighted it in her hand while she waited for the positioning she wanted. A few steps more…

The throwing axe whizzed through the intervening space with a whisper of split air, thudding right into the back of the woman’s neck. With a gasp that amounted to little more than a thread of sound, she dropped, and Amalia did too, launching herself off the roof to land behind the leader with a dull thud.

Ben-Hassrath,” she acknowledged quietly. There was no need to make a spectacle of this, to wake those who slept nearby from their slumber. Work like theirs was best conducted in the dark and the quiet, the time of assassins and thieves and criminals. Her skin prickled, and for once it felt like it was moving over her bones and her muscles and her flesh exactly the way it was meant to, and the blood in her veins was on fire with adrenaline.

Tal-Vashoth. The word was spat, and this rather surprised her. It was not in the Qunari to be particularly vehement about the existence of their defectors. Especially not those whose job it was to hunt them down and deal with them, one way or another. A cool head, rationality… these things were almost sacred to their kind. But this one hissed at her, as though she were something far worse than she was.

They wasted no more time in speaking to each other, for both knew that there was no more to say. The only kossith-Qunari in the group, this Ben-Hassrath possessed a considerable advantage over her in size and strength. But to assume he was slow would be the height of folly—indeed, raw speed was determined in large part by musculature. No, she would solve this problem with neither speed nor strength, but with finesse and accuracy.

Like her, he was equipped with shorter weapons, a pair of hand-axes. She drew her knife, gripping it backwards and laying the flat of the blade against the outside of her forearm. For a while, they circled one another, eyes flashing in the dim light when occasionally they caught it. His were golden. The ashen grey of his skin blended well against the shadows surrounding them, and occasionally the shifting texture of the scant illumination would reveal the lines of the pattern he’d painted in vitaar onto his face and chest. Those patterns told her what his tongue likely never would—he was on the hunt not for a deserter, but for a traitor of the highest order.

Amalia’s eyes narrowed, seeking weaknesses in his stance, his guard, that she might exploit. When none were immediately forthcoming, she decided she would have to create one, and she shifted slightly, the motion looking almost unconscious, intentionally opening up her left side, just a little. It was bait, but not obvious, and he was either angry or unsubtle enough to fail in recognizing the deliberateness of it. He lunged, swinging one of the axes right for the spot, and she turned smoothly away, sliding just beyond the reach of the axe. He didn’t overbalance—his strike had been controlled, and his other weapon came down for her other side.

She parried, deflecting the strike to the side and stepping into his guard, but he was fast enough to retaliate before she could do any damage, taking a massive step back and bringing both axes down in another tightly-controlled sweep. She went low to dodge, springing up and slightly left, turning the knife against her arm just a little and swiping for his ribcage. His skin, strengthened by vitaar, resisted considerably before being cut, but she had known it would. The knife came away darkly gleaming—first blood was hers.

The Ben-Hassrath cracked his neck to either side, his heavy brows descending over his eyes, and they went back to circling. It was a pattern, for a bit—they would circle, one of them would spy a breach, however intentional or slight, in the other’s defense, there was a brief flash of blades and almost frenetically-quick motion, someone scored a hit, and they parted again. For all the motion, there was very little contact, and only occasionally would a sound issue into the night that wasn’t the rustling of fabric or the hiss of steel through air. In time, the harsh rasp of their increasingly-ragged breath was added to the other soft susurrations, as they wore down with the pressure of the exertion, and the need to be unerring in it, lest they lose their heads in a moment of inattention, for a reflex less than perfect. It was almost ritual, almost dancing, and they were both very good at it.

But Amalia was better. Some interminable amount of minutes later, she slid under his flagging defense for the last time, ignoring the axe that swung for her leg—it wouldn’t be a fatal blow—and flipped her grip on her knife, stepping forward until they couldn’t have been more than a hairsbreath apart, driving it up and under his chin. The axe-blow connected, and she felt pain bloom in her thigh. The axehead had almost bitten bone, and she staggered as her foe fell forward, forcing her to take his weight or be crushed under it. Lowering him to the ground, she grit her teeth and pulled the weapon from her flesh—another scar for her tally, most probably. She had several other wounds about her person, as well, and she could tell from the slight swimming of her vision that her endeavors had cost her a lot of blood, simply because it had taken so long to wear down her opponent’s stamina. She would be very surprised if he wasn’t personally picked by the Ariqun, with skills like that.

But why bother sending someone such as he after her? She had expected Ben-Hassrath eventually; she hadn’t reported to the Ariqun in over a year, ending even the pretense of reports on anything of significance in Kirkwall. It was true that she was a deserter, but she was hardly an important one. The attempted assassination was, she had thought, going to be little more than a formality. That, she had believed, was why they’d only sent three. If they’d really wanted her dead, they would have sent more. But maybe… maybe they really had.

Perturbed, she crouched next to the corpse. He was wearing a few pouches at his belt, as was the woman she’d killed before him. It took her a while, considering that she was slowed by her wounds, but eventually she found what she was looking for: his orders. Unfolding the parchment, she scanned over the terse Qunlat script once, and then again, several times, not quite sure what she was reading. It certainly explained the specialist—she really was meant to die tonight, apparently at near any cost. Frowning, she tucked the letter away in her shirt, glancing down at the bodies.

Well, at least he’d been kind enough to leave the axes. It was much easier to dispose of severed parts than whole people. The city didn’t need another Qunari scare, and she didn’t need the Ariqun learning what had become of these three before she could figure this all out.

It was going to be a long night.




She was still sporting a slight limp when, freshly bathed and clothed and with at least a few hours’ sleep to work with, she knocked on Ithilian’s door early the following afternoon. When admitted, she sank into a chair, electing to forego the cushions he kept around for her benefit. The parchments she had confiscated from the bodies, she laid on an end table, though she knew he wouldn’t be able to read them. “The Qunari attempted to assassinate me last night.”

Ithilian stood holding the door open, watching Amalia limp over to a chair. He was concerned, of course, but not nearly as much as the average person might be after hearing an opening line of a conversation such as that.

"This was expected, no?" he asked, swinging the door shut and making his way over to her. He glanced at the parchments, to find he couldn't read the script, and sat down, briefly inspecting her leg. "A formality, didn't you say? Acknowledgement of your leaving the Qun." It seemed somewhat late, years now after she had decided to let the Qunari depart without her, but he supposed they could have wanted her to let her guard down first. As though that was a possibility. He frowned.

"You going to have Nostariel take a look at this?"

Amalia waved a hand, as though to banish the last bit from consideration for the moment. She’d get Nostariel to look at the injury when she was done figuring out the rest of her course of action. It was not so grievous that it could not be withstood until then. “I expected some cursory attempt, yes. But not a specialist.” She nodded to her leg. “The ones they sent were more than should have come, for a simple deserter. What’s more… the Ariqun’s orders indicate that they had permission to incur collateral damage if it was necessary in order to kill me.” That was something that usually didn’t happen. The Qunari preferred to take care of their own problems, with their own methods, involving as few other people as possible. And considering the hostility Kirkwall still bore them, the less evidence of their presence they could leave here, the better. She suspected that residual enmity might have been the cause of the delay, in addition to her own continued flow of reports until more recently.

“They only do that if the target’s death is of actual strategic importance, which mine should not be.” She exhaled, the sound suspiciously resembling a sigh, and shook her head. “For some reason, they believe that I am due to meet with someone named Duke Prosper. It was quite imperative that I die before I had the chance to do so.”

Ithilian did not understand the situation any more than Amalia seemed to, which was unsurprising, but he could see the issue here. Apart from the obvious problem of more assassins coming for Amalia, they had permission to dispose of anyone that got in their way, which could easily include people that had no business dealing with assassins, not to mention their friends.

"I've never heard of any Duke Prosper." It was likely not expected for Ithilian to know many of the human nobility, but he did at least try to know of the people that had potential to affect his life and the lives of those he cared about, and oftentimes that included Kirkwall nobles. Still, he struggled to tell them all apart. They seemed so similar, most of the time. This one, however, he was quite sure he did not know. "He might be from another Marcher city? Or from Orlais?" He wasn't sure why it mattered, if the point was to teach the Qunari that Amalia was not in fact due to meet him, but it couldn't hurt to know what they were being mistakenly tied to.

Amalia nodded slightly. “It would help straighten this out if I had some sense of why I was supposed to be meeting him, but I suspect I will not understand that until I know who he is. For that… I will be needing to ask around.” She knew of several people with whom she could begin, but there was a logical first choice—someone who had both a grip on Free Marches nobility and those in Orlais. “I do not suspect this will be as easy as telling the Qunari that I am not doing whatever they believe I am doing, but whatever the case, this will not touch the Alienage. That, I already know.”

Pushing herself out of her seat, she decided I was likely better that her enquiries begin as soon as possible… and she could duck into Nostariel’s clinic on her way over to the barracks. “I’ll let you know if my questions find answers.”

Setting

6 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

Lucien turned the envelope over in his hands, setting his index fingers at opposing corners and using his thumbs to rotate it on the axis, though he wasn’t really paying attention. Rather, he was leaned back in his chair, staring with unfocused eyes at some unremarkable spot on the wall in front of his desk.

It wasn’t something he was obligated to do, socially. He knew that much. Nor did familial obligation often extend quite this far. And yet, as a matter of principle, he knew he would do it. He preferred to look out for his relatives when he could, even if he rarely agreed with them. He and his father were closest in this respect, and even they had points of contention, things they generally didn’t speak of with one another, because it always ended in an argument. A relatively understated argument—there were no dramatics, and only Guy occasionally even raised his voice—but they were arguments all the same. The two of them both had a way of stubbornly digging their heels in, and butting heads like stags, locking antlers long past the point that either of them really wanted to, but both far too proud to relent.

So avoidance was usually better. He could not, however, avoid disagreement with, say, his aunt or his second cousin, because the issues on which they differed were far too many. Despite this, he couldn’t well let a suspicion like this one pass. Sighing, Lucien stopped rotating the envelope and tapped his chin with one of its corners instead, still lost in thought. Or at least he was, until a knock sounded at his office door. “Come in,” he called quietly, regaining some, but not all, of his formal posture.

The door swung open to reveal Donnelly, currently out of gear, wearing only breeches, boots, and the standard-issue Lions’ tunic—maroon in color, trimmed with a bit of silver. The crest was modest on the sleeve, but noticeable all the same. “Hey Commander, I uh… I wanted to ask you something.”

Lucien smiled kindly and gestured to one of the chairs in front of the desk. He thought it was relatively obvious that Donnelly had something to ask, since he was here at all, but he chose not to point that out. Sometimes, the younger ones were still a little awkward around him, but that was to be expected. None of them had come from a military or mercenary background; they were still learning what was and wasn’t acceptable. Generally, their manners were rough, but careful, and he suspected—hoped, really—that they’d treat him a little more casually with time. As long as they were willing to do what he said on the field, he didn’t even really care if they forewent the titles. “And what would that be?”

Donnelly shifted slightly. “I… well, I was hoping I might get some time off. Not that I don’t want to be here or anything, it’s just… my cousin’s having a baby, and we were really close growing up, so I thought I should go see her for a while, you know?”

Lucien’s brows furrowed. “I thought you still had some paid leave left for the year?” It was quite close to the new year now, but few of them had taken much leave at all, as far as he knew. The official records were kept by Katrin, the middle-aged woman he employed as bookkeeper and receptionist, but he was usually aware of these things.

“Well… I did, but… most of us took ours together, after, you know… Tessa.”

Understanding immediately lit Lucien’s features, and he nodded slightly, reaching into his desk to remove a blank sheet of parchment. “I see. Will two more weeks suffice, or would you prefer more?” He knew Donnelly’s family was a fair ways out in the countryside, closer to Ostwick than Kirkwall, but it shouldn’t take him more than two days either way on one of the company horses.

“Er, no… two’s great. Thank you, Commander.” The younger man’s face brightened considerably as he accepted the parchment, then he paused for a moment. “Actually… can I ask you something else?” Lucien nodded. “It’s just… it’s been a while since I saw any of them, and last time I did… it seemed different. We didn’t… we couldn’t really talk well. They’d say things about crops or the weather this year, and I… I think I’m forgetting what it’s like for those things to matter. And nothing I said matters to them at all, I know that. I’m not really sure what to do.” He screwed his face up in a grimace.

When he answered, Lucien spoke with sympathy. “I understand what you mean,” he said quietly. “Parts of my family aren’t soldiers at all. They never have been, and because of that, there are certain things that are very important in my mind that concern them not at all. Likewise, there are things about career diplomats or tradesmen that I will never fully grasp. It’s a sign that you’re growing into this life.” And out of his old one, as the case may be. “It doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Perhaps your relatives won’t really understand what it means that you’ve mastered a new technique, and I certainly don’t recommend going into all the vivid details of our work, but… I think they would understand just fine if you told them about the people you’d met, and the ones you’ve helped, or perhaps all the card games you’ve managed to lose.” The last was a rather well-known barracks fact—Donnelly was a sucker, and very bad at gambling in all capacities.

The youth looked thoughtful for a moment, and then nodded slightly. “Yeah… yeah, I suppose that makes sense.” He seemed to contemplate Lucien for a moment, and then blurted. “You’re like… a big deal in Orlais, right? Stel said she thought you were a noble, and you said something about diplomats. So… why are you here with us?”

Though the question might have offended, Lucien was only amused. “Estella wasn’t wrong, but I’m here because it’s where I want to be. Perhaps it won’t always be so, but I intend to make the most of what I have.” Donnelly, looking faintly chagrined, thanked him for the leave and the advice, and departed, leaving Lucien once again to his thoughts.

Yes… he would likely be taking Duke Prosper up on his invitation, if only to make sure. He didn’t much understand his family, and he was sure few of them understood him, but family they were nonetheless. He was taking another sheet of parchment to reply when another knock sounded on his door. This time, when he indicated that the person on the other end was free to enter, it swung open to reveal someone he hadn’t been expecting.

“Amalia?”




Lucien had volunteered the use of the barracks for the meeting that was about to take place. There were light refreshments present, courtesy of Idris’s wife Mella, but none of the other Lions were there. After several hours of discussion, Amalia had departed the barracks to ask after Ithilian and Aurora, and Lucien himself had penned short requests to Rilien and Sophia, asking if they would be willing to come by this evening, as he had a favor to ask of them. Those had been delivered by Estella and Cor some time ago, but it was yet a little early to be expecting them.

Amalia returned just as he was laying out the map of the Free Marches, regularly kept in his office, along one of the long tables. While she might perhaps normally have remained standing, she took a seat this time on the bench, her mouth set into a grim line, and they waited for the arrival of their friends.

Rilien made a point of being on time to everything, and on time by his definition was about ten minutes early, so it was likely little surprise when he showed up at the barracks first, entering and proceeding calmly to the place where the other two were seated. He eyed the map on the table, tilting his head to one side in a birdlike fashion, then seated himself wordlessly to Lucien’s left. He wasn’t sure why exactly Amalia was here, but he had no issues with it, and he suspected the first order of things would be precisely he explanation he sought. Given his own disdain for repetition, he chose not to ask yet.

Aurora was next in, her scarf pulled up high around her neck and her coat pulled in tight. The wind still had a bite to it, so she slipped in rather quickly, shutting the door behind her. She spent a moment at the door glancing at who were already assembled, but said nothing on the matter. She figured that an explanation would come on its own time, when everyone else had arrived. She wouldn't make them explain it more than once, so she sidled up to where Lucien laid out the refreshments and began to help herself.

Ithilian had thrown a leather jerkin over his shirt, and was now armed with his blades, though he hardly expected to need to use them here. Still, word of assassins had him a little on edge, and having his remaining blade and Parshaara with him helped him feel more comfortable. He took a seat next to Amalia, nodding a greeting to Aurora, Rilien, and Lucien.

Sophia was last to appear, having made the longer trip down from her manor in Hightown. She'd armed and armored herself lightly, and shrugged off a scarlet cloak as she closed the barracks door behind her. "Hello, everyone. You haven't been waiting long, have you?" she asked, a mostly rhetorical question. After hanging up the cloak, she made her way over to Lucien's right hand side and settled into a seat, surveying what was laid out before her. "How can I help?"

Picking up Sophia’s question without hesitation, Amalia started speaking from her seated position near the end of the table. “The Qunari believe that I am planning to meet with an Orlesian noble, a man named Duke Prosper. Whatever I am supposed to be doing at this meeting, it is sufficiently concerning that they felt the need to dispose of me before I could manage to do it. I have never met or heard of this person, and so I asked Lucien if he knew who Prosper was.”

Lucien nodded slightly. “As it happens, he’s a political ally of my—that is, the Empress’s.” He had a feeling most everyone was reasonably aware that he was related to her, but he didn’t see the need to be too pointed about it. “He’s of a particularly… ambitious stripe, however, and with the political climate in Orlais recently… my father suspects his allegiance may be in danger of shifting, and has asked me to look into the matter, as the Duke is wintering here in the Free Marches.” He used his first two fingers to tap a spot on the map, in the mountains, but relatively close to the Orlesian border. It would take a few days of travel to get there.

“I know not what business this Prosper has with Qunari, but I am unlikely to discover why I am being targeted without more direct access to the pertinent information. If I can figure out what it really going on and deal with it appropriately, I am relatively certain the Ariqun, and by extension, her assassins, will leave me and the rest of Kirkwall be.” Amalia grimaced slightly, shaking her head as if to herself.

“Fortunately, there’s a rather simple way to do this: I’ve received an invitation to the Prosper estate for a wyvern hunt.” Lucien shrugged slightly and sat back. “As a person of… some degree of status, it’s rather expected that I will have in my company a retinue of some kind, and a guest, should I desire one. I don’t know if what’s going on with the Qunari is at all connected to my father’s suspicions, but either way, I’m willing to help Amalia here, and she has agreed that she is willing to help me, as well.” It was clear that they could help each other: Lucien could provide exactly the plausible cover Amalia would need to gain access to Prosper’s estate, and her particular brand of skills in espionage and information gathering may well turn up something he could use. If not, well… he’d helped a friend, and that was good enough.

“We were… rather hoping that the rest of you would be willing to help us. It will likely be an endeavor of nearly a week, considering travel time, but the Lions have the horses for it, if you have the time.”

"And in what manner does Ser Guillame believe Prosper will betray Celene?” The question was Rilien’s. It seemed difficult to believe that it would have anything to do with Qunari, but then they didn’t have much of the information; perhaps Lucien’s father had more. It went without saying, of course, that he would assist; he didn’t even take the request itself to have been directed at him—it was simply obvious that he would be part of this.

Lucien sighed. “It’s less that he sees an opportunity and more that he sees a motive. The chevaliers are slowly splitting in two, and the faction breaking off is doing so under my second cousin Gaspard. As far as father sees it, there’s a lot more room for social mobility if someone were to get on his good side. It’s very little at the moment, which is why he wanted me to get a sense for it. I’m afraid I don’t have anything more specific. Before Amalia came to me, I was simply going to go under the pretense of trying to establish a few more ties now that the exile’s been lifted. That’s still what I’ll do, just… I’ll also be listening for any mention of Qunari.” It was a long shot, more on his end than Amalia’s, where something odd definitely was going on, but he had to take it anyway. If he didn’t discover anything, then the loss would simply be a week of his time.

"The Alienage will keep for a week," Ithilian said, before adding a quiet, "most likely." In truth, he wasn't fond of leaving, with the Templars beginning to prod their noses around the vhenadahl, but if Amalia needed to access this Prosper's estate, then he would go too, and help where he could. He imagined it wouldn't be by accompanying Lucien. Even as a servant, Ithilian would likely terrify the Orlesian nobility. And it went without saying that he'd struggle posing as a servant in the first place.

Sophia, meanwhile, followed the intricacies of the situation much better than the Dalish member of the group, and it was quite clear to her how potentially dangerous the situation was. Qunari involvement aside, a fracturing of the chevaliers was trouble. Her own role in their group would likely be quite different from the rest, given that she actually had the social standing to attend as herself, and while she wasn't keen on the idea of playing the Game with the Orlesians... "I can certainly spare the time. And I wouldn't mind another trip out of Kirkwall." That spot in the mountains looked scenic even from the map.

It seemed it was Aurora's turn to answer. Swallowing the sandwich she had in her mouth, she took a breath before she said, "I'll need to work something out first, but I think I can last a week." She'd have to talk to Donovan first, and let him know he'd be in charge of the Underground's studies while she was gone, and to keep Pike in line, but she had a feeling he could last at least a week on his own.

"But... I'll need some new clothes. I don't have anything that won't insult Orlesian sensibilities," she added. Her closet wasn't grand by any means, and though it contained plenty of bright clothing, none of it was particularly well made.

Rilien blinked, intentionally raising a brow. "That can be arranged.” He paused, then turned to Lucien and Amalia for a moment. "I will also see what I can do about information. Some of my contacts may know more of Prosper, or the Qunari.”

Setting

6 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

Duke Prosper’s estate was nestled in the mountains, which at this time of year meant that the area was blanketed in snow. It had a sort of breathtaking, scenic appeal to it, the crystals sparkling under the sunlight, which for the journey thus far had been uninterrupted by clouds, lending a warmth to the daylight that made their trek rather pleasant. The ice coating the needles of most every pine tree was beginning to melt, droplets of water falling onto the snow-covered ground a steady patter as they progressed. It was winter, slowly beginning to emerge into the first false spring. If the weather held, it would prove no impediment to them, even despite the chill.

Lucien rode at the front of the procession, more because he knew where they were going than for any other reason. He’d shed most of the evidence of his current occupation, digging into his trunk and retrieving more official livery for the occasion. All of their horses were blanketed in emerald green and silver for the duration, saddles oiled to a supple shine, and he himself wore the same colors on his fur-lined cloak, the crest at the back unmistakably a dragon, wings spread wide and head pointed towards the sky. It was all a little unnecessary, in his opinion, but needs must, and appearances mattered when one played the Game. Fortunately, this was likely not an occasion on which masks would be required, as it was rather informal by comparison, which he considered a stroke of luck.

In the interest of simplicity, he’d decided that other than Sophia, the party would be introduced as his retinue, and then essentially allowed to do as they liked. People tended not to keep track of the help, which would be to their advantage here. He was counting on his own appearance acting as a rather effective smokescreen to any of the nobles caring about most of those he’d brought with him, which should allow them to move about freely, as long as they were careful not to be seen anywhere they definitely shouldn’t be. He didn’t doubt they knew what they were doing, in that respect.

Gradually, the path they were traveling on evened out, sloping down into a wider thoroughfare that no doubt served as the main route to and from the Prosper estate for deliveries and guests both. The estate itself was somewhere between a large manse and a very small castle, made largely of the same medium-grey stone as the surrounding mountainsides. The snow capped the roofs of the small towers and several outbuildings, contrasting with the warm glow emitted by the candles and torches in the windows. It was a rather elegant vista, as far as they went, and he could appreciate the tactical advantages as well—the back of the place was built into the mountainside, and the front three sides were protected by a wall with, by the looks of it, only one gate in.

They stopped outside the gate, which was manned by two guards, both in elaborate, feather-plumed helmets. One called down to them. “Who goes?”

Lucien chose to announce himself, since he didn't want to make Rilien do it and none of the others would know how anyway, and he went with the short version. “Ser Lucien Thibault Drakon, Prince of the Empire, Marquis of Lydes, Commander of the Knights Chevalier, accompanied by Lady Sophia Dumar of Kirkwall, and household.” Clearing his throat a smidge awkwardly, he held up an envelope. “I, ah… have an invitation.”

Even from this distance, it was rather evident that the guard’s eyes couldn’t have widened any further without risking expulsion from his head. “Yes, of course. Please pardon us, Your Imperial Highness!” The sound of the gate cranking open immediately followed, and Lucien sighed heavily. He would have told them to call him ‘ser’ if they had to do anything, but that would only make things even worse, for he and they both.

“Well, it looks like we’re in.”

Sophia knew he was more comfortable in anything else, but she didn't mind seeing Lucien dressed up every once in a while. Considering the snow and the object of the gathering--a hunt--she had found something practical for herself as well as fashionable enough for show, which had required a trip to Hightown's market, as it had been some time since she'd been to anything like this. Her armor, however, was still tucked into her saddlebags, lighter and heavier variations, as a wyvern was nothing to be trifled with in the event that they were the ones to come across its path.

"Lovely place the Duke has," she commented, without sarcasm. It had been a beautiful ride up through the mountains, and they'd even been lucky enough to have clear weather for the day, comfortable even with the snow surrounding them. They passed now through the gates, the stables awaiting them ahead, though the stableman and several of his assistants waited to greet them outside of it. Sophia smoothly dismounted from her sadly unfamiliar horse, handing over the reins.

Ithilian did so as well, giving his horse to a younger elven stableboy, who stared at him wide-eyed for a moment before remembering his job. He had said little on the ride over, and nothing at all after they'd come even remotely close to their destination. He was glad at least that the noble members of the party would draw most of the attention, and planned on speaking as few words as he needed to. Dressed mostly in furs and leather, what cloth he wore in tones of brown and green, it would seem obvious that he was here to assist with the hunt to come. He would gladly have them believe that was all.

"I believe our host has come to greet us," Sophia said somewhat quietly, looking in the direction of the castle.

Lucien, giving his horse a pat on the flanks as she was led away, turned at the sound of Sophia’s voice, his eyes falling on what did, indeed, appear to be an approaching entourage. Given that Prosper was in his own home at the moment, the procession wasn’t particularly large, perhaps no more than five people. The consistent guard presence about the castle would serve well in lieu of most personal protection, though there was one bodyguard quite conspicuously stationed over the Duke’s left shoulder.

The Duke himself was already dressed for hunting, by the looks of it, a rather ornate set of leathers and silvered chain, bearing his house colors of yellow and black, and a few plates for protection laid over his shoulders and forearms. Prosper wore his salt-and-pepper beard short and well-trimmed, as was his wavy hair. He looked to be in the center of his middle age, though fit as one would expect a hunting enthusiast to be. There was no disguising the fact that he was a good half-foot shorter than his guest of honor, however. He bowed deeply upon reaching the group, and his retinue took a knee, which provided Lucien with the interesting realization that one could indeed grow unaccustomed to being treated in such a way. He fought to keep a straight face, though he was certain the tips of his ears were pinking a little. Returning the bow in a much shallower fashion, Lucien offered a short gesture, which allowed all those kneeling to stand.

“Your Imperial Highness.” The Duke was a man of genial manner, and there was a thread of affability in the address, as though he had caught on to Lucien’s discomfort and was a bit amused by it. “Long has it been since you have graced your people with your presence. I must confess I was not expecting my humble hunt to be the scene of your return to society.” He smiled, inching a dark brow up his head.

“Please don’t think too much of it,” Lucien replied sincerely. “I had rather thought I should learn if I can still swim before I attempt to do so surrounded by sharks. A gathering of friends need not be a stage for me.” Prosper was silent for a moment, as though absorbing that, but such deflections were expected from the prince by now, and it was generally understood that they were meant in earnest, and so the other man shrugged his shoulders, a faint touch of informality bleeding into his demeanor.

“If you wish. I still get to say I hosted you first, and I dare expect that will be quite enough to ruffle the right feathers, hm?” It seemed to be a mostly rhetorical question, because he clearly didn’t expect Lucien to answer it. The greeting as such concluded, the Duke turned at last to Lucien’s companions, or at least the one with a title.

Picking up the cue, Lucien interceded. “Duke Prosper, please allow me to introduce Lady Sophia Dumar, of Kirkwall. Lady Sophia, this is Duke Prosper de Montfort, of Orlais.”

“Enchanted, my lady,” the Duke replied affably, bowing over Sophia’s hand but electing not to kiss it. “Welcome, to you and to all of His Highness’s party, to Chateau Haine.” He rose, waving to his own group, and a young woman stepped forward, bowing to both the Duke and Lucien as well. “This is Claudette. She will show you to your rooms, where you may prepare for this afternoon’s hunt. Perhaps you will have a chance to venture into the gardens before it begins? Many of my other guests are already present there—and I am certain they would welcome the opportunity to converse with you after your absence. But alas, I must attend to other matters.” Prosper bowed, and at Lucien’s answering nod, took his leave, most of the rest of his party in tow, leaving the stewardess with the visitors.

“Right this way, Your Highness.”

The group followed the woman, including Aurora, who spent more time looking at the scenery than paying attention to the social niceties of the nobility. The posturing and whatnot went right over her head. The duke's chateau however, was something she could understand, albeit just barely. She wondered how one amassed such wealth to be able to even afford half of what he had, and no doubt this was just a second home for the Duke. It was beautiful, even with a layer of snow covering most of it. Aurora was not a winter person, unfortunately, so she pulled her dark red cloak over her neck and drew her scarf up around her chin.

The snow had the unfortunate effect of hiding all of the flowers, and Aurora found herself wishing it'd been spring so that she could see them. No doubt in a place such as the duke's chateau, the gardens would've just been marvelous to behold. As the girl, Claudette, lead them around around back, Aurora did catch a glimpse of the gardens, and found that they weren't completely bare due to the snow. A few of the winter blooming flowers and shrubs made their homes in there, and she couldn't help but smile at them. Someone who knew what they were doing was in charge of that, no doubt.

She also saw a number of the other nobility mingling the garden around where the food and wine was served, though she didn't recognize them. Even so, she found herself wanting to break off from her group to taste some of the finer Orlesian food, though she wisely stayed behind the young woman. Some of the nobles in the garden were obviously there for the hunt, while others had other plans it seemed. Still, she paid little attention to them as they were led toward their chambers, and was careful to not say anything, lest it be taken with offense. She'd let Lucien and Sophia take care of all the noble speak.

While those present may all be strangers to Aurora, Rilien knew almost all of them by name. It was residual information, old and largely irrelevant in his present life, but he hadn’t forgotten any of it, and didn’t intend to. He would probably need it again, in time, and it was best to be prepared. While most of the others had dressed themselves in whatever manner they thought most fitting, he actually came as Lucien’s servant, which meant a fair amount of green and silver, and he’d taken care to disguise some of his most prominent features, like his brand. With his hair pulled back into a tail, he looked different enough from the last time he was in Orlais that he doubted anyone would suspect him of being himself, even if one did not regularly encounter people with his coloration. It wasn’t a particular concern if they did, but he’d prefer not to broadcast the fact that Lucien had brought a bard to the gathering.

Amalia didn’t think much of all the ceremony, but at the same time, she didn’t precisely disdain it, either. She could blend if she had to, but Lucien and Sophia were a far surer cover than any alias and occupation she could construct for herself, and as such, she was grateful to them. The layers of formality and convention would merely be further obfuscation that she could use to her advantage as she needed to. She was careful to scan over those people they passed without really seeming to study them at all, trailing at the back of the group with Ithilian. For the most part, she didn’t recognize anyone—though she had once studied family livery belonging to Orlais, she had never been dispatched there, and so could perhaps pick out a few last names, from those who had their servants with them, dressed in their colors, but nobody specific stood out to her as a likely explanation for her purported connection to this place.

At least not until they passed by an open courtyard area in the garden, and she spied a group of several people arranged around an individual in rich red. He seemed to be holding quite the captive audience, an easy smile slid over his face like he was born to wear it. And then he looked up, eyes black as pitch, and pinned her almost in place with the stare.

Amalia hissed, a soft sound under her breath more reflex than choice, and kept her legs moving with only a slight hitch in her stride. Marcus. His presence at once explained everything and nothing at all. Her jaw tightened, but she forced herself to walk past him without so much as a second glance.

Ithilian was unable to avoid a slightly more lingering look, but his feet continued on their previous course. He realized then that up until that point he hadn't truly been treating this venture seriously. It was some game of noble politics before, a misunderstanding that had caught Amalia. Now, however... he immediately shifted his mindset into that of the hunter, constantly studying everything around him with a high level of focus. Whatever Marcus was here for, it was not coincidence, and it was not good.

The inside of the chateau was, if possible, even more extravagant than the exterior suggested. The entrance they took led immediately into the grand foyer, after which they were turned right and led up a few flights of stairs to a wing carpeted in dark amber, the floors a polished marble, from the looks of them. “These rooms have been set aside for your use,” Claudette indicated in a heavy Orlesian accent. “If there is anything you should want for, each room contains a bell on the wall that you may ring, and someone will be up to attend to you immediately.” She bowed, and then left them to their own devices.

It would seem that, while they had been speaking with the Duke, their belongings had already been brought into the rooms, with, oddly enough, an entire chamber for each of them. Lucien supposed Prosper had elected not to take any risks, given that Lucien had not specified exactly who he would be bringing. Once everyone had figured out where their own belongings were stowed, and moved them around as necessary, they all gathered in Lucien’s room to formulate their plans.

Amalia was troubled by Marcus’s appearance here, and refused to believe that it had nothing to do with her own, so she chose to lay that out first, much as she generally declined to speak of him. “There is a Tevinter Magister here, one that I know. He… almost certainly has something to do with this.” Not that she could yet identify exactly what this was, but that was precisely part of the problem. “If you should be introduced to a Marcus Alesius, be wary. He is no friend of anyone but himself.”

It was simple enough to tell that Marcus and Amalia had some kind of history, but Lucien didn’t inquire after it. She’d warned them to be careful around him, and so they would—if any of the other details were pertinent, he was sure she would have shared them. “What are the chances of being able to get information out of him? Could he be tricked into explaining his purpose here?”

Amalia shook her head. “No. He won’t explain himself until he wants to. I’m more concerned that he knows why I am here. If he is some kind of ally of Prosper’s, he may or may not choose to share what he knows with him. We could be made before we begin.”

Lucien rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “I don’t think there’s much we can do about that but wait him out. If he weren’t here, what would you do?”

“Search the estate for any clues as to why Prosper would want to meet a Qunari… or a former one. Such meetings are not a matter of sending a request to Par Vollen.” She couldn’t imagine it being anything but a prospective business transaction, which meant there might be records somewhere, or correspondence, or something of the kind.

“The best time to do that will probably be during the hunt, when most of the household is either away or preparing for the party. I’d like it if my group was not suspiciously small—the presumption is that most of you were brought here to participate with me. Is this something you and one other would be able to do yourselves?”

Amalia glanced at Ithilian, a wry twist to her lip. “If the one doesn’t mind the risk, yes.”

Setting

4 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon

Earnings

0.00 INK

By the time everyone had outfitted themselves for the hunt, it was getting close to midafternoon, a few clouds interrupting the unadulterated sunlight, but the temperature outside still warm. Knowing well that the chill could set in easily in the mountains, Lucien had elected to keep his cloak, and packed a spare, besides. Beneath it, he was now arrayed in light mail, shaped leather plates resting over particularly vulnerable spots. But anyone who hunted such dangerous prey knew that it wasn’t much point to go fully-plated against a wyvern—to do so wouldn’t turn away the claws much better than hardened leather would, and both were equally-useless against the teeth of such a creature, so it was worthwhile to preserve mobility.

Though he kept Everburn at his back, it was unlikely he would use it. The weapon of choice against wyverns was the spear, and with good reason. They had a deadly venom, enough that even accidentally ingesting a little of it could kill a person, and so it was best to stay as out of reach of the jaws as possible. Most parties would also have at least an archer or two, but for long-range endeavors, Lucien would be putting his trust in Aurora. Well… and himself, to an extent. His horse, currently outfitted with a hunting saddle, also had a set of javelins draped over its back, the throwing spears slotted into specially-designed leather holsters, three on the left and three on the right.

Prosper had opened up his armory to anyone who wanted to supplement their equipment, and so once everyone was arrayed as they saw fit, they exited to the bailey area, where a few of the other parties were already leading hounds from the kennels. The use of a dog was of course a considerable advantage, but only to a point. Actually finding a trail to follow was often the hardest part of the hunt aside from killing the wyvern itself.

Glancing across the bailey, Lucien caught sight of a surprise: someone he knew quite well, but would not have expected to see here. Raising a hand, he gestured an old comrade over.

Green eyes swung wide in surprise and a smile plastered the familiar face. The man waved back enthusiastically before leading his own Orlesian Courser over to where Lucien was. He was only an inch or so shorter than Lucien, though nearly as broad. His hair was a deep chocolate color, and it was clear he went a few days without shaving due to the stubble on his chin. He wore a purple cloak with black fur lining the hood and a silver olive branch broach, though a pair of longswords rested on his back, a sign that this man was a soldier. Indeed, when he reached to grasp Lucien's hands, the gleam of plate reflected the white snow indicating that the man was and most likely still currently a Chevalier.

"Commander Lucien Drakon, as I live and breathe!" the man said excitedly, showing all of his teeth in a wide grin. "We had heard of your exoneration, and had I been able, I would have been present at your trial," the man said, his smile flickering a bit before it regained its strength. "I must apologize for that, my duties kept me away, however I am glad that it all worked out in the end." The man finished, just noticing he was still shaking Lucien's hands. He stopped and hesitated a moment, remembering himself before placing a closed fist on his chest and bowing deeply. "Your Highness," he added.

Rising, the infectious smile found his lips again. "It is a surprise to see you here, Commander. My darling Marcy will wish to speak to you before you leave, I am sure."

Lucien found himself smiling wider as well, though he rolled his eyes at his old friend’s choice of address. “Don’t you start with the ‘Your Highness’ business. I’ll never be free of it, otherwise.” He stepped back slightly once the other man actually let him go, angling himself so that those with him were more readily visible. “Everyone, this is Lieutenant Michaël Benoît, Comte of something or other but mostly an enormous pain in the arse. Michaël, you know Rilien of course, but the young lady in the red cloak is Aurora Rose, and to my left is my lady Sophia Dumar. We were just about to head to the gates. Did you have a party assembled or would you like to join ours?” There would, of course, be time for better introductions later, but it would be rude to delay the start of the hunt any longer than they must. It wasn't likely to just start without them if they took a while, so it was better that they didn't keep everyone waiting.

Michaël laughed at that and nodded, "Do not let Marcy hear you say that, she is very particular with our titles. Lady Marceline, Comtesse of the West Banks, etcetera, etcetera," he said, throwing his hands up and swatting at the imaginary titles that floated around his head. "And that is Ser pain in the ass, Your Highness," He added with a laugh and a wink.

Turning toward Lucien's companions he respectfully nodded to them in turn. "Rilien, a pleasure to see you. Aurora," he said, but for Sophia, his bow was a bit deeper. "Lady Sophia. The Commander and you are the heart of many rumors in Orlais. I am sure that Marcy will wish to speak to you as well... My condolences," he said with a grin. Turning back to Lucien, Michaël nodded and shrugged. "I had hoped to take the beast down by myself, but I will not deny myself such fine company," he said.

And so it was decided. With Michaël mounted and joining the rest of the party, they headed towards the gate, where several other groups of would-be wyvern slayers had already assembled. Prosper himself had a party of but five, though the four hounds straining against their leads indicated that he planned to make up for it in canine tracking prowess. Most of the parties were honestly too large to be effective, but the majority of those out on this venture didn’t take the hunting part all that seriously. It was, like many things, something to be seen doing, something one did to indulge a host or gain a few hours’ company with the right person.

The guards cranked the gates open, and Prosper’s party moved out first, followed by Lucien’s, and then the rest. At this stage, there wasn’t really much merit in taking one direction over another, so Lucien simply chose to angle off from the direction the Duke had taken, in hopes of finding what they were looking for to the west. The mountainside was partially forested, thick groves of trees interspersed with meadows and the occasional cave system.

“I should mention that one ought not to go anywhere near the wyvern’s jaws,” Lucien said, for the benefit of those who had either never been on a hunt like this or didn’t know much about the beasts generally. “Their saliva is highly toxic. There’s actually a hallucinogen made from but a drop of it, and some other things, but I don’t recommend the experience. It kills if the alchemist isn’t careful.” He shrugged slightly. “Rilien… you did bring those antidotes, yes?” They wouldn’t help if not immediately applied, but they were much better than none at all.

"Of course.” As likely the most experienced tracker in the group, Rilien kept his eyes predominantly fixed on the landscape. The snow would make things at once easier and more difficult: more difficult to move, or get a sense of which land formations would likely contain a den, but incidental traces of wyvern activity would be easier to spot carved into the melting frost. They weren’t likely to run into anything this close to the chateau, of course—isolated it might be, but it was still a hub of human activity, and therefore a wild animal that large would stay well away from it.

He turned his eyes for a moment to the clouds overhead. They weren’t heavy enough to be snow-bearing, but that could change quickly, at this time of year. Still, it was yet warm, and at this temperature, they were more likely to be set upon by rain or sleet than snow proper.

"This place must be even more beautiful in the summer," Sophia mused, her eyes admittedly more on the sights than the trail. She was not particularly experienced in hunting, as her father had never had the time nor the interest, and so would be little help in tracking the beast. With Rilien leading the way it hardly mattered. Following Lucien's lead, she brought her sword along, but planned to leave it sheathed on her back, and she left the vast majority of her plate back at the castle. In her lap was currently an unloaded crossbow, the weapon she intended to use if they came across the wyvern. Sophia was no expert shot, but the crossbow was an easy weapon to use, and her target would be fairly large.

She urged her horse into a brief trot, slowing back down to a walk when she came alongside Michaël. "If I may... you are a chevalier, you said? You and Lucien served together?" They had been understandably brief in their introductions, but she found herself curious of what history they shared.

"A strange series of events that led to it, but yes. I am, and we did," Michaël answered easily. He bore a spear, along with his pair of swords at his back, as well as a number of javelins at his sides, same as Lucien's mount. Even he did not wish to get closer to the beast than was strictly necessary. Sensing they still had some tracking ahead of them, Michaël decided that it wouldn't hurt to speak more about it.

"My darling Marcy's father, Commander Lucas Lécuyer at the time, was my first Commander in Val Royeaux. He did not enjoy the idea of his daughter fraternizing with one of his soldiers, but as I am sure you will find, the Lécuyer women always get what they want," he said with a light chuckle. It seemed that laughter came easy to the man.

"When we were wed, I was transferred from Ser Lucas's command to avoid the inevitable rumors of favoritism to his son-in-law. The transfer of course led to me being put in Lucien's unit," he continued, throwing a glance over his shoulder at the man in question. A warm smile gleamed in his face, but it faded for a moment when he returned to Sophia. His words turned serious for a moment as he said, "It was because of him I was able to return home to my darling wife and son. Were I in another's unit, I am certain that I would not have been so fortunate. I owe him my life," he said, before his everlasting smile flickered again.

"A debt I still intend to repay one day," He added, this time looking at Lucien when he spoke.

Lucien, as was doubtless easily-anticipated by this point, looked vaguely uncomfortable with that idea, and he shrugged. “Yes, well… I have no intention of collecting, so we’ll see.” He adjusted his cloak to close a gap in the front, steering his horse with his legs, and then something seemed to occur to him. “How is Pierre, by the way? He wasn’t more than a couple of years old, last time I saw him. He must be, what… nine now? Somehow I suspect he favors his mother.” He remembered the child as being unusually solemn, for one so young. Very little fussing involved, and intently curious about his surroundings.

Michaël began to sigh, but eventually it morphed into a chuckle as he beamed. "Oh Pierre? He is an intelligent boy, and growing smarter with every passing day. Moreso than I was when I was his age," He said, the pride evident in his voice as he spoke. "And yes, he does take after his mother a great deal. You should see the spectacle when they argue. It is more akin to a debate than a spat, as neither raises their voice, and they present points and counterpoints--" Michaël cut himself off and shook his head before he ran a hand through his hair. It was clear the whole thing was far over his head.

"I fear that I am no longer raising a prospective chevalier," he added with a smiling sigh.

It was at about this point in the conversation that Rilien veered considerably to the left, assuming that the others would take notice of this and follow him. It wasn’t much, but he’d just noted a disturbance in some of the surrounding snow. It had been partly covered over by a fresh coating, which meant it was relatively old, but it didn’t look like anything a smaller creature like a deer could make, and so he led them into a grove, their horses slipping surefootedly through the trees, picking their way over underbrush and fallen branches.

"I think there is a den close by.” Pointing to a tree that had been stripped of all of its lower branches, he explained. "The needles of that tree and its bark are relatively soft. Considering the durability of a wyvern’s hide, it would not make for poor nest lining.” And of course there was no reason for a wyvern not to harvest from a tree close by.

Their exit from the grove put them in a more open area, the landscape gently rolling, as the spot rested in a valley area between two mountains. Lucien looked up for a moment, peering at the rapidly-darkening sky. “It looks like we might be in for a change in the weather quite soon. We shouldn’t tarry much longer. If we don’t find the creature in another half-hour or so, we may well wish to head back anyway.” They’d been out for a considerable time already, and it would take them almost as much time to get back again if they had to—he’d rather not attempt to do so surrounded by heavy snowfall.

Almost as if to spite the thought, he heard a surprisingly-loud cracking sound, like a large branch being snapped in half. Pausing a moment, he cocked his head to the side, and a crunch followed, followed by a sort of wet sound that reminded him of a dog eating, only considerably louder. Reaching down, Lucien slid one of his javelins free of the straps that bound it to his horse’s equipment, and urged her forward with a gentle nudge of his knees. It sounded like it was coming from over the next hill.

The others close behind, he crested the slope, peering down into the recessed area below, an open field, by the looks of it. Where once the traces of wyvern presence had been slight, they were now prominent—large furrows dug into the snow, and large swaths of it stained pink. It was easy to see why—a bull moose had been killed in the spot, and the snapping sound had definitely been the wyvern crunching on its bones. It was quite large even for its kin, and though not quite as big as a mature dragon, it had a tough enough hide to compensate, to say nothing of its claws and poison. Dark blue in color, it had yellow stripes originating at its nose that ran in parallel lines along either side of its spine. It did not appear to have noticed them yet, so Lucien signaled Michaël to his left and Rilien to the right. Given that Aurora and Sophia were equipped for range, he trusted them to position themselves accordingly. Dropping his reins, he nudged his horse forward, far enough away from the ranged hunters that anything thrown his way wouldn’t risk them.

Unfortunately, that got him close enough that the wyvern heard him over the sound of its meal, and it turned towards him, delayed only for a moment as it processed what it saw, and then growling deep in its throat. Lucien hefted the javelin to shoulder level, steering the horse with his legs to begin circling, and spurring her into a charge as soon as the wyvern lunged into its own run. They were much faster in straight lines than if they had to turn, and so he angled away from its path, letting fly the javelin once he’d reached roughly forty five degrees to its left. The throw was decent, if not excellent, and landed solidly in the beast’s shoulder.

Setting

4 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon

Earnings

0.00 INK

Rilien’s usual arsenal was not especially conducive to ranged combat, and he was well aware of the fact that he’d never had much use for bows or crossbows. He had, however, learned to use a sling, something which was of rather limited utility until one considered the fact that he was also an alchemist. Not the expert horseman Lucien was, he could nevertheless aim well enough mounted, provided the horse wasn’t moving too quickly, and so it served him quite well to slide off to the right before the wyvern noted their presence. When it did, Lucien engaged immediately, and he assumed that if anyone could keep a wyvern engaged and also consistently outmaneuvered, it would be a chevalier on horseback.

Flipping open his saddlebag, Rilien withdrew a glass sphere about the size of his palm, the material thick enough to be weighty but also still relatively fragile. It was packed with a special blend of lyrium, which, when agitated on impact, would cause a small-scale combustion phenomenon. Not so much to blow off a wyvern's limbs by any means, but enough to be decently distracting and damaging to the thing's thickened hide. Loading the first sphere into the sling, he raised his arm and swung the apparatus around in a circle several times, establishing a steady centripetal force. Waiting until the wyvern had slowed in order to turn itself around and lunge at Lucien again, he released at the apex of his arc, and the projectile flew through the air, crashing into one of its flanks with a bang. A plume of smoke wafted up into the air like a grey ribbon, and the sizzle of the wyvern’s hide was a muted, bubbling hiss.

Knowing it was unwise to remain in one spot, Rilien moved while he reloaded, edging the clearing counterclockwise.

With the wyvern occupied with searching out where the lyrium bomb came from, Michaël chose it as the most opportune moment to strike. Rearing his courser around, he positioned his steed so that they would ride at the creature at an angle. He jabbed his horse in the flanks, urging it forward as fast as it could go in the snow, and plucked one of the javelins. They came at an angle from behind the wyvern and once Michaël drew close enough to the creature's flank, stood and hefted the javelin with all of his might into the opposite flank than the one Rilien had struck. Without pausing the horse carried him right past the creature's ire, though he made sure to turn their path somewhat circle so as not to be a straight shot for the wyvern.

Aurora, on the other hand, was not well versed in horseback riding. There were very little chances in the Circle to ride a horse, so she never had the chance to practice the skill. Still, it was better than trying to wade around in snow, so she stood up in the stirrups, one hand clutching the reins, the other forming a spell. She dipped into the fade and thrust out her hand, a bolt of lightning shooting from her fingertips and striking the wyvern. The sudden lightning bolt sat ill with the horse, however, and before she could rebalance herself in her saddle, the horse kicked and Aurora was thrown off of its back, face first into the snow.

Michaël saw the sudden display of magic and turned toward Lucien. "A mage? That is unfair, is it not?" He asked, hand clutching another javelin.

"No more than deadly spit." Lucien's reply was only brief, as he was attempting to draw the wyvern in the opposite direction from Aurora's fall, just in case.

Fairness was a bit of an odd concept, Sophia thought, when in life-or-death scenarios such as these. She certainly didn't give the wyvern a fair chance to see her attack coming before she aimed and loosed a crossbow bolt into its back flank, figuring enough wounds to the limbs would slow it and hopefully leave it less dangerous. The beast seemed not to care, however, honing in on the hunter that had fallen off of her horse, Aurora, the least mobile and easiest target, in its eyes. Quickly loading another bolt from the satchel strapped to her leg, Sophia kicked her heels into her horse, taking off at a gallop for Aurora.

Along the way, she took a carefully aimed shot, the bolt hitting the wyvern in the side of the face, making a mess of its snout and several teeth. It recoiled from that, momentarily turning away and scratching at the bolt in its mouth. Sophia used the moment to pull up beside Aurora, extending a hand down to her. "Come on, with me!" she urged.

Pulling her face out of the snow and wiping what she could out of her eyes, Aurora took the offered hand and clambered onto the horse behind Sophia. "I don't like horses," she muttered under her breath as she tried to regain her focus.

While Aurora was getting herself resituated, Lucien was taking the opportunity granted by Sophia’s last shot. Given that the wyvern was remaining basically still, he hefted his second javelin and took aim for its head. The quicker they could bring it down, the less likely it was that anyone here would sustain serious injury. His aim was slightly off, and rather than hitting the eye as he’d intended, the heavy projectile hit the hollow of one of its cheeks, on the opposite side from where Sophia’s crossbow bolt had landed. With an enraged shriek, the wyvern wheeled itself around, beelining for Lucien, who spurred his horse into a gallop just in time—the creature’s claws just barely missed his arm.

His third javelin was in his hand, but he was without an opportunity to throw it, considering that most of his focus now went to getting out of the wyvern’s immediate path. It stayed close on his tail, however, and even attempts to angle off were less than successful: too narrow an angle and it could succeed in keeping up, but too wide and he was offering it a free chance to knock him out of his saddle. So he urged her into a dead sprint, heading right for the hill they’d crested to come in, veering to the right at the last possible second. The horse made it with a jump—the wyvern did not, and crashed into a snowbank piled against the side of the hill.

It was the best opportunity they were going to get to deal it some heavy damage, most likely.

Rilien was certainly not one to let an advantage go to waste, and the next round of lyrium shells hit two at once, both concentrated on the back left leg. He brought his horse in closer, deciding that increased accuracy was worth the risk, since it had hobbled itself fairly effectively for at least the next few seconds. A quick reload added two more to the tally, each hitting almost exactly the same spot, and he watched dispassionately as the limb in question buckled, no longer able to support its share of the wyvern’s weight.

He also noted, in a passive sort of sense, that it had begun to snow, fat white flakes falling from the now fully-clouded sky overhead to the ground. It looked like it would be getting heavier soon, too.

Michaël rode in next, bringing his courser in as close as he dared. He stood in the stirrups of his saddle, a javelin cocked over his shoulder. Judging that drawing any closer to the beast, even if it was hobbled, would be foolhardly, he aimed for the back right leg when he launched the javelin. He threw every bit of power he had in body in it, becoming parallel with his horse's neck at the end of the motion. At such a short range and with the amount of power he put into it, the javelin tore through the creature's leg until the tip protruded out the other end.

At the very least, it would make movement very difficult for the creature, which would make things easier for them.

Sophia wheeled about, meanwhile, moving a little more slowly considering that she had a passenger who was not experienced in riding. Keeping at a safe distance, but close enough for an easy shot, she lined up her next bolt at the wounded wyvern. The shot thudded into the side of the creature's neck, burying itself in deep, and clearly obstructing its breathing to a severe degree. It would not last long now.

Holding on to Sophia for all she was worth with one arm, Aurora leaned out of the saddle while the other was layered with stone. When Sophia drew near for her shot, Aurora concentrated for her own. Winding back, she threw her arm forward and summoned a large stonefist, which careened toward the same place Sophia's bolt did. The stonefist struck soon after the bolt, but due to its size and velocity, it stuck with much more blunt force. Enough that upon impact, a loud crack echoed through the snowy glade. It remained on its feet for only a moment more before collapsing into the snow.

By this point, the snow was coming down very thickly, and heavily, more like sleet than anything. It would make travel back to the chateau extremely slow going, and if it got much worse, Lucien wondered if they might not have to take shelter until the worst had passed. For now, though, he took one of his remaining javelins and staked the ground near the wyvern’s head, tying to it a bright strip of green cloth, marking the location for later retrieval. Wyverns didn’t make especially good eating, but they could be used to feed dogs, and the other parts were extremely useful, including the venom. Though hunting was a common sporting pastime in Orlais, it was not a wasteful one.

"Well done, everyone. But I suggest we leave the celebration for when we’ve returned to the chateau. I don’t like the look of this snow.”

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

Amalia and Ithilian chose to remain in the corridor their group had been given while the hunting parties assembled. The less they were seen, the better. She took the opportunity to check over all of her equipment a final time: lockpicks, weapons, potions, and the like. She couldn’t keep too much of anything on her person, but she’d store the surplus in the room she’d claimed, and that would have to suffice. She did make sure to hand Ithilian a few health restoratives and stamina draughts, though—there was no telling what they’d run into. Realistically, she knew that if they were caught, they wouldn’t be able to do much by way of fighting. The chateau was crawling with guards and diplomatic guests, and what was more, even killing a single guard could send both of them to the noose. Being in the wrong place, they might get away with, especially if their friends decided to exert some influence on their behalf. Murder would be unacceptable.

Further complicating things, she knew, was Marcus’s presence. She didn’t know what he was doing here or what he wanted, but she knew, somehow, that he had expected her presence. Possibly even planned for it. She wondered if he was somehow responsible for the Qunari’s misinformation, but she had no reason to think they would believe anything he had told them. He, after all, really was a traitor of the worst kind, alive still due to avid protection, no mean skill of his own, and the Ariqun’s knowledge that he possessed no information of vital importance from his time with them. It was much like walking the edge of a cliff, she supposed, but with the knowledge that one’s balance was superior enough to handle it.

If she didn’t despise him with everything she had, she might have been impressed by that. As it was, all of this just made her wary. It was an uneasy feeling, not having the most important parts of the story in-hand before she chose her course of action, and a rather unique feeling, for she who had always taken herself to understand more than she didn’t.

She realized this was the fourth time she’d checked the edge of the knife she was holding and sighed, sliding it back into the sheath at her lower back. This was pointless. Too much speculation would only waste her time and set her thoughts in circles. Seeking something more productive, she ventured to the room’s window, looking out at the courtyard. It would appear that the hunting parties were setting off, and the lack of commotion in the gardens suggested that most of those still there would remain so for the immediate future, at least. The guards would be concentrated there, for the safety of the guests, so it was a good time to move.

“Judging from what we saw as we came in, I suspect the Duke’s private wing is in the back section of the castle. We’ll want to head in towards the center first, most likely. Are you ready?” Amalia spoke quietly, bereft of her usual utterly businesslike inflection. Rather, there was an implicit note of gratitude in there, and uncertainty as well. It was not lost on her how many ways this could go wrong, but she would not want to take those risks with anyone else.

Ithilian was not comfortable, but chose to mask it as merely a poor mood. He spent most of the wait gazing out the window at the snowy landscape, his brow almost permanently furrowed. By the time Amalia had come to join him in watching the hunters depart, he had already checked and readied his own weaponry, which included his bow and a full quiver of arrows, his remaining short sword, and Parshaara, sheathed as ever on his chest. He was acutely aware of Amalia's tone, and found himself all the more resolved because of it. Marcus was one of the few things he had ever seen capable of unnerving her, making her behave erratically or with uncertainty.

As he had been once before, Ithilian was intent upon being there for her to lean on him, if and when she needed him to. He nodded gravely in response to her query. "Lead the way."

The hall they had been given was, of course, otherwise unoccupied. The staircase they had come up was close to the outside of the building, whereas the opposite end opened up into the interior of a drum tower, visible through the arch at the opposite end of the hall. Moving carefully but for the moment still just walking normally down the hallway, they stepped into the circular room. Since they were up on the third floor, there was a high domed ceiling above them, supported by rafters. They were quite clean, free of bats, pests, or dust, and the banisters looked to have been recently polished. The center of the room was actually open to the floors below, giving them a view three stories down to the ground floor, over a high banister, likely walnut or something similarly-sturdy.

The view itself provided no interesting information, but the circular walkway around the outside of it contained two additional doorways, one that appeared to back out onto the rear part of the castle wall, situated against the mountain. That would do, perhaps, if needs must, but she would prefer to get in from the inside, where they could simply claim to be lost if found somewhere they did not belong. It would be hard to justify being out on the parapets if they were only looking for the kitchen or some such.

That left the last door, or rather the arch mirroring the one they’d come through. It would take them closer to the middle of the castle, which was the way they wanted to go, so it seemed wisest at present. Moving into it, Amalia decided it looked enough like their own hallway that it probably had a similar purpose, but she tested the first doorknob she came across anyway. It gave without protest, and she peered inside. Empty bedchamber, nothing interesting. Briefly, she entertained the notion of diverting their search to see if they could find Marcus’s rooms instead, but that seemed to her even more likely to get them caught, and he’d probably expect her suspicion and have prepared accordingly. It felt too much like playing into his hands to let him affect her that much simply by being present, and so she resolved to stick to the original plan.

A few of the other doors were locked, she discovered upon testing them gently, but she made no attempt to unlock them. This didn’t look quite right to be the noble’s own wing, and chances were, they were simply more guest quarters. This time, there was a door at the end of the hall instead of an open arch; when Amalia reached it, she moved to place her ear close and listen through it. After several seconds, she decided that there was likely nobody beyond, but she still opened the door carefully.

This one let out into what appeared to be a large, central hallway, this time extending deeper into the castle rather than across its width, though another door across from them indicated that there was likely a mirror of what they’d just seen on the other side. She turned right, taking them further towards the back. The hall itself was lined with columns, forming natural gaps where pieces of art were installed. Amalia recognized some of them as being in Qunari styles, but others were likely sculptures from the Anderfels and paintings of a more Orlesian type. Then again, she wasn’t an expert.

The vaulted ceiling was a merciless echo chamber, in one way, and so it magnified the sound of oncoming voices, which were indeed present. Glancing swiftly at Ithilian, Amalia ducked behind a pillar, considering that there was nothing else in the room, save perhaps a few of the sculpture pieces, that would serve as any kind of cover. The pillar wasn’t much wider than she was, in truth, and when she chanced a glance out from behind it, she noted that the voices belonged to what appeared to be a pair of guards, conversing casually as they walked down the hall. They were headed in the direction of herself and Ithilian, having come from where the two of them needed to go.

It hardly surprised Ithilian for them to run into a pair of guards, given how many there were patrolling around, and perhaps they were even lucky to run into some in a room where they had some cover to conceal themselves behind. The elf positioned himself behind a pillar across the hall from Amalia. The two were similar in size, though Ithilian's gear was perhaps more difficult to hide from view. Nevertheless, he was confident that the guards could not see him.

Glancing back at Amalia, he did not draw any weapons into his hands. Killing anyone just yet was very unwise, and there was not even a guarantee yet that the guards would discover them. Better to wait and use the pillars to hide from view, and possibly let them pass without incident. If they had to, he suspected it would not be too troublesome to subdue them without killing them. He was more worried about the noise that approach would cause.

As the guards continued in their direction, Amalia slowly began to rotate herself around the pillar, so that when they drew right up to it, she was on the side nearest the wall, and as they left the hallway, she would be facing the direction they had come from. It was difficult to place her feet without making any noise at all, but fortunately, they were not nearly so concerned with being quiet, and their conversation continued as they walked, masking any slight scuff from herself or Ithilian.

“Hey, I heard Ainsley’s been put in charge of feeding Leopold for the next month. That’ll teach him not to filch from the wine cellar, eh?” The speaker was the shorter of the two men, both outfitted in identical grey plate armor. The other made a noncommittal noise.

“Honestly. I don’t understand these bloody Orlesians, you know? What gave him the idea that it would be good to cage a damn wyvern and keep it as a pet? It could kill you if it breathes too hard in your direction!” The sound of speech gradually faded as the guards continued moving down the hall, apparently too interested in what they were gossiping about to bother taking more than a cursory glance over the room. Not that Amalia minded.

The two proceeded in the opposite direction from the guardsmen, electing to stay on the carpet runner in the middle of the hallway so as not to make any more noise than they had to simply by walking. The rest of the hall was empty, which seemed to confirm the hypothesis that most of the guards were busy with the guests outside rather than indoors, but she expected the patrol to be regular. Hopefully they would have enough time to find what they needed before the next, potentially more attentive, lot went by.

The hallway ended in a T-shape, presenting them with a choice to go right or left. Glancing down both, Amalia couldn’t determine any obvious difference between them, meaning that one was just as likely to hold what they were looking for as the other. “I’ll go left. We’re looking for anything like a study or a library—someplace he’d keep his letters or records.”

Ithilian wasn't keen on splitting up, but they had only so much time to search before another patrol came by, and they would not get lucky forever in their avoidance of them. Allowing her to go left, Ithilian split off down the right hallway, eyes passing quickly over the doors on either side of him, looking for a sign of something that might be of interest to him. One door seemed colored slightly lighter, and he opened it quietly, only to find himself looking into a lavish washroom, the likes of which he felt he certainly did not belong in. He closed the door, and continued on.

Moving further down the hall, a pair of double doors near the end caught his eye, and he moved to investigate. Interestingly, he found them unlocked, one side slightly ajar. He paused beside it, pressing his back to the wall and listening intently for any noise within the room, but heard none. Pushing the door open wide enough to get a look inside, he saw a sitting area, several bookcases along the wall, more furniture. He was not an expert on the lodgings of wealthy nobility, but this seemed too much for any guest quarters. The Duke's own, then?

He glanced back to see how far Amalia had gotten, and signaled with a hand that he may have found something worthwhile.

Amalia happened to be passing back into the hallway at the time, and caught the signal quickly. Considering that she hadn’t found much of interest herself, she jogged over to where Ithilian was, looking beyond his shoulder into what appeared to be the castle’s master bedroom. “It was unlocked?” That was rather unexpected for such a private chamber, and among Ithilian’s many skills, lockpicking was not included. It was strange that it had been left open, but perhaps it had been nothing more suspicious than a careless servant, or one who planned to soon return to finish turning down and tidying the space.

Stepping further in, she swept her eyes over the furniture, organized roughly into sections—the bed and bedside table were of no interest to her, nor was any of the lounge décor. There was a large window with a latch over on the far wall, and no other doors in or out of the room. The area near the bookshelves included a writing desk, with a trunk sitting next to it. Perhaps…?

Crossing the room, she knelt down next to the trunk, noting the rather elaborate-looking padlock on it. It was, she discovered, rather heavy, the kind designed not only to be difficult to open without the key, but also not easily thwarted by more violent means. Nobody locked away something they didn’t care about. Reaching for the side of her leg, Amalia lifted the leather flap over the pouch that held her lockpicks in place, drawing out a pair of the finer ones in the set. Bracing the padlock on her knee as well as she could, she inserted the first pick, moving it carefully to get a sense of the mechanism she was working with. The second followed, and she realized that the internal parts of the lock were much more sophisticated than those she was used to opening. It was going to be the work of a few minutes.

When at last the tumblers clicked home, she exhaled softly and removed the padlock from the trunk, lifting the lid carefully. The trunk appeared to contain mostly heirlooms—medals for some sort of distinction, a few pieces of what looked like livery—these she set aside, pulling away layers of them until there was nothing left in the trunk at all. Strange, she’d thought…

Pursing her lips together, Amalia narrowed her eyes at one of the corners of the trunk’s bottom. It looked… irregular. Suspicious, she knocked the bottom of the trunk with her knuckles, the impact producing a surprisingly-hollow sound. False bottom, then. Carefully, she wedged the slat of wood out of the trunk, setting it against the wall. There, at the bottom of the container, were at least three dozen sheets of parchment. Lifting these out, she tossed them onto the surface of the desk, then went about replacing everything she’d removed from the trunk, hooking the padlock over the latch but not locking it just yet.

“Let’s see what we have.”

Ithilian had stood guard near the door while Amalia worked through the lock, tensely listening for any sound of approaching footsteps or voices. None came. These were clearly important chambers, and if they did not belong to Prosper, he could not say whose they were. Finding them left unlocked now was... fortunate, yes, but also a little alarming, given his knowledge of some of the castle's other guests. He didn't presume to know anyone's plans or motives, but he was getting the sense that this was a little too easy.

The documents split now into two smaller stacks, they began going through them together. Ithilian wasn't the quickest at spotting notable information in documents, but it wasn't hard to see that contained in the papers he had was a correspondence between Gaspard and Prosper. There was little he could see at a glance in the way of evidence for treason, but much of their discussion did seem to revolve around a looming civil war. He wondered if any of it would be useful... and how long it would be before they were missed, if they were to take these.

"Correspondence about impending war here. Anything in yours?"

Amalia had been frowning progressively more deeply as she worked her way through her stack—first because of the fact that it didn't look to be anything useful, and then for exactly the opposite reason. She hadn’t known that Prosper could read Qunlat, perhaps because hardly anyone who wasn’t once a Qunari could. They didn’t make a habit of teaching their language to outsiders, but these letters to the Duke were written in it, presumably with the implication that he could comprehend what they intimated. At first, she wasn’t sure what to make of their content, but now… now she thought she might understand what was going on here.

“I think…” She stopped short, her frame tensing, and turned abruptly to face the now-empty doorway. From just beyond, she caught a glimmer of dull grey. “Guards.” She moved to get out of view of the open door, but the very fact that it was still open was likely telling enough.

“In there!” It would seem that whomever had noticed them had brought more than just a patrol partner, if the sound of feet rushing towards them was anything to go by.

Their options were few. “The window,” Amalia said quickly. “We can climb down.” Free-climbing down the side of a castle from three floors up was hardly the safest thing they could do, but it was considerably safer than the alternatives.

Ithilian had abandoned all thought of anything relating to Prosper when the sounds of approaching guards reached his ears, and he didn't hesitate when Amalia suggested the window. He pushed it forcefully open, cool air hitting him, and climbed quickly outside, setting his feet on the ledge. A small layer of snow still covered it, not melted yet. Moving quickly would be treacherous, but they didn't seem to have a choice.

Amalia was a little slower in getting to the window, only because she took the seconds necessary to stuff most of the correspondence into her belt. It was important, and would likely serve well as evidence, which they were going to need if she was going to be able to convince the relevant parties of her suspicion. She was only halfway across the room when the first of the guards came through the doorway, and was quite caught unawares by the throwing knife that embedded itself into the back of her shoulder. Setting her jaw, she sprinted the rest of the way, climbing up onto the ledge and setting her feet to follow Ithilian’s progress sideways, where the most logical move was to round the corner laterally and drop the much shorter distance onto the parapets. It would take a bit of a jump off, but she’d looked earlier, and that should both be capable of it—

Before she could move very far away from the window, a mailed hand grasped her wrist. Amalia tugged sharply, seeking to remove herself from the guard’s grip, and felt it loosen, but the one hand became two, and then another pair, all latched firmly onto her forearm. Vashedan, she hissed, risking letting go of the stone with her other hand to draw a knife. She’d stabbed through one of the hands holding her before the arm holding the weapon was captured as well, and she felt her feet lift away from their holds on the wall as she was pulled up, and they attempted to lever her back in through the window. She could more clearly make out their numbers now—and there were far too many to deal with before one could get away and alert the entire garrison.

Kadan! You must find the others. Tell them that Marcus—” Her words were abruptly cut off when one of the soldiers dragging her up moved a hand to her mouth and nose. She bit down on it, still fighting to get out of her human bonds, but to no avail. She was dragged back up through the window, her arms twisted around and pinned behind her.

“What about the other one?”

“Shoot him.”

Setting

1 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael

Earnings

0.00 INK

Ithilian hissed unintelligible curses of his own when Amalia was pulled back from the window, guards in Prosper's quarters leaving him trapped out on the ledge. His initial instinct was to try and get right back through the window, kill them all, and free his lethallan, but he had enough control over himself to know that was impossible. He was at a severe disadvantage from his position, and the guards had given away that they needed her alive for some reason. It was either go back and die, or escape, as Amalia requested, and regroup with the others. Gritting his teeth, he turned away.

He heard the sounds of struggle lessen in the room as he neared a corner, looking back in time to see a bow-armed guard lean out the window, drawing back an arrow. With nowhere to dodge, Ithilian prepared to try and duck, though he would likely spill over the edge. When the arrow came, however, the guard received a kick to the center of his back, Amalia's foot appearing briefly out the window. The arrow whistled by his chest, the guard nearly toppling out of the window entirely.

Seizing the advantage, Ithilian took swift sideways steps and shuffled around the corner. All sounds of struggle ceased, leaving him with nothing but the light wind, though the shouts of guards would not be long in coming, if they truly intended on killing him. The first flakes of snow were beginning to fall around him. Continuing on, Ithilian found himself within jumping distance of the castle parapets. Without any space behind him, however, he would need to perform a standing jump, and the fall was a solid three stories, easily enough to break his legs. Taking two quick breaths, he crouched his legs down as well as he could, and leaped.

He flailed through the air for a brief moment, his feet catching on the inner stone of the wall, tipping him over and causing him to land hard on his right shoulder. Groaning, he pushed to his feet, staying low in a defensive crouch, and examining his surroundings.

The parapets at the back of the castle were mostly empty, which made sense since it was backed up right against a cliff face, and so the defensive walls themselves were more for completeness than out of particular necessity. That said, they would likely be much more heavily-manned the closer Ithilian got to the front gate of the castle, which was where the others had exited from when they began the hunt. Curiously, no alarm seemed to be going up, but perhaps there had not yet been enough time for the guards in the room to alert the others to his escape.

The parapets themselves were unremarkable, built solid and serviceable from the same grey stone as the surrounding mountains. At regular intervals, guard posts were placed, each with a ladder that led down to ground level. The nearest one was some five hundred yards down the east wall, given that Ithilian himself stood just on the south side of the southeast corner.

If Ithilian had thought the jump to the ground was safe enough to avoid injury, he might have taken it, but the walls were still too high. The ground would possibly offer more cover, more places to hide, but he couldn't get there just yet. For that, he'd have to find a way down. He could see a guard post to the east, the cover unfortunately sparse between him and it, making his chances of remaining unseen low. Pulling his bow from its sheath on his back, he nocked an arrow and began moving forward. He still hoped to avoid killing anyone, but at this point, he would gladly do it if it meant avoiding capture. Ultimately, the lives of these guards meant nothing to him. Amalia's meant a great deal, and he had no wish to see any of the others die, either.

Ithilian made it about halfway between his position and his destination before he was spotted walking along the wall. A head poked out from a gap in the watchtower, a guard peering down at the armed elf in some mix of confusion, wariness, and consternation. “Oi. What’re you doing up ‘ere, elf? Servants aren’t allowed on the wall.” The guard couldn’t have been older than Lia, from the looks of him, and he sounded a bit uncertain of himself, like he wasn’t quite sure how to handle the situation. “Who’re you with, anyway?”

Ithilian honestly hadn't expected only some of the guards to have gotten the message, so to speak. This one seemed to have no idea what had occurred elsewhere. Even still, it took a remarkable amount of Ithilian's self control not to just draw the arrow back and shoot the kid. It would be simpler if no guard who saw him from this point lived. And he didn't have any immediate ideas for how to explain the fact that he'd already drawn his weapon.

"Saw a wolf inside the walls," he came up with eventually, unsure how believable it sounded. "Thought to put the beast down, wanted a vantage point." He ignored the guard's other question. Ithilian knew none of the other lords here, and he didn't intend to hand out Lucien's name, and link his activities to him, on the off chance that they didn't already put those pieces of information together.

Taking the arrow from the bow, he twirled it once in his hand, but didn't return it to his quiver. He took a passing glance over the grounds below, checking for other guards, but no doubt appearing to look for his phantom wolf. He then began walking towards the watchtower. "Afraid I've lost it now, though. And gotten myself lost. Could you point me back to the guest quarters?"

The guard regarded Ithilian skeptically for a moment, tilting his head to the side, but then he seemed to realize something, and then sighed. “Probably got in after the hunters left. Well… all right then. You can use the ladder here, by the tower. I’ll… well, I won’t report this or anything, just… stay off o’ the walls, okay? Not everyone around here likes elves very much, especially not the armed ones. They’d think you were a Dalish raider, or something.” The guard pointed down and slightly to the side, where indeed a ladder was leaned against the inside of the wall.

“And you should report that wolf to the kennelmaster. Lots o’ the dogs are out for the hunt, but there’s still a good dozen what can track a wolf. Guest quarters are down, through the gardens, and to the left once you get inside.” He nodded once, as if that solved the matter, and disappeared from the gap in the tower, presumably to resume his watch.

Ithilian was grateful he didn't need to say anything else. The guard seemed hardly interested in him once he'd declared himself not to be a threat. He was lucky to have run into a younger member of their watch, and not a veteran, who likely would have seen straight through that. Ithilian wasn't a practiced liar, after all. Now deciding to return the arrow to his quiver, Ithilian did so for the bow as well, securing it on his back. His walk to the ladder the guard suggested was swift, especially now that no one was watching again. Taking another precautionary glance around him, he clambered onto the ladder and quickly made his way down.

In case the guard was watching from above, which Ithilian could not see, he made his way back towards the gardens, skirting around the outsides. Now that he didn't have the two nobles of his party to lead the way, he imagined he was a good deal more eye catching, the armed elf wandering on his own. The snow was beginning to fall however, lightly but steadily, and it had driven many of the guests indoors, including Marcus, Ithilian noted, though when exactly the magister left the gardens, he didn't know.

Rather than go inside himself, he passed around the main structure of the castle, making his way towards the front gate. On the way, he passed the stables, where they had left their horses, and he noted a few of the guards making their way there, not at speed, but moving with a purpose all the same. Best to get out before they mounted up. Walking swiftly, he strode through the gatehouse, a pair of guards lazily standing watch over the portcullis. One took note of him.

"Going somewhere, elf? Bit late for the hunt." Despite his inquiry into where Ithilian was going, he made no move to push off of the wall he currently leaned up against.

"Noted," he answered, not slowing down. "Still heading out."

"Weather's moving in. You wanna freeze your balls off, go right ahead." Ithilian ignored him, getting outside of the castle at last, and into the wilderness. The trail of the hunters was not difficult to follow, and he'd seen from the room the direction Lucien's party had set off in. He hoped they had not gotten too far. This snow was going to cover their tracks soon enough.

The trail was, for the moment, relatively easy to follow. The hunting party had evidently made no move to cover their tracks, though there was a bit of difficulty picking out which ones belonged to them, at first. Only one group had the right number of horses, though.

The problems intensified about fifteen minutes into his trek, when the snow started to come down more thickly. It would soon coat the ground, obscuring the tracks left by Lucien’s group. What was worse, though, was the distant sound of baying mabari hounds, accompanied by the shouts of men, all issuing from behind Ithilian.

The moment he heard the barks, the shouts of men from behind him, Ithilian knew there would be blood. He could not outrun dogs, much less horses, and the weather was only growing worse. The situation brought back flashes of himself as a young adult; the Brecilian forest coated in frost of the first month of winter, his brothers and sisters gathered around him, invisible to the eye but ever present on the mind. The sounds of dogs and men, angered enough to venture from their village to try and drive off the elven bandits. There were no brothers and sisters for Ithilian now, but he could channel some of the old hatreds, and the tactics he used to employ.

There was no way to hide his tracks, not with the snow beginning to cover the ground more fully, and the dogs would find him anyway. Moving swiftly, he found a cluster of tightly packed trees, pulling himself up into the nearest one's branches, ascending with remarkable speed. Halfway up he looked to the next closest tree, making a calm, calculated jump, landing lightly on the widest, sturdiest branch he could see. He grasped the trunk to steady himself, then continued to climb. Another branch, another jump to another tree.

The hunting party arrived, composed of four mabari hounds and their four mounted handlers, armed in guardsman's light plate and leather. They slowed when the dogs did, glancing around as the hounds sniffed at the ground. They followed the trail Ithilian had left behind, right up until it stopped.

"He's climbed this tree!" one of them declared, and they formed up a circle around it, crossbows and spears pointed up. The hounds barked and bounced around, eager for something to sink their teeth into. Long seconds passed, the huntsmen searching carefully through the thick branches of the tree for any sign of an elf. Even the dogs grew quiet, and the only sounds were the wind, the heavy breathing of the horses, the panting of the dogs, the creaking and squeaking of leather and plate. The clink of a bone blade being struck across an arrowhead.

A flaming arrow came from above and behind the hunting party, striking one of the horses in the base of its neck, the flames immediately leaping to ignite the beast like only enchanted fire could. The entire mane went up in flames, and the beast screamed, rearing back harshly and tipping over, crushing the left leg of the spearman riding it. The other horses nickered in sudden fear, their riders struggling to maintain control over them.

"Behind us! The other tree, that one there!" one of them called, turning and pointing to a rustling of branches, disturbed snow falling to the ground. A pair of crossbow bolts shot into the foliage, hitting nothing. The dogs ran over to investigate. One received an arrow straight through the top of the head before it reached its destination, tipping end over end and rolling to a stop on its side. A second one soon followed, this one stopping still for a moment too long. "Force him down!" the leader called, no instructions following as to how that was to be done.

The riders moved closer to the site of the slain dogs, galloping right past Ithilian's newest hiding spot, believing him to be in the tree he'd just departed. A third mabari was barking, looking up directly at him. It was unable to do anything about the arrow that pierced straight through its eye, apart from whimper as it fell. That tipped off the huntsmen, at last able to follow the path of the arrow to the elf's location, but he was already in flight, this time coming straight down on top of them.

He landed on the back of a crossbowman's horse, immediately sinking his blade down through the top of the man's armor, into his back. He reached back to try and shoot him with the loaded crossbow, but Ithilian wrenched it from his grip, abandonding his hold on his sword and leaving it embedded in the man's back. The other crossbowman took aim, hesitating at first, but taking the shot, only hitting his own man in the throat. Ithilian fired the crossbow back at him, the bolt punching straight through the light plate of his chest and knocking him from his horse. The elf dropped the crossbow, yanking the sword from the back of the man he'd ambushed, and shoving him from the saddle.

With a roar, the last huntsman charged, spear leveled down, and Ithilian rode to meet him. His intention was fairly clear, the way the spear was not angled high, but low instead. Placing his feet up on the saddle before they clashed, Ithilian jumped forward, just as the spearman took down the horse Ithilian rode. The creature went down, but Ithilian was already airborne, slamming the spearman from the saddle and punching his blade into the base of his neck. His fall was cushioned by the man's body, his struggle ending quickly.

Just before he could pull the blade free, the last thing able to fight attacked him, the remaining hound. He got his arm between the mabari's jaws and his throat, the teeth clamping painfully down on his forearm. Gritting his teeth against the thrashing, Ithilian pulled Parshaara from its sheath and stabbed it into the side of the dog's neck, setting it on fire and causing it to yelp loudly, rolling off of him. Ripping the knife free, Ithilian lunged over and stabbed it several more times, until it was done.

Adrenaline pumping through him, he pulled the knife free, sheathed, and pulled his sword from the spearman's throat as well. The first man was still moaning under his horse, his leg crushed and pinning him in place. He'd dropped his spear just out of reach. He eyed Ithilian with terror as he approached, dripping blood from his arm, and more from the end of his blade.

"Wait, elf, wait, p-please!" he begged, tears forming in his eyes from the pain. "I can tell you where your friend is. Worth my life, at least. Just spare m-me, and I'll tell you." Ithilian came nearly within striking distance of him before stopping, his face set into a hard glare.

"Out with it, then."

“F-first floor of the castle… there’s a p-passage, in the back, near the kitchens. Ends in a trapdoor. She’s… she’s underground, in the catacombs. M-Marcus wanted her where nobody else would stumble on her by mistake.”

"Thank you," the words were coldly delivered, and the downed man seemed to know what the tone meant as soon as he heard them. His scream was cut off when a brutal kick to the face knocked him senseless. Reaching down, Ithilian grabbed him by the hair, pulling his head mostly upright, and quickly shoved the end of his blade up under the chin, deep enough to end him quickly. Pulling the sword free, he dropped the body, and turned to go.

Picking up the trail again, he moved with speed, downing one of the healing potions Amalia had given him to lessen the damage to the arm the mabari had gnawed on. Luckily, he did not have to travel far, as the group he sought were on their way back, the same way they had left by. One of their horses had a nearly foot long claw strapped to the saddle, a sure indication that they'd run into the wyvern they sought.

He waved tiredly at them, sheathing his sword. "Seems you were luckier than I was."

Setting

1 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

After her last-ditch attack on the guard attempting to shoot Ithilian, Amalia was dragged out of the Duke’s chamber, and though she knew this wasn’t leading anywhere good, she resisted no further. There wasn't any way she’d be able to get out of this just yet—but she knew that to acknowledge this was far from the same thing as giving up. She merely had to wait for the right opportunity, and bide her time until then. The guards had slapped on a pair of manacles, but wisely kept hold of her arms anyway.

She was quickly ushered down the stairs to the ground level, passing no one but a few servants on the way down, and then they herded her down a narrow side passage, to what looked like a trapdoor in the ground. Once they’d confirmed that more guards waited below, they dropped her down like so much chattel, and slammed the trapdoor shut. She landed on her feet, and was immediately seized by the new guards, and these ones added the indignity of a blindfold, presumably so she would not know the way out of wherever they were taking her down here. She spent her time counting steps and trying to stay as oriented as possible.

When the blindfold was taken off several minutes later, she found herself in what looked to be a dungeon, iron bars slotted into the stone floor on both sides. She locked her jaw while the guards stripped her of every useful thing she had on her, as well as everything but her last layer of clothing—a thin cotton shirt without sleeves and linen trousers. Her feet were left bare, and they even confiscated anything holding her hair in place, leaving her braid to unravel and the shorter hairs at the front of her face to fall in front of her eyes. She supposed they’d been told to remove anything that could possibly aid in her escape.

And then they took the shirt, too, slicing it off to avoid having to unshackle her arms. “Looks like he was right,” one of them remarked to the others, having discovered, much to her disgust, the small knife she kept tucked in her breast bindings, though they remained in place. “Can’t assume anything with this one.”

She remained silent and still as they checked her trousers as well, bare hands going places that bare hands did not belong without her consent. She drew a distinct line, however, when one suggested her smallclothes receive the same examination. The next hand to venture into her personal space was batted out of the way with an elbow, and the owner of it received a decisive kick to his nether regions, leaving no doubt that boot-less feet could still hurt quite a bit. “If I was hiding anything there, I would have killed you with it by now.” The threat was not empty, and the guards backed off.

One of them, perhaps feeling a touch of mercy, or else simply fear, tossed her trousers back to her, and though it was difficult to redress with her hands bound behind her, she did it. “Whatever he is paying you, it is not going to be enough,” she assured them. She didn’t doubt this was Marcus’s doing. Not anymore. It wouldn’t have been a difficult matter for someone like him to locate the guards that could be bribed or bartered into his service for the duration, and he’d likely set this much up some time in advance.

“Now, now, kadan, try not to terrorize them too much. They’re just the help, after all.” Amalia froze, stiffening in her spot, forcing herself to turn her head far enough to lock eyes with his. She had known he would show himself to her, of course—his pride would never allow him to miss an opportunity to gloat. She resisted the urge to grind her teeth—this was more difficult than she had anticipated it was going to be, perhaps because she’d somehow imagined she would be able to face this in armor, or at the very least clothed the way she preferred. Not half-dressed at best.

They were interrupted, however, when a new guard entered the area, clearly out of breath. “Milord, there’s bad news. The elf’s gotten away somehow. Looks like the Duke’s men let him out of the front gate not a few minutes ago. What should we do?”

Marcus raised a dark eyebrow, and spoke drolly. “What does one usually do when the rat’s gone to ground? Send in the hounds.”

“B-but the kennelmaster—“

“Make an excuse. You’re all dismissed. Leave us.” The Magister waved a hand, and the guards departed, one locking the door of her cell and handing off the key to their employer. A sly smile on his face, Marcus turned back to Amalia, who regarded him with a blank expression, a careful disguise of how disgustingly vulnerable she felt in this moment. He was alone, and she would have attacked him on the spot, had the iron bars of her new cage not separated them. It was probably for the best—in her present state of captivity, she would have been at a severe disadvantage, even before his magic was taken into account.

“You have interesting friends, kadan. Some of them in very high places, these days. But no one will mind if the dogs tear a thieving elf apart, now will they?” She didn’t reply, only lifting her chin slightly and glowering at him. She dare not say what she really thought—if Marcus was underestimating Ithilian, it was to their benefit, and if she pressed him on the point in an attempt to gain an upper hand in her own situation, he might see fit to take care of things himself rather than trusting his men to it, and she didn’t want that.

“But no matter. I confess, I am quite distracted by our little situation right here. It’s so familiar, don’t you think?” It was, and that familiarity had her muscles locked in place. She could not exactly tell what it was, but she suspected it was mostly fear. Not the kind of intellectual caution that came about because she merely understood something to be dangerous, but visceral, almost animal, fear. No amount of meditation could allow her to forget what had happened last time she’d been imprisoned at his mercy—even if somehow she could make her mind forget, she swore her body and soul would remember anyway.

Marcus stared at her for several seconds, and she imagined that he might well be reading her thoughts from the set of her stance, because after a while, he sighed heavily. “It wasn’t personal, you know.” He sounded almost morose, almost like the person she had once believed him to be. “You have no idea how hard I tried, to get the Ariqun to entrust me with that list, instead of you. I never wanted to hurt you, kadan. In fact, I wanted you to come with me, when I left them. I never did think you were meant for the Qun. And it seems I was right about that.” Amalia’s jaw tightened. He spun lies so smoothly even she couldn’t tell if he was being genuine or not, but it didn’t matter to her anyway. There was no forgiving him, and no forgetting what she’d endured because of him.

“Of course, now it’s a little bit personal, I must admit. It’s not every day someone gets the better of me, and I was quite inconvenienced by your refusal to speak. I’d promised the Archon all the Qunari in Tevinter, you see, and he does not take broken promises lightly. I almost lost everything to my name.” He folded his arms behind his back, perfectly at ease and poised. He still favored deep red, she noted, feeling keenly the contrast between their positions at this very moment. He had all the power in the situation, and she was already chafing under the yoke of that understanding.

“Pity you didn’t.” Amalia’s tone was flat, but her eyes were hard.

Marcus smiled, more a gruesome split of his patrician face than an expression with any warmth to it. She’d seen someone smile more truly with only half the right muscles to do it. “So cold you are.” The smile widened slightly, and he reached through the bars, tracing an index finger down the scar on her cheek. “I did not give you this. Perhaps I could not bear to mar your face? It seems you have not been so careful, however.”

Amalia took a large step backwards. It was conceding a defeat, she knew, but she could not stand being touched by this man. Something about it made her feel filthy, when from anyone else it would have been merely annoying, or perhaps not even unwelcome, depending. The glint of triumph in his eyes made her seethe. “What do you want, Marcus?” She hated this, how it was so clearly he who controlled the tenor of this conversation, to say nothing of its content. How he could manipulate his words and gestures and in so doing, tilt her moods and reactions to his whim. She hated that he knew her that well, still. For all that she had changed, some part of her was still the stupid girl he’d tormented.

His expression darkened. “Now, but that is the question, isn’t it?” It was a murmur more than anything. The shadows in the catacombs fell in the hollows of his cheeks, feathering across his jaw, sharpening his lines even further and shrouding his eyes until she couldn’t read his face. It looked more like a skull than anything, with how fair his flesh had become since their days in the sun. But then he shifted, and the effect was gone.

“I want you to suffer, kadan. In all the ways I have suffered.”

She scoffed. “You? The only thing in you that has suffered is your pride.” Her eyes narrowed to slits, just a glimmer of iris between lash-lines. “What could you possibly know of suffering?” A flash of irritation moved across his face, so quickly she might have imagined it. Still… it was something, something she might be able to use.

“And yet I know enough to teach you pain still. I know it did not seem so at the time, but there were things I spared you, before. Things I will not spare you this time.”

Amalia squared her shoulders. “I endured that. I will endure this.” It was the one thing she knew with certainty she could do.

“Will you? Very well then. I’ll be back with your friend’s corpse. Well… what’s left of it, anyway. We’ll see how you endure that.”

Setting

5 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon

Earnings

0.00 INK

As the group slogged back through the snow as quickly as possible, Ithilian caught them up on everything that had happened, and handed over the Duke’s correspondence with Gaspard, though admittedly Lucien, and he expected the others as well, was more concerned about the news that Amalia had been taken captive, with the knowledge that Marcus was planning something worth warning them about in specific terms. It was possible that the two were connected, but they would have to figure that all out at a later time. The first priority had to be finding Amalia.

It was quite reasonably suggested that Ithilian and Rilien be the ones to infiltrate the catacombs and free their ally, as they were easily the stealthiest of the lot. Besides that, a fair amount of attention was bound to fall on the hunting party due to their success. This, Lucien had pointed out, could be to their advantage. They would all find themselves quite popular upon their return, which would give them a chance to ask around, and see if they could figure anything out about the mysterious Tevinter guest, or the Duke’s political stance of late. With luck, they would get some kind of clue that helped them piece together whatever it was that Amalia had figured out.

So it was with at least the bones of a plan that they made it back to the gate, the snow beginning to taper off. Still, it was likely that the party would be moved to the ballroom indoors, where many of the guests had taken shelter from the adverse weather. Once they were inside, they noted that Prosper had arrived, unsuccessful, in advance of them. Their accomplishment was met with an appropriate amount of excitement by Orlesian standards, and it was easy to get swept up into the crowd as they proceeded across the bailey and into the chateau, and similarly easy to slip away from it, in the case of the two elves.

The ballroom was expansive, the food already moved inside, various dignitaries, nobles, and foreign guests milling about the space. The mood of the room picked up when the hunters returned, trophy in hand, and of course the first thing they were bombarded with were dozens of requests to tell the story in all its splendor, as the case may be. Lucien himself chose to indulge a few people thusly, slowly making his way to where he suspected the first cache of useful information would be: in the keeping of Michaël’s dear wife, the Lady Marceline.

Lucien handled the attention far better than Michaël, as it turned out. When questioned and asked to regale the story of the hunt, he shuffled his feet and cast his gaze about, appearing more interested in searching for something, or someone, than recounting their recent excursion. He politely directed them toward Lucien instead, and took the opportunity to wander off in search of his wife. It did not take long, as evidenced by the smile stretching from one of Michaël's ears to the other his gaze firmly set on the lovely woman in front of him.

Lady Marceline stood at the edge of a banquet table, a goblet of wine in her hand and returning Michaël's smile with a small one of her own. In the same way that her husband was clearly a chevalier by the manner in which he carried himself, Lady Marceline was clearly born from noble stock. Hair of dark raven fell in gentle curls past her shoulders, immaculately clean and brushed studded with a pair of crystal blue eyes. The dress that she wore was of a deep purple, with matte black embroidery etching across the fabric. As Michaël approached, she reached to his collar with a slender hand and gripped it, pulling the man down and pressed her cherry red lips against his. He allowed himself to be pulled in, and reached around her with his large arms and plucked her off her feet.

Once he placed her back on her feet, Lady Marceline placed a coy hand on Michaël's chest and gently pushed away, turning her attention to Lucien. "Ser Lucien," she began in a refined Orlesian accent, "I must express my gratitude in allowing my dear husband to join you and your retinue on the hunt. Not only due to your success, but by merely allowing him to be present, the name 'Benoît' is now on the lips of many of our peers. Our popularity is sure to rise as the night continues." Lady Marceline then finished the thought with a polite curtsey. Allowing herself a glance at Michaël, Lady Marceline spoke again, "On a more personal note, I must also thank you for bringing my husband back to me safely."

"Again," Michaël reminded.

"Again," Lady Marceline conceded.

Lucien offered a smile and a small shake of his head. “You are, of course, quite welcome, Lady Marceline.” He couldn’t say he’d been thinking overmuch about the Benoît name, really, and he deeply suspected that Michaël hadn’t been either. It had just been the kind of thing that it seemed fun to do with an old friend, rather regardless of the danger. But he acknowledged the effect it would have now, of course—if he really thought about it, he supposed that they would earn points not only for their success, but also because of the fact that Michaël had accompanied him. It was all enough to make his head spin, but he’d get used to thinking this way again, if he let himself.

And he would have to let himself, eventually. Just hopefully not yet. Doing his duty as the party who knew both—and also, he would admit, with a touch of a besotted man’s particular pride—he introduced Sophia to Marceline, made sure everyone who had a drink wanted one, and allowed those continuing to make the rounds do so around them, body language indicating that he intended to stay and chat a while. He couldn’t imagine that the good lady would protest, after all, and he suspected she might know something about all of this that the rest of them did not.

Lucien didn’t know Marceline as well as he knew Michaël, of course, but he had been of her acquaintance long enough to understand that she was a particularly shrewd woman. While some maintained their positions mostly with judicious applications of wealth, families without quite enough wealth to do that tended to sink or swim by how judiciously they could apply information. She happened to be very good at it.

“It has been a while, has it not, since the Duke’s hunt was so well-attended?” He offered Marceline a small smile, a veiled invitation into an exchange of knowledge. She would understand what he was getting at. “It doesn’t seem likely that enthusiasm for risking one’s neck stalking wyverns has risen apace.” Did she know why there were so many people here?

"Had news spread that the Empress's nephew himself would have been in attendance, then I am sure that there would have been many more to arrive in order to catch a glimpse of you. Fortunately, we can have you to ourselves for the time being," Lady Marceline replied with a tight smile. She did not seem to be especially forthcoming in what she had learned. Michaël had sensed the discussion for what it was and backed up to stand behind and beside Marceline, instead choosing to nurse his wine glass instead of step between his wife and Lucien.

Marceline took a sip from her own wine glass, and crossed one arm over her body and let the other rest on it, keeping her goblet at lip level at all times. "Speaking of the Empress's nephew, I do so wonder what provoked you to come out of hiding and accept the good Duke's invitation. Are we attempting to acclimatize back into the Game, now that you have been exonerated of your exile?" Lady Marceline said with a subtle tilt of her head, "Or is it, perhaps, something more?" Michaël's head dipped and he stared into his wine glass as he swirled it.

It was clear that Lady Marceline was fishing for something, and that she would not reveal what she had heard unless Lucien could give her something in return. A little twist appeared in the corner of her mouth, obviously she was wondering if Lucien had lost any of his tack in his time away from Orlais as well.

“Familial obligation is a strange thing,” Lucien replied mildly, taking a sip of his own wine. It wasn’t quite his family’s red, but he did like it. He tried to convince himself he was imagining the hint of bitterness on his tongue—he could not here be as straightforward as he liked, not even with the people he considered allies. However much he might like and respect Marceline, she was playing a game. The Game, actually. Nothing came for free when that was accounted for. “Even one who seems to avoid it, to hide from it in some darkened corner, cannot avoid it entirely. May not even want to, when push comes to shove. And so here I am.”

"Indeed," Lady Marceline agreed, letting her eyes fall back on to Michaël's face for a moment, and he greeted her with a warm smile and wink. She returned his smile though rolled her eyes and turned back to Lucien. "You should not avoid it, because in the end, all that we are is because of our families," she added, taking a drink of her wine. "Do you like it?" Marceline asked, gesturing toward Lucien's wine glass. "It is our Lécuyer 9:35 Dragon Vintage. A very good wine by any measure, though it lacks a certain profile that more of our specials possess. The good Duke asked us to supply a few casks for his hunt."

Swirling the wine in his glass, the Lady pulled in in close to her nose and took in the aroma before her attentions returned to Lucien. "Perhaps it is a... Family matter that is the cause of such a draw to the Duke's gathering, and not the wyvern hunt itself?" she began, apparently finding Lucien's own answer sufficient.

"There are many nasty rumors abound, as I am positive you are aware of? From what I have come to understand, the Duke has been spending more and more time away from his estate in Val Royeaux and more in the Free Marches. And many are wondering if a... Lover, is to blame." Lady Marceline said the word with a subtle glance at Sophia, though her smile never faltered. "Perhaps many of the guests are hoping to catch a glimpse of this mystery person?" She said, though by her tone, she didn't place much stock in the rumor herself.

She paused for a moment to take a drink from her goblet, tossing her gaze about as she drank as if she was searching for someone. "Have you had the pleasure of meeting the Duke's guest from Tevinter? An interesting man, this Lord Marcus, to be sure, though I have unfortunately not had the good fortunes of meeting him face to face. There have also been rumors stemming from his presence, of course mostly from the mouths of young women, as you must understand. They say he is looking to take an Orlesian wife."

Turning and placing a gentle hand on Michaël's face, Marceline finished, "Personally, I prefer that my men have a little more heart." Michaël grinned at the compliment and took Marceline's hand in his own, and placed a kiss on the back of it.

This was all news to Lucien. His father hadn’t mentioned these rumors of a paramour to him, likely because he thought them irrelevant, or else because they were so commonplace that Guy trusted he would hear them anyway. Though from the way she sounded, Marceline didn’t put much stock in them, either, which was perhaps understandable. There were many reasons a person could come to prefer spending time away from the capital—it didn’t have to be something as sensational as an affair. Not that affairs were usually sensational in Orlais—the amount of attention they received depended mostly on the identity of the parties involved. But still, it was probably the most sensational of the reasonable options.

Lucien mulled it over for a bit, staring quite intently into his wine glass. “I’m afraid I’ve not met him, either,” Lucien said truthfully, though how regretful he was about the fact was up for debate. He could see where a Magister near the Empress’s court could be a much more interesting topic for discussion, and no doubt the rumors floating around about his intentions were numerous. “Is he a friend of the Duke’s? I’d like to know who to ask for an introduction.” Also true, but more because he was interested in knowing who Marcus’s friends in the crowd were than because he really wanted to meet him as such.

Lady Marceline frowned and shook her head, "Not particularly as such, from what I understand. He is a diplomatic visitor from Tevinter, some even go so far as to say that he is the hand of the Archon himself, though I believe only the man himself knows for certain." The tight smile on her face melted into a stoic frown as she glanced away from Lucien. It was clear that the lack of information on the man himself frustrated her to some degree.

"He is careful with his words, though nonetheless he is quite popular at court. Charming and charismatic, from what I hear, with an edge of mystery and danger that we all do so thoroughly enjoy," Marceline said, returning her gaze to Lucien, the saccharine smile returning.

"I do know for a fact, however, that this Marcus has had audiences with the Empress herself. It is a small surprise to see him at Chateau Haine, but it is not strange," she added, putting her lips on her goblet. She slowly tipped it back and continued to look into it when it came back down. "If you do find yourself introduced to Lord Marcus, I would humbly ask that you remember us. He is a possible gateway into the Imperium for Lécuyer Vineyards," she added with a coy smile.

"However, before we part ways I would ask a favor of you. A small one."

“And what might that be?” As much as Lucien would have liked to say ‘anything you need,’ as one was always tempted to with friends, he was quite conscious that Marceline was only his friend in a secondary sense. Before anything else, she was the Comtesse Benoît, and he’d be a fool to forget it. He’d definitely been one of those before, but he liked to think he didn’t make the same kind of mistake twice.

The Lady Marceline lifted up her goblet and inspected it for a moment before finally answering. "If you would allow me to be frank, I would ask that you remain in correspondence with me," she answered, allowing the goblet to dip so that she peered at him over its rim. "I understand that Kirkwall is in a tumultuous period in its history, and I would ask that you keep me informed of its political climate-- if it is agreeable to you as well, Lady Sophia. I would also enjoy updates on your Argent Lions. It does not have to be anything sensitive, only a simple informal overview if it pleases you."

She then took the last drink from her goblet before handing the empty vessel to Michaël. "I do not expect to be given such information for free, of course," Lady Marceline added, "In return, I offer to respond in kind with the climate in Orlais," she said with a subtle frown. "I am also positive that both my father and my dear Michaël could ascertain the general opinions of the chevaliers, and I would also include them in the letters as well," she added, though the frown remained.

Lucien perhaps could have reminded her that his own father was perhaps in a better position than anyone to speak to the state of the chevaliers, as were other friends he already corresponded with, but he acknowledged that there were other ways in which Marceline’s perspective could be useful. She didn’t hate attending court, for one, which was a rarer quality in his present correspondents. He glanced for a moment to Sophia. “I have rather little involvement in the governance of Kirkwall, and I can’t promise anything terribly detailed on that front, but the rest, I would be happy to share. Shall I direct the letters to the estate on the west banks?”

Lady Marceline curtseyed in appreciation and replied, "Yes, please. Now, if you will pardon us, I am certain that there are parties that wish to hear the tale of the wyvern hunt, and I fear you may be too busy in your... Obligations to indulge them. Michaël, shall we?" She asked, holding her arm out for him to take. Though he did take it, he seemed rather apprehensive about being paraded about by his wife, shooting Lucien a helpless glance as he was led off by his wife.

"Orlesians are... difficult to grow accustomed to," Sophia said quietly, before glancing up at Lucien with a small smile. "But some of them are pleasant enough company."

“I believe we’re an acquired taste,” Lucien replied, his lip quirking briefly, before his look turned pensive. They had learned a fair amount, but he didn’t think it all added up to anything definite.

Turning back to look at the crowd, Sophia's smile faded, slight apprehension appearing on her features as she thought about what was possibly occurring while they chatted.

"I hope the others are alright."

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

Getting into the catacombs proved to be the easy part of the task that Ithilian and Rilien were undertaking. Getting through them was another matter altogether. The drop from the trapdoor was about ten feet, the illumination in the passage beneath it scant. In the murk, a ladder was visible, leaned against a nearby wall, giving a clue as to how those who visited got back aboveground. The passages had once been used to shelter and hide the population of the surrounding area, during the fourth blight, and it was meant to keep out darkspawn trying to get in quickly. The hallway they were dropped into almost immediately ended, splitting into a T-junction that would force them to go left or right.

"Need a light," Ithilian grumbled, squinting after he made the drop down into the catacombs. He was glad to have wrung this location out of the huntsman that survived the encounter long enough to speak; he wasn't sure if they'd have been able to find this otherwise. As he said, they would not have stumbled upon this by mistake. Still, he hadn't given directions to Amalia herself before Ithilian had put a blade through his skull. Likely he didn't know any more than the two elves now within the catacombs did.

After Rilien had dropped down behind him, Ithilian moved ahead to the split pathways and came to a stop, looking both ways. "We shouldn't split up. This place looks like a labyrinth. Think you can navigate it?" Ithilian felt he was sure to get lost in a place like this, with no real sense of direction available to him, and while he did not work with the tranquil elf often, he knew him to be much more wise in matters of subterfuge. Perhaps this would be more approachable to him. If not, he supposed they would just have to make their way blindly.

Rilien contemplated the question for a moment, treading quietly up to Ithilian’s side and glancing down either hallway. "Better than most, but there are likely to be traps and other forms of impediment. This place once served as a last bastion against darkspawn. I do not doubt that there are defensive measures built into the architecture. We will have to take care with them.” He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to discern if there was any difference in airflow from one side of the junction over another. The asymmetry was only slight, and perhaps normally would not have even counted enough to be relevant. But considering the situation, it would appear to be the only thing telling in favor of one way or another at all.

"I suggest we go right.”

The rightward passage was, at least, not immediately a dead end, and indeed stretched a good fifty feet in front of them, if Rilien had his guess. It was impossible to tell in the murky darkness of the passage, but it was a fair estimate based on what they could see. Of course, the low visibility was also bound to make detecting any possible traps that much harder, and the Tranquil opted to walk a few paces ahead of his present companion, leaving Ithilian to, for the moment anyway, guard the rear whilst he moved forward cautiously, eyes flitting around the passage for any sign of trigger mechanisms.

He had to be careful where to place his feet—when the traps could be built into the place, pressure plates would not always be as obvious as they were when installed after an initial construction, as was almost universally the case in Darktown, for example. The first trap he encountered was actually triggered on a tripwire, however, one that he only saw because he was looking for it. "Watch your feet.” Rilien pointed to indicate the wire, though at his distance, Ithilian might not even be able to see it. Even the bard hadn’t seen it until he was no more than nine inches from it.

He stepped gingerly over the wire, then froze in place when he felt something give gently under the foot he placed over the other side. "Get back.” The instruction was delivered, of course, without any trace of panic or urgency, and Rilien locked his muscles in place, refusing to put any more or less weight on the plate. It was possible that this trap, whatever it was, would be triggered either by excess weight or by the lifting of anything that came down on it, and without knowing which it was, he could not move. "Do you see anything different about the passage?”

"I can barely see my feet," Ithilian noted, staring warily down towards where Rilien had stepped over the tripwire. He couldn't see what the elf had stepped on, but he'd heard the slight shifting of the floor, and had to assume it was a pressure plate of some kind. He hadn't heard anything else shift, so whatever it was, it hadn't triggered anything yet. That was good, at least.

"Hold on, got an idea." Up until this point Ithilian hadn't drawn any weapons, but he now removed Parshaara from its sheath. "This might work." He struck the bone blade hard against the wall, and a burst of flame attacked the surface, lasting only a moment before it died out. Ithilian had not watched the flame, however, looking instead around the passage in their immediate area, trying to notice anything suspicious. He saw nothing, and tried again, looking to the ceiling after his second strike, and the burst of flame that followed.

This time he settled on something, pointing above him, though Rilien could not turn to see the gesture. "Three holes," he noted, "in the ceiling, behind you. Crossbows, probably. Or maybe spears. Crossbows would be simpler." They looked lined up to pierce an unwanted visitor's spine.

"Hug the wall and they'll miss," he predicted. "If they're angled differently, they wouldn't hit someone stepping on the plate. Just be quick about it." He knew Rilien to be extremely quick when he needed to be. Ithilian pressed his own back to a wall, just to be safe, though he did not see any other holes through which bolts could fly.

Taking Ithilian’s words to be true, Rilien inhaled slowly, trying to ease the muscles of his body before moving, which would help speed his motion. When his lungs reached full capacity, he acted, shifting his weight to his back foot and springing sideways in one smooth motion, putting his back to the wall. One of the crossbow bolts was close enough for him to feel the rush of air as it passed, but they all clattered harmlessly into the ground. Rolling his shoulders, the tranquil nodded at Ithilian. "Thank you.”

The Dalish elf nodded in return, and the two carried on without a further word, wary of further traps. Ithilian regularly struck his dagger along the walls of the catacomb, creating bursts of light by which they were able to clearly see what lay ahead of them, at least for brief moments. At each intersection of the paths they halted, Rilien trying to determine the way to go, and Ithilian trusted him with each decision, putting his faith in the tranquil's cold efficiency, if nothing else. It was not too different from what Amalia was capable of, he noted. It felt similar, at least.

Eventually, Ithilian was no longer able to strike his dagger on the walls, for they opened up wider, allowing them into a much larger chamber compared to the last few. The ceiling above them rose by several feet, disappearing into complete darkness, and on either side of him Ithilian could make out the silhouettes of sarcophagi, carved out of matching stone and decorated often with animals upon the lids, typically lions, but some others. He counted them as they moved into the room; thirty-six in total, an evenly separated square, six rows of six burial sites, with the central pathway running straight through the middle. At the end, a doorway presented itself to them, metal double doors taller than either elf approaching them.

Little braziers hung on either side of doors from the wall, and Ithilian struck his dagger into each of them. They lit up the door at least, but the pitiful amount of light was unable to reach much further into the room to light up the sarcophagi themselves. Pushing the door, he found it to be locked, but to the right of the door was a lever, the handle modeled after a lion's head, currently in the upward position. Cautiously, Ithilian pushed it down, and heard a loud mechanism shift behind the door. Pushing again, it still would not budge. Frowning, he turned back to the room. "Perhaps there's another?"

The low lighting made searching for any such objects quite difficult, but Rilien nevertheless walked between the sarcophagi, running his hands along their dusty surfaces on the chance that his sense of touch would provide him with information unavailable to his eyes. He was in luck, or something like it—though he did not trigger any of them just yet, he found several levers. "There are six switches on this side. Three of them are on sarcophagi modeled after lions, the other three are likely hyenas or something canine.” He was not precisely sure what to do with that information yet, but it was bound to have significance.

"What about that side?”

Ithilian did the same for the other side, checking first to make sure he wouldn't trigger any tripwires, before scouring over the sides of the sarcophagi. "Only three. A fox, a lioness, and a viper." He thought the viper odd immediately; none of the other deceased here had chosen to have a serpent, or indeed any kind of reptile, mark their remains.

Rilien considered this. "I suspect that on this side, we should trigger either all of the lions or all of the hyenas. There is no way to differentiate between the individual designs of each kind, and these mechanisms are not usually designed to rely upon luck.” If he had to pick just one of the six, for example, there would be no reason at all to choose one of the hyenas over another. Their positioning relative to the door seemed of little significance, none of them were at cardinal points of the room, or anything like that.

Folding his hands into his sleeves, he continued thinking aloud. "Lions decorate most of the imperial heraldry, and have since before this place was built. They are the symbol of the Valmont family, to whom the Duke is distantly related. Even such remote relation tends to be important in the Game, however, and it would be natural for someone like him to want to emphasize it.” He was also supposed to be one of the Empress’s staunchest allies. "The hyena is a carrion creature; no families have taken it for heraldry. Secondary associations include cunning and deception.” It was possible that the family members thus buried hadn’t minded or had even embraced the negative connotations to the animal. They may have thought of themselves as nonconformists, or especially sharp or clever.

There was, of course, the chance that the symbolism had nothing to do with it. But Rilien was a logical man, and he understood that whether there was some deep meaning to the choice for the current Duke, or whether it simply needed to serve as a mnemonic for generations of them, the symbolic qualities of the animal involved mattered. Or at least, they were more likely to matter than anything else he could think of. But which to choose?

"Does anything else stand out about the ones on that side?”

Ithilian inspected the three on his side more carefully, comparing them with the sarcophagi without levers as well. "These have been tampered with recently." He struck his knife on the wall, which he could reach from the lid with the viper's visage. The flash of fire revealed that the layer of dust present on the others had indeed been heavily disturbed on this one, while the others appeared untouched.

"Marcus may have been the one to set these traps himself," he speculated, watching the coiled serpent as though it were about to strike. "Think he would be fond of snakes?" He seemed like one himself, at least, though that was no guarantee that he would identify with one. Still, it was a very different animal than any of the others here, and somehow Ithilian couldn't picture a Tevinter magister choosing an Orlesian lion.

There wasn’t, as far as Rilien could tell, any evidence of tampering with the levers on his side, so likely they had been allowed to remain as they were. As to Ithilian’s question, however, he had a partial answer. "I do not know about house Alesius, but Tevinter heraldry does tend towards dragons, and by extension, other reptilian animals. The old gods were supposedly dragons, after all.” He knew even less about Marcus personally than Ithilian did, however, and so he did not venture a specific opinion on the relative likelihood of any of the levers being the right one in this case.

"Seems the best choice, then," Ithilian concluded. Without further delay, he reached down to grab the viper's lever, and pulled it up. A loud snap immediately rang out, and for a brief moment after Ithilian looked up, he thought the door had been unlocked for them. Instantly following, however, was a blast of a gaseous substance from the viper's mouth, a small cloud hitting Ithilian full in the face and quickly spreading around him.

As soon as he was hit by the gas he found himself unable to breathe or see, as terrible pain burned down his throat and stung in his eye. He made not even a sound, unable to choke anything out, as he staggered out of the poisoned cloud and collapsed face down into the central pathway, at the edge of the light provided by the two braziers. Instinct urged him to roll over onto his back, and fumble at the potions he still had. He consumed one, choking down as much as he could, and it was able to heal his throat enough for him to breathe again.

Ithilian coughed violently, heaving up a mixture of potion and blood, sputtering out several mouthfuls of it, until it seemed to have passed. He wiped his face, blinking furiously, and sat up, putting his back to the door. "I can't... see." The three words were enough to start another coughing fit, and he spat out another globule of blood. His sight wasn't entirely gone; he could vaguely make out the light of flames above him, but that was about it. He could also tell that while the potion had saved his life, it had not fully removed the effects of the poison. It had only slowed them.

"Dread Wolf take... this..." He could not finish the curse due to the coughing, and groaned angrily when he finished. "Fuck."

Rilien, being substantially further back from the spray than Ithilian, managed to move his sleeve up and over his mouth and nose before it reached him, though it still stung his eyes, further impeding his sight. Still, he could see well enough to study the noxious gas itself, and from the symptoms Ithilian was exhibiting, he thought he knew what it was. "Poison extracted from the sundew plant.” He crouched next to Ithilian, listening to the sound of his breathing, then nodded slightly, his own tones still muffled by the sleeve over his face. "It is not deadly, but it will need treatment within a few hours, else the effects will be permanent.” Given its lack of fatality in all but the most concentrated doses, it was not a commonly-used bard poison, nor one often utilized by the Crows, the House of Repose, or any of the other things he’d learned to counteract.

"The sundew grows in Qunari lands. I expect Amalia will know what to do for it.” Assisting Ithilian to his feet, Rilien reexamined their situation. Marcus had clearly re-armed the trap, or so it seemed, but perhaps he had done nothing to alter the baseline configuration of it at all. Moving efficiently, Rilien at last dropped his sleeve, the poison having by now dissipated to harmless levels, and flipped the three lion switches on his side. Each produced a metallic grinding sound before a loud click, as if a larger-than-normal bolt were sliding back, which he took as a good sign. He eyed the three options on the other side, contemplating for a moment. Was it really so simple? He expected that it was. Taking hold of the lioness lever, he pulled it back, and they were rewarded with another click and a creak as the metal doors on the far end of the room swung inward, no longer locked in place.

"It appears we have a way forward.”

It took them quite a bit more time to reach the back of the labyrinthine passages, but none of the traps that remained were as hazardous as the one they’d just found. When at last they’d pushed open the door on the opposite end of the maze, it proved to open up into a cell block, of all things. There was a perceptible chill in the air, unsurprising considering the season and that it was underground, but at least ten degrees colder than the maze had been. Frost was starting to form on some of the iron bars.

All of the cells were unoccupied, save the one at the far left end of the block. This one alone contained an occupant, pressed up into one of the corners. The curtain of her loose, dark blond hair fell over much of the skin left exposed by her initial disarmament, an attempt to conserve as much warmth as possible, as, perhaps, was the fact that her knees were pulled tightly against her chest. She stirred slightly at the sound of the door opening, squinting over at the newcomers.

Kadan.” The word was breathed with a palpable sense of relief. “Rilien. It is good to see you.”

Setting

5 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

Checking to make sure that nothing in the cell block was trapped, Rilien made his way forward, efficiently but cautiously all the same, already drawing a set of lockpicks from his belt as he went. The lock on this door didn’t appear to be especially complex—he could only assume that Amalia had been stripped of anything she might possess that would allow her to even attempt it, something which was only logical considering the skillset she had. He could tell that, despite the weather outside, the chill was magical, which seemed to suggest further efforts to discourage her from doing much but trying to keep herself warm, something which was no doubt difficult, considering how little of her clothing and gear she’d retained.

"The others are still above, at the party. We have not seen Magister Alesius since our arrival. Ithilian is currently under the effects of a moderate dose of sundew poisoning, and I lack the materials or expertise to do anything about it.” He kept his explanation short and to the point, which was rather how he expected she would prefer it, and worked the lock while he spoke, hearing it click open not long after he’d started.

"Do you know what they did with your things?”

The lock giving way prompted Amalia to stand, gooseflesh pricking her skin as the cold air rushed in to what little warm pockets she’d been able to preserve around herself. She hated the cold, hated how it made her feel slow and numb, and she had no doubt that Marcus had retained this information from the last time she’d been at his mercy. She rubbed her bare arms with her hands, shaking out her legs to try and restore circulation to her peripherals. Fortunately, a lifetime of taking care of her body meant that, when things got difficult, her body took care of her, too, and slowly the color started to return to the flesh of her torso and limbs. The tips of her fingers were still numb, but the sharp tingling sensation in them informed her that feeling would return to them soon.

Pulling all of her hair over one shoulder, she approached the front of her cell, peering over at Ithilian as if to confirm Rilien’s diagnosis. She pursed her lips. “Most of it is useless—they sliced through my tunic and sleeves. But my weapons should still be through that door.” She nodded to a plain wooden portal near the cell. A guardroom, if she had her guess. If she was lucky, there might even be a cloak in there, but she wasn’t betting on it. “I have what I need to treat you up in our rooms in the main castle, if we can get there.” She wouldn’t put it past Marcus to have paid off enough guards to leave a reasonable number of them behind near where they were staying.

But that wasn’t important at the moment. “We have to hurry, or he’ll get exactly what he desires regardless.” Stepping out of the cell, she shoved open the door leading to the room they’d dropped her things in, finding most of her gear piled haphazardly in one place. As she suspected, her weapons were fine, though she noted that someone had made off with her potions. Her tunic, undershirt, and so on were a different matter. Pulling her boots back on as rapidly as she could, she took the largest one, tore off the mangled sleeves, tied them together, and used that to hold the rest of it closed around her waist. It certainly didn’t live up to standards of modesty, but it was warmer than nothing, and that was all she really cared about at present. That and the fact that the sturdy fabric would protect her from at least some kinds of incidental damage.

Having strapped her weapons into their usual places, she failed to find anything to tie her hair with and so left it be, hastening back out the door and pausing when she came level with Ithilian. “How bad is your eyesight right now?”

Ithilian had not let his hand leave a solid object since he'd been hit with the poison. He was consistently coughing, though he attempted to suppress it, and occasionally turned his head sideways to spit out another splotch of blood. His voice did not function properly when he first tried to speak, but after a pause, he could get some words out.

"If we--" Cough. "I don't--" More coughs. He exhaled a deep breath through his nostrils, frustrated. "Bad, leth... leth..." Shaking his head, he gave up.

A flash of anger crossed Amalia’s face, quickly overlaid with her usual stern expression. Marcus had much to answer for, and he wasn’t doing anything to mitigate that, certainly. “Then my eyes are yours.” She set one hand on his shoulder, keeping it there, and then turned to Rilien. “I know the safest way out. I do not recall stopping to disarm any traps on the way in, but if you would go first and check for them, I would appreciate it.”

And thus, with Amalia counting her steps, carefully and giving directions to Rilien as she went, she took care to steer Ithilian gently, mindful of his cough but also of the fact that his problems would be much worse if they did not leave the catacombs quickly. Her memory served her well, and they reached the trapdoor again without incident, pausing to set the ladder the right way and climbing up one at a time.

It was immediately obvious upon returning to the chateau proper that nothing had changed, especially. There were no alarms, no commotion, and in fact, considering how late in the evening it was by this point, there wasn’t much activity at all. They passed only two guard patrols on their way back to the quarters their group had been given. One, they were able to hide from, and the second wasn’t too hard to convince that Ithilian had imbibed a bit too much and simply needed to get back to his rooms—apparently this was a common-enough occurrence at such festivities. Amalia let Rilien do the talking, considering his superior familiarity with what would and would not pass as a likely excuse for their current appearances.

At long last, they arrived back on their floor, and she asked Rilien to go summon the others, who had likely returned from the party by now, while she pulled open the door to the room she’d stored her things in and immediately set about digging through her satchel for what she needed. Poison was expected when dealing with people like herself, and while she hadn’t expected him in particular, she had to admit that there were similarities between the way Marcus thought and the way she did. They hadn’t been partners for five years to no effect, after all. The vial she pressed into Ithilian’s hand was quite small, made of a thick, amber-colored glass. “This should help,” she said quietly, then stepped back to rummage through her bag again.

"Ma s-serannas," Ithilian managed, after consuming the liquid. He had quite nearly collapsed into the first bed that he could feel, and kept his eyes closed as he rested now. Soon after, the other group returned, Sophia pausing briefly in the doorway to see what the damage was. The look upon her face spoke for her: concern at Ithilian's state, but relief as well to see Amalia in one piece.

When everyone else had entered as well, and Amalia had at last found something to get her hair out of her face, she spoke, her tones clipped and considerably more urgent than usual. “Have any of you seen the Duke or Marcus since the hunt?” Her eyes flickered over all of the assembled faces.

Lucien shook his head in the negative, and when no one else immediately spoke up either, Amalia sighed softly. “I believe Marcus plans to assassinate the Duke, and take his place at a very important meeting, somewhere on the grounds of this estate. It is imperative that we stop him from doing so.”

"Would he actually do something like that?" Aurora asked with brows raised. She had been quiet thus far, as she was neither an apt player of the Game, nor did she wish to particularly recount the tale of the hunt herself. But once she was amongst friends again, that hesitation was gone. "In the middle of an Orlesian party? That's... Risky," Aurora added, "What does he hope to accomplish at this meeting?"

“That and far worse if he believed it necessary,” Amalia replied, but then she gestured to the darkened window in the room. “But not in the middle of the festivities, no. He would wait until most were asleep. I suspect he will ambush the Duke on the way to this meeting, when there are unlikely to be many people to see or protect him.” Her voice was level enough, but in the way she held herself, there was more tension than usual, such that even Lucien was able to pick up on it. He decided not to comment, however—she had just been imprisoned, after all.

“Just what kind of meeting would Prosper attend mostly unprotected in the middle of the night? And how do you know?” It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Amalia, because he did, but if they acted on this and something went wrong, they would likely need to be able to prove that they’d been in the right. His status, he had already learned quite well, did not grant him immunity from everything, and the protection it afforded the rest of them, while not negligible by any means, was even less.

“A meeting with a Qunari deserter. One who has very important information that Prosper believes his Empress might be interested in.” Honestly, once she’d identified the sender of the Duke’s letters, most of everything that had happened so far made a great deal of sense. “They’ve been meeting, here in the Free Marches, for several years, and writing, all in an attempt to negotiate this one exchange. Marcus got wind of it, and intends to obtain the information. He’ll probably track Prosper as far as he needs to in order to find Rassan, and then kill him to keep him from interfering.”

Seeing as how this sort of situation was Rilien’s wheelhouse, so to speak, he was the first to reply to that. "If that is so, then we would do best to catch him in the attempt. Neither party has been seen since the hunt—it is possible the duke is already dead.” It seemed to him that they should act as soon as possible. "But if we cannot follow either of them… do you remember the faces of any of the guards the Magister has bought?” It was possible that Marcus would want men behind him, in the event that this meeting went less than optimally. It was clear enough from his activities that he’d paid off some, but not all, of Prosper’s guardsmen, so there was a chance one of them would lead the group where they needed to go.

Amalia hummed in the affirmative. “Even if I did not… I don’t expect a group of that size would be difficult to track. Marcus may well have left by unconventional means, but I don’t doubt his guards used the gate. We need only do the same, and follow their progress.”




It was generally agreed upon that they had little time to waste, and so, once everyone had gathered up what gear they thought they would need, they were once more outdoors, this time striding up the path to the gate with all the confidence of people who were supposed to be there, despite the late hour. Given that there was no way to get this many people out of the area without being seen, they were going to take the opposite approach—they were going to be obvious about it, and unconcerned with who saw.

Amalia noted that some of the guards appeared to be in a bit of a state—alarmed about something, though she knew not what. She caught a couple snatches of conversation; something about a dead guard and ‘Leopold,’ but there was no time to pay any more attention than that. Most of the other guests were long ensconced in their rooms by now, and so besides the guards, the only other people about were servants and attendants, and they kept to their own business, leaving the group unmolested until they reached the gate.

That could have been worse, too, considering. Suspicious or not, when someone with as many titles behind his name as Lucien seemed to possess told you to let him out, you let him out. Or at least these guards believed so, and that was enough. The gate was opened again, and a query confirmed that the Duke and a small retinue had departed already, though they were mum on why. It was clear that they believed themselves to be protecting a secret of some kind, though Amalia doubted it was the one they thought they were. If the other group’s information was good, the Duke had done this kind of thing before, and the popular suspicion was that he was meeting clandestinely with a lover or something of that sort.

The trail of the retinue in question was not difficult to follow, and they tracked their quarry over a good mile of terrain before the sound of shouting voices became evident. When she heard them, Amalia picked up her pace, bounding into a sprint. There might not be much time at all—

She burst from the treeline to come upon a very strange scene indeed. Duke Prosper, surrounded by his own guards, their spears pointed at his neck, was red-faced and clearly in the middle of an argument with Marcus, who was himself smirking and apparently quite relaxed, his arms folded across his chest and a wyvern crouched at his heel, its attention fixed on him the way a dog watches a huntsman for a command. A second ring of guards surrounded a Qunari woman, dressed in human fashion but easily recognizable for the horns that curled around her head, her expression twisted in anger. Amalia dimly recognized her as Rassan.

At her appearance, and the rest of the group behind her, all eyes swung to them for a moment, even, eerily, the wyvern’s. Kadan. So glad you could make it.” Marcus’s smile inched a little wider, and he flicked a glance to the soldiers surrounding the Duke.

“Kill him.”

Setting

6 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

The guards surrounding the Duke did not hesitate, and though Lucien sprang forward in an attempt to get to Prosper in time, he had no such luck. A swordpoint found the man’s chest, emerging out his back in a good foot and a half of red-coated steel, glimmering dully from the illumination of the moon overhead. The guard withdrew the sword, and the nobleman fell to the snow, the same red soaking into what had once been pristine white.

The Qunari woman, Lucien noted, was not killed, though he could tell from this closer distance that she appeared to have been chained, what might have been a knife discarded several feet to the side of her. He supposed that made sense—if this was really some kind of information exchange, Marcus would not want to kill the person with the information. The Magister himself appeared largely disinterested in Prosper’s demise, and as soon as it was done, he spoke again. “Nothing personal. Loose ends and all that.” With a wave of his hand, the dozen or so guards that had been surrounding Prosper turned to face the oncoming party. One of those dealing with the Qunari woman dealt a heavy blow to the back of her head, and once she collapsed, those dozen started forward as well.

But perhaps the part of this situation that made it almost implausibly dangerous was that the wyvern also turned its attention towards them, its mouth opening and tongue lolling out, teeth dripping yellow-green poison to the ground, where it ate through the snow like corrosive acid. Though its first steps towards the group were slow, like a stalking cat, when it got within a hundred feet of them, it charged, forcing everyone to scatter or else still be standing in its path when it reached them.

Amalia rolled to her feet considerably to the left of the creature, eyes darting around the field for the one threat that was not obviously accounted for yet. When she found him, it was to note that he was already looking at her, as though waiting for her attention. Undoubtedly aware that he now had it, he raised a hand in a beckoning gesture, as if to bid her forward, then turned and sprinted into the woods.

“Marcus,” she hissed. He wasn’t doing this again. He wasn’t going to escape the consequences of his deeds, again. He would not live to torment her again. This was going to end. It had to end, or she would always fear its return. Glancing once back at the others, she hesitated.

But then she bolted after the Magister.

Sophia chose not to dive but instead to step out of the way of the wyvern, as it snapped its jaws away from her, at another target. Staying within striking range, she managed to land a decent cut down its side as it passed, opening a bloody line that the beast seemed hardly to notice. This one was far more impressive than the one they'd hunted and killed earlier, and it appeared to have been tamed. She was almost curious how such a thing could be done.

Her curiosity was wiped out, however, when the beast's tail followed behind it, and swept out to the side, catching Sophia in the side either by chance or by design. It hardly mattered, as the effect was the same: she was thrown from her feet to land face first in the snow a few feet away, dazed and disoriented.

The target the wyvern had initially gone for happened to be Ithilian, who needed to dive out of the way entirely to avoid having his entire upper body clamped down on by a set of jaws. After the first attack it switched targets, allowing the elf some room to breathe, which was when he saw Amalia moving at full speed in pursuit of Marcus. There was really no question in his mind what he would be doing; he'd come here for Amalia, after all. His sight was still poor, and his breathing was agitated now that action had begun, but he would not let her run off on her own now. Pushing back to his feet, Ithilian took off after her.

One of Rilien’s remaining lyrium explosives cracked on the wyvern’s hide, near the base of its neck, and he knew he had successfully drawn its attention when it swung towards him. The guards were not to be counted out, either, however, as many as they were, and he wasn’t able to follow up with anything more than that before he was ducking out of the way of a longsword, bending backwards and drawing his knives on the way back up, trying to keep his feet as light as possible over the snow so as to avoid sinking into it. With two of their number off into the woods after Marcus, the rest of them were going to have a difficult time not getting killed by some combination of wyvern and man, but if they could recover their organization and figure out how to deal with the situation most effectively, they might yet succeed.

"Aurora. Help me keep it distracted.” The two of them had range compared to Lucien and Sophia, so if they could keep the wyvern busy for long enough, then the other two could cut down the guards, hopefully quickly enough to make sure neither he nor the mage died.

"One moment," Aurora said, concentrating on a weaving a spell in between her hands. She had dodged the Wyvern as well by going away from it, and once she found her feet again, she set to casting the spell. Once she'd dipped into the fade, she threw her hand up into the air above, a dull blue orb shooting upward into the sky. Moments later a clap of thunder followed closely after, a bolt of lightning striking a guard, and forcing to him to his knees in response.. They were severely outnumbered, but a lightning storm would help even the odds.

Visibly breathing heavier at the effort, Aurora's eyes fell onto the wyvern and she nodded, "Right." Stepping forward, her arm whipped from below and she threw an underhanded stonefist at the creature. It struck its hide with a certain amount of force, but it just seemed to brush it off. Instead, it began to step toward them. Tilting her head toward Rilien, she asked, "Split up?" as she backed away, clearly not waiting for his answer.

The tempest spell did indeed help thin the ranks of soldiers, who had been rather tightly clustered into their two groups as they advanced on the four remaining opponents. It would seem they had been warned against being too reckless with these particular foes, regardless of the comparative numbers. A good half-dozen guards dropped as a result of direct hits by the lightning, but the others continued to advance forward.

Lucien, who had seen Sophia fall a few seconds prior, was making his way in her direction, believing that when it came to dealing with their human antagonists, sticking together was better than splitting up. But the first few got to him before he could quite make it to her position, separated from their peers by superior swiftness on foot or at least lightness over the snow. He was honestly glad they’d come in staggered like that, else even he might have felt the pressure of having to deal with too many at once.

As it was, he cleaved the first one at the helm with Everburn, a few would-be slashes from the others glancing off his armor. One came too close, and he drove an elbow into the man’s temple, sending him to the ground. That left one more, who brought up her shield to block the feint that would never actually connect, but found herself unable to parry the bodycheck that followed, and expired when the sword punctured her chain sheathed, however temporarily, in her belly.

The others made an attempt to sweep around and encircle Lucien, but one was not aware enough to notice Sophia back on her feet, the daze mostly worn off, at least enough to put a deep slash into the back of his leg, and then stab directly down where his chestplate ended at the neck. Her sword came free glistening red, and she let him fall, taking the last few steps to Lucien.

"At your back!" she called, turning to face the foe once she came within a few feet of Lucien. They were outnumbered, certainly, but the guards seemed to have at least some understanding of who they were fighting, and proceeded cautiously. As long as they held their ground, at least they couldn't be flanked.

Three came forward on her side, the most that could reasonably attack her at once, and Sophia held her position, refusing to advance forward and open up space behind her for them to attack either Lucien or herself from the back. The battleaxe armed man in the middle of the three stepped forward first, swinging his weapon down, forcing Sophia to sidestep right. The enemy on that side lunged with her blade, which Sophia parried, reaching to grab her by the mail coif she wore, and forcefully hurling her, sending her stumbling over into the axe-wielder. The two tangled together, preventing the third from getting around to strike. Sophia struck down hard, cutting deep enough into the back of the woman's neck to kill, quickly withdrawing the blade only to plunge it into the throat of the tied up axeman.

Rilien recognized the wisdom in Aurora’s suggestion. It would make the most sense of they could juggle the wyvern’s attention, but it would be a dangerous gambit to focus it on one of them for any length of time, so they would have to be precise about it.

As it happened, the wyvern went after him first, and so Rilien backed up as quickly as he could, trying to draw it towards a cluster of trees, where it would have to lose most of its speed, unable to run in a straight line. If he was lucky, it might even his one by accident, but he didn’t count on that. He was still a good twenty yards from the thicket when Leopold charged, and Rilien was forced to turn his back and run as fast over the snow as he could, kicking up ice crystals as he passed.

The wyvern’s jaws snapped together no more than a foot from his left arm, and he could smell the stench of its hot breath. Droplets of poison splashed onto his sleeve, one hitting his cheek with a burning sensation. Rilien clamped his jaws shut, wiping off the spot with his other sleeve, promptly cutting both off at the elbows as he ran, the wyvern’s progress behind him inhibited by the trees, but not for long—the thicket was hardly large. Now would be an excellent time for Aurora to get its attention.

It was no sooner than a moment afterwards that a fireball splashed against Leopold's hide, charring it black and melting the snow around it. Waiting only long enough to ensure that she got its attention, Aurora was off toward the thicket. She ran in a serpentine pattern, but that only stalled the wyvern for moment, choosing to move straight ahead instead of trying to follow. As it turned out, the creature was smarter than she gave it credit for, and soon abandoned the plan, instead opting for a mad dash to the trees.

She could feel it hot on her heels, so she threw a cone of cold behind her without looking, hoping the spray of ice would at least buy her a few moments more to reach the trees. It did the job, tiny icicles jabbing at its face, but it was still only by a hairsbreadth that Aurora reached the thicket, at which point she broke off hard. Or rather, she attempted to, as she slipped on a patch of icy snow, causing her feet to kick out below her. With the creature already on her, Aurora scrambled as fast as she could with her hands and feet, kicking out a stonefist to slow Leopold down enough so that she could climb a nearby tree.

Venom stained the bark just below Aurora, proving herself quick enough to scale the tree, but now the wyvern had her cornered. "Uh, Rilien?" She called, backing her way further up the tree as the wyvern followed.

Lucien could feel Sophia in nearly constant motion behind him, but with both of them paying conscious attention to it, they managed to avoid putting too much space between their backs and giving those that surrounded them an opening. From the corner of his eye, he could see the wyvern charging Rilien, but this, like everything but the guards in front of him, he could do little about at present. Keeping his left foot planted, he lunged with his right, the abruptness of the motion catching the man to his left unprepared, and with a rasp, Everburn slid between the plates over his chest and those protecting his lower torso. Lucien’s extension enabled one of the others to get a good hit in on his bicep with a hand-axe, right around his more vulnerable elbow joint, but he shook it off, withdrawing his sword from the other man in one smooth motion and slicing it upwards at an angle, taking the second man’s head off entirely. Two more stepped in around the bodies of their fallen comrades, one of them wielding a large hammer, which was obviously a serious threat even to his armor.

Fortunately, such a large weapon was slow to move, and when the hammer was swung for his chest, Lucien managed to catch it near the head with the flat of his blade, and drew the wielder of it towards him with a mighty heave, which he met in the opposite direction with a gauntlet-encased fist to the nose. That was sufficient to make him drop the hammer, and the rest was simple. The two next to him fell in succession as well.

Sophia had a small pile of bodies in front of her, though the fight naturally shifted, as both sides looked for better ground to stand on. She actually used the obstruction to her advantage, using her blade's longer reach to bring down a foe who couldn't strike back with a shorter sword. She was thankful that the others were keeping the wyvern busy; they likely wouldn't have seen a charge from it coming, or they would've been unable to react in time. Fighting over twenty enemies at once was challenging enough.

Once with a shield and mace managed to slip through while she struck left, getting close on her right side and leading with the shield, ramming into her trying to keep close. It was a better strategy than the rest had come up with, her sword becoming unwieldy in such close proximity, but she was still able to plant her foot, rotate such that the mace deflected off her shoulder guard, and bodily throw the man back. He stumbled and fell, giving her a moment to thrust her sword down and end him.

Their bloody work continued until all of the enemies were either dead or incapacitated, by which point Sophia's arms were growing tired, her breathing strained. But the wyvern still hounded after their allies, and she took off in its direction. "Come on," she urged, though she knew the encouragement was wholly unnecessary.

Rilien, now freed of anything that could have poisoned him even incidentally, was able to circle around behind the wyvern, his sling loosely in one hand and the remaining lyrium projectiles—just two—in the other. He loaded both into the sling at once, knowing that he was going to have to give it a very good reason to leave Aurora alone, now that it had her up a tree. The sound of the sling cutting through the air was a soft whistle, the same sound the glass spheres made as they headed directly for the side of Leopold’s head. One was a little high, and shattered instead against a different tree, leaving a massive scorch mark in the trunk, but the second did precisely what it was intended to do: it hit the wyvern just above its eye, the resulting impact blinding it on that side of its face.

With a ground-shaking snarl, Leopold propelled himself off the tree and in the direction the hit had come from, but rather than trying to peel away in a straight line, Rilien moved with his blind spot, ducking a random swipe of his massive talons, though not completely. One caught him on his upper arm, slicing raggedly into his left bicep, parting the flesh and muscle there like it was paper. Fortunately, the Tranquil managed to pull himself away from the hit, rolling in the snow and staggering back to his feet, a red smear staining the ground in his wake. There was no mistaking it—the wyvern could smell him now.

Aurora had to hold tight to the tree when Leopold launched himself off of it, causing the tree to violently shutter and shake with his departure. Still, she didn't descend and follow the creature, not when she had a vantage point in the tree. No, instead she wedged herself in forking branches and gripped one for stability. She watched as the wyvern clawed into Rilien, though fortunately not fatally.

However, if the creature continued to be allowed free reign of the field then it was only a matter of time before someone sustained more serious wounds. Dipping into the fade, Aurora summoned a spell in her hand and cast it as the creature as it lunged at Rilien. It had the appearance of a stonefist, but instead of striking the head or back, struck its back legs. Instead of an impact like and ordinary stonefist however, the spell seeped over Leopold's legs and bound them in stone, petrifying them and taking away his freedom of movement and causing him to hit the ground hard and slide a few feet.

Lucien’s breath was heavy in his lungs, but he saw the urgency of the situation, following behind Sophia as she made for the other two. They arrived in just enough time to see Leopold crash to the ground, his back legs encased in stone. Unsure how long the advantage would last, Lucien inhaled deeply and charged forwards, unwilling to risk its teeth, but getting as close as he dared, plunging his sword to the hilt in the relatively unprotected armpit at the wyvern’s front left. With a grunt of effort, he pushed down on the blade with both hands, feeling muscle and scale tear under the leveraged force, enough to permanently hobble that limb.

The wyvern roared, enraged, and trying to crane his neck around to snap at Lucien while he was still within range. The beast has exposed his blindside, however, to the other sword rapidly approaching it, and Sophia did not intend to let this go on any longer than it had to, lest someone be seriously injured. With a brief cry, she stabbed her blade straight into the exposed neck of the wyvern, sinking it in deep. She then twisted and pulled it free, sidestepping the gout of blood that was released in the blade's absence. Leopold was unable to roar now, instead clawing blindly for her, but Sophia took a quick backstep in retreat, before she leaped forward once more, timing her jump to follow a swipe. The point of her sword came down on top of the wyvern's skull, piercing through, and ending the creature's life.

She withdrew Vesenia and stepped away quickly from the jaws, wiping the sword clean on the snow, before she checked to make sure that everyone was still in one piece. There was, of course, still Amalia and Ithilian to worry about.

"I think I've had about enough of wyverns for one trip."

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

Marcus was swift over the snow, easily ducking and weaving between trees, his treads light enough that he did not risk sinking too far into the flakes coating the ground, deep in places but almost missing in others. Amalia suspected he was leading her somewhere specific, or at least somewhere far enough away to entail minimal interference. Perhaps he only wanted to wear her down as much as possible before they engaged. It wasn’t a terrible strategy: he, after all, was not the one who’d spent hours in a freezing cell, nor had he likely been in haste for the rest of the day, meaning he was fresh for this confrontation, and she was not. It was an advantage worth pressing.

At times, she was barely able to keep eyes on him, so suddenly would he turn or angle away from his previous trajectory. But she kept her arms pumping, kept her legs moving as quickly as they would propel her forward, until her muscles were nearly burning with the effort. She knew without having to look that Ithilian was some distance behind, though she sensed that he might not presently be able to keep up, considering the lingering effects of his poisoning. Still, neither Amalia nor her quarry were making any effort to conceal their tracks—he would be able to follow.

She had to admit she was really counting on it.

The first impediment to her forward progress was a massive ball of fire, not unlike the one that had smote a pride demon several years before, only this time, there was no doubt it was aimed at her. Barreling forward as she was, she could not avoid it, not without losing too much speed and probably not even then, so she ducked, closed her eyes and ran right through it. Her armor was resistant, but she could feel her flesh blistering where it was exposed, the outermost layer of skin on her face turning a bright, livid red. Nothing that could not be fixed. Nothing she was unwilling to sacrifice.

The fact that he’d aimed the attack, however, made it evident that he’d at last come to a stop, and though Amalia could not so much as hear Ithilian’s footsteps anymore, she knew they had not gone too far for him to follow. For now, however, she was stuck fighting on Marcus’s terms, something she would do for as long as necessary. Not pausing to draw a weapon of any kind, she launched herself right for him.

He had clearly expected the magic to slow her down, because she managed to tackle him to the ground, after which it was a brutal tangle of limbs. She slammed her elbow into his clavicle, and she heard it fracture under the impact, though it did not break. He brought a knee up into her stomach, however, and it knocked the wind out of her for just long enough for him to flip them around, so that she was on her back in the snow, and he pummeled her with repeated hits to her center mass.

“You should have stayed in the cell,” he hissed, his voice low, raspy, and considerably less collected than usual. Of course, they had just run nearly a mile as fast as they could, so she hadn’t expected any different. Their breathing was labored, to be sure, but he definitely had the upper hand in terms of remaining strength.

Amalia bucked and scrabbled underneath the knee holding her in place, digging uncomfortably into her abdomen. “And you should have remained in Tevinter.” With a sharp jerk, she freed one of her wrists and jabbed upwards, blacking his eye and forcing him off her as he reeled backwards. Rolling away, she drew a knife, leaving her other hand free as she advanced towards him, struggling for breath but undeterred.

“Tevinter? Where still they look at me and remember that I could not even bring one Qunari girl to heel? I think not.” In a move that was familiar to her, first as his and then later as belonging to another, he encased his right arm in stone, folding his jointed fingers into a fist. He lunged, and she spun aside, one of his knuckles barely clipping her hip. It almost threw her off-balance, but she recovered, propelling herself in close and swiping with the knife.

He deflected it off his stone limb, retaliating by attempting to grab her by the neck. He succeeded in catching her by the collar as she tried to bend backwards, yanking her forward and into the grip of the stone arm, lofting her a foot into the air with seemingly little effort, though she could see the perspiration gathering on his brow. Her breaths were wet—his body blows had broken at least a rib or two, and her vision was starting to blur at the edges, made only worse by the fact that he was cutting off her air supply.

“I will go back, eventually, but only when I have what it will take to silence them all. I have Rasaan’s information—all I need now is you.” She pulled ineffectually at his armored arm, his grip pressing keenly into her windpipe. “It wasn’t hard, once I knew she planned to meet the Duke. The Ariqun is such a fool—she’d believe anything from the right source. Getting you here was a child’s gambit.” Amalia swung her legs up, wrapping them around his arm and twisting her whole body, taking them both back to the ground. His grip on her neck loosened just enough for her to take in a gulp of air, burning its way down her raw throat and into her perforated lungs. A cough wracked her frame, and she spit up a globule of blood.

Marcus, a malicious light in his black eyes, smirked at her, his own breaths already evening out. He shot an ice spike at her, which she had to roll to avoid. Without the strength to climb to her feet, however, she was left vulnerable when the bolt of lightning lanced into her side, and despite her every effort not to, she screamed.

Ithilian had quickly become aware that he was in no shape to be doing this. Their trail was an easy one to follow, but he found himself stumbling off of it several times, nearly falling against trees, the cold snow making for poor footing. He began to cough almost incessantly, disrupting his breathing, and very quickly he could not keep any wind at all. Whatever he'd been given by Amalia had helped, in that he was still alive, but undoubtedly he needed to rest to properly heal, not exert himself like this.

He tripped over a rock just buried beneath the snow, collapsing to his knees, drops of blood falling to the white ground beneath him. The taste of it was strong in his mouth, and he spat out a mouthful. His entire throat felt like it was ablaze, every inhale or exhale causing him great pain. The pull of the ground seemed too heavy to resist, at least until the sound of blasting lightning and an agonized scream pierced through the air.

Ithilian hauled himself to his feet once more, drawing his bow and taking far too long to nock an arrow. His sight had grown worse, to the point where he couldn't clearly make out the combatants before him, but he could see the source of the magic, and the grounded body it was targeted at. With the best aim he could muster, he pulled back an arrow and let fly, falling to his knees against the base of a tree immediately after.

The projectile caught Marcus in the lower back, eliciting an angry groan, and he quickly turned to send an attack back at the elf, in the form of a stonefist. Ithilian took cover behind the tree, which shattered when struck, the magic blowing through the entire trunk and knocking Ithilian back to face the stars, while the entire tree came crashing down next to him.

Marcus gripped the arrow in his back and tore it out, tossing it to the side with a soft scoff. He turned slightly, likely thinking that it would be best to just finish Ithilian off before he could interfere again, but unbeknownst to him, Amalia was already pushing herself back to her feet. Her limbs still trembled with the aftershocks of the lightning—not only was Marcus a mage, but a very powerful one, and she’d been shocked by enough of them to know the difference. But the importance of such a fact paled in comparison to the importance of making her body move again, before he could make good on his threats to kill kadan.

She knew she would not be swift, not with knees like jelly. She knew she would not be strong, not with a grip so loose she was barely holding on to her knife. She knew she would not be precise, not with the involuntary spasms that still seized her muscles. All she had left in her favor was that she would not give up until she was dead. So she’d have to find some way to win with that.

Marcus’s primary weakness was his pride. It always had been. That, and something of a flair for the dramatic, so it wasn’t surprising that rather than simply hastening to sling another few spells at Ithilian, he had chosen to stalk towards him, at what amounted to no more than a brisk walk in pace. It, and his apparent belief that Amalia wouldn’t be moving any time soon, were the only reasons she was able to act—jumping onto his back and trying to curve her knife around his throat. He managed to stop it in time, the blade biting into his palm instead, and he wrenched it out of her grip, tossing it aside. She held on after that, though, refusing to dislodge even as he tried to bend his way out from underneath her.

In the end, he simply let himself fall backwards, with Amalia taking most of the weight of their impact, the breath leaving her in a gust. Her vision briefly blacked out when she fell directly onto her broken ribs, and she felt rather than saw Marcus roll off her, her eyes clearing in just enough time to recognize what he was doing. With a muffled groan, she shoved herself to the side to avoid the lash of blood that followed. She was halfway back to her feet when the next one caught her in the arm, solidifying around it and forcibly tethering her to Marcus, who yanked and sent her sprawling facefirst into the snow.

Ithilian took time to rise. The stonefist spell had lodged several shards in his upper body like shrapnel rocks, and he pulled out two of the larger ones. Slowly, he clambered to his knees, fumbled for his bow. Somehow, it had come unstrung. A sharp piece of rock had to have cut it clean, he imagined. That limited his options. He pulled his sword free of the sheath and rose to shaky feet, shambling forward with as much speed as he could get.

A second lash of blood arced towards him, Marcus easily seeing his approach. Ithilian blocked it with his sword, but the magic whip coiled tightly around it, and it was pulled from his hand, sending him stumbling a few steps as well. The lash came quickly back around, snagging around his neck, cutting off any small breath he might've been able to take. With a forceful pull, he was drawn into close range with the magister.

But with his hands occupied, Marcus could not respond to Ithilian's first attack, Parshaara coming free from its sheath and slashing deep across his face, below the eyes. In addition to cutting into his cheek and nose on the right side, fire burst across that part of his face, stunning him from the pain and drawing a shriek. Ithilian tackled him to the ground on his back, a move that looked more like the pair of them collapsing in unity, and with magister straddled beneath him, Ithilian made to plunge his dagger down into his throat.

Marcus caught the blade in time, abandoning the blood whip in that hand to catch Ithilian's arm. The edge of it opened a small line of blood at the side of his throat, before his strength began to overmatch Ithilian's own, and he pushed the weapon away. With one hand still trying to restrain Amalia, and the other stuck holding Ithilian's arm, Marcus employed a spell that needed neither, arcane force bursting out from his mind, forcefully throwing the elf into the air. He twisted in the air, landed face down in the snow, and did not move.

Amalia had drawn herself to her knees, and with what little strength was left to her, she pulled on the lash constricting her arm, taking advantage of the fact that prone, Marcus would offer no resistance other than his body weight, which was greater than hers but not greater than what she was capable of dragging, even like this. It had the added benefit of keeping him away from Ithilian, and when she judged he was close enough, she half-lunged, half-fell the rest of the way, driving her elbow again into the place she’d cracked his clavicle earlier.

That seemed to be enough to snap him out of the pain haze from the burn, and he retaliated, his hit to her ribcage weaker than it should have been given his broken collarbone. Well, that and he was tiring as well. No one could fend off a full assault this long without feeling the effects. Not her, not him. If there was one thing Amalia was better at than Marcus was, however, it was putting up with pain, and admittedly, what followed was little more than a contest in putting up with increasing amounts of pain. Their strikes were weaker than they would have otherwise been, though his sometimes had the benefit of being magical, but their bodies could only take so much.

She’d just driven a fist into the burn mark on his face when he disappeared, reappearing several feet to the left. Magic. Always magic. He was standing, if half bent over and listing slightly to the left, and she struggled to do the same, breathing in through her nose and out through her mouth in an attempt to keep herself from hyperventilating. He was glaring at her, this fact somehow especially clear through her fogged vision. Maybe it was the contrast, between his fair complexion, the angry red of the burn mark, and the black of his eyes, she didn’t know. Maybe it was just because she recognized the feeling conveyed by it so well.

“This isn’t over.”

Amalia could almost see the way he gathered the magic to him, as though he had to struggle for it, but then it wrapped around him, some kind of curtain of light, far too bright for her to look at, and she turned her face away, glancing back only when it disappeared. Marcus had disappeared with it. He was gone, again, and still alive.

She supposed she should have been enraged, or afraid, or something. But all Amalia felt was numb, and she turned around without looking back, staggering back towards where Ithilian had fallen. Dropping to her knees not a foot from him, she tried to shake off the incoming darkness. Just a little longer…

Ka— The word remained unfinished as Amalia finally lost consciousness, tipping slowly over and landing on her side in the snow.

The Chanter's Board has been updated. Heart of the One/A Matter of Principle has been completed.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon

Earnings

0.00 INK

Emerald-green wax dripped steadily onto the back of the envelope, and Lucien carefully tipped the vessel back when enough had accrued to properly seal it. He stamped the cooling liquid with his personal seal, rather than that belonging to the company, and then set it aside to solidify the rest of the way, tidying his desk of the writing implements and documentation he’d been referencing. Some of those, he’d probably be asked to send along as well, eventually, but for now, he would keep them with him.

It was actually, he supposed, a rather extraordinary tale, in its way. Or maybe it only seemed so because it had managed to neatly entangle so many particularly noteworthy threads, and not much else. The story that Rassan told them, after Rilien had used his alchemy to revive her, was simple enough to be believable, but complex enough to elude the obvious guesses. As it happened, she explained, she had been on the run ever since the Qunari left Kirkwall. As the Ariqun’s chosen successor and spiritual advisor to the Arishok, she had been with him the whole time he resided there, and she believed (apparently rightly, according to Amalia) that his failure to honor the Qun by his rash actions in the city would fall partly upon her as well, likely meaning a severe demotion and punishment for her failure to check him as she was supposed to.

Rather than face that punishment, she had fled in the aftermath of the battle, and spent the next several years trying to find a way to protect herself from the Qun’s long arm, the Ben-Hassrath. Not trained to defend herself, Rassan had known she would need protection from elsewhere, and all she had to trade for it was what she knew—quite a lot, considering her position in Qunari hierarchy. That was where, she explained, Prosper had come in. His frequent visits to the Marches, believed to be due to a mysterious lover, were in fact meetings with Rassan, negotiations in good faith for the information the Duke had believed the Empress would be interested in, regarding Qunari agents in the Empire.

That was where things got more complicated. Rassan swore up and down that she had no idea who Marcus was, or how he knew to be there when he did. She also promised that whatever had implicated Amalia rather than herself in this exchange, and therefore caused the Ariqun to send assassins after the former, was not her doing. That left the group to assume, with little by way of hard evidence, that Marcus was responsible for that, too, with the intent, most likely, of luring Amalia to the Duke’s estate, where the Qunari had believed she would go. Prosper, though indeed in regular correspondence with Gaspard de Chalons, did not seem to have intended to betray Celene in favor of joining him, or at least he was undecided in the matter. His role appeared to have been the honest desire to gain valuable information about Qunari spies in Orlais, and in return, offer asylum to a woman who genuinely feared for her life. Whatever the case, the Duke was dead, Marcus had the information, and Rassan had decided to travel further south, in an attempt to evade further pursuit.

The Magister’s motives, and his methods of seeing them fulfilled, made little more sense to Lucien a week out than they did on the day, but he supposed he didn’t really have the full picture. Most outsiders knew little of Tevinter politics, and less of the individual Magisters that engaged in it. He supposed Amalia might know more, but he wasn’t going to try and pry it out of her. He was just glad she and Ithilian were alive—it hadn’t been the most certain thing, when they finally found them.

Standing from his desk, Lucien took up the now-dry letter and tucked it under one arm along with his sketchbook and a small satchel of drawing supplies, rolling his shoulders and rubbing at the back of his neck with the other hand. Even wearing no armor at all, sitting and doing paperwork for too long tended to make him sore in ways that marching all day or drilling for hours just didn’t. He supposed it all depended on what you were used to. Stepping out of the barracks, he pulled his less-formal, maroon cloak over his shoulders, his breath visible in even the middle of the afternoon. It wasn’t as bad as winters in the south, but this year, Kirkwall seemed to have encountered quite the cold snap. But the sun was bright overhead, and it wasn’t so terrible, really.

He dropped his letter with the usual courier on his way up to Hightown, boots crunching in the inch or so of snow on the ground at this lower altitude. Of course, it had all been swept away in Hightown proper, and he was not in the least impeded on his way to Sophia’s, where he knocked, announced himself, and then let himself in, hanging his cloak on a hook in the entranceway. If he looked up, he could see a head of blonde hair, settled near the fireplace in the sitting area on the other side of the railing that divided the second floor overlook from the foyer. Smiling to himself, Lucien stepped out of his boots and padded up the stairs. Sophia was on one of the sofas in the sitting area, a book in her hands. The fire must have been going for a while, because the warmth of it was quite obvious, permeating the chamber. Setting his sketchbook and satchel down on an end table, Lucien stood in front of it for a moment, holding his hands out to return some heat to them.

“Interesting reading, I hope?”

"This" Sophia announced, "is The Fires of the Deep, by Rodrigo Calzari." Her legs were curled up beneath her and out of sight under a soft blanket, thrown over a comfortable-looking dress of a light, pale green color. "I picked it up from the market this morning. Haven't put it down since I got home." The vendors were thankfully able to sell their wares from under the protection of covered awnings, but the cold still drove away many buyers, and Sophia noted that she'd gotten a very good price on this particular tome.

"It's very exciting. There's an errant knight in search of redemption, trying to clear his name of a king's murder. This Nevarran necromancy cult keeps showing up to stop him, and they have now captured the woman he loves. Twice." She frowned slightly. "I'm not too fond of those parts, actually. But it's still very enthralling. I've heard there are sequels I might pick up as well." It had been much too long since she'd thought to curl up next to a warm fire and read a good book, and now that she had the time, at least for a little while, she thought it best to take advantage.

Lucien smiled, the expression narrowing his eyes somewhat, and shook his head slightly. He had a feeling he’d heard of the book somewhere before, actually, or at least the author’s name sounded familiar. “Lili’s quite fond of works in that genre as well. I’ll ask her about her favorites next time I write her, in case you devour the sequels just as quickly.” Lucien tended towards nonfiction and poetry, himself, but he could understand the appeal of the novel anyway.

Stepping away from the fire, he took up a seat near Sophia’s feet, resting his own, crossed at the ankles, on an ottoman in front of the spot. Taking up his sketchbook and some charcoals, he opened to a blank page and started to trace out the most basic lines of what he wanted to draw next, the light scratching of the pencil on paper and the occasional turn of a page joining the crackle of the fire as the muted ambient noise in the room. Lucien let his mind empty of the rest of his concerns while he did this—it was, in a sense, a necessary and almost sacred part of his life. He didn’t let himself think about anything but the art and its subject, when so engaged, which was, he would readily admit, a rather essential part of coping with the sometimes ponderous weights he was otherwise beholden to bear.

It had once been something he would only do with his mother, and then something he would only do alone, but he found he didn’t mind keeping Sophia’s company in these moments, either. He’d never bring it up as such, but he couldn’t help but notice.

He wasn’t sure exactly how long they’d spent like that, but when he blinked and tilted his head at the image that had emerged, he smiled ruefully at himself and closed the book over. He was loath to interrupt the comfortable silence, but he knew he had to. “Have you given any more thought to whether you intend to become Viscountess?” He asked the question quietly, and perhaps rightly so—it was something they hadn’t really directly addressed. He’d thought, not without reason, that it would be better to leave the matter lie in the immediate aftermath of all that had occurred, and in the intervening years, he’d just… continued to leave it. He had thoughts on the matter, of course, but he wouldn’t volunteer them without being asked. It was hardly his decision to make, after all.

Sophia's thoughts had been elsewhere, and as such the question came a little abruptly. It wasn't the kind of question just asked on a whim. And while she had let her mind linger on it quite often recently, in that moment she had pushed out everything that existed beyond her front door. It was nicer to just think about the warmth of the fire, the softness of the couch, Lucien's presence beside her, the story in her hands, which she was relatively certain would turn out alright for the hero.

She closed the book softly, setting it down in her lap. "I have," she answered, equally as quiet. There was only the crackling of the flames, which had died down somewhat, to compete with. "And... I do intend to. I should have, when my time came. But I just couldn't. I always knew that I would have to take the throne when my father passed, I just... could never have imagined it happening like that." The memory still haunted her, and would always haunt her, of those darkest days of her life, her father's death so shortly after her brother's, slain by the two opposing forces she'd tried to keep from each other for so long.

"I've delayed too long to simply take it back now," she conceded. "Meredith has come to value her position, and will not give it up to me now that she knows I will not be held by her strings." Sophia could always force the issue, and she knew she would have the city guard behind her, and Lucien's strength, and a great deal of the people, but the Templars had faced such a situation before in Kirkwall, and had proven themselves formidable. She would not throw her city into a civil conflict that took lives, not if there was any other way. Patience, she suspected, would reveal a better way, something that could force Meredith to step down.

"But... yes, that is next for me now. Viscountess."

The corner of Lucien’s lip quirked, but there was something about it that seemed almost melancholy, if only for a second. He turned his eyes back down to the plain leather cover of his sketchbook, running a hand over it thoughtfully, then nodded. “I doubt I need to say it by this point, but if there is anything I can do to help, you have only to ask.”

He sighed, unusually heavily, and continued. “The situation in Orlais… it’s getting contentious. There’s talk of rebellion stirring. Nothing solid, but… Celene is not as well-liked as she used to be, and my friends are certain that it will eventually boil over into something unpleasant. Maybe not as soon as they’d feared, knowing that the Grand Duke doesn’t seem to be planning anything specific as of yet, but I do not doubt that things will start to move within the next year or two.” He lifted his eyes to glance over at her, and smiled wryly. “I was going to try and find a nicer way of telling you that, but admittedly, I’m not sure there is one.”

But the truth was, they’d both known it would happen eventually. He’d left off saying this much until she’d decided what she was going to do, because he didn’t want his own considerations to factor in, even unintentionally. They both had duties to do, and in some way, it was knowing she would do hers even after everything she’d been through that made him feel strong enough to do his as well.

The implications of the unrest in Orlais had not been lost upon Sophia, but knowing that the waterfall was approaching and actually acknowledging it, doing something about, were two vastly different things. She supposed that moment was rapidly arriving. But it wasn't here yet. Not yet. She set the book down on the sofa, sliding herself down into a horizontal position, her head roughly behind Lucien's neck, where she gently toyed with the ends of his hair with her fingers.

"There is no perfect way through it all, is there?" she said, not expecting an answer, for she knew it already. "No way for us to marry, to have everything that we want. If I abandon my duty, I would be no fit bride for royalty, for I'd be nothing more than a common woman with a sword." It was entirely possible that she was indeed already that, but given the choice between two fathers, she had declared herself to be the daughter of the worthier man. "If you abandoned your duty, it would destroy everything you've worked to rebuild since you arrived here. We could always flee together, ride to some remote part of the world and forget everything..." She actually smiled at the thought, and how ludicrous it was, even if the simplicity of it was beautiful. "But I doubt either of us would be satisfied, knowing what we left behind."

That was the heart of the matter, it seemed, that such an important part of why they loved each other was their dedication to ultimately doing what was best. Normally that self-sacrifice only required effort, or blood, or bravery. It was cruel for it to require them to separate. But it was the way they were, and they could not change some things, no matter how hard they tried.

"We're not out of time yet, though," she said, kissing his neck. "And Maker forgive me, for I intend to savor every moment while it lasts."

Lucien shuddered slightly, letting his sketchbook fall to the floor with a soft thud, and twisted where he sat, feathering his fingers over Sophia’s jaw, leaning down to place a soft kiss on her mouth. It really was ironic, that he should feel he’d finally found someone who understood him, inside and out, challenged him to be as good as he wanted to be and better, could easily walk in step with him as they tried to forge their way forward. Sometimes, he felt like she probably had to slow down a little so he could keep up, even, but he loved that about her, too. That he should have met such a person, only to know that they would face down an obstacle that they could not climb, at least not yet.

“One day,” he murmured, adjusting them so that he wasn’t twisted around to reach her. More or less, he’d ended up with Sophia half-draped over him, but he couldn’t say he minded in the slightest. “One day, when things are stable, both here and there. If you still want me then, we’ll find a way.” Perhaps, in this one thing, he’d allow himself to use all that power he was supposedly entitled to for a selfish end. Not when the foundations of his country were shaking beneath him, not when her city still teetered about between forces pulling every which-way at it, but… after that. One day, when things were better.

But until then, she was quite right—they had time left to them yet.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

Unsurprisingly, some recovery had been warranted for the battered, one-eyed elf.

Ithilian spent most of his recent days in or under the vhenadahl, depending on whether he felt like climbing a branch. Had he not pressed himself as far as he had, he might have healed quickly, and been little the worse for wear. But had he done that, Amalia would in all likelihood be dead. As it had always been in his life, Ithilian was willing to go to any lengths for those he called lethallan. The price he paid was worth it.

It was a steep price, however, and he was thankful that no pressing matters had been brought to his attention upon returning. His throat burned almost constantly, save for those moments when Nostariel was able to come by the Alienage, preferring him to stay put rather than ask him to make the walk up, short as it was. She checked on Amalia as well, who had been about as battered, albeit with less unique means than Ithilian had suffered. His vision, thankfully, returned to its full strength, but there were other wounds to deal with, things that had not been adequately treated until they returned, such as the shards of stone that had pierced deep into his skin, some sinking completely beneath the surface.

Still, with regular assistance, and no further exertion for the moment, Ithilian expected to be formidable once more, if he needed to be. For now, he was content to sit at the base of the tree, the crisp, cold air soothing to him, while he worked on stitching up the holes in one of his shirts. Having spent many winters in the Brecilian Forest, he knew well how to manage in colder climates. Kirkwall couldn't quite compare.

Amalia’s own recovery had been slower than she was accustomed to, a fact that she was able to recognize was partially due to her mentality. Usually, when she had injuries to deal with, her strength of will was of assistance to her recovery, but… in this instance, she didn’t quite feel that same desire to recover, to push past the limitations of her body and return to capable form. It wasn’t that she wanted to languish, either, only… something ate at her now, uncomfortable and distracting and always at the back of her mind.

Maybe it was because she’d simply assumed that he wouldn’t care enough to try for her life again. But he seemed to have made it something personal now, for him as well as for her, and the words he had spoken to her just prior to his disappearance gave her no hope that she was simply done with him. Whether she would next cross paths with him in three months or three more years, she could not say, but it was inevitable now, and It seemed to hang over her head, like a reminder of the futility of all her efforts to expunge his influence from her life. Doubtless something he had intended, when he had spoken.

The cold had chased most of the Alienage’s residents indoors, and she honestly would have preferred to be there as well. She had endured no snowy winters in her years before coming here—she knew jungle and tropical summer. The worst of Par Vollen’s winters were the massive storms that lashed the coasts, bringing swollen clouds inland and dumping a monsoon’s worth of rain on the cities, several times a season. She’d never even seen snow until her midtwenties, let alone had to cope with it.

But she never complained, even if her mattress did have a family’s worth of blankets piled onto it. In any case, she wanted to be outdoors right now because she knew that was where she would find Ithilian. He appeared to be sewing something, and she was reminded that she had to get to work on repairing her armor at some point. Not right now, though. Wordlessly, she sat down beside him, pulling the edges of her cloak around herself. If she weren’t so chilled, she might have thought the winter beautiful, she supposed, in a harsh sort of way that she could appreciate.

Amalia sucked in a breath, sharp in her lungs and twinging a bit uncomfortably against her still-bruised ribs. Nostariel did good work, but Marcus had put them both through a lot. She hoped that burn on his face would scar. “I haven’t thanked you yet,” she said, beginning as always in her blunt sort of way. “I suppose that is because I find it to be an inadequate representation of what I really want to say.”

It was perhaps hard to see as a display of affection, when the two of them sat next to each other, touching incidentally or with purpose, and reacting little to it, but those that knew them knew they behaved in that way with nearly no others. Ithilian knew by now that Amalia was not fond of the cold, but the fact that she'd sat down implied she was willing to endure it, for what she wanted to say. A small part of him was glad for that; he didn't really want to get up, and he also was holding out hope that she might grow at least a little more accustomed to it. Someday.

"If my aim had been better, we could have been done with him," he said quietly, having no desire to strain his voice. The shot had been there, Marcus having not seen him approach, the time to aim freely given. But he'd missed, and while it had saved Amalia, it had left Marcus alive. It left no doubt that this trouble would return for them. Someday.

"And you don't need to thank me. Of all the causes left to spend my strength on, that one I am most certain of. We'll see to it that you're free of him. Someday."

Free of him. It seemed strange to think it. Almost wrong. Not because she didn’t want it—she had wondered, for a time, what she would be without that chain always shackled to her wrist, reminding her. The experience had made her what she was, in a very significant way, catalyzing her change from foolish girl into deeply-reserved, deeply-hurt woman. She recognized that now. What she had been, back then—that was a wounded thing, like a jungle-cat that hissed to mask an injured leg, raised its hackles to intimidate away anything that would do it further harm. A survival instinct.

But surviving was not the same thing as living. This was what she had learned since then. Her value had been in that she had endured, and thus her name. Her identity, the fundamental principle of who she was. Still bound to what Marcus had done. She was her reaction, not her action. Her passive endurance, not her active decision. Even now, she still held traces of that, because she still allowed him to do the determining. How she would feel, what she would fear. Whether or not she was free of him. He didn’t deserve that power, and she didn’t want him to have it.

Amalia shook her head slightly, eyes fixed on some point in the middle distance in front of her. She drew some comfort from the awareness of Ithilian’s regular motion beside her, from something as small as the sound of his breath. “No,” she replied, just as quietly as him, if for a different reason. “I do need to thank you. Exactly because you are so certain. Even when I am not.” It felt a little like they moved in circles, almost, weaving themselves a little more closely each time. She depended on him now, counted on him for the times she could not count on herself. It was a far cry from the way either of them had been, when first they met. It was…

She turned her head to the side, so that she was looking at him instead of out to the Alienage courtyard. “I want you to know. For this, for me… you were enough. You are enough. I could not… I would have died there, without you, and I knew that going in. I knew you would be enough to save my life, and I was right.” She hadn’t doubted for a second that he would follow, would never have thought to question the fact that he would do what was necessary. Whether they’d killed Marcus or not, they’d beaten him. Because this, this kind of trust in another person, that was what he’d stolen from her, all those years ago. And she had it back, because of Ithilian.

He knew he could never truly understand what it was she had been through, the effect it had upon her mind, at least as devastating as the evidence left behind on her body. Of all the hardships Ithilian had suffered, he had never known betrayal. He knew different agonies that she did not, and he suspected that, in much the same way, she would never fully understand them herself. What mattered, then, was that they possessed the correct qualities to bring the other back from the brink of what had nearly destroyed them. They knew, somehow, how to break down the walls they put up, be they made of hate, or an utter aversion to trust and dependence.

Having long since paused the work in his hands, he set down the shirt and met Amalia's gaze. Almost cautiously, he moved a hand up, around her head to the back, and gently pulled her in closer to him, where he pressed dry, scarred lips briefly to her forehead. He then released her.

"And I will continue to be so," he stated, the left side of his lips quirking upward, "for as long as my body allows." There was a definite timer on that now, that much had become obvious some time ago, but for however long he could support her in her battles, he would, without a second's thought or hesitation. He hoped that someday they might have a time where their battles were no longer fought with blades and bows. Where they would need to fight no battles at all.

Amalia supposed there was more she might say there, more yet to navigate still in this life she was building for herself, beside the people she cared about most, but… for now, she’d said enough. There was much yet to be decided, or discovered maybe, but she could be content in that, at the very least, she knew where she was now, and she liked being there. So instead of speaking, she smiled slightly, breathing out a gentle exhale that seemed to carry all of her tension with it, for the moment.

Careful not to impede the work he might want to finish, she moved a little closer, leaning slightly into him, just enough to establish solid contact between their shoulders. Pulling her legs up underneath her and ensconced in the cloak as well, she decided that the cold was tolerable enough, after all.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel

Earnings

0.00 INK



"Excellent.” Words of praise were sparing, when their source was Rilien, but he was generally willing to dole them out when he believed they were warranted. Sandal was exceptionally talented at his craft, and Rilien suspected not much longer would remain before there was nothing left for him to teach the peculiar dwarven lad. The thought brought about… something, and he paused a moment, attempting to identify which shadow of a feeling this was. A little warm flicker, tinged with something soft. His feelings, such as they were, still counted as diluted, so much so that he doubted anyone else would call them feelings at all, but he seemed to have more of them as time wore on. He did wonder about that, from time to time, but as the emotions had not yet reached a level where they caused him problems, he was content to leave them lie, as it were.

Well. That was perhaps not entirely true of all of them. There were some that he was unsure he should maintain. Some that he was beginning to see that he should let go, eventually. He was not blind to the way patterns shifted in history, in politics and the games of nations, and he knew. He knew, without quite being able to articulate, that things were going to change. That he would not be able to remain as he was, here, for an interminable time. To say it bothered him or worried him would be to overstate things considerably, but he acknowledged his own foresight, and he knew it was necessary to begin preparations, for whatever it was that would shake him loose from his foothold here. Eventually.

Sandal smiled broadly. “Enchantment!” Setting aside the hammer they’d been working on, Rilien placed all the tools back on their proper hooks or in the shelves and drawers to which they had long belonged. The shop had an air of meticulous cleanliness about it, and fortunately enough, both Bodahn and Sandal were quite tidy on their own time as well, which made sharing the space with them considerably less labor-intensive than it would have been if his own sense of neatness had required him to clean up after them. While the other two went about the business of closing up the storefront for the day, Rilien faced all the merchandise, which mostly involved sorting the runes on display in a small counter case that sat on the outside of his area, and rotating the potions stock. He’d received a new lot from Amalia earlier in the day, and lined them up next to his own, right above the precise labels he used to differentiate them to those whose eye for alchemy was not practiced.

The task meant that both of the others were finished before he was, and so he nodded as they bid him farewell and headed out the door, leaving him, for the moment, to his own devices.

Sparrow dug her shoulder blades into the alley's masonry, hands planted palm-first against the crumbly surface, not-so subtly eyeing Rilien's shop from around the corner. She absently picked at the bricks, fingernails scraping between the cracks, mainly to keep herself from stepping out and bullying into the store, disturbing his work as she usually did. Over the last couple of days, she'd been trying to catch him doing something she was unaware of.

She couldn't honestly explain it, but there was a pull there, between them, and not in her direction. He hadn't been outright avoiding her, and there had been no odd, speculative conversation on either end, but here she was, eyebrows bunched, hiding in the shadows like a thief seeking purses to cut. Things were different between them, but not how she'd expected. Usually, it'd be all soft touches, lingering kisses, and whispers pressed against collar bones, necks, shoulders. Her expectations have become flight fancies, and she danced around them; foolishly.

She took another breath and crept closer to the mouth of the alleyway, careful not to trip over a snoring drunkard. Her heart skipped at an ugly, adamant rhythm. She had half the mind to slink back home, and wait there, instead of doing this, whatever this was. It felt foolish, being so easily bothered by an itch of a feeling. She'd wanted to consult Nostariel or Ashton, or both, but if she couldn't even sort her thoughts out, what would she ask them? If they'd known about anything Rilien might have been purposely hiding from her, wouldn't they have told her? She might've not proved very reliable over the years, but it was important. This was important. The gruff man snuffled loudly in response, rolling onto his side. It was. As soon as she saw the door swing open, she instinctively sank back against the brick wall, hissing softly.

What would she ask of him?

She tensed her shoulders and drew back her head, staring up at the tattered red cloth, flailing across the wooden parapet. Perhaps, he'd lead her somewhere. Perhaps, she'd get a better idea. Perhaps, this was nothing at all.

It was several more minutes before Rilien exited the shop, though it would have been ridiculous to assume he was unaware of her nearness. He knew the feel of her magic, and it was a thing he would never forget. There were several like that now, so customary to him that they had become unique, easily separable from the rest. Like a taste on the back of the tongue. He hadn’t exactly told her that this was how he was mysteriously able to find her when he needed to, however, so perhaps she was unaware that her attempt at subterfuge was destined to fail. He wondered what it was that she wanted—she would have simply approached him if there were nothing in particular on her mind.

Locking up the shop behind him for the moment, he tucked the bundle for delivery under his arm, turning right and stopping just in front of the alley she hid in, turning his head so that he was looking right at her, blinking slowly. Then he tilted his head slightly, and proceeded on his way. The implied question was obvious:

Are you coming, or not?

The slow trickle of unease became full-blown hair-prickling panic, for reasons she couldn't quite fathom, as Rilien approached her chosen hiding place. Not that it'd been that great of one, in the first place. She smoothed the wrinkles from her tunic with her hands, and sniffled softly, knuckling her nose while she conjured up some farfetched fable as to why she was here and not anywhere else. Sparrow stepped out of the alley as if she'd just been on some romantic, moonlit walk, and there, what a coincidence, was her dear old friend, blinking owlishly into the path she just happened to be walking down. She took a moment to look at him and tossed up her arms, dropping them back down in a dramatic flourish, “Oh, Ril! Fancy meeting you here, of all spots... well, I guess, your shop is there, isn't it? I was just going for a walk. Darktown gets stuffy sometimes. Must be the spores. And all the dust.”

She edged closer to him, chewing at the inside of her lip. Nothing was easy between them, not even frankness. She danced around subjects she believed held importance and he simply left her out of things that he deemed too dangerous. Sometimes, she even believed that she'd been the one leading them. She felt an awkward pull at her lips; a lacklustre nerve to continue pretending as if this entire escapade had been accidental. It wasn't as if she could very well follow him now, if he'd been going anywhere of note to begin with. She clinched her jaw and snatched a handful of his sleeve. Though, she did not pull or bully him in any specific direction. Merely walked alongside him. Mind whirring and working through proper conversation and not simply what are you hiding from me?

“So, what have you been doing lately?” Sparrow mused as nonchalantly as she could muster, “Seems like I haven't seen you around lately.” Which hadn't been exactly true, he'd been around. But there it was: a general unease, a prickling feeling crawling down her spine. It felt like the first time she'd seen Amalia in Kirkwall, like things wouldn't remain as they'd been before.

Rilien continued to walk forward in silence for a few moments after the question was asked, not appearing even slightly inconvenienced by Sparrow’s grip on his sleeve. Though… it was not like her to be so conscientious as to notice something of that kind. Usually she was much more self-absorbed, and scarcely noticed the frequency or lack of his comings and goings, or at least he had believed this. He was forced to entertain two possibilities, neither of which were particularly favorable: either she was more observant than he had believed of her, or else he was not nearly so subtle as he had taken himself to be. Given that he was generally accurate in his assessments of his own skill, he was left to conclude that he had, in some small way at least, misjudged her.

He had always known that she had a certain level of intuition, of course; it was what made her good enough with people to talk her way out of half the trouble she got herself into. The other half went away because it became his trouble. This was how they had operated, since first he ventured into Kirkwall, and found her squatting in what was legally his dwelling.

He did not look at her when he answered, no longer assuming that she would not see all the things he did not want her to know. What else might she have intuited? He didn’t think it was too much, but it was better to be cautious when one had the opportunity. "I have been doing what I always do. I enchant, I brew potions, and I lend my assistance in martial matters when it is requested of me. Of late, this has been more frequent.” It hadn’t. He’d just been spending his spare time differently. Specifically, not with her. All things must end. He, at least, had known that from the beginning. But perhaps he’d almost forgotten, somewhere in the middle.

Sparrow kept her head somewhat inclined and occasionally glanced at the point where Rilien's jaw met his hairline. It had grown longer over the years, falling past his shoulders. Like sheets of snow she'd once seen in her travels. Far longer than her own, though hers was now longer than it had ever been. These changes came to her in small, uneasy morsels. Hard to chew and harder still to swallow. She looked away and focused on their boots. On their unsynchronized footsteps.

It was not Kirkwall that caused these changes. Each person she had met here had dipped their fingers into her once-fluid life. She asserted her freedoms less now. She no longer disappeared when things did not suit her needs. Her course was much different now that she had found somewhere comfortable to perch. Her fingers crooked tighter until she had a fistful of loose fabric, and while she wished he would answer quickly lest she fill the silence with her own suspicions, Rilien's answers always came deliberately. Unhurried. Careful and impartial.

He had hidden things from her before. While his intentions had been to protect her from being devoured entirely, caused by her own missteps... the cave, and his sacrifices, came to mind in a sharp, vivid bloom. And she had barely noticed then. Everything he had already done. It had been already too late when they banished the demon from her body. Only then had the story tumbled out and she had learnt of the life he had willingly given up. A yoke of timeworn reproach bunched her eyebrows together. He had never sworn that he would not do the same sort of thing again. He had never sworn he wouldn't leave her out of future business if it meant keeping her out of danger. She doubted he ever would. Promises were made for trying to predict and rearrange multiple futures. He moved through them like a languid stream.

She exhaled sharply and rolled her eyes skyward. Of course, he was only working. She looked back down and chewed at the inside of her lip. Even if he was leaving out important details, sometimes falsehoods were easier to wash down. Apparently it had been nothing at all. Why had she come out here? “Ah, I see. You've been busy, then,” her fistful of fabric soothed itself back into crooked claw. Their lives intervened frequently, but he was not hers to hoard away. People were not things. A slight smile tugged at the corners of her lips, though her eyebrows remained drawn. Her fingers loosened as well and she finally let go of him, “I must've thought that... seems I was mistaken.”

Their steps, out of sync still, took them down one of the main staircases into Lowtown. Where once upon a time, Rilien would have adjusted his stride so as to match hers with little effort, he did not do so at present. Perhaps someone else wouldn’t have even noticed that he’d failed to do it. Perhaps someone else would have been doing it by instinct, and not be particularly concerned either way if instinct failed once or twice, or laughed and hitched awkwardly to fall back into time. But there was little about Rilien that was instinctual anymore, and what was wasn’t gentle things like this. He never failed to notice any of these little things, because noticing them, adjusting them, presenting himself in a deliberate fashion—these were the ways in which he could blend or not blend as he needed to, blur into a crowd or draw the eyes of an audience. Nothing he did lacked a reason, not even the things he didn’t do.

When they reached the bottom of the staircase, he at last looked at her, if only from the corner of an eye. "Everything changes, Sparrow. Nothing is immutable. Not even I.” He wondered if she understood what he was trying to convey to her. He wondered why he hadn’t the courage to just say it outright.

The silence stretched between them as they walked and no matter how much she wished to break it, Sparrow remained unusually silent. What more could she say? Admit that she had been snooping through his belongings and that she'd followed him this evening in hopes that she would catch him doing something she wanted to know about. Lowtown, Darktown, Kirkwall. Nobles, guards, and poor wretches. It almost felt like nothing changed even though so much had over the years. Even she had. Flighty as she was, birds did not usually stay in one place. In her youth, she would have scoffed at anything resolute, anything claiming sameness. Now, her talons found purchase in the people who surrounded her, and of course they would change, as she had. She ground her teeth together and focused on their boots. Once they reached the staircase she hopped ahead and took them two at a time.

She took in another deep breath through her nose. Crisp air. Different from Darktown's usual dust and dirt and musk. And while she did not want to look directly at him, Sparrow shifted when Rilien stopped walking and scrunched her eyebrows. She wasn't sure why, but the words he had chosen to say and the way he was saying them made her throat tighten, balling and bunching around angry words. She took another deep breath, and the air no longer felt crisp. “Immutable?” She parroted and threw her arms out wide. Her hands settled at her hips, dropped and curled into fists. There was a palpable divide between them, and as oblivious as she could be, she could feel it. “What are these changes, Ril? You... I haven't been... I'm not stupid. There's something you haven't told me.”

Just one thing? He wanted to ask it, just to see what she would do. But it was an impulsive thought, and he didn’t enjoy having those, much less did he give into them. No, there were many things he had not said, but most of them did not, could not, matter any longer. Rilien tipped his head up slightly, as if to take note of the jagged piece of sky framed in building roofs, awnings, and street-lamps, few and scattered as they were. "I will not be here forever, Sparrow.” It was strangely difficult, to push the words out with his breath, almost as if they had some mind of their own and did not wish to leave him. Not now, perhaps not ever. But they were the truth, and he had never, not at any point in his life, shied away from the truth, however brutal and unkind it really was.

"I will go back, one day. Back to Orlais. There are things that I must yet do.” He didn’t know how soon that day would be—even his clairvoyance was nothing supernatural. He didn’t know the day or the time, he only knew that it would happen. He read not portents, but people, perhaps the more reliable tell, in all honesty. "Debts that I must yet pay.” Ones that would not, as her debts, be absolved with a few sovereigns in the right grubby palms. "This, here, is what will change.” Whatever it rightfully was.

This was it.

She regretted voicing the question as soon as it tumbled from her lips. She hadn't truly wanted to know, after all. Especially if it confirmed what she feared most. Her world changing. In small increments, or in huge, quaking leaps. Nothing was immutable. That meant things would always change, didn't it? People always would. That's what he was saying. Everything shifted and changed and became much more than it had been initially. Circumstances, experiences, and time, may have changed her. But without him, where would she have ended up?

The false smile shifted from her lips, and curled back from her teeth. They ground together, biting back disappointment. Already, she felt the creeping discomfort of her throat tightening in a raw, throttling lump. Her heart was both a beast and its own gilded cage, and here she was, clawing and tearing against the changes she'd so admired as a young boy. She'd been fine with how things were now, so why then. Why wasn't he?

“Back to Orlais?” She echoed his words, because her own were bitter, tawdry things. Hitched, breathless, ugly. She repeated those words to make them tangible things. Real things. She pushed him. Not hard. And softer than she'd meant to. She had no other place to direct her kindling outrage. It bloomed, desperate and lost. Running away wouldn't solve anything and slinking back to the Hanged Man would only make her feel weak. Its comforts were only temporary. Even she knew that. “You're leaving. And so, what then, you weren't planning on telling me until you'd already left?” Her hands trembled—curled, unfurled, fists and empty hands. She fought the urge to bury them into the collar of his jacket. She could not shake the answers him. Wished she did not know them. Wished he did not answer. Wished she hadn't brought it up. Ignorance was bliss, always.

"I was going to tell you.” Rilien felt that, in this at least, he did not desire to be misinterpreted. "But not until it was simpler.” For her or for him—he found it surprisingly difficult to tell. He’d intended to be further along in this process, this slow detachment that he was very deliberately attempting. He would fade from her life, just as he had faded from others. He would take a small step back, and then another, and still more, until his absence felt more natural to her, to both of them, than his presence. And then he would tell her that he meant to leave for good. When any vehemence in her reaction would have been affected, or for show. When they were strangers again. But she was impatient, just as she always had been. And he—he found himself unable not to answer her.

She felt the muscles jumping along her jawline, and tried easing her expression to something resembling calm. Unbunching her eyebrows, settling her mouth into a straight line. Swallowing the injustices she clutched in her drubbing chest. It failed, miserably. Everything felt tense, discordant. “I can go too. I can go with you,” she tried again, softening her voice.

He tried, again, to imagine that. Parts of it were easy. Parts of her would go over relatively well in Orlais, where the flirting and the inelegant ease of her demeanor would have been amusing diversions. She would have been immediately underestimated, judged harmless, dismissed, or perhaps on the occasion even indulged. But those were only parts of her, and in the end, he knew that the Game would tear her apart. If not because someone falsely perceived threat in her, then because someone correctly perceived threat in him. The innocent were never spared, in his world.

"No.”

Simpler he'd said. She clutched a hand to her stomach, swilling as it was, and bunched her hand into a fist of loose fabric. She snorted in disbelief. Simple had never applied to them in the first place. It was a luxury they'd never been able to afford. Never allowed to have. What with them being so different—Rilien, someone who harboured a remote stillness, and impenetrable principles, was still somehow capable of changing worlds, hers especially. She was a creature of habits, rejecting shifts as stubbornly as a child would. She wanted to say fuck those promises, and all those debts he might have owed in Orlais. Why did they matter now? Shedding her own personal responsibilities had been easier than removing a particularly grimy coat. He was telling her that he could not. And here, lied their differences.

Sparrow wanted to stomp her feet and continue pushing him until he relented. She wanted to raise her voice and become heard. She wanted to scream to drown out his no. She wanted to tear down his convictions, and all the commitments he'd made before coming to Kirkwall. Swallow them both whole. She wanted to tether them down. Beg on her jellied knees, curse and swear and bleat about the unfairness of it all. Instead, she stared at him and dropped her hand back to her side. Hadn't he promised her? No. She fought against the quibbling of her lip and drew her eyebrows tighter, centring herself around the bloom of anger in the pit of her belly. No. And even though she'd already been given the answer, and knew it would remain the same, she tried again.

“Forget those debts. Stay here.”

Rilien drew to a halt, exhaling softly, bringing himself to face her with what seemed almost to be the faintest trace of reluctance. He was long past the point of feeling nothing when it came to the people in his life that called themselves his friends, after all, even if he never did say it as such. Even if he demonstrated it only seldom, and most often with actions rather than words or even expressions. What could such emotions mean to him, after all? He would never feel them in a way that she or anyone else would recognize or understand. He was resigned to being alone in this respect, caught between a man and the shell of that man, neither quite Tranquil nor even close to being whole.

Didn’t she see that his actions, his promises, his debts, that these were all of his former self he had left? Doing had to stand in for feeling, where he was concerned. Gratitude, obligation, friendship, love: these could only be in the things he did, because he was too empty everywhere else. His heart wasn’t porous enough to soak in and hold all the sentiments hers or anyone else’s did. It was just an empty cavern, filled only with echoes of what had once been. He could not abandon these things, he could not stand by and refuse to act when he would be useful, needed, or necessary. He could not stay here, in comfort and idleness, when people he had known would be helped by his presence elsewhere. It wasn’t in him. So little really was.

He shook his head faintly, reaching out to place a hand on the crown of her head. She didn’t need him, not really. She could go, do, be wherever and whatever she wanted. Her attachment to him would fade in time, as would his attachment to her. That, he believed, would be for the best. He belonged where she could not go. They were antithetical to one another, really, and for a time, that had been to mutual benefit. But it would not be so for much longer, and they both had to accept that.

Softly, his fingers moved through her hair, as if to smooth away the ruffled evidence of her earlier distress. Current distress, even—that he was bereft didn’t mean he could not identify it in another. "I will not.” Rilien’s eyes softened, just a bit. "And if that upsets you… I am sorry.” He hadn’t meant to make himself irreplaceable to anyone, and he did not believe, in the end, that he had. She would discover that, too, eventually.

It was strange how much had changed over the years. He might have thought that this was inevitable. Perhaps, for far longer than she had dared to imagine. That this was an inescapable necessity: this parting of theirs. In days gone past, it had been Sparrow who frequently left. Whether it was after weapon-wielding misadventures, or even, after lingering long enough to form friendships she was destined to ruin. After friendly drinks in dingy taverns or nights spent in the warmth of someone's bedroom. Cold arms, cold pillows. A long list of meaningless, forgettable bodies. And then, came the one who's not meaningless, and not forgettable in the least. Perhaps, she had always known that he would be the one to leave her in this mutual exchange and admitting it had been too terrible a consideration.

Sparrow stood still, tensing her shoulders and neck, as if any sudden movements would shatter and destroy her efforts to keep him stationary. As if it would make any difference. She knew better. She understood him better than that. The tangled knot in her throat tightened as his hand settled across her head. All these years, she had been the one anchored in place, and she wanted everything to remain as it was, as it had always been.The indignant storm brewing behind her eyelids flickered and swam and threatened to expose her as vulnerable, weak woman. What would she do without him? It had never been possibility: an idea, a fleeting thought, a future she imagined. He was not a random, meaningless body occupying the spaces of her life. Not a flickering candle. Not disposable. His existence would matter to her.

She exhaled sharply, breathless. She was brighter and louder against his fluctuating monochrome. Even after everything they'd been through—he would not move, he would not relent, he would not stay with her. Sparrow caught his hand in her own and slowly pulled it against her cheek, tipping her nose under his palm. Cold. His hands were cold. She took a tentative step forward and pulled his arm down, dipping him low enough to crane her head against the side of his neck. What she wanted could never be, she'd known that, once. She focused on the nearest building and cocked her head to the side, “After all these years, you know nothing.” A soft, solemn whisper. There was a pause, and her voice shifted, losing it's edge, “I love you.”

It would not be enough. Drifting away from him, Sparrow released his hands, his arm and neck and stepped backwards. She refused to become a vulnerable, weak woman. Bullshit, she'd wanted to scream. She wanted to call him a liar. Scrape up words he may have used to appease her. She refused to meet his eyes, because she felt her own swimming. Instead, she fled back the way they'd walked.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

Nostariel saw the last of the patients off for the day, afterwards raising her arms towards the ceiling and sighing when she heard—and felt—several of her vertebrae pop back into proper alignment. She was glad all her time with Amalia had made her more aware of her own bodily condition; ironically enough, being a healer didn’t mean she could always tell when she needed to fix something about her own body. Treading lightly to the front of the shop, she moved the door half-open, just enough to grab her mail and bring it back inside, waving briefly to Aurora, who was using the unseasonably warm day to prep the clinic’s front garden for spring, tilling the soil and pulling the dead weeds left over from the early part of winter.

She had a letter from Sarra, which was nice—she’d set that aside to answer later. The rest of it appeared to be uninteresting, but the last thing was more official-looking than most of what she received. At first, she wondered if it might not be from Stroud; she hadn’t expected him to get back to her quite so soon, but he was usually quite prompt. The seal wasn’t a Warden one, though. Rather than blue, it appeared to be a bright red, a sigil pressed into it that she didn’t recognize.

After opening it and scanning it over, she wondered if someone might not have intended to send this to Lucien rather than herself—it seemed like the kind of job one would give to a mercenary company, save that it was penned in great haste. Perhaps she’d received it simply because she was a Warden, known for being able to act quickly and without any sort of authorization from local government? Well, she supposed it didn’t really matter why Lord Reginald Thaddeus Spincter had sent it to her rather than someone else; the important part was that she could, and would, assist. Perhaps not alone, though.

Since the matter was of some urgency, Nostariel buckled on her leathers immediately, taking up her mother’s staff in one hand and slinging Oathkeeper over her back, along with a quiver of arrows. Locking up behind herself this time, she approached her friend. “Aurora? I don’t suppose I could have the rest of your afternoon, could I? I just received this letter from a nobleman of some kind. He claims his daughter’s been kidnapped and taken out to the Coast by bandits. It seems urgent, so I was going to go see if I could find her now.”

Aurora straightened and brushed the sweat from her brow, leaning against the hoe in her hands as she listened to Nostariel. "Are they expecting a ransom?" she asked with a slight downturn of her lip. She then shrugged, as she figured that it didn't really matter in the end. Whatever they was expecting, it probably certainly wasn't a pair of mages. She swung the hoe over her shoulder and let it rest there and placed her other hand on her hip. "Doesn't matter," she said, waving off the previous comment, "I had nothing else planned today, and these weeds will keep another day," she added, suspiciously eyeing the one at her feet.

"To the Coast then?"

Nostariel nodded, and the two of them were off at a brisk pace. She still wasn’t sure what kind of father sent a letter to a complete stranger instead of going to the guard or mercenaries, but hopefully they’d be fast enough to help the man’s daughter in any case. As they were passing outside the city limits, Nostariel ventured a question, keeping her eyes on the landscape for any telltale signs of the bandits they were looking for. “Is Pike still with you?” Of course, by “you,” she referred to the underground generally, but Aurora was in charge of the group, to some degree. “I recall something about him coming to the clinic to help, but he hasn’t shown up.” Not that she minded, if it wasn’t something he wanted to do or felt safe enough doing. She was simply checking to make sure.

There was a long sigh before she answered, and when she did it was clear that she was having difficulties putting it the politest way she could. "He is, but he's a... handful," Aurora said, shaking her head. "I'm not surprised, he's too wound up being angry to try and make things better by actually helping," she added. He had been among the mages that were present when a few of them, including Milly, had been tranquiled by a rogue sect of Templars. Such an experience had soured his view on not only the Templars, but even those sympathetic to them, at least, that's what Aurora figured.

It wasn't only that, however. "He also doesn't like to listen. He'll hear what you have to say and then continue on like you didn't say anything. He doesn't even try to absorb the lessons we teach," she continued, rubbing her brow. Instead of learning the control and focus she preached, he wanted to be a better mage by learning more powerful spells-- something Aurora decided wasn't in his best interests.

"I'm worried for him, but I'm more worried for the other mages. He was in the Circle, and he was one of the first mages I found for the Underground. They look up to him and... I just don't know. He's growing more and more hostile by the day. I'm worried he'll do something foolish"

Aurora grew grim and shook her head, clearly at a loss for what she should do about him. "If he keeps this up, I won't have a choice. I'll have to let him go. I would hate to do it, but I have more people to look after than just him. I have to think of the rest. If he was to do something rash and lead the Templars back to us... It wasn't supposed to be this difficult," She said with a dry chuckle. Oh no, she was to gather a few of the mages, teach them how to defend and control themselves so that the Templars wouldn't have to do it for them. Warn them against the dangers of letting themselves to succumb to the demons, and teach them how to be strong. Not look after one man like he was an unruly child.

"That's my life, but you probably have your own worries. Like planning for a wedding," Aurora said with a coy smile. "Well, how about it? Nervous? Anxious? Giddy?" she asked with a laugh.

Nostariel smiled slightly, her expression still tinged with a little worry for Aurora’s situation. Then again, she knew that her friend had better people to ask advice from then her, if she were really in need of it. So Nostariel endeavored to be sympathetic as possible, while giving Aurora her space to make the decision. The change of topic, she accepted easily enough, though not before she paused at one of the many forking paths on the coast, and chose to take them deeper in, away from the water itself. “It’s… well, there’s not a lot to it, really. It’s not like we’re nobles. Honestly, the Chantry won’t even recognize it. There won’t be any official documentation or anything, but…” She sighed ruefully, and her smile softened.

“But it will matter to us, and that’s the important thing. Actually…” She trailed off for a moment, turning momentarily as if to study Aurora. “I’ve been thinking that my half the wedding party should wear shades of blue or green. Which would you prefer?”

"Hmm," Aurora hummed, shifting the shoulder the hoe occupied. It was no staff by any means, but it'd hurt all the same if a bandit or two was struck by it. "Personally? Let's see. Blue would pop more because of this," she said, using her free hand to press against her crimson hair, "But then again, I think green would match my eyes. Maybe green? The only one who should pop is you," she said with a smile. "It is your day, after all. If you wanted me in dotted stripes, I'd do it," she said with a chuckle, "Though afterwards we'd have to have a discussion about your tastes."

Nostariel laughed softly, crinkles forming at the corners of her eyes. “If you say so.”

The conversation, however, was cut short when they came across something that Nostariel, at least, had not thought to see. There was a woman there, bound at the hands and feet, but surrounded by what appeared to be dead bandits. Nostariel’s eyes went wide, and she approached the scene carefully, kneeling beside the woman. “Orlanna?” The woman, of middle height and with dark brown hair, nodded several times, stopped from speaking by what looked to be a gag.

Nostariel made sort work of that, and Orlanna released a relieved sigh when it was gone. “Oh, thank you very much. I wasn’t sure how I was going to get out of this all.” She smiled gratefully, seeming rather less afraid than Nostariel would have guessed she’d be.

“Forgive me for asking, but… what exactly happened here?” It was clear enough that Orlanna hadn’t killed the bandits. Actually… it looked a lot like they’d killed one another.

“It was a man. He came to me in a dream.” Orlanna sounded vaguely starstruck, and for a moment, Nostariel wondered if her time in captivity had gone to her head. “He said not to worry, that everything would be all right. Feynriel, his name was. And when I woke up, all the bandits were dead.” Nostariel had basically stopped listening after the name Feynriel, her eyes wide. Could it really be…?

"Feynriel?" Aurora repeated, similarly in surprise. She shifted from the woman to take another look at the bandits that lay dead around them. If it was truly his doing then... "Shh," Aurora hushed as she held up a hand. Once quietened, the distant sound of jiggling metal and dull thumps of feet hitting the sand could be heard over the ambient din of the Coast. "Friends of theirs?" Aurora asked, nodding toward the dead bandits. Flipping the hoe off of her shoulder and letting the back of the bladed edge rest against the sand, Aurora turned toward Orlanna and gestured toward Nostariel, "Stay behind her."

Soon the first of the other bandits crested the ridge that led toward them. Aurora shifted to her right and thrust her hand forward, a lightning bolt shot through the air and struck the first bandit unlucky enough to fall within her sights, as well as those near enough to be caught in its arc. It wasn't immediately fatal, but it would stun those few long enough for her to close the distance. She darted off to the side to allow Nostariel an unimpeded sightline, the hoe trailing behind her and her free hand still crackling with electricity.

While Aurora might have decided to conduct the day’s fighting with the assistance of gardening implements, Nostariel decided to keep her own choices a little more conventional. Since the staff was already in her hand, she led with that, launching a large burst of ice for the left flank of the incoming bandits, taking a few steps forward so as to give herself room to move around while still shielding Orlanna from anything incoming. Fortunately, it looked like the archers among the group were few.

One her spell hit the ground, a frost wall bloomed where it had hit, ensnaring the legs of several of the bandits and preventing any of the others from spreading out in that direction. Keeping them grouped up would make them easier for Aurora to manage, and Nostariel took to singling out those who’d remained behind, with the intent of shooting arrows from the high ground. Swinging the staff outwards, she let fly a quick succession of fireballs from the ends, disrupting the first of the three as he tried to take aim. The second and third took a chain lightning to the chest and side, respectively.

The backside of Aurora's hoe struck hard against the torso of the first bandit, crumpling him into himself. She brought it back up in time to catch the sword of the next bandit, and let it slide the length of the haft until it caught against the blade, and then buried that blade into the sand. With his sword and arm momentarily occupied, she took a step forward and took her hand off of the hoe and drove an electrified fist into his chest. The shock caused his heart to skip a beat or two and locked him up, causing him to stiffen and fall backward.

Aurora proceeded to rip the hoe out of the sand and swing it overhead to drive the back of it into the shoulder of the next one. A pop and a yelp of pain followed, likely due the breakage of the collar bone. The bandit dropped her weapon out of pain and was helpless as Aurora dropped low and rose with an electric uppercut to the solar plexus, dropping her as well. The next bandit saw all of it happen and was ready when Aurora turned toward him. She barely had enough time to throw the hoe up to block the incoming mace, though it did little more than slow the brunt of it as the hoe snapped in half, leaving her to tip backward in order to escape being brained by it.

Tossing the broke hoe away, Aurora flicked both hands and engulfed them both in a arcing light as her hair began to stand on end due to the stored electrical charge.

It didn’t take much longer than another minute or so for the rest of the bandits to fall under the combined onslaught of two experienced mages, and by the end of it, Orlanna was looking faintly green. Then again, Nostariel supposed she’d been through a lot. Dusting off her hands, the Grey Warden smiled gently at the younger woman. “Are you all right?”

Orlanna, admirably enough, straightened her posture and nodded. “Yes. Yes, I think so. Thank you both. I just… well, I wish I could thank Feynriel, too. Do you think that if I dream again, I could see him?”

Nostariel pursed her lips together, considering the answer for a while. “I’m not sure, but I suspect that if he knew you wanted to thank him, he would find you again. As it happens, I know Feynriel, so… if you would perhaps like to write him a letter, I’ll do my best to see that it gets to him.” It shouldn’t be too hard to locate him, if she used the right connections to do it. He’d written her once, about half a year ago, but she wasn’t sure if the return address was still correct, considering she hadn’t heard from him since. Either way, it was nice to know that he was learning to make use of his peculiar abilities. She wondered if there were any other dreamers in Tevinter. Perhaps there were still one or two; if so, he was likely getting the best instruction possible.

“That would be wonderful!” Orlanna smiled broadly, and Nostariel nodded.

“All right. In that case, let’s get you back to Kirkwall. Your family will want to know that you’re safe.”

"A shame the same could not be said about this guy," Aurora said, walking up with the two pieces of the hoe in her hands. "You think... Her father would be kind enough to replace it?" she asked tentatively.

Setting

5 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

It was a pleasant sunny afternoon. While winter had not yet fully turned to spring, the wind lacked its usual bite. Many in Kirkwall had taken the opportunity to venture into the streets and enjoy the fresh air. Instead of the usual captain's plate Ashton was found in frequently, he instead opted for his usual outfit with a light coat to ward off the chill in the air. He had taken the afternoon off away from the barracks, leaving command in Vesper's capable hands. In fact, crime had been down recently, though he attributed it more to the chilly weather than any of their deeds. Gang activity was down, however, due in part to his efforts to break their hold on the city. Also, having arrested two of the former heads of the Coterie helped.

Ashton sat on the first step on the flight of stairs that led up to Hightown from Lowtown, picking his fingernails with one of the knives he carried with him. It was clear that he was waiting for someone, and it wasn't at all hard to guess who. He had taken the afternoon off so that both Nostariel and he could go through and plan a majority of their wedding. For some things, they would have to call in some favors from a few of their friends, and he intended to see them before the day was out.

He wore smile with those thoughts in his head. It all felt so ethereal; he couldn't hardly believe that he was to be married soon, else he might've felt a little nervous. Instead, he was the happiest he'd been in a long while. True, his life was no fairy tale, but this part certainly felt like it. He crossed his leg over the opposite knee and peered up, scanning for Nostariel.

“You’re going to stab your fingers one day if you keep using a knife to do that.” As it happened, the voice came from behind him, Nostariel approaching from Hightown. She’d had a little last-minute business to see to there, so she’d taken care of it before coming to meet Ashton. Descending the last few steps so she was standing on the same one he sat upon, she let a hand fall naturally to his shoulder, then leaned down to kiss him by way of greeting, smiling fondly as she straightened back out.

“Have you ever been to a wedding? Because I confess I have no idea what I’m doing.” There weren’t a whole lot of married Wardens, and Templars tended to heavily discourage the practice in mages, too. Some of them did it anyway, but they certainly didn’t hold ceremonies of any kind, usually just saying a few words in the circle’s chapel. That part, the Chantry part, was one they wouldn’t even have access to, so even her limited knowledge was essentially useless.

"It'll be fine, I'm sure," Ashton said, sliding the knife back into its sheath in his belt. "Haven't lost them yet, though not for lack of trying," he added as he stood. It was then his turn to lean down and return her kiss. Ashton then pondered the question posed, crossing his arms and scratching what little fuzz he had on his chin. "Not very many, but a few. They weren't extravagant affairs by any means, just a little get-together of family and friends," he said. Though they lived out in the woods of Northern Ferelden, there had been others, and there had been a few weddings among them. It certainly wasn't a city wedding.

Then he smiled and wrapped his arm around her shoulder, "Then you have your fairy tale weddings," he added, stretching a hand out in front of them both, "With princes, fairies, singing birds, and talking animals... Though I'm no prince, and finding a fairy to do the services will be difficult... To put it mildly. Fortunately, we do have a Sparrow, and I bet it wouldn't be too hard to get her to sing. If we would want her to is another matter entirely..." Ashton said, trailing off and chuckling.

He let his arm slide down hers until he grabbed her hand and held it. "Still, I think we can make do with what we have. What do you think of asking Lucien to officiate? Then I thought we'd ask Amalia to do the music for us. See if Aurora would pick out the flower arrangement," he said, having clearly put a lot of thought into the whole thing. He'd also have to run by and see if Ithilian and Rilien would stand with him, but that was something he'd do on his own.

Nostariel nodded, already feeling that this was going to be a much more complicated matter than she’d intended. Still, at least all the requests would be made of their friends—hopefully that would contribute to a cozier, more close-knit atmosphere. “That all sounds good to me.”




Which was how, about ten minutes later, they found themselves walking into the Lions’ barracks. If Lucien wasn’t there, someone there would know where he was. The benefits of knowing responsible people, she supposed. After inquiring of one of the other mercenaries, they were led back into his office and permitted to just walk right in, which they did.

“Good afternoon, Lucien.”

Lucien looked up from his desk, grinning slightly at his friends. It was had not to see how happy they were, even in the way they held themselves. A small part of him was envious, it was true, but more than anything, he was just happy for them. They had not made it to this point without tribulation. “Nostariel, Ashton… it is good to see you. Is there something I can help you with, or is this a social call?” He wouldn’t mind either way, of course.

Nostariel glanced over at Ashton for a moment, then returned her eyes to Lucien. “We’re… actually here to ask a favor. Sort of an important one, but fortunately not at all dangerous, for once.” She smiled, her nose crinkling slightly with her mirth. “As you know, we’re getting married. But well… it’s not exactly Chantry-endorsed, and so we’re in need of someone to officiate. We were hoping you’d be willing to do that.”

For a long moment, Lucien was silent, his lips parted as though he’d been about to say something, but had lost his grip on the thought. He blinked a few times. “I… I would be honored to do that. I don’t have any particular authority to conduct such ceremonies, nor experience, but if I’m really the person you want doing this, I gladly accept. Do you have a particular date in mind?”

Ashton was the next to speak. "In the spring, when it's not too cold, the leaves are back on the trees and the flowers are blooming again. That's romantic, right?" He asked with glance at Nostariel, a smile at his lips. "Don't worry about whether or not you have the authority, you've been a good friend to us both and that's reason enough."

Lucien huffed softly, his amusement clear, though it didn’t quite break the gravitas of what he felt he was being entrusted with here. Perhaps he was thinking too much of it, but better that than taking it too lightly. “If I may presume so far… if you don’t have a venue for the celebrations afterwards, I’d be happy to offer the main hall.” He nodded towards his office door, beyond which lay a short passageway and then the large entrance hall and common room of the barracks. “It’s nothing terribly elegant, but it’s a large space, and of course you wouldn’t have to worry about paying to rent it or being…” he paused to find the right phrasing, bothered by any less-understanding members of the populace.”

“That would be very nice, actually.” Nostariel had no particular need of the fancy or the ornate, and she knew this was something she shared with Ashton. It was more important that the celebration be held in a place where someone from any part of the city, from Hightown to the Darktown, could feel comfortable and welcome. They did have a diverse group of friends, after all.

“Thank you, Lucien. We really appreciate this.”




Another twenty or so minutes later led them to a familiar door in the Alienage. A few of the elves had given Ashton odd looks on their way to Amalia's home, but nothing more and they never lasted for long. Usually when they saw Nostariel beside him, arm-in-arm, they dropped it and went about their business. He issued several knocks on Amalia's door before he stepped back and waited for her to appear.

Once the door opened, Ashton smiled brightly and waved, "Hello there. Good afternoon Amalia."

Amalia’s brows drew together briefly upon discerning the identity of her guests, but in the end, she simply shook her head slightly and opened the door wider to admit them, treading back to the center room and taking a seat on one of the cushions. With a gesture, she invited them both to do the same. A young elven boy, no more than seven or eight, was busy playing with what appeared to be a small set of wooden figurines, one of them a halla, though its antlers were a bit misshapen. He didn’t even spare them a glance.

“This has something to do with your impending matrimony,” she deduced, having no other readily-available reason why they would approach her together at this point in time. Nostariel, she might have received alone on occasion, but she’d had only the most cursory of interactions with Ashton, due in part to the fact that she spent most of her time in the Alienage. Of course, knowing this much didn’t mean she had any idea why they were here, really.

Nostariel, by this point well used to Amalia’s brisk demeanor, only smiled, readily accepting a floor-cushion to seat herself on and folding her legs underneath her, smoothing the fabric of her tan trousers and resting her hands on her knees. “It does. I’ve never been to one, but I’m told weddings generally involve some sort of music, and dancing. Ash suggested—and I agree—that we’d really appreciate it if you would be willing to provide the music. Of course, you’re still invited even if you don’t want to, but we’re trying to keep everything mostly to people we know.”

Amalia tilted her head to the side, considering this for a moment. “I am hardly an entire orchestra, but I will do this.” She paused a moment, as though contemplating something, her expression slightly troubled. “I believe the customary phrase here is congratulations.” A flicker of a smile crossed her face, something in her eyes softening just a little as he recalled a previous conversation, but she chose not to enlighten her guests.

Ashton was still surprised by Amalia's briskness, though it didn't show on his face, and soon even he forgot about it. "Thank you," Ashton said, tilting his head in gratitude. Then his face lit up with an idea, and he continued, "Oh! And when you see Sparrow, tell her to come see me. I think I have a little job for her too," he said with a little wink to Nostariel. "We need a flower girl, right?" he said with a small laugh. He then stood, and offered Nostariel a hand to do them same.

"Again, thank you Amalia. It means a lot to us," he said with a smile.




The last stop for the day was Aurora’s, and since she wasn’t in either the Alienage or the clinic garden, Nostariel knew she was probably either at home or with the underground. It was better to check her home first, and come back later if she didn’t happen to be there. She didn’t want to accidentally alarm any of the other mages by bringing a guard out to the practice area, and it was probably best if Ash could truthfully claim ignorance as to any of the underground’s members or meeting places. So she knocked on the front door of Aurora’s home, her free hand holding a small box of cookies. She’d been unable to resist a quick stop at the bakery on the way over, and she had a feeling her friend would appreciate a few herself.

When it turned out that Aurora was indeed home, Nostariel and Ashton stepped inside, the former extending the box. “Brought you something. I promise it’s not a bribe. Unless you want to consider it one, I suppose.”

Aurora peered into the box inquisitively, her hand slowly inching towards it before pausing for a moment. "A bribe?" she asked, a brow of hers raised. Her gaze darted between the box, Nostariel, and Ashton before ending back on the box, her hand resuming its path toward it. "For... What?" she asked tentatively, finally reaching into the box. "Is there a problem we need to fix? Find someone or stop something?" she asked, retrieving about three cookies from the box.

The question caused Ashton to laugh out loud before deciding that it was a fair one. They did tend to ask those sort of favors from each other. Shaking his head, he waved it off and said, "No, not this time, thank the Maker. There's always tomorrow, but not today. Today is something far more cheerful, and a lot more fun," he said. "We are in dire need of your horticultural expertise for the wedding. Someone has to arrange the flowers and make Nos's bouquet. Sounds like something you can do?" He asked.

Aurora was part way through the first cookie when she looked at them with wide eyes. "Oh. That is a lot more cheerful," she said, the smile in her lips widening. "Uh, yeah, yeah. No problem. I'll... I'll find the seeds and have them planted the moment the weather is right-- I have time right? They'll take a few weeks to come in, but they'll be the brightest and best, I'll promise you that. This is..." she trailed off, her gaze going askew for a moment. But when it returned to them, she wore a big smile. "By the way. Congratulations. Both of you."

Nostariel smiled right back. “Thank you, Aurora. I’m sure there will be plenty of time, and I trust the matter to you entirely.”

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK


Amalia shut the door behind her, blocking out some of the wind, and pushed her hood down onto her shoulders. Winter was slowly giving way to spring in Kirkwall, which meant that people, including the Alienage residents, were venturing out of doors more often. At present, everyone the Hahren had moved in with her was elsewhere, save the one he’d allowed in at her personal request.

The truth was, she almost hadn’t wanted to make the request—while by this point, her presence was readily accepted and to some extent even welcomed in the Alienage, and there were occasional human visitors, like Aurora or members of the Lions, that the residents knew not to fear, it wasn’t like humans, or those perceived as human, lived here often. But Sparrow had begged asylum for some reason, and Amalia, with great reservation, had granted it. Not before talking it over with the Hahren, of course, but she expected that he wouldn’t have turned her down even if he’d really wanted to. Half an elf Sparrow may be, but to everyone here, that just meant human. Ironically, Amalia suspected that her oldest friend read as more human than she did, despite her elven mother, because she was so obviously an outsider to this part of town.

Once, it would have been of no consequence to Amalia, but she did care about the comfort and safety of the people living here, and she’d had to weigh it carefully against opening her home to Sparrow. In the end, though, she’d done it—if only after extracting a vow from her that she would not disturb anyone here. If she wanted to carouse and philander and make a nuisance of herself, she was welcome to, but not here and not in such a way that anyone would track her here for any kind of confrontation. Those were the terms.

Of course, despite the sternness of her injunctions against reckless or selfish behavior, Amalia hadn’t missed the current state of her friend’s despondency, obvious as she was being about it. Maybe not to everyone, but it was obvious to her. She even had a decent guess as to the cause, though it wasn’t until she’d paid a visit to Rilien’s storefront that she learned the story in full. Sparrow was, to the nearest approximation she could be, heartsick. It was an emotion that Amalia had experienced before as well, if for different reasons.

Depositing the coinpurse full of her month’s profits onto the sleeping mat within her room, Amalia emerged back into the common space, hooking the iron pot filled with snowmelt over the fireplace. Then she walked herself to the tiny room Sparrow occupied and knocked her fist against the door, loudly enough to be sure she could not be ignored. “Sparrow, I am making tea. Join me, please.” Though it sounded mostly like a request, it was probably also a command, all things considered. Amalia didn’t believe in moping or shutting out the world. She’d never found it to her liking on the few occasions she’d tried, and it was not an attitude she could long sustain.

Leaving the doorway, she headed back into the common room, taking down her canister of tea and the ceramics required for the brewing process, busying her hands with familiar work.

Why had she come here of all places? Admittedly, she'd sought sanctum in other places. As much as she wanted to slink and sulk in Ashton's home, she'd lingered beneath his balcony long enough to realize that he might agree with Rilien. Might send her packing before she could assimilate what had happened. Or else, he would seek out Rilien directly and organize some sort of shame-faced encounter. Not now. She could not bear it. Aurora had been a viable option. She would have wanted to help solve her problems, when there were no solutions. She had too much on her plate already. Dealing with their little mage-group, and keeping them out of trouble. Mostly, she hadn't wanted to destroy the smirking, bright-eyed version of Sparrow she'd come to know. There was comfort in normalcy.

Everyone else seemed far too busy. Far too involved. She needed a silent companion. Someone who would not question her weakness. When Amalia hadn't hastily turned her away, chastising her for being so foolish, Sparrow had been surprised most of all. She hadn't known what to expect. Hadn't even prepared herself for a possible yes. Their relationship remained lukewarm at best, and as much as they had come to resolve, the familiar twang of remorse prospered. She still counted Amalia as a close friend. Someone who would always know best. Staying in Kirkwall for as long as she had was, perhaps, the greatest change of all.

After being subjugated to an impressively lengthy, drawn-out lecture, ending in a solemn pledge that she would not cause anyone trouble while she stayed in her household, it reminded her of being put in Amalia's care as children. She hadn't been customary Qunari material when she'd been rescued, and she doubted it had been any easier dealing with her then as it was now. She promised she wouldn't do anyone any harm. Or cause any trouble. Easy enough. Since, she kept herself cooped up in the room she'd been allowed to use. For the time being. Nothing was immutable. Immutable. It even sounded like an ugly word.

She puzzled over the meaning of his words. Searched for loopholes, or further deceptions. Any possible way she might be able to spirit away with him when the time came to see him off. In her allotted chamber, of course. She lie sprawled across her bed, searching the ceiling for answers. None came. Not that she expected to find any answers here. She didn't want to hear them, anyhow, if it wasn't in correlation with what she wanted.

Pursing her lips, Sparrow hissed an angry sigh through her teeth and scratched at her scalp. Feeding the pain she felt in order to make it real, instead of purely emotional. She stopped when she heard someone... Amalia, knocking at the door. Clearly, not a polite request. Withholding the urge to groan, she shifted up and slipped back to her feet. Tea, now. Brood, later.

Slinking out of her bedchamber, Sparrow stomped down the hallway towards the sound of familiar movement. She ignored the equally familiar leer of unease, swallowed it down under a sour grin. Everything felt off-kilter. Strange and monochrome. She took up residency in the nearest chair and tapped her hands across the wooden grains of the table, unsure where to settle them. It took her a few moments to raise her eyebrows, and her gaze, before sniffling an off-handed, “You need help with that?”

“No.” Amalia’s reply was quiet, almost soft, as she finished preparing the tea. It was a set of motions old and familiar to her, something remembered from the very earliest days of her ability to remember anything at all. She would serve her Tamassran teachers like this. The scent of the spiced tea was both present and past, a memory manifesting in the moment. She wondered if Sparrow remembered it the same way. She wasn’t sure she’d ever been asked to serve it, but Amalia could definitely remember partaking with her, back when things were different. Even someone as practical as she was could keep around such a nostalgic thing, it seemed. Perhaps she had always been more sentimental than she believed.

Setting Sparrow’s simple, unhandled cup in front of her, Amalia set another in front of herself and poured for them both, settling back into a lotus position, which was more comfortable to her than sitting otherwise. She picked up her tea and studied Sparrow over the rim of the vessel it was in, her scrutiny initially silent. Far from causing trouble to the Alienage, Sparrow hadn’t even left her room in days, and it was clear enough to Amalia that she was sulking. Perhaps it was understandable though. Amalia knew little of heartache—but not nothing—but it seemed the kind of thing that caused this, even in stronger-willed individuals.

“I… do not know how much difference it will make in this case,” Amalia began, her words spoken with a sort of wary thoughtfulness, “but I have learned that pain shared is more easily overcome. If you wish, you may tell me of yours.” She doubted there was anything she could do about any of it, but perhaps listening would be sufficient for now.

No. Supposed she expected the answer before she'd even responded. Even as children, Amalia enjoyed doing things on her own, rather than allow her to muss it all up. Perhaps, she'd been allowed to do it once, and broke a cup or ruined the tea itself. Possibly, many cups. It wouldn't have surprised her if the memory eluded her. She shrugged her shoulders. There was a small measure of relief for not being asked to leave her seat. She knew nothing about tea-brewing or crafting or whatever she was doing over there, shuffling canisters around and pinching spices between her fingertips. It might've been witchcraft for all she knew. But the smell was one she recognized; deep and rich as it was, wafting throughout the entire common room. It reminded her of home, even if she'd been the one to leave it all behind. It did not belong to her anymore.

As soon as Amalia settled the steaming cup in front of her, Sparrow found comfort in placing her hands around it. Warmth spread across the palm of her hands. Far too hot to drink from, and nearly scalding to the touch, she did not pull her hands away. Discomfort grounded her where little else would. This was how things were. She had not slunk home to Darktown. She was not home. This was how things were now. She met Amalia's eyes briefly and turned away to study her own fingernails, and the tea swilling with loose leaves. It was not her scrutiny that cowed her, but the fact that she had nothing more to say. Silence was deceivingly deliberate, and small talk seemed cheap and out of place. She'd never liked it, anyhow.

And yet, Amalia had been the one to break it. She dipped her head lower and blew across the surface of her tea. Watched as ripples formed and disappeared, leaving nothing in their wake, and wondered absently if that was what they were. Unimportant, disappearing ripples. She'd never been known for thoughts deeper than goblets spilling over with cheap ale and nights spent wobbling in the streets or swinging her mace around, but this, this was unusual enough to mull over. A squeamish, cowardly jest bubbled to the forefront, and shortly died before slipping past her lips. She would know better. Pain shared is more easily overcome? It was a concept she wasn't familiar with.

“I thought before, that there wasn't anything I couldn't change,” Sparrow flicked at the corner of her cup, causing more ripples. Changes were necessary. Everything she'd ever known had changed. In increments, in startling dives, “but in this place, there's no end to them. You and I, and everyone else we know have changed. Some for the better, I understand that much. But I thought that he wouldn't. I wanted him to stay, I need him to. How foolish is that? He said he goes where I cannot follow. How could he decide that for me.” Her sour grin faltered. Where would she go, if he was not present. He was home.

It was an uncomfortable predicament. Amalia tried to imagine herself in it, but found that she simply could not. She refused to conjure even the image of a world where she was without the person she leaned on the most, and perhaps that was for the best. However similar the comparison might seem on the surface, she knew that it would not survive past any serious scrutiny. They were all different people, and the dynamics inherently different as well. So she pursed her lips together and considered what she knew, idly spooning a tiny bit of rock sugar into her teacup, stirring it round by gently swirling the cup until there was a tiny whirlpool in it. When the motion stilled, she exhaled, still, contemplative.

“I don’t know him well,” she said simply, shrugging her shoulders a bit, “but I know you. If Orlais is as I have learned it is, he was probably right. How do you think you would be received, in the world he intends to return to?” As she understood it, Orlesians thought of their politics as some kind of game, one where subtlety and delicacy were required, neither being traits that Sparrow possessed. Most likely, she would be a glaring and obvious weakness of Rilien’s by the very fact that he brought her along, and if Amalia understood properly, that meant someone would quite quickly exploit the fact. It was disconcerting to think about what that meant, but just because it was unpleasant didn’t mean she would stop herself.

“It seems likely he was thinking to protect you, as well as himself, and by extension, anyone he is allied with.”

Sparrow, too, reached over to the middle of the table, scooped up two, and then, three, pieces of rock sugar and plopped it into her teacup. Instead of stirring it like Amalia had, she merely let it sit and blew across the surface again. She'd always liked sweeter things in youthhood, and her preference, it seemed, still held into adulthood. She blew on it once more, snatched up the cup in her rough hands, and tipped it to her lips. A complex mixture, smoothly spiced and imbued with the expected bite of unmixed sweetness. It was softer than what she remembered. She supposed Amalia had perfected the taste over the years. Perhaps, it had been influenced, as much as she had, upon entering Kirkwall and meeting everyone she had come to know. There was a brief flicker of nostalgia... on choking on a particularly strong brew, finding it too spicy. The thought passed as everything usually did.

Her murky eyes narrowed over the rim of the cup, and thawed just as quickly when she settled the teacup back down. Orlais was an unopened oyster ripe for exploration. While she hadn't known specifically about their culture or how they functioned on a day-to-day basis, it was one place she'd considered exploring when she'd been alone. Back when she had no cares about how she fared in such foreign places. Back when she might've met everything with pure, unadulterated force, bullying her way through any resistance she may have met there. What was so different now? She played no games. She would hold Rilien back. He was protecting her. It made her feel sick. She pursed her lips, eyebrows pinched. “What does that matter? I can change, I would,” she hissed through her teeth, head bowed, “I won't live a life built on his sacrifices.” Damn Orlais and everyone in it.

“I never asked for that,” Sparrow's voice came quieter now, losing its edge. Wishing him the best on his journeys and parting ways, as if they'd been nothing but acquaintances, or a passing fancy easily forgotten. It was not a possibility she wished to entertain, so she did not. Her hands smoothed down across the table. Anger bit jumping muscles through her jawline, provoked her heart into ugly thumps. “What would you do? In my situation, what would you do if Ithilian told you he was leaving? For your own protection.” The implication was clear enough.

“He wouldn’t.” Amalia’s words were immediate, clear, spoken with the weight of unshakeable belief. “That is not a possibility that lies within the nature of our relationship.” It was the same kind of impossibility as a square circle—definitional, intrinsic. The way they protected one another was precisely the opposite. It always had been so, and for it to be otherwise would mean they had become something different to each other than they were. Amalia considered the rest of it though, and when she spoke, it was slowly, perhaps because she felt a bit ill-at-ease speculating on someone else’s mindset.

“You say you would change. Perhaps he doesn’t want you to. What you would have to become… would you want to be that person?” Her brows drew together, and she took a sip of her tea. Mostly spice, but a hint of sugar. She hadn’t recalled much liking the latter in the past. But everything could change, she supposed. Whether it should was another matter.

“He didn’t say you’d never see each other again, did he? Only that he had to leave? Those are not the same. Did you ask, or simply assume that he was intent on leaving you behind on a permanent basis?” Sparrow did have a habit of jumping to conclusions, thinking with her heart first and her head only afterwards, often when the damage was already done.

Once, Sparrow might have reacted similarly. Once, she might have had the same finality. Of course, he would not. She'd half expected Amalia's resolute response, spoken as quick as the question was raised. And she half yearned for something entirely different—a deciding factor to direct her [/i]somewhere[/i]. What made them so different? Her gaze dropped back down to her hands. When you believed that someone's smile was a question you wanted to answer into infinity... how could it be? It was a two-sided affair that always felt permanent. She'd been no different. She said nothing in response, only settled her mouth into a tight line. Soft voice, hard eyes.

“Yes,” Sparrow accidentally kicked the table, rattling her cup and nearly upending it. A small, fool's of a smile flickered on her face. An apology that couldn't quite leave her lips. Whether she truly meant it was another matter altogether. She fought changes with brutal, wrecked knuckles, and only came out on top when she had someone else to fight for. It was a possibility she was willing to consider, changing into someone she was not. Becoming unlike herself in order to maintain what they had. Who would keep her from making wrong choices? Who would keep her from drifting out to sea? For now, she was anchored. No one was immutable is what he'd said, hadn't he?

True enough, she hadn't asked. She'd pushed him, sputtered and ran. Hadn't listened to a word of explanation, nor had she expected one. There was finality, at least, in his words. A laugh escaped her, bubbled out. Short and cold. She levelled Amalia with a stare, eyebrows scrunched. She would not become a weak, vulnerable woman pining in Darktown's doorway, awaiting letters that may or may never arrive. She would not sit on the docks, growing tired and old, wondering when he would return. It was not in her nature. She'd assumed he meant permanently. It certainly felt that way. “He would have said so,” She paused and sucked on her teeth. Leaving out important details, such as when he would return, was unheard of. Rilien would have made this journey clear to her. He would have assured her, but he hadn't.

“If it's impossible for you to imagine,” Sparrow went on to say, “What more can I do? What can I say?” She leaned back in her chair and cocked her head to the side, studying Amalia's face. Once, she'd had more anchors then she wished to carry. Once, she'd let them go. “I won't stay here, when he leaves.”

Amalia drummed her fingers on the table, not out of impatience, but because she was thinking. “Whatever you do, make sure you understand first. Make sure you really understand him, and what his intentions are. Assume nothing, not when matters are this important to you.” Communication was essential; she’d learned that much. Leaving too much unsaid was like leaving a wound open: eventually, it would all begin to fester and rot, and the mind would be able to think of nothing else. Endless useless speculation, impeding one’s forward progress. “And make sure he really understands you. But once that is done… do what you want.”

A tiny smile flickered over Amalia’s face. “When have you ever let anyone else decide what you do, anyway? You have wings, don’t you? So fly. Just do not forget that there are places you can land for a while, when you grow weary.” Perhaps she could not figuratively live in Rilien’s world, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t literally pick up and travel to Orlais, if she wanted. Or somewhere else. Or nowhere at all. The future was open to her.

For once in her life, Sparrow listened. She didn't predispose what she thought she meant to say, and she didn't interrupt. Only sat quietly in her chair and accepted her observations, because she needed to hear them. Piecing out her own thoughts while staring heatedly at the ceiling had conjured no answers, and sulking alone would do nothing but bolster her irrational judgements. She wouldn't have admitted it, but she needed to talk to someone, and needed advice beyond allowing things to happen as they were. Inaction was not in her nature, either. She needed movement as much as she needed this.

When Amalia smiled, as quickly as it'd come and gone, Sparrow, too, found herself smiling. And then, she laughed. This time, it was warmer. That smile of hers was something she missed after all these years spent apart—and something she doubted she would see again, after all she'd done. Easy to miss, if she hadn't looked back down. Like Rilien, she did not feel as loudly as she did. Anchor or no, she would fly. Birds did not clip their wings willingly. In one swift motion, Sparrow scooped up the teacup, swallowed the rest of the tea and slapped it back down. Only a sliver of sugar remained on the bottom. She knuckled her nose and sniffed noisily, “You're right, y'know. You often are. I'd almost forgotten that.” Manners. What were those? Ah.

“And Amalia,” Sparrow added, leaning forward with renewed energy. She planted her hand across hers, ceasing the drumming and flashed a crooked smile, “thanks for everything.”

“You are welcome, Sparrow."

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon

Earnings

0.00 INK

It was a beautiful day for once, comfortable temperatures and a clear sky, and Hightown bustled as a result. Sophia would not miss such an opportunity, and while she doubted Lucien desired to spend his day perusing the market, she insisted he come along, to keep her company. In truth, Sophia was in more of a looking mood herself, having no real need of anything the vendors sold, and having no desire to purchase things in excess.

Part of it was also the necessity of being seen, as well, and being seen in a certain way. A great many people were out and about, and no few of them possessed considerable wealth, and an influence that was not to be taken lightly. For the people of the city, Sophia found that she needed to be two different women; the brash warrior was more suited to be a champion of the common folk, whereas the nobility needed to see someone who understood them, and their way of life. She needed to demonstrate that she had not forgotten nobility in her years of playing the mercenary swordswoman.

She supposed it was possible that she was overthinking all of this, and that no one at all would take notice of her wandering around the market with Lucien Drakon, but still, she did not think it was paranoia that made her feel the eyes upon her. One in particular she had caught watching several times, an armored woman with short blonde hair, a sword and shield on her back. Sophia recognized her, and was at least mildly acquainted, but it was difficult to discern any motives. Sophia herself was unarmored, her only weapon the knife she kept in her boot. She didn't expect an ambush or anything of the sort, but it didn't hurt to be cautious.

Guiding Lucien by the arm over to a jewelry vendor who wasn't overly busy, she kept her gaze down on the items on display. "There's a woman that has been following us, watching," she said quietly, "though I don't know for how long. See the blonde in the bronze scale armor? Behind us to the right, a few stalls over. Ser Marlein Selbrech. She despises shopping, if I remember correctly. Could you see what she wants? Discreetly, if possible."

Lucien, who until this point had been perfectly content to let Sophia guide him along in whatever manner she pleased, nodded slightly. He was, in fact, all for the exercise—being seen in the right context was unfortunately important, and if his presence could help matters, then of course he was happy to be there. This part, though, was something he did a little better. “Of course.”

He had to admit, he was most accustomed to being in Sophia’s position in a situation like this, rather than someone else’s agent, but he could be discreet enough when he wanted to. At least, as discreet as an armsbearing nobleman could be. Sophia was visibly without weapons, but as it happened, people rarely looked askance at a man, even a highborn one, who chose to wear a blade, though he’d swapped Everburn out for a less-impressive weapon, a simple one-handed sword that rested on his hip. The rest of his attire fit well with his status as leader of a rather prosperous band of mercenaries, or a gentleman of more modest means, and so his slow progress around to Ser Marlein was unremarkable. He even stopped once to place an order for a few more sturdy weapon-belts for the company, though it didn’t take long.

Eventually, he came to be looking over the stall where the armored woman in question stood, glancing up and smiling genially. “Pleasant weather, is it not? It seems spring is early this year.”

Marlein seemed surprised at being spoken to, judging by her failure to speak momentarily, as well as her inability to form any sort of facial expression other than being wide-eyed. When she remembered herself, however, she scrambled for something to say. "Ah... yes. Yes it is." She turned slightly red, or perhaps slightly more red than she'd already been. It was clear that she was not in her element here. She bit her lip for a brief moment.

"I suppose you've noticed me, then," her voice dropped in volume, low enough so that it did not carry to many ears around them. "I apologize. I was waiting for the right time to approach." She adjusted the straps of her gauntlets, though it was clearly more for something to do with her hands than anything else. "If you and Lady Dumar are agreeable to it, I would like to have a word. Somewhere less... crowded."

Lucien’s expression was sympathetic. It was hard not to be, really—the woman was obviously much less comfortable trying to talk to him than she would be trying to spar with him, probably, and it was a mindset he readily appreciated. “I’ll ask; I don’t imagine she’ll refuse. Would you like to wait for us on the route to the Chantry, perhaps? I do not often find it crowded at this time of day.” Having said as much as he needed to, he made his way back to Sophia, explaining the situation in low tones. What this Ser Marlein wanted, he didn’t know, but it didn’t seem a poor idea to hear her out, at least.

Marlein departed immediately while Lucien explained to Sophia, who was indeed amenable to the plan, though she did not know what needed to be spoken of in private. She was interested, however, and had been planning to make a short trip to the Chantry anyway, to visit Elthina. With that decided then, the two of them made their way out of the market, and onto quieter streets.

They found the noblewoman awaiting them under the first of a line of trees dividing one of the streets, the branches still bare, but showing the first signs of life. They would be green again soon enough, bringing a little color to the otherwise cold grey of Hightown. There were a few guards about, and one small patrol of templars passing out of sight, in addition to the odd passerby here and there. Apparently, it was comfortable enough for Marlein to speak now.

"Thank you for seeing me," she said, nodding her head in a slight bow. "I apologize if I alarmed you. Subtlety isn't my strong suit. Now, we best make this quick." Opening a pouch at her belt, she withdrew a letter, handing it to Sophia. "It is courageous of you to resist the Knight-Commander, Sophia. The nobility desires a leader who will not be puppetted by fear. I'm here to tell you that you are not without support in forcing Meredith to step aside. Some of us are discussing--quietly--what to do about her."

That was excellent news, Sophia supposed. "And the letter?"

"I could not speak to you in the market for fear of templar spies, and I should not tarry here long, either. But if you seek our support, read the letter. It will explain how to proceed." For some reason, it had not occurred to Sophia that the templars even had spies. She had always believed them more the type to kick down the door than pick the lock, if there was something they wanted inside.

"Secrecy is paramount," Marlein continued. "I'll communicate by messenger if the need arises." She took several steps away, clearly taking her leave, and bowed once again, more deeply this time. "Maker look after you, Lady Dumar, and our fragile endeavor." She turned on her heel, and disappeared down a side street.

Lucien seemed somehow unsurprised by all the indirectness and secrecy involved, though he did raise his brows for a moment when Marlein chose to hand over a letter rather than simply explain in person. Still, it was as good a hint as any. “Perhaps you should read that in a slightly more private location?” He understood that Sophia had been planning to go see Elthina after their time in the markets was concluded, but he wasn’t sure if she’d rather return to her home instead, considering. Then again, the Chantry itself was possessed of a number of quieter areas, and he didn’t want to presume.

"I've also a feeling some different attire may be prudent. We'll return home." She would be sure to visit Elthina another time, but this seemed like it could be important, and she thought it best not to delay. The walk to her front door was not much further than it would have been to continue on to the Chantry, and when they were inside and seated, she broke the seal on the letter and read the contents.

They were troubling, to say the least. Apparently Marlein had it on good authority that Knight-Commander Meredith was authorizing hand-picked members of her forces to carry out attacks on those believed to be mage sympathizers in Lowtown. The information came from Marlein's brother, a templar himself, which Sophia remembered as she read the letter. The Selbrechs had deep Chantry ties, but apparently these two siblings were not as blind of followers as some. If this was true, it was dangerous for them to report, seeing as Meredith would undoubtedly take it as a betrayal.

"Marlein claims Meredith has been having mage sympathizers in Lowtown removed, with hand-picked zealots out of uniform. There's a list of addresses that are due to be hit tonight." She handed the letter to Lucien so that he might see it for himself. Frowning, Sophia spent the next few moments in thought. Marlein had never explicitly stated that the group of nobles she was in contact with wanted to support Sophia, nor was there any outright instructions included in the letter, the language more along the lines of do with this what you will.

"Perhaps the nobles are hoping to see me resist Meredith's strength more directly," she speculated, standing and pacing around to the back of her chair. "In any case, we can't simply do nothing with this information. There's still time before nightfall. Can you have your Lions mark out these locations, find out what route the templars will take, which home they'll most likely hit first?" They could place a watch on all of the homes, as only four were listed, but it would be best to find out where to wait, so that they might have the numbers to catch the zealots in the act, and possibly force them to surrender.

Lucien wore a pensive frown for a moment, folding the letter back along its original creases and setting it down on the end table near his elbow. It seemed a little to him like the nobility was looking to Sophia to solve its problems, at considerable personal, not merely political, risk. But sometimes that was what was asked of people like them, and that it was a bit gauche of them to ask didn’t make it any less her responsibility to answer. With authority came responsibility, after all. He supposed that at least the Selbrechs were going out on a limb as well. Nodding slowly, he made to stand. “That, I can certainly do. If you’d like to meet us back in the barracks in about an hour, we can go over our strategy, and decide who goes where.”

Giving her shoulder a gentle squeeze, Lucien excused himself, making his way back to Lowtown to gather his people and prepare them for the evening’s excursions.




By the time the sun had fallen and darkness settled in over the city, Sophia had already hidden herself, along with Lucien and a few of his Argent Lions, down a nearby alley from the first of the targeted residences. The Lions had done an excellent job of quickly locating the targets, and mapping out a likely route, and discreetly evacuating the so called mage sympathizers to a safe place for the night. While they wanted to catch one of these zealots alive and in the act if at all possible, Sophia was not going to allow any civilians to unknowingly put their lives on the line. They would just have to hope the Templars showed up anyway.

"Remember," she said, turning to her assembled allies, "these are trained Templars we're facing here, and they won't hesitate to kill. If we can capture one alive, good, but don't take any chances." She had thought to bring this in to the city guard, but ultimately there wasn't time, and the Lions were more than capable of managing this. They needed a small, effective group, not a task force.

And small and effective had been the order of the day. Considering the need for a clandestine touch, Lia had been brought along, and was currently posted further up the route, on a rooftop and out of sight, in charge of signaling the rest in the event that she saw anything suspect. Lucien trusted her to be able to pick out a plainclothes Templar, or several, by things like body language, posture, and likely weaponry. Other than that, he’d brought only Havard, Cor, and a pair of ex-raiders named Ainsley and Farah, who were also situated on the rooftops with bows, ready to assist the melee effort from above. Both were excellent shots, and though new to the Lions, had a great deal of experience placing arrows into a close-quarters fight without hitting their allies, which would be important.

All that remained was to wait for Lia’s signal, catch the Templars in the act of attempting to enter one of the target houses, and bring them down. Lucien hoped as much as anyone that they would be able to do so with a minimum number of casualties, but he’d already made it clear to the Lions that, Templars or not, these were well-trained, dangerous foes, and if they had to be killed to be stopped, then that was simply the way of it.

It was perhaps twenty minutes of quiet waiting before something notable happened. Up until then, only a few stray pedestrians wandered by, oblivious to the fact that they were walking right through what would become a melee soon. There was only one way into this particular residential area, and from her concealed vantage atop the roofs, Lia looked over each as they came in, deeming them to be either threats, or non-issues. When a group of six men dressed in dark clothes and mostly leather armor arrived, she immediately moved into sight of those below, holding up her fingers against the moonlight to give the count.

"Six," Sophia murmured. "Shouldn't be too much trouble." They were allowed to approach unimpeded, needing to be drawn into the net before the trap was sprung. They hid their faces with hoods and masks; Sophia imagined they had no identifying markers on any of them to declare them as Templars. Even their weapons looked like something from a mercenary company, no true Templar steel.

Arriving at the door of their targeted house, they checked around them for anyone watching, though not well enough to spot the Lions in wait. The lead man kicked the front door hard, causing it to swing open with a loud crack, and four of them rushed inside, weapons drawn. The other two looked to be standing watch at the front door. It would be much easier to deal with the remaining four with these two removed from the picture.

Together, the three archers on the rooftops let their arrows fly, the first striking clean through one's skull and dropping, the other receiving the last two to the chest and throat before he could react to his fallen ally. With the lookouts down, Sophia and the others moved out quickly to form a half-ring around the door, cutting off their escape. She drew her blade, settling into a combat stance. "You're surrounded and outnumbered, Templars. Surrender, and you will be spared."

It was not hard to predict their answer. Arrows hit the first target to rush out the door, but she was carrying a shield, and she caught them all. Behind her, the other three zealots charged out, rushing at those trying to stop them, their weapons bared and ready.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon

Earnings

0.00 INK

There were four Templars left, and four ground fighters to deal with them. It wasn’t terribly difficult to imagine how that was going to go—it was to the Lions’ advantage if they could draw their foes as far apart as possible, because it would make it easier for the archers still above to assist their comrades. Havard, being the only one with a shield of his own, rushed the woman who came out first, driving her back with a burst of aggression and his superior weight. That cleared the way for the other three to come through the door, and the next one rushed for Cor, the youngest and obviously least well-known of the group. It was probably an attempt to flee; Cor was standing in front of the most direct route out of the area. Lucien almost felt sorry for him: young the elf may be, but his talent was nothing to be underestimated. Lucien knew for a fact that the lad was much better with that sword than he’d been at the same age, a fact that could very well continue to hold true into the future, if he kept working at it.

The third Templar held a heavy flanged mace, but no shield—the weapon was clearly meant to be flexible between one- and two-handed grips, much like a bastard sword. Lucien drew Everburn from over his shoulder and advanced, cutting off the man’s route to help his compatriot fight Cor and get away. The dim glow of the ancient blade’s enchantment was the only warning the Templar had as the blade came down, and it proved just enough for him to jump backwards, narrowly avoiding the controlled vertical swing.

Unperturbed by his miss, Lucien brought the greatsword back around to a ready position. “Surrender, and no more need die.” The entreaty was, of course, rebuffed with a scoff, and the Templar darted in, swinging the mace in a heavy downward arc, which might have done Lucien’s chestplate some very heavy damage, if he’d stood there and taken the blow.

“No one ever takes me up on that,” he muttered, lifting Everburn to parry. The mace hit with enough force to cast sparks from the point of contact, reverberating off with a clang. While the Templar recovered from the recoil, Lucien attempted a broad horizontal slash, forcing him to back up out of range again, diving to the side and rolling back to his feet. The mace came down again, this time for Lucien’s arm, too close for him to block effectively. So he dodged instead, strafing sideways with light feet and setting his stance again, noting disinterestedly that while the mace had clipped his elbow on his way out, it wasn’t a serious wound.

Stepping in closer than was usually advisable for a weapon of Everburn’s size, he slammed the pommel into the Templar’s forehead, crumpling him to the ground. There had been a crack there, though, and Lucien realized grimly that even if his opponent was still alive, it looked like he wouldn’t be able to wake up and talk any time soon. Taking a moment to survey the field, he noted that Cor was shaking excess blood off his blade. His opponent was definitely dead—in addition to the two arrows sticking out of his shoulder and side, he was missing his head.

Sophia's opponent was not dead, but most assuredly dying. She was on one knee beside him, a fair amount of blood staining her armor, though none of it appeared to be her own. The Templar that lay before her had suffered a wound through the upper midsection, the blood covering Sophia's sword evidence of how it happened. An arrow had also pierced him near the back of his neck, having come from one of the archers above. As his life ebbed from him, Sophia drew the knife from her boot. "Find some peace at the Maker's side, if you can." She slid the knife steadily between his ribs, piercing his heart and putting an end to the suffering.

Havard, however, had managed to subdue the woman with the shield without killing her, and currently had a knee pressed into her back, his longsword’s edge hovering a few centimeters from the back of her neck. “Alive and kicking, as requested.” The words were a little gruff with what was presumably irritation, perhaps because it looked like the Templar was still kicking, or at least thrashing around. “Stay still, girl, or I’ll kill you by accident. He looked at Lucien and rolled his eyes visibly.

“Zealots.”

Sophia had more reason to despise zealotry than most; the work of armed fanatics had nearly destroyed her utterly once before, and she found herself unable to feel much sorrow for the Templars that had perished here. They had volunteered, expecting no personal gain in all likelihood, for a job that consisted of murdering civilians of Kirkwall who were largely defenseless. They were no true Templars to her, but criminals and murderers.

"The hell you talking about?" the woman protested beneath Havard. "I'm no zealot! You've got the wrong person!"

"Zealot or no," Sophia said, standing and wiping her blade clean, "you've committed what could at the very least be described as an armed robbery, though we have it on good authority that you intended to kill the occupants of this residence. It's more than enough to have you thrown into the Gallows." They certainly weren't going to be interrogating the woman here in the street, and at this point, it was no longer a matter for mercenaries to take care of.

"We can hand her over to the Guard," Sophia said to Lucien, coming to stand beside him. "Perhaps the Captain will be willing to speak with her." She doubted the woman would reveal anything, if she were truly devoted to the Knight-Commander, but it was worth a shot. "That should be all the fighting for one night, though. Thank you for the help, as always. I'll let you know if anything interesting arrives from our friend." She expected Marlein would be in touch, now that she'd acted on her information. It remained to be seen what would come next, though.

Lucien nodded, signaling to the archers that they could make their way back down to ground level, and Havard went about the task of cuffing the Templar, who put up considerably less resistance now that she knew there was no chance of talking her way out of this. He and Lucien would march her down to the prison section of the Gallows, while Cor would carry a message up to the Guard’s barracks regarding their newest acquisition. Paperwork still needed taking care of, naturally, but that could wait until tomorrow.




It was the following evening before anything notable happened. A messenger arrived, slipping another sealed letter through Sophia's door. When she opened it and peered out at the street, the messenger had disappeared. Opening the letter, she read through the contents clearly. She was invited to a private meeting to begin near midnight, it seemed, and instructions to an address in Hightown were given. It was a quiet street, if Sophia recalled correctly, the manor to which she was directed currently unoccupied, its owner having departed for Orlais shortly before the Qunari attack, and never returned.

The letter did not have an explicit sender, though Sophia assumed it to be Marlein or an associate of hers, nor did it mention any names of other attendees. It also did not state that she had to come alone. Lucien had stopped by shortly after the letter arrived, as they had both expected something to occur, and quickly, and so the two of them departed, armed and armored for more trouble, though there was a chance this would simply be another talk. Still, it was best to be prepared; Meredith was a paranoid woman, and judging by her actions the previous night, sending out a death squad, she was willing to do anything to achieve her ends. Sophia was unwilling to reject the possibility that a trap may be set for her in the near future.

"Meredith's falling into madness," Sophia said, as they walked. The streets were near empty, only the occasional guard standing dutifully at their post, or patrolling. "And worse, her drive to crush any resistance spreads to her followers. That zealot still refuses to reveal anything." Even if she had admitted to being sent by Meredith, it would change little. It would be more evidence that Meredith needed to be removed, but still the only way to do that seemed to be by force, and that was not a course Sophia was currently willing to take.

"There must be a better way to force her to step down. Though at this point, I'm not sure she would even listen to her superiors, were they to order such a thing."

Lucien’s lips thinned, a thoughtful expression crossing his face. “I could send a letter home—there are people there who have ties to the Divine… but I think you’re right. Madness is seldom dissuaded by reason.” It was really quite odd, though. His interactions with the Knight-Commander had been few and far between, but she had seemed when he first met her to be levelheaded enough, if perhaps harsher in her belief and her authority than others like her he had known before. This escalation was very peculiar. He rubbed at his jaw with a hand, shaking his head.

“But you know, a commander is only as good as the lieutenants and the corporals and the recruits who listen to them. Morbid as it is to say so, perhaps this culling of the worst of the lot will make some of the others think a little harder about what they really ought to be doing, as Templars.” It was, he knew, far too optimistic a thought, but like Sophia, he didn’t really see Meredith willingly giving up her position, or softening her stance in any way. Perhaps the more moderate Templars would eventually grow as dissatisfied with this as the nobles seemed to be—if so, they would be in a better position to do something about it.

She hoped it would turn out that way, that more of the Templars would begin to really think about what they were doing to the city, but it was just as likely that the deaths of their brothers and sisters would only spur them into violent action where before they had taken none. But it was an issue impossible to confront with thought alone, so she pushed it from her mind.

They had arrived, in any case, a servant of one of a nobles awaiting them outside the manor in question. He was young and well-dressed for his station, and waved at the approaching pair. "You've come, good. The others have already begun. You'll find them inside." He pushed the door open for them, allowing their entry, and closed it behind them.

"We cannot stand idly by while Meredith oversteps herself at every turn," Marlein was saying, from the head of the dining table. A small group of nobles, six to be exact, were gathered around it. A few were in armor as Marlein was, while others didn't look like the type capable of wearing it. "And to that end, I say we use our influence to stand behind a worthy candidate, one that comes before us now!" She held her hands out to introduce the newly arrived Sophia, who apparently had come with excellent timing.

Most of the nobles at the table seemed agreeable to the presentation so far, though one, a middle aged man with sandy blonde hair, whom Sophia did not recognize, widened his eyes at the sight of her and Lucien. "Ser Marlein, you did not mention that your guests would be Lady Dumar and Lord Drakon."

Marlein raised an eyebrow. "Nor did they know whom they would be meeting tonight. I thought it only fair. Is that a problem, Edgert?" The other nobles all now turned their gaze upon him, and he turned a bit red, shaking his hands at them.

"No, no, but even with them, this course is foolhardy. The Knight-Commander will kill us all."

A man at his side, with dark hair and a full beard, armed with sword and shield, shook his head. "Edgert, you do yourself no credit. My father and grandfather both died defending Kirkwall from aggressors. Meredith is no different." He turned to Sophia, bowing briefly. "Lady Dumar, Lady Selbrech, you have my sword."

It was at this point that there was a brief commotion from outside the door, the very clear sound of a young man being killed, painfully. Edgert backed away from the table, drawing his sword. "I tried to warn you..." he said. The door was kicked in a moment later, a small band of masked soldiers storming in, weapons drawn.

Lucien did a quick headcount—there were about half a dozen of the masked assailants, versus himself, Sophia, about two nobles who were carrying weapons and looked like they knew how to use them, and the fellow who seemed likely to have been the betrayer in the group. All-in-all, it wasn’t a fantastic situation, especially since that left three nobles who weren’t armed, which would only complicate things. “Get back!” he ordered that lot, not really standing on politesse considering the urgency of the situation. There was little time to do or say more, though, for their assailants were advancing.

Taking several large strides forward to put himself in the way, Lucien drew his sword, swinging it down in a smooth motion from the draw, knocking aside the attempted parry from one of the masked men and stepping in to punch him square in the nose with a heavy gauntlet. The delicate cartilage crunched under the force of the blow, and he followed up with a pommel strike to the temple, sending that one to the floor and stepping rightwards to engage the next.

The zealots wisely chose to not all attempt engaging Lucien, several slipping through the doorway and skirting around his range to try and get behind. Sophia moved quickly to shore up his left side, her sword free of its sheath. She caught the first downward strike of a longsword with a horizontal parry, deflecting the blade off to the side, though her own right side was left open to attack, a second zealot engaging her and landing a hit with her mace. The jarring blow to the ribs knocked Sophia back a step, but before the two could press any advantage, Ser Marlein charged into the mace-wielding woman shield first, taking her off her feet and ramming her backside into the nearest wall.

Recovering quickly, Sophia made a lunging attack, expecting the parry that came, and following up with a low kick, hitting the inside of her opponent's knee and knocking him down a level. She brought her own knee forward, swiftly cracking into his forehead, which was protected only by his hood. He crumpled to the ground on his back. Elsewhere, the nobleman Edgert had turned and thrown himself bodily through the window, shattering the glass and leaving him to land in an undignified manner on the other side. The noble that had pledged his support to them was assisting Lucien's right side, though he'd received a blow to the head, by the looks of it, apparently outmatched by his opponent. Sophia could not assist, however, as she had to quickly rush forward to meet a zealot hoping to gain a free attack on Marlein's back, while she finished dealing with the one she'd pinned.

Lucien sent his second foe to the ground with a bloody gash in his abdomen and interceded on behalf of his ally, body-checking the woman who’d managed to hit the lord in the head. His weight and force sent her sprawling, and Everburn stabbed downwards, punching through the light chain she wore and ending her quickly. A shout alerted him to the fact that one of their assailants had managed to maneuver around all those that could fight in an attempt to reach those who could not. He was too far away to reach in time, at least on foot.

Crouching, Lucien pulled his spare knife free of his boot, testing the heft in one hand and then gripping it in the manner Idris had instructed the rest of the Lions. With a strong toss, it went flying end-over-end for the assailant. The throw was far from perfect, but it did at least hit sharp-end first, striking the man’s shoulder from the back. Rather than embedding itself there as it should have, it left a deep cut and clattered to the floor, but it was enough distraction to pull the man’s attention, and Lucien and the armed nobleman beside him—now recovered from the blow to his head, it seemed—rushed forwards. Between them, the masked man didn’t stand much of a chance.

The last of the zealots dropped on the other side of the room as well, Sophia and Marlein having dealt with them quickly enough. The fighting ceased, those nobles that could not protect themselves warily stood up again from their hiding places, viewing the carnage with no small amount of horror. The wounded nobleman was in the process of bandaging his head to stop the bleeding; Sophia handed him a small healing potion she had on her, and received his thanks in return.

"Well fought," Marlein said, wiping her sword clean. "Looks as though some survived. We'll see to it that they're put behind bars. And we will spread word of this attack; it may sway some of the nobles unsure of Meredith's madness. As for Edgert... I have a feeling he will regret the side he has chosen." She offered her arm out to Sophia. "Rest assured, when the time comes, you will have our aid, and whatever our influence can buy."

They clasped hands, the alliance cemented.

The Chanter's Board has been completed. A Noble Agenda has been completed.

Setting

9 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

It was, really, a lovely day for a wedding.

Winter had lingered a little longer that year than it usually did in Kirkwall, but by the fourth month of the year, all the vestiges of snow and chill had receded, leaving the fresh green of new shoots and vibrant colors of all kinds of flowers to shade the mountainside in the stead of glaring white. The air was warm, that comfortable kind of middling that permitted most clothing preferences without issue. The spot that Ashton and Nostariel had chosen was, of course, the very same one they had often occupied in the years before—for archery lessons and talks both light and utterly serious. And while the place hadn’t mattered as much as the people, it was still the one in which they’d forgiven themselves, and in which they’d both professed to the feelings that had bloomed in the spaces guilt and grief had left bare.

It had been altered a little for the occasion. Someone—she suspected those of her friends who knew of craft had been responsible—had erected a temporary wooden arch, framing the view down from the mountain of the city, the countryside, and a little of the Coast. Chains of flowers had been woven into the latticework of it, bright bursts of color against the white of the wood. Presently beneath the arch stood the ceremony’s officiate, Lucien, dressed finely but modestly in soft grey, his hands folded behind his back. Considering that this was quite the hike out for most of the guests, they’d forgone any sort of formal seating in favor of large, colorful blankets, spread to either side of the aisle. At the front, of course, were the wedding parties, the groom’s to the right and the bride’s, all in shades of green or blue, to the left.

It was also to the left that a small area had been set to the side for Amalia, whose harp was, at present at least, the sole musical accompaniment to the occasion. She, too, was wearing the nicest items of clothing she owned: a soft, spring-colored tunic and light tan breeches, both close to new from the lack of wear on them. Presently, she only tuned her harp, though she occasionally glanced down the way as though waiting for some kind of cue or signal. The aisle itself was already a carpet of flowers, likely the work mostly of Sparrow, though there was little doubt that Aurora had chosen the blooms themselves.

Near the arch off to Lucien's side, Ashton stood his hands locked together behind him as he patiently awaited his bride. He wore a sparkling green doublet over an ordinary, but fine, white shirt. The blue cornflower (chosen by Aurora) found pinned on his chest near his heart popped against the color. He wisely chose not to wear the outfit he'd worn to Sophia's party, for good reason considering its history. Ashton subtitly shifted the weight on his feet, but otherwise did not let the nervousness he felt show on his face. Though there was a small twitch when the first chords were struck.

The music started up then, something light and sweet, and Nostariel knew that was her cue. It was quite strange—she’d probably been less anxious or jittery during the whole process up to now than Ash had been, but for some reason, she couldn’t quiet her nerves now, when it seemed especially important. Oh, she was happy, of course, and she wasn’t entertaining any particular doubts about the whole thing. The jets of giddiness fizzing around in her thoughts wouldn’t leave any room for that, but… they were churning in her stomach, too, and that felt a little more like anxiety. Well, she supposed she ought to have been more worried if she thought she had everything perfectly well in-hand.

Her hands tightened slightly on the bouquet Aurora’s skilled hand had grown, made from aster blooms, green carnations, snowdrop, a marigold, and a blue rose, and she started forward. Nostariel didn’t really have the inclination to purchase a gown she was only going to wear once, not when there were so many other things she would rather put such funds towards, but she had decided to alter something she already owned—namely, the dress she’d worn to Sophia’s birthday party some years ago, which was still the most formal event she’d ever been to. In some ways, it had actually been simplified: the line of it was much sleeker and cleaner now, without any flounce that would simply get caught in things like grass or small twigs or the like. It was still the same deep sapphire color, though the corset had been removed, and a few embroidered details added in silver. Overall, she thought it suited the occasion.

Having no living relatives that she knew of and having run her own life from a comparatively young age, Nostariel advanced up the aisle alone. She didn’t belong to anyone else that they could give her to anyone, and what she was choosing to relinquish of her own accord, she was getting back in another form, so it seemed appropriate. Even despite the absence of family, she did not feel alone at all. There were many smiles greeting her on her way up the aisle, from friends and guests and even Stroud, who’d found some way to be back in the Marches on just this occasion. And of course, it was impossible to feel alone on the day one was marrying the person one loved most of all.

At the end of the procession, she came to stand just before the arch, directly across from Ash, giving him a smile that she hoped conveyed all her joy and nerves and everything else, though she suspected there wasn’t really any way to show the whole of it. She had a feeling he’d know anyway, though.

He returned her smile with a wide one of his own, any notion of his nerves getting to him gone now that she stood beside him. He reached out with a hand to wrap around one of hers, and pulled it to his lips. He looked back to her and with an easy smile and wink, shifted so that they both turned to face Lucien. He never let go of her hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze.

Lucien smiled at the both of them, moving his hands from where they were behind his back such that it was now obvious that he held a small sheaf of notes. He was no Chantry brother, but then if they’d wanted one of those, and all the official trappings that went with an ordained ceremony, they would have opted for someone else, he supposed. So he’d kept his words simple and neat, addressing those assembled with the rich, slightly poetic timbre of one tutored in oratory, absent needless flourish. On occasions like this, it was best to let the words and the sentiments they evoked speak for themselves as much as possible.

“Dearly beloved, we gather here today to celebrate the joining of two lives we hold in great esteem…” The whole thing was neither long nor overly complicated, and it didn’t take more than a few minutes to arrive at the crux of the matter, so to speak.

“Do you, Ashton Riviera, take Nostariel Turtega to be your wedded wife? To support in times of crisis, to rejoice in times of health, to weather duty and sorrow and suffering, but also to share in triumph and happiness and good fortune, in sickness and in health, as long as you both shall live?”

Now both of Ashton's hands found hers as the smile on his face threatened to split it in two. Oddly enough, Ashton seemed composed, he didn't sway unnecessarily in the wind, his hands were still and calm, and even his eyes refused to dart instead remaining on the most important woman in his world. Any of the words he might have prepared or thought of preparing vanished as it came his turn to speak, and that was just as well. They were words spoken from the heart

"My pretty little Nostariel, I promise to do all of these things and more for as long as I live and breathe. I am at my most comfortable with you beside me, and you make me feel as though I could take the world on and win. You are my rock and the one who keeps me steady, and I aim to be the same for you. I promise to stand by your side when you need someone to lean on, as you have for me. On this very spot, actually," he added, pointing a finger to the ground below. "I promise to share in your laughter, and in your tears. To share my dreams with you, and bask with you in yours... Like now, for instance," he said with a squeeze of her hand.

"But more than that, I promise you everything I am, everything I can be, and everything I will be, for better or for worse. My pretty little sweetheart Nos, I promise to love you with every fiber of my being for as long as this heart of mine keeps beating."

“And do you, Nostariel Turtega, take Ashton Riviera to be your wedded husband? To support in times of crisis, to rejoice in times of health, to weather duty and sorrow and suffering, but also to share in triumph and happiness and good fortune, in sickness and in health, as long as you both shall live?”

Nostariel took a deep breath, for a moment feeling as though she teetered on an edge she’d never come back from, if she fell. But, well, that was what she was hoping for, right? Might as well jump off without worrying so much where the bottom was. Lucien’s words were just the official ones. It was left to her to fill them in the rest of the way, as Ashton had just done. Slowly, Nostariel began to speak, the words ones she’d considered for a long time and committed to memory the previous evening.

“For as long as we traverse this life together, Ash, I promise to stand by your side. To lend my strength to your endeavors, and my ear to your words. I promise also to never carry my burdens alone, as I know I do not want you to carry yours. I promise to have the grace to forgive your missteps, and the humility to ask you to forgive mine. To do my best to heal your wounds, whatever kind they may be, and to let you tend to mine.” She smiled a little; that part was mostly metaphorical, considering her particular set of skills, but it was the implication that mattered.

“But more than any of that, I promise to love you. All of you, with all of me. For as long as I live.”

“If any present should object to this union, you are bid to speak now or forever hold your peace.”

There was a pause, but silence. Of course, it was hardly expected that anyone should protest; all those present were close friends of one, the other, or both of them.

“Then by the power vested in me by, well… yourselves, I hereby pronounce you husband and wife.” The small smile that Lucien had been wearing flashed wider for a moment. “You may kiss the bride.”

Before Lucien even finished the words, Ashton was swooping in. His hand found the small of her back as he craned his neck to place his lips on hers. He didn't simply stop there, however, as he dipped her lower until she was more horizontal than she was vertical. He kept her there for a moment or two, as the applause continued, though truth be told he never heard any of the clapping, nor was completely aware of their audience. For that moment, there was only them.

As it turned out, Ashton didn't allow Nostariel to get vertical. With little spin and a maneuvering of hands, she instead came up in his arms, held aloft by a positively beaming Ashton. He couldn't say for certain if he'd ever put her down.

Setting

9 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

The party after the wedding was a much more casual affair than the ceremony itself. Neither Ashton nor Nostariel had wanted anything much more complicated than a gathering of their friends and neighbors, and with that considered, Lucien’s offer of the barracks hall had been quite ideal for their purposes. It was also close enough to the Alienage that none of the denizens there need feel particularly uncomfortable about coming, and indeed Nostariel’s side of the invitees’ list did include a few of those there she knew best, mostly through the clinic.

The furniture in the space had mostly been moved, the doors at the front thrown open so that the considerable space in front of and to the sides of the building could be used as well, and what tables remained were laden with food, spirits, and less-alcoholic beverage choices, for both the younger and more sober elements of the group. The latter included both bride and groom, so that much wasn’t surprising. Nostariel had taken the time to change into something less-formal, though it was still a dress, a paler shade of turquoise this time. It had no sleeves, and fell about halfway down her calves in a loose fashion. Much better for the kind of dancing that was likely to occur here.

Her arm was linked through Ash’s, as it had been for the last hour or so. The first part of the whole thing was accepting the congratulations of anyone who came up to offer them, and there were a surprising number of people present to do so. She supposed that must be the result of living so long in one place, one with a population much greater than the average Circle. But that part was winding down at least, as everyone settled into the gathering.

Ashton beamed the entire time, the usual smile somehow seeming even brighter than ever. He shook the hands that were offered, clasped the shoulders of his friends, and even saluted a few of the guardsmen who'd come to wish them congratulations. Vesper even gave them both a hug, which admittedly surprised Ashton at first, though the faint smell of alcohol and the salute afterwards put everything at ease. He couldn't help but laugh.

Eventually, however, they made their way to their seats, Ashton and Nostariel's obviously stationed front and center to everyone else. The food provided was fine, if not extravagant, but then they didn't really expect or particularly wish for extravagant. It was a simple affair, but delicious nonetheless, made by a few of their friends and friends of friends. During the meal, during a lax in the din of conversation, Ashton turned to Rilien with a glass held up, and gestured toward it. "Toast!" he mouthed. Rilien was one of his best friends, after all, and they always did some kind of toast.

... He also had to admit he was curious to see what Rilien would say.

Rilien was familiar with the basic wedding traditions, both the simple ones employed by commoners in places like Kirkwall and the increasingly-elaborate ones demanded for proper marriages between nobility. The variety was rather staggering, but alcohol and speeches seemed to be rather constant themes. Everyone liked to drink, and everyone liked to hear their friends say flattering things about them. Weddings were ample excuse for both.

He was less familiar with being asked to give such speeches himself. Really, it seemed the kind of thing someone with more… feelings would have been more appropriate for. He could pretend to infuse emotion into his face or his words, but those who knew him at all would know it for just that—playacting. It didn’t seem the right thing to do, and yet the only choices that left him were to ignore the request entirely or speak as his very Tranquil self.

If Sparrow had to pick one word to describe how the entire wedding ceremony had gone, it would have clearly been sun. Drapes were thrown wide open, as well as doors. And everyone was smiling. Wide, brimming and overflowing grins all around. She, too, smiled. More of a shit-eating grin. She wandered between groups and had a couple... or, perhaps a few glasses of sweet-wine. Enough to make her belly warm. Conversation flowed easily and she even managed to mingle with some of the guards who'd initially chased her through the streets over the years. Strange how things had changed. And while she still had a few things to say to Rilien about what had occured, it could certainly wait.

In a stranger manner of events, she'd chosen fancier vestments as well. Not quite a dress. She'd chosen soft trousers of equally soft colours and a billowy tunic with the sleeves tied above her elbow. Clothes that Amalia had helped in choosing. Previous garish clothes she'd originally picked had been met with a stern frown and a shake of the head. Admittedly, this was fine too. She squirmed in her seat as Ashton cried for a toast. Her eyes followed his. And Rilien took the mantle, slowly coming to his feet.

It was almost with a shade of reluctance that he stood, drawing attention to himself with a bare modicum of effort. That much, he could reliably do. The rest, well… he did know his way around words, when he needed to. He supposed it could not hurt to put an extensive education in stories, poetic verse, and literature to work here. "I understand that at this point in a celebration, those friends of the celebrated are generally given to speeches, toasts extolling the virtues of those recently wed.” His fingers shifted almost idly on the stem of the glass wine goblet he held in his right hand. "Or, if the speaker is more humorously inclined, he might elect to tell a funny story, or perhaps recount some embarrassing anecdote or another.”

A slightly-narrowed gaze fell on Ashton. He certainly had plenty of embarrassing stories about the other man that he could tell, and with the tongue of a bard, he did not suspect it would be difficult to have most of the room in stitches. Rilien might not be humorous in his manner, but he understood comedic timing and deadpan very well, indeed. He let the look linger for just long enough that Ashton would understand what had almost happened, but then moved it back across the room.

The moment was not lost on Ashton, as he turned to Nos and gave her a nervous and weak smile. He was not so curious any more.

"I will do neither of these things. Embarrassing my friend would be far too simple a matter, and he is likely to do it himself before the night is over anyway.” A small pause, for the chuckling to subside, and then Rilien continued. "And I think that perhaps the virtues belonging to both bride and groom are obvious enough that enumerating them would be more crass than informative.” He inclined his head to both of them.

"Instead I will say only the following: the number of people present for this gathering is no accident. I suspect we represent but a fraction of those whose lives you have made better, because of your friendship, your effort, and your sacrifice. You do not come from backgrounds of glory or nobility, and yet if nobility is a concept with any meaning at all, then you have risen to it. It is my hope, and I believe the hope of those present with me, that you continue to improve one another’s lives as you have improved your own, and ours. That you, in short, are happy. If it can be deserved, you deserve it.” He raised his glass.

“Hear, hear!” Lucien chimed in warmly, raising his in turn. A chorus of clinks and agreements followed.




After the dinner wrapped up, the organization of the event became even looser. A few guests had to say their goodbyes, having ordinary workdays following, but most stuck around, breaking up into smaller groups to linger in the hall or spill outside onto the barracks’ yard. Rilien appeared to have taken the responsibility of providing music away from Amalia for a while, and a few of the Lions with talents in that direction contributed backing to the bard’s lute. After the initial dance, partner or group selection was basically a large, friendly free-for-all, and Nostariel found herself bouncing merrily from one to the next, light on her feet perhaps more due to her mood than any significant uptick in her ability to do any of the steps involved.

Aurora, already on her third glass of wine, found herself tapping her foot along with the music, gently swaying to and fro in tune with the melody. Soon it became not enough, so she stood from her seat and crossed the floor in search of one certain individual. It didn't take long considering who it was she was searching for. "Come on, we shouldn't just be sitting here. It's a wedding!" Aurora beckoned, her hand stretched out for Sparrow to take.

Most unusually, Sparrow had chosen not to drown herself in wine, even if there was some in plenty. Of various flavours, poured from all angles. As soon as Rilien began playing upbeat jigs, people coupled and strayed from their seats—became dancers, all grinning widely, laughing loudly. She leaned forward and watched them twirl and dip and weave around each other, eyes squinted and mouth pulled into a simpering grin. Moments like these were brief respites from everything they'd gone through up until now. As oblivious as she was, it was not lost on her and she, too, felt as if her heard soared and span and danced.

She did drink a couple glasses herself until the familiar bloom of warmth extended from her belly and coloured everything else warm and unworried. A familiar voice broke through her thoughts, accompanied by a sway of hips and fiery hair, and Sparrow's mouth twisted into a wider, mischievous grin. She feigned fanning her face and fluttered her eyelids, as a timid maiden might upon being asked to dance, “I'd be honoured.” Sparrow threw back her head in laughter and took up Aurora's hand, slipping free from the confines of her dreaded chair, “Let's show them how to really dance.”

Much like his newly wedded wife, Ashton bounced from one individual to the next with a smile on his lips and a laugh in his throat. Though unlike her his footwork was a little bit better. It wasn't often that Captain Riviera was able to showcase his dancing abilities, unfortunately, and he enjoyed the opportunities that he got. He even came across Vesper, but the encounter left the tops of his feet sore, though the other guards that attended seemed to fare better on their own feet.

The Lions were also enjoying themselves, this much was clear, though they weren’t by any means sticking to their own group. Indeed, people from all kinds of places in the city seemed to mingle freely here, and perhaps it was in this spirit that Ainsley, one of their newer members, approached Amalia, who had until this point been quite content to remain seated and let other people do the dancing.

“You can’t tell me you don’t know how to dance,” the former raider said amiably, extending a hand in clear invitation. It was true that dancing definitely wasn’t the same as combat footwork, but she doubted that someone with such evident skill at the latter really had no concept of the former. “But I suppose you could tell me you didn’t want to.” The woman shrugged, but her grin belied her words. She was expecting acquiescence.

And, honestly, Amalia saw no reason to decline. Rising, she accepted the hand and let herself be guided over to someplace there was still space. The music was lively, and the dance was one she’d seen other people doing before. Tilting her head to the side, she studied how others were going about it for a few moments, then slid her way into the sequence. This particular exercise required little actual contact with one’s partner, but an awareness of their location, else at times one might blindly crash into them, as some of the less coordinated or more intoxicated dancers were already doing.

"Thought I'd find you dancing," Ithilian commented, approaching his Dalish friend near the edge of the yard. Emerion sat on the wooden fence, feet perched on the lowest rung, and worked through more wine. He offered Ithilian a half-smile as he was joined on the fence, swallowing another gulp.

"Someone should be keeping watch over them. Hard to do that from within them all." He glanced sideways, gestured subtly with his head to where a pair of Templars, their faces hidden behind their helmets, passed by the festivities on patrol. They watched with some level interest, but did not slow their walk. Ithilian watched Emerion take another drink.

"Hard to do it while you're drunk, too. But don't worry about the Templars. They'll be no trouble to anyone tonight." Recent events had often taken Ithilian away from the Alienage, but since returning from Prosper's estate in particular he'd noticed a sort of gloominess in Emerion. "Something wrong, lethallin?"

He was silent for a long moment before speaking. "I never thought I'd find you living this way." He turned to look at Ithilian. "Content. Living in one place. Do you know what I mean?" Ithilian took a moment to consider the words, and then nodded his head slowly.

"I think I do. I always wanted too much when I was younger. I was greedy. I was prideful." He looked out at the dancers, watching the new husband and wife among them. "A lot had to happen to change me. I'm thankful the same didn't occur to you."

"I'm not so sure you should be. I think you're better for it, everything that you went through." Emerion took a long drink, finishing his cup. He slipped off the fence and to his feet, patting Ithilian on the shoulder. "I'll be returning to the Alienage. See you tomorrow, Ithilian."

Though a few guests left earlier than the rest, the party itself wound well into the night hours, the last of the guests finally departing the barracks after midnight. Fortunately, most of them had been courteous, which left minimal mess behind when that was all done. Nostariel and Ashton did their part to clear up after the celebration, and, after thanking Lucien once again for the use of his building, they departed, hand in hand, for their new home on the fringe of Lowtown. It wasn’t too far from the Hightown steps, something they’d decided on so that neither of them had to walk too far to reach their place of work.

The walk was a quiet one, the streets mostly deserted at this time of night, and they weren’t pestered by any of the city’s criminal elements, whether because one or both of them were recognized or just because they didn’t look to be worth the effort, it was hard to say and didn’t much matter. Nostariel swung their arms, interlocked at the hand, between their bodies in a carefree sort of way, the smile she’d been wearing all through the celebration undimmed by the late hour or quieter surroundings.

“I never thought this day would come.” The confession was quiet, but easily heard given the lack of ambient noise. “Even when we were actually planning it, some part of me just refused to believe it would actually happen.” Perhaps that was why she’d been on such an even keel throughout the whole process. She looked up at her husband from the corner of her eye, and squeezed his hand. It was a pale indication of the lightness in her heart, but he would understand. His ability to do so was one of the major reasons they were here at all.

“But I’m so happy it did.”

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

By mid-spring, the air was warm enough outside that not even Amalia required sleeves, and so she had forgone them, in favor of a sage-green tunic and simple brown trousers. At present, she was also barefoot, her pant-legs rolled up to the knee. In one hand, she held a broad paintbrush, the ends of it coated liberally in a rather cheerful shade of blue. Not her choice, naturally, but then this wasn’t for her.

It had taken her some time to decide how she wanted to use the money she was now making selling her goods out of Rilien’s storefront. So long, in fact, that she had amassed more of it than she really knew what to do with. It was, as it turned out, enough for a large-scale infrastructure project in the Alienage. So after some consideration, a consultation with the Hahren, and a recommendation from Lucien, she had hired several carpenters and laborers for what turned out to be a relatively simple, but important job: fix the roofs of the Alienage houses, and install new, strong front doors onto the frames that, often as not, were protected by rotting plywood or a makeshift curtain. Doors meant locks, and Rilien had recommended the locksmith who worked with the carpenters.

The roofs had been done a week ago, but the doors had taken more time, as each first needed a stable frame, which some of the houses didn’t have. Now they had been built though, and admittedly, the current project of painting them wasn’t entirely necessary, but it was something she’d decided to do anyway. The reason was obvious, when one considered that most of the painters involved were the Alienage’s children. It was a small thing, almost an insignificant thing, but by spreading things out like this and allowing them to choose their own brushes and colors and designs, they were given some form of agency in their lives, the ability to choose something about their homes, about the spaces they lived in. Even small choices had importance; this she had learned.

Of course, there were no children in some of the homes, and those doors, she was painting herself, with help from a few volunteers. She was no portrait artist, but she knew something of color and pattern. It was actually nice, to do something different from her usual endeavors.

Covering the last blank spot on the door she crouched beside, Amalia stood, leaving it to dry and heading for the next one. Kadan, have you seen the dark green anywhere?”

Ithilian was working on the next door over, crouched next to a small elven boy, the pair of them working with concentration on filling in the laid out pattern with yellow and blue without passing over the white lines. It was difficult to tell which one of them was struggling more. The older elf was dressed much like Amalia, focusing intently on the door in front of him, until Amalia spoke, at which point he carefully removed the brush in his left hand from the wall, and turned to look up at her.

"Emerion had it, last I saw," he said, gesturing to a door three houses over, where his friend was busy instructing a fellow elf on a specific pattern, and likely going on about what it symbolized, and its place in the elven pantheon. "Don't think he needs it anymore... lethallan. Templars."

His attention had been drawn by the sight of armor coming down the steps of the Alienage, far more than was usual. Instead of the typical pair, he spotted eight of them in total, all in full armor, only two not wearing helmets. He recognized them as the pair most common to the Alienage, Knight-Lieutenant Grath and Knight-Corporal Swann. They moved with a purpose, clearly having a destination in mind rather than aimlessly walking about on a precautionary patrol.

Ithilian's first thought was to look to Emerion, who also had noticed the arrival of the Templars, but they did not appear to be heading towards him, but instead to Ithilian and Amalia. Indeed, he soon saw Swann point the pair of them out to the rest, and they made their way across the Alienage, passing under the branches of the vhenadahl on their way.

Gently pushing the boy a half step behind him, Ithilian moved forward a bit to greet the Templars, who drew no weapons, but certainly came armed, with swords at their hips and shields across their backs. He spied Emerion quickly coming closer from his left, as well as many other elves who were curious what this was about.

"Something we can do for you, Templars?" Ithilian asked, cautiously. The Knight-Lieutenant stepped forward to answer.

"On the Knight-Commander's orders, these men are to escort you to the Templar Headquarters in the Gallows, immediately." His gaze was stern as ever, but the words were not delivered aggressively or maliciously. Nevertheless, Emerion seemed to take issue with them, coming to stand beside his friend.

"Are they being charged with something?"

"My orders are to have my men take the two called Ithilian and Amalia to the Gallows," Grath answered. "I was given no more information."

Calmly, Amalia set her paintbrush down, her hand pausing briefly to rest on the head of the child near her side, but then she walked to the front of the group to stand beside Ithilian. This many Templars was always enough to induce caution, but she saw no good reason to resist them here. Especially not with all these people about. It was also better if Emerion didn’t have a chance to argue with them, as he might well do given the right provocation.

“Very well.” She took a few more paces, to where she’d leaned her boots up against the side of her house, and stepped into them, tapping their toes a few times against the ground for fit and returning to where she’d been. It was a lot of people for a simple escort, and that was obvious, enough so that she chose not to comment on it, at least for the moment.

Ithilian wasn't pleased with being taken anywhere by armed men, and he could tell that Emerion thought even less of it, but if they really didn't have any more information, there was no point trying to pry more of it out. He was tempted to ask if they needed to bring arms and armor with them, but Grath likely didn't know that, either. It would put the immediately part of his orders at risk, at any rate.

"Let's get this over with, then." There wasn't anything inherently hostile about this, but none of it was friendly, either. Stepping forward with Amalia, the Templars formed up around them, Grath and Swann stepping to the outside. The redheaded woman looked uncomfortable. Ithilian assumed she wasn't fond of these orders, either.

"Knight-Corporal Swann and I will be conducting a routine patrol of the area. These men will take you to the Gallows." With that, they were obviously expected to move out, as the Templars began to walk, forcing Ithilian and Amalia to walk with them. It looked very much like an arrest, Ithilian was aware, and many of the onlookers no doubt thought the same. Emerion watched them leave with carefully surveying eyes, arms crossed over his chest. It wasn't long before the last elf had passed from Ithilian's sight, and they were into Lowtown proper.

Though all in the party seemed experienced in walking in silence, it was nevertheless a terse and uncomfortable experience. They walked down to the Docks, and took a ferry waiting for them across the channel to the Gallows, where they were escorted away from both the dungeons and the Circle quarters, and over to the Templar Headquarters on the west side of the fortress. Unarmed, Ithilian was beginning to feel very much out of place. He did not even have Parshaara on him.

Once inside, they were guided up a set of stairs to their left, exiting the courtyard and heading towards the offices of the highest ranking members of the Order in Kirkwall. There they were directed to take a seat upon a wooden bench, and told to wait, with the knowledge that the Knight-Commander would summon them shortly. Shortly turned out to be nearly half an hour, with little to fill it other than the noise of the creaking bench, the crackling of torches on the walls, and the soft clinking of Templar armor coming from the guards stationed at the doors.

Finally, a blonde haired Tranquil woman emerged from one of the offices, and requested that they enter. Meredith sat behind her desk, scribbling away on a document before her, and Ithilian and Amalia were guided into a pair of chairs on the other side of the desk. The Tranquil departed, and two Templar guards took up positions on either side of the door, closing it behind them. Meredith finished writing a sentence before speaking, allowing the first few seconds of the meeting to pass in silence.

"Thank you for coming," she began, somewhat tersely. "It is well known to me by this point that the two of you are something of leaders in your community. It should be in our mutual interest, then, to work together on matters that threaten the city. The Elven Alienage is, after all, part of this city." Setting her quill back in the inkpot, she folded her hands together neatly on the desk.

"Tell me, what is your opinion on the Templar Order? If you have any, that is."

Amalia blinked. This question was very clearly beside the point. Or at least, she hoped it was; because if they had been brought here to take a poll of opinion, she wasn’t going to be happy about it. “Your power is substantial, but you wield it like a cudgel even where a needle is called for. You also accomplish most things through fear and intimidation, which can be effective, but usually does not lead to long-term success, as too much psychological pressure on those you mean to control will eventually have the opposite effect. So my opinion is that the Templar order, while generally adequate to its task, is a crude and shortsighted organization that will eventually suffer for its weaknesses. Sooner, the thinner you spread yourselves.”

She shrugged. Her assessment was far from complimentary, but it would appear that she hadn’t meant anything outright hostile by it. Her words were those of neutral prediction rather than threat. Honestly, as far as Amalia was concerned, Templars were neither here nor there, until they started putting their noses where they didn’t belong, and then they became people that she watched, the way a mongoose watches a cobra.

Ithilian's eyes bounced back and forth between Amalia and Meredith for a moment, expecting something unpleasant to follow, and for a moment Meredith seemed to be considering it, but ultimately kept her features unreadable. "Quite possibly a fair assessment. And you?" She looked to Ithilian. His mouth hung slightly open for a moment.

"Uh... well, I believe lethallan has said it better than I could. We're in agreement."

"Fair enough," Meredith said, leaning back slightly. "A few of my Templars have expressed similar ideas, albeit in more honeyed words. I appreciate the directness. And I've decided that today is an opportunity to try the needle as opposed to the cudgel, as you say. Perhaps you can convince me of its effectiveness." Pushing her chair back, she stood, walking several steps to the side and crossing her arms.

"The Alienage has, for the past few years, been a location shut off to the Templars, due to the unfortunate clash between elves attempting to join the Qun and my forces. It is no Darktown, of course, but nevertheless offers an attractive hiding place for apostates. I am certain at least one blood mage makes a home there, perhaps more." Turning about, she made her way to the other side of the table, near where Amalia sat. "Contrary to what many may believe, I have no wish to ransack civilian homes in my search for them. That is where I hope the two of you can come in."

Ithilian glanced back to the two guards behind them, already disliking the idea of being hired by Meredith for anything. "Produce for me an apostate, maleficarum or otherwise, residing in the Alienage, however you feel is best, and I will be satisfied. Any protection you have offered them until this point will be forgiven, so long as I have your aid moving forward. Your position of leadership among the elves cannot be overlooked, and as leaders, we must cooperate to maintain order. The containment of apostates and the culling of blood mages benefits all of us."

Amalia’s eyes narrowed slightly, and her posture did not relax in the slightest. Meredith was essentially demanding tribute in exchange for non-interference, like a human lord grown contemptuous of a vassal. Except that the tribute was, essentially, to be a life. Either one in prison or one cut short. Amalia did not imagine that, if she and Ithilian were to comply, the community they worked to protect would trust them any longer. The Alienage was wary of Templars to begin with, and as Arianni had demonstrated all those years ago, they would do everything possible not to give up their magically-inclined kin.

She wasn’t even particularly tempted to make them, but there seemed to be a very clear threat attached to this. The cudgel, so to speak. She didn’t answer this time, instead sliding her eyes to Ithilian.

Ithilian wanted to speak no more than Amalia did, but he supposed it was his place to, here. He knew only of one apostate residing in the Alienage, and Emerion almost certainly had knowledge of blood magic, being trained as a Keeper. The Dalish did not forbid it as strictly as the humans chose to. It was an impossible situation, to be sure. He was not about to hand over a friend for execution. Not only did he hope to protect Emerion, it would destroy the faith the people had placed in him, and Amalia as well, if she were to help. But if they did not comply, they risked Templars forcing themselves in with more invasive searches, at the very least.

"What do you expect us to tell them?"[/b] he asked, containing whatever outrage he might have felt. [color=darkgreen]"That they must give up family members, turn on each other and destroy their bonds in the name of... what? Paranoia? The Alienage has not been troubled by mages thus far. It will remain so."

"You are simply to tell them to obey the law. While I have the power, Kirkwall will remain a city of law. It is against that law to remain outside of the Circle as a mage. Anyone who does so endangers their entire community, as well as themselves. Help them understand why this is for their own protection."

His immediate thought was that the danger was from the Templars alone, and if the Templars simply did not exist, there would be no danger to the community, but this he kept to himself. He knew Meredith would not hear it, that it would only anger her and push her ever closer to aggressive action. That they'd been granted this meeting at all was a sort of gift; they had some warning that Meredith would be coming down hard on them, and soon. How they could possibly prepare, though, he did not know.

Nodding, Ithilian slid his chair back, and stood. "Very well. You've made yourself clear. If there is nothing else, we should be going." A wave of Meredith's hand signaled a door guard to open their way out.

"Good. I will allow you some time, but I do expect results. Something I have heard the two of you are fully capable of providing."

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

Fortunately, the Templar escort proved to be a one-way sort of arrangement, and Ithilian and Amalia were free to make their way back to the Alienage unaccompanied. Still, they waited until they were well clear of the Gallows to say anything. At this point, Amalia broke the silence with a hypothesis. “She wants to bring us to heel. If that does not happen, I suspect she would think little of killing us in one of her raids.” Amalia had heard through the Lions that Meredith had already been sending some of her more zealous to actually break down doors in the middle of the night, in plainclothes. It wasn’t hard to imagine that she would implement a similar policy in the Alienage, if she felt she had to do so to bring it under her control.

But if they would willingly allow her the power over them she seemed to want, she’d get the same thing, at lower cost: a weakening of the tight weave of the Alienage community, and consequently a much reduced chance of any future problems out of that part of the city. Amalia pursed her lips. Neither outcome was desirable, but only two had been defined. Admittedly, attempting to fond a workaround would be difficult and possibly not even worthwhile, especially since Meredith was likely to take anything less than full compliance with her terms as resistance all the same.

“I… don’t think that we should trust her, regardless of what we choose to do. She did not say she would keep her Templars out if we cooperated. Only that she would be satisfied if we produced a mage for her. I should think her mere satisfaction worth little, compared with what the Alienage stands to lose to achieve it.” Still, she wasn’t as certain as she usually seemed to be, largely because this was a matter that affected more people than she was accustomed to accounting for. She was definitely waiting to hear what her kadan had to say before solidifying anything.

"And what do we lose if we refuse her?" he asked, the question more pained than confrontational. He wasn't about to advocate working with Meredith out of any kind of agreement with her. They'd effectively just been threatened in her office punishment if they did not comply with her wishes, and they had little enough at their disposal to call in without starting a bloody struggle in the city, one which they would likely lose. The city guard could not help them; Ashton ran them well, but they did not have the numbers or training of an army, as the Templars did. One wrong step would give the Templars reason enough to force them out, as well.

Ithilian stepped off the boat first back onto the Docks, leading the way back through Lowtown. "I'm not saying we give in to all her demands... but perhaps there's a middle ground." His elven friend probably wouldn't like it much, but Ithilian had found that Emerion liked little about this place, and he had other responsibilities besides. Somewhere, there was a clan of Dalish he was supposed to be returning to, likely something he was already supposed to have done by now. "I've never thought it wise for Emerion to linger here. He's clan and kin to me, practically, but he has no interest in working with Aurora and the other mages, and refuses to hide himself as well as he should. Even if he's calmed, he's too aggressive still, too emotional."

He shrugged, beginning up a flight of dry stone steps. "I might be able to convince him to leave now, with the knowledge that Templars will trail him. Emerion's swift, and the Templars have no phylactery for him. With a head start, he'll easily reach his clan again before anyone catches him, assuming they don't lose his trail first. We give Meredith his name, the direction he fled. Acknowledgement of her so-called threat, in a direction that is no longer the Alienage." It wasn't foolproof, of course. Meredith could easily suspect that they had aided in his escape, and come down on the Alienage for it all the same, but Ithilian was willing to wager she already believed that. It was a temporary solution at best, but time was what they needed. Time for something to change in Hightown.

"She's an excited, obsessive hound. Throw a stick, and she'll fixate on it. We have an opportunity to throw it away from the Alienage."

It wasn’t a terrible idea; she was perfectly willing to admit that. Still… Amalia ground her back teeth, the closest to an outwards expression of frustration she generally got. She had been taught to deal with problems, present or future, as swiftly and decisively as possible. Stalling and waiting for other people to accomplish things they may or may not eventually get around to was neither swift nor decisive. But what else could they do? She refused to be a Templar dog, she refused to betray the community that had taken her in, even though she was foreign and strange and human, besides.

It was not often, she acknowledged, that she had come across a problem some application of her skill, and perhaps the skills of those close to her, could not solve to her satisfaction. She had seldom been put in a situation for which these things alone were inadequate, and that was in large part because as a Qunari, she wasn’t supposed to solve problems that were better suited for someone else.

“Then I suppose our task is to convince him of this.” More his task than hers, she did not doubt. Emerion tolerated her presence, but nothing more than that. “And hope that Meredith is satisfied by the… stick.”

"Not the best plan, I know," he admitted, as they finished the walk towards the Alienage. "I'll let you know if I come up with something better." Upon returning to the Alienage, they found that a number of elves were outside of their homes, not doing much other than watching for new arrivals. A few showed signs of relief when they spotted Amalia, none more so than Lia, who jogged over to greet them before they could get past the vhenadahl.

"I came as soon as I heard," she said. "Why did the Templars let you go?"

"We weren't their prisoners, officially," Ithilian answered, frowning. "Meredith wants us to do something for her."

"Does it have something to do with Emerion? Why didn't they let him go, too?"

Ithilian gave Lia a confused look at her question, looking around briefly for his friend. "What are you talking about? The Templars only took the two of us." She pointed over to the door of Emerion's house.

"Some people saw another Templar leave with him. They said his hands were bound behind his back, and the Templar held him by the arm, taking him prisoner. They left the Alienage, probably for the Gallows. You didn't see him?" Ithilian shook his head, somewhat shocked. One Templar... two had stayed behind to perform a patrol. Emerion could not have been so foolish as to reveal himself to them... could he? Or perhaps it was merely a guess by Grath or Swann, taking him in for his vallaslin? He didn't expect either of them to be that reckless. They had seemed sensible, as Templars went.

"Did they go into his house? Where did they capture him?" Lia shrugged, leading Ithilian to move past her and head for his friend's house, the other two following behind him. Immediately he could see the heavy bootprints of Templar armor in the dirt there, at least two fresh sets. He tried to push the door open, but found it locked. One look to Lia was all it took for her to get to work on the door, crouching down and applying her tools to the lock. In moments she had it open, stepping out of the way for Ithilian and Amalia to head inside.

"Lia, close the door," Ithilian said, suddenly breathless, when he laid eyes on the floor of the main room. Lia stared for a moment before complying. The sparse furniture of the room had been pushed away to the walls, the clear space in the middle for what looked to be some sort of magic ritual arrangement. Shapes were drawn in blood over the floor, geometric and symmetrical patterns, dotted with various ingredients, many of which Ithilian did not recognize. Centered among the shapes was a body, that of the red-headed Templar Knight-Corporal, Eliza Swann. Her throat had been slit, eyes still staring lifelessly up at the ceiling. A hole in her armor appeared to have been burst from the inside across most of her chest, the brestplate mangled and splitting outwards from the center.

"Gods," Lia whispered, frozen before the door.

Lia’s shock was understandable; in the time it took her to recover, Amalia had already moved to close the door. The fewer people that saw this, the better. Her eyes were hard, half-masted with something difficult to read; she traced the line of one of the many scars on her bicep with an index finger, but her eyes didn’t leave the scene in front of her for several moments.

“This doesn’t make sense.” Her tone was level, though it was doubtful anyone had expected anything else—horribly mangled bodies were hardly new to her, and she’d seen worse things often enough that this was hardly cause to blink. But her words were her thoughts: there were several things about this that made no sense at all. First of all, Emerion wasn’t, as far as she knew, anywhere near this overt in his use of magic. She’d never so much as seen him use it, and a giant, presumably bloody, circle in the middle of his house was about as obvious as magic got.

Also, if the other Templar, the man, had seen this, he would have been, by most any reckoning, justified in killing the Dalish man on the spot, so why arrest him? Unless he was really cold-blooded enough to remember to do this the less-obtrusive way. Or somehow didn’t know, which seemed unlikely, as they patrolled in pairs for exactly this reason. Something wasn’t adding up here. Also, they had seen neither Emerion nor the second Templar on their way back from the Gallows. The route they had taken was not the only one, but it was the most direct. In any case, their chances of intercepting them on their way to the Gallows were probably slim.

But if he’d been able to get the drop on the first, surely the second would not have subdued him so easily. Amalia’s brows knit together. “Did either Emerion or this other Templar seem injured?”

Being asked a question snapped Lia out of a bit of a daze; she blinked rapidly several times. "Uh... I don't know. I didn't actually see them, I just know what I heard. It doesn't really look like there was a struggle in here, though." She was right. All of the moved furniture was intact, there were no unusual marks or scuffs on the walls or floor, apart from the blood everywhere. If there had been a struggle, it hadn't happened in here.

Approaching the body in the center of the room, Ithilian crouched down, studying the ritual designs with a deep frown. He'd known Emerion to be capable of such blood magic, but to see it used like this came as a shock all the same. Amalia was correct that little of it made sense. Even if Emerion hadn't already been taken in, he could never return to the Alienage after this. He'd be endangering the entire community by doing so. And Grath... he didn't strike Ithilian as the type to keep his cool enough to arrest a mage after having his partner murdered. And this ritual looked to have taken some time to set up, as well.

"We need to know what this means, what the purpose of this was," Ithilian concluded. "I'm not about to storm the Gallows again without understanding the situation first." And even then, he was unsure if Emerion warranted a rescue at this point. This murder effectively proved Meredith's point, and would give her more reason to tighten her grip on the Alienage.

"Amalia, can you get Nostariel? She might know about this kind of magic. And Lia, make sure no one gets curious and wanders in here."

It didn’t take more than half an hour for Amalia to retrieve Nostariel and bring her back to the Alienage, at which point she was admitted into Emerion’s house.

Even as accustomed to various stages of injury and death as she was, Nostariel blanched at the sight of the dead Templar, taking a half-step backwards before she remembered herself and pursed her lips. It was clear enough why they needed her here at this point—Amalia had explained the basic facts, but more than that would probably have to be deciphered from what was left behind.

Slowly, Nostariel walked the circle, occasionally stopping to crouch and pick up this or that ingredient, sniffing or in one case tasting the various accouterments of the casting. She spent a few moments after that examining Swann’s corpse, murmuring something soft and frowning when a reddish light flared in her hand as a result. “It’s… from the circle, and the ingredients, it looks like some kind of mind control hex. Extremely advanced blood magic, actually.” She hadn’t been as fervent in her avoidance of blood magic as the more fastidious apprentices in her Circle, and her time in the Wardens had amplified that knowledge, even if she was not a practitioner. But this was beyond her ken, save for the generalities.

“The effects would be… quite potent, especially on a single target or small number of targets—I’m afraid it took all of the young woman’s life force to activate.” She sighed softly, closing Swann’s unseeing eyes with her fingers. Standing, she turned to face the other three. “I wish I could tell you that any amateur blood mage could have cast this, but…” she trailed off and shook her head. “I know more than most, and this is nothing I could do.”

Amalia was scowling now. Of all the stupid things to do, and of all the foolish times to do it… but it was unproductive to linger on that. Nodding to Nostariel, she shot a glance at Ithilian. “The only target that fits with our information is Grath, the other Templar.” It would explain why he hadn’t killed Emerion for sacrificing his partner, why neither was obviously wounded, and why this death hadn’t been discovered until they’d walked right into it.

“But to what end would he do something like this? He has never struck me as an idiot, and this is the height of idiocy.” Surely he didn’t think Ithilian was in need of rescue from the Gallows, or that he stood a chance of doing lasting damage to the Templar order by getting in close to its heart… did he?

"You don't know him like I do," Ithilian said, grimacing. "If he thought he needed to help us, and thought using this would actually do that..." He trailed off, staring at the body for a moment. "I think we need to warn Meredith, immediately. If we're not too late already. If something happens, and she believes we were a part of it..." It could effectively condemn them all. He wasn't fond of playing bodyguard to the Knight-Commander, but in this case, it seemed the best thing to do.

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

They did not run to the docks, but the group could not have walked any faster if they tried. Nostariel had elected to come along as a precaution to any injury that might occur, and while Lia had wanted to come as well, Ithilian persuaded her to return to the Lions, and tell Lucien what had happened. He did not expect there would be any part for the Lions to play in this, but he thought it best they know what was occurring anyway.

Neither Emerion nor Grath was spotted on their way to the ferry. A quick interrogation of the boatman that arrived to take them across revealed nothing useful, but that didn't necessarily mean anything; there were quite a few boats that traveled to and from the Gallows, and Emerion could have been on any of them. Setting off from the docks, Ithilian adjusted the armor and weapons he had hastily thrown on in his departure. Any scenario in which he needed to use them would be dire; he did not relish the thought of stopping his friend for Meredith's sake. And the Alienage, he had to remind himself.

Boots hit the ground at the base of the Gallows, the three quickly making their way inside. Their eyes covered different directions as they moved, unsure if Emerion would have made his way to the Gallows, or to the Templar headquarters, but in the end, it was Ithilian who spotted one of their quarries. He pointed to the reinforced front doors of the Templar compound, at the heavily armored warrior passing through. "Knight-Lieutenant's armor. But he's alone."

He supposed it could have been another; there were quite a few Knight-Lieutenants in Kirkwall, after all. Something about the way one of the door guards watched him pass through, though...

Whatever Amalia had been expecting to encounter once they made it this far, what she actually found was not it. Sweeping her eyes over the surroundings, she followed the direction of Ithilian’s gesture, pursing her lips slightly and nodding. There was a decent chance that was Grath. But… she nudged her kadan’s elbow with her own, and nodded in a slightly different direction, the gesture obvious enough that Nostariel would be able to follow it also.

Because, puzzlingly enough, Emerion appeared to be seated behind a merchant stall, one of several set up in front of the Templar headquarters. As far as she could tell, his body language was relaxed—his eyes were even closed. Amalia wasn’t really sure what to make of that.

"By the..." Ithilian trailed off when he followed Amalia's nod to where Emerion sat, as casually as though he were taking a mid-afternoon nap, in a merchant stall that he acted like he owned. Trying not to give away the seriousness of the situation to anyone that was watching, Ithilian led the way swiftly over to the stall, stopping on the front side of the countertop. It was a large, open, tent-like setup, the wares consisting mostly of herbs and potions.

"Emerion," Ithilian hissed, to get his attention. "Are you insane? What have you done?" In reply, his friend actually smiled, a grin that Ithilian was quite unfamiliar with.

"Well, this is turning out to be quite tragic. For him, that is. Looks like I wasn't even needed." He opened his eyes and looked up them, his irises a strange color of electric blue. Ithilian recoiled from the sight of him, his features shifting quickly from anger to alarm.

"What is this? What are you talking about?"

"He was worried, so worried. Thought he needed to help, but didn't know how. One slip was all it took. He and I are old friends, but now he's given me the room. I knew a way to help you, and much more." The grin on Emerion's face grew, though the look it had did not belong to Emerion at all.

A soft hiss of exhalation escaped Nostariel at the words. She could understand Ithilian not quite grasping what was happening here—she didn’t want to believe it either, and Emerion was not her childhood friend. But taking it in, the evidence was all there. The relaxed posture, the indicative eye color, the arrogance in his facial expression and his tone, to say nothing of the words themselves. “Pride demon.” The words were no louder than a breathy whisper—one did not say such things aloud in the company of Templars to be sure.

She swallowed thickly, and turned wide eyes to Ithilian. This explained quite a lot, but… how were they going to handle this? Nostariel knew of only one possession that had ended with the expulsion of the demon, and their chances of replicating Sparrow’s circumstances were, as she understood it, virtually nonexistent. The usual solution in such cases was to kill the host, before or after they became an abomination. But that… that was not a decision so easily made. Not when the host was kith or kin.

Pride demon. It didn't take Ithilian long to figure out the meaning behind the words. Possession. Emerion was lost, and the only reason the demon hadn't mutated his body into an abomination was because he was interested in remaining hidden. Not too hidden, obviously, given the incredibly rash actions he had led him to do. The murder of the Templar in the Alienage, the control of the other one... all of it must have been done by the demon. It left Ithilian unsure what to do. He supposed he should have driven a blade into him then and there, but he could not seem to forget the fact that he himself had once given in to Pride, and put his allies at risk. He had been pulled back from that brink by them. Couldn't the same happen for Emerion?

"One moment, please," the demon said through Emerion's mouth, closing his eyes again. "I've left my tool unattended. This won't take long." He had closed his eyes only for a brief moment when a deep boom sounded out, coming from the direction of the Templar headquarters. Even from this distance the reverberations of the blast could be felt, and after a total silence fell for a moment, the first screams pierced the air. The guards at the front gate could not help themselves, leaving their posts to look inside, and see what had occurred.

"A surprise for the officers of the Order," the demon said, eyes open again. He stood, clasping his hands casually together in front of him. "I believe we should go."

While Nostariel was perhaps more inclined to stop and help any potential injuried parties than she was to just walk away from what might have been a walking bomb spell or something worse, she acknowledged that there were plenty of able healers in a Circle, and her time was probably better put to use making sure Ithilian and Amalia weren’t implicated in this.

“Follow me, then.” With a baleful glance at Emerion—or rather, the demon using Emerion as transport—she led the way to the boats, talking one of the ferrymen into letting them across despite the rather obvious disturbance that had just occurred. A fortunate thing, too, because the Templars were quick to close ranks, and it wasn’t long before they were out in force, presumably searching for whoever was responsible for this whole thing.

They wouldn’t find him, at least not yet. Nostariel may have no personal need of boltholes, but that didn’t mean she had none. The one she chose was in Darktown, as rarely did even Templars venture this far into the city’s rotting underbelly. To their benefit, it looked as though it had remained undisturbed since the last time she’d seen it, if the cobwebs were anything to go by. Brushing them away as she entered, she let the others file in, then shut the door, plunging the room into darkness for a few seconds before she produced a light by magic. The hideaway was sparsely-furnished, with a rickety table, a couple of rotting chairs, and little else, but at least the floor was made of actual wood, and it was a sight better than a sewer passage, in terms of both smell and contents.

"Dismal place," the demon commented dryly, allowing itself to be guided in by the others. Ithilian had been terrified of the creature feeling threatened at some point during their move here, with the way the Templars were moving around once the word of the attack had gotten out. It was unclear what exactly had happened; word spread quickly, but so too did false reports, and they had heard several on their way to Darktown. Frankly, Ithilian didn't care. Templars were dead, a creature wearing Emerion's face was responsible, and since he had heard no reports of Meredith's death, he had to assume she was alive, and plotting an aggressive move.

The hideout had a side room, which Ithilian was grateful for. He pointed to one of the chairs and glared at the demon. "Sit, and don't move." Not resisting, the demon made his way over and sank down, the chair creaking beneath him. Ithilian looked to Nostariel next. "Make sure he doesn't go anywhere. Lethallan." He made his way into the dim side room, waiting for Amalia to close the door behind her before he spoke, his voice quiet and tense.

"I don't know what to do, lethallan."

Amalia shook her head. She really didn’t know what to do either. Hissra…” she paused, then corrected herself. “Demons don’t let go, kadan. This isn’t Feynriel’s dream. If we kill Emerion, he really dies, and the demon with him.” It was, in many ways, the logical thing to do. The demon was clearly in control of the situation, and she’d never heard of someone just fighting off a possession from superior strength of will or anything like that. These things ended one of two ways: either the abomination was killed, or it killed a lot of other people, and then was killed.

“But…” She could see how much this bothered him. She didn’t even have to look to understand, though—Emerion was his clan, and Ithilian held clan in high regard. She didn’t fully understand it, sometimes, but she understood enough. “But there is someone I know who was possessed, and now is not.” She didn’t know exactly what had happened to force the demon from Sparrow, but she understood Rilien had something to do with it, at least. Perhaps there was a way to replicate that.

“It took… quite a lot of time. We can’t keep him in the Alienage, not with everything that’s happened.” Amalia bit down on her lip. It was a long way to go for an outside chance, and the risk was enormous. But if Ithilian wanted to take it, then she would, too. “We could try and get him out, past the Templars, onto the Coast, at least until we can figure out how Sparrow was freed.” If it could be replicated, then that would be an answer. If not… that was a bridge they would cross when they reached it.

Amalia sighed, the sound somehow hyperaudible. Perhaps it was only because it was so dark, and the ears took over for the eyes. Reaching forward, she laid a hand on Ithilian’s shoulder, squeezing to offer what assurance she could, her eyes seeking his singular one in the gloom. “I don’t know what the right answer is, kadan. I don’t know him as well as you do, and I know no more about what the demon will do than anyone else does. But I trust you. Whatever you decide, I will help you. No matter the risk.” That likely didn’t make the decision any easier, but then she didn’t think anything she could do or say would produce that result, much as it rankled to admit.

"There is one other option I can think of," Ithilian said, looking almost like he wanted to grit his teeth together. It felt wrong to think it, but that was because he was still thinking of the man in the other room as his friend, as someone he grew up alongside. It hadn't yet hit him that Emerion was gone already, and he didn't know when it would. He didn't know what he would feel. He wanted to be wrathful as his nature compelled him to be, and destroy the thing responsible. The Templars, perhaps. Their pressure had caused him to lose himself to this demon. It made what he was about to suggest all the more uncomfortable.

"We deliver him to the Templars. Let them deal with the problem. If we hide him on the Coast for however long it takes to find a way to reverse this, if it's even possible, what cost will others pay? The demon made a direct attack on Meredith. She won't rest until the guilty party is dealt with." She would come down on the Alienage, encourage her zealous servants to act on their suspicions, encourage them at every turn. All while they protected... what? A demon? This was not Sparrow's case. Sparrow had retained some amount of control. Ithilian had yet to see a glimpse of his friend since they encountered him in the Gallows.

"We would need a trick. The demon must think we plan to help it escape, or it might turn on us in the city. We... need Aurora's help. A tunnel pathway leading out of the city, to the Coast. We escort the demon through, but give the Templars a location on the other side. Put the demon down where it's safe." He had to remind himself to keep calling it the demon and not Emerion. It felt like a poor plan; Aurora would hate doing anything for the Templars, no doubt, and Amalia as well seemed against giving anything to Meredith. But Ithilian was forcing himself to think about the immediate effect on the Alienage and little else. Allowing the Templars to kill the demon was the right choice, as far as he could tell, even if it didn't feel right. None of this felt right.

"Is that madness? He wouldn't want his kind to die because of him. Emerion was always a fool, but he owned his mistakes."

“It isn’t madness.” In fact, next to killing him before he had a chance to do any further damage, it was probably the most direct, rational route to take. “But I don’t want you to regret this, kadan. If you are certain of the path, then we will take it. But if you want to see if Emerion can take some portion of himself back before we give up on him, then we can do that instead.” There were ways to contain the demon’s damage in the meantime, if they were willing to give the time and effort, she thought. Meredith had no way of knowing who was responsible for what had happened at the Gallows, and even if she suspected an elf, it would be unlikely for the culprit to go back to the very place he’d come from. There would be a way to throw the stick away from them yet, if they needed to.

There was a time when she would not have offered even the words of caution. But it was Ithilian himself who had helped her realize that she would rather bear the consequences of trusting too much, of having too much hope, of giving the benefit of the doubt, than bear the very same consequences because she didn’t trust enough. Emerion was not Ithilian, and that was obvious enough. But he mattered to Ithilian, and so by extension, he mattered to her.

Ithilian didn't want to regret this either. But if anyone came to harm while he selfishly tried to preserve one person close to him, he would regret it all the same. This was one time he felt that patience was not warranted.

"Meredith made this demon. She can have it."

Setting

4 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

[justify]The candles above Aurora flickered lazily and illuminated the small room she was in. She sat in a chair pointed toward the door on the far wall, in a hovel located on a street not far from the Hanged Man. The scarf around her neck was pulled up into a makeshift hood and her arms were crossed as she patiently waited, a finger rhythmically tapping against the arm of the chair. Her face held an intense gaze as she stared at the door, waiting for it to open at any moment now.

The room where she waited was only familiar to her and a few others, as it was the same safehouse where she, Sophia, and Lucien met with Sister Petrice and led Ketojan away from the city in a trap. It was odd then that she now found herself in much of the same basic premise, though the Qunari were now replaced with Templars, and Ketojan with a possessed Emerion.

Aurora had taken control of the passage not too long after the formation of the Underground, as an escape route or safehouse for mages in need. It had seen only a few uses since then, but tonight was perhaps the last use it would see before she would have to burn it. Mage possessions and Templars weren’t things she wanted associated with her escape tunnels.

There was a rustle outside the door, and Aurora tensed. That tension refused to leave even after it was revealed that it was her friends. Her gaze lingered on Emerion for moment, and though her face revealed nothing, the unease was palpable. Standing, she spoke."Extinguish the lamp outside and bolt the door," she ordered.

Nostariel did both, as she was the last to file in, anyway. What they’d decided to do didn’t sit especially well with her, which was odd, because normally she would have approved. At least, she would have had the Templars been the more moderate force she had once known. Nowadays, they were growing more and more extreme, largely, she suspected, due to Meredith’s apparent personal shift in the same direction. Still, it was wiser than about anything else they could have done—the presence of the demon had really tied their hands in terms of options.

The bolt on the door slid home, and with a grim smile, the Warden nodded to Aurora. She suspected her friend didn’t like this much, either, if perhaps for slightly different reasons. “So… where’s this passage, then?”

Aurora didn’t answer with words, instead she slipped into a smaller back room and grabbed an edge of a dirty old rug. She peeled it back to revealed the handle to a hidden trap door. She then took a step backward and gestured to it with her head. ?"It leads into the Undercity, and it’s easy to get lost if you’re unsure of where you’re going. It does lead to the coast, but beware. We sweep the tunnels every week or so, so we shouldn’t run into any thugs, but be aware all the same." She then bent down and opened the trap door, descending the ladder into the warrens and ignoring the stench.

"I never thought I would have such friends here," the demon remarked pleasantly, following his escorts down the ladder and into the bowels of the city. If he was at all bothered by the smell or sight of the place, he wasn't showing it. In fact, the look in his eyes seemed to imply he was enjoying every second of it. He lacked any form of weaponry, but appeared unconcerned, and for good reason, Ithilian knew. He was capable of powerful blood magic as soon as any was spilled, and could of course take on the more signature form of the pride demon at will.

"We're not your friends, demon," Ithilian answered, curtly. "This is being done for Emerion, not for you." It was too late to turn back now, of course. The Templars would be waiting for them on the other side, but Ithilian still wondered if this was the right way, or just the easy one. Deciding it would help no one to be torn in thought now, he pushed it from his mind. They had grim work to do, and it would require focus to ensure no one was hurt doing it.

They walked in silence for a time under the city, enduring the smells and growing tense with each unfamiliar sound, though it was as Aurora said, and no thugs or other lowlifes appeared to bother them. Eventually, the demon began to watch Aurora, and eventually quickened his stride to walk side by side with her.

"You look so familiar. Have we met before? I think we must have."

Had the words not been spoken so clearly, it would’ve seemed that Aurora not heard them at all. She ignored the demon completely, refusing to even turn toward it when it spoke to her. Instead, she continued her pace with her eyes pointed ever forward. The first time she had been in these tunnels, her emotions had controlled her, and back then she would’ve entertained the demon with a sharp remark, and played into whatever game it was playing. But that was a long time ago and Aurora was in no mood for games.

She guided them through the warrens in silence, and after a few more turns they neared the exit of the tunnels. The air turned from the stale stench to a rush of a sea salt breeze, and at the end awaited a dark sky dotted with stars. "We’re almost through," Aurora stated in a monotone that would impress even Rilien.

"Freedom has a fresh smell to it, I say," the demon commented, quickening his stride as they neared the exit. Ithilian picked up his own pace to keep with him. His meeting with Meredith earlier in the day had been terse and uncomfortable, even worse than before given that it was in the aftermath of the demon's attack. When he'd arrived, the servants were still working to clean blood off of the walls and even the ceiling. Apparently Knight-Lieutenant Grath had been infused with some sort of explosive spell in addition to his mind control, to be detonated at the demon's whim. Several Templars had perished in the blast, having caught on to the officer's condition, attempting to restrain him when the blast was triggered. Meredith herself had been uninjured by the attack, though her proximity to it had put her in a very poor mood. Ithilian counted himself lucky this exchange had even been accepted; Meredith likely thought she had grounds for much worse.

At last they exited the tunnels and were bathed in moon and starlight, the night air cool and refreshing compared to the stale, lingering aroma below the surface. The surface beneath their feet was soft and easily moved sand, damp and clumping. Ithilian did not see Templars immediately, moving out further into a slight depression. The sea was visible from where they stood, ridges rising up on either side of them which could easily hide a number of people. This was the location he had instructed the Templars to come to, difficult to find as it was. That was sort of the point of it, originally.

The demon must have been tipped by the way Ithilian's hand began to linger near Parshaara at his chest, as he turned slightly and eyed him for a moment. Before any magic could be arrayed against him, Ithilian's lip curled into a snarl and his arms shot out for the head of his once-friend, wrapping tightly around it. When he had the neck in a position to snap, he hesitated, as Templars began to appear along the top of the rise ahead of him, swords drawn.

"You were a friend to him once," the demon sputtered, grinning even through the headlock. "But you'd have given him over to these murderers even had he not been taken by me, no?" Roaring, Ithilian snapped the elf's neck in his hands, the body falling limply to the ground. Huffing, Ithilian stepped away and stared at it for a moment, the Templars above doing the same, like silent sentinels with their hidden eyes. The body had been on the ground for no more than a few moments before it began to crackle with pulsing lightning, lifting it from the ground once more and striking violently at anyone who remained close, forcing them away. Emerion's head was grotesquely pointed sideways, but this lasted for only a moment, as soon all of the flesh was stripped away, and the true form of the pride demon burst from within, landing with a heavy thud in the sand and roaring displeasure.

"Kill the demon, men!" shouted the leader of the Templars here. Meredith was not present, but Ithilian had not expected her to be. She would not risk herself for this. Swords and shields in hand, the Templars rushed down the slope to engage the pride demon, who blasted the first of them back with a powerful shock ball, which kicked up a plume of sand when his body smacked back against the earth behind him.

The fact that Emerion himself was unquestionably dead now meant that there was no lingering instinct towards reservation; not in Amalia, anyway. This was just a demon, now, and it would get the same thing all hissra received from her. Using the distraction provided by the onrushing group of Templars, she darted in from the other side, drawing a stout, one-handed axe from its former place at her belt. She had not come unprepared for the natural armor of a pride demon, since Nostariel had so helpfully identified it as such.

There was no flourish to this, nor even especially a showcase of skill. All Amalia did was position herself quietly behind one of its legs while it shot fire at the closing wall of armored men and women, take hold of the axe with both hands, and swing it as hard as she could, much in the manner of one who means to make the first blow against a tree to be felled. The axehead bit deep into the back of the demon’s knee, and she abandoned it there, correctly guessing that the sudden strike would draw its attention to her.

She was perhaps a little too close for it to use electricity against her, but well within range of its long arms, one of which came around to sweep her feet out from underneath her. She jumped, alighting briefly on its forearm, only to propel herself off again before it could catch hold of her, landing in a roll on the loose sand beneath them.

It was at that point that Nostariel stepped in, providing Amalia with some cover fire so as to let her complete her withdrawal from the demon’s reach. A flame arrow hit center mass, exploding on contact and leaving an impressive scorch mark across the creature’s chest, and the follow up, enchanted with ice, actually struck it square in the nose, a rather impressive shot for Nostariel, whose aim was generally good but not exemplary. The ice spread over its mouth and eyes, leaving it reeling and blind for just a moment. The shock-sphere it shot at her in retaliation, therefore, went quite a distance wide of her.

Aurora had yet to make her move, and for good reason. She had entered the fray with nothing but her hands and her magic, and between the demon’s scaly armor and the templars, neither were a promising option. She also decided to forgo her staff and leave it at home just to be safe, as openly wielding a staff in front of templars was just as bad as using magic, and the demon could’ve grown suspicious had she been more armed than she was. With a bit of patience and intuition however, she wouldn’t have to go without a weapon for long. She made her way toward templars when the demon’s shock-sphere caught the edge of their formation. The spell had brought down two of the templars, though if it had been fatal or not, she couldn’t tell, nor did she particularly have time to check.

Instead, she darted past them dipping low and plucked one of their shields as she ran. She slipped it over her arm and held on to the thick metal slab with both hands. Now somewhat armed, she followed behind the templar formation as they began to surround the demon. The pride demon had managed to claw off enough ice to see through one eye, and with its partial vision swept its massive horns through the templars and flung those who hadn’t braced themselves through the air. On its second pass, Aurora acted, and pushed through the line of templars to vault onto its head. Her hand clutched a horn to steady herself, and at the end of the pass she drew the shield back and drove it hard against the top of its skull.

It roared in perhaps more frustration than pain, and bucked its head to try and dislodge its unwanted rider, and Aurora happily complied. She sailed through the air and landed hard into a roll. Had the surface been anything but the soft sand then she might have gotten worse than a few scrapes and bruises. And had she been slower to pull the shield up, she would’ve been little more than ash as the demon burned through the ice around its mouth and shot a blast toward her. Once it subsided, Aurora peeked up over the edge of the shield.

By then, the demon was forced to preoccupy itself with other combatants. The Templars were swarming it effectively, demonstrating their training, and a few employed specialized abilities to weaken it, before going in for more strikes. It was apparent that with all of them together, the demon wasn't going to last long. Ithilian remained at a distance, trying to pinpoint weak spots and hit them with his bow. The demon's visage was much easier to attack than Emerion's, he was finding.

Shrugging off more attacks, the demon began to laugh, even though it was clearly weakening. Pausing briefly, it shuddered with magical energy, before the entire surface of its skin began to crackle with magical electricity, coating it with a sort of armor. The first Templar who tried to strike it received a powerful shock, with enough force to knock him flat on his back, where he was helpless to the crushing stomp the pride demon followed up with. After crushing that Templar, the demon's attention was turned to Ithilian, who had loosed an arrow for its face, only to have the projectile shatter upon impact. The demon responded with a projectile of its own, another powerful shock blast aimed at Ithilian. He ducked down behind a rock large enough to hide him.

Just before the blast arrived, a Templar leaped over the rock to take cover beside him, crashing down in a clattering of armor, the back of his robes singed and blackened. He clambered to his knees beside Ithilian, adjusting his helmet to look at the elf. Ithilian reached out a hand to steady him and get him back up. Seemingly unwarranted, the Templar responded by shoving his shield forward, slamming the rim of it into Ithilian's forehead and filling his vision with stars, both real and simply in his eyes. He found himself on his back in the sand, dazed, and soon the heavy weight of an armored Templar was on top of him, shield pinning him down, sword raised and about to hack down on his head.

At least until something collided with him, hard enough for an audible thud, knocking the Templar off Ithilian and carrying him into a rather rough tumble in the sand, clumps of it flying up and landing in a few-foot radius around where Amalia now straddled the armored man’s abdomen, a knife gripped in her left hand. There was a momentary pause, almost as if she were making some kind of decision, but the truth was, it wasn’t a very difficult one.

Quickly, before she could be thrown off or rolled over, she brought the knife down, right into the space between the Templar’s helmet and his chestplate. He drew a final, shuddering breath, wet with his own blood, and then his struggle ceased, his grip slackening and his arms falling to the ground.

Amalia rose to her feet, shaking some of the sand out of her hair, hastening back to the cover Ithilian occupied. “I know not if this is the demon’s work or the Knight-Commander’s—either way, we’d best watch ourselves.” And that went for the others as well; she scooted to the edge of the rock they were behind and looked out, trying to spot either Aurora or Nostariel.

Nostariel was halfway across the area of battle, focusing her fire quite intently on the demon, who as far as she could tell was weakening, but shielded. Dispelling it outright was something she wasn’t sure she could do from a distance this great, so she focused on battering it with her heaviest-hitting spells, all in the same place, as quickly as possible. Arrow after arrow flew at it, and she could almost feel it weakening, until with one last concussive shot, it shattered, leaving the demon once again exposed to damage.

Of course, focusing as she had left her rather oblivious to the other goings-on of the battle, and she was therefore completely blindsided when a heavy shield caught her in the back, knocking her face-first onto the sand. Blind reflex saved her from the sword that followed, though, and it entered her body just below the clavicle on the right side of her chest instead of right through her heart. It still hurt, however, punching through the corresponding lung, and if she’d had the air, Nostariel would have screamed. Instead, she used her relatively uninjured left side to hurl a handful of sand into the slit in the Templar’s helmet, struggling ineffectually to move while still effectively staked to the ground.

Aurora had not been too far away from her. The demon’s electric shield had rendered any offense she could’ve mustered with the shield moot, and she once again found herself relegated to patiently waiting and watching. She had kept the distance between the templars and herself partly out of caution and partly out of, well founded as it turned out, paranoia. With the attack on Nostariel, Aurora turned her focus away from the demon and onto the templar that had turned on them. She crossed the distance between Nostariel and her in moments, and the templar managed to clear his eyes just enough to see the shield slam into his face. The templar fell backward and she dropped the edge of her shield square into his chest, denting the armor.

She took a step backward and stood over Nostariel as she held the shield up with both hands to defend them both. Healing was not Aurora’s specialty and trying to help her would only hurt more. She didn’t know much, but she knew just ripping the sword out was not a good idea. "Will you be okay?" she asked, swiveling around her.

Nostariel couldn’t exactly answer with a sword in her lung, but her free hand made a vague sort of gesture that she hoped Aurora would interpret as an affirmative, or close enough that she’d put her focus on defending the pair of them from the Templar until the Warden could take care of herself. A task unfortunately made more difficult by the near-blinding amount of pain she was in.

Hot tears prickled the back of Nostariel’s eyes when she took hold of the blade of the sword with both hands, trying not to cut herself on the blade of it. It felt like dying when she tried to pull it out the first time, but didn’t quite succeed, the weapon leaning to the side as it lost a few inches’ grip in her body, gravity trying to pull it down by the hilt. The result was that it tore at her insides as though the wielder had still been holding it and twisted, and Nostariel’s second effort to pull it out was much hastier and less careful.

Thankfully, it really did come free that time, falling off to the side. A short glance down informed Nostariel that blood was welling from the wound, thick and hot and red, and she bit her tongue to keep herself alert, fighting the blurring in her eyes and the easy temptation to unconsciousness. Far more slowly than she would have liked, the magic sparked to life in her hands, and she felt the wounds closing over, the blood clearing out of her lung as her vessels and flesh knit back together. With a soft groan, Nostariel eased, her head hitting the sand while she drew in several deep breaths, trying to clear the residual fog from her head. She knew she couldn’t stay long, though, and made to pull herself back onto her feet.
/justify]

Setting

4 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

The pride demon's shield had allowed it to do a number on the ranks of Templars, though there were still enough of them left to be a significant threat, both to the demon and to those that had escorted it here to be slain. Ithilian resumed his overwatch of the battle from afar, now being much more careful to keep his eyes on the helmeted warriors nearby as well as the demon. Any of them could be threats, or all of them could be. He hadn't seen the mind control effects the demon had put on the Templar before, so he didn't how to identify any of them now, if they were there, and Nostariel for the moment was in too compromised a position to properly take in the situation.

A bow armed Templar across the battlefield from him was drawing back an arrow, his aim not exactly lining up with the demon. Ithilian took no chance, and put one of his own arrows into the archer's throat. The nearest Templar to Ithilian turned and stared at him, his facial expression hidden behind his helmet, though he pictured it being one of outrage. He looked as though he was considering raising his sword, but Ithilian turned his bow on him, only holding his arrow due to the man's hesitation.

"Back off!" he commanded, and to his surprise, the Templar actually did so, moving slowly away from him. The others, no more than six in number now, were battering down the demon, who finally dropped to one knee, heavily wounded and tiring.

It was Amalia that finished the job this time. Having drawn a short, wide thrusting dagger, she knew its effectiveness would be predicated on placing it somewhere that mattered. So when the demon dropped to a knee, she took the opportunity, bounding into a sprint over the sand, which to her counted as very familiar terrain, and going airborne in a rather impressive jump that carried her to the height required, giving her ample opportunity to bury the knife in the demon’s eyes socket, up to the hilt and easily deep enough to reach the grey matter beyond. She twisted it to be sure, then brought her feet up and used them to push herself free as it fell, landing far enough that the sand its impact threw up just dusted her boots.

Shaking the dagger off, she sheathed it, motioning for both Nostariel and Aurora to close ranks with herself and Ithilian while they faced those Templars that remained. She watched them carefully, but made no further move to attack any of them, seeing as how they were not moving to attack her friends, either.

In fact, it seemed as though the fight had ended, though a few of the Templars were still prepared to engage if it seemed to be called for. Three of the seven Templars here had suffered fairly debilitating wounds in the fight, one appearing to have a mangled leg that prevented him from rising. Two others were kneeling, while the rest stood and watched. Ithilian motioned with his bow for the outliers of the group to gather with the rest, and eventually had them all in a clustered bunch.

"Don't heal them," he said to Nostariel, once he confirmed that she was in fact no longer in a life-threatening situation. Looking back to the Templars, Ithilian kept his bowstring taut, ready to kill them on a moment's notice. "Take off your helmets. All of you." Some of them complied with the command quicker than others, but in the end they all had their helmets off, revealing the very human looking faces of five men and two women, a few of them bloodied even under their helmets.

"If no one explains, all of you die." Having just watched a childhood friend's body torn to pieces by a pride demon, and then suffered a betrayal from a group he already had a strong distaste for, Ithilian was in no mood for games. He didn't care that the Templars here were too weak to defend themselves anymore. "Why did you turn on us? Were you ordered?"

"Our orders were to assist with the removal of the demon," one of the younger men immediately said, appearing to be one of the more panicked of the bunch. He'd suffered a nasty cut near his eye, and was bleeding down the side of his face. "It must've been more mind control, like what took over Knight-Lieutenant Grath."

The look on Ithilian's face clearly gave away that the response wasn't what he wanted to hear. There was a bloodlust in him, demanding to be satisfied before this night was over. "Nostariel! Check the bodies. Can you identify if they were under some spell?"

Frowning, but giving no other evidence as to her current thoughts, Nostariel knelt next to the body of the Templar that had attacked her, murmuring a few spells and then physically inspecting him, gently lifting one of his eyelids and closing it again. She repeated the process for the other two indicated Templars, the ones that had died by the hands of her friends rather than the pride demon itself. Her face only seemed to grow grimmer as she progressed, but her mind was whirring. She couldn’t be completely sure, of course, because blood magic was sometimes subtle, but…

“I…” she hesitated for a bare moment, knowing that Ithilian was not likely to be in the mood for seeing nuances right now, and debating whether or not she should tell him the truth. In the end, though, she couldn’t just lie to him. “I can’t be absolutely certain, but… none of them look to have been under the effects of a spell like that. But it doesn’t mean they were all given the same orders.” She knew that of late, the Templars had been increasingly divided on the matter of Meredith’s leadership. Perhaps there was a similar split in this group.

Sensing Ithilian’s continued frustration, Amalia moved so she was standing halfway in front of him. She wasn’t blocking his shot exactly, but he would have to purposefully shoot around her, something that would take a second more deliberation than just loosing the arrow immediately. Kadan. Remember why we are here.” She caught his eye and held it, knowing she didn’t need to say any more than that for him to take her meaning.

They were here because they needed to be in order to keep the Alienage safe. A few dead Templars were expected given what had just happened. But the whole squad killed, and all of the non-Templars still alive? That would be outright provocation to someone like Meredith, the very thing they were trying to prevent, since the retaliation would come down directly on the Alienage. Still, she had been completely serious when she said that this matter was his to handle as he chose; she would do her best to assist in dealing with any fallout either way.

Aurora glared at the templars, her fist wound tightly around the shield's handle. She didn't believe the templar for a moment, but neither did she believe retribution was the wisest course of action. "It doesn't matter if they're lying," Aurora agreed, though there was a barb directed toward the templars. "There has already been too much death today." Even if they were templars she did not feel comfortable executing them where they stood. It was simply not how they operated, not to mention that it would raise Meredith's wrath.

She then slipped the shield off of her arm and threw it the distance between them and the templars. It was no longer necessary, as if the templars attempted to attack them one last time, then she wouldn't need to hide her powers any longer. "Take it and leave, quickly."

Just when Ithilian thought he'd lost himself to hate again, he was reminded why he set it aside. From directly in front of him Amalia would be able to see it struggle to survive in his eyes, and then finally give in to reason, and die. He slowly eased up the tension on the bowstring, and then removed the arrow, returning it to its quiver. Still fuming breaths through his nostrils, he nodded briefly to his lethallan, and then walked past her to stand closer to the Templars.

"Listen to me very carefully," he said, his voice still just as serious as before, but no longer bursting with the same kind of deadly aggression. "My friends and I came here tonight to deliver to you an abomination, a demon possessing the body of a mage I spent my entire childhood with. We came here to fight with you in destroying that demon. We sought only to protect the people we care for, and the people who cannot protect themselves. We didn't have to do any of this, but it was the right thing to do." He paused, hoping they would take the moment to try and comprehend what he was telling them.

"In return, your Knight-Commander just tried to have us killed, because she believes we represent a threat to her. Your Knight-Commander is ruthless and insane, paranoid and delusional. She makes enemies where she has none, and will only see this city torn into pieces if she is allowed to continue. Your Knight-Commander is the one responsible for my friend's possession, when she sent a troop of Templars where a simple message would have sufficed." Ithilian suspected that Meredith wanted to draw a reaction from the Alienage, that she wanted to create violence where there had previously been none, if only to have her suspicions forcefully confirmed. There was only so much speculation he was willing to force on these Templars right now, though.

"All of you are lucky to be leaving here with your lives tonight. Many of your brothers and sisters were not so fortunate. During your long walk back to Kirkwall, I would ask only that you think for a moment about whose cause you are serving. Is it your Maker's, or is it only Meredith's? The two are not one and the same. They haven't been for years." The Templar who had spoken up in his own defense earlier stood now, beginning to offer a hand to another of the injured, though he looked to Ithilian first, as though asking for permission. Ithilian waved a hand dismissively in return.

"Go. And don't ever trouble me again."

The Chanter's Board has been updated. Blood and Pride has been completed.

Setting

1 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel

Earnings

0.00 INK

Estella sat in one of the squashy armchairs in Rilien’s sitting room, or the arrangement of furniture around a low table that served the same function, though the room itself was clearly multipurpose, containing several bookshelves and the likes as well. Her legs were pulled up underneath her, and in her lap rested her teacher’s lute. She thought he’d been joking when he said he’d teach her to sing as bards did, but then, how silly was she for thinking that a Tranquil would joke? But he did, she knew he did, and she thought this had been one of them. Apparently it was not so, and though she wasn’t sure how he could stand to listen to her mangle the chords so many times before they even sounded close to the way he played them, he did, and so she practiced this as faithfully as everything else. He didn’t ever teach her anything useless, after all.

Her clumsy fingers picked over the strings almost absently, her fingernails cut down to bare slivers of white above the quick, so that they would not interfere with her playing. It was a beautiful instrument, she had to admit; the first time he’d handed it to her, placing her fingers on the strings with that strangely patient, hyper-competent manner of his, she’d almost refused to take it, for fear of doing it damage somehow. She always seemed to be clumsy when it counted, and didn’t want to be responsible for destroying something so well-made, and clearly well-used.

Once she had the chords more or less how she wanted them, she started to hum softly in the back of her throat, the tune an old Tevinter lullaby she remembered only dimly. About half the words were lost to her, but she recalled the melody well enough to at least try recreating it. Occasionally a finger slipped out of place and she winced at the wrongness of what followed, but she would always diligently set her digits back where they belonged and start again.

Perhaps the frequency of her errors was partially attributable to the fact that she wasn’t watching what she was doing, but rather watching him. Sometimes, he would give her a new tune to try and sing it with her, something which never failed to make her feel an odd mixture of privileged and nervous—it was always that much worse messing up when she was also making things more difficult for someone else—other times, he would work on something else while she practiced, occasionally leveling a deadpan comment at her without looking up from whatever occupied him. Having been under his tutelage for quite some time now, Estella thought she had a bit of a grip on the kind of person Rilien was, and she had to admit that while he sometimes still intimidated her, with all of his artfully-honed skills and obvious perfectionism, she was mostly just glad that she had the opportunity to learn from him. She was never as sure of herself as she was when he said she’d done something well, because he had no reason to deceive her, and he did nothing without a reason.

At present, he appeared to be bundling herbs, tying them together with string. She figured he’d probably hang them from the ceiling downstairs when they were done. Tilting her head, she wondered, not for the first time, how it was that one person could be so… graceful all the time. She’d known refined people before, of course, and she supposed Cyrus might come close to being as naturally fluid as Rilien was, but her brother was inconsistent in a lot of things, including the application of his talents. Rilien was constantly doing everything just so. And yet… she couldn’t put her finger on it, but something seemed off about him of late. Like he wasn’t quite himself somehow. She supposed that if she hadn’t been hanging onto his every word and action when in his company for a couple of years now, she might never have noticed in the first place.

Feeling brave, Estella stopped humming and put her voice to use with a question instead. “Rilien? Is…” she trailed off for a moment, trying to find the best way to phrase what her intuition was telling her. “Is something the matter? You seem… different, lately.” She wondered if she might not be overstepping some kind of boundary here, one she wasn’t meant to cross, but she was concerned. It didn’t strike her as a good kind of different, this change.

And here he’d been thinking she was drawing that breath to sing. Perhaps he should have known better—Estella usually had to be instructed to practice that particular skill, unlike the lute, which she would pluck at more readily, should she find it waiting for her when she arrived. He wasn’t entirely sure why she was so reluctant; she had a pleasant tone, an unusually rich soprano that lent itself well to bardic music. He found it… nice, to listen to it when working on something else.

Alas, she chose instead to ply him with a query, and for a moment, Rilien did not seem to have heard her, finishing the current bundle in his hands—elfroot—before he acknowledged her words with a flick of his glance in her direction. She looked slightly uncomfortable to be asking, and he supposed he could guess why. But still… either her observational skills were improving exceptionally well, or he wasn’t being as subtle as he believed himself to be. Seeing as his subtlety had years of field-testing in proof, he supposed he should be congratulating her.

Instead, he set the bundle of elfroot aside and pulled the next towards himself, unwinding a length of twine just as he had for the last. He wasn’t ignoring her so much as he was trying to decide what he wanted to do with the question. It was, in effect, an opportunity to speak with an empathetic listener about his troubles, and he knew that anything he told her would remain with her. All the same, there was a mild stirring of feeling in his chest. He knew that, whatever the reason, he didn’t want to appear uncertain in front of his student. Logically, this made some sense; it was better for instructional purposes the less fallible she believed him to be. But the logic didn’t have anything to do with the feeling, something that he remembered with great clarity now.

More than any of that, though, he just… wanted someone to speak with. He already knew what Lucien would say, and knew that perhaps it would make his friend feel guiltier than he already did for something that was not his fault. He wasn’t sure Aurora or Ashton would see the problem for what it was, and Sparrow… Sparrow was half the problem. So it seemed that Estella was both the person best suited to hear this and the person he most wished to tell, for reasons he didn’t really understand.

"I believe… that I have made a grave error.”

The silence in the room seemed to her to thicken after that statement, and Estella stopped playing, pressing a palm over the lute strings to still the echoes of sound. Her eyes softened, and she gently set the instrument aside, unfolding her legs and easing out of her chair. Bare feet padded over the lush rug under the furniture and over into the stone-tiled area Rilien sat at, and she took the chair perpendicular to his, so that they occupied both sides of the same corner.

She knew that if he had bothered to say this much, he likely intended to continue, but he didn’t do so immediately, and so she joined him in his task, sorting the herbs on his table by type so that they would be easier to bundle. Grave errors seemed more like the kinds of things she made than he did, but she knew that Rilien was a mortal man like any other, and surely he did sometimes do things he regretted, or… at least things that he later thought he should not have done. Things that he could rightly call mistakes. What she hadn’t expected was that he would ever let one of them eat at him, as this one must have, to affect him so.

Pushing a loose wisp of hair behind one of her ears, Estella spoke. “You… well. What I mean is, I know a lot about errors, so… you can tell me, if you want to.” She made a face at her own inelegant phrasing, but went back to her sorting afterwards. She of all people wasn’t going to obligate him to anything, but she did want to help. He’d done so much for her in two years… she hadn’t the faintest hope of paying that debt, but she’d welcome the opportunity to at least do right by him somehow.

As if this had been the thing he was waiting for, Rilien replied almost immediately. "I had always intended to leave Kirkwall one day. Most likely it would be because Ser Lucien was leaving as well, and moving on to something I would be useful for. But it was always going to happen.” He supposed it wasn’t exactly obvious just how deeply he felt himself indebted to the chevalier, nor the level of loyalty this inspired, because they didn’t act like a servant and liege, though that was the closest approximation to how Rilien saw them that the common language had. It wasn’t only to Lucien that he owed debts, of course, but those were the ones which most concerned him.

He supposed this might be news to Estella, as he was under the impression that Lucien was making his preparations to leave the Lions slowly and gradually, moving other members of the company into more prominent leadership positions and the like, rather than outright announcing his intentions to depart one day. Smarter, when the day in question was not yet certain.

"But I did not know when that day would be, and…” he paused a moment, tying off a knot before continuing in the same flat one. "Even I prefer company to none, at least at times.” That, perhaps, more than anything else, had been what prompted him to allow Sparrow into his home and his life in the first place. It was the same thing that prompted him to continue to seek out the company of Ashton, and Aurora, and Lucien. It, more than anything, was the reason Bodahn and Sandal worked in his shop, why he would be leaving it to them when he departed for Orlais.

"There wasn’t supposed to be anyone who would want to come with me when I left.” And that was really the rub of things, wasn’t it? His other friends would understand. They would be willing to wish him well and let him go, because this was the path he had chosen for himself. It was what he needed to do, and they would respect that. They could, because for all he had been and done to and for them, and they to and for him, there had always been something yet held back, something unshared, something detached and distant, unconnected. So, too, it was with Sparrow, though it had been a near matter in his case.

"The fact of the matter is, had this been four years ago, I would have wanted to take her, regardless of the risk.” His emergent, fledgling feelings had been much more new and shocking to him then. Less something he could deal with, as he could accept and deal with them now. And the one time he’d been allowed to feel in full, he’d felt… something like love. Something he’d been willing to name love, in the moment. He didn’t know if that was the right name or not, and it likely didn’t matter anyway. It was not something he thought he would ever feel again, not in the same way, and even if it had been that… what was the significance? People fell in love often. Love was common: banal, even. What was less common was what was supposed to come with it: trust, openness, honesty. Rilien didn’t trust Sparrow—not completely, anyway. Her irresponsibility precluded that for him. He was never really open with anyone, and his honesty was situational at best.

"But I foolishly believed the point moot anyway, because people like her do not love people like me.” It should have been obvious. He was her opposite in virtually every way. There should have been nothing about him that appealed to her on that level. What about a void of feeling could hold any attraction to someone who felt everything so tumultuously? He didn’t understand how it had happened, and that sat almost as ill with him as the fact that it apparently had.

"And now, my error has hurt her, and I do not know how to fix it.”

Estella was quiet while Rilien explained, focused intently on what he was saying, and what she guessed he might not be saying. It all sounded incredibly complicated, and for some reason, it made her chest ache. She supposed it must be sympathy, though she wasn’t sure if that was the right word. Rilien’s Tranquility made all those normal phrases and sentiments much more complicated, usually. And yet she couldn’t help but feel that parts of this were really simple. He’d made friends here, friends he knew he would eventually leave behind one day, and while most of them would get it, Sparrow—and she could only assume that Sparrow was who he was talking about—had apparently expressed a vehement lack of the same… for what seemed to Estella to be rather tragic reasons.

“Do you love her?” The question was out before she could really consider the wisdom of it, but though she felt a bit awkward about it, she didn’t think it was a bad question to ask. Rilien probably didn’t do it much, but other people had to take their personal feeling into consideration when deciding how to handle a situation like this, and she knew he had to feel something about the whole thing, else he wouldn’t be… off like this.

That was really the question, wasn’t it? It was the very same one he’d been asking himself since he’d last spoken to her, and the answer was not as straightforward as he’d thought four years ago. Because he’d seen people in love now, watched them interact with one another in all kinds of settings, and in the same span of time his own limited emotional repertoire had expanded, changing his simplistic understanding of what happiness was, or what was required for something to count as a friendship.

After some hesitation, he shook his head slowly. "Not enough.” Looking up from his work, he met Estella’s eyes, trying to read there whether or not she understood. "What happens to her matters to me. I desire her happiness and enjoy her company. I am willing to sacrifice a great deal for her sake. …I thought that was just it—that all of that was what people called love. And perhaps it is, of a sort. But… no, not enough.” Never once had he considered staying, and never recently had he contemplated taking her with him. That was indicative, and he knew it.

This was swiftly moving into territory that Estella had absolutely no experience with. She didn’t think she’d ever been in love, nor almost-sort-of in love, and she wasn’t exactly sure what to say. But he’d gone to the trouble of telling her all of this, and so she tried to place herself in Sparrow’s shoes as well as she could. It… wasn’t exactly easy, seeing as how she’d never really had a conversation with the woman, though they’d met incidentally once or twice, like at Ashton and Nostariel’s wedding. Maybe anything she could say would really be the blind trying to lead the blind, but… she at least knew a little bit—or a lot, rather—about being rejected, if in different contexts.

“I’m not sure there’s anything you can do to fix it, exactly,” she admitted. “I mean… she loves you, you said, and you don’t love her, or at least not in the same way, so… I think the worst thing you could do would be to pretend that you do, or let her hope that you might.” She finished sorting the herbs, and pulled her legs up onto the chair, hugging her knees to her chest and propping her chin on them, still making eye contact with him.

“I don’t know how clear you made things, when you talked about this, but… if you left anything ambiguous, I think you should probably rectify that. Just, um… maybe be kind of gentle about it. It’s… I’d hate to hear something like this from someone I loved, but better that than still thinking there might be a chance for something.” She frowned slightly, hoping it was the right thing to suggest. “And then, I guess… give her as much space as she wants to deal with that.”

Actually, he supposed it was significantly worse than not making things sufficiently clear—Sparrow had run off without giving him any time at all to answer after she said it, and he had not sought her out since, in an attempt to give her the required time to come to terms with his eventual departure.

For someone who usually had his affairs in precise, logical order, Rilien was beginning to see that he’d managed to make quite a mess of things.

Fortunately, Estella’s advice was as he expected: sensible and forthright, two qualities that she shared, and he felt a little bubble of appreciation well up before it swiftly faded, as all emotions did in him. His intellectual recognition of the favor she’d done him did not dissipate, however, and he nodded slowly. "I believe you are correct. I will endeavor to do that.” Having something to do was vastly preferable to having too much time to dwell on his conundrum, and the proposed solution was certainly within his capacities.

"Thank you, Estella.”

She breathed a soft, relieved exhale and smiled at him, just a small one. It was good to know she’d seemed reasonable, because she wasn’t sure if she was really just rambling like a fool. “It’s no problem, Rilien. Though, uh… if it’s okay with you, I like it a bit better when you’re the one telling me how to do things. You’re much better at it.” It was a joke, mostly; she was happy to help him, obviously. But being the person giving advice was an unnerving feeling. Like if she messed it up, anything that went wrong would be her fault somehow. She wasn’t sure how people who did a lot of teaching or advising or important decision-making could stand it.

"Very well. Your minor chords were off—show me your finger arrangement.” Just like that, the topic moved back into familiar territory, and Rilien wasn’t sure, but he thought he felt a little… lighter.

Setting

1 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Aurora Rose

Earnings

0.00 INK

It was a clear day outside the walls of Kirkwall. It was quiet, with only the ambient sounds of birds and insects filling the air. The creek near Aurora's clearing babbled as the woman herself sat not far away atop large stone. Only one other was with her, and he too waited quietly. Donovan stood next to the seated Aurora, his eyes closed in deep thought. The other mages that were usually found with them were absent, and she had even given Sparrow the day off. It was only them, and neither of them looked forward to what was to happen next. Each wore a thoughtful expression, though only Donovan's displayed apparent dislike. Aurora's was even.

Soon, the silence was broken by the sound of rustling branches and snapping twigs. The noise caused Donovan to inhale deeply, but as always Aurora was calm as ever. Soon, the cause of the the sounds made himself present. Pike stepped through the threshold into the clearing and hesitated, noting the intentionally lonely atmosphere. He glanced to his sides before he came to settle on the two mages in front of him. "Where... Where is every one?" he asked.

"There isn't anyone else, Pike. Only us... We... Need to talk to you," Donovan rumbled. It was clear that he was uncomfortable with what was to happen, but Aurora needed him there. He was a calming influence for everyone, and she needed that, especially now. She placed a gentle hand on his arm and nodded her appreciation. "Pike--" he began, but he was cut off by the man in question.

"Talk to me? Talk to me about what?" he asked defensively. "What's this about?" He demanded to know. Donovan opened his mouth to answer, but another hand from Aurora caused him to quieten. She then stood from the rock where she sat and straightened, which brought her to her full height, though it was still a head or so shorter than the man beside her. "It's about you Pike," she stated.

"What about me?" Pike asked, still defensive.

Aurora exhaled through her nose before she spoke. She didn't like it any more than Donovan did, but it needed to be done. "Your attitude, your actions, your beliefs. I do not believe I can allow you to remain with the rest of the Underground." As she spoke, Donovan closed his eyes and appeared to just listened and winced when she finally revealed the meaning of their meeting

Pike looked shocked, as if he couldn't believe what he was hearing. His mouth worked for a moment, trying to find the words to counter hers, but still didn't seem to have felt the full weight of her words. "What... What do you mean?"

She glanced at the man to her side, before turning back to Pike and began to speak again. "Your... Hate of the templars is dangerous. Not only for you, but for the others as well. You cannot let it go." She could understand, she truly could. Even she did not like the templars, and she treated them with the utmost caution, but Pike hated them. For good reason, Pike had been the mage she and her friends had saved from the rite of Tranquility. She could not claim that she wouldn't hate those that would do that to her.

"You know what they tried to do to me. What they did do to your friend! You know what they would do to us now!" He spat back. Aurora was calm, even as mention of Milly was brought up. She knew, she knew all to well. The recent memory of the templars turning on them on the Wounded Coast was still fresh in her mind. However, it was his inability to at least guard his hate that brought about this decision. He did not possess enough control over himself, and even worse, he did not want to even try gain control. Pike was angry and raw, and mages like him were dangerous, either through possession or otherwise.

"Yes, I do. But retribution would serve no one. If we tried to fight back, we would only be put down. We are only a few mages, and they are an army trained to deal with us." Even worse, they were dealing with Meredith. There would be no mercy from her.

"Do you think that they'd put us in the Circle? Even if we did surrender ourselves? No, the templars would see a demon in each of us, or see us as radicals that need to be dealt with. If we don't fight back, then we are inviting them to come slaughter us," Pike fought. Donovan shuffled uneasily beside Aurora, his hands folded in front of him with his head tilted down. Aurora hated that he had to be here during this, but she didn't think she could've done it by herself, and they had both agreed. It needed to be done.

Aurora's gaze dropped from Pike and into the ground in front of him. "And if we fought back, we would invite destruction, and prove Meredith's paranoia was founded. The Underground is not an army Pike," she said, looking back up into his face. "We exist to help others like us. To help them escape, to hide, or to train their powers in safety. We do not fight, we protect."

Pike opened his mouth to no doubt refute that statement as well, but Aurora did not give him the chance. "It is that type of belief that it is you can not remain," She then sighed and spoke with more feeling, "Pike, the other mages look to us for guidance. They look up to us because we help them and accept them for what they are. When they hear you talk about the templars like that, they get frightened, or they get angry. It makes them easier to possess, and worse, it allows their emotions to control them."

Donovan finally spoke, though it was low and quiet, though audible over the silence. "The only thing that should control a mage is him or herself." Aurora agreed with a nod of her head. They were dangerous, and they needed to control themselves in order to ensure that they do not hurt anything or anyone unintentional. It was why she preached control. Control of ones mind, body, and soul.

"And the templars threaten to take that choice from us. They want to put us in a tower with a collar on our necks and a leash in their hands. If we're lucky. Much more likely they'd deem us uncontrollable and tranquil us, or kill us on the spot. If we do not act first, then it doesn't matter how much control we have, it won't matter because we'll be dead. Or worse," Pike said, the fury clear on his face.

Donovan sighed and answered, "We can not fight back. We would be decimated, and Meredith would use it as an excuse to purge dissident mages. What you ask is that we sacrifice ourselves and others for a lost cause. I cannot condone that, and so I stand with Aurora." As he spoke, he stood straighter and finally brought his gaze up from the ground at his feet. Aurora passed another grateful glance toward him.

"Knowing that, how would you have us act? We cannot gather our allies and march on the Gallows. You do not understand that we are only a few, but Meredith has an army," Aurora said, waiting for an answer.

Pike ground his teeth and he spoke, "The people--" but before he could finish the thought, Aurora cut him off.

"The people distrust us more than the templars. It's true, the common folk and the nobility are not fond of Meredith, but they distrust us more. We are dangerous in their eyes, and between us and the templars, they would choose the templars. The templars can not become monsters if they forget themselves. We would find no allies, and any attempt we mustered would only serve to prove Meredith correct and strengthen her position in the city. If we fought back, then Meredith wins."

"We could--" Again, Aurora cut him off, know exactly where he would go next.

"We could not wage a cold war. You don't understand, there is nothing more we can do than this. We can not fight, we can not petition, we can not try to get the public opinion on our side. We are apostates," Aurora was clearly tiring of the conversation and Pike's circular logic, and she did not believe she could entertain him much longer. They would be there the entire day, and neither would get anywhere with the other.

"So you would have us do nothing?" Pike accused.

"I would have us survive," Aurora retorted.

"That isn't enough for me," he said

"The Underground will not follow you into it's destruction. This is why you cannot remain among us. Pike, I truly am sorry that it had to be this way, but your inability to change and control yourself--" Aurora never had the chance to finish, as an immense wave of force magic struck a tree on the edge of the clearing, snapping it at the trunk and tumbling into the foliage. Pike's violent outburst caused both Aurora and Donovan to wince, and when they looked back to Pike, they saw nothing but his back fade into the brush.

They were quiet for a time afterwards, neither wishing to speak so soon after. However, eventually it was Aurora who offered the first words. "Do you think I did the right thing? Do you think he could've changed if I said something different? Did something different?" she asked Donovan.

He didn't immediately respond, instead taking a good long look at the broken true. "I believe it was," he answered, "If he remained, I fear we may have been that tree, broken and scattered. You did the right thing, do not believe anything else."

Another silence fell over them, though soon Aurora turned and gave Donovan a hug.

"Thank you... For believing."

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon

Earnings

0.00 INK

Being paranoid didn't come naturally to Sophia.

A certain level of caution was warranted now, with the relations between her and Meredith escalating nearly to a cold war, with all of the attacks and hidden moves thus far coming from the Templar side. It was unclear if Meredith knew Sophia would be attending the meeting of nobles that had occurred not long ago, as the nobles themselves hadn't known, but all the same, Templar hitmen, for lack of a better word, had made an attempt on her life, and the lives of all the nobles in the room. Kirkwall was at war with itself in all but name at this point.

She didn't feel like treating her personal life as a war, though, and thus had difficulty making herself be more careful. Locked doors and windows, weapon locations, escape routes and hiding places... she tried not to think of her home as a warzone, but it was getting difficult. Lucien, as always, could help her through it. He had more experience with all of this, and when he was around her, she hardly felt like any other precautions mattered. Thus, she kept him to herself as much as she possibly could, within reason.

Sophia also shared with him the number of reports and requests she was beginning to receive, from this budding collective of nobility that had pledged her their support in the cause of overthrowing Meredith. Many were unworthy of much concern; the nobility tended to whine at the slightest concern, and such things as marketplace prices of specific wines were not something Sophia felt interested in examining. When people close to her came up, however, she took note, and such was the case today, when apparently the city's guard captain was discussed at another meeting.

The letter was a little wordy for Sophia's tastes, much longer than it needed to be, but it seemed as though the nobility feared that Ashton was too soft to be guard captain, that he was coddling those under his command. This was a concern to Sophia's support base because the guard represented the second most numerous armed force in the city, behind only the Templars. Sophia's friendship with Ashton undoubtedly suggested the guard would side with her in a struggle against the Templars; the nobility was clearly worried Ashton wouldn't be able to hold up his end when the time came.

Normally Sophia would've been inclined to toss such a message, dismiss it as nonsense, and while she knew for a fact Ashton was the best captain the city had seen in many years, the letter made it seem as though a large number of individuals shared this sense of worry. They didn't include names on these messages, for fear of interception, but Sophia knew that their numbers were growing daily. For the sake of assuaging them, if nothing else, Sophia decided it might be best to bring this to the captain's attention.

She departed with Lucien by late afternoon, lightly armored in leathers and some mail, her sword across her back. She was leaving home unarmored less and less now, but of all the changes she was making, this one bothered her perhaps the least. A few guards greeted her on her way to the Keep and through to the barracks, and she found Ashton's door open to her, the captain working on something inside.

"Hello, Ashton," she greeted, taking in the appearance of the office. She didn't exactly come here often. More commonly they were meeting somewhere else, though she liked to think she'd gotten over her aversion to the Keep by now. "I have something for you, from my ever-nervous friends." She slid the letter face up onto his desk.

"You're the subject of some debate, it would seem."

"Am I now?" Ashton asked. His mind, however, was elsewhere as he only glanced at the letter before returning to what he was doing before. The quill in his hand danced across the report he was writing in perfect penmanship, owed to the years spent balancing the books for his shops. "One moment, please," he said, looking up from the report with an apologetic smile. He returned to the report and finished the sentence, dotted his I's and crossed his T's. He then picked the report up, the letter Sophia had brought along with it, and oddly, a cup with four straws.

He moved past Sophia and Lucien and came to rest in the doorframe leading into his office, and called out into the barracks. "Sergeants Allison, Gregory, Melindra, and Geoffrey!" The four guardsmen soon collected in front of Ashton and stood at military rest and awaited his orders. Ashton read through his reports one last time before explaining, "There is a prisoner in the Gallows that is due to be interrogated today. You know the drill," he said, handing the report to one of the guards and holding the cup of straws out.

There was a chuckle amongst themselves, and one even raised his eyebrows expectantly. They then pulled the straws and revealed the two of them were shorter than the other two. The guards that drew the short straws were disappointed, while the ones that drew the longer ones grinned and gave each other high fives. "Better luck next time," Ashton offered to the two who drew the short straws, "And you two have fun," he added for the other two.

With the drawing concluded, the guards took their leave and Ashton turned back into his office, finally reading the letter Sophia had given him. As he read it, his eyelids fluttered for a moment in irritation before he shook his head and shrugged. "First the templars and now the nobility. Wonderful. Just because I'm not a hard ass, everyone assumes I'm just a teddy bear instead. You'd think the big dragon head would help with that," Ashton said, crushing the paper into a ball and bounced it off the mounted dragon's snout.

“It does leave a certain… impression,” Lucien replied diplomatically. He chose not to mention that the impression was just this side of tasteless, particularly because Ashton seemed to be so proud of it. He may endeavor to tell the truth, but sometimes, having a bit of circumspection regarding the truths one actually mentioned was rather helpful, in his opinion.

From the looks of things, the Guard were as busy as ever, but that was to be expected. Lucien himself had been equally occupied, though he was fortunate in that the Lions no longer required his presence on most of the jobs they undertook, and his newly-appointed second-in-command, Havard, was just as good at filtering the requests and assigning the right number of well-suited mercenaries for each task, which meant that, though Lucien did a lot more of the other paperwork to account for his share of the administrative duties, he could be flexible about where he did it, which was a benefit considering Sophia’s recent upswing in nobility problems.

He also just liked spending as much time with her as his job would reasonably allow.

The letter had been something of a surprise, more for what it said than who it was about. Ashton was rather important now, as far as Kirkwall citizens went, but Lucien had actually laughed when he read the accusation itself. He hated to consider what he would be called, if the Captain of the Guard was “too soft.”

“Who are you interrogating today?” He watched the guards depart with their assignment with a faint shake of his head. He’d never enjoyed interrogations, himself, but he supposed that was a matter of personal taste.

"A thug for one of Darktown's gangs. Of course, this one is smarter than the others, seeing as he gave up instead of trying to fight us. A lot better armed than your usual Darktown gang though, and I want to know why." Ashton said, though the subtle shake in Lucien's head didn't escape his notice. He frowned and explained, "Don't worry, the guard does not condone torture-- though the prisoners don't know that." He didn't believe in beating confessions out of his prisoners or wringing information from their necks. Personal ethics aside, such information could always be false, told in order to just stop the torture.

Ashton sighed and chuckled, "We have other ways. My personal favorite, the lottery you just saw? We put the prisoner into a room next to an empty one, and two guards go into each. The ones in the room with the prisoner do the typical interrogation thing, ask questions, play good guard, bad guard, etcetera, etcetera. But the two in the empty room have the fun job," Ashton said, a mischievous grin working its way to his lips. It was as if he was particularly proud of the idea. "They make it sound as if a prisoner is being beaten. Slamming walls, kicking tables, yelling, just generally making a ruckus so that the other prisoner hears. Then they go quiet, and one guard drags the other out-- loudly." Ashton said, raising his eyebrows as the lopsided grin grew.

"Terrifies the prisoners. They usually give up what they know without us having to touch them. Plus, it's really fun for the two guards," Ashton said with a laugh. He then frowned again and looked between Sophia and Lucien. His explanation didn't help get the nobility or the templars off his back. In fact, it might have just reinforced the point that he was soft. However, he was not mad with power like Meredith, nor did he sit in a Hightown loft away from it all. The gall they had in calling him soft ruffled a few of his feathers.

He moved to his desk, where he sat on an edge and considered Sophia for a moment. "Okay," Ashton began, his arms crossed. "How about we go on a little adventure? Vesper took a unit to clear out a bunch of bandits holed up in a Lowtown hovel earlier today. We'll go and I'll show you how the Guard operates under my leadership," Ashton said. "That way, you can relay what you saw to the nobility, and I'll find a way to be passive aggressive to the templars. Maybe we'll even get some of them off my back."

Sophia hadn't really expected to be doing guard work when she set out for the guard barracks, and gang hovels in Lowtown weren't her first choice of locations to go, but she supposed it would be necessary. The nobility would want more than her assurances that Ashton was more than competent, as they would just assume she was protecting her friend, and continue to harass both her and him. Perhaps it would take a detailed written report of how he actually operated to convince them. She doubted she would even need to exaggerate any of the events.

"Well, looks like I didn't bring the sword for nothing," she said, realizing that she was resigning her afternoon to this. "Let's go meet up with Vesper, then."




Ashton led both Sophia and Lucien down the steps of the Keep and through Hightown into Lowtown. The journey was uneventful, barring a few grumblings from Ashton, and they eventually arrived at the hovel. The dwelling was single story, with at most two rooms inside judging from the exterior. It was nondescript and blended in well with the surrounding buildings. Had a pair of thick chested guards not stood on either side of a shattered door frame, one could be forgiven for thinking it was just an ordinary building. "Looks like we missed the fun part," Ashton said to his companions.

The guardsmen saluted their captain's approach, a gesture Ashton returned before beckoning Lucien and Sophia to follow him inside. Even from outside Vesper could be heard barking orders, her voice edged with some frustration. It sounded as if not everything went according to plan. Ashton frowned as he stepped inside. Blood was pooling in the floor, with the bodies of thugs laying not too far away. Vesper and two other guards were present, with one in particular kneeling and clutching his wounded arm. Upon realization that Ashton was present everyone stood at attention and saluted, even the one who had been wounded, though Ashton waved it off as unnecessary.

"Status report," Ashton asked Vesper. The woman's frowned deepened and she shook her head. "The bastards were better armed than we were expecting, and they were dug in deep," she said. As she spoke, Ashton noticed a splash of crimson stained her plate. He pointed at it and asked, "Theirs or yours?" Vesper paused for a moment and looked down, raising an eyebrow for a moment. "A bit of both, I'm afraid," she said, gently prodding it. "But I'll be fine, it'll take more than some upstart bandit to put me down."

“Of that I’ve no doubt,” Lucien offered, “but I’ve seen untended wounds do very impressive people in before. Perhaps someone has a curative on hand?” Bravado was fine and even to some extent good in people who fought for a living, but not if it had them ignoring wounds for longer than necessary. As the fighting seemed to be over, it would be a good opportunity to recover in case there was more of it to come. In any case, he chose not to press the point—he certainly wasn’t in charge here.

“Was this the only cell, or will there be others to track down, do you think?”

After Lucien finished, the other guard present slipped Vesper a pair of red potions, whom caught a subdued glare before passing one off to the guard clutching his arm. Both downed the curative, and Vesper turned toward Lucien. "Hard to say, ser," she began, "None of these damn gangs seem to have anything in common other than being criminals. But they've been better armed than ordinary."

"We've been seeing a lot of this lately," Ashton revealed. "You'd expect common thugs to have rusted and chipped weapons, but... Vesper?" he asked. The lieutenant turned and grabbed a sword off of the ground, clearly having belonged to one of the bandits. She then held it out for Lucien to take. "It's in better shape than you'd think. A lot better. Most of their weapons are like this, fine steel honed to a sharp edge. And their armor is class above street leather-- some of them even have chain mail. Someone is supplying these bandits," Ashton said, biting his lip.

"But they've never been ready for us. These were," Vesper added grimly.

Sophia examined the sword from next to Lucien, arms crossed over her chest. Sure enough, it looked like castle forged steel, but the only castle in Kirkwall was producing weapons for the guardsmen themselves. Which meant that in all likelihood, these weapons were coming from outside the city, being smuggled through. The docks were notoriously difficult to keep a clean account of, as far as she knew; they were too expansive, and too unorganized. Items were probably brought in secretly all the time, but a large scale shipment of arms and armor would make for quite the catch.

Looking around at the aftermath of the fight with some amount of distaste, Sophia couldn't find any slain guardsmen, which was remarkable given that they had been expected, and made an aggressive move all the same against a well supplied enemy. Perhaps even a little foolish, tactically, but the risk had obviously paid off. "How did the attack go? I take it you were supposed to catch them off guard." She was curious what adaptation was made in the field to account for the fact that their approach was noticed.

"It could've gone better, ser," Vesper said, glancing beside her to the injured guardsman, who was now standing. He still clutched his arm, but the pain seemed to have subsided enough to not hinder him. "But yes, that was the plan. Usually we knock the door down and send the shields in first to establish a line of defense between us and them. However, one was waiting beside the door we entered, which is where this must have come from," she said, poking the bloodstain on her plate. "After that, it was chaos. The shields did make it in, but not before the corporal took an arrow to the arm."

The corporal straightened to his full height and shrugged, "It didn't stop me from fighting ser." Ashton shook his head, but he had to admit that he was proud of the guard's bravery. He nodded, and Vesper continued. "It took a little longer than usual, but better weapons does not equate to better training. They fought to the last though." Ashton frowned and he shook his head, but before he could open his mouth the last guard in the room spoke from the back room, "Uh... Captain, you might want to see this," she said, leaning against the doorway with a letter in her hand.

Ashton approached and took the letter with a raise of an eyebrow, reading through it before sighing. "Explains how they knew we were coming... And where the arms are coming from," he said, stepping back into the middle of the room. He then read the letter aloud.


G wrote:Dear Captain of the Guard.

No doubt you will eventually find this letter in your possession, one way or another. You have become a major thorn in my operations, so perhaps it is time that we meet face-to-face in order to settle this like gentlemen. If not, then perhaps words of your ungentlemanly past would filter into the masses. It would be a shame for them to learn what their guard captain was before.

We are not stupid men, captain, so I will not ask that you come to this meeting alone. Just understand that I will not approach you with an army at your back. Meet in Darktown, I will know when you arrive.

Regards,

-G


Ashton paused for a moment before he turned toward Sophia and shrugged. "See? A little adventure."

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon

Earnings

0.00 INK

“Blackmail. It’s just like being home, really.” Lucien sighed, giving a shake of his head. “A rather indirect way to do it though; I’m supposing this person doesn’t have much experience trying to extort people, or perhaps just lacks the agents to make a more direct delivery.” It was a clumsy attempt, really—an amateur one if he had his guess. It was much smarter to make a demand away from as many eyes as possible, which this clearly was not, left in the open as it was. Also to make it more with implication than direct statement, so as to be able to deny that it was blackmail at all.

But then, the request to meet wasn’t normal either. And the initial… “Ashton… you wouldn’t know what happened to your… acquaintance Garrath after we last encountered him, would you?” It made sense—he had the information, the active disagreement with Ashton, and was shady enough to prefer an inactive guard to an effective one.

"No... But I think we do now," he answered. It made sense, and Ashton was beginning to suspect something of the sort, but he never could get concrete evidence. Only an initial and the common theme of smuggling. He sighed through his nose and shook his head. He had hoped he'd put all of that behind him, and now here a loose end was trying to pull him back. "He's a smuggler. He smuggles, though obviously on much larger scale now. He must have taken Leech's place when we dealt with him."

Sophia wasn't all too surprised to learn of a less than reputable background for Ashton. Maybe she hadn't seen it at the time, as fresh as she'd been when she met him, but looking back... he'd always played the part of the rogue, and he was a man with too many skills for the job he formerly held. Thus his connection to a criminal element did not shock Sophia, nor did the way it was currently returning to be a nuisance. The past had a way of doing so. She didn't particularly care; he was the guard captain now, and an excellent one. His experience with smuggling likely gave him an edge in that regard. It wouldn't be the first time it had happened.

“Funny how there’s always another to fill a gap, isn’t it?” Lucien’s tone was dry, and he sighed softly. He was certainly a big believer in creating those gaps anyway, of course, but sometimes, even he had to acknowledge that they were often as not creating more work for themselves by doing so. “How would you like to handle this?”

The rest of the guards within the hovel seemed to take the fact that Ashton had a less than stellar past in stride. In fact, they seemed utterly unsurprised, even the youngest among them. He'd likely already revealed that he'd been a smuggler once. It was better to reveal the secret himself sooner than to find out later from someone else, and lose the trust he'd earned with his men. Ashton tilted his head toward Vesper and raised an eyebrow, glancing at the splotch of crimson on her armor. "Still good to fight?" He asked. His answered was an offended glare and a blunt answer, "Of course Captain."

The guard clutching his arm also straightened and nodded, "Me too, Ser," Ashton smiled and chuckled to himself, and turned to look at Sophia. "Soft, huh?" He looked back toward the guardsman and placed a hand on his shoulder. "I don't doubt it, but you've got a more important job. Get better. Go to the clinic and let Nos see that arm. Oh, and tell her I'll be home late," he said with a smile, though it appeared some air was let out of the guardsman. "That's an order, now git."

The guardsman nodded, and saluted the best that he could and took his leave. As he watched him exit, Ashton continued to give orders. "Sergeant," he said to remaining guard, "you remain here with the two outside and start the clean up, I'll send more to help when we return to the Keep. Vesper, you come with us to the barracks, and we'll get a plan together to deal with this old friend of mine. Understood?" He asked, to salutes of his guardsmen. Nodded, he turned back to Sophia and Lucien and tilted his head toward the door. "Shall we?"




Darktown was, as the name implied, dark, especially at night. Lanterns lining the streets were enough to let them see where they were going, but it still left a feeling that they were being watched. Ashton simply brushed it off, acknowledging that they probably were and accepted it. He and Vesper had led the small procession through the dusty streets, until he asked them to hold. They waited in a divot in the road, with stairs leading upward in front and behind them. "This is the place," Ashton said, referring to the location hashed out on the back of the letter they'd found.

"Shield up," Ashton ordered, taking a step behind Vesper so that she could guard both herself and him. "Hiding behind a lady, Captain?' Vesper teased. Ashton drew his bow and fitted and arrow in the nock and leaned toward the side of her in which she held the shield. "You're hardly a lady Lieutenant and you have to get paid for something," he replied with a chuckle. "Eyes up, and keep your wits about you," he told the others.

“Why?” Lucien pretended to wonder. “I mean, it isn’t as though this is obviously a trap. You really should have more faith in people who write mysterious blackmail letters, Ashton.” His hand was already over his shoulder, lightly resting on Everburn’s hilt.

"It wouldn't be a trip to Darktown without the threat of a deadly ambush," Sophia commented, trying to keep her eyes where most of the others were not looking. Criminals knew this place well, far better than the guard or the Templars or anyone else did, and it had a way of changing quite quickly over time. Sophia was a step ahead of Lucien, already having Vesenia drawn, its point resting lightly against the ground, hands atop the pommel. Her stance was relaxed, but clearly ready to move.

They needn't wait long before muffled footsteps rose up over the quiet Darktown night. Ashton's bowstring went taut as he drew the arrow, and likewise Vesper readjusted her grip on her shield. The footsteps not only came from the flight of stairs to their front, but from behind them also. It wasn't a surprise, as they had all already decided it was a trap. Forms stepped out of the shadows and into the dim light cast by a nearby lantern. The men bore the same finely made armor and weaponry as before. A number of them stood both atop the flight of stairs to their front and their back, effectively trapping them in. "Utterly shocking," Ashton muttered under his breath.

"What? Did you expect anything less?" A voice asked from behind a wall of three shield bearing thugs. "Garrath," Ashton alerted the others. He'd brought his bow up, but the armor of the thugs prevented him from finding a clear shot. "Ah, so the good captain does remember his friends. That's good, I was afraid you may have forgotten about me," he said from in the midst of his armored entourage.

"Not quite, poke your head out so I can see your pretty face again," Ashton said, to Garrath's laughter. He couldn't find fault in the man for hiding behind the shields of his lackeys however, as that was exactly what he was doing with Vesper.

"Now, now Ash, the only thing I want to do right now is have a nice civil discussion. These friends of mine are only here to ensure that we have that. Perhaps we can come to a gentleman's agreement?" Garrath said, leaving Ashton to sigh loudly. "All I really want is you to leave me and my operations alone."

A moment passed in silence before Ashton responded. "Really? Just leave you and your men alone to keep smuggling weapons into Kirkwall? Is that all?" Ashton asked, the sarcasm positively dripping from his voice. "Are you going to say please too?"

"No, but perhaps we can hash out a deal. You allow my operations to continue uninterrupted, and I will give you twenty percent of the profits. Oh, and I'll make sure that word doesn't get out that the good captain used to be a smuggler and slaver," Garrath continued.

Another moment passed, Ashton having twitched at being called a slaver. Even he hadn't expected Garrath to go for such a low blow. "Slaver huh? We both know that's not true."

"Maybe, but the common folk don't know that. All it takes is a little doubt for people to start asking questions. If someone was to dig a little deeper, who knows what they'd find?" Ashton could hear the smugness in Garrath's voice, and for him that was the most irritating part. "Or, we could pick the second option, which hurts a lot more than the first."

"Or we could pick the third one. I drag your ass back to the Gallows and let you rot there. I think I like that one better," Ashton said evenly.

It didn't do much to help the smugness in Garrath's voice, "I thought you might have said something along those lines. Very well, but remember you chose this. I had really hoped we could've worked together again." With that, a shrill whistle echoed into the night, a clear signal of sorts.

A few seconds passed... And nothing happened. Garrath whistled again with the same effect. Nothing. There was confusion among Garrath's thugs, as the trap that was supposed to come never did. Then Ashton laughed, silencing them all. "Personally, I'm tired of falling into traps all the time. So I decided that it was time to spring my own," Ashton said, issuing his own signal in the form of a bird call. Silently, two pairs of forms appeared in the lights atop the walls on either side of the divot. They wore black leathers with their heads covered in a black cloth. The only other color they wore were the crimson scarves they wore, denoting them as part of the city guard. In their hands, weapons dripped with what had to be blood.

"I always was the smarter one, remember? Lucien, care to do the honors?"

Since he really doubted Ashton had sprung this trap just to have it out in melee anyway, Lucien decided that ‘the honors’ probably referred to the next stage of negotiations. Because it didn’t hurt to make the terms as obvious as possible, he slid Everburn from its sheath, the blade’s enchantment flaring for a moment before subsiding. Setting the thing casually over his shoulder, the mercenary commander spoke slowly and evenly.

“You’re all outmaneuvered and, if you’ll permit me the presumption to say so, considerably outclassed.” He spoke to the men rather than their leader, whose personal grudge would make talking him down much more difficult if he still believed his people were on his side. “Most of you don’t really fight for a living. I expect you know a thing or two about those swords and shields, but usually just showing them off a little is enough to accomplish what you want to do, and that’s a decent thing.” It might be the only decent thing about some of them, but he’d take what he could get.

“Some of you are just trying to feed your families or your parents. Some of you have never killed a man before. Seems you’ve got two choices, then: surrender quietly, and those families don’t lose you, and you don’t have to kill anyone today. Your employer here won’t be able to hurt you for choosing to do the right thing; the Guard will make sure of that. Choose to fight… and I can’t make any promises about what things will look like when it’s over. The choice is yours.”

"I'd listen to him if I were you," Sophia added, holding her sword somewhat casually and eyeing the thugs with little concern. Fancy equipment did not make them soldiers, and even before Ashton's impressive counter-trap maneuver she'd been confident that they could take them. "Lay down your arms and this will be much less unpleasant for all of us."

An arrow struck the stone in front of the first thug as an early warning, and the guards atop the walls made the first sounds they had all night as they wiped the blood off of their weapons. It was all very theatrical, and that was the point. Ashton hoped the astounding show of force would cower at least a few of the thugs, and he was not disappointed. A shield or two flagged and metal clattered behind them as swords were dropped. Garrath snarled in response, "Kill them, and I'll make sure you all are paid handsomely."

The offer was enough to entice more than a few of Garrath's thugs, but a couple had decided to take Lucien's offer and backed away, discarding the weapons in their hands. In total, about eight had decided the risk was worth it, four to their front and four to their back. It was when one of the sensible few broke rank that Ashton finally saw Garrath's scarred face, and he didn't waste the opportunity. An arrow was in the air and a cry of pain rang out above the din of steel being readied as it struck Garrath's shoulder. Hard footsteps followed marking his quick exit. Ashton nodded at the two guards atop the closest wall and they left as quietly as they came, off to attend Ashton's unspoken order.

The other pair on the opposite wall patiently waited for their moment to strike, as the thugs began to close in on Ashton and his companions. "Alive, if you can," Ashton asked politely, firing off another arrow at the exposed shin of a shield bearer. "Amateur," Vesper mocked under her breath.

Lucien nodded once in acknowledgement of Ashton’s desire to take the fighters alive, and removed Everburn from his shoulder, choosing to turn around and take on the four behind. One of the other guards moved with him, a young lady wearing a corporal’s stripes and bearing a smaller shield than Vesper, a shortaxe in her other hand. She gestured wryly for him to precede her, and he smiled slightly, electing to do just that.

He wasn’t so reckless as to bull-rush, exactly, but he did choose to confront Garrath’s employees head-on, and the flat of Everburn’s broad blade left an angry red welt on the temple of the first to come forward and meet him, reeling him backwards and leaving him open to a second blow in the same spot, this time from the pommel. He heard a slight crack, but he’d measured the hit as well as he could, so it shouldn’t do any permanent damage. It was sufficient to drop the man, though, and Lucien swung in a broad horizontal arc for the other three, scattering them just enough that their tight cluster formation broke.

This enabled his partner to cut one off from the rest, and he left her to it to deal with the other two. One was holding twin daggers, and the other bore a rapier, a much lighter, faster weapon than his own. It was also, however, inferior in terms of reach. He went for the duelist first, juggling her at mid range rather than letting her get up close. She was faster than he’d expected, and surprisingly light on her feet, but her face made it clear enough that she was scared of him, and her fear kept her from getting anywhere close enough to damage him. In the end, he brought her down with a double maneuver: first a hit to her shoulder, drawing a line of blood, and then with a cut to her hamstring, which hobbled her and sent her tumbling forward. She caught herself with her hands, but if she couldn’t get up, she couldn’t worry him, and so he left matters there, trying to figure out where the other one had gotten to.

It was a shadow in his peripheral vision that alerted him in time to the fact that he was being snuck up on. He moved aside in just enough time to avoid the first knife, which seemed to have been aimed for the base of his spine, but the other one caught him higher, sliding into one of the shoulder joints of his armor. The chain stopped it from doing too much damage, but it did leave a small gouge there, and Lucien drove his elbow back into the rogue’s face, breaking his nose with a sickening crunch, and following up by wrapping an arm around his neck from behind, pulling him into a sleeper hold. Less risk of accidentally killing him than just repeatedly hitting him on the head, and when he went slack, Lucien set him down carefully. The guardswoman had just bashed her shield into her foe’s face, and when he fell, she leveled her axe for his neck to keep him in place, one foot on his chest.

Sophia took the opposite side from Lucien, guarding their rear with a heavily armored guardsman armed with a mace and a thick shield. Garrath's thugs on this side were aggressive, and Sophia hardly needed to step forward to engage them. The first rushed her with a fine battle-axe, but probably heavier than he should have been wielding, and Sophia dodged the first downward strike easily, retaliating with a sharp elbow to the jaw, followed by a deep slash of her sword across the back of his leg, sending him howling into a wall, where the guardsmen slammed into him with his shield.

The next tried to bowl Sophia straight over with his shoulder, a move she'd been hit by in the past when she was caught unwary. This time, however, she got low enough to come out of the collision more effectively. Her own shoulder caught him near waist level, flipping him foward onto her back, where she then heaved him over herself, upending him and landing him on his back. A third came at her next, forcing her to parry where she stood, their blades locking for a moment.

The thug on the ground took the opportunity to jab his short blade upwards, finding a spot of leather armor on Sophia's right side to bite through, the shallow stab wound distracting her from the foe in front of her as well to tip the scales. Fortunately, the shield-carrying guard made a charge directly into him, taking him entirely off his feet. Sophia didn't want to see what happened to him, instead withdrawing enough to get away from the sword, before she grabbed hold of the wrist reaching up, and wrenched it until it broke. A swift kick to the man's face shattered his nose and sent a sheet of blood flowing out, more than enough to subdue him for the rest of the fight.

As expected, the melee was over within moments. Ashton straightened his back and rolled his shoulders, shaking his head at the futility of the attack. "One day they'll realize," he said as he tucked an arrow back into his quiver. He then made a motion with his hand, and all eyes of the guardsmen turned to him. "Disarm them and march them to the Gallows, I'll want to talk to them later. And if anyone tries anything smart, well. Realize that I really only need one to talk to," he threatened. It was a show of course, the guard had a policy of not executing its prisoners in the streets, but the thugs didn't have to know that.

"Sophia, Lucien, if you will? There's a loose end we need to see about," he beckoned, leading them up the flight of stairs in front of them. Behind them, Vesper shouted orders and demands at the bandits, though her voice died down as they departed. As they walked, Ashton pointed out blood stains on the dusty stones, no doubt from the wound Ashton had dealt Garrath. However, if the situation demanded a sense of urgency he didn't show it. Instead he followed the trail at a leisurely pace, his arms swinging beside him.

Eventually they found why Ashton was so calm about letting Garrath slip away after they turned a corner. The man was on the ground in the middle of the street, one of the black clad guardsmen sitting on top of him with the other standing and chatting. The chatter died at they saw their captain, both issuing a salute. Ashton returned the gesture and inspected their quarry. Garrath was still alive and conscious, though bound and gagged. He glared at Ashton with his one good eye, but that was all he could do. Ashton simply smiled and waved at him.

"Report," Ashton ordered, straightening and looking at one of his guards. The one who answered removed the black cloth from her face so that she could speak more clearly. "He tried to escape, but we were faster. We caught him when the corporal here tackled him through that stand right there," she said, gesturing to the splinters of what had been at one point a stand of some sort. The corporal still sat on top of the man, and gave them a thumbs up and what sounded like a muffled chuckle. "He tried to bribe us into letting him go, and when we didn't bite he started insulting us. So I gagged him. Oh, and I believe this is yours Ser?" She added, holding out the arrow Ashton had shot. The tip still had a bit of blood on it.

Ashton accepted the arrow with an appreciative nod. "Thank you, you both did fine work. Get him up and we'll take him to the Gallows. We'll figure out where his base of operations is there." With that, the guards grabbed an arm each and hauled him to his feet and waited for Ashton.

He turned toward Lucien and Sophia and shrugged. "Well. That should be enough, yeah? It's late, you both should go home. I'll give you an detailed account of the whole thing later, but this should be enough to keep the nobility off of our backs for a while... Now if only I could do the same for the templars..."

“One day’s work at a time,” Lucien recommended, clapping Ashton on the shoulder before turning to depart. “Cards down at the barracks later this week?”

"Wouldn't miss it," he answered.

The Chanter's Board has been updated. Progress Report has been completed.

Setting

1 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel

Earnings

0.00 INK

Spring slowly gave way to summer, the early part of the season bringing with it a balmy slightly-sticky heat. It was more tropical than the kind Rilien was used to in Orlais, but he endured it with the same unruffled calm that he dealt with almost everything else, forgoing the sleeves on most days, but otherwise changing little about his appearance or surroundings. This particular day was shaping up to be much the same as those that had preceded it: he worked quietly for a span of about six hours, after which he’d make deliveries and the like, and then it would be time to meet Estella for her training. Occasionally he saw others, but Sparrow was a distant presence at best, still ensconced safely in the Alienage. He knew this, but it was not something he had yet acted upon, which was illogical since he knew he should.

Occasionally, he reminded himself of this, but it never seemed to motivate him any further to action, which was rather curious. Once, logic had been his only motive for anything. Or so he’d told himself, anyway. He’d rather forgotten how good at deception he was—good enough to fool himself as well as everyone else. No logic had brought him through Denerim and a horde to Kirkwall. That had been loyalty, and trust. Similar things drove him still.

He didn’t mind the light sheen of sweat that beaded on his bare arms from the heat of his forge, not even when a drop collected on his chin and fell to the hot blade below, sizzling away into nothingness on the yellow-white metal as it took shape beneath his hammer. The lyrium was… almost a little harder to work, lately, and he refused to let his focus slip as he had the last time he’d been at this task. On the second attempt, it had folded into the steel a little easier, and all that remained was to beat the sword back into its proper shape and sharpen the edges anew.

With a few final, measured blows, he doused the whole thing in the trough of water laying to the side of the anvil, steam flying upwards only to be caught and filtered out the open window on the other side. He left it there for a moment and killed the fire in the hearth, removing the bellows from their stand and hanging them back on the hook in the wall that held them. Even extinguishing the fire did little for the heat in the shop—it was an unseasonably warm day, and he wasn’t the only one feeling of it. Bodahn was patting his forehead dry of sweat with a handkerchief, and though Sandal appeared no more affected than Rilien did, his short hair was plastered to his head, damp and sticky.

Opening the rest of the windows, Rilien elected to prop the shop’s door open as well, holding it in place with a wedge of wood. The air wasn’t much cooler outside, but at least it would circulate this way instead of remaining stagnant and oppressive. He was about to go remove the sword from the trough when he caught sight of Estella making her way up the street towards him. That was unusual—they weren’t scheduled for anything until much later in the afternoon. It wasn’t entirely unheard-of for her to spend free time in his shop for whatever reason, however, and so he didn’t think much of it, merely nodding to acknowledge that he had noted her approach and ducking back inside, removing the now-cooled sword and placing it on one of the many racks on the shop’s walls. It gleamed faintly with the nature enchantment he’d given it, the blade seemingly tinged green along the center line.

Estella gave one of her customary small smiles to Rilien’s nod, picking up her pace just slightly. She was always glad to see him, but perhaps in this instance, she was a little more eager than usual, owing to the arrival of two strange objects at the barracks that morning. One was tucked under her elbow, held against her side, and the other was in her left hand. She ran her right index finger over the large, soft white feather, which she’d found balanced on her pillow when she’d returned from bathing that morning, the heavy parchment envelope laying beneath it. It was sealed and addressed to Rilien, not her, so she’d first showed it to Lucien, who seemed to recognize the seal. He’d told her in no uncertain terms to bring it to Rilien, and then do whatever he said, apparently inclined to leave the matter to his friend’s judgement.

That was fine with Estella, too, of course, though she did wonder why a letter for him should not be delivered to him. Their frequent association wasn’t a secret by any means, but it wasn’t something either of them had great cause to advertise, either, so most of those who knew about it were close with one or the other of them, which made the whole thing that much more mysterious.

Glancing up at the sky for a moment, Estella found it completely bereft of clouds, which fit with the temperature. She wasn’t as bothered by it as some might be, having grown up in one of the warmest climates in Thedas, but honestly that didn’t make a person sweat much less, just feel it as less of a discomfort. She kept her hair high on her head, her linens loose and short-sleeved, and she coped just fine.

Entering the shop, she exchanged greetings with both Bodahn and Sandal before heading over to Rilien’s counter. From the smoldering embers, he’d recently been working on a project. She’d seen him enchant only once—it was a fascinating process she didn’t think she fully understood. Setting the letter down on the counter in front of him, she explained. “It came about an hour ago, along with this.” She held up the feather in her hand, then set it down as well, though she couldn’t imagine him needing a closer inspection to understand what it was.

She’d set the envelope face up, and so he could see his name written in an elegant, loping hand on the front. He recognized the writing, and felt… something like disconcerted to find that the seal on the back—white wax, the insignia of a stylized swan impressed into it. His eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly, and Rilien tore it open at once. The letter inside was extremely short, indirect, and cryptic, which was more or less what he’d expected. In the very center of the page were inscribed a few sparse lines of verse, in exactly the same hand, the ink a bright, ruby-red.


Bring me the name of the she-wolf’s shame.
Bring me the gold worn o’er the crown of the cold.
Last, be quick, fail not to observe,
Only thus the feathr’d will you preserve.


Below that, in the same color, rested a slightly more informal note. We all do best in the company of friends.

Placing the missive back down on the counter, he raised his eyes to meet his student’s. "Estella. This is very important. Where exactly were these left?”

“On my bunk, why?”

"I see.” Rilien looked back down at the note, piecing the individual lines together. It was carefully phrased so that the grammar remained ambiguous between one and many ‘feathr’d’, and for a moment he entertained the irrational wish that it had been written in Orlesian, which had no such plurality ambiguities in it. Pursing his lips, he took another piece of parchment from beneath the counter and dashed off a short note to Lucien, informing him that he would be retaining Estella for the rest of the day, as well as a summary version of his suspicions and his desire that if anyone else they knew should mention the appearance of a very large swan feather in their residence, they immediately be taken into the Lions’ protective custody until he could get the matter straightened out.

Once it was done, he put it back in the existing envelope and stepped outside, motioning for Les, one of the many idle roustabout children that tended to wander Hightown at these hours, looking for some odd job or another to do. This one would follow his instructions to the letter—Rilien paid him too well for him to consider anything else. "The Lions’ barracks. You are to hand it to the commander personally. When you return, Bodahn will pay you.” He’d leave the funds for the transfer behind, but he was departing, at least for now.

Turning back to Estella, he noted with approval that she was armed, if perhaps understandably uncertain of what was going on. "You have questions. Ask them, but do so while we walk.” Choosing not to take any chances, Rilien armed himself as well, sliding several knives into various places on his belt and settling his bandolier over his chest, replete with small bottles of tonic and antidote alike. Holding the door for Estella to precede him, he started them towards the Keep.

Estella had no idea where they were going or what was happening, but she trusted Rilien, and if he was treating this as a matter of urgency, then it was. She fell into step beside him as they headed further into Hightown, her hand unconsciously drifting towards the hilt of her saber. Trying to decide which questions would be best to ask, she licked her lips, then pursed them with a hint of discomfort. Rilien wasn’t being hasty, he didn’t look afraid or uncomfortable or even mildly put-out, but she felt like something was wrong nevertheless. “Okay, um… where are we going, and why?” That seemed like a decent place to start, she supposed.

Rilien nodded slightly, acknowledging the question. "We are going to the Keep. There, we will find the official records of heraldry and peerage for the city of Kirkwall.” He needed to look something up.

“Okay, so why do we need to go there? What did that letter say, anyway?” She figured the last was technically an intrusive question, but she knew it was probably also the important one, and he wasn’t likely to be cross with her for asking it. Her boots clipped along on the flagstones of the Hightown road, only audible because there were so few people about. Probably the heat. She could feel sweat gathering at the back of her neck, and was glad her hair was all atop her head for once. She attributed the fact that she still made automatic note of these things even in what must be an urgent situation to his influence, really. She’d never been given to outright panic, but distraction used to be a problem.

Rilien recited for her the contents of the message, and then explained. "I believe each line of it to represent a distinct objective that I am to perform. The first involves someone called the ‘She-Wolf,’ and the most likely identity of that person would be a female member of a house that uses wolves in its heraldry, since I have heard of no mercenary or criminal who goes by such a moniker.” Besides, he would scarcely be asked to deal in mercenaries or criminals when nobles were available. That was much more what he would expect from this.

“So… you need to know which house that is, which is why we’re going to the Keep.” That much made sense, and she’d followed so far, she believed. But there was something she didn’t quite understand. “But, if I can ask… why exactly are you doing whatever you believe this letter tells you to do?” Rilien was the last person she would ever guess would do something like this on a whim, or just because, or merely to get to the bottom of a mystery. In fact, if she had her guess, this wasn’t really all that mysterious to him at all. So she couldn’t divine his motive for actually doing it. Maybe he was hired to? But then, why send her the letter? And what did it mean, ‘only thus the feathr’d will you preserve’? That sounded ominous.

"Because that trifle you received is the calling card of a very specific bardic organization.” A pause. "Mine, or rather, that of my bardmistress, once also mine.” Rilien’s explanation was flat as ever, but his gaze was somewhere else. "It means that the person it is left with is marked for death. If I do not do this thing, she will have you killed.” Things didn’t really get any simpler than that.

He knew, of course, that not even those of his former affiliation would have an easy time getting to her, not with the Lions about, but the fact that they’d somehow managed to leave the thing on her bunk in the first place was an indication that they could, and that gave them a chance of success too great to be ignored. Odds were that he would have time to complete his objectives, but only as much time as was precisely necessary. And the note at the bottom had been a clear indication that whatever his solution was, it was expected that it would involve Estella herself, which was why he’d chosen to keep her with him.

Well, that and because he believed she would be best protected by someone with the same skill set as her would-be assassins. Namely, himself. It was only logical that since it was his fault that her life was in danger, he should be the one to see that the danger passed.

“Oh.” Estella didn’t seem all that surprised by the news that someone intended to kill her specifically. And indeed, she wasn’t. She had never considered herself a person of importance, and she hadn’t been. But she had been close to such people before, and she knew that fact tended to paint a target on her back just as surely. If Rilien believed that completing this task was the best way to ensure that she survived whatever this was, then she was going to trust him, and do everything she could to help. That only made sense.

Just as much, though… she wondered what this might mean to him. She knew he anticipated returning to Orlais and in some sense to his old life eventually, but she wasn’t certain what implications this incident might have for that. Was he an enemy of his former allies now? Why else would they threaten to kill people he knew? The most absurd thing of all, though, was that she felt a little bit… happy. Rilien had more friends than he might think, and that someone had observed his life and chosen her specifically to get to him was… well, on the one hand it was a bit strange, and not a little daunting, but it felt like confirmation of a kind. She did matter, at least to someone. It was a good feeling.

They reached the Keep not long after, and since what they were looking for was public record, no one kept them from their search. The family they were looking for were called the Acklands, and they still maintained a manse in Hightown, which was not unexpected. He didn’t think he’d be made to travel far for this. All that remained was to find the date and time for their next social engagement—and if it wasn’t today, he had a feeling it would be soon. After that, the only real issue would be getting in… but he had an idea of how that could be achieved, and it involved his apprentice.

Setting

1 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel

Earnings

0.00 INK

Estella was pretty sure she hadn’t felt this awkward since she was fifteen years old and had accidentally caught her brother in the Chantry garden with Helene Titus. Actually, this might count as worse, because at least that had been, on some level, funny. This was just… uncomfortable. In every conceivable way, actually.

Firstly, she was wearing a gown. It definitely wasn’t hers, but she hadn’t bothered to ask Rilien where he’d procured it on such short notice. He had people for everything, she suspected. It wasn’t a big floofy fancy thing, because this was a garden party and not by any means a ball, but it was clingy and gauzy and… well, just awkward. It had been so long since she’d worn anything but practical mercenary clothes that she seemed to have forgotten how to comport herself in anything formal, and she wished longingly for her Lions’ uniform, stowed safely above Rilien’s shop for the moment.

This alone she might have been able to tolerate, but even worse was the fact that Rilien was following a few paces behind her and to the right, playing the part of attentive manservant, the brand on his head concealed and his mannerisms about as un-Tranquil as she’d ever seen them. He smiled and frowned and otherwise expressed himself on cues so perfectly-timed they felt downright unnatural to her, and it was beyond strange to have her teacher going to fetch her things or awaiting her instructions. But she knew this was what he had to do to be here, just like she had to make small talk to the other guests, sticking to a manufactured story about being distantly related to one of the other partygoers, a visiting cousin from the Imperium.

At least this wasn’t a dancing kind of party. She might actually die if she had to dance. Probably from falling into a rosebush and getting a cut somewhere really unlucky, if the embarrassment didn’t do her in first. They were slowly working the room, trying to get close to the host and hostess, for some clue as to what they might be looking for here. Rilien had coached her as succinctly as possible on the queries he needed her to make, but she knew it was largely up to her to actually make them, since a servant talking to the host would look incredibly out of place.

So she’d plastered a thin, serene smile on her face and resolved to do her best not to screw this up. Rilien was counting on her to be useful, and she didn’t need to remind herself that her own life might hang in the balance, too.

She wasn’t doing as badly as she imagined. At the very least, she looked exactly like a young noble lady, and there were certain instincts that had to be trained into a person that Estella simply seemed to have, such as posture. Rilien had already guessed that her family at least was of some stature in Tevinter, but he was now certain of it, though she spoke little of them. There was a natural quality to her that was eye-catching, and as someone with an appreciation for aesthetics, Rilien had to admire his own handiwork. Between the color of the dress and the small amount of cosmetic she’d consented to him applying, she looked every bit as noble as anyone here, and it was not unnoticed.

The rest… the rest needed some work, but she had yet to make any outright errors as such, and it was enough for their present purposes. She didn’t have to get herself invited to future social engagements—they merely needed to pass beneath the level of suspicion at this one, and so far, they were indeed doing that.

As for the actual task before them, he believed he had an inkling of what the answer might be. Upon their entrance onto the grounds of the Ackland estate, he’d detected the faintest trace of magic. It was likely there was a mage somewhere on the grounds, though he knew not if this person was a guest or a member of the house. Under the guise of heading away to fetch Estella another drink, he took a quick turn about the garden itself, but no object or person was sticking out to him, which made it likely that whatever he was seeking would be in the manse itself. An inconvenience, but one they would have to find a way around, somehow.

On his way back from the refreshments, he took a quick survey of the immediate area. Lord and Lady Ackland, the latter being the person he took to be the mentioned ‘she-wolf’, since her family records indicated she was the only current living female member of the house, were located near the garden’s central marble fountain, holding court in the way the hosts of these gatherings were wont to do. Their only living child, Matthias Ackland, was amid a cluster of younger people, those below thirty, telling what appeared to be a joke to sycophantic laughter. Nobody else was of particular significance, at least not to him. There were a few Comtes and Comtesses in the ranks of the guests, but none of them had familial ties to the Acklands.

"Lady Calligenia.” He addressed Estella, giving her the opportunity to turn away from her current conversation for a moment to accept the champagne flute he held. When she leaned close enough to take it, he continued in a much lower tone. "Insinuate yourself with the son’s group.” The parents were too occupied with people too important to interrupt just yet. But they could easily get into the other cluster.

Well. Perhaps easily was a relative term.

Estella barely resisted the urge to groan. This was not her area of expertise, and as someone who wasn’t really good at much of anything, to be markedly worse at this than everything else was really saying something. She’d considered channeling Cyrus, but the point was to not get noticed that much, and she remembered him doing pretty much the opposite at all times. She didn’t have anything to go on in terms of remembering her mother’s mannerisms, and so she was stuck trying to approximate the few courtiers she’d seen actually acting like courtiers.

Spine straight, shoulders back, placid smile, don’t stand like a mercenary. The complicated style of her hair was beginning to feel heavy on her head, and she knew it would turn into a headache quite shortly. She sipped from the champagne flute partly because it would look weird if she didn’t and partly because she felt like she needed it to get through this, but a voice in her head that sounded suspiciously like Rilien reminded her to keep her wits about her. She was going to need them.

She murmured some kind of platitude to extricate herself with minimal clumsiness from the current conversation, and was halfway through a beeline to the destination she wanted when she remembered she should probably be indirect. Awkwardly, she reoriented herself for a cluster of flowering bushes, as though she’d been intended to go stand next to them the whole time. Inwardly, she was just hoping no one had seen that. This was half a disaster already, and it had started only an hour ago! With a slightly-shaky hand, she raised the flute to her lips for another sip, staring a bit harder at the bushes than was probably warranted. Rilien seemed to have disappeared again.

Of course.

Rilien had indeed left again, this time in hopes of learning something useful from the other servants whilst Estella attempted to ply the nobles. He’d have to make back-and-forth trips with some frequency to ensure nothing was going too poorly on her end, but he did believe she could handle herself for the most part, though she was clearly uncomfortable with the idea and less than certain herself.

“Have the roses done something to offend you, milady?” The voice, a touch amused, came from just behind Estella, and belonged, fortuitously enough, to the youngest Ackland, who appeared for the moment to have left the cluster of other younger nobles behind. He bore a wry half-smile, one blond eyebrow lofted slightly, likely at the face she was making at the flowering shrubs. “I’ll admit they’re a bit prickly, but I shouldn’t think them too dangerous if one is careful.”

Estella, not moving her eyes from where they lay, responded automatically. “I’d say something poetic about roses and thorns, but honestly I’m just more likely than most to trip and fall into the bush.” A couple of seconds ticked by, and then the exchange actually clicked, and she whirled around to face the stranger, trying to think of the right words for accidentally forgetting to… what? Filter her thoughts? Act like a lady? Was this even grounds for someone to be offended or was she overthinking it? Ugh, this was more difficult than it had any right to be. Talking to people was hard enough on its own, without any of this extra… trouble.

“I, um… sorry. That was rude. I didn’t think—” she cut herself off before she dug any deeper into whatever faux-pas this was, smiling thinly instead. On the upside, this was the person she was supposed to be talking to. On the downside… she may have ruined it already.

The nobleman waved a hand in dismissal, a smile playing over his features. “Don’t apologize. That might have been the most honest thing anyone’s said in my presence since this whole thing started.” He shrugged diffidently. “But where are my manners? Matthias Ackland, at your service.” He crossed a hand over his chest and bowed slightly.

“Oh, ah. Calligenia Valerius, milord. A pleasure.” Still off-balance, Estella curtsied and attempted to hit her stride, retreating into the familiar, at least as far as conversational topics went. “I… don’t actually have anything against roses in particular. I was just thinking about something else. They’re really quite nice.” A corner of her mouth pulled upwards, and she felt her shoulders relax. Maybe she hadn’t done anything terribly rude yet after all.

Matthias’s expression brightened, as if some new thought had just dawned on him, one he quite liked. “Well, then you must see the rest. Perhaps I could interest you in a tour of the manse and its grounds?” He smiled obligingly and offered his arm.

Estella blinked. Well, that wasn’t anything she was expecting, but it looked pretty much exactly like the opportunity she needed. Now all she had to do was find an excuse for Rilien to go along. Probably not difficult—escorts were normal with this kind of thing, right? Her brows knit together for a moment as she tried to remember, but she smoothed them out and looped her arm through Matthias’s. “That sounds lovely. I hope you would not mind if my steward chaperones us—I would not wish to give my relatives cause for concern.”

“Of course, of course.” Almost as soon as Matthias had indicated his lack of concern about the matter, Rilien himself appeared, resuming a discreet distance from the two of them as they traversed the gardens. The servants had been oddly evasive with him, but not until he’d started asking questions about any strange requests the lady of the house made for them. It was usually a topic they were happy to talk about—servants enjoyed complaining about the eccentricities of their employers, and lamenting the specificity of certain particularly ridiculous orders, but there was nothing like that here. Which led him to believe that something very strange going on, and the servants were somehow involved.

Fortunately, Estella had managed to gain them both access to the house via their solicitous host. He wondered exactly what her exit strategy was for this situation, then decided she likely didn’t have one—which meant he’d probably best come up with something when he could.

The tour, narrated with the occasional humorous anecdote by Matthias, eventually took them into the house itself, where he began explaining the construction process on the foyer before moving them in to what was apparently the east wing. Rilien didn’t think the house qualified as large enough to have full wings, but surmised that the young nobleman was trying to impress his apprentice, not an entirely uncommon reaction to the presence of an aesthetically-pleasing woman. In fact quite predictable, and one of several reasons Estella’s presence was useful to his aim here.

Rilien noted that while each of the doors in the east wing was opened and its interior explained, one door was left unremarked-upon, and it was therein that the magical signature of the house was strongest. There was no way to ask himself, of course, but then, he didn’t really need to, if Estella could distract Lord Ackland thoroughly enough that his absence would not be noticed. He made eye contact with her just briefly while she was in profile to him, and nodded to the nobleman, miming motion away with a subtle gesture.

Estella’s eyes went wide for a moment as she interpreted Rilien’s signal, and she felt a brief moment of panic. The obvious way to get Matthias out of the way and disinclined to notice her teacher’s absence was not something she was even close to comfortable with, and she didn’t like her chances of successfully seducing anyone. Even thinking about it was making her feel awkward again, and she’d been doing pretty well not showing it so far.

So… she needed to think of something else, and quickly. Maybe a specific room, something she could talk about enough to be distracting, and something not in this hallway. “Milord, does your family by chance have a library? I left my own behind at home, and I do find that I’ve missed it.”

Matthias looked nonplussed for half a second, but he recovered quickly. “Of course. It’s over on the west side, and rather small, but we do have a collection of rare Chantry manuscripts, if you’ve any interest in that sort of thing…” Rilien slowed his footsteps, letting them disappear around a corner as Estella answered, and assumed that her conversation on a matter she had some expertise in as well as the tendency of nobility to ignore the presence or absence of servants would here serve him well.

The door of interest to him was, predictably, locked, but such a thing hardly constituted an obstacle to him, and he removed a small pick set from his sleeve, suitable for work on locks more delicate than strong. Checking the corridor, he knelt in front of the knob and worked the first pick into it, changing it when it proved slightly too fine. The second was what he was looking for though, and with most of the servants out in on the grounds or, presumably, in the kitchen, he knew he had little risk of discovery. It was far from the most difficult job he’d ever had, but knowing the one who’d given it to him, there was a twist coming.

The door swung inwards, and the unique tang of magic prickled on the back of his tongue, almost like a flavor, acrid and sulfurous. It was utterly unlike those belonging to the people he knew, or even most of the enchanted objects he’d run across. It didn’t have the feel of lyrium, not even the raw stuff, and Rilien felt a bare flicker of curiosity as he descended the stairs.

The staircase deposited him in what had once been a cellar, he supposed, though it was mostly bare at the moment. Following the sensation of magic, he rolled aside what appeared to be several barrels of ale. Judging from the marks on the floor, this was done with some regularity, which was a decent indication that he should try the same. It wasn’t especially difficult to push them off to either side, and doing so revealed an otherwise-hidden trapdoor in the cellar. Hauling it open, Rilien set it down quietly on the wood floor of the cellar and dropped himself down without hesitation, mindful of his landing.

The room he landed in was even dimmer than the cellar, but there were a couple of candles clustered together on an old wooden table with a single chair. The only other feature in the room was a large metal cage, the slight luminescence of the bars a clue to what was familiar to his senses: the bars were infused with lyrium. Inside them, shuffling around with a rattling of chains, was what appeared to be an ordinary enough human girl. She was blonde, or had been, but her hair was stringy and matted. The veins in her bare arms and along her neck were prominent, and a blackish violet, stark against fair skin. Her features might have been aristocratic once, but they were too thin and hollow now, the bones prominent and birdlike in their apparent delicacy.

What stood out above everything else though, was her left arm. Massive in proportion to her body, it was twisted, the flesh lumpy and reddened, her digits fused until there were only three, each tipped with an obsidian claw. It was no natural deformity—she reeked of magic.

At his approach, her head snapped up, her eyes wide and frightened. She backed up against the opposite side of her cage, her misshapen arm held out before her almost as a form of defense.

“Who are you? You’re not one of the servants.”

Rilien did not respond immediately, studying the room, the bars of the cage, and the girl inside. The magic here felt sick, diseased, almost like…

"Abomination.” The word was ready to his tongue, the natural conclusion. But she was not like any abomination he’d ever seen before. Perhaps her mutation was incomplete somehow, perhaps she was restricted by the size of her containment. It was hard to say. But this girl, whoever she was, had certainly once been a mage, yet the walls bore no evidence of escape attempts: no scorch marks, no water damage, nothing. In fact, though it was beyond sparse, it was quite neatly-kept. It would appear he had discovered what the servants were unwilling to talk about.

His eyes turned to the girl’s face, scrutinizing her features. Blond hair, fair complexion, brown eyes. She shared coloration with both Matthias and his parents: the lady Ackland’s hair and the lord’s nose, among other things. But the only living child of the Acklands was supposed to be several floors above with Estella.

“Yes.” Her voice was a choked whisper, her smile more a cadaver’s grimace than anything genuine. “I am that.”

"Madeline Ackland.” It was a guess—the Acklands had two younger children than Matthias, both of whom were supposed to be dead. One was a stillborn, and so unlikely to be this girl. The other, however, had died as a young child, or so it was reported.

Her arm trembled, and she lowered it, approaching the bars. “I’m that, too.” The girl, or more accurately, the young woman, gripped the lyrium bar nearest her with her ordinary arm, but kept the other well away from it. He imagined it probably burned if it came into contact with the corrupted flesh. “But who are you?”

"I am no one.”

She blinked at him, tilting her head to the side, her expression curiously childlike. Open, without any of the reserve he encountered in human adults. “Then… will you stay? I’m not allowed to see anyone, mother says, and the servants don’t talk to me. They just leave me food and go. But if you’re no one, then I’m not breaking the rules, am I?”

Rilien hesitated. He believed he had the information he required, and he should be getting back to Estella. They had what they needed, which meant it was time to go. Years ago, he wouldn’t have even thought twice about the request, just left her there to whatever miserable existence her half-life allowed. He shook his head slightly.

"I cannot stay long.” A pause. He wanted to say something else, but was in the strange position of not knowing what it was.

Her face fell. “Then… can I ask a favor of you, for when you leave?”

He considered it for a moment, then inclined his head in acquiescence.

Her eyes hit the ground at his feet and did not move. She spoke slowly, enunciating every word as though she had practiced them. “When you leave, will you… will you tell the Templars where I am—what I am?”

"They will kill you.” His reply was flat, with no room for speculation. She may yet have a human face and a human voice, but she was at least partway to being an abomination, and had been down here for close to ten years, if he had his guess. Since she’d been reported dead.

“I hope so.” The rasping whisper was stronger on that sentence, and she looked back up at him. “Mother says I must live for her, but… but he is in my head, and sometimes… sometimes he hurts the servants, when they come to bring me food or change my buckets. I don’t… I don’t want to be like this anymore. I don’t want to hear him anymore. I just want it to be quiet.”

Rilien considered it. He wasn’t sure if he was meant to pass along this information to anyone else, but… he would not leave her here, like this. There was another possible solution, one not likely to earn him favor with his taskmaster, but one not outside of her parameters. "If you wish to die, I will do it myself.”

The pained expression on Madeline’s face became an actual smile, if a bit tinged with irony. “I think that may be the kindest thing anyone’s ever said to me.” He approached her bars, and she knelt, pulling her thick, greasy mat of hair over to one side such that the back of her neck was exposed. Rilien moved one of his concealed knives into his hand, reaching through the bars and plunging it downwards even as whatever demon was possessing her tried to force a more complete transformation for her protection. But either she suppressed it or he was too quick, because the knife met no resistance as he punched it into her spinal cord, ending her life nearly instantaneously.

Choosing to take the knife, lest one of the servants be blamed for supplying it, he left the room behind, climbing up and back out into the cellar, calmly rolling the barrels back into place, listening at the door before stepping back out into the hallway, and then heading down the corridor where he’d last seen Estella.

His first task was complete.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel

Earnings

0.00 INK

It hadn’t been too difficult for Rilien to extract himself and Estella from the party, and he knew nothing would come down on her for his involvement in Madeline’s death, considering she was already supposed to be dead, and his apprentice’s alibi was rather solid. Regardless, that part was done, and he’d sent her back to the barracks with a letter of his own to place in the same spot she’d found the feather.

The name of her shame is Madeline.

After that, it was a matter of waiting. He did not anticipate it would take long for someone else he knew to find a strange swan feather where they slept, and when they did, he would know that her game was once more afoot. Until then, he simply went about his business as he always did, putting any incidental thoughts regarding Madeline and what her existence in that cell must have implied from his mind any time they happened to enter.

It was three days before the next task began.

The bells above the door into Rilien's shop chimed to announce his visitor. The voice that followed soon after gave him their name. "Rilien?" Aurora called aloud, "I've something for you." There was a certain sternness in her voice and a slight furrow to her brow as she spoke. Whatever she had, she was clearly not pleased by it. She approached his counter and reached into her shirt for it. What she pulled out was another envelope addressed to Rilien, though this one's white wax seal was already torn. She tossed it on the counter and shook her head as she tried to find the first question she wanted to ask.

Instead, she decided on an explanation. "I found it on my bed with a feather when I returned home. On my bed, Rilien," she repeated. She went to some lengths to assure she remained anonymous in Lowtown. To come home and find that a letter penned to Rilien awaited her disconcerted her. Whoever left it knew that she knew Rilien and it worried her to think what else they might know of her. Not only that, but they were also skilled enough to bypass all of the security that Amalia helped install.

"Who is it from and why deliver it to me instead of you. And why is it talking about a... a crown?!" Aurora asked, gesturing wildly.

Rilien did not answer immediately, instead reaching into the envelope for its contents. Unsurprisingly, it was short and cryptic, doubtless a notation on the second verse of the rhyme he’d been given. The crown weighs heaviest on one never meant to wear it. He set the parchment back down and leveled his eyes at Aurora.

"The letters are from a woman named Marquise Aurelie Montblanc. She heads an organization called Le Nichoir. It’s a well-structured conglomerate of bards, one of the most reputable in Orlais. I regret to inform you that nobody’s secrets are secret from her, if she does not desire them to be, but I doubt very much you have anything to worry about. She does not do anything without a lucrative reason, and selling mage identities to Templars is beneath her. Or she believes as much, which has the same effect.” He placed the letter back in its envelope, having a distinct feeling he now understood the parameters of the second task.

"Were I you, I would be more concerned about the fact that the feather represents a contract on your life, to be carried out by one of her agents unless I manage to accomplish what she has asked of me.” He tilted his head at her, something in his expression even graver than usual.

It was a lot to digest, and left Aurora standing with her mouth agape, equal parts confused and upset. Finally resetting her jaw, the furrow in her brow deepened. "I'm concerned about it all thank you!" Her hand found her forehead and her eyes widened. Not only did they know where she slept and how to get to it, but she was also apparently marked for death by an organization of bards. Usually when someone wanted them dead, they were forward about it and it could be solved with a liberal amount of force in a specific direction.

She took a step back from the counter and began to pace the room. "Assassination? I've never had to deal with assassination before Rilien! And why me!" she said, her tone taking an indignant turn. "I'm not important enough to be assassinated! I haven't even done anything to warrant it!" She said defensively. The most frustrating thing was that she didn't see any way around it. She couldn't take on an entire organization. From the looks of things, she could hardly keep one agent out of her own home.

"What am I supposed to do Rilien? I'm not leaving another home, and they'd probably find me if I did," she said, still pacing. She knew he was tranquil, but for a moment she wished Rilien could show that he was as worried about this as she was.

Rilien reached a hand over the counter and laid it on Aurora’s shoulder. Far from tactile by nature, he knew that nevertheless it was often reassuring to others, and since he could not properly show concern, he thought the least he could do would be to offer the token of comfort. "I told you: the contract will be voided if I can complete a task for Aurelie. This is something I intend to do, quite soon considering I know now what it is.” He allowed his brows to furrow slightly. "You did not think I would simply let you die?”

"No..." Aurora said calming down, though she still looked rather nervous about the whole thing. "It's just... When I was a little girl, I was always afraid of being hunted by the Crows. This just brought back some of those old fears," she explained. She then sighed and rubbed her eyes, "Okay. Okay, what does the letter mean? Is it a riddle or... Something?" She asked. "The quicker we can do this task the sooner I can put my mind at ease... At least somewhat." The fact that someone is able to get into her house announced would likely stick with her for some time now.

The Tranquil let his hand fall, nodding slightly. "It is part of one. I am supposed to bring her what she calls ‘the gold that lies o’er the crown of the cold.’ She also says that the ‘crown weighs heaviest on one never meant to wear it.’” He paused a moment, giving her a look laden with meaning. "Who do we know that could be described as 'cold' and also wears a crown never meant for them?”

"Meredith," the answer was immediate, and the tone used implied her distaste.

"Just so.” Rilien nodded again. "My task is to steal something that belongs to Meredith, something quite specific. Doing this will involve disguising myself and gaining admittance to the Gallows.” Getting in wouldn’t really be all that difficult. Getting access to Meredith herself would be a challenge, but not impossible. The whole thing was extremely high risk, but that in and of itself was no deterrent for Rilien.

"It will be a rather humiliating loss, if that is something you are interested in assisting with.”

Ordinarily, she wouldn't be too fond of the idea of sneaking into the Gallows in order to steal something from the Knight-Commander herself. However, ordinary circumstances usually didn't leave her as the target of some bardic organization. That and opportunities to humiliate Meredith didn't come along all that often. Aurora straightened and crossed her arms, looking at Rilien with a raised brow.

"Just how humiliating, exactly?"

Rilien had turned his attention to straightening his shop, but this was not to say that he missed the query. It was reasonable, he supposed; as far as Aurora knew, if she agreed she’d be walking right into the same place she’d been avoiding for nearly a decade with only him as support. Perhaps not the most confidence-instilling of situations. "I will be sneaking past her guards into her private quarters while she is sleeping and absconding with a cutting of her hair.”

It was the logical answer to the riddle. Aurelie had asked for something worn over Meredith’s crown. Either she wanted her hood, which was unlikely since it was red, or ‘crown’ in that line referred to the crown of her head, over which was, of course, hair. As it was blonde, it would constitute ‘gold,’ so he was quite confident that this was what he was being asked to do. The implications of being able to successfully do such a thing were obvious: if he could get close enough to cut her hair and leave, he could just as easily have cut her throat instead. Meredith would know this, her immediately lieutenants, if she blamed them for the security failure, would know it, and their unease would filter down the ranks, even if the Templar footsoldiers didn’t understand the reason. He didn’t know why Aurelie wished to destabilize the order even that little bit, but he was certain she had a reason.

A crooked grin spread across Aurora lips. "Yes, that would knock her down a peg," she agreed. Not only that, but it would reveal that even she was not invincible and that the control she exerted only extended so far. The smile soon faded however, as she thought more about it. While the message would be clear, Meredith would then possibly try to close any perceived gaps. She may even go so far as to come down on the mages in the Circle, thinking that perhaps they had something to do with it. She then frowned, she'd rather not make life harder for the mages in the Circle if she was at all able. However, it didn't seem like she had much of a choice, Rilien would do the task with or without her help she knew, and she would not leave him on his own while he saves her life.

"I'm worried what she might do to the mages in the Circle, but I'm not going to let you do this by yourself," she said, crossing her arms.

"Then we make sure she knows the responsible party isn’t a mage.” He could simply take a leaf out of his own former book, and that of his Bardmistress. Calling cards were quite effective in such instances, anyway.

"The first thing we will need is a disguise.”




Rilien's plan to get into the Gallows was to disguise both Aurora and himself as transfer mages. A group of such mages were already scheduled to arrive from Ostwick, so all it took was for him to draw up fake documents and procure a pair of fake phylacteries for them to slip in. However they could not simply go as themselves. They would have to disguise themselves if they did not wish to be discovered later.

Aurora was unrecognizable. Gone was her short scarlet hair, replaced by a mane of flowing brown. A little dye and a few locks of dark walnut hair and Rilien hid her most noticeable feature. Her emerald irises were also a dark brown now, owing to a potion Rilien had concocted, and the freckles dotting her face were gone under a layer of make up. The chink in the bridge of her nose from having it broken was also gone, replaced instead by a hook toward the tip from the prosthetic he had applied. He had also put her in the typical plain blue robes of the Circle. She was now completely nondescript and entirely ordinary.

Rilien himself looked no more like usual than Aurora did. His snowy hair had been darkened to black, his eye color deepened to a flat amber. The brand on his face was of course concealed, and he’d applied liberal cosmetics even under his clothes to hide his tattoos. His robes were the yellow belonging to an ordinary Enchanter, neither apprentice nor senior, as would be expected of someone of his visual age. Perhaps more than any physical alteration, however, his appearance was transformed by his body language—he walked with a pronounced slouch, wary eyes and the tendency to move several feet in a given direction when one would do, like an overly skittish, nervous fellow. The cut of his robes was too loose, leaving him to look like he was drowning in them, and much skinnier than was accurate.

He was, for the moment, one of any number of high-strung, Templar-shy mages, awkward and clearly uncomfortable, but not in the least suspicious. It was a demeanor he’d seen dozens of times in his own Circle days, and the Templars escorting them were obviously used to it as well. He stuck close to Aurora, as though they were friends, which would make it much less interesting if they were later seen in the same places on a fairly consistent basis.

They were loaded onto boats not too long after the two of them had snuck into the procession, unnoticed as extra since the number of heads matched the number of phylacteries, and the number of transfer documents. The mages didn’t think anything of it, either, as trips like this sometimes contained more than one stop, and they were all a little preoccupied with their own trepidation. Act like you belonged in a place, and people tended to assume you did. This was basic psychology, and he’d learned it well long ago.

The Gallows soon came into sight, and they were made to disembark without their belongings, which was fine because he and Aurora hadn’t brought much of anything, and nothing of importance was in what they had. Their things would be inspected, of course, but nobody bothered to pat down a mage. What need had they for other kinds of weapons when they had magic? Most would be lucky to know which end of a knife to hold anyway.

Herded into a small receiving hall, they each reviewed their documents with the Quartermaster, an older man with grey at his temples and an utterly disinterested look on his face. “Name?” He had Rilien’s forged paperwork there in front of him, of course, but this was rote procedure. It wasn’t often that anyone impermissible wanted into a Circle, after all. Getting out was usually the more desirable maneuver.

Rilien shuffled, as though nervously, and stammered his answer. "A-Arron. Of Ostwick.” Most city elves didn’t really have last names, so that didn’t get so much as a second take out of the Templar.

“Phylactery?” That was directed not at him, but at one of the Templars unloading the boats, and after a small pause wherein one of the women found the vial with his false name on it, she nodded, and the Quartermaster, still bored, waved him through.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel

Earnings

0.00 INK

Most of the day was spent in reconnaissance. Rilien had left Aurora to talking with the other mages, mostly, because those were conversations that could be useful and it was more important that he get a precise sense of the layout of the Gallows. He’d been here before, of course—he could have walked right in as himself, and no one would have blinked. But to complete this assignment, he needed access to the place at night, including places he would not be able to access after the boats stopped running for the day.

This skulking about had allowed him access to two crucial pieces of information: Meredith was everywhere followed by two other Templars, which he figured would most likely translate to a guard outside her quarters at night, and her quarters themselves were located towards the back of the Templar barracks, a place that would be difficult to access at any time but the very dead of night, when most of the people in it were asleep and the guards could be dispatched quietly. Fortunately, he’d guessed at that much, and was adequately prepared. A mere distraction would not do, for that ran the risk of awakening Meredith herself. This had to be done so quietly it wasn’t noticed until he and Aurora were long gone. Failing that, any smokescreen for their escape would need to happen after he had what he needed.

A plan coalescing in his mind, he returned to Aurora and the other mages, milling about the outdoor area as usual, under the watchful eye of the Templars. It was something he’d seen dozens, if not hundreds, of times from the outside by this point, but it was quite different from the Orlesian Circle he’d briefly resided in.

"H-hey Maria. Everything okay?” It wasn’t such an unusual question to ask in a situation like this, but Rilien actually did intend to check and make sure she was holding up well. He might not get nervous himself, but it was not an inexplicable reaction to have for someone else.

"Yeah... I'm fine," she answered. Despite the words, she seemed down and lacked the usual enthusiasm she possessed. While it could've been mistaken for an act, and she did use it as such, Aurora actually felt somewhat depressed being in the Circle. It wasn't the feeling of being trapped, she trusted that Rilien would get them out when it was time, it was being faced with what the mages endured. She'd forgotten about the weight of the templar's gaze and the lack of control they had in the Circle. Unlike Rilien she'd never been in the Gallows. The only exposure she had was from other mages who had escaped and the fact that it loomed in the horizon across the port.

Still, they had come to do a job, and she would not let how she felt affect that. Readjusting her robes on her shoulder and turned toward him and shot him a smile. "Well Arron? Did you enjoy your little tour?"

He nodded a couple of times, though one corner of his mouth was pulled down into a grimace. "Sure? I mean, it’s different than what we’re used to, but I think I know my way around now.”




Night had fallen, and the two of them were shuttled away into dormitories according to the ranks on their paperwork, which fortunately were not too far away from one another. Rilien had told Aurora to wait for him to swing by where hers were, at which point he’d explain things a little more clearly. There was only so much he could convey with the Templars around, and he was sure to wait until two hours after midnight before he moved, ensuring that as few people would be awake as possible.

He’d been listening for Templar boots outside his door all night, and had a fair sense that a patrol passed by his quarters about once every fifteen minutes. It was a bit of a tight fit, but it gave him enough time to do what he wanted if he didn’t hesitate, and so after one such patrol went by, he slipped out of the room after it, keeping himself close to the edge of the walls in the corridor, counting the doors down the hall until he came upon Aurora’s. Tapping quietly on the door, he moved away from it to stand in one of the hallway’s long shadows, lit as they were only by the occasional dim magelight, out of deference for the hour.

A moment later, Aurora opened the door as quickly as she dared, and glanced down both ends of the hall. Satisfied that the templars were not in sight, she slipped out of the door and quietly shut it behind, turning and looking expectantly at Rilien.

"Follow me and don’t move without my signal.”Rilien’s voice was low, but not a whisper, because those tended to echo, and that was the last thing they wanted to do. "We’re going to avoid what guards we can, but if we must engage, do so as quietly as possible. Prevent them from sounding the alarm at all costs.” Ideally, they wouldn’t have to kill anyone, but if doing so became necessary in order to get them both out of this situation with what they needed, then he had no issues whatsoever doing so. But given his expertise and her training, he expected that as long as they planned their moves carefully, they could simply knock the guards out and hide them out of the way enough that their absence would not be immediately noted.

From his sleeve, he pulled a glass flask. "Wet your sleeve with this. If you cover someone’s nose and mouth with it, a few inhalations will be enough to cause unconsciousness.” The hem of his own was already damp, and he briefly mimed bringing it around from behind someone and pressing it to their face. Once she’d had the time to apply part of the flask in whatever fashion she deemed appropriate, he started the two of them to the north.

The first major obstacle would be getting into the Templar quarters themselves. They were technically separated from the mage ones, but this way, the separation was only really a door. They dare not keep the Templars too far from their charges, after all, so it made sense that the two buildings were connected. The mage side of the connection of course contained a guard, in this case simply a pair of footsoldiers. The hall itself was wide, flanked by columns that threw shadows, and that would be of some advantage. Sneaking up on the Templars would be extremely difficult, however, because they were right in front of the door, meaning that anything coming at them would do so from the front.

Thinking quickly, Rilien turned to Aurora, pointing at the cold-fire torch lighting the left side of the hallway. He drew a finger across his throat, indicating that she should, so to speak, kill the light. It wasn’t the only one in the corridor, but total darkness wasn’t his intention.

Aurora followed the best that she could, but she was not suited to stealth. She found herself spending most of her time trying to not make any loud noises. When he stopped, so did she, and his pointing drew her eyes toward the magelight. Understanding his meaning, she reached out with her hand and and manipulated the fade around it, snuffing the light out. Once done, she withdrew her arm and pressed herself against the nearby wall.

The effect was almost immediate. “Huh?” One of the Templars at the end of the hall squinted down the corridor. Both he and his counterpart wore no helmet, making his dark head of hair and young features readily obvious. “One of the lights went out.”

The second man looked a bit older, his hair a peppered sandy brown and lines of age or strain, it was hard to say, remaining permanently at the corners of his eyes. “Happens sometimes. Apprentices can’t always get the magic to work right.” Still, his mouth thinned a bit, and he sighed. “Better check it anyway. The Knight-Commander’s been… picky, since what happened to Grath.”

“Like she wasn’t before?” The other one sounded weary, but being the younger, took it upon himself to head down the hall to check the dead light. Rilien motioned for Aurora to deal with him while he took on the slightly more difficult task of trying to get a better angle on the older Templar. Given that both men had their eyes fixed on the spot the first approached, it wasn’t too hard to slip into the shadow of a column, moving in a sort of start and stop rhythm that was more like breathing than the steady tread forward of a normal person—it had moments of complete stillness, and even a couple instances of backtrack, but it was still automatic and free of doubt.

He knew he had to strike first, and so he did, melting out of the darkened side of the hall and immediately pressing his sleeve over the Templar’s nose and mouth. A muffled cry was the only sound that escaped, but it was enough to get his partner to turn around, which should create an opportunity for Aurora to move around behind him. The older man went slack in his grip, and Rilien lowered him carefully to the floor, dragging him into the deeper dark of the corridor, so he wouldn’t be plainly visible. He’d be discovered on a sufficiently-close inspection, of course, but that wasn’t anything he could do anything about. They didn’t need all night, just a bit of time.

Aurora struck just as quickly, grabbing the wet spot on her sleeve with a hand and leaping from the shadows onto the templar's back. She wrapped her arms around the templar's face, pressing the chemicals on her sleeve into his mouth and nose. A muffled cry was the only thing he managed before he slipped into unconsciousness, and lowering Aurora back to the ground. She held him so that he didn't collapse into a pile at her feet and make a racket with his arm striking the stones.

She then dragged him only a short way to lean him up against a shadowed wall. She could not drag him any further without scrapping the stones with his armor, and she was not strong enough to heft an entire man and his armor, so it would have to do. Afterwards, she quickly returned to Rilien and gestured for him to continue. He knew what they were doing a lot better than she did.

The rest wasn’t so bad. The Templars felt no need to patrol their own quarters, at least, so the halls were empty except for the two guards near Meredith’s door, and these were dispatched in a similar manner to the two before, though this time, the floor was padded with a carpet runner, and so between himself and Aurora, they were able to drag both into an adjacent room so they wouldn’t simply be laying there in the hallway.

Meredith’s door was locked, of course, and it was surprisingly intricate for an ordinary door lock, which he attributed to the woman’s growing paranoia. What actually succeeded in disturbing Rilien, however, was the sense he was getting from something in the room. It was familiar, somehow, but not exactly the same as anything he remembered. It felt like lyrium, but… different. Tainted, somehow, and it was actually causing him to feel a degree of nausea. He didn’t know what it was, but it represented an unusual factor, one he had not known to account for, and that was a little bit… unsettling, even for him.

It took him longer than it should have to open the door, and he had to take several pauses to breathe deeply, his head swimming in a strange way it had not for a very long time. When the lock finally gave way, he turned to Aurora. "Stay here. I’ll be back momentarily. If something happens to me, run.” He didn’t foresee it, but it was certainly possible.

Slipping into the chamber, he was hit with a fresh wave of dizziness, and actually stumbled backwards into a wall, thankfully making little more than a rustle, considering his manner of dress. His stomach was protesting his proximity to… whatever it was, and Rilien took an unusually ragged gulp of air, forcing himself to be steady, even though his limbs had started to quake.

It didn’t take too long to identify the source of the problem—Meredith’s blade was propped up on the wall immediately beside her bed, letting off an ill reddish light. He dare not get any closer to it than he already had, and so he chose to approach from the opposite side, drawing a short knife and an inky-black feather from his left sleeve. The feather, he deposited on the bedside table, and with the knife, he approached the slumbering Knight-Commander.

She looked exceedingly human, divested of all the markers of her rank and power, as any other woman nearing her fifties might look. It struck him, not for the first time, that he could solve many problems by drawing this knife across her jugular vein. She would be dead before any healer had a hope of saving her. In doing so, he would be removing a thorn from Aurora’s side, and Sparrow’s, and in some way Lucien’s, through Sophia, maybe. It would be extremely simple, well within his capabilities. How much work had he done, arranging things as well as he could so that their lives could be lived with as few interruptions and obstacles as possible? And here slept a very great obstacle indeed.

Rilien reached forward; the blade of the knife flashed in the dark.




When he closed the door behind him again, he was covered in a sheen of perspiration—the effect of whatever strange lyrium comprised Meredith’s longblade, but he was unscathed—for now. He nodded to Aurora. Now was the time to get out.

Some hour and a half later, when Aurora headed back towards her own home, she had another envelope in her possession, one that read Golden thread, from a leader of men. It included, as indicated, a lock of hair about an inch thick and sunny-blonde in hue.

It left, by his count, one more task.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel

Earnings

0.00 INK

A strange, puzzling letter and a single white feather were two things she hadn't expected to see purposefully arranged atop her pillow—in Amalia's home, stranger still. Her first inclination had been to inform her about this particular discovery, but it did have a name on it. It was addressed to someone she'd been, as of recent, avoiding: Rilien. She brooded over simply discarding it. Perhaps, by throwing it into Amalia's hearth and watching as its corners curled up. The act might have even been satisfying. Of course, she'd thumbed through it's contents, and found nothing else. Nothing revealing it's nature or where it'd come from. She pursed her lips and flicked the white feather behind one of her ears. What choice did she have? Curiosity would not allow her to ignore it.

It was difficult to discount the building dread thumping sickly against her ribs, reminding her that there was much to discuss and she was not prepared to face anything they'd both said. While she'd taken Amalia's advice to heart, she wasn't sure when was appropriate. How would she approach? Would she wait until he was on the cusp of leaving? But now, she had an excuse to see him, at least. Habit took her back to Rilien's shop, threading her steps like clockwork even though it felt like ages since she'd been there. She stopped in front of the door and crooked her hand to knock.

Knock—like she'd ever done that before, she mashed her teeth together and pushed the door open far harder than she'd intended to. It knocked into the wall and rebounded, catching at the elbow she launched out to keep it from smashing back into her gawping face. Sparrow hesitated in the doorway and finally tiptoed inside, feeling more like an intruder than anyone else: friend, visitor, client. Business. She was here for business, and that was it. After dropping off the letter, and making sure that all was well, she'd take her leave. She smoothed clammy hands across the front of her shirt and shut the door behind her, “Rillien!” Much too loud.

It was impossible to miss the slamming of his door back into a wall, or the coarse shout of his name. He supposed it was inevitable that this would happen eventually. Descending the stairs from his apartment over the shop, Rilien paused a moment when he caught sight of the feather in her hand, then blinked, crossing the remaining distance and holding his hand out for the letter, which he received. It had already been opened, which was hardly surprising; Sparrow was nosy even when feeling well-disposed towards someone else. He did not doubt that she would be even moreso when upset with the intended party.

The note this time indicated a more straightforward task. A good Bard knows when to be delicate… and when to be forceful. There was little mystery about that one, especially considering the earlier note regarding the need for vigilance. Perhaps, then, the games were finally drawing to a close.

"Someone is going to try and assassinate you. Probably today. I’d recommend you remain away from anyone you wish to keep safe.” He folded the letter back into its envelope and stowed it under the counter. "For the meantime, I will be shadowing you, if you are not opposed.” Really, it didn’t matter in the least if she was opposed—he was going to do it anyway. But he didn’t have to do it visibly.

Rilien snatched the letter so quickly from her fingers, she'd sworn that it'd been pilfered from him in the first place. She pressed her lips into a hard line and rocked back on her heels, wondering hotly whether or not it may have been a better idea to simply burn the stupid thing—no explanation whatsoever as he perused the letters contents. She flicked the white feather between her knuckles and obnoxiously cleared her throat. Whatever it was, it seemed far more important than she'd originally thought. Which made even less sense, given the fact that she did not understand its message.

She opened her mouth to inform him that the letter had been found in Amalia's home, on her bed, but promptly snapped it shut. How anyone had known she'd been living there was beyond her, though any doubts she harbored about its authenticity (and if this was just some sort of jest involving Ashton) quickly flew out the window when Rilien leveled her with a somber stare and announced that someone was going to attempt to assassinate her. Her insides twisted. Someone wanted to assassinate her? “What—why?” She sputtered, throwing her hands out wide, “I haven't done anything recently that'd warrant someone wanting me dead.”

Unlike him, her powers of deduction were stiflingly low. Sparrow watched as he tucked the letter away, “How do you know? From that letter?” It sounded more like awful poetry. And now, he wanted to shadow her until her potential-killer skulked from the shadows. Even if she declined, he would do as he pleased. As he usually did. She crossed her arms over her chest and frowned, “I can help with this.”

Rilien blinked. "Then our course of action is clear. If we choose the time and place, we will be that much more prepared to deal with your assailants.” He knew anyone Aurelie sent would wait for the opportune moment to attack—the point would be how that moment was chosen. If Rilien and Sparrow could create it themselves, it would hardly be an ambush, and the biggest danger of the situation, its surprise, would be neutralized.

"As for why… that would be my fault. I am being… assessed, I believe.” He’d given the situation some thought, and there was no other reasonable explanation for Aurelie’s actions than a desire to take stock of his abilities. She compelled him to take the examinations by drawing him forth with the one sort of thing he would never be able to ignore: his instinct towards loyalty. Everything she’d asked him to do thus far was within the scope of a Bard’s talents, and this test was no exception. As to why she had decided to do this, or why now… he suspected she would disclose that information herself, should she decide he’d met her expectations.

"Here is what we’re going to do.”




Unattended with teeth-bared and fists curled into whitened knuckles, Sparrow walked down the slummiest places she could think of in Darktown's recesses. Grimy, familiar buildings squeezed together like people hunched in darkness, shoulders knocking together. Even while armored with the knowledge of Rilien walking her shadows, she could not help feel awfully deserted. Unprepared for what would happen next should they choose to attack her in these twisted alleyways.

Would they come from the right or the left? Would they run to her with knives hissing in the dark, or with hands crackling magic? The furrow in her brows would not ease, and her hands tickled and twitched to hold her trusty mace. She could not. It would give away the game. Her heart knocked and thumped and beat all sensations of readiness she might have felt when facing a foe she could actually see.

The request did not go unrealized. There was a flash of motion coming from her peripheral vision, somewhere behind one of the squat buildings. A shuffle of crimson fabric flapped behind someone's, who was clearly not Rilien, shoulder and a blade swept behind like starlight, catching against its sharpest point as the person hurtled towards her. He was not alone. Two figures stalked in his wake, circling to her flanks. A wild, animalistic impulse smothered her inclinations of calm, as her hand slapped onto her mace and tore it from her back just in time to crack it down across the approaching man's unprotected skull. His dagger skittered away into obscurity. Sparrow wheeled around to face the second assailant to her right—no, left. Wrong. She was wrong.

Another knife, closer this time, gleamed towards her face.

That one was brought up short when a blade emerged from the chest of the assassin wielding it. Rilien had not intended to reveal himself so soon, in case there were still others about, but he’d had little choice in the matter. With a tug, he removed the dagger from the man’s chest cavity, leaving only a frosty, bleeding wound behind as the corpse dropped to the stone beneath their feet.

As expected, two more joined the fray then, both of them going directly for him, which was actually beneficial, since it meant only one was left to assault Sparrow directly, and he knew she was more than capable of dealing with such a threat on her own.

He had known right away that these were hired men, not other members of Le Nichoir. It wasn’t a large organization, and survived mainly on the strength and intelligence of its individual agents rather than the number of bodies its matron Cygne could throw at a problem. So sometimes she did hire out for more brute matters of force such as this one. He supposed it was only good sense—she would suffer no great loss at the death of hirelings, whom she had not trained or invested any amount of effort in whatsoever.

A knife flew towards him, and Rilien parried it out of the air with his own, knocking it to the ground where it skittered off and into some dark shadow of the Darktown alley. He stepped in close to the thrower, drawing his knife efficiently over her throat, whirling to meet the next, who had thought to strike at his back while he was otherwise occupied. The clangor of steel on steel sounded into the alley, echoing strangely in the space, and repeated several times in quick succession as Rilien blocked a hasty series of blows, sidestepping a lunge and bringing the pommel of his second dagger down on the back of his foe’s neck as his ill-fated lunge carried him past. Electricity did what work force alone did not, and he was finished with a quick flourish and a severed spinal cord, right at the base of his skull.

The dagger did not meet it's intended target. Her heart jammed in her throat and she instinctively jerked backwards, far too late if he hadn't been there. Another blade yawned through the assassin's breast and the dagger twitched out of his gloved fingers, clattering to the ground. He followed suit, crumpling onto his face. In that moment, she was grateful for his attendance in the shadows. She twisted towards the third assassin who'd circled around her and towed her mace across the broken cobblestones, planting both feet firmly. Hands tight, muscles bunched.

As soon as he darted to the right, Sparrow hefted her mace upwards and missed as he ducked under. She allowed the momentum to carry her in the opposite direction and simply let go of the haft, sending it smashing into the opposite building. She grabbed the mans collar in passing and savagely throttled him into it, as well. The fabric held, and she heard his head crack against the crumbling brickwork. She didn't stop. Grappling for his wrist, Sparrow crushed his hand against the rock enough times to release the dagger from his bleeding fingers, and grabbed his greasy hair instead, dashing his head against her knee.

A few more blows, and he collapsed. She took a few withered breaths and bent to retrieve her mace, hefting it in her hands for good measure.

She turned back to see if he was done, wiping the sweat from her brow with the back of her hand.

“Well, that's that, then.”

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon

Earnings

0.00 INK

By his own count, Rilien was done with the tasks his former Bardmistress had set before him; as with the other two, Sparrow had been sent back to her home with his confirmation of the errand’s completion. From time to time, the sword serves better than the pen.

His reply had been delivered to him this time, and gave him specific instructions to show up at the Keep after dark that night. He had been instructed to bring Lucien, on the grounds that Aurelie had a message that he would want to hear. Rilien had little doubt that she believed she did; even one such as she would not toy with the time belonging to someone of his station.

Which was perhaps how they’d both reached this point, standing outside the throne room doors, an hour after midnight. Rilien was both armed and armored, because he still was not completely sure of Aurelie’s intentions. As accomplished as years and training had made him at reading people, she could at times be completely opaque to him, something which had never bothered him before, because nothing did. In retrospect, he supposed he really had changed, over the last eight years. He wondered if she had as well.

Casting his glance to the side, Rilien tilted his head in wordless inquiry.

Lucien, himself outfitted in light plate and carrying Everburn at his back, nodded slightly in answer. He knew the situation by this point, having heard most of it firsthand from Estella, and then Rilien had explained the rest earlier in the day. He recalled Aurelie, most often called Dame Cygne, mistress of Le Nichoir. He was of course quite surprised that she was in Kirkwall of all places. He had to admit that the Free Marches as individual entities were considered somewhat backwater by the majority of the Court, and Marquise Aurelie wasn’t known for doing anything that did not entail significant gain on her own part.

But then, perhaps those answers would be forthcoming, considering that she’d gone to all the trouble of summoning them here. In any case, he moved with his friend to push open the doors to the throne room, and stepped inside.

She hadn’t bothered to hide, once she’d informed them of where she would be. She also appeared to be entirely alone, but the lack of an audience had never stopped Aurelie from performing for one. She stood before the empty throne, her posture one of the utmost comfort and ease, Her head tilted slightly back and to one side as she regarded their cautious approach. Her arms were crossed loosely, each hand encircling the opposite bicep. Unusually tall for a woman, she painted the very portrait of disaffected elegance and fashionable excess.

Her clothing itself was both travel-ready and perfectly-tailored, giving her a slender, willowy silhouette, which was lent a certain impression of majesty by her trademark cloak, seemingly composed entirely of white swan feathers, from smaller, denser down at the shoulders through the long wingtip feathers that barely swept the floor behind her. Her mask was modeled after a swan, too, elegant and backswept in a wing pattern that extended a few inches behind her head. Her hair, loose and immaculate in platinum-blonde ringlets, bore its grey like gilt silver, something that added to rather than detracted from its impact and grace.

Visible through the mask, her eyes were pearly grey and sharp, tracking every motion they made as they advanced. Other than a rapier at her hip, one of the slightly heavier flamberges, she would seem to be unarmed. Rilien knew it would be a mistake to assume that was true.

When they came to a stop, Aurelie’s rose-colored lips tilted upwards into a delicate smile. “It has been too long, dearheart. I confess I had feared we might never meet again in person. But fate has been as kind to me as it has been cruel to you, I should think.” She didn’t seem to take Rilien’s lack of response as an affront, and instead turned smoothly to Lucien, sweeping herself into a curtsey with flourish. “And there are many who thought not to see Your Highness again, of course, but they have already been proven most delightfully mistaken. I thank you for the pleasure of your esteemed company.”

“Not at all.” Lucien, of course, did not bow, partly because the station she was invoking didn’t require him to and partly because it was unwise to take one’s eyes off someone with a reputation like Lady Montblanc’s. “It is not often a message is carried directly from Val Royeaux, and it seemed only prudent to hear it.” He was curious as to what tidings had to be brought by someone of Dame Cygne’s station, personally. It could not be a small matter.

The bardmistress inclined her head, the motion, though small, somehow conveying a more honest respect than the lavish curtsey had. “Then I shan’t waste your time with needless idling.” Aurelie descended the stairs in front of the throne, so that she was standing directly in front of them. Her arms had returned to their crossed position, and she made no move to reach for her rapier, stopping what was barely a polite distance from an imperial personage.

“The Empire is on the brink of civil war, Your Highness. I understand your father has had suspicions about the Grand Duke Gaspard de Chalons, and it would appear that those suspicions have been proven correct. About a week ago, he proposed marriage to the Empress. She declined, but now… she has disappeared.”

Aurelie’s eyes lowered, turning to the few standout features of the otherwise sparse throne room, and she sighed slightly. “Of course, this is being kept from the Court at large, and I’ve little doubt that she will be found in short order. I do, after all, have an agent on the task. However…” She let herself trail off, and her tone took on a note of sympathy.

“There is no mistaking that this will lead to war. The gauntlet has been thrown, and the challenge will not go unanswered. When the time comes… will you still be here, leading a company of mercenaries in this quaint little city? Or will you, perhaps, finally accept your place at the head of an army, or perhaps even an Empire? I assure you, everyone is most eager to discover the answer.”

"This cannot be the only message you intended to deliver.” Rilien spoke as flatly as ever, but it only served to lend the weight of certainty to the words themselves. There would have been no point to any of the hurdles she’d made him jump if all she wanted to do was bring this news to Lucien. She was probably faster than a written message, true, but at this stage, she had little to gain from delivering it.

“It is not.” Aurelie’s acknowledgment was nonchalant, easy. “I am also here to pay a debt. The Divine requested that I offer sanctuary to Grand Cleric Elthina. It is the opinion of the Orlesian Chantry that the Knight-Commander’s abuses of power have gone too far, and Justinia wished to remove her immediate subordinate to prevent something… unfortunate from befalling her, should Meredith take this news too poorly. But alas, my warning has fallen on ears so obstinate they have become tone-deaf.” Her lip curled slightly in a delicate expression of disdain.

"That has nothing to do with me.”

“No, but do you blame me? I had missed you so, and here I was with the opportunity to see you again. But of course, what reason would you have had to do as I asked? I made sure you had one, and here you are.” Silence, thick and heavy, was the only response Rilien had for that, in large part because she was right. He probably would not have consented to meet her without a good enough reason, and she had picked exactly the one that would work every time.

His reticence to speak was nothing new, and Aurelie successfully ignored it. “But I must admit, dearheart, you really did surprise me. You actually killed the abomination, for one, even though it had nothing to do with what I’d asked. But you didn’t decide to kill any Templars, though you risked discovery for such a decision. It appears you’ve learned mercy since last we met, and I confess myself intrigued by this development.”

"What do you want, Aurelie?” If possible, his tone had flattened further, but she smiled in reply, stalking closer to him and taking his chin in her hand. He blinked, but otherwise did not react at all.

“Want?” The word was murmured with a faint hint of perplexity, as though she had not before considered the matter in such terms. Almost certainly not true. “I want you back in the nest, of course. I have missed my mockingbird so. The way he sings so prettily, pretending to all kinds of songs. So versatile, and so empty.” She patted his cheek, pressing her lips briefly to his brand, and withdrew, tilting her head and examining him curiously, the way a jeweler picks over uncut gems, looking for the ones that will withstand the process of refinement.

"I will not go back.” Not to her, anyway. That was something he had no reason to do.

She sighed, and blinked, her eyes clearing of that sharp look and resuming something faintly indulgent. “Yes, I can see that. It would appear that even you can change. So you have shown me. Well. I suppose it doesn’t hurt me to have a former student of mine at the side of a future Emperor, now does it? It will do.” She tossed her head, a few of her curls bouncing behind her shoulder, and drew her cloak about herself, straightening to her full height.

“Since I never officially decommissioned you from my service, I do now. You have no more right to the name I have given you, nor the place in Court that goes with it. I strip you of your nom de guerre and your place in Le Nichoire. Officially, you and I have nothing to do with one another.” She smiled, just a little. “Unofficially, I am interested to see what you become now, dearheart. You know me—I’ll be watching.” A pause. “Your Highness. Ser Falavel.” She dipped her head.

And with that farewell, Aurelie swept her way out of the throne room, cloak of swan feathers billowing behind her.

The Chanter's Board has been updated. The Sanguine Requiem has been completed.

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

Droplets of water beaded at her chin, returning to the basin below. Amalia lifted her heavy curtain of hair and circled her palm around to the back of her neck, before straightening and drying her face and hands. The early summer was quite warm this year, and while she was used to such things, that didn’t make them pleasant. Twisting her hair into a braid, she pinned it all so that it would stay above her nape, heedless of the wisps that escaped at either side.

The way she recalled it, there was a sure way to spend a day like this, or at least part of one. From the corner of her room, she took up her harp, adjusting the strap so that it sat comfortably at her back, and then removed a small length of rope from her other things and looped it around her waist a few times for the moment, just above her belt. She contemplated her armament for a moment, and contented herself with the knife already at her waist.

On her way out of the Alienage, she spotted Ithilian beneath the vhenadahl, and changed course so as to come stand nearby him. He had been behaving unusually, of late, though perhaps it would not seem so to someone who knew him less well than she did. Though she usually did not inquire after such matters, believing that he would tell her if he wished to, she also found herself in the rather unusual position of wanting to inquire after his thoughts even if he was not inclined to share. She checked the impulse however, and asked a different question instead.

“I am going to the sea. Perhaps you would like to come?”

Ithilian had nearly drifted into sleep. He had a tendency to do so of late, though while his body often felt tired, his mind was beginning to grow restless.

He thought a great deal. Recently he thought of little other than what had occurred to Emerion, of Templars and their leader, and his place in all of it. For the longest time, he thought he had no place in it, no business getting between mages and their jailors. The tattoos marking his skin separated him from the problems of their Chantry; he was not their business, and they were not his. Recent events had shown him otherwise. Perhaps the clans deep in the forests or along the mountain slopes could ignore what was happening here, but Ithilian could not.

As for Emerion, he wondered if grief was simply an old acquaintance, allowed to slink back in when it wished, stay for a while, and then take its leave. He felt no great heartache for the loss of his friend, and this bothered him. Perhaps it had simply been too long, and too much had been established in the place of that friendship since they had known each other. Perhaps some part of Ithilian had been angry at him for endangering the Alienage by arriving here in the first place.

The sea might help, he supposed. Grunting his assent, Ithilian stood and went to collect a few things. Better shoes, a carving knife and a small hunk of wood that was beginning to look like a fennec, and Parshaara. He wore a light, sleeveless tunic, his bare arms dotted in places with scars of varying sizes. He'd even slashed at a bit of his hair, if only to prevent it from reaching too far down the back of his neck.

They walked in silence as they often did. Ithilian for one wished to hold off on speaking until they were out of the city, away from the voices and the noise, the air a little clearer around them, smelling less of sweat and filth, and more like the sea. He'd been meaning to speak to Amalia about all of this, but needed to collect his thoughts first. He was not an elf that came to rushed conclusions anymore. Or at least, he tried not to.

"Do you want to leave?" he asked finally, a bit out of the blue, but not exactly blurted. "The Alienage, I mean. Eventually I hope there will be nothing to hold us there." He wasn't exactly old yet, but his years had not been kind to him, and he was far from young. Amalia was younger, though her years had been no less harsh. He did not want to live at the bottom of Lowtown forever. Nor did he want her to.

Amalia was silent for a while, though her facial expression indicated she was contemplating the question. When they’d first reached sand, she’d stopped and taken her boots off, tying them each to one end of the rope she had and setting that over her shoulder, and so the ground was warm beneath her bare feet, and she relished the feeling of the grains of sand between her toes as she tread over it.

She still hadn’t answered by the time they reached their destination, a small cove tucked away from the main road into and out of Kirkwall. It was a familiar one, too, with a small cliff jutting out towards the sea on her left, along with a more gradual slope to the seaside, dotted here and there with large, smooth, slate-colored stones. She left her shoes near the top of the slope and descended all the way down to the bottom, so that the waves washed over her feet when they came up onto the sand. It smelled… not like home, not anymore. But it smelled familiar, the salt tang in the air and baking stone and the plants behind them on the other side of the road.

After a slow, comfortable minute of thought spent looking out over the blue expanse, glossed almost to mirror-shine by the harsh light of the sun, she spoke. “I do if you do,” she said at last. She had never had much of an enduring sense of place. Her early life had been spent on Qunari lands exclusively, but the Qunari were not attached to places, particularly. Land was something to be conquered or defended, then cared for and cultivated, but it had no emotional significance. And after her training, she’d been on the move most of the time, between Tevinter, Seheron, Rivain, and Par Vollen. She hadn’t stayed so long in one place until the Alienage, but she wasn’t especially attached to it. She cared about what happened to the people there, of course—she was not without a heart.

But she wasn’t tethered there by any means. She could leave, and she would not regret it. Not if kadan was leaving, too. “But where would we go?” No Dalish group would accept her, and frankly, she didn’t think that was what he would want to do, either. Not after everything. Conversely, it would be difficult for him to live anywhere with a high concentration of humans. Of course, there was always the possibility of going nowhere in particular, just… moving, as the case may be. She wouldn’t mind it, but she was curious as to what he’d meant.

It was indeed what Ithilian had in mind, or at least what he thought of as they settled back into the cove. He had refused to allow himself to think too much on it; there was still work to be done here, and he didn't want to risk anyone else by spending too much time daydreaming. But though he no longer saw returning to the Dalish as an option, their way of life had been forever ingrained into who he was, just as Amalia would never be entirely separated from her own upbringing. And part of being Dalish was always being on the move. The Dalish had no home. The very idea of it was foreign to them. Home was wherever the right people were, and he now had her assurance that she would follow, if he wanted to leave.

"I don't know," he admitted, absently continuing his work on his carving. He'd been planning to give it to Lia, though she already had a small collection. "Maybe north? Somewhere a little warmer." He knew she wasn't fond of the cold. It was also perhaps more politically stable than the south. No Blights to recover from, no civil wars looming ahead. He wouldn't think of going so far as to be near Tevinter and all the complications that could arise from that, but... surely there was some place in between.

There was... one other matter that troubled him, something that had been on his mind since even before the troubles with Emerion and the looming disaster in Kirkwall. "Marcus will come back for you someday." It wasn't stated as a question, because he knew it to be fact, and he knew it to be a problem they would eventually need to deal with, or they would die. From what scarce dealings with the man Ithilian had, he knew he was not the type to give up, especially on such a personal matter. And while there were still a few things binding them to Kirkwall, Marcus would affect them no matter where they went.

"Do you want to track him down? Kill him?" He imagined that would be no simple task for the two of them, outcasts from whatever society they could try to enter, to face down the might of a magister, but it was a necessary task to secure their freedom. And Ithilian wanted nothing more than that for Amalia.

The truth of the matter was, Amalia really didn’t particularly want to kill Marcus. He was a terrible excuse for a human being, that was true, and he’d hurt her in a way she had not fully understood at the time, to say nothing of the wounds that had been left on her flesh. But it was the past, and she was content to be done with it. She had learned already that it need have no hold on her future. What was more… she wondered now if she’d be able to do it. With greater distance from the events, she understood that though he had betrayed her, there was a time also when they had been friends. They never would be again, but it was still a fact difficult to forget.

But regardless of how she felt, she knew it may well be necessary. He wouldn’t stop whatever gambit he was attempting to play until one or both of them was dead. “He would have a difficult time finding us,” she said, leaning back onto her palms. “We would have an even more difficult time getting to him, in Tevinter.” It wasn’t a place she wanted to risk going anyway, for entirely separate reasons.

“But it seems that as of late he has been seeking influence outside of it. If we keep our eyes and ears open, we’ll encounter him eventually.” And when they did, well… it would be for the last time, one way or another. No more escapes, not by either of them. She did not desire to live with this pursuit always dogging her shadow.

"And we'll make sure we have the advantage when we do," Ithilian said. Obviously it wouldn't be so easy as that; if Marcus so much as caught wind of them, he would undoubtedly attempt to lure them in, make them think they had the advantage. More than that, they would probably only have one shot. Neither side would tolerate another retreat.

"We'll be cautious. We'll avoid Tevinter. But we will finish this. And then, when it's over, we'll find something for ourselves. If it happens to be back here in Kirkwall, so be it. It's not the prettiest place I could think of to live out my days in, but it's not nothing, either." As much as Ithilian resented Kirkwall at times, he could not fail to recognize that the years since he'd arrived had been the most important time of his life.

And much of that was due to the woman he currently sat beside. She was the reason he could no longer recognize the hateful, broken person he had been after the Blight, one of the only reasons he was able to have the confidence to attach himself again, to raise a child again and watch her make her own way, to trust in people he would have spat on in his youth. The knowledge that he had a similarly positive effect on her in return only confirmed the words she often spoke to him, that he was enough. For her, for himself, for whatever he wanted to do in this world.

Loosening the strap holding her harp to her back, Amalia brought it to her lap, brow creased thoughtfully. “Something for ourselves,” she murmured, thumbing a string. It was still a bit odd, to think in terms like that, but it wasn’t unpleasant. She had no idea what she’d want, if she could choose for only her own sake and Ithilian’s, but it was a question worth consideration. Her expression eased, becoming a small smile, and she nodded. “That sounds… pleasant. I shall look forward to it.”

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel

Earnings

0.00 INK


Several days after his encounter with Aurelie, Rilien was left to conclude that he really did need to set in order his affairs in Kirkwall. He was moving quickly through the paperwork required to officially give the shop to Sandal and Bodahn, and he’d additionally informed his various friends, acquaintances, and business partners of his impending departure. He could not, of course, place an exact date on it; much would depend on Lucien, and the speed of Orlesian politics. That said, it was better to be prepared sooner than necessary than to be caught off-guard when a swift regress should be necessary.

That left, as it happened, one final loose end.

Which was how he found himself standing outside one of the many ramshackle homes of the Alienage, a place he never really went. The door was solid, he noted, with a decent lock on it. It also appeared to have been recently painted, something he noticed was true of most of the entryways in the area. It didn’t concern him and so he chose not to speculate upon it, instead raising a hand to knock. He’d already passed Amalia, and so he knew for a fact that Sparrow, and only Sparrow, was currently present in the lodging. Which was perhaps how it should be, for this discussion.

It was expected. Eventually, Sparrow's welcome would run its course and Amalia would gently guide her to the door with the expectation that she'd use her coltish legs to wander back home and tidy up her affairs like they'd previously discussed. In theory, it was easy. Maybe, shewould seek him out and settle things once in for all. Maybe, she would listen to him. Maybe, she would run away. None of these occurred. Not yet. No matter how many times she fantasized and planned and thought about it—she ended up in the same place: back in their old Darktown hovel. Where it all began. If she had any sense of romanticism, she may have thought it was poetic.

She stood in the dark, weighing her options: wondering whether or not she should just go to him. Should things end there, should things not go as she planned... it would mean an end to something precious. Something she wished to keep here. With her. Someone. She exhaled softly and plopped down on one of the wooden chairs. She did not like endings. They felt like sickly, damning losses. Going to him now would mean facing her greatest fears. Everything would change. She leaned over the table and snapped her fingers above one of the old copper lanterns. Its wick ignited and cast dancing shadows across the walls, scattering an ember glow across her drumming fingertips. She would never be ready. Even so...

There was a knock at the door.

Before she had enough sense to stop herself, Sparrow wandered towards the doorway and settled her hand across the new latch. Perhaps, this was for the best. For who? Him, her, them. She doubted it. She'd long since given up making assumptions when both parties were concerned. Settling on the wind like nomads, traveling far away from one another felt backwards. Unfair. Finally, she unlocked the door and pulled it wide open, only briefly flicking her eyes to meet his. Of course, she'd known he would come. She stepped away and back towards the slip of candlelight. Sparrow occupied the same space she'd sat before. Volumes, spoken between the lines, as per usual. She patted the table and waited.

Rilien entered the unfamiliar home, tracking Sparrow’s movement as she took a seat at the table. For a moment, he studied their surroundings. Amalia’s presence was in evidence here, as was that of one or two people he did not know. Curiously, Sparrow did not seem to have spilled out into every room of this place the way she had in their previous Darktown residence, one he still technically owned, if never used. There was little need to pick his way around anything here, as it was quite tidy, but still he moved carefully, almost as one who does not wish to startle a deer or a rabbit… or a small bird, he supposed.

With customary grace, he took the chair across the table from her, studying her fingers as they tapped out some frenetic rhythm or another, then raised his eyes to hers, folding his own hands together at the edge of the wooden slab. He knew she would not speak first. That task was his—to be expected, since he was the one that had come here, and not the other way around.

It was a difficult thing to explain, largely because, unlike the rest of the things he chose to speak on, Rilien wasn’t entirely sure he had a full understanding of it. Emotions were, for obvious reasons, not his area of expertise. Still, he’d resolved to offer the best explanation he could, and so here he was.

“Had you said what you did to me three or four years ago, I would have reacted differently.” It was, perhaps, an odd way to start talking about the present, but he believed that she probably needed to hear all of it. “When I had my emotions back, in that cave with the Horror… I thought of you, and I felt.” He gave the word a delicate emphasis, the break in his monotone reinforcement of the statement itself. “I believed, then, that I must love you, for I had not felt anything of its kind before. I remember that I was almost dizzy with it, like a drunk.”

Rilien seemed taken with the memory for a moment, but then he blinked, and his eyes cleared. “Perhaps, in a way, I did. Perhaps I do. But whatever it is, whatever that feeling was or whatever of it remains… is insufficient.” It was perhaps a strange coincidence, verging on the ironic, that the reason he knew it to be so was because he now had an understanding of what love, in its proper form, actually was like. Ashton was in love, Lucien was in love, and as illogical as Rilien found it all, there was some reason to it. They had built those connections on something meaningful, something shared and mutual. They were, in some sense, partnerships as well as mere romances. And that made the affection itself something different, or so it seemed to him. It was also something he knew he did not have, had never had.

For a moment, Rilien’s facial expression shifted, just a fraction, but there was something apologetic in the downturn of his mouth, because he knew what he said next was going to be unkind. But it was also going to be the truth. “For some time, now, I have known that I would eventually return to Orlais. And never once did I contemplate bringing you along. It would be foolish, and dangerous, and a risk, not one I am willing to take.” He glanced down at this hands, still unmoving—even when discussing such matters, it would seem he was betrayed by no nervous gesture, no particular feeling of discomfort, though he almost wanted to be. How much sense did it make that while he should inflict harm of this kind, he should receive none in turn?

“I do not want you to misunderstand. I care about you. I want you to be happy and well and free to live as you see fit. I would like to see you again someday in the future, if it were possible. If there were anything you would ask of me that I could give, I would give it without hesitation. You matter, and you always will.” Left unsaid was the obvious: but that is all.

“I am… sorry.” It seemed like he only ever apologized to her.

This time, Rilien did not trail in with quick words or instructions. No future missions, or awry adventures involving wayward mages and the like. Nothing would be as it was. She supposed she should have already known—what this entailed, exactly. Even still, Sparrow half expected him to puzzle over someone else's problems, as he always did. There was a thin line of familiarity and a much larger boundary of changes she disliked. Nothing to be done, this time. With these new changes came a finality that rattled her core, she'd felt it as soon as she'd opened the door to him. Maybe, this was punishment for what she'd done to Amalia. For anyone else unfortunate enough to befriend her, only for her to fly away. No. She didn't believe in fate.

As much as she wished to delay the inevitable, there was nothing she could do. It would come, whether she wanted to hear it or not. Whatever preparations she'd made with Amalia concerning what she would say when the time came seemed to flit away with the drumming of her fingertips. What could she say now? It was written all over his face. He had already made his decision, and nothing she could say could sway him. It took her a moment to finally raise her own eyes; murky, dark as they were. Even if she followed him to Orlais... what would change? She was a taciturn tornado waiting to be let in and he was the window, finally shuttering closed.

Sparrow's fingers stopped tapping their jarring tune, and she crooked her head: listening for once, in silence. If she were dramatic and poetic, she might have imagined the world falling away and draining of colour—but she was only one of those things, and she could see him clearly. She watched his mouth and the words they formed. So, she'd been too late to find him, after all. She supposed she'd torture herself with those thoughts later: what might have been, how things could have gone differently. She drew her splayed hand back across the wooden table and settled it atop her knee, crooking her fingers towards her palm. Too late, the fault was hers, then.

There was much she wanted to say in return—partly to keep the onslaught at bay, construed of all the things she knew and understood and never, ever wanted to hear, but she found herself speechless. Sparrow gripped her knees, and focused on her fingertips. Even if she wanted to, she couldn't bring herself to interrupt. She wanted to mean something to him, wanted to be something more than what they were, what they'd been before all this... but it was insufficient and he was composed and collected and would not walk through any wind tunnels with her. Surrounded as she was with companions in love, and working relationships, she only managed a lukewarm vision of what love was. It made no sense. She was an ill-fitting frame that did not fit onto any of his walls.

They weren't the same, she and Rilien. She was feral and wild and fickle and sometimes, so unbelievably ugly. He held a goodness he was not aware he harbored and she hungered after it. After him, she supposed. Her hands clenched in her lap; angry fists, solemn fists. She noted his shifts, his expressions deviating like stiff clockwork. Fractions of a fraction: just there, in a brief flicker. Even though she'd known this, that he would not have taken her to Orlais all along—settled like a cancer in the back of her mind, it was worse hearing it spoken aloud. It made it real. She exhaled softly through grit teeth and slowly stood in front her seat, settling her hands palms down across the table. He'd said his piece. Everything that needed saying at least.

What she wanted? He could not give. He'd said it clear enough.

A creaky, strange laugh chortled from her throat. Alien to her own ears, though she swore that she couldn't grasp all of what she felt. Not in this moment. There was too much information, filtering in from all angles. “Ah, I see,” she faltered momentarily before scratching the back of her neck, much too hard, and dropped it back down to her side. Meticulous even when explaining difficult circumstances, Rilien hadn't left room for any countermeasures. She shouldn't have been surprised, but her eyebrows still drew together: defeated. She'd lost him. And with him: her home. “You said I was unfair once. Y'know, you're much worse.”

There was nothing else she could ask for. Nothing else she wanted besides what she'd already asked of him. An impossible request. She rounded the table, slow and measured in her steps. Fingertips skating across the wooden knots, trailing as she walked. How many times had she heard him apologize, as she took and took from him. What had she offered? Strange, the things she thought of now. She leaned forward and crooked one hand around his back, slipping the other beneath his jawline and shifted his chin towards hers. A first and last kiss: another thing she'd take.

And he parted with it willingly. It was not, after all, so much to ask. One of his hands found the nape of her neck, fingers curling softly into her hair, and this, at least, was something Rilien knew he knew how to do. Even when they parted, he kept his palm there, pressing the center of his brow to hers, so that they were close enough that their eyelashes might almost have brushed. That close, he could see the possibility, and understood in full what he was relinquishing. His fingers fell away, brushing softly over her jawline as though loath to be parted from her skin.

"May you flourish.” It was nothing more than a murmur, but the feeling in it was almost what anyone else might convey in the same situation—laden, heavy, inseparable from the words themselves. Sentiment, in full.

The difference was that it fled as soon as it had appeared, and his expression smoothed out even as he stood, pushing his chair in as a good guest should, and then departing without a further word.

“May we meet again,” whispered just as softly when they parted and finally drew away from each other. She meant it. Because of him, her world had changed. It was a simple, pathetic wish, drumming above the din of her dismal heartbeat.

Sparrow stepped aside, allowing him to pass and slipped back into her previous perch. Steepling her fingers in a tight, tangled weave, she focused her murky eyes on the candle to keep herself from watching him leave.

Setting

5 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

Even though she had to disallow Pike from continuing to be a part of the Underground, Aurora did not simply forget about him. She'd told her circle of contacts to keep an eye on the man and let her know if he did anything suspicious. It didn't take long for such reports to filter in. She had gotten word that he had been spotted in strange locations around Kirkwall, though it wasn't clear for what purpose. It was a mystery she was intent to solve. It was for that reason that she and Donovan climbed the steps to Hightown on their way to a familiar shop.

They stepped through the threshold into Rilien's shop and Aurora called, "Rilien? I have... a favor."

Rilien, who had been busy recategorizing his shelves to account for new stock, turned to glance back over his shoulder at the new arrivals. Lowering his hands from where he’d been at work, he dusted them off on the stiff leather apron he wore while enchanting, setting the small box containing the rest of his new stock on a lower shelf.

"Then ask it.”

Once everything was explained, it didn’t take Rilien long to gather everything he thought necessary for the task. "You may wish the expertise of at least one other.” While he was a competent tracker, it was difficult to say exactly what they would be dealing with here, and a few more sets of eyes wasn’t a poor idea for the situation.

Aurora nodded, as the same thought that had crossed her mind. However, the one who came up with the suggestion was Donovan. The man rubbed his chin as Aurora explained her suspicions, and he scratched his beard as he spoke. "Aurora. What about your Dalish friend? I have heard that they are supposed to be exceptional trackers-- in case we require his expertise," He offered.

She agreed with his sentiments and even had a suggestion of her own to offer. "Amalia too," she added. Though, truth be told if they had asked Ithilian and he agreed, Aurora figured that Amalia would not be too far behind. "We should be able to find out what he's been doing with both of them with us." She hoped that it would all prove to be a misunderstanding, but Pike's final words before Aurora made him take his leave worried her. He had much anger and hate, it was why she tried to keep an eye on him.

"I hope I'm just wasting our time with this..." Aurora said to Donovan's nodding.




Eventually, Aurora and Rilien had collected the people mentioned, and even one extra. Sparrow had been in Amalia's home when Aurora knocked, and since Aurora considered her a part of the Underground along with her and Donovan, she deemed that Sparrow should also go with them to figure out whatever it was Pike was doing. That, and Aurora did not think she could stop her from coming with them even if she wanted to, which she didn't.

Sparrow nearly bulldozed her way into the assembled group, fortunately with Aurora's unspoken permission. She'd shared many similar views with Pike, and many more of his dislikes. Hearing all these unsettling things about him rubbed her the wrong way and she, too, hoped that it was only a misunderstanding. The somber look in Aurora's eyes, however, spoke volumes. She did not think so.

She had already disclosed her suspicions and worries, and revealed what she had heard. "Some of my sources in Darktown say that they've seen him near the sewers, though they have no idea why. They don't lead anywhere particularly noteworthy," she said. She had checked once with Pike, to see if it could be used to hide mages or serve as some sort of secret passage, but neither worked out. It was a dead end, and the stench was too much to ask someone to stay in for any reasonable amount of time. Which was why it was so suspicious for him to linger around it.

"I'm not sure what we'll find-- If we even find anything," she said with a shrug.

"We're not tracking wolves here," Ithilian said, returning to the group outside of Amalia's home now that he was geared up. "Not sure what help I'll be in locating him. Lots of bootprints in Darktown. Might have better luck wringing it out of his friends, if he has any. I could probably help more with that." It had been some time since he'd threatened a shem's life to acquire information, but this was a good enough cause, he supposed.

Perhaps a few months earlier he'd have been inclined to turn them away and tell them to deal with their own problems, but at this point Ithilian could recognize something that threatened the entire city. If this mage did something foolish and set off the Knight-Commander, all of Kirkwall could pay for it, or more. They needed to wait until Meredith gave them enough cause, and the right opportunity, to remove her through one method or another, not provoke her and make themselves look the villains.

"This Pike have anyone else he would run to that you know of? Tough being alone in Darktown."

Donovan was the one that answered. "None of the Underground, else we would have heard of it," he said with a subtle shake of his head. They would have came to them first if Pike had asked their help, and even then, Pike was not particularly popular among the other mages. "We cannot rule out an unknown source however. Pike is a clever man, and he has knowledge of the safehouses that the Underground has access to," he continued.

"But none of them are close to the sewers, which is why it's strange that he was seen there," Aurora asserted.

“Then we may as well go,” Amalia pointed out. “While it will be difficult to tell signs of his presence apart from those belonging to anyone else, perhaps some of those who dwell there will have seen him—an outsider is sure to be suspect.” After all, few would venture down there who were not forced to it from extreme poverty, fugitive status, or the depths of madness. Someone who didn’t have to be in the sewers was bound to attract the notice of someone who did.

"Let's hurry then, the sooner the better," Aurora decided, heading toward the exit of the Alienage. It wasn't too long of a trip from that part of Lowtown to Darktown. Likewise, it was not difficult to find the sewers, thanks mostly to the stench. Aurora stood near the entrance with her sleeve pressed against her nose and she shook her head.

"No one would head down there unless they had a reason," she said, her words muffled by her sleeve. However, they were a place for those who had nowhere else to go, or for the poverty stricken hoping to find something of value. "Maybe someone's seen Pike, and could tell us what he was doing down here," she added. Aurora looked to be hesitant about entering the sewers first, and a glance up at Donovan pushed the man back away a step.

"So... Who wants to volunteer to go first?"

Only those forced to live in Darktown usually stayed in Darktown, but Sparrow had chosen the location for specific reasons and maintained those notions. It was unsafe, in most cases. Smelly and dank and weeping with hunchbacked silhouettes, too broken to grasp at any snatch of light that may come their way—lost opportunities, squatting in the darkness. It was a place hardly anyone looked. Better that way, she supposed.

Those who lived away from here might not have understood the importance of the sewer system, but she did. The twisting network of drainpipes and sodden staircases served as prime hiding places; perfect for schemes, for plots, for bleeding wrists and feverish whisperings. In less deliberate cases, they were sanctions away from Templars, or anyone else who wanted you dead. Who would venture to such a place? She hardly sniffed when they reached the mouth of one of the sewers, crossing her arms over her chest. If Pike lingered down here, there were fewer and fewer reasons why...

They'd all have to go in eventually, unless they wanted to simply wait at the entrance, and so Ithilian figured the sooner they got started, the sooner they'd be done. He was the tracker here, as well, and this was the part where they needed to find someone that had seen Pike. The sewer entrance was a hatch in the ground before them, large enough for only one person to fit through at a time. Making sure to don his gloves first, Ithilian pulled it open, pulling an old scarf up over his mouth and nostrils just before he began the climb down.

Summer was perhaps the worst time to be down here, in the afternoon as well, and the air was both hot and humid, heavily carrying the stench of the city's barely adequate filtration system. When his feet dropped down to the floor below, they sank slightly, and Ithilian didn't bother to look at what exactly he'd stepped into. Whatever it was, it was covering a fair amount of the floors and walls. How anyone could spend a good amount of their time down here was beyond him.

"This way. Quickly, if you don't mind." It was fortunate, then, that the amount of gunk on the ground was soft enough to easily imprint the shape of a foot. Water passed over it every now and then, clearing most tracks away, but one set of footprints was recent enough, and Ithilian chose to follow it, using the sufficient torchlight to guide the way.

They found a man perhaps ten minutes from the entrance, the going slow due to the poor lighting and uneasy footing. He was huddled almost into a corner, sitting on his rear with his back to a wall, wearing several layers of shoddy, torn clothing. Most of him was hidden from view by his posture of curling into a ball, and he shrank further still when they approached him. Standing before the man, Ithilian gestured up with a hand.

"Get up. Got some questions for you."

He made no movements, before finally shaking his head a little. Sighing beneath the scarf over his features, Ithilian bent over and seized the man by his coat, yanking him up to their height and placing him on his feet. He flinched, as though fearing being struck. When Ithilian confirmed he could stand on his own, he released him.

"This is unpleasant enough for all of us already. Don't make it any worse. My friend's looking for an acquaintance of hers, heard he came through here recently."

"Wu-what?" the stranger sputtered. His face was dirty and gritty, with coarse whiskers growing in splotches on his face. Aurora actually felt sorry for the man, and even winced when Ithilian grabbed him so roughly. Still, he was right. The faster they did it the better, and the less time they'd have to spend in the sewers.

"His name is Pike, about his height," Aurora said, pointing at Ithilian, "Brown hair, brown eyes-- Would look out of place here."

The man glanced between Aurora and Ithilian, his eye twitching in a nervous twitch. There was a hesitation before he spit out another word. "Wh-Who?!"

"You heard her just fine," Ithilian said, putting a hand back on the man's shoulder. The other hand lingered near the hilt of his sword. "If you're afraid of him, don't worry, we're tracking him down to stop him from doing anything stupid." Gently at first, he pushed the man back into the wall, his grip growing steadily more firm.

"If you're afraid of us, well that's good. You should be, if you don't speak up. Give us what we want, and we'll be on our way."

The man paused for a moment, as if running Ithilian's words over through his mind again. At the end of his processing, he smiled, revealing a startling lack of teeth and nodded. "P-Pike you say?" he asked, rattling off in attempt to not anger the elf holding him. "Fella in the nice robes? Yeah, uh, Serah. I saw someone just like that down here. Lookin' for some sort o' smelly rock or somethin'." The man held his hands up submissively and flashed another nervous toothy grin.

Aurora's brows raised at the mention of a... Smelly rock. She had no idea why he would be down there for something like that, nor what he would even use it for. It would probably help if they knew what he was actually looking for, and so she looked to Amalia in hopes she'd have an answer.

For once, Sparrow only needed to cross her arms over her chest and appear intimidating. It wasn't difficult. And probably unneeded, given the fact that Ithilian was doing a pretty swell job himself with his fingers digging into the man's quivering shoulders. She arched her eyebrows, and wheedled them back down. A smelly rock in the sewers? Wouldn't all the rocks down here be smelly? Terrible description. She chewed at the inside of her cheek, anticipation brewing in her gut. He was here, then. She glanced back at Aurora and inclined her head.

“Probably sela petrae.” Amalia’s voice was slightly muffled by her scarf, which she’d decided was wise upon learning that they were headed for the sewers. She did not regret the decision. She glanced at Rilien, the other alchemist in the group, to see if he had any better suggestion, but it really was the most plausible answer, given what it was made of. “It has a number of uses, though none of them are commonplace. He’s not making health draughts.” Of course there were enough uses for the stuff that it wasn’t possible to discern what Pike was up to just from this alone.

“Did he say where he was going? Tell you about anything else he might be searching for?” she thought it unlikely that Pike would have divulged his intentions to some stranger in a sewer, but if he’d been looking for something more difficult to find, he might have asked around for it.

"Yeah! Sela whatsit, that's it. The smelly rock." the man said, eagerly nodding to agree with everyone. "Yeah, yeah Serah. Well. No, but!" he added quickly before Ithilian's grip could tighten. "This, uh, Pike, was it? Yeah, this Pike, he didn't tell me where he was goin'. But he did ask me if I knew where he could get more stuff like the, uh, smelly rock. I told 'em that I'd only tell 'em for a price..." He said, before scanning the faces in front of him. It only took one pass before he flashed another toothless grin.

He scratched his whiskered face as he spoke, "O' course, I'm gonna tell my new friends for free," he said, holding his hands back up. "I told him of some fella set up in Darktown who sells weird stuff like the smelly rock. It's not... Official, he's in some sort of smuggler's cut. If your gold's good though, they'll let you in." He finished with a shrug.

“Greeves!” Sparrow finally broke her silence, sputtering far too loudly. She cleared her throat and dropped her hands back to her sides, stepping forward to that she was closer to the grimy-faced man. Not so close that she could count his missing teeth in his gawp-of-a-mouth, but enough so that her murky eyes danced. Glint, wild, alive. “You mean Greeves, don't you?” Somewhat rhetorical. She needed to be sure. Kirkwall was rife with shady merchants, dealing in shadier commodity. This one, however, sounded familiar enough. Someone she'd dealt with before, when she needed coin badly. Though, it was true enough that she'd dealt with many of them at one point or another. None of them would be pleasant to deal with.

“If it's him, I know where we have to go.”

Following Sparrow, the group made good time. The particular smuggling headquarters they were looking for was still in Darktown, but fortunately for everyone’s olfaction, it was not in the sewers. It was, however, rather remotely located, and by the time they approached, the more civilian-laden areas had long been left behind, putting them in an ill-used series of tunnels. Rilien estimated that they would come out somewhere near the Wounded Coast, but other than that, they could have been any other set of passages in the area.

The anonymity seemed to serve well, however, for when they were eventually deposited in a slightly wider area, they had not seen anyone for a mile at least, but it wasn’t long at all before they were facing down the shafts of no less than a dozen arrows, all aimed from a higher walkway along two of the four sides of the room. Various doors along the walkway led into what were likely storage rooms, and a dock with a rowboat tied to it indicated that at least one part of the passage led out to the ocean directly. It was a well-considered location for a smuggling operation.

They continued to follow Sparrow to one of these doorways where she issued a knock. A latch about eye level unlocked and a pair of dirty brown eyes silently stared at them from behind the door. Aurora felt the skin on the back of her neck prickle, sensing the danger in the air. Smuggler runs were never pleasant places to be, as it turned out. Whatever it was the man behind the door was expecting, he heard it from Sparrow, but forced the group to leave their weapons at the door before he opened the door to allow them into the room. It was rather small, as real estate in the cut no doubt came at a price. Smugglers never did anything for free after all.

A counter was full of materials-- many of them illicit, and the wall behind it held shelves of more items of the like. The man, the Greeves, as Sparrow had said, eyed the group suspiciously. He was an older man, with grey starting to peak through the edges of his hair and salt in his peppery beard. An experienced man, to be sure. "What do you want?" he asked, cutting straight to the chase.

"A man named Pike purchased something from you quite recently.” That was Rilien, who saw no reason to delay. Clearly Greeves was not one for niceties, which suited the businesslike Tranquil just fine. "I want to know what it was and how much of it he acquired.”

For a moment, it looked like Greeves didn't plan to tell them anything of the sort, but then his unflinching glare relented and he shrugged. “Eh, what the hell. Kid tried to lowball me. Damn amateur.” Shuffling to a low table, he picked up what looked to be a ledger of some kind, which from a glance appeared to be written in some form of cryptography, flipping through a few pages until he found what he was looking for. “Here he is. Drakestone's what he bought. Enough of it to weigh down a satchel, so twenty pounds.”

There was silence for a moment, wherein Rilien accounted for all he knew about the uses of Drakestone, and then specifically the ways it might be used in combination with sela petrae. Knowing that Pike was a volatile, angry personality made the conclusion rather obvious.

"Aurora. If Pike could choose any accessible structure in Kirkwall to destroy, which would he select?”

"Ordinarily?" Aurora asked, worried in the shift of conversation. "The Gallows," she answered. However, due to recent incidents it'd be tightly locked down, and nowhere near accessible as Rilien said. "But that's not an option..." she added. Other than that, she truly had no idea.

So it was Donovan than answered for her. "The Chantry," he said grimly. Aurora looked up at the man with an arched eyebrow, a gesture he shook his head at. "I took him to listen to the Chant a few times, I had hoped hearing it would have helped ease his soul... I was mistaken, he only grew more agitated after every sermon." He looked saddened and guilty by the thought but he continued, "The Templars are employed by the Chantry, if he could not strike at them directly, then he may try to strike at their faith."

"Then we need to get there now," Aurora said. She did not truly believe that Pike had it in him to destroy the Chantry, but anger drove many people to do things that they wouldn't expect. And though she did not understand what the combination of ingredients he'd procured would do, she did not like the words Rilien had said.

"Let's go, and fast."

The Chanter's Board has been updated. Second Sun has been completed.

Setting

4 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

The catalyst for the change Sophia desired seemed incredibly close, she could almost touch it.

The would-be Viscountess paced the living area of her manor, her armor clinking softly with every step. This was no occasion for leathers and mail, for expectations of a light skirmish. An act of open rebellion against the loyalists of the Templar Order never was. Sophia was dressed for battle, in her polished, shining plate, and the others with her were ready for a confrontation as well.

Ashton had the full strength of the guard behind him, and he was extremely popular with the people besides. Nostariel was a respected Warden and a revered member of the community, and Lucien had earned the admiration of any man or woman with a modicum of decency, to say nothing of the political weight his name carried, and the strength of his elite mercenary company. There would be no better group to accompany First Enchanter Orsino, and force the Chantry into action regarding the Templars.

Sophia had received word that Orsino and Meredith had entered a heated debate regarding something a few days prior. The subject of the argument wasn't clear, but it wasn't hard to make guesses. In the end, it didn't matter. The result of the argument was that Orsino had been confined to his chambers on Meredith's orders, as well as almost all of the Kirkwall Circle's senior enchanters. Meredith was keeping the entire Gallows on lockdown, with rumors swirling of a push for the Right of Annulment. Something had to be done.

Thankfully, Meredith's grasp on some of her own Templars was slipping, and a number let slip their intentions to help. Sophia didn't know the exact details, and it was probably safer for her not to. The important part was that Orsino's freedom was to be arranged by a small group of Templars. He was to be delivered to the docks, where he would make his way up to Hightown, and Sophia's residence, along the way to the Chantry. Sophia and her best would accompany him to see Elthina, and make a push to resolve this matter for good.

It came as a surprise, then, when not one, but ten mages showed up at her door. Orsino was indeed at the helm, but a number had come with him, both young and old, their faces ranging from nervous, to brave, to angry. Having little other choice, she ushered them inside.

"What happened?" she asked. "I thought you were coming alone."

"As did I," Orsino explained, pulling back his hood. "But when some of the others learned of the plan, they refused to allow me to do this on my own. The true Templars came through, and managed to free this many." He looked at those he had come with, unable to conceal some of his own nerves, especially as he gazed upon the younger of them.

"I'm glad to have them, but this will only worsen Meredith's rage. We should move quickly. Are your companions ready?"

“Ready.” Nostariel spared a small smile for the other mages, nodding to Orsino and making a last-minute adjustment to the light chain shirt on her Warden armor. If ever there was a time for full kit, this seemed to be it. A considerable amount of time had actually passed since she’d last had the cause, but thankfully it was not so great an interval that she was worried about being out of form. Which was good, since it seemed like this might become very important, indeed.

Ashton slowly stood up from the chair he'd been sitting in and shouldered the quiver that held his bow and arrows. "We are," Ashton answered. As he stood with his hands clasped behind his back, he looked every bit like the captain of the guard that he was. A silly smile was nowhere to be found on his face, as an open rebellion was nothing to laugh at. Meredith would learn whose city Kirkwall truly was. Vesper was also present, pushing herself off the wall she was leaning against and going to stand beside her captain. She didn't say anything and only nodded an affirmation.

Lucien nodded as well, indicating that his answer did not differ. The Lions were on standby in case things became as contentious as he expected them to be, but it would likely be ill-advised to go into the situation with the intent to do violence. It seemed less and less likely by the day, but he yet held out hope for some kind of alternative resolution to this that didn’t involve forcing Meredith to submit by point of a sword. The reports he was getting as to her mental state of late made it seem quite likely that she’d never leave her post willingly, though, and also that such a resignation was quite called for.

"Let's get moving," Sophia suggested, and with Orsino at her back she opened the door, leading the way outside. It was a conspicuous procession at this time of night, to be sure, but it was too late to do much about that now. Sophia wasn't about to try to get these mages to leave their First Enchanter now, after escaping the Gallows with him, and there was really no safe place for them that they could reach anyway.

The group gathered outside, they made their way quickly towards the Chantry, passing several Guard patrols, but no Templars. The patrols merely nodded and either stepped aside or did nothing at all. A few of them were undoubtedly in the loop, and those that weren't had no intentions of trying to do the job of the Templars. One pair even wished them good luck on their way, saluting briefly to their captain.

Luck was not on their side, sadly, as they heard a loud and aggravated shout just before they rounded the corner and the Chantry came into view. Halting, Sophia turned to see Meredith and an impressive group of Templars, at least thirty in number, approaching with weapons drawn, though their formation was compact rather than spread, implying they did not intend to attack just yet. Templars knew better than to cluster when combating mages, Sophia knew.

"This is the last straw, Orsino!" Meredith proclaimed, coming to a halt directly in front of the First Enchanter, who placed himself before his students. The mages clutched their staves defensively, the less experienced unconsciously stepping behind their instructors. In the Knight-Commander's hand, she held a phylactery tightly; undoubtedly Orsino's. There would be no other way for her to have found them so quickly. Even questioning a turned Templar would have taken too long.

"This is all the proof I need, right here!" Meredith continued, eyes wild and aggressive. "Mages conspiring with avaricious nobility to overthrow me. You will throw Kirkwall into chaos, allow the blood mages among you to run amok! I will have the tower searched for them, top to bottom!"

"You cannot do that," Orsino countered, though he seemed to know his words would have little effect. "You have no right!"

"I have every right! You are harboring these blood mages, and I intend to root them out before they infect this city!"

"Blood magic!" Orsino threw up his hands. "Where do you not see blood magic? My people cannot sneeze without you accusing them of corruption!"

"Do not trifle with me, mage. My patience is at an end."

"A wonder that I never saw it begin..."

"Meredith," Sophia said, trying to cut into the conversation, while also keeping her tone calm, "can we not have this conversation in the presence of the Grand Cleric? She can surely prevent this from going any--"

"This does not involve you," Meredith stated, "and it will not involve the Grand Cleric. Have I not made myself clear?"

"Kirkwall is against you, Meredith," Orsino declared, anger slipping further into his voice. "Lady Dumar is with the mages, as are a great many others. They know what you have done."

"What I have done is protect the people of this city, time and again. What I have done is protect you mages from your curse and your own stupidity. And I will not stop doing it. I will not lower our guard. I dare not! As for your 'great many'... I see a mere handful, sneaking through the night. I will not give in to their terror."

"You would cast us all as villains, but it is not so!" Orsino said, taking a step closer to Meredith, who held her ground entirely. They locked eyes for a long moment before Meredith spoke again.

"I must remain vigilant. It often breaks my heart to do so, but it is the only way. If you cannot tell me a better way, do not brand me a tyrant!"

Orsino sighed, tiredly, and turned away. "This is getting nowhere. Grand Cleric Elthina will put a stop to this." Meredith took a step to give chase, placing her hand on the First Enchanter's shoulder. Just as she did so, the entire world was rocked around them, as a great explosion of magical fire burst from within the Chantry just around the corner. The force of it send massive chunks of stone hurtling through the air, smashing against the walls of buildings, tearing great holes in them. Pieces shattered into smaller fragments all around them, several hitting Sophia hard. That combined with the shockwave of the explosion was enough to leave her sprawled on her side.

All of the mages fell to the ground, and most of the Templars as well, a great billowing of dust and smoke flooding out and enveloping them from the Chantry, which collapsed entirely upon itself, a great pile of rubble. Pieces of it had soared into the air, and now rained down around the city, some picking up great speed and crashing all the way into Lowtown. It sounded for the moment like it was hailing, as little shards of rock fell to the ground all around them, clattering off stone.

Nostariel avoided the worst of the shrapnel, partly in virtue of being somewhat behind Lucien at the time of the explosion and partly in virtue of the fact that she’d thrown up the largest arcane shield she could muster as soon as she’s realized what was going on, but she’d still been struck in the shoulder by a large piece of falling stone, and accompanying the sound of smaller debris falling back to earth was the slightly wet noise of someone popping a shoulder back into its socket, accompanied by a soft, pained grunt. Of course, once she had the chance, she moved around slightly so that she could see in front of them, and it was only then that she noted the pile of rubble that had once been the Chantry.

“Maker…” It was but a whisper of sound, full of an almost-incredulous horror.

Lucien had remained mostly still, partly because he knew the less-armored Nostariel was in fact standing behind him, and he took a few large chunks of masonry for his trouble, but thankfully it was nothing too major. The worst one clipped his temple, leaving a bloody scrape there, but fortunately it hadn’t actually hit that hard, leaving him free of the worse kinds of head injury.

It was with a grim expression that he took in the smoldering ruins of the Chantry—death on such a scale was something he had never thought to encounter outside of outright war. But then… maybe that was what this was. Someone declaring a war. This new way of doing it, where the deaths were civilians and innocents rather than soldiers, didn’t sit well with him in the slightest, but his outward reaction was minimal, and he kept his thoughts to himself, at least for now, restricting himself to a small hand gesture that Ainsley, following at a discreet distance, would see. The Lions would be marshaled. Whether he would be leading them to battle or just to try and move enough of this rubble to dig out any survivors was something he didn’t know yet, but probably would soon.

It was with practiced instinct that Vesper threw up her shield to protect herself from the debris and from the time spent fighting together that Ashton knew to hide behind it with her. His forearm braced her back to help keep her steady as bricks and mortar struck her shield. One large chunk of masonry struck, pushing both of them backward from the force, but by the end, both had managed to escape the worst of it.

Vesper slowly dropped her shield, staring in wide-eyed shock toward where the Chantry once stood. She turned toward Ashton in anticipation for her orders, but Ashton could only stare mouth agape in horror at what had transpired. When his eyes finally dropped back down the Vesper, he didn't know what to say, or what to order. But he would, soon.

"Maker have mercy..."

The words came from Meredith, who rose from a knee and viewed the destruction. The Chantry was gone, and judging by the destruction, there was no real chance anyone inside had survived. In the immediate aftermath, an odd sort of silence settled over the scene, perhaps from the weight of the act falling over those who had witnessed it. Templars and mages alike were looking for their leaders through the swirling dust and debris, waiting for instruction, of any kind.

"No..." was all Sophia could think to say, as she got back to her feet. Of all the things she expected to happen when tensions boiled over, this was not it. Elthina had always been there for her, not as a mother, but as a mentor and a guide in her youth. And now she was gone, too, at the hands of... what could only have been magic. No mundane force could have created an explosion so powerful. If they'd been even a little swifter in reaching the Chantry, Meredith wouldn't have caught them, they'd have made it inside, and... more than likely, they all would have died.

"The Grand Cleric has been slain by magic," Meredith suddenly said, her voice cutting through the horrified stillness of those present. "The Chantry is destroyed." She drew her greatsword from her back, slowly. Sophia had never really noticed it before, but the red crystal of some sort laid into the handle was hard to miss now. She knew not what it was, but it seemed to be emanating power of some kind.

"As Knight-Commander of the Kirkwall Order of Templars, I hereby invoke the Right of Annulment. Every mage in the Circle is to be executed... immediately." Orsino's staff was taken into his hands, and the other mages present armed themselves, though no attack was yet made. Everyone was in too much shock, both by the destruction of the Chantry and by the suddenness of Meredith's order to slay them all.

"The Circle didn't even do this!" Orsino cried, but the lack of any change on Meredith's face swayed him to stop arguing. He looked around at his allies. "You can't let her do this! Help us stop this madness!" There were many Templars before them, and Meredith herself leading them. Sophia wasn't sure the fight could be won, but she was certain that it couldn't be turned away from now. Even if a mage was responsible for this, there was almost no way they were affiliated with the Circle. Meredith had no proof, and no right to simply kill them to satisfy her paranoia. The Templars were supposed to stand for order, but this would only throw the city further into madness.

"We'll defend you, Orsino. This has to end." She knew the others would be at her back, no matter how grim it looked. They'd been through so much together. This was just one more battle.

"If you stand with them," Meredith said, leveling her blade at Sophia, "then you share their fate. None will be spared."

Sophia drew Vesenia from her back, and prepared for the fight. "I've made my choice."

"So you have. Templars, kill them all!"

Setting

9 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

If Nostariel had to guess, she’d suppose that there were nearly forty other Templars with Meredith, which gave them an overwhelming advantage in numbers, at least for now. Maybe Ash or Lucien would be able to do something about that imbalance, but even if they could, there would be a delay, and the Warden’s mindset moved immediately to keeping the others alive and hale for as long as possible. Taking a few rapid steps backwards, she cast an arcane shield over her three companions, hoping that the subtle magic would misdirect blows that might otherwise hit.

Considering that their opponents were Templars, however, she knew she had to keep her distance—Nostariel knew what it felt like to be on the wrong end of a smite, and she did not relish the thought of repeating the experience. Better to do things that they were not quite so well-trained to deal with. From her back she drew her bow and an arrow, charging it with a mind blast spell and firing it to Meredith’s left, planting it in the formation before they could separate too much. Keeping all of them from attacking as a unit would be absolutely necessary.

Vesper swung about face shield first toward the formation of templars. However, she did not have the time to settle into a stance before a rough hand reached into her collar and pulled her back. "Go! Rouse the Guard!" Ashton demanded, pointing in the direction of the barracks. Vesper opened her mouth to argue, but Ashton was quick to dismiss her. "That's an order, Lieutenant! Now!" he added roughly, his brows furrowed. She closed her mouth and nodded. Though evident she loathed to do so, she turned and left the ensuing battle to follow Ashton's orders.

Turning back to the fight, Ashton back-pedalled a few paces to put space between him and the formation of Templars while simultaneously drawing an arrow and nocking it. He noted that his maneuver put him beside Nostariel, and moments after she loosed her arrow, he let one of his own fly. His flew to Meredith's right and struck the first of the templars. It didn't simply stick, instead popping into a thick plume of white smoke, throwing the unit even further into the throes of confusion.

Ashton took a deep breath and offered Nostariel a glance. It wouldn't last long, however, before his attention was turned back to the tide of templars to their front.

In situations like this, where the numbers were so far against them, Lucien’s first instinct was to find a defensible position, preferably with a very narrow chokepoint he could stand in. One that would funnel his foes towards him in a controlled manner, and leave them open to attacks from above and behind him. Unfortunately, they were standing in mostly open space, and while the various larger chunks of rubble might be useful later, for the moment, it seemed that the best option was for him to attack. If he and Sophia could drive a wedge into the formation, starting with Meredith, then perhaps that would be enough to disperse them.

With Ashton and Nostariel on crowd control, they were at least free to try, and when Sophia went for Meredith, he followed half a step behind, intercepting one of the other Templars who jumped to his Knight-Commander’s defense. He was a little too zealous about it, and overstepped himself, presenting Lucien with a clean strike, which he took, Everburn arcing downwards with a whistle through the air and breaking his collarbone with the force it exerted at the juncture of neck and shoulder. He fell, and Lucien didn’t stop to see if he was dead or merely unconscious. There were too many others for that.

Nostariel and Ashton effectively disrupted the center of the Templar formation, disorganized as they were given the suddenness of the fight, but while Sophia and Lucien made their way forward, several Templars on the flanks advanced aggressively. These were many of Meredith's best, and they knew the best course of action was to press forward, and not allow the mages any room to breathe. The mages, on the other hand, were clearly varying in their skill levels. A young woman on the right flank failed to put much distance between her and the Templar advancing at her. A quick smite removed her ability to cast any spells, and a sword soon followed, cutting across her throat.

Orsino responded with a gout of flame from the end of his staff, enveloping the right flank in fire and momentarily preventing the Templars from further encroachment, as the one who scored the first kill was cooked in his armor. More approached from the left, shields up, rushing at full speed to crush the smaller numbers of the mages and their allies with overwhelming force.

Sophia was faced with a similar strategy from Meredith, the two engaging each other in the center of the confrontation. Quickly Sophia learned that blocking the Knight-Commander's swings was not a viable option; her greatsword was far heavier than what Sophia used, or even Everburn, and yet the speed of the strikes also outmatched her own. After having her guard bashed aside on the first block, Sophia nearly had her head removed from the swing that followed, narrowly leaning back and stumbling away to avoid it.

"The Maker is with me, Sophia!" Meredith snarled. "His wrath is my own!" Faced with that wrath, Sophia settled for merely staying alive, fighting defensively. Two more fast swings whistled through the air, missing her by inches. The third she couldn't dodge, the reach of the blade too much for her to avoid the horizontal swing. She put her blade in the way and braced, the greatsword pushing it back and slamming into her right side.

Without armor she likely would've been cut to the spine; even with it she felt wet cracks as ribs broke, her armor dented where the blow had landed. She jumped back a step, and Meredith brought her sword up over her head, about to cleave down. Perhaps she expected Sophia to be stunned longer. She was able to step forward, bringing the pommel of her blade up into Meredith's jaw. The swing interrupted, Meredith lurched back a step, spitting blood from her mouth.

She came down with the vertical swing regardless, forcing Sophia to jump aside. The dodge was clearly expected, as without so much as a pause Meredith stepped in and struck out with her own pommel, driving it into Sophia's side, right where the armor was dented. She cried out briefly, but only gave a half step, gritting her teeth. At intimate range, at least Meredith couldn't utilize her blade effectively. It seemed preferable, even if Sophia couldn't use hers either.

Nostariel’s rate of fire was not especially quick, as she was attempting to read the changing dynamics of the field in order to place her arrows more effectively, and without risk of endangering any of the other mages, who would not, unlike her friends, know to be aware that exploding projectiles might be flying in over their heads at any point necessary. This was made significantly more difficult by the fact that she was a good deal shorter than most everyone involved in this confrontation, and knowing that she’d be much more effective if she could see, she sought the high ground.

There wasn’t much of it to be seen, given the pen area they were in, but a small glimmer of silver lining in the situation was that the large chunks of rubble were, at least in some cases, surmountable, and tall enough to give her vision on the surrounding area, as well as cover, if she needed to jump down in an emergency. Fortunately, the archers among the Templar ranks were few, and she wouldn’t have to worry too much about being shot at in retaliation.

Ceasing her fire for a moment, she glanced behind her and located a likely-looking chunk of masonry. Irregularly-shaped and perhaps five feet tall, it looked stable enough where it had landed to be climbed safely, and though it wobbled a bit when she first put her foot to it, she was able to reach a foothold most of the way up and straighten out into a stand. The extra elevation was exactly what she needed, and the next series of arcane arrows were swift and decisive. One, charge with flame, knocked out a flank formation of Templars trying to gain an advantage over Orsino’s mages, oiling about half of them in their armor and giving the rest severe burns, at the very least. The next one iced over those that were left, providing a temporary shield of sorts for that side of the formation

Everburn laid into another Templar, catching him between the metal neck guard affixed to his chestplate and the bottom end of his helmet. The precision of the blow was matched by its strength, and it bit deep enough to sever his jugular vein before it withdrew, Lucien swinging it around to block the incoming hit from another Templar’s longsword. The pile of bodies accumulating at his feet was testament to the fact that the task of keeping Sophia and Meredith isolated from the rest of the Knight-Commander’s men was an arduous undertaking, leaving him unable to lend much of any assistance himself.

The longsword clanged off his claymore, and Lucien stepped in, muscle memory guiding the progress of its pommel to the Templar’s nose with smooth efficacy, and she too dropped, allowing him to meet the next. Occasionally, two or three moved in at once, and Lucien had the cuts to show for it, but for the most part, he’d learned how to juggle these situations long ago, breaking stances and using the time it took one to recover to deal a harder blow to the other. He made little distinction between crippling, killing, and rendering unconscious: they did not currently have the luxury of doing so. Anything that put another Templar down for long enough to eliminate the threat he or she presented was good enough for present purposes, which amounted to staying alive.

Ashton proved to be much more mobile and never planted his feet for more than a moment at a time. Though there wasn't much room to maneuver too much, he had enough to keep out of reach of the templars' swords, at least for a time. The arrows he fired bit into their armor, but not enough to outright kill. He had to aim for sensitive spots, areas where the armor wasn't as thick, or places where an arrow would hinder their movement. He wove in and out of the battlefield, and dodged a few swords along the way, replying with an arrow of his own. At point, he used a chuck of masonry to launch himself off of and onto a templar, driving him into the ground on his back and ended it with a arrow to the slit in the helmet. It would be no use to try and arrest them now.

Still, keeping mobile only worked for so long before he was beginning to be pressed backward. Eventually, one templar was lucky enough to get inside his range, shield raised and sword resting on its edge, waiting for the opportune moment to strike. Ashton then let go of his bow string and drew his sword instead. The templars were better trained and stronger than he was, that was a given, and he remembered it when he tried to fend off the templar's sword with his own. The impact jarred him severely, and were it not for the guardsman's plate and Nostariel's ward, the sword would have bitten deeper than it did.

Ashton, however, had no qualms about not playing fair. While he had the templar's sword locked up, Ashton reared back and issued a kick to the the templar's shin. He clearly did not expect such a juvenile tactic, and relented as the pain shot up through his leg. Ashton followed up by pushing in the knee of his other leg and toppling the templar, and moments later, Ashton's sword found the slit in his helmet. Ashton sheathed his sword and bolted toward the line of mages. Though powerful, they weren't as organized as the templars-- a problem he sought to fix. "Spread out!" Ashton ordered so that a single smite wouldn't nullify multiple mages' magic. "And watch over each other!"

Ashton himself took up a position on the edge of the mage's formation in an effort to provide support where he could. But even his arrows could not be everywhere at once.

The idea to stay in close with Meredith seemed wise at the time, and it saved Sophia from needing to dodge any more sword swings, but the Knight-Commander's strength was clearly enhanced by something, to the point where it was impossible to hold her off on her own. A backhand caught Sophia across the cheekbone, the gauntlet cutting and drawing blood as Sophia was left dazed. A swift kick followed to the back of her leg, forcing her down on one knee. Meredith might have gone for a killing blow next, but with other threats nearby, she settled for gripping Sophia by the throat, and forcefully hurling her backwards.

She crashed loudly to the ground on her back several paces away and struggled to rise. With her out of the way Meredith turned to engage the already preoccupied Lucien, while a smite from a Templar captain rendered an enchanter and her student helpless, the two set upon shortly after by several swords. There were yet more Templars to hold off, the numbers tipping further against them even as they cut them down.

At least until an unexpected group arrived to aid them. A Dalish arrow from behind the Templars was the first to arrive, hitting the back of a man's neck and dropping him. Ithilian followed it into the fray with sword and Parshaara drawn, immediately cutting down two unsuspecting enemies.

A crack of thunder followed soon after, dropping a bolt of lightning from the growing tempest in the sky onto a templar below. The thunder continued to rumble as Aurora made her entrance into the battle, her hands awash in the fade. Her face was painted into a grim countenance, but her eyes were focused and sharp. A testament to the control that she held over herself, considering the events that had transpired. As she waded into the field, she flung a lightning bolt from her hand, striking a templar and arcing to a few others before fizzling out. It wouldn't kill outright, but it'd stun and paralyze, and most importantly, throw disorganization into their ranks.

It seemed far too late to worry about hiding her magic now, not that it would've mattered. Meredith and her templars seemed intent on purging everyone who posed a threat to her, mage or not. The tempest above the battlefield growled dangerously as Aurora readied the next spell.

Though the magical storm Aurora created was loud, there was a distinct undertone, a thrum rather than a rumble, that belonged to something else. The volume of it increased, and at least to those nearest, it was easily recognizable as someone humming, in rhythm and tone with the clangor of swords and rolling thunder, quickening the limbs and heightening the perception of the fewer defenders arrayed against so many Templars.

It had been some time since Rilien had employed the bardic arts in battle; most often, he had left them separate of late. But if there was any time at which they were most useful, this was it—outright melee, with few trying to hold off many. He moved between Chantry soldiers like a bolt of lightning himself, lancing between one and the next in arcs carved in minimum strides, blades flashing as they were swung rapidly, precisely, cutting into armor joints and puncturing leather protections, sliding with little rasps between thick metal armor-plates, coming away sheathed in red, only for that to fly off and spatter on the stone ground when next he moved.

In the clamor of magical storms, and Rilien's measured humming painting a vivid picture of chaos and Kirkwall's world caving in on itself once more, Sparrow roared onto the battlefield, eyes alight with feverish intensity. She hadn't expected to see everyone assembled here, but she supposed it wasn't surprising. When calamity struck in this place, one they had come to call home, they seemed to appear at its center, acting as pseudo-guardians of something much larger than they were. Flanged mace gripped in her calloused hands, rippled with electric, pulsating energy, as she smashed into oncoming chantry soldiers, rather than gracefully navigating around them. She planted her feet and turned sharply, throwing her elbow out and catching a man's unprotected chin, sending him reeling away.

A blade skittered across her chestplate and sliced across her cheekbone, pitching upwards long enough for Sparrow to howl indignantly, releasing one hand from her mace to grapple onto one of his pauldrons in order to drag him close enough to drive her forehead into his nose. Blood gushed from his face, onto hers, but it proved effective enough to propel him backwards. She chased him as he faltered and gripped her mace once more with two hands, swinging wildly—but this time, with fire licking from the flanges. She smashed it into his breastplate, scoring seething dents, and only swung around when she felt another blade clip off her shoulder. Fortunately, Amalia's workmanship held. She snorted, bared her teeth against the copper tang in her mouth and swung towards the assailant.

Amalia, as was her wont, was considerably more strategic in her application of force, stalking the sides of the battlefield, assessing the motion of the fight and darting in to sink a blade or a poisoned needle into a high-priority target, only to sink back into the ebb and flow of bodies and reappear at the fringes once more. Templars who looked to be leading small groups, those too close to the edge to benefit from the protection of her allies, those dazed by Nostariel’s magic—these were dispatched swiftly and cleanly, with neither flash nor fuss.

In all, it was too much for the band of Templars to endure. They had whittled down the numbers of the mages they fought, the least experienced of their enemies, but with the arrival of a flanking force, few in number though they were, the Templars had to back down. Meredith had the presence of mind still to realize this, and angrily shouted for her soldiers to fall in around her, the group forming a defensive perimeter circling their leader. They backed away, shields blocking any arrows or magic that flew after them, until they were far enough separated to pick up the pace, and disappear out of sight.

Ithilian's urge was to give chase, and hunt down the most dangerous of their enemies before they could regroup, but his own side was in no position to move quickly. Several of the mages were critically injured, receiving care from the elder enchanters or Orsino himself. Sophia as well was battered, having been the one to attempt trading blows directly with the Knight-Commander. She rose shakily, clutching her side, and planted the tip of her sword into the ground.

"So it's come to this," Orsino said quietly, staring at the body of a Templar Rilien had cleanly dispatched. He helped a wounded Circle mage up to her feet with him. "I don't know if we can win this, but... thank you. All of you."

"We know the one responsible for this," Ithilian said, gazing up at the crumbled ruins of the Chantry. "He's no Circle mage, but all the same..."

"His work is done. All mages are enemies of the Templars now."

"Not all Templars," Sophia said, wincing. "Surely there are some who can see Meredith's madness. Perhaps they can help us."

"We'll need to get to them, first, at the Gallows. Meredith is surely retreating there, to rally the rest of her Order. We must move quickly." His gaze fell down to one of the slain mages, a young man refusing to let the First Enchanter walk alone from the Gallows. "Before more lives are lost."

Setting

9 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

After the battle, Ashton leaned against a chuck of masonry and wiped the sweat from his brow. It was dyed red from blood, some from the scratches he'd sustained, some not. So much had happened so fast that he hadn't had time to process it, and even now with a lull in the fighting it was a lot to digest. Perhaps too much to do it in such a short amount of time. He looked around and saw as mages were tending to the wounded, and everyone readying themselves for what was to come. Eventually, the sound of marching armor lilted through the air, causing him to reach for his bow.

Instead of templars however, he was relieved by the sight of the Guard's crimson. Vesper led a contingent of guardsmen toward them, and though helmets concealed their faces he could tell by their body language that they were taken aback by the carnage around them. Ashton pushed himself off of the chuck of stone and approached the Guard, and was greeted by a wave of salutes. "Good to see you are still alive, Captain," Vesper said. Ashton merely nodded in agreement. "Looks like we're late..." She added, noting the absence of Meredith and her templars. Again, Ashton only nodded.

Ashton looked around him again and shook his head, before his gaze finally alighted on the guards in front of him. "Guardsmen!" Ashton said, causing them all to straighten. "Kirkwall is in danger once more. The destruction of the Chantry and Meredith's madness threatens our home," it was difficult to believe that the Chantry was truly gone, but Meredith reaching her breaking point was not. No doubt the city would soon be consumed by panic, which would not be helped by the fighting between the mages and templars.

"It's our job to protect and guard our city from all enemies, be they thugs and bandits, or templars. Fan out and contain the chaos and fighting wherever you can. Keep our city safe, remind everyone that we guard our city." Shouts of agreements followed after and the contingent broke into smaller patrols to better canvas the city. Vesper however, remained. "And what do you intend to do?" she asked.

"Meredith must be stopped," he answered simply. Vesper nodded and asked, "When do we move?"

"We do not, I need you to stay here and coordinate the guard," Vesper moved to contest it, but Ashton cut her off. "I need someone I can trust to do that, and you're the only one. Besides, I need you here in case things do not... Work out for us," he said with an awkward laugh. "Someone needs to lead the guard."

Vesper glared at him hard, hard enough that it caused his to avert his own gaze. Planning on doing this by yourself?" she asked.

Ashton brought his back around and shook it in a negative, "No," he said, looking at the eight others around him. "Not by myself." She followed his gaze and nodded. "She's never had a fight like the one that's coming," She agreed. "Fine, but I'm not leading the guard. You get your ass back out alive, understand?" She said before turning to leave.

Ashton shook his head and moved toward Nostariel. "Well, are you ready?" He asked.

Aurora and Donovan were among the Circle mages as she watched him healing those that were injured in the fighting. Resting against her shoulder was a staff that she had taken from a younger mage who had no business fighting in the first place. She'd make much more use of it anyway. She placed a hand on his shoulder as he worked and spoke. "Once you are done here, take the mages that can't or won't fight, find the others, and hide." Donovan looked up at her with his eyebrows raised.

"Meredith's gone too far this time, we have to try and stop her." She also felt as if it were her fault, somewhat. Had she done something about Pike sooner or maybe-- she discarded the thoughts. Now was neither the time nor place to wallow in her guilt. Donovan looked up at her and nodded. "I will," he said, "Just stay safe."

With everything thus decided, the remainder of the group picked themselves up and headed towards the Gallows. Hightown was mostly deserted from the looks of things—predictably, those who had walls to hide behind were choosing to do so. Nostariel could not even say she blamed them. It was probably better for everyone that they were out of the thick of things, anyway.

Lowtown was a considerably different story. There weren’t as many walled safe-places to hide in, and the fighting seemed to still be thick here. About halfway through Lowtown, several of the Lions approached the group, and Lucien split them, taking the small team of Cor, Estella, and Farah to bolster the numbers headed towards the Gallows, and leaving Havard in command of the rest, with instructions to cover the Alienage and the rest of Lowtown, push any fighting back and away from the civilians, and then attempt to either broker a ceasefire or stop whomever they judged needed to be stopped. He trusted them to make the necessary calls.

The chaos was resulting in sporadic bursts of violence, though most of it ended when the well-armed group headed for the Gallows arrived. Naturally, given the chaos, there was an excess of criminals on the streets, trying to dodge both Guards and Templars. Perhaps half of the Templars they did encounter didn't even know what was going on. Meredith hadn't encountered them, and they had no intention of immediately jumping to violence. Wisely, they yielded when Sophia or Lucien advised them to. The rest, Sophia didn't doubt, had gone with the Knight-Commander, to perform their grisly work in the Gallows.

The docks had ceased all operations for the night, but when one of the ferry owners spotted the well-armed group with Sophia at the head, he immediately offered to take them across, their need being quite obvious. She thanked him, and they set off. In the distance, lights were flashing in the Gallows, spells being cast, Templars smiting targets. The fight had already begun, though it appeared disorganized. Meredith had almost certainly arrived ahead of them. There wasn't much time.

The moment the ferry touched the docks of the Gallows Sophia was off, blade in hand, her allies following closely behind. She could hear screams even from this distance, crackling fire and lightning, shouting of orders. Not very far up the stairs there were bodies, Templar and mage alike, left where they'd fallen. When they reached the Gallows courtyard, they could see a few scattered mages cautiously retreating back up the stairs towards the Circle tower, ranks of Templars surrounding them. Meredith was approaching from the left, her glowing sword in hand, directing her soldiers into order.

"Meredith, stop!" Orsino called out, bringing the group to the attention of the Templars. There were far more here than the small group they had battled with in Hightown. This was the full might of Kirkwall's Templars, quickly moving itself into organization. There were hundreds at least in sight, and surely more still in the Templar quarters further in. Too many to fight. Thankfully, Meredith was still willing to have a conversation, insofar as she didn't immediately order their executions.

"Let us speak, Meredith!" Orsino continued, stepping forward over the bodies of mages he led. "Before this battle destroys the city you claim to protect!"

"I will entertain a surrender. Nothing more." Meredith turned from the mages backing up the stairs towards Orsino, and approached, her mass of Templars at her back. The fighting lulled to a stop as the two leaders came before one another, a tense silence falling over the Gallows. "Speak, if you have something to say."

"Revoke the Right of Annulment, Meredith, before this goes too far. Imprison us, if you must. Search the tower. I will even help you. But do not kill us all for an act we did not commit." Sophia could see the immediate value of discourse, in preserving their own lives, but even she would not agree with what Orsino proposed. The city could not be subjected to Meredith any longer. Surely there were Templars among the masses here that felt uneasy about this...

"The grand cleric is dead, killed by a mage," the Knight-Commander responded. "The people will demand retribution, and I will give it to them. Your offer is commendable, Orsino, but it comes too late."

Much as she might have wished otherwise, Nostariel could tell that there was no longer any reasoning with Meredith. She was set on this course of action—perhaps she’d even been waiting for an excuse to do something extreme like this. Maybe not, but in any case, that was where this situation was going now. If they had any hope of averting the chaos that would follow, they had to take her footing out from under her.

Already, Nostariel could see faint unease appearing on some Templar faces at the mention of Annulment—it was the most extreme of all possibilities, and she knew that there were Templars here who would not be fond of the idea in the slightest. Some of them were leaders, or at least older, respected members of the order. “No, it isn’t.” She spoke loud enough to draw the collective attention of the crowd towards her, then swallowed. Diplomat, she was not. But hopefully, she wouldn’t have to be.

“No one else has to die tonight. Think about this, Templars. I know that you’re good people. You want the best for Kirkwall, for the Circle, and for your charges, the mages who inhabit it. The Grand Cleric was killed, and our Chantry destroyed, by one man. One man with views and attitudes that do not reflect all or even many mages. You’ve watched over these men and women for years. You know them, and you know they would never condone something like this. So how can you believe that they deserve to die for something they would never approve of, let alone do?”

She cast around, looking for faces she knew in the crowd. “Ser Cullen, Ser Thrask, Ser Emeric. You know that alternative solutions are possible to situations like this. I’ve seen you all seek those solutions, and succeed. This time is no different. Please, stay your swords. This is not the time to react to violence with hatred and fear. We have to be better than that.”

Templars? Mages? Who knew what they were thinking in this moment, anyhow. These were unusual affairs, ones she was inexperienced in dealing with. Any repertoire of charisma she might have had to still their blades, or sway their thoughts, was embarrassingly lacking so Sparrow merely stood there, hands filled with the shaft of her great-hammer should they converge and decide that yes, we'll simply execute them.

She let the others do the talking and prepared herself for the worst of it, eying the stiff-necked Templars, and the quivering mages scampering up the stairs. Squinting her murky eyes, she counted them. Far too many. Hundreds, maybe? Shielded in steel-plates, and glistening metal. And there, Meredith with her glowing blade and damning voice. Even she wasn't foolish enough to leap into shark-infested waters. Right of Annulment? She wasn't sure what that was, but it didn't sound good.

Nostariel's words had a few of the Templars looking to one another, looking to Meredith, or looking away altogether. Sophia didn't think she could have said it better herself. The Knight-Commander, however, spoke loudly and clearly before any sort of action could be taken.

"It is not with hatred or fear that we perform this duty. It is with faith in the Maker, and the knowledge that this Annulment has become a necessity."

Sophia could not simply listen to that. "How long will you spout the Maker's name when it suits you, using the faith of the devout to maintain your grip on power?" She looked to the Templars. "Follow your consciences, what you know to be right. Do not accept the Knight-Commander's will as that of the Maker's. Allow your faith to strengthen you, not blind you."

"I expected nothing less from you, Sophia. You accuse me of twisting the faith of my Templars, only to attempt it yourself in your own quest for power. But enough of this. As I stated, if you stand with the Circle, you will share their fate."

"So what is it to be, Meredith?" Orsino asked. "Do we fight here?" Meredith seemed to consider the idea, but waved her hand back towards the Circle tower.

"Go, prepare your people, or ask them to surrender if they would like it to be swift. The rest of my forces will not be long."

Orsino was furious, and frustrated. He glared at the Knight-Commander. "This isn't over..."




The Circle tower wasn't a place anyone in Kirkwall visited often. The great entry room after the cold courtyard was about as welcoming as the dungeons elsewhere in the Gallows, all grey stone and metal bars. The mages here were terrified; the doors had been locked, and Orsino personally had to assure them that they wouldn't be slaughtered for them to open them up. Once the entire group was inside, they were closed again. The Templars would come through easily enough when they wanted to, and while Sophia supposed they could bar them, there wasn't really a point in delaying. Who would come? The city guard and the Lions lacked the numbers needed to turn the tide, and had their hands full in the city regardless. Only more Templars would come.

The reinforcements they needed were already outside, among the zealots. The reasonable men and women had to stand up to this, or the mages and all their allies would die. If Meredith lost her grip on them, her footing, she would lose her power, and be vulnerable. Otherwise...

While Orsino tried to prepare his mages for battle, Sophia located a small shrine to Andraste set into a wall. She had not done so publicly for quite some time, but now seemed a time when it was most needed. She laid down her sword horizontally before her, knelt, and silently began to pray.

A moderate distance away, Ashton and Nostariel were sitting down on a small staircase. She’d leaned all the way into his shoulder, her equipment resting next to her. Her eyes were shut, but she clearly wasn’t asleep, because her mouth was moving, though whatever she was saying was quiet enough that it didn’t carry far. His head rested against hers, his arm wrapped around her shoulders and his hand holding hers. His equipment likewise was leaned up against the staircase, and he nodded along as she spoke, and replied in the same quiet tone that she used. A gentle smile graced his face every now and then, and he lightly squeezed her shoulders.

Amalia, meanwhile, had taken up a position near the entranceway, and was looking out through the bars in the gate to where their foes would almost certainly be coming through. The steady rasp of a whetstone over steel indicated that she was sharpening one of her knives, but it was more for something to do with her hands than out of any particular need to fine-tune the instrument, since she was quite scrupulous about the condition of her equipment to begin with, and it was already sharp enough.

Lucien stood with his Lions, Rilien nearby as well, and tried to provide a calm counterweight to the nervous energy that he could sense in two of the three of them. Farah seemed calmer, probably in part due to her comparative wealth of battle experience. Cor was working hard to keep his expression more neutral than he really felt, and Estella was standing quite close to Rilien, obviously seeking equanimity in the presence of someone who was never really anything but composed. Her constant shifting of her weight from one foot to another belied her anxiety, though. Rilien, apparently aware of her mental state, set a hand on top of her head in what from anyone else would have been a soothing gesture, his eyes flicking mindfully from this group to Aurora's to Sparrow.

There was no point in reassuring them of the odds, because the odds were extremely grim. But Lucien personally was choosing not to let it get to him—he’d been against bad odds before. Perhaps that steadiness would help, perhaps it wouldn’t, but he wasn’t going to lie to them.

If there had ever been a situation where Sparrow's back hadn't been against a wall since living in Kirkwall, she would have been pleasantly surprised. She supposed, this was no different. Thinking back on her many mistakes or kneeling in front of unfamiliar gods or goddesses in the hopes that they conferred them with some kind of tide-turning luck felt foolish enough to participate in. However, she did neither of these things. The palpable tension in the room felt as thick as rain clouds, promising a violent storm instead of new beginnings.

She rolled her shoulders and cracked her neck from side to side, choosing to perch a few paces away from Aurora and her fellow mages. Surrounded by all of her companions, in yet another calamity that threatened their lives, felt as natural as breathing—as natural as bristling her hackles when backed into a corner. She would bare her fangs, and swing her mace, as long as she still has breath in her. Settling her gaze on the gate Amalia was seated next to: she understood this with a clarity reminiscent of her days in the Qun.

Sparrow exhaled, calmer than she'd thought was possible in a situation like this, and leaned against the mace cradled between her legs, pressing her cheek against the cool metal. Besides being around people she genuinely cared for, it was the only comfort she could find in such a confined place. Solid metal against the palm of her hands, fingers woven together: grounding her in place. As unusual as this felt, it was real. How she felt about the entire situation? Her inclinations towards mages and all of their ilk aside, it didn't matter as long as her friends were here. Politics be damned.

She tipped her head towards Aurora and cracked a lopsided grin. Whether it was from a steely perseverance or an insistent thirst to get this over with, her smile hardly wavered, as she chirped a crooning, “After all this is said and done, we should travel. See the sights. Become heroes. I'd say we're nearly there, anyhow.” She swallowed around the jittery flutter in her stomach, “I've got a ship too.” Her grin simpered as she unraveled her fingers, and pinched her index fingers close together, ““Fine. Small vessel.”

Because, if death came today. She'd be ready. But she much preferred her flighty vision.

Aurora had been preparing the circle mages among them for the battle ahead. Still, they possessed only a short amount of time and there wasn't much that could be done to turn the handful of mages into a force capable of fighting off the entire Templar order. Instead she focused on things that would help them survive the longest. A grim outlook, and it played out on her face at time among other reasons. In the corner of her mind, she couldn't help but feel somewhat responsible for this. Perhaps this day was long in coming, and perhaps the conflict between mages and templars would've boiled over regardless, but Pike's actions forced this upon them and she wasn't able to stop it.

Instructing a young mage on how to use her magic best to deal with a group of opponents, Aurora turned as Sparrow spoke to her. Her grim countenance broke into a tiny smile for a moment. "We'll see," she said simply.

It was a lovely thought, one she would've loved to trade in for their current outlook. "I'll get to be the first mate, right?" She said, her smile widening allowing herself that bit of fancy. It certainly was a better thought than the ones she had presently.

Trading responsibilities and doubts for childish conversation fit Sparrow just fine, and seeing Aurora's fleeting smile made everything a little lighter. She wasn't naive enough to believe that they would make it out just fine. No one was going to say it out loud—but their odds weren't good and no amount of back-patting would increase their chances. She did know, however, that she didn't want to see anyone else die. She looked around at the others, noting their activities, or lack thereof. All of them would fight to the death, if need be: Sparrow included. She realized that in moments like this, she never felt more at home.

“I wouldn't have it any other way.”

Setting

9 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

The Templars did not announce when Meredith's patience ran out. They advanced with helmets down and swords drawn, a few lookouts of the mages calling out their arrival. There was only one way in or out of the Circle tower, and the Templars were funneled through, allowed into the long walkway leading into the center courtyard. The mage forces were very light on close quarters fighters, having only their few allies to rely upon, but they had a great deal of long range firepower.

They put it to work on the doorway, showering it with fire, ice, lightning, stone, entropic spells, everything they could throw at the Templars. Even knowing this would hit them, they had difficulty advancing, and for a moment it appeared as though Orsino's mages would hold them back. It was not to last, however. Some of the Templars were able to cast spell-like abilities of their own, causing the harmful magic to wash over them like so much water. They began to break through and rush forward, engaging the group in hand to hand. The mages, unwilling to risk hurting their allies, had to continue focusing their fire on the Templars further back, the ones still trying to advance.

This was not a problem at first for the nine that stood in the forefront. Faced with even numbers or even a slight disadvantage, they were easily able to hold their own, and deal with the Templars that came forward. The mages, however, tired more quickly than they, and couldn't keep up the brutal barrage on the doorway, while fresh Templars with magic resistant armor were able to slip through more easily. A number of them chose to bypass the deadliest defenders in front of them in an effort to reach the more vulnerable and untrained mages.

Steadily the fight descended into chaos, all order of battle lines fallen to pieces. The entire floor had become more red than slate grey as it was covered with blood. Sophia found herself losing track of the others more and more each time she felt compelled to break off and prevent the death of a mage, some person who had not seen beyond these walls for a decade or more, probably. She had only minor injuries to deal with herself, but the Templars seemed endless. They couldn't keep it up forever.

A powerful shockwave then emanated from the center of the room, where Orsino stood, his left arm dripping blood from a neat cut across it. A bloodied knife was in his hand. The force of the wave hit everyone around, mage and Templar, strongly enough to make even the sturdiest person lose balance, and it created a lull in the fight, most of the eyes in the room turning to the First Enchanter. The look in the elf's eyes was wild, distraught. Enough to make Sophia wonder if he had ever been in real battle before tonight.

"I refuse to keep going like this!" he cried. "I won't allow you to kill me!"

Sophia was in the process of getting back to her feet. "No, you can't give up."

"I am not giving up. I am giving in. There is no other way." Templars around him began to close in again, prompting Orsino to slash his arm, drawing a dangerous amount of fresh blood. "Meredith expects blood magic? Then I will give it to her. Maker help us all."

Yellow light and floating blood began to swirl around him, as the freshly fallen corpses began to rise up into the air, limp and dripping blood. He surrounded himself with them, the hands and legs wrapping around his small body, clutching him, covering him in red. Soon he could not be seen at all under the corpses, and the yellow light became too bright to continue looking at. Only the sound remained, that of bodies being molded together, muscle being mutated to form into one larger whole, one larger being.

When the light faded, Orsino was gone, replaced by a massive creature born of his blood magic. It was a hideous monstrosity of flesh and muscle, at least fifteen feet tall, and powerful enough to swipe away the first three Templars that approached, sending them flying across the courtyard. Faces of the dead could still be seen molded into the sides of the thing, ribcages and hip bones. The face, or head, of the thing was a great melting pot of eyes, arms of varying sizes, and one gaping hole of a mouth, which breathed out heavily.

For a moment, Sophia could only look at it in horror, shocked that Orsino had been capable of such a thing.

And then it was all of a sudden as though time moved normally again, and the hideous thing that the First Enchanter had been swung for another Templar, making contact and flinging him across the courtyard. Nostariel, reeling but quickly clamping down on her instinctive revulsion, recognized that this creature was the larger threat, and shot a blast of ice forward, encasing the flesh-mound that served it as forelimb, locking the elbow in place. Unfortunately, she didn’t also get the shoulder, and it took to swinging that part of its body like a club, more clumsily than before but with just as much force, and another two armored figures crumpled under the assault.

She wasn’t sure exactly to what extent Orsino was still in control of whatever corpse amalgamation this was, but her question was answered near enough when it turned its attention towards her, bellowing like any abomination that has become angered. Nostariel backed up, her eyes never leaving it. If it was going to charge, she needed to know which way to dive.

With bugling dragons, blood-weaving mages, and enough selfish mercenaries to last a lifetime, Sparrow had promised herself that she would stop being so surprised when another round of baddies decided to emerge from the shadows. And yet, now, turning around to encounter another monstrosity, who'd once been their ally, with far too many faces and limbs pressed together like the ugliest piece of art she'd ever had the misfortune to lay her eyes on... and the gurgling roar of battle died in her throat. She, too, felt like time slowed around her, as if she stopped entirely, mace dipping low: sluggish as molasses. Everyone turned to witness Orsino's transformation and what little coherence there was shuddered apart when the creature howled and swung Templars across the bloodied, gray-slate battleground.

She exhaled, finally, and gripped tighter on her mace: white-knuckles, speckled with red. No time to discuss what had just happened. She doubted anyone really knew. If this was anything like giving yourself to the Fade, and allowing yourself to become an abomination, there wasn't anything they could do. The monstrosity turned towards Nostariel, and offered his back to her, stomping on any Templar foolish enough to raise its blade against it. Energy flushed through her forearms, crackled electricity down the flanged edges of her mace, as she began her slow trek towards its fleshy hips. It wasn't charging yet, but she could see it lean forward, twitching. Readying itself. Her gaze slid in front of it, and it took her a moment to realize that one of the living-bodies cowering in front of the creature was not covered in metal—was not a Templar. A mage. Inexperienced, terrified. Standing in a puddle of piss.

She hissed a curse, abandoned her position and barely managed to hurtle in front of it, grabbing a handful of his robes and jerking him in the opposite direction. They both tumbled backwards in a tangled heap, a few paces away from the creature's shivering legs. “Get up, get up, get up,” she shrieked, bundling him back to his feet and scrambling further away.

Orsino, or rather, the fleshy abomination that had once been Orsino, began to lumber toward Sparrow and the mage. Its mangled maw hung agape with sharp jagged teeth protruding from the cavity. It roared, dousing them with spittle as it dropped low to begin its charge. It was into the secord or third step of its charge when its trajectory suddenly and violently shifted by a massive boulder of stone, dropping to the ground and sliding away from Sparrow and the mage. Over toward the side, the floor was missing its cobblestones in a perfect circle with Aurora standing in the midde, the fade wafting off the staff she held in the air.

The color was drained from Aurora's face, and though her eyes were set deep, they did not betray her emotions. Even so, it was clear everything that was happening was taking a toll. "Get him out of here!" she demanded of Sparrow. Aurora then pressed her initiative, alternating between fireballs and stonefist with every step forward as the abomination tried to rise to its feet.

Sparrow and the hapless mage stared into Orsino's crooked mouth, drool flicking onto their faces as it threw its head back and roared. Death did not strike fear into her belly—not like it should, but seeing that abomination rear back and stomp towards them made her freeze in place, hand on the mages quivering elbow. Quick as she could blink, Orsino was staggering away from them, pieces of cobblestone clattering around them like rain.

It was Aurora's voice, cutting through the clamor or noise, that got Sparrow moving again. Her grip tightened on his elbow, and she directed him in the opposite direction. The mage stumbled in front of her, relieved to be going somewhere other than in front of Orsino's rampaging path. Her mace dragged behind her, white-knuckles tingling with numbness. She would need to get back in the fight. Sweat trickled down her forehead and dripped off her chin. They would need everything to take this thing down, and still deal with Meredith. She found a small nook by the further wall where the mage could huddle into. Not a woman for soft words, she simply patted his shoulder and turned back towards Orsino, mace hefted back into both hands.

She was not the only one taking advantage of its momentary vulnerability, however, and the abomination shrieked when two long daggers buried themselves in the mounds of flesh covering its back. Amalia twisted her knives, ripping them out with as much extra damage as possible, then darted off to the side before the free arm it swung in retaliation could hit her. A wound bled freely from near her hairline, a smear clear evidence that she’d wiped it away to prevent visual impairment. There was another one on her lip, already clotting slightly, but she appeared to be still in fighting shape, considering.

Unfortunately, even when the situation with Orsino’s magic asserted itself as the greatest threat to everyone’s continued survival, the oncoming wave of Templars did not abate. Many of those trying to push forward were too far back or outside to see what was going on within, and with many of the defenders distracted by the abomination, their already-tenuous control of the entrance itself was weakening.

Lucien didn’t like splitting groups, but it seemed a necessary measure here. “Cor, Estella, Farah! Hold this line! Keep the mages focused, and stay alive!” It would not be an easy order to follow, and he knew that, but it was all the more necessary for that. He also knew that it was equally necessary for him to turn his attention to the monster in their midst, lest it destroy them all from behind, and one-by-one, taking advantage of their inability to commit to one task or another.

“Rilien!” He glanced around until he located his friend, then nodded. They knew how to work together, and it seemed that now was as good a time as any to see just how far that could take them.

Lucien would be heading into the very thick of the fight; Rilien had no doubt of that. He had no objections to wading in that close himself, and so when Lucien moved forward, the bard moved with him, careful to stay out of the way of the dense cover fire Aurora was providing, as well as leaving plenty of room for the skirmishers among them to move in and out as they needed to stay alive.

Everburn made a deep cutting noise as Lucien swung it through the air, and Rilien ducked under the elbow on his off-side, covering a potential weakness and concealing himself until the last moment at the same time, dragging his knives along the abomination’s exposed flesh as he broke off from his spot in the mercenary’s shadow.

While the others turned their focus inward, the Lions were left to try and lead the mages in keeping the other Templars back from the gate. It wouldn’t be easy, and there was no guarantee that the Circle types would even want to follow their lead, but Cor knew some would be a little more willing, and able, for that matter.

“They’re low on juice; what should we do?” He directed the question at Estella specifically. It was, more or less, the first time he’d made open acknowledgement of the fact that she was a mage, but to her credit, she answered without missing a beat.

“We have to volley the fire. Split them into four groups, two on each side, sandwich the Templars in the middle. As soon as one volley’s done, the next one needs to line up and prepare to fire.”

“And the time in between?”

She grimaced, and he knew what that meant. “That’s all us.”

Their plan, basic as it was, in place, they split up to organize as well as possible. Cor went to talk to the clusters of mages who looked more experienced with this kind of thing, for their help in organizing the rest, Estella set about forming the groups as well as she could while combat still raged around them, and Farah climbed up onto a rampart bordering the courtyard, prepared to call for volley changes and add her own arrows into the fray. The frenetic panic of the remaining mages translated into quick assembly, though the lines would be shaky at best, and Farah would have to maintain tight control of them with little more than her voice.

“Fire!”

The first half of the mages, split to border the incoming column of Templars, fired. Several went wide or high, but those that hit did so more effectively than from the front, largely because it was harder for the Templars to use their shields. With the onrush softened, the Lions and a few of the less amateur fighters in the Circle ranks moved in, skirmishing just long enough for the next volley to line up. It wasn’t perfect, and heavy Templar weapons had scored a deep slash in Estella’s side by the end of the first exchange, but they were holding on with their fingertips, and as long as they could keep it up, it would suffice.

Ithilian arrived to shore up their defense, believing his blades better put to use keeping the Templars at bay than hacking at the flesh of a monstrosity. There were enough monster slayers at work, besides. The elf's attacks, when they were needed, were more to keep the enemy back than anything. Templars were difficult to kill swiftly, well defended as they were, and so it was often a hard kick to the chest or shield that was necessary, to send them stumbling back, unable to advance before another barrage of magefire came in.

Soon enough, the flow of Templars into the building was halted, as the great doors behind them were pulled shut. Those on the outside had clearly been given the order to seal the rest inside, with the great and terrible being that Orsino had warped himself into.

Sophia targeted the legs of the thing, mostly, backing away as the others did when she chanced to draw its wrath. By the time the abomination was beginning to seem worn down, all of them were battered, bloody, and bruised. The mages were few in number, those that still had the energy to cast spells fewer still. It was fortunate, then, that Sophia was able to strike a crippling blow, driving her sword entirely through the leg of the beast behind the knee.

It was forced down, taking Sophia halfway down with it, at least until she could withdraw her sword. It made a backhanded swing for her, whooshing with heavy momentum over her head as she ducked under it and dashed in front of the creature. The head region, as approximate as that was, was in reach, and Sophia didn't hesitate to make another plunging stab, sending a torrent of dark blood raining down beside her.

The abomination moaned woefully, reaching back with its unnaturally elongated arm and striking Sophia where she stood. The thing's fist was able to impact almost the entire left side of her body, sending her tumbling back. She refused to relinquish her blade, however, and with it came the entire head body of the abomination, perhaps the mutated form of what had formerly been Orsino, before he molded the corpses of the fallen around him.

The massive corpse form fell with a titanic thud onto its back, while the head screamed and wailed, little frail arms grasping at the blade embedded into it. Sophia found herself unable to rise, merely rolling onto her side and hanging onto the hilt, at least until a Dalish blade plunged in between two of the protruding vertebrae of the wretched creature. It gurgled a final breath, and then became still.

What Templars had been trapped inside had fallen, leaving the Circle tower silent once more, now with the heavy stench of death lingering over it. Ithilian pulled his blade free of Orsino and wiped it clean. Sheathing it, he extended a hand down to Sophia, and helped her back to her feet.

"The Templars have... pulled back," Sophia noted, pulling Vesenia free with considerable effort. She planted the tip of the blade into the ground and leaned upon it for support. "We should take a moment to recover."

"And then?" Ithilian asked.

"Then we must see if the Templars will have words. There are hundreds more out there. At this point, it's that or death."

Setting

9 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

The mages did not follow their battle-weary, blootstained allies out of the Circle Tower, for they were entirely spent from the fighting, and lacked the morale to push any further now that their leader had given in to temptation. It was a gruesome scene inside, the already horrifying carnage of a magic-filled battle amplified yet more by the slain abomination as the centerpiece of it all. It was going to take a long time to move on from the day's events.

Of course, that assumed that they survived the day at all. As Sophia saw it, their fates rested now in the hands of the Templars, at least the small army of them that waited in the Gallows courtyard. Sophia had faith in the abilities her friends possessed, but despite their accomplishments, they were only mortal, and had never been forced to face so many well trained enemies at once.

And many there were. As Sophia led the group down the steps into the courtyard, her blade sheathed, they parted for her, perhaps respectfully, a sea of steel and crimson and faceless masks watching the few that stood up for the mages. They clearly had orders not to strike just yet, otherwise they would have done so by now. It was as good a sign as any, Sophia thought.

There were many things Sparrow did not understand, and Meredith was one of them. An enigma in Kirkwall's midst’s, standing for all that she hated, and striking those she'd come to care for—that was all that mattered now. When Sophia stepped forward to speak, her shoulders hunched like great gates slamming closed and her fingers gripped her mace all the tighter. This would not end peacefully, that much she understood.

It would end like Orsino had, except in a much less mournful manner. If they tore her to pieces, she'd feel nothing. At least, Orsino had stood for something she considered right. She recognized the telltale glow of red wafting from her blade. Remembered telling her companions to kill Varric's brother because he was too far gone by now, and figured Meredith was the same. It had gnawed whatever good parts might have existed in her, and left a raw, ugly thing in it's place.

"And here we are," Meredith called, breaking the silence of her army. "At long last." She stood with arms crossed among the center of the throng, her ornate armor and red hood separating her visually from her soldiers. The targets of her gaze were escorted directly before her, where all watched, waiting for the seemingly inevitable moment when the bloodshed would resume.

"It does feel as though we've been building to this for some time," Sophia admitted, tiredly. "You wouldn't have had it so, of course, considering all of the others you sent to kill me in your place."

"And you proved a worthy opponent, but do not think this personal. I am here to see order restored, as always. What happens to you and your friends now is your own doing." A few of the Templars without helmets obstructing their faces caught Sophia's eyes. The Knight-Lieutenants and those of higher rank. Some seemed uncomfortable due to Meredith's words. "In defending the Circle," Meredith continued, "you've chosen to share their fate."

One of the Knight-Captains stepped forward to Meredith's side. Sophia recognized him as Cullen. "Knight-Commander," he said, carefully, "I thought we intended to arrest them. The battle is over. The mages cannot continue the fight."

"You will do as I command, Cullen." Meredith's tone was highly agitated. Cullen was clearly uneasy about his actions, but did not back down.

"No. I defended you when whispers began to accuse you of madness. But this is too far."

A rage, terrifying to behold, sprang up in Meredith's eyes. "I will not allow insubordination!" She pulled her greatsword from her back, and it suddenly pulsed with a bright red energy, a gleaming red shard set above the hilt now glowing powerfully. "We must stay true to our path!"

She leveled the sword directly at Cullen's throat, and the Knight-Captain had no choice but to back away slowly. Many other Templars around him did the same. Meredith turned her head slightly to peer at the various members of the group opposing her. "You recognize it, do you not? Those of you that helped to retrieve it. Pure lyrium, taken from the Deep Roads. The dwarf charged a great deal for his prize."

Ithilian's scarred lip was twisted into a cruel snarl as he watched the sword pulse with energy. He did indeed remember it, and the trouble it brought to everyone who came into contact with it. For years it had been corrupting Meredith's mind, taking what faults she already had and driving them to their extremes. "Whatever power it gained you, that shard has taken much more. Even if you cannot see it... I have a feeling your followers can."

The Knight-Commander widened her stance, readying for a fight, eyes filled with hate. "All of you, I want them dead!"

"Enough!" Cullen cried. "This is not what the Order stands for. Knight-Commander, step down. I relieve you of your command!" The look on Meredith's face turned from one of pure rage to utter shock, almost sadness.

"My own Knight-Captain falls prey to the influence of blood magic." As if saying the very words blood magic stirred something in her, her eyes narrowed again, her gaze now darting around rapidly to random soldiers in her army. "You all have! You're all weak, allowing the mages to control your minds, to turn you against me!" She brandished her sword about, pointing it at some of them, and Templars all around her backed away to make some distance, a few of them cautiously reaching for their weapons.

Meredith turned her blade back towards Sophia. "But I don't need any of you! I will protect this city myself."

The opportunity had come, Sophia could see. Meredith's Templars wavered on a knife's edge, and she needed to give them that last push, for any semblance of justice to win out today. "Templars! Your Knight-Captain has relieved Meredith of command. What is your order, Cullen?"

"Restrain the Knight-Commander," he said, with barely any hesitation. And like the beginning of a wave crashing, when enough of the Templars jumped to heed Cullen's command, the rest followed suit. When the first of them approached Meredith, however, she plunged her blade straight into the stone of the Gallows courtyard, easily cleaving through it, and a bright red sphere of energy formed around her, knocking away and burning the hands of those too close.

Meredith lowered her head and spoke quietly, with deadly intent. "Blessed are those who stand before the corrupt and the wicked and do not falter!" She pulled her blade back from the ground, the energy in the air appearing to be absorbed into her body, and charged.

On account, perhaps, of being somewhat near the front beside Lucien, Rilien was the first person she targeted, cleaving downwards between the two of them with a strike so powerful it left a rend in the stone when they managed to duck out of the way. Rilien went left, and Meredith followed. Knowing he had little chance of parrying an attack that strong, he left his knives in a relaxed grip in his hands and focused on outthinking her, predicting where she was likely to go and beginning to dodge just a little ahead of time.

It might have worked quite well, were the proximity of the red lyrium not making him sick again. Just as it had when he sneaked into her chambers to slice off her hair, the object was proving to be more a danger to him than the one who wielded it. He faltered, slowing, and the sword caught him a nasty gash in the right shoulder, sending him stumbling backwards, Meredith following like a hound scenting prey.

Admittedly, intervening by trying to body-slam Meredith was quite possibly the worst plan she ever had, but Estella didn’t really think about it. All she saw was that Rilien’s maneuvering faltered, and that she was close enough now to intervene, so she did, lowering her shoulder and trying to catch the Knight-Commander’s elbow or something.

It was just enough to shift her aim to the side, sparing Rilien the next hit, but Estella rebounded off Meredith like rubber off stone, the Templar’s solidity surprising her with just how absolute it seemed to be, as though Meredith were made of granite or planted into the ground like a tree. Wheeling her arms in an attempt to remain upright, she yelped when the red lyrium blade caught her in the left thigh, slicing deep into her flesh. Her leg buckled, and she tried to roll out of the way of the next blow, knowing it was likely impossible.

Fortunately, she was not alone, and Meredith’s blade clanged off another, Everburn interceding on her behalf. Lucien stepped forward, his shadow falling over her, and she scrambled up to her feet, trying to get further behind him. For Lucien, it was clearly a struggle; Meredith was somehow a good deal stronger even than him, and he could only hold their swords in place for a few seconds before his was forced to the ground, sending sparks into the air where it scraped against the stone beneath them.

Even momentarily, an opening presented itself and Aurora sought to take advantage. Her face remained even and betrayed no emotion, even as she swept around to the side. She swung her staff, conjuring a stonefist it the air and whipping it toward Meredith, and sending a bolt of lightning with the back swing. The force of the stonefist moved Meredith only a step, and didn't seem to cause any lasting damage, while the lightning bolt simply glanced off of her red lyrium sword. Meredith then turned her steely glare toward Aurora, and the look she gave her made her take a step backward. Aurora was no blood mage, but Meredith didn't care about the semantics at this point.

Meredith pushed hard off of the ground, hard enough that her foot left a divot in the cobblestones. Quicker than a human could possibly be, she stood in front of Aurora, her sword pulled back to cut her in half. Aurora barely had enough time to throw up a wall a stone between her and Meredith, obscuring the line of sight enough to push herself back out of the killzone. Still, Meredith cut through the stone like paper, and Aurora could feel her mana being eaten away as the sword carved a thin crimson line down her collar. The ferocity pushed Aurora back and caused her to trip onto her back.

It was only her self-preservation instincts that caused her to fling another stonefist toward her face before desperately trying to roll away.

Fortunately, Estella had intervened in time when Sparrow could not. A rattling roar ripped from her throat as she hurtled forward, just in time for Meredith to be pushed aside. A neat spray of blood spattered from Estella's thigh, and Lucien stepped forward to take her place. Things were happening quickly. She'd misjudged Meredith's strength, her erratic speed. Her hair was damp with sweat, already plastered to her head. Sweat dripped from her chin, dripped on the ground. She ground her teeth together and floundered forward, gripping onto the anger as if it were her mace. A wound from the inside of her mouth wept like copper: bitten to keep the fear at bay.

As soon as Meredith rounded on Aurora, another ferocious howl came from her mouth. No clever little words to draw her attention away, only electricity pulsing through the shaft of her mace, crackling from the flanged stars. A war cry that promised death and demise and endings. What little magic she had boiled in her, like small, raging hisses begging to be released. Her slow jog quickened and broke into a shambling sprint. She barely managed to lug the mace behind her. It bounced off the cobblestones and scratched the surface as Aurora tripped backwards, and Meredith hissed in front of her, plunging the luminescent blade through the rocky wall.

Kirkwall was in flames. And its people were faring little better. It seemed as if their worlds had always been shaken by unseen, faceless forces, but now there was a face. Hers. She skidded to an abrupt stop, dug her heels in, and swung the mace up and over her shoulder, directing it towards Meredith's exposed head. She turned, impossibly quick. Whipped around so quickly, she'd expected to crush bone instead of clash against dazzling steel. Sparrow bunched her shoulders, and snarled into Meredith's blade. She would win. And this would all end. She didn't feel the blade slicing into the shaft of her mace, didn't feel the tip of her blade biting through her dragonskin leathers, prickling into her chest.

Sophia interceded before Meredith could do as much damage to Sparrow as she'd planned. Her blade clanged against the Knight-Commander's glowing red weapon, and was actually more effective than she'd expected. The attack was driven aside, and a hard shove of her shoulder drove the woman back a few steps. Sensing an opportunity, Sophia pushed her advantage.

Meredith growled in frustration, and the idol in her blade glowed more brightly for a second, the light soon spreading to her eyes. The clear blue of her irises was soon overwhelmed by a piercing red, glowing from within, as though flames sprang from her very eyes. Sophia arrived before her and traded a few strikes, to find that she was no longer having the effect she briefly witnessed.

The Knight-Commander caught a downward strike of Sophia's and was quick to lash out with a kick to her gut, sending Sophia onto her back. She scrambled back in an attempt to get away from Meredith's blade, but it was Cullen in the end who spared her the next blow, charging in to face his former leader. She parried a few of his strikes before returning one of her own, a powerful smash that rattled his shield and sent him stumbling away. He was clearly feeling shooting pains up his entire arm.

The effort was appearing to take a toll on Meredith, as she heaved for breath. Sophia wondered if using the idol to enhance her abilities was not costing her physically in the long run of the battle. "Maker," Meredith hissed, even her voice altered to be more powerful in volume by the idol, "your servant begs you for the strength to defeat this evil!" Sophia, having risen back to her feet, made another charge for Meredith.

The woman plunged her sword again into the Courtyard's stone, and a blast of red lightning exploded from within her. The force of it stopped Sophia cold, while the arc of lightning that struck her sent intense pain through her body, leaving her limbs shaking and unresponsive. Similar arcs lashed out to anyone else close enough, and one caught an arrow straight out of the air from Ithilian's bow.

The elf had been stalking around the edges of the fight, wary of the Templars watching as much as Meredith herself. He had waited for a shot to present itself, but the fight was too chaotic, Meredith too quick, and his allies too many and too disorganized. Now that he had taken a shot, it was wasted. He watched as blasts of the red lightning bounced in a direct line across the entire distance of the courtyard, knocking aside any Templars that stood in the way. It skipped up the side of a wall and crackled into the body of a great statue in bronze, forged in the image of an ancient Tevinter soldier. The statue was constructed of several pieces, probably twenty feet tall, and wielding a massive bronze polearm in both hands.

It look harmless enough when still, but the idol's lightning infected it with some kind of magical energy, causing the head to start spinning in place, and then the entire body after it. The eyes lighting up with the same malicious red light, the statue leapt down from its perch overlooking the smaller slave statues pinned covering their faces on the pillars. It landed with a terrible crash, shaking the ground, and a more terrible attack followed, when the bronze polearm cleaved the heads of two Templars from their bodies.

The lightning spread to several of the slave statues as well, and they at last showed their unsculpted faces, as they climbed down into the battle, and joined the soldier in attacking the Templars and anyone too close. These were ten feet or so in hand and devoid of any massive weapons, but still dangerously strong. Ithilian defensively rolled out of the way when one tried to stomp him with a massive bronze foot.

Sophia was barely able to move her arms again when Meredith launched forward for a strike. She managed to get her sword in the way, and the block likely saved her life, but the weight of Meredith's blow still smashed heavily into her side, tossing her aside like a small child rather than a grown woman. She clattered to the ground in a heap, losing her grip on her sword, where she could momentarily only writhe in pain.

Setting

4 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

With several things happening at once, it was quickly evident that their forces would have to split. From the looks of things, the Templars and the Lions had most of the slave statues in hand, at least enough to keep them busy, which basically left everyone else to divide themselves among handling the largest statue and trying to deal with Meredith herself.

For Rilien, it was an easy choice: he was nauseated if he was within so much as five feet of Meredith, or rather her blade, and such a thing might cause him to make mistakes he could ill afford. So he split off to confront the largest animated bronze statue—strange as it was, he had seen much stranger magics, and even something of this magnitude could not give him pause for longer than it took to assess it.

The task before them was daunting. For all that she was strong, Meredith was still made of flesh. He knew what to do with that—he did not know what to do with metal and no vital organs. He supposed, like any device, it might be possible to dismantle it, but all his knowledge granted him no greater ideas than remove the head, which for all he knew wouldn’t work anyway.

Throwing himself to the side to avoid a second mighty blow from the polearm, Rilien noted the cracked fissure it left in the stone, thinning his lips slightly and moving around it, looking for any structural deficiencies he might exploit.

While she wished to face Meredith for all she'd put them through, Aurora knew that she would be better suited elsewhere, in this case facing down the large bronze statue looming over the battle. Meredith would be able to cut through her magic with her powers fueled by the lyrium sword-- the statue had no such abilities. Aurora started by swinging her staff in front of her, conjuring a cone of cold within its arc and with a trio of passes had managed to freeze the statue's feet to the ground. She followed up by sending a pair of nature blasts through the staff.

The bolts struck the chest of the statue before uselessly petering out, leaving only scuff marks where they struck. She had to throw herself onto the ground as it swung it polearm in a large slow arc, throwing up dust and pebbles from the force. As Aurora got back up to her feet, the cracking of the ice around the statue's feet filled the air as it was forcing itself free. Aurora grimaced and took a number of precautionary steps back.

Amalia grimaced, tipping her head back to get a better look at the statue. It was certainly quite tall, but of greater concern was its solidity—its size would have been inconsequential if not for its seeming invulnerability, as Aurora’s attempt to attack had so aptly demonstrated. The only thing she had that would so much as put a dent in it was a few pouches of gaatlok, and even then, they would have to be well-placed to be effective, and would require being lit with flame in order to detonate properly.

Fortunately, there were people here who could do that, but only if they could devise a way of making use of it. Perhaps if they could find some fault in the statue’s design, they could pack the explosive in there and then Aurora could light it from a distance… but even that much would require a lot of maneuvering, and a distraction. Her bet was that physically, she or Rilien were most suited to the dexterity required to climb, but she knew how to handle gaatlok, and it was risky to do so without the right knowledge.

“Can anyone see a weak point?” She shouted loud enough to be heard by her allies at large, since all of them had different angles on the construct than she did.

Ithilian was busy trying to inspect the gargantuan statue-warrior when Amalia posed the question, but more observation was required. Thankfully, there were a significant number of Templars engaging the statues, both the large and smaller varieties, likely as an easier alternative than directly opposing their former Knight-Commander. They seemed to have the slave statues fairly well in hand, even if each one smashed and bloodied several silver-armored warriors before it fell. But the soldier and its great polearm was another matter.

It lowered itself towards the ground in an awkward crouch eventually, in order for its blade to be leveled at roughly the height of the average human's chest, before it suddenly and violently spun. Only the upper body of the statue rotated, the legs remaining locked to the ground and entirely stationary. The polearm sent sprays of blood into the air in a full circle around the statue as it completed a full rotation, cutting down nearly a dozen Templars in the process. Those that still lived from the attack made attempts to crawl away, and the statue rose back to full height.

"The base of the neck!" Ithilian called out. "The head appears not fully connected. Can we hit it with something?" He backstepped fluidly out of the way of a crashing blow from the polearm, watching as the weapon was swiftly withdrawn from the ground and another blow was prepared. "It should be easiest to climb when it lowers itself like that again!" Of course, whoever decided to attempt the climb would need to get in close on it before it launched that spinning attack. Even the force of the polearm's shaft passing would be enough to seriously damage someone. And it was a tight window.

It seemed that Amalia had some kind of idea, and there was indeed a structural deficiency in the statue, which seemed like the best prospect for bringing it down. He also suspected they’d have better luck trying to scale the creature if they did so in tandem, which meant leaving the Templars, Aurora, and Ithilian to hold its attention. Circling in behind it—not that he was sure that made any difference to its perception—he awaited an opportunity to begin ascending. Worst case scenario, he could try and damage the fault using his enchanted weapons as leverage. In the better case, Amalia had something a little more effective.

When next the statue crouched to spin, both Amalia and Rilien were ready for it. Their timing would have to be exact, however, and while Rilien managed to jump before the behemoth started to rotate, Amalia did not, and had to duck under the incoming haft of the polearm before she had her chance to leap. The statue was already in the process of standing again by the time she did, and she barely managed to catch a ridge on it before she was forced to pull herself up with nothing but the strength of her arms.

Still, she managed, and wedged herself against the statue as well as she could, looking for additional handholds to get her further. Unfortunately, it looked like she had landed such that she clung to its back, which was mostly smooth, not having been a very visible portion of the statue and thus apparently not in need of much by way of detail. It would be extremely tricky to get any further up, at least unaided.

Fortunately for Amalia, Rilien had landed better, and was now almost atop the statue’s shoulders. Swinging himself up, he hooked his knees over the contours of its shoulder armor and draped the rest of himself backwards, hanging upside down just a foot or so above where Amalia was. "Jump.”

So she jumped. Gathering as much momentum as she could, Amalia propelled herself upwards by dint of leg strength and willpower. Even so, she missed one of Rilien’s arms, grasping his left wrist and hissing softly when their momentum swung her into the back of the statue with no way to soften the impact. She added her free hand to her first, gripping as tightly as she could, her boots seeking but finding no purchase on the smooth bronze as she attempted to help him leverage her up.

Rilien’s second hand reinforced their hold on each other, and with a grunt of exertion, he started to pull her upwards, only to fall back when the motion of the statue proved to be too great a challenge to overcome in quite this fashion. They were still hanging there, solid in their initial positioning for as long as they could maintain grip, but he wasn’t going to be able to dead-lift her with all of this violent motion.

"Try climbing.” If he stayed where he was, it would probably be possible for her to use his hands as footholds and boost herself to the top, though the statue’s continued efforts to kill their companions wouldn’t make it easy.

Amalia shook her head. “It’ll take too long. Swing me over to the other side.” There was a certain pattern to the statue’s lurching motions, and if they could take advantage of it, she’d be able to get where she needed to go, with less a risk of dislodging him and dropping them both to their deaths under the construct’s feet. To help him along, she kicked her legs free of the wall and started to torque herself back and forth in an attempt to build momentum. His toss and her catch would have to be excellent, but it wasn’t like either of them lacked for precision. If it were possible, they could do it.

He could see the wisdom in the idea, and the risk, and didn’t argue. If Amalia was confident enough to make the attempt, Rilien was not one to waste time arguing the point. She began to swing below him with the motion of the statue, and he did as well, building momentum that they would dearly need. He could feel the muscles in his forearms beginning to shake from the strain of holding her so long, and the vertigo he experienced from being upside-down in the first place was amplified by the constant motion, but he was capable of ignoring it, and so he did. “This time.” The words came at the apex of a particularly good backswing, and he knew they had to take their chance now.

They swung forward, and Rilien let go.

Amalia hadn’t felt quite the same sensation of weightlessness since the time she’d decided to dive off a cliff into the ocean, but there was no such soft landing for her this time. She’d adjusted her release in hopes of curving slightly in midair, back towards the statue rather than straight out, but she’d miscalculated the amount of force it would give her, and at this trajectory, she was just going to skim past its opposite arm. Gritting her teeth so she wouldn’t bite her tongue, she stretched as far as she could make herself, and felt her arm nearly tear out of its socket when her hand found purchase, the rest of her snapping backwards midflight at the sudden resistance.

She caught the same contour with her other hand, and swung up, muscles burning with the exertion. But she was on, and the hardest part was done. Reaching for her belt, she detached one of the pouches and approached the back of the neck, practically slithering along the span of the statue’s shoulder, so viciously was it trying to shake her. Or maybe it was just attacking her friends with enthusiasm, she knew not and could not stop to check.

At last, she reached her destination, and the satchel full of saa-quamek, she stuffed into the small crevice Ithilian had pointed out, and then added a second for good measure. She almost certainly would not be capable of doing this again if the first detonation was insufficient, but too much would choke out any attempted detonation, not allowing any room for combustion in the crevice. She would have much preferred more time to calculate what she was looking at, but as it was, she simply had to make her best guess. “Ithilian, Aurora!” She shouted to draw their attention to the fact that she’d done what she intended to do. “Fire!”

She had no way of knowing whether Aurora was accurate enough to manage a fireball on such a small target at such a distance, but if that wouldn’t work, she supposed Ithilian could simply shoot a flaming arrow. She knew he was capable of such accuracy, anyway. Looking across to Rilien, she pointed behind him. “Get off!”

She had to do exactly the same, lest she wind up immolated herself. It was quite a ways down, and she was exhausted, but she knew she could survive the fall. So she launched herself off the statue, trying to clear it by as much distance as possible—

Until she felt something slam into her back with great force. For a moment, she’d been fine, and then she heard a splintering crack as what could only be the statue’s polearm landed right in the middle of her spine, sending her hurtling towards the ground at greater speed than mere gravity. She hit the stone facedown, an arm snapping underneath her, quite audibly. She didn’t move after that.

Aurora prepared a spell the moment both Rilien and Amalia climbed onto the statue's back, drinking in the fade and channelling the power into a fireball, waiting for the perfect moment to unleash it. She fed all of the mana she possessed into the spelll as Amalia clambered her way toward the thing's neck. When she called out to her, Aurora hesitated for a moment, but only a moment to allow Amalia and Rilien to get clear of the blast before she threw the fireball. She gripped her staff with both hands and swung it in wide arc over her head, and swung it with all of her might.

A massive fireball the size of a large boulder exploded from the tip of the staff, leaving Aurora drained and on her knees as it flew toward the statue's head. While she was not so accurate with her distance spells, it mattered not when size of the fireball was easily the size of the statue's head. The fire engulfed its target, causing it to stumble for half a second before the flames finally licked the saa-qamek. Another explosion followed soon after, this one far more violent.

The attention of everyone in the battle was drawn away when the explosion went off. With a screeching of metal and a violent burst of flames the upper body of the soldier statue ruptured from the inside. Large pieces were blasted away into the shields of Templars, leaving the statue headless, and motionless. It wobbled uncertainly for a few moments, before the red energy of the idol seemed to abandon it, at which point it caved in on itself and crumpled to the ground.

Ithilian had immediately rushed to Amalia's side upon seeing her take the blow leaving the statue. Carefully he turned her over, not allowing his mind to entertain possibilities until he knew facts. He checked her pulse, and upon finding her alive, slowly dragged her away from the fight, towards the edge of the courtyard. There he made sure she was well situated, and at no risk of further damage. He considered staying directly at her side, to try to wake her up, but decided inside to draw his blades, and persuade anyone or anything that came near to keep their distance. The Templars, for the most part, were busy dealing with the last of the slave statues. It was up to the others to finish Meredith now.

Setting

5 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

As soon as Sophia had fallen, Lucien had stepped in to engage Meredith, more to prevent her from finishing what she’d started than because he had any particular plan about what he was going to do, exactly. Like Rilien, he was finding it difficult to strategize around the fact that what she could do wasn’t anything he’d ever seen before: he didn’t know what her limits were, he wasn’t sure if they could ever expect her to tire and burn herself out, and he couldn’t say if she’d be animating further statues, or if that had been the extent of what the strange sword she carried would allow her to do.

He assumed it best to be as generous in his estimation of her capabilities as possible. Better to be too cautious than not cautious enough. This in mind, he fought defensively, focusing more on weathering her assault than on turning it back around on her. Even that much was proving difficult, but though she was faster and stronger than a human being had any right to be, she hadn’t suddenly grown more adept at choosing her targets or thinking ahead, and like anyone else, she fell into patterns of movement, preferred strikes, predictable reactions to holes he left intentionally in his guard, to bait her to them, and in this way he managed to at least get the situation under control.

Her sword clanged heavily against his, the force of the hit, even deflected, sending pins and needles up his arms. He grit his teeth and endured it—he had no other choice.

An arrow zipped by over Lucien’s shoulder, and though it impacted Meredith square in the chest, where her armor was, it carried the force of a heavy spell behind it, and so when that went off, a crack appeared in the metal, spiderwebbing raggedly out from the point of impact. Nostariel couldn’t risk any of her more destructive spells, not with how closely Meredith was fighting in melee, and she seemed to be capable of shrugging off most of them anyway, so maybe if she could give her friends more effective places to hit with more mundane weaponry, they’d actually be able to wear her down.

The Warden kept herself on the move, not wanting to present a stationary target for any of the augmented number of foes still remaining on the field. One errant hit from one of those statues and she might never wake again—so she wove as well as she could between piles of debris and human bodies, utilizing cover where she could find it, her shots intermittent but carefully-planned.

Ashton stood a little distance away from Lucien and Meredith locked in their struggle, his sword in his hands and bouncing on the balls of his feet. He was looking for any opening at all to jump in and strike. It wasn't an honorable tactic, but neither was he an honorable fighter, and it was all moot anyway considering Meredith was drawing strength from her lyrium sword. Nostariel's arrow flew in from over Lucien's shoulder and gave him the opening he needed.

Darting in from the side opposite of Meredith's sword, he came in from the side in the middle of her and Lucien and swung his sword as hard as he could into the cracked breastplate, deepening the spiderwebbing. Still, it wasn't enough to completely shatter the armor, and he caught an armored backhand for his effort. A cut opened up above his brow and obscured his vision as he was forced backward, but he dealt with it by rubbing it on the scarf attached to the Captain's plate. He was not as agile as Rilien, but he'd seen how he and Lucien fought together many times over, and while it would be a pale imitation of the real thing he thought it the best way to aid him.

As Sophia did time and time again when she was downed in a fight, she struggled back to her feet. It took her some time to overcome the initial shock of the blow, and to recover the ability to breathe, but that was what her friends were for. To rely on when she fell, when she could not face something alone. She retrieved her sword once more, resolved to face this with them, to the end.

There was a weakpoint to be targeted, thanks to what looked to be the effects of a spell from Nostariel, and Sophia looked for an opportunity to exploit it. She didn't foolishly rush in again, but waited patiently and circled, keeping her distance whenever it appeared Meredith might turn her wrath upon her. Lucien was better suited to weathering the woman, and Sophia had already taken enough hits.

When the moment came, Sophia did not hesitate. Meredith was mid swing in a string of attacks against Lucien, but she had opened herself too far, and while the opponent in front of her would not be able to take advantage, another combatant could. Sophia stepped forward and used the reach of her blade to spear the point right into the weakened chest plate. Her aim was true, and the blade pierced through the cracked armor, puncturing a short distance into Meredith's chest. Her next breath wheezed, and her attack was halted.

A swipe of her arm knocked the sword from her and away, the end coming away dripping red. Prepared for this, Sophia stepped in aggressively and elbowed Meredith across the jaw, successfully catching her and driving her back a step. Meredith swirled about and slashed widely, looking to cut Sophia clean in half, but she had darted back a step already, and the slash caught air. Meredith growled in frustration, drawing more of the idol's energy into herself.

Fortunately, Sparrow's mace had been spared from being cleaved in half when Sophia jumped in to prevent her from being cut in two. Which meant she wasn't weaponless, and she could still do something to help. Her legs felt weak and disobeyed the graceful steps she imagined in her head as she circled around to Meredith's rear. She lugged her mace behind her as she walked, freeing one of her hands. She slid her fingers across the front of her thick leathers, and they came away slick and warm.

A small seed of discomfort sat like a stone in her stomach. She couldn't help but think how angry Amalia would be when she saw the damage it had done to the leather she'd crafted. She took another withered breath and wobbled behind Meredith. Like the others, she felt drained. Never had she faced someone as relentless and sporadic as Meredith was. Not to mention the animated statues, stomping around them.

Her hand dropped back to the shaft of her mace, and she drew back one of her legs. Prepared to sprint forward—or at least try to, in her condition. From what little she could see from the back, Lucien and Sophia were focusing their attacks on her chestplate. If she squinted hard enough she could just make out spiderweb cracks, splintering at the sides of her armpits. She spotted Ashton ducking between their blows, earning him one of his own. Her face twisted up, and she wheezed out a breath, hurtling in her direction. She was staggering backwards, howling like a beast. Drawing even more power to her if that was at all possible. There was a meager attempt to imbue her mace with electricity, but it ended in a pitiful pop. No luck. She resorted to skidding to an abrupt halt just behind Meredith's right side, and swung the mace like a lumberman felling a tree.

Sparrow’s mace connected at the same moment as Lucien finally landed a hit of his own, and between them, as well as what had already been done, Meredith’s armor at last lost its structural integrity, cracking off in several places, and then in more when the sections those had been supporting fell away, too. In the end, most of her torso plating was gone, leaving her with only a chain shirt, one pauldron, and her gauntlets to protect her vital organs.

Lucien took a hard retaliatory strike for his trouble, the red lyrium sword seeking and finding a gap in his own protection, and Meredith’s blade came away with a coating of his blood sizzling along the surface. He staggered, but managed to right himself in enough time to avoid the follow-up, which would have otherwise taken off his head.

The last arrow in Nostariel’s quiver hit Meredith square between the shoulder-blades, and the ice spell attached released in the same place, spreading frost over the span of her back and shoulders, followed by a thicker sheet of ice which significantly hampered her motion, though the Warden could only hope it would be enough to aid the others, and give one of them an opportunity. Perhaps Ashton, fighting out of Lucien’s shadow, or maybe Sophia, who had better flanking angles. In any case, she was forced to turn her attention to healing, which at this point seemed like it might be for the best, considering the shape they were being worn down into.

She stanched the blood coming from Lucien’s torso wound first, then applied a general healing spell to Sophia, who she knew had taken several hits earlier, though Nostariel did not know to exactly where they had been aimed.

Ashton took the chance to slip out from behind Lucien after Meredith's whiffed follow-up. By doing so, he hoped to buy himself enough time to score a hit and slip back out before it could be reciprocated. He ducked in low and struck forward with his sword, striking Meredith in the belly and cutting through the thin chainmail enough to draw a stream of blood and color his blade. She snarled in response, but the damage done wasn't enough to slow her zealous rage.

She responded quicker than Ashton had envisioned and she came back around with her blade cutting downward. Ashton was fast enough to throw his head back out of the way so that his skull would not be split in half. Still, that left the rest of his body in the path of the lyrium sword, and the sizzling of steel and flesh followed. He cried out in pain as he stumbled backward, a deep gash starting at the collarbone of his plate and ended at the middle of his ribcage, smoke rising from the tear. Instinctively he tried to cover the wound with his free arm to keep the blood where it belonged, but some still seeped out.

Still, Ashton didn't back down, attempting to just walk it off in a circle before returning to Lucien's shadow, arm still applying pressure to the wound.

Sophia, rejuvenated by Nostariel's burst of healing magic, charged forward from Meredith's flank to engage, now that she was the healthiest of those that opposed the Knight-Commander. Meredith was still fighting stronger and more quickly than Sophia was capable of, but her attacks were driven by anger, her state of emotional rage at everything around her making her predictable. Her attacks were regular and easy to see coming. That still didn't make them easy to deal with.

They traded blows, Sophia always being mindful to stay out of the path of Meredith's blade, as she could rarely block it directly. Meredith was slowly being whittled away with small wounds, and Sophia could see it in her eyes, that desperate rage, the need to prevail but the knowledge that events had turned against her. Sophia pressed the attack, making a lunge capable of ending her.

Too soon. She overstepped, allowing Meredith to parry her blade up, step in, and make a hard slash. Her blade, enhanced by the idol, cut through Sophia's armor and carved a deep gash below the breast, spilling crimson down the front of her silver chestplate. Sophia staggered away, onto the defensive, while Meredith pressed her attack, driving Sophia away from her allies to keep them from intervening.

"If I will not have victory," the Knight-Commander growled, maniacally, "I will at least kill you!" It was all Sophia could do to defend herself, constantly giving ground and having her defense bashed aside, until there was no more ground to give, and a back to her wall. She raised her defense on more time.

This time, it held. Meredith's blade lost its glow, the woman herself losing the light in her eyes. Their blades were locked together for a moment, and the Knight-Commander appeared stunned by the halting of her attack. Sophia was not stunned, however. She brought her crossguard up swiftly into Meredith's jaw, cracking it and sending her stumbling into an about face. With her back turned, Sophia didn't hesitate.

Vesenia came down with powerful force, shattering the plate Nostariel had weakened. Sophia followed up with a swift lunge, and her sword pierced straight through Meredith's lower back, emerged from her abdomen covered in blood. She kicked the Knight-Commander away, allowing her to stumble forward and to her knees, clutching the wound in one hand, her sword in the other.

"I will... not... be defeated!" she panted, glaring back at Sophia. Impressively, she managed to rise, holding her sword close to herself. She was losing an alarming amount of blood, but ignored it altogether. "Maker... heed your humble servant!" She called upon the idol once more, her blade suddenly glowing a bright, blinding shade of light red, almost white, before it exploded forcefully, scattering shards everywhere.

Sophia protected her eyes from the blast, and by the time she looked back, Meredith was screaming in agony. She collapsed to her knees, the idol's red energy swirling through the air around her. She howled, the red light bursting from her eyes and mouth, as crystals of red lyrium sprouted from her arms and legs, steadily crystalizing her. She did not remain red for long, as soon her screaming stopped, and her entire body was cooked to a brown crisp, still glowing in place with shards of the red lyrium.

All those remaining in the Gallows Courtyard looked on in horror, but there was silence at last. The fight was over.

The Templars approached their fallen former Knight-Commander with weapons still drawn, but Sophia sensed no hostility in any of them. She didn't see how their minds couldn't have been changed, after what Meredith had demonstrated in front of all of them. Truly, Sophia was beginning to believe that the way things had turned out was perhaps the only way they could lead to peace, without the utter destruction of either the mages or Templars. They had seen now what madness their leader had been driven to in her paranoia. They had seen the cost of such unchecked hatred.

"There's a long road ahead of us, Lady Dumar," Cullen said, gazing sorrowfully down at the twisted form of Meredith before them. "Or perhaps I should address you as Viscountess." He slowly knelt down, bowing his head before her, and the other Templars soon followed suit, until all present had done the same.

Sophia, for once, did not know what to say.

The Chanter's Board has been updated. The Last Straw has been completed.

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sparrow Kilaion Character Portrait: Aurora Rose Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

The morning sun glistened off of the gently rolling waves of the harbor. Aurora stood on a pier, facing Kirkwall with fingers pinched against her brow. Of course she would be late, Aurora should've expected it honestly. Her hand fell back down to her side as she cast a sidelong glance to the boat behind her, lifting and raising on the surface of the water, an impatient looking man standing on the front of the bow. Aurora offered him a small smile and an apologetic wave, which he scoffed at and turned away moving to check the cargo for the third time that morning. Donovan sat on the railing of the ship, and watched as the sailor left before he returned Aurora's smile himself. Nearby, a few other mages milled about.

Bandages sat on her cheek and brow, and many more hiding underneath her clothes. A reminder of the battle that had only happened days prior. While smoke no longer rose from the city, it was clear that she was still hurting. Aurora felt a little guilt at leaving the city in what felt like its time of need, but she felt that she was needed elsewhere, somewhere where she could be of more use. The actions of Meredith and Orsino would have far reaching consequences, and could not be contained by the City of Chains.

The status quo amongst the mages and templars had changed, and even now, so soon after the battle, her contacts were beginning to relay whispers of an uprising. The loss of Kirkwall's chantry and the Grand Cleric would no doubt cause some parties to seek retribution.

Aurora did not know what she could do to stem the tide, nor even how to begin, but she knew she had to do something. She felt responsible for it, because she had allowed Pike to progress so far in his plot, and be allowed to destroy the fragile balance between mage and templar. She had to do something to make up for it, somehow. Someway.

As it turned out, the next person to approach the dock was not the expected party. Rather, it was Nostariel, decked out in full Warden blues, as she had been almost constantly since the battle. Healing the injured was part of it, but so too was attempting to use whatever authority her position gave her to quell the growing sense of unrest. Though Sophia had support, she could still use the help, and Nostariel was only too glad to do that.

For the moment, though, she had another purpose in mind, and that one wasn’t nearly so complicated. Spotting Aurora, she raised a hand and waved before she came within polite speaking distance. “Oh good; I’m so glad I caught you before the boat left!” She smiled broadly, untying something from her belt, what looked like a pouch about the size of her hand. “I can’t blame you for leaving at a time like this, of course, but I thought you might want a little piece of Kirkwall to take with you when you go.”

Taking Aurora’s hand, she turned it so the palm faced upwards and dropped the satchel into it, her smile dimmed but still genuine. “For when you find someplace new to put down roots.” In the pouch were flower seeds of several kinds, most of them extracted from the clinic’s garden, and the few that remained from the one in the Alienage. “Because you will find somewhere. I know it.” This conflict wouldn’t last forever, and maybe at the end of it, there would be somewhere for Aurora to land, softly, solidly.

Aurora closed the satchel back, the smile on her face threatening to stay permanent. "Maybe..." Aurora said, before shaking her head, "Hopefully," she corrected. She took another look at the satchel before returning her gaze back to Nostariel. Her smile widened as she took a step forward and wrapped Nostariel in a big hug. "One day," she agreed, "And you will come and see them," she said into her ear. The Warden chuckled, nodding softly.

“Of course."

It had taken Sparrow far longer to prepare than she'd thought. As irresponsible as it was, she thought it would be best to silently slink away—no tearful goodbyes, no awful hugs and no whispery promises that they would meet again even when she knew they deserved better. This was what she was good at, after all. Walking away and only leaving fading ripples in stagnant waters. Though, she'd hardly call this place stagnant with all that happened.

Kirkwall stood like a beacon in the night, already licking its wounds with the help of those who stayed behind. She clamped her eyes shut, mouth quirking into a smile. She had no doubt that Sophia and Lucien would have it all in running order by the end of the week. Who better to run the City of Chains than her? It wasn't a job she envied. Vicountess Sophia. Rolling the title in her mouth felt peculiar, but somehow fitting. If anything she was proud to have known her.

The last of her things had already been packed away, but here she was. Idling in the place she once called home, shoving things into the only reliable satchel she owned. Erasing any trace of her having ever been here. She pushed the chairs in and freed the small kitchen of clutter, pausing only to run her fingers across the table that sat in the middle of the room. All imperfect knots and memories of age-old conversations. She remembered the uphill clawing. The good times, too. She was sure that there were those, somewhere.

She plucked at the fabric of her shirt and smoothed her fingers across the bandages that bound the upper portion of her chest. If it weren't for Nostariel, she was sure she'd be long dead by now. And now, it was time to leave. Aurora would be wondering just where the hell she was. Sparrow slipped a small piece of parchment out from her sleeve and smoothed it out across the table. There was no guarantee that he would even return to ever see it. Small as it was, it didn't matter. It was a small promise, even if she couldn't keep it.

[font=garamond]The sea is unchanged. May we meet again.


In ugly, scrawling handwriting. Insufficient for a proper letter. Perhaps, even unintelligible, if he had not known her well enough. There was an old saying in Qunlat, and one she'd only partially written in the letter, but she'd long left those old bones behind. She was not one to wheeze out long confessions. Sparrow took another deep breath and slung the satchel over her shoulder, taking one last look around the hovel before stepping through the door and shutting it behind her. It did not take her long to reach the pier. Whether or not she'd been running the entire time would remain a secret. She squinted into the horizon, and held up a hand to her forehead, shielding herself from the sunlight. Honestly, the farther she got from Kirkwall, the easier it would be to breathe.

Of course, Sparrow noticed Aurora first. Bright haired lass. She broke into another brisk jog and stopped short of the wooden pier when she noticed Nostariel standing at her side. As much as her heart wanted it, she hadn't expected anyone to actually show up. She'd managed to keep as buttoned-up about their sea-side adventure, and their plan to leave, as much as she could. Either was, she was pleased. Her mouth twisted into a lopsided grin. “You're a sight to see,” any other eyebrow-waggling remark died on her lips. Her smile simpered and the corners of her eyes crinkled, “I'm glad you came to see us off.”

“Naturally.” Nostariel’s reply was easy, automatic. And why wouldn’t it be? They were her friends; she’d never simply let them leave. Aurora, she knew, had made a series of other goodbyes already, but she hadn’t had the chance to meet either of them until now, so she came bearing more wishes still. “Ash passes on his regards, too, of course.” Unfortunately, his work with the Guard, now more essential than ever, prevented him from also being here, but at least she could convey the sentiment.

“And you know we’ll all miss you.” She briefly enveloped Sparrow in a hug, too, before pulling back and resting her hands on the half-elf’s shoulders. “Something tells me, though, that this isn’t forever, so I won’t say goodbye, to either of you.” She smiled, the expression gentle and warm. “So I guess I’ll just say take care for now, until we meet again.”

“That'd be too final, wouldn't it?” Sparrow adjusted the weight across her shoulder and offered Nostariel a wink. She would have liked to see the others, even if she hadn't said so. Even if she hadn't seen them on their own, either. Easier that way. Easy. She laughed and swiped an errant hair from Nostariel's forehead: all grins. “Don't miss us too much, or we'll have to run back. Until we meet again.”

Aurora returned the smile, hers just as bright and warm. "Of course," she said with a nod. With that, she cast a glance behind her, the impatient man looking even more irritated, motioning to them that they should hurry. Aurora simply nodded and turned back to Nostariel. Now that it was nearly upon them, she felt... Melancholy. She almost wished she didn't have to leave, but she knew better. They had other purposes, places they could be of more use in aside from Kirkwall. Still, she was glad with the thought and hope of meeting her friends once again, one day.

"Lets go, I doubt the captain will wait for much longer, and after all we paid him, it would be a shame to get left behind now," she said with a small smile. The we in that statement belonging mostly to Rilien, who'd helped buy their passage when she came to him with her farewells. "I'll miss you all..." she said, taking a gentle hold of Sparrow's arm and ushered their way to the ship.

Once aboard, the captain wasted no time in pulling up the gang plank and setting sail out from the mouth of the harbor. Aurora stood on the bow of the ship, waving to Nostariel until she was nothing more than a speck in the horizon.

"Well... We're off. I guess," She told Sparrow, her arm falling and dangling by her side.

Sparrow wrapped an arm around her traveling companion's shoulder and steered her away from their old home: away from Kirkwall. It would do them no good to dwell on everything they missed. She wouldn't spend her time sulking—after all, she'd learned a long time ago that it amounted to nothing. Looking forward. Now, that was the key. She pointed towards the horizon and puffed out an exaggerated breath, murky eyes already wet, “We are. And it's just the beginning.”[/font]

Setting

2 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon

Earnings

0.00 INK

Cullen still looked uncomfortable in that armor. Then again, Sophia was starting to suspect that the man simply looked uncomfortable at all times.

The two of them had been meeting every single day since the terrible events of a few weeks ago, the night that saw them both promoted to much higher station. Cullen did not officially have the power to raise Sophia to Viscountess, but in the wake of Meredith's demise, the nobility essentially got on their knees and begged her to take her rightful place on the throne. A leader with a healthy relationship to the Templars would be a refreshing change, they believed. Sophia asked them to get off their knees, and get to work repairing their city.

"Knight-Commander," Sophia greeted, from the chair that had belonged to her father. She dressed no longer in armor most days, at least not while within the walls of her Keep. Today she wore a simple but elegant dress, shining silver, adorned only with a belt and armbands studded with small sapphires, and her mother's necklace. And of course, the little crown that would always weigh heavily on her head.

"Viscountess." Cullen bowed shortly, and stepped forward. It had been well established between them that the formalities grew tiresome between people that were forced into practicing them often.

"How is the reorganization faring?"

"Well, though not without issue." Cullen grasped one hand with the other behind his back, standing sharply at attention. "I have almost finalized my choices for the new Knight-Captains, men and women I believe are both capable and trustworthy. There are a few of note who believe they deserve higher standing than I've granted them, but for the most part, Kirkwall's Templars are behind me."

Sophia nodded in approval. "Good. And the Circle mages?"

"Gone from the city. None now remain in the Gallows. My orders are for the Templars to remain in the city, and not give pursuit to any fleeing mages. We will protect Kirkwall from blood mages and other apostates as always, but for now the focus is on rebuilding and maintaining order. Another decision not popular with all."

"But for the best, I think." Kirkwall's mage numbers had been reduced significantly, but even still, further uprising seemed imminent, due to their treatment for a crime they hadn't committed. Rather than see it come to violence again, Sophia had called upon certain allies to see them from the city safely. Cullen, unofficially of course, had turned his head away from such an act. The city would offer no help to the mages, but they asked for none, merely a chance to make their own way. And Sophia saw no harm in giving them that.

The city's opinion on mages had been severely damaged by the attack on the Chantry, and it had already been poor in regards to the Templars. It was best to simply have the mages gone, no longer a concern, and for the Templars to be seen doing something other than oppressing. For the moment, they spent their efforts assisting the guards on the streets, and with reconstruction efforts in Hightown following the blast.

"That will be all, Cullen. Thank you, and good luck with the new Knight-Captains."

"Thank you, Viscountess. I'll return at midday tomorrow, as usual." He bowed again, turned on his heel, and left swiftly.

A brief moment of rest followed for Sophia, who was left alone in the throne room, save for two of Ashton's hand-picked guards at the door. Vesenia was never far from Sophia, even when not dressed for battle. Currently it was propped against one of the arm rests, in full view of those who visited. A reminder that Kirkwall's new leader was quite capable of physical strength as well as diplomatic.

The doors did not remain closed for long, however, eventually opening again to admit Sophia’s next guest, who chose to enter without formal introduction. Lucien was still in armor most of the time these days, but had forgone it for the moment, opting instead for a burgundy tunic and grey breeches, the standard uniform for the Lions. He was armed still, but only with an ordinary sword, which hung from his hip. It was clear that he didn’t expect to have to use it at any point in the near future, in any case.

Actually, he looked a little apprehensive, though he smiled upon catching sight of Sophia, chasing the expression away from his face for the moment. “Good afternoon, Viscountess.” Eyes narrowed with mirth, he swept a courtier’s bow. “I arrive with a most urgent request.” Though he’d used the word ‘urgent,’ his tone didn’t suggest any actual emergency.

Seeing Lucien was the best form of break from her duties, Sophia had decided. Since becoming Viscountess, she'd been forced to remain in Hightown a much greater portion of her day than previously. It was something she'd always known to be true, that her responsibility would make her personal life much more difficult to maintain, or to have at all. Only now, she was much more certain that she could handle such a change, for the greater good. She made it through by enjoying the small moments when they came to her, moments such as this.

She rose from her seat, making her way down the first set of stairs before the throne to stand on even ground with Lucien. It was a relief to be up and about after lending her ear to all those that wished to speak. She smiled at Lucien's tease, and glanced over his shoulder at her guards.

"I'd like a moment, please. I believe I'm in good hands here." The guards nodded, this not being the first time such a thing had occurred. Silently they departed the throne room, shutting the door behind them. "Now," Sophia said, returning her eyes up to Lucien, "before you make this request, all formalities must seen to..." She placed her arms over his shoulders, and kissed him briefly. "... with utmost care."

Lucien’s smile inched wider, his hands coming to rest at her waist as he returned the kiss, lingering a moment to place another at her brow before he pulled back. “Your attention to detail is an admirable quality, Lady Dumar.” The smile lingered in his eyes for a few moments, before fading slowly, and he took a step back.

“I do need to speak with you, though, Sophia.” This was, in a sense, a conversation they both had known was coming for quite some time. At first, it had been at some nebulous point on the horizon, but after the battle, and after it became clear that what had begun in Kirkwall was not stopping there, Lucien had begun to prepare for it in earnest. He’d already changed the power structure of the Lions, giving each of them as individuals a choice: remain in Kirkwall as before, or depart with their founder, and make for Orlais. Most of the younger ones had decided to leave, having little to tie them down: Cor, Estella, Donnelly, Lia, and about five others. Rilien, of course, had agreed long ago to accompany him back as well. But the majority of he Lions had chosen to remain, something he was glad of. They were not the Guard, and they would not function like them, but he knew they would prove to be of use to the city, and Havard was more than capable of leading in his stead.

With the restructuring done and the rest of the preparations well underway, what had once been a fuzzy moment in the future was now imminent, and approaching at a pace that felt to him not unlike a warhorse at full gallop. He’d tried not to think of it, not wishing to allow the constant thoughts of what must come to tarnish what was still left, but it wasn’t something that could be ignored forever.

“Rilien believes that we will be ready to leave within another fortnight.”

"So soon," Sophia said, the words leaving her before she even realized it. Her own approach to this had been to ignore it until ignorance was no longer an option. She was actually thankful Lucien was able to bring it up. Had it been left to her, they probably would've waited until his departure was imminent to speak about it. Perhaps it was a blessing, she wondered, that she had so many other things to worry over. They gave her some small chance to stop thinking about this.

"We should do something, shouldn't we?" Her hand wandered from her hip to her hair, running through it softly in thought. Trying to convince him to stay was a thought long in the past, as was going with him. It had been determined that their paths would split at some point in the future, and that each of them was resolved to follow their own, until they could find some point to reconnect. It wouldn't be the last time they saw each other, of course, and Sophia knew that. But it still felt like within another fortnight, she would be tearing a piece of herself away.

"What should we do?" It wasn't occurring to her how best to spend fading moments with someone she loved. Her experience had only taught her how to react when they were suddenly torn away. It was always a surprise, a shock, a sudden strike to the heart. Not a looming shadow in the distance, impossible to prepare for.

“I don’t know,” he replied somberly. This experience was as new to him as it was to her, and he wasn’t sure there was any right answer about how to handle it. He closed his eyes for a moment and sighed, shaking his head before cracking his eyelids again. “Honestly, I’d like to spend as much time with you as possible, but even that would be considerably inconvenient for us both.” There was, after all, still a city to put back together; its Viscountess could not spend all her time with any soon-to-be-departed lovers. Just as a mercenary commander about to put his people through a seismic shift in lifestyle could fail in preparing them for it as well as he could.

“But… there’s some work I can do that doesn’t really force me to be anywhere in particular, so if you can clear some space in your office for me, I suppose I could be here, at the very least.” He rolled his eyes. “Which is extremely romantic of me, I know.”

"No, don't worry about that," Sophia said, stepping halfway to him. "That doesn't matter to me, it's never mattered. Well... that one time, it mattered, a little." She had to admit a certain evening spent with Lucien in Orlais would not have had the same effect anywhere in Kirkwall, or the Free Marches for that matter. "I'll have the Seneschal arrange for it. A quiet place to work, whatever you need." And Bran would be happy to do it. He'd been overjoyed ever since Meredith's fall to be serving a Dumar again. Sophia was glad to see him that way.

"You'll be here, with me, as long as you can, and that's the important thing."

“I can think of something more important still,” he replied, quite seriously. For a moment, he visibly prepared himself to say something, exhaling softly before raising a palm to one side of her face. “This isn’t the end, Sophia. I know we’ve said as much in vague terms, but I… I want to say it definitively. This fortnight… it’s not all there is. It’s not all we have left.” Lucien didn’t let himself make promises he could not keep, and he’d tormented himself for quite some time over whether or not he could in good conscience let himself make this one. Could he promise anything beyond the end of the coming two weeks, when he knew not where his obligations would take him, or what they would demand of him?

He could, and he would.

“Whatever comes, I promise I will survive it. I’ll do what I must for Orlais and my family, and when I have, I’ll be back. And I’ll ask you the question I most want to, and nothing and no one will stop me.” He leaned forward, so that his brow touched hers, heedless of the thin strip of iron that graced it, and lowered his voice, though it lost none of its certainty. His hand slid to the back of her neck, his thumb tracing her jawline. “Not even duty.”

She closed her eyes briefly at his touch, leaning her head slightly against his hand. She smiled slightly, thinking that if he was worried about not being romantic enough, he needn't worry any longer.

"And I promise the same," she said, reverently. "No matter what this city faces me with, I will be here, still standing, and waiting for you. And you'll have my answer."

Setting

4 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Ithilian Tael Character Portrait: Rilien Falavel Character Portrait: Lucien Drakon Character Portrait: Amalia

Earnings

0.00 INK

The day the new Orlesian branch of the Argent Lions departed Kirkwall was a sunny one. Summer approached the Free Marches, and though it was scarcely an hour past sunrise, already the wind blowing off the docks was warm, sticky with promises of humidity to come. Loading the horses and gear aboard the thing had taken the better part of the chunk of time since nautical dawn, but they were now almost ready to depart. Some of the mercenaries had returned to the docks, and were now saying their farewells to whoever they’d be leaving behind—the rest of the company if no one else.

Cor was wrapped up in his mother and little sister, not that she was quite little any longer. Donnelly’s parents had come to Kirkwall from their farm outside Ostwick, and most of the others milled around various friends and associates as well. Estella stood beside Rilien on the boat itself, having no one to bid goodbye to that she had not already spoken with. The only people she really knew here were the other Lions and Nostariel, and she’d dropped by the Warden’s clinic about a week ago, so that didn’t leave much by way of parting words to be had. Most of the farewells had occurred at the barracks the night before, and those she considered herself closest to were coming to Orlais as well, anyway.

So she turned to her teacher instead, hopping up on a barrel to sit crosslegged near where he stood. Propping her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands, she sighed slightly, looking out at the various goodbyes taking place, but not lingering long enough to intrude on anyone’s privacy. It was more the whole tableau that struck her more than any individual bit of it, anyway.

“Will you miss it?” she asked of him, lifting her eyes to his profile. She always wondered what went on inside his head, but had discovered with time that he usually had no objection to answering if she inquired directly instead of speculating.

"No.” Rilien’s reply was as blunt as usual. "It is only a place.” Of course, that wasn’t exactly what her question had been aiming at, and he understood this, so he proffered slightly more by way of explanation. "It is… difficult, for me to miss. Nostalgia is something I had little time for, even when I felt as others do.” He could scarcely recall missing his parents, and even their faces had faded from his memory. He hadn’t missed his life as a Bard whilst he occupied the Circle, though he would admit a certain longing for the freedom of it, back then. Now… it was hard to say.

"Nothing is permanent. But it is not wrong, to hold some things dear, even though they will one day be gone.”

Estella nodded, clearly processing that information. She didn’t think there was much about Kirkwall that she had held dear, even though it had been her home for a few years. Maybe that was just it—maybe it hadn’t even been home, as such. Some part of her still thought home was a library in Tevinter, with the soft warmth of belonging. Then again… her brows furrowed, and she leaned slightly sideways, knocking her shoulder briefly with his arm. Maybe she was just lucky enough to be taking home with her when she left.

She felt a hand on her head, and glanced up to see her commander, a half smile on his face, ruffling her hair. “Ready for something new?” The question was lighthearted, and she answered in kind.

“Sure. How bad could it be?”




"You're sure you didn't leave anything?" Ithilian asked.

"For the hundredth time, yes, I'm sure," Lia was not weighed down by any packs or bags, likely the cause of the older elf's concern and he narrowed his remaining eye and looked over the ship she'd be boarding. He wasn't fond of the things, really the only time he'd needed to use one since arriving in Kirkwall being the short ventures to the Gallows.

"Everything's on the boat already. You don't have to worry about me anymore, remember?" The look on her face was tired, but reciprocated the concern. Ithilian exhaled, trying to loosen up a little.

"As though I could stop if I wanted to." He stepped forward, placing a calloused hand on her bare shoulder. "Be careful, always. Be smart. Never think you have nothing left to learn." She cocked her head sideways, averting his gaze, clearly disinterested in a lesson at such a time. She soon looked down.

"And you'll be careful too, won't you? Both of you. Wherever it is you end up." Ithilian glanced back at Amalia behind him. They were not due to leave today, but very soon they would be saying their farewells to the Alienage. It had faced little threat from anything in the wake of the Chantry's destruction, and hadn't been damaged much even that night. It would be safe in Ashton's hands, and the people were beginning to trust the city guard much more. Even the Templars were not always looked at with fear and suspicion, with their new leader.

"We're not so easy to be rid of. We'll do what must be done, to finish our task, and come see you again." Lia nodded, reassured. Ithilian could not help the bit of pride he felt, looking at her. A scared, small, weak little girl she had been the first time he'd seen her. She was no longer that person. She was her own woman, strong and confident in her own abilities. Smart, and resourceful. Most importantly, she possessed a heart that was impossible to suppress. That she stood as she did after all her youth had put her through was evidence enough of that.

She stepped in front of Amalia, offering the woman a small smile. "Well, any last advice? Before my big adventure?"

Amalia’s eyes were uncharacteristically soft when she shook her head. “No.” She offered a half smile, shifting her weight from one foot to another. She was not, of course, suggesting that there was nothing left for Lia to improve on or learn, only that the time had passed when such things could be granted by others with small phrases or last-minute considerations. “You have everything you need. Now you decide how to use it.” Reaching forwards, she laid a hand on the young woman's shoulder companionably and nodded.

“Until I see you next, farewell.”

Lia's pride was evident, but tempered. It came through mostly in her eyes. She had always admired Amalia greatly, and to hear her words clearly gave her a lift in morale. Not that she'd needed anything. She looked like she wanted to hug her, but instead mirrored her action, and briefly squeezed her shoulder. "Thank you, and farewell."

She glanced back at the Lions, nearly ready to depart, and exhaled a nervous breath, looking back to Ithilian. "I guess this is it."

Lia may not have wanted a hug, but Ithilian did, and stepped forward, pulling her in to him and wrapping his arms around her. "Yeah... yeah, love you too," she said, her words muffled into his chest. He smiled, as best he could. Breaking the hug, he settled his hands atop her shoulders. "And thanks, Ithilian. For everything."

"I owe you just as much. Now go on, get out of here. I hope you fare better at sea than I do." She grinned, turning on her heel and joining the other Lions leaving for Orlais. Before long, the ship was unmoored from the dock, and drifting away, towards deeper waters. Lia waved one more time, and then made herself busy, talking excitedly with her companions.

Ithilian watched them go for a long time, silently, his hands folded together in front of him. "Sometimes I thought I'd never make it this far," he said, finally. "Thought surely some old wound would bring me down." He glanced sidelong at Amalia. "If there's one thing I've learned here, it's that I have a bad habit of underestimating myself. Had, I suppose." Amalia, among many others, had seen to fixing that, despite the monumental nature of the task.

“And I always thought someone else would be my undoing,” she replied. That was what had more than anything, made it difficult to move forward: the lingering sense that she could not and should not trust anyone but herself, not fully. But something about him, about what they were as a team, had made her not only realize her error, but that trusting someone else was the only way she could continue to progress, to better herself and come to terms with what had been. “But living here has shown me differently. I suppose I can only wonder what we will learn when we leave.”

She glanced at the boat, slowly beginning to disappear on the horizon, and then back to Ithilian. “Let us depart, kadan. Discovery is not only for the young, and I am interested to see what lies ahead.” She turned, putting her back to the pier and heading for the Alienage. Their trip was still a little while out, but there were yet preparations to be made.

Ithilian stayed a moment longer, in silence, listening to the gentle lapping of the water against the dock, and watching the ship that carried Lia grow smaller and smaller. He smiled to himself. There was adventure yet in him as well. He turned swiftly, and made his back towards the Alienage with purpose.

It was time to leave.

Setting

3 Characters Present

Character Portrait: Sophia Dumar Character Portrait: Ashton Riviera Character Portrait: Nostariel Turtega

Earnings

0.00 INK

It was quiet, now that most were gone.

Sophia Dumar, Viscountess of Kirkwall, the proud Free Marcher city-state, didn't mind. There were no mages for the Templars to quarrel with, and the Templars were kept in line by their able and effective new Knight-Commander. There was no army of Qunari to keep calm, no fanatics inciting war within the city walls, no kidnappings of friends and family... just quiet. The rebuilding efforts went on. Kirkwall's new Chantry would be a little less imposing, a little more humble. A place of worship and compassion, not of power and authority.

Sophia, the woman, was often saddened by the quiet, the kind of quiet that was brought on by the absence of many of her friends. She wondered daily how Lucien and his Argent Lions fared in Orlais. She wondered where in the world Aurora and Sparrow had ended up, and she hoped they had found a place to belong, to help. She wondered where Ithilian and Amalia had gone; they told very few people, as she heard it. Sophia suspected that if they wanted to be found, they would simply appear.

Her days sometimes seemed mundane compared to years past. Vesenia no longer saw much use. She wielded practice swords against many of Ashton's best instead, both to keep herself in form, and to do the same for them. She rarely had time to visit Nostariel's clinic, and thankfully did not often have cause, apart from a desire to see a close friend. The days of collecting new scars appeared to be behind her.

One afternoon, it became quiet enough that Sophia decided a walk was in order. She removed her finery and donned simpler garments in their place. She called for a pair of guards, to escort from a distance. And she asked for Nostariel and Ashton... the Rivieras, to join her. Very little made her as happy as seeing the two of them together. They'd both been through so much, and greatly deserved. She knew they felt the same about her and Lucien... but that celebration was not yet to come.

She met them in Hightown, and they walked almost aimlessly. Sophia had heard rumor that Nostariel might not be as present in the city soon, and wanted to make sure that whatever happened, they were able to at least spend some more time together, the three of them that remained in the City of Chains.

Nostariel walked in the middle, her arms looped casually through one of each of the others’, the short one between two considerably taller people, a visual effect that was doubtless at least a little bit amusing. For today, she had forgone anything but a simple tunic and leggings, seeing as how the weather was being generous and leaving them with pleasant warmth. She allowed herself to bask in it, as well as in the warmth of her husband and her friend.

But like so many of her other friends, she knew that this was only a temporary pause. The Wardens, who had for so long seemed content to let her be, now occasionally called her to work, in one way or another, but there was something even beyond that which was beckoning to her, bidding her away from Kirkwall, and she was not sure she had the fortitude to resist it for long. She would leave, she knew, probably many times in the coming years, but she knew also that she would continue to return until that was no longer possible.

They passed the construction site for the new Chantry, which was being built on the bones of the old. A memorial to those who’d died that day was already standing, a spire of stone with dozens of names carved upon its face. “It’s coming along nicely.” This, she stated of the building taking shape behind the monument, the Chantry itself. She rather liked the humbler edifice she’d seen sketched in the architect’s drawings, and had emphatically approved of Sophia’s selection of blueprints. From the way it rose, pale stone still open to the sky even as a hundred hands worked to bring it higher, it would be just as good as what had been before, and better, even, more reflective of Kirkwall’s character.

The Guards-Captain's plate still shimmered in all its polished glory, finding a home on Ashton's chest more often then not these days. While there always seemed to be work that needed the Captain's attention, he always made a point to give priority over his friend and wife. Without either of them, he doubted there would even be a Captain Riviera to speak of. It felt like an eternity since he traded the shop for the barracks. He wondered briefly about the renovations it was undergoing, what with Lia's departure, and no one else remaining to take over ownership.

"Yeah, it is," he agreed, turning his eyes to the skeleton of the new Chantry.

They carried on past the Chantry site, through the heart of Hightown, and to the entrance to Sophia's family manor. She still owned it, and saw to its upkeep, but the interior was mostly bare. She'd moved mostly everything back to the Keep, where it belonged. All that remained of her parents, a few cherished items, kept safely stored. Art decorated the walls, many of the pieces painted by Lucien's loving hand, though none stood out quite like the image of her mother, proud and strong, in the office. The vision that was her kept Sophia strong when the work of being Viscountess mounted.

They moved through the market, past stalls of familiar faces, merchants proudly trying to catch the eye of the Viscountess, or the Guard-Captain. Perhaps she would purchase something on the way back. For the moment, she wanted a view, not from the removed perch of the Viscount's Keep, but from within the city's streets, this place she'd lived and breathed in from the day she was born. She was not born royalty, or the heir to the fate of a city. She was the daughter of a minor nobleman, and made herself one of the people through trials of sacrifice and blood. She never wanted to separate herself from the rest. Just as she never wanted to separate from her friends.

But all things had to come to an end at some point. Kirkwall's darkest times had passed, with them to see it through. Their time within its walls would end, one way or another, just as surely as the sun would set in the evening. The trick, Sophia had decided, was to cherish the moment she lived in, and always strive to ensure more would come in the future.

"I'm glad to have been with you," she said, looking out over the city from the top of its mighty stairs. "Through it all..."




Kirkwall's most tumultuous years were behind it. The surviving mages departed the city, leaving for destinations unknown, and an uncertain future, while the Templars under Knight-Commander Cullen dedicated themselves to defense and reconstruction, rebuilding both the city and their image from the ground up. Only time would tell if the people could forgive, or if the Templars could truly change. The Qunari left a lasting impact on the city from their time within the Docks, but their influence would fade over time, as those drawn to the Qun's ideals drifted from Kirkwall.

Although Kirkwall became a quieter place, the larger stage was only beginning to stir. As news of the mage rebellion spread, more Circles followed the lead of Kirkwall, and resisted the Templars watching over them. Before long, war was imminent, a war capable of tearing all of Thedas asunder if it could not be kept in check. The nations of the world would look to the south, to Ferelden and Orlais, as the primary battlegrounds between magic and faith.

For the nine individuals whose lives intertwined in Kirkwall, the journey was not yet concluded. There was the business of thrones to be resolved, the rebuilding of a city and an Order, the fight against oppression, the tying up of loose ends, and the hopeful establishment of a true home. Their stories would go on, even as other figures rose to take center stage. But the city of Kirkwall would always remember them for what they'd done.

They would always remember the stories of those that lived, struggled, fought, and loved in...


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City of Chains has a sequel! If interested, check out The Canticle of Fate.

The Story So Far... Write a Post » as written by 6 authors